As noted by several people, most recently JoAnne Hewett, one of the players at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event is a Ph.D. physicist: Michael Binger, recently of SLAC. So, I guess we need to expand the list of non-academic physics careers to include “professional poker player.” I’m not sure… Continue reading Career Options for Theorists
Author: Chad Orzel
Important Note for My Students
A while back, I noted that one student wrote on the all-important course evaluation form “He should wear more pink.” I’m still not sure what that meant. Given that the second most ridiculous comment in that class was “[student name] is the worst Warcraft player ever,” I should probably point our majors to this interview… Continue reading Important Note for My Students
Review: Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness
Like The Pontiff, I am always happy to receive an email from a publicist offering me a free book to review. In this case, the book was Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, of UC Santa Cruz. I have to admit, the title made me a little uneasy. There have… Continue reading Review: Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness
More Jobs in Science
The latest jobs in science post has prompted a lot of responses, several of them arguing that we need to expand the definition of acceptable careers for Ph.D. scientists. For example, there’s Nicholas Condon in comments: When I hear this incessant handwringing about jobs in “science,” it seems like it frequently comes from people with… Continue reading More Jobs in Science
Physics News
I had a bunch of students over for dinner last night, and while I was busy with that, stuff happened in the world. I hate that. Of course, there’s been a lot of energy expended on trivia like primary elections, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The important news all has to do with… Continue reading Physics News
Genre Follow-Up
Technorati reveals a bunch of responses to my weekend post on genre fiction, and I wanted to at least note a few of them here. Over at Brad DeLong’s, he highlights my comments about story pacing, which sparked some interesting comments. A number of people object that books and movies are too long these days,… Continue reading Genre Follow-Up
Science Is A Scary Place to Work
Jonathan Katz’s “Don’t Become a Scientist” has bubbled to the surface again, turning up at P.P. Cook’s Tangent Space a few days ago. I can’t recall what, if anything, I said about this that last time it came around, but I’ll make a few comments here, in light of the recent discussions about jobs in… Continue reading Science Is A Scary Place to Work
Is Our Athletes Graduating?
Inside Higher Ed today offers another hand-wringing piece about the problem of college athletics, this time from the president of Augustana College in Illinois. It’s a particularly maddening example of the form, doing a lovely job of running down NCAA Division I schools in comparison to Division III: But I do worry that Division I… Continue reading Is Our Athletes Graduating?
J K Rowling and the Complex Trope of Female Delusion
The title is from the Guardian’s piece on the Harry Potter convention in Las Vegas (via Bookslut), in which the traditional naive reporter is sent out to be shocked by discovering people in costumes, slash fanfic, and pseudo-academic papers: Lumos 2006 is not just another conference, it’s ‘a Harry Potter symposium’, and most of the… Continue reading J K Rowling and the Complex Trope of Female Delusion
Get Out of the Lab
If you’re in the habit of reading science blogs, you’ve probably already seen Mark Trodden’s article on the science of coffee, including a chemical analysis of the contents of espresso. You might be asking “Is there nothing these science types won’t analyze?” Apparently not, as Dylan Stiles demonstrates. Now there is somebody who needs to… Continue reading Get Out of the Lab