Physical Sciences
ksharpe | August 28, 2006It's not easy keeping track of all the ScienceBlogs. Take four dozen witty and prolific science writers, some of whom post more than once a day, spread them out across a wide range of disciplines and sub-specialties, and what you'll have yourself is a big, tangly embarrassment of riches.
What's a newcomer to do? In the interest of cleaving order from madness, I'm putting together a complete Blog Index. Over the following days, I'll be posting a short description of every blog, a handful at a time. But I'll start by giving you this complete listing of blogs by category. Though bloggers…
drorzel | August 18, 2006For some reason, I've been thoroughly exhausted all week, and being out late last night for a concert hasn't helped any. Thus, you're not going to get much in the way of substantive blogging from me today.
I did want to note a weird example of synchronicity in the physics-related blogosphere, though, as both Clifford Johnson and Jennifer Ouellette have recent posts in praise of B movies. Clifford sings the praises of Jurassic Park, particularly:
The fact that every time I am almost in tears when the scientists -not the annoying one played by Jeff Goldblum- see the dinosaurs for the first time…
goodmath | August 18, 2006Remember my post several weeks ago about ["The First Scientific Proof of God"?][georgie] The author, Georgie-boy Shollenberger popped up [in the comments yesterday][georgie-comments], and posted [a response][georgie-responds] on his blog.
This is how he describes this blog:
>This website is an example of how some math teachers are thinking and teaching
>your children. In general, this website is a Good Math, Bad Math web. On this
>web, debunking creationism is listed under the bad math category. So, your
>children are most likely taught by atheists. Is this what parents want?
If…
jrosenhouse | August 16, 2006While I was away, William Dembski offered up this revealing post. He describes how he met philosopher Barbara Forrest and asked her to autograph his copy of Creationism's Trojan Horse. She signed it, “To Bill, With Thanks.” Dembski writes:
Indeed, what is she thanking me for? If ID is such a vicious evil, a more appropriate inscription might have read:
To Bill,
You malignant subverter of science, you despiser of all that is wholesome and right. May you rot in hell, if there is such a place (which I doubt).
With all good wishes,
Barbara Forrest
But she didn't. She thanked me. Why was…
drorzel | August 15, 2006I'm in the process of putting together my tenure documents (I know I've been saying this for weeks. It's a long process, OK?). Most of these are really not appropriate for reproduction here, but I'll post a few of the things I'm writing, when it's reasonable to do so.
A major part of the tenure process is finding external reviewers for the research material. As most institutions don't really have enough people in a given sub-field to assess research in-house (especially at a small college), and as trusting such an assessment would be a little dodgy, the research review is traditionally…
evolgen | August 14, 2006I can't speak for each and every one of the other biologist types in the house here at ScienceBlogs, but one comment on Chad's post on highfalutin particle physicists struck a chord with me. It all starts with this quote getting back at people who think their research is the be all and end all of all science:
One thing that bugs the heck out of me, is when I hear particle physicists talk about their field as if it is all of physics. I have a great love of particle physics, so I'm not dissing the field at all, nor arguing that it isn't more fundamental, but it rubs me the wrong way to…
clock | August 14, 2006As I announced last week, this week will be All Clocks All The Time. Why?
First, I need to move some of the old posts from Circadiana over here, at a faster rate than I've been doing so far. Second, I'll be quite busy this week. Third, I need to hype myself up for the final effort at my Dissertation so blogging about any other topic would be counter-productive (not that it's not gonna happen...)
So, here is the deal. Over the next five days I will repost some old and write some new posts on three big topics in Chronobiology: circadian organization, entrainment and photoperiodism.…
apalazzo | August 10, 2006Others write about it.
So apparently some rant by a Physicist has been making the rounds (and it's not the first time). Lots of bloggers have commented on it.
Should students be discouraged from going into science? Do we have to many PhDs? Should we help science undergrads organize their careers? And yes, poor physicists can't even jump ship and get a job in industry (unless they start designing semiconductors) ...
But I refuse to participate! Enough whining! (Yes I know, by writing this entry I'm a hypocrite.)
So what do I have to say? Well anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows…
worldsfair | August 9, 2006(previous Stuff I've Been Reading)
Books Read:"The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup" by Various (finished)
"The Educated Imagination" by Northrop Frye (finished)
"A Man Without a Country" by Kurt Vonnegut (finished)
"Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris (finished)
"thinking with type" by Ellen Lupton (lovingly looked through)
"Now One Foot, Now the Other" by Tomie dePaola (finished, children's book)
Books Bought:"Making Things Public - Atmospheres of Democracy" by Bruno Latour, et al.
"Stolen Harvest" by Vandana Shiva (started)
"Vermeer in Bosnia" by Lawrence Weschler
So here I am…
purepedantry | August 9, 2006Earlier this week I argued that the gender differences in cognition, while real, are not substantial enough to explain gender disparities in science. We talked about the work of Janet Hyde; it shows that -- contrary to the popular conception of women and men as psychologically disparate -- men and women are actually quite psychologically similar in most respects.
Some of the commenters brought up the issue of the upper tail, and I want to talk about that specifically. It has been suggested that even if the size of the effect -- the differences in averages between a trait like mathematical…
chaoticutopia | August 8, 2006When I last left off, I was describing the relationships between values and matter, and how they fit together to form information or a three-dimensional thing. But something seemed missing. Do we really live in something as simple as a three dimensional world? As I mentioned earlier, the string theorists don't think so, and neither do I. For one, things change. My study of Colorado history has given plenty examples of that. Look at Church Ranch, then versus now, or Lillybridge's studio, and the freeway that sits there today. What makes the difference in forms of these places? Time, naturally…
chaoticutopia | August 3, 2006It's a dimension of chaos! Shall we battle, or ride the waves?
They say it's a catchy phrase, but I know what they're thinking. They hear words like, "dimension", "chaos", or "battle", and think laser guns and villains with curling mustaches and deep, evil laughs. They hear "ride the waves" and think of blond-haired muscular heroes being cooed at by girls in polka-dot bikinis. They smile, and thus cheered, move on with their lives. Maybe that's what they think. If so, I'm inclined to let them be. Others, who understand why I obsess over fractals and philosophical notions of existence and…
dmunger | August 3, 2006[originally published March 2, 2005]
Take a look at the following movie (quicktime required). The movie will alternately flash a picture of a desk and a patterned block. Your job is to see if anything about the picture of the desk changes each time it flashes. Don't replay the movie when you get to the end; just stop.
Did you notice any changes? Most people won't spot any changes at all when they watch this movie the first time. But watch the image as you press play again, and you'll see that the desk has changed significantly from the beginning to the end of the movie. I actually rotated…
catdynamics | August 2, 2006Somewhere out there, in some splendid ivory tower, a Professor of Theoretical Law is working on a new Grand Theory of the Unified Executive, which he hopes will overturn the increasingly obsolete Standard Model of three independent sources of Law, Justice and Executive Power (who ordered those anyway?).
This will simplify Law and Order tremendously, and make actual enacting and implementation of law much simpler, showing finally the underlying Unity of All Law.
To be this man is what all pre-law and law students aspire to. It is the career track that essentially all law schools aim their…
bcohen | August 1, 2006Science and metaphor aren't just for Lakoff and Johnson anymore (okay, they never were, but Metaphors We Live By (1980) was the first thing to pop in my head). From the Toronto Star comes a story, "It's Like This, You See", about the topic. I'll quote their header:
The ability to think metaphorically isn't reserved for poets. Scientists do it, too, using everyday analogies to expand their understanding of the physical world and share their knowledge with peers
The story hits on string theory and Darwin and Velcro and the Greeks. And includes this nice quote from Jan Zwicky, at UBC (I…
razib | July 25, 2006Jason says in a post which addresses the religion & science issue:
...Either the Bible is the holy and inerrant word of God, or it is an ancient document written by people with no more claim to authority than any other document that has survived from that time. It's hard to find a logically consistent middle ground.
I regularly made this argument until a few years ago. It generally remains my own personal view, though my estimation of the likelihood of the first possibility is so low that I don't know if it is judgement that is worth making when social considerations are removed. I…
drorzel | July 25, 2006Via Inside Higher Ed, the National Research Council (a part of the National Academy of Sciences) has released a new report calling for a renewed federal committment to AMO science. AMO here meaning "Atomic, Molecular, and Optical," namely the sort of physics I do.
The federal government should reinforce its commitment to research in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) science -- the study of atoms, molecules, and light, and related technologies such as lasers and fiber-optic communications -- says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The report, which…
clock | July 22, 2006This is by far the most popular of the four installments in this series because it contains the nifty puzzle exercise. Click on the spider-web-clock icon to see the comments on the original post.
Just like last week, I have scheduled this post to appear at the time when I am actually teaching this very lab again. If there are any notable difference, I'll let you know in the afternoon.
When teaching the lecture portion of the course, I naturally have to prepare the lectures in advance, and each lecture has to cover a particular topic. This makes biology somewhat fragmentary and I try to use…
drorzel | July 21, 2006This week's Ask a ScienceBlogger question breaks a three-week string of topics I have no real opinion on:
If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?
I have two answers to this question: the true answer, and the answer they're looking for (below the fold).
The true answer to this question is "Right now." There's never been a better time to be a scientist, and I'm not just talking about things like the availability of antibiotics to keep one from dying a miserable death from some sort of plague or another, which would be a real…
goodmath | July 20, 2006A reader sent me a link to [this amusing blog][blog]. It's by a guy named George Shollenberger, who claims to have devised The First scientific Proof of God (and yes, he always capitalizes it like that).
George suffers from some rather serious delusions of grandeur. Here's a quote from his "About Me" bio on his blog:
>I retired in 1994 and applyied my hard and soft research experience to today's
>world social problems. After retirement, my dual research career led to my
>discovery of the first scientific proof of God. This proof unifies the fields
>of science and theology. As a…