Comments on: Stuff Scientists Like

By: Mark D.

Mark D. — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:43:43 +0000

I was in an honors writing class in college and had the misfortune to select Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) for a topic. The professor got all over my case for using too many gerunds instead of action verbs (!). As if there was any other way to talk about the topic. Worthless class. I consider my C grade a badge of honor.

By: cgob

cgob — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:50:19 +0000

Science toys - I always loved going to the 1st year physics demo room as a kid (my dad was a prof). It was better than the toy department at Woolco. I now find sites like zerotoysequally as hard to resist. Reducing ideas - who doesn't enjoy reducing ideas down to their essence? You know you have this trait when people ask you what a movie was about and you immediately start commenting on theme not plot. Similarly, who doesn't like it when page long algebraic expressions get simplified to 1? Passive voice - silly English majors, the passive voice is our friend. Distance in writing isn't a bad thing. 7 - I'll third the cross on the 7's and z's. Homemade lab equipment with lots of hanging wires - What looks cooler a tidy factory produced laser or one without a case and with a bajillion wires going everywhere and under everything?

By: SteveP

SteveP — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:39:25 +0000

Great post. Here are my comments on yours:

1) Especially cool glassware. Nothing says you’re in the know like drinking from an Erlenmeyer flask.

2) Yes, 75% of scientists love looking at bad statistics.

3) My favorite? e^(pi*i)=-1, how in the world can you raise one transcendental number to another which has been multiplied by an imaginary number and get a ordinary integer? That is so strange. This alone turns me into a Platonist .

4) I’ve been writing Mathematica code all day! It’s gotten better and better. The graphics rock and if you do cellular automata like me there is nothing better.

5) The third person is also not to be underestimated.

6) For me 7′s yes, Z’s no. Must be a biological thing.

My additions:

Science Magazines, Shorts and T-shirts with something cool on the front, Far Side Cartoons and at least one Matt Groening cartoon somewhere for graduate students.

By: BrianJ

BrianJ — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:19:13 +0000

Wow, your list reads almost nothing like mine—likely because yours is heavily skewed for physics, whereas I am in biomedicine. Mathematica or Maple? I do my calculations on the back of a Kimwipe, thank you.

I’m right with you on the passive voice, crossed 7′s, and snickering at the press though. I always find humor at what the camera chooses to film for a story—they love multi-channel pipettes, biohazard signs, and shaking incubators, even if these items had nothing to do with the research being reported on.

Here’s some I’ll add to your list:
1) Cooking. It’s a lot like lab work except the payoff is faster and tastier. (Okay, so I don’t really know how tasty my experiments are.)

2) Running/cycling. Even when I worked for an outdoor retailer there wasn’t as high a percentage of avid runners/cyclists among my coworkers.