Random Numbers
Kids remote learning? Fear not the math!
Terrified of teaching math, or even helping your kids with their math homework? This is a nice article from Tiffanie Wen: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200506-how-to-tackle-your-anxiety-about-maths The BBC is also providing some teaching help for lockdown learning, including primary math https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zvryp4j
Can Geometry Rescue Representative Government?
Left: Cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale from the March 26, 1812 edition of the Federalist-leaning paper The Boston Gazette showing the Massachusetts district newly created to favor the Jeffersonian Republicans in upcoming elections. Right: the wing and clawless version of the map. Thinking the actual district looked like a salamander, an editor at the paper declared [...]
Measurement appreciation day
Measurement appreciation day In the 2 July 2017 issue of Nature, there is an article in the Comment section about the science of measuring: http://www.nature.com/news/metrology-is-key-to-reproducing-results-1.22348 The moral of the article is that if we all actually measured properly it would go a long way towards fixing our reproducibility problem. Good point, that unfortunately has to [...]
Standard Error isn’t, so don’t burden your audience with it
I am aware that there are entire fields as well as high impact journals that overlook this mistake, but I want to bring up, (yes, again), why you should always use the standard deviation when drawing error bars or reporting the uncertainty about the data you actually collected; that is, why you should not report [...]
Teach about confirmation bias. Please.
I am on a mission to spread the news of this transformational (yes!) exercise for all teachers of all subjects, but especially scientists. It is called the Wason* 2-4-6 Task, (I’ve seen it referred to as the 2-4-8 test). It is the best exercise I’ve ever seen for demonstrating the perils of confirmation bias. It [...]
ASTUTE READER NOTICES: CONVERSION OF RCF TO RPM IS UNCLEAR
Hi Dany Spencer Adams, I think there might be an error in the equation for converting RCF to rpm on page 140 of the second edition, hardcover. Should the equation be: rpm= (RCF / (r x 1.118 x 10^-6))^1/2 instead of 10^-5? because the radius is measured in mm? … E. D. Dear E. D. [...]
The Patriots, the Nobel Laureate, and the power of uncertainty
Chemistry Nobel Laureate Roderick MacKinnon has done a wonderful (by which I mean numerically sound) analysis of the analysis of the Patriots’ footballs. This is yet another example of the cost of not understanding uncertainty: was it $2 million? If Brady would like me to teach him, I’ll take a mere half of that. Analysis of [...]
It’s just multiplication, have no fear
(A true story, with some added sarcasm, to illustrate that using equations is safer in the long run than trying to avoid using equations) My lab has a new centrifuge that I recently needed to use for the first time. Like most centrifuges, you can set the rotations per minute (RPM) and the number [...]
Graphing Advice
How to Make Truly Terrible Graphs: A Tutorial by David Streiner Part 4: Where’s the Y? In previous blogs, I described how to make terrible graphs using some of the features of leading graphing packages, such as pie charts and 3-D graphs. But, this is unfair to users of other programs that do not [...]
Graphing advice
How to Make Truly Terrible Graphs: A Tutorial David L. Streiner, special guest contributor and co-author of excellent statistics texts Part 3 – 3D or not 3D In the two last blogs, we learned the first steps in making truly terrible graphs: by confusing the role of a visual with that of a table, and by [...]
Birth of the Blog
