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"On average, subjects like Physics, Chemistry and Biology at A-level are a whole grade harder than Drama, Sociology or Media Studies, and three-quarters of a grade harder than English, RE or Business Studies."
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A press release that is remarkable for its lack of scientific detail.
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Not the MIT physicist of that name, but it makes for an amusing mental image...
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Ahhh, grad school. Don't miss the comments, which are chock-full of other ephemeral crap.
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"Prof. Orzel gives the impression of an everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics." (anonymous student evaluation comment)
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« Book Report | Main | links for 2008-07-03 »
links for 2008-07-02
Category: Links Dump
Posted on: July 2, 2008 5:32 AM, by Chad Orzel
Comments
# 1 | CCPhysicist | July 2, 2008 9:03 AM
I'll add this link to your list.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7484975.stm
It is a BBC story about the possible role of more even growth patterns (hence more uniform density, not greater density as you might guess from the headline) as a possible explanation for the superior quality of the wood used in Stradivarius violins. I've heard this "little ice age" climate explanation somewhere before (probably a colloquium on the acoustics of a violin), but this quantifies the differences between old and new instruments.
Elsewhere, I was shocked to learn today that A-levels are harder to achieve in physics than media studies in the UK, just as I was stunned to learn Monday that math ed is weak at most US universities. Must blog about that last one one of these days.
# 2 | gg | July 2, 2008 10:17 PM
"A press release that is remarkable for its lack of scientific detail."
I've been looking at that paper for a few days and am hoping to blog about it soon...
# 3 | CCPhysicist | July 3, 2008 10:09 AM
When I looked at the press release about Rydberg states, I thought the only thing really new was that it was big enough that they could take pictures. (In the sense of the original goal of PRL, however, this does not disqualify it from that journal.) I remember an article about making a classical "orbit" quite some time ago.