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Welcome to my blog!
I'm a Professor of Physics at the Rochester Institute of Technology
This Year's Physics Nobel: Playing with the fastest Camera in the World
This post covers the Nobel prize in physics awarded this year to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier“for experimental...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Oct 6, 2023
Doesn't (anti) matter
This post is about an experiment in the news this week, which might have taken the first step towards elucidating one of the greatest...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Sep 30, 2023
Scaling Heights
People usually laugh at me when I tell them that my athletic event of choice in school was the high jump. This is probably because I...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Sep 23, 2023
Exploring the (Meta)Verse
Science quite often influences, or even gives birth to, poetry. This includes science written as poetry, poets complaining about or...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Sep 16, 2023
Deciding on Gödel
I had mentioned in an earlier post that I would likely dedicate a separate piece to Gödel. Here it is. This post relies on several books...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Sep 9, 2023
More about Bardeen
As promised, this is a post about the biography of the only person to ever win two Nobel prizes in physics: John Bardeen. The book is...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Sep 2, 2023
One is Not Enough: Double awardees of the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize is probably the top recognition in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace....
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Aug 26, 2023
Standing by the Science
This post is about a variety of attitudes that some well known scientists have taken to the discoveries they have made. These attitudes...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Aug 19, 2023
Making Waves with Atoms
Background One of the revelations of quantum mechanics is that the same objects can behave as particles as well as waves. Light was the...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Aug 12, 2023
The Story is the Thing
Nowadays, when I get to talk to younger students studying science, especially seniors in high school or starting undergraduates, I ask...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Aug 5, 2023
Texting Quantum
This post continues looking at the current interest in quantum physics. In an era which has declared the importance of training a...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jul 29, 2023
The Mindbending Art of M. C. Escher
Art and science have had connections since a long time. The Platonic solids played a central role in the thinking of scientists from...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jul 22, 2023
Quantum Computers: State of Play
This post addresses the ongoing buzz about quantum computers. In 2012 John Preskill at CalTech coined the term quantum supremacy, which...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jul 14, 2023
Bhabha: Science, Administration and Art
Homi Jehangir Bhabha was a physicist who made important contributions at the international (there are processes and equations named after...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jul 8, 2023
Imaging all the People*
(When I started writing this blog I was determined not to miss posting weekly, except in the event of nuclear war. Unfortunately, I had...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jun 30, 2023
Probing the Pudding
This post is about proof - an object usually found in the pudding - and its importance. The word 'proof' comes from the Latin 'probare',...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jun 16, 2023
A Physicist thinks About Biology
When I was young I had problems with biology. It started with the fact that my memory was not very capacious. As a result, I was not good...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jun 10, 2023
Pure versus Applied: John von Neumann
Scientists often make a distinction between working in pure (more interesting than useful) versus applied (more useful than interesting)...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jun 3, 2023
What Makes the World Go Around
To a physicist, the literal answer to the question 'what makes the world go around?' is - angular momentum! Angular momentum is the...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
May 26, 2023
Cosmic Concerns
This is a post to read in case you do not already have enough to worry about in your own life, including, but not limited to, what AI...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
May 20, 2023
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