Predictions for 2012
The end of the year is finally upon us, and an appropriate post must accompany it. Memes are lame, which is why I never rarely do them. Thus, I am…
The end of the year is finally upon us, and an appropriate post must accompany it. Memes are lame, which is why I never rarely do them. Thus, I am…
Dear Massimo, Here is how the Wikipedia fundraiser works: Every year we raise just the funds that we need, and then we stop. Because you and so many other Wikipedia…
A long and tiring term is coming to a close. Time to celebrate the holidays, then head out to Vancouver for a few days, to end 2011, and then it…
Imagine the following, hypothetical situation: the owner of a small high-tech company needs all of his employees retrained, in view of the adoption of a new, company-wide software system. He…
Agreement seems lacking, among researchers, on the question of which citations to a scientific article are “legitimate”, i.e., worthy of being included among the total number of hits received by…
Thanks to Bee of BackReaction, I have become aware of a new feature of Google Scholar, called Google Scholar Citations. It is essentially a free alternative to Web of Science…
The two basic criteria to establish whether someone is your boss are: – Can they fire you ? – Can they give you a raise ? Unless the answer to…
I got the idea for this (silly) blog post from my primary, inexhaustible source of inspiration, but I swear, I have been thinking about doing a blog post on handwriting…
The Globe and Mail has a story about an “experiment” (I use quote-unquote because I personally see nothing new about it, but I come back to this below) carried out…
As I was discussing with my collaborator the wisdom of following the request of one of the referees to include an additional figure in our manuscript, I expressed my doubts…
Times Higher Education has just published its influential rankings of World universities. I imagine that university presidents all over the world, at this time, are either pounding their chests, proudly…
Dear Colleague: “Why should I publish in PRX?” We have heard this question often, and with the inaugural issue of PRX about to close, we have our first concrete answers.”…
Oops, it did it again…. The Fall term 2011 has managed to sneak up on me, like its 2010 predecessor. All of a sudden, it’s all back. I am facing…
(Title of famous play by Italian playwright Eduardo De Filippo. To my knowledge, it was not inspired by his own PhD defence) Dear fellow Committee Members, as the appointed Chair…
This week has marked the untimely departure of two charismatic leaders from the helm of two very different organizations. Canada’s New Democratic Party Jack Layton succumbed to cancer, shortly after…
… physicists ruin physics (bumper sticker — I doubt if it exists, but it should) The efficacy of a computer simulation (or of any other numerical computation) in predicting the…
Like many adults in my age range (late 40s), I have observed over the past decade my weight progressively creep up, much to my great joy and satisfaction (tongue firmly…
It is a warm mid-Summer weekend. Instead of relaxing and enjoying the outdoors, the fresh air, the company of friends, the ferocious northern mosquitoes and all the joys that the…
Twenty-five years ago, the first so-called high temperature superconductor was discovered — unexpectedly, almost out of nowhere. Suddenly, the interest of physicists all over the world in the phenomenon of…
A few days ago, I received an e-mail message from the Publisher of my favourite physics journal (JLTP), who was pleased to inform me that its Impact Factor (IF) climbed…