141 books
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37 voters
“
Despite my resistance to hyperbole, the LHC belongs to a world that can only be described with superlatives. It is not merely large: the LHC is the biggest machine ever built. It is not merely cold: the 1.9 kelvin (1.9 degrees Celsius above absolute zero) temperature necessary for the LHC’s supercomputing magnets to operate is the coldest extended region that we know of in the universe—even colder than outer space. The magnetic field is not merely big: the superconducting dipole magnets generati
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― Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World
― Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World
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We have jerks, assholes, and those who are just dumb...dumb!"
"You mean relative to you others," my mother once protested.
"No, Mom, dumb like anyone is dumb."
"So how did he get a Ph.D.?"
"Sitzfleisch, Mom."
Sitzfleisch: the ability to sit through any task, to do it again and again until the job is somehow done. Those who give out Ph.D.'s are human too - sooner or later they give in.
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― The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?
― The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?
