Why just earn a degree when you can leave behind a legend? – CharlotteObserver.com “If you’ve spent significant time on the Davidson College campus the past four years, chances are you’ve at least heard of “the Name Tag Guy.” Or, less likely, Stephen Pierce. They are one. Both were among 427 seniors who graduated during… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-19
Evil Squirrels from Extra Dimensions
It’s been a very long day, so I’m lying on the couch watching “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN. They’re having a boring conversation about baseball, and I’m just drifting off into a pleasant doze when: “Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake! Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!“ I jolt awake. “What are you barking at?!?” I yell at the… Continue reading Evil Squirrels from Extra Dimensions
SteelyKid Dance Party
I have copy edits for an Anglicised edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog to review, lecture notes to write, and a faculty meeting to go to, so I’m going off-line for the rest of the day (with one possible exception). To keep you amused in my absence, here’s some video of SteelyKid… Continue reading SteelyKid Dance Party
Why Do We Have Stuff? Hints from Fermilab
There’s a Dennis Overbye article in the Times today with the Web headline “From Fermilab, a New Clue to Explain Human Existence?” which I like to think of as a back-handed tribute to the person who linked to an interview with Sean Carroll by calling him “The cosmologist, not the scientist.” This is the secret… Continue reading Why Do We Have Stuff? Hints from Fermilab
Links for 2010-05-18
DLMF: NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions An Abromowitz and Stegun for the Internet age. (tags: math science software physics books internet) Blog U.: Is TED Making Us Stupid? – Technology and Learning – Inside Higher Ed “Pre-TED, I used to be able to sit through a boring lecture or presentation — diligently taking notes… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-18
Why I’d Never Make It as a Mathematician
Matt’s Sunday Function this week is a weird one, a series that is only conditionally convergent: So the sum of the infinite series, by inexorable logic, is both ln(2) and ln(2)/2. How is this possible? Of course it isn’t. The flaw in our logic is the assumption that the series has a definite sum –… Continue reading Why I’d Never Make It as a Mathematician
Bath-Time Fluid Dynamics
SteelyKid’s every-so-often bath was last night, and as always, she was fascinated by scooping up water in a hexagonal cup thing that’s part of one of her bath toys, and watching it drain out. Which is completely understandable– not just because she’s a baby, but because there’s a bunch of physics at work, here. I… Continue reading Bath-Time Fluid Dynamics
Links for 2010-05-17
Art – Lapham’s Quarterly It takes seven steps to get from Kevin Bacon to Mark Twain (tags: books literature history art music pictures movies culture silly) Shocking: Michael Faraday does biology! (1839) « Skulls in the Stars “These experiments are fascinating and paint an amusing picture: Faraday and up to three assistants sticking their hands… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-17
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
A few upcoming events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: The big one is that I’ll be aprt of the “Author’s Alley” portion of the World Science Festival Street Fair in New York City on Sunday, June 6th. The last couple of these have coincided with out-of-town trips for me, so I’m… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Links for 2010-05-16
james_nicoll: Please plug the holes in my ignorance “China has its Four Great Classical Novels: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber. My impression, gained from minutes and minutes of research, is these are influential and the sort of thing any given Chinese person would… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-16