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Blogs / Cosmic Variance
Philosophy in the Streets I want to see this for scientists! Via Crooked Timber, a new film by Astra Taylor: Examined Life, featuring interviews with various philosophers in everyday surroundings. Žižek says “Nature is a big series of unimaginable catastrophes.” I think he meant “the blogosphere,” not “Nature.”Do I really want to see this for scientists? They might not make the same impression on film — scientists aren’t trained to connect what they do to the concerns of the wider world (although the connections are there).SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Philosophy in the Streets", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/08/philosophy-in-the-streets/" }); January 8th, 2009 by Sean in Philosophy | 9 Comments » Unsolicited Advice, Part Nine: Choosing a Postdoc Early January, and time for another entry in our unsolicited advice series — this one on choosing a postdoc. For non-academics, a “postdoc” is that lovely several-year period in between getting a Ph.D. and (hopefully) landing a faculty job, during which one establishes some independence and concentrates on doing research to the exclusion of all the other delicious aspects of professordom. And for reasons that have never been fully explained, a lot of postdoc jobs are offered and accepted in December/January/February, even if they don’t start until September. So now is the time to make yet another one of those choices that will dramatically affect the entire rest of your life.Here, we’re not telling you how to get a postdoc; we’re presuming you already have more than one offer in hand, and need to choose between them. (Yay you!) At some point we should write about applying for postdocs, but that season is largely passed. Note that postdoc situations vary wildly from field to field, and my experience is largely in theoretical physics; there is more advice at Dr. Isis’s place, and I’m sure elsewhere — as usual, leave links in the comments. Free advice on the internet is worth what you pay for it, but if you get a variety of different perspectives a nugget of wisdom might sneak through.To decide which postdoc position is right for you, it makes sense to think about what your goals are in being a postdoc in the first place. Generally they look something like this: 1) Do some good science.2) Learn new things and grow as a scientist.3) Put yourself in a good position to land a faculty job.The very good news is that these goals are not in conflict! You can do good science while learning new things, and you can do both of those while positioning yourself to apply for faculty jobs. Indeed, you’ll be in much better position (obviously) if you have done some good science. However, it’s possible to do some good science and nevertheless end up in not such a good position.Before we unpack that, we should say a word about other considerations. You might care about geographic location, or proximity to a loved one, or easy access to jazz or martinis or gambling or whatever your favorite vice may be. (Personally, I can’t decide.) I’m all about the other considerations, and would never tell you to discount them. Life is short, and the years you spend as a postdoc are just as truly years of your life as any other years. However … if you were thinking that it would be worthwhile, at some point in your life, to sacrifice on your other considerations for a bit in order to concentrate on doing the best science you can — now is the time! Of all the hurdles and bottlenecks along an academic career path, the jump from postdoc to faculty is probably the hardest, just in terms of raw probabilities. (There are a lot fewer faculty jobs than there are postdocs looking for them.) At the same time, the transition from the comforting embrace of graduate school, where (at least in principle) you have an advisor looking over you, to the naked Hobbesian individualism of being a postdoc, where your personal initiative counts for everything, can benefit from a certain amount of increased focus. I know, “comforting embrace” isn’t the first phrase that comes to mind when you think of graduate school. But there is more structure there, and a sense of belonging to something bigger. (Often, as a postdoc, the department won’t even list you in any sort of directory.) So, while there’s nothing wrong with taking other considerations seriously, this temporary phase of your academic trajectory is arguably the best time to put those on the back burner while you concentrate on your job, hoping that sacrifice will pay off later. How much you balance those competing considerations is up to you.(The extent to which personal initiative counts varies wildly from academic field to field; in a big lab, the role of a postdoc may be little different from that of an advanced grad student. For theorists, the role of a postdoc is little different from that of a beginning professor — you are expected to come up with your own ideas and carry them to fruition.)With all that throat-clearing out of the way, let’s tackle those above goals. First, you want to choose a postdoc position that will help you do good science. This criterion is actually relatively straightforward, but there are some subtleties. Of course it will help if you go to a place that is chock full of good scientists doing the kind of science you would like to be doing yourself. But you still have to ask some of the same kind of questions you asked when choosing a grad school — at the most basic level, would you yourself be able to productively work with these people? Do you like them, are they supportive? What do the other postdocs who are currently there — or even better, were there recently and have moved on — think about the experience?Here is an excellent little diagnostic. Of the different places you are considering, have a look at some of the papers they have written over the last three years. Now ask yourself: which of those papers would I have been most pleased to be a co-author on? That’s a direct way of separating vague feelings that “this place is good” from “they are doing what I want to do.” But then, to kick it up a notch, look again at those papers, and in particular at the author lists. Are there any postdocs there? Is this the kind of place where the postdocs collaborate frequently and directly with the faculty and each other, or are they more on their own, or have they still collaborating with their old groups from grad school? Different departments have different personalities, but the evidence of how postdocs generally fit in should be easy to gather.Next, you want to learn and grow as a scientist. This one is a bit trickier. You definitely do want to grow — it’s unlikely that, as a grad student, you did enough different kinds of work that you would be happy to stay confined within those disciplinary boundaries for the rest of your life. Your postdoc years are a great chance to define yourself (see below), so you should think long and hard about how you want to be defined. On the other hand, it is possible to grow too much. If your degree is in string theory, and your first postdoc is in molecular biology, and your second postdoc is in inorganic chemistry, you’re sort of just being incoherent. You’ll have fun along the way — and if that’s your goal, that’s great — but if you are planning on moving to the next level, you want to be broad without losing coherence entirely. You want to challenge yourself with new things, but you want to challenge yourself productively. You certainly don’t want to think of your postdoc as another round of grad school, where you start from scratch. You are now a professional scientist with some established expertise, and you would like to build on that expertise. But at the same time — and here’s the crucially important part — you don’t want to just repeat yourself. That’s why everyone always tells you to go somewhere else for your postdoc, not to stick around the same place you were a grad student. It sounds like good, solid advice, but when the moment of decision comes, far too many people choose to play it safe, and either stay where they are (if that option is available) or move over to some group with whom they were already collaborating. It’s hard to appreciate until you’ve been around the block a few times, but different departments are truly different in their approach to doing science. One of the absolute best features of the postdoc system (and there are a lot of crappy features) is that you get an invaluable opportunity to be exposed to the idiosyncrasies and habits of mind of a completely different set of senior researchers. That can be a truly eye-opening experience, and you should try as hard as you can to take advantage. Find people with whom you can work and be productive (you want to write papers, not just take classes or sit at the feet of masters), but who will challenge your preconceptions and open your eyes to new ways of thinking about your field.Finally we have the money goal: you’d like to put yourself in good position to land a faculty job. (That’s what we’re assuming, anyway; if not, standard disclaimers apply.) Of course this is as much art as science, and there’s a tremendous amount of noise in the system — but you control what you can.With that in mind, recall that our advice for being a good grad student was to “Be the kind of grad student that people would like to hire as a postdoc.” Guess what? As a postdoc, you will strive to be the kind of postdoc that people would like to hire as an assistant professor. And what kind is that? If you’re honest with yourself, you can probably hit upon the right answer by contemplating the kind of applicant you would be most likely to hire, if you were already a faculty member sitting on a hiring committee. The basic rule is that you’re not going to get hired as a faculty member by being talented and smart; you’re going to be hired because the department sees that you are doing awesome things. When people hire postdocs, the applicants are still charmingly unformed as mature scientists, and their letters of recommendation will often weigh more than their lists of publications. But when it comes to hiring a faculty member, it’s rarely done purely on promise — they want to see that you’ve done something.So when you’re choosing which postdoc to take, choose the one that maximizes your chances of actually doing something. Writing papers, and (more importantly) writing good papers. And (most importantly) by “good” we do not mean “technically competent.” We mean interesting, even to people outside your immediate circle of friends. Papers you would want to read, even if you hadn’t written them. Those are the kinds of papers you want to be writing as a grad student.The need to write interesting papers should be obvious, but sometimes it gets lost in the excitement. Writing papers as a grad student can be like having sex as a teenager — you’re amazed that it’s happening at all, and not so concerned with excelling. But at some point, as you mature, it becomes important to do it well. It is deadly, as a postdoc, to fall into the trap of writing papers just because you can write them. Like it or not, there are many people like you competing for a scarce resource in the form of faculty jobs. You have to distinguish yourself. If you are working within any field where there is a nontrivial chance of getting hired as a faculty member, there will certainly be other people writing papers in the same field. What is it that will make your papers better?And it’s not only good papers — it’s papers that define who you are. That’s a question you will literally be asked when you are applying for faculty jobs — what are you really? What do you do? And the appropriate answer has to be well-defined (like it or not) in terms that are comprehensible to a faculty hiring committee. “I work on models of dark energy” is a bit narrow; “I am a theoretical physicist” is a bit broad; “I work on field theory and particle physics applied to cosmology” is about right. (You can always, and in fact should, continue to broaden your scope all throughout your career.) But you can’t just proclaim it; your list of publications has to proclaim it for you. You won’t want to work on the same thing over and over again, but you do want the work you do to tell a coherent story. Each paper is a dot on a map of possible problems one could be thinking about, and you want your set of dots to form a sensible picture. A postdoc period is a good time to fill in what you might think of as gaps in your toolbox, if you will excuse a terribly mixed metaphor. Become the scientist you would want to hire.Figure all that out, and then choose the postdoc position that will maximize your chance of writing the papers that make it happen. Easier said than done, I know. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be any fun, would it?SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Unsolicited Advice, Part Nine: Choosing a Postdoc", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/08/unsolicited-advice-part-nine-choosing-a-postdoc/" }); January 8th, 2009 by Sean in Academia, Advice | 9 Comments » The New Hotness  I want one, I want one! A new, totally tricked-out 17″ MacBook Pro with solid state drive:2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB256GB Solid State DriveSuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen DisplayBacklit Keyboard (English) / User’s GuideApple Mini DisplayPort to DVI AdapteriWork ‘09 preinstalledAperture preinstalledAppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enrollAll for just $5,875. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The New Hotness", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/06/the-new-hotness/" }); January 6th, 2009 by John in Computing, Gadgets | 30 Comments » The Best Jobs in the World JobsRated.com has taken a look at their URL, and decided that they should rate the best jobs in the world. (Methodology here; thanks to Diana Brodie for the pointer.) Obviously crazy, of course. I mean, Mathematician? Biologist? Philosopher? Dude, get serious.1. MathematicianApplies mathematical theories and formulas to teach or solve problems in a business, educational, or industrial climate.2. ActuaryInterprets statistics to determine probabilities of accidents, sickness, and death, and loss of property from theft and natural disasters.3. StatisticianTabulates, analyzes, and interprets the numeric results of experiments and surveys.4. BiologistStudies the relationship of plants and animals to their environment.5. Software EngineerResearches, designs, develops and maintains software systems along with hardware development for medical, scientific, and industrial purposes.6. Computer Systems AnalystPlans and develops computer systems for businesses and scientific institutions.7. HistorianAnalyzes and records historical information from a specific era or according to a particular area of expertise.8. SociologistStudies human behavior by examining the interaction of social groups and institutions.9. Industrial DesignerDesigns and develops manufactured products.10. AccountantPrepares and analyzes financial reports to assist managers in business, industry and government.11. EconomistStudies and analyzes the effects of resources such as land, labor, and raw materials, on costs and their relation to industry and government.12. PhilosopherStudies questions concerning the nature of intellectual concepts, and attempts to construct rational theories concerning our understanding of the world around us.13. PhysicistResearches and develops theories concerning the physical forces of nature.14. Parole OfficerMonitors, counsels, and reports on the progress of individuals who have been released from correctional institutions to serve parole.15. MeteorologistStudies the physical characteristics, motions and processes of the earth’s atmosphere.16. Medical Laboratory TechnicianConducts routine laboratory tests and analyses used in the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.17. Paralegal AssistantAssists attorneys in preparation of legal documents; collection of depositions and affidavits; and investigation, research and analysis of legal issues.18. Computer ProgrammerOrganizes and lists the instructions for computers to process data and solve problems in logical order.19. Motion Picture EditorSupervises the filming and editing of motion pictures for entertainment, business, and educational purposes.20. AstronomerUses principles of physics and mathematics to understand the workings of the universe.The real lesson, of course, is that it’s awesome to be a professor. Or a parole officer. Whichever. And here are the worst jobs, of course:1. LumberjackFells, cuts, and transports timber to be processed into lumber, paper, and other wood products.2. Dairy FarmerDirects and takes part in activities involved in the raising of cattle for milk production.3. Taxi DriverOperates a taxi cab over the streets and roads of a municipality, picking up and dropping off passengers by request.4. SeamanMay perform any number of tasks involved in the operation of ships, boats, barges, or dredges.5. Emergency Medical TechnicianAttends to situations which demand immediate medical attention, such as automobile accidents, heart attacks, and gunshot wounds.6. RooferInstalls roofs on new buildings, performs repairs on old roofs, and re-roofs old buildings.7. Garbage CollectorCollects refuse on a designated municipal route, and transports trash to disposal plants or landfill areas.8. WelderJoins or repairs metal surfaces through the application of heat.9. RoustaboutPerforms routine physical labor and maintenance on oil rigs and pipelines, both on and off shore.10. IronworkerRaises the steel framework of buildings, bridges, and other structures.Interestingly, dangerous and low-paying jobs involving a great deal of manual labor seem to come in below the glamorous and largely sedentary lifestyle of a typical academic. Although opinions differ; my brother is an EMT, and he couldn’t be happier with the job.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The Best Jobs in the World", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/06/the-best-jobs-in-the-world/" }); January 6th, 2009 by Sean in Academia | 37 Comments » The Varieties of Crackpot Experience Frank Tipler is a crackpot. At one point in his life, he did very good technical work in general relativity; he was the first to prove theorems that closed timelike curves could not be constructed in local regions of spacetime without either violating the weak energy condition or creating a singularity. But alas, since then he has pretty much gone off the deep end, and more recently has become known for arguments for Christianity based on fundamental physics. If you closely at those arguments (h/t wolfgang), you find things like this:If life is to guide the entire universe, it must be co-extensive with the entire universe. We can say that life must have become OMNIPRESENT in the universe by the end of time. But the very act of guiding the universe to eliminate event horizons - an infinite number of nudges - causes the entropy and hence the complexity of the universe to increase without limit. Therefore, if life is to continue guiding the universe - which it must, if the laws of physics are to remain consistent - then the knowledge of the universe possessed by life must also increase without limit, becoming both perfect and infinite at the final singularity. Life must become OMNISCIENT at the final singularity. The collapse of the universe will have provided available energy, which goes to infinity as the final singularity is approached, and this available energy will have become entirely under life’s control. The rate of use of this available energy - power - will diverge to infinity as the final singularity is approached. In other words, life at the final singularity will have become OMNIPOTENT. The final singularity is not in time but outside of time. On the boundary of space and time, as described in detail by Hawking and Ellis [6]. So we can say that the final singularity - the Omega Point - is TRANSCENDANT to space, time and matter.All of the signs of classic crackpottery are present; the vague and misplaced appeal to technical terminology, the spelling mistakes and capital letters, the random use of “must” and “therefore” when no actual argument has been given. Two paragraphs later, we get:Science is not restricted merely to describing only what happens inside the material universe, any more than science is restricted to describing events below the orbit of the Moon, as claimed by the opponents of Galileo. Like Galileo, I am convinced that the only scientific approach is to assume that the laws of terrestrial physics hold everywhere and without exception - unless and until an experiment shows that these laws have a limited range of application.Compares self with Galileo! 40 points! There is really no indication that the person who wrote this was once writing perfectly sensible scientific papers.Perhaps you will not be surprised to find that Tipler has now jumped into global-warming denialism. In just a few short paragraphs, we are treated to the following gems of insight (helpfully paraphrased):People say that anthropogenic global warming is now firmly established, but that’s what they said about Ptolemaic astronomy! Therefore, I am like Copernicus.A scientific theory is only truly scientific if it makes predictions “that the average person can check for himself.” (Not making this up.)You know what causes global warming? Sunspots!Sure, you can see data published that makes it look like the globe actually is warming. But that data is probably just fabricated. It snowed here last week!If the government stopped funding science entirely, we wouldn’t have these problems.You know who I remind myself of? Galileo.Stillman Drake, the world’s leading Galileo scholar, demonstrates in his book “Galileo: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2001) that it was not theologians, but rather his fellow physicists (then called “natural philosophers”), who manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting Galileo. The “out-of-the-mainsteam” Galileo had the gall to prove the consensus view, the Aristotlean theory, wrong by devising simple experiments that anyone could do. Galileo’s fellow scientists first tried to refute him by argument from authority. They failed. Then these “scientists” tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right. Finally, Galileo’s fellow “scientists” called in the Inquisition to silence him. One could go on, but what’s the point? Well, perhaps there are two points worth making.First, Frank Tipler is probably very “intelligent” by any of the standard measures of IQ and so forth. In science, we tend to valorize (to the point of fetishizing) a certain kind of ability to abstractly manipulate symbols and concepts — related to, although not exactly the same as, the cult of genius. (It’s not just being smart that is valorized, but a certain kind of smart.) The truth is, such an ability is great, but tends to be completely uncorrelated with other useful qualities like intellectual honesty and good judgment. People don’t become crackpots because they’re stupid; they become crackpots because they turn their smarts to crazy purposes. Second, the superficially disconnected forms of crackpottery that lead on the one hand to proving Christianity using general relativity, and on the other to denying global warming, clearly emerge from a common source. The technique is to first decide what one wants to be true, and then come up with arguments that support it. This is a technique that can be used by anybody, for any purpose, and it’s why appeals to authority aren’t to be trusted, no matter how “intelligent” that authority seems to be.Tipler isn’t completely crazy to want “average people” to be able to check claims for themselves. He’s mostly crazy, as by that standard we wouldn’t have much reason to believe in either general relativity or the Standard Model of particle physics, since the experimental tests relevant to those theories are pretty much out of reach for the average person. But the average person should be acquainted with the broad outlines of the scientific method and empirical reasoning, at least enough so that they try to separate crackpots from respectable scientists. Because nobody ever chooses to describe themselves as a crackpot. If you ask them, they’ll always explain that they are on the side of Galileo; and if you don’t agree, you’re no better than the Inquisition.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The Varieties of Crackpot Experience", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/05/the-varieties-of-crackpot-experience/" }); January 5th, 2009 by Sean in Science and Politics | 71 Comments » And Things for Them to Blog About As the year breaks, the internets are abuzz with deep thoughts!What will change everything? is this year’s Edge Annual Question. Many interesting answers, as you might expect. Choose from Massive Technological Failure (David Bodanis), Breaking the Species Barrier (Richard Dawkins), Coordinated and Expanded Computational Power (Lisa Randall), Faster Evolution (Jonathan Haidt), Happiness (Betsy Devine), Synthetic Biology (Dimitar Sasselov), and more. The book of last year’s question is out soon.The blog posts to be reprinted in the Open Lab 2008 anthology have been announced — only 50 selections from over 500 nominations, I’m glad I wasn’t responsible for making the tough choices. Also glad that they chose one of my posts, The First Quantum Cosmologist. You can also read about The Igneous Petrology of Ice Cream (Green Gabbro), Expect the Unexpected (A canna’ change the laws of physics), How do cave bats know when it is dark outside? (Pondering Pikaia), and perhaps the most courageous blog post of all time: Liveblogging the Vasectomy (Terra Sigillata). Some sort of new journalism” going on there.Finally, if all those ideas are weighing you down, play with the David Lee Roth ‘Runnin’ With the Devil’ Soundboard (via Cynical-C). Deconstructed from this classic track.The complete version is here, but it only detracts.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "And Things for Them to Blog About", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/04/and-things-for-them-to-blog-about/" }); January 4th, 2009 by Sean in Blogosphere, Miscellany, Music | 3 Comments » Blogs That Should Exist I’m hoping that, for many of our readers, New Year’s Resolutions include getting off their duffs and starting a blog of their own. It’s certainly not hard; at the minimal level of effort, hop over to Blogger and set up your own free blog in a couple of easy steps. Only after you’ve established yourself can you hope to sell out to the Man and thereby cause the Death of the Blogosphere, like us.But there are obstacles, for example: what to call the blog? We’re here to help. I was leafing through some old emails, and stumbled across the conversations we were having in the days before Cosmic Variance even existed. The heady days of youth, when we were trying to come up with good names for our new venture. Of course there are many types of blogs, from individual rants about the state of one’s personal life and recent dining experiences to focused discussions of the prospects for health care reform at the national level. We (including Clifford) wanted something that reflected our identity as scientists, but would attract and intrigue non-scientists as well, as we have always hoped to cast our discoursive net more widely than our particular disciplines. So we were looking for titles that played off scientific concepts, but didn’t come off as complete gobbeldy-gook to non-experts. Shores of the Dirac Sea is an excellent recent example of the genre — very much a physics in-joke, but one that isn’t completely off-putting to outsiders. If you call your blog “Laplace-Beltrami Operator” or “Gravitino Propagator,” you might amuse yourself, but your audience will be limited. (Apologies if there are any blogs out there with those names.)Of course we came up with more than one, before settling on our perfect choice. But what was imperfect for us might fit you just fine. So, offered up free of charge, here are some of the names we were bandying around, plus some extras I came up with since.Tycho’s NoseHigher Dimensional OperatorsExtremize The ActionCritical PhenomenaThe Residue TheoremBut No SimplerDe RevolutionibusSmooth TensionUltra Deep Field Outside the Light ConePrimeval AtomLeft As An ExerciseThe Error BarPersonally I’m partial to Tycho’s Nose, but The Error Bar is an awesome name. That blog practically writes itself. So what are you waiting for?Those who are too lazy and/or timid to start their own blogs are encouraged to suggest additional names in comments.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Blogs That Should Exist", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/04/blogs-that-should-exist/" }); January 4th, 2009 by Sean in Blogosphere | 38 Comments » Happy New Year! Don’t let a black hole eat your house! Photo by Kevin O’MaraSHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Happy New Year!", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/01/01/happy-new-year/" }); January 1st, 2009 by Sean in Humor | 5 Comments » Welcome 2009! The start of a new year can bring optimism - a chance to wipe the slate and get a fresh start. And 2009 is already looking better; if nothing else, the US will get a President that can pronounce the word nuclear. Personally, I am bidding good riddance to my Annus Horribilis and refuse to set any New Year’s resolutions. I am unapologetic in my plan to be hedonistic and live life to the fullest (including lots of good science!).To put us all in the proper year’s end party mood, here is some music. Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Fats Domino on stage simultaneously, with pianos. Ron Woods and Carl Perkins, amongst others, are on back-up.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Welcome 2009!", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/12/31/welcome-2009/" }); December 31st, 2008 by JoAnne in Music | 4 Comments » A Box Full of Awesome Many older scientists and engineers grew up tinkering. Car engines were pulled, belts on washing machines were replaced, loose wires on toasters were soldered. Such experiences build a basic competence with the physical world, and develop an innate understanding that the devices around us are not powered by magic. For better or worse, however, gadgets have become both more electronic and more disposable, leaving few useful opportunities for fixing things. Moreover, many of us grew up in non-tinkering households, and even if we’d been raised during the glory days of Large Mechanical Devices Made of Steel, we wouldn’t have wound up tinkering ourselves. And finally, much of that tinkering was pretty clearly marked as a Guy Thing. But, there is a possible cure. I give to you Snap Circuits. This has to be one of the funnest, most accessible geeky kid’s toys ever. It completely takes away the overhead of electronics assembly, allowing even very little kids to assemble circuits well before you’d trust them with a soldering iron. All the pieces are color-coded in bright primary colors with the standard circuit notation imprinted on top. The projects are largely fun — things like driving a little motor that turns a fan blade, which, if you mount it upside down, eventually generates enough lift that it shoots off and sails up the ceiling. There’s no chance of exploding capacitors or burnt fingers (which I’m sure for some of you makes it completely un-fun, but we’re talking 5 year olds here). Instead, what kids get is fast understanding of how circuits work, at a level that they can understand and really enjoy. On top of just being extremely cool, for some reason Snap Circuits seems to have way more cross-gender appeal than the old Heathkits. It somehow cracked the code of not seeming like a gender-coded toy. There are no pictures of kids on the package (male, white, or otherwise), and it’s brightly colored without being frilly. There is also no assumption of past apprenticeship, where one was supposed to have learned soldering and breadboard wiring from some older family member. As such, I know as many girls as boys who are enamored with Snap Circuits (and although I probably don’t hang with the most representative sample of kids ever, the Snap Circuits flickr pool seems to bear my impression out).So, if you have a kid in your life and don’t mind being stigmatized as the adult who gives nerd presents, consider Snap Circuits.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "A Box Full of Awesome", url: "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/12/31/a-box-full-of-awesome/" }); December 31st, 2008 Tags: snap circuits by Julianne in Advice, Gadgets, Science and Society, Technology | 18 Comments » « Older Entries document.write('<\/script>'); 
Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
Daniel Holz
JoAnne Hewett
John Conway
Julianne Dalcanton
Mark Trodden
Risa Wechsler
Sean Carroll
Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
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