For something related to the book-in-progress, I was reading Raymond Chandler’s classic essay “The Simple Art of Murder” last night, and stumbled across the following quote, where he laments the number of stories in print in the mystery genre in 1950: In my less stilted moments I too write detective stories, and all this immortality… Continue reading The Trouble With Physics
My Beloved Brontosaurus by Brian Switek
Back in January, thinking about science topics to add to the book-in-progress, it occurred to me that I would really be letting down SteelyKid (and pre-schoolers everywhere) if I didn’t take the opportunity to include something about dinosaurs. The problem with that, of course, is that I know next to nothing about dinosaurs, especially discoveries… Continue reading My Beloved Brontosaurus by Brian Switek
Mastermind by Maria Konnikova
I saw Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind on the book lottery stacks at Science Online, and the subtitle “How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes” practically screamed “This is relevant to your interests!” Not only am I writing a book about how to think like a scientist, one of the chapters I have in mind uses mystery novels… Continue reading Mastermind by Maria Konnikova
Blogging Doesn’t Have to Be a Career
Last week, I gave my evangelical talk about science blogging to the Physics department at Wright State, and also a lot of education students who came to the talk (which made a nice change in the sort of questions I got). It’s basically this talk that I gave at Cornell a couple of years ago,… Continue reading Blogging Doesn’t Have to Be a Career
Gravity’s Engines by Caleb Scharf
The last week or so of silence on the blog has been due to my trip to Ohio (which was very enjoyable), and a lack of child care for the early part of this week. A day and a half home with both kids was just exhausting, but the trip was useful in that it… Continue reading Gravity’s Engines by Caleb Scharf
Sunday Morning, Chateau Steelypips
The Pip is getting really into books these days, and SteelyKid has been into them for a good while now (she’s four-and-a-half, after all…). At some point last week, she asked about my writing, so I got down a copy of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog and showed her her name in the… Continue reading Sunday Morning, Chateau Steelypips
How Good Is My Starbucks Cup?
It’s been a while since I’ve done a post over-analyzing some everyday situation, because I’ve been too busy to do any silly experiments. We’re on break this week, though, so I took a little time Monday to bring excessive technology to bear on the critically important scientific question: how good is my insulated Starbucks cup?… Continue reading How Good Is My Starbucks Cup?
I Teach for Free, They Pay Me to Grade
Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau has a bit of a rant about what students perceive as grading on a “curve”: Moreover, many students have only the foggiest idea of what a curve is. Many (though probably not all) of their high schools had fixed grading scales with fixed percentages for each letter grade. The A/A-… Continue reading I Teach for Free, They Pay Me to Grade
Hey, Ho, Ohio: Two Talks at Wright State, Thursday March 28
Kind of short notice, but if you’re in the appropriate bits of Ohio, you might be interested to know that I’m giving two talks at Wright State this Thursday. At 11am, I’m doing the Physics Department Colloquium in 202 Oelman Hall, “Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters, and How… Continue reading Hey, Ho, Ohio: Two Talks at Wright State, Thursday March 28
A Plan and a Story
OK, here’s my idea: We put a leash on Emmy and we put her up on top of this rock that’s on top of all these other rocks. Then she jumps down into these petals. so she’ll be safe. And you pull on the leash so she jumps down a little faster. I’m down here… Continue reading A Plan and a Story