Thursday’s tempest-in-a-teapot was kicked off by an interview with Dan Vergano in which he suggests science reporting is a “ghetto:” The idea, and it comes from the redoubtable Tom Hayden, is that science reporting has largely become a secret garden walled off, and walling itself off, from the rest of the world. Instead of reporting… Continue reading We Need Scientific Thinking, Not Scientific Commentary
Category: Pop Culture
Neil de Grasse Tyson Is John Harrison
Over at Galileo’s Pendulum, Matthew Francis expresses an opinion that’s sure to get him in trouble with the Inquisition and placed under house arrest: Carl Sagan’s Cosmos isn’t all that: However, even taking into account the differences in TV between 1980 and 2013, the show is very slow-paced at times. I’m not talking about the… Continue reading Neil de Grasse Tyson Is John Harrison
260 Million Scientists a Month
The day I bought my iPad, as I was taking it out of the box, SteelyKid (then 3) came bopping into my office, spotted it, and declared “I want to play Angry Birds!” It’s a remarkable demonstration of the genius of their product: not only have they created a game that a three-year-old can play,… Continue reading 260 Million Scientists a Month
“Singular Oddities of Character”: Cavendish and Dirac
One of the oddities of writing the book-in-progress is that it involves a lot more history-of-science than I’m used to. which means I’m doing things like checking out 800-page scientific biographies from the college library so I can use them to inform 500 word sections of 4000 word chapters. One of these is Cavendish: The… Continue reading “Singular Oddities of Character”: Cavendish and Dirac
Quasi Poll: Most Needed Pop-Science Biography?
I’ve got a ton of stuff that needs to get done this week, but I don’t want the blog to be completely devoid of new content, so here’s a quasi-poll question for my wise and worldly readers: What scientist is most in need of a good popular biography? By “popular biography,” I mean things like… Continue reading Quasi Poll: Most Needed Pop-Science Biography?
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down to the River to Pray
I’ve just emerged from a week in the Incredible College Simulator(*), first spending a week at DAMOP and then the weekend at my 20th college reunion at Williams, so while I have physics stuff I ought to write about, my brain has temporarily turned to goo. Also, I have a week’s worth of administrative crap… Continue reading The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down to the River to Pray
Experiment and Theory in the Popular Imagination
A little while back, I posted about the pro-theorist bias in popular physics, and Ashutosh Jogalekar offers a long and detailed response, which of course was posted on a day when I spent six hours driving to Quebec City for a conference. Sigh. Happily, ZapperZ and Tom at Swans On Tea offer more or less… Continue reading Experiment and Theory in the Popular Imagination
Angry Birds, Furious Forces! by Rhett Allain
Rhett at Dot Physics departed ScienceBlogs before NAtional Geographic fully took over, but still managed to connect with their book division for a physics text. This is part of a series they’re doing tied in with the folks from Rovio, makers of the world’s most popular smart-phone time-waster, and, as the title suggests, it uses… Continue reading Angry Birds, Furious Forces! by Rhett Allain
Blogging Is Not Mandatory
I mentioned on Twitter that I was thinking of proposing a Science Online program item about the professionalization of blogging, throwing in a link to post from a couple months ago. That included a link to this SlideShare: Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters and How Social Media Can… Continue reading Blogging Is Not Mandatory
Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution by John Gribbin
Erwin Schrödinger is one of the more colorful figures in physics history. He’s best known for Emmy’s favorite thought experiment, of course, which attempts to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum physics through locking a cat in a box. This overshadows the Schrödinger Equation, the central equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, which won him a Nobel… Continue reading Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution by John Gribbin