The Academics Thread

[Starlord]

Can proof be proven?

[archer]

Geez, Biden administration is resuming standardized testing this spring as if this has been a normal school year.

 

During the campaign he told educators that he’d end the use of standardized tests in public schools and suggested it would be a “big mistake” to attach teacher evaluations to student test scores (as they have been in many places).

 

I'd expect teacher unions and school administrations to both be highly ticked off.

 

The mind boggles at how this would even work considering many students are still in remote learning.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/02/biden-standardized-tests-teachers-unions-472831

[Bazza]

3 hours ago, archer said:

 

Can you prove that without using existence as part of its own proof?

Potentially. 

[Starlord]

Baltimore student passes 3 classes in 4 years, ranks near top half of class with 0.13 GPA

[archer]

3 hours ago, Starlord said:

Baltimore student passes 3 classes in 4 years, ranks near top half of class with 0.13 GPA

 

It's horror stories like this which give fuel to the "privatize the schools" movement which seems to have the goal of proving that they can fail every bit as badly as a public school.

[Cancer]

Poll: top ten computer codes that changed science

 

Includes language compilers, databases, an algorithm, ....

 

... and FORTRAN is #1.  The Fast Fourier Transform is #2.

[Old Man]

32 minutes ago, archer said:

 

It's horror stories like this which give fuel to the "privatize the schools" movement which seems to have the goal of proving that they can fail every bit as badly as a public school.

 

And more expensively!

[Pariah]

4 hours ago, Starlord said:

Baltimore student passes 3 classes in 4 years, ranks near top half of class with 0.13 GPA

 

58 minutes ago, archer said:

It's horror stories like this which give fuel to the "privatize the schools" movement which seems to have the goal of proving that they can fail every bit as badly as a public school.

 

A quick look at the school's website and a couple of other places makes me think it's a public charter school...pretty much the worst of both worlds.

[Cancer]

Me: "I am allowed to give you correct but irrelevant information."

 

Students:

[Pariah]

My version of this is somewhat inverted. I say, "Everything you hear in here, including the jokes, could be on the next exam."

[Cancer]

Being at a private school, I can (and occasionally do) say things which are political or have political tilt to them.  I would never test on those.  My puns, perhaps; I have had exam questions bearing on a comment I make every time I talk about planetary evolution: "Tidal locking represents the final absolution of original spin."

[Pariah]

In my chemistry class is especially, I have been known to give one-point extra credit questions based on puns I tell throughout the year in class.

[archer]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

In my chemistry class is especially, I have been known to give one-point extra credit questions based on puns I tell throughout the year in class.

 

My wife says I missed my calling and should have been a college history professor. 

 

But I throw off so many puns that no one could keep track of them all, much less remember specific ones for exams.

 

And I'd be deathly scared of anyone who could.

[Pariah]

I will occasionally have students who think they can keep up with me in terms of PPS (puns per second).

 

None of them ever have.

[archer]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

I will occasionally have students who think they can keep up with me in terms of PPS (puns per second).

 

None of them ever have.

 

Yeah, I'd imagine a lot of freshmen have that old big-fish-in-a-small-school syndrome.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

An old prof of mine was a proud "invertebrate punster—spinelessly unable to resist a pun. (So slug me!)"

[Bazza]

16 hours ago, Pariah said:

In my chemistry class is especially, I have been known to give one-point extra credit questions based on puns I tell throughout the year in class.

 

Chemistry is the only science which you can never get to the truth, it is all about spin. 

[Cancer]

Never study rotational dynamics, have you?

[Pariah]

Or even simple astronomy.

[Bazza]

3 hours ago, Cancer said:

Never study rotational dynamics, have you?

 

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

Or even simple astronomy.

 

Gee...try to make a pun and the scientists go all 'science', yet dismiss the obvious epistemological issue.  😛 

[Pariah]

"Epistemological"? That sounds like a made-up word trying to sound like science. 

[Bazza]

Well, without it there is no scientific knowledge, or any knowledge. 

[Cancer]

"Spin" as a quantum-mechanical phenomenon is deeply involved in trying to understand the smallest scales we've been able to probe.  It's something that defies "common sense" for most folks; it's worse than calculus, imaginary numbers, etc., in that regard.  The idea that subatomic particles (even those which are, as far as we have been able to measure, truly pointlike, i.e., lacking in internal structure and are of zero spatial extent) carry angular momentum as a fundamental property like mass or electric charge seems nonsensical.  But the measurements reliably and repeatably find it, and it is an essential component in how we work with physical phenomena on the subatomic scale.  Philosophers tend to hate subatomic physics because they don't understand it, and expound blanket condemnations of quantum mechanics (and those who work with it routinely) because to them the key principles of the theory don't make sense, even though those principles and the mathematics for working with them are insanely successful in predicting the observed phenomena.

[Bazza]

Obviously. 

[Cancer]

Resurrecting something relevant from the Haiku thread:

 

Quote

 

Finals Week is here

Classwork now all put to bed

Only screams remain