"Prof. Orzel gives the impression of an everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics." (anonymous student evaluation comment)
The miscellaneous ramblings of a physicist at a small liberal arts college. Physics, politics, pop culture, and occasional conversations with his dog.
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July 26, 2008
It was a lovely afternoon at Chateau Steelypips. I sat in the back yard reading a biography of Ernest Rutherford (about which more tomorrow), while Emmy guarded against intrusions of various sorts: squirrels, inferior dogs out for walks, the next-door neighbors' kids.
There comes a time, though, when no matter how nice it may be outside, you just want to go inside and take a nap:
It's so hard to be the Queen of Niskayuna.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 5:35 PM • 2 Comments
Category: Academia • Art • In the News • Music • Policy • Politics • Pop Culture • Science • Society
I know nothing about art or music.
OK, that's not entirely true-- I know a little bit here and there. I just have no systematic knowledge of art or music (by which I mean fine art and classical music). I don't know Beethoven from Bach, Renaissance from Romantics. I'm not even sure those are both art terms.
Despite the sterling reputation of the department, I never took an Art History class when I was at Williams, nor did I take any music classes. They weren't specifically required, and I was a physics major-- my schedule was full of math and science classes, and between that and the boozing, I didn't have time for six hours a week of looking at slides. It's a significant gap in my education.
Given my line of work, this is occasionally... it doesn't rise to the level of a liability, but it's awkward. I'm a professor at a liberal arts college, putting me solidly in the "Intellectual" class, and there's a background assumption that anyone with as much education as I have will know something about history and philosophy and literature and art and classical music. I read enough to have literature covered, even if my knowledge is a little patchy, and I took enough classes in college to have a rough grasp of history and philosophy, but art and music are hopeless. When those subjects come up in conversation, I just smile and nod and change the topic as soon as possible. On those occasions when I'm forced to admit my ignorance (or, worse yet, the fact that I don't even like classical music), my colleagues tend to look a little sideways at me, and I can feel myself drop slightly in their estimation. Not knowing anything about those subjects makes me less of an Intellectual to most people in the academy.
I was reminded of this by a recent Republic of T post, which puts into stark relief what is missing from that list of background assumptions: math and science.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:49 AM • 30 Comments
Category: Links Dump
Posted by Chad Orzel at 5:32 AM • 0 Comments
July 25, 2008
Category: Religion
I was just saying at dinner that I didn't think there was anything interesting to say in response to the whole "cracker" kerfuffle. Then I got home, and saw Daniel Davies's post, which is too good not to link. My hat's off to him.
No, I'm not going to quote what he said-- it's short, you can go over there and read it yourself.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 7:38 PM • 4 Comments
Category: Blogs
I've hit a point in the book-writing where I'm sort of spinning my wheels: waiting for beta-reader comments, fiddling with figures, looking at dog pictures for potential illustrations (my contract calls for me to provide some number of reproduction-quality pictures of the dog). This would be the perfect time to do some blogging.
The problem is, there's nothing jumping out saying "Blog me! Blog me!" at the moment. I've got some longer-term ideas, and I may start those over the weekend, but there's nothing coming to mind for immediate blogging.
So, let's throw this open to the wisdom of crowds:
What should I blog about?
Leave your suggestions in the comments. I don't promise to respond to all (or any) of them, but if anything sparks a response, I'll write about it.
If there's anything that you've been dying to know my opinion about, here's your chance.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:32 AM • 23 Comments
Category: Academia
There's a piece at Inside Higher Ed today about everybody's favorite topic, gender bias in science, that opens with an anecdote about a student who showed up to every office hour, and brought her friends. This is familiar to every faculty member, though the author apparently thinks it isn't:
I wonder if Tahnee, as much as she was a leader, would have parked outside my office if she attended a co-ed college. In the single-sex environment, women (students, faculty and staff) have high expectations for each other and help each other live up to those expectations.
I can answer the question in the first sentence: yes, she would. Almost every term I've taught an intro class, I've had at least one good student who has parked outside my office for every office hour in the term, and over the years, there have been as many women as men. Which probably means that women are significantly more likely to do this than men, even at a co-ed institution, given that our intro physics classes have a very high male:female ratio.
Single-sex education may provide some advantages, but the phenomenon described is not a unique result of single-sex education.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 8:27 AM • 4 Comments
Category: Links Dump
Posted by Chad Orzel at 5:31 AM • 1 Comments
July 24, 2008
Category: Science • Television
I think there were ads running on ScienceBlogs for PBS's new science "magazine" show NOVA ScienceNOW, which premiered a while back. I never got around to watching it until last night when I caught the start of it completely by accident (quite literally-- I dropped a book on top of the tv remote, and it changed the channel to PBS...).
Neil deGrasse Tyson acts as the host of the show, introducing 10-15 minute pieces about reasonably topical issues in science. Some of these are original to the show-- in the first, Tyson squelches around a swamp looking for leeches with a colleague from the AMNH-- and others appear to be derived from other sources-- the segment on SETI was essentially identical to a clip I blogged back in April. Tyson also had a commentary segment at the very end (well, just before the ten minutes of pitches and promos that PBS tacks on the end of everything).
On the whole, I thought it was an very good package. There were some elements that I'm kind of ambivalent about, but it serves as a good illustration of the issues in science communication that have taken up so many blog posts around here, both pro and con.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 8:58 AM • 9 Comments
Category: Links Dump
Posted by Chad Orzel at 5:30 AM • 0 Comments
July 23, 2008
Category: Books
Via Tom, a big long list of books with which to showcase either my broad cultural background or pathetic cultural ignorance. As Tom's original source notes, the claim that most Americans have only read six of these is kind of hard to credit, given that I was assigned more than six of them by the time I finished high school.
As always with Top N lists, I have to wonder where this mess came from. I mean, I like Bill Bryson, but Notes From a Small Island doesn't fit in this. And The Wasp Factory?
It'd probably be more fun to get hundreds of people to go through this list and mark which books they liked, and which ones they thought were a complete waste of time. Maybe I'll do that some other time-- for now, the list below the fold has books I've read in bold, and books I started but didn't finish in italics.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 8:39 PM • 25 Comments
Category: Book Writing
There's a classic paper on the Quantum Zeno Effect that I discuss in Chapter 5 of the book. The paper does two tests of the effect, and presents the results in two bar graphs. They also provide the data in tabular form.
My question is this:
If I copy the data from the table, and make my own version of the graph, am I obliged to contact them and ask permission to duplicate their results in my book?
If I were copying their graphs directly, I would definitely contact them and ask permission, but I'm not as certain about using their data to make my own version of their graphs.
Complicating matters, when I asked Kate about this, she replied "Why would you need to ask permission to reproduce figures? Isn't that fair use?" I have no idea why it is, I just know that it's What Is Done in these cases (having been contacted a few times for permission to reproduce stuff from papers I wrote).
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:17 AM • 22 Comments
Category: Links Dump
Posted by Chad Orzel at 5:32 AM • 0 Comments
July 22, 2008
Category: Academia • Movies • Science • Society
I've been somewhat decoupled from blogdom in general recently, as I've been busy working on the book and getting ready for FutureBaby. It's also been a useful mental health break, though, as I'm a little less worked up about stupid stuff than I was a few months ago.
Every now and then, I catch the edges of some kerfuffle-of-the-moment, though, and it reminds me that continuing the decoupling is probably a Good Thing. The latest is the ongoing squabbling over Sizzle, which is the new "framing" fracas. This has been dragging on for a week, now, with the latest entries to catch my eye coming from RPM and Chris.
I have to say, I'm not finding much positive on either side of this argument.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:12 PM • 10 Comments
Category: Politics
Via Will Wilkinson, James Pethokoukis at US News considers the state of the economy, and draws the same conclusions I did, for exactly the opposite reasons:
My theory is that the amazing resilience of the American economy through this slowdown--as well as the lack of a bad recession in a generation--is indirect proof that the 25-year economic expansion that started in 1982 made us far richer as a nation than the economic numbers suggest. I have continually offered that the inflation numbers used by the government have for years overstated how much prices have risen. Plus, the wage numbers put out by the government are currently being revised to better reflect the shift in jobs from "old economy" to "new economy."
At least we're all in agreement: Economics is not science.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:27 AM • 6 Comments
Category: Personal
I finally manage to get my pants buttoned on the fourth try. I've had to dig out a pair from before I lost weight, because the splint on my left hand won't let me grip the fabric enough to button pants that fit properly. Even with the extra slack, it's difficult.
"God damn it, I hate this," I say out loud.
"Yeah, cry me a river, monkey boy."
I turn around, and the dog is lying in the hall outside the door, looking faintly reproachful. "I beg your pardon?"
"Boo, hoo, hoo," she says. "Your thumb doesn't work. Welcome to my world."
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:18 AM • 4 Comments
Category: Links Dump
Posted by Chad Orzel at 5:32 AM • 0 Comments
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