Over the weekend, before the whole Scientific America debacle blew up, Ben Lillie tweeted: Looking for science news pegs that aren't "a paper was published." Good examples? #ScioOcean #scionew — Ben Lillie (@BenLillie) October 12, 2013 This is, of course, a familiar problem to a lot of people who care about the public dissemination of… Continue reading On Hooks, and the Awesomeness of the Known
Author: Chad Orzel
The Art of Physics
The TED@NYC trip took me to Manhattan on Monday for the run-through of my talk that night, but then I was left in The City all day Tuesday with time to kill. My original plan was to go to the Guggenheim Museum, as I’ve never been there and it’s an iconic building, but there was… Continue reading The Art of Physics
Congratulations to Fama, Hanson, Schiller, and DougT
It was looking like we were going to slip through the entire Nobel season without a winner in the Uncertain Principles Betting Pool, but at the eleventh hour, we got one: DougT correctly predicted that the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel would be shared by Eugene Fama (remember,… Continue reading Congratulations to Fama, Hanson, Schiller, and DougT
Malcolm Gladwell Is Deepak Chopra
I’m sure I’ve done more than enough wibbling about TED for this week, but the only major physics story at the moment involved the Higgs boson, and I’m thoroughly sick of that. So let’s talk about Malcolm Gladwell and journosplaining. Gladwell has a new book out, David and Goliath that from all reports is pretty… Continue reading Malcolm Gladwell Is Deepak Chopra
TED@NYC Recap
On Monday afternoon, I walked into the TED offices in lower Manhattan just as Zak Ebrahim was starting his practice talk, a powerful story about being raised by a father who subscribed to an extreme form of Islam and eventually assassinated a rabbi and took part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And I… Continue reading TED@NYC Recap
Quantum Crosswords: My TED@NYC Talk
The following is the approximate text of the talk I gave at TED@NYC last night. Approximate, because I’m somewhat prone to ad-libbing when speaking, and may have changed a few things here and there. I don’t really know, because I’m scheduling this post on Tuesday morning, before the actual event, using the draft text I’ve… Continue reading Quantum Crosswords: My TED@NYC Talk
SteelyKid: Junior Rock Star Scientist
I’m off to The City for TED@NYC on Tuesday, and while I might schedule something with the approximate text of my talk for Wednesday morning, more substantial blogging won’t resume until Thursday. But I don’t want to leave political post as the top thing on the blog, so here, have a cute kid picture. This… Continue reading SteelyKid: Junior Rock Star Scientist
Men, Women, and Graduation Statistics
There was a great big New York Times article on women in science this week, which prompted no end of discussion. (I also highly recommend Bee’s response at Backreaction.) It’s built around the personal story of the author, Eileen Pollack, a physics major at Yale who decided not to go to grad school, and her… Continue reading Men, Women, and Graduation Statistics
On Corrective Incentives
SteelyKid’s kindergarten teacher is big on incentives and prizes– there are a number of reward bags that get sent home with kids who excel in some particular area. I’m not entirely sure what’s in these, because SteelyKid hasn’t gotten any yet. This isn’t because she misbehaves– from all reports, she’s very good– but she’s in… Continue reading On Corrective Incentives
On Fear of Parental Perception
I almost killed the Pip last week. By accident, of course, but I do mean that literally. His day care was closed for the day, so I took him out to the store to avoid a freakout when Mommy left. I was heading into the store with him in one arm and a hot cup… Continue reading On Fear of Parental Perception