As you have no doubt noticed, my early-morning review of Randy Olson’s Sizzle was part of a concerted effort to get blogs to review the movie all on the same day. It’s an experiment of sorts in using blogs to promote the movie. Unfortunately for Olson, it seems to be an experiment designed to test… Continue reading Sizzle: No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?
Category: Science
Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, by Randy Olson
The forthcoming Sizzle, Randy Olson’s follow-up to the well-received A Flock of Dodos, is a movie that’s trying to do three things at the same time: 1) provide some information about global warming, 2) make a point about how scientific information is presented to the public, and 3) experiment with new ways of presenting scientific… Continue reading Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, by Randy Olson
Why Don’t They Predict That?
In a comment on the FutureBaby betting thread, Rivka writes: (I’m laughing at all these people who are predicting early. The average gestation for a first time mother is 41 weeks, 1 day.) Of course, as a physical scientist, my immediate reaction to that is “If they know that, then shouldn’t that be figured into… Continue reading Why Don’t They Predict That?
Graduate Networking and Science Cartoons
A couple of links about things that have turned up in my email recently: — As a follow-on to yesterday’s post about grad school, I got an email a little while ago about Graduate Junction, a social networking/ career building site aimed at graduate students. I’m coming up on ten years of being out of… Continue reading Graduate Networking and Science Cartoons
Science Marches On (Magnetic Moments Edition)
I’m currently revising the book chapter based on the original “Bunnies Made of Cheese” post, which deals with virtual particles and Quantum Electro-Dynamics. The best proof of the power of QED is the measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, where experiment and theory agree to something like thirteen decimal places. In double-checking… Continue reading Science Marches On (Magnetic Moments Edition)
Help Me Locate Kooks
The final chapter of Bunnies Made of Cheese: The Book is currently envisioned as a look at the misuse of quantum mechanics by evil squirrels: qucks and hucksters of various sorts. As a result, I spent a good chunk of yesterday wading through the sewers of alternative medicine books on Amazon, using the “Search Inside… Continue reading Help Me Locate Kooks
Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos
John Allen Paulos’s Innumeracy is one of those classics of the field that I’ve never gotten around to reading. I’ve been thinking more about these sorts of issues recently, though, so when the copy I bought a few years ago turned up in our recent book-shuffling, I decided to give it a read. Unfortunately, I… Continue reading Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos
Science Blogs: What Are They Good For?
Over at Science After Sunclipse, Blake has a very long post about the limitations of science blogs. Brian at Laelaps responds, and Tom at Swans On Tea agrees. You might be wondering whether I have an opinion on this. Since I’m going to be talking about it at a workshop in September (first talk, no… Continue reading Science Blogs: What Are They Good For?
Academic Poll: Have You Seen This Before?
A few days ago, some colleagues and I were discussing the year that just ended, and the curriculum in general, and the frequent lament about needing to repeat ourselves came up. Due to some quirks of our calendar, we have a lot of students taking courses out of sequence, and as a result, have to… Continue reading Academic Poll: Have You Seen This Before?
Biographers (and Physicists) Are Pigs
I’m deep in book revisions at the moment, which largely accounts for the relative blog silence. This is expected to continue for a while yet, broken by the occasional post when something comes up that is irritating enough to push me to write about it. Such as, well, now. In the chapter on the Copenhagen… Continue reading Biographers (and Physicists) Are Pigs