Daily Archive for May 3rd, 2009

Yesterday at JPL

jpl_open_house_2009_1I had a lot of fun at this year’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) open house. I’m happy to report that there were, once again, lots of people wandering around looking at the displays and demonstrations, asking questions, hanging out, and so forth, and an impressive turnout of JPL staff answering questions and being very enthusiastic about the science (something which is easy to do because it’s such an excellent topic!). I’ve made a video for you that is coming up at the end of this post. (Click on stills for larger views.)

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There was the usual huge emphasis on planetary exploration with rovers and robots and so forth – this seems to capture the imagination of everyone, so why not? – but I was more than a little surprised to find virtually no showing for the Planck mission. There was one poster somewhere, but no booth, no model, no description of the truly amazing science that it will do in unlocking more about the origins of the entire Continue reading ‘Yesterday at JPL’

John Oliver at the LHC

john_oliver_lhcOf all of the videos I’ve seen of people visiting the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), this one is the funniest by very far… yes… it’s John Oliver again:
Embed died, so link here.

The probability discussion is just priceless…
Continue reading ‘John Oliver at the LHC’