“Yeah, this string theory stuff is nice and all, but what does it have to do with the price of eggs?”, is not one of the questions I’ve had to field at the end of a public lecture, but it could have been. If it had come up, I could … Click to continue reading this post
Well, I gave the talk and I’m back at my temporary apartment. I’m exhausted, as is always the case for me after general talks. Does that happen to you? I think I managed to get across everything I wanted to (see the previous post) and it was a nice complement … Click to continue reading this post
[Update1…. Oh no it’s not official! See here.] [Update2: The vote is in… see here.] [Update3: (7th June 2010) Moved the updates 1 and 2 one sentence earlier since, bizarrely, some readers (ahem! you know who you are…) don’t seem to read further than one sentence, or check the posting … Click to continue reading this post
NASA is about to make an exciting announcement, apparently. On Monday 21st August there will be a press conference, and there will be actual information (they say) at several places mentioned in this link. I have not the slightest idea of the details of the announcement [but see update below], … Click to continue reading this post
Well, I had the “Aspen Physics Preview” interview for the station called “Grassroots TV” this afternoon. It was a pleasant chat with host Sy Coleman about aspects of research into fundamental physics and string theory. I don’t have a good sense of what it was like since I was focusing … Click to continue reading this post
I’m going to try to tell you a bit about a few of the talks (physics and otherwise) that I’ve seen here at Aspen, but not now. I’ve got rather a lot to do right now…. But I will try later in the week. In the meantime, here is a … Click to continue reading this post
Well, I dashed off a lecture summary to be printed out in time for the public lecture on Thursday: Title: Strings Everywhere? Hold it right there. What is the meaning of the title? I’m riffing on two things, one physical and the other sociological. The first, vastly more important theme … Click to continue reading this post
Well, I have to face up to it. There’s been this embarrassing thing all around town here in Aspen that I have not told you about, but I have to get it done this week. Everywhere you go around town -and I mean everywhere- there are little piles or pinboards … Click to continue reading this post
New Scientist has an article by Stephen Battersby on their top ten weirdest cosmology theories. My first thought, beore reading the article was that they were going to have a lot of fun with this, but they seem to be rather conservative about their definition of “weird”. This means that … Click to continue reading this post
I’ve no idea what they were doing (I’ll try to find out and let you know), since I was at the concert, but it sure looked liked they were having fun out there in the Wednesday kids’ science picnic at the ACP: Two weeks ago, apparently they had the “Physics … Click to continue reading this post
Since I wrote an article about this last year for the non-expert to get some idea of what the discussion was about, let me first point you to it via this link. Since in that article, by way of illustration of the “Landscape” idea, I used a picture of the … Click to continue reading this post
In a rather splendid development, there’s been an arrangement made between the Aspen Center for Physics and the Aspen Music Festival and School, which (you might recall from a post of mine a long time ago) are in close proximity to one another. The result of the arrangement is that … Click to continue reading this post
So it was all quiet in the Aspen Center for Physics offices. Why? Tuesday family picnic outside…! Was it quiet out there? No! There were science experiments with the food of course! How did they get the diet cokes to erupt like that? The instigator of this was Phenomenologist Josh … Click to continue reading this post
You know, I’ve been calculating all day (and oooohhhh, what a calculation. I shall try to tell you about it sometime) and so when I did the previous post about that comic strip, and pointed to the site, I did not actually look through the site for more examples. Luckily, … Click to continue reading this post
From this comic strip: Spotted at Pharyngula. -cvj
