Author Archives: Clifford

This Feels Great!

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[caption id="attachment_19729" align="aligncenter" width="499"]Andrea Ghez accepting the 2020 nobel prize for physics Andrea Ghez accepting the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics[/caption]You know, it is easy (and healthy) to be steadfastly cynical about the whole prize thing, but sometimes it is just great to simply cast that aside and get into the spirit of it. This is one such time. The Nobel Prize ceremony was today and you can watch the whole thing on YouTube here. (Physics starts at about 36 minutes in.) My interest was in the moments Andrea Ghez and Roger Penrose picked up (literally this year) their prizes for their wonderful work on black boles. The picture I was able to screen grab of Andrea in particular says it all.

I’ve met Andrea Ghez on an number of occasions (and communicated electronically on many more), usually because of our joint interest in making science accessible to the public through talks (where we first met during K C Cole’s excellent Categorically Not! series), TV shows (where we’ve sometimes connected behind the scenes, in the context of shows or films we’re both in, or thinking of being in), and so forth. All our interactions have been […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Notebooks

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[caption id="attachment_19724" align="aligncenter" width="499"]A montage of notebooks A montage of some of my notebooks. Click to zoom in![/caption]

This is a quick montage of a selection of my notebooks over the last few years. As you may know, I often carry a little (usually black) notebook with me whenever out and about in the world (in normal circumstances at least). It is useful for jotting down or working through ideas, doing computations of research ideas, writing to-do lists, and -very importantly- it is an especially good means of reminding me to grab a moment to do a sketch. As a result, they’ve become a record of what I’ve been thinking about in certain periods, what I might have seen on the way to work (back when I was sketching faces on the subway), and also an interesting combination of marks on paper that I actually simply like just looking at.

On Thursday I’ll be taking part in a big event at the Getty […] Click to continue reading this post →

Wider and Warmer

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[caption id="attachment_19717" align="aligncenter" width="499"]Los Angeles Panorama Los Angeles. Click for an expanded view.[/caption]

The last post had a nice picture of the city that I enjoyed sharing with you. However, on Sunday I ran to the top of one of the highest points of the park and happened to take a much nicer photograph, showing more of the surrounds, and with warmer light. I’m sharing this one with you for sure. If you click on the image you’ll get a more detailed view. This was at about 4:15pm, in case you’re wondering.

Enjoy!

-cvj
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It’s Black in Physics Week!

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It is #BlackInPhysics week, and be sure to check out the various special activities at https://blackinphysics.org. It is a joy to see the faces and stories popping up on twitter under #BlackInPhysicsRollCall as physicists around the world introduce themselves. Join in! Share! Use it when people in your department tell … Click to continue reading this post →

Dairy Diary

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Yesterday’s kitchen science experiment was this morning’s breakfast! In explaining to my young son about microorganisms that we live with (in our bodies, and as tools of transformation we deploy in various applications like cuisine) I suddenly remembered trying to make yogurt when I was myself very young (although not … Click to continue reading this post →

Early Career Musings

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Because of a certain movie from earlier this Summer (which I have not yet got around to mentioning here on the blog), I’ve been doing a lot of interviews recently, so sorry in advance for my face showing up in all your media. And I know many will sneer because … Click to continue reading this post →

Shaping the Future of Scientific Conferences

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This year’s big annual flagship conference in String theory, Strings 2020, ended two days ago. It was a massive success, and it was held entirely online. There were more than 2000 registered participants from all around the world, with sessions where a large portion of that number were engaged simultaneously! This conference’s attendance more usually ranges at around 300 – 400, as far as I remember, so this was a spectacular change. The success was made possible by -most importantly- the willingness of many people to take part and engage with each other to a degree that was foreign to most participants, combined with smart and tireless effort by the team of organizers in Cape Town, where the conference was originally going to be held physically. There were excellent talks (selected by the programme committee) and many illuminating discussions.

Due to the pandemic, the conference was originally going to be cancelled (or at least postponed to much later in the year), but organizer Jeff Murugan announced at relatively short notice that they were instead going to attempt to do it online on the original dates, and it is wonderful that so many people around the world engaged, instead of just shrinking away into the Covid-19 gloom.

The other major component of the success is what I want to discuss here. It was the use, sometimes in concert, of tools such as Zoom […] Click to continue reading this post →