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physicstoday.scitation.org
I grew up with Physics Today, too, and the ads really shaped my knowledge of available instrumentation before I even knew what that was.
I used to marvel that people would pay megabucks for what appeared to be a white box with three electrical connections, a power plug, and a power-on light. Now, when I read those, I'm like, "Your lock-in amplifier can do what?! Expletive. How do I send you my money?"
I did a big retrospective study that you could compare with however many job-ads are in PT these days: https://measuredmass.com/2012/09/20/whats-the-state-of-the-a...
Mathworks has been sponsoring full-page ads with them for years, as has Hamamatsu. They must think they're getting their money's worth.
I look at the ads as a way to keep up with new developments. When SRS has a new product, or a small cryo vendor has a new doodad, it is a good way to see what's new. It does come up occasionally in a group meeting: "Hey, looks like you're trying to do X. I saw a thing in Physics Today that does Y, which, if you bend it funny, and add a line, is an X.... "
I used to read a lot of geeky blogs when I was younger and they would advertise stuff that I thought was cool - gadgets and doodads mostly.
I went back to a couple of those sites this year and the ads are now mostly for single women in my area -_-
[1] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.3001830
"Information from the external urine stream permits early, painless diagnosis of obstructions with an optical instrument developed by an interdisciplinary group."
Japanese toilet models now have this kind of instrumentation, but the idea lay dormant for decades. I wonder if anyone has tried the audio version in the followup? Spectrometry on a stream of drops was hard in 1974, and relatively easy today. If I could avoid another kidney stone, I'd pee into almost anything.
[0] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3128862
[1] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3069186
Pathological Science: Certain symptoms seen in studies of ‘N rays’ and other elusive phenomena characterize 'the science of things that aren't so.’
[0] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.881205
They interviewed many famous physicists. Mostly autobiographical, but unlike in books, the interviewees don't have time to edit the answer, so the reading experience is generally better.
Do you actually think that memorizing physical constant values is solving problems?And ,yes, anybody can grasp what PV= nRT means,but what about stuff like: "The average speed of the molecules doubled, what is the temperature now"."Derive the relation between pressure and height for an ideal gas and use it to estimate at which height the atmospheric pressure halves".Interesting stuff like that and not plugging numbers in a formula.
> you can understand that electrons exist in probability shells without remembering what atomic number the d orbital starts at
The d orbital "starts" at n=1. Hydrogen has d orbitals.You are confusing orbital existence with the occupation of them by electrons.
> You can understand that e=mv^2 is only an approximation that works at low velocities without being able to do a Lorentz transform.
The e = mv^2 you propose here is not an actual formula in physics. It is either Ek = (1/2)mv^2 in classical physics, so just kinetic energy, or E =mc^2+mv^2/(1-gamma^2)^(1/2) in special relativity. Which of course at low velocities is approximated by E= mc^2 + 0.5mv^2 the second term being the Ek as calculated in the classical theory.
I think your comment shows beautifully what I meant with my original assertion.
Though having a grasp of the numbers can help with scale and the often forgotten "does that make any reasonable sense" check.
I have a bias (a traditional physics education). But my advice to to supplement the popular stuff:
- Choose a career / hobby that is heavy in mathematical modeling. I find it much easier to explain physics to people who have built the intuition for applied math.
- Ask some questions on the Physics Stack Exchange.
- If you can, talk to a physicist.
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