June 15, 2008
Another year in academia, another graduation ceremony. It poured for a lot of the day yesterday, so everybody was a little nervous coming in, but the weather turned out to be good-- clear blue skies, a few puffy white clouds, and temperatures that were a little warm for sitting outside in long…
June 14, 2008
Acephalous: "Sleep is for the weak."
The weak and fuzzy, that is...
(tags: animals pictures silly)
June 13, 2008
Optics basics: Polarization « Skulls in the Stars
What you need to know about light polarization.
(tags: physics optics blogs science education)
"Plutoids": the new name for Pluto-like dwarf planets - physicsworld.com
When, oh, when will the IAU stop jerking Pluto around?
(tags: astronomy…
June 11, 2008
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
They forgot the philosophers, or maybe ran out of room in the right margin...
(tags: biology chemistry physics psychology science math comics)
June 10, 2008
Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
"To eat locally grown food or, even better, food that you've grown yourself, seems as if it should be 1) more delicious; 2) more nutritious; 3) cheaper; and 4) better for the environment. But is it?"
(tags…
June 10, 2008
I'm giving the final exam in my E&M class tonight (from 5-7 pm, thank you oh-so-much, Central Scheduling), which you might think would bode well for blogging in the future. However, I also have two summer students starting on Monday, a baby on the way, and major book revisions to do that need…
June 9, 2008
Reading Final Theory last night reminded me of something Patrick Nielsen Hayden said on a con panel once. The question was raised of why thriller-ish science fiction books don't do as well as thrillers with a thin SF gloss-- basically, "Why doesn't Greg Bear sell as many books as Michael Crichton…
June 9, 2008
I've gotten a fair number of free science books in the last few years, from publishers looking for bloggy publicity, but Mark Alpert's Final Theory is the first time that I've been asked to review a novel on ScienceBlogs (I've gotten advance copies of some other novels, but I've specifically…
June 8, 2008
We got back from my 15th college reunion weekend earlier today, and I've spent the afternoon dozing off in front of European championship soccer and enjoying sweet, sweet central air conditioning. I had a great time, but didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Also, ordering Colonial Pizza at 1am…
June 6, 2008
'When We Left Earth' Shows When Man Stretched to Reach the Moon - NYTimes.com
"Like many gadget-happy Americans, NASA took lots and lots of home movies. For this series it threw open the doors of its film and video archives, which have been transferred to stunning high-definition format."
(tags:…
June 6, 2008
A quick glimpse from the 1993 version of Facebook:
See, college students took pictures of each other standing around drinking, even before we had the Internet to post those pictures on...
I'm off to my 15th college reunion for the weekend, to see old friends, renew old acquaintances, play a little…
June 6, 2008
Being a Baby of the Future, FutureBaby obviously needs to have a theme song. Sadly, Kate and I don't have the cash on hand to commission John Williams to write one. So, then, we shall Ask the Internets:
What (already existing) piece of music should be FutureBaby's theme song?
I realize this would…
June 6, 2008
How will you know, unless you take this Internet quiz?
(I get a 78 on the Husband scale ("Very Superior"), so yay, me. Of course, if I answer the Wife questions, I get a 16 ("Very Poor (Failure)")... Which, given the preposterous sexism of the standards, probably also counts as a "yay, me!")
June 5, 2008
Asking the Wrong Questions: Braaaaaaains
"I've been on the lookout for other works which, like Proof, feature characters whose lives are lived primarily in the mind, and who view the world, and interact with it most fully, through their intellect."
(tags: books literature science culture society…
June 5, 2008
A simple question:
Bunnies or squirrels?
Emmy eagerly awaits your answer.
She leans toward bunnies, herself, because squirrels can climb trees or, as she puts it, "escape into an extra dimension" (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing). Bunnies are earthbound, and thus better for chasing.
Of…
June 5, 2008
In the last few weeks, I've been wrapping up E&M, which has included talking about Faraday's Law and induced currents. I did the traditional demonstration using a PASCO ring launcher to demonstrate Lenz's Law, showing that the induced current flows in a direction that creates a field opposing…
June 4, 2008
Christian Demand: Inflated phrases - signandsight
"Texts on art rarely explain what they profess to explain; they simply simulate the explainability of their theories."
(tags: art culture humanities)
Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 and 2003 Cohorts;…
June 4, 2008
I'm giving the last lecture of new material in my intro E&M class today, on Maxwell's equations and electromagnetic waves. In the last couple of weeks, I've been struck again by the way our trimester system (three ten-week terms, instead of two 15-week semesters) is a lousy match for the…
June 4, 2008
This is a review way in advance of the publication of the book-- it's not due until August, or thereabouts-- but I got an advance copy of Tobias Buckell's forthcoming Sly Mongoose, and read it at DAMOP. You might think this is an odd venue-- wouldn't the exhausting nature of the conference tend to…
June 4, 2008
I've written my last lecture for the first-year E&M class, and will be giving it at 10:30 this morning. (Friday's class will be given over to exam review). The spring term, which had felt like it would stretch into July, is basically over.
Oh, and some guy won an election.
June 3, 2008
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Citibank to CC's: Drop Dead
A plea for a single-payer education system.
(tags: academia economics US society class-war culture)
June 3, 2008
The World Science Festival happened while I was at DAMOP (I missed getting to talk to Bill Phillips, because he left shortly after his talk to go to NYC), and by all reports it was a success-- they claim 120,000 attendees on their web site, and sold more tickets than expected for several events,…
June 3, 2008
Over at View from the Corner, Mary is planning to run the Chicago marathon, and raising money for charity in the process. Her charity is the Union League Boys and Girls Club, and it looks like they do some good stuff.
If you've got some disposable income burning a hole in your pocket, and want to…
June 2, 2008
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
"Six more weeks of winter."
(tags: kid-stuff silly comics)
Stanford Law Drops Letter Grades :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"Those who support the change at Stanford argue…
June 2, 2008
I thought about tacking this onto the end of the previous post, but decided it deserved a space of its own. So, how was the meeting on the whole?
All in all, I thought it was a very good meeting. There wasn't anything stunning and new in the talks that I saw-- there were some very impressive…
June 2, 2008
I'll get to the much-delayed Friday summary shortly. But first, the Nerds of the Purple Cow:
That picture (courtesy of Justin Brown) shows twelve of the thirteen Williams graduates attending this year's DAMOP, in order of class year, from Paul Hess '08 on the left (who technically only graduated…
June 1, 2008
The gallery of failed atomic models, 1903-1913 « Skulls in the Stars
" Most people in physics are taught Thomson's 'plum pudding' model of the atom, but a little investigating* turned up no less than eight distinct pictures of atomic structure."
(tags: physics science atoms history blogs)…
June 1, 2008
Six years ago today, to within a few hours:
It's been good so far, I think we'll stick with it a while longer...
If you'd like to see more evidence that Kate's way too good to me, here's a picture taken today:
That's from the pregnancy mug shot gallery. The T-shirt she's wearing, if you care, is…
May 31, 2008
The scientific program at DAMOP runs three and a half days-- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and only in the morning on Saturday. The weather for the first three days was spectacular-- glorious, sunny late spring days, with clear blue skies and pleasant breezes.
And, of course, I spent the vast…
May 30, 2008
This year's DAMOP meeting is in State College PA, which has good and bad points. It's not exactly a tourist Mecca, but then that means I won't feel bad spending all day in physics talks. It's also probably relatively cheap, unlike Calgary last year.
But the most important feature of the location is…
