ScienceWoman offers a good discussion question: You are in a room with a bunch of other female faculty/post-docs/grad students from your university. You know a few of them, but most of them are unfamiliar to you. The convener of the meeting asks each of you to introduce yourself by answering the following question: “What is… Continue reading What Do You Do Well?
Category: Physics
Photons Are Particles
Over at Dot Physics, Rhett is taking another whack at photons. If you recall, the last time he did this wasn’t too successful, and this round fares no better: So back to the photon. In my original post I made the claim that the photoelectric effect is not a great experiment to show photons. Maybe… Continue reading Photons Are Particles
Award-Winning Science Writing
The winners of the American Physical Society’s Science Writing Awards for 2008 were announced today: Ann Finkbeiner won in the Journalist category for The Jasons, her book about a secretive groups of scientists who work on classified problems for the US government. Gino Segre won in the Scientist category, for Faust in Copenhagen, about the… Continue reading Award-Winning Science Writing
Academic Poll Results: Exam Reporting
the results from yesterday’s poll on reporting exam scores were pretty strongly divided. 47% favored giving histograms, or some very detailed breakdown, while 33% were in favor of statistical measures only (mean, standard deviation, extrema, that sort of thing). 19% were in favor of giving no collective information at all. My own usual practice is… Continue reading Academic Poll Results: Exam Reporting
Academic Poll Results: Formula Sheets
Tallying up the results of yesterday’s poll about formula sheets (as of 8:00 Tuesday morning, 39 total comments), people were overwhelmingly in favor of formula sheets. 72% of respondents reported being allowed to use formula sheets as students, and 69% were in favor of allowing formula sheets as faculty. A substantial number of the “no”… Continue reading Academic Poll Results: Formula Sheets
Academic Poll: Exam Reporting
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
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
Random Physics We Don’t Understand
I’ve already mentioned two of the program items I was on at Boskone (global warming and quantum physics for dogs). I should at least comment on the other two, “Physics: What We Don’t Understand” and “Is Science Addicted to Randomness?” They both featured me and Geoff Landis, but other than that were very different. “Physics:… Continue reading Random Physics We Don’t Understand