Swedish Research Council requires Open Access
The Swedish Research Council decided some weeks ago that research supported by a grant from their agency has to be made publicly available within 6 months. From the press release:"To obtain a research grant, the Swedish Research Council now requires researchers to publish their material so as to make it available to all. The public and other researchers should have free access to all material financed by public means.

Causal Diagrams
I once witnessed a physicist explain the universe to an artist. The artist had approached the physicist to learn how to understand extra dimensions, a concept, so he explained, that would undoubtedly enhance the depth of his artwork, and be of great inspirational value on his quest to capture the contextuality of essence. Or maybe essence of contextuality. Or something like that. Either way, the physicist took a piece of chalk and drew a line on the blackboard. "That is our universe," he said. It took several minutes before the artist stopped laughing and said "Now THAT is what I'd call an abstraction."You see, the fact that our universe is at least 4-dimensional and infinitely

Thoughts and Experiments
The other day I got in an argument over what constitutes a "scientific question," after I invoked thought experiments in an attempt to illuminate some features of a model. Is a question that cannot be tested even in principle a scientific question? And thus, if it isn't, should scientists think about it

HIT, the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center
Last Monday morning, more cars than usually were crowding the road through the Heidelberg "Neuenheimer Feld" Campus. A parking lot had been reserved for guests, and signs all over the Campus showed the way to a "Press Conference". Later I learned that all this gathering was for the opening ceremony of the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (HIT).With a background in heavy-ion physics from Frankfurt University, it would have been hard for me not to have heard of this project before: Kind of a large spin-off of t

Urban Physics Myths
Stefan and I, we had a good laugh at the LHC baguette. I've been wondering whether the PR department made it up to entertain us while waiting. For the next filler, how about the technician who hung his coat on the regulator for the server-room AC and caused a total system