The standard practice here at CV is to post a hearty blogorific shout out following one’s student’s thesis defense. So, given that another of my students just launched himself out of the nest and is happily flapping himself away to a great postdoctoral position, I really should step up and join the tradition of sending my enthusiastic congratulations across the blogosphere. But honestly, I just don’t wanna. It’s not that my student didn’t present an excellent defense of a strong body of work, or that I’m not terribly proud of what he accomplished. It’s just that I get completely bummed whenever one of my students leaves. I uniformly adore my students, and every time one graduates I question how in the world I’m going to get over it. Intellectually, my students are my closest collaborators (since the breadth and smallish size of my department naturally limits the degree of research overlap among the other faculty). Thus, when students graduate, I lose a significant source of scientific interaction. Personally, the students in my department are terrific people, and a pleasure to know and work with. So, I flat out miss them when they leave.

However, I will try to rise above and say that Ricardo, Master of Supernova Metallicities and Producer of a Seriously Old School Astronomical Thesis (double digits of observing nights on more than 5 different telescopes!) I’m very very proud of you, and deeply happy for you, but if I seem a bit sullen, it’s because I’m a selfish git.

I have been reading with some interest the comments section of Sean’s recent post about blogging during the tenure process, and that of Rob Knop’s original post that prompted Sean’s observations. The specific topic of blogging while under scrutiny is something about which I think sensible guidelines are rather obvious - one may violate them at will, and such violations can make for wonderful voyeurism, but the consequences are clear and not necessarily unreasonable. However, what grabbed my interest most is the general sentiment that academia is broken and that the tenure process, and the requirements and guidelines that most institutions follow, are scandalously unjust. This also came up in another recent thread.

It is most certainly true that there are well-known examples in which the tenure process fails spectacularly - I know some of these extremely well. It is also true that some of the victims of failed tenure processes have blogged eloquently about the failings of the system, and, in general, I have no reason to doubt the facts in their individual cases. However, what one sees less often are descriptions of the well-executed tenure and promotion procedures that account for, in my experience, the vast, vast majority of cases.

Obviously, I cannot speak with authority or experience about all academic subjects, or absolutely all universities. However, I have spent a great deal of time at many different institutions, and have collaborators, colleagues and friends at an even larger number (I will generally not name institutions, for a reason.) Let me make it crystal clear in advance that I in no way wish to detract from the personal misery that many clearly talented people have described - I have close personal friends who have been or are in this boat. I merely think it might be useful to provide some balance.

So how is tenure supposed to work?
Continue reading ‘The Tenure Process’

I agree with Cynical-C, this has to be one of the best creationist quotes ever. (From Fundies say the darndest things.)

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

I guess they haven’t heard that scientists recently detected just such a source of energy, using our sophisticated neutrino telescopes.

Now if only we could figure out how to use this mysterious cosmic fusion reactor to generate a flow of entropy here on Earth. Someday, I’m sure, we’ll get there.

A true story.

I’m sitting on the graduate admissions committee for the physics department at a major research university. Across the table, fellow committee member Prof. A is perusing the file of an applicant who is on the bubble. Prof. A turns to Prof. B next to him and says, “Did you see this one? The student has a Masters degree in Divinity.”

Now, you know me. Not really the Divinity-School type. But still, I’m thinking, that’s interesting. Shows a certain intellectual curiosity to study religion and then move on to physics. There’s some successful tradition there.

But Prof. A shakes his head slowly. “I would really worry about someone like this, that they weren’t devoted enough to doing physics.”

Prof. B nods sagely in assent. “Yes, you have to be concerned that they just don’t have the focus to succeed.”

The student didn’t get in.

Rob Knop is blogging about the difficulties in getting tenure — his difficulties in particular, not the issue in some vague degree of abstraction. Very worth reading for a candid look at the kind of thing that goes on.

On a meta level, it’s interesting to contemplate how hiring and tenuring will ultimately be effected by blogs. Scott Aaronson is blogging at least some occasional facts about his job search. The proliferation of online rumor mills has already taken a lot of what used to be quasi-private information, shared among the old-boy network but invisible to outsiders, and put it out there for everyone to see. I can imagine a similar kind of effect if we ever get to the point that a critical mass of job- and tenure-seekers are blogging about their progress.

In the short term, I worry that the most obvious effect will be a deleterious one for the bloggers. For the most part, I don’t think that hiring/tenure committees care if you have a blog, occasional anonymous scare-mongering notwithstanding. (It might even help.) But blogging about the process might be the kind of thing that makes committees nervous. Personally, I would never blog about a major occupational transition while it was going on; when it’s all set up and the ink is drying, it makes sense to let people know, but in the middle of the process I would be (with good reason) worried about stepping on people’s toes. (Same thing with getting engaged.)

So, blogging about tenure and job searches: crazy or courageous? Or is there a difference? I guess we’ll see.

I know everyone is eagerly awaiting the cinematic event of the summer: Ocean’s Thirteen, third in a series of the lighthearted adventures of a gang of elegant rogues who like to pull off elaborate capers centered on lavish casino heists. Admittedly, the Eurocentric Ocean’s Twelve was a somewhat rambling letdown, but the latest installment promises a return to Vegas and hopefully also to form.

Seeing buzz about the new movie reminded me of a review I read of Ocean’s Twelve. To paraphrase, it expressed the sentiment “This isn’t by any means a very good film, but man, these people sure know how to wear clothes.” This summer’s installment adds Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino to the cast, so the knowledge of clothes-wearing should only be enhanced. (Also Noureen DeWulf, although I’m not familiar with her work.)

So my question is, what does it mean to “know how to wear clothes”? We might at first guess that it refers to the ability of a person to choose clothes that are right for their style, their body type, and the occasion. But in a major motion picture, one presumes that there are professionals whose job it is to do the clothes-choosing, so (respecting the reviewer enough to imagine that they meant exactly what they said) that can’t be it. It could also mean “is wearing nice clothes” or simply “is pretty hot,” but neither of those talents would accurately be characterized as knowing how to wear clothes.

So is there a specific kind of knowledge that refers to the ability to wear clothes? Is it not just a matter of picking out a good outfit, but a particular method of wearing them, adapting one’s demeanor and bearing to the clothes one wears? Or are we just faced with a sloppy deployment of language in an attempt to convey “Boy, that George Clooney would look yummy in a burlap kilt” in an imaginative way? Help me out here, people.

(p.s. Apparently we don’t have a “fashion” category on this blog. Yet.)

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

We go to war with the laws of physics we have, not the ones we wish we had.

You’ve heard the “Boltzmann’s Brain” argument (here and here, for example). It’s a simple idea, which is put forward as an argument against the notion that our universe is just a thermal fluctuation. If the universe is an ordinary thermodynamic system in equilibrium, there will be occasional fluctuations into low-entropy states. One of these might look like the Big Bang, and you might be tempted to conclude that such a process explains the arrow of time in our universe. But it doesn’t work, because you don’t need anything like such a huge fluctuation. There will be many smaller fluctuations that do just as well; the minimal one you might imagine would be a single brain-sized collection of particles that just has time to look around and go Aaaaaagggghhhhhhh before dissolving back into equilibrium. (These days a related argument is being thrown around in the context of eternal inflation — not exactly the same, because we’re not assuming the ensemble is in equilibrium, but similar in spirit.)

Boltzmann wasn’t the one to come up with the “brain” argument; I’m not sure who did, but I first heard it articulated clearly in a paper by Albrecht and Sorbo. It’s the maybe-our-universe-is-a-fluctuation idea that goes back to Boltzmann. Except it’s not actually his, as we can see by looking at Boltzmann’s original paper! (pdf) The reference is Nature 51, 413 (1895), as tracked down by Alex Vilenkin. Don Page copied it from a crumbling leather-bound volume in his local library, and the copy was scanned in by Andy Albrecht. The discussion is just a few paragraphs at the very end of a short paper.

I will conclude this paper with an idea of my old assistant, Dr. Schuetz.

We assume that the whole universe is, and rests for ever, in thermal equilibrium. The probability that one (only one) part of the universe is in a certain state, is the smaller the further this state is from thermal equilibrium; but this probability is greater, the greater is the universe itself. If we assume the universe great enough, we can make the probability of one relatively small part being in any given state (however far from the state of thermal equilibrium), as great as we please. We can also make the probability great that, though the whole universe is in thermal equilibrium, our world is in its present state. It may be said that the world is so far from thermal equilibrium that we cannot imagine the improbability of such a state. But can we imagine, on the other side, how small a part of the whole universe this world is? Assuming the universe great enough, the probability that such a small part of it as our world should be in its present state, is no longer small.

If this assumption were correct, our world would return more and more to thermal equilibrium; but because the whole universe is so great, it might be probable that at some future time some other world might deviate as far from thermal equilibrium as our world does at present. Then the afore-mentioned H-curve would form a representation of what takes place in the universe. The summits of the curve would represent the worlds where visible motion and life exist.

So even Boltzmann doesn’t want credit for the idea, which he attributes to his old assistant. Andy Albrecht points out that, in order to preserve the all-important alliteration, perhaps we should be calling them “Schuetz’s Schmartz.”

I spent part of one morning last week talking with one of my kids’ kindergarten class about space. Now, for those of you who have not spent time with the five-to-six year old set, kindergarteners are fascinating. They are clearly emerging as people with well defined personalities and outlooks, and they give the impression that they are at last inhabiting the same rational world in which most adults live. You can reason with them, making them ripe for discussions about scientific topics. For example, while they all had learned that the Sun was a star, and that real stars were “round” like the Sun, they had never really thought about the 3-dimensional shape of the Sun. The class was evenly divided between thinking the Sun was shaped like a ball, or that it was flat like a frisbee. But, after talking with them about how we orbit the Sun, and see it from different directions, they quickly deduced that it had to in fact be spherical. Incredibly gratifying.

But then, the other aspect of kindergarteners is that while they seem to be living in the rational world, they’re not really living there full-time. To wit, here are some of the comments that kids made when they raised their hands in response to various space-related questions:

“Lava monsters could live there.”

“Um…um…um…” < looking down at feet for inspiration > “….shoes are made of metal.”

“And, um, I went camping, and it was dark, and there was stuff, and it was round, and I slept in a tent.”

“Um…yesterday….we saw owls…and one was big, and the other owl was small.”

My kid didn’t care what anyone was saying, as long as she got to sing “The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas” (original version here).

Does everyone in the world but me know about Cramster.com? Basically it’s a website that includes as many answers to textbook homework problems as they can possibly put together. As far as I can tell it works on a Wiki system, where members submit the various solutions, although there are apparently also “expert” solutions. Odd-numbered solutions are available for free, but you have to pay to see the even numbers. Nothing there for my GR book, although there were some for Jackson’s E+M book, and plenty for Halliday/Resnick etc.

Not really sure what to think about sites like this. Part of me (a big part, actually) couldn’t care less about whether students do their homework, and for that matter thinks that grading is a complete waste of time. What matters is whether or not the students have learned the material, not how they perform on some formalized exercises. If they get perfect grades but don’t learn anything, ultimately they’re the ones who will suffer; even if they get into a better grad school thereby, they’ll just find that their fellow students are much better prepared than they are.

But then there is the whole “fairness” thing, which sadly does matter. There is a set of rewards — like good jobs and/or grad-school admissions — that we base on grades, and they should go to the most deserving students. So, unpleasant as it might be, we have to evaluate them somehow. But in this brave new world, it would probably be wise to make up original problems rather than using the ones from the back of the book.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here! I’m deeply, totally, absorbed in a project. It’s taking all of my energy and every minute of my time. All other aspects of life have stopped. I’m down to eating take-out Chinese night after night cause all other food in the house has been eaten. I have run out of clean knives and forks (still plenty of spoons!) and coffee cups and wine glasses. (Yes, come midnight or so, I need a glass of wine to relax!) I wash each (knife, fork or glass), one at a time as I need it. All 4 suitcases and 6 boxes from my 2 month stay at Fermilab (I don’t travel lightly) are scattered about the house, essentially unpacked, except for where I have ravaged through them looking for something. I did find the leftover girl scout cookies. My tomato plants, lovingly replanted as seedlings into 4 inch pots 2 months ago, are now 2-3 feet tall and are begging to be planted into their big pots for the summer. Birthdays and Mothers Day are coming up and I haven’t done anything. I have referee reports past due. I haven’t read my email. My bills are not paid. I’ve sat so long in front of the computer that my back truly aches and my eyes (and carpel tunneled wrist) have gone. I put my trash out at the curb tonight thinking it was Wednesday, only to discover it’s actually Tuesday and now my neighbors will think I am nuts.

This IS what science is like! When you get so caught up and so excited about something, that literally everything else in life gets put on hold. I’m very excited about this paper, and want to do my best job! I have 3 collaborators, 2 on East coast time, and one in Hawaii. Two of us are in charge of the master text file — me and a collaborator on the East Coast. He is a morning person and works on the file from 8 EDT until mid-afternoon. That means around 10 AM PDT he ships the file to me and I start my day, working until about midnight. Comments from the other 2 collaborators are coming in at all hours at a rapid pace. This means that the collaboration is literally working round the clock! We have a system set up, so we don’t get confused and mix up the “master file” for our paper. It hasn’t failed us yet…

We should finish any day now (seems to always be just 2 days away). And I’ll tell y’all about it as soon as we’re done! OK, maybe I’ll plant the poor tomatoes first!