ScotBlogs

This afternoon Gloria and I hosted my Junior and Senior Independent Study students for a dessert reception in our home. We haven’t done this since 2019, and it is the first time we joined the juniors and seniors. It was … Continue reading →

One hundred years ago today, the Physical Review published Wooster graduate Arthur Compton‘s famous article on the scattering of light and electrons, which earned him a Physics Nobel Prize four years later. By relativistically conserving spacetime momentum, as in the diagram … Continue reading →

After half a century confined to low-Earth orbit, humans once again intend to leave Earth and voyage to Moon, currently planned for late next year. The reality of this exciting adventure crystallized earlier this month when NASA announced the diverse … Continue reading →

The College of Wooster has a required Independent Study system for all students, and it is a marvelous program. Each student, usually in the spring semester of their junior year, signs up for the Junior Independent Study course. It is … Continue reading →

This academic year has been thrilling: first nuclear fusion breakeven, now an ein Stein! Last week, a preprint at arxiv.org by David Smith et al. announced an “ein Stein”, or one stone, a shape that forces a non periodic tiling … Continue reading →

The Fossil of the Week series is no longer weekly, and the gnarly specimen above is not actually a fossil, but the brand is so embedded in this blog that I’m still using it for occasional contributions. Like the specimen … Continue reading →

The forces between two electric charges in arbitrary motion are complicated by velocity, acceleration, and time-delay effects. The forces need not even lie along the line joining the two charges! Suppose a source charge [latex]q^\prime[/latex] is at position [latex]\vec r^{\,\prime}[/latex] … Continue reading →

The Fossil of the Week series is no longer weekly, and the beautiful specimen above is not actually a fossil, but the brand is so embedded in this blog that I’m going to use it! My friend Al Curran, an … Continue reading →

Three Wooster physics alumni who all work at Kent Displays, Inc. returned to campus last Thursday to share some info about the physics of liquid crystals as well as some of their personal journeys to Wooster and beyond. See more … Continue reading →

I am delighted to announce that a new paper has appeared in the journal Lethaia on Middle Jurassic paleoecology in southern Israel. The senior author is Yael Leshno Afriat, and it was part of her PhD dissertation at Hebrew University … Continue reading →