links for 2009-07-15

Finally, the problem with quantum gravity is revealed.

"It must strike progressive atheists as a stroke of bad luck that Christopher Hitchens, leading atheist spokesperson, happens to have hawkish views on foreign policy. After all, with atheists an overwhelmingly left-wing group, what were the chances that the loudest infidel in the western world would happen to be on the right?

Actually, the chances were pretty good. When it comes to foreign policy, a right-wing bias afflicts not just Hitchens's world view, but the whole ideology of "new atheism," especially as seen in the work of Hitchens allies Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins."

"I was thinking recently about the combination of two very different SF universes: Whedon's Firefly / Serenity and Karl Schroeder's Virga series. No, I am not completely insane. If you are familiar with both, please let me explain... "

"Nationally, the six-year graduation rate for black students enrolled at four-year institutions is 40.5 percent, compared to 56.1 percent overall (and 59.4 percent for white students). Furthermore, the rates for black men trail those of black women. At four-year public universities, the graduation rate for black men is 31.4 percent, compared to 43.1 percent for black women; at private non-profit colleges, the national rates are 38.6 percent for black men, and 49.3 percent for black women.

In response to these glaring discrepancies, an increasing number of colleges have started Black Male Initiatives or other targeted programs. They run the gamut from student-run programs or clubs to initiatives managed by university systems"

"Have you ever wondered how the microscopic Universe works? QuantumCamp is a one week journey through this strange but beautiful world - seeing nothing less than how every atom in our universe is working!
We begin with Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements. We move from Albert Einstein's idea of quantization and end up seeing the hydrogen spectrum while contemplating the ideas of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.
We witness the explosive beauty and inner order of the elements which begs for deeper investigation. We dive in and immerse ourselves in a world where quantum logic guides us to an understanding of the quantum nature of the universe."

"Rejecta Mathematica is an open access, online journal that publishes only papers that have been rejected from peer-reviewed journals (or conferences with comparable review standards) in the mathematical sciences."