In which we compare a couple of different systems for evaluating teachers, looking at what’s involved in doing a fair assessment of a teacher’s performance. ——– Another casualty of the great blog upgrade, in the sense of a post that was delayed until the inspiration for it has been forgotten by most of the people… Continue reading What Does It Take to Evaluate Teaching?
Author: Nathan
Links for 2012-05-30
In which we look at the evolution of Republican attitudes toward higher education, the early days of nuclear secrets, the science of communicating science, the amazing things you find in textbooks, and the unwritten rules of science journalism. ———— Confessions of a Community College Dean: Thoughts on Romney and Higher Ed Over the past decade… Continue reading Links for 2012-05-30
The Vicious Cycle of Physics PR
In which I talk about why it is that particle physics and cosmology are so over-represented in popular physics, and why my own books contribute to that. [The too-short excerpts on the new front page are beyond my ability to change, so I’ll be doing Victorian-style “In which…” summaries at the start of posts as… Continue reading The Vicious Cycle of Physics PR
Links for 2012-05-29
In which we look at relativistic rockets, scientific revolutions, and the mathematical connection between entanglement and nonlocality. The Relativistic Rocket Science fiction writers can make use of worm holes or warp drives to overcome this restriction, but it is not clear that such things can ever be made to work in reality. Another way to… Continue reading Links for 2012-05-29
Links for 2012-05-28
In which we post a new collection of random links in an effort to see if the RSS feeds actually work now but aren’t showing anything because I haven’t posted anything. Craig Sager’s Suits and Sideline Sartorial Disasters – Grantland You’ve been blown off your couch and knocked from your barstool with disbelief — even… Continue reading Links for 2012-05-28
Ask Emmy Questions
The blog is recovering from the transition to WordPress, but I’m still not fully confident in it. So We’ll turn to another corner of the social media universe for my procrastinatory needs this morning: Having Emmy answer physics questions on Twitter. The same deal as when we’ve done this before: If you’ve got a physics… Continue reading Ask Emmy Questions
Spiffy New Digs, Suggestions Wanted
So, as you may or may not have noticed, ScienceBlogs has gotten a makeover. If you read via RSS, you might not notice anything, but if you come to the blog itself, you’ll see a new look. The previous three-column layout is gone, and posts on the front page now show only short excerpts and… Continue reading Spiffy New Digs, Suggestions Wanted
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog in the New York Times
I was going to post something noting that the great WordPress transition will begin at 7pm tonight, and comments after that time will be lost like Roy Batty’s tears. However, I have much happier news: tomorrow’s Science Times (available on the Web already) will include a review of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog!… Continue reading How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog in the New York Times
Kickin’ Back (With Chicken)
Because I need to test out some features of the new WordPress system, including the image handling, here’s a place-holder post with a bonus SteelyKid photo: This is SteelyKid kicking back at Niska-Day over the weekend (the annual community fair here in Niskayuna). Don’t be deceived by the lazy look of this image– she was… Continue reading Kickin’ Back (With Chicken)
Links for 2012-05-21
Back of the Envelope Problems A collection of classic estimation problems, with answers, written by E.M. Purcell for the American Journal of Physics back in the day. nanoscale views: The unreasonable clarity of E. M. Purcell Purcell had the insight that in a cavity, the number of states available for photons is not quadratic in… Continue reading Links for 2012-05-21