Now Even More Ways To View This Blog!!!

Blogger has just released an update so that there are now several new ways of viewing each Blogger blog:

Flipcard

Mosaic

Sidebar

Snapshot

Timeslide

Or you can just go with the traditional way to view this blog. (Still my favorite by far.) This just begs the question: what will Blogger think of next!

Enjoy.

New Commenting System. (Maybe)

I am trying an experiment.  I am adding a comment system to the blog that is supposed to have many more features that appear on the surface.  However, this is only an experiment and if it doesn't work we will go back to the old system.

Also, I can already see some bugs that, if they don't go away after a while, we will be going back for sure.

However, I would like everyone to be a good sport and give this system it's day in court.  Feel free to play around with the system on this thread and report feedback.

Thanks for your patience, but if this works out maybe we will be better off.

The Eternal Universe Welcomes Keith Penrod!

We at The Eternal Universe are proud to welcome Keith Penrod as a coauthor.  Keith has a BS and MS in Mathematics from Brigham Young University. His hobbies include doing math, thinking about math, geeking out about math, and mathing.

He is currently working on his PhD in math at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He specializes in pure mathematics. (Ie... the important stuff like topology.) He plans to be a mathematics professor, probably somewhere in the West close to home.  Though he may not admit it, he is one of the finest mathematical minds we know.

Occasionally his good friends convince him that there's more to life than math, namely real life itself. While physics is not one of his strongest areas, he does have interest there and is honored to be on the blogging team.

If these images don't make sense, I apologize; just know they should be hilarious to those looking at science from Keith's perspective.  Much like this post should.

Last joke:  You know you are a topologist when, after seeing a drunk person flopping around muttering a string of four letters words, your first thought is: did he just triangulate the 2-sphere?

Welcome Keith!

The Eternal Universe Welcomes jmb275!

jmb275 is a nerd. A BIG one! He likes computers, math, physics, airplanes, Star Trek, and most other totally geeky things. He thought Computer Engineering was his passion, so he got a BS in that area.

Upon discovering signal processing, however, Electrical Engineering became the degree du jour, and he got an MS in that area. Then, in a move driven by lust, greed, and a desire to take over the world, he accepted a position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to work on a really frickin' big laser (cue Dr. Evil). Okay, so in reality, it's because he didn't get into the PhD program he wanted, so he had to get a real job. But after a brief stint at LLNL, jmb275 realized his real passion was for all things aircraft related.

jmb275 now attends the University of Michigan pursuing a PhD in Aerospace Engineering emphasizing in flight dynamics and controls. jmb275 particularly enjoys all quips and jokes involving the term "rocket science" and/or "rocket scientist"! In his spare time (wait, what?) he flies R/C planes, helicopters, and anything else that rises above terra firma!

jmb275 is anxious to bring all the day dreamers (i.e. physicists) back down to reality and remind them we live on a little planet called Earth where Newtonian physics are still adequate and have been doing a fine job for over 300 years.

Congratulations To Bill!

Some people have no idea how hard it is to pass a physics comprehensive exam. (The exam you have to pass if you want to get a PhD.)  Especially if you are a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Anytime this is accomplished serious admiration needs to be given.

Congratulations Bill!  You more than deserve it.

 

July Was A Record Setting Month

Last month this blog had a record setting 64 blog posts.( ~2 posts a day) The record used to be held by July 2007 with 45 posts. ( ~1.5 posts a day.)

Here's to a new milestone!

The Eternal Universe Welcomes New Author: Laren Mortensen

Laren Mortensen has joined The Eternal Universe as a coauthor! He is a fellow BYU physics graduate like the rest of us.

I am personally excited to have Laren on board since I have had many conversations with him and know he has a lot of interesting ideas relating to philosophy, economics, game design, military and defense, etc... and will thus bring new flavors and ideas to our site.

I don't have a picture, but basically he looks a lot like Ed Whitten. Anyways, we should all welcome him. He will do a great.

Found Some Great LDS Science Blogs.

I stumbled across these over the weekend. We should chack them out and tell them it's good to see more LDS science blogs. Post if you know more in the comments.

1. http://convergencesciencereligion.org/
2. http://www.libertypages.com/cgw/
3. http://sciencebysteve.net/
4. http://www.mormonsandscience.com/religion--science-blog.html
5. http://ldsscience.blogspot.com/
6. http://mormoninsights.blogspot.com/
7. http://transfigurism.org/
   

Tag Cloud Added + Wider

Upon request I added a tag cloud. Currently I have it set so that a tag needs 6 entries before it shows up. Thanks for the suggestions.

Similarly, I made the posts wider for more space as requested. I can make it wider if you want.

Theme Proposal One: Stay with Minimal White.

Here is the screen shot to remember:

Share It And Other Updates

1. Okay, first of all I added a share it button so that people can share our posts in any way they want, Digg, Facebook, Email, text-message, etc... I've tested it and it seems to work.

2. Starting tomorrow I will introduce a new theme every 3 days until I run out of themes I think could work. (It won't last long because honestly I don't like very many of blogger's themes.) We will then vote on the theme we most like after it's all over.

3. I was able to honor Nick's request where we only share the first paragraph of each post for our atom feeds. (See the bottom.) Doing it for the actual blog is very complicated and requires you the poster to alter your HTML of you post by hand every time to get it to work right so I would advise against this until I find a simple way to do it.

4. If anybody has a good blogger that they think would be a good fit for the blog fill free to tell me about them. I've reminded Himal he is allowed to post and would like to remind Chris but I can't find how to contact him. If anybody knows just tell me.