Today’s a lab day in my main class for the term, with a fairly involved experiment to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron. This is going to be all kinds of fun, because 1) I can’t get into the room to set anything up until an hour before the start of class, and 2)… Continue reading Best. Lab. EVER.
Category: Science
Socialization of Toddlers
In last weekend’s post about arguments from innate differences, I suggested that I might be willing to illustrate my position with adorable toddler pictures. On thinking more about it, I’m a little hesitant to write about this at length, because it could easily topple over into arrogant-physicist territory. But then, it’s an excuse to post… Continue reading Socialization of Toddlers
How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog in the Times
The Times Higher Education magazine in the UK, that is. They ran a review of my book a couple of weeks ago, which I’ve only just noticed: The approach is quite entertaining. The tone of the book is chatty and contains some truly awful puns involving dogs, which, if you can stand them, make it… Continue reading How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog in the Times
The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette
I finished Jennifer Ouellette’s new book a few weeks ago, shortly after my trip to Alabama, but it’s taken me a long time to get around to reviewing it due to a combination of too much work and being a Bad Person. There’s finally a tiny break in the storm of work, though, so here’s… Continue reading The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette
Conceptual Physics Costumes for Halloween
It’s late October, which means that the thoughts of small children and adults who have never quite grown up turn to selecting appropriate costumes for Halloween. In the spirit of these literary suggestions and these abstract concept suggestions, I thought it would be useful to offer some suggestions for physics-themed costumes, for those who want… Continue reading Conceptual Physics Costumes for Halloween
Academic Poll: Exam Philosophy
I’m spending a good chunk of the morning grading the exam that I gave yesterday, so here’s a poll on what you might call exam philosophy. Our classes are small, so the bulk of our exams are free-response problems, and we tend to break those problems into sub-parts (1a, 1b, 1c, etc.). There are two… Continue reading Academic Poll: Exam Philosophy
The Problem With Innate Differences
In yesterday’s post about the experience of science, I mentioned that I had both a specific complaint about the article by Alexandra Jellicoe (which I explained in the post) and a general complaint about the class in which the article falls. I want to attempt to explain the latter problem, partly because I think it… Continue reading The Problem With Innate Differences
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Around the World
Between my long-ago high-school French and Google Translate, I can tell that this is a good review of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It does note, though, that reading the book requires knowledge of English to understand it, which is a problem. And, as far as I know, French translation rights haven’t been… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Around the World
Science Is Solitary?
Some time back, I took issue with an article about “masculine” and “feminine” approaches to science that struck me as a little off. The author of the original post, Alexandra Jellicoe, has a new post on the same topic that she pointed out in comments to my original post. I have two major problems with… Continue reading Science Is Solitary?
DonorsChoose Payoff: Where Do Ideas Come From?
As promised, an answer to a question from a donor to this year’s DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Sarah asks: Chad, can I get a post about how you (or scientists in general) come up with ideas for experiments? You’ve covered some of the gory detail with the lab info posts, but I think it would be… Continue reading DonorsChoose Payoff: Where Do Ideas Come From?