Category: Links Dump

An Inside Look at the Physics GRE | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine “I am sworn to secrecy about a lot of the details, for good reason, but let me try to tell you from my perspective as an exam writer how to study for this dreaded event in your physics education.” (tags: science physics… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-23

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: What to Expect: The Third Decade. “By thirty-years-old, your adult will probably be able to… Feed and maintain a house pet, Hold down a job, Maintain eye contact while speaking, Refrain from discussing high school, Cook a meal (three-course), Make small talk, Forgive his family, Acknowledge other viewpoints (social), Detect and respond… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-22

Chairs : The Quantum Pontiff “Michael Green is the new Lucasian chair of Mathematics replacing the esteemed Stephen Hawking. Green helped sparked the great optimism in string theory by discovering with John Schwarz the Green-Schwarz anomaly cancellation mechanism. Elsewhere, the Perimeter Institute has named ten new distinguished research chairs, among them a host of the… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-21

Myth Confirmed. : Built on Facts “[U]ntil relatively recently, no one had ever actually done the experiment. It’s difficult, both in terms of dropping the bullets properly and making sure the gun fires exactly horizontally. Horizontal fire is critical, because if there is an initial vertical velocity for the fired bullet, the equation will be… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-20

Patrick Welsh — To Explain the Achievement Gap, Examine the Parenting Gap – washingtonpost.com “My students knew intuitively that the reason they were lagging academically had nothing to do with race, which is the too-handy explanation for the achievement gap in Alexandria. And it wasn’t because the school system had failed them. They knew that… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-19

Analysis Of A Roulette Strategy “As Hank explains in a recent article, when he visits a Casino he plays the Roulette. His simple strategy consists in betting on a single colour, doubling the bet every time he loses; when he wins, he starts back with the minimum bet. Such a strategy is not going to… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-18

Career Advice: A Regular Writing Routine – Inside Higher Ed “In this article, I’m starting a four-part series on developing a regular writing routine. In this column, I’ll discuss and debunk two popular myths about writing. In my next column, I’ll review two of my favorite articles, one on expert performance and the other on… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-17

slacktivist: Oh, and Tony Perkins? He lies. A lot. For money. “Please don’t clutch your pearls and get the vapors that such an impolite thing is stated so honestly. That Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council lies a lot in order to scare people into sending him money is not surprising, or new, or… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-16

Electrons flow forever in metal rings – physicsworld.com “[I]f a metal ring is very small – about 1 μm diameter or less – quantum mechanics says that its electrons should behave in much the same way as electrons orbiting an atomic nucleus. And in the same way that electrons in the lowest energy configuration of… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-15

AdLit.org: Adolescent Literacy – William Farish: The World’s Most Famous Lazy Teacher “Thomas Jefferson was arguably one of the most well-educated Americans of his time. He was well-read, thoughtful, knowledgeable in a wide variety of topics from the arts to the sciences, and the founder of the University of Virginia. The same could probably be… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-14