Author: Chad Orzel

Neil de Grasse Tyson Is John Harrison

Cover for The Hot Rock, from http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39275

Over at Galileo’s Pendulum, Matthew Francis expresses an opinion that’s sure to get him in trouble with the Inquisition and placed under house arrest: Carl Sagan’s Cosmos isn’t all that: However, even taking into account the differences in TV between 1980 and 2013, the show is very slow-paced at times. I’m not talking about the… Continue reading Neil de Grasse Tyson Is John Harrison

Driving a Simulated Pendulum

A simulated pendulum driven near resonance.

Some time back, I spent a bunch of time writing a VPython program that simulated the motion of a pendulum, which turned out to do some strange things. In the comments to that, there were two things worth mentioning: first and foremost, Arnoques at #5 spotted a small error in the code that fixes the… Continue reading Driving a Simulated Pendulum

Reflecting, Totally; or Why the Pool Looks Shiny from Underwater

Total internal reflection of a laser off a water surface.

The other day, I made a suggestion to one of my research students of an experiment to try. When I checked back a day later, she told me it hadn’t worked, and I immediately realized that what I had told her to do was very stupid. As penance, then, I’ll explain the underlying physics, which… Continue reading Reflecting, Totally; or Why the Pool Looks Shiny from Underwater

Baseball and Gender Bias: “Number of Women in Physics Departments: A Simulation Analysis “

Figure 3 from the AIP report discussed in the post.

I’ve spent a bunch of time recently blogging about baseball statistics, which you might be inclined to write off as some quirk of a sports-obsessed scientist. I was very amused, therefore, to see Inside Higher Ed and ZapperZ writing about a new AIP report on women in physics (PDF) that uses essentially the same sort… Continue reading Baseball and Gender Bias: “Number of Women in Physics Departments: A Simulation Analysis “

Naming Names in QED

Attendees at the Shelter Island workshop, from the APS: http://www.aps.org/units/fhp/newsletters/spring2011/schweber.cfm

I’m doing edits on the QED chapter of the book-in-progress today, and I’m struck again by the apparent randomness of the way credit gets attached to things. QED is a rich source of examples of this, but two in particular stand out, one experimental and the other theoretical. On the experimental side, it’s interesting to… Continue reading Naming Names in QED

Baseball Is Pretty Random

Batting averages compared to career totals for six famous players.

After Thursday’s post about sports and statistics, a friend from my Williams days, Dave Ryan, raised an objection on Facebook: There’s an unstated assumption (I think) in your analysis: that there is some intrinsic and UNALTERABLE statistical probability of getting a hit inherent in every hitter. If that is the case, then yes — a… Continue reading Baseball Is Pretty Random

More Kids and Conferences

There's a WHAT?!? Behind me?

The kids and conferences issue, discussed here a while ago has continued to spark discussion, with a Tenure She Wrote piece on how to increase gender diversity among conference speakers and a Physics Focus blog post on a mother who wound up taking her toddler to a meeting. There are some good points in both,… Continue reading More Kids and Conferences

Sports and Statistics: Nobody Deals Well With Randomness

The great xkcd nails sports commentary.

One of the chapters of the book-in-progress, as mentioned previously, takes the widespread use of statistics in sports as a starting point, noting that a lot of the techniques stat geeks use in sports are similar to those scientists use to share and evaluate data. The claim is that anyone who can have a halfway… Continue reading Sports and Statistics: Nobody Deals Well With Randomness