May 5, 2008
As I'm driving down the street, a squirrel darts out into the road a block or so ahead of me. From the back seat, the dog says "Gun it!!!! Hit the squirrel, hit the squirrel, hitthesquirrel!"
"Will you sit down and be quiet?" We're having some work done on the house, and I'm taking her to work with…
May 5, 2008
Jake Young points to a Bloggingheads conversation between Dan Drezner and Megan McArdle about, among other things, whether academics are bitter and why. This mostly comes out of a post Megan wrote (link is a leap of faith-- the site is down as I type this), and serves as a lead-in to a discussion…
May 5, 2008
I collect and grade lab reports electronically, and both classes I'm teaching this term had labs due yesterday. I've also agreed to be on a faculty committee to evaluate proposals for a fellowship program, and they had a preliminary application deadline yesterday or today. As a result, I'm spending…
May 4, 2008
Open Left:: The Fear Before the Launch
"[T]here's just something weird about putting two years of your life into something - from traveling, to reporting, to editing, to re-editing, to proofing, etc. - and then having it all be in one neat place, all laid out and ready to be consumed by the pu
(…
May 4, 2008
I'm typing this on the tablet in my in-laws' kitchen, while Kate sleeps in-- we're in Boston for a wedding, heading back home this afternoon. I need some sort of post to keep things going on our travel day, and I see Scott doing the guess-the-lyrics thing, so that's as good a topic as any.
The…
May 4, 2008
As a sign of what an enormous geek I am, here's what I did to pass the time while Kate was getting ready for the wedding we went to yesterday:
Yes, I amuse myself by making graphs. If I knew Python, I'd be an xkcd character.
Anyway, that's the monthly traffic for this blog from January 2006 (when…
May 3, 2008
Closing the achievement gap in math and science
"The latest results from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program show not only improved proficiency among all elementary and middle school students, but also a closing of the achievement gaps between both…
May 2, 2008
The Bohr paradox - physicsworld.com
"Pais also reports a distinguished younger colleague asking with puzzlement and scepticism "What did Bohr really do?"."
(tags: history science physics quantum)
Mind the hack - physicsworld.com
"But are the public and other scientists entitled to know about…
May 2, 2008
I'm going to be busy all day (more or less) at the Steinmetz Symposium, listening to talks about the fantastic things our students have been doing with their research projects. So it's going to be a "talk among yourselves" day here at Uncertain Principles, for the most part.
For this one, I'll crib…
May 2, 2008
I'm going to be busy all day (more or less) at the Steinmetz Symposium, listening to talks about the fantastic things our students have been doing with their research projects. So it's going to be a "talk among yourselves" day here at Uncertain Principles, for the most part.
It's been a little…
May 2, 2008
Here is a statement:
The Red Sox are the greatest single franchise in any sport in history.
Is this a scientific statement? Should it be?
How can you tell whether it's scientific or not?
(The statement in question was uttered by a classmate of mine at Williams in 1991 or so, and we spent an entire…
May 1, 2008
The Voltage Gate : Why Jurassic Park Is Not a Pro-Science Movie
Because Michael Crichton is a writer of Luddite Fiction
(tags: books literature movies society culture)
A consistent, worldwide association between short sleep duration and obesity
'"[The study] raises the unanswered question yet…
May 1, 2008
Speaking (as we were) of pro-science film festivals, Sigma Xi (the scientific research honor society-- think Phi Beta Kappa for science nerds) is announcing a student film competition:
In conjunction with a year-long focus on the issue of water, Sigma Xi is sponsoring a competition for three-…
May 1, 2008
Having suggested an on-line pro-science film festival a little while ago, I should report that there are discussions underway (or at least in the works) about trying to make something happen. If it goes anywhere, it may look different than the original suggestion, but I'm kind of curious about one…
May 1, 2008
One of the interesting things to come out of the switch to Matter & Interactions for our intro classes has been some discussion among my colleagues of how the books treat specific topics. A couple of people have raised concerns that the coverage of certain topics is different from the…
May 1, 2008
Thank-you cards and notes have been trickling in from the DonorsChoose fundraiser last fall, most of which I haven't bothered to post. The latest batch had two pictures that were too good not to pass along, though:
And:
I guess they liked the science stuff.
(I've smudged out the names, just…
April 30, 2008
Dawn of the memristor - physicsworld.com
"In simple terms, a memristor "remembers" the amount of charge that has flowed through it and as a result changes its resistance. "
(tags: physics materials science news)
Where are all the women? - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society
Venus…
April 30, 2008
The Mad Biologist, like 80% of ScienceBlogs, is mad at Chris Mooney:
Here's the problem: you keep coming to evolutionary biologists with a problem (the perception of evolutionary biology), and you don't have a solution. Do you think there's a single evolutionary biologist who is happy with public…
April 30, 2008
Via Swans On Tea, an article in the Telegraph about the Greatest Experiments in Science.
Been there, done that, picked a winner. Over two years ago. Way to go, Torygraph.
OK, fine, they did all of science, while I was only looking for the greatest experiment in physics. But, really, can any of…
April 30, 2008
Randy Olson's movie A Flock of Dodos comes up again and again in the course of arguments about public communication of science, but I had never gotten around to seeing it. I finally put it on the Netflix queue, and ended up watching it last night.
For those who have been living in caves and haven't…
April 29, 2008
Japan, a Brief Pop-Cultural Survey | The A.V. Club
"Japan: land of the rising sun. [...] Home to high-quality electronics, bizarre game shows, and vending machines that dispense beer and used girls' panties (not together...yet)."
(tags: Japan culture society silly)
Confessions of a Community…
April 29, 2008
Via the Zeitgeist, the Templeton Foundation has asked a bunch of famous smart people "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" I wouldn't ordinarily note this, but if you scroll down a little, you'll find my thesis advisor, Bill Phillips, who offers an "Absolutely Not!":
[A] scientist can believe…
April 29, 2008
We had a talk yesterday at lunchtime from an alumnus who graduated with a physics degree, got a Ph.D. in Physics, did a couple of post-docs, and then decided to give academia a miss, and went to Wall Street where he's been a financial analyst for the last 12 years. He talked, mostly for the benefit…
April 29, 2008
Inside Higher Ed reports on a new study of the connection between college athletics and alumni giving, with some interesting findings:
First, they find that male alumni who played on teams while they were undergraduates are more likely to donate more (to the athletics department and to the…
April 29, 2008
Via Swans on Tea, a new article on the arxiv reports the possible discovery of a new stable element:
What they did was fire one thorium nucleus after another through a mass spectrometer to see how heavy each was. Thorium has an atomic number of 90 and occurs mainly in two isotopes with atomic…
April 28, 2008
The Art of the Possible » Blog Archive » Wussy Like a Fox?
"Summing up: Obama risks looking marginally "weak" by "not hitting back" against Clinton's attacks. But hitting back risks making him look like a) an asshole; b) a sexist; c) a scary negro man! "
(tags: politics US race gender)
Solar…
April 28, 2008
Barack Obama, hoopster:
The real question is, why is he afraid to play me one-on-one?
(Video via Matt Yglesias.)
April 28, 2008
Inspired by the suggestion of a pro-science film festival, the Seed editors have launched a poll asking about science movies. They've narrowed it to four, all with both pros and cons:
Contact Pro: Arecibo is way cool. Con: woo-woo ending is even less compelling than in the book.
Gattaca Pro:…
April 28, 2008
Today's episode of "Thrilling Tales of Physics Pedagogy" is brought to you through a comment by CCPhysicst who picks up on the implications of last week's schedule post:
You are ripping right along in that course. You do E and then B and only later get around to circuits?
Yes and no. We are…
April 28, 2008
Lawrence Watt-Evans is reposting some old Usenet essays on the subject of class, which regular readers will recognize as a hot-button issues for me. So far, he's up to part four of six. The list:
Defining Terms
Who I Am
Attitudes & Money
On the Job
It's excellent stuff. A sample, from Part 4…
