Statistical Physics Research Trip

I’m going to Vegas, baby! A good friend from college is getting married this summer, and there’s a bachelor party for him this weekend at a casino in Las Vegas. It looks to be quite the affair, with thirty-odd guys, and reservations at a bunch of cool spots, because they’re high-rolling financiers. This is going […]

Uncertain Pop Quiz Results

We had 45 responses to yesterday’s poll/quiz question— thank you to all who participated. The breakdown of answers was, by a quick count: How do you report your answer in a lab report? 0 votes A) 4.371928645 +/- 0.0316479825 m/s 3 votes B) 4.372 +/- 0.03165 m/s 18 votes C) 4.372 +/- 0.032 m/s 21 […]

Critical Chemical Information

Have you ever wondered about the accuracy of the descriptions in chemical manuals of what different compounds smell like? “Sure,” you say, “the book says that this smells like cheese, but does that really help me in my daily life?” Well, worry no more. Dylan Stiles does the experiment so you don’t have to. (If […]

Uncertain Pop Quiz

Imagine that you are doing a physics lab to measure the velocity of a small projectile. After making a bunch of measurements to four significant figures, and doing a bunch of arithmetic, you get a value of 4.371928645 m/s. After yet more gruelling math, you find the uncertainty associated with this number to be 0.0316479825 […]

Science Blogging or Blogging Science?

Bora/ coturnix over at Science and Politics has generated a lot of conversation via his taxonomy of science blog posts, mostly relating to the call for people to start publishing data and hypotheses on blogs. Much of the discussion that I’ve seen centers on the question of “scooping” (see, for example, here and here), but […]

All About Vanity

I’d just like to note that I’m inordinately amused to find a blog called Mormon Philosophy and Theology linking me. I also seem to have picked up a sidebar link at Cocktail Party Physics, which reminds me that I really need to update the blogroll… These minor revelations brought to you by ego-surfing on Technorati…

New Aggregator

The people (well, person) who brought you the physics blog aggregator Mixed States have now rolled out a new biology-themed blog aggregator: Recombinants. At the moment, it only has about six feeds going into it, and the content is about 70% PZ Myers, so head over there and suggest some biology feeds to be added […]

Quote of the Day

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, writing about the phenomenon of fan fiction: Personally, I’m convinced that the legends of the Holy Grail are fanfic about the Eucharist. One of the most peevesome things about the hectic period I’m in at my day job is that I no longer have time to follow Making Light comment threads– I […]

Big Questions

Via BioCurious, a list of science questions every high school graduate should be able to answer: What percentage of the earth is covered by water? What sorts of signals does the brain use to communicate sensations, thoughts and actions? Did dinosaurs and humans ever exist at the same time? What is Darwin’s theory of the […]