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Author Archives: Clifford
Hunting the Higgs is not a (D)Zero Sum Game
Writing in Slate magazine, James Owen Weatherall seems a little confused about how particle physics works. Based on a rumour that there’s a new and significant signal seen at the DZero detector at the Tevatron at Fermilab (Illinois), one of the article’s titles is “Why the rumored discovery of the Higgs Boson is bad news for particle physicsâ€. Supposedly, the big new machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC – see more about it here, and what physicists are hoping for from it), about to switch on later this year, would have nothing to do, and would be a waste of billions of dollars. You can read about the original rumour here.) (Above right: A random collision event I grabbed from the DZero experiment.)
Well, this is wrong for so many reasons. It is hard to know where to start with this. The major fallacy with the whole thing is that these machines are just somehow discovery devices (in the most naive sense) of some sort. You build it, switch it on, see what’s there, write the paper and the press release (not necessarily in that order) and then you’re done. Completely neglected is the notion of such an experiment as a device for […] Click to continue reading this post
Wave It Like You Just Don’t Care
Although we care deeply. It’s just late, I’m a bit woozy as I write this, and so I’m stretching a bit for a good title. This post is about gravitational waves. More accurately, it is about a rather good BBC programme about gravitational waves: What they are, why they are important, why we care, and what we’re doing to detect them. It’s Melvin Bragg and some guests on the “In Our Time†prime time programme. I recommend it as a pleasant, unscripted chat which has quite a bit of good introductory information. Even if you’re a bit busy, you can listen to it while doing some other task. Go on. Also, even if you know this stuff, it’s always amusing to hear the host apparently getting terribly confused and hung up on some points while trying to get to grips with the material. I can never tell if he’s faking it because he has decided that he has to reinforce the cliché -it’s physics so it must be hard, especially at this time in the morning- or whether he’s for real at these points. Either way, it makes for a rough-and-tumble conversational feel to the programme which is not altogether disagreeable.
Anyway, the key thing is this (and you’ve probably not heard this here first): In the entire history of science, every time we’ve figured out a new way of looking up at the sky, we’ve revolutionized our understanding of the universe. We’ve every right to expect the same of gravitational waves, once the technology matures. It’s exciting just thinking about it!
I’ll end with some relevant things to look at. Above is part of the LIGO detector (photo from NASA’s website). Here’s a link to the LISA detector that everyone hopes will […] Click to continue reading this post
That Ain’t Workin’
Remember the Tune “Money for Nothingâ€, by Dire Straits? It was a big hit in the 80s. (Remember those?) Well, Warren of the new blog A Strange Universe wrote a rather brilliant physics version of it, to be sung to the same tune. The “stringer†is the object of the ridicule of the song’s character. The original post is here, where he’ll tell you his thoughts on the song. I can’t resist (I hope he forgives me) posting the entire thing here, rather than an extract, which would break up its impact. (Original song’s lyrics are here, by the way, for comparison.)
So here it is: […] Click to continue reading this post
Masterclass, II
Don’t forget to catch the latest installment of Joe Polchinski’s rather thorough deconstruction of the nonsense, obfuscation, selective memory, and other confusions that constitute the bulk of Lee Smolin’s attack on string theory.
All the points I’ve had the energy to raise have been made here on Asymptotia […] Click to continue reading this post
Poor Pluto!
Remember our discussions of Pluto’s demotion/reclassification? (Lots of link reminders at bottom of post.) Well, here’s a sad (and amusing) image* created by artist Mathias Pedersen:
You can see a high resolution version of this image here. Don’t forget to look at more of of the graphic art of Mathias Pedersen**.
Poor Pluto indeed!
(Take some time to appreciate how good a job he’s done on colours and other features of the […] Click to continue reading this post
NASA’s Wrong Stuff?
Have a listen to Greg Easterbrook (of Wired) in conversation with NPR’s Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition. The issue is whether NASA’s focus on setting up a manned base on the moon, and then heading for Mars, is really the right focus for a huge (multiple billions of dollars) expenditure, given other scientific priorities. The link is here. See also his Wired piece here, entitled “How NASA Screwed Up (And Four Ways to Fix It)â€.
That was yesterday. Today, also on NPR’s Morning Edition, I heard NASA’s chief administrator Michael Griffin attempts to defend the policy. There’s a link to audio here, and be sure to listen to the audio (the transcript offered there is only partial, for a start). I find it revealing. He seemed to have a great deal of difficulty answering certain key questions, such as “Do you think it is the best use of money or not?â€. “Are there priorities that you have had to cut…?†His answers on climate change and global […] Click to continue reading this post
Purple Grand Opening
Always a big event for me. The first buddleia (or budlea) of the season, in the act of opening up (click for larger):
It should be finished with its grand opening of each of those tiny buds in a few days. I […] Click to continue reading this post
The Meddler, II
[Continuing an earlier post…which you’ll need to read to understand this one. Link here.] So, unhappy with the state of affairs, I was on the warpath. I began to consider how to deploy my shiny weapons of war. I considered what to do. I could not believe that this really … Click to continue reading this post
Griffith Observatory: Entertainment, Education, or Both?
You may recall a post I did some time ago about a worrying development at Griffith Observatory, just before it reopened after the splendid three year refurbishment. (See here for my long post -with pictures- of my visit to the facility around the time of its reopening.) Various reports said that they’d decided to hire actors (not trained in the subject of astronomy) to largely replace the lecturers (trained in the subject of astronomy) for the new planetarium show. This seemed a very disturbing turn of events, and so I did the blog post about it.
Well, I’d put the issue out of my mind until a few weeks ago when Jerry Weil, one of the show’s creators, showed up in the comments section (I love Google) and made his case for why the new show was just fine. Among the things he said in his comments were:
With the new structure of the shows, there is no time for a Q&A period, so there is no need for the lecturers to have any knowledge of astronomy. It is important to keep the show exciting and entertaining, but the star of the show should be the visuals.
Now, I have not seen the show, and so cannot comment in detail on its contents, or the setting, but I am -to say the least- very worried about such a statement. So I asked him to unpack the statement a bit more, thinking that I may have misunderstood. His clarification:
As far as the role of the lecturers, I was certainly one of the people who originally thought it was an unnecessary burden to have live lecturers when a canned narration would work just as well. After seeing the show, I have to say that having someone there live really adds to the excitement of the show. It makes it “feel†more interactive, and it certainly keeps your attention knowing there is a live human there speaking. However, since it is all scripted and there is no Q&A, it is not necessary for the lecturers to have any knowledge of astronomy. I am also an actor myself (in fact I had coincidentally worked with the actor/lecturer at the show I saw), and I have certainly played many roles in areas where I had no prior knowledge. In this situation it’s more important to have people who can convey the excitement and wonder of the Universe than to have a deep understanding of the subject matter.
Not wanting to repeat my often-made point that education and entertainment need not be thought of as mutually exculsive, I made a mental note to see the show and revisit this issue if I thought I could contribute further.
Remarkably, a few days later I was at a party at a neighbour’s house (Cinco De Mayo), and it was a great opportunity to meet some more neighbours. Among those were […] Click to continue reading this post
Weekend Hunter-Gatherer
Well, I’ll leave the hunting aside and focus on the gathering. Some results, from Sunday’s Hollywood Farmer’s Market:
The market was about the same as it usually is every weekend, even for Memorial Day […] Click to continue reading this post
The Meddler, I
I don’t like getting angry. I don’t like losing my temper. In the first place, it makes me feel like I failed, and in the second place, I’m a little too good at being angry. I’m really scary. So I let it happen very little.
On Wednesday of last week, I almost completely lost my temper at work (bad enough), and in front of a guest (even worse, in my opinion), Bee, and in front of two of my students (setting a bad example). I apologized to them all, several times, later. Luckily (maybe because I was not wearing any purple pants?), I did not lose it entirely but my internal temperature was really very high indeed by the end of the incident.
What was the matter? You’re possibly going to think that this is an insignificant matter, but I don’t agree. We all went for coffee to one the (usually excellent, with usually very good staff) cafes on campus, and as usual I brought along my own coffee cup. I do that a lot, primarily since it means that I do not use any paper cups as a result, and secondarily because it keeps the coffee warmer for longer, is close to spill-proof, and is much nicer to drink from. I’ve been doing this for years. The routine is usually this: I ask for a small coffee, they hand me a small coffee cup, I smile and say I already have a cup and hand it back, I pay for the coffee, and I pour myself a small coffee and leave. It’s not always in that order, but it is close enough.
This time, I asked for a small coffee, and indicated that I’d have it in my cup, as usual. […] Click to continue reading this post
Chalcedon Checkerspots
Fantastic hike yesterday. More later, perhaps, but now I want to write about a couple of other things. In the meantime, here are some lovely butterflies that obligingly posed for the blog on some (type of sage?) flowers:
Yellow Fibre Bundle
These are quite lovely, aren’t they? I always have great difficulty getting these giant structures (whole thing is about a metre long) down from the tall palm trees that produce them. I take them down because they produce a huge mess over the rest of the garden as they develop. Not the lovely tiny yellow flowers but the little palm nuts (tiny scale model (large grape-sized) coconuts, essentially – same family) that result later, one nut for each of those tiny yellow buds that you see!
So I cut them off. Sad, I know, but there it is.
I do it early because they have to fall. Where do they fall? All over the plants below, doing a lot of damage if I am unlucky. Better to have the much lighter blooms fall (still bad enough) than the […] Click to continue reading this post
Joshua Redman on NPR
There was a nice piece on NPR (by John Ydstie) featuring Joshua Redman today (photo left by Michael Wilson). He’s one of my favourite of the young (relatively) saxophonists on the Jazz scene today. (Some Wiki info here.) When I was an East coaster I saw him a number of times in concert, and he was always very good indeed. His albums are very good too – fun and full of personality, very soulful, although not hugely ground-breaking (not that this is always necessary to make a great musician). By the way, Joshua Redman’s music is actually a good starter place for people who might want to start out in Jazz by listening to some […] Click to continue reading this post
