Next in line of questions from readers, we have tbell with: Since science is a self-correcting process (maybe only at a statistical level, not necessarily an individual level), it would be cool if you would relate the last time you were seriously wrong about some aspect of science or research, and how you altered your […]
Month: June 2010
Relatively Comfortable Question: Physics First?
Starting at the beginning of the uncomfortable questions left by readers, we have Tex asking: If physics is the basic science that underlies almost every other science, why do American high schools usually teach it in the 3rd or 4th year, after biology and chemistry? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Physics first, then […]
Ask Me Uncomfortable Questions
I’m seriously lacking in bloggy inspiration at the moment. So we’ll fall back on something that has worked a couple of times in the past: Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don’t blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don’t blog about, but you’d […]
Links for 2010-06-24
On Writing and the Internet: Data Is the New Alcohol « Lev Grossman “A lot of writers have been ruined by addictions in the past. Heroine, alcohol, etc. Me, I don’t have big — big — problems with drugs and alcohol. (I have in fact, over the past 6 months, moderated my drinking, something I […]
Important World Cup Updates
The US managed to survive yet another appalling lapse of officiating and beat Algeria 1-0 on a goal in stoppage time. Simultaneously (in some frame of reference), England beat Slovenia 1-0. With South Korea advancing yesterday, countries with current or forthcoming editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog are 3-0 when it comes […]
The Physics of the Imbecile: Chopra Interviews Kaku
I don’t remember who pointed me at this transcript of Deepak Chopra interviewing Michio Kaku, but if I remember who it was, I fully intend to hate them. DC: Is our conversation affecting something in another galaxy right now? MK: In principle. What we’re talking about right is affecting another galaxy far, far beyond the […]
Links for 2010-06-23
Scanning Electron Microscope Submissions | SEM Image Galley by ASPEX “Do you have a sample you’d like to send us to have scanned by one of our Scanning Electron Microscopes or our Tabletop SEM? Just download the sample submission form below, fill it out, and mail it in along with your sample, and we’ll post […]
Watching Individual Atoms Make a Phase Transition
A press release from Harvard caught my eye last week, announcing results from Markus Greiner’s group that were, according to the release, published in Science. The press release seems to have gotten the date wrong, though– the article didn’t appear in Science last week. It is, however, available on the arxiv, so you get the […]
Two Cultures Publishing Journals
I hate to keep highlighting silly articles in Inside Higher Ed, but they keep publishing silly articles, like Jeffrey DiLeo’s argument that humanities journals cannot be ranked because they’re all unique and precious flowers too specialized: Another reason for the roaring silence regarding the ranking of humanities journals regards the high level of sub-disciplinary specialization. […]
Links for 2010-06-22
slacktivist: Big shoes “But what I think people meant about [Manute] Bol’s “killer instinct” was that he never seemed to take the game of basketball quite seriously enough. He hadn’t chosen this game, it had chosen him. It discovered him in that Sudanese village and plucked him out of it, whisking him halfway around the […]