Science

This guy will cheer you up, if nothing lese: Government scientist: Working as a government scientist is a great idea, because the government is really popular right now. Read any newspaper and you’ll see stories about how much people love and trust the government. And Adjunct teaching: Ah, the free life of an adjunct instructor! Adjuncting offers freedom from the tenure struggle, freedom from the stifling responsibilities of a full-time professor, and freedom from the burden of income. As an adjunct, you’ll bounce among the local colleges, teaching classes on six different campuses a day, but you’ll know that you no longer have to worry about pointless things like research — all that matters is whether you can convince a classroom Read More ›

In “Walters researchers decode the secrets of the Archimedes Palimpsest” Baltimore Sun, October 18, 2011), Mary Carole McCauley reports on the massive reconstruction job that has made available to us, after two millennia, the lost writings of the great, ancient Greek mathematician, Archimedes. It’s unfortunate that many know him only as the ancient Greek cartoon figure running naked and dripping through the streets shouting Eureka!, the bath attendant in hot pursuit. Archimedes’ legacy extends to mathematical fields as diverse as calculus and computer science. He made groundbreaking discoveries in hydrostatics, which measures the pressure exerted by liquids because of gravity. He invented the catapult, the battering ram, pulleys and siege machines. He was the first person to explain mathematically how Read More ›