A quick glimpse from the 1993 version of Facebook: See, college students took pictures of each other standing around drinking, even before we had the Internet to post those pictures on... I'm off to my 15th college reunion for the weekend, to see old friends, renew old acquaintances, play a little golf (if it stops raining), and bore the hell out of Kate with long and involved stories about people she's never met. Good times, good times. Play nice while I'm away.

Being a Baby of the Future, FutureBaby obviously needs to have a theme song. Sadly, Kate and I don't have the cash on hand to commission John Williams to write one. So, then, we shall Ask the Internets: What (already existing) piece of music should be FutureBaby's theme song? I realize this would be easier if FutureBaby were an ActualBaby, and thus had some personality to base it on, but I suppose the right theme song could help establish an appropriate personality... So have at it. (Look, it's the last day of classes. You don't seriously expect me to have the mental energy for deep and…

How will you know, unless you take this Internet quiz? (I get a 78 on the Husband scale ("Very Superior"), so yay, me. Of course, if I answer the Wife questions, I get a 16 ("Very Poor (Failure)")... Which, given the preposterous sexism of the standards, probably also counts as a "yay, me!")

Asking the Wrong Questions: Braaaaaaains "I've been on the lookout for other works which, like Proof, feature characters whose lives are lived primarily in the mind, and who view the world, and interact with it most fully, through their intellect." (tags: books literature science culture society) Everyday Scientist » Plaigiarise an American? The French would never do that! "Check out the papers yourself to see just how low people can go in science." Disgusting. (tags: science plagiarism ethics physics optics journals publishing academia) The Intersection: Science and the Entertainment…

A simple question: Bunnies or squirrels? Emmy eagerly awaits your answer. She leans toward bunnies, herself, because squirrels can climb trees or, as she puts it, "escape into an extra dimension" (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing). Bunnies are earthbound, and thus better for chasing. Of course, there's also the Cat Question, but we'll save that for another day...

In the last few weeks, I've been wrapping up E&M, which has included talking about Faraday's Law and induced currents. I did the traditional demonstration using a PASCO ring launcher to demonstrate Lenz's Law, showing that the induced current flows in a direction that creates a field opposing the change in magnetic flux. The ring launcher uses an alternating current in a solenoid to shoot a metal ring a meter or so up in the air, which always gets a good reaction. The extreme version of the same basic physics is the Meissner Effect, in which currents in a piece of superconductor…

Christian Demand: Inflated phrases - signandsight "Texts on art rarely explain what they profess to explain; they simply simulate the explainability of their theories." (tags: art culture humanities) Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 and 2003 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2006 "This First Look presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) spring 2007 data collection, which included four components: Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 & 2003 Cohorts;…

I'm giving the last lecture of new material in my intro E&M class today, on Maxwell's equations and electromagnetic waves. In the last couple of weeks, I've been struck again by the way our trimester system (three ten-week terms, instead of two 15-week semesters) is a lousy match for the standard curricula. Or even new curricula, like the Matter and Interactions course we've started using this year. In this case, it's not a matter of needing to rush to fit things in, though. It's a matter of peaking at the wrong time M&I is different than the standard textbooks in a lot of respects,…

This is a review way in advance of the publication of the book-- it's not due until August, or thereabouts-- but I got an advance copy of Tobias Buckell's forthcoming Sly Mongoose, and read it at DAMOP. You might think this is an odd venue-- wouldn't the exhausting nature of the conference tend to make it difficult to get any reading done? How could a novel really hold my attention? Well, here's an excerpt from the first chapter (which I heard Toby read at Boskone): A tiny buzz in Pepper's ear got his attention. He yawned, eardrums popping. His dreadlocks, bunched up inside the helmet,…

I've written my last lecture for the first-year E&M class, and will be giving it at 10:30 this morning. (Friday's class will be given over to exam review). The spring term, which had felt like it would stretch into July, is basically over. Oh, and some guy won an election.

Confessions of a Community College Dean: Citibank to CC's: Drop Dead A plea for a single-payer education system. (tags: academia economics US society class-war culture)

The World Science Festival happened while I was at DAMOP (I missed getting to talk to Bill Phillips, because he left shortly after his talk to go to NYC), and by all reports it was a success-- they claim 120,000 attendees on their web site, and sold more tickets than expected for several events, and favorably impressed journalists. Good news, all. Of course, at the same time on the opposite coast, the annual Book Expo America was going on, and as Jennifer Ouellete reports, science was shut out: Every conceivable genre was prominently represented -- sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, romance, foreign…

Over at View from the Corner, Mary is planning to run the Chicago marathon, and raising money for charity in the process. Her charity is the Union League Boys and Girls Club, and it looks like they do some good stuff. If you've got some disposable income burning a hole in your pocket, and want to support a worthy cause, consider donating via her page, and doing two good deeds with one contribution.

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe "Six more weeks of winter." (tags: kid-stuff silly comics) Stanford Law Drops Letter Grades :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs "Those who support the change at Stanford argue that shifting from the precision of letter grades to broader categories will reduce some pressure and refocus students' and professors' energies on classroom learning. " (tags: academia law education society)

I thought about tacking this onto the end of the previous post, but decided it deserved a space of its own. So, how was the meeting on the whole? All in all, I thought it was a very good meeting. There wasn't anything stunning and new in the talks that I saw-- there were some very impressive results, and some excellent talks, but most of it was stuff that's clearly in line with research that's been going for a while. There was a lot of really interesting physics presented at the meeting, though, and I'm sure I missed a lot of good stuff, too, because of the highly parallel nature of the…

I'll get to the much-delayed Friday summary shortly. But first, the Nerds of the Purple Cow: That picture (courtesy of Justin Brown) shows twelve of the thirteen Williams graduates attending this year's DAMOP, in order of class year, from Paul Hess '08 on the left (who technically only graduated yesterday) to Tom Gallagher of UVA on the far right. Dan Kleppner of MIT had left before Tiku Majumder got the picture set up, but if you include him, we spanned 55 years of graduating classes. Given that the school only graduates 10-ish physics majors a year, that's a pretty impressive showing, and…

The gallery of failed atomic models, 1903-1913 « Skulls in the Stars " Most people in physics are taught Thomson's 'plum pudding' model of the atom, but a little investigating* turned up no less than eight distinct pictures of atomic structure." (tags: physics science atoms history blogs) Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog. "An obscure quirk of DNC bylaws forces the nomination to be settled by spelling bee. Hillary Clinton gets the word "cat," while Barack Obama is eaten by giant pill bugs." (tags: US politics silly blogs) The Show - Bro Knows Football - NYTimes.com "In…

Six years ago today, to within a few hours: It's been good so far, I think we'll stick with it a while longer... If you'd like to see more evidence that Kate's way too good to me, here's a picture taken today: That's from the pregnancy mug shot gallery. The T-shirt she's wearing, if you care, is this one, reading "Yes, I'm pregnant. NO, you may not touch my belly." That's all for today, because between the baby shower and the driving, I'm beat. Talk among yourselves for the evening, I'm taking a night off.

The scientific program at DAMOP runs three and a half days-- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and only in the morning on Saturday. The weather for the first three days was spectacular-- glorious, sunny late spring days, with clear blue skies and pleasant breezes. And, of course, I spent the vast majority of that time indoors in dark rooms listening to talks. Today, Saturday, I get to spend something like eight or nine hours driving, first to Schenectady to get Kate, and then on to Boston for a FutureBaby shower. (It's like a regular baby shower, but with jet packs and broadband Internet...). It's…

This year's DAMOP meeting is in State College PA, which has good and bad points. It's not exactly a tourist Mecca, but then that means I won't feel bad spending all day in physics talks. It's also probably relatively cheap, unlike Calgary last year. But the most important feature of the location is that it's in western Pennsylvania, meaning I get to drive to it. This is good because I like driving, and because it keeps me out of airports and airplanes. It's bad because the meeting ends on Saturday morning, and there's a baby shower for FutureBaby on Sunday. In Boston. So, I'll be spending my…