I go back and forth about the whole question of scientific accuracy in tv shows and movies. On the one hand, I think that complaining “Explosions don’t make noise in space!” is one of the worst forms of humorless dorkitude, and I’m generally happy to let bad science slide by in the service of an… Continue reading The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies
Category: In the Media
Bad Reporting About Women in STEM
This is apparently my day to be annoyed at the reporting of pieces about gender differences in STEM, because a bunch of people are linking to this PBS NewsHour article about women in engineering, which is linked to an interview with Maria Klawe of Harvey Mudd College, who I ran across a few weeks back… Continue reading Bad Reporting About Women in STEM
Impostors, Underdogs, and the Status of Science
Over in Scientopia, SciCurious has a nice post about suffering from Impostor Syndrome, the feeling that everyone else is smarter than you are, and you will soon be exposed as a total fraud. Which is nonsense, of course, but something that almost every scientist suffers at some point. The post ends on a more upbeat… Continue reading Impostors, Underdogs, and the Status of Science
Dog Physics on the Radio
I’ve done a bunch of publicity stuff for How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, some of which frustratingly continue to not appear yet, but one thing from this week has gone live: a podcast interview on the Matt Lewis Show, where I talk about why and how I explain physics to the dog, and… Continue reading Dog Physics on the Radio
Entanglement Is Not That Magic
One of the things that made me very leery of the whole Brian Cox electron business was the way that he seemed to be justifying dramatic claims through dramatic handwaving: “Moving an electron here changes the state of a very distant electron instantaneously because LOOK! THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN PAPER!” On closer inspection,… Continue reading Entanglement Is Not That Magic
On the Interconnectedness of Things
I finally got a copy of Cox and Forshaw’s The Quantum Universe, and a little time to read it, in hopes that it would shed some light on the great electron state controversy. I haven’t finished the book, but I got through the relevant chapter and, well, it doesn’t, really. That is, the discussion in… Continue reading On the Interconnectedness of Things
Calling London: Teaching Relativity to Your Dog on the Radio
The new book is out, which means it’s time for lots of promotional efforts and links to radio shows and news articles and that sort of thing. Such as this one: I’ll be talking about relativity and dog physics tomorrow night, Wednesday the 7th, on the Big Science radio program(me) at 9pm London time (in… Continue reading Calling London: Teaching Relativity to Your Dog on the Radio
On Cox vs. Swans
The other controversial thing this week that I shouldn’t get involved in is the debate over whether Brian Cox is talking nonsense in a recent discussion of the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Tom at Swans on Tea kicked this off with an inflammatory title, and Cox turned up in the comments to take umbrage at that.… Continue reading On Cox vs. Swans
Simple Answers to Stupid Rhetorical Devices
Over at Scientific American, John Horgan has a blog post titled In Physics, Telling Cranks from Experts Ain’t Easy, which opens with an anecdote any scientist will recognize: A couple of decades ago, I made the mistake of faxing an ironic response to what I thought was an ironic faxed letter. The writer–let’s call him… Continue reading Simple Answers to Stupid Rhetorical Devices
O Brave New-Media World That Has Such Bloggers In It
I’ve been incredibly busy this term, but not so busy I couldn’t create more work for myself. Specifically, by writing an opinion piece for Physics World about the FTL neutrino business, that just went live on their web site: The result quickly turned into one of the most covered physics stories of the year, with… Continue reading O Brave New-Media World That Has Such Bloggers In It