Now on ScienceBlogs: Lives of the Saints of Science: Darwin
Physics, Politics, Pop Culture
"Uncertain Principles" features the miscellaneous ramblings of a physicist at a small liberal arts college. Physics, politics, pop culture, and occasional conversations with his dog.
You've read the blog, now try the book: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog will be published December 22nd by Scribner.
"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)
Emmy is a German Shepherd mix, and the Queen of Niskayuna. She likes treats, walks, chasing bunnies, and quantum physics.
Category: Academia
It's always kind of distressing to find something you agree with being said by people who also espouse views you find nutty, repulsive, or reprehensible. It doesn't make them any less right, but it makes it a little more difficult...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:41 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Conferences
Blogging has been light of late because I was in the Houston area for the weekend, at the annual meeting of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society (think Phi Beta Kappa, but for science nerds). Every chapter is required...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:33 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
The always interesting Timothy Burke has a good post about PowerPoint in classes, spinning off a student complaint. I've been lecturing with PowerPoint-- my own slides, not something sent to me by a textbook company-- since day one, so of...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:28 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
I am curious as to what people at other institutions think about "Greek organizations," the slightly confusing catch-all term for fraternities and sororities (very few of whose members are ethnically Greek, and very few of whom know more Greek than...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:58 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
One of my pet peeves about physics as perceived by the public and presented in the media is the way that everyone assumes that all physicists are theoretical particle physicists. Matt Springer points out another example of this, in this...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 11:31 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Education
Via somebody on Twitter, Copyblogger has a post titled "7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School," which is, as you might guess, dedicated to provocatively contrarian advice about how to write, boldly challenging the received wisdom of English faculty:...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:41 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science
Some time back, commenter HI won a guest post by predicting the Nobel laureates in Medicine. He sent me the text a little while ago, and I've finally gotten around to posting it (things have been crazy around here): Since...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 12:52 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
FriendFeed and Twitter are a terrific source of articles about how New Media technologies are Changing Everything. The latest example is Sebastian Paquet's The Fate of the Incompetent Teacher in the YouTube Era, in which he declares that the recorded...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:08 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
My panel on "Communicating Science in the 21st Century" was last night at the Quantum to Cosmos Festival at the Perimeter Institute. I haven't watched the video yet-- Canadian telecommunications technology hates me, and I'm lucky to get a wireless...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:49 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogs
I'm heading to the airport right after my second class today (I'm doing two weeks of our first-year seminar class), to appear at the Quantum to Cosmos Festival at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo. This promises to be a good...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:58 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
