Dr. Christopher Bird

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 a...

Most science fiction fans are aware of the problems with time travel (or at least with travelling backwards through time). One of the most commonly quoted paradoxes is the grandfather paradox, in which a person travels backwards in time and murders an ancestor, causing themselves to not be born and therefore not be able to commit the murder.

There are possible several solutions to this. It could be that backwards travelling is completely excluded by the laws of physics – although at prese...

I came across an interesting argument a few days regarding the nature of reality. However since this entry is pure philosophy, some of my serious science devotees may want to skip this one :)

Now that I have the disclaimer out of the way, here is the argument. Assume for a moment that we live in the real world (that may seem obvious, but you will see why this assumption is necessary in a moment). We have one Universe and one reality. But on a single uninteresting little planet in a single uni...

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 ...