Some stuff for 05.07.2012

(1) Stephen Hawking's party for time-travellers. I wonder whether it was organized in order to drag attention from the recent $100 bet he lost :-)

(2) Three (!) stories in the last Nature issue about the collapse of Spanish science happening right now: [1], [2], [3]

Take care,

Misha

Barcode for scientists

Soon every scientist will be assigned a unique number, ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID). That will be just a little tattoo on the inner side of the wrist... just kidding.

There aren't that many unique last names out there and looking for a paper by someone with a popular name might be a pain. For instance, according to statistics, the author named Y. Wang publishes more than 10 papers a day, and obviously it's not the same person :-)

Also, sometimes people change their names, use nicknames, or omit some of their initials, so introducing such unique ID's will be greatly appreciated.

The idea was around for quite a long time, with a few attempts of realization (one of those being the ResearcherID by Thomson Reuters). I hope it will work out this time.


Take care,

Misha

Hell for scientists

First Circle: Limbo

"The uppermost circle is not a place of punishment, so much as regret. Those who have committed no scientific sins as such, but who turned a blind eye to it, and encouraged it by their awarding of grants and publications, spend eternity on top of this barren mountain, watching the carnage below and reflecting on how they are partially responsible..."

Second Circle: Overselling

"This circle is reserved for those who exaggerated the importantance of their work in order to get grants or write better papers. Sinners are trapped in a huge pit, neck-deep in horrible sludge. Each sinner is provided with the single rung of a ladder, labelled 'The Way Out - Scientists Crack Problem of Second Circle of Hell"

Third Circle: Post-Hoc Storytelling

"Sinners condemned to this circle must constantly dodge the attacks of demons armed with bows and arrows, firing more or less at random. Every time someone is hit in some part of their body, the demon proceeds to explain at enormous length how they were aiming for that exact spot all along."

Fourth Circle: P-Value Fishing

"Those who tried every statistical test in the book until they got a p value less than 0.05 find themselves here, an enormous lake of murky water. Sinners sit on boats and must fish for their food. Fortunately, they have a huge selection of different fishing rods and nets (brandnames include Bayes, Student, Spearman and many more). Unfortunately, only one in 20 fish are edible, so they are constantly hungry."

Fifth Circle: Creative Use of Outliers

"Those who 'cleaned up' their results by excluding inconvenient data-points are condemned here. Demons pluck out their hairs one by one, every time explaining that they are better off without that hair because there was something wrong with it."

Sixth Circle: Plagiarism

"This circle is entirely empty because as soon as a sinner arrives, a winged demon carries them to another circle and forces them to suffer the punishment meted out to the people there. After their 3 year "post" is up, they are carried to another circle, and so on..."

Seventh Circle: Non-Publication of Data

"Here sinners are chained to burning chairs in front of desks covered with broken typewriters. Only if they can write an article describing their predicament, will they be set free. Each desk has a file-drawer stuffed full of these, but the drawers are locked.

Eighth Circle: Partial Publication of Data

"At any one time exactly half of the sinners here are chased around by demons prodding them with spears. The demons choose who to chase at random after ensuring that the groups are matched for age, gender, height and weight. Howling desert winds blow a constant torrent of articles announcing the success of a new program to enhance participation in physical exercise - but with no mention of the side effects."

Ninth Circle: Inventing Data

"Here Satan himself lies trapped forever in a block of solid ice alongside the worst sinners of all. Frozen in front of their eyes is a paper explaining very convincingly that water cannot freeze in the environmental conditions of this part of Hell. Unfortunately, the data were made up."

via 

Take care,

Misha

Conspiracy doesn't work

I had a job interview in one of the US universities. It was full of conspiracy: one day per every candidate, you're not allowed to attend other candidates' talks or even show up on the campus during that time. I find it great, probably better than the European system where all the short-listed candidates often spend the whole day together.

Flying to London on my way home I started a small talk with a girl sitting next to me. Guess what? It turned out that she was interviewed at the same place the day before. You know, these transatlantic planes are huge, like 50 rows, so the probability of such an event seems to be negligible. But it happened anyway.

Conspiracy just doesn't work.

Take care,

Misha

Chemistry Journals and Chinese Mothers

Two links for today:

1) "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" - how Chineese kids are raised

2) Chemistry Craziness - Taylor&Francis granted free access to the plethora of chemistry journals until January, 31

Take care,

Misha

Happy New Year!

We, physicists, will never understand the logic of chemists. But, che fare - che fare, the forthcoming year is going to be yours:

Be happy, and remember that if two cesium atoms are bound together by only 0.000000004 kJ/mol - we call it "the Cs₂ molecule". Because... this is a molecule.  :-P


Take care,

Misha

Google street view in Antarctica

There is no Google street view in Germany, but there is one in Antarctica.

Penguins might sue these guys for privacy violation...

Misha

Links for 14.12.08

• Spot the math errors! - some false mathematical proofs. Can you see the mistake?

• Musicians condemn use of their songs as instruments of war by The Guardian - popular songs were used for tortures in Guantanamo. "Some prisoners have said it can be even worse than more traditional methods of physical torture, including waterboarding."

• Burlesque Matinée at the Max Planck Gesellschaft - A good answer to "why is it important to learn foreign languages?"

• Physicsworks - an interesting collection of physics-related links.

• World Lecture Hall - free online course materials from around the world.

You can find many more links I find interesting on my delicious webpage.

The worst ten technology predictions of all time

Were recently published by Mail Online, here they come:

1. BRITAIN DOESN'T NEED TELEPHONES

2. X-RAYS ARE A HOAX
3. THERE WILL NEVER BE A BIGGER PLANE (AND IT ONLY HELD TEN PEOPLE)
4. TV WON'T LAST
5 HOMES WILL BE CLEANED WITH NUCLEAR HOOVERS
6. LETTERS WILL BE DELIVERED BY ROCKET
7. COMPUTERS AREN'T FOR HOME USE
8. YOU'LL ONLY EVER NEED 640KB OF MEMORY
9. WE'LL KILL SPAM IN TWO YEARS
10. THE iPOD WILL BE KAPUT BY NEXT CHRISTMAS

I actually never heard of some of them...

Links for 2.11.2008

• Fermilab Discovers... Something. Maybe. - some new physics from collision experiments?
  
• Demonstration of 3D - display
• How to survive grad school - an excellent post about great but hopeless projects you may be involved in

Links for 19.10.2008

Useful:

• Springer Online Reference Works - online encyclopedia of math
• Advanced physics forums

Interesting:

• Why LaTeX is like Latin - by Paul Goldberg. "LaTeX, like Latin, does not prevent one from writing down a statement that is incorrect. ... But it does help to prevent vagueness."
• Essay: Fifty Years of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics in Physical Review Letters - by Serge Haroche.
• The complete work of Charles Darwin online
• Old scientists never clean out their refrigerators - the story of the Miller-Urey experiment
• Website of Michio Kaku, and his opinion about the last Nobel Prize.

Blogs:

• How you can save the world - an interesting blog, written by many well-known contributors, string theorist Michio Kaku among them.

Funny:

• Iran minister admits holding fake Oxford degree
  
• 'Punch drunk' pony rescued from swimming pool
  

The crisis and life

www.phdcomics.com

The teacher's day

Today is a Teacher's day in Russia (also in Pakistan and Philippines :-), and www.google.ru looks like this:

The date is chosen to coincide with the World Teacher's Day, defined by UNESCO.

A terrific Nature cover

I wonder whether this is an "accidental degeneracy", or there is some hidden symmetry in it...

Bloggers given new Ten Commandments by church leaders

Christian bloggers have been given a new set of 'Ten Commandments' aimed at delivering them from the temptations of online arguments. Here it is:

1) You shall not put your blog before your integrity.
2) You shall not make an idol of your blog.
3) You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.
4) Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.
5) Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.
6) You shall not murder someone else's honour, reputation or feelings.
7) You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.
8) You shall not steal another person's content.
9) You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger.
10) You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth

An article about a unique island, with a lot of pictures...

Imagine waking up on the Socotra Island and taking a good look around you (let's say your buddies pulled a prank on you and delivered you there, and lets also assume that you don't have any hangover from abuse of any substances). After a yelp of disbelief, you'd be inclined to think you were transported to another planet - or traveled to another era of Earth's history.

The second would be closer to the truth for this island, which is part of a group of 4 islands, has been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, this island is teeming with 700 endemic species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

Obituaries in store

It is of no surprise that newsmakers prepare the obituaries ahead of time. Two days ago the Bloomberg financial newswire accidentally published one for Steve Jobs, a CEO of Apple corp. The obituary was retracted after a while, but not fast enough, so it was copied by gawker.com, and published there. The most interesting part are comments for Bloomberg reporters and lists of contact persons, who probably can give interviews in case of Jobs' death.

A similar case was recently described by Tatiana Tolstaya: ten years ago living in the US, she received a call from The New York Times with an offer to write an obituary to Solzhenitsyn. She said "no". Now, when Solzhenitsyn have died, we know who agreed to do this - Michael T. Kaufman.

"Рисунок человека"

Статья о диагностике умственного и психического развития по тому, как рисуют человечков. Мой любимый вот этот:

Гезельшаст - от слова "шастать". А немцев в войну звали "Фрецами".

На сайте университета, где я раньше учился, опубликовали данные о трудоустройстве выпускников 2007 года. Интересно, что за бездари оформляют этот сайт? Название института, где я работаю написано с двумя (!) ошибками...

Архив акцентов мира

Все таки, это гениально

The speech accent archive

via Igor Efimov