Don’t mix me with them!
In these two videos , prominent non-believers Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sam Harris reject the denomination “atheist” as not only inaccurately portraying their views on the (non) existence of God,…
Massimo
Absence of evidence and evidence of absence
It has been a while since my last blog post (yes, I love euphemisms). I have not been writing for the simple reason that I ran out of things to…
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 25,000…
What do you look for (part two)?
Having expounded in my previous post what kind of person I look for, when serving on the search committee for a tenure-track hire, now it is time to list the…
What do you look for (part one) ?
I am a faculty member in a university physics department, who finds himself periodically involved in faculty searches and hires. How do I evaluate the curriculum vitae of an applicant…
Binomial distributions and multiple choice tests
Readers of my blog know that I generally regard multiple choice tests (MCTs) as an adequate tool to assess student knowledge of, and proficiency with, a given set of topics.…
Google Docs: one-year review
About a year ago, my institution made the campus-wide transition to Google electronic mail. Concurrently, Google’s suite of office applications known as Google Docs also became available, as it comes…
Who’s really obsessed with Impact Factor ?
What brings more prestige to a scientist, an article which receives hundreds of citations, even if published on a relatively minor, or even obscure journal, or one that is published…
In praise of failure
“In 2004, Kim and Chan (KC) carried out torsional oscillator (TO) measurements of solid helium confined in porous Vycor glass and found an abrupt drop in the resonant period below…
Mountain Lion and stuff
Between work and home I own eight Apple computers — four iMacs, two MacBook Air, two Mac Pro. So, like any respectable user, I promptly upgraded the operating system to…
On confirmation bias
Doug Natelson has done an outstanding job at debunking a ridiculous charge of confirmation bias allegedly affecting a recent study of climate change. Such a charge is put forth in…
Online notes
Why do students who take courses with me (but colleagues tell me of similar experiences) routinely insist that I scan and post online my very own notes, the hard-to-read, disorganized…
Disappearance of blogs
I do not have the time to read regularly all the blogs to which I have established links, on my own blog. As a result, sometimes months go by without…
Letter from the trenches
I have received a letter from a student who obtained his doctoral degree with me a few years ago, and after one postdoctoral appointment decided that their heart was really…
Whither scientific publishing ?
I come back to one of my favorite subjects, prompted by a recent comment asking for my opinion on the proposed boycott of Elsevier, a company publishing a number of…
Independent and original
I doubt if I can offer any deeper insight or more pointed advice to a tenure track assistant professor in the sciences, than what anyone can find on a number…
Mend it, don’t end it (email, that is)
I blissfully went through the first half of my life without electronic mail, and yet I cannot imagine living without it now. There are specific tasks for which mail (narrowly…
Education disadvantage
If a cash-strapped province or state had to make painful cuts to public services, the immediately noticeable effect would be the outright elimination of some of them. One would not…
Double whammy
We all understand that, sometimes, financial hardship is simply a fact of life. And I do believe that most of us are willing to endure painful sacrifices, in the pursuit…
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was…