In email, David Rosenthal asks my opinion of a rant at globalresearch.ca about the stupidity of physicists: Indeed, the modern professional physicist has usually subjected himself (less often herself) to extreme specialization, to be able to handle the technical side of the profession. This training is also largely about adopting the culture of the professional… Continue reading Are Physicists Smart?
Month: September 2006
Science-y Links Dump
Clearing some more posts out of Bloglines, to mark the start of the new term. My first lecture is today, and as a bonus, there’s a film crew coming to my class… First, there’s a very nice essay at Fighting for Science on the Equivalence Principle. Via See You at Enceladus. Next up, Biocurious offers… Continue reading Science-y Links Dump
Small School Hiring Bias
The Female Science Professor offers some thoughts on institutional hiring: Only one graduate in the past 10 years from my research group is now a professor at a small liberal arts college, and that person attended a SLAC as an undergraduate. When I was in job-search mode, I got interviews at SLACs, as did my… Continue reading Small School Hiring Bias
ScienceBlogger Nerd-Off
Fed up with the hotness contest results, Janet has decreed a nerd-off, asking for: your geekiest jokes, your nerdiest life-lessons, your testimonial to your favorite programing language (or tissue culture medium), what have you. We’ve already had a local thread of funny physics jokes, but for sheer nerd value, it’s hard to top the classics:
Pope Catholic, Film at 11
There was a fair bit of talk last week about Pope Giblets Benedict’s weekend seminar on evolution. I haven’t seen any post-seminar commentary yet, but I’m not sure I would expect much, given that no official statements are forthcoming. I’m sort of puzzled as to why this is a story, though. As the Times puts… Continue reading Pope Catholic, Film at 11
Making RateMyProfessors Look Scientific
There was a flurry of activity yesterday, while I was working to get ready for the start of classes, regarding a flawed contest to select the hottest science blogger. Clearly, when some pasty English dude wins, there’s a problem with the methodology. Like, for instance, basing it off a blog aggregator that doesn’t include physicists…… Continue reading Making RateMyProfessors Look Scientific
Real Clock Tutorial: Fountains
In the previous clock tutorial post, I described the basic workings of a cesium atomic clock, which looks sort of like this: It works by sending a beam of cesium atoms through two microwave cavities. The first cavity synchronizes the “clock” in the atoms with the microwaves, and the second cavity checks whether the two… Continue reading Real Clock Tutorial: Fountains
116 Lines About 116 Women
As we were driving around the other day, the iPod served up “Valerie” by the Crooked Fingers, which is a weirdly unclassifiable little song. It opens with a skiffle-ish acoustic guitar riff, adds a little steel guitar in the background, then thumping sort of jug band bass drum, with a the vocals coming in aheadlong… Continue reading 116 Lines About 116 Women
Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See [Library of Babel]
The passing of Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin in a freak accident while diving with stingrays (and not while sticking his thumb of the butt of some exotic and venomous creature) has made a big splash in blogdom. I was never a fan of his shows, so I don’t have anything specific to say about him,… Continue reading Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See [Library of Babel]
2,087
That’s the number of books in our collection at the moment. Kate went nuts with a bar-code scanner, and entered them all into LibraryThing. Well, OK, that’s just the stuff at home– it doesn’t include the textbooks I keep in my office, or the maybe twenty science-related books I keep in there for extra reading… Continue reading 2,087