One of the under-reported effects of cheap and widely available personal computers is the increasing dorkification of sports. I’m talking here about the rise in obsessive stat-geekery across the board, with the accompanying increase in “fantasy” sports. Those phenomena have hardly been ignored, but not many commentators put the blame where it belongs: on the… Continue reading Put Down the Slide Rule
Summitt and Pearl
Tennessee beat Florida by ten last night, handing the Gators their third loss in the last four games. Much as I dislike Florida, and enjoy seeing them lose, I wouldn’t ordinarily comment on this. Hell, I wouldn’t’ve watched this, ordinarily– it was an SEC game, and Vitale was calling it. I subjected myself to the… Continue reading Summitt and Pearl
Unitary Evolution in Tight Shorts
Terence Tao explains quantum theory as a game of Tomb Raider: Imagine first that Lara is about to navigate a tricky rolling boulder puzzle, when she hears a distant rumbling sound – the sound of her player saving her game to disk. From the perspective of the player, what happens next is the following: Lara… Continue reading Unitary Evolution in Tight Shorts
Fire Bad Teachers or the Terrorists Win
Kate’s in Rochester to argue a couple of cases, and the Queen of Niskayuna is being Difficult this morning, so I don’t have as much time as I’d like for this. As a result, it may come out a little more inflammatory than I intend, but then, that’s half the fun of blogging. Or something.… Continue reading Fire Bad Teachers or the Terrorists Win
Syracuse over Georgetown
Another unexpected win for one of my teams. I think Jay Bilas put it pretty well when he said “I bet Jim Boeheim didn’t expect to be playing his senior walk-ons in the final minute of a victory.” A loss, maybe, but Syracuse winning 72-58 is a real surprise. This was a good old-fashioned Big… Continue reading Syracuse over Georgetown
Boid
This looks like it’s most likely a robin, though it was kind of big for a robin, and the color is a little weird. Maybe it’s molting, or some such. Anyway, it was perched right outside the window, and Her Majesty found it absolutely fascinating. So I took a picture.
Journal of Easily Amused Physicists
Check out the DeMille group rigid rotor photo. Truly, a remarkable display. (One of my students stumbled across this while researching grad schools, and showed it to me today.)
The Cult of Theory
Over at Cosmic Variance, Julianne (not JoAnne, as I originally typed) has a very nice post about the cult of genius in physics, and its relationship to research on the problems caused by excessive praise. Doug Natelson also has some comments. There’s some fascinating stuff in the articles about praise, with some likely relevance to… Continue reading The Cult of Theory
Brother Guy On Ice
Kate has posted a report on Boskone talk by Brother Guy Consolmagno, on hunting for meteorites in Antarctica. Guy is a Jesuit brother, and also a research astronomer for the Vatican, and a better example of the peaceful coexistence of science and religion would be hard to find. He’s also a very entertaining speaker. I… Continue reading Brother Guy On Ice
Maryland vs. North Carolina
Well, I didn’t expect this… Between that and the Oscars, I’ll never cut it as a telephone psychic. I came back from the intramural game (we lost to a team of football players who had a slight strength and conditioning edge over us) with about 11 minutes left, and it looked pretty much like what… Continue reading Maryland vs. North Carolina