True Lab Stories really are everywhere these days. Via Inside Higher Ed’s Around the Web, a blog called “What the Hell Is Wrong With You?” offers True Lab Stories: The Party Game (my name, not hers): Back in the good old days, when La Blonde Parisienne and I were bright young grad students working in… Continue reading Too Stupid to Be a Scientist
Month: August 2006
Framing Physics
Over at Gene Expression, Razib is collecting ten-word summaries of evolutionary theory, with follow-up posts here and here. Because I’m completely shameless about this sort of thing, I’m going to swipe the idea, and apply it to physics. Of course, physics as a discipline covers a bit more conceptual territory than “evolutionary theory,” so it’s… Continue reading Framing Physics
Particle Physics Wants Graphic Designers
Over at Cosmic Variance, JoAnne is soliciting ideas for graphics to explain the Higgs Mechanism and Supersymmetry. If you understand these processes, and have a flair for graphic design, go over there and help her out. She’s going to take the best ideas to a workshop on this topic at SLAC, so this might be… Continue reading Particle Physics Wants Graphic Designers
Sarah Monette, Melusine and The Virtu [Library of Babel]
Sarah Monette, aka truepenny is somebody that Kate knows from LiveJournal, so when her first novel, Melusine was published, Kate bought it right away. Weirdly, though, I got around to reading it before she did (thanks to positive reviews of the sequel in Locus, and in spite of the dreadful cover), and then went directly… Continue reading Sarah Monette, Melusine and The Virtu [Library of Babel]
How Dumb Are Dumb Jocks?
Over at Cognitive Daily, Dave Munger post about research into the effect of athletics on academics: Achievement can be measured in many ways — grades, homework, attendance, standardized test scores, and enrollment in college. In all of these areas except standardized test scores, even after controlling for economic status, race, and other background variables, athletic… Continue reading How Dumb Are Dumb Jocks?
Gravity Still Works
True Lab stories are everywhere, as Arcance Gazebo today features a story of new and interesting liquid nitrogen experiments: Condensed matter labs such as ours receive frequent deliveries of liquid nitrogen in one- or two-hundred liter dewars. Unfortunately, most of the Berkeley cond-mat labs are in Birge Hall, which has no loading dock, so that… Continue reading Gravity Still Works
The High Cost of Doing Physics
Yesterday, I spent $52 (plus shipping) buying sand. Not a gret big sack of sand, either– just 200 grams of it. I count it as a bargain, too, because I was prepared to spend twice the amount for half as much. Now, granted, the $1000/kg sand is extremely high purity silicon dioxide, designed to be… Continue reading The High Cost of Doing Physics
What I Do for a Living
I’m in the process of putting together my tenure documents (I know I’ve been saying this for weeks. It’s a long process, OK?). Most of these are really not appropriate for reproduction here, but I’ll post a few of the things I’m writing, when it’s reasonable to do so. A major part of the tenure… Continue reading What I Do for a Living
What’s (Still) the Matter With Kansas
Also in the Times today is an opinion piece by Lawrence Krauss on why the Kansas school board election isn’t the end of the fight. He quotes some damning things from the chairman of the school board, and then observes: A key concern should not be whether Dr. Abrams’s religious views have a place in… Continue reading What’s (Still) the Matter With Kansas
The Poincare Conjecture
There’s an interesting article in the Times today about Grisha Perelman and the Poincare conjecture: Three years ago, a Russian mathematician by the name of Grigory Perelman, a k a Grisha, in St. Petersburg, announced that he had solved a famous and intractable mathematical problem, known as the Poincaré conjecture, about the nature of space.… Continue reading The Poincare Conjecture