To save some of you the trouble of wading though my long post on the Newton Institute conference and the background to aspects of the physics, I’ll point here to the archive of online talks, which are here, and more are being added regularly. There are also talks from the … Click to continue reading this post
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
(Click for larger view.)
This lovely composite image of Abell 520 that includes an inferred distribution of dark […] Click to continue reading this post
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
I’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
My 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
(Shooting stars, that is. In other words, meteors. I’ll get to them eventually.)
The evening started with a 10:15pm movie at the Arclight. I saw the excellent biopic “Talk to Me”, (all about Petey Green and his manager Dewey Hughes) which happened to […] Click to continue reading this post
Over the next few nights, you should have a good chance of seeing some of the Perseid meteor shower. They’re going to put on a rather splendid show this year, I hear. From the NASA news site, I’ve grabbed a a diagram of the region of the sky (containing the constellation Perseus, of course – that’s where they’ll seem to be coming from, and so that’s what gives them their name) that you ought to be looking toward. (The red dot is not a star, but the central point of (apparent) origin, and the red lines are some example paths of the streakers that you’ll see):
Concerned that you don’t know enough astronomy? No idea in any amount of detail […] Click to continue reading this post
Ok, I can’t resist. From an earlier post:
…and of course video footage of me effortlessly squashing a star much larger than our own sun down into a tiny space should help out enormously later on with classroom control, and so forth…
Since my cover is now blown, here are some stills** (click for larger) from Tuesday’s (unexpected) episode of the History Channel’s “The Universe”*: […] Click to continue reading this post
Something funny happened to me last night. I was reviewing some television programmes that my system had recorded earlier, by fast-forwarding through them. In particular, I was skimming (I’ll admit) through an episode of a series that I was wondering whether to do a quick blog post about, in order to remind you to watch it. It’s the History Channel’s venture into science programming called “The Universe”, which has been running for some time now. Well, I was zipping through the one about stellar evolution called something like “The Life and Death a Star”…. and someone familiar popped on and off the screen. It was me. Took me a few beats to register full recognition, which was amusing.
I’d forgotten that I was to appear in this episode. Or, better put, I was not aware I would be in this one. I thought the ones I contributed to would air later, like next month or something. I thought there was a separate episode on neutron stars, but I see now that they included it all in an episode about the whole life of a star, which makes sense. (I chatted a bit about the filming of it in an earlier post.)
Anyway, as I was going to say (whether or not I was in it) was that it’s a nice series so far, and so consider having a look at it. If you have not been watching it, I imagine […] Click to continue reading this post
Your opinion is needed.
The National Science Board at its August 8, 2007 meeting approved a draft “national action plan†for improving the quality of elementary and secondary education in science, math, technology and engineering and ensuring an adequate supply of teachers in those subjects. The plan, which will be available for public review and comment today on the science board’s Web site, calls for a range of actions by the federal government, states, and school districts, including creating an independent, non-federal National Council for STEM Education, establishing a new assistant secretary position in the Education Department, and developing strategies to pay teachers in those fields at “market rates.â€
They are inviting public comments through August 30th, 2007.
Not a lot to say here except that you (as a member of the public who knows the value […] Click to continue reading this post
Working by remote control, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center began pumping a half-million gallons of super-cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket fuel into the shuttle Endeavour’s external tank early Wednesday, setting the stage for launch on a space station assembly mission at 6:36:42 p.m., ….
(That’s Eastern time.)
…if all continues to go well, Endeavour’s crew — commander Scott Kelly, pilot Charles Hobaugh, Tracy Caldwell, Rick Mastracchio, Dave Williams, educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan and Al Drew — will begin strapping in around 3:15 p.m.
I always get a bit uneasy when one of these things is about to launch or land. This mission has added significance (re: Challenger), as you may know. There’s more in the story by CBS’ Bill Harwood, from which I quoted above. (See also an AP/Yahoo story by Rasha Madkour…and there’s a slide show.)
As a means of distracting myself (and maybe you) from the whole thing, here’s a bit […] Click to continue reading this post
[A friend of mine in LA told me today that she was planning to go with a group of friends to do some observing up at the big telescope on Mount Wilson. This put me in mind of a post that I did on CV two years ago (how time … Click to continue reading this post
Danica McKellar (the actress who played the girl “Winnie” in that show “The Wonder Years” that many of you might remember) has been working to try to encourage young girls to go more for “Cute and Smart”, as opposed to “Cute and Dumb”. Bottom line: Less Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton, and more…. well, Danica. (I’m sure there are other Tinseltown examples here… can I have some help?).
Danica sets an excellent example of why the two (being considered attractive on the one hand, and smart on the other) are not mutually exclusive, while not suffering from the “geek” or “nerd” label that is attached by the entertainment industry to certain groups of people who enjoy using their brains a lot. She trained as a mathematician, in fact, doing her undergraduate work at UCLA so well that she did rather good published research work (NPR piece here – Update: It is actually more of a theoretical physics problem, it appears). This is from someone who struggled with the subject in sixth grade. Why is she in the news? She’s written a new book “Math Doesn’t Suck”, the aim being to encourage girls to avoid the (social) barriers to getting into mathematics. Excellent title. (I wonder if they’ll change it to “Maths Doesn’t Suck” if they publish it in Britain? “Suck” British kids have adopted from the USA cultural juggernaut, but “Math”? Not yet.)
Actually, looking at her site, I see that the full title appears to be “Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail”, which is more of a mouthful, a bit less zippy, but oh well. It’s all very Clueless, in a good way. Here’s a link to the book’s site, and it is due out tomorrow.
There’s an article1 on her recent Newsweek quote at CNN, from which I grabbed this:
“When girls see the antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, they think that being fun and glamorous also means being dumb and irresponsible,” the 32-year-old McKellar told Newsweek for editions to hit newsstands Monday.
“But I want to show them that being smart is cool,” she said. “Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life.”
but you should go and read the whole thing, by clicking here. [Update: Much better article here, by Corey Binns in Good Magazine. Extract:
“The book hones in on middle school’s trickiest points-––like fractions, ratios, and percentages—and presents them in a style that’s appropriate for the cool kids’ lunch table. Figure out your “type†in boys and you’ll understand greatest common factors. All of those iced lattes celebrities drink make multiplying fractions tasty. Plus, savvy shopping requires killer decimal skills.”
]
Go Danica!
In other news, I learned2 that particle physicist Lisa Randall (author of the popular book with the curious title “Warped Passages”) appears in Vogue this month. Lisa […] Click to continue reading this post
I stopped the previous post rather abruptly (I had to do another task and then run some errands) without getting to tell you a little twist at the end of the story. Here it is.
Having chipped away at the thoughts that Strominger’s talk stirred in my head for several days last week, scribbling equations to check that all I was thinking was on the right track (and chatting a couple of times with Nick Halmagyi), I decided that it was all fitting together so nicely that the framework and my extensions of it just had to be true. There was that feeling that it was too nice to be wrong, and it passed all the obvious checks I could think of. There were two independent consistency checks everything had to pass (using my way of formulating things) and they gave exactly the right results as required by the general setup, with no room for maneuver.
When that happens so nicely, usually at that point in thinking about a physics problem, a thought occurs to me. If I’m playing with a good idea and everything is working so well, then there’s at least 200 other people in the field who probably are also playing with it, and 199 of them have way more time than I do to think it through and write it up before I can. One should not really worry about these things in an ideal world, but I’d be lying to you if I said it did not come up as a concern from time to time. I’ve a history of having my thunder stolen out from under me several times in the field (and not always accidentally), so I’m a bit gun shy.
Anyway, I started writing a draft of the paper on Thursday the way I usually do: I write […] Click to continue reading this post
