This year I’ve decided to confront the problem pluralistically. Thus: here we have five different Top Five lists, chosen according to completely different criteria. Let us know if your favorite Cosmic Variance post of the year somehow managed to not be on any of the lists.

First, the most crude and common measure, the posts with the most page views this year.

• Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time
• I’m Too Smart to Understand Human Beings
• Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos
• Dark Energy FAQ
• Physics and the Immortality of the Soul

Next up, an equally quantitative and misleading measure of popularity: the top five posts by number of comments.

• Live-Blogging Curiosity, Hawking, and God
• Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time
• Physics and the Immortality of the Soul
• Do You Think Inflation Probably Happened?
• Hell

Since I know they won’t do it themselves, here are my five favorite posts by the CV co-bloggers:

• Unsolicited Advice XI: How to Write a 5 Minute Talk, by Julianne
• The Scientific Method is Alive and Well, by Daniel
• The Aftermath of the Clown Murders, by Julianne
• James Webb Space Telescope, by Risa
• Making the (Higgs) Sausage, by John

And here are my top five favorite guest posts, in a very strong year:

• The Era of Dark Matter Direct Detection, by Neal Weiner
• The Quantum Mechanics of Source Code, by Jim Kakalios
• Contra Eternal Inflation, by Tom Banks
• Hunting for the Higgs, by Matt Strassler
• First Glimpse of the Higgs Boson, by Jack Gunion

Finally, here are my top five favorite posts by me, excluding the ones that made the first two lists. Be thankful I was able to restrain myself to only choosing five.

• Scientists Aren’t Always Complete Idiots
• Dark Matter: Just Fine, Thanks
• Are Many-Worlds and the Multiverse the Same Idea?
• Free Will is as Real as Baseball
• What Can We Know About the World Without Looking at It?

A successful year overall — I think Sept/Oct/Nov of 2011 were our highest-traffic months of all time. Here’s to seeing you all in 2012!

• Lawrence Krauss on string-theory skepticism
• Paul Kwiat on quantum computation
• Anthony Aguirre on the Foundational Questions Institute
• Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on the community of scientists
• Joe Polchinski (the string debates; science or sociology)
• Heather Ray on MiniBoone
• Michelangelo D’Agostino on particle physics fieldwork in antarctica
• Juan Collar on dark matter detection
• Tom Levenson (Isaac Newton as the first cosmologist; Iraq War suicides and the material basis of consciousness Einstein, religion, and Jewishness)
• Joel Corbo on graduate school and teaching
• David E. Kaplan, the LHC on the History Channel
• George Djorgovski, A New World Overture (science and virtual worlds)
• Michael Peskin on John Updike
• Kip Thorne on Stephen Hawking
• Marcelo Gleiser on filtering and empirical knowledge
• Matt Johnson on making extra dimensions disappear
• Evalyn Gates on gravitational lensing
• Malcolm MacIver on intelligent robot warriors
• Caleb Scharf on the Shadow Biosphere
• Eugene Lim on education in Haiti, and a followup on calculus in Haiti
• Matt Johnson on observing the multiverse
• Neal Weiner on the coming era of dark-matter detection
• Jim Kakalios on the quantum mechanics of Source Code
• Lisa Randall on writing Knocking on Heaven’s Door
• The Great Quantum Cosmology/Eternal Inflation Debate: Tom Banks on eternal inflation; Don Page on quantum cosmology
• The Great Quantum Mechanics Debate: Tom Banks on quantum probabilities, David Wallace on the physicality of the quantum state
• Matt Strassler on the hunt for the Higgs boson

Donor’s Choose is an awesome non-profit that allows public school teachers to post their needs for educational materials for their students, and allows donors to choose which projects get funding. This year, like the last three years, science bloggers are participating

A list of projects we suggest is here:

Cosmic Variance Donor’s Choose Page

I’ve chosen a list of physics and astronomy focused projects in low income school districts –
chip in a few bucks (you can donate as little as $5 or as much as you like!), and make a difference inspiring the next generation of scientists!

Last year 26 of you donated more than $3500, which directly impacted 1,485 students (super impressively, the year before we managed to raise $12,000!) This is our 4th year of participating, but I was woefully slow putting this post up and getting the ball starting. I hope you dear readers will pick up the slack anyways, and give generously to these awesome projects. Luckily, between now and midnight on Saturday, there is a special bonus: the Donor’s Choose Board of Directors is matching all donations with a gift card that you can use to support any project of your choosing, so your money will go double in the next few days. Let’s see if we can beat last year’s numbers in the next 3 days, and help some students get the tools they need to learn science!

Which leads me to an entirely unoriginal observation: the internet loves Top Ten lists. Perusing our home page, it’s easy to be struck by the giant numbers for the Things Everyone Should Know About Time post. It’s true that I like to think the post was actually interesting. (People seem to be divided between whether #4 or #10 is the most striking entry.)

But still, I’ll be honest: being at the conference I hadn’t been able to blog much, so I thought it would be good to write something that would be popular but not too hard to write. Thus: a top ten list. Box office!

So why exactly is that? I’m not disparaging: a good list is a way to convey a substantial amount of information in a well-organized form. But still, would it have been as popular had it been Top Seven? What if each entry were three times as long? What if the exact same words were presented without the numbers and bold-face labels?

No grand theories here, just idle curiosity. Enjoy the tiny aesthetic upgrade.

1. Top Quark: SciCurious, Serotonin and Sexual Preference: Is It Really That Simple?
2. Strange Quark: Anne Jefferson, Levees and the Illusion of Flood Control
3. Charm Quark: Ethan Siegel, Where Is Everybody?

I already have a great nominee for next year’s contest. One of the most confusing things in particle physics is the notion of “chirality.” The related notion of a particle’s “helicity” is relatively easy to explain — is the particle spinning in a left-handed or right-handed sense when compared to its direction of motion? But a massive particle need not have a direction of motion, it can just be sitting there, so the helicity is not defined. Chirality is the same as helicity — left-handed or right-handed — for massless particles moving at the speed of light, but it’s always defined no matter how the particle is moving. It had better be, since the weak interactions couple to particles with left-handed chirality but not ones with right-handed chirality! (And the opposite for antiparticles.)

It all gets a bit heady, and you can’t give a real explanation without going beyond simple pictures and actually talking about the quantum wave function. But Flip Tanedo at Quantum Diaries has given it an heroic effort, which I insist you go read right now. I don’t want to reproduce the whole thing — Flip was more careful and thorough than I ever would have been, anyway — but I will tease you with this one picture.

Isn’t that the cutest pair of elementary particles you’ve ever seen? I smell a Quark in this lepton’s future.

While I have your attention, fellow loyal reader Richard O’Connell points us to a poem relevant to that post: Robert Browning’s Caliban upon Setebos. It begins:

‘Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit’s much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
And feels about his spine small eft-things course,
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:

There’s a lot more.

Also! Flip Tanedo points out that Brian Hill’s transcription of Sidney Coleman’s lectures on quantum field theory have finally been LaTeXed (pdf). Thanks to Bryan Gin-ge Chen and Ting Yuan Sen for undertaking this thankless task. I took that course a couple years after the notes were made, and every student in the class had a photocopy. Yes, Sidney did gripe a bit that nobody laughed at his jokes any more because they had all read them in the notes.

That’s all I got right now. Just trying to lower the bar so our co-bloggers will be encouraged to contribute more frivolous posts.

I’ve also added a widget that keeps you updated on our Twitter feeds. Right now that means mine and Daniel’s, as well as the Cosmic Variance feed (mostly, but not exclusively, links to each new blog post), and one I set up for From Eternity to Here. But who knows what the exciting future may bring? Actually I worry a bit that the blog has become less likely since I started with Twitter, since one-liner-type links to interesting things generally go there rather than here. Leaving all the more substantial stuff for the blog, which is great, but there’s only so much time for substantial stuff, so the posting frequency has gone down. Or maybe I just worry too much.

In older but no less fascinating news, we have a Facebook fan page. And — it’s down a bit, so you may have missed it — the long-lamented “recent comments” widget has reappeared.

Last summer we passed our fifth year of blogging at Cosmic Variance, and didn’t even really notice. Here’s to many more years!

Ms. D’s classroom in Ohio bought science fair supplies.

Mrs. P’s class in Texas purchased a binding machine and plastic binding strips for use in repairing paperback books.

Mrs. L’s classroom in Texas purchased thermometers.

Ms. M’s classroom in Nevada bought “Fun Math Centers.”

Thanks to everyone who donated. You never know what kind of impact you may have had.

Here at Cosmic Variance we’re not nearly as prolific as Ed (there are only seven of us, and one of him), but the idea of a year-end wrap-up is a good one. I.e., it seems to create content in the slow intra-holiday period, without actually coming up with anything new. So here are some of my own favorite posts from the last year, with a few guest posts thrown in for good measure.

• We made it four days into the year before discussing science and religion. I started off by arguing that atheists don’t need to be obnoxious to strongly defend their beliefs, in Being Polite and Being Right. On the flip side, in The Truth Still Matters, I suggested that organizations like the NCSE and NAS should stay away from offering theological advice and arguing that science and religion are compatible. But I tried not to be obnoxious while doing so.
• I took some issue with James Cameron’s Avatar in Black and White and Blue All Over. Still patting myself on the back for that title, but I think come off as too harsh in the post itself. This might be because I subsequently saw Cameron on a panel at Caltech about the science of Avatar, and he was fantastic. Anyone who is that committed to and knowledgeable about their material deserves some slack.
• Time Travel in Lost: The Metaphorics of Predestination. I loved Lost, although I was one of the many who felt let down by the finale. There’s still room out there for a time-travel/alternate-reality story that really grapples with the issues of predestination.
• It took us until late February, but finally a pure-science post that I really liked: Energy is Not Conserved. Actually even this turns out to be more about language than about physics, but there’s some good physics lurking underneath.
• In Free Energy and the Meaning of Life I strayed way outside my expertise, hopefully without screwing things up too badly. The underlying issues are fascinating but controversial even among experts.
• A behind-the-scenes look at the news show with the best science coverage out there, in Report from Colbert.
• Sam Harris and I got into a scuffle about deriving ought from is, leading to three posts: The Moral Equivalent of the Parallel Postulate, Sam Harris Responds, and You Can’t Derive Ought From Is. There are a lot of good things in Sam’s new book, and it’s a shame that he detracts from the interesting parts of his discussion by leading off with an unnecessary philosophical mistake.
• A nostalgic look at my undergraduate research, and some amazing cutting-edge new data, in My Favorite Star. (Interestingly, there is not strong evidence for a mid-eclipse brightening in the most recent data, contrary to what I would have expected. Evolution within the disk filled the central hole?)
• In case you’ve been wondering, The Universe Is Not a Black Hole.
• A foray into (fairly simple) math in Non-Normalizable Probability Measures for Fun and Profit.
• I recount a trip to the Linda Hall Library in A Shrine to Science on the Missouri River.
• We know the basic laws of physics governing how the everyday world works. An extremely impressive accomplishment, but not something that should count as a controversial claim; personally, I think it should be taught in junior-high physics classes. But it took three posts to lay it all out, not without some redundancy: The Laws Underlying the Physics of Everyday Life Are Completely Understood; Seriously, The Laws Underlying the Physics of Everyday Life Are Completely Understood; and One Last Stab. Some of the ramifications of this fact for our wider public discourse were discussed in Reluctance to Let Go.
• As an experiment I made a video to relate that Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and For All. Response seemed to be largely positive, and I still hope to do more videos (with slightly higher production values), but it does take a bit of work.
• The Fine Structure Constant is Probably Constant. Explaining some of the theoretical prejudices that make physicists more skeptical of some claims than others.
• Is Dark Matter Supernatural? No, of course not. But it’s a good example to keep in mind when discussing what questions science can address.
• Picking up the theme of taking on famous movie directors, I had a skeptical take on J.J. Abrams’ TED talk in A Mystery Box Full of Red Matter.
• In our annual Thanksgiving post, we offered gratitude for the effectiveness of effective field theory. Kind of an obvious choice, I’ll admit.
• While my intent was to stick just to my own posts, I can’t resist pointing to two guest posts: our recent one by Matt Johnson on Observing the Multiverse, and Eugene Lim’s summer entry on Calculus in Haiti. Thanks to all of our guest bloggers for adding new dimensions (as it were) to our discussions.

If I were a braver person, I’d do a corresponding list of my worst blog posts of the year. And if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a trolley.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I just don’t get it. What a lame blog topic that should have been left on the cutting room floor. There is no science here. Evidently cited just to provide an opportunity to express a personal belief. Why not blog on the news of the day..the successfully trapping the first “anti-atom” and its potential implications? This is real news, real science and in keeping with your expertise. You could teach me something. Instead you give me this?

Obviously the sensible reaction is to laugh and move on, but few of us achieve that level of Zen detachment in dealing with the world. Many of the comments at CV are great, and I’ve certainly learned a lot from the interactions here, but quite a high percentage are of this form. When you put a lot of work into the blog and care about how it turns out, this kind of stuff wears you down. Why are people like this? I understand that not every post will interest every person; is it really more satisfying to take time to lash out in the comment section (when you have never left a constructive comment yet), rather than just skipping to something else on the vast and endlessly amusing internet?

[/grumpy]

Our challenge page has had a great response so far — many, many thanks to everyone who has donated. Every donation is rewarded with a direct thank-you from the classroom that you helped. Here are a few of our responses:

“I simply cannot thank you enough for your selfless donation for much-needed supplies to use in my classroom. I know that your generosity will allow students with learning disabilities to engage in hands-on activities that relate to their everyday lives in reading, writing and math.” — Ms. S, Columbus

“I AM SO EXCITED about this project being funded! I have always wanted this Lakeshore kit to assist my instruction in science. I know that the students will be excited when they are able to work in groups and pairs to understand scientific concepts using this set. Words cannot express how thankful I am to each and every one of you for your contribution to our classroom!” — Ms. L, Forsyth, Georgia

“The items that you will provide for my students will help them with counting. Can you imagine the look on their faces when they see all the resources that they will get? I can. Its a look that I constantly get when I introduce a new concept and they are interested in learning more.” — Mrs. B, Los Angeles

We’re kicking serious butt in the Discover Blogs sub-challenge, which is nice, but our collective behinds are in turn being kicked by the pretenders at Seed, especially the squid people. Do you really want to stand for that?

And while we’re stooping to cheap psychology, did you notice this recent study that women give more to charity than men? Guys, are you going to just sit there and make these scurrilous accusations become reality?

More seriously, I love the big donations, but it would be nice to see more at the $5/$10/$20 level. Doesn’t cost too much, and it can mean a lot to kids without basic school supplies. You’ll feel good!

Last but certainly not least, we wanted to give huge thanks to everyone who helped spread the word via blogs or Twitter. Here’s the roll call of honor:

Louise Butt
Swans on Tea
@Paradise_Host
@barneygrubbs
@pandeiacomic
@BadAstronomer
@VeniceRiley
@ronsimon
@cosmicutopia
@buffalodavid
@cbcnasa
@break1ngscience
@leafwarbler
@pjrobar
@alltop_science
@rationalsquad
@leafwarbler
@pie_r_round
@mdsteele47
@reckonso
@katiebisbee

and who could possibly forget

Janiece at Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men.

Thanks! Every little push helps.

Cosmic Variance Challenge 2010

and see if you aren’t moved to throw a few bucks their way.

As before, we are part of a larger Science Bloggers Challenge. A little friendly competition is good for the soul, and for the donating. Now, in the past, the readers here at Cosmic Variance have done incredibly well in donating — over $12,000 last year! Not sure how that happened, honestly. You guys are good. Can we possibly do even better?

One thing that will help is that your donations are leveraged. The folks at Hewlett Packard have agreed to match any donation up to $50,000. (Not that we would object if you chose to give more, but it’s not strictly necessary.) So every dollar you give is two dollars of impact.

And who know? Maybe there will be gifts for people who are especially generous. We’re not above bribery. Any ideas for what would constitute a good bribe?

Also! If any other bloggers want to put up a post encouraging their readers to donate at our page, we will be very happy to link back to them with assorted compliments. Heck, we’ll even link to tweeters.

I don’t like to navel-gaze too much about the act of blogging, but a gradual evolution in my own style was the primary motivation for my hiatus. In the good old days I stuck mostly to very short posts, pointing to this or that and making simple comments without feeling obligated to provide elaborate justifications for every little thing. But over time, I found myself increasingly seeing every post as a multi-layered 3,000 word essay. (Even if they didn’t end up that way in actuality, that’s how they often were in my head.) Not a sustainable model for someone for whom blogging is a hobby, not a vocation. I promised myself long ago that if blogging ever started to take up too much time (roughly, more than 3 hours/week), something would be broken and I’d have to fix it.

So here I am fixing it. I really do very much enjoy the idea of blogging, both exploring ideas for my own sake and the wider conversation with other bloggers and with commenters. But given unitarity constraints on my time and energy, I need to concentrate on punchier posts, and comments that are not fully supported against every possible counter-argument. If the experience of writing a book nudged me toward longer forms, the success of Twitter demonstrates the value of the quick hit & link. Of course I will mix things up, which is part of the fun — longer posts here and there, the occasional video. There may be LOLcats. But I’ll try to refrain from writing poetry.

And now for dessert: chocolate extravaganza from my favorite restaurant, Alinea in Chicago. Ordinarily there are no tablecloths at Alinea, but for this course they cover the table with a thin sheet of silicone and — well, you’ll see.

Some of you might find this presentation too precious and extravagant to be enjoyable. I understand, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate the Oreo Blender Blaster at Denny’s.

So I’m going on hiatus for a while. While my normal mode of operation is to bounce happily between a dozen different activities, there’s a time for consolidation, and I’d like to concentrate on research for a while. It’s been madcap travel ever since the book came out, which is finally done with, and I look forward to getting back into the groove of solving equations and writing papers.

My hiatus plans aren’t very firm: not sure whether it will be a month or a year. It won’t be permanent, that’s for sure. And I doubt it will even be very doctrinaire; if the mood strikes me, I won’t be reluctant to fire up the old laptop and post something on my beloved Cosmic Variance.

In the meantime, the rest of the crew (not to mention you commenters) will keep the fires burning here at the blog. Maybe I’ll even leave a comment or two if one of those jokers says something totally outrageous. Probably most people won’t even notice I’m gone. (Otherwise I wouldn’t have to announce it, would I?)

So we rearranged our schedules, met yesterday in Denver, woke up at 6 am this morning, and are now at Kennedy Space Center with 100 space twitterers. They’ve got a full program here with astronauts and a tour today, and the launch of mission STS-129 to the space station at 2:29 pm tomorrow. The event just started… So stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted. We will be blogging as well as loosing our tweeting virginity @cosmicvariance. You can follow the rest of the gang by looking for #nasatweetup.

• @CosmicVariance

This might seem superfluous, since we have, you know, a blog. Mostly the tweets will consist of pointers to the blog posts (automatically generated from the RSS feed). Perhaps the occasional special intervention. But this is a quick and dirty way to integrate with the twitterverse, if people want to follow us there and re-tweet and all that delicious stuff.

I’ll try to post something of substance soon. Hopefully I will elaborate on this picture:

By “we,” of course I mean the web gurus at Discover — your humble bloggers didn’t have to do a damn thing. Thanks, all.

You’ll also notice that the name of the author now appears at the top of the post, which is very helpful. We have a list of upgrades we’re trying to gradually implement, in order to make your blog-reading experience as pleasant as possible.