Tag: curiosity

Artificial Omnipresence

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Chalkboard text. Quoted in text body below.
Dear student: please do your own, honest work. Thanks!

“CAUTION: AI does not know how to write a proper lab report. Do not risk losing easy points by trusting something that has never attended labs.”

Entirely reasonable position from instructors: do your own work, and please don’t cheat.

Of course, we also get this message in the same week:

Keyboard with an AI shortcut key.
Appears to be a Microsoft Copilot key.

‘Twas update-the-computers season in the department, and the new Windows laptops have eliminated the right-side Control key in favor of one for Microsoft’s AI. Ditched a very useful key for one that’s utterly pointless.

For example: with only a single Control key on the left, it is no longer possible to log into this laptop with a single hand, even if you’ve got hands like Andre the Giant.

Sigh.

Iceland Spar

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Yeah, it’s calcite, but iceland spar just sounds better.

With the right crystal structure, as with calcite (a form of good, old calcium carbonate), you get some neat effects. With a refractive index that varies depending on the polarization of the light passing through, a chunk of iceland spar is birefringent and causes a visual doubling effect of the objects seen beyond. How cool is that?

Department Mascot

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Broken drinking bird head, mounted as a trophy.
Always in season.

The drinking bird, our unofficial department mascot. Even when one takes a tumble – and when it comes to glass bird versus floor, the floor always wins – there’s a great deal of respect for our top-hatted friends.

Sketch of a drinking bird on display above office sign.
Wanted!

Kind of surprised someone hasn’t made up T-shirts yet, to be honest.

Welcome back, spring semester!

Desk Toys

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Floating magnet desk toy.
It spins! It floats!

Ah, physics. Where we have an eclectic assortment of desk toys and mostly-useless gimmicky trinkets because their very nature, the quirks of physics they embody, are helpful explainers of scientific principles.

And while their appeal is typically short-lived – how many times before the levitating magnet loses its novelty? – that ooh! factor only needs to work the first time.