Talk Like A Physicist

Physics Puns : Who enforces the law of Gravity?

The Newton Police, of course!

What happens if you break the law of gravity?

You get suspended sentence!

Yikes!

The 20 Greatest Equations

From a Physicsworld survey. I can’t believe Maxwell’s equation took the first place!

Is your favorite equation on the list?

Tuesday tattoo - Maxwell’s Equations

Maxwell’s equation - the secret of life. Your heart would not beat without the electrical currents flowing around in your body!

Triumph of Physics: March 10, 1876 - Mr. Watson, Come Here …

Alexander Bell made history on March 10, 1876, by making the first telephone call in his Boston lab, summoning his assistants from the next room.

Mr. Watson, Come here, I want you.

Talk Like a Physicist : Haiku - Physicist am I

Theoretical

Physicist am I. Mortals

Tremble before me.

Source

International Women’s Day - celebrating contributions of Women to Physics

UCLA website has an interesting section called “Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics”. There are 83 women profiled and 300 more cited who have contributed significantly to Physics.

Here is one of the women physicists I admire the most; Madam Marie Curie. I especially like this oil portrait of her.

It can be viewed at Dibner Institute for the History of Science.

Here are some funny quotations from women physicists from “In her own words…”

Inge Lehman:

“You should know how many incompetent men I had to compete with - in vain!”

Emmy Noether:

“My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously.”

I am embarrassed to say that I did not know that the brilliant Noether Theorem (connecting symmetries and conservation laws), which I have used umpteen number of times, was formulated by a woman.

The only way I know how to celebrate Women’s Day is to hope, pray, wish, and facilitate getting more of the women to do physics and to anticipate all the phenomenal discoveries they will make in this century.

Out of Clutter, Find simplicity : Talk Like a Physicist Day Marc 14, 2008

14th March, 2008

Talk Like a Physicist Day

How many slices of bread can you toast form a bolt of lightening?

100,000 slices of bread!

It’s an awful lot of toast, but then a typical lightning bolt isn’t short on energy. It typically contains about 5 billion joules of energy.

This means that one typical strike could power a 1000 Watt, two slice toaster for 84,000 minutes in which time you could make around 100,000 slices of toast, if you are fast.

Source

Motionless Monday - bullet through 4 color sticks of crayons.

Interesting how the color of the first crayon is dominant on the bullet.

Source

For Physicists who do not think they talk like a Physicist

If I had a quarter for every time somebody asked me “Do physicists really talk different?”, then I would have .. ok, I will have enough money to buy something really really nice from a dollar store.

Here is a special note for physicists who think they do not talk like a physicist:

You are a physicist, and perhaps most of your friends are physicists. It is unlikely that you will notice it if you talked in a special way. I have been there - I spent full time doing physics for more than 10 years, wrote 30+ papers, edited a book on blackholes and wormholes, and I am married to a physicist.

I didn’t think I talked differently, although I always knew that I “thought” differently. Different thinking process was what made me a physicist.

Since then I have had numerous opportunities to do varied things, mingle with people whose passion is in different arena. I have been an attorney, a business person, a VC and I have even *owned* a satellite!

I find myself saying things and muttering thing that only physicists would do. The limited success that I have had has been purely because I think and yes, because I still “talk” like a physicist.

Now, when a business plan is presented to me for funding, I still do order of magnitude calculations and I continue to refute arguments based on my own back of the envelope calculations, I routinely tear apart excel sheets using nothing else but the first order approximations to the problems and I ask a lot more “why” questions.

The purpose of the Talk like a Physicists day is to revive the art of “being a physicist”; asking a lot more “why” questions, when everybody is obsessed with “how” question.

I also believe that we do not honor the scientists among us nearly enough. There are more streets named after local politicians then there are after renowned scientists.

As for adding more content on the site; this is the first year and the first attempt at getting something together in a short time. It will grow, Jennifer of Cocktail Party Physics originally suggested the idea and in a year or two after enough physicists have been polled, the new dictionary will emerge.

I also guarantee you that you will not forget about the Talk Like a Physicist day soon. Next time when you are talking to a non-physicist, you will use words that only physicists use, words like “canonical variables” and words like “non-trivial” instead of saying difficult. You will know that you too Talk Like a Physicist; and thank god for that, we love you precisely because you talk like a physicist!

We have started an FAQ on how to talk like a physicists with non-zero entries and hopefully you will contribute to the list soon. If you prefer to email, please send it to sunny at talklikeaphysicist.com

Drive slow - speed limit Pi-square miles an hour

On Pi-Day, all speed signs should be changed to measurements in Pi units.

Happy birthday Professor Einstein

March 14, 2008

Rubber band Model of Universe : Winner of 2008 Stanford Innovation Tournament.

I had my simple and complex ways of adding value to a rubber band. But despite my involvement in the “Talk Like a Physicist” campaign, I did not think about using the rubber band to demonstrate a physics concept!

In a few years, we will have our own contest of demonstrating most physics using a household object. Stay tuned!

Do you know that you can measure the speed of light using a rubber band in your microwave oven? What other physics can you demonstrate with a rubber band?