Anton Kapustin, yesterday, in the middle of what he called (not seriously) “the scary statement” of the Geometric Langlands duality….
Part of the audience, receiving the news….
The SCSS is going well. More later. Must go get my bus now so that I can start the Saturday session…
-cvj
Would be a nice name in an astronomical context too, wouldn’t it? Well, this time it is a shot from the garden. The roses just never seem to stop giving…
-cvj
In the continued public discussion of the treatment of Yau’s reputation by the New Yorker article (by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber), to which I earlier referred (see here, and see the post about Yau’s response here), there has been a recent significant development. I don’t mean the press conference of last week, held by Yau’s entourage (…did anyone see that? I could not log on… there is archived video avaialble here. I still can’t view it…reports are welcome).
No, I’m talking about the public letter attributed to Richard Hamilton, the mathematician at Columbia University who is another major player in the story of proving the Poincare conjecture. He does a great job of supporting Yau, and setting the record straight about his numerous contributions to the field in general, and to the proof of the Poincare conjecture in particular. You can see the whole letter here.
It starts:
I am very disturbed by the unfair manner in which Yau Shing-Tung has been portrayed in the New Yorker article.
and there are detailed descriptions of Yau’s early recognition of the importance of Hamilton’s Ricci flow technique, ending in:
Without Yau’s guidance and support at this early stage, there would have been no Ricci Flow program for Perelman to finish.
He then goes on to describe Yau’s contributions to the field through his encouragement and support of several young researchers in the Ricci flow program, and other key work that he and Yau did in the area, in addition to other key Continue reading ‘Hamiltonian Support’
This is the Bush Administration’s war on science, I mean. There’s lots we don’t hear about, I’m sure, but there has been a new discussion ignited by an article in Nature yesterday. I found this article on Associated Press by Randolph E. Schmidt. Seems that there was a report being prepared at NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) about hurricanes:
In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the
Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.
In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.
The point is that (and yes, that is a picture of hurricane Katrina, above right):
A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.
and this connects -it is believed- to our activities in this way:
Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said “closes the loop” between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.
However, the official word from the Agency on this new apparent tinkering is as follows: Continue reading ‘The War Continues’
This may well be the best news I’ll ever give on this blog - if you love cats (like I do), and if you are allergic to them (like many are). It seems that the first commercially available hypoallergenic cat is now being shipped (or whatever you do to get new pets to customers). I learned from the journal Nature that Allerca, a company based in San Diego, California, is selling the cats. They are already taking orders for deliveries next year. (They’re only $4000. Huh.)
Amusingly, these cats were discovered by accident. The company (among several others) were trying to make their fortune by trying to figure out how to modify the genes of more standard cats to suppress the production of the protein Feld1 that is responsible for the allergic reaction. While doing this, they stumbled upon a cat that already was not producing that protein, having a slightly different one in its place.
Sheldon Spector, a clinical allergy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, recruited ten allergic volunteers, blindfolded them, and exposed them to Joshua, a regular cat named Tiki, or a furry dummy cat. Subsequent diaries of their symptoms suggest that Joshua was more allergy-friendly than Tiki.
(I have two questions here: Why did the dummy cat not get a name, and -more importantly- what self-respecting cat lover, even if blindfolded, cannot tell a furry dummy cat from a real one? They might as well have used a dog! 
)
In a section of the article predictably called “Cat Fight”, they also discuss the fact that there are rival researchers who have called this all into question. You see, Allerca have Continue reading ‘Good News About Pet Projects?’
Saturday afternoon, I spent a pleasant couple of hours in Burbank. You can step off the street into the Sidewalk Studio Theatre, and there you are… in one of the tiniest of theatre spaces just behind the door to the street. Who knew?
The occasion was the reading of the new play “The Heretics of Alexandria”, by Jon Bastian. The players: Jennifer Pennington, William Salyers, John DiFusco, Marc Ewing, Sean Corvelle Christine Krench, and Michelle Flowers. It was part of a series of readings put on by the Syzygy Theatre Group and the Los Angeles Writer’s Center Project. It was directed by Che’Rae Adams.
It was really excellent. It turned out to be a very well fleshed out examination of the ongoing (and everlasting) conflict between reason and faith, or, if you like (although this over-simplifies it), between science and religion. (It was not limited to the latter struggle, in fact. Far from it. There were some splendid internal reason/faith conflicts in a number of characters.) The synopsis:
This full length drama, set in Alexandria Egypt, 415 A.D. features the infamous Philosopher Hypatia, who has come into possession of a document that threatens the very basis of the new religion called Christianity; a document that some would do anything to destroy. Hypatia and a powerful Christian Bishop wage a fierce struggle for the soul of a young priest and for a document which tells a very different version of the life — and death — of Jesus. A true story.
The writing was excellent as was the cast, and Bastian should be extremely proud of himself. (It is a mistake to call it “a true story”, though. It is a story based around historical events, which should absolutely not be confused with being a “true story”. Writers of synopses should not encouarge people to mix up the two.) Jennifer Pennington really did a great job of bringing out the internal conflicts waging inside Hypatia as she the conflict between her and Cyril (the powerful bishop) threatens to continue the loss of reason, and the rejection of knowledge that had already destroyed the great library in Alexandria. (More on Hypatia here.) Marc Ewing’s Nestorius was played marvellously. He is the former student (and more) of Hypathia -now a Christian- who is called upon to act as an intermediary in the conflict. His own internal conflicts (he can see that Cyril is becoming blind with power as the Christians continue to rise and grow strong against the “pagans”, philosophers, and others) are well written and brilliantly acted. I’m very impressed with how well written and acted all the characters were, right down to the various members of Hypatia’s household, who play key roles in the elegant unfolding of the tale. I’m sure that the directing of Che’Rae Adams played a big part in how smoothly the various exchanges worked, creating an excellent illusion of the action, without the players doing much more than sitting (some key hand movements, and meaningful glances at various moments, for example, made a lot of it come to life).
After the reading, Continue reading ‘Heretics Of Alexandria’
Well, before disappearing into a long session of thinking about some funny behaviour my strings are up to (more later) I’d like to do a quick report on the departmental colloquium that I went to just now. We had Gary Zank, the Director of the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics of the UC system (he’s based out of UCR) give us a talk entitled: “Particle Acceleration in Cosmic Plasmas”, and it was quite fascinating (and very well presented).
It is all about the physics of cosmic rays (here’s a NASA link called Cosmicopia for a little background on them). Here is a section of the abstract he sent to us prior to the talk:
An outstanding problem in astrophysics is to explain the origin of the almost featureless cosmic ray spectrum extending up to energies of some 1020 eV. A very small feature is apparent at between about 1013 – 1015 eV, the “knee.†In the late 1970’s, a suite of papers was published establishing the idea of diffusive shock acceleration for cosmic rays, essentially a first-order Fermi mechanism, which appeared to provide an explanation for the observed cosmic ray spectrum up to the knee. Diffusive shock acceleration is probably the most widely used particle acceleration mechanism in astrophysics and space physics, yet the theory is based on some stringent simplifications. The detailed [plasma] physics of the acceleration mechanism requires elucidation. We are fortunate in that very detailed observations of particle acceleration at shock waves, particularly in the guise of Space Weather, are providing considerable experimental insight into the basic physics of particle acceleration at a shock wave.
He gave us an overview of the remarkably detailed series of studies that his group has been carrying out (with the aid of an impressive multitude of computer simulations of the magnetohydrodynamics involved) in converting the various suggested acceleration mechanisms into detailed output that can be compared to experimental observations. Here’s a bit from their website:
The dynamical acceleration of particles at shocks waves propagating in the heliosphere is very poorly understood, yet shock waves are ubiquitous and almost all shocks are observed to energize ions and electrons. An understanding of particle acceleration at solar wind shocks has far reaching astrophysical implications. Furthermore, since energetic particles accelerated in either solar flares or in CME-driven shocks arrive at the Earth well before solar ejecta driven disturbances, an understanding of particle acceleration at interplanetary shocks is an integral part of the NSF and NASA Space Weather program.
He spoke quite a bit about shock wave mechanisms and how they work in supernovae Continue reading ‘Explaining Cosmic Rays’
Did you catch Clinton on the Daily Show last week? It was nice. Good humoured. Nice to hear him chat about his initiatives, and nice to hear him still with enough footwork to avoid the “will Hilary run?” questions artfully.
But did you catch him on the weekend, interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday? I did not, since I’ve largely given up on TV news and related programs. The signal to noise ratio is just terrible. But this was good! The news is running all around the web. Apparently he was full of fire in response to questions about the hunt for Bin Laden and others on his watch. Here’s part of a transcript from Crooks and Liars:
CW: Do you think you did enough, sir?
WJC: No, because I didn’t get him.
CW: Right…
WJC: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including
all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for
trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t. I tried. So I tried
and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and
the best guy in the country: Dick Clarke.So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..
CW: Now wait a minute, sir…
WJC: [..]
CW: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?
WJC: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But I want to know how many
people in the Bush administration you’ve asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked ‘Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?’ I want to know how many you asked ‘Why did you fire Dick Clarke?’ I want to know…CW: We asked…
WJC: [..]
CW: Do you ever watch FOX News Sunday, sir?
WJC: I don’t believe you ask them that.
CW: We ask plenty of questions of…
WJC: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth.
CW: About the USS Cole?
WJC: Tell the truth…
CW: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.
WJC: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on Climate Change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…
CW: [laughs]
WJC: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.
CW: But, President Clinton…
WJC: [..]
CW: We were going to ask half the [interview time] about it. I didn’t think this was going to set you off on such a tear.
WJC: It set me off on such a tear because you didn’t formulate it in an honest way and you people ask me questions you don’t ask the other side.
Wow….. actual unfiltered sense on TV! That’s pretty rare indeed. A bit more: Continue reading ‘There’s Still Life in the Old Dog’
These tiny tomatoes are a beautiful yellow. I’m actually more captivated by their shape, though. They remind me of the large yellow/orange butternut squashes an order of magnitude or more larger.
I’m going to harvest these guys soon, but it is a bit sad, because they look so lovely on the plant.
-cvj
Chile de Arbol:
I love these little trees’ splash of colour. And of course, the products are very tasty!
-cvj
On Friday and Saturday of next week (September 29th and 30th), the next Southern California Strings Seminar will be happening! It’s a regional meeting for people doing research in string theory and related topics, and as I’ve said before, I’d especially like to see more young people come out and take part. We make a special effort to ask the speakers to spend a little time at the beginning of their talk setting the scene (speaking about motivations, what has gone before, etc) so that the series can be of great value to people who are trying to learn what’s going on in a particular topic at research level (this can be students, postdocs, or faculty, in fact).
If you’re doing this kind of physics research anywhere in the Southern California region, and want to take part, please come. See the website for details, and try to let the hosts -this time it is USC- know that you’re coming so that we can arrange lunches, etc. (We’ll be asking for a contribution of about $5-$10 to help with lunches, cookies, coffee, and other goodies that will be on tap during the day.)
From the main page of the website, I wrote:
Join us as we (members of several of the local groups with interest in string theory and related topics) sit together to discuss new ideas and developments (both general and technical) in the field. The presentations will be accompanied by plenty of discussion and in the first part of each talk the speaker will take special care to set the scene and context of the work in a pedagogical manner so as to encourage participation by younger members of the field.
Also, here’s what I mention about the inaugural one, which was in May 2005, hosted Continue reading ‘Southern California Strings Seminar’
In more news from the battle to get action on Global Warming, from Reuters a short while ago:
Billionaire Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson on Thursday committed an estimated $3 billion over the next 10 years, or all of the profits from his airline and rail businesses, to combating global warming.
“We are very pleased today to be making a commitment to invest 100 percent of all future proceeds to the Virgin Group from our transportation interest, both our trains and airline businesses, into tackling global warming,” Branson told a news conference at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
Excellent news….
“We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine condition as we were lent it from our parents,” Branson said.
Hmmm. It is already too late for that, my friend. We are that generation. However, we do need to stop ourselves from further sliding into the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Your money will help. Please tell your friends. Start a new and useful trend amongst the super-wealthy, please.
-cvj
So I think maybe I died and went to cvj heaven. Let me explain. I mentioned to you a while ago the freshman seminar entitled “The Art and Science of Seeing and the Seeing and Science of Art”, for which there was an enrollment snafu. Well, it is continuing, and on Wednesday afternoons, I sit under the trees with two students for an hour and a half (KC Cole pulled out, since it would be a ridiculous professor-student ratio otherwise) and talk about a huge spectrum of things that fall into this category, as well as some of the things that come up in the Visions and Voices series.
Last week and this week, we discussed -with illustrations- two pretty obvious topics that come up first in people minds when the words “Science” and “Art” are in the same sentence. Those two topics are Fractals, and Escher. Quite obvious as “science-meets-art” topics go (and tiresomely so sometimes) but nontheless I believe it would be neglectful of us not to explore some of the interesting and wonderful themes, images, and techniques that those topics touch upon. Escher last week, Fractals this week. It was a lot of fun. I will tell you a bit about it later, in view of the lack of time (I had a breakthrough in a little computation that I really should get back to before I have to prepare a class).
Anyway, I come away from these sessions thinking how great it is to let oneself broaden the canvas upon which one can jot down one’s reflections upon and reactions (emotional, intellectual, otherwise) to when one looks at a piece of art. The broadening I refer to means simply to include science. Either directly or indirectly. This is the tack we’ve been taking in this seminar, and so far I think we’ve been having a lot of fun and learning a lot. I’ve been reflecting on how wonderful it would be if more people, in the context of art appreciation, would allow themselves the latitude to do this. Sadly, ignorance of what science is about, and the fear of science, topics that I talk about a lot on this blog, maintain huge barriers between art and science in most people’s minds, and so there is a whole dimension of appreciation that goes unlocked as a result (not just in the obvious context of Escher, etc, but in appreciating any art form). It was especially sad to see six freshmen disappear from the enrollment on the class principally because the word “science” was inserted into the title of what they thought would be an art appreciation seminar. Well, it is still an art appreciation seminar, but those who are coming are learning to look at art, and the world around them, with new eyes, and maybe seeing a broader and/or deeper spectrum.
So I go into “What if…” mode for a while on my ride back to my office and feel a little sad that even bright young people who are on campus to learn new things are selecting themselves out of such opportunities to engage with their world because of the word “science”. Sigh.
So imagine my delight last night (having finished a seminar on fractals earlier that day, pointing out several examples of “fractal geometry” in art and nature) when and architect friend of mine* emailed me a link to an institute, right here in LA, that seems to be right on the same track I’m talking about!
It is the Institute for Figuring, (founded by science writer Margaret Wertheim) right Continue reading ‘Go Figure!’
When the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Kevin Nobloch, spoke to an audience at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies earlier this Summer (more here) on the subject of Global Warming, he very much emphasized the initiative of individual states as a means by which progress can be made while the Federal Government spins its tires, and does all that it does to suppress supporting scientific information. He did a very good job of talking about the spectrum of effects that global warming has on individual states, and the spectrum of activities that individual states can be engaged in, in order to take part in the effort to do something positive to help themselves. For example (bearing in mind the large number of ski-industry-related people in the audience), he spoke of the 3 degrees (F) average increase in temperature in places like Aspen over the last 25 years (1 degree for coastal regions, on average), and the resulting 20 snow days that have been lost over that time. He pointed out that this rate would give Aspen a climate approaching that of Amarillo, Texas, by the end of the century.
In talking about efforts that we can make, with regards to where we get our energy, and how we use our energy, he talked about several things. The USA is about twice as wasteful as Europe in this regard, and about half as efficient. So there are clearly lots of obviously attainable goals with existing technology. But he talked about the need to go further and focus on research into alternatives, reduction of emissions, and greater energy efficiencies. This is one of several ways in which states can make individual strides ahead, not waiting for the leadership of the Federal Government to arrive. 20 states already passed significant amount of legislature concerning renewable energy. 9 North East states already have regional cap and trade schemes on greenhouse gas emissons. Numerous city mayors have committed their municipalities to meet the Kyoto targets. 9 state governers joined California in more strict tailpipe emissions standards, etc. He talked about the need to do research and invest in the new industries that should arise around the technology of alternative energy, efficiency, etc. Why is the US not leading the way in hybrid car technology? Why is it so far behind? This is one of many areas to which states can be looking to invest, from the purely pragmatic perspective of attracting new industry, new jobs, new investment.
Well, we all know that California is leading the way in many areas. Not long ago we discussed the recent news of California’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the year 2020. But, I have to admit, I did not anticipate a lawsuit as the next salvo in the battle! From the BBC (for example), in a report yesterday: Continue reading ‘Well, That’s a Novel Approach’
Well, I snapped this shot of this awfully cool woman while I waited at the lights….
… and then as I cycled by on my own “funny-looking bike”, I waved to her and yelled “nice wheels!” (since “nice bike!” would be inappropriate, and “nice trike!” sounds like she’s a 5 year old, rather than her 50+? years). I was so pleased to see her.
I hope that I did not scare her.
-cvj
There’s a lovely new book (or it sounds that way) out, about Darwin. It’s a biography by David Quammen, called “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution”. There was a very nice radio piece on it on NPR’s Morning Edition, on the segment by Robert Krulwich, with an interview with the author. I recommend it, as it is a very pleasant and interesting conversation. From the website (from where you can find the audio archive):
Quammen describes what happens when a meticulous, shy, socially conservative man comes up with a revolutionary, new, dangerous idea. Darwin gets so nervous thinking what he’s thinking, yet he is so sure that it’s a promising idea. He can’t let it out but he can’t let it go. Instead, he spends years, decades even, checking and double checking his evidence. He wanted to be surer than sure about his ideas on natural selection. But, of course, in science you can never know what you don’t know, and so painfully, gingerly, and on occasion delightfully, he tried to anticipate his critics and get his idea ready. But it was slow to gestate. Very slow.
There’s a rather nice discussion of how Darwin, with his butler and also with his sons, Continue reading ‘Flying Clams’
Well… yikes! Remember my article on the New Yorker piece on the Fields Medal, the Poincare Conjecture, and the mathematicians Perelman and Yau? Remember that I said:
I cannot comment upon whether the hero of the story (Grigory Perelman) is as heroic as painted, or whether the villian of the piece (Shing-Tung Yau) is really as villainous. The anecdotes that are used to do the painting may well be able to be supplemented by other anecdotes that tell another story, as is sometimes the case. I simply don’t know.
Well, it seems that Yau is quite sure that it is not going to stop there. There was a letter sent to the New Yorker and the authors of the article (apparently) on his behalf by legal counsel. It is discussed and can be found on a web page under Yau’s name. The page is in the form of a press release, and I quote:
Continue reading ‘Yau Fights Back?’
Today, the National Academies released their long awaited report on the potential of women scientists and engineers in academia. The title is “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering”, and it can be obtained here. This is a hugely important topic, and they seem to have done quite an extensive amount of work on this. Here are some quotes from the press release, and then I’ll make some comments of my own at the end:
“Women are capable of contributing more to the nation’s science and engineering research enterprise, but bias and outmoded practices governing academic success impede their progress almost every step of the way,” said Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Fundamental changes in the culture and opportunities at America’s research universities are urgently needed. The United States should enhance its talent pool by making the most of its entire population.”
Much the same can be said (and has been said in, e.g., my earlier blog posts on CV) about the largely untapped talent pool of minorities in general, of course. Continue reading ‘On The Potential of Women Scientists and Engineers in Academia’
An interesting development in the world of chemistry caught my eye just now. Imagine taking that carbon dioxide that is in so many of our emissions, and that is one of the principal agents in the processes contributing to global warming, and using solar energy, converting it into fuel. Now that would really be an interesting possibility, wouldn’t it?
Well, it is possible. Whether it will ever be a viable scheme that makes any practical sense is another matter, but you’ve got to start somewhere. A team of chemists represented by Gabriele Centi of the University of Messina (Italy) presented new results on this process to the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco. From New Scientist:
The researchers chemically reduced CO2 to produce eight and nine-carbon hydrocarbons using a catalyst of particles of platinum and palladium confined in carbon nanotubes. These hydrocarbons can be made into petrol and diesel.
To begin with, the researchers used sunlight plus a thin film of titanium dioxide to act as a photocatalyst to split water into oxygen gas plus protons and electrons. These are then carried off separately, via a proton membrane and wire respectively, before being combined with CO2 plus the nano-catalyst to produce the hydrocarbons.
Here’s the actual abstract of the talk:
Well, I noticed a resonance over the last couple of days. In pictures:
I know what you’re thinking. Another exotic place, right? Actually, no more exotic than Los Angeles. Yes, as I keep saying, it is not all concrete, despite what people say. This is essentially in the middle of the Los Angeles area, overlooking the city. The lovely Griffith Park, at the top of Mount Hollywood, where I was hiking with a friend and came upon this scene. Did not have enough camera to make the best of it, but this will do. As confirmation of the central location, you can see the Hollywood sign in the top right hand corner (click for closeup).
Next:
The Rainwater Bluegrass band. They’re part of the wonderful weekly fresh food Continue reading ‘Ranch Style’
…. and er, a dwarf bean. Just remembered to harvest these. Lovely colour:
I think there’s a tasty ham and bean soup in my future, don’t you? Or do you have alternative suggestions.
-cvj
I forgot to tell you about this. The name Eris has been officially chosen by the International Astronomical Union for the astronomical body so many wanted to be called Xena. (Keck image, left) Eris is the goddess of discord and strife, by the way. The moon of the body, that was tentatively called Gabrielle, after Xena’s sidekick in the TV show (Universal Studios image, right) will be called Dysnomia.
The Xena supporting community will be disappointed about this decision (watch out IAU, they have sharp swords, see image on left), but maybe comforted a little by the fact that Dysnomia is “a spirit of lawlessness”. Recall that Xena was played by Lucy Lawless. (Whatever happened to her, by the way? I think I recall seeing her briefly in something last year.) Anyway, there’s a New York Times article about it, by Kenneth Chang, here. It’s a rather nice account of the saga of the naming, by Michael Brown (of Caltech), who discovered Eris.
Pluto, as part of its initiation into the family of rubble known as the Kuiper belt (a mass distribution so important to understanding our solar system…see here), has been given a number. It is minor planet number 134340. I hope you can remember that. Eris has the number 136199.
-cvj
Well, it’s been a very busy week here, and today was one of the most exhausting. So I’m ending the day fading quite a bit. I’ll leave you with a shot of Zadie Smith in full flow, chatting to the LA Times Books editor in front of a paying audience at UCLA this evening. (Part of the UCLA Live series, which is regulalrly interesting.) 
I went along to hear what she had to say, accompanying a friend who had a spare ticket. Ran into my good friend Marc Kamionkowski there, who is apparently a fan of her work. I found the chat to be… nice. Nothing profound, but she’s got a good sense of humour which is vey familiar to me, since it comes from a similar place to mine, I imagine: We have similar backgrounds. I dozed a bit, which was not a reflection on her…. I just doze sometimes during a busy work week.
In terms of the length, I am not sure that it really needed to be as long as 90 minutes, but then that’s probably just me. Frankly, it was better than it could easily have been. Sometimes you go along to hear someone talk about their work, etc, and they end up making great pronoucenments on all sorts of things and you just wish they would shut up and you can go back to appreciating what they do. Not in this case. She is actually quite interesting to listen to, and did not attempt to be an authority on anything other than what she does. There was a lack of depth there that probably comes from the fact that she is young. Were I not so tired, I’d be more charitable and say that she had a “refreshing lightness”… or something like that. Really, I’d like to do it again in 20 or 30 years when she’s had time to really absorb more of life…. to compare and contrast. She has a good ear and eye for observation, so a lot of good stuff will stick over the years, and she’ll be a really special treat to hear from in time.
Was amused to see (the prodigously talented) Tracy Ullman standing just off to my left, while we picked up tickets at the box office. Amused for at least a couple of reasons, and none of them because she stared at me for a moment as though I was familiar. One was because before arriving, I told the friend I was escorting that I might go into stealth mode to avoid the no doubt lots of English people who will turn up, since (1) it is the West LA, and the English Abroad are everywhere on the West side and (2) it is Zadie Smith. Did not expect Tracy Ulman though. Was expecting more anonymous expat English. The other reason? I am not at liberty to explain at this point. Sorry. Maybe later.
The title of the post? (1) Always wanted to use it. (2) I hope that it will be clear tomorrow, or the day after.
Well, I am tired down to the bone and brain, and so will do things involving the following: Gimlet. Sofa. Movie. Pillow.
-cvj
Well, although we can hold our own on the academic standards side of things, in this case I mean Gay Point Average. I saw in the New York Times today*, in an article by Stephanie Rosenbloom, that USC and UPenn both scored the highest possible score (20 out of 20) for their “campuses policies, programs and practices affecting lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trangender people”. This was in the Advocate College Guide for LGBT students. This is just great!
Please read the article, which is very interesting indeed, discussing several campuses throughout the USA. I’ll simply end with the closing paragraph, which sums up the response to the “why” question that might be forming in some minds. It quotes Kevin Jennings, the executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network:
“When people feel included they can focus on learning,†Mr. Jennings of the education network said. “When they feel isolated and marginalized they can’t. And what LGBT students want is what everyone else wants when they go to college: They want to feel like they belong.â€
-cvj
(*Thanks Caolionn!)
You’ve probably gathered from my writings by now that I think that bike riding is a good thing. Particularly as an alternative to driving, where appropriate. One such place where biking is in principle a perfect alternative is Los Angeles. Mostly flat, wide streets, perfect weather most of the year around. At this point in a conversation about this, people either burst out laughing, or look at me as though I am insane. I sigh. I try to point out that there exists a core (although small… but growing I notice) of people who get on with the business of cycling around this city instead of listening to the (mostly exaggerated and/or coming from total ignorance) stories about how dangerous it is supposed to be (supposedly not just from motorists, but apparently there are very bad men out there trying to do bad things to you). What I say mostly falls on deaf ears. I point out how many alternative routes there are in a city this well connected, so that you do not have to use the main roads if worried about willful or inattentive motorists. I point out how nicely bikes work in conjunction with the (yes, it exists) public transport in the city, since every bus is equipped with bike racks. These do not help either. I point out how much fun I’m having by not having to fight with other motorists every morning, pay an extortionate amount of money for parking, how much gas I save by essentially only driving on the weekends, etc, etc…. I recognise, yes, that it is not a choice that everyone in the city can make, but so very many could, even if it is just a matter of using your bike to nip to the shops for that pint of milk, instead of driving the car… Then I give up, shut up (mostly), and ride my bike. (Descriptions of one of my routes into work here and here.)
Anyway, I keep dreaming that one day that slow trickle of increasing numbers of cyclists I see out there will turn into a torrent, and somehow bikes (and public transport) will not be seen as a situation you must accept as a last resort due to reduced circumstances, but be seen as simply a really good choice to make. Maybe one day it will even become a mainstream hip thing to do (as opposed to the underground hipness it has now…I like to imagine), and increased bike use will be driven by people wanting to jump on that bandwagon. I don’t care how we get there, as long as we do.
To help with the dream, I look fondly at the greater bike use in other countries and cities when I visit them. Here’s a lovely article, by John Tagliabue, that came out today* in the New York Times about the Netherlands. It starts out:
With more than two bicycles per person and a landscape as flat as a pancake, the Netherlands is a cyclists’ Eden.
[…]
with greater affluence, more free time and even greater environmental concerns, the Dutch are turning to bicycles in ever greater numbers. Sales are booming, and there is a proliferation of designs for all sorts of purposes.
And further, there’s a description of a recently opened bicycle dealership that is one Continue reading ‘Bikes and the City’
Don’t miss out on the new physics blog carnival, Philosophia Naturalis, hosted at Science and Reason. Lots of good stuff to read there.
-cvj
I’ve come to realise that there are all sorts of really interesting people on the USC campus, involved in fascinating work and interesting projects of one sort or another. This is of course true for any university. However, I am still finding pleasant surprises and connections quite regularly. The last major such discovery for me was in the early Summer, when I found out that the excellent writer Aimee Bender (e.g. “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt”), whose work I knew about in a different context, is on the faculty here. (I mentioned this and described her contribution to one of the Categorically Not! events in this post.)
Now I’ve noticed that the hugely popular blog Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow is here for the year as the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Visiting Research Chair, which will be co-hosted by the Viterbi School’s Integrated Media Systems Center and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Obviously I don’t read Boing Boing regularly enough or I would have noticed the increased flux of USC events and other things mentioned there in the last few weeks. Silly me.
Anyway, it’s nice to have another little blog carry the load of telling you a bit about what goes on at USC. So I can relax a little, right?
Here is an article about it on the Viterbi School’s site, from which I quote:
In his new role, announced this week by the Canadian Fulbright Commission, Doctorow will collaborate with USC faculty and students and deliver guest lectures to the wider community.
and further:
“We are excited by this opportunity to work with such a visionary as Cory Doctorow as we continue our research on experiential media for education, journalism and entertainment, †said Adam Clayton Powell III, director of the Integrated Media Systems Center, an NSF-funded Engineering Research Center within the Viterbi School of Engineering.
Here’s an April post announcing it from Cory himself. There he mentions his connection with Bob Stein’s Voyager company. Who’s Bob, you ask? He and his work was another pleasant discovery I made last year, in the context of academic blogging. He’s Director of research at the Institute for the Future of the Book, at the Annenberg Center for Communication, and also part of the Interactive Media Division. I blogged about meeting him, and the bloggers meeting here and here. It’s a really small world after all.
So, beyond the exciting Visions and Voices events I told you about, there’ll be even more interesting events and talks on campus as a result, no doubt. Here’s one already. Excellent. If only I had more hours in the day…
-cvj
The next Categorically Not! is Sunday 24th September. I’ve posted before about the Categorically Not! series of events held at the Santa Monica Art Studios. They’re fantastic, and I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area. Have a look at the last two descriptions here and here, and the description of the recent special one on Uncertainty that was held at the USC campus is here.
Here is K.C. Cole’s description of the upcoming programme:
The End is near! Or is it? It’s an irresistible question, one that has preoccupied science, religion and art for centuries. Of course, we know the world will end sometime within the next 5 billion years, when the sun is expected to puff up into a massive red giant star and swallow the Earth whole. But the end of our familiar human world will come far sooner. Will the cause be god’s wrath? A stray meteor? Or will we bring on the end ourselves through human arrogance and foolishness?
Our September 24th Categorically Not! will not answer these questions, but will explore them through the lenses of cosmology, the Book of Revelation, and the novelistic imagination. Marc Kamionkowski, a cosmologist at Caltech, usually thinks about the birth of the Universe, but this evening will speculate about how it may end. The particulars of its demise will depend on such exotica as dark matter, vacuum energy, and some of the most elusive particles known (and unknown). Jonathan Kirsch, author of six books on the history of religion and the workings of the religious imagination, will explain why—contrary to biblical prophecy—the world refuses to end on time. His most recent book—A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization—delves into the history of the book of Revelation and how it has been used and abused over the last twenty centuries. The writer Carolyn See, whose dad left a couple of weeks after the first atom bomb was dropped, has always confused personal and public Armageddons. The end is (always) nigh, and how do we live with that? In Golden Days and in her newest novel, There Will Never Be Another You, she addresses the question.
As usual, it is held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, come at 6:00pm for drinks, cookies and a look around the space, and there’s a 6:30 start, and we’ll ask for a small donation. Please contact Sherry Frumkin to tell us if you’re coming. Call 310-397-7449 or email sherry [at] santamonicaartstudios.com. If you don’t get around to letting us know, do come anyway! For more information, visit the Categorically Not! website.
Hope to see some of you there! I hope to report on it here after the event, and -as usual- you can come and chat about it in the comment thread of the post I do about it.
-cvj
No apology here. I really love cats. As a result, I love this video. Might be old for you…. it is new for me. And just priceless. Thought I’d share. (Click here.)
-cvj
(Thanks Carol!)
For you physics lurkers at USC (you know who you are!), consider going to the following event (RSVP by tomorrow): Our distiguished (and superpowered -she can fly) librarian, Sara Tompson, in conjunction with the USC Women in Physics Society, have organised a tour and demo of various of the science library’s facilities. Go to this to find out lots of vital information, such as how to use INSPEC, the online catalogue, the scanner…. and maybe even learn where the library is, if you don’t already. Yes, there’s a free lunch associated with this. Poster here.
-cvj
Remember a year ago, the launch of the ipod nano that caught my eye? Even led to a long physics joke explanation..
Well, they’ve done it again.
The new ipod shuffle is out! And yes, it is just so lovely. And it is more nano than the nano, size wise. The nano has also been updated, by the way. Click the images for more magnification.
-cvj
This is the penultimate line in an article today in the Science Times:
“Sometimes how the blood is splattered on the wall tells you more about what happened than the body,â€
It is a quote from Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute, in the context of understanding the origins and dynamics of our Solar System. The article is by Kenneth Chang, and a link to it is here.
It is a lovely article, focusing on the continuing series of discoveries being made about Kuiper Belt objects (e.g. Sedna, “Xena”, etc…), those cousins of Pluto that, thanks for better detection technology, have turned out to be quite numerous (click on image above… more of it at the NYT site):
More than 1,100 Kuiper Belt objects have been found so far. Astronomers estimate that half a million bodies larger than 20 miles wide are floating out there. At least one appears to be mostly rock with a coating of ice. Some are mostly ice. Some are less dense than ice, indicating a Swiss-cheese-like structure. A surprising number of them have moons.
Levison says:
“The more we learn, the weirder it looks.â€
It is quite a fascinating subject, a detective story full of wonderful science, and illustrates -as I have said earlier in the post called “Spinach Blogging”- how the “demotion of Pluto” story opens the door to so much active planetary science. It also illustrates why it it is interesting to keep an eye on the debate about the “demotion”. which is still ongoing. The nature of the Kuiper belt is teaching us a huge amount about the other bodies in the solar system. For example:
The distribution of Kuiper Belt objects has already provided decisive evidence that Neptune was once perhaps nearly a billion miles closer to the Sun and was then gravitationally nudged outward. Astronomers also hope that the Kuiper Belt preserves a frozen record of the earliest building materials of the solar system.
Another nice analogy from S. Alan Stern (of the Southwest Research Institute and Continue reading ‘Clues in the Blood Splatter Patterns’
In view of the discussion here and here, I feel I ought to remind readers of an earlier post entitled “The Rise of the Nerd” I wrote on the subject of nerds, geeks, the terminology, and the media portrayals. Somewhere in there is a serious point, which keeps getting missed in all of this jolly fun:
(1) Nerdiness is in decline, you would think, since everybody ends up being a nerd (by at least one main popular definition) after a while by adopting their practices (the fact that you are reading this or any blog is just one of myriad examples).
(2) Nerdiness will likely continue forever, though (at least for a very long time), because -frankly- people feel threatened by, inferior to, and are afraid of people who have technical knowledge, especially (but not only) in the scientific realm. The response is to paint them as outsiders, to marginalise them, undermining the perceived threat. This, sadly, will continue for a while. The process is to continually redefine what is the province of the nerd, and what is not. So while, for example, it is no longer nerdy to blog (or even know about blogs), it is still nerdy to, let’s say, know how to significantly change the appearance of your blog, or know about technorati tags. That will continue…. until everybody learns how easy those things are. Etc, etc.
A big extract from my earlier post:
For years, action movies stuck to a very specific division of labour. Your action hero did the “action” stuff…you know, shooting and hitting and the getting of the girl (yes, the action hero was most often male). Meanwhile, from time to time there would be a point in the plot where some technical knowledge was needed. Then the socially awkward technical person (Geek, Nerd, whatever) would be on the set for a while, and they would hack into the computer, make the modifications to the car, shut down the reactor, etc.
Then several years ago things began to change. Did you notice it? Action heroes began to start learning
our skillsthe skills of the nerd. It became ok - cool even- for the muscle-bound hero to know some technical stuff! I remember one key movie that for me at least represented the high-visibility turning point. It was the 1996 movie “Eraser”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the time he was sort of the CEO of Action Heroes, Inc, right? There’s some scene in which he’s fresh from shooting up everything in sight, with a cannon on each arm, etc, etc, and then at a climatic moment (I forgot the plot details which led to this), he sits down at a computer to do some crucial task or other! [ … ]
And here’s the point: Continue reading ‘Nerdium Perpetuus’
I’m trying hard not to think about this day, five years ago, in Manhattan. Nor the days immediately following. Those were among the worst experiences of my life, being so close (but very luckily, far away enough) to the events. But the whole thing gets replayed by the media every year, and so it is hard to avoid some aspects of it. Besides the memorials -which are absolutely the right thing to do of course- there are endless discussions of how to combat terrorism, the “War on Terror” (in its current configuration, little to do with the first), and what seems to me to be a growing volume of chatter about the conspiracy theory that the whole world trade center site was demolished by construction engineers working for the government. or other organisation with unscrupulous motives. The latter point, when put to me, is usally along the lines of “you’re a scientist - doesn’t the collapse look suspicious to you?”. My only thought on this matter is “How many 7+ skyscraper complexes have we seen collapse before?”. This is not an argument in itself, but just my way of saying “it’s not that simple”.
Enough.
What I really wanted to write about was something about the events, or their aftermath, that had at least of glimmer of something positive about it, and maybe a science connection. I think I found it. You may know that there’s already been a huge amount of work on the reconstruction of the site, starting with a lot of jostling among superpowered architects for the main tower complex and memorial site. (I recall the lovely exhibits of the architects’ proposals near the site. It was open to the public, and there were models and animations showing all the ideas. The public’s opinion was sought - although I’m not sure it was actually listened to in the end. But it was a great exercise. Personally, I think that they should have chosen the design of [Lex Luthor] Norman Foster, for its mathematical beauty and (apparent) structural integrity, but I understand that there were other issues. In any event, with the new tweaks to the overall scheme, I think that the new plan is rather good now, and there’s a lovely Norman Foster design (tower 2), a Richard Rogers (tower 3) design, and a Fumihiko Maki (tower 4), all featuring prominently. Uh.. the Lex Luthor reference is to Foster’s outfit at the time of his presentation… all in black with 60s supervillain black turtleneck, and shaven head.)
The work has gone well beyond choosing architechts and the like. Actual construction has happened. The new “7 World Trade Center” has already been completed, and I noticed that among the new tenants will be the New York Academy of Sciences. I’m very happy about this, and I don’t quite know why. Among the contributing factors are, I expect, the fact that I used to spend my summers in New York back then making good use of some of the wonderful academic institutions that there are in the city. This includes the excellent libraries at Columbia University, especially the lovely Butler library, but also includes some truly majestic spaces such as the Rose reading room at the New York Public Library. I wrote some of my book there.
I just love the fact that there are so many great institutions of that kind in New York, and so it almost brings tears to my eyes to read that among the first tenants in this newly reborn part of the city will be the New York Academy of Sciences. (They signed the first lease, but they will move in second.) They will have quite a lovely setting, I