Physics Announcements: New Forum, Undergraduate Research Session

I was at a meeting of the Committee on Informing the Public of the American Physical Society at the tail end of last week, so it seems appropriate to post a couple of APS-related announcements here on my return: 1) The APS has just created a Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public. You may… Continue reading Physics Announcements: New Forum, Undergraduate Research Session

Where I’m Going to Be in 2011

Not an exhaustive list, but since I’m noodling around with my calendar, I might as well note some of the stuff I’ll be doing this year: I’ll be on a panel about international science testing at the AAAS Annual Meeting in February. This will be a different experience– not only have I never been to… Continue reading Where I’m Going to Be in 2011

Presentation Poll: Outline or No Outline?

We have a summer student seminar series in the science and engineering departments here, running two days a week at lunchtime with three students each day giving 15 minute presentations on their summer research projects to other students and faculty. The student talks are split almost 50/50 overall on whether to provide an outline at… Continue reading Presentation Poll: Outline or No Outline?

Presentation Style: Indoctrination or Selection?

we have a summer student seminar series, in which students who are doing summer research give 15-minute talks about their research. These are generally pretty good– our students are, by and large, very good public speakers. One thing that I always find interesting about this is how many of the students end up sounding just… Continue reading Presentation Style: Indoctrination or Selection?

Relativity on a Human Scale

While I mostly restricted myself to watching invited talks at DAMOP last week, I did check out a few ten-minute talks, one of which ended up being just about the coolest thing I saw at the meeting. Specifically, the Friday afternoon talk on observing relativity with atomic clocks by Chin-Wen Chou of the Time and… Continue reading Relativity on a Human Scale