I’m very happy to be an academic scientist. And I’m not alone: a study presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association finds that academic scientists — in the natural and social sciences — are more satisfied than are their counterparts outside of higher education. The original hypothesis of the paper… Continue reading I Love My Job
Author: Chad Orzel
Butcher-esque Books?
I’ve been on a big Jim Butcher kick recently, re-reading most of the Dresden Files books. This is largely because holding a regular book is still uncomfortable with my bad thumb, and I have electronic copies of the Dresden books that I can read on my Palm (well, Kate’s old Palm, which I just use… Continue reading Butcher-esque Books?
Self-Esteem Is Not the Problem With Science Education
Arts & Letters Daily sent me to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the headline How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science. “Hey,” I thought, “Good to see this issue getting some more attention.” And, indeed, the article starts off well enough, with a decent statement of the problems in science… Continue reading Self-Esteem Is Not the Problem With Science Education
The Making Of “Optical Control of Ultracold Collisions”
One of the things I’d like to accomplish with the current series of posts is to give a little insight into what it’s like to do science. This should probably seem familiar to those readers who are experimental scientists, but might be new to those who aren’t. I think that this is one of the… Continue reading The Making Of “Optical Control of Ultracold Collisions”
Optical Control of Ultracold Collisions in Metastable Xenon
(This is the first in a
Free and Easy Charity
Here’s the deal: Big Think is running a charitable donation program for everybody’s favorite educational charity, DonorsChoose, and they’ve gotten Pfizer to agree to donate $1 for each of the first 10,000 visitors to vote for a video on Big Think’s site. Go to http://www.bigthink.com/thinksciencenow/, pick a video, and click on “Vote for This Video… Continue reading Free and Easy Charity
links for 2008-08-05 [delicious.com]
Michael Nielsen û Why the world needs quantum mechanics A very nice, detailed, and most importantly, accessible explanation of Bell’s theorem. Needs more dogs, though. (tags: physics quantum science blogs) The Quantum Pontiff : When Two Zeros Are Not Zero: The Strange Lives of Quantum Cell Phones "There exist quantum channels that, when you use… Continue reading links for 2008-08-05 [delicious.com]
Peer-Reviewed Egoboo: The Metastable Xenon Project
I’ve been slacking a bit, lately, in terms of putting science-related content on the blog. Up until last week, most of my physics-explaining energy was going into working on the book, and on top of that, I’ve been a little preoccupied with planning for the arrival of FutureBaby. I’d like to push things back in… Continue reading Peer-Reviewed Egoboo: The Metastable Xenon Project
What Humanists Think
Last weekend’s post, The Innumeracy of Intellectuals, has been lightly edited and re-printed at Inside Higher Ed, where it should be read by a larger audience of humanities types. They allow comments, so it will be interesting to see what gets said about it there. I may have some additional comments on the issue later,… Continue reading What Humanists Think
What Theoretical Physicists Think
Last week, I was asked my expectations about the LHC, and offered my half-assed guess. If you prefer your speculation from people with relevant knowledge of the subject, Sean Carroll weighs in with his oddly-precise guesses. On a related, less theoretical note, Tomasso Dorigo posted a summary of the constraints on the Higgs boson mass… Continue reading What Theoretical Physicists Think