String Theory/Modern Education

In Paul Boutin's review of Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond, he writes

Lawrence Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, has a reputation for shooting down pseudoscience. He opposed the teaching of intelligent design on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. He penned an essay for the New York Times that dissed President Bush's proposal for a manned Mars mission. Yet in his latest book, Hiding in the Mirror, Krauss turns on his own—by taking on string theory, the leading edge of theoretical physics. Krauss is probably right that string theory is a threat to science, but his book proves he's too late to stop it.

see the Theory of Anything? for the rest of the review.

It sounds like a book I would enjoy reading!

Paul also has a link in his blog to a String Theory talk with slides given by Edward Witten, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Looks like I'll have to put RealPlayer back on my machine to listen to this talk. Some good news---the slides do not use PowerPoint, they are handwritten!

Speaking of talks (lectures), one of Paul's blog entries from about a week ago pointed to another article on Slate entitled The Rules of Distraction. This article was written by a former Slate intern and accurately describes what I have seen in the classroom many times. The plus side of this is that you can have students look things up for you when needed---that seems to wake some of them up a bit.

The Rules of Distraction is one in a series of articles about modern college education. See Slate Goes to College for the complete list of articles.

Tags: Books, Physics, Education