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"A few days ago, sitting in my office, I contributed to peer-reviewed scientific research in biology, astronomy, and psychology. Even though I don't hold degrees in any of these fields, my contributions will help advance science: I was doing real investigative work, not the prosaic replications of classic experiments that are typically taught in introductory lab courses. I was taking part in a blossoming "citizen science" movement occurring across a wide swath of scientific fields."
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"The monks of my temple get liberal arts degrees."
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The Many-Worlds Interpretation, in convenient comic form.
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"I'm 100% certain that if the industrial R&D jobs were there, we would fill them - the problem is that US companies overall have decided that investing in physics doesn't give them a quick stock price boost."
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"Onlooker: Whoa, awesome! So we're back to square one then. As long as D-Wave's demos only involved 4-by-4 Sudokus, the skeptic's arguments almost had me persuaded. But 5-by-5? I don't know what to think anymore. Skeptic, where are you? What's your reaction to this latest development?"
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"[T]he biggest problem with American higher education isn't that too many students can't afford to enroll. It's that too many of the students who do enroll aren't learning very much and aren't earning degrees. For the average student, college isn't nearly as good a deal as colleges would have us believe. "
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"The final chapter has been written for the lone bookstore on the streets of Laredo.
With a population of nearly a quarter-million people, this city could soon be the largest in the nation without a single bookseller.
The situation is so grim that schoolchildren have pleaded for a reprieve from next month's planned shutdown of the B. Dalton bookstore. After that, the nearest store will be 150 miles away in San Antonio."
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I have a general-thread kind of question. Would anyone be able to recommend any current science books which would be a good Christmas gift for someone? I was thinking about something that would serve as kind of an introduction to the things the LHC might be looking for, and so was thinking of Oerter's "The Theory Of Almost Everything" which is sort of an intro to the standard model, but that book is like two or three years old and I don't know if something more appropriate or explicitly LHC-centric might be out by now. (Also it's cheap now so I was wondering if I could find something to pair it with.) I should note the person I'm thinking of giving this gift to has like a master's in earth sciences so it's safe to give something math-heavy.
Well, I've got a couple of boxes full of author copies of a really good book on quantum mechanics...
If you're looking for something more particle-centric, Oerter's book is excellent. As nothing significant has changed since its publication, go with that.
Chad, thanks.
I don't think the dog conversations book would be appropriate in this particular case but I'll definitely try to remember it in future... :)