Pi Einstein Day

March 14, 2012

For those of you who are completely ignorant of the significance of March 14, today is Pi-Einstein Day (sometimes shortened to just Pi Day by the luddites and laymen). It is a big holiday among the geek world, and even the U.S. Government has recognized its importance.

First off, today is Albert Einstein's birthday. That alone makes it worth celebrating, as the great man not only developed the theory of relativity that he is famous for, but also provided proof of the existence of atoms with an explanation of Brownian motion, and proved the existence of quantum mechanics with his explanation of the photo-electric effect. And all three of those occurred in the same miracle year!

And possibly more important, depending on one's viewpoint, is that Einstein became a celebrity outside of academia and was an advocate for bringing science to the masses. (Some people also want to blame Einstein for nuclear weapons, but really that is like blaming a traffic jam on the guy who invented the wheel)


All in all, Einstein has done more for the advancement of science and society than all of the other celebrities with birthday holidays combined. We must celebrate the great man and his contributions to the world.

The second reason for today's celebrations is that it is Pi Day! The date of March 14 is 3/14 which coincidentally is the same three digits as Pi (3.141592653). And so on this day all across the globe engineering and science students, and hopefully members of the general public, will be enjoying pies and listening to lectures. Of course the pinnacle of Pi Days will be in 2015, at 9:26:53, when the official date will read 3/14/15 9:26:53 – covering the first ten digits of pi.

So everyone should enjoy the day, and eat a pie. But do it at relativistic speeds to honour the full meaning of Pi-Einstein Day :)


 

Cyclotrons & Isotopes

February 21, 2012

There has been an interesting announcement from one of the teams at the TRIUMF national laboratory on the subject of medical isotope production. They are claiming that they have been able to produce a radioactive isotope known as Technetium-99m in a particle accelerator / cyclotron instead of a nuclear reactor. If there results hold up to scrutiny (which they should) and if it is economical, this could have a major impact on medical physics and on government policies on nuclear reactors.

Many...


Continue reading...
 

The Loquino Project

February 3, 2012
I just got word that the Loquino project is completed now and was even mentioned on both the Make blog and the Arduino Forum. For those who aren't aware, this was a project that Mark Wilson developed combining two of my favorite things - my Grandiloquent Dictionary project and an Arduino microcontroller board to make an interesting little program.

Check it out, and if you have an Arduino board test it out. 

 

Continue reading...
 

Internet Censorship

January 18, 2012
Following the lead of internet icons such as Wikipedia and Mozilla and Firefox, and I shutting down all of my websites for the remainder of the day, as part of a global protest of the SOPA/PIPA laws currently before the US congress.

Let me be clear that I do not support piracy of copyrighted material. I myself have been a victim of piracy in the past, and we do need rules to restrict it. However the laws being discussed would give a single government the authority to shut down anything on the ...

Continue reading...
 

Year In Review

December 31, 2011
What an exciting year 2011 has been! For the scientific community and the tech community, this year has been marked with many new discoveries and seen the start of some fascinating new lines of research.

In the astronomy community there was excitement over the discovery by the Kepler experiment of an Earth like planet which may support life. There is no method available yet for determining if life is indeed present, but this planet is the right size and position to support all of the building ...
Continue reading...
 

Merry Christmas!!

December 24, 2011
Thank you to everyone who has participated in my websites and blogs over the past year, and thank you to those who continue to support my many ventures, projects, and ideas. May you all have a very happy holiday and a prosperous and healthy new year.

Merry Christmas!!

Continue reading...
 

Beyond The Higgs

December 17, 2011
Today's article should be considered as sort of a sequel to the last entry on the Higgs boson seach, and once again is inspired by the local media taking an interest in the possible discovery of a Higgs boson in the new year. (on a side note, I would like to remind the local media that a boson is a subatomic particle with specific spin properties, while a bosun is a member of the crew on a boat - there is a difference :) )

In the last few years there has been a lot of interest in searching for...
Continue reading...
 

The Higgs

December 14, 2011
Due to an article in the local newspaper this morning, I have received a few questions and comments from friends and family on the nature of the Higgs boson, the search for it and the theory behind it. Although I have commented on this topic several times in the past, the time seemed right to review the Higgs model one more time.

For the last forty years or so, particle physicists have been constructing and refining the Standard Model which contains everything that we know about subatomic part...
Continue reading...
 

Really Supermassive Black Hole

December 6, 2011
With the holiday season approaching, and everyone looking forward to devouring more than they should, comes an announcement from the astronomy community of an even bigger devourer...

Astronomers have new data from the depths of outer space, far past the edges of our own galaxy, to where there exists a galaxy which contains at its center a black hole thought to be 10 billion times more massive than our own sun. For comparison  our own Milky Way galaxy orbits a black hole which is a measly 4 mil...
Continue reading...
 

Monty Hall Problem

December 5, 2011
As usual on a Sunday night, I was watching the weekly episode of the Mythbusters TV show, and to my surprise they were testing the Monty Hall problem. I had thought that by now it was so well explored that it wouldn't qualify as a myth, but then I realized that most people are still unaware of this curious example of deceptive statistics. And so for that reason, although the TV show did an excellent job of demonstrating this problem, I will give an overview here.

 The Monty Hall problem is ver...
Continue reading...
 

About Me


Dr. Christopher S. Bird I am a physicist recently graduated from the University of Victoria, with a doctorate in theoretical physics. I also have training in mathematics, engineering and computer programming.

Make a free website with Yola