I’ve had a tab open for a while containing an Inside Higher Ed article on a new approach to introducing science at Emory University: David Lynn, who chairs the department of chemistry at Emory University, spoke about Emory’s seminar program for entering freshmen. All Emory freshmen must take a seminar the first semester and the […]
Category: My Lab
Because I Need More Stress
Steinn reports a new metric for research productivity that some people are using: the “H-number”: The H-score, takes all your papers, ranked by citation count; then you take the largest “k” such that the kth ranked paper has at least k citations. So, you start off with a H-score of zero. If your 5th highest […]
It’s Not Science Without Graphs
After months and months of nothing, behold! Signal! Explanation below the fold.
College Choice
Sean Carroll is offering more unsolicted advice (though it is in response to a comment, which makes it borderline solicited…), this time about choosing an undergraduate school. He breaks the options down into four categories, with two small errors that I’ll correct in copying the list over here: Liberal-Arts College (LAC), such as Williams or […]
Power Outrage
The previous post was written at about 9:30 last night, and ends on an optimistic note. Of course, any hint of optimism demands retribution from the Lords of Karma, so I got a phone call at 9:45 telling me the power had gone out on campus. The power was apaprently off for something like an […]
Vacuum Technology is Black Magic
We’ve continued plugging away at the optical excitation experiment discussed in the Week in the Lab series last year, and have finally managed to get a decent metastable signal out of the thing. The signals are at pressures that are considerably higher than I would like (and quite a bit higher than the turbopump is […]
I’m Wound Tighter Than a Magnet’s Coil
(Apologies to Lou Barlow…) Earlier, I explained why it is that I bought parchment paper for the lab, as part of the process of making magnetic field coils for an atom trap. What’s the actual coil-making process like? Details and pictures below the fold:
Precision Machining and Baking Supplies
I end up buying a lot of weird things for my lab– really expensive sand, for example– but the latest purchase was a little strange even by my usual standards: The other day, on my way into work, I stopped by the store and bought a roll of parchment paper, for use in the lab. […]
Classic Edition: Do the Pigeon Dance
As promised in the previous post, some thoughts on superstition in science. This was originally posted in October 2004, and astute readers may note that my opening comments about sports went horribly awry not long after. I take this as proof of my point: talking about these things only screws them up.
Shop Days
The last couple of days at work have been Shop Days, with a fair bit of time spent in the department’s machine shop making holes in a metal box. This would, I’m sure, be the occasion of much hilarity among my old junior high shop teachers, as my ineptitude in both metal and wood shop […]