Author Archives: Clifford

Mars Attracts!

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mars water rocksThere’s a nice story about new photographic evidence from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for water having flowed on Mars. It is not really as dramatic as the photographs of late last year, but it is still an important piece of the puzzle overall (so do read about it), if harder to sell to the public as a “stop-the-press!” type of story. So here’s how three different news agencies tried to bring you in:

  • The BBC: Rocks reveal Mars’ watery past

    Not bad. The layering and colour gradations seen are is not direct evidence of water, of course. It could have been some other fluid flow, but…ok.

Next, we have: Click to continue reading this post →

Point of View, I

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amy parishTomorrow sees the next in the series of events here on the USC campus that science writer KC Cole and I have arranged. They’re in the style of the Categorically Not! events I tell you about from time to time (held each month over at the Santa Monica Art Studios) but are over on the USC campus instead, amy wilentzas part of the Provost’s Visions and Voices events. You can read more in the links at the end of this post.

The theme is “Point of View”, and we’ll have an anthropologist, a journalist, and a film maker each give their take on the topic. Here’s an extract from KC’s poster about tomorrow’s event (held at 7:00pm at the Gin Wong Conference Center here on the USC campus): […] Click to continue reading this post →

Those Fun Paper Titles

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Scanning the listings on the arxiv just now, I found what has to be the best paper title I’ve seen for a while:

“Would Bohr be born if Bohm were born before Born?”

It is a paper by H. Nikolic, in the history of physics classification, and I have not read it, but I love the title. It’s brilliant!

This reminds me of the process that happens to me sometimes when I’m working on a research project. I suddenly think of a really great title, and then get excited about finishing the project so that I can write the paper with that title! (You’ll have noticed that I do that with some of my blog posts too.) It’s often just a nice turn of phrase, like […] Click to continue reading this post →

Novel Physics

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Well, I got an email from my dear friend and collaborator Nick Evans on Tuesday, and in all the craziness of my work week, I forgot to do this post. In the email, he says:

nick evansWe talked on a few occasions about the need for physics to meet popular culture… sooo.. over the last 2 years I’ve put together a novel about particle physics… it’s quite high level – aimed at A-level science students really… but hopefully it’s fun… I was really playing with mixing a novel and popular science… it’s mainly LHC science …[…] … we’ve done it as a web book Outreach project. [link here]

If it intrigues have a read…

So I’m passing it on to you. I’ve not found the time to read it, but I trust Nick enough to know that it is certainly worth a look. (To resolve a possible transatlantic confusion, I should mention that “A-level science students” in what he said does not refer to “grade A science students”. It refers to a specific subject level in the UK school system.)

Enjoy! (Come back and let us know what you think…)

-cvj

(See also blog comments by Nick’s former student, Jonathan Shock.)
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Fresh Air From Gore

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al gore by eric leeAs you may know, Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has been nominated for an Oscar. If you want to hear more from the man himself (see also his remarks in the previous post), here’s an interview with him on NPR’s Fresh Air. It first aired last year, but it is very current. It’s so good to hear a politician speak so intelligently on these matters

You know, the last few weeks […] Click to continue reading this post →

Branson Adds Pickle

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AP photo of Branson and GoreCalling all scientists and engineers. You’ll get a $25 million prize from Virgin’s Richard Branson if you find a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Get to work!

Continuing his admirable campaign to do more useful things with his money instead of engaging in the (let’s face it) mostly silly stunts that used to characterize news stories about him, Richard Branson announced his new prize today in London (in the company of Al Gore) People are indeed working on this sort of thing, in case you’re wondering (see a post I did earlier, for example).

No, this is not a replacement for increasing our efforts to change our habits […] Click to continue reading this post →

Poincaré on Studio 60

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sphererabbitDid anyone else spot the Poincaré conjecture reference on Monday’s episode of Aaron Sorkin’s excellent Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? (Recall that I mentioned another science reference on this show in an earlier post.) A writer is trying to find a punchline to a joke. The joke is supposed to be in the style of the headline news on Saturday Night Live… […] Click to continue reading this post →

Triton Talk

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The title of Monday’s colloquium was “The Cryogenic World of Triton”, and the speaker was Gary Peterson of the Department of Geological Sciences, San Diego State University. Here he is in action:

gary Peterson

The talk was very qualitative. Perhaps at times too qualitative for a lot of the Physicist audience, I’ve gathered from comments, but everyone agreed that it was still very interesting. Some of the qualitative aspects were necessary, since there’s not much data available for the sorts of things he wanted to talk about. So he was extrapolating […] Click to continue reading this post →

Space Opera

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Well, I tried to avoid blogging about this, starting yesterday since I was really annoyed that its initial appearance as a story was in the Science section of a number of organizations, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with science. But now that it has arrived in the more general news sections of some publications (see a nice Independent UK article here, for example), I am happier to talk about it, and also to briefly remark upon any tentative connection with science that might be there.

The case is the one concerning the arrest of astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak on what has now been alleged to be attempted first-degree murder. (It stated out as mere vehicle burglary, battery, and destruction of evidence, but was later upgraded.) Basically, in case you’ve not heard, Ms Nowak drove 950 miles from Texas to Florida to stalk and […] Click to continue reading this post →

How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?

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This is a joke (the title) that works rather well, while being a serious issue as well. It’s all about trying to reduce our energy waste here in California, and contribute to the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The idea is to change from the garden variety incandescent bulbs … Click to continue reading this post →