The Print's ludicrous article on Niraj Bishnoi
The Print has just published a bizarre article about Niraj Bishnoi, the alleged "mastermind" (whatever that means) of the 'Bulli Bai' app. I know nothing about Niraj Bishnoi; the art…
Scicomm
331 posts
Physicists observe long-expected helium superfluid phase
Physicists have reported that they have finally observed helium 3 existing in a long-predicted type of superfluid, called the ß phase. This is an important discovery, if it's borne out, for reaso…
A false union in science journalism
At what point does a journalist become a stenographer? Most people would say it's when the journalist stops questioning claims and reprints them uncritically, as if they were simply a machine. So…
The omicron variant and scicomm
Somewhere between the middle of India’s second major COVID-19 outbreak in March-May this year and today, a lot of us appear to have lost sight of a fact that was central to our understanding of COVID-…
Specific impulse, etc.
One of the best rocket propellants there is is hydrolox – a combination of liquid hydrogen, the fuel, and liquid oxygen, the oxidiser. This might seem a bit unexpected because most (if not all) other…
Is mathematics real?
I didn't think to think about the realism of mathematics until I got to high school, and encountered quantum mechanics. Mathematics was at first just another subject, before becoming a tool with…
Why you should care about the Uttarakhand floods
There is a complex interplay of factors at work, and it's important to understand each one for a few reasons.…
The problem with rooting for science
The idea that trusting in science involves a lot of faith, instead of reason, is lost on most people. More often than not, as a science journalist, I encounter faith through extreme examples – such as…
Boron nitride, tougher than it looks
During World War I, a British aeronautical engineer named A.A. Griffith noticed something odd about glass. He found that the atomic bonds in glass needed 10,000 megapascals of stress to break apart –…
On tabletop accelerators
Tabletop accelerators are an exciting new field of research in which physicists use devices the size of a shoe box, or something just a bit bigger, to accelerate electrons to high energies. The ‘conve…
Scicommers as knowledge producers
Reading the latest edition of Raghavendra Gadagkar's column in The Wire Science, 'More Fun Than Fun', about how scientists should become communicators and communicators should be treated a…
Looking for ghost particles in a frustrated world
In some of the many types of objects and events involving electrons, it is helpful to think that these particles are made up of three smaller particles, called spinons, holons and orbitons. Physicists…