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nanoscale views

nanoscale views
NSF targeted with mass layoffs, acc to Politico; huge cuts in president’s budget request According to this article at politico, there was an all-hands meeting at NSF today (at least for the...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks ago
According to this article at politico, there was an all-hands meeting at NSF today (at least for the engineering directorate) where they were told that there will be staff layoffs of 25-50% over the next two months. This is an absolute catastrophe if it is accurately reported and...
nanoscale views
This week in the arXiv: quantum geometry, fluid momentum "tunneling", and pasta sauce Three papers caught my eye the other day on the arXiv at the start of the new year: arXiv:2501.00098...
a month ago
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a month ago
Three papers caught my eye the other day on the arXiv at the start of the new year: arXiv:2501.00098 - J. Yu et al., "Quantum geometry in quantum materials" - I hope to write up something about quantum geometry soon, but I wanted to point out this nice review even if I haven't...
nanoscale views
Indirect costs + potential unintended consequences It's been another exciting week where I feel compelled to write about the practice of...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
It's been another exciting week where I feel compelled to write about the practice of university-based research in the US.  I've written about "indirect costs" before, but it's been a while.  I will try to get readers caught up on the basics of the university research ecosystem...
nanoscale views
Turbulent times While I've been absolutely buried under deadlines, it's been a crazy week for US science, and things...
a month ago
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a month ago
While I've been absolutely buried under deadlines, it's been a crazy week for US science, and things are unlikely to calm down anytime soon.  As I've written before, I largely try to keep my political views off here, since that's not what people want to read from me, and I want...
nanoscale views
What is "static electricity"/"contact electrification"/triboelectricity? An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static...
a week ago
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a week ago
An early physics demonstration that many of us see in elementary school is that of static electricity:  an electrical insulator like a wool cloth or animal fur is rubbed on a glass or plastic rod, and suddenly the rod can pick up pieces of styrofoam or little bits of paper. ...
nanoscale views
The National Science Foundation - this is not business as usual The National Science Foundation was created 75 years ago, at the behest of Vannevar Bush, who put...
a week ago
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a week ago
The National Science Foundation was created 75 years ago, at the behest of Vannevar Bush, who put together the famed study, Science, The Endless Frontier, in 1945.  The NSF has played a critical role in a huge amount of science and engineering research since its inception,...
nanoscale views
What are parastatistics? While I could certainly write more about what is going on in the US these days (ahh, trying to...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
While I could certainly write more about what is going on in the US these days (ahh, trying to dismantle organizations you don't understand), instead I want to briefly highlight a very exciting result from my colleagues, published in Nature last month.  (I almost titled this post...
nanoscale views
An update, + a paper as a fun distraction My post last week clearly stimulated some discussion.  I know people don't come here for political...
a month ago
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a month ago
My post last week clearly stimulated some discussion.  I know people don't come here for political news, but as a professional scientist it's hard to ignore the chaotic present situation, so here are some things to read, before I talk about a fun paper: Science reports on what...
nanoscale views
Foams! (or, why my split pea side dish boils over every Thanksgiving) Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.   Adapted from TOC figure of this...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Foams can be great examples of mechanical metamaterials.   Adapted from TOC figure of this paper Consider my shaving cream.  You might imagine that the (mostly water) material would just pool as a homogeneous liquid, since water molecules have a strong attraction for one...
nanoscale views
Nanopasta, no, really Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun...
3 months ago
2
3 months ago
Fig. 1 from the linked paper Here is a light-hearted bit of research that touches on some fun physics.  As you might readily imagine, there is a good deal of interdisciplinary and industrial interest in wanting to create fine fibers out of solution-based materials.  One...
nanoscale views
End of the year thoughts - scientific philanthropy and impact As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science,...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
As we head into 2025, and the prospects for increased (US) government investment in science, engineering, and STEM education seem very limited, I wanted to revisit a topic that I wrote about over a decade ago (!!!), the role of philanthropy and foundations in these...
nanoscale views
Technological civilization and losing object permanence In the grand tradition of physicists writing about areas outside their expertise, I wanted to put...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
In the grand tradition of physicists writing about areas outside their expertise, I wanted to put down some thoughts on a societal trend.  This isn't physics or nanoscience, so feel free to skip this post. Object permanence is a term from developmental psychology.  A person (or...
nanoscale views
Items for discussion, including google's latest quantum computing result As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
As we head toward the end of the calendar year, a few items: Google published a new result in Nature a few days ago.  This made a big news splash, including this accompanying press piece from google themselves, this nice article in Quanta, and the always thoughtful blog post by...
nanoscale views
Seeing through your head - diffuse imaging From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
From the medical diagnostic perspective (and for many other applications), you can understand why it might be very convenient to be able to perform some kind of optical imaging of the interior of what you'd ordinarily consider opaque objects.  Even when a wavelength range is...
nanoscale views
Brief items A few tidbits that I encountered recently: The saga of Ranga Dias at Rochester draws to a close,...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
A few tidbits that I encountered recently: The saga of Ranga Dias at Rochester draws to a close, as described by the Wall Street Journal.  It took quite some time for this to propagate through their system.  This is after multiple internal investigations that somehow were...
nanoscale views
Really doing mechanics at the quantum level A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid. Since before the development of micro- and...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
A helpful ad from Science Made Stupid. Since before the development of micro- and nanoelectromechanical techniques, there has been an interest in making actual mechanical widgets that show quantum behavior.  There is no reason that we should not be able to make a mechanical...
nanoscale views
Recent papers to distract.... Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Time for blogging has continued to be scarce, but here are a few papers to distract (and for readers who are US citizens:  vote if you have not already done so!). Reaching back, this preprint by Aharonov, Collins, Popescu talks about a thought experiment in which angular...
nanoscale views
Guide to faculty searches, 2024 edition As you can tell from my posting frequency lately, I have been unusually busy.  I hope to be writing...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
As you can tell from my posting frequency lately, I have been unusually busy.  I hope to be writing about more condensed matter and nano science soon.   In the meantime, I realized that I have not re-posted or updated my primer on how tenure-track faculty searches work in physics...
nanoscale views
CHIPS and Science - the reality vs the aspiration I already wrote about this issue here back in August, but I wanted to highlight a policy statement...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
I already wrote about this issue here back in August, but I wanted to highlight a policy statement that I wrote with colleagues as part of Rice's Baker Institute's Election 2024: Policy Playbook, which "delivers nonpartisan, expert insights into key issues at stake on the 2024...
nanoscale views
Annual Nobel speculation thread Not that prizes are the be-all and end-all, but this has become an annual tradition.  Who are your...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Not that prizes are the be-all and end-all, but this has become an annual tradition.  Who are your speculative laureates this year for physics and chemistry?  As I did last year and for several years before, I will put forward my usual thought that the physics prize could...
nanoscale views
Lots to read, including fab for quantum and "Immaterial Science" Sometimes there are upticks in the rate of fun reading material.  In the last few days: A...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Sometimes there are upticks in the rate of fun reading material.  In the last few days: A Nature paper has been published by a group of authors predominantly from IMEC in Belgium, in which they demonstrate CMOS-compatible manufacturing of superconducting qubit hardware...
nanoscale views
Fiber optics + a different approach to fab Two very brief items of interest: This article is a nice popular discussion of the history of...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Two very brief items of interest: This article is a nice popular discussion of the history of fiber optics and the remarkable progress it's made for telecommunications.  If you're interested in a more expansive but very accessible take on this, I highly recommend City of...
nanoscale views
Seeing through tissue and Kramers-Kronig There is a paper in Science this week that is just a great piece of work.  The authors find that by...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
There is a paper in Science this week that is just a great piece of work.  The authors find that by dyeing living tissue with a particular biocompatible dye molecule, they can make that tissue effectively transparent, so you can see through it.  The paper includes images (and...
nanoscale views
Items of interest The start of the semester has been very busy, but here are some items that seem interesting: As...
6 months ago
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6 months ago
The start of the semester has been very busy, but here are some items that seem interesting: As many know, there has been a lot of controversy in recent years about high pressure measurements of superconductivity.  Here is a first-hand take by one of the people who helped bring...
nanoscale views
Experimental techniques: bridge measurements When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss...
6 months ago
1
6 months ago
When we teach undergraduates about materials and measuring electrical resistance, we tend to gloss over the fact that there are specialized techniques for this - it's more than just hooking up a battery and an ammeter.  If you want to get high precision results, such as measuring...