passed over again...

First the MacArthur "Genius" Grants, now the Nobel... the indignities never cease.

Oh well, at least the physics prize went to someone I'd heard of for a subject I understand, for a change. In fact, I was actually present at the AIP meeting in Washington DC back when these results were first announced. (I was an undergrad.) And if nothing else, maybe the recent Nobel will make the topic of the cosmic microwave background more interesting to my astro students this year.

Speaking of research I didn't do, our science department is in the middle of drafting a document explaining to the administration why none of us does "real" research. This is necessary because the college is drafting new guidelines for professional scholarship, and we need to make sure that various administrators who are NOT scientists themselves understand clearly that you can't do science research without things like... oh... labs... equipment... computers... grad students... money...

We actually put together a list of schools that our school THINKS we are kind of the same as, and it tuns out that they all have science buildings! And observatories! And electron microscopes! And 5 physics professors instead of one! So it turns out we are not so very much like them at all. Meanwhile we're putting together a comprehensive list of the things we DO do that are not quite science research, but are EDUCATION research... and the things we publish that are not-quite-traditional publications. It's are a very delicate business... trying to justify what we do without sounding like we're making excuses. I mean... I'm a physicist who spent an entire year writing a PLAY... how the hell do you explain that to someone??