Some stuff for 27.04.11

1) retractionwatch.wordpress.com - a very nice blog about misconduct, fraud, cheating, and other things we all love

2) A Harvard entrance exam from 1899

3) The world is producing more PhDs than ever before. Is it time to stop? (Nature)

4) Reform the PhD system or close it down (Nature)

5) "Down with Determinants!" by Sheldon Axler. The paper presents a different approach to linear algebra, the one without determinants.


Take care,

Misha

How to Publish a Scientific Comment

A nice essay by Prof. Rick Trebino from Georgia Tech (here is the comment he finally published). I heard people complaining that publishing comments is hard  - a lot of politics involved, journal editors don't want to confess in publishing wrong articles, and so on.

Perhaps, it might be a good idea to make a separate journal publishing only comments and replies to them, as guys propose here (in Russian). In such a way one may highlight all the fraud/misconduct/delusion cases via peer-reviewed comments and replies, without any troubles due to politics of a given journal.

No, really, why don't people do that.

Take care,

Misha

Fibonacci salad

Bad food in the university cantine can be described by simple math. Every day they feed us with Fibonacci Salad - it's when you mix a yesterday salad with a salad from two days ago to get the salad for today.

(via Valera Yundin)

Take care,

Misha

What's so wrong with Comic Sans?

First,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11582548

Second, a great affair failed due to comic sans - an old 1978 flyer turned out to be fake. Look at the "land" in "England", it's comic sans. And comic sans was invented in 1994.

via

Take care,

Misha