Mathematician/physicist/inventor Richard Crandall dies at 64

It is with great sadness that the present bloggers announce the passing of their dear colleague Richard Crandall, who died Thursday December 20, 2012, after a brief bout with acute leukaemia—the week before his 65th birthday on December 29.

Crandall had a long and colorful career. He was a physicist by training, studying with Richard Feynman as an undergrad at the California Institute of Technology, and receiving his Ph.D. in physics at MIT, under the tutelage of Victor Weisskopf, the Austrian-American physicist who discovered what is now known as the Lamb Shift and who was one of the most influential

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December 21st, 2012 | Category: News | Comments are closed

Alarm bells sound over latest international test scores

The latest (2011) results of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which asses reading, and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which tests mathematics and science, are in, and they aren’t pretty, particularly for the U.S., Canada and Australia.

In the 4th grade PIRLS reading tests, the United States ranked an unimpressive 7th, behind Singapore, the Russian Federation, Northern Ireland, Finland, England and Hong Kong. Canada ranked even lower (11th), and Australia ranked a dismal 17th, the lowest of English-speaking nations in the list (see PIRLS, pg. 68-69).

In the 4th grade TIMSS mathematics tests,

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December 12th, 2012 | Tags: | Category: Essays | Comments are closed

Is believing in climate change “an insult to God”?

With movements such as young-earth creationism, we certainly have seen examples of religion being shanghaied into the service of anti-science. But some recent rhetoric in opposition to environmentalism and climate change science takes the cake.

For example, E. Calvin Beisner, leader of the Cornwall Alliance (a consortium of evangelical clergy) has declared that environmental movement is “deadly to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” and that believing in climate change is “an insult to God.” On November 30, 2012, in a televised discussion with his colleague Bryan Fischer, Beisner further argued that it is an affront to God to not utilize

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December 6th, 2012 | Category: Essays | Comments are closed

Life on Mars!? Maybe we are all Martians

Curiosity Rover: Nominee for Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2012. Image courtesy NASA.

In an announcement today, NASA poured cold water on rumors that its Curiosity rover had found life on Mars. Curiosity found evidence that it had landed on an ancient riverbed, and it identified some interesting chemical species involving chlorine, sulfur, water and organic compounds, but nothing that could be construed as clear-cut evidence for life on Mars, past or present.

All of this underscores Carl Sagan’s caution, reiterated for example in his book Billions and Billions, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It also

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December 3rd, 2012 | Category: Essays | Comments are closed