(A follow-up to my election day post.) Tuesday’s surprising presidential election has been on everyone’s mind for the past week, and has stirred up lots of emotion. I thought it worth acknowledging this event at the start of class on Thursday. My aims were that this would be very brief, that I wouldn’t expresses displeasure … Continue reading Post-election-day biophysics
When I was an undergrad at Berkeley, aside from doing radio astronomy, I worked in Paul McEuen’s lab examining electronic transport in nanostructures, working especially with a great postdoc named David Cobden. Looking through the contents of last week’s Nature, it was a fun surprise to see pieces by both of these people: one paper, … Continue reading Books + Berkeley
One of the motivations for improving STEM education that I’ve briefly noted before (e.g. here and here) is the expectation of lots of future jobs requiring STEM skills. This is important, though I think it’s less important than conveying an appreciation of nature that a scientific perspective brings, and imparting skills that allow thinking “scientifically” … Continue reading “China needs workers…”
The Eighteenth Elephant 