Science Articles

Here are some articles about how we got here, how it’s going, and what it looks like on the ground. They are all nontechnical; good technical articles are linked in my lecture notes. Regarding the quit lit, I believe that everybody should read some before committing to graduate school, but it needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

The Development of Physics

• The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown
• Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword
• Why is Maxwell’s Theory so Hard to Understand?
• Absolute Zero is 0K
• The Vortex Atom: a Victorian Theory of Everything
• A History of Dark Matter

Collider Physics

• The Crisis of Big Science
• The Demise of the Superconducting Super Collider
• The Theoretical Physics Ecosystem Behind the Discovery of the Higgs Boson
• The Once and Present Standard Model
• Physicists’ Nightmare Scenario / Supersymmetry and the Disunity of Physics

Signal and Noise

• Failed Theories of Superconductivity
• Pathological Science
• A Selected History of Expectation Bias in Physics
• Anomalies in High Energy Physics

The Replication Crisis

• The Control Group is Out of Control
• Why Most Published Research Findings Are False / The Statistical Crisis in Science
• Replications and Reversals / A Meta-Scientific Perspective on “Thinking: Fast and Slow”
• Academic Urban Legends
• What’s Wrong with Social Science and How to Fix It
• I’m So Sorry for Psychology’s Loss

The Grind

• Landau’s Theoretical Minimum / On Teaching Mathematics
• The Hunt For Planet Nine
• Science’s Pirate Queen
• The PhD Grind / The Mundanity of Excellence
• What Does Any Of This Have To Do With Physics?

Physics Enrichment

• Kevin Brown’s Articles
• Donald Simanek’s Exhibits
• Kirk McDonald’s Examples
• Randy’s Clear Explanations
• Jaan Kalda’s Handouts
• Reddit’s Commonly Asked Questions

Diversions and Games

• TeXnique
• Particle Clicker
• April Fools’ Articles
• arXiv vs. snarXiv / arXiv vs. qarXiv / viXra highlights
• APS Kaleidoscopes: A, B, C, D, E, A&B
• More Neat Links

Research Advice

• The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research
• Four Golden Lessons
• Principles of Effective Research
• How to Do Great Work
• The Inner Ring
• Gravity Turn

The Job Market

• The Big Crunch
• Booms, Busts, and the World of Ideas
• So You Want To Go To Grad School (In The Humanities)
• The Rumor Mill’s History
• The Teaching Class
• Somewhere Between a Jeremiad and a Eulogy

Career Advice

• The Trouble With Optionality / You Don’t Need to Work on “Hard Problems”
• Applying to STEM Ph.D. Programs
• How to Publish a Scientific Comment in 123 Easy Steps
• The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
• How to Make Sure Your Talk Doesn’t Suck
• What it Means, and Doesn’t Mean, to Get a Job in Physics / My Secret, Cap