Asymptotia

You’ll recall that I had a fig emergency not too long ago. Too many figs from my tree and (despite commenter Moshe’s suggestion to just eat them all) no inclination to eat them all in one sitting. Recipe ideas were considered (and thanks all of you!), and I made a decision. I was looking for a way to preserve them, not how to immediately eat them, and so sadly I did not take up all the lovely suggestions of things to do. By a day or two later I had several more, and so it became urgent. As hinted at by the post entitled “Jam Tomorrow” (which I took a while to deliver on - sorry) you can guess what I decided to do: Fig Jam, of course!

So I bring you the first of what I expect to be several trips to the kitchen on Asymptotia, where we go through all the steps together (remember the Taiwan-inspired Beef Lo Mein that I did on CV?). So the thing to do is chop up those figs into smaller chunks -roughly eighths (keep halving three times):

I looked at various sources for an idea of the proportions of ingredients, and eventually settled on a few that I decided to hybridize. I’ll leave it to you to google on “fig jam” and find your own ideas, I found that there is a popular Epicurious recipe, which first appeared in Gourmet magazine some years back, that uses roughly the following (I did not do the rum and sesame seeds mentioned elsewhere):

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
2 lb firm-ripe fresh figs
2 strips fresh lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

… proportions that I rescaled (see below).

This meant that I needed an idea of the actual weight of the figs. I don’t actually have any scales in the kitchen or anywhere in the house. (I usually use volume measurements in my cooking.) So this meant that I would have to rush out to the shops to get a scale. This did not appeal to me, and after a short while I remembered that I’m actually a physicist, and so can use other means to get an estimate, fashioning some scales from Continue reading ‘Jammin’’

Imagine my surprise the other day when I stepped out into the garden for the first time in a busy week and looked up and saw one of these large flowers staring down at me!

They are huge. I have this giant cactus plant, you see, over twelve feet tall in places, Continue reading ‘Not Triffids!’

Finally we get to some real substance in the program! (See earlier notes, and thoughts.) Jeff actually mentions all the effort going on string theory and experiments at Brookhaven, and asks that question I keep asking everyone… “why oh why is this never mentioned by the press in these discussions?” I’ve asked this of Peter Woit on his blog a lot too, for example, and have never got much of an answer. Peter and Lee want the world to believe -by reading their books- that the entire field of string theory is just people sitting around discussing the Anthropic Principle and lots of different universes, and blah blah blah… It serves the purpose of the books in question to completely distort the view of what is actually going on in the field. They claim that there is no experimental support (true) or hope for experimental support (how can they know that?) for string theory… but they ignore the fact -they intentionally don’t tell you, dear reader- about the interesting work going on by a huge percentage of the field to use string theory to study the structure of nuclear matter. It is still in its early stages, and may not work, but it is rather interesting. As Jeff put it, about the new form of matter that is constructed in these experiments, string theory is “the only approach that I know of” that currently seems to be able to explain the observed properties….

Lee, about the omission of this huge effort in string theory research from his book: “At least it is alluded to…”

That’s just lame.

He then proceeds to rather poorly attempt to claim that such contact with experiment Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, IV’

Poor Jeff!

I’m listening to the program now, and 40 minutes into it, there’s been long sections of completely pointless waffle by Lee and the presenter (the latter keeps reading long and largely peripherally relevant quotes from philosophers), broken up by breaks to shout the name of the station at you…. then long musical ditties… then back to more waffle…. and then the few times Jeff gets to come in, he is interrupted again by the presenter with more irrelevant stuff about philosophy. Jeff managed to say at one point “I’d rather talk about what can be measured, what we can calculate…”, but this seems to have been ignored. (Here and later I am not giving the exact words of what was said… you should listen to the archive.) He is given a little time to start to explain what strings is about….

A bit later…. Lee is just going on and on and on and on about…. uh…. crap and utter irrelevance. The battle between Liebniz and Newton. Relational vs absolute. Sigh. I just don’t get it. Why is this happening? Another music/station reminder break…

A bit later…. Jeff finally manages to get a bit of a word in. He has to jump in at one point when Lee starts actually redefining on the spot what his book is about… Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, III’

I just heard* that at 9:00pm Chicago time, there will be a discussion between Lee Smolin and Jeff Harvey, presumably about string theory, and you can listen to it live on radio station WGN, here.

Thinks:

• I wonder if it will be as utterly content-free and pointless as the one that took place between Lee Smolin and Brian Greene on Science Friday some weeks back? That one was so annoying in places that I never finished the blog post I was writing about it. It was mostly of the following structure (I paraphrase):

  Lee says wise and learned things like “there should be a diversity of effort in approaching problems in fundamental physics”.

  The host, Ira Flatow, turns to Brian (on telephone link) and says “what do you think of that, Brian Greene?”

  Brian says, “Yes, I agree. I have several students working on things outside of string theory.”

  …thus blowing a bit of a hole in the claim that string theory is this cult/monolith that somehow blinds us all to other great ideas.

• I wonder if Lee will bring out what I consider to be one of the most ridiculous Continue reading ‘More Scenes From the Storm in a Teacup, II’

  

Good News Everyone! I learned just now from Good Math, Bad Math there may well be a successful proof of yet another of the great Millennium problems. This one pertains to solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations which are of central importance in fluid dynamics, for example. (The figure to the left -click for larger- is from a computer simulation, by Greg Ashford, of the airflow around an aircraft wing (in cross section) and the foil that it uses to change the overall shape of the wing for maneouvering. I got it from a site linked here.)

Penelope Smith, at Lehigh University has presented a preprint with her proof, which Continue reading ‘Update on the Giant-Killers’

Yesterday, I forgot to point you to the press release from the observatory itself. There, you will find more information about the opening, on November 3rd, and about how to actually get there. They are forbidding access to the parking lot, and so you either take a shuttle bus, or you walk or cycle. It is depressing to me that people are already complaining about having to walk up a small hill from the picnic sites below (people who walk up are generically referred to as “hikers”, in the press release, which would give someone the impression that you need special equipment or something just to walk up the hill. Sigh.).

Anyway, some chatter from the press release. Let’s start out with 4th District Councilmember, Tom LaBonge, a veritable Paul Dirac of understatement and wall-flower-hood:

“Griffith Observatory is one of the best public spaces in the world if not the universe…”

Oh yes. Good ol’ Tom. He makes statements like this all the time. How can you not Continue reading ‘Griffith Announces Opening’

Back when I was young enough to care to try to list such things, I had a favourite number. Really, really faourite. I lived and breathed that number for a while. Today’s session in the freshman seminar “The Art and Science of Seeing and the Seeing and Science of Art”, about which I have blogged here and here, was all about it. Rather than do chapter and verse about it (don’t get me started!), I will instead leave you with the image that I ended with…

… and let you tell me and other readers - if you like - what you think the number is, what it means to you, and perhaps share whatever you like (or hate) about it.

-cvj

From the press release:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2006 to

Roger D. Kornberg
Stanford University, CA, USA

“for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription”.

Here’s a bit more on the background: Continue reading ‘Chemistry and Medicine Nobel Prizes 2006′

Believe it or not, the SEA (Scientists and Engineers for America), about which I blogged recently, was on the Colbert Report last night! Video here.

What a way to bring global attention to a new organisation about science!

-cvj

(Via SEA’s blog.)

Well, here’s a bit of news. For one reason or another, I have been invited to a preview, later this month, of the soon-to-be-reopened Griffith Observatory, and so will get to see it before it opens to the very general public. (Library photos, by E. C. Krupp, by the way.)

I will try my best to bring you a full report on the splendiforous contents… assuming they have not all been replaced by movie memorabilia, or some other desecration. (I’ll try very hard to not play the role of the obnoxious scientist, and so won’t yell “where the hell is the science!?” at awkward moments - I hope. I’ll try not to ask awkward questions at all. In fact I will just try to say very little in the way of contrarian remarks, since I’m an invited guest and should be polite. Actually, it’s best I don’t say anything at all.)

I am an optimist, and so despite recent news, I remain excited.

[Update: The post on the visit is here.]

-cvj

From the press release:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2006 jointly to

John C. Mather
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA,

and

George F. Smoot
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

“for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation”.

COBE is the experiment that really blazed the trail for all the wonderful physics that was to come from WMAP, and various other experiments such as Boomerang. And Planck is about to fly as well, giving even more precise information about our universe.

I was an undergraduate when this was announced. [Update: Oops...not quite: I had just started graduate school. Thanks Chad!] It was a wonderful feeling that all of us students had, partly gleaned from the feelings of our lecturers, I suspect. The thing that struck us as most appealing (I think) was the idea that the black body radiation spectrum (click on the image on the right for larger) that we’d been learning about in the abstract, during lectures, was sort of “out there”, writ large…. as large as can be in fact, on the whole universe! It’s always good to learn that physics -or any field- is still alive, especially when you’re still on the cusp of making a career in it.

Some more imformative background information (forgive the pun) from the press release: Continue reading ‘Physics Nobel Prize 2006′

I’ve previously mentioned examples of the manipulation or suppression of scientific information by organisations such as the Bush Administration. See for example a recent post on hurricanes and global warming. Various scientists have made it their business to speak out against these types of wrongs, either as individuals in the line of fire, as individuals noticing it in the news and blogging about it to as many as care to read, and as part of organisations here and abroad.

Well I’d like to point out a new organisation I heard about* called “Scientists and Engineers for America”, and I am pleased to share with you that their website says:

…a group of scientists and concerned citizens launch a new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.

The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.

We ask every American who values scientific integrity in decision-making to join us in endorsing a basic Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Together we will elect new leadership beginning in 2006, and we will continue to work to elect reasonable leadership in federal, state and local elections for years to come.

America needs your help. Will you join us?

(Personally, I don’t see why it is necessary to be so America-centric about it, but there you have it. It’s their choice, of course.) Their Bill of Rights is linked here. Here are the points they list: Continue reading ‘Looking for a SEA Change?’

You’ve possibly read about my excitement about the long-awaited Expo line, connecting downtown to USC and the Science, Natural History (and other) Museums, and then connecting out to Culver City, and ultimately to Venice. I’ve blogged this here and here. They broke ground on the project two days ago. See here and here. Here’s a picture (yes, construction workers wear business suits in LA. They are very image-conscious here, and you never know when a casting director might be looking):

I am truly amazed every day by the small percentage of people who live and work in LA who actually know about this major breakthrough - the very existence of the plans for the line, never mind its approval. It is as though I live in a different city…. Anyway, conversations are going on in the various direcly affected communities about the design of the tations, the business that will sprout up around them, the best way to include bike lanes along the projects, and the routing of the cars that will do doubt still have priority and therefore compromise the efficiency of the entire project as happened with the Gold Line. Join in these conversations if you live and/or work in the city.

There are some significant new developments. The first is that the proposal to call the Expo line the “Aqua Line” did not succeed. Expo Line will be the name, it seems. Ok, that’s not so significant, I suppose. Meanwhile, the second branch of the Red Line, the one that stops for no good reason at Wilshire and Western, will be called the “Purple Line”. Yay. Not significant either, you say. Maybe, but the point here is that the Purple Line is actually being discussed! Not only has it been discussed, but there has been a breakthrough. That “no good reason” mentioned above was translated -back in the ’80s- into a legal blockade, making it illegal to tunnel further along that route for safely reasons. The claim was that the geological instability (that resulted in an explosion in a store) made it unsafe to pursue the goal of having a subway run down Wilshire Boulevard, and ultimately out to Santa Monica. This project would have acheived the wonderful goal of connecting Downtown to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Wiltern Theatre, The Superior Court, the Hammer Museum, and the whole of UCLA. But it was held up because (essentially) the greatest power in the history of the world could not simply look across the Atlantic or the Pacific to learn the tried and tested engineering solutions to this “safety issue”.

So the Good News: The same politician who sponsored the legislation that resulted in the ban on tunneling has how worked to (successfully) get it repealed! Continue reading ‘Green For Purple’

As mentioned before, I am really excited about the re-opening of the Griffith Park Observatory. See this earlier post. [Update: See post about my viisit here.]

[Further Update: After reading the rest of the post, be sure to read the comments (starting here) for some commentary on the planetarium show since it was launched.]

[Yet another update: The discussion has continued to another post, with more contributions from various people concerned with the shows and the observatory, past and present. Link here.]

I’d noticed (on their site) the employment notice:

The Observatory will complete its four year renovation and expansion project in the Fall of 2006, with improvements including the new 200 seat Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater, doubling of the exhibit space to house more than 60 new and exciting exhibits, and new sound, lighting, interior dome and digital laser projection technology in the refurbished Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater. Employment opportunities will continue to increase as we approach our reopening date.

… and the job decriptions for the Museum Guide:

Job Qualifications
12 semester units or 18 quarter units in a recognized college or university in Architecture, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Zoology or related field. Six months experience working in the above fields may be substituted for education.

Job Description
Demonstrate and explain exhibits relating to astronomy and related sciences. Answer questions related to the observatory, astronomy and related sciences. May be asked to safeguard exhibits, and open or close
facility.

and thought it was ok (”may be substituted for education” was a bit worrying, but I think I know what they really meant), and assumed that the guides would be supplementary to more experienced staff who know more about the actual science, etc.

It seems I was wrong. A newspaper from the neighbourhood that the observatory is in, the Los Feliz Ledger, has a story (by Kimberly Gomez) entitled “Actors Get The Call Over Astronomers”. It seems that:

The traditional planetarium lecturers, who in the past led hour-long talks in the planetarium at Griffith Observatory, are upset that when the observatory re-opens this fall, they will be out of a job. According to four past lecturers, their position which traditionally required an education in astronomy, has been changed.

Continuing… Continue reading ‘Acting Up At Griffith Observatory’