Just when I’m finally starting to get a bit of a handle on what’s going on in particle physics (or at least map out the areas of my ignorance), along comes Howard Georgi with “Unparticle Physics”: I discuss some simple aspects of the low-energy physics of a nontrivial scale invariant sector of an effective field… Continue reading Theorists Messing With My Head
The Crucial Lunchtime Hoops Demographic
Setshot lurches back to life to point out the only Democratic primary coverage I need to read: a New York Times piece on Barack Obama’s love of pick-up basketball: From John F. Kennedy’s sailing to Bill Clinton’s golf mulligans to John Kerry’s windsurfing, sports has been used, correctly or incorrectly, as a personality decoder for… Continue reading The Crucial Lunchtime Hoops Demographic
Arbitrary Numerical Signifier
Five years ago today: It’s working out ok so far. I think we’ll stick with it a while longer.
Less Dorky Poll: Business Reading
As a sort of companion to the previous post: What’s the last book you read because it connected to your job in some way? I’m being a little more restrictive in the phrasing of this one, because I don’t want to get a whole bunch of journal articles and arxiv links in the comments, so… Continue reading Less Dorky Poll: Business Reading
Less Dorky Poll: Pleasure Reading
I’m kind of fried this morning– it’s been a long week full of after-work events associated with the end of the year– so I’m not up to doing weighty posts about physics, so here’s a lighter discussion topic: What’s the last non-Internet thing you read for fun? Blogging and work have cut into my pleasure… Continue reading Less Dorky Poll: Pleasure Reading
Resistance to Science and Overthinking
Everybody’s abuzz about the article by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg (the link goes to a reprint at Edge.org; you can find an illicit PDF of the Science article if you poke around a little) about research into why people don’t automatically believe scientific explanations. From the article: The main source of resistance to… Continue reading Resistance to Science and Overthinking
The Wisdom of Crowds of Frat Boys
Over at evolgen, RPM is indignant about being rated by students, citing some pig-ignorant comments from RateMyProfessors. Interestingly, someone brought this up to the Dean Dad a little while ago, and he had an interesting response: A reader wrote to ask a dean’s-eye perspective on ratemyprofessors.com. The short version: I consider it electronic gossip. The… Continue reading The Wisdom of Crowds of Frat Boys
Emmy, Red in Tooth and Claw
This picture is from yesterday, but the scene was more or less the same this morning: A rabbit had hopped into our yard, to eat the spilled seed under the bird feeder (or something over there– it’s like a Disney movie sometimes, with all manner of happy little woodland creatures), so we let the dog… Continue reading Emmy, Red in Tooth and Claw
Easterbrook in Space
Steinn points to that rarest of rarities, a Gregg Easterbrook column on scientific matters (in Wired no less!) that isn’t completely idiotic. In this case, he takes on the misplaced priorities of NASA. Of course, this being Easterbrook, it can’t be entirely right, and I think he’s too harsh in assigning all the blame to… Continue reading Easterbrook in Space
Why the Sky Is Blue, by Götz Hoeppe
Why the Sky Is Blue, by Götz Hoeppe is subtitled “Discovering the Color of Life,” so I was a little puzzled when Princeton University Press asked me if I wanted a review copy. But, hey, free books! This is ultimately a physics book, but it’s really in the category that I think of as “Smart… Continue reading Why the Sky Is Blue, by Götz Hoeppe