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Unexpectedly On YouTube

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on January 22, 2007

in fun, science education and work

. 5 Comments

I 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’

What Inspired You?

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on January 22, 2007

in black people in science, fun, minorities in science, science and society and women in science

. 25 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?’

Hooking Up Manifolds

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on January 1, 2007

in Los Angeles, art, design, fun and mathematics

. 8 Comments

lorenz manifold

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’

Last of the First

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on January 1, 2007

in fun and work

. 9 Comments

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’

Have a Good One!

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on December 25, 2006

in fun

. 4 Comments

Well, I hope that you’re having an excellent (and, especially, peaceful) Holiday season. Here are the two top images that have been produced so far by readers in the LaTeX Holiday Challenge, using the recently installed LaTeX/mimeTeX machine (feel free to keep them coming):

The first, a stylized Christmas tree, is by acornellian…

decoration 1

Commenter acornellian was our first contributor to the challenge, and promptly put this tree together, complete with two decorative ornaments. Excellent! Not as easy to do this as it looks, it has to be said. It has a simple but striking final effect, and it’s pleasing in proportion. Thanks acornelian!

The next one is by Carl Brannen:

decoration 2

It’s a Star of David ornament on a branch of a Christmas Tree. Wow! It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it, given the LaTeX commands needed to be issued to produce all that detail. Thanks Carl!

Holiday Best Wishes to All Readers!

-cvj

Tales From The Industry X - Wired Science

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on December 22, 2006

in fun, science, science and society, science education, science in the media and work

. 2 Comments

Well, there was something I could not tell you about before that I now can. There’s a new TV show called “Wired Science” about to launch. It is made by the PBS affiliate KCET, and will air on your local PBS station (on Wednesday, January 03, 2007, 8:00-9:00 pm ET/PT - double check for local times). It looks like it is going to be informative and fun!

wired science banner

Here’s some of their blurb from the press release:

WIRED SCIENCE is a one-hour program that translates Wired magazineâ€™s award-winning journalism into a fast-paced television show. WIRED SCIENCE brings Wired magazineâ€™s cutting-edge vision, stylish design and irreverent attitude to the screen with breakout ideas, recent discoveries and the latest innovations. The pilot episode takes the viewer into the world of meteorite hunters, where space, commerce and art intersect; travels to Yellowstone National Park to harvest viruses that may hold the key to a technology revolution; and dives underwater to explore NEEMO, NASAâ€™s extreme astronaut training program. Viewers will meet rocket-belt inventors, stem cell explorers and the developer of an electric car that goes from zero-to-60 in under four seconds. As a series, WIRED SCIENCE hopes to span the globe to uncover novel developments in biomedicine, space exploration, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, robotics and military technology.

And you can go to the site to see stills from some of the location work they did in making the show, and some of the studio work too. You can go to this Wired blog post to see the rather nice title sequence of the show, and the teaser trailer. To the right, there’s a screen shot I made just now (click for larger).

I don’t think that they have the go ahead to make a full series yet. This is a pilot. I imagine that whether they get the full series go ahead depends upon whether it is well liked and supported by you, the viewer. I’d say support it. the people behind it really care about getting good science programming out to you.

So what’s the big deal? Why did I not tell you about it if I’ve known about it for so long? Well, nobody told me not to tell you, but it seemed the right thing to do. You see, I have a little secret. How do I put this? I’m going to get so beaten up in the playground for this.

Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry X - Wired Science’

LaTeX Holiday Fun!

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on December 21, 2006

in fun

. 9 Comments

Well, we all had so much fun the other day with the fairground ride that was the newly installed LaTeX capability of the blog -something electric about not knowing if it will work until you hit “submit”- that I thought I’d encourage some more fun, to help out on a quiet holiday weekend.

So here’s the mission/challenge. You must use LaTeX commands to create a Holiday-themed design. It can be an equation, or it can be a fully fledged diagram drawn with LaTeX-picture-drawing skills by those of you who are extremely clever and patient enough. Recall the impressive example from Carl Brannen that kept us on the edge of our seats? I reproduce it at the left (click for larger). You can see how he did it in the comment thread of the earlier post. (Also, mouse-hover over the image of any of the equations there and you will see the LaTeX code they used.)

So yes, if you can conjure up a Christmas tree or a Hanukkah menora, we’ll all be impressed, and you’ll probably win all our admiration… and as a prize I’ll probably single it out for special attention in a later post! So there’s some competition-style incentive, if you needed it.

Of course, equations will do too - the cleverer the better.

As long as it has a “Holiday Theme”, ok?

The Rules:- You get two comment posts in the thread of this post per entry. Other Continue reading ‘LaTeX Holiday Fun!’

Tagged

Published

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on December 21, 2006

in fun

. 21 Comments

I was tagged by IP to do this. That’s all I’m saying on the matter.

My instructions:

Grab the book closest to you.
Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
Name of the book and the author.
Tag three people.

So here goes:

Continue reading ‘Tagged’

BattleSimpsons

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on December 14, 2006

in fun

. 3 Comments

For those who know what these refer to*:

…go here to enjoy more!

-cvj

Continue reading ‘BattleSimpsons’

Must Go Down

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on November 24, 2006

in fun and science

. 5 Comments

Sea Fever

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

- John Masefield

Why go down? In a short and light-hearted radio piece on NPR, Robert Krulwich discovers a way to make time run more slowly (an attractive idea over a long holiday Continue reading ‘Must Go Down’

Some Things I Like About The Doo Dah Parade, II

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on November 23, 2006

in Los Angeles, fun and humour

. 2 Comments

(Continuing from previous…)

…Then there’s the Disco drill team, which was really excellent.

Their drill? Some serious synchronized Disco dancing, of course. They did the “Hustle”, along with various standard Saturday Night fever moves, and the crowd were very appreciative. Inevitably they did “YMCA”… and just as inevitably the crowd spontaneously joined in with the arm movements. (I think that this is hard-wired into a whole generation - rather like the reaction you get from all the women at a party if anyone puts on “I will Survive”.)

You know that they did not have to make those costumes… they probably sit in wardrobes (closets) every year since being retired in the late 70s, waiting for their Continue reading ‘Some Things I Like About The Doo Dah Parade, II’

The Sports Movie Script

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on November 22, 2006

in fun, humour and movies

. 23 Comments

Every other time I go to the movies, there is a trailer for yet another sports movie which has exactly the same plot as all the others. Every time I sit there stunned and open-mouthed after the trailer and have a little internal rant (sparing my companion(s)), wonder to myself about what it is about the national psyche that needs this same simplistic story quite so often, and wonder why nobody else seems to notice the phenomenon. It is also noticable that it is one of the rites of passage of a famous male Hollywood star (even really good ones) to play the grizzled coach of the no-hope team….. blah blah blah…. why is that?

Well, to my delight, this morning the programme Morning Edition on NPR played Continue reading ‘The Sports Movie Script’

Some Things I Like About The Doo Dah Parade, I

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on November 22, 2006

in Los Angeles, fun and humour

. 4 Comments

Ah! The Doo Dah Parade! I do love it so. Why?

First of all, they began with a fly-over by three planes with pleasant coloured smoke streaming out the back.

Big deal, you say. Fair enough, but compare this to how the Rose Parade (which runs along a similar route six weeks later) starts… with a fly-by of a Stealth Bomber flanked by two Stealth Fighters. People cheered. I first saw this in 2004 when the USA had already reached out with this power to invade Iraq, and we were all depressed about the recent re-election of the leaders who committed that crime. [Later correction: Of course, I got my date wrong... The election was to come later that year... the depressed feeling was just from the ongoing Iraq situation.] My reaction as the Stealths flew overhead? Wanting to clasp my hands over my ears and run screaming - just like the orcs and trolls of Sauron’s army do whenever the chief symbols of his air power (the winged Nazgul led by the Witch-King of Angmar) fly over the battlefield. You wield your terrible weapons and scare the crap out of your enemy and your friends - what does that say about you? So this is why I like that the Doo Dah parade starts with those less in-your-face planes.

I digress, losing half my audience (all seven of you) by making a Lord of the Rings reference. Should have chosen Homer. Oh well. So, remembering that the Doo Dah is the antidote to the cookie-cutter perfection of your typical Rose-type parade or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, have a look at some things that caught my eye.

Continue reading ‘Some Things I Like About The Doo Dah Parade, I’

Doo Dah! Doo Dah!

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on November 19, 2006

in Los Angeles and fun

. 6 Comments

Yikes! I woke up a short while ago and realized that it is the weekend before Thanksgiving. You know what that means? The Doo Dah Parade!

housing drill team

It is the antidote to the (sometimes nauseatingly wholesome) Rose Parade that takes place at New Year’s, or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Here is what I said in a blog post last year:

Continue reading ‘Doo Dah! Doo Dah!’

Tales From The Industry, IX

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on November 19, 2006

in Los Angeles, fun, science, science and society, science education, science in the media and work

. 8 Comments

Friday saw me involved in the shooting of two more segments for a television show. Seems that the ones from last time did not work out too badly, so the program makers wanted to do more. Hurrah!

This session was also a lot of fun, and one of the segments (especially) could end up being a particularly good example of getting a good chunk of a whole science story - showing the actual processes involved in doing science - on TV, er, depending upon how it is edited, of course. This is one of the major reasons that I do this sort of thing. At least as important (in my opinion) as talking, as I also sometimes do, to the press about the fancier things we do (perhaps involving the origin of mass, and whether the universe may or may not have extra dimensions, etc) is the process of getting involved with people in the media (the “Industry”) to help them bring the foundations and cornerstones of science to a general audience. No fancy stuff, just the basic but ever so important connection between the physical world around them and simple scientific reasoning. This achieves some very important things, which I bet will last longer in a person’s mind and everyday life than Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry, IX’

The Lion’s Share

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on November 17, 2006

in astronomy, fun and science

. 5 Comments

Remember the Orionids? Well, it is the turn of the Leonids, this Saturday and Sunday (although those are just the peak days). These comets are the result of us passing through the debris left by comet Tempel-Tuttle. The peak will be on the 19th November…. Viewing and other information here (Armagh Observatory), here (a NASA site), and here, from Gary W. Kronk’s site (as is the diagram below). Here’s a nice Space.com article by Joe Rao.

There is expected to be quite a spike in the viewing rate this year… enhanced by a factor of ten to maybe as many as 100 or 200 per hour. This is for the lucky viewers in Western Europe (and the British Isles ), North Western Africa, North Eastern USA and Eastern Canada, Continue reading ‘The Lion’s Share’

Elemental

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on November 8, 2006

in fun, science and work

. 3 Comments

Yesterday in Physics 100 we started a discussion of the structure of matter. This inevitably brings up the early ideas from 400 BC about atoms, from Democritus (and others) at least in the Greek line of thought. These ideas were later brushed aside by Aristotle who declared that the elements from which everything can be constructed were Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

Of course, one is obliged to show a slide at this point. I could not resist this one: Continue reading ‘Elemental’

Inside the Academics Studio

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on November 8, 2006

in academia, cosmology, fun, science and work

. 1 Comment

Well, do you know the show on Bravo, “Inside the Actors Studio”? The host interviews an actor of some sort -pick your favourite- and you get an in-depth conversation about their life, work, motivations, loves, hates, passions, etc. Not in the service of frivolity, but in pursuit of an understanding and further appreciation of the craft of acting itself. A lot of people like the show for those reasons.

Imagine the same thing, but with an academic in the hot seat. This is what happens tomorrow, hence the title of this post. I will be the interviewer, and my new colleague cosmologist/astrophysicist Elena Pierpaoli will be the interviewee. It will be in front of a live audience.

No, it won’t be on Bravo, or any other tv channel, as far as I know. It is a local USC event, part of a series, and a jolly good idea I must say. It got me thinking:- What academic in history would I like to have sit in my interview chair, and if I only had one question, what would it be? Off the top of my head (and stretching the definition of the word “academic” a bit, I’d like very much to have Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Dirac… oh and several more… But what would I ask them? Don’t know yet…. need to think about it.

Here is blurb about it. And yes, I’ve already been teased by my students and a colleague about being described as a “super string theorist” in the advertising.

I may well wear a cape to the event.

-cvj

Twelve Days of Physics

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on November 7, 2006

in fun and science

. 16 Comments

This morning I received an email from someone called “Grrrl Einstein” today which read:

I am creating a Physics Calendar for the Holiday season, and I am including twelve entities. So far I have:

Newton’s Laws

The Dirac equation/Schrodinger equation

The Clifford Algebra defining the Dirac gamma matrices

E=mc²/Einstein’s equations/postulates and/or some solution of them, such as the Schwarzschild solution

The principle of least action

Maxwell’s equations

E=hv

The Yang-Mills Lagrangian

The Schwinger-Dyson equations or something else related to functional methods

Stokes’ Theorem

Entropy

What would be a good String Theory equation to round it out? Any things I should include/exclude?

She also says:

Continue reading ‘Twelve Days of Physics’

Tales From The Industry, VIII

Published

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on November 1, 2006

in Los Angeles, entertainment, fun, science, science education and work

. 16 Comments

“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So are you the Talent?”
“Uh… Yes… Maybe.”
“You’re the Physicist?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a real Physicist? Not just playing one?”
“I’m… real.”

Snippet of conversation between myself and a woman from the art department at the studio, while we stood waiting for our green tea to brew. The floor is full of tables all around, mostly occupied with various people sitting at them fiddling with Macs. (Macs everywhere, as I’ve come to expect from the people in the Industry.) There’s a serious-looking table with more senior looking people discussing something in earnest, and another serious-looking table with people editing video on more Macs. All the tables are serious, of course, but overall there is a fun atmosphere. There’s also a big situation board that is consulted regularly by groups of people. It is covered in bright yellow stick-notes covered in writing that are being moved around. There are people coming in and out with a sense of purpose, and some of the crew I am with are milling around with bits of equipment. All very exciting-looking. It is all made a bit comical by this totally out of place and thoroughly splendid trio of bright red chandeliers that are hanging down from the ceiling over what looks like the head table for the senior folk. Strange but well-appreciated quirk of decoration, for what is otherwise a high-ceilinged warehouse-type space.

***

The situation? Shooting some fun things about physics for a TV show. It will air on a station near you (in the USA) next year some time. Details then. We converted a corner of one of our teaching labs at USC into a mini-studio:

Joe Vandiver, the director of our teaching labs, got to bring out some nice little demos Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry, VIII’

Spooky Strings

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on October 31, 2006

in fun and string theory

. 7 Comments

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):

Have a spooky stringy Halloween!

-cvj

A Promising Sign?

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on October 29, 2006

in fun, humour and science

. 6 Comments

Hopeful sign of the future*?

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 Way”, of course), as another… the possibilities are endless.

-cvj

(*For the uninitiated, the Higgs particle is one of the things physicists will search for at Continue reading ‘A Promising Sign?’

A Positive Sign

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on October 25, 2006

in fun, mathematics, science and society, science education and travel

. 8 Comments

positive sign 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 a (-1)th floor, and all the more pleasing that it is not considered odd to have that. No worries about people being confused about what a negative number is. I know it sounds trivial, but when you see basic mathematics and science literacy seemingly getting worse all around -on both sides of the Atlantic, mark you- …when you think something shouldn’t or can’t possibly get “dumbed down” any further for the general public, and then it gets “dumbed down” anyway… seeing this sort of thing is a relief.

Every time I see it, once the above has flashed through my mind, you know what I think next, every single time? Wouldn’t it just be great if elevators went horizontally too?! Then we could have the imaginary axis as well! But that will have to remain just in my, uh, imagination.

-cvj

Finding the Orionids Tonight

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on October 21, 2006

in astronomy, fun and science

. 8 Comments

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).

orionids

(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 as Continue reading ‘Finding the Orionids Tonight’

Field Trip, I

Published

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on October 21, 2006

in Los Angeles, art, fun and work

. 3 Comments

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.

Eva Hesse - Metronomic Irregularity

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 the bus up from campus (the horror!) and then walking up through the city, looking at some of the public spaces and public art that nobody seems to look at after hours much. We got to the museum just as it was opening.

A great deal of the work on display was in the form of developmental drawings, some of which were still in her notebooks, or were clearly pages of notebooks. These I found fascinating, for the most part. (Click the following for larger view): Continue reading ‘Field Trip, I’

Saturday Morning Fun

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on October 20, 2006

in art, fun and travel

. 3 Comments

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:

(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 Continue reading ‘Saturday Morning Fun’

Cambridge Entanglement

Published

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on October 15, 2006

in architecture, fun and travel

. 4 Comments

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 that was string-themed in some way. These (click for larger) are two architecture students I met tangling up the model of the city with balls of knitting wool/yarn. I liked this immediately, and chatted to them about it. They said that it is for National Knitting Week (who knew?) and they were going to try to “string (or knit) together all of Cambridge” as part of their celebrations.

“And well, why knot?”, I asked myself*, as I walked on my way.

-cvj

(*sorry)

Irrational Memories

Published

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on October 4, 2006

in academia, architecture, art, fun, mathematics, nature and science

. 13 Comments

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 â€œThe 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…

penrose tiling

… 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

Flush With Excitement

Published

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on September 13, 2006

in fun

. 2 Comments

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.)

cat flushing toilet

-cvj

(Thanks Carol!)

Not the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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on September 5, 2006

in fun, science and science education

. 4 Comments

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 at a good speed in this shot.

jet propel 3

Fun was had by all, and I got my first job-related injury from not realizing that the metal nozzle spins around and whacks your trigger hand hard if you don’t hold it…. Would have got better acceleration if I’d pointed it straight forward, but my hand was now injured a bit at that point, so I did what I could…. All’s well that ends well!

-cvj

(Thanks for taking the pictures, Tameem.)

So Do We Need a New Planetary Mnemonic?

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on August 24, 2006

in astronomy, fun, planets and science

. 3 Comments

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 Canâ€™t Justify Someone Using New Planetary Conventionsâ€¦ oh no, they havenâ€™t named the last one yet!!!

Or from Amara’s friend Damien Broderick:

My very eccentric motherâ€™s cook just served us nine pastry coated xylophones

(On the assumption that the last planet would be named Xena.)

Or from astromcnaught:

My View Embraces Moving Classifications, Just Stop Uncovering New Planets Called 2003 UB313

Or from Alan Hamilton (via Robert Greenham):

Most Victorian Euphoniums Make Cats Jump Suddenly Unless Neighbours Play Calming Xylophones.

Continue reading ‘So Do We Need a New Planetary Mnemonic?’

Top Ten Weirdest Cosmology Theories

Published

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on August 11, 2006

in fun, humour and science

. 15 Comments

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 they’ve focused on “weirdest” in the context (mostly) of existing scientific observational input, and published science academic circles, which you might think puts a damper on things… but read more below.

So here are the titles, under which the author writes a short paragraph describing the idea:

1. Clashing branes

2. Evolving universes

3. Superfluid space-time

4. Goldilocks universe

5. Gravity reaches out

6. Cosmic ghost

7. It’s a small universe

8. Fast light

9. Sterile neutrinos

10. In the Matrix

This means that the kind of whacky cosmology that you and I could think of in a flash for fun on a Friday (or other) afternoon are not allowed. Nor are the ones I constantly get in the mail from well-meaning citizens. All of which can be way, way weirder.

Oh well. I’m opening up this particular thread (note: no, not all discussion threads on this blog!!) to any fun/whacky/weird cosmology ideas you might like to share of your own. Serious or non-serious. I’m not going to rank them. Just feel free to share.

Here is a fun constraint (which has a serious point): Try as much as you can to make Continue reading ‘Top Ten Weirdest Cosmology Theories’

Digital Makeover?

Published

by

on August 11, 2006

in fun

. 5 Comments

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 as well, which is fair enough).

Some researchers in Tel Aviv have developed an algorithm that can give a makeover to your digital photographs of human faces. Magazine editors do this by hand all the time, of course, but this algorithm might be able to speed this up, and -for that (I suspect scarily large) number of people who would actually want that kind of thing- allow you to do this to your own photos!

Quoting from Helen Knight’s article:

Software then analysed the images, measuring distances between facial features and ratios such as that between facial width at eye and mouth level, and the thickness of the eyebrows. It compared these with the attractiveness ratings given by the volunteers to create a set of rules, known as the “beauty function”, for assessing whether a face is attractive.

Leyvand has now written a second piece of software that applies this algorithm to a facial image to make adjustments to features so that they more closely obey the rules. It then analyses the results to determine which changes have been successful, and discard any that don’t work. Users can also adjust the severity of the changes.

You can go to the site yourself to look at an example of the results.

I’ve the following questions.

Continue reading ‘Digital Makeover?’

Kids and Chemistry

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on August 11, 2006

in fun and science education

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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:

kids science picnic

Two weeks ago, apparently they had the “Physics of Superheroes” author, James Kakalios, visiting for the picnic. I blogged about that book a while ago, at this link.

(Incidentally, I’m puzzled as to why a choice has to be made for the children: Go to the kids’ science picnic, or go listen to classical music….. It would be nice for a child to be able to go to both, but no scheduling is perfect, I suppose.)

-cvj

Letting Off Steam

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on August 8, 2006

in fun

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Close-packed volleyball helps:

aspen volleyball 2

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, and their kids for a while:

Continue reading ‘Letting Off Steam’

Physics Shoot ‘Em Up!

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on August 8, 2006

in food and drink, fun and science

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So it was all quiet in the Aspen Center for Physics offices.

Why? Tuesday family picnic outside…!

all quiet at the ACP?

Was it quiet out there? No! There were science experiments with the food of course!

diet coke erupting!

How did they get the diet cokes to erupt like that?

The instigator of this was Phenomenologist Josh Erlich, who is shown holding the secret ingredient… Continue reading ‘Physics Shoot ‘Em Up!’

Phenoms Vs Strings: The Game

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on August 4, 2006

in fun

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Here is my report on how the challenge was met.

Well, we started shortly after 5:00pm. About 14 people were present, which was fun since everybody rotated in periorically, to give everyone a touch of the ball. This was welcome rest for the people who rotated out as well. Remember that we are at altitude here…. it takes a lot of effort to do physical things which would be much more trivial at sea level, the altitude we’re all more used to.

The Phenoms had people like Csaba Csaki, Jushua Erlich, Dan Pratt, Hsin-Chia Cheng, and Carlos Wagner and another couple of people whose names I’ll try to get for you…

The Strings deployed our main secret weapon, David Kutasov, along with solid offensive support from, Ofer Aharony and Jaume Gomis. With that trio up front, we should have been safe all the time…

David Kutasov with Ball
… but the Phenoms had some strong opposition, which meant that we had our work cut out for us. With David Berenstein, Jason Kumar (who can also actually shoot consistenly and so kept the other side guessing) and myself trying to move the ball around to feed it to our people at the front, both teams kept within one point of each other for most of the game.

We’d started playing half-court, since there was another game going on….

David Kutasov shoots ball
… but eventually (for better or worse) we moved to full court after the others left, which allowed more people to play at the same time. Then we faced the biggest enemy of all, the running at altitude:

The Running.... the running.....

This wore us all down, and I think the problem was that by time a team would get the ball all the way up to the other basket, they’d be too tired to focus on a good combination to force a score. So there were several rather wild shots and wasted opportunities on both sides, but we did have fun, which was the point! Sometimes we did do some good combinations, to be fair, but we still did not always finish. The breath and legs of our star shooters were beginning to fail, and so those jumpshots and drives to the basket were low on the percentage success rates.

At some point, we realized that nobody had been keeping track of the score for a while (this led to jokes about us fiddling around with all sorts of fancy strategies with nobody worrying about the actual measurements), and so since we were probably within a point of each other, we all agreed that we’d reset to an matched score of 0-0 and play on, keeping track from there on. This was about the same time that the Strings started getting things together. We had a couple of great fast break attempts, one of which came off, but more tellingly for the long term we started getting lots more rebound attempts, whcih compensated for our low shot percentage. (After we had a point where Jaume Gomis and David Kutasov managed to get a point after several attempts back and forth between them under the basket, I made a joke attempt about 10^500 vacua as we ran back…. I don’t think David was amused….!)

In this way, the Strings pulled to two points ahead, and we were looking good. Continue reading ‘Phenoms Vs Strings: The Game’

It’s On

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on August 1, 2006

in fun and science

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Place yer bets, folks!

Here at Aspen, there’s a one week overlap between the workshop with mostly string theorists:

“String Theory, Gauge Theory & Particle Physics”

The workshop will focus on insights into particle physics and gauge theory dynamics from string theory. The proposed activities will concentrate on aspects of string vacua, both from the perspective of flux compactifications and D-brane gauge dynamics, as well as new insights into strong gauge dynamics from string theory. Given the recent progress and continued central interest in these research directions, we expect to have an exciting program. We also plan to keep the door open for any other exciting developments in string theory which may arise in the coming year and which touch on the themes of the current planned program.

… and the workshop with mostly phenomenologists:

“Particle Theory in Anticipation of the LHC”

There has been remarkable progress in the past few years developing new models of particle physics beyond the Standard Model and in developing innovative ways for testing these models in experiment. Much of the theoretical progress has been stimulated by more formal developments, leading to an increased collaboration and synergy between more formal and more phenomenological theorists. The goal of this workshop is to bridge the gap between theory and phenomenology by bringing together physicists with diverse expertise. We intend to bring together experts on the Standard Model (particularily collider phenomenologists), beyond the Standard Model (supersymmetry, extra dimensions), and string theorists with an interest in phenomenology. We expect that the collaborations fostered at this workshop would lead to new directions in model building, to studies of experimental signatures of new models, and to the development of new techniques for studying strongly coupled physics relevant for particle experiments.

So what? Good, yes, lots of cross-pollination of ideas, sitting in on each others seminars, historic calculations over lunch, and so forth.

But, significantly, at the family picnic today, one phenomenologist organizer came over to one of the string theory organisers and said

“Phenomenology Vs String Theory. Basketball. Thursday. 5:00pm. Be There”.

So which side is your money on? And what are your reasons, physics or otherwise?

I will try to report on the game, if I can make it.

-cvj