Career Advice: Rules for Science Job Talks – Inside Higher Ed “4. Give a strong, conceptually oriented introduction. Be as brief as possible while still making all of your points. Be sharp at the beginning. Remember the 20 Minute Rule: You should show a data slide no more than 20 minutes into your talk (or… Continue reading Links for 2010-10-07
Author: Chad Orzel
Should We Want Students to Go into Finance?
Via Steve Hsu, a GNXP post about the benefits of elite college educations, based largely on a graph of income vs. US News ranking. While the post text shows some of the dangers of taking social-science data too literally (the points on the graph in question are clearly binned, so I would not attribute too… Continue reading Should We Want Students to Go into Finance?
Congratulations to Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2010 goes to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for giving people a reason to care about palladium. OK, it might not be the only reason– I’m not actually sure what palladium is used for other than organic synthesis and cold fusion– but it’s the context in… Continue reading Congratulations to Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki
Links for 2010-10-06
Trains on the moon: John M. Ford’s Growing Up Weightless / Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts “At the heart of John M. Ford’s Growing Up Weightless (1993) is a train trip by a group of teenaged roleplayers across the far side of the moon. It’s also the story of how thirteen… Continue reading Links for 2010-10-06
Congratulations to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Geim and Novoselov for their work on graphene, a material consisting of one-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms in a hexagonal array. This is one of those prizes that was basically inevitable, as graphene is one of the hot materials of the last couple of years. Hardly a… Continue reading Congratulations to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
Links for 2010-10-05
YouTube – John Orzel – Treading Water My uncle’s tv ad for his NY State Senate campaign. (tags: politics video television new-york youtube) Americans Are Horribly Misinformed About Who Has Money – Politics – GOOD In other news, the Sun rose in the east today. (tags: class-war politics statistics society culture education math us blogs)
What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics
A quick check-in from Tuscaloosa, where we’re getting ready to head out for the football tailgating. While I’ve got a minute, though, here are the slides from my public lecture, via SlideShare: What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics View more presentations from Chad Orzel. These are probably less comprehensible that some of my… Continue reading What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics
Religious Trivia Contest Results
There’s been a lot written in the last day or so about this Pew Foundation Survey on who knows what about religion. Like most such surveys these days, they have a really easy online quiz version that you can take and marvel that anybody missed any of these questions. My first thought was to just… Continue reading Religious Trivia Contest Results
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the South
I am in Alabama at the moment, the temporary owner of a ginormous Ford SUV and a hotel room that even I think is a little more air-conditioned than strictly necessary. Which means that it’s time for the How to Teach Physics to Your Dog mini-tour of the Southland. On Wednesday, I’ll be driving to… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the South
Nobel Prize Betting Pool
It’s that time of year again– the Swedes will be handing out money to famous scientists, with the announcements of who’s getting what starting one week from today. Thus, the traditional Uncertain Principles Nobel Prize Picking Contest: Leave a comment on this post predicting the winner(s) of one of this year’s Nobel Prizes. Anyone who… Continue reading Nobel Prize Betting Pool