It’s been a while since I did it, but on a few occasions in the past, I’ve done posts here titled “Who Are You People?” asking readers to comment and say something about themselves. This is not remotely scientific, as a survey of blog readership, though. Happily, an actual scientist is stepping up for this:… Continue reading Who Are You People? Now With SCIENCE!
Category: Academia
Son of “On the Positive Features of Drunken Idiots”
A day or so ago, an essay came across my social media feeds with the title: “Greek Like Me: Confessions of a Florida Fraternity Brother.” I clicked through, and saw the subhed: “The frat code held us together—until it kept us from saving a life,” and started reading with a resigned sigh, figuring it was… Continue reading Son of “On the Positive Features of Drunken Idiots”
On Advising Students to Fail
Slate’s been doing a series about college classes everyone should take, and one of the most heavily promoted of these has been a piece by Dan Check urging students to take something they’re terrible at. This is built around an amusing anecdote about an acting class he took back in the day, but as much… Continue reading On Advising Students to Fail
The Real “Two Cultures” Divide in Academia
A couple of articles came across my feeds in the last day or two that highlight the truly important cultural divide in academia. Not the gap between sciences and “humanities,” but the much greater divide between faculty and administration. This morning, we have an Inside Higher Ed essay from Kellie Bean on the experience of… Continue reading The Real “Two Cultures” Divide in Academia
Science Talks and Pick-Up Hoops
Over in Tumblr-land, Ben Lillie has an interesting post on all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes of a science talk. It’s an intimidatingly long list of stuff, in quite a range of different areas. But this is a solved problem in other performance fields: And that raises and interesting question, since aside… Continue reading Science Talks and Pick-Up Hoops
The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction
Last weekend was our APS-funded outreach workshop The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction, held at the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland. The workshop offered a three-day “crash course” on quantum physics to 17 science fiction writers from a variety of media– we had novelists, short-story writers, screenwriters, and at least one… Continue reading The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction
Have Laptop, Will Travel
Having mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’ll be on sabbatical for the next academic year, this would probably be a good time to point out that this means I’m somewhat more flexible than usual in terms of going places and giving talks. And I enjoy going places and giving talks. About
14 Years Before the Class(room)
This past academic year was my 14th as a professor at Union, and my last as department chair. I’m on sabbatical for the 2015-16 academic year, doing my very best to avoid setting foot in an academic building, so it will be September 2016 before I’m teaching a class again. This seems like a good… Continue reading 14 Years Before the Class(room)
Physics Blogging Round-Up: Condensed Matter, Magic, Navigation, and Late Nights
Another week, another set of posts at Forbes to link here: — Why Do Solids Have Energy Bands? A conceptual explanation of why putting together lots of atoms with electrons in well-defined energy levels leads to a solid with electrons filling broad energy bands. — This Is The Key Distinction Between Magic And Advanced Technology:… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: Condensed Matter, Magic, Navigation, and Late Nights
Physics Blogging Round-Up
Another busy week of physics-y blogging over at Forbes. I’m pretty bad about remembering to post pointers to individual posts here, but I can probably just about manage to do a weekly links dump of what I’ve been posting. — What’s The Point Of Science Without “Eureka!” Moments? Picking up on a conversation I had… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up