Strings are just everywhere. Have you noticed? Spooky isn’t it?
Spotted this two weeks ago one foggy morning outside my hotel window in Cambridge, and saved it for today to share with you (click for larger): […] Click to continue reading this post
Hopeful sign of the future*?
[two higgs image]
There could be other store names of this sort breaking out depending upon what is found at the LHC and the ILC. You could have the “Superpartners†dating agency, for one, and perhaps “Dark Matter†chocolate bars (made by same company that brought you “Milky Wayâ€, of course), as another… the possibilities are endless. […] Click to continue reading this post
I’m always pleased to see this sign. It is at Heathrow, on the walk down the perpetually dingily lit underground corridors connecting the terminals, the tube, the extortion Heathrow express, and the parking lots.
For a start, I generally like the idea that the ground floor of a building (the one you walk onto off the street) is the “zeroth†floor. (I mean no disrespect to this splendid country I live in, that has largely chosen otherwise, although every now and again in older buildings you see it.) So it is just great to see […] Click to continue reading this post
When I was a child, I was fascinated with a straight line of three stars that were evenly spaced. Whenever I looked up in the sky, I would be comforted by being able to find those stars, especially when I was about to embark on a long walk home at night. I later learned that they were actually known as Orion’s Belt, part of the constellation of Orion. So Orion remains my favourite constellation.
These nights, Orion takes centre stage in stargazing circles since the Orionid meteor shower will be originating from a point near the constellation. Of course, Orion has nothing to do with the shower. It merely marks the apparent direction that it comes from (see red dot in image below).
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(Above is the view of the sky looking Southsoutheast from mid northern latitudes at 3:00am today.) We will be traversing a debris field made of stuff left over from Halley’s comet’s tail. That stuff will rain down into our atmosphere, glowing brightly […] Click to continue reading this post
As part of the Freshman Seminar I told you about earlier (e.g., here, here and here), we went on a field trip to MOCA in nearby downtown LA.
We went to see the exhibition of drawings by Eva Hesse. Hesse is very well known for her sculpture, and among the things she did, I think that a rather splendid one in this context is the one below. It is an example of those that resemble three dimensional renderings of her interesting use of line on the paper.
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This one (not in the exhibition) is called “Metronomic Irregularity†(I think it has a number as well… there are several pieces of this title done by her).
The group is standing in front of the sculpture I posted about earlier. There’s Ashley and Adam, left and middle. Jeff (on the right in the picture) -who is not a freshman, but a senior who does physics research projects with me- came along as well. We had a rather good time, taking […] Click to continue reading this post
During the course of a coffee break during Saturday’s all day conference in Cambridge, I looked out of the window to an intriguing sight:
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(Click for larger.) They were doing needlework of some sort, and it looked like a lot of fun. They were happy to let the strange man (uh… me) take the photograph he asked for. Little did I know that one of them -Richard- actually reads blogs about science including this very blog and wrote in and asked if I was that particular photographer! Small world! […] Click to continue reading this post
Spotted near King’s College: Always funny how these things happen. Or maybe it is just how my mind works. During the lunch break, after talks by Gary Gibbons, myself, and Roberto Emparan, it sort of stands to reason that I would run into some scene on the streets of Cambridge … Click to continue reading this post
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 Artâ€, 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.
No apology here. I really love cats. As a result, I love this video. Might be old for you…. it is new for me. And just priceless. Thought I’d share. (Click here.) -cvj (Thanks Carol!)
How to pass a few minutes outside on a very hot day? Do a demo in front of 90 students when you’re not sure of your equipment, of course! This was in the cause of demontrating Newton’s Laws of Motion in my Physics 100 class today. I’m actually moving backwards … Click to continue reading this post
So you’ll recall that when we thought we had twelve planets we started trying to think of new mnemonics to help people remember the planets’ ordering. For example, from Yvette: My Very Educated Mother Can’t Justify Someone Using New Planetary Conventions… oh no, they haven’t named the last one yet!!! … Click to continue reading this post
New Scientist has an article by Stephen Battersby on their top ten weirdest cosmology theories. My first thought, beore reading the article was that they were going to have a lot of fun with this, but they seem to be rather conservative about their definition of “weird”. This means that … Click to continue reading this post
Dear Reader, I’m desperately wracking my brain to find some science in this, but I cannot. Nope, reading the article does not help either. Nevertheless, it is in New Scientist (a fact that means nothing on its own, from past experience – they’ve a technology for it’s own sake focus … Click to continue reading this post
I’ve no idea what they were doing (I’ll try to find out and let you know), since I was at the concert, but it sure looked liked they were having fun out there in the Wednesday kids’ science picnic at the ACP: Two weeks ago, apparently they had the “Physics … Click to continue reading this post
Close-packed volleyball helps: After a long day of a two and a half hour long administrative meeting followed by then locking myself away in my office from lunchtime to picnic time to calculate away (with frustratingly mixed results… sigh…), it was fun to play with the other physicists, their partners, … Click to continue reading this post
