Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
bcohen | March 29, 2007Lots of future Nobel Laureates had their groundbreaking work rejected by scientific journals. Juan Miguel Campanario, a Physics Professor in Madrid, writes an article about it called "Rejecting Nobel class articles and resisting Nobel class discoveries." But he can't get it published.
Hmmmm. Do I smell a future Nobel Laureate?
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The abstract, for your benefit:
I review and discuss instances in which 27 future Nobel Laureates encountered resistance on part of scientific community towards their discoveries and instances in which 36 future Nobel Laureates encountered resistance on…
worldsfair | March 28, 2007PRESS CENTER | UPDATED BRACKET
GAMES TO BE PLAYED NEXT WEEK (April 2nd to 6th, 2007)
worldsfair | March 21, 2007Kuhn vs. Determinism (by an excitable commentator)
Oh, oh, I can't believe it, I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE IT! This one was for the history books, people. Team Kuhn beating the pants off of the Determinism squad. A real life massacre of crisis proportions. Really, it was all Kuhn ALL THE TIME. Word is, is that when Determinism was confronted with the realization that Kuhn himself was playing ("What the f-? You're suppose to be dead!"), the team just lost their form and the defence essentially crumbled. And oh, did it got ugly - really ugly! Final score was 100 to 56 - which, of course, sent…
bcohen | March 19, 2007FIRST ROUND RESULTS | PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Kuhn v Determinism, wow, that will be a game. How do we make sense of the match-up? What are we left to debate? The Essential Tension between them, as it were, would be Kuhn's influence (which he later disavowed) on the social constructivists, on those who rejected the deterministic mindset of earlier philosophical studies of science (on the one hand) versus that Determinism itself (on the other hand). Does "this" lead straight to "that," directly, ineluctably? Or does "this" get to "that" in ways we can't entirely anticipate?
So I…
worldsfair | March 16, 2007Mandatory testing of all tourney players has found substance abuse in all members of the Internal Medicine team. Specifically, the players tested positive for Norethandrolone, a testoterone derivative, and Showdown officials have ruled that they have no choice but to disqualify the team from the tournament. This means Surgery advances.
PRESS CENTER | OCTOPUS REGION | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Darwin crushes Jesus! Kuhn destroys Popper! Pluto Wins, Pluto Wins!!! (CHAIR bracket results are in)
bcohen | March 16, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Holy cow. What a day. Holy cow. We've been trying to track all the action, but probably missed some of the highlights. We caught that late three, way way behind the arc, from Pluto to secure their win over IAU, but still can't believe it. Totally stunned, totally stunned. The raucous crowds at the Darwin v Jesus game was as we expected, and intense. And the others, well, hopefully some of the other viewers will file some comments below on the games we didn't get to track too closely.
Popper: 65
Kuhn: 87
Oh Popper, dear Popper, a lot of people thought…
worldsfair | March 16, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Well, you know it's big when the American Idol gang weigh in with an opening musical number (live at the HIV vs Plasmodium court, and telecast to the others). Not only that, but the crazy reworking of Kelly Clarkson's "Since you've been gone" using the words from Koch's Postulates, was a huge hit. In any event, here are the results below.
HIV: 81
Plasmodium: 67
Well, the song must of really inspired the players in the pathogen centric game. HIV and Plasmodium really battled hard. But you know, at the end of the day, there really wasn't any contest.…
worldsfair | March 15, 2007This just in.
Looks like the supply and management staff for the Genomics and Proteomics teams are causing some headaches for the venue organizers. "Basically, too much hardware," as one onlooker commented. And too much indeed. It appears that with all of the high throughput robotics hardware being wheeled in, the equipment has actually spilled over into a neighbouring court - specifically, the one that was to host the "Photosynthesis" vs "Respiration" game.
"I can't believe the amount of crap they hauled in. How many $%&*# mass-specs do you need to play basketball?" said a…
bcohen | March 14, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
It's on in the, what, Western region? The Science and Technology Studies Region, the Science in Society region, the 'whatever, it's on' region.
Almost unbearable tension to start it off. A lot of people asking how Popper got by Wittgenstein in that play-in game to even set up against Kuhn. All we can say is that there was too much early Wittgenstein, not enough late.* And Popper used his poker masterfully down in the paint.* Exciting game. I think that's a lot of folks are keyed up about the play-in games in the last few years.
But like Dave, I won'…
worldsfair | March 14, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Gates have just opened and it looks like a pretty good throng of fans are piling into their respective arenas. We won't comment too much on these match ups for now, since we are more interested in what the fans think. For now, we can only imagine that the plant folks would be pretty pissed off, with only Photosynthesis* making the cut, and what's with the lack of ecology?*
Anyway, too late for that now. Basically, we're here to see how the fans can liven things up a bit. You know - that thing where there's that intangible advantage when the crowd is…
worldsfair | March 13, 2007CLICKABLE MAP OF TOURNAMENT HERE OR CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW
Printable brackets available here (pdf)
(THIS PAGE WILL HAVE UP TO DATE COVERAGE - LAST EDIT, APRIL 30th)
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(March 12th)
Grand opening. Introductory remarks. Brackets revealed. (link at World's Fair)
(March 14th)
Arenas will open for fans across all four regions (Fans, speak up!)
OCTOPUS bracket - 1st round (link at World's Fair).
MORTAR AND PESTLE bracket - 1st round (link at Adventures in Ethics and Science).
CHAIR bracket - 1st round (link at World's Fair).
ORBIT bracket - 1st round. (link at Uncertain Principles).
(March…
bcohen | March 12, 2007CLICK HERE FOR UP TO DATE COVERAGE AT THE PRESS CENTER
(Download Bracket) PDF | JPG
BEN: Welcome, Ladies and Gentleman to the 2007 SCIENCE SPRING SHOWDOWN - the thinking person's ccomplement to the NCAA tournament! Sponsored by the fine folks at ScienceBlogs Basic Concepts. That's right people, it's the dance, and we're here at the World's Fair bringing this to you live. We're about ready to give you that first exclusive look at the 2007 brackets. Over to you Dave.
DAVE: Sure thing Ben. The conference tournaments are now officially complete. Yes, the selection committee has made all the…
bcohen | March 7, 2007The local announcer for my NPR station always claims that our area "has" 26 degrees or "had" 44 degrees yesterday, or "will have" 53 degrees tomorrow. This leaves me with two things I don't understand:
1) How can I possess degrees Fahrenheit?
2) Why does this always nag at me?
On the first, I know I can't and don't actually possess those degrees. My town won't "have" 44 degrees today. I experience them, or I note that the temperature in the air corresponds to that amount on a measurement scale. But I do not now have, nor have I ever had, any number of degrees Fahrenheit (named of…
worldsfair | March 1, 2007Well, actually, Kate my wife is Welsh, but whatever.
In any event, I know how to say a few things in the Welsh tongue which is not such an easy thing to do. Although, it can come in handy when one wants to mess with the heads of Welsh children.
For instance: I once memorized a Welsh nursery rhyme, and used it often in small teahouses and pubs across North Wales. Although this feat was primarily used to get free drinks, I remember, on one particular occasion, watching the face of a child who was just mesmorized by the wierdness of a Chinese fellow from Canada, singing a Welsh nursery rhyme…
worldsfair | February 21, 2007
So last week was pretty busy, and to be honest I haven't quite depressurized yet from the fatigue it induced (hence the lack of material from me on the blog - thanks Ben for stepping in as always). On top of that, the science scouts apparently hit a nerve in webland being picked up by a few places of note.
Thanks for the suggestions for more badges - I'm on it.
In fact, I put up a few new ones a couple of days ago. You should go check it out. There's stuff about large animals, stats, telescopes, and setting fire to stuff. All good.
Anyway, next up, a science post proper...
worldsfair | February 13, 2007Specifically, I'm teaching a workshop - this one actually.
Anyway, the piece up at McSweeney's today is inspired, and is another one of those I wish I thought of that things. It's called "The Birthday Party Log of Ned, Born on February 29" - go check it out, it's awesome.
worldsfair | February 12, 2007PF#2, as originally introduced.
PF#2, the follow-up.
The answer was "Mercury" (and we still relish the chance to find that middle puzzle-making ground, between Monday crossword too easy and Sunday crossword too hard).
The Queen goes to Queen the band goes to Freddy Mercury.
The instruments go to temperature go to Mercury.
The number sequence goes to the number of moons for each planet, from the farthest out, to, yep ("..."), Mercury.
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PF#3 coming by late Spring 2007
worldsfair | February 12, 2007
The SCQ is pleased to announce the launching of the Order Of The Science Scouts Of Exemplary Repute And Above Average Physique - being an initiative aimed squarely at promoting informal networking amongst science communicators, and the sharing of merit badges.
More specifically:
"For the propogation of an ideal where science communicators can meet firstly, for drinks; secondly, for communicating; and ultimately, for networking."
Anyway, this is something that's been in the works for the last few months here in Vancouver, but what the hell - let's open it up to everybody and anybody who…