It's true- no technology can change people's tendency to act in their own self-interest and vote for what benefits them. Individuals can't be expected to take into account the needs of the whole society. That's the the…
more like a high ratio of one person's preferred signal to other signals
I don't see it as a joke. Why not strive for the conceptually cleanest possible conventions? It's pretty plain to me that tau is more deserving of the status of 'conceptual entity' than pi is. It's the number of radians…
Awesome. I think the eject icon could be made out of unicode symbols. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Geom...
in an infinite region of coffee...
Yeah, that's interesting. I always do it the same way as you, but I decided to do a quick analytical calculation. I wrote it up here: http://maxbrunsfeld.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/on-the-mixing-o... my result agrees with…
I think he was saying that although physicists generally understand the principles involved, a chemist might have a better sense of the relative magnitudes of the different effects that come into play in cooling a…
Computer-use should not replace the nitty-gritty mechanics; it should change the way students learn the nitty-gritty mechanics. Instead of a homework assignment like this: 1. compute this integral. 2. compute this…
"Tenure is the one big incentive academia has going for it." I'd have to disagree. I think people pursue careers in academia for a lot of reasons besides job security. As you point out, there's such an overwhelming…
I agree. In my mind, one of the cultural changes that we need is for universities to abandon the tenure system. I think if that happened, there'd be more hiring of new professors, so there would be more of an incentive…
Yeah, because the electromagnetic field contains energy, which can be converted into other forms. A system's temperature is 'how readily it gives off energy'. It need not have anything to do with particles or speed.
It's true- no technology can change people's tendency to act in their own self-interest and vote for what benefits them. Individuals can't be expected to take into account the needs of the whole society. That's the the…
more like a high ratio of one person's preferred signal to other signals
I don't see it as a joke. Why not strive for the conceptually cleanest possible conventions? It's pretty plain to me that tau is more deserving of the status of 'conceptual entity' than pi is. It's the number of radians…
Awesome. I think the eject icon could be made out of unicode symbols. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Geom...
in an infinite region of coffee...
Yeah, that's interesting. I always do it the same way as you, but I decided to do a quick analytical calculation. I wrote it up here: http://maxbrunsfeld.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/on-the-mixing-o... my result agrees with…
I think he was saying that although physicists generally understand the principles involved, a chemist might have a better sense of the relative magnitudes of the different effects that come into play in cooling a…
Computer-use should not replace the nitty-gritty mechanics; it should change the way students learn the nitty-gritty mechanics. Instead of a homework assignment like this: 1. compute this integral. 2. compute this…
"Tenure is the one big incentive academia has going for it." I'd have to disagree. I think people pursue careers in academia for a lot of reasons besides job security. As you point out, there's such an overwhelming…
I agree. In my mind, one of the cultural changes that we need is for universities to abandon the tenure system. I think if that happened, there'd be more hiring of new professors, so there would be more of an incentive…
Yeah, because the electromagnetic field contains energy, which can be converted into other forms. A system's temperature is 'how readily it gives off energy'. It need not have anything to do with particles or speed.