Here are some excerpts from the introductory sections of the very first drafts of some book chapters: [BLAH, BLAH, BLAHBITTY BLAH] and [Introductory blather goes here] and Blah, blah, stuff, blather. There’s a good reason for this, based on the basics of scientific writing, namely that the Introduction should give the reader a rough guide… Continue reading Always Write the Introduction Last
Month: March 2012
Links for 2012-03-31
Physics – Cultivating Extra Dimensions The search for ways to unify and understand physical phenomena goes back to Kaluza and Klein, who in the 1920s tried to combine electromagnetism with gravity by adding a fourth spatial dimension to the usual three (plus time). More recent theoretical work has suggested that a theory of everything may… Continue reading Links for 2012-03-31
The Evolution of Random Comfort Food
One of the slighter slight flaws in my character is an unaccountable fondness for bad Americanized Chinese food. When I go to Starbucks to write, I walk right past a Chinese buffet restaurant, and it’s a real effort not to run in and overdo it. I occasionally try to cook stuff in this general category… Continue reading The Evolution of Random Comfort Food
It Figures: The Historical Aesthetics of Scientific Publishing
Steve Hsu has a post comparing his hand-drawn diagrams to computer-generated ones that a journal asked for instead: He’s got a pretty decent case that the hand-drawn versions are better. Though a bit more work with the graphics software could make the computer ones better. This reminded me, though, of something I’ve always found interesting… Continue reading It Figures: The Historical Aesthetics of Scientific Publishing
Links for 2012-03-29
The Virtuosi: Money for (almost) Nothing I am not typically interested in lotteries. They seem silly and I am seriously beginning to question their usefulness in bringing about a good harvest. But this morning I read in the news that the Mega Millions lottery currently has a world record jackpot up for grabs. In fact,… Continue reading Links for 2012-03-29
Thursday Sick Kid Blogging
Last Saturday, at my book signing in Vestal, The Pip spit up a lot, several times, and wouldn’t stop crying. This lasted a few hours, and by the next day, he was more or less back to normal. When I dropped him off at day care on Monday, I mentioned this, and the teachers in… Continue reading Thursday Sick Kid Blogging
Links for 2012-03-28
The Religious Frenzy of a Court You Can’t Believe In – Esquire There are better places on the Intertoobz than this one to look either for a general overview of what may happen in the Court over the next three days — Ezra Klein’s joint did a masterful job this morning — and, if you’re… Continue reading Links for 2012-03-28
Query for Non-Physicists: Initial Reactions
I was thinking about attitudes toward physics the other day, and realized that whenever I meet somebody (not a physicist) for the first time and tell them that I’m a physicist, their initial responses most frequently fall into one of three general categories: “You must be really smart.” “I hated that when I took it… Continue reading Query for Non-Physicists: Initial Reactions
The Uneasy Balance of Residential Academia
I mentioned this in the Links Dump this morning, but Timothy Burke’s post on the inherent tensions in the residential part of small college life is really excellent stuff, and deserves more than the 1000 characters I can quote in Delicious: At Swarthmore this semester, for example, some students were deeply annoyed that the administration… Continue reading The Uneasy Balance of Residential Academia
The Story of the Three Giant Hippopotamuses
Once upon a time, there were three giant hippopotamuses… No, Daddy, it was three little pigs. This is a completely different story, honey. Once upon a time, there were three giant hippopotamuses, who lived together in a river in Africa. They lived in a house. Well, hippos spend most of their time in the water,… Continue reading The Story of the Three Giant Hippopotamuses