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Science evolves on Facebook. On Facebook last fall, I posted about statistical mechanics. Statistical mechanics is the physics of hordes of particles. Hordes of molecules, for example, form the stench seeping from a clogged toilet. Hordes change in certain ways but not in the reverse ways, suggesting time points in a direction. Once a stink [...]
This year marks the 50th anniversary of my first publication. In 1964, when we were eleven-year-old fifth graders, my best friend Mace Rosenstein and I launched The Pres-stein Gazette, a not-for-profit monthly. Though the first issue sold well, the second issue never appeared. Front page of the inaugural issue of the Pres-stein Gazette. Faded [...]
Last Friday the 13th was a lucky day for those who love physics --- The online html version of Volume 1 of the Feynman Lectures on Physics (FLP) was released! Now anyone with Internet access and a web browser can enjoy these unique lectures for free. They look beautiful. Mike Gottlieb at Caltech on [...]
The elementary school I attended hosted an annual book fair, and every year I went with my mother to browse. I would check out the sports books first, to see whether there were any books about baseball I had not already read (typically, no). There was also a small table of science books, and in [...]
Transforming the STEM Pipeline into a River The traditional metaphor of the “leaky pipeline” tracks the number of students entering the educational system and emphasizes points at which women and minority students leave the system. IQIM is working to increase diversity on our campus and more broadly in STEM by encouraging a [...]
Five years ago, I was staring out one of the few windowed cubicles in a cluttered office full of overambitious salespeople willing to throw their own father under a bus, if it meant a couple more dollars in commission and maybe a few more brownie points from the sweaty, beer-bellied sales manager. What was going [...]
First slide, viewed on my laptop. I'm lazy. The only reason I ever do anything is that sometimes in a weak moment I agree to do something, and after that I don't have the nerve to back out. And that's how I happened to give the introductory lectures leading off the 12th Canadian [...]
Walter Burke Editor's Note: Yesterday and today, Caltech is celebrating the inauguration of the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics. John Preskill made the following remarks at a dinner last night honoring the board of the Sherman Fairchild Foundation. This is an exciting night for me and all of us at Caltech. Tonight [...]
As a little girl I would play school with the neighborhood children. Ever since fourth grade I knew I wanted to be a teacher in a classroom full of eager-to-learn nine-year olds, but it wasn’t until my freshman year of college that my plans changed. In Geology for Elementary Teachers, I remember thinking, “This material [...]
Faculty, Topological Quantum Physics