Writing in Scientific American, Mark Alpert argues that we need more novels about science: A good work of fiction can convey the smells of a laboratory, the colors of a dissected heart, the anxieties of a chemist and the joys of an astronomer–all the illuminating particulars that you won’t find in a peer-reviewed article in… Continue reading Novels of Science
Author: Chad Orzel
Put Down the Laser Pointer
For all the ranting people do about the evils of PowerPoint, it seems to me that people are missing the one bit of technology that is most responsible for incomprehensible presentations in science: the laser pointer. Having watched a bunch of student talks last week, I was reminded once again of just how useless laser… Continue reading Put Down the Laser Pointer
links for 2008-05-07
Swans on Tea » Doomed to Fail “A thought experiment that finds a contradiction has only shown that the transforms have not been properly applied — the author has made a math error, or made a bad assumption” (tags: physics relativity science education) Dark Matter Searches at Colliders – part III « A Quantum Diaries… Continue reading links for 2008-05-07
Little Brother for Free
Speaking of YA literature (as I was, briefly, in the previous post), I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Cory Doctorow has put up a Little Brother section on his web site, promoting his new book. As with all of his books, it’s available for free download, so if you’d like to read… Continue reading Little Brother for Free
Get a Grip!
A few days back, John Scalzi posted a piece celebrating YA books and authors, which included some reading recommendations. In the comments, a few people said that as childless adults they were reluctant to go into the YA section of the store, lest people think they were creeps looking for kids to prey upon. I… Continue reading Get a Grip!
Iain M. Banks, Matter [Library of Babel]
The latest book by Iain M. Banks proudly proclaims itself to be a Culture novel– part of a loosely connected series of novels and stories about humans living in a vast and utopian galactic civilization– which makes its opening in a castles-and-kings milieu somewhat surprising. Well, all right, technically it opens with a prologue in… Continue reading Iain M. Banks, Matter [Library of Babel]
links for 2008-05-06
Closure in an Ethics Case :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, and Views and Jobs Common sense prevails, for once (tags: academia ethics stupid) Ohmigosh fonts A big step up from Comic Sans (tags: comics computing silly language) Jacks of Science â Using Adobe Photoshop for Research and Profit “As you… Continue reading links for 2008-05-06
What’s the Deal with Horses?
The sports talk shows today were all abuzz with chatter about the death of second-place finisher Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby, with no end of hand-wringing and moralizing about the nature of horse racing. I have to admit, I find the whole thing a little puzzling. I’m not puzzled that people are upset– I… Continue reading What’s the Deal with Horses?
Relative Dog Motion
As I’m driving down the street, a squirrel darts out into the road a block or so ahead of me. From the back seat, the dog says “Gun it!!!! Hit the squirrel, hit the squirrel, hitthesquirrel!” “Will you sit down and be quiet?” We’re having some work done on the house, and I’m taking her… Continue reading Relative Dog Motion
On the Bitterness of Academics
Jake Young points to a Bloggingheads conversation between Dan Drezner and Megan McArdle about, among other things, whether academics are bitter and why. This mostly comes out of a post Megan wrote (link is a leap of faith– the site is down as I type this), and serves as a lead-in to a discussion of… Continue reading On the Bitterness of Academics