Chad Orzel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College in Schenectady, NY. He blogs about physics, life in academia, ephemeral pop culture, and anything else that catches his fancy.
As mentioned a while back, I'm experimenting with "active learning" techniques in my intro courses this term. Specifically, I'm doing a variant of the "Peer Instruction" method developed by Eric Mazur and others. There are a few complications imposed by our calendar/ class schedule, but I'm giving…
Those of you who follow me on Twitter/ Facebook have been getting the occasional snippet of cute dialogue from SteelyKid over there. This one's a little too long for breaking into 140-character blocks, so while I wait for her to come downstairs so we can make pancakes, a cute SteelyKid story:
We…
The current quasi-hiatus has the goal of preserving my sanity through reducing stress. Somewhat surprisingly, Thursday Toddler Blogging has actually been fairly stressful lately, because SteelyKid is mostly in a "no pictures" phase, which makes getting a usable shot of her a huge hassle. Which is…
In typical fashion, no sooner do I declare a quasi-hiatus than somebody writes an article that I want to say something about. For weeks, coming up with blog posts was like pulling teeth, but now I'm not trying to do it, it's easy...
anyway, that's why there's the "quasi-" in "quasi-hiatus," and…
1 And the LORD looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
2 And the LORD said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
3 Make…
It's been a while since I did any ResearchBlogging, first because I was trying to get some papers of my own written, and then because I was frantically preparing for my classes this term (which start Wednesday). I've piled up a number of articles worth writing up in that time, including two papers…
Classes for the 2011-2012 academic year start tomorrow, which means that blogging will come to a nearly complete stop. I have an exceptionally heavy teaching load this term (deliberately, because I'm developing a new course in the winter term, and FutureSibling! is due in November), and it's become…
STAR WARS : The Solo Adventures (HD) - YouTube
There's a little Uncanny Valley thing going on with the characters, but this is still better than anything Lucas has put out in about twenty years. I'd definitely watch more of this.
The Chicago Blog: Playing poker with Parker: An interview with…
Lance Mannion: Do video game avatars dream of digital sheep? or How Pac-Man can help prepare you to save the world
"From the Ghostbusters quote that opens the first chapter onward, hardly a page gets turned that doesn't include at least one 80s-themed Easter Egg. Cline takes some of the fun out…
Twinkle, twinkle
Have you any wool?
H I J K
L-M-N-O-P
Up above the world so high
One for the little boy who lives down the lane
Now I know my A-B-C's
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full
Baa, baa black sheep
E F G
How I wonder what you are
Q R S
One for the dame
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle,…
Atlas Mugged: The Ayn Rand Six Step | Common Dreams
"Imagine your landlord coming to you one day and saying, "It's everyone for himself. We're not going to supply heat or water or electricity any longer, and we're not going to conduct repairs."
Of course, you and the rest of the tenants wouldn't…
Smartypants: What it means to be the first African American President...getting your buttons pushed
"We have probably all grappled with the experience that has been labelled "getting our buttons pushed." What we tend to mean by that is that there are people who know our sore spots...those places…
As mentioned earlier in the week, I recently read Charles C. Mann's 1493 (see also this interview at Razib's place), which includes a long section about the colony at Jamestown. Like most such operations, the earliest colonists were almost comically incompetent, managing to nearly starve to death…
How where you live affects the life you prefer. Or not. | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
"How do people value a better life? The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released the Better Life Index, an interactive graphic that lets you rank 11…
Our next-door neighbors are awesomely nice, and helped Kate move all the breakable stuff in the back yard out of harm's way before the big storm this past weekend (since I left town before it was clear that Albany would get hit). as a thank-you, Kate and SteelyKid baked cookies for them. But you…
While I was out in Denver, Joss Ives had a nice post asking what courses are essential in a physics degree?. This is an eternal topic of discussion in undergraduate education circles, and I don't really have a definitive answer. It's an excellent topic for a poll, though, so here you go:
Which of…
As previously noted, I'm planning to do more active-learning stuff in my intro mechanics courses this fall (starting next Tuesday), and as a result have been reading/ watching a lot of material on this (which, by the way, includes far too many slickly produced sales videos and not nearly enough "…
How to read academic research (beginner's guide)
Some basic tips on finding useful information, and the rudimentary statistical knowledge you need to make sense of it. Most applicable in the social and life sciences, but worth knowing for anybody.
A Quick Look at How Our Kids Are Doing | Mother…
A currently popular explanation for the increasing price of higher education is that all those tuition dollars are being soaked up by bloated bureaucracy-- that is, that there are too many administrators for the number of faculty and students involved. While I like this better than the "tenured…
Back when I reviewed Mann's pop-archaeology classic 1491, I mentioned that I'd held off reading it for a while for fear that it would be excessively polemical in a "Cortez the Killer" kind of way. Happily, it was not, so when I saw he had a sequel coming out, I didn't hesitate to pick it up (in…
I get a lot of publicist-generated email these days, asking me to promote something or another on the blog. Most of these I ignore-- far too many of them are for right-wing political candidates-- but I got one a little while back promoting a program airing tonight, called Project Shiphunt, which…
Sometimes I Take a Great Notion to Jump in the River and Drown | Alas, a Blog
"Now, it's true, the storm did not particularly batter New York City. And I think anyone with an ounce of compassion and decency would view that as an overwhelmingly good thing. A major hurricane battering the largest…
My father's a huge fan of the Weather Channel, something I've never really gotten into. I did watch a bunch of its hurricane coverage on Sunday, though, trying to figure out how my travel was going to be affected. Thus, I got to see a really fabulous exchange as the studio anchor tossed to a field…
As previously noted, I was in Denver for a long weekend with friends from college. I spent a fair bit of time checking the projected storm track and airport closings, but they kept saying Albany was going to stay open until late Saturday, when there wasn't time to do anything about it. Yesterday…
The week before last, I finished writing up a pedagogical paper I've been meaning to write for some time, and sent it off to The Physics Teacher. A couple of days ago, it occurred to me that I could probably post that to the arxiv. So I did, just before I left town for an extended weekend reliving…
SteelyKid has recently discovered the game hide-and-seek. Shhh! She's hiding right now. Can you guess where she is?
You can't tell from the picture, of course, but just in case it wasn't obvious where she's hiding, she usually calls out when you get kind of close. Or even jumps out of her hiding…
A Higgs Setback: Did Stephen Hawking Just Win the Most Outrageous Bet in Physics History? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
Overblown anti-Higgs hype, just for balance.
News: Breaking Bread - Inside Higher Ed
"For the project, students were asked about their views on the state of…
I don't think my point quite got across the other day, so let me try phrasing this another way. I think a lot of what's being written about pseudonymity on blogs is missing the real point.
The really important question here is not so much whether blog networks should allow pseudonymous blogs as…
The new school year is upon us, so there's been a lot of talk about academia and how it works recently. This has included a lot of talk about the cost of higher education, as has been the case more or less since I've been aware of the cost of higher education. A lot of people have been referring to…
