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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Green
Warped
Pi Day!
It is Pi Day today! (It is also Einstein’s birthday, and Talk Like A Physicist Day. See below.) To remind you about Pi Day, from Wikipedia we have:
Pi Minute is also sometimes celebrated on March 14 at 1:59 p.m. If ? is truncated to seven decimal places, it becomes 3.1415926, making March 14 at 1:59:26 p.m., Pi Second (or sometimes March 14, 1592 at 6:53:58 a.m.).
The first Pi Day celebration was held at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, and then consuming fruit pies; the museum has since added pizza pies to its Pi Day menu.[1] The founder of Pi Day was Larry Shaw,[2] a now retired physicist at the Exploratorium who still helps out with the celebrations.
This year it is officially National Pi day too, according to the U.S. Congress!
Be sure to do some pi-ous things, ok? (Making pies, walking in circles at 1:59 pm (at […] Click to continue reading this post
Ten Things About Pluto
Over on Bad Astronomy, Phil has a nice article entitled “Ten Things You Don’t Know About Pluto”. It is nicely illustrated, and indeed, some of those things he mentions might be new to you. Go and have a look and see. (And don’t forget it is International Year of Astronomy, … Click to continue reading this post
Waiting for Godot
Wow. This is a dream cast, a dream production, and a dream interview. You’ve got Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the leads, for a start. Two of my favourite actors on stage or screen. But they are joined by another favourite of mine, the amazing Simon Callow! The quartet is rounded out by Ronald Pickup (who I don’t know as well, but is no slouch himself). They’re doing Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”, and it is going to tour at various theatres in the UK before ending up in London. That would be quite marvellous to see, I think.
Anyway, why am I telling you this? Other than just to enthuse about having those […] Click to continue reading this post
Waiting for Stephen
Well, the last couple of days events were tiring, but good overall. The Hawking event was a bit like a rock concert. I made a video of some of the long line for you, and also take you into Bovard Auditorium with me to see the rather nicely packed crowd (well the downstairs part) of about 1200 excited audience members. At the end of the video are a few stills, showing Dean Howard Gillman during his welcoming remarks to the College Commons event, Nick Warner introducing Stephen Hawking, the man himself, and some of the high school students and the undergraduate student, who won the prize to get to ask Stephen questions. (The high school students had all asked similar questions, and so were all asked up to ask one question.)
Here’s the video: […] Click to continue reading this post
Hawking Talking, and More
Gosh, time flies!
I almost did not get to announce this before it was upon us. Tomorrow and the day after combine into a notable event in the College Commons series here at USC. Some of us have been working on this for quite a while. On Tuesday we have Stephen Hawking giving a big public lecture entitled “Out of a Black Hole”. Here’s the announcement. Note that general tickets for seats in Bovard Auditorium all went within hours of us releasing the tickets several weeks ago, but there is room in the two spill rooms that we have set up where there will be screens relaying the talk. Make a bit of an event of it and go with friends! [Update: I forgot to mention that we had a competition in local high schools and also at USC where the prize was to ask Stephen Hawking a question. People submitted questions over the last few weeks and we selected some of the best. There will be three undergraduates and three high school students coming up from the audience (we’ve a lot of high school students visiting us for the talk) to ask him a question each at the end. Should be fun.]
The day after, there will be a related event. Some of us from the physics department […] Click to continue reading this post
The Great News Of The Day
I presume you’ve heard the news by now, concerning stem cell research in the USA. If not, listen to and read some of the NPR reporting on it here (by Julie Rovner
Calm
It’s Not A Superhero Movie, II
Well, strangely, I was able to walk right into the Vista (one of my favourite movie palaces) and go to my favourite seat on Friday evening to see Watchmen, without even waiting in line. So I’m able to report on this rather sooner than I thought. (Or at least I was, but Friday night saw me busy, and Saturday night I was all prepared to do so after my long hike in the 
San Gabriels, but I feel asleep on the sofa still in my hiking gear and did not wake up until 6:00am.) So here we are. I’m happy to report that the owner or manager guy at the Vista, who wears a costume whenever a film of this genre shows, did not disappoint. There he is on the right in his Rorschach outfit. (Click for larger view.) Quite splendid.
This film is, on the surface, partly about my people (My people? Take your pick about what you think I mean here: (a) Physicists? (b) Superheroes? (c) Physicists who like to wear capes? (d) Physicists who like to go around in the nude and are sometimes blue?) and so of course I had to go along and see and report, but more urgently I have to report because I am quite sure that most film reviewers will not be able to see past the capes and tights. Having seen a few reviews since I’ve gone, I’m not wrong so far. I get to use the above title for the post, as I did last year for The Dark Knight, because the capes and tights are a red herring.
I’ll fold the rest of this away for those who don’t want to read about the film before seeing it first, so click to read on if on the front page or on a feed.
Going, Going, Gone
One of the star items that I brought out during a small food and wine gathering at […] Click to continue reading this post
February for the Chop?
This post would be better suited to three weeks from now, but the subject item is so very good, so here goes…
Astronomers Declare February No Longer a Month
Emboldened by their success in declaring Pluto not a planet, the International Astronomical Union determined this week by a close vote that February is too short to be considered a true month. It has, however, been granted the newly created status of “dwarf month.” It shares this dubious distinction with several other calendar time spans, including Labor Day Weekend, Christmas Vacation, and the Time Between When You Were Supposed to Get Your Oil Changed and When You Actually Did.
“It only seems fair,” said IAU President Ron Eckers. “February reaches a peak […] Click to continue reading this post
Kepler Ready!
I learned* that the Kepler craft (NASA artist sketch on right – this is the device that will look for “other earths” – see below) is all go to try for launch later today! Extract from an announcement that went around:
On 6 March (EST, 7 March in UTC) there are two opportunities for a launch into the Earth trailing orbit. The first window is at 6 March, 10:49:57 p.m. EST (UTC: 7 March, 03:49:57) and the second window is at 11:17:44 p.m. EST (UTC: 7 March, 04:17:44). If Kepler is not launched tonight there is a another possibility at approximately the same time tomorrow night.
Countdown will begin 3 hours before launch and Kepler separation into Earth trailing solar orbit will take place 3709 sec into flight. First contact after separation is expected 4640 sec into flight.
For more information, and to follow the launch live, here are some links: NASA TV, Launch Blog, Spaceflight.
I noticed that Amy Mainzer is over at the Kennedy Space Center to see the launch. She begins to talk about it here on her (excellent) blog. You might want to check back there in case she does a nice report on it. Check out Phil’s Bad Astronomy blog for more on this too. He says he’ll be tweeting and all. (Yes. Tweeting. There, I have used that word in its recent new context/meaning in a sentence for the first time. I feel a bit silly.)
What is this all about? It is very exciting. Here are some sources of information for […] Click to continue reading this post
Orange
It always surprises me how delightful the strong scent from these blossoms can be. […] Click to continue reading this post
