For your viewing pleasure, I’ve installed a new feature of the blog that allows you to see all the post titles under each category in a set of pages called site map. It will always be available to the right, near the top of the sidebar. It is an alternative to the archives page that might be useful when searching the blog’s content in a particular way.
I’ll be cleaning up some of the categories a bit over the next few days. Right now, it is admittedly a bit messy here and there.
Enjoy!
-cvj
So the new comet, McNaught, is now very much a naked-eye visible object. Apparently it is the brightest comet in the last 30 years or so. I learned* that (for those in the Northern Hemisphere) Wednesday evening might well be the last chance to see it before it becomes a Southern Hemisphere object. [Update: It seems that it's still been visible these last few days. Maybe it will be tonight (Saturday).] [Update: See later post here.]
So take a peek outside if you can. It might be a chance in a lifetime!
Have a look at this SkyTonight page for finding instructions. Come back and let us know if you saw it! (If you get a picture, share it with us too! I can post it here for you. The one above, by Gary W. Kronk, is at the gallery at SkyTonight.)
-cvj
*Thanks Amara Graps, and Nick Warner.
My lovely Sony-Ericsson T616 phone is just marvellous. I can use it all over the planet (more or less), it talks to all my other devices using Bluetooth so that I can sync calender and other data seamlessly. But it is old and falling apart. My ipod is a bit frustrating because I got one of the bad battery batch from long ago, and never got around to getting the replacement battery from the class-action suit. So it runs out of charge really fast.
But I’m not one for rushing to the new gadget until something really moves me, and so I’ve managed this situation quite well for some time now. Well, this could be the device I’ve been waiting for - Just announced by Apple at the CES in Las Vegas MacWorld in San Francisco:
Continue reading ‘iLike iPhone’
The Andromeda Galaxy is bigger than previously thought. Perhaps as much as five times bigger. I know that you’re thinking - “Oh, that’s because most of it is dark matter, right?” No, this is not another dark matter story. In fact, there are many newly discovered stars from a recent study! The suburbs of the galaxy are much more extensive than previously identified. It’s rather good news, since the galaxy makes more sense than it did before, in the context of our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve. (Image above is of Andromeda in the infra-red, from NASA.)
The point here is that current theories of evolution for galaxies have the oldest stars Continue reading ‘Andromeda Now Makes Sense’
Well, it’s the middle of the Bleak Midwinter, and the first day of classes of the new semester. Mine start tomorrow. It is time to get myself back into the classroom-teaching frame of mind -although to be honest I don’t think the break was long enough for me to have got sufficiently far removed from it: 85% of the research tasks that I wanted to do during the break remain undone.
Anyway, I must sit and contemplate what I am going to talk about in the graduate course entitled “Selected Topics in Particle Physics”. It’s my lunch break, so I thought I’d chat to you for a bit.
Rumour has it that everyone is expecting some sort of string theory course, reasonably complementary to the one that my colleague Nick Warner taught here two years ago. I’ve no interest in just teaching the standard string theory topics - a good and motivated graduate student can just look them up in a book if motivated enough (if they can’t they’re in the wrong business) - and so I’d like to throw in some material that is not packaged together in the standard way, and give them an education that emphasizes powerful ideas and techniques that are relevant to more than just standard string theory research, but theoretical physics in general.
You see, this is one of the wonderful things about the topic that you don’t hear about much when people say things (and write books for a general audience) about how much it is supposedly taking over smart young minds and leading them astray: It is a fantastic framework for training good physicists for whatever new and useful ideas and physics will come along in the future, whether it is string theory or some other topic. The point is that string theory has developed in so many different ways, and Continue reading ‘All Hands on Deck’
Yesterday there appeared a New York Times article by William J. Broad about the effects of the congressional budget delays on funding for scientific research. It’s not cheerful reading, but it is worth knowing about, especially since the forecast is not set to dramatically improve any time soon.
The article is here.
There’s not much to say here, since the comments I could make are obvious.
On the right is a look at the AAAS graphic that was used (click for larger) in the article. It does summarize things a bit, but you should of course learn about the details in the article.
-cvj
(Via Dynamics of Cats)
Have a look at this:
What is it? It is an image of part of the three dimensional (see below) distribution of clumps of dark matter in our universe, produced by an extensive survey using the Hubble telescope. How did they produce it, given that dark matter is -by definition- not visible? They deduced the presence of the chunks of dark matter by looking at the Continue reading ‘Dark Matter in 3D’
Recall that a little over a month ago I reported about the Tesla electric car to you? In that article, I congratulated the car makers on their choice of name, and speculated about what other names might be used in the future when more car manufacturers get into the game. One of my favourites was the “Volt”. Well, today, GM announced a new electric car in development, and guess what they called it? The Volt! I was rather prescient, it seems! More on the announcement of the Chevy Volt at Newsweek (I borrowed the picture from there) and the San Jose Mercury News.
What will the Volt do? It is a hybrid, but the driving mechanism is purely electric. This is different from what other well-known hybrids do”:
Continue reading ‘Potential’
The final rose or two before the big prune back, methinks. ‘Tis the season. These bushes are way taller than me now, and stretched a bit too thinly.
-cvj
The writing’s on the wall. Well, it really will be, and in several other places. The revolution’s very nearly here, you see. We’re on the cusp of it. It’s been talked about before, but it’s really here. Within a year or few we’ll be carrying around completely new devices based on this technology, and there’ll be all sorts of things in the household and office. You may have heard the buzz, but if not, I’ll say it here too. It’s all about microscopic electronic circuitry based on polymers that conduct electricity. The novelty here is the plastic nature of the resulting circuitry and devices that you can build, where I am using the word “plastic” in its descriptive sense - it is flexible and can take lots of shapes quite readily.
There’s a revolution on the cusp, not because this is hugely new (it is not, and the Continue reading ‘The New Plastic Revolution’
You may have read my most recent two posts (here and here) on commuting by bike (maybe combining it with bus, and subway as well, which is what I do most times - there are excellent express bus routes through the city: the Metro Rapid system). I’m not the only person cycling in this city. For more on cycling in LA there is a host of resources. There’s the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition for example, the Bike Kitchen, the Midnight Ridazzz, and many more activities and associations. There are maps of cycle routes and cycle lanes on the LACBC site too, as well as recreational bike paths.
Here’s a recent Los Angeles Times profile, written by John Balzar1, of Monica Howe who is a major mover and shaker in the local bike and biking awareness scene. (I borrowed the photo, above right, from the article. It was taken by Al Seib.)
It’s very nice to read about people who are super-enthusiastic about the same issue. It is an uphill struggle, but I think I see more cyclists on the roads these days.
One thing that is mentioned a lot in the article and in other discussions of this sort is the safety issue. For what its worth, in my opinion the danger risks are often overstated, or perhaps not properly represented. While there are accidents due to careless drivers not paying attention, etc., I have to say that there’s not enough mention in these discussions of the far too many cyclists who are doing stupid things. I can’t help but wonder how many of those stupid acts contribute to the number of accidents that people count in the stats. Yes, we need to get motorists more used to Continue reading ‘Just So You Know I’m Not The Only Nut In The Fruitbowl’
(Reprint -somewhat modified- of an article I posted on CV some time ago.)
You join me in part two of my journey from home to work. Part I, together with some of my reasons for doing this, can be found here. See that post for links to public transport resources too.
We pick up the journey just after we passed another food stand serving tasty morsels. We’re still on Sunset (which by the way has a cycle lane for a long way), in the heart of Silver Lake now, and there’s a slight hill up towards the neighbourhood called Echo Park, just before which we’ll do our turn onto a useful side street (there are so many in this city, which is why the complaint that cycling is dangerous can be tackled a bit - you can choose to avoid a lot of the worst stuff - it does not grant you immunity, but it can help manage your vigilance a bit better). Immediately turning the corner we glimpse one of the many interesting Continue reading ‘Commuting, II’
(Reprint -somewhat modified- of an article I posted on CV some time ago.)
There are many frustrating myths about Los Angeles. Many of them are formed and/or perpetuated by people who are simply unaware of so much about the city because they’ve only seen it from their cars. You cannot see much of the full life of this city in a car. You have to get out of them and move more slowly, and at street level. Walking, cycling and buses are best for this. This leads me to one of the other frustrating myths. The myth that there is no public transport. To begin to blow that myth apart, have a look at this map (click for larger) for the impressive coverage of the city afforded by the bus, subway and train system:
You can get more information from the MTA site, for example, and a bigger version of that map, into which you can zoom down to street level. There are schedules, route planners, online tours of the beautiful (and highly underused) red line subway stations, and much more. See also the LADOT site, and especially the DASH buses for quick local trips. No, the system is not perfect, but it will not improve rapidly if we don’t use it. And, no you can’t use it for all journeys that you want to do, but it can be used for some of them. Yes, you do need to plan ahead, and maybe work to a schedule sometimes, but that’s true for most transport systems, not just LA’s. It will never be as convenient as a car, but that’s not the point. Furthermore, you can broaden the scope of what you can do on the system with the aid of a bike, in combination with the buses and trains. (Almost all buses have bike racks on them, or use a folding bike and just take it on to the bus, like I do.)
I’ve spoken earlier about public transport (such as the fact that it exists but almost nobody uses it), and I’ve spoken about walking, and cycling. But it must seem all so abstract. So in a fit of frustration at not being able to bring you all along with me and just show you, I decided that I’d take you with me on one of those mornings when I Continue reading ‘Commuting, I’
The next Categorically Not! is Sunday 7th January. The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with ocassional exceptions). It’s a series - started and run by science writer K. C. Cole - of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area. There’s a website of past and upcoming events here. You can also have a look at two of the last two descriptions I did of some events here and here, and the description of a 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:
Movement: You can’t leave home without it. In fact, you can’t get anywhere without it—whether you’re trying to bring about political change, compose music, send a robot to Mars, or merely make your way across a room. You can’t even Continue reading ‘Categorically Not! - Movement’
Recall that I told you about the pilot for the upcoming show Wired Science in an earlier blog post. It airs today, (Wednesday, January 3) on PBS. It was made by KCET here in Los angeles, and as you may recall from the post, in August I learned some interesting things about the context in which the show sits. It is rather interesting. It’s all part of a head-to-head competition, or “experiment” as PBS are calling it.
You see, there are two other shows being piloted on PBS over the next couple of weeks too. One is Science Investigators, made by WGBH, Boston, and the other is 22nd Century, made by Towers Productions (I think). They are three different takes on a science TV show format. The casting, scripting, presentation… all these things vary a great deal.
They’re really trying to come up with newer, more accessible formats, with the aim of getting science out there to the general public. This is a great thing. Only one show will “win”, sadly. The prize is the go ahead to make more episodes, and have them air on PBS. The judges…. this is the important part… The Judges are YOU. Go to the PBS site Continue reading ‘Science on TV - Having Your Say’
I learned just now that there’s a charity in the UK called Sense About Science. From their website, I read:
Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust. We respond to the misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence on issues that matter to society, from scares about plastic bottles, fluoride and the MMR vaccine to controversies about genetic modification, stem cell research and radiation.
Our recent and current priorities include alternative medicine, MRI, detox, nuclear power, evidence in public health advice, weather patterns and an educational resource on peer review.
This is good to hear about. Recall earlier that I was wondering aloud whether there was anything in the UK that is equivalent to the USA’s Union of Concerned Scientists, or the recently formed Scientists and Engineers for America. (See earlier posts here and here, for example.) This is not really an equivalent organization (they consult with scientists, rather than being a scientist-run organisation for example, and they seem relatively disconnected from the makers of public policy, where a lot of the real battles are to be fought), but they are at least swimming in the same waters.
I learned about them because they’re in the news today. ‘Tis the season for celebrities Continue reading ‘Science Sense’
“The Play’s The Thing!” you yelled, as you got out of bed this morning. Well, at least for today. Today, you’ll mostly be sitting in one place with manuscript, paper and pencil. Scribbling. Crossing out. Scribbling some more. Making notes, etc.
Yes, today is work-on-the-play day and it will be very interesting, since you’ve not looked at the thing for a long time due to other commitments. Certainly not since it was read by real actors with real people in the audience at the Pasadena Playhouse during the Summer, although you could not attend, due to being out of town. You wonder if it was as fun as the other public reading, and whether readings will ever be as magical to you as that first private one.
Looking at the manuscript with fresh eyes, you’ll form the opinion that it has become a Continue reading ‘Work on the Play Day’
Yes, right on schedule! The UFO story was yesterday, and today the Inventor story.
It starts out with his revolutionary three-way ping-pong table (of course! - and it’s called TriPong1), but before I even clicked on it I knew there’d be a “oh, and by the way, he has an alternative theory of the universe”, at the end.
I was not disappointed. My favourite bit of Katrin Stanton’s AP story (the photo at left is from the article):
Continue reading ‘Time for the Inventor Story’
No, really, I want to know what the reason is. Most times you hear these Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) stories (or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon stories, as we’re supposed to say these days, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevtich), it’s a flying saucer that’s been apparently seen. Why this shape? Where did it come from? Did it predate ficition writings, or come as a result of them? It is an idea that they ought to be symmetrical somehow? Then why not a flying sphere (which would be awfully cool)? Or a flying cylinder? Given that aerodynamics are not really at issue (it seems) with the astonishing technology these things are usually reported to have, why on earth not a flying teacup, for that matter?
Does anyone know or have a good theory about the origins of the flying saucer in our collective imagination? Do people report other shapes more commonly in other cultures?
Yes, there’s always the explanation that you hear about flying saucers more than other shapes because that’s the preferred choice of vehicle of the Visitors, but I’d like to Continue reading ‘What is it with Saucers?’
I love crochet. I spent a huge number of hours doing it when I was young, and only in later years did I realize that the same things that attracted it to me then are the same things that drive and motivate a lot of my research interests. (I many have mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying again).
It’s the love of patterns, plain and simple. If your child -of whetever gender- gets Continue reading ‘Hooking Up Manifolds’
The other day, in a nice cafe on the boardwalk at Venice beach, I was working with Veselin Filev, a student of mine, on a paper that he would later submit to the arXiv. The end of the year was approaching and I wandered off into some irrelevant anecdote or other (as I am wont to do), explaining to him a bit about little traditions concerning the arXiv, from the “old days”. I mentioned in passing that one last tradition will come to an end because the numbering system for papers will all change sometime this year (apparently the mathematicians are close to producing too many papers in each month - more than the 1000 the system can handle1.)
I explained that in days of yore, some people would try to get the very first paper of the year, so that they would have a rather special number, of the form hep-th/XX01001, where XX denotes the year. By far the coolest of these was Continue reading ‘Last of the First’
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