I thought I’d follow Janet and do a sort of end of year review or summary (or, really, snapshot) in the following style: List the first sentence of every first post of the month for all twelve months. I’ve no idea what this will produce, so here goes:
* * *
January
I’ll admit that I was quite surprised by this.
February
Lovely layers in the distance on a hike at Runyon Canyon this morning, looking North East.
March
A snapshot from last Friday night (a week ago).
April
Well, I learned recently* that the BBC wildlife program makers have done it again, breaking new ground in scientific discovery while making a new series.
One of my favourite trumpet players - one who helped transform the instrument - is Freddie Hubbard. He died on Monday morning. Sadly, this means that the last of a line of great trumpet giants of the middle period has passed. (I’m thinking of a line including Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan - Hubbard was the next. See my article on this from last year.) There’s a Herald Tribune obituary by Peter Keepnews here, and NPR has a reflection by Howard Mandel here.
There are a lot of YouTube clips of him playing, but sift carefully since (from a quick scan) what’s there is not a great mixture, I’d say. At least to my tastes there’s not enough stuff representative of his greatest periods as compared to the later work. I picked out a few bits for you below, but I’d recommend, if you are looking to more Continue reading ‘Moanin’’
View of the day from the garden. (Winter. Number x in a limited series of y.) (Click for larger view.) The rains have gone for a while. The sun is back, with clear blue skies to close out the year.
I’m trying to rest. Well, I’m working on various projects at home, mostly. Colours are on my mind a bit in one of these projects, actually. Later today I’m going to be down in the (only slightly mad-scientist) workshop making a portable screen on which to project films.
Projecting onto the wall is good, but I want to make a silver-grey screen with a dark border that will really pop the colours out. Some of this is about not projecting onto Continue reading ‘Red, Yellow, Blue, Green…’
At some point during Christmas dinner (prepared in collaboration between my mum and I) I remembered that on top of a high cabinet, out of reach and almost forgotten, there were a few Christmas crackers from three or four years ago.
We cracked a couple, of course. Wouldn’t you have?
These were rather good crackers, with solid presents in them. We popped them open simultaneously, and used the rule that who got the larger portion of a cracker won its contents.
Sad news from the entertainment world today. Eartha Kitt died today. I thought I’d mark this with a post here. What a wonderfully odd character she was! I’m often a big supporter of those who march to the beat of a different drum, and she certainly fits the bill.
Sheril reminds us that it is 40 years to the day that this photograph was taken (by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission), and invites us to ponder how much has happened to and on it over the last 40, and how it might be in 2048. A good end of year meditation.
Happy Holidays to all!
[Update: A very good NPR piece on the mission and the photo is here, with audio and partial transcript.]
Ok, since it is two days until Christmas I suppose I can stop ignoring all the flashing lights and twinkly things and incessant “Holiday Music”. (Yeah, how time flies..!) I’ll even do a post discussing Santa. You see, it came to my attention that Google Earth, in collaboration with NORAD, no less, will be tracking Santa on Christmas Eve. See here and here for more details.
It sort of got my attention for the obvious reason -they’re tracking Santa!- but then when I went to browse the site, I thought I’d certainly point it out to you since on the further information for kids page (yes, in case you weren’t sure, it seems that children are a major target in this operation - check out the links to, er, fun things for them) there’s an “About Santa” page. Well, I had to click, since I’d certainly learn something. Indeed, I learned that some physics thinking has gone into pondering the Santa Phenomenon: Continue reading ‘Tracking Santa’
(Yes, I know it is not Summer (here), but I love the idea of Summer reading lists so much that I will continue to discuss some books under this series title, whatever the time of year.)
I just heard a piece by Robert Krulwich on NPR about the book “Falling for Science: Objects in Mind”, which is a collection of essays with an introduction by Sherry Turkle, who’s a social sciences professor at MIT. Krulwich says:
“…written by senior scientists (artificial intelligence pioneer Seymour Papert, MIT president and neuroanatomist Susan Hockfield, and architect Moshe Safdie, for example) and by students who passed through her classes at MIT over the past 25 years. They were all asked the same question: “Was there an object you met during childhood or adolescence that had an influence on your path into science?”
And after a tidal wave of Legos (7 different essays), computer games and broken radios, I found a few wonderful surprises. One MIT student reported how she couldn’t stop braiding her My Little Pony’s tail, weaving the hairs into endlessly repeating patterns (a clue, perhaps, to her fascination with mathematics)….[...]“
He goes on to interview software designer Joseph Calzaretta about his childhood encounter with stop signs. It’s a really nice story. The whole radio piece is here, with audio and transcript. (There’s another version here with the excellent “Eggs in a Basket” story emphasized instead.)
This is actually an issue that fascinates me, and I don’t think that the question should be quite as narrow as above - focusing only on people who went into science. I think that -especially as children- we are all scientists, exploring the world around us, Continue reading ‘Summer Reading: Falling For Science’
Gosh, look what I found on YouTube, quite by accident. It is video of the first Uncertainty event I did with science writer KC Cole way back in 2006, and was one of the first Visions and Voices events at USC.
It has as features (about 20 minutes each) Jonathan Kirsch on Monotheism (and how it actually isn’t, really), some opening thoughts by moderator KC Cole, her interview Continue reading ‘Remembering Uncertainty’
With more refreshing words about what he thinks science is, and the role science can play in shaping society and steering the country forward, Barack Obama announced several key science posts today. One of them is a physicist, by the way. (”Excellent…”, cvj rubs hands together with a gleam in his eye, “…all going according to plan.”)
Today’s shooting circumstances (see previous post) produced an unexpected bonus: Snow. Lots of it! It is always a pleasant surprise to me how quickly you can get from Los Angeles to some good snow cover. I was not expecting to see any snow - or trudge through any - this season, but it turned out that lots of it had fallen where we were scheduled to shoot. So much so that we could not get to where we wanted to Continue reading ‘Snow!’
Ok. It’s official. This week I am snowed under with things. Every day I write half a blog post, and then something comes up and I do not got back to it and I fall into bed later, exhausted, some time in the wee hours, only to get up early the next day to carry on with things.
So in case you were wondering, I am still here. Just snowed under. I gave my final exam for my Physics 151 course (Fundamentals of Physics: Mechanics and Thermodynamics) on Monday (hurrah!) and I’ve spent a huge chunk of today playing with various excel files of various chunks of data from the course, trying to turns a sea of numbers into final grades for the students. It has been slow work, and I’m nowhere near done yet. It’s complicated because I must incorporate multiple components of assessment, from three different exams, laboratory work, online homework and written homework, to in-class responses using individual RF transmitters, and online quizzes of various sorts. (All a bit much, in my view, but, well that’s another story…) Every single bit has its own spreadsheet with data that must be uniformized and then combined to give the whole picture of each student’s performance.
It has made me a bit dizzy just talking about it.
But it’s not that simple. Oh no. Here’s a small part of the extra stuff: I’ve been trying to get the exterior of my house painted, and of course there have been (quite fantastic) rainstorms delaying everything and so I’ve been dealing with painters for longer than planned - with the Christmas holiday closing fast, and I’ve got my mum visiting me (hurrah!) and so I must be a good host and so forth and not just hide in the study crunching numbers (she arrived a day earlier than I expected - my fault! - so I’m a bit off-balance about that too), and… and…
Listening live (over a late breakfast coffee) to the press conference led by President Elect Obama announcing the Secretary of Education. Arne Duncan is the nominee. This is an underrated post in terms of how high profile it is compared to the other cabinet posts… but of course it’s super-important. So it is wonderful to hear the lovely speech from the pres-to-be (and also the one from the vice-pres-to-be). Just really great. It is especially good to hear recognition of the fact that the core of Continue reading ‘Teachers Rock!’
Tonight, have a look at the full moon. It’ll be significantly bigger than any of the others you’ve seen this year since the moon is at perigee (as close as it can be in its elliptical orbit). This is not a slight difference that only those deeply into astronomy care about. The moon will be, as the NASA site on this* notes:
…14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons we’ve seen earlier in 2008.
Go out and have a look at it at shortly after 4:30pm today when it rises. When the moon is near the horizon, it looks bigger anyway - combine that with the fact that it Continue reading ‘Fat Moon!’
I just learned this* - Steve Chu (Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997 - see here) has been nominated as Energy Secretary in the new Obama administration. I find that sort of interesting and exciting. An actual Physicist in charge of energy. And at this crucial time. Story here (for example).
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were on Daily Mayo for half an hour yesterday. It was a good bit of fun unscripted chatter that’s worth a listen. They were really there to plug the new boxed set of the TV show Extras (which if you have not seen you should put high on your list of viewing priorities - it is quite brilliant), but of course they were also there to mess around a bit.
They asked for a higher standard of question to be emailed in by the viewers, and so I wondered whether anyone would send in some science ones - maybe some physics ones. Sure enough there were. Continue reading ‘Gervais and Merchant on Mayo’
Well, I’d have hoped to have done a post today on a few things, but physics intervened. Recall that the Southern California Strings Seminar is on right now here at USC, and since I am the organizer, I’ve been nipping about serving up piles of various types of tasty cookies (hunted down on a late night visit to Trader Joe’s last night - gotta have good cookies to go with the coffee you see), announcing the speakers, and so forth, as well as actually sitting and enjoying the really excellent talks that we’ve had from several young people. Day one (finished off with dinner, wine, beer, and chats with people from USC, UCLA, and UCSB at Bacaro) was just great and day two is in the morning and so I’d better finish up this post and get to sleep.
Are we making progress? Sometimes I think we are, and other times I’m not so sure, but what do you think?
I’m talking about that thing I talk about a lot: science and scientists being part of the broader culture. This time on TV. A recent LA Times article by Mary McNamara (one of their television critics) surveys a number of shows on TV in this context and is, on balance, rather positive about where things are compared to where they used to be. I’m inclined to agree (and I should say that I found the article itself rather valuable as a quick survey - I don’t keep up with all the TV produced out there, and found myself surprised here and there). She also quotes conversations with Jennifer Ouellette (of Cocktail Party Physics) and yours truly on the issue, (mentions the recently established Science and Entertainment Exchange I blogged about two weeks ago), and overall produced a pretty good article. (The full article is here.)
I’m still on the fence about all this, though. Once you scratch the surface a bit, I don’t think there is yet a single example of what I think is possible, and what I think should be fairly routine before we declare that Continue reading ‘Are We There Yet?’
Well, I did a bit of an experiment the other day. I tend to have Illy coffee when I am away - Originally in Italy, when I used to visit the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, in the early ’90s. (Sigh….some very happy days were had on those trips…) At home, I routinely have reasonably good coffee made cafetiere style, using beans from GroundWork. Some months ago, however, I rediscovered one of my favourite stovetop espresso makers and started to use it again, grinding my usual coffee finer and getting quite a good cup. It started out as a treat in the morning, but gradually replaced more and more of my cafetiere cups of coffee. (Contrast here and here for example.) Then, after conversation with a friend of mine I found myself thinking about Illy coffee again and getting misty eyed. I got thinking - is it really as good as I remember it? Maybe it is partly just to do with being on my travels - the novelty, and some nostalgia for my days in Italy. Surely, a freshly ground set of good but non-Illy beans is enough to make as good a cup? I decided not to try this out, since I didn’t want to get hooked on the very expensive stuff when I was perfectly happy with my GroundWork beans.
But. I stumbled on a sampler pack of two 4.4 oz. cans of espresso preparations from Illy while browsing in a shop the other day, and so gave in.
(Categorically Not! presenters and performers on 7th Dec. 2008)
The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday December 7th. The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional 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. Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events.
The theme this month is Improv!. Here’s the description from K C Cole:
The next regional string meeting is a two-day one at USC, this Monday and Tuesday. It’s going to be full of interesting talks and conversations, as usual. Please encourage your graduate students to come, especially, since special effort is made to make sure that each talk begins with a pedagogical portion to help non-experts in that subfield navigate and see the motivation.
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were on Daily Mayo for half an hour yesterday. It was a good bit of fun unscripted chatter that’s worth a listen. They were really there to plug the new boxed set of the TV show Extras (which if you have not seen you should put high on your list of viewing priorities - it is quite brilliant), but of course they were also there to mess around a bit. 
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