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:
Randall: “Like…the fact that Einstein has taught us that spacetime can be curved or warped…”
Colbert: “Don’t patronize me, I know that…”
To be sure, it must be hard. He’s always going to interrupt with clever remarks, and it must be hard to concentrate on what you’re saying with that going on… but I bet she sparked some interest in viewers, so… Well done Lisa!
-cvj
(Thanks for the weblink, Jeff!)
Surprised to see Linda lose her step or foothold.
Is there a buck to be made out of extra dimensions?
Well other than however much you can make out of a book
For sure, for sure there’s a hell of a lot of bucks to be made out of extra dimensions – not just in explaining why or how gravity is so weak (yet unescapable?) – but in how and where some particles may or may not be moving.
No, I’m really not up for multiple or parallel universes where we can be living different lives, I’m not even much into Torchwood and their low tech Time Rift monsters (sixties retro tv?)
but I am into how I in this universe and in these dimensions might be able to manipulate not just the fundamental forces, but the actual energy fields around me – and of course manipulating treatment for cancer and other diseases is still the holy grail. Don’t you just love CT-scans and million dollar X-ray machines.
After all the thing that will make teleporters interesting is not that they can send you from one place to another like a high speed lift, train, tube (undergound), TRON (speeding motorbike), fast cars, planes or even rockets to the moon …
trhe most interesting thing will be that you’ll be able to go in to this machine, and come out cancer or disease free. Now if that is not a buck earner – I don’t know what is.
PS – so did you notice me at Starbuck’s in Cambridge last year?
Having seen Neil deGrasse Tyson on (I think) Jon Stewart’s show, I know he gets in the game better than Lisa Randall does here. But I’m impressed with her and with Colbert; each of them has to be pretty confident to presume to talk to the other in public. I mean, would you go on TV talking to a physicist? Or, for that matter, try to hold your own with Colbert?
I didn’t know physicists had such great hair! Hate to be all base but that Randall’s a quantum hottie. I agree with what you said that she should’ve gone with the flow a bit more. Shame she didn’t put down her syllabus for a few more seconds and play along more with Colbert’s shtick.
Meh…I think this is one of those boring episodes. For comparison, watch the one with Neil Tyson.
The beauty of Colbert’s interviews is that he gets to offer the ridiculous objections that people really do. A favorite of his is to argue for creationism by saying that it’s simpler than evolution (God just made it. Period.) and Occam’s Razor says the simpler explanation is obviously right. But the guest knows that it’s actually a character, and he (and his audience) are actually smart enough to understand what’s being said. So you can answer the questions that are asked by those who are ignorant of science, but you don’t have to talk to a real closed-minded, ignorant person. Just a very funny, intelligent person, playing a closed-minded character.