drorzel | June 24, 2009I'm thinking of paring my RSS feeds down again, as I'm feeling a little overextended at the moment, and could stand to spend less time reading stuff on the Internet. This brings up the obvious question of which blogs to keep, and which blogs to jettison, and that, in turn, lends itself to a reader poll type post.
The concept of "Desert Island Books/Albums" is well known in pop culture-- what are the books/ records/ whatever that you would want for entertainment purposes if you were stranded on a desert island. Of course, the idea of "Desert Island Blogs" makes much less sense-- "What sites on…
drorzel | June 24, 2009Via a comment by Christina Pikas, there's a post at the Scholarly Kitchen about a new study quantifying the use of the arxiv:
Employing a summer intern, Ingoldsby conducted an arXiv search of nearly 5,000 journal articles published by the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. Their methodology was painstakingly robust, looking for title variations and having all unsuccessful searches repeated by a trained physicist.
The percentage of articles found for each journal in their studied varied greatly. While fields such as elementary particle physics and astrophysics…
drorzel | June 24, 2009There's an interview with me, plus bonus comments from Emmy, over at Paw Talk:
Words of advice for fellow pet owners?
If you're looking to get a dog, I'd recommend visiting your local animal shelter, as you can find lots of great dogs there. And take walks with your dog-- every now and then, I see people who just leave their dogs penned up in the yard, and that's just sad. Get out, see the neighborhood, and get a bit of exercise. Yeah, it's a drag sometimes, especially when it rains, but it's better for both of you.
Emmy: Treats. Lots and lots of treats. Also, don't trust the squirrels. They'…
drorzel | June 23, 2009
Video analysis of hammer explosion lifting a guy | Dot Physics
Can an exploding hammer lift a guy? Inquiring minds want to know...
(tags: science physics video blogs education dot-physics silly)
The Last 100 Years: 1950s & The Tragedy of Fred Hoyle : Starts With A Bang
"This is the only instance in all of scientific history that the anthropic principle has been used to successfully predict anything. And for this, Willie Fowler won the Nobel Prize, and although he credits Fred Hoyle tremendously, Hoyle was left out. Somehow, understanding where practically all the matter on our world…
drorzel | June 23, 2009Chris Mooney has found new digs, and, revitalized by the more congenial atmosphere, has been taking up the science vs. religion fight again. Yesterday, he had a post asking what can be done to get moderate scientists more involved in the argument over whether science and religion can coexist:
At the same time, though, let's face it-in the science blogosphere, we don't hear a lot from the "silent majority." Rather, and admittedly with some important exceptions, we hear from the New Atheists.
Yet I am arguing on behalf of the silent majority, and that is what keeps me going. So my question is…
drorzel | June 23, 2009Kate's Tolkien re-read has reached Rohan, and her latest re-read post includes a reference to a comment I made about Legolas's improbable visual acuity:
Re: Legolas seeing the Riders: I have since been advised by the resident physicist that the size of a pupil is a limiting factor on the resolution possible--if I understood properly, basically it boils down to how much light can come in--and under the laws of physics as we know them, it is not actually physically possible for Legolas to have resolved that level of detail at 5 leagues, regardless of how good his brain is at decoding images or…
drorzel | June 23, 2009A wag of my finger at the Corporate Masters, for their new article about traffic jams, with the subhead "For particle physicists who study phase transitions, a traffic jam is simply a solid made up of idling cars." In the body of the article, we find:
While the concept of critical density has been repeatedly demonstrated using computer simulations--drivers are surprisingly easy to model as a system of interacting particles--it wasn't until last year that this theory of traffic was experimentally confirmed. A team of physicists at Nagoya University wanted to see how many cars could maintain a…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
Cynical-C Blog - » Sign for the Night
"Keep being AWESOME!"
(tags: silly food internet)
Unscientific America
"Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, a journalist-scientist team, offer an updated "two cultures" polemic for America in the 21st century. Just as in Snow's time, some of our gravest challengesâclimate change, the energy crisis, national economic competitivenessâand gravest threats--global pandemics, nuclear proliferationâhave fundamentally scientific underpinnings. Yet we still live in a culture that rarely takes science seriously or has it on the radar. "
(tags: books science…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
There once was a dog from Niskayuna...
The previous post announced a photo caption contest for a chance to win an advance proof copy of my book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, six(-ish) months before it's available for purchase. I thought I should include something for the less visually inclined, though, and I do have two extra galley proofs, so...
Announcing the Official How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Poetry contest. The idea is simple: write a short poem involving both dogs and physics in one of the usual short verse forms (haiku, limerick, double dactyl, whatever, as long as it has…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
Today is six months to the day from the official release date of my book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It feels like I ought to do something promotion-like to mark this date, and I have a couple of extra bound galley proofs (seen above with Emmy), sooo.....
I hereby announce the first of two contests giving you, the blog reader, a chance to win an uncorrected galley proof copy of the book six months (ish) before you can buy it. The idea is simple: below the fold are two pictures that just cry out for amusing captions of some sort. The person who comes up with the best caption will get…
drorzel | June 22, 2009In a comment to Friday's classical music post, Chris Evo recommended a TED talk by Benjamin Zander that has the goal of convincing his audience that they love classical music:
If you're not able or inclined to watch it, he goes through a Chopin piano piece in detail, and explains how it plays off our expectation of a particular chord sequence. He's a charismatic guy, and it's a great presentation.
It does not, however, convince me that I love classical music.
This isn't a problem that's limited to music, of course. As a general matter, a lot of people confuse lack of enjoyment with lack of…
drorzel | June 21, 2009
Scientists and Kool-Aid § Unqualified Offerings
"In my department weâll often produce documents that have lots of buzzwords, but nobody really takes it seriously. You can always get appreciative chuckles in a department meeting if you poke fun at your own handiwork. Higher on the food chain, they actually believe it."
(tags: academia science culture society blogs unqualified-offerings)
Sunday Function : Built on Facts
"You'd think mathematics could avoid the ambiguity of multiple meanings for the same symbol, but I regret to say it's not so. There's much less ambiguity to be sure, but…
drorzel | June 21, 2009Via Steve Hsu, a lengthy rant by Bruce Charlton about the dullness of modern scientists:
Question: why are so many leading modern scientists so dull and lacking in scientific ambition? Answer: because the science selection process ruthlessly weeds-out interesting and imaginative people. At each level in education, training and career progression there is a tendency to exclude smart and creative people by preferring Conscientious and Agreeable people. The progressive lengthening of scientific training and the reduced independence of career scientists have tended to deter vocational '…
drorzel | June 20, 2009
Cocktail Party Physics: body heat
"I am in Portland for the day, having dragged myself out of bed at an ungodly hour (4 AM) to catch my flight. (On the plus side, there is almost no traffic on LA freeways at that hour.) The reason: to visit the city's Green Microgym founded by personal trainer Adam Boesel last year. Perhaps you read some of the press coverage the opening generated: Boesel has retrofitted much of his exercise equipment (stationary bikes, treadmills, elliptical machines) so that gym members can produce a little bit of usable energy during their workouts -- not a lot, mind you…
drorzel | June 20, 2009It's been a while since I did a straight-up booklog post here, but most of what I've been reading lately hasn't really demanded one. I picked this up the other day after seeing a pile of them in the front of a Barnes & Noble, though, and it does deserve comment.
Dog On It is a twist on a hard-boiled private eye story: It's narrated by Chet, a former police dog cadet now owned by Bernie Little, a down-on-his-luck private detective in the Southwest somewhere (it's not entirely clear where-- Chet's a little fuzzy on geography). Really, how could I pass up a book by a talking dog.
Obviously,…
drorzel | June 19, 2009
symmetry breaking » Blog Archive » The science of talking so people want to listen
"Connecting science to everyday experiences in jargon free terms is key to science outreach, something Turner excels at doing. He shared his insights and tips from more than a decade worth of talks with scientists at Fermilabâs annual Usersâ Meeting this month. The meeting featured a special Outreach Workshop with talks to help scientists adjust to a changing climate that requires every scientist be able to explain the value of research in language a banker with no science background would understand."
(…
drorzel | June 19, 2009There's an interesting discussion going on in a place I can't link to, spinning off a comment to the NEA post from the other day:
The point is that the amount of people who see value in or are trained to appreciate more esoteric, more difficult, less accessible music **may** have dropped.
The basic idea is that the decline in the audience for "high art" forms of music may be attributed to cutbacks in musical education in schools. People just aren't educated enough to know that they ought to like classical music, or some such.
This led to a discussion of people's experience with music…
drorzel | June 19, 2009The smart-people blogosphere is all abuzz about questions from the French college entrance exams, with comments from Matt Yglesias, Dana Goldstein, and Kevin Drum, among others. The general tone of the commentary is summed up by Goldstein's question:
Could you ever imagine the SAT or ACT asking students to write an essay on such complex, intellectual topics?
The answer is "Sure. The answers would suck, but you could ask them."
And that's the important thing, here. What matters is not whether you ask ostentatiously intellectual questions of your students, but whether the answers they give are…
drorzel | June 19, 2009Tom Levenson's series about the writing of his Newton and the Counterfeiter continues with a piece on the getting of blurbs for the cover:
Newton and the Counterfeiter (Amazon, Powells, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound) is by far my best-blurbed book, boasting enthusiastic and generous praise from a very diverse crew of luminaries — (David Bodanis, Junot DÃaz, Timothy Ferris, Brian Greene, Walter Isaacson, Sylvia Nasar, and Neal Stephenson).
This follows, as I wrote last time, a much sparser field of those who promoted my three previous books. How — and why — did I go for this level of long-…
drorzel | June 18, 2009
DNA Evidence Frees Man From Zoo | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"Shortly after the findings were revealed, Phoenix Zoo staff tranquilized, crated, and transported Panovich by helicopter to his Mesa, AZ home, where he was released into his front yard and reintroduced to his mate and two young."
(tags: onion silly animals)
The Chocolate Chip Cookie Bowl Sundae - Ruhlman.com
"Last Sunday morning, my son James said, "Dad, what if you made a bowl out of cookie dough?"
I'm the first to admit that there are almost no truly new culinary innovations or ideas, only variations on what's…