The last couple of days at work have been Shop Days, with a fair bit of time spent in the department’s machine shop making holes in a metal box. This would, I’m sure, be the occasion of much hilarity among my old junior high shop teachers, as my ineptitude in both metal and wood shop… Continue reading Shop Days
Month: July 2006
Stop Thinking in Terms of High School Physics
p>Gordon Watts has some thoughts on a subject near to my heart: the ways we drive students out of physics. For the past 6 years I’ve taught various versions of the introductory physics survey course. It covers 100’s years of physics in one year. We rarely spend more than a lecture on a single topic;… Continue reading Stop Thinking in Terms of High School Physics
Seed on the Large Hadron Collider
My Corporate Masters have finally posted the piece that ran in the most recent print edition of the magazine, in which prominent physicists comment on the LHC. They’ve got predictions and explanations of why the LHC is interesting from an impressive array of people. Most of the answers are pretty predictable. Lisa Randall talks about… Continue reading Seed on the Large Hadron Collider
We’re Number 8,312!
As you’ve no doubt seen elsewhere on ScienceBlogs, Nature posted a little story about popular science blogs that included a list of said blogs, including a link to yours truly (tied with Deltoid for 11th in their list by Technorati rank order. My ranking has actually climbed slightly since then (#8312 accoring to my most… Continue reading We’re Number 8,312!
World Cup Update
I didn’t get to see much of the World Cup games over the weekend, as we were in Chicago at a friend’s wedding, with drinks and dancing and socializing, and various other things that were more attractive than watching penalty-kick shootouts. A few scattered observations all the same: Appearances: not always decceiving. See Wayne Rooney’s… Continue reading World Cup Update
Final DonorsChoose Notes
I had meant to post something or another yesterday, after we got back, but, well, I was still in vacation mode, and didn’t get around to it. I also didn’t queue up anything for today, thinking that I would write something last night, but I didn’t feel like doing that, either. You may get another… Continue reading Final DonorsChoose Notes
Classic Edition: Video Killed the Rhetoric Star
Poking through the archives to find some old physics posts to fill space while I’m away from the keyboard, I realize that back in 2002, I wrote a lot more about politics than I do now.This is largely because most of what I wrote about politics back then makes me cringe now. And, in fact,… Continue reading Classic Edition: Video Killed the Rhetoric Star
Classic Edition: Clever Tricks and Cooling
I’m going to be away from the computer for the long weekend, but I don’t want to have the site go completely dark, even over a weekend, so I’m going to schedule a few posts from the archives to show up while I’m away. Everyone else seems to be doing it (and pushing my posts… Continue reading Classic Edition: Clever Tricks and Cooling
Classic Edition: Not Just Air Conditioning the Laser Lab
I’m going to be away from the computer for the long weekend, but I don’t want to have the site go completely dark, even over a weekend, so I’m going to schedule a few posts from the archives to show up while I’m away. Everyone else seems to be doing it (and pushing my posts… Continue reading Classic Edition: Not Just Air Conditioning the Laser Lab