Archive for January, 2007

Not Nominal

by
Clifford
on January 31, 2007
in technology
. 7 Comments

sea launch platformThe Sea Launch organization is a private satellite launch company. This is arguably the shape of the future of a lot of space activity, so it is interesting to keep an eye on them. They launch, using their Zenit-3SL rocket, from a latitude near the Equator, out in the Pacific ocean, from a platform that looks a lot like an oil platform (it is a converted one, in fact). The whole thing sails out from near here, at Long Beach, and steams along to the launch site, like some super-villians’ outfit. It’s all rather James Bond. More about them here.

sea launch zenit rocketIt’s strangely fascinating to look at the videos of past launches. (The October 30th 2006 XM-4 launch video, for example. Their archive is here.) They have a sort of old-fashioned feel to them that is riveting, although utterly boring at the same time since there’s not actually a lot going on, and the video quality is not so great. If I’m honest, I think the attraction for me is the slightly mechanical Eastern-European-accented female voices saying things like “we have lift off”… “separation phase complete”… “propulsion system nominal”… “pitch angle nominal”…. “auxiliary control nominal”….. Most of the videos are pretty much these people saying stuff is nominal, with occasional bursts of chatter layered above and below. It was strange entertainment for me last night while cooking. Go and have a look. Their whole site is worth a browse.

They had a bit of a bad day yesterday, though. Definitely not nominal. News story here. Spectacular video on YouTube here:
Continue reading ‘Not Nominal’

Sabine Hossenfelder: My Inspiration

by
Clifford
on January 31, 2007
in academia, minorities in science, science and women in science
. 27 Comments

Sabine HossenfelderToday, a guest post. I’m excited, because it’s from one of my favourite bloggers, Sabine Hossenfelder, or “Bee” as you may know her from her comments here, and of course her blog Backreaction.

Bee giving a guest post here on Asymptotia originated in a suggestion I made in the comments of an earlier post of mine. Bee had asked me to do a post on her blog as part of her excellent series of guest posts about what made her guest choose to go into physics. Pressed for time, and not sure whether I’d really have anything new or interesting to say about myself, I stalled for time (I thought) by saying I’d do it in exchange for her doing a post here on a similar subject. She rapidly came up with the post. And of course it’s a great one. I’m so on the spot now.

Anyway, here’s Bee! -cvj
___________________________________________________________________________________

I just sat down with the best intention to write a lengthy blah on Clifford’s question what inspires me. Now that I sit here, hands above the keyboard, I am facing a problem. It’s not that the question is too difficult, it’s too easy to answer. I get inspiration everywhere. Reading books, seeing movies, taking a walk - ah yes, also from scrolling through blogs. Most of all by talking to my friends and colleagues. The problem is now that I’m too inspired not to shamelessly use the opportunity of writing a guest post for Clifford ;-) So let me redirect the question to your opportunity to use your inspiration.

Had you been born some thousand years ago, your life would have been pretty much determined by where and when you were born, and whether you happened to be a man or a woman. You’d have spent most of your time striving to survive. Undoubtedly, you’d have considered your generation very progressive, still you’d have worked hard to make a better future for those coming after you. And of course our generation says since then we’ve made a lot of progress! But what is it? Is it a 6 lane highway, 50 different Jelly Bean flavors, the size of a 2 GB USB stick, a life expectation of 80 years, plastic surgery, weblogs for everybody?

In my opinion, a society’s maturity is measured not by the development (alias shrinking) of more and more technological gadgets, but by its ability to let (wo)men follow their passion. Progress is what makes our life easier. It is what gives us more time, more freedom. It is our understanding of nature that has allowed us to spend less time on the struggle to survive, and given us the opportunity to live. It has given us the freedom to follow all the stray thoughts that came with the evolution of the homo sapiens’ large brain: the everlasting wish to find and understand our place in the universe that we are part of.

A search that everybody of us undergoes in his or her own way. Some find their place Continue reading ‘Sabine Hossenfelder: My Inspiration’

Hubble Trouble

by
Clifford
on January 30, 2007
in astronomy and science
. 5 Comments

hubble graphicAs you can tell by putting “hubble” into the blog’s search engine on the right, the Hubble Space Telescope has been a strikingly successful eye on what’s going on (and what went on) in the universe, and very powerful tool in lots of research. A lot of that research is done with the instrument called the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which have been the instrument in most heavy demand by researchers since it went online in 2002 (Hubble was launched much earlier, in 1990 of course). The instrument stopped working a few days ago (see e.g. stories here and here [update: and especially here]), and is not expected to become operational again without direct intervention. Given that the Hubble orbits some 360 miles above the earth, this is not an easy thing to do.

There are other instruments on board too, but the loss of use of this one is a heavy Continue reading ‘Hubble Trouble’

Talk about the Talk

by
Clifford
on January 30, 2007
in Los Angeles, academia and biology
. 8 Comments

charles stevensChuck Stevens’ visit went very well indeed. The talk was excellent, and well attended by faculty and students from both Physics and Astronomy Department, and the Neurosciences Research Institute. I’ll tell you a bit more about what he said in a subsequent post, along with pointing to video and slides from the talk, I hope. (Click on left for larger view.)

By the way, when I got to the Steve Reich concert venue, there was a huge line of people waiting to get in. They eventually turned a lot of us (myself included) away due to lack of space.

So I got on my bike and cycled rapidly up Figueroa Street to downtown and found the restaurant where some of my colleagues had taken the guest for dinner. Excellent conversation instead of excellent music. A good trade.

Here’s something I passed on the way to the restaurant. Took a picture while waiting Continue reading ‘Talk about the Talk’

New Einstein Letters

by
Clifford
on January 29, 2007
in academia, science and science in the media
. 0 Comments

I’m not supposed to be blogging, since I’ve got to go and set up and introduce the visiting speaker, but I thought I’d point you to an LA Times (front page!) article by John Johnson, talking about some new material about Einstein and his more “human” side, as opposed to the standard image that is portrayed*. The letters (from about 1915, before the completion of his General Theory of Relativity - see a post I did about that Continue reading ‘New Einstein Letters’

The Hills Were Alive

by
Clifford
on January 29, 2007
in Los Angeles and music
. 3 Comments

janaki string trioBeverly Hills, that is. The Da Camera Society (a chamber music society I mentioned last year) arranged a concert by the Janaki String Trio in the Beverly Hills Women’s Club. Click the (no-flash, not-while-they-played) photo for a larger version. I’m a Beethoven nut, and so having two of his string trios on the program was excellent. There was also a trio by Shubert that I liked a lot. There were two bonuses however.
Continue reading ‘The Hills Were Alive’

Steve Reich in the Afternoon

by
Clifford
on January 28, 2007
in Los Angeles and music
. 7 Comments

Ok, it’s really the evening - 7:00pm - but I could not resist the post title. Most of you won’t know (let me know if you do) what I’m playing with in the title, but that’s ok. I’m really, really pleased with it.

Amazingly, we have a free concert tomorrow here at USC with an introduction by the composer Steve Reich. Here is the weblink with complete information. Here’s an extract of the heaps of gushing remarks collected together to encourage you to go:

As part of a citywide festival celebrating his 70th birthday, Reich himself introduces a concert of his music played by three USC ensembles.

Widely regarded as one of the major “minimalists,” Steve Reich has composed music with a profound impact on art, film and popular music in the 20th century. He was recently called “…America’s greatest living composer,” (The Village Voice), “…the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “…among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times). From his Continue reading ‘Steve Reich in the Afternoon’

Looking Ahead To Tomorrow

by
Clifford
on January 28, 2007
in academia, biology, music and science
. 6 Comments

Gosh, where do I begin? It’s going to be a hugely busy day on Monday. I’m excited about Monday first and foremost because of the colloquium. Charles (Chuck) Stevens from the Salk Institute generously accepted my invitation to come and visit USC and give a special colloquium to an audience made up of people from both the Physics and Astronomy Department and the Neuroscience Research Institute. This is because his talk is going to be about thing of interest to both camps! He’s applying physicist approaches -the sort that I do- to biological problems. This is a big deal to me because it is very hard to know when problems in biology actually really need or care about the sorts of things that physicists care about. The last thing you need as a biologist… when you’re happily gathering all those juicy data on various systems and finding out all sorts of highly specialized context-dependent mechanisms… the last thing you need is some arrogant physicist coming in an babbling stuff like “symmetry Continue reading ‘Looking Ahead To Tomorrow’

Trimmings

by
Clifford
on January 28, 2007
in flowers, food and drink and gardening
. 0 Comments

Last week Saturday morning, I stepped out to the garden to do maybe forty-five minutes’ worth of much needed pruning. Sometime late in the afternoon saw me finish. Things just got way out of hand. More and more tools were assembled:

trimming tools

…there was much in the way of climbing of ladders and parts of the roof, and I’ve now got about three huge piles of stuff to deal with -here’s one:

trimmings

…and one tiny garden waste bin that the city to picks up (I cannot compost much of this) each week. At that rate, cleanup will take about a month or so… By then, half the stuff will have grown back.

It’s all in a good cause though. It is what ensures that I can share all those photos of Continue reading ‘Trimmings’

So Who Are You?

by
Clifford
on January 27, 2007
in books, fun and science fiction
. 22 Comments

You learn something every day. I only allowed myself one shot at this, and did not go back to try to change it. I found that:

Apparently, I am:
Cordwainer Smith (Paul M.A. Linebarger)

This inimitably unique storyteller created a future with so many deep layers of history that all the world we know is practically lost in it.

Go on then, find out which Science Fiction writer you are and come and tell us…

-cvj

Via Dynamics of Cats, via Pharyngula (where does he find this stuff?)

Not Improbable

by
Clifford
on January 27, 2007
in academia, mathematics, science, string theory and work
. 13 Comments

elaine chewOn Wednesday night, accompanied by Tameem, a student of mine, I wandered across campus to attend the “Mathematics in Music” event. I blogged about it earlier. I don’t really want to talk about the event itself in this post. It was a nice enough recital of three pieces. I don’t know why, but the promised “mathematics” was disappointingly virtually non-existent. I’m not exaggerating, I’m afraid.

Keep in mind that it may simply just be my misunderstanding of the intent of the event, but there’s simply next to nothing to report in the way of what was said about mathematical aspects of music. There were plenty of opportunities, but (almost) none were taken. I got out my notebook and pen, all excited at what the presenters might say at various points… and the mathematics never showed up. There were a few extremely elementary remarks about tonal ratios in chords, about scales, keys, and time, and that was it, more or less. This was a bit of a shame, since I suspect that Elaine Chew could have talked at length and with some authority on the matter (given the projects she’s involved in - see e.g. here), but mathematics was almost completely missing in the event - despite the title. I imagine there were what seemed like good reasons for this. I was not party to decisions made behind the scenes, so cannot comment further.

More interestingly on that front was what took place in the minutes leading up to the delayed start of the event. First, although it was a free event, they pointed us to the box office where an attendant printed us two tickets from the computer so that we can show them to someone at the door who wasn’t really looking anyway. Fine. We got into the recital hall, but rather than sitting at the obvious available seats, I suggested that we move to the other side of the room where one can get a better view of the piano keyboard. I’m less than happy when I can’t see what a musician is doing, you see, so I always try to sit with the pianist’s view of the piano. So we did that, and found two seats. While we chatted and looked around us at the growing assembly, I spotted a friend and colleague of mine, the composer Veronika Krausas. She was in the company of someone who she introduced as Brian Head, who is a composer, performer (guitar) and music theorist (a “triple threat”, Veronika joked), also in USC’s Thornton school of music. They were looking for seats and there was one on either side of the two we were sitting in, and so they joined us and we chatted some more.

When the event start was about ten or fifteen minutes late -they were trying to get the reassuringly large crown all seated, they announced- Veronika idly looked at her ticket, pointed out that they were numbered, and wondered if we should have been Continue reading ‘Not Improbable’

Helmets

by
Clifford
on January 27, 2007
in Los Angeles and cycling
. 8 Comments

Have these always been these way everywhere and I just did not notice before? Or is it just a Venice Beach thing? The cycle icons in the lanes along the beach are wearing little helmets! Good for them:

helmets in lane markers

(Click for larger view.)

Oh, this reminds me. Some time ago, I was sent a link to a “cycle facility of the month” Continue reading ‘Helmets’

De-Gaussing

by
Clifford
on January 25, 2007
in food and drink and gardening
. 13 Comments

I accidentally used the term “de-gauss” (or perhaps “degauss”) in conversation the other day, referring to something I had to do for my well-being. I was asked for an explanation. Thought I’d explain what I meant to you too:

One of many effective ways to de-gauss: Get the best gin ever (Hendricks’), a decent tonic water, the very tastiest of lemons (it’s from the tree in the garden), a glass, some ice*…

gin and tonic

…and a really comfy chair. Hey, it’s been a long and busy day.

-cvj

P.S. Oh. There’s some other use of the word involving getting rid of trapped built up magnetic fields, etc., etc. You can google that.

(*Yeah, I know it’s not a great snapshot, but you get the idea.)

I Love It Every Time

by
Clifford
on January 25, 2007
in academia, science and work
. 25 Comments

I love teaching undergraduate electromagnetism. It has such an elegance, logic, and completeness about it. It introduces such a host of powerful techniques and ideas to the student, taking them across the threshold into maturity in their physics studies: Once you’ve done electromagnetism, you don’t usually think about large chunks of Physics in quite the same way ever again.

Today saw me give one of my favourite lectures, in any subject. It’s always a thrill. Summarize all that has gone before in their studies of electromagnetism - Gauss’ Law for the electric field produced by charges, the statement of the absence of magnetic monopoles (the Law with No Name), Faraday’s Law for the electric field produced by changing magnetic fields (induction:- another really fun set of lectures there), and Ampère’s Law for the magnetic fields produced by a current density. Write them all down next to each other and stare at them. Realize that they are not internally consistent, in general, as Maxwell did (he was motivated slightly differently, but in an essentially equivalent way). The culprit is Ampère, and the problem is fixed by Maxwell’s realization of the existence of the displacement current term. Ah… symmetry. Changing electric fields produce magnetic fields. All is well. Do some nice examples to show how it all works in concrete terms.

The resulting beautiful and consistent set of equations sent a shiver down my spine when I first saw and appreciated them as an undergraduate. They still send a shiver down my spine, and I hope your spine shivers too. Maxwell’s equations:


<br /> \begin{eqnarray}<br /> \nabla\cdot \mathbf{E}\, &amp;=&amp;\,\frac{\rho}{\epsilon_0} \ ;\nonumber \\<br /> \nabla\cdot \mathbf{B}\, &amp;=&amp;\, 0 \ ;\nonumber \\<br /> \nabla\times\mathbf{E}\, &amp;=&amp;\, -\frac{\partial \mathbf{B}}{\partial t}\ ;\nonumber \\<br /> \nabla\times\mathbf{B}\, &amp;=&amp;\, \mu_0\mathbf{J} +\mu_0\epsilon_0 \frac{\partial \mathbf{E}}{\partial t}\ .\nonumber<br /> \end{eqnarray}<br />

After the shiver, a lovely warm feeling. From here to light, radiation, Relativity, and beyond…

Every time, I especially love giving this lecture. It never gets old.

-cvj

Tell-Tale Tail

by
Clifford
on January 24, 2007
in astronomy
. 8 Comments

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a spacecraft that studies the sun, has been taking rather spectacular photos of comet McNaught. See here, for example. But the recent news that’s been exciting everyone are the comet pictures from the newer twin-spacecraft Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories (STEREO), such as this one of the comet’s tail (the sharp lines are artifacts due to bright objects in the background):STEREO/SECCHI comet McNaught image

Click the image for a larger version. They put together a number of images to make a rather impressive movie of the comet, with a great deal of detail in a sort of fly Continue reading ‘Tell-Tale Tail’

The Proud Parent

by
Clifford
on January 24, 2007
in biology and science
. 4 Comments

Flora komodo babyThe BBC1 are calling her the proud “mum and dad”. I’m talking about Flora, who is the parent of five baby Komodo dragons so far. Read the story at the link above. flora the komodo dragon You’ll recall my earlier post about her, back when she featured in the “virgin birth” story leading up to the Christmas period. Just to remind you, she is one of the first Komodo dragons known to Continue reading ‘The Proud Parent’

I’d Like To Go South Please… Now.

by
Clifford
on January 24, 2007
in astronomy
. 17 Comments

I’m watching my email for an invitation to fly suddenly to the Southern Hemisphere. Perhaps the Latin American Summer School (being held in Argentina this year) needs an emergency strings lecturer? I’ll be happy to reprise my lectures from the one I taught at in Mexico city in 2000…

Why do I want to go South with such urgency? This is largely because Comet McNaught continues to put on a wonderful show in the Southern Hemisphere. Amara Graps has kindly put several links for us to look at in the comment stream of my Look Up Down South post. Have a look here, here, here, here, and here. I did, and I found this lovely shot (by Mary Fanner - click for larger) of the comet over the beautiful city of Cape Town, which I miss a lot from the days when I helped run the ASTI science education program in 2004:

comet over cape town by Mary Fanner

There are several more to be found on the various sites Amara linked to, some that Continue reading ‘I’d Like To Go South Please… Now.’

Check Your Light Cone

by
Clifford
on January 24, 2007
in fun and science
. 2 Comments

On the comment stream of my Light Cone post, commenter Neil pointed out something you may find amusing. I quote:

At this website, you can generate an RSS feed of your personal light cone (starting from your date of birth), which notifies you when it passes a stellar object. Quite cool!

He’s right.

-cvj

Unexpectedly On YouTube

by
Clifford
on January 22, 2007
in fun, science education and work
. 6 Comments

third law jet demoI don’t know why this possibility did not occur to me before. So let me give you a heads up if you do demos in your lectures. In Physics 100 (which I taught last semester) and in Astro 100 especially, we do a lot of demos to demonstrate various physics concepts. I did a post on the Newton’s third law jet propulsion demo some time ago (linked photo right). My colleague Ed Rhodes did this same demo in his Astro 100 class.

He received an email from one of the students in the class recently saying “Congratulations, you’ve been YouTubed…”.

Apparently, one of the students in the class used his or her mobile phone camera to Continue reading ‘Unexpectedly On YouTube’

Vaporstream or no Vaporstream?

by
Clifford
on January 22, 2007
in technology
. 8 Comments

Want to have a confidential email conversation about a sensitive issue? There’s not really been such a thing so far, really. Better to pick up the phone and talk in person. Or meet at random near that noisy fountain in the park. But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to send an email and not worry about it being forwarded on, saved - or “reply-all”-ed to the entire organization? I just heard a piece on NPR about a company that claims to offer this service. It acts as the place where you can send and pickup these mails. Once they are read, they are gone. Self-destructed. All very Mission Impossible

The service is called Vaporstream, and you can hear more about it in the NPR story, by going to the NPR site. I can’t give you a link to the clip directly as it does not seem to be on their site anywhere, so perhaps you will just have to listen to the whole program. (All Things Considered- The Monday 22nd Jan show, toward the last half hour or so.)

Interestingly, it seems that there’s only 8 posts tagged with it on Technorati. It’s been a long time since I saw something with so few entries there! I wonder how long that will last?

I wonder if Vaporstream will catch on and we’ll all be using it regularly in a short time. Will it be one of those things, like YouTube and Google, where we’ll all be wondering what life was like before them?

I find myself confused by why this elementary possibility is not a problem: While Continue reading ‘Vaporstream or no Vaporstream?’

What Inspired You?

by
Clifford
on January 22, 2007
in black people in science, fun, minorities in science, science and society and women in science
. 26 Comments

It’s always interesting to hear from others about what set them on the path they’re on, no matter what career path that is. I just read Chanda’s guest post on the matter over at Backreaction. Chanda is a theoretical physicist in training, and so from my point of view it is interesting to hear about her choices since I chose the same career myself.

Since I’m also keen that talented women and people of colour can learn that they can choose to do science careers, and hope that it continues to become increasingly likely that they make their way in such careers with the same opportunities as everyone else, it was also interesting -and encouraging- to read her thoughts (since she is in both categories). Have a look at her post yourself, and also her post on Cosmic Variance about some of those issues.

Whether or not you read it, don’t hesitate to share with us your own recollections. What Continue reading ‘What Inspired You?’

Mathematics and Music

by
Clifford
on January 22, 2007
in mathematics and music
. 8 Comments

On Wednesday there’ll be an evening event about Mathematics and Music here at USC. If you are nearby and can make it, consider going along. It’s free! It is part of the Visions and Voices programme I’ve talked about before. The presenter/performer will be Elaine Chew, whose research is at the intersection of engineering and music. Read more about the event here. You can find out more about Professor Chew from her website here.

Enjoy!

-cvj

Light Cone

by
Clifford
on January 21, 2007
in science
. 23 Comments

bulb on a stringSo imagine that you’re standing at some spot, holding a big round bulb that can shine in all directions. At a particular time, you switch on the bulb and it shines out brightly. Who has a chance to see the light from your bulb? Let’s not worry about things like buildings, cars, etc., getting in the way of the light, but just imagine it can shine free in all directions. You’ll realize that there is a whole ball of light expanding away from the bulb - light going away from you in all directions. (The edge of that ball describes what is called a sphere, a two-sphere to be precise, denoted S^2 in the trade.) The sphere expands at the speed of light. You might imagine that eventually every point in space around you would be reached by your expanding sphere (let’s stay local and not worry about the expanding universe and so forth), and you’d be right. But when? When does it get to some particular point that you might care about? As soon as it takes the light the time it takes to get there, of course. It can’t get there any sooner than that.

Let me put it another way. Your sending out the light is a particular “event”. It took Continue reading ‘Light Cone’

In A Cafe Near You?

by
Clifford
on January 21, 2007
in humour, science, science and society and string theory
. 7 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks and forgot. From the New Yorker two weeks ago (I can’t decipher the artist’s name [Update: Lee Lorenz, I think.]):

strings cafe

I’m pleased to see this for lots of reasons. It reminds me that it was in the New Yorker Continue reading ‘In A Cafe Near You?’

Chilly Market Day

by
Clifford
on January 21, 2007
in Los Angeles and food and drink
. 3 Comments

You can tell it was a bleak MidWinter day at the Hollywood Farmer’s market last week.

hollywood farmer's market

People are actually dressed for outdoor weather for a change. They’re wearing Continue reading ‘Chilly Market Day’

Missed Chance

by
Clifford
on January 19, 2007
in Los Angeles, entertainment, humour and television
. 12 Comments

The show on television called “24” has an interesting format. It is sort of meant to be in real time, and so each episode - roughly an hour long, including advertisements - charts what took place in an hour of a particular day. A whole season is one day. A very harrowing day for the characters in the show, particularly agent Jack Bauer. They are part of an counter-terrorist unit (CTU) trying to save the America from various highly complicated terrorist plots. The terrorists are obsessed with Los Angeles, it seems, which is convenient given that the unit is based in Los Angeles. Having watched two or three seasons of the show now, I’ve also come to appreciate the fact that the terrorist plots hand over to more and more complex and dastardly ones as the show goes along through the day. And the “controlling mind” bad guy earlier in the day is hardly ever the worst and most dastardly person our heroes will meet. There’ll be a really really bad guy along later on with an even worse plan than the one before lunchtime, and so forth. Another reason that it’s lucky that they’re obsessed with Los Angeles, since there’s an excellent supply of theatre and television actors here to be cast in various partsa.

What I’ve really been hoping to see is an episode of the show when Jack Bauer is not saving America/LA. Instead, he’s just… chillin’. Imagine it now:
Continue reading ‘Missed Chance’

On the EDGE

by
Clifford
on January 18, 2007
in environment and science
. 7 Comments

Golden-rumped Elephant ShrewEDGE here stands for “Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered” and is a term that was coined to refer specifically to certain threatened species of animal around the world. They’re not always your big marquee animals (Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!), and a great deal of them will be unfamiliar to you. (I’d not previously encountered the Golden-Rumped Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus), and I’ll admit that my life has been all the poorer for not having known about it before now. For a start, it’s soooo cute! Furthermore, it has a golden rump. What’s not to like? Apparently, it is related to an elephant, somewhat distantly. Yes, it has a trunk, but it takes more than that to detemine its relationship to elephants! Update: - Here’s a Wikipedia article on elephant shrews, which could be a starting point for finding out more. The EDGE site has a lot of information too: here.)

That unfamiliarity - blissful ignorance on our part - is part of the motivation. There’s a campaign to highlight them more, and raise both funds and awareness to enable Continue reading ‘On the EDGE’

Look Up Down South

by
Clifford
on January 18, 2007
in astronomy and science
. 13 Comments

We’re more or less all done with comet McNaught up here in the North. We’ve handed it over to the Southern hemisphere viewers. That lucky lot are getting quite a show, since the comet seems to be outgassing more and producing a longer tail of debris. It is spectacular. Here is an image from New Zealand:

comet mcnaught from down south

It was taken by Andrew Drawneek and I found ita on the SkyTonight site here, where Continue reading ‘Look Up Down South’

Citrus

by
Clifford
on January 17, 2007
in Los Angeles, gardening, humour and work
. 21 Comments

lemons “..It’s pretty serious.”

“Yeah…” (chuckle) “…right!”

“No, it is serious… Your smoothies are going to be more expensive.”

(Silence, as the enormity of this economic revelation sinks in…)

* * *

Part of a conversation I overheard between two students while I waited for a class to start. One student was apparently a bit dismissive of the other’s concern about the effects of the recent sustained cold temperatures on the local farmers. He did not see why she was concerned about the farmers. She could have Continue reading ‘Citrus’

Video Physics

by
Clifford
on January 17, 2007
in academia, black people in science, books and science
. 10 Comments

An American Physics Student in England has a nice post about physics resources online in the form of video. In addition to the resource list provided by Serkan Cabi, which he discusses, he provides some favourites of his own. Check out his list.

I am pleased to see the ASTI website on his list. ASTI was designed (by yours truly) as a means of giving access to science to those who were less able to have such opportunities (I focused on Africa and got - with the help of Robert de Mello Koch, Jeff Murugan and Amanda Weltman - several students from as many as 11 different African countries to attend - I hope to do it again in various fields of science at a variety of levels, if I can find a financial donor or donorsa) and I hoped that by videoing everything and putting it on a site that the school’s lectures could serve people all over the world for a long time to come. So it is nice to hear about someone using it. (I’ve heard that there are some links with problems on that site, so I will try to get them fixed.)

By the way, in another excellent post a few weeks ago, the same blogger chatted about several physics textbooks and other resources that give an introduction to quantum field theory. Go over there and compare notes, or get ideas if you are looking for a way into that important subject.

Finally, I’ve also noted a number of mentions of Durham on that same blog. One of them was apparently inspired by an earlier post of mine, and was in fact a sort of Continue reading ‘Video Physics’

200 Calories

by
Clifford
on January 16, 2007
in energy, food and drink and science
. 7 Comments

What’s a calorie? Well, it is a unit of energy. If you take a gram of water and put some energy into it, you’ll raise its temperature (assuming it is away from its boiling point). If you succeed in raising the gram of water’s temperature by 1oC, you’ve put one calorie of energy into it.

But that’s not the calorie you probably have used in your everyday conversation. You’ve probably been talking about the Calorie. (Note the upper case C.) The Calorie, or the kilocalorie. It is 1000 times larger than the calorie of the previous paragraph. It’s the energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by 1oC (assuming it’s not at its boiling point). That’s the Calorie you find discussed in the context of nutrition - the energy content of the food you eat.

Without further ado, let me show you what the Calories “look like”. Let’s take a reasonable number of them - 200. Each of the pictures below represents 200 Calories of a food, which you’d get from eating it. Mini peppers, gummy bears, and kiwi fruit:

peppers 200 calories gummy bears 200 calories kiwi fruit 200 calories

They are part of a series of rather beautiful photographs of lots of different foods, Continue reading ‘200 Calories’

More iPhone Features

by
Clifford
on January 15, 2007
in gadgets and humour
. 2 Comments

Recall all the excitement of last week about the iPhone? Humourist Brian Unger of Continue reading ‘More iPhone Features’

Open Yellow

by
Clifford
on January 15, 2007
in Los Angeles, flowers and gardening
. 6 Comments

Well, that flower that so many of you - like me - enjoyed so much a while back has opened up very nicely. So I thought I’d share an update photo of it:

yellow rose opened

-cvj

Better and Better

by
Clifford
on January 15, 2007
in Los Angeles and environment
. 8 Comments

rapid busLast year in early January I was pleased to see that the MTA had improved things dramatically by changing the express buses (Metro Rapid) on my route from normal buses to those lovely long spacious ones - essentially two normal buses joined together with a giant hinge to allow the bus to bend and go around corners. That’s a crude description, of course. They still come equipped with bike racks (just like the typical LA city bus), and my Brompton fits under many of the seats quite easily. There’s a whole lot of space for everyone, and the buses are very well designed indeed. One of the amusing aspects of the sudden change was watching everyone’s behaviour. For about a month or so, and markedly in the first week, people would act as thought the second half of the bus did not exist. No, really. They would walk down the bus to the hinge, and stop. If there were no seats left in the Continue reading ‘Better and Better’

Snap Links

by
Clifford
on January 14, 2007
in asymptotia
. 24 Comments

New feature. This one is being tested:

If you hover over any external link in a post, you’ll see something interesting happen. Try it. Here is a link to the USC website, for example.

I am trying to decide if this is a useful feature or not. Perhaps it is just too annoying compared to the gain in functionality? Or perhaps you don’t care either way since you Continue reading ‘Snap Links’

Look Up!

by
Clifford
on January 14, 2007
in Los Angeles and astronomy
. 13 Comments

Comet McNaught seems to be a gift that keeps on giving. Last night here in Los Angeles, just after the sun set, I stepped out to look from a nearby elevated spot - and there it was. With binoculars, it’s an impressive sight, and possibly the last naked-eye visible comet sighting for a long time. Unfortunately, I have no equipment that I can use to take a decent photo for you, so I can’t share what I saw. (Some pictures from around the world are here.)

But you can go out and look. I give some viewing tips below. [See update at end, however.]

What you’re probably puzzled about now is why the experts kept getting the “last chance to see” message wrong. People seemed very sure back on Wednesday that it would be gone from view -and I did a post to that effect myself- and and the same thing was said on Thursday and then on Friday.

I’m guessing that this is because although they can track the position rather well, they Continue reading ‘Look Up!’

Conference in Progress

by
Clifford
on January 13, 2007
in academia and women in science
. 2 Comments

Well, I checked in on the Women in Physics conference today, and it seems to be going very well. I went to lunch and sat with a number of the students (and some faculty) and I also chatted to some in private about their interests, current stages in their careers, etc. It’s always so wonderful to hear people so enthusiastic about physics, and listen to them wondering what their part in the great story of science will be.

Here are a couple of shots of the delegates at lunch - it is a sort of panorama (click each component for larger view):

  women in physics conference   women in physics conference

I’m off to paint the town red, so I’ll post a bit more about this either later tonight or Continue reading ‘Conference in Progress’

Just Go

by
Clifford
on January 12, 2007
in movies
. 11 Comments

From time to time I manage to make it to a movie theatre and sit down to watch a film that I have heard nothing about (which is really hard to do these days), and then am treated to the pleasure - if the film is at least half-decent - of having a film open before me like a box of delights, letting me discover all the things it contains completely as the film-makers intended: right in the moment. When a film is half-decent, novel, or merely pretty good, it can be made into a very enjoyable film-going experience by doing thisa. When a film is very good, or extremely good, this business of having seen it cold can really make it a truly wonderful experience, reminding me of when I went to see movies for the first few times as a youngster. Remember those times?

It’s not easy to pull this off these days with so much (too much!!) information out there about the content and story and back story of a film everywhere in the media, well before you see it. For particular films I want to see, I try to ignore as much as I can by not reading reviews, not listening to stuff that comes on the radio, or tv. But sometimes, it all sneaks through because often you don’t know in advance whether you want to see that film. You might not have even heard of it, and then it is spoiled a bit by too much detail. It has to be said that even a film tht

Anyway, I’ve had that lovely see-the-film-cold experience happen with a small number of films in recent times, and it happened last night. I was set to see another film, but my brother (who showed up in town to stay overnight unexpectedly) arrived Continue reading ‘Just Go’

De-Lurking Week!

by
Clifford
on January 11, 2007
in asymptotia
. 21 Comments

delurk buttonApparently it is De-Lurking week everywhere in the blog world. This means that even if (especially if) you have not commented on the blog before, this is the time where you come in and say hello, before (if you prefer) returning back to lurker status for a while. You can do it as “anon” or under another assumed name if you wish to. I know - you’re shy, you don’t think that anyone cares, or that you have anything to say at all… No. We (that is, the community of regulars and me, your host) care, and what you say will be interesting!

You can just say hello, or tell us how you found the blog, how you find the blog (if you see what I mean), tell us something about yourself, or not, or just make a little noise! Or pick a topic that you prefer.

(And of course, even if you’ve commented before -rarely or frequently- we’ll be happy to hear from you too!)

-cvj

(*Via Uncertain Principles and Adventures in Ethics and Science.)

Women in Physics

by
Clifford
on January 11, 2007
in academia and women in science
. 2 Comments

This is a reminder that the Women in Physics Conference that I mentioned earlier takes place this weekend. In case you are in the area and interested in some of the Continue reading ‘Women in Physics’