Are physicists' models being held culpable in the financial meltdown? Do physicists appreciate music for its mathematical appeal? How will the International Linear Collider complement the Large Hadron Collider? These topics and more are under discussion in the blogs of Quantum Diaries, freshly launched yesterday with a new set of visiting contributors from around the globe and across the world of particle physics.
"I certainly jumped on the opportunity to communicate my life, my science and the ideas I'm really interested in," said Quantum Diaries blogger Nicole Ackerman, a Stanford graduate student working on the Enriched Xenon Observatory at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. "I really like the chance to share with the science community, but also the non-science community who are interested in the science."
First online during the World Year of Physics in 2005, Quantum Diaries is sponsored by an international group of particle physics laboratories through the InterAction Collaboration. Participating diarists volunteer for three-month stints sharing their work and daily lives through bios, videos, photos and blogs.
Topics are open to the diarists' imaginations and perspectives. "I'm interested in intersections between physics and other things," Ackerman said. Among her first posts are discussions of two-career academic couples and bicycling physicists, alongside an article on her work studying neutrinos. "This is a way of communicating with a larger group when I read a really interesting book or see a great Web site, or just make some observations." And the conversation goes both ways.
"Since it's a blog, people can write comments and share their stories," Ackerman said. "I can start that dialog [with a blog post], then it can involve other scientists from all over the world."
For more about the new particle physics blogs, see the Quantum Diaries news release.
This story first appeared in SLAC Today on April 3, 2009.
