Dr. Christopher Bird

April 27, 2021 -  As many of you are aware, for the past two decades I have been authoring a series of online articles that attempt to simplify complicated scientific ideas into simple explanations and analogies. During a recent online tutoring session, several of my students requested that I collect some of the brief outlines into a single webpage so that students (and the general public) can find them more easily. To that end, I have created a new blog called Scientific Shorts. Over the coming weeks and months I hope to move some of my older articles over there, and write several new ones. Please feel free to explore it, and I hope you find it both useful and enjoyable.

April 19, 2021 - Congratulations once more to the team behind the NASA Ingenuity probe, for the successful completion of a historic flight this morning. The Ingenuity helicopter took off from the Martian surface, traveled a short distance, and then landed again, marking the first time that a man made object has flown on another world. Congratulations to everyone involved.

April 7, 2021 - For those who are interested and missed this news release, there is an interesting new particle physics result from Fermilab today. A precision measurement of the magnetic moment of the muon has produced a significant discrepancy with the predictions of quantum field theory, but possibly not with the predictions from lattice field theory. So either this is the first signs of a new particle or new force of nature, or it is evidence that the theoretical physics community made a boo-boo in their extremely precise calculations :)

April 6, 2021 - Happy National Caregiver's Day! As an involuntary caregiver for my elderly and disabled parents and mentally handicapped brother for the last twenty-two years I know how important the role of caregiver can be when the hospital system can't or won't help. (And I also know that there is often nothing "happy" about being a caregiver. Many of us lose our homes, our careers, and our own families just to prop up the healthcare system when the politicians decide to cut costs, not to mention forfeiting any sort of vacations or time off for social outings or relaxation)

March 30, 2021 - Due to both the recent and ongoing restrictions due to COVID-19 / Coronavirus right now, I will once again not be able to offer one-on-one or group tutoring sessions this year. I might offer some tutoring by e-mail, chat rooms, and Zoom/Skype/Video Conferencing, depending on my schedule and student interest. Information can be found here, or by contacting me directly.

March 20, 2021 - I don't usually get political with my websites, but there was a press release by the provincial government today that I feel was misleading, and since it affects me directly I feel the need to comment. They said that 95% of surgeries that were delayed by COVID-19 last year have now been completed, with those that are twice the standard wait time getting priority. With my own surgery I was promised a three to six month wait, and have now been waiting for twenty-three months with no sign of it being scheduled for several more months. And while I have medical coverage, others who have the same condition and no coverage are paying close to $1000/month for necessary supplies and medications. So far the government has offered no financial assistance or compensation to the many victims of its decision to delay surgeries by over a year. This is not acceptable for a first world healthcare system, and the government should be ashamed of itself for trying to spin this in a positive way. Shame on you health ministry! Rant complete, returning now to usual trivial fluff.

February 18, 2021 - Congratulations to the team behind the NASA Perseverance probe for their successful landing on Mars today. This latest robotic rover will soon be collecting samples, and helping scientists to understand the properties of the Martian surface, including searching for the first evidence of live on another world. It will be quite interesting to see what it finds.