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We describe a variant of the popular game "Pictionary" based on terms used in elementary and high school physics. We believe that drawing of physical terms helps students develop a deeper understanding of physical concepts behind them, as…
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is…
We discuss how developments in physics often imply in the need that spacetime acquires an increasingly richer and complex structure. General Relativity was the first theory to show us the way to connect space and time with the physical…
For many students, college physics courses have little or even negative impact on their beliefs about the connection between physics and the everyday world. One way to help students see this connection is to incorporate analysis of science…
Anomalies drive scientific discovery -- they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics --- both "known…
Some basic sociophysical notions are described by a physicist, tentatively for a sociologically-oriented reader.
Perhaps more than any other of the physical sciences, cosmology exemplifies the inevitable contact between science and philosophy, including the problem of the demarcation criteria that distinguish science from non-science. Although modern…
This is an essay about understanding complexity science, via some peculiarities of the field, as a meeting place for a special kind of scientist. It comes out of my hobby of reading popular-science complex systems books, and builds on notes…
Space Science enjoys broad public support in the US. People say they follow developments with interest, and that the programs are worth their cost. This attitude seems to arise in part because of the intrinsic accessibility and appeal of…
Can mathematics help us find our way through all the wonders and mysteries of the universe? When physicists describe the laws governing the physical world, mathematics is always involved. Is this due to the fact that the universe is, at…
This paper avers that science is not demarcated from other disciplines by a specific unique methodology, but by its specific scientific rationality and rational grounds. In this context, the notion and structure of scientific reason are…
We present a review of data types and statistical methods often encountered in astronomy. The aim is to provide an introduction to statistical applications in astronomy for statisticians and computer scientists. We highlight the complex,…
In nature there are various pairs of observed phenomena and observing scientific techniques which are elegantly coupled with each other. A very general and well known example is the fact that the metal we use to build telescopes were once…
This paper is a faithful description of the author's career as a scientist, which often intersected that of Yves Couder. The emphasis of this paper is a true description of how the science that the author has been associated with really…
Incongruity often makes people laugh. You have to be smart to say stupid things. It requires to be even smarter for understanding them. This paper is a shameless attempt to formalize this intelligent behavior in the case of an agent…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…
The physics of neutron star crusts is vast, involving many different research fields, from nuclear and condensed matter physics to general relativity. This review summarizes the progress, which has been achieved over the last few years, in…
Astronomers occasionally detect an object having unexpected shape, unexplainable photometry, or unprecedented spectra that are inconsistent with our contemporary knowledge of the universe. Upon careful assessment, many of these anomalies…
The job of a physicist is to describe Nature. General features, hypotheses and theories help to describe physics phenomena at a more abstract, fundamental level, and are sometimes tacitly assigned some sort of real existence; doing so…
The authors discuss various objections and rejoinders in the collected responses [math.HO/9404229,math.HO/9404236] to their original article on the relationship between mathematics and theoretical physics [math.HO/9307227].