links for 2009-05-29

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Why just earn a degree when you can leave behind a legend? - CharlotteObserver.com "If you've spent significant time on the Davidson College campus the past four years, chances are you've at least heard of "the Name Tag Guy." Or, less likely, Stephen Pierce. They are one. Both were among 427…
A New Spacecraft to Explore on Waves of Light - NYTimes.com "About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely…
Youâre Like School in the Summer⦠« The First Excited State "Summertime is a time to focus on your research, without the distractions of tests, homeworks, and (hopefully) teaching duties. But many grad students, at least in physics, take the summer as an opportunity to attend summer schools,…
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Research Design in a Recession "My college is planning a major student survey for the Spring. We're drawing up questions that we think could help shape budget priorities over the next few years, assuming there's actually enough money to have some level of…

That "Particle Physics" article is a hoot. Referring to the LHC as a "paradigm shifting experiment" is about the most egregious misuse of Kuhn's terminology I've ever seen. If anything, the LHC is the biggest "mopping up", paradigm-CONFIRMING machine ever built!! In fact, it was the example I used this semester when talking about Kuhn's idea that "normal science" is an activity designed explicitly NOT to discover unexpected things.

Since when did the study of Black Holes become particle physics?