No, this isn’t a mistake– I’m doing two quasi-polls on academic issues today, because I care what you think… I’m handing back last Thursday’s exams today. The scores on the test were about what I expect, given the material. As I’m looking at the scores, trying to assess the class as a whole, I’m curious… Continue reading Academic Poll: Exam Reporting
Category: Academia
Academic Poll: Formula Sheets
In the basement, across the hall from my lab, there are three plastic-covered collages made up of formula sheets from long-ago exams. One of my colleagues let the students in a Physics for Pre-Meds class write whatever they wanted on one sheet of paper to bring into the final, and made art from the collected… Continue reading Academic Poll: Formula Sheets
Course Report: Formal Quantum Mechanics
I left off last time with a brief introduction to uncertainty, followed by two classes worth of background, both mathematical and Mathematica. Class 15 picked up the physics again, starting with an explanation of the connection between the Fourier theorem and uncertainty, namely that any attempt to construct a wavefunction that has both particle and… Continue reading Course Report: Formal Quantum Mechanics
Journalists Are Amplifiers
A few days ago, Bee put up a post titled Do We Need Science Journalists?, linking back to Bora’s enormous manifesto from the first bit of the Horgan-Johnson bloggingheads kerfuffle. My first reaction was “Oh, God, not again…” but her post did make me think of one thing, which is illustrated by Peter Woit’s latest… Continue reading Journalists Are Amplifiers
Happy News Open Thread
I’ve been a Grumpy Blogger this week, what with one thing and another (some of my general malaise has finally resolved into a cold, which I suspect explains a lot). I’m headed to Boskone for the weekend, though, so let’s end the week on a positive note. I’m declaring this a Happy News Open Thread:… Continue reading Happy News Open Thread
Essential Skills and Experiences?
Like a lot of physics departments, we offer an upper-level lab class, aimed at juniors and seniors. There are a lot of ways to approach this sort of course, but one sensible way to think about it is in terms of giving students essential skills and experiences. That is, i’s a course in which they… Continue reading Essential Skills and Experiences?
The Purpling of Blogdom
Williams has long held a dominant position in a number of categories of blogging: Dan Drezner on economics and politics, Marc Lynch on the Middle East, Ethan Zuckerman on the developing world and really cool conferences, Derek Catsam on history and Red Sox fandom, yours truly on canine physics. And I’m sure I’m forgetting several… Continue reading The Purpling of Blogdom
Two Cultures in Beginnings and Endings
Not long after I posted my comments about textbook prices, I went to a panel discussion on teaching, where a social scientist made an interesting observation about the ways different disciplines interact with books. In the humanities, the whole point of the class is to discuss the books. Nothing useful can be done until and… Continue reading Two Cultures in Beginnings and Endings
Science and Sociology of Dark Matter
There’s a new paper from the PAMELA dark matter search out that’s written up in Physics, including a link to a free version of the PDF. This paper is considerably less dramatic than one that appeared last year, leading Physics World to suggest that they’re backing off the earlier claim. What’s the deal? Sean Carroll… Continue reading Science and Sociology of Dark Matter
The Swashbuckling Physicist’s Guide to Complex Numbers
Having mentioned this a few times in course reports, I thought I’d throw out a link to my lecture notes (PDF) on complex numbers. This is the one-class whirlwind review of complex numbers from defining i to Euler’s theorem about complex exponentials. To answer a slightly incredulous question from a commenter, this is necessary because… Continue reading The Swashbuckling Physicist’s Guide to Complex Numbers