There was a kerfuffle in academic social media a bit earlier this week, kicked off by an anonymous Twitter feed dedicated to complaints about students (which I won’t link to, as it’s one of those stunt feeds that’s mostly an exercise in maximizing clicks by maximizing dickishness). This triggered a bunch of sweeping declarations about… Continue reading Priority Expectations and Student-Faculty Conflict
“CERN Invented the Web” Isn’t an Argument for Anything
I mentioned in passing in the Forbes post about science funding that I’m thoroughly sick of hearing about how the World Wide Web was invented at CERN. I got into an argument about this a while back on Twitter, too, but had to go do something else and couldn’t go into much detail. It’s probably… Continue reading “CERN Invented the Web” Isn’t an Argument for Anything
The Central Problem of Academic Hiring
A bunch of people in my social-media feeds are sharing this post by Alana Cattapan titled Time-sucking academic job applications don’t know enormity of what they ask. It describes an ad asking for two sample course syllabi “not merely syllabi for courses previously taught — but rather syllabi for specific courses in the hiring department,”… Continue reading The Central Problem of Academic Hiring
Physics Blogging Round-Up: February
Another month, another collection of physics posts from Forbes: — Quantum Loopholes And The Problem Of Free Will: In one of those odd bits of synchronicity, a previous post about whether dark matter and energy might affect atoms in a way that allowed for “free will” was followed shortly by a news release about an… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: February
Physics Blogging Round-Up: January
It’s a new month now, so it’s time to share links to what I wrote for Forbes last month: — Small College Astronomers Predict Big Stellar Explosion: I mostly leave astronomy stories to others, but I heard about this from a friend at Calvin College, and it’s a story that hits a lot of my… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: January
New Book Alert: “Breakfast With Einstein”
So, I tweeted about this yesterday, but I also spent the entire day feeling achy and feverish, so didn’t have brains or time for a blog post with more details. I’m feeling healthier this morning, though time is still short, so I’ll give a quick summary of the details: — As you can see in… Continue reading New Book Alert: “Breakfast With Einstein”
Physics Blogging Round-Up: December
This one’s late because I acquired a second class for the Winter term on very short notice. I was scheduled to teach our sophomore-level “Modern Physics” class, plus the lab, but a colleague who was scheduled to teach relativity for non-majors had a medical issue, and I’m the only other one on staff who’s ever… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: December
The Hold Steady at Brooklyn Bowl 12/2/16
There are only a couple of bands I’d drive a significant distance to see live, and now I’ve made the trip to NYC to see two of them. I went to see the Afghan Whigs in 2014, and this past Friday, I drove to Brooklyn for a Hold Steady show. And this time, I have… Continue reading The Hold Steady at Brooklyn Bowl 12/2/16
Physics Blogging Round-Up: November
I’m not posting as much as I did last year, when I was on sabbatical (gasp, shock, surprise), so making Forbes-blog links dump posts a monthly thing is probably just about sustainable. — What Math Do You Need For Physics? It Depends: Some thoughts about, well, the math you need to learn to be a… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: November
On Feelings and Votes
This is going to be a bit of a rant, because there’s a recurring theme in my recent social media that’s really bugging me, and I need to vent. I’m going to do it as a blog post rather than an early-morning tweetstorm, because tweets are more likely to be pulled out of context, and… Continue reading On Feelings and Votes