Built on Facts

A few brief items of interest for the weekend:

One of my favorite things to write about is the interplay between physics and pure mathematics. Beyond the basic idea that physics is the science of the mathematical description of nature, it’s further true that pure math by itself often anticipates physics in ways physicists don’t always expect. Here’s the story of several mathematicians who solved a conjecture about the zeros of harmonic polynomials and by accident revolved an open problem in the cosmology of gravitational lensing.

Here’s more discussion from Swans on Tea on the multi-blog conversation about how to grade physics exams. In short, it’s a lot less complicated in the Navy!

Dr. Pion on a concern that I can definitely relate to - the availability of jobs after grad school. I personally would love a career as a professor, and I’ll try my best to make it happen. Would I be disappointed with work at a national lab or in a suitably challenging research position in the private sector? Nope. Science is science, and I’ve never really felt that stereotypical pure science disinterest toward applied research, even though of course I’m a sucker for a good physics vs engineering joke.

Have a lovely weekend!