Asymptotia

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.”)

Here’s a YouTube video of the announcement:

From an AFP piece by Maxim Kniazkov:

Continue reading ‘Another Physicist in the House’

Well, no we are not.

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?’

Here we go again! Tonight sees another new episode of the new series of The Universe on the History Channel (you can watch it as a warm up to The Atom Smashers, on PBS), and the episode is all about the speed of light! I’ve no idea how this one will turn out, but for my segments we did some rather fun things to illustrate some of the key concepts. The main idea is that the laws of physics are rather different from ordinary Newtonian/Galilean ones when you are moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed the light. This is what we learned from Einstein’s Special Relativity. How do you illustrate this for a TV viewing audience? Well, one way is to imagine what would happen if the speed of light was a lot closer to everyday speeds. Then you could illustrate some of the effects in a fun way.

Well, one thing led to another and somehow (after a lot of email discussions of the physics with Darryl Rehr, the writer/director) it ended up that I was supposed to do Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXVII - Light Speed’

Well, I probably am not worthy of the press credentials I was carrying around with me on Wednesday, as several days later I had still not done my “report” on the event. Well, here it is.

I went to a press conference and a symposium that relates directly to the issues I was talking about in my Tuesday post and its comment stream. All the things I was talking about with regards better contact between the science community and the filmmaking community so as to make films (and shows) that better represent science and scientists more accurately through something closer to a collaborative mode were brought up in these meetings and discussions. It was great to see this issue being taken seriously, and a well-meant effort being made. The core of the idea is to set up an office that will coordinate things - acting as a sort of clearing house that will put filmmakers (of all aspects of the process whether screenwriter, producer, director, etc) in touch with willing scientists who can be helpful in various topics. This is the Science and Entertainment Exchange.

A key thing that I have mentioned here many times before is the issue of it being about more than just fact-checking near-completed work. If scientists are involved at Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXVI - Science and Entertainment Exchange’

While most of the episodes of the History Channel’s The Universe series are firmly about scientific knowledge of the universe that has been tested and verified (from planetary science, to solar physics, to stellar evolution, and various topics in cosmology, and so forth), they also like to treat topics that have a higher component of more speculative material. This is of course fine, as long as it is made clear what is speculation, and what is established. Recall that I took part in a really fun episode called Cosmic Holes, which talked about white holes and wormholes -entirely speculative objects - right alongside the physics of black holes, objects that we know are physically realized in our universe. (See here, here, and here.) I think that Laura Verklan, the writer/director, did a really excellent job of separating out the speculative from the established. Similar things can be said for the episode Cosmic Apocalypse, done by writer/director Savas Georgalis (see here), which focused on scenarios about how the universe might end, given what we have already established about how it was in early times and how it is now.

I’m hoping that the upcoming (tonight!) episode entitled Parallel Universes will also be a nice and clear piece of work discussing the speculative ideas concerning the possibility of parallel universes - what the ideas are, why it is a fun idea, what it Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXV - Parallel Universes’

You’ll perhaps recall that a few days ago I mentioned some upcoming science shows in which I talk about various science ideas. I said, among other things:

[...] one is called Parallel Universes and the other is called (I think) Light Speed, both doing more or less what it says on the packet. I’ve not seen the final cut of either show this time, so I’ll be curious to see how they put the material together. They’ll air in the upcoming new season of the series, on the 18th November and the 25th November, respectively. I think - not 100% sure - that is all that is coming up from me on that series for the rest of this year (there is another thing due on that channel in December, and then that’s certainly enough of me showing up in your living rooms for a while), not counting the reruns [...]

Well, I was wrong about the latter. It is on Monday, I was recently informed! This is, I think, going to be a really very good documentary on Einstein and his work, from a somewhat different angle than maybe you’ve seen before. It’ll focus quite a bit on the ideas and concepts and, importantly, the process by which Einstein developed his Continue reading ‘Einstein on Monday’

Some reflections over breakfast - at least breakfast part II. Well, elevenses, really. Today is, I hope, a day to spend mostly on thinking about research issues. There’s a project I’m still unhappy with, in terms of where I’d like it to be, and I want to try to move things on. I had a new idea on the bus yesterday that I’ll be testing out today. Since I’m giving a seminar about this project on Friday, I’d also rather like to get it all uploaded back into the more active buffers of my brain, as it were.

Tuesday is a welcome day, being between my two biggest teaching days of the week, days that usually completely drain me. I try to use it to remind myself that I’ve a ton of other activities besides teaching that I should be getting on with. Research is one of them.

This morning began with something else, however, and I thought I’d update you on Continue reading ‘Breakfast Babble’

Last night, Stephen Colbert suggested that the Large Hadron Collider is responsible for Obama’s victory on Tuesday! When it switched on back in September, it kicked us into an alternative universe in which everything was the same except that McCain’s position in the polls had been eroded, and, well, you know the rest.

(Apparently it also explains the World Series result, but as I know nothing about baseball, I cannot tell if that is really supposed to be an anomaly or not.) Clip here, and item in question is about 2 minutes in.

Hey team, run and cover… he’s on to us!

-cvj

I got this cute postcard from the people at Workaholic Productions. (Click for larger view.) You may recall a post I did some time ago about some things I was doing in a demo lab here at USC for a pilot for a new TV show. (Or, you may not. That’s what the archive is for - browse several of the Tales From The Industry” series here.) At the time I did not tell you about the show in detail, since I don’t like to reveal details of show ideas and so forth when things are still in development.

Anyway, the show is done. It’s a pilot, and so with your support, they may well get the go ahead to make more. So if you’re inclined, go and have a look. What is it about? Well, the idea is to start off with some standard (pulp) sci-fi scenario (alien invasion in this case) that you might see in a movie or tv show, and then through the course of the show examine aspects of what you see to investigate the science behind it. They have actual scientists (and engineers, since a lot of can be really about technology) come on and discuss things, explain science, do demonstrations, and so on and so forth.

This particular show, the pilot, has a lot of the standard alien invasion combat weaponry on display - shooting of ray guns, casting of lightning-bolt-like bursts of Continue reading ‘Sci-Fi Science’

I like David Bacon’s musings about the sorts of arithmetic being thrown around a lot in the turbulent financial news these days. He starts out:

I wonder how many people this week realized that “ten percent down” followed by “ten percent up” does not equal “no change.” [...]

Indeed, Continue reading ‘Tracking Your Investments’

I’m sitting in one of my favourite cafes (Groundwork at Cahuenga) after a couple of hours work with some filmmakers. I’ve mentioned them to you before, you may recall. Eric Salat and Philip Shane are making what is gearing up to be a really fantastic documentary. I’m still not sure whether I’m supposed to talk about the content just yet, and so I won’t be to specific. As I mentioned before they are really trying to tell the science story in some depth. They’re illustrating the development of an idea, the wrong turns, the frustrations, the moments of elation, depression, and everything that goes into the process of doing the sort of work we do. And here, “everything” includes the confrontation of the ideas with the elation of seeing the success of a long struggle to understand Nature. I’ve spent some time chatting with Eric and Phil about the physics ideas, as have other scientists, and I have a good sense that they are so keen to tell the story well, and give the science and the scientific process a chance to shine - something that can often get neglected in some of these shows.

What was I doing today? Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXIV - Equation Wrangler’

Well, they aired it. Gosh. It’s a pared-down version of what we shot (there were three questions for The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons in all… one asking him to explain the Big Bang Theory, the entropy one you see in the clip, and finally “Newton Vs Einstein - Who’s funnier?”), but amazingly they actually aired it on Monday in the Continue reading ‘Little Bang’

Thursday is my first day I can take a breath this week. The last few have been crazy and so I’ve not found time to edit that bubble video I promised, but it is coming. I hope I can get to it tomorrow.

Today is still full of stuff here and there, including a referee report, another report, some administrative things for my class, and then another attempt to think through a thorny puzzle on a research project. The class admin should have been done last night since Thursday and Friday are supposed to be free of undergraduate teaching issues, according to my agreement with myself. However, we had a seminar visitor - Rene Meyer - and so after my class ended at 7:00pm, instead of doing the administration I went to get a bus to downtown to meet with him and my student Arnab for dinner, at the excellent Blossom, one of my favourites down there. There was a bit of walking around to show them some of downtown’s lovely hidden treasures in the form of so many elegant buildings that are ignored by most. (Yes, people, there are restaurants and cafes and things open downtown at night. And of course bars. Go see.)

Now on to the other thing:

As a result of a phone call that came through while I was hosting Rene yesterday, it Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXIII - Big Bang Theory’

Via the excellent new blog by two (so far) of our regular commenters, “Shores of the Dirac Sea”, (check it out!), I noticed that Brian Greene has an op-ed in the New York Times today.

For those of you who want a short version of some of the things that are hoped for from the large hadron collider (LHC), Brian’s piece is the article you might want to start with!

-cvj

Just the other day, while coordinating some work being done on my house, I was thinking that it is time I learned Spanish. Most of the people working in the construction industry here in Los Angeles have Spanish as their first language, and besides the usefulness it would give in communicating difficult ideas about a piece of work to be carried out, I really don’t like the feeling that I’m disconnected from them. I’d like to be able at least to, in Spanish, offer a cup of coffee, or a glass of iced water, and have a little small talk - treat them like fellow human beings as opposed to “the help” as is done so much in this city, to my disgust. I interact a lot with the Spanish-speaking parts of the city through my use of public transport, places I go to grab tasty food from time to time, and so on, but there is still a sense that there is an entire alternative Los Angeles out there that I am only barely touching upon by not knowing the language.

Then yesterday this whole Spanish language issue came up again in a big way. There was a phone call to the department from Univision, the Spanish-language TV network. Probably most of you are wondering what that is. You know those several channels that you never watch and when you flick by them, all clustered together, they’re always speaking Spanish and discussing issues or people that you seldom (if ever) have heard of? Yes. This is one of those channels. There’s a huge part of America (and elsewhere) that tune to those channels primarily.

Well, the people at Univision had heard about the excitement about the Large Hadron Collider (see, e.g. last post) and wanted to do a piece on it, and have someone in the studio to talk about it live on their breakfast show. They were looking for a Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXII - Live LHC Chats’

Well, it seems that the largest and most complicated experiment in the history of humankind is…. working so far. They circulated the first beams at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) earlier today! Even Google is excited. Check out their front page:

Fun live blogging reports from the scene of events over at Resonaances, US/LHC Blogs (several posts), and Superweak, for example. I got the ATLAS readout/image below from the latter. (Presumably this is the shower of particles produced when they did the “dumping” described in Resonaances? Or just stuff produced by the edges of the beam as it passes through?) Press release from CERN here.

Update: NPR’s Morning Edition had a nice report this morning in the form of a chat between Rene Montagne and reporter David Kestenbaum. Fun to hear the audio clip of the control room. Link here.

Oh, right. The silliness. Click on that useful site I mentioned earlier to see if the earth Continue reading ‘It Works!!!’

So now it’s made it to NPR!*

Kate McAlpine’s (who has occasionally commented here) song about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on YouTube has been pointed at by a huge number of blogs and other sites over the months. Now it’s even got a mention on NPR’s Morning Edition! Link to Continue reading ‘LHC Song Growing in Listenership’

Well, the new orbiting instrument, GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope - launched June 11th this year) has passed all its tests with flying colours, apparently, and is working well. NASA has now renamed the craft the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, after Enrico Fermi. There’s a press release here.

The craft is a wonderful combination of the fields of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, and will teach us so much about the universe (such as the nature of dark matter), and so it is exciting to hear that it all on track.

Excitingly, they’ve also released images of the early results of the observations, and you can read more about them in the press release too. Here’s a sky map made from the observations.

Some words from the release:
Continue reading ‘GLAST, Fermi, and Early Results’

“Invasion” in the sense of something that took me away from my regular time usage, I should say. I just spent an interesting period of time this morning viewing a pilot for a new TV show. It has a large science component, and will be on one or other of the Discovery Network’s channels. I appear in it (talking mostly about magnetism), and I blogged about some of the filming of it here.

I have to say it was a pleasure to spend a bit of time looking at the (nearly) finished product and commenting here and there on the script and so forth. The concept of the show is really good, and they manage to carry it out with humour while still getting Continue reading ‘Welcome Invasion’

Well, there’s all sorts of rhetoric on all various matters from the main presidential candidates, and there’s still a long way to go until November. It’s nice to hear a bit of chatter about global warming, gas prices, research into alternative fuels, cars with higher efficiency, and other issues that have a high degree of science playing a role in shaping our decisions about our policies and actions, in all aspects of society. (Although there is some occasional mention at some points at state level, it would be nice to hear a lot more about concerted thoughts about public transportation infrastructure, but perhaps that’s just way too much to ask in a society still rather naively obsessed with individualism at all costs.)

So what are the official positions of the candidates on science, across the board? Well, Continue reading ‘Some Science With Your Politics’

Ok. Time for a bit of fun, or something. It’s rainy here, and I’m waiting for things to dry out before I go home. I’m between tasks, and I’m woozy from that extra beer at the weekly picnic (thanks, Ben!) so that’s my excuse. Not that I’ve ever needed one.

The other day while hiking I found myself singing Kate Bush songs. No, really. I get into a Kate Bush mood sometimes. Deal with it! Anyway, “Experiment IV” sort of stuck in my head and went around several times. It’s all about a science experiment, even if only a slightly naive exploration of how the military exploit scientific research. I simply love the way she made the phrases “We only know in theory what we are doing” and “We recorded it and put it into our machine” work with the rhythm and melody lines. Then I remembered, and checked on YouTube, how she’d construct these really excellent videos which were miniature movies, telling a little story, at least two of them (this song, and “Cloudbusting”) involving scientists.

Now of course, the scientists were the usual men-in-white-coats scientists (however, the image right is explained below). I know I go on a lot about trying to have in the media a wider variety of images of what scientists can look like, but that does not mean that I don’t like things that sometimes have the old chestnuts. Cloudbusting has Donald Sutherland as the scientist-father-figure, and Experiment IV has a similar figure (played by someone I don’t recognize) as the scientist whose work is exploited. There are a number of actors in supporting scientist roles too - look out for (I think) a Continue reading ‘Experiment IV’

Well, you may not have gone to the chat between K C Cole and Leonard Susskind that I mentioned a while ago at the LA Central Library downtown. I couldn’t make it either, being away at the Aspen Center for Physics. I expect it was good. Anyway, I found a little bit of a report on the conversation, done by reporter John Johnson for the LA Times. It is here. (Clickable image of Susskind to the right is by Matthew Black, for the LA Times.)

It gives you some of the simply-stated reasons as to why there was a big argument between Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind in the first place (and between several other physicists too… there are hosts of people working on these things, and it took hosts of people to sort it out to where we are now, not just those two, giants though they are). I recommend having a look, as it is especially for the lay-person, and will give you a good idea of what the fuss is about.

You can also see a little bit about his new book on the subject and a link to a video interview with Brian Cox (the physicist, not the actor) at the LA Times blogs here. There are also links to his Stanford continuing education course on quantum mechanics, including the online lectures you can view at your convenience. What a resource!

You might wonder why we care about all this, since currently the only way we know for sure to make black holes in the universe (astrophysical processes making stellar black Continue reading ‘Quantum Black Holes - Why Worry?’

Well, since they’ve actually done a press release about it, I suppose I don’t have to be so coy as I was in the last post. This is about the film company I was doing some consulting work for on an interesting project with and interesting screen-writer.

The company is called Hero Pictures, and they have an interesting mission statement, and a rather splendid website (which I recommend… love the little hero guy) which tells you more. One of their projects is a film about Einstein. Working title is “The Private Lives of Albert Einstein”. They’ve bought the rights to a couple of books on him, brought in a screenwriter (see my thoughts on him and working with him in the previous post), Ron Bass, well known for his work on projects like Rain Man and The Joy Luck Club, Snow Falling on Cedars, among many other films.

It was fun to work with him on this, however briefly. He’s super sharp and gets the Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XXI - Another Go At An Einstein Film’

Ok, so which one of you is responsible for this? (Since I started writing the post, I’ve since learned the answer - see below.)

I was watching the 1999 Mars University episode of Futurama some nights back. It’s the one where Professor Farnsworth teaches (among the many excellent lines: “I can’t teach, I’m a professor…”) a course entitled “The Mathematics of Quantum Neutrino Continue reading ‘Infiltration’

I was contacted by a researcher at NPR the other day. They wanted me to take part in a live conversation on the program News & Notes (hosted by Farai Chideya). The topic was about kids, technology, and science. In particular the focus was described as follows:

We want to explore the ways kid handle technology. How is technology affecting them in terms of their learning capacity and social skills? The second part of that discussion is this—with all the gadgets that are available to kids, are more of them becoming interested in science in general? We especially want to look at the subject from perspective of urban education.

Yes, all topics that intersect with many of my own interests and passions (which might be why they found me through the blog!), but I did not feel qualified to really answer some of the specific questions pertaining to how things are going currently. There are people who study this full time. I’m not one of them. So I declined to contribute. However, I had a few names in mind, and passed them along, together with two more Continue reading ‘On Other Modes of Learning’

[Typed in a cafe on Tuesday at about 3:45pm. It's just a rough collection of thoughts about various recent meetings and activities:]

Interesting day so far. One of those “my office is everywhere” days. I’m on the West side, in Santa Monica, where I’ve a number of errands to do. Also I get to work and have some meetings in between. I try very much to corral everything to one part of town so that I am not driving around too much, adding to the general junk that we all pour into the air without thinking. So I brought my bike with me to connect the dots that I intend to go between while in the area (a couple of cafes (coffee and work), the beach/boardwalk (lunch and work), a mechanic (they’re changing brakes on my car and diagnosing a Noise), one of the English shops (for tea supplies), an electronics store (to shop for memory), a grocery store, possibly a bookstore, possibly the public library (to work and ‘cos it’s just really nice)…).

While reading some notes by one of my students on a project we’re working on, and eating lunch down on the boardwalk/beach wall near the chess-players, I reached for my phone to send him a text with a question. As I did this I looked up at the passers-by and one of them was familiar! It was someone who used to be a postdoc in one of the other groups in the department, who used to share an office with the very student whose notes I was reading! Funny when that happens… We chatted for a while about things (such as career stuff concerning the interesting research life that can often found in various commercial settings), and he seemed interested in my Continue reading ‘Where Many Paths and Errands Meet’

So you’ll recall the shoot last year, right? Casino Royale theme? Where I got all dressed up in a Tuxedo at a club in New York that was kitted out as a Casino playing blackjack and so forth (click right) and getting very cosy with Ms Moneypenny? (Wait, that last bit didn’t happen.) Along with some actual stars, from entertainment, sport, fashion, etc? You don’t recall? Well, that’ll teach you not to use the blog’s archives more during your coffee breaks…

To recap (but please read properly about the background here), it was a photo spread with short bios for an annual piece called “Coming Kings” for a men’s magazine called “King”. I’d got the call out of the blue from them, and decided to do it since it’s an opportunity to do something a little different. To put some awareness of science and scientists in places where you normally don’t find much (if any) of it, rather than only targeting the more traditional crowds. It’s all about, as I said:
Continue reading ‘When Worlds Collide IV: The Verdict is…’

Sheril talked a little bit about the lack of a debate on Science by the presidential hopefuls, and pointed to a number of articles on the matter. Recall (from my earlier posts and many other sources) that she is one of the movers and shakers behind ScienceDebate2008. The candidates simply punted the issues.

Shame really. The Franklin Institute’s good china was all laid out and the space made ready to host the debate, and several were hoping it might really happen… But it was politics as usual on all sides, with lots of silliness, and pandering to the much more powerful “Faith” constituency.

Or, as Bob Park put it in his excellent “What’s New” column of the 11th April:

NO SCIENCE DEBATE: CANDIDATES WILL DEBATE JESUS.

Excellent title! He goes on to say:
Continue reading ‘No Debate on Science’

Did you see the Nike commercial with Kobe Bryant as Einstein?

It is part of a series with the theme “genius” in which he plays a variety of historical figures with a reputation for innovation. More (including the video) on Bryant’s website, and there’s a breakdown by fliptomato on his blog (where I found this).

Given the opening line of fliptomato’s blog post, I wonder if he (or the commercial makers) knows about the excellent Gary Larson cartoon from very many years back Continue reading ‘Kobe as Einstein’

Wow, a lot of time has passed since I thought I’d get around to posting about this. You’ll recall that I went to take part in the taping of a segment for Comedy Central some time ago. Well, later on I went to the taping of the full show in which it will appear, and it was an amusing and interesting experience.

The show? Comedy Central, and in particular, Daily Show fans will be pleased to learn that Lewis Black finally has a show of his own, and it is called “The Root of All Evil”. The format is that he presides as a judge over a case examining which of two popular Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XIX - Black Comedy’

I had some unusual guests in my General Relativity lecture yesterday, Eric Salat and Philip Shane, two film makers from Left/Right productions. They’re working on a documentary for the History Channel on the development of various ideas in physics in the early 20th Century, and they wanted to know more about the topics, and to see a full (1 hour and 50 minute) lecture from me.

While it is the History Channel (hence the dramatic subtitle - sorry), it is not part of the series “The Universe”, by the way. It is another separate part of the increased very welcome expansion of that channel’s science programming. Have you noticed the diversification of their programming that they’ve been doing? I’ve mentioned it before, and a number of people have commented on it to me elsewhere. It has been great to see.

It’s always fun to have more people in the classroom, and so we had a lot of fun… (Or at least, I did…I hope everyone else did too.) I happened to be doing a lecture on Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XVIII - History Looked On’

My first time sitting down to watch this show in a while and, bizarrely enough, there’s a colleague on the telly! Well, I think that perhaps Lisa was trying a little bit too hard in one or two places to get the physics out. On Colbert, I think you just have to go with the flow and the comedy! But she got quite a bit out in the short time she had…

My favourite bit:

Colbert: “Don’t patronize me, I know that…”

Continue reading ‘Randall on Colbert’

So Chris and Sheril have announced the next step in the journey to a real debate about science issues of note that intersect with the current political sphere. And they’ve come a long way in a short time! Here’s some of what they said in a recent post:

ScienceDebate2008 is now co-sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies, and the Council on Competitiveness. We were looking at venues, and finally settled on an offer from the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute–named, of course, after one of this country’s first and greatest scientists. We can’t think of a more appropriate venue.

And guess what?! They’ve actually invited the candidates: Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

So the next step is to get the event (they suggest April 18, 2008) taken seriously by Continue reading ‘Science Debate 2008 - Closer to Reality’

At the Science Blogging conference earlier this month, there was a very interesting discussion about communication of science, science and the media, and science in politics. It was led by Jennifer Jacquet of Shifting Baselines, and Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney (both of The Intersection), who each did a mini-presentation (Sheril and Chris doing a sort of tag-team double act, starting off with discussing Sciencedebate 2008, and moving into discussions of “framing” science, the separation of the cultures, and so forth - and of course, opportunities for bloggers). Happily there was a video made, and I’ve embedded it below (the quality is mixed, but overall Continue reading ‘Science Communication’

So yesterday at Pinewood Studios they announced the name of the upcoming second James Bond film in the new series that (excellently, in my opinion) re-envisions the Bond movie universe. Last year’s first one was “Casino Royale”, you may recall. Did you hear what the next one will be called?

Continue reading ‘Planck Meets Fleming’

The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday January 27th (upcoming). 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. (Above right and left: Reza Aslan speaking on the origin of various ideas in Religion at the event entitled “Beginnings” on 16th December, 2007. Click right one for larger view.)

The theme this month is Science Goes Hollywood. Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Despite our prejudices to the contrary, Hollywood and Science have a lot to say to each other. Take special effects: Nothing Disney dreams up can Continue reading ‘Categorically Not! - Science Goes Hollywood’

By the way, do you remember that I had to do that presentation entitled “What Matters to Me and Why”*, last semester? (Blog post here, with follow-up post with transcript and audio here.) Well, it turns out that science writer and journalist KC Cole (of USC’s Continue reading ‘What Matters to KC Cole’

Excellent evening on Wednesday night. As I expected, KC worked her magic and steered the conversation in many interesting directions, with Alan Alda turning out to be - not unexpectedly - quite the character. I suspect that it was recorded (on video) and so I will update this post or do a later post with a pointer to it later. Alda was swamped by people buying his book and getting is signed and so forth at the reception. It was great to see such a good attendance at this USC Visions and Voices event all about science and the arts - very much in the spirit of what this is all supposed to be about*.

Among the many things of note that were said, one thing I liked a lot was the telling by Continue reading ‘Put Yourself In Their Shoes’

Tomorrow afternoon at 4:00pm there’s be an interesting conversation on campus for sure. It’ll be between the science writer and journalist KC Cole and the actor Alan Alda. He’s such an interesting person, and (among other things) currently presents Scientific American Frontiers.

KC’s always so good at steering these conversations, so while I’ve no idea what they’ll be talking Continue reading ‘Alan Alda Chats With KC Cole’

Being a loyal fan of Scottish single malt whisky, I never thought I’d be blogging about Irish whiskey, but this is why we get out of bed in the morning - we seek the stuff we can’t guess*.

So I was going to point out to you an amusing distraction. The series of radio ads for Jameson Irish Whiskey that you can listen to here. There’s one featuring a physicist, you see, and a friend of mine sent me the link for that reason**. There’s the idea of attraction, and so gravity is brought in by the ad man trying to use the concept to sell the product, and the physicist is obviously not having it… a short bit of fun play between segments of some program on some station somewhere or another. I can see that they’d work rather well. Have a listen.

That was going to be it, until I found another - real - physics connection. Turns out that Guglielmo Marconi - he of the use of electromagnetic waves for telegraph communication, Nobel prize, and so forth - is the the key to the connection. Do you know what it is?

Continue reading ‘Physics and Whiskey’