Author Archives: Clifford

Light Thoughts

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Last night, for one reason or another, I decided on the spur of the moment to head to the beach, in order to wander there with the darkness clinging to me while I faced the bracing wind and cleared my head of many things. Although not quite like walking, for example, the Northumbrian coastline, even this part of the Pacific can be wonderfully restless, rugged, and alive when there are strong storms in the air, as is the case right now in the area.

santa monica led ferris wheel

On my walk, heading Northwest, I saw the Santa Monica Pier in the distance, with its new (as of last Summer) Ferris Wheel sporting some 160000 LEDs (I read this – did not count them) and putting on a light show. It is interesting to look at for a number of reasons. They’ve programmed in a lot of patterns that it cycles through, some of which are nice, but the most interesting thing to me (and not depicted in my snaps) […] Click to continue reading this post →

Other String Activity in Los Angeles

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Follow my friend Casey Rentz for her stringy project! Last November, she walked the 6.4 miles from the Machine Project in Echo Park to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) leaving a trail of a single string behind her….


STRING from sam meister on Vimeo.

I asked her for a few reflections on it all: […] Click to continue reading this post →

Another Approach?

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No, it’s not my solution to things (you know, when patient, tiring, endless, circular discussion and explaining that it is work in progress does nothing to stop the whining of those who’ve made up their mind in advance…) but it certainly makes me laugh out loud! Enjoy:

arguing with a string theorist by abstruse goose

(Click to go to larger version.)

Taken from Abstruse Goose, which is hilarious!* This follows on nicely from […] Click to continue reading this post →

So What Is String Theory, Anyway?

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The usual answer you’ll get from the person on the street (as it were) includes lots of nice words about wiggling strings that look like particles, and so forth, and that’s fine. However, the [informed] next level answer, when you’ve worked enough in the field, is that we don’t know. I’ve told you why (at least in part) in previous posts and so I’ll let you read them. We’re still working on it.

While we work, we’ve learned that it is a quite marvellous thing (from the bits of it we’ve come to grips with) that is teaching us a lot about all kinds of physics, and mathematics too. Some of this may be good for describing things about Nature, and we’re still working out lots of that (although see some of the exciting things I’ve been talking about in my previous post and the links therein).

So what do we put on the T-shirt? (You know, the analogue of Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism – light, etc – that every physics undergrad likes to have on their T-shirt). Well, we don’t know yet.

polchinski what is string theory

But that’s all my opinion. Every now and again it is good to hear from one of the masters about what they think of string theory*, and what it is and so forth. Happily, Joe Polchinski has been known to agree to stand up and give an exposition on this […] Click to continue reading this post →

Brainstorming

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presentation preparation in the sunI had quite a marvellous brainstorming session today. You’ll recall I was preparing a presentation for the February 15th symposium at the AAAS meeting the other day. Well, all of us concerned (the four of us presenting as well as various Brookhaven staff who will take part in the symposium discussion as well) got together over the phone for a teleconference today. It took almost three hours (but happily I was sitting in the sunshine while doing it, as you can see). We wanted to chat about the distribution of ideas and results that will be presented.

There are four of us presenting at the event, with only a short time each to get across some of the key ideas and so we need to make sure that we don’t do too much […] Click to continue reading this post →

NSF and NSFW

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I’m sure there have been times when you received that message from the National Science Foundation saying that your grant application has been turned down, and in disappointment you’ve muttered something like “…bunch of W*nkers!” before taking a deep breath and moving on.

Right?

Well, now it seems it is official! See this story on MSNBC*, which starts:

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Categorically Not! – Dark Matters

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categorically not! presenters feb 1st 2009

(Categorically Not! presenters and performers on 1st Feb. 2009)

The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday February 1st. 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.

The theme this month is Dark Matters. Here’s the description from K C Cole:

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

The Keeling Curve

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keeling curveToday on NPR’s Morning Edition they played a piece by Madeline Brand that aired in 2007 about the Keeling curve, and the man behind the curve, Charles David Keeling. As you may know, the Keeling curve (above) is a striking demonstration of the steady increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as measured from one location (on top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii) by one very simple method over almost 50 years.

It is a lovely story of dedication and determination that resulted in a simple, striking, […] Click to continue reading this post →

Uncommon Conversations

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college commons logo smallI almost forgot to mention that tonight marks the launch of the series of events called the College Commons here at USC. Here’s a news story about the programme. This academic year, I’ve been working on the committee working on shaping the ideas that have come up from the faculty (I had promised to tell you more about this), and we’ve announced the short Spring programme, which you can see here.

There is a featured part celebrating 1859:

Where do ideas come from, and how far do they travel? One hundred and fifty years ago, the astonishing year of 1859 saw not only the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, but such pioneering works as John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Karl Marx’s Critique of Political Economy, and Richard Wagner’s first version of Tristan and Isolde. This year also marked amazing advances in travel and communications, the first battles prefiguring the Civil War and the first trapeze act performed in Paris. Can we imagine the world 150 years from now, and imagine the place our ideas will have in it? Scholars from biology, anthropology, physics, literature, history, and gender studies, as well as poets and artists, will explore these questions together this spring.

I hope there’ll be a lot of participation in the events (I’ll say more on this later). Tonight has a free movie, Master and Commander (so there’s a reason to go, right […] Click to continue reading this post →

Preparation

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Yes, I’ve been a bit quiet of late, I know. I’ve so many things on, both professional and personal that it sometimes keeps me occupied from when I wake up just before sunrise right through to falling asleep a bit after midnight. And yes I know that means I’ve been not getting the traditional full nights of sleep, but if my body insists on getting up at 5:30am, who am I to resist? I thought it was due to jetlag from the trip a couple of weeks ago, but it seems to have taken. I don’t mind too much since watching the light change as the sun rises is a marvellous way to start the day.

clifford johnson preparing slides at the boardAmong the things I’m up to (yesterday and today so far) is a strip-down-and-redesign of a short talk for an exciting symposium that is coming up in a few weeks in Chicago. The American Association for the Advancement of Science is having their big annual shindig there (apparently the biggest science conference in the world) and there will be a number of addresses, plenary talks, and keynote speakers and the like (including Al Gore, by the way), and also several sessions of symposia and other presentations on various topics.

While slightly annoyed at the fact that one major day of the conference is on Valentine’s day (which means I’ll have to be out of town on just the day that maybe, just maybe, on the off-chance, you know – if the universe sneezes or something, somebody might want me to be their Valentine…*), I was looking at that day’s schedule and it caught my eye that there’ll be a session (with several presenters) entitled “The Science of Kissing”, and three hours long, no less:

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Love Burns

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It was Burns’ night last night, and I do love hearing his work read out loud. It is quite wonderful to read too. It’s his 250th birthday (Hmmm… something else to add to the year of celebrations of big anniversaries along with Darwin and Galileo). One of my favourites, which you possibly know, is the following (reproduced here in tribute):


A Red, Red Rose – Robert Burns. (1759–1796)

O MY Luve ‘s like a red, red rose
That ‘s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve ‘s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune!

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

Now go to NPR and listen to Alison Jones read it out quite wonderfully, after having a […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Hat

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Here’s a strong clue that I’m supposed to be working on writing slides for an important presentation:

Albert Einstein in Aretha Franklin s Inauguration Hat

Yes. I’ve been playing with photoshop. What’s the story? Well, I noticed that there is a facebook page for Aretha Franklin’s wonderful Inauguration hat. You know the one. The page has a huge number of fans already, growing at a rate of something like 200 every ten minutes (when I last looked). People are adding photos of themselves, their pets, and other objects, all wearing the hat. It’s great!

So I, rather than settling down to design those slides I’ve been meaning to get to for the last few hours, thought I’d join in the facebook fun! I could not resist sneaking […] Click to continue reading this post →