If you want to learn all of modern physics, Christine Dantas is here to help.

Physicists are developing an alternative to special relativity, called Doubly Special Relativity. (When the Wikipedia article for this first appeared, people were so sure that the name had to be a joke that the article was nominated for deletion.) Doubly special relativity, which currently is somewhere in between an idea and an actual full-fledged theory, depends on two parameters, the speed of light and the Planck mass (this puts the two in “doubly”). For an introduction, see Introduction to Doubly Special Relativity by Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman.

After some discussion I’ve seen online, I was curious about the quantum mechanical notion of decoherence. Decoherence is an attempt by physicists why our quantum-mechanical world resembles the world of classical physics in our day-to-day lives.

So where did I turn? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, of course.

Week 224 of This Week’s Finds in Mathematical Physics is up.

Something that’s always annoyed me is the story about how scientists have shown that bumblebees can’t fly. Everytime I hear the story, it’s always told with the same “stupid scientists” tone.

I see, via Cosmic Variance that scientists have finally found out how they manage the trick. (Interestingly, someone in the comments suggests that the original research showed not that bumblebees couldn’t fly, but that they couldn’t glide, which in fact they can’t.)

If you’ve ever wondered what a spin glass was, well here’s your answer: Spin Glasses for Pedestrians.

Week 223 of This Week’s Finds in Mathematical Physics is up.