polls
drorzel | September 21, 2009I'm halfway through Graham Farmelo's Dirac biography at the moment, and enjoying it quite a bit. Farmelo cites Dirac as one of the first physicists to evaluate theories on their mathematical beauty, rather than waiting for experiments. This is in stark contrast to his Cambridge colleague Rutherford, who was highly skeptical of abstract theory, and preferred to deal in concrete experiments.
This is one of the great chicken-and-egg problems in science: Should data come before theory, or should theory come before data? Thus, this seems like a good topic for a poll:
How do you like your science…
drorzel | September 18, 2009I'm teaching Quantum Optics again this term, talking about the interaction between light and matter in circumstances where you need to account for the quantum nature of one or both of those. We're starting on the actual interactions today, albeit with a semi-classical approach (Einstein coefficients and the Fermi Golden Rule), but we've just finished a whirlwind review of quantum mechanics, including a rapid survey of the different effects that determine atomic energy levels, and some of the ways we have to move those around.
This suggests a really dorky idea for a poll, so:
What's your…
drorzel | September 16, 2009Prompted by a discussion in another channel, a question for you all: What is your preferred type of calculator? That is, when you're doing some sort of problem involving math, and reach for a calculator, what do you reach for?
What Kind of Calculator Do You Use?(survey software)
I think I may have used this topic before, but not in a fancy radio-button poll.
drorzel | September 15, 2009We'll keep up the chemical theme that we've been following lately with another Dorky Poll to pass the time while I'm in lab all morning. We're not going to do all of the columns of the periodic table (does anybody really have a favorite transition metal?), but a couple more demand opinions. So, what's your favorite halogen?
What's your favorite halogen?(poll)
Your opinion is important to us. Please choose only one.
drorzel | September 9, 2009We did the far right column of the periodic table, so here's one for the left: the coolest-chemistry-demo-ever column, the alkali metals:
What's your favorite alkali metal?(surveys)
While you can make heteronuclear alkali dimers, at least in a transient way, we're talking atoms here, not molecules. Choose only one.
drorzel | September 3, 2009"...Can you name the six noble gases?"
As this could be no poser for an economic geographer, I rattled them off in their proper aristocratic order. "Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, and -er- Radon. They were raised to the peerage in the eleventh year of England's George Fifth, and Neon was awarded the Order of the Seraphim by Gustav Sixth of Sweden for its compassionate service in guiding to bars and beaneries guys who roll into towns late at night."
-- from The Moon's Fire-eating Daughter by John Myers Myers
I used that as an opening quote (I can't remember the term for that-- "epigram…
drorzel | August 31, 2009SteelyKid's day care is closed today, meaning that I will be spending the day chasing her in circles in a variety of different places. this doesn't allow a lot of blogging time, so you get a poll to pass the time.
We'll go back to the historical physics thing for this one. The following poll lists a bunch of less-well-known physicists (that is, not Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, etc.) who contributed to the development of quantum mechanics. Which of them was the best?
Which of these less-well-known quantum pioneers was the best?(surveys)
While these are quantum pioneers, we're still…
drorzel | August 29, 2009The Corporate Masters are considering some steps to take ScienceBlogs more in a community/ social network/ Web 3.14/ whatever direction, and have asked us our opinions of various potential features. I have opinions on the subject, but they're ultimately less important than the opinions of you, the readers. So here's an attempt to generate some reasonably concise feedback (all of the proposed features would be totally optional-- they're not talking about mandatory registration, and I will fight it tooth and nail if they do):
Which of the following community features would improve the…
drorzel | August 27, 2009I'm feeling slightly better, but still a little wobbly, so here's what may be the dorkiest Dorky Poll yet:
How do you like your quantum mechanics?(trends)
drorzel | August 20, 2009I have a bunch of errand-running to do today, so I will leave you with a Dorky Poll question for entertainment, this time regarding the work of the great Sir Isaac Newton:
Which of Isaac Newton's Laws is your favorite?(trends)
We're still dealing with classical physics, here, so superpositions of results are not allowed. Pick one and only one answer.
drorzel | August 19, 2009Kate recently signed up for Facebook, and I was talking to her earlier about some of the options for wasting tons of time entertaining yourself with Facebook, and mentioned the ever-popular trivia quizzes and "personality tests" and the like. Of course, I had to caution her that most of the quizzes are really lame, because the people making them up don't know how to make a good quiz.
Making up good questions is a skill that takes time to master. The key elements that the people behind most Facebook quizzes are missing are good distractors-- the plausible-sounding wrong answers that lead…
drorzel | August 18, 2009One of the blogs I hyped at the science blogging panel at Worldcon was Built on Facts, Matt Springer's blog explaining introductory physics concepts. You might not think that you want to read a blog that goes through freshman physics problems in detail-- I would've been dubious on the concept, had you explained it to me that way-- but it's really excellent stuff.
He's recently completed a series of posts on Maxwell's Equations, with one post for each of the four equations, plus one bringing them all together: Gauss's Law for Magnetism, Gauss's Law for Electricity, Faraday's Law, and the…
drorzel | August 14, 2009I have a thousand things to do today, and blogging isn't high on the list. So here's a dorky poll to pass the time, because it's been a while:
What's your favorite Law of Thermodynamics?(polls)
We're working in the classical limit, here, so you're not allowed to choose a linear superposition of all four laws. Pick one as your favorite.
drorzel | August 4, 2009Last week, Sean raised the critical academic question of when to serve food associated with a seminar talk. He did not, however, address the more important question, namely what to serve at a seminar talk. So I'll do it, scientific-like:
Which of the following items should be served at an event associated with an academic talk (check all that apply):(answers)
And, just in case you feel left out of Sean's original discussion:
The food at an academic seminar talk should be served:(polling)
The posting of this has nothing to do with the fact that I've been organizing the summer student…
drorzel | July 31, 2009I had a bit of a discussion via Twitter with Eric Weinstein yesterday, starting with his statement:
Ed Witten has no Nobel Prize. Now tell me again how this era's physics just feels different because we are too close to it.
Basically, he appears to feel that Witten is sufficiently smart that he ought to have a Nobel. My feeling is that if you look at the list of Nobel laureates in physics, you won't find any theorists who won before their theory had experimental confirmation. It's not an official rule, but it seems to be well established practice.
My attempt at an analogy was the late John…
drorzel | July 30, 2009Keeping up the string of poll questions about less-well-known physicists (started here), here's a list of physicists who are known for having made very precise measurements of physical quanitites. Which of them is the best?
Which of these physicists who made precision measurements is the best?(poll)
(Note: I have deliberately limited this to physicists who are no longer alive, which is why some recent names are missing.)
drorzel | July 29, 2009In the same basic vein as yesterday's post about thermodynamics, the following poll contains a list of physicists who are not household names, but who made significant contributions to the science of optics. Which of them is the best?
Which of these physicists from the field of optics was the best?(polls)
drorzel | July 28, 2009While I'm stealing post ideas from Twitter, here's another poll question, thanks to Eric Weinstein, who wrote earlier:
And @CameronNeylon, when you write "Good science means not having an (emotional) allegiance to any theory surely?" I must strongly disagree.
This position results from the luxury of living on the far side of an adaptive valley which long ago was crossed by others.
So, here's another poll:
Agree or disagree: "Good science means not having an (emotional) allegiance to any theory."(polls)
(This was in the context of a running series of ruminations about academic organization…
drorzel | July 28, 2009The question of who is the greatest physicist of the physicists who are household names-- Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, etc.-- has been debated thousands of times, and will undoubtedly be debated thousands of times in the future. What isn't as often discussed is the ranking of physicists who aren't in that rare group of household names-- people whose surnames are attached to equations that GRE takers struggle to memorize, but whose given names and life stories are mostly forgotten.
Well, this post is for them: The following poll presents a list of important figures from the history of…
drorzel | July 24, 2009Over at Dot Physics, Rhett wonders about the role of homework in a world that includes cramster:
Then what is the problem? The problem is with my jobs. Yes, jobs. I have two jobs. My first job is to help students learn. I am a learning-faciliator if you like. I do this in many different ways. One way is to assign homework. Oh, my other job is to evaluate how well students understand the material. I have to give them some grade at the end of the semester. One obvious way to do this is with an exam or feats of strength.
Here is the question: Do you grade homework? Oh, I know what everyone says…