Category Archives: physics

Inge Lehmann: Discoverer of the Earth’s Inner Core

Posted on May 13, 2015 by tkflor

“You should know how many incompetent men I had to compete with — in vain” Inge Lehmann. Quips aside, Inge Lehmann was a pioneering seismologist who discovered that the Earth has both an inner and an outer core.

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Famous physicists – A to Z

Posted on April 11, 2015 by tkflor

I was catching up with blog-posts accumulated on my reader during a vacation, when it occurred to me that there aren’t as many posts as one might expect during the A–to–Z challenge (it requires one to blog about a theme … Continue reading →

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Shadow World – an unusual hero’s journey

Posted on March 28, 2015 by tkflor

“If this is about anything, it’s the boundary between creation and madness, art and science, the natural and the artifactual. Characters are fictional although some are inhabited by amalgamated aspects of real people. The science is factual but I insert … Continue reading →

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Maps of Physics and Fiction

Posted on March 17, 2015 by tkflor

My two favorite subjects presented through maps: Bernard H. Porter’s 1939 map depicting Physics as a continent, with rivers corresponding to its principal branches. From dabacon.org. Fiction Island and a rough layout of the genres, from Jasper Fforde, 2011:

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Albert Einstein’s birthday

Posted on March 13, 2015 by tkflor

“Imagine for a moment what the general opinion will be fifty years from now if the name Einstein does not appear on the list of Nobel laureates.” M. Brillouin, in a letter to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1921. Albert … Continue reading →

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Hubble Telescope celebrates 25 years of observations

Posted on March 6, 2015 by tkflor

“With the slow fascination of fear, he lifted himself on one arm and turned his eyes toward the blood-curdling blackness of the window. Through it shone the Stars! Not Earth’s feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye; Lagash was … Continue reading →

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A smile from space

Posted on February 21, 2015 by tkflor

“You can make out two orange eyes and a white button nose. In the case of this “happy face”, the two eyes are the galaxies SDSSCGB 8842.3 and SDSSCGB 8842.4.” From the ESA website for the Hubble space telescope. The … Continue reading →

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Guest post: Using fiction to explore realities for women in STEM

Posted on February 14, 2015 by tkflor

Originally posted on Tenure, She Wrote:
Today’s guest post is by blogger T.K. Flor, who has a PhD in physics. Ten years ago, Lawrence H. Summers, then president of Harvard University, sparked a controversy by attributing some of the under-representation…

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Emmy Noether: the mathematician who discovered the connection between Symmetry and Conservation Laws

Posted on February 1, 2015 by tkflor

“It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry.” P.W. Anderson (Nobel Prize in Physics 1977)“More is Different“, Science, 177, 4047 (1972). By symmetry, Anderson writes, “we mean the existence of different viewpoints … Continue reading →

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FARADAY, MAXWELL, and the ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD

Posted on January 9, 2015 by tkflor

“From the time of Newton, leading scientists had believed that the universe was governed by mechanical laws: material objects held energy and inflicted forces. To them, the surrounding space was nothing more than a passive backdrop. The extraordinary idea put … Continue reading →

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