Organized contests in physics and mathematics have been around for a while: probably the most famous ones are the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge; the Westinghouse and the Putnam in the United States; and the International Physics and Mathematics Olympiads. This post is about the correlation - or the lack thereof - between the winners list of these contests and the ranks of top scientists (e.g. signified by the Nobel prize or the Fields Medal). International Physics Olympiad

This post is a review of the book Sociobiology by the Harvard entomologist E. O. Wilson. It was originally published in 1975, to acclaim and controversy, and is considered a landmark work which established the biological and evolutionary basis of behavior in animals (including humans). It is about 700 pages long, and in spite of not being an expert in biology, I found it remarkably accessible. The book lays out in great detail, and with an abundance of examples, the author's

This post addresses misconceptions regarding the doctoral degree (I will stick to physics) that I have come across in a career of about 30 years in academia now. These misconceptions come from people both within and outside of academia. I find it remarkable how many myths and legends have grown up around this institution (they vary all over the place, and in some cases even contradict each other). A PhD is something you do if you cannot get a real job : PhD programs in physic

This post is a review of the book The Secrets of Soviet Cosmonauts by Maria Rosa Menzio (2022). The book gives insights into the Russian space program, starting from the launch of the Sputnik in 1957 that stunned the world, to the International Space Station. Many of the details, especially of the launch failures, had been classified for a long time. The main content of the book is centered around the following themes: Motivation : The book describes the main progenitors of

This post is a review of the popular science book Haphazard Reality by H.B.G. Casimir , first published in 1983. Casimir was a well- known Dutch physicist who made notable contributions to both pure (Casimir effect, Casimir invariant, Gorter-Casimir model) as well as applied (as Director of the Research Lab at Philips) physics. I re-read the book after many years, on prodding from a colleague, while I was visiting the Netherlands over the last two weeks. Casimir's memoir is

The last two weeks I have been traveling in the Netherlands, for the first time. I stayed in Amsterdam and visited several places about an hour by train. A few places I went to: Amsterdam : Lots of canals, as is well known. I went to the Anne Frank house (turned out to have the same street number as my dorm room in college), the Hotel Pulitzer with a grand piano hanging from the ceiling above the entrance, the van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum [which had exhibitions on armoury

This is a review of the book This Is For Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee . Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, which has, of course, completely revolutionized our lives. This book is his own account of the origin and development of the web. I was particularly fascinated by it as my generation saw the web come up in our own lifetime - I remember in 1995 the librarian at the University of Rochester asking my incoming graduate class in physics to indicate by show of hands how

One of the saddest sights in all of science is that of an expert whose interests have become so narrowed by their field of specialization that they regard everything else as irrelevant and an intellectual nuisance. An extreme manifestation of this is the bias that in their view, what they are researching is the only worthwhile intellectual goal, and everybody else is wasting their time. In this context I am reminded of a limerick about Benjamin Jowett, a famous professor of G

This post is a brief review of the book Don't Be Afraid of Physics by Ross Barett and Pier Paolo Delsanto. The subtitle is Quantum Mechanics, Relativity and Cosmology for Everyone . In the introduction, Nicola Maria Pugno suggests that the book is appropriate as a textbook for courses of science for college students majoring in a non-scientific field. I agree, with the perhaps obvious observation that the audience can be extended to people who have ever been to college. Ther

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, a thanks to the readers of this blog : Thanks to the readers of this blog For staying with me thus far (Some of you now probably are Enjoying turkey and eggnog) In a month this blog will complete Three years (a hundred and fifty Posts). As a milestone that's nifty I thank the readers for this feat The book reviews are read the most I enjoy writing them as well I think if I can help books sell Then it was worth writing the posts The Nobel Prize

This post is about Occam's razor, i.e. the statement, that when presented with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, the one with the fewest assumptions is likely the correct one. It is often used prescriptively in its abbreviated form - "Choose the simplest explanation." Occam's razor is not a law, it is a rule of thumb. It is often useful and leads to the right answer. This post is about some major exceptions to the statement. I wrote it because I find people ofte

This is a review of the book This Amazingly Symmetrical World by L. Tarasov. Published in 1982, it is nonetheless an all-time Russian science popularization gem issued from Mir Publishers in the last century. It is very well-written and gorgeously illustrated, with arresting pictures on almost every page. The discussions are accessible, yet quite profound and revealing. Symmetry plays an incredibly fundamental role in physics. Nature seems to use symmetry as a way of imposin

A colleague from economics recently said he was interested in how physicists think, and more specifically, how they come up with research ideas. I thought it would be a good idea to try to set up a list, based on my reading and experiences, of the various techniques, voluntary or involuntary, that I have seen physicists use: Yielding to inspiration : These ideas come from the subconscious. First one has to fill the brain with a lot of information, then a lot of thinking has t

This post is a review of What is Inside a Black Hole? by Stephen Hawking. It is a 67-page reissue of two of his essays from his longer book Brief Answers to the Big Questions . Apart from the title essay, it includes the essay Is Time Travel Possible ? Inside a black hole : The essay recalls the early black hole thoughts of John Mitchell, the grand impetus provided by Einstein's general theory of relativity, the quantitative work of Karl Schwarzschild, the pioneering contri

This post is about C. N. Yang, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, who passed away last week at the age of 103. Yang received the Nobel prize in 1957 and made towering contributions to several areas in physics, as detailed below. Quick academic bio : Yang was born and educated in China until the masters level; he obtained his thesis in theoretical physics from the University of Chicago under Edward Teller (sometimes known as the father of the Hydrogen bomb).

This post is a review of The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics (859 pages) . The book came out a while ago, in 1991. Since science moves on, one might expect that the material is quite dated (the classic advice is to read the latest in science and the oldest in literature). But I think the volume, which is a collection of essays and popular writing (all reprints) on the topics mentioned above, has merits which keep it relevant and valuable even today. For

This post is about the award of the Nobel prize in physics 2025 to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis. From the announcement ,...

In 2022, I became a minor celebrity among my friends for a week for correctly predicting that Alain Aspect would win the physics Nobel...

It has been said that the death and taxes are the two inevitable facts of life. To this list I am inclined to add reviews. It seems no...

This post is about the recently reported experimental confirmation of a theoretical prediction of Stephen Hawking about black holes....