Blog Posts: Greatest Hits

Blogging is a real-time, often informal affair, and most posts aren't meant to be interesting forever. But some might be. Here I'm collecting some of my most useful or interesting blogging over the years, originally at Preposterous Universe and later at Cosmic Variance (which in November 2008 became hosted by Discover magazine). For other kinds of writing see my CV, or writings.

Late-Universe Cosmology

• Was Einstein wrong?
• Was Friedmann wrong?
• Dark energy equation of state: I, II, III, IV
• Escape from the clutches of the dark sector?
• The future of the universe
• WMAP results -- cosmology makes sense
• The Screwy Universe
• Dark Matter Exists
• A Dark, Misleading Force
• Dark Photons

Early-Universe Cosmology

• The Arrow of Time
• The anthropic principle
• Boltzmann's Anthropic Brain
• How Did the Universe Start?
• Arrow of Time FAQ
• Are Many Worlds and the Multiverse the Same Idea?

Relativity

• Testing general relativity
• Synchronized time
• Does the Earth move around the Sun?
• Does Space Expand?
• Rules for Time Travelers
• Energy Is Not Conserved
• Fractal Black Holes on Strings

Quantum Mechanics

• Beyond clockwork
• No reasonable definition of reality should be expected to permit this
• Quantum interrogation
• Quantum Hyperion

Particles/Fields/Strings

• CERN
• Two Cheers for String Theory
• Hidden symmetries
• Lorentz invariance and you
• How many dimensions are there?
• The String Theory Backlash
• The Trouble With Physics
• String Theory: Not Dead Yet
• What Will the LHC Find?
• The Fine-Structure Constant Is Probably Constant

Other Science

• Dinosaur report: I, II, III
• Hallucinatory neurophysics
• N Bodies
• Thanksgiving: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
• Martian Colors
• Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory
• Have a Thermodynamically Consistent Christmas
• Free Energy and the Meaning of Life
• My Favorite Star
• Non-Normalizable Probability Measures for Fun and Profit
• Using Information to Extract Energy
• The Pi-On

Meta-Science

• Doubt and dissent are not tolerated
• Interestingness
• Theories, Laws, Facts
• The Physics of Imaginary Things
• What I Believe, But Cannot Prove
• The Alternative-Science Respectability Checklist
• Everything I know about the universe I did not learn from newspaper headlines
• Anatomy of a Paper:
  • Inspiration
  • Calculation
  • Culmination
• Science and Unobservable Things
• Happy Darwin Day
• Venus Hottentot and the Irony of Science
• Data on "Facts" and Facts on "Data"
• Is Dark Matter Supernatural?
• Scientists Aren't Always Complete Idiots

Philosophy

• What we know, and don't, and why
• Art and theory
• Can moral reasoning convince anyone of anything important?
• The world is not magic
• The universe is structured like a language
• Richard Rorty
• Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
• Turtles Much of the Way Down
• Marriage and Fundamental Physics
• Abortion and the Architecture of Reality
• Philosophy and Cosmology Live-Blogging: Day One, Two, Three.
• You Can't Derive Ought From Is
• The Laws Underlying the Physics of Everyday Life are Completely Understood: One, Two, Three.
• Is Dark Matter Supernatural?
• Dysteleological Physicalism
• Physics and the Immortality of the Soul

Religion

• God: threat, or menace?
• Flying the coop
• Purity of essence
• Popery
• Rapped on the Head by Creationists
• The God Conundrum
• Thank You, Richard Dawkins
• Consolations of Materialist Philosophy
• Please Tell Me What "God" Means
• Politicians and Critics
• Chatting Theology with Robert Novak
• Moral Authority
• The Sacred
• What Questions Can Science Answer?
• The Truth Still Matters
• Reluctance to Let Go
• Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and for All

Women in Science

• Sex and science!
• The scientific method
• Bell curves

Academia

• Should you become a scientist?
• Unsolicited Advice:
  • How to Get Into Grad School
  • Choosing a Grad School
  • Choosing an Undergraduate School
  • How To Be a Good Graduate Student
  • Talking to the Media
• Is this a date?
• Summer School
• How Nice Should We Be to Students?
• Focus
• Academics: Still Totally Lame
• How to Get Tenure at a Major Research University

Politics

• Career choices explained
• The important shit
• Cartoons
• The wrongness singularity
• It Does Matter What People Think About How the World Works

Other

• Improving Euclid's Fifth Postulate
• iChing
• Minus numbers
• Three and I'm under the table
• People Fusion
• Feminism: Destroying the Planet
• Lessons from Monopoly
• Liquid
• Throwing While Black
• Defense Wins Games
• Love and Blogging
• The Best Things in Life Can Be Pricey
• Fixing the Lottery
• Spontaneous Social Symmetry Breaking
• The Hidden Complexity of the Olympics
• The Grid of Disputation
• Test Drive: Tesla Roadster
• Black and White and Blue All Over
• Being Polite and Being Right
• Time Travel in Lost: The Metaphorics of Predestination
• Report from Colbert
• A Mystery Box Full of Red Matter
• Science of TRON
• The Mighty THOR