This and That

Here in Waterloo, snow is slowly melting away, leaving behind garbage, coins and lost gloves. Below some founds that I came across recently and thought you might find more interesting than this useless piece of information:

• Year of Science 2009, a website about “How We Know What We Know,” has dedicated the month March to physics and technology, and offers a nice collection of links.



• Harry Collins, who attended our last year's conference on Science in the 21st Century, has an interesting article in the current issue of Nature, titled “We cannot live by scepticism alone”. He points out the necessity for science studies to move beyond cynicism and skepticism to being constructively useful by acknowledging the importance of the scientific enterprise for our societies. “Whenever a scientist, acting in the name of science, cheats, cynically manipulates, claims to speak with the voice of capitalism, the voice of a god, or even the voice of a doctrinaire atheist, it diminishes not only science but the whole of our society.”



• This week's colloquium at PI was by Rob Cook from Pixar. Rob, whom I had previously met at SciFoo last year, talked about “Cartoon Physics,” and how animations use or abuse physics with many examples, from simulating clothes and water to wobbling bellies and more. Definitely worth a look! You'll enjoy it even if you know next to nothing about physics: PIRSA: 09030001



• Most heartwarming comment we've ever had: “This is great information! Thank you for writing it; now I'm not scared to go to sleep at night. I was afraid the LHC would create black holes that would swallow the earth. Your explanation helped me understand there probably won't be many black holes, and if there are, they'll either shoot off into space or disintegrate. Thank you! --Jonathan, age 8 (typed by his mom),” in reaction to our post Black Holes at the LHC - What can happen?



• As Tommaso pointed out, we are approaching our 1 millionth visitor!