drorzel | December 8, 2006One of the weird features of the trimester calendar that Union runs on is that we get a six-week break between the Fall and Winter terms-- classes end before Thanksgiving, and resume after New Year's. This is neither as restful nor as useful as you might naively expect, but that's not the point of this post.
Some of our students do manage to make good use of the long break, most notably a group who are in New Orleans helping with the continuing volunteer clean-up effort in the areas devastated by Hurricaine Katrina. The Albany paper has set up a special section covering their trip, including…
drorzel | December 7, 2006I've solicited nominations for a bunch of "Year's Best" categories, with varying degrees of success. Best Pop Song was great (and has added a few songs to the list of things to check out the next time I hit iTunes), but I was hoping for more from the best physics results. Was it really that slow a year?
Anyway, here's a request for some outside-the-box thinking:
In your opinion, what was the best thing of 2006 that doesn't fall into one of the previous categories?
This could be a cultural work ("Best DVD Release of 2006: Pinky and the Brain"), a physical thing ("Best dessert of 2006:…
drorzel | December 7, 2006There have been a couple of science funding items in Inside Higher Ed in the last few days, one suggestiong prizes to spur research, and the other reporting that most people aren't convinced there's a crisis:
Generally, the public appreciates some of the message of the reports going out -- that the United States is likely to face heightened competition from other countries. And the public generally thinks those who do go into science and math deserve support and more scholarships. But as to whether more students should be encouraged to do so, and whether non-science students should graduate…
drorzel | December 7, 2006I have a couple of EurekAlert feeds in my RSS reader, because they sometimes turn up interesting things-- I got the Bill Wootters item there, for example, and they had a piece on strontium clocks that I keep meaning to say something about.
Of course, there's also some total garbage, such as the kookery from the "Quantum Aether Dynamics Institute" that crossed the feed yesterday (though it appears to have been taken down, to their credit). This makes it difficult to really trust anything I see there that claims to be a really new development.
Such as, say, this press release from Buffalo…
drorzel | December 7, 2006One of my former professors is collecting some awards:
Professor William Wootters is to be honored for his outstanding achievements in physics, not once, but twice in the academic year, by The American Physical Society and by the International Organization for Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing.
In recognition of his pioneering work in quantum theory, the International Organization for Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing in collaboration with Tamagawa University, bestowed its 2006 International Quantum Communications Award on Wootters at a ceremony in Tsukuba,…
drorzel | December 7, 2006The Onion AV Club has a review of The God Delusion this week. "Big deal, " you say, "Who cares what a humor magazine thinks?"
I've found in recent years, though, that the AV Club is one of the most consistent sources of reviews of movies, music, and books out there. They're sharp, they get right to the point (reviews are seldom more than a few paragraphs), and they're a reliable predictor of my reaction to a book, record, or movie.
It's a three-paragraph review, so it would seem cheap to quote it at length, but here are the opening sentences:
Without a doubt, contributing to the public…
drorzel | December 6, 2006Continuing the year-end wrap-up theme, I'll invite suggestions for the best books of the year. Since I'm so far behind on the booklog, it's much harder for me to remember what came out in 2006, and come up with a ranking, but I have some ideas. I'd like to hear what other people think, though, so:
In your opinion, what was the best non-fiction book of 2006?
"Non-Fiction" in this case would include, well, anything that's not made up. Books of essays, collections of reviews, polemics about science, anti-religion screeds, so-fifteen-minutes-ago political tracts, whatever you like.
drorzel | December 6, 2006Continuing the year-end wrap-up theme, I'll invite suggestions for the best books of the year. Since I'm so far behind on the booklog, it's much harder for me to remember what came out in 2006, and come up with a ranking, but I have some ideas. I'd like to hear what other people think, though, so:
In your opinion, what was the best book of fiction of 2006?
"Fiction" in this case would include both novels and story collections, and also plays and poetry, I suppose, if you'd put one of those at the top of your list. There will be a separate non-fiction post, so if you're really hot to declare…
drorzel | December 6, 2006Syracuse, ranked #21 according to ESPN, lost by three to #24 Oklahoma State on Tuesday night. This comes on the heels of a loss to #17 Wichita State (who climbed to #10 in this week's rankings).
That's what happens when you play ranked teams in December. I'm not sure how they managed to get Jim Boeheim to agree to these games-- maybe they had him sign a vague and deceptive agreement to appear, so he thought he was getting to play Sacha Baron Cohen...
This was a pretty ugly game all the way around, from the play on the court, to the call on tv. The game was part of the "Jimmy V Classic,"…
drorzel | December 6, 2006Via EurekAlert, a press release regarding a speech by former Presidential Science Advisor (under Bill Clinton) Neal Lane, about nanotechnology. Lane apparently warned that the US is in danger of falling behind in nanotechnology, and urged steps to avoid a nano gap, including the following slightly puzzling paragraph:
A "second step critical to the success of nanotechnology is to infuse nanotechnology education into the curriculum in every school and teacher education program." Dr. Lane highlighted the huge investment the U.S. made to science and engineering education almost fifty years ago…
drorzel | December 6, 2006David at the World's Fair celebrates Ninja Day with an Ask a Ninja video about physics.
Of course, what the ninja says is a lie-- Physics did the dumping, and he was all, "Please take me back, I promise to only move along geodesic paths in curved space-time from now on," but she was having none of it, so now he's out there bad-mouthing Physics on the Internet, and...
Um. Anyway, it's an amusing video.
drorzel | December 6, 2006Turnout has been disappointing in the Physics and Astronomy results of the year threads. Come on, I know there are some opinionated nerds out there reading this-- nominate some stuff.
Here, the AIP provides their own list, complete with links to Physics News Update stories. Are blog readers really going to let themselves be upstaged by a bunch of professional writers? Get out there and fact-check their asses. Or something.
drorzel | December 5, 2006For those who care, I'm "interviewed" over at Page 3.14. The scare quotes are because the interview was actually an email response to a list of questions, which is why parts of it sound stilted. Still, free publicity...
drorzel | December 5, 2006It's more or less traditional for magazines and tv shows to do some sort of year-end wrap-up. As this blog is now hosted by a magazine, I suppose I ought to follow suit. Of course, compiling "Year's Best" lists is a highly subjective business, requiring a lot of information gathering, so I'll throw this open to my readers before compiling my own highly biased list.
The previous posts have been for the geeks, but here's one for the non-physicists:
In your opinion, what is the best pop song of 2006?
I have my own opinions (I just switched the shuffle play on iTunes over to the four-and-five-…
drorzel | December 5, 2006It's more or less traditional for magazines and tv shows to do some sort of year-end wrap-up. As this blog is now hosted by a magazine, I suppose I ought to follow suit. Of course, compiling "Year's Best" lists is a highly subjective business, requiring a lot of information gathering, so I'll throw this open to my readers before compiling my own highly biased list.
So, a call for nominations:
In your opinion, what is the most important, influential, or exciting development in astronomy in 2006?
This could be a new observation, a new type of observation technique, or it could be an exciting…
drorzel | December 5, 2006It's more or less traditional for magazines and tv shows to do some sort of year-end wrap-up. As this blog is now hosted by a magazine, I suppose I ought to follow suit. Of course, compiling "Year's Best" lists is a highly subjective business, requiring a lot of information gathering, so I'll throw this open to my readers before compiling my own highly biased list.
So, a call for nominations:
In your opinion, what is the most important, influential, or exciting development in physics in 2006?
This could be a new experimental measurement, or it could be an exciting new theoretical development…
drorzel | December 5, 2006The Female Science Professor has a post talking about types of reference letters. Much of what she says is fairly specific to letters relating to prizes or promotions, but some of her comments are perfectly applicable to the junior faculty job search letters I've been reading by the bucketload lately.
Particularly worth noting are her categories of good letters:
OK to good letter of reference: clear statement of how well (or not) the reference writer knows the person in question, and opinion with examples regarding research quality or potential in the context of the field.
Best: The above,…
drorzel | December 4, 2006Next term, I'm teaching our sophomore-level "Modern Physics" class again. "Modern Physics," in ecuation terms, really means "Early 20th Century Physics"-- it's a couple of weeks of Special Relativity, followed by several weeks of basic Quantum Mechanics, with a mad 2-3 week sprint at the end where I try to cover as much material as possible relating to applications of Relativity and QM.
One of the things I did last year with this class was to try to introduce a little computational work using Mathematica. It's a useful tool for our students to learn about, and it allows you to discuss some…
drorzel | December 4, 2006"I'm gonna owe God fifty bucks if I don't get enlightened soon."
I hate it when that happens.
drorzel | December 4, 2006So, the participants are set for the Mythical "National Championship" of college football. It's Florida vs. Ohio State, thanks to USC's loss to UCLA, and we're going to be treated to about three weeks' worth of whining about how Michigan got jobbed.
I pretty much agree with Charles Kuffner on this one, though. I dislike the Gators intensely, but I'd rather see them in the "title" game than Michigan. If nothing else, it's probably the match-up that's most likely to hasten the introduction of a playoff system, and get the scare quotes off "championship" for college football.
The standard line…