How to Create Your Own Quantum Entanglement Experiment

 

Recently I've been addicted to Google+ and I have found that my posts have really slowed down. So here is something to keep you busy. An at home project that you can do to generate your own entangled particles and then verify that they are entangled.
Entangled particles are one of those quantum mechanics effects that sounds like something right out of Star Trek. Basically you generate two entangled particles and then the act of measuring the polarity of one particle causes the other's polarity to be set. This occurs now matter how far apart the particles are apart and can happen faster than the speed of light. Strange indeed.
The experiment is described in detail here: here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

Happy Birthday Voyager

Thirty-five years ago last week, Nasa launched the Voyager probe. Currently it is Nasa's longest running spacecraft and is poised to exit the solar system sometime soon where eventually it will merge with an alien spacecraft and harass crew of the Enterprise. No wait ... that was a different probe wasn't it?

Curiosity: Wish You Were Here

After last week's amazing landing of Curiosity on Mars, Curiosity is now sending back its first HiRes images. I wonder if there are any Martians living in the hills? Check out the full image here.

All About Me

Lately I have been spending a fair amount of time volunteering with the Technology Alliance Group for Northwest Washington. Last week they returned the love by making me the member of the month. You can read the gripping Q&A session here.

On another note, if you are looking for a tech job in the Bellingham area, check out TAG's new job board.

Happy Pi Day - 3.14

(Image via: http://brownsharpie.courtneygibbons.org)

It is that time of year ... pi day (unless you are European, then it would be January 3rd). So let's break it down. pi=3.14159265 ... so the official pi time is March 14 at 1500 hours, 9 minutes, 26 seconds --- your mileage may vary. You can check out more fun facts at http://www.piday.org/.

Why SOPA is bad for the US

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Today is an informal protest SOPA day. "What is SOPA," you might ask. This video does a nice job explaining why SOPA is bad for the US. Proponents of the bill suggest that it is necessary to stop all of the evil pirates out there. On the surface it sounds good. Why would anyone want to support pirates? But the reality of these bills is always much worse than the political hyperbola.

Pageline 2.0 for your Wordpress Site

Okay, I know that this is a Blogspot site and you are probably wondering why I would blog about a Wordpress plugin. Well, frankly, PageLines is cool. It really allows you to configure a site quickly with all kinds of cool effects. Sure Blogspot is great for a quick and dirty blog that can really look great, but if you want to do more complicated stuff, then Wordpress is the way to go (or if you have really complicated things to do, then try Drupal).

The problem is that Wordpress can be a bit intimidating. Along comes PageLines, a theme that greatly streamlines the process of building a website. We produced this website for Windows on the Bay this summer. Looks great doesn't it.

 PageLines just came out with a new version that is even better than what we used. Check it out  here.