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"Dance Your Ph.D." Finalists Announced

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-groove-a-mile-wide dept.

sciencehabit writes "Science has announced the 12 finalists for its annual "Dance Your PhD" contest. Among the finalists are dances about nanofibers and explosions, fusion implosions at the National Ignition Facility, and the science of tornadoes. A panel of esteemed scientists, artists, and educators are judging the finalists now to choose the winners. The winners and audience favorite will be announced on 3 November.

19 comments

  1. and it's not a joke by frovingslosh · · Score: 0

    It's so great to realize these people are going to get real Ph.D. s

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:and it's not a joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's so great to realize these people are going to get real Ph.D. s

      You make it sound as if they can skip the dissertation and just dance instead. Thankfully not.

  2. And now for the Humanities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Coming soon - Shakespeare reinterpreted with Tensors!

  3. This can show the value of basic science by nbauman · · Score: 1

    Perhaps if Rep. Paul Broun and Todd Aikin saw this, they would realize the value of basic science.

  4. What a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thumbs down

  5. Architecture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Please let one of them be an architecture student...

  6. Not entirely frivolous by Krishnoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In a way, this helps connect scientists and the layperson:

    • It's associating a very familiar visual form with frequently abstract, difficult-to-visualize topics in a way that makes scientific results (I'm stretching here) a little more accessible to the layperson
    • The layperson can see that scientists who live in their brains and lab much of the time also express themselves in a universal human way
    • For the scientists, it has them consider their research and work in something other than the classical scientific context. While many scientists have artistic talents, in a way this has them consider something functional and concrete in a more aesthetic form. You could say that artists do this when representing reality in an abstract way; this is similar, except with the reality here being otherwise inaccessible to human senses and experience due to its size, speed, location, etc.
    1. Re:Not entirely frivolous by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      It's associating a very familiar visual form with frequently abstract, difficult-to-visualize topics in a way that makes scientific results (I'm stretching here) a little more accessible to the layperson

      You're stretching a looong way - light years. I watched those videos, and all they look like is a bunch of random people randomly moving and randomly dancing. When you actually add the needed narration... the dancing becomes distracting.

  7. need to get ready for a life on daniceing in the by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    need to get ready for a life on dancing in the street to get the coins and cash to pay off your student loan or to at least show years of no paper income to get out of them.

  8. Dynamo hmmmmmm by paiute · · Score: 2

    Dancing about science is like cooking about music.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:Dynamo hmmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Music is the food of love so cooking about music makes some sense...

  9. Damn. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    Among the finalists are dances about nanofibers and explosions, fusion implosions at the National Ignition Facility, and the science of tornadoes

    No PhD-in-sexology finalist? Damn.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:Damn. by nbauman · · Score: 1

      No PhD-in-sexology finalist? Damn.

      There was the sperm competition among brothers and female mate selection in chickens.

  10. Hey Ballmer ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... sit down!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  11. and the science of tornadoes? by Truth_Quark · · Score: 1

    Aw come on, that's clearly cheating. The choice of topic was clearly influenced by the applicability of dance moves.

  12. Nice chicks by nbauman · · Score: 1

    I mean, this should do a lot to improve the unfair gender imbalance in STEM.

  13. Re:need to get ready for a life on daniceing in th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you have to pay to get a PhD in a scientific field, you shouldn't be doing a PhD.

  14. What a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's funny as hell. You can't "waste time". You always have more time until you die. And after that you won't care. People _ALWAYS_ do what they want with their time. These people want to dance their Ph. D. s. You want to read slashdot. They might consider that as "wasted", because they don't understand what you get from it. The same amount of time goes by no matter what(excluding very high speeds here) you do.

    If you(and everyone else) had a tap that runs forever, with neverending water, and you don't wash yourself under it constantly is the water wasted? Does the person with cleanest skin in the end win the "didn't waste his time" award? Is that award worth anything? I mean, others were wasting their water doing fun stuff while you were washing constantly. Bitterly shouting to others how they are wasting their water.