tingilinde

numberphile on fluids

Numberphile often gives intuitive tastes of math and related subjects that often require serious work in college.  Here's a fine three part series featuring Tom Crawford of Oxford.   A nice example of equation → approximation → real world example (with more approximations) 

 

The Navier-Stokes Equation

The Reynolds Number



River Water

university rocketry

From USC's program a few years ago.  Probably a great way to teach engineering and a gateway to industrial opportunity

 

here's the longer version

from am american reporter in sweden

 

I once asked a Scandinavian defense official what they were doing to avoid Russian disinformation campaigns in their country, as compared to how the US handles it.

The official looked at me and deadpanned, "We have a very good public-education system."

 

max brooks (mel's son), asymmetrical warfare, and teaching kids critical thinking

Max Brooks has an interesting way to teach critical thinking using Minecraft.

snip

...

Brooks was both an obvious and an unusual choice for a novelization. He had previously written “World War Z,” the best-selling 2006 zombie novel that was loosely adapted into a Brad Pitt movie. Brooks’s book took a more rigorous approach to exploring the ways a zombie contagion might unfold in a globalized world—so rigorous that it helped earn him a senior fellowship as a worst-case scenarist and lecturer at the United States Military Academy’s Modern War Institute. (The pandemic, which mirrored his zombie plague by originating in China, only enhanced his reputation as an alarmist seer.) His first two Minecraft novels—“Minecraft: The Island,” published in 2017, and “Minecraft: The Mountain,” out this month—continue in this semi-wonky vein: both read less like narratives than like introductory texts on problem-solving theory, albeit lively ones with zombie attacks. They are aimed at kids.

...

 

universities and covid-19

How five universities have dealt with it on campus.

snip

...

With these kinds of risks, a college campus seems like one of the more dangerous places to spend time. In fact, U.S. counties with large colleges or universities that offered in-person instruction last fall saw a 56 percent rise in COVID-19 cases in the three weeks after classes began compared with the three weeks before. Counties with large schools that offered only remote learning saw a drop in cases of almost 18 percent, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on January 8 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Universities that opened their campuses in August and September faced an uncharted, months-long experiment in infection control. They had no manual, no surefire way to keep students and staff from getting sick.

Science News took a look at five universities that opened in the fall. Each school cobbled together some type of testing at various frequencies coupled with uneven rules about wearing masks and public gatherings.

...

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

 

communicating science to non-scientists

a panel from a few days ago

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send your dog to sheepdog school

A lengthy and expensive process.  There's a consult to see if your dog has what it takes.

 

 

conservative education activism

Betsy DeVos was merely the latest chapter of making American not knowing much 

 

good riddance to DeVos

But how to repair the damage she's done on the behalf of the Republicans and sleazy for-profit schools?

 

seamus finnigan writes a complaint letter

He's not happy with his private education. (via The New Yorker)