Perimeter Scholars International — Master’s program in Theoretical Physics
[
Permalink]
I was asked to pass this information along to anyone who might be interested:
Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), in partnership with the University of Waterloo, welcomes applications to the Masters level course, Perimeter Scholars International (PSI). Exceptional students with an undergraduate honours degree in Physics, Math, Engineering or Computer Science are encouraged to apply. Students require a minimum of 3 upper level undergraduate or graduate courses in physics. PSI recruits a diverse group of students and especially encourages applications from qualified women candidates. The due date for applications to PSI is February 1st, 2010. Complete details are available at www.perimeterscholars.org.
There’s also a downloadable poster with more information at this link.
– davinci 11855
Object Oriented Turing
[
Permalink]
I suppose that this post is a continuation of the one on old software and books.
The Turing programming language (named after Alan Turing) was developed at the University of Toronto as an introductory language for teaching computer programming at the high school level. It was (and apparently still is) widely used in Ontario… » [Expand post]« [Collapse post] [Permalink]
The causes of my depression, part 2: my high school predictions about the future
[
Permalink]
In high school, I predicted to my parents what I would be doing in the future, the kind of environment I would be working in, and even the demographics of the people I would be working with. But instead of helping me, my parents did everything they could to hinder me and prevent me from achieving my goals.
My predictions were quite reasonable, or so I thought. First, there would be a close collaboration between computer scientists and physicists to study some issues which are at the core of both fields; as a result, there would be a niche for people fluent in both fields who could facilitate communication between the two communities. Naturally, I thought that I should fill that role. Second, I would be working in close proximity specifically to astrophysicists… » [Expand post]« [Collapse post] [Permalink]
Gifted program in Mississauga
[
Permalink]
Published by
davinci on
November 21, 2008 in
autobiography and personal.
Tags: autobiography, Catholic school, communications technologies, computer science, culture shock, elementary school, gifted children, logic, Mississauga, physics, raising gifted children, reading, Richard Feynman, the Bible.
In Mississauga, we were enrolled in a gifted program at a Catholic elementary school, because our mother is a Roman Catholic. They had a pretty nice library there, and because the school was Catholic, there were lots of books on Latin, Greek, Roman history, and Catholicism, and I became interested in those subjects.
I had actually been reading the Bible in English since my arrival in Canada. My grandparents were given a copy when they were sworn in as citizens. Since they couldn’t read it, they said I could have it, and I used to read it every day. In grade five, the Gideons came to our public school — in fact, into our classroom with the teacher’s permission — and gave each of the students a pocket edition of the New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs, with a red leathery cover. I used to carry it everywhere and read it whenever I had the chance. Nowadays that sort of blatant proselytism of immigrants and children would probably not be allowed inside a public institution. But I don’t think that I was ever harmed by it — in fact, quite the opposite. By studying the Bibles, I not only learned about Protestantism and other sects of Christianity, but also vastly improved my vocabulary, became familiar with archaic and other literary forms of English, and began to think about problems of translation between languages. So I don’t think the Bible should be kept out of public classrooms, as some people do — it is one of the most important documents in Western civilisation, regardless of one’s beliefs about it, and one can learn a lot from it… » [Expand post]« [Collapse post] [Permalink]