OK, it’s not really a full post-mortem, because I haven’t graded the final exams yet, but I wouldn’t tell you about those, anyway. Still, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past term, which was my first teaching introductory mechanics on the Matter & Interactions curriculum. On the whole, I continue to… Continue reading Matter and Interactions: Post-Mortem
Category: Academia
Unhealthy Obsessions of Academia
Over at Cosmic Variance, Julianne is annoyed at Nature‘s embargo policy. It seems that somebody or another posted a paper to the arxiv while submitting it to Nature, and included a note on the arxiv submission asking people to abide by Nature‘s embargo. So, instead of blogging about the Incredibly Exciting Discovery (which I’d loooove… Continue reading Unhealthy Obsessions of Academia
Anonymity and Pseudonymity
Somebody recently asked me whether I had figured out who Female Science Professor is. I truthfully replied that I haven’t even tried. That was the first thing that came to mind when some jerk from the National Review revealed the identity of “Publius”, kicking off another round of discussion about the etiquette of revealing identities… Continue reading Anonymity and Pseudonymity
Academic Poll: Forms of Address
This may be too late in the day to generate much action, but I thought of it just a little while ago. Two questions: 1) If you were writing a letter of recommendation for a student, would you refer to them as “Firstname” or “Mr./Ms. Lastname”? 2) Does your answer depend on the level of… Continue reading Academic Poll: Forms of Address
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
For reasons that don’t really matter, I learned yesterday that there is a marathon in Antarctica: On December 12th, 2009, the fifth Antarctic Ice Marathon will take place at 80 Degrees South, just a few hundred miles from the South Pole at the foot of the Ellsworth Mountains. This race presents a truly formidable and… Continue reading Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
What Should I Say to High School Graduates?
I’m in a line of work where I have to listen to a lot of graduation speeches– at least one per year. Yesterday, though, I got a phone call asking me to give one at my old high school’s graduation in three and a half weeks. This is kind of a weird situation, because while… Continue reading What Should I Say to High School Graduates?
Nobody Expects the Vector Product
Today is the first day of the last week of class, hallelujah. Unfortunately, it’s also the first class on rotational motion and angular momentum. This is unfortunate because it’s the hardest material in the course– angular momentum doesn’t behave in as intuitive a manner as linear momentum, and the math involved is the most complicated… Continue reading Nobody Expects the Vector Product
Mysteries of the Stock Room
Why do we have two meter sticks taped together back to back? What is the dark stain obscuring the markings between 30 and 70 cm on half of the meter sticks? Where the hell are all the stopwatches? Why are the demo magnets sticky? Why do we still have six meters worth of a rusting,… Continue reading Mysteries of the Stock Room
Sigma Xi Talk: Tropical Glaciers Are Weird
Tuesday night was the annual Sigma Xi induction banquet on campus (I’m currently the president of the local chapter, and have been scrambling to organize the whole thing in between all my other responsibilities these past few weeks). Sigma Xi, for those not familiar with it, is the scientific research honor society– like Phi Beta… Continue reading Sigma Xi Talk: Tropical Glaciers Are Weird
Projectile Motion, Uncertainty, and a Question of Ethics
We no longer do what is possibly my favorite lab in the intro mechanics class. We’ve switched to the Matter and Interactions curriculum, and thus no longer spend a bunch of time on projectile motion, meaning there’s no longer room for the “target shooting” lab. It’s called that because the culmination of the lab used… Continue reading Projectile Motion, Uncertainty, and a Question of Ethics