Category: Pro Tip
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The Best Use Cases (I’ve Encountered So Far) For Generative AI To Aid The Writing Process
Nature Reviews Bioengineering published an editorial last year and a comment recently about the use of generative AI for the writing process. In my view, both articles are broadly in agreement about the fundamentals: Writing compels us to think — not in the chaotic, non-linear way our minds typically wander,…
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How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Unambiguous and mutually understandable communication is non trivial. One needs to think deeply about what the audience may or may not know and what the unspoken assumptions might be. To illustrate this, I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches following instructions written by four of the team members along with…
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Writing a PhD Dissertation “Bird by Bird” (h/t Anne Lamott)
One of the best books that I’ve ever read on the process of writing is Anne Lamott‘s book “bird by bird.” The title refers to a grade school report on birds that her brother procrastinated on until the last night before it was due. The phrase “bird by bird” refers…
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Just Because You Can, Should You? An Interactive Discussion on Ethics in a Scientific Context
Link to recording of research discussion 2025-01-15 @ FRIB room 1200 APS The Back Page (June 2010): “Scientific Fraud (or scientific misconduct if you dislike using the term fraud)” by David Goodstein TL/DR: Goodstein’s Framework for Scientific Fraud: “In my experience three factors are nearly always present whenever fraud occurs…
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THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NASA for indulging a “future astronomer” in 1989!
When I was in 5th grade, our substitute teacher told us about a scene in the movie Summer School where the English teacher character gave the students a persuasive writing assignment. One of the students wrote a boycott letter to a sunglasses company complaining about their product and, in response,…
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Required Reading For Prospective Grad Students
This book is a collection of narratives on the act of creation, but this description does not really do the book justice. It contains a broader perspective on the process of performing challenging tasks through the lens of Art loosely defined. The themes include: This book is now required reading…
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PA Colloquium: Generative AI in Higher Education: A Facilitated Discussion
Kyle Godbey, Pablo Giuliani, Josh Belieu, and I facilitated a discussion about the use of generative AI in higher education. Our main take away messages are summarized below: Josh presented his study of how well he could summarize a research paper written by Pablo and Kyle in comparison to a…
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The Purcell Club
At the request of Aiden, the whole team is now practicing how to carry out order of magnitude estimates. We meet every Tuesday from 16:00-17:00 and pick a Purcell problem at random from his series published in the 1980’s called The Back of the Envelope in the American Journal of…
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The VOLVO Rule: When troubleshooting, turn only ONE knob at a time!
Notes from the lecture: 9., 10., & 11. – see this post on producing scientific diagrams. 12a. Model of Measurement System: 12b. Model of Physical System: 12c. Cartoon Game – I hand draw a cartoon schematic for every experiment which captures just the essential aspects of the measurement (knob &…
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