Mixed Bag
I was planning to devote this post to praising a few articles I found in Physics Today recently, their "Reaching out to Undergraduates" issue in particular (Sept. 2003).
Unfortunately, there are two big problems with that plan: 1) Their web site is broken (read "doesn't work properly in Opera"), and 2) the education articles are behind a paywall. I can't even seem to get at them, because their subscriber access system is also broken. Idiots.
The only thing I can usefully link from there is a piece on the "pentaquark", which follows the typical Physics Today pattern of veering wildly between "insultingly basic" and "unreadably technical." It does provide some more details of the experiments (including a bunch of details left out of my simple description), which might be of interest to some readers.
Of more general interest is something I found via Physics Today, that isn't on their site: The Museum of Unworkable Devices. This is a site dedicated to describing and debunking perpetual motion machines. Some of the devices are really quite ingenious, and the explanations of why they can't work are sometimes subtle, but always clear.
The site should be required reading for patent examiners, and it ought to appeal to anyone who likes the Particles section at Making Light. Check it out.
(I really need to update the "Geek Stuff" section of the sidebar...)
Posted at 10:02 AM | link | follow-ups |