Category Archives: science in the media

Laserfest Videos

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laser_beamI think I mentioned a while back that as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Laser, there was a video competition on Physics Central to make a fun video about the Laser. They were put on YouTube (tag is laserfest, I think) and then there was voting at some point (I imagine), and winners were chosen. You can see them here. Congratulations to the winners!

Actually, I think the whole playlist of Laserfest video entries is here, and you can jump through them by clicking the link to the next one in the top right hand area.

Are you aware of Laserfest, by the way? Go and check out the website and join in the celebrations of the Laser!

I should mention that the competition has all meant good news for my work as well. I […] Click to continue reading this post →

But is it Real? (Part One)

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After my colloquium at UC Riverside some weeks back, I was asked an important question I’ve been asked before, and no doubt will be asked again. The same question may have occurred to you given things I’ve written here about the subject of my research concerning applications of string theory (particularly, ideas from quantum gravity) to understanding (relatively) recent experimentally measured phenomena. (The technique of “gauge/gravity dualities”: See also the special Physics Today May issue with articles on all of this. I wrote about that here. It tells you some of what we can and can’t do with the computational technology, and prospects for improvement, etc.)

So the question is “Is it real?”. This is particularly referring to the black hole in the discussion. Recall, one computes properties of new novel liquid phases of matter (that seem to be closely related to what shows up in the lab) by using a toolbox that involves the equations of gravity, in a higher dimensional spacetime, and much of the thermal nature of the system is controlled by a black hole solution of those equations. So people want to know if that black hole is real. A version of the conversation is like this: (Imagine I’ve already introduced the technique, the higher dimensional spacetime, and the black hole…)

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Singh Case Over!

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Excellent news. The libel case against Simon Singh has been dropped. BBC story here. (See my previous post for details.)

Most important quote is from Simon:

Dr Singh said he was hugely relieved, but expressed his annoyance that libel actions continued to be used to block what he viewed as legitimate scientific inquiry and debate.

“Other scientists, science writers, bloggers, investigative journalists, human rights activists – all get threatened with these libel suits,” he told BBC News. “And at the end of the day, the people who lose out are the general public because we don’t get to find out the real truth because these libel suits just stop good journalism.”

Very true, and there is much work to do on that aspect of the legal system, but for now, beers all around, ok?!

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

She Blinded Me With Science…

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The funny video below* is good for a bit of nostalgia for the time of the Thomas Dolby song, the song itself, and perhaps for the X-Files TV show (but not for me, I saw only a few episodes). Scully fans will love this, and although I never regularly watched the show, I did appreciate her character. Strong skepticism, insistence on using the scientific method, etc. Excellent. Good character overall, and broke a lot of ground as a female lead with these characteristics too.

chloe_obrian_24Now here’s an idea. Would someone please do such a video for 24’s Chloe O’Brian? (Pictured left.) She’s definitely one of my favourite technical expert engineer/scientist types on a major show, and Mary Lynn Rajskub does an excellent job giving her life, depth and likeability even though she’s fighting against all the geek/nerd stereotype characteristics they’ve endowed her with. In essence, she does it by embracing them. Her attention to detail regularly saves the day (world, city, state, whatever), and the lives of her colleagues, and in the last episode they even had her supposedly determining that light in a video was daylight by […] Click to continue reading this post →

Inspiration and Dedication

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jaime_escalante_by_robert_gauthierYou might not have heard of him, so I thought I’d mark the passing, on Tuesday, of the mathematics teacher Jaime Escalante. (Photo on right by Robert Gauthier.) He was an extraordinary teacher who passionately believed in the abilities of the many East Los Angeles students from disadvantaged and traditionally ignored backgrounds he taught, enduring the ridicule of his colleagues to press on with the job of teaching them as well as he could, challenging them to reach impressive heights of mathematical ability, especially considering given the circumstances. Some people might know some […] Click to continue reading this post →

Great News for Healthy Skepticism

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I don’t know if you’ve been following the story at all, but there’s been a major breakthrough in the UK for the ability of people to speak out against, for example, claims being made about the efficacy of medical treatments. It is very important, since the UK courts with their strong libel laws, are commonly used by big companies (with deep pockets) as a stick to beat anyone (such as a reasonably skeptical ordinary citizen who is not willing to believe extraordinary claims with little or no evidence for them) who raises questions. Simon Singh, a well-known science writer (whose work I’ve discussed here before) has, after a long battle, won a crucial appeal that may be […] Click to continue reading this post →

Picking Mushrooms

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From Frances Bonahan s colloquiumAha. It’s one of those moments in mathematics press coverage that the journalists love, since all the stereotypes about how weird people working on abstract things can be are able to be brought out and highlighted, and words like genius, prodigy, recluse, eccentric, etc, get thrown about in equal measure.

Yes, Grigory Perelman has being turning down stuff again. You may recall him refusing the Fields Medal four years ago. Now he is refusing the Clay Mathematics Institute’s million dollar payout. Perelman proved the Poincaré conjecture a while back (see this older BBC article about that, along with a non-technical mention of the content of the conjecture – see also here, a related post the picture above right is from), which is on the Clay’s list of Big Problems whose collective heads have a bounty on them. He’s apparently a bit eccentric and the press love it, so most articles I’ve seen are mostly taken up with stuff like the following I saw in the Guardian:
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Not Entirely Alone

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Does this description seem familiar?

Black scientist, born in 1968. Born in London to immigrant parents. Spent a fair amount of time in their school years convincing teachers to not assume that they are supposed to be in the “B” group in all their subjects by default. Did a physics degree at Imperial College, London University. Now a successful practicing scientist. Doing a lot of science/education outreach as well (was on the radio twice in the last week or so, for example).

All familiar so far, right? Ok, a bit more…

Was on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island discs last week talking about their life and selecting eight favourite pieces of music, a book, and a luxury item they’d like to have on said island (chose telescope).

About to have a daughter.

Oh! […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Onion on Science Programming

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Yes, it’s very funny*, and awfully close to the truth as well, at least in terms of the final product. More seriously, it is worth noting that what they get wrong is the blaming of it on audiences. It is actually more about the channels (not just the Science Channel) themselves and the sort of business models they run. We, the scientists who care to, must carry on contributing where we can as well as encouraging and supporting the film-makers as much as we can. It’s not really their fault so much as the people who call the shots at the head of the money food chain. Most of the film-makers I’ve worked with on the many shows I’ve helped with (either in front of or behind the camera, or both) are passionate about the science, are keenly interested in understanding it more so as to tell the story to the public as well as they can, and are capable of doing so. They most often can’t get their shows past the people at the top who believe that the material is too inaccessible or not interesting to the public. (I’ve heard the same complaint from science journalists working in the print media too.) On the other hand, I get recognized and stopped on […] Click to continue reading this post →

Dessert Coffees

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three_coffeesThese are not really my cup of tea (at least not first choice), so to speak, but they are very pretty.

While working at the countertop of a coffee bar at Mercado San Miguel, in Madrid, (drinking my usual café cortado) I watched the fellow at the counter making them for some customers.

It was a rather elaborate process, and quite fascinating to watch. It might seem odd […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Creative Science Studio

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I received an email the other day asking me if I had any connection to the new initiative announced at USC recently (link here), talking about a new partnership (involving USC and the NSF) for increasing and improving the amount of science in entertainment and media products such as films and television shows, and probably more. It is called the Creative Science Studio, or CS2. You’ve read me talk about these sorts of projects on the blog a huge amount, and so I won’t repeat the motivations here (you can find earlier thoughts if you look under some of the categories this post is in for other posts on the subject).

One of the fallouts (fallsout?) of being a dabbler, behind-the-scenes-agitator and general troublemaker is that one can never really tell what are all the final projects, initiatives (and so forth) that come about as a result (at least in part) of one’s actions. In trying to significantly move forward things such as this (involving public […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Write Stuff

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A little while ago, this season’s edition of the USC College magazine came out, and it is available online. Notably, it is featuring writers and writing, and there are several pieces in there about both faculty and students and their writing, in various forms. There are articles about superstars such as TC Boyle and Aimee Bender, as well as pieces by excellent writers such as California Poet Laureate Carol Muske-Dukes, and M. G. Lord. I recommend having a read of it.

It is with a mixture of mild amusement and embarrassment that I mention that among all that excellent writerly material is, perhaps oddly, an article on yours truly. It is about this blog, what it is about and for, and why I do it. (The blog is, of course, not to be mistaken for great writing, and so I will apologize personally to Aimee […] Click to continue reading this post →

Gunslinging Bohr

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bohr_einsteinThis story has come along at just the right time, given that my last post was about Einstein. Seems that Niels Bohr (another giant from the same period, and another one of the founders of the quantum theory) was a big fan of cowboy movies, and thought a lot about gunfights. Yes, really! (There he is in the photo on the left hanging out with his friend Einstein in later years, perhaps 1925. Perhaps they’re at a drive-in movie? I got this photo here.)

It turns out to be all relevant to new studies about reaction time. The fastest person to draw does not necessarily win the gunfight: […] Click to continue reading this post →

Crazy Al

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So I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day about science and scientists, and in particular what on earth we theoretical physicists actually do.

She (mostly jokingly I think) said we’re really all a bit weird, just sitting around thinking about quantum physics all day. einstein_imagesI tried to begin to explain that we don’t sit around thinking about quantum mechanics all day any more than a tailor sits around all day thinking about needles. (Or how many angels or demons can fly through the eyes of said needles at the same time.) No, we’re mostly getting on with using the needles in the making of new suits and so forth. (To continue the allegory.)

But I did not get to that analogy, because another thing came up. She went on to say “…like Einstein, with crazy hair…”, to invoke her primary example of the crazy quantum scientist. Now, given that she was talking to me (er… no crazy hair, in case you are wondering), she was clearly joking, but in my view, at the core of all that is a serious image problem that science has to deal with – bizarre cliches about who we are and what we look like. So I thought I’d point something out.

The most famous image of the crazy/eccentric scientist is largely based on a lie (or […] Click to continue reading this post →

Mathematics in Your Business

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Terry Gross interviewed Scott Patterson and Ed Thorp on NPR’s Fresh Air. I heard it yesterday. It was very interesting to listen to Thorp in particular, a mathematician, describing his curiosity about how to construct a system for beating various gambling games, and going from there to the stock market, in effect becoming one of the earliest of the “quants”,

Thorp and the people who use such systems have come to be known as “quants” — it’s a reference to the quantitative-analysis techniques they employ — and their stories are told in Scott Patterson’s new book The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It.

You can hear the interview here, and read an extract from the book. Very interesting are the questions about what they think really went wrong in the market crash of […] Click to continue reading this post →