On a note related to the previous entry, Inside Higher Ed had a longer story about Carl Wieman leaving Colorado for Canada (following in the footsteps of his post-docs?), another guy putting his money where his mouth is: First, he contributed $250,000 of his Nobel Prize award to the Physics Education Technology Fund supporting classroom… Continue reading Speaking of Science Education
Category: Science
Story Is a Force of Nature
There’s a nice profile of Randy Olson, the biologist-turned filmmaker behind A Flock of Dodos, which takes a hard look at both sides of the creationism wars: The biologist, Randy Olson, accepts that there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on… Continue reading Story Is a Force of Nature
Origin Story
Katherine Sharpe asked about the best science books ever, as a proxy for “what got you into science?” I wasn’t able to give a really good answer to that question, but I will share a science-related anecdote from when I was a kid. There’s a good chance that this will come off as either painfully… Continue reading Origin Story
Greatest Science Book?
Over at the new Seed blog, here on ScienceBlogs, Katherine Sharpe asks about the best science books ever (a topic that was also discussed at Cosmic Variance some time back. I’ve been sort of swamped this week, but that’s only part of the reason why I haven’t responded. The main reason is a shameful secret:… Continue reading Greatest Science Book?
Visualize It In N Dimensions, And Let N Go to Four
Mark Chu-Carroll has a very nice discussion of what “extra dimensions” actually mean in theories like string theory. It’s not the same thing that hack SF authors mean when they talk about “dimensions” in which the Nazis won WWII (that’s “multiverse theory” or possibly “landscapeology” or possibly “late-night stoner bullshit”): A better way to explain,… Continue reading Visualize It In N Dimensions, And Let N Go to Four
Thin Kills?
As someone who has derived a surprising amount of blog traffic from posting about weight loss, I feel like I really ought to say something about Alas, A Blog’s case against dieting (which I first noticed via a Dave Munger comment). It’s a comprehensive collection of data (with graphs, so it must be Science) used… Continue reading Thin Kills?
The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Things
The post title is a famous William Gibson quote, referring to the tendency of high-tech gadgets to be put to uses the manufacturers never expected. By “the Street,” he meant people in general, with maybe a slant toward the sort of underclass element he focusses on in his books, but he might well have been… Continue reading The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Things
So You Want to Be a Grad Student?
Sean Carroll offers another installment of unsolicited advice about graduate school, this time on the topic of choosing what school to attend once you’re accepted (the previous installment was on how to get into grad school). His advice is mostly very good, and I only want to amplify a few points here. Below the fold,… Continue reading So You Want to Be a Grad Student?
Universal Computer Simulator, Simulated
If you’ve ever read and been confused by computing theory books, you might appreciate the discussion of Turing machines at Good Math, Bad Math. Or, if you’re already happy with the whole Turing machine thing, you might just like that post for the link to a Turing machine simulator applet. Either way, it’s all good.
Notes Toward a User’s Guide to Synthetic Chemistry Talks
Reading Dylan Stiles’s blog yesterday reminded me of a post I wrote last summer about how to approach student talks about synthetic chemistry. Since evil spammers have forced us to turn off comments to the old site, I’ll reproduce the original below the fold: