In a comment to the AP post, “hogeb” asks an excellent question about pedagogy: I’d like to enlist your advise and the advise of any readers who can provide it. I teach physical science to pre-service elementary school teachers. I try to elucidate the somewhat subtle differences between the application of a force and the… Continue reading We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us
Advanced Placement: Threat or Menace?
Kevin Drum reports receiving an email from a professor of physics denouncing the Advanced Placement test in Physics: It is the very apotheosis of “a mile wide and an inch deep.” They cover everything in the mighty Giancoli tome that sits unread on my bookshelf, all 1500 pages of it. They have seen not only… Continue reading Advanced Placement: Threat or Menace?
Bring Back Amateur Night
I’m a bad basketball fan. Duke played North Carolina last night, and I didn’t watch. The Blue Devils are the #2 ranked team in the nation, the Tar Heels are the defending national champions, it was a back-and-forth game that went down to the wire, and I didn’t watch any of it, other than a… Continue reading Bring Back Amateur Night
Top Eleven: Ernest Rutherford
The eighth of the Top Eleven is an experiment by the man who set the gold standard for arrogance in physics. Who: Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), a New Zealand-born physicist who famously declared “In science, there is only physics. All the rest is stamp collecting.” He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. When:… Continue reading Top Eleven: Ernest Rutherford
Physics Blog Notes
There was an article about physics blogs a little while back in Physics World, that didn’t mention me by name, but did link to the Steelypips site. It mostly talks up the informal information exchange side of things. In that spirit, here are some things I found via physics blog (mostly through Mixed States (after… Continue reading Physics Blog Notes
Top Eleven: Heinrich Hertz
The seventh entry in the Top Eleven is an experiment that leads directly to all forms of wireless communications. Who: Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-1894), a German physicist. When: 1886 What: Hertz studied electromagnetism, and in particular, the prediction from Maxwell’s Equations that it ought to be possible for electromagnetic waves to travel through free space.… Continue reading Top Eleven: Heinrich Hertz
Super Bowl Recap
The Steelers won the super Bowl last night, in a game that didn’t hold any rooting interest for me. As a result, I spent most of it doing other things– making gourmet fried stuff (about which more later), marking a big stack of homework assignments, and writing today’s lecture (solutions of the time-independent Schroedinger equation!… Continue reading Super Bowl Recap
Metablashphemy! It is Sacriligious and Pretentious!
I feel like I ought to say something about the whole Danish cartoon mess, but really– and this isn’t something you’ll hear me say often about issues touching on religion– PZ has it about right. The paper in question has every right to print them, but when you get down to it, the cartoons themselves… Continue reading Metablashphemy! It is Sacriligious and Pretentious!
It’s Turtles All the Way Down
I’ve occasionally joked in the past that it’s unfair that the biologists get all the attention from the religious wing nuts. I mean, modern cosmology ought to be just as big an affront to the young-earth creationist types as evolution, so what are we, chopped liver? Of course, now that a story has come to… Continue reading It’s Turtles All the Way Down
That Was the Year That Was?
The 2006 Locus Reader’s Poll is now up, with a convenient on-line ballot for you to vote for your favorite books and stories of the year. For those not in the know, Locus is sort of the trade magazine of the science fiction field, publishing extensive reviews, and also all manner of publishing news and… Continue reading That Was the Year That Was?