Chatter
goodmath | June 17, 2006I don't want to get too NPR-ish, but: Just a quick reminder about our SB charity thing. GM/BM readers have donated almost $1000 dollars to help get desparately needed supplies for math teachers. And our benevolent Seed overlords are matching up to the first $10,000 worth of contributions through ScienceBlog challenges.
Help some great kids get the chance to learn math and science.
goodmath | June 16, 2006 The Stills, "In the Beginning". I accidentally downloaded this from Salon this morning. I know absolutely nothing about the band.
Planet X, "Digital Vertigo". PlanetX is quite a strange group. All instrumental, something like a cross between bebop and heavy metal. Great group, highly recommended.
Darol Anger and the Republic of Strings, "Ouditarus Rez". Darol is one of my favorite musicians. He's a violinist who at different times has played everything from classical to jazz to bluegrass to rock; he's performed with everyone from Emmylou Harris to Bela Fleck to Joshua Bell. The Republic of…
goodmath | June 15, 2006As usual for this time of the week, the seed folks have tossed out a new "Ask a Science-Blogger" question for us to answer. This weeks is particularly easy. The question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
The answer: Insanity.
(Full disclosure: I'm not a PI; that is, I'm not an academic researcher who needs to do grant proposals to get funding for my projects. However, I am a professional researcher for an industrial research lab, and while I don't…
goodmath | June 15, 2006Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science has gotten a bunch of us SB folks to get involved in raising money for school science programs. As the only current resident math geek around here, I'm expanding it from just science to also math.
What we're doing is trying to get people to donate to DonorsChoose.org. That's an organization where teachers who's classrooms lack the supplies that they need can submit proposals, and donors can select specific proposals that they want to support. Each of the participants from SBs has picked a bunch of proposals that we think are valuable, and we're…
goodmath | June 12, 2006Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science has tagged all of us newbies with a Pi meme. As the new math-geek-in-residence here, I'm obligated to take on anything dealing with Pi.
3 reasons you blog about science
Because I genuinely enjoy teaching, and the one thing that I regret
about being in industry instead of academia is that I don't get to teach.
Blogging gives me an opportunity to do something sort-of like teaching,
but on my own terms and my own schedule.
Because I'm obsessed with this stuff, and I love it, and I want to try
to show other people why they…
goodmath | June 11, 2006 As usual, once a week, the Seed folks send all of us a question from one of the SB readers:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
I've actually got two answers to that question.
First up: theoretical physics. I'm fascinated by the work that's trying to unify quantum mechanics and relativity: string theory, the shape of extended dimensions, etc. The problem is, I think that this answer is probably cheating, even though it's my second choice after what I'm doing now. Because…