Category Archives: Physics

Well, that’s it from me at the 2010 American Physical Society meeting from Portland. The week seems to have gone by much quicker than previous years. I wonder if that has anything to do with twitter. As always, I’ve learnt a lot, drank a lot, and pressed the flesh of a lot of authors, referees […]

On the first day of the APS meeting, I sent a shout out… or is it tweet out, for suggestions for the collective nouns of physicists. First up was @StanCarey with a ‘measure’ of physicists. Then @Cromacrox with a ‘condensate’ of physicists (my favourite for a time). Which prompted @JonMButterworth to suggest “surely it’s an […]

One of the notable things at this year’s APS is the lack of buzz about graphene. Ever since it made it’s APS debut in 2006 at the Baltimore meeting, the activity — and number of parallel sessions — on this material has grown and grown. The graphene audience in Denver 2007 was about twice that […]

Most times, physicists are an idealistic bunch. We study physics because of a strange and desperate yearning to know how things work. Not out of any particular desire to exploit this knowledge for fortune or fame. We just want to know. Perhaps because we never grew out of the adolescent/tourettic urge to ask “But why? […]

It’s that time of the year, for the American Physics Society March meeting, when 5000+ physicists from around the world descend on some poor unsuspecting American town (this year, Portland) and, well, talk physics. Last year’s meeting in Pittsburgh was the first meeting I tried my hand at live-tweeting. And it was a good experience […]