drorzel | August 22, 2008Every time I mention the idea of teaching physics to a wider audience than just physics majors, somebody brings up Richard Muller's course, "Physics for Future Presidents," at Berkeley. So, I was pleased to find out that he has turned the course into a book, also titled Physics for Future Presidents, with the subtitle "The Science Behind the Headlines." I was going to try to cadge a free copy from his publisher, but our default local Borders is closing, and they were offering deep discounts on all their stock, so I just bought a copy.
The book is framed as a sort of memo to somebody who will…
drorzel | August 22, 2008Over in LiveJournal Land, James Nicoll has a good idea that I'm going to steal. Over at SF Signal, they asked a bunch of writers what they would change about SF. Ken Macleod (author and occasional blogger) wrote, in part:
It's just rare to see stories written about a future that the writer believes in and the reader can get excited about - let alone one they'd like to live in. What we need is a new intellectual engagement with the real possibilities, coupled with a new confidence in humanity's capacity to deal with them.
James challenges his readership of SF fans to design such a future, but…
drorzel | August 22, 2008For reasons that really aren't important, I found myself doing some Google Image searches for pictures of political leaders, and I was struck by how many of the top results were caricatures. It occurred to me that you could probably say something about the collective emotional age of the Internet by looking at the distribution of real and mocking pictures in these search results.
Some data (well, plural anecdotes, at least) for your consideration:
A search for George W. Bush yields 18 images, 5 of which are modified in some allegedly satirical way, and two of which appear to be real but…
drorzel | August 22, 2008Over at Tor.com, David Levine describes a really cool event he went to just before Worldcon: a crash course in modern astronomy for SF writers:
The idea behind Launch Pad is Gernsbackian: getting good science into popular fiction as a form of public education and outreach for NASA. SF writer and University of Wyoming astronomy professor Mike Brotherton managed to get a NASA grant to fund this workshop for five years, of which this was the second. All the attendees' expenses were paid, including transportation to and from Laramie, housing in college dorms, and most meals--though we had to pay…
drorzel | August 21, 2008
Cocktail Party Physics: calculus is craptastic
"Few science bloggers have the good fortune to write off a Vegas trip as "research", but that's exactly what it was: my next book for Penguin is all about my experiences as a former English major learning calculus, inspired by a series of blog posts I wrote in 2006. "
(tags: math science books writing games physics)
On 'Real Education' - II :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"[Charle Murray's] pessimistic view of peopleâÂÂs ability to learn ignores not just good evidence to the contrary but the real…
drorzel | August 21, 2008The experiment described in the previous post was published in early 1998, but the work was done in 1997. This was the year when things really turned around for me in grad school-- the optical control paper was done in the summer 0f '94, and '95 and '96 were just a carnival of pain. Everything in the lab broke, was repaired, and then broke again.
The lead guy on the lattice collision experiment was a post-doc named John Lawall, who really took charge. He completely re-vamped the lock system for the laser, and spent a huge amount of time re-doing the laser alignment for the trap and the…
drorzel | August 21, 2008I announced my intention to do some research blogging a little while ago, and managed one pair of posts before the arrival of SteelyKid kind of distracted me. I'm still planning to complete the Metastable Xenon Project blog, though (despite the utter lack of response to the first two), and the second real paper I was an author on is "Suppression and Enhancement of Collisions in Optical Lattices," a PRL from 1998, with a preprint version available here.
So, this is another paper about collisions, obviously, but what's an optical lattice? An optical lattice is an arrangement of laser beams--…
drorzel | August 21, 2008We had a pediatrician appointment yesterday, at which it was declared that SteelyKid is in excellent health. She gained 8 ounces in the last week, or 1/16th of her weight (she was 8lbs even last week, and 8lbs 8oz this week). To put that in perspective, for me to make an equivalent change, I would need to gain more than 15 lbs in one week.
Here's this week's picture with Appa for scale (for the record, Appa is 23 inches from nose to tail):
We had put her in the "Smart Cookie" onesie that I picked up as a counter to all the frilly pink things we've been sent, but she spit up on it before I…
drorzel | August 21, 2008The recent news about the Amethyst Initiative, in which a number of college and university presidents are calling for a lowering of the drinking age from 21, has sparked a bunch of discussion. Jake Young and Mark Kleiman have good contributions.
There are two main arguments against lowering the drinking age:
1) Raising the drinking age to 21 led to a decrease in drunk-driving fatalities
2) Lowering the age to 18 would mean a rampant increase in high school drunkenness, as there are a fair number of 18-year-old high school students.
Just in the interests of being provocative, let me throw…
drorzel | August 20, 2008
Survival Blog for Scientists û Blog Archive û Giving your new results away too soon
"[W]here do you announce your results first: in the title? In the abstract? In the introduction? Or, in the results paragraph?" All three of those, plus the Conclusion.
(tags: academia writing science journals)
Tolerant Faculty, Intolerant Students :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"Thirty-one percent of students said it was somewhat or very important to them that instructors not challenge their personal beliefs."
(tags: academia education politics society US)…
drorzel | August 20, 2008Chris Mooney has a new Science Progress column on the number of scientists that challenges the claim that there are not enough students earning science degrees.
The facts clearly say otherwise, no matter how you slice them. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2006--the last year for which data is currently available--the nation produced a record number of science and engineering Ph.D.s: 29,854 in total. This was the fourth year in a row that the total doctorate number has increased, and a 6.7 percent increase from the year 2005 (the previous record).
And what about less advanced…
drorzel | August 20, 2008In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, Union, like most other colleges and universities, installed a new emergency alert system, which they test much more frequently than it can possibly require. This always produces a flurry of emails alerting us to the upcoming test, and then the test message itself (which is also read over loudspeakers across campus). The test message (which just showed up in my inbox) begins:
This is a test of Union's Emergency Alert Notification System. In the event of a real emergency this email would provide relevant alert info[rmation]
I always want this to be…
drorzel | August 20, 2008The Mad Biologist points to and agrees with a post by Jonathan Eisen with the dramatic title "Why I Am Ashamed to Have a Paper in Science. Eisen's gripe is mostly about Science not being Open Access, but he throws in a complaint about length restrictions, which is what the Mad Biologist latches on to and amplifies. Eisen writes:
Science with its page length obsession forced Irene to turn her enormous body of work on this genome into a single page paper with most of the detail cut out. I do not think a one page paper does justice to the interesting biology or to her work. A four page paper…
drorzel | August 20, 2008Via Swans On Tea, a ranty blog post titled Sucky Schools - How To Repair Our Education System, which takes its structure and much of its tone from Paul Lockhart's "Mathematician's Lament" (which, unfortunately, is a PDF file). I'm fond of ranty posts about education reform, but both of these kind of lose me. Lockhart, in particular, strikes me as being an excellent example of the dangers of being too attached to a subject.
He writes with great passion and at great length about the fun and creativity involved in math, which is all very nice. Unfortunately, it also leads to paragraphs like this…
drorzel | August 19, 2008
slacktivist: Saddleback
"The Democratic senator wasn't there to try to win evangelical votes by touting his support for abortion rights. Nor was he there hoping to persuade them to change their minds on that question. What he did instead was this: He disagreed with them."
(tags: politics US society religion)
Physics Today Campaign 2008 - Where do they stand on science?
"This Physics Today site will track the candidates' positions and statements related to a broad range of science issues. Analysis from Physics Today magazine, reports from the political writers at the American Institute of…
drorzel | August 19, 2008First of all, if you're Tony DeCapio, you need to send Kate an email address so she can contact you regarding the free book offer. Leave it in a comment at her LiveJournal-- she's screening the comments, so there's no chance that spammers will get it.
If the previous sentence doesn't make sense to you, then you must have missed the previous announcements that Kate and I are giving away books, as long as you ask for them by Saturday. Details are in Kate's LiveJournal post.
drorzel | August 19, 2008The New York Times today has an article about obesity, showcasing new studies that find weight isn't that important as an indicator of health:
Despite concerns about an obesity epidemic, there is growing evidence that our obsession about weight as a primary measure of health may be misguided.
Last week a report in The Archives of Internal Medicine compared weight and cardiovascular risk factors among a representative sample of more than 5,400 adults. The data suggest that half of overweight people and one-third of obese people are "metabolically healthy." That means that despite their excess…
drorzel | August 19, 2008Via a comment to an earlier post, here's an example of a journalist doing science right: NPR's Sarah Varney looks at "cleansing" foot pads, and finds them wanting.
She took a set of the pads, tried them out, and then brought used and new pads to a laboratory at Berkeley, where chemists studied the composition to see if the greyish black goo on the pad contained heavy metal toxins, as the ads claim. They didn't.
Then she tested an alternative hypothesis, that moisture and warmth cause the color change, by holding a clean pad over a pot of hot water. The pad turned black.
What she did wouldn't…
drorzel | August 19, 2008I'm at the computer, typing, when SteelyKid starts fussing in the porta-crib in the living room. "Oh, why are you crying?" I say, as I cross the room. This is the fifth outbreak of fussiness today. "What am I going to do with you?"
"We could eat it!" the dog says, from her pillow next to the crib.
"You're not helping."
"I'm just sayin', dude. If the noise is getting to you, it's not that big. We could totally eat it."
"We are not going to eat SteelyKid. She's a baby, not a snack." I get to the crib, and start trying to calm her. "And she's just as cute as you are."
The dog looks indignant. "…
drorzel | August 18, 2008
College cocktails lead to science career
""I could mix drinks without measuring," Sacchettini recalls. "Turns out that was perfect training for biochemistry.""
(tags: academia biology chemistry medicine science jobs drugs)
Musical Perceptions: Can't even win a dull contest
We're #2... on the list of dullest college towns in America...
(tags: academia silly)
Built on Facts : What Work Is.
Force times distance.
(tags: physics education science sports)
Piling on the homework -- Does it work for everyone?
"While past studies suggest that nearly all students benefit from being assigned…