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Theoretical Musings
Dave Bacon is a theoretical ski bum who is also a pseudo professor. His research is on quantum computing, his scientific passions extend to everything in physics, mathematics, computer science and beyond, and his personal pleasures include making wine, playing poker, skiing, camping, and daydreaming (although not all of those at the same time.)
Nothing he says on this blog should be construed as having anything to do with his employer or his dog.
Category: Education
Over at Life as a Physicist, the Physicist for Life gets on a well deserved soap box and laments certain comments concerning articles about a recent College Board study: Trends in College Pricing 2009. The gist of the Physicist for...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:46 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
Microsoft Research's Project Tuva website is up. Project Tuva is a collection of seven searchable Feynman lectures aimed at a popular audience (with extras coming online in the future.) The rights to these lectures were obtained by Bill Gates after...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:57 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum
A friend sent me a link to QuantumCamp:Have you ever wondered how the microscopic Universe works? QuantumCamp is a one week journey through this strange but beautiful world - seeing nothing less than how every atom in our universe is...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:18 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science 2.0
Via Swans on Tea: Academic Earth: a collection of top lectures on a variety of academic topics. Nothing on quantum computing yet :)...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 8:24 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
The Perimeter Scholars Institute is a Masters level course designed to prepare students for cutting-edge research in theoretical physics. It looks pretty cool with some outstanding lecturers. The application deadline is February 1. All accepted students will be fully supported....
Posted by Dave Bacon at 4:00 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Education
In this era of the impending apocalypse, what the hell is a report about United States students actually showing gains in mathematics doing in the New York Times? Dude, media, get on message and send us some more doom and...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:32 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Education
Not just grades but: Grade distribution for the class. At a minimum: class average, standard deviation, median. Even better: a breakdown by grade. Scores of students in the class on standardized exit exams. For example I'd like to see how...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 10:52 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: DonorsChoose
DonorChoose, an organization which matches teachers requests for funds with donors, is running their annual blogger challenge. Already Cosmic Variance is trying to harness their vast resources of physicists, The Optimizer is appealing to the base nerd in everyone, He...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:51 PM • • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Loony Bin Called Academia
No, no, I'm not leaving academia (yet :) Pfffffft! That's the sound of me thumbing my nose at the world.) But recently I was thinking about about people who get a Ph.D. in, say, physics, or are a new postdoc,...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:25 PM • 40 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum
Hoisted from the comments, Robin asks:So, with that in mind, here's a question. What do you think about teaching quantum mechanics as noncommutative probability theory? In other words, by starting with probability theory and alluding to probabilistic mechanics (e.g., distributions...
Posted by Dave Bacon at 3:38 PM • 20 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Orac 02.13.2012
Tim Lambert 09.12.2011
ERV 11.26.2011
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
Orac 01.26.2012
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