Harold Furth

Harold Furth was an Austrian-American physicist. In the late 1960s he "contributed some important theoretical work on resistive magnetohydrodynamics instabilities in a slightly resistive plasma."

He sounds like a real asshole.


What a bunch of bullshit.
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Fermi's golden rule

Fermi's golden rule is a thing in quantum physics. Fermi was an Italian-American physicist who lived in the first half of the 20th century.

According to Wikipedia, Fermi's golden rule can be summed up like this:

"We consider the system to begin in an eigenstate of a given Hamiltonian H₀. We consider the effect of a (possibly time-dependent) perturbing Hamiltonian H'. If H' is time-independent, the system goes only into those states in the continuum that have the same energy as the initial state. If H' is oscillating as a function of time with an angular frequency ω, the transition is into states with energies that differ by from the energy of the initial state. In both cases, the one-to-many transition probability per unit of time from the state to a set of final states is given, to first order in the perturbation, by

where ρ is the density of final states (number of states per unit of energy) and is the matrix element (in bra-ket notation) of the perturbation H' between the final and initial states."

Jesus' golden rule was "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

I like Jesus' better.


On the other hand, Jesus doesn't have a lab named after him.
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Satyendra Nath Bose

Satyendra Nath Bose was a physicist from India. He is most famous for his work on quantum mechanics in the 1920s.

Satyendra Nath Bose was immortalized when they named the boson after him. A boson is a special kind of particle. You should think of Satyendra and his accomplishments every time you think about bosons.


Boson humor.
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Prethalamus

Prethalamus is a part of the brain, especially when described by developmental biologists. Some human anatomists use the expression subthalamus instead, but they're a bunch of drunks.

There's a lot of technical jargon in this Wikipedia article, including a reference to "Sonic hedgehog," which it turns out has nothing to do with the video game. I had no idea the game's title was a reference to proteins in a mammalian signaling pathway family.

All I know is the brain is great. I know there are a lot of great things in the world, but I think the brain is probably the greatest of all. It gives me everything from my ability to see to my love of Chinese food. On the other hand, it also gives me everything from toe pain to the sadness I feel when I'm full and there is still a lot of Chinese food on the table but I'm too full to want it anymore. But then I think of all the starving people in China, and I feel extremely lucky to be full. Again, thanks to my brain. Thanks, brain.


He can't love Chinese food.
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Ada Yonath

Ada Yonath is an Israeli crystallographer. At first I thought that meant she made crystals. I was wrong. Crystallography, it turns out, is "the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in solids."

Ada has won many awards for her pioneering research. I'm glad for it.

Crystals are great. They made Superman who he is. It was the green crystal that called to him when he was a teenager living on the farm in Iowa or wherever. And in the north he threw that green crystal out into the icy landscape, and it made the Fortress of Solitude, which was full of more crystals that taught Superman everything he knows. Then later, after he gave up his super powers so he could have sex with Lois Lane, and eventually came to regret his decision, it was the green crystal again that gave him his powers back.

Crystals are enchanting. Superman is also enchanting, when he wants to be.


Billy Crystal is also enchanting.
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Casimir pressure

Casimir pressure is created by the Casimir force of virtual particles. Casimir force is the physical force that arises from a quantized field. I don't know what that means.

Wikipedia says that Casimir pressure can be associated with the density of the zero point energy of empty space, which some scientists believe is what is causing the accelerated expansion of the universe. This sounds very important.

In some ways, this makes me think that Casimir pressure is more significant than Jeff Feagles. But in other ways, I feel like Jeff Feagles is more significant than Casimir pressure.

This got me thinking about another question. Which is more significant, Casimir pressure or Hendrik Casimir, the man who discovered it? You and I might say Casimir pressure. But Hendrik's wife Josina might say Hendrik. And their children might say Josina. And I might say Chinese food.

Hendrik Casimir died in May of 2000, which means he never saw American Idol.


According to quantum mechanics, giant books can eat girls.
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