New Physics Textbook!

Here's the cover of my latest Physics textbook.  I just got it a few days ago.  This book will go on the market in the Spring, and students will be using it this Fall.

I have high hopes for it, especially since it's much better than any of its competitors.

I'm busy now on the 5th edition of my university-level book now.  Looking forward to completing it as well.

I was at the University of Washington a couple days ago, and saw a student doing homework problems from the 4th edition of my university-level book.  It was fun to see my problems, along with the art work, on the student's computer screen.

The Sunset Of 1/17/13

I was working at my desk yesterday, when I noticed a nice sunset in progress.  I went out on the deck and snapped a few pictures.  A couple of them are presented below:

Burrows Island.  The sun sets almost directly behind the island this time of year.

The Olympic Mountains silhouetted by the sunset.

The trees at the top of Burrows Island against the reddening sky.

The Adventure Of The Solitary Solitaire

Yesterday, Betsy and I went to Washington Park, right next to where we live in Anacortes, WA.  It was a beautiful day, and we went to one of the main lookout points in the park.

View to the east from Washington Park.  Mount Erie is to the right, and our home is in the Skyline area to the left.

One of the reasons we went to this spot was to look for Townsend's Solitaire.  This is perhaps the only place in Skagit County where you have a good chance of seeing this bird.  It comes down from the mountains in the winter to feed on the juniper berries that are so abundant in the park.  Here's the tree where we first saw the Solitaire, and a view of the bird with plenty of berries nearby for the taking:

The juniper tree where we first saw the Townsend's Solitaire.

A Townsend's Solitaire at Washington Park.  Notice its all gray body, light wing bar and eye ring, and buffy patches in the wing.

As we expected, the Solitaire was feeding on the juniper berries.  Here a shot of it just after it grabbed one.  In the next shot you can see the bulge in the throat where the berry is on its way down:

Townsend's Solitaire getting ready to swallow a berry.

The berry is on its way down the throat.

We got lots of nice views of the Solitaire, as shown in the next photos:

There were other thrushes feeding on the berries as well.  The American Robin shown below was having a great time eating one berry after another:

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a morning before going home for lunch.

Looking to the west from Washington Park.  Burrows Island, Rosario Strait, Lopez Island, and the Olympic Mountains are in the distance, and the "family tree" is in the foreground.

Halloween 2012

We had a good Halloween, with about 25 trick-or-treaters visiting our domicile.  It started out stormy and windy – in fact, it was pretty wicked outside when Betsy and I set up the jack-o-lanterns.  Shortly after that, however, the winds calmed down and the rain stopped.  It was reasonably nice the rest of the evening, and the kids took advantage of the break in weather.

Here are the jack-o-lanterns we put of to greet the trick-or-treaters:

Jack-o-lanterns for our Halloween.  Clockwise from lower left, they are "BOO" jack, "Happy-face Dragonfly" jack, and "Classic" jack.

We still get some nice sunsets, though the weather has been pretty cloudy in general:

It's late in the year, but we're still seeing a lot of dragonflies at Cranberry Lake when the sun comes out.  In the following photo the large bluish dragonflies are the Happy-face Darner, the red ones are the Autumn Meadowhawks.

The Lightning Bolt – And A Little Bit Of Everything

As Betsy and I had breakfast this morning we noticed a large storm cell drifting east from the Olympic Mountains toward Whidbey Island.  It was quite an impressive storm.  We noticed an occasional flash of lighting, so I decided to take a slow-motion video of one.  Here's the result, showing a couple flashes slowed down 8 times.  The dark land to the left is Whidbey Island, and near the island you can see a small boat heading to the right.  Doesn't look like a good place to be boating!

We could hear the thunder, too, as it rumbled around and reflected off the islands and cliffs in the neighborhood.  Our skies were blue, as they are now – quite delightful here.  On the news this morning we watched snow falling at Snoqualmie Pass, and now after seeing this lightning, it's a reminder that bad weather at a comfortable distance can be quite interesting.  Just glad we're not in the middle of it.

A few minutes later we looked out the window and saw that the storm had completely passed.  The Olympics were out now, and with fresh covering of snow showing brightly in the sun.

The same area where the storm and lightning strikes were happening just minutes before.

The Olympic Mountains in the background, and the tip of Allan Island in the foreground.

Fresh snow blankets the Olympics.

As the day progressed, we saw more and more types of weather coming our way.  At one point the sky to the west was very dramatic and dark.  The sun would pop through now and then like a spotlight, but we could also see precipitation dropping down from the clouds.  It hit us a couple minutes later, and we suddenly had hail bouncing all around.  Here are a couple videos of hail pummeling our deck.

Next, the sky started to clear, and the sun broke through.  A rainbow appeared in the front yard.  As I took pictures of the rainbow loud thunder was booming all around.  To top it off, a nice sunset followed.  Altogether, a pretty wild and wooly day.

Sun streaming through the clouds after our brief hail storm.

Hail peppers the front yard.

With the sun shining brightly a rainbow appears in the opposite direction.

The day seems to be calming down as the sun sets behind Burrows Island.

The end to a wild day.

The Case Of The World Wide Web

A couple mornings ago I looked outside and noticed that our trees were covered with spider webs glistening with dewdrops.  There were so many webs, in fact, that it looked like everything was covered with them – a world-wide web, so to speak.  Here's what it looked like in our front yard:

A closer look shows the beauty of the dewdrops on each strand of the web.  Notice that most of drops are quite uniform in size and spacing.

An even closer look shows how the dewdrops are refracting light, giving a very subtle rainbow of color from greenish on the right to reddish on the left.

The Adventure Of The Autumn Meadowhawk

One of my favorite examples of dragonfly haiku is the following:

Red dragonfly on my shoulder

calls me his friend.

Autumn has arrived.

The sentiment of this haiku was played out in real life today at Cranberry Lake, where Autumn Meadowhawks (red dragonflies) are showing up in numbers and perching on shoulders, hats, and any other available surface.

In our area, if you see a red dragonfly this time of year you've already identified it – it's an Autumn Meadowhawk.

Here are a few pictures from Cranberry Lake showing the subject of the haiku:

Red dragonfly on Betsy's shoulder – and hat.  Autumn Meadowhawks really are the friendliest dragonfly.

Autumn Meadowhawks enjoy basking in whatever sunlight is available.

Autumn Meadowhawks in the wheel position.