Author Archives: Clifford

Congratulations Brian May!

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brian may receiving his phd from paul nandraFor what? The story is here. Ok. Full disclosure – I was quite a Brian May fan as a teenager, and as a physicist in training while at Imperial College, London. Now I was going to do a long post about playing electric guitars, building electric guitars (because I was into electronics, physics and music, not because Brian May did it too),, analyzing his guitar solos, endless listening to Queen, endless teenage arguing with anyone who would engage about why he was a much better guitarist than [pick the flashy guitarist from some other rock group], probably permanently diminishing my hearing a bit at two huge Queen concerts, and maybe best of all …practicing music with my friends in the same room (it was said) over in Beit Quad that Brian used to use for practice in the days before Queen began! That was quite a thing for me back then. Here’s a little interview with him about his Imperial College days from the IC student newspaper Felix.

There would have been pictures of the guitars and so forth, a clever post title playing […] Click to continue reading this post →

Exploring QCD in Cambridge

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exploring qcd sign

So the conference here at the Newton Institute in Cambridge is simply marvellous. I’m so glad I came, and so happy that I was invited to attend and make a contribution to it by giving a talk and having discussions. It’s a rather splendid combination of experimentalists, phenomenologists, and various hardcore theorists of various sorts, and there are ideas just flying around and bouncing off the walls. The title is “Exploring QCD: Deconfinement, Extreme Environments and Holography”, (it’s organized by Nick Evans, Simon Hands, and Mike Teper) and the focus is very much the fascinating nuclear physics of heavy ion collisions at the RHIC experiment at Brookhaven, and the experiments to come on heavy ion collisions at the LHC at CERN. The latter is an aspect of the physics to be done at the LHC that you don’t hear about much because it is sidestepped in favour of discussions about the Higgs, origin of mass, supersymmetry, theories of everything – such as strings, microscopic black holes, extra dimensions and all that other good stuff. (See earlier discussions here, here and here.)

Well, the great thing is that there’s been plenty of discussion of black holes, extra dimensions, strings, and so forth at the conference because of a great deal of promise of its relevance to nuclear physics. It’s been right alongside the discussion of experimental results, and other theoretical approaches such as work on computer simulations of aspects of QCD (“lattice QCD”) and studies involving other techniques. There’s very much a spirit of open-minded exchange among all the various parties […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Scary Universe?

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Ok, there’s “The Elegant Universe”, and “The Ambidextrous Universe”…. even “Stephen Hawking’s Universe”… and so on for these titles. But how about “The Scary Universe” or “The Dangerous Universe”? (Personally, I wish we’d just stop with the whole “The fill-in-the-blank Universe” stuff, so I probably should have not written this first paragraph.)

Well, I myself don’t think of the Universe that way, but tonight (at 9:00pm) the History Channel will be presenting the next show in their series (called “The Universe”), which is about (they say) the Most Dangerous Place In The Universe”. It looks as though it will be a survey of various places where a lot of very energetic activity is taking place, powering some of the most powerful phenomena we’ve ever seen, such as quasars, magnetars, and so forth. So black holes will feature quite a bit, I imagine, and although I probably should not really be telling you about it before I’ve had a chance to see it (recall my remarks about the windy shooting conditions here), I think (I’m not sure) that I’ll be making an appearance as one of the contributors. (I did not get caught off guard this time.)

The whole “dangerous” motif is a sort of deliberately sensational way of presenting […] Click to continue reading this post →

Brain Building

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homersimpson wallpaper brain from http://www.simpsonstrivia.com.arI’ve been sitting here for the whole evening building a set of slides for my talk here at the Cambridge conference (that I still have not got around to telling you about because I’ve been, well, attending it). My talk is at the start of the Wednesday session and so I’m starting early (yeah, I know) so as to build up all the introductory slides with the fancier graphics to lull the viewer into that comfort zone before bombarding them with technical results. You may well know the sort I mean.

(image above right: click-to-enlarge-able “scan” of Homer Simpson’s brain, which I got from here.)

Anyway, I was sitting here thinking that what I could really do with right now (what with the jetlag, the sitting through five one hour talks – all great) is a rapid hike up to the top of Runyon Canyon or up to the top of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park – two of my favourite pick-me-ups (or is it picks-me-up…?). This would get the blood flowing and give me that jolt I need to stay smart and alert for a few more slides before packing in for the night (and then panicking tomorrow that I did not do enough). All of this was running through my head when an email arrived* with this article about how exercise can boost mental function – actually promote the growth of new neurons. The studies […] Click to continue reading this post →

Live Radio Footie Film Fun

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football soccer ballradio dynamoSo you’ve already read my opinion about the Bourne Ultimatum after I returned from seeing it on the opening night – (In short, it’s just brilliant!) Well here’s something related that is rather funny, especially if you are a football (soccer) fan, although that is not necessary (I have little or no interest in it myself). If you don’t already listen to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo every week (most conveniently via their podcast), let me say right away that you should, since it is just an excellent and often highly entertaining discussion of film and movie releases. As a film reviewer, Kermode is not as good with words as, say, the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane (although it is not a fair comparison – the media are different), but his rants can be just great to listen to when he truly hates (and occasionally loves) something -whether you agree with him or not. Simon Mayo is sometimes thought of as his sidekick in this duo, but he’s really the anchor of the whole thing (and often the pragmatic link back to the everyday that keeps the whole show rooted), and from time to time the focus shifts to him. He’s also into his sports, while Kermode is not, which also makes for an amusing backdrop since the broadcast (on Radio 5 Live) is usually done live from some sporting context or other, which takes a sort of backseat role while they talk about movies. Anyway, it is an excellent podcast to listen to every week. I highly recommend it. You can find it on iTunes. (They also have started doing occasional video podcasts too, but the thing to go for is the radio show. – another convenience of it is the fact that you can keep the podcast until after you’ve seen the films if you like (this is what I usually do – I mostly prefer to not hear anything about a film before I see it), and then listen to it and shout at Mark if you so desire.)

film roll images from usdojAs I mentioned, Mayo is a big sports fan, and his team, Tottenham, apparently got slaughtered by Crystal Palace and are now at the bottom of the premier league (can you tell I’m faking this and I’ve no idea what I’m talking about?) The next day, he’s interviewing (not with Kermode though) the director Paul Greengrass and the actor Matt Damon (both of the Bourne […] Click to continue reading this post →

101

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mark bittman 101 coverHere’s something to shake up the cooking doldrums. Rather than bring you a report on one of my own efforts in the kitchen (and rest assured there’ll be more to come), I’ll step back and let you look at 101 ideas from a master. Mark Bittman, the food writer behind (among other things) the column “The Minimalist” for the New York Times, is extremely good at finding ways of producing more (in terms of taste) with less (in terms of substituting less costly ingredients).

He’s recently tackled another cost factor: time. The claim (I have not tried any yet) is that these are ten minute preparation time recipes. This might be perfect for that busy schedule you have going there, or just a welcome shortening of hot kitchen time during the remaining long Summer days.

Don’t turn your nose up at the substitutions (sometimes discussed in his column) and […] Click to continue reading this post →

So in SEED…

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seed august coverMy hand hovered over the August issue of SEED last night in the magazine section of a bookshop. I was not really sure whether I was going to buy it or not, to be honest. Then I glanced through, and two things made me go for it. The first was seeing that there’s something on Chuck Hoberman. I love his designs and constructions, and am dismayed by the fact that they are not just everywhere in our cityscapes. The second was a photograph. There’s some extracts from the collection of photographs of Nobel Prize winners […] Click to continue reading this post →