drorzel | December 2, 2014
She kneels on the dirt and watches the elder study the rocks she brought. Five fist-sized chunks of red stone, laboriously hacked from an outcrop. Half a day walking there and back, and half a day pounding rocks against rocks to yield this offering.
The elder's hands are stained the same red as the stone, from years of grinding and mixing the paint that is her people's sign. Behind him in the cave, she can see others banging, grinding, and mixing. The summer festivals are coming soon, and a great deal of paint will be needed. He turns her rocks round and round, studying all sides.
Finally,…
drorzel | December 2, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Eighth in this round is Grant Goodyear, who started life as a theoretical chemist, and now does nuclear physics in the oil industry.
1) What is your non-academic job? These days I'm a nuclear physicist who works on the design and characterization of nuclear well-logging tools that are used…
drorzel | December 1, 2014
"...and unless the King comes here himself, I'm not to be disturbed."
"Yes, of course." The servant bowed out, leaving him alone with the bath. He stepped in, gingerly at first, the water almost too hot to stand. Slowly, he lowered himself down to a sitting position, feeling the heat soak into his tired legs. All day, on his feet, running back and forth, making tests and fending off royal messengers. The gods curse obsessive kings and greedy goldsmiths.
He sighed, as the hot water began to ease individual aches that had long since run together as one big knot of pain. More than the bath,…
drorzel | December 1, 2014Almost everybody, regardless of what side they favor in the culture wars, knows that Charles Darwin was the first scientist to come up with the theory of evolution. At least, they think they do. In fact, lots of people had the general idea long before Darwin, including his own grandfather. We remember Darwin not because he was first, but because he made the strongest case, thanks in large part to that most basic of hobbies, stamp collecting.
While Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist has been sighted in the wild, the official release date isn't until next week. So, if you're still waiting…
drorzel | December 1, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Seventh in this round is a physics major who went into teaching high school, then decided to try medical school, and now works with the youngest possible subjects. He also had the excellent taste to send along a picture of himself with his dog...
1) What is your non-academic job? I am the…
drorzel | November 30, 2014You may not know this, but I have a book coming out in about a week. I know, I've been pretty quiet about it...
Anyway, this being the modern era, I thought there probably ought to be some sort of central web presence for the book, but unfortunately, it shares a name with a vacuum cleaner manufacturer, a SyFy show that was pretty good before it was canceled, and a famous exclamation by some dude from Syracuse. So the namespace containing obvious forms of the book title is pretty comprehensively gobbled up.
And, of course, this is my third book, and I've been doing a bunch of other…
drorzel | November 27, 2014SteelyKid's first-grade class has been doing a bunch of Thanksgiving stuff. A lot of this is the lies-to-children version of the first Thanksgiving, and some of that is a little dubious (they had a dress-up "feast" on Tuesday, where SteelyKid was an Indian with a construction-paper vest and feathered headband, and oh, the parental eye-rolling...). This has also included some reflection on gratitude, though-- as mentioned on Twitter, the list of non-human things she's thankful for includes "dogs, world, sun, moon, toys, games, trees, books, food, water, air, stars, beach." (There were other…
drorzel | November 26, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Sixth in this round is an "adult-onset engineer" working at NASA on some cool stuff.
1) What is your non-academic job? I am a thermal engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, working in the Cryogenic Systems Engineering group. Our group provides thermal engineering support (both cryogenic…
drorzel | November 26, 2014The Pip's current phrase of choice is "How do you build...?" We get asked this several times a day.
"Daddy, how do you build a glass?"
"Well, you get the right kind of sand, and you get it really hot, so hot it melts. Then you make it into the shape of a glass, and let it cool down. Then it's a glass."
----
"Daddy, how do you build a building like that one?"
"Well, you get a bunch of bricks, and stack them up to make the building you want."
"How do you build a brick?"
"Well, you get a bunch of the right kind of mud, and mix it all together. Then you make it into a rectangle, and get it really…
drorzel | November 25, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Fifth in this round is a bio major who now works on sustainably managing Atlantic coastal fisheries.
1) What is your non-academic job? Fishery Management Plan Coordinator at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (management agency for fisheries)
2) What is your science background…
drorzel | November 24, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Fourth in this round is a Union alumn (another nice bonus of this is getting to promote some of my college's former students...) who prefers to remain anonymous, but is a computer engineer turned web developer for a public relations firm.
1) What is your non-academic job? I'm a web…
drorzel | November 24, 2014Spent the weekend in Florida getting together with some friends from college, which was a much-needed recharge for me at the end of a brutal term. It's probably fitting to ease back into routine with a return to my blogging roots, and talk a bit about a book. Specifically, the new William Gibson novel, The Peripheral.
I haven't actually read any reviews of this, because I don't really need to read reviews to know that I want to read a new Gibson-- he's that significant a writer. His work needs the proper context, though-- while I technically started this a week or two ago as bedtime reading,…
drorzel | November 21, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Third in this round is a physics teacher turned developer of physics education technology at Vernier.
1) What is your non-academic job? Title: Physics Education Technology Specialist
Dept: Tech Support and R&D
Responsibilities:
Support teachers using Vernier sensors, interfaces, and…
drorzel | November 20, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Second in this round is a computer scientist turned underwater warrior. With bonus video!
1) What is your non-academic job? I am a computer scientist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, RI. I work in the Ranges Department as a part of the Range Software branch. That means I…
drorzel | November 20, 2014That's "Science Online" as in the conference that folded, not "science, online" as in the practice of trying to understand the universe from in front of a networked computer. Specifically, I'm posting about David Zaslavsky's call for help in putting together a replacement meeting. There was a lot of talk about this right when Science Online went under, but that's pretty much died down, at least in public. David's trying to get something more active going.
This is, of course, a massive undertaking, and something fraught with peril. And it's not like I have any free time to make really…
drorzel | November 19, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
First up in this round is a CS major turned IP lawyer.
1) What is your non-academic job? I am an intellectual property attorney. I work for a "boutique" law firm, which means it specializes in one area of law (that being intellectual property, naturally). I work on all areas of IP,…
drorzel | November 19, 2014Back in August, I gave a talk in Stockholm at the Nordita workshop for science writers, about precision measurement searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. There's now video of this online:
The video quality isn't great, but if you'd like a clearer look at the slides, I've posted them on SlideShare. The talk was divided into two parts, though the video is not:
Part 1:
High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (Part I) from Chad Orzel
Part 2:
High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (…
drorzel | November 18, 2014I've been doing a lot of darkness-cursing lately (mostly off-line), so we could stand to have a little candle-lighting. It's been a few years since I last did a round of profiles of scientists outside academia, so let's see if that will fly again...
So, if you 1) Have a degree in a STEM field (BA/BS, MA/MS, Ph.D., whatever), 2) Have a career that doesn't involve people calling you "Professor," and 3) Are willing to share answers to a few simple questions about how you got there and how your science background helps, drop me a line. You can leave a comment here, email me (orzelc at steelypips…
drorzel | November 17, 2014The first time you hear about dark matter, it sounds kind of crazy-- asserting that we're surrounded by tons of invisible stuff is usually a good way to get locked up. But the process of its discovery is surprisingly ordinary: it's just what you do when you play cards.
Here's the second green-screen video I've done to promote Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, which comes out three weeks from tomorrow (but can be pre-ordered today!). This one is about card games, modern astrophysics, and why you probbaly shouldn't play bridge against Vera Rubin:
For those who dislike video, I'll put…
drorzel | November 16, 2014I've been quieter than usual here, partly because I've been crushingly busy, but primarily because most of the things I want to talk about, I can't. Not yet, anyway. But I'm still alive, and this murderous term will be over soon, at which point blogging will pick up a bit.
I will throw in a quick teaser for something coming up in the future, though, by way of a thank-you to the folks at Schaffer Library who let me take some photos of the rare books collection:
An 1845 edition of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," published anonymously but now known to be the work od Robert…