Related papers: Some rules of good scientific writing
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…
This is a series of short teaching papers dealing with specific topics in a standard first-year undergraduate Physics course. ----- Este texto comp\~oe-se de quatro pequenas notas -- independentes entre si -- em que se discutem alguns…
Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the…
This article offers a short guide to the steps scientists can take to ensure that their data and associated analyses continue to be of value and to be recognized. In just the past few years, hundreds of scholarly papers and reports have…
Scientific writing is an expert-domain task that demands deep domain knowledge, task-specific requirements and reasoning capabilities that leverage the domain knowledge to satisfy the task specifications. While scientific text generation…
I offer an analysis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and its relevancy for the scientific endeavour. I submit that the world is not, and cannot be, rational - only some brained beings are. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is not a…
This article aims at clarifying the language and practice of scientific experiment, mainly by hooking observability on calculability.
This is the extended version of a Comment submitted to Physical Review Letters. I first point out the inappropriateness of publishing a Letter unrelated to physics. Next, I give experimental results showing that the technique used in the…
Some thoughts are presented on the inter-relation between beauty and truth in science in general and theoretical physics in particular. Some conjectural procedures that can be used to create new ideas, concepts and results are illustrated…
The process of doing Science in condition of uncertainty is illustrated with a toy experiment in which the inferential and the forecasting aspects are both present. The fundamental aspects of probabilistic reasoning, also relevant in real…
A formal theory of experimentation will be presented. Such a theory presents the necessary & sufficient conditions a world must satisfy in order to admit the use of the scientific method.
Courses in mathematical methods for physics students are not known for including too much in the way of mathematical rigour and, in some ways, understandably so. However, the conditions under which some quite commonly used mathematical…
Computational methods and associated software implementations are central to every field of scientific investigation. Modern biological research, particularly within systems biology, has relied heavily on the development of software tools…
Despite peer-reviewing being an essential component of academia since the 1600s, it has repeatedly received criticisms for lack of transparency and consistency. We posit that recent work in machine learning and explainable AI provide tools…
(transcript of a talk given by Prof.~Feshbach:) Nuclear physics has been and will be a major factor in science and technology. It makes unique and important contributions to medicine, to industry and to other sciences. Interaction with…
The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
One of the key skills of a researcher is noticing what's going on. Both in the experiment one's performing and in one's data: is there something interesting, reason to doubt one's data or suspect that one's theoretical description is…
A growing stream of research finds that scientific contributions are evaluated differently depending on the gender of the author. In this article, we consider whether gender differences in writing styles - how men and women communicate…
Even if students can make the blend, interpret physics correctly in mathematical symbology and graphs, they still need to be able to apply that knowledge in productive and coherent ways. As instructors, we can show our solutions to complex…
Many instructors choose to assess their students using open-ended written exam items that require students to show their understanding of physics by solving a problem and/or explaining a concept. Grading these items is fairly time…