Cap'n Refsmmat

We've taken the course before, so we know slightly more than the students we help. It's really all we need. Professors who have understood the material for thirty years often find it difficult to convey it to students who have never heard of it before, ever, so we have a slight advantage.

My title is "learning assistant." There are several of us, along with two graduate TAs, assigned to work with a full professor in the course. The professor is responsible for the actual teaching, while we do homework help sessions, help out in class, guide students through their projects, and so on. It's a relatively new program, and it's become fairly popular in the physics department. Many of the introductory courses have several learning assistants who, by virtue of only having learned the material a few years ago, can answer questions and explain concepts much better than the professor can.

If we're picking Star Trek characters, I'd have to pick one of the alien women Kirk seduces. Somehow they're always similar enough to humans to be seduced by Kirk, but they'd give you an interesting story to tell for the rest of your life. Yes. Although that will be inaccurate in about two weeks. Well, I don't mean to learn theoretical computer science. I intend to take courses in numerical analysis and perhaps algorithms, so I at least understand how to estimate solutions to integrals and differential equations, and interesting data structures for storing complicated data. Other than that, I figure the most important advantage is to just get some experience. Practice will tell me what's important and what's not.

It's presumably possible to craft a malicious website that could infect their system. But a proxy service doesn't open the webpage in a regular web browser, parsing the HTML and constructing a page to display -- it just runs its filter over it and passes it on. Hence the normal methods of infection, like bugs in your web browser and browser plugins, aren't available for the proxy service. You'd need to write a different kind of virus to infect them, and that'd be difficult without having a copy of their software to test against.

Hard to say. I don't think there's one specific experience I can point to as the best or worst. However, there've been a few times where I've been discouraged by crackpots. Generally, people with ludicrous theories (and I mean truly ludicrous I-think-all-of-science-is-wrong theories, not just speculating laymen) are simply amusing, but some are so clearly misinformed and opposed to learning science that it's annoying. My warped sense of humor helps most of the time, but sometimes it's just frustrating. That's hard for me to say. I've benefited from a university with more than just science courses; so far, I've taken courses in the philosophy of religion, ethics, the New Testament, the early history of Christianity, and American foreign policy. It's all been fascinating, and I wouldn't want to deny that opportunity to science students who'd like to diversify. On the other hand, I'm an assistant for a physics course this semester, and it's clear to me that many students -- even physics and engineering majors -- arrive at school with subpar mathematics and science instruction. (A few weeks ago I had a student write that 2×10-20=20-20, which is quite a few orders of magnitude off.) I'm eager to see middle schools and high schools actually teach what their curriculum says: basic algebra, precalculus, and perhaps calculus. Sure, students are passing those courses and graduating, but they have not mastered the subjects, and they are absolutely essential if you want to take college courses. I think quite a few college physics classes would be substantially easier for students if they only understood their algebra and basic calculus better. I'm not sure. As I said, I'm a hobby programmer, and I'd like to learn more about formal computer science, along with numerical analysis, since simulations and computational physics are hugely interesting fields, and very few physicists are also trained programmers. On the other hand, I enjoy teaching, since it presents its own unique challenges: how do you reduce a complicated concept into something approachable? Which topics need to be introduced first? How do you make students understand the material, instead of memorizing it? I certainly see the need for better science education, and I'd like to contribute. I also enjoy writing, and I somewhat envy Donald Knuth, whose job (in retirement) is essentially to write a series of books summarizing everything he knows about computer science. I'd like to be paid to learn everything about a topic and then write it back down again, condensed. That's like paying me to go to college, except I have to find better ways of explaining everything the professors say. Definitely. I have learned a lot about teaching, writing, and debating from participating on SFN. The asynchronous nature of forums means that debaters have time to carefully and patiently pick apart every detail in your posts, so you must be sure to make coherent, concise, and pointed posts. Irrelevant details will merely serve as points for others to attack, even if they're not important for your main point. SFN has forced me to be a better writer and a better explainer. It's very difficult to criticize someone's argument, craft an explanation of your own position, and cite examples without being confrontational enough to make your opponent defensive -- because as soon as that happens, you've lost, since they'll search for ways to prove you wrong instead of listening to what you have to say. SFN's also taught me how important clear communication in science can be, given how many crackpots and physics deniers we've seen. A lot of this goes back to the previous question, but also, my oldest posts make it clear that I thought I knew nearly everything. I recall once responding to a post saying "The Moon doesn't technically orbit around the Earth -- it orbits around the barycenter of the system, which isn't quite at the center of the Earth" with "But do you have PROOF?!?!" like it was some kind of radical crackpot statement, when it's in fact a basic statement of Newtonian mechanics. That taught me a lesson about being too self-confident, I suppose... The responsibility of moderating discussions also led me to develop a sort of philosophy of discussion, which has influenced how I go about arguing. I outlined it in a couple of blog posts. I still catch myself on a couple of those points, such as "never be confrontational": I've had people attack my posts, and I immediately start thinking of witty retorts and counterarguments and holes in their argument, before realizing that I haven't actually considered the possibility that they're right. I think more people need to have that feeling, once in a while.

I can't really pin it down to one person. As a physics student, I'd naturally say that Richard Feynman is inspiring -- but not simply because he's a Nobel-winning physicist who was popular with the ladies. No, Feynman had a gift for communicating his ideas (in writing and in speech) that is inspiring. He seems to have so much fun doing it: But really, the inspiring people aren't famous scientists. They're people like SFN's resident experts, who constantly amaze me with their depth of knowledge, and regular scientists who make interesting discoveries or write lucid explanations. And as a hobby programmer, I can be inspired by anyone -- the proliferation of open-source software means it's not uncommon to find a particularly clever piece of work written by a bored Canadian during his days off from work. It's not just the famous people that are inspiring. It's the people who do clever things and interesting work on their own initiative, and who know how to communicate their results to a wide audience.

It might be, yes. I'll think about how to do that when we upgrade to the newest version of the forum software and adjust our style and layout.

I'm now Internet-famous! I was recently approached for an interview by a blogger publishing interviews of science and technology related people, and it's now published: http://thefastperfectionist.blogspot.com/2011/11/interview-with-admin-of-science-forums.html On that note, I'll open this thread up for questions. Want to know about SFN's history or how it's run? Fire away.

If they only want you to open the door from one side, the aluminum makes it impossible to use a magnet to pull the handle from the other side.

I'm not surprised -- if I posted something and got immediately beaten over the head for it, I'd probably change my argument, too. "Your argument is wrong, but you're not allowed to change it, because I'd rather berate you for being wrong" is rather silly. Generally when I see a thread like this, I post something like "Hm. I haven't heard of hypnosis being used as a general anesthetic before. Do you have examples?" I still get the information I want, and I can then assess the validity of the argument.

No it does not. It means "we don't know if it works," and no stronger conclusions can be reached, like "there's absolutely no proof." Lack of personal knowledge of the evidence is not sufficient grounds to make a strong positive statement. You also made the claim that hypnosis can't be a particularly effective medical technique, which is false even if it can't be used for general anesthesia. I believe you've misread me. I did not say it implies science cannot understand it. I said that was your misunderstanding of the post. There's a difference between "faulty" and "unsupported"; namely, unsupported premises can become suddenly supported: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10499384 There were three issues I brought up in my concluding paragraph; you've addressed one. Was there something confusing about the other two? Perhaps I can restate. The problem with these strong, condescending we-demand-absolute-proof responses to controversial or slightly-pseudoscientific topics is that we merely convince people that we're denialists, rather than educating them. We drive them off with our hostility to their ideas, when we can't reasonably expect that everyone who visits SFN will only present scientifically-supported clearly-presented ideas to discuss. We can certainly make an attempt to educate members by asking for evidence, explaining science, and digging up research. But if we come across as condescending closed-minded denialists when we do it, we're not going to succeed.

A good meta-analysis would say something like "Of the studies we surveyed, only two were randomized controlled trials, so the available data cannot conclusively support the hypothesis."

What are "heavy electrons" and "heavy neutrons"?

Formulas for what about those shapes? I mean, I can make formulas for the area of a circle, the side lengths of triangles, the interior angles of regular polygons, and so on. What formulas do you want, exactly?

A good meta-analysis does the statistics and shows that the results are bad. For example, a meta-analysis of many studies with small effect sizes would aggregate the data and find an small effect size with large error bars on it. So I'm not really sure how this is "a problem" with meta-analyses, rather than exactly what they're supposed to do.

Not knowing anything about your "formula controller", I can't really help here. You could approximate by adding up as many sine waves as you can, but you'd really have to learn how to use the system effectively to know the best method.

You don't infinitely add sine waves of the same period; you add many sine waves with different periods. Wikipedia gives the Fourier series of a square wave -- the infinite series of sine waves you must add: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Square_wave Is there something about its description that's confusing?

Much of what you wrote is rather vague and broad, like the "model" of ESP, which essentially reduces to "extrasensory information is detected and then perceived," which is not particularly informative. (I mean, it's fairly obvious that any perception must be detected with the senses and then perceived.)

Are you sure that replacing war spending with civil war is an acceptable tradeoff, considering the resulting impact on the US economy? One would be recovering war money from foreign countries by forcing the government to spend it to fight against its own citizens.

Ah, I see. You merely said it's not verified to work in surgery, it's not a very effective medical technique, and there's no evidence it can be used in surgery. If that's not what you intended to say, you should have chosen your arguments more carefully. I certainly didn't find papers on hypnosis as a general anesthetic. That's ancillary to the OP's point, though, and something we could search through the literature for. I read the post as "does this not point at something science doesn't understand -- i.e. a 'mystery'?", rather than "is it impossible for science to understand this?" Judging by the literature, the answer would be "yes," because the mechanisms of hypnosis in pain control are poorly understood. granadina would have to verify my interpretation. I am annoyed by this tendency to react to controversial or slightly-pseudoscientific topics with the insistence that there is no evidence whatsoever and the OP must provide reams of scientific papers before we even consider their argument. First, a skeptical view would be "I don't know, I haven't seen the research", not flat insistence that there is no evidence whatsoever. Skepticism does not mean denialism. Secondly, this tactic often derails threads by focusing on issues secondary to the main point, demanding that facts be cited even if they aren't necessary for the argument. Finally, it's a safe bet that most members are not trained in the scientific method or the effective use of hypnosis in surgery, and so beating them over the head for sources is interpreted as hostility, not helpful discussion. (Particularly when one uses the "there's no evidence whatsoever!" tactic with a goofy video and a touch of condescension.)

Skepticism does not mean making bald assertions without checking your facts first. Preferably you'd cite a meta-analysis showing no effect, although in fact I can find the opposite: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2000-15382-002 http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/content/94/6/1639.abstract http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/99/17/1304.abstract http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/content/90/1/64.abstract That's about ten minutes of Google Scholar-ing.

The fraction of energy lost will merely be the fraction of the solar panels which are covered in shadow at any given moment; there isn't a special equation for that.

I don't think nature's sitting there with a slide rule, a ruler, and a protractor when a speaker plays a sine wave into the air and makes sound waves, if that's what you're asking. We've developed mathematics because it's a tool that accurately models how many aspects of reality behave; one can't really ask "why" they behave that way, or what's "really happening" underneath, because we're limited to what we can see in experiment. You might find it similarly strange that one can define the sine as: [math]\sin z = \frac{e^{iz} - e^{-iz}}{2i}[/math] How do right triangles relate to e -- the base of the natural logarithm -- and imaginary numbers? Does nature compute exponentials when sound waves travel through air? No.

You could create sine waves with the ratios of side lengths in triangles inscribed in a circle of radius 2, or 17, or 364. The ratios are the same independent of angle. Using a unit circle just makes the values of sine and cosine just the lengths of the opposite and adjacent sides, respectively, because the hypotenuse is 1. When you take the ratio opposite/hypotenuse, you do opposite/1, so the sine of an angle is just the length of the opposite side of the triangle formed in the unit circle. But you make sine waves with a larger circle if you use the ratios correctly.

I'm not sure how those situations imply nature uses a unit circle. Could you expand on that?