This is a controversial subject. I just started thinking about this literally 2 days ago, as my physics work was really coming to fruition. The LHC is designed to smash “particles” together at TeV energies. This is tera (10^12) electron-volt energies. At first glance, this might not seem like much; after all, one Joule is in the exa-electron-volt range (10^18). We’ve got to put this in perspective, though… Read more…
In the last 6 months, I’ve finally found my way back to the beauty and excitement of physics. Yes, physics. I guess I’m becoming geekier, but I’ll just consider it a return to my roots. This fresh interest is helping me look afresh at my very hands-on and experimental Ph.D. research; I’m rediscovering how naturally focus and motivation come when I am motivated by my own questions. Pondering physics brings back feelings of awe and curiosity which have been stifled by years of jumping through educational hoops. For more about that, check out my (future) post about Standardized Higher Education.
Links
FQXi
Theiss Research
submeta
arXiv
Shouldn’t we be careful when we start slapping the “-on” suffix on words? From photon/boson to fermion: we have two very different species hanging out in the zoo of “particles.” Our wave/particle duality appears to be a problem of perspective: we observe things in a macroscopic, Newtonian way. We also cannot observe anything without extracting energy/information- i.e. without altering it. Read more…
While I could write many things on “green” topics, I was somewhat struck by one moment two weekends ago. I was stumped by simple nature.
While our family was enjoying time in the mountains, the carpenter bees were hard at work boring long tunnels through the wood of the rafters over the porch. I decided to chase a few out, Read more…
The base:
- 1 can red kidney beans
- 2 cans chili tomatoes, diced
- 1 can Mexican tomatoes
- 3 red peppers, diced
- 1 large yellow onion
- 4 cloves garlic (minced, pressed, doesn’t matter after 8 hours in the pot!)
- 2+ tablespoons chili powder (cumin, ground cayenne pepper, etc. use more if unseasoned tomatoes!)
- 1 tablespoon misc. ground pepper
- 1 bottle Guinness or other stout/strong black ale (just pour it in)
- salt to taste (seasoned canned tomatoes often have salt)
Favorites:
- 1.5 lb pan (or grill) seared pot roast, rubbed with seasonings similar to above
(substitute 2+ additional cans of beans)
- 3 red peppers, diced (better: sear on the grill first)
- Authentic dried Mexican hot pepper
Toppings:
- “Mexican style” shredded cheese
- Fresh cilantro
Turn the pot off and let it cool until it’s an edible temperature. The longer the ingredients sit together the better. Diffusion… Anyway, I believe the chili is best the next day, but why wait?
