Related papers: My rewarding life in science
Bibliographic data is a rich source of information that goes beyond the use cases of location and citation -- it also encodes both cultural and technological context. For most of its existence, the scholarly record has changed slowly and…
This project began as a collection of handouts attempting to provide a slightly more in depth theoretical background to the first year labs performed at University College Dublin. Over time, these handouts were patched together, and this…
Here I indulge in wide-ranging speculations on the shape of physics, and technology closely related to physics, over the next one hundred years. Themes include the many faces of unification, the re-imagining of quantum theory, and new forms…
The Universe is the grandest conceivable scale on which the human mind can strive to understand nature. The amazing aspect of cosmology, the branch of science that attempts to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe, is that it…
Where does it all come from? Where are we going? Are we alone in the universe? What is good and what is evil? The scientific narrative of cosmic evolution demands that we tackle such big questions with a cosmological perspective. I tackle…
This study examines the Pathways to Quantum Immersion Program at George Mason University, which introduces high school students to quantum concepts and careers. Fifteen group interviews with a total of 45 students were analyzed to examine…
Astrobiology is a scientific discipline that studies life in the Universe. We call it a discipline and not a science because some authors have cast doubts over its epistemological status by calling it 'a science without an object of study'.…
The "Millennium Prize Problems" have a place in the history of mathematics. Here we tell some little-known anecdotes from the perspective of the planner of that project. These stories are far from their end; more likely they are just at…
The paper discusses the fundamental characteristics distinguishing the natural and social systems from each other. It considers in detail the basic approaches, prospects, and possibilities of constructing mathematical description for social…
Changing institutions is an integral part of an academic life. Yet little is known about the mobility patterns of scientists at an institutional level and how these career choices affect scientific outcomes. Here, we examine over 420,000…
A white paper prepared for the Space Studies Board, National Academy of Sciences (USA), for its Decadal Survey of Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), reviewing and encouraging studies of flare physics in the chromosphere.
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
Cosmic ray story begins at the beginning of XX century. More then 100 years later, most of the main issues are still open questions, as sources, acceleration mechanism, propagation and composition. There is a continuing fascination with the…
I take a brief look at three frontiers of high-energy physics, illustrating how important parts of our current thinking evolved from earlier explorations at preceding frontiers.
This contribution aims to give an overview of the historical context of neutrino physics. I will present the strong social trends that shaped physics and the way physicists worked, along the 20th century. First, we will see the background…
For many students, college physics courses have little or even negative impact on their beliefs about the connection between physics and the everyday world. One way to help students see this connection is to incorporate analysis of science…
In this chapter, we briefly review the history of X-ray astronomy through its missions. We follow a temporal development, from the first instruments onboard rockets and balloons to the most recent and complex space missions. We intend to…
Early Career Researcher (ECR) development is a dynamic challenge that tensions the urge to perform ground-breaking research against an ultimate practical aspiration of establishing an acceptable level of job security. There is no typical…
We intend to show how fundamental science is drawn from the patterns in the temperature and polarization fields of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and thus to motivate the field of CMB research. We discuss the field's…
After some recollections of the early bubble chamber times, a brief overview of the golden age of the field is made, including its legacy and the use of bubble chamber events for the popularization of science.