I saw Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind on the book lottery stacks at Science Online, and the subtitle “How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes” practically screamed “This is relevant to your interests!” Not only am I writing a book about how to think like a scientist, one of the chapters I have in mind uses mystery novels… Continue reading Mastermind by Maria Konnikova
Author: Chad Orzel
Blogging Doesn’t Have to Be a Career
Last week, I gave my evangelical talk about science blogging to the Physics department at Wright State, and also a lot of education students who came to the talk (which made a nice change in the sort of questions I got). It’s basically this talk that I gave at Cornell a couple of years ago,… Continue reading Blogging Doesn’t Have to Be a Career
Gravity’s Engines by Caleb Scharf
The last week or so of silence on the blog has been due to my trip to Ohio (which was very enjoyable), and a lack of child care for the early part of this week. A day and a half home with both kids was just exhausting, but the trip was useful in that it… Continue reading Gravity’s Engines by Caleb Scharf
Sunday Morning, Chateau Steelypips
The Pip is getting really into books these days, and SteelyKid has been into them for a good while now (she’s four-and-a-half, after all…). At some point last week, she asked about my writing, so I got down a copy of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog and showed her her name in the… Continue reading Sunday Morning, Chateau Steelypips
How Good Is My Starbucks Cup?
It’s been a while since I’ve done a post over-analyzing some everyday situation, because I’ve been too busy to do any silly experiments. We’re on break this week, though, so I took a little time Monday to bring excessive technology to bear on the critically important scientific question: how good is my insulated Starbucks cup?… Continue reading How Good Is My Starbucks Cup?
I Teach for Free, They Pay Me to Grade
Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau has a bit of a rant about what students perceive as grading on a “curve”: Moreover, many students have only the foggiest idea of what a curve is. Many (though probably not all) of their high schools had fixed grading scales with fixed percentages for each letter grade. The A/A-… Continue reading I Teach for Free, They Pay Me to Grade
Hey, Ho, Ohio: Two Talks at Wright State, Thursday March 28
Kind of short notice, but if you’re in the appropriate bits of Ohio, you might be interested to know that I’m giving two talks at Wright State this Thursday. At 11am, I’m doing the Physics Department Colloquium in 202 Oelman Hall, “Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters, and How… Continue reading Hey, Ho, Ohio: Two Talks at Wright State, Thursday March 28
A Plan and a Story
OK, here’s my idea: We put a leash on Emmy and we put her up on top of this rock that’s on top of all these other rocks. Then she jumps down into these petals. so she’ll be safe. And you pull on the leash so she jumps down a little faster. I’m down here… Continue reading A Plan and a Story
Modern Physics and Scientific Thinking
Yesterday’s big post on why I think people should embrace scientific thinking in a more conscious way than they do already (because my claim is that most people already use scientific thinking, they’re just not aware that they’re doing it) is clearly a kind of explanation of the reason behind my next book, but what… Continue reading Modern Physics and Scientific Thinking
Why Should You Think Like a Scientist?
As you may or may not know, I’m currently at work on a book called How to Think Like a Scientist. This raises the fairly obvious question in the post title, namely, why should people think like scientists? What’s the point? In a sense, this is (as Ethan Zuckerman pointed out at lunch the other… Continue reading Why Should You Think Like a Scientist?