Not All Academic

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I just have to say…Slumdog Millionaire is indeed a fantastic film. In case you were wondering if you should go…. just go. It is well written, acted, and beautifully photographed and directed. I’m pleasantly surprised that Danny Boyle could make a film that feels quite so authentic (while at the same time being essentially a fairy tale) as an Indian film. Quite splendid.

Speaking of excellent films of 2008, and turning to a more academic context, I’d like to urge you to take a second look at The Visitor, if you’ve not yet seen it. It’s nice, from time to time, to see films where the principal characters are academics, and this one does a very good job at having a good feel to it – in the sense that the lead (played wonderfully by Richard Jenkins) felt believable as a professor going through a strange time in his life, and then finding himself increasingly falling into an unfamiliar world. It is one of my favourite films of the year, and it seems that few people I know have even heard of it.

While on the subject of 2008 films featuring academics, I’d like to mention Smart People. I really did not like it at all. It is not that most of the principal characters Click to continue reading this post →

Good News for the Arts?

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On this NPR segment from Morning Edition last week, Elizabeth Blair talks with Steve Inskeep about Obama’s unusually (for a president-elect or president) vocal support for the idea of increased support for the arts.

This is very encouraging indeed. With all the of the urgent things to be done by the administration, I do hope this turns into reality.

-cvj

Darwin in the Air

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You’ll begin to notice a lot of discussion of Charles Darwin soon. Why? It is his 200th anniversary, and also 150 years since his Origin of Species was published, and so many people and organizations will be celebrating those landmarks. I did a couple of posts last year on Darwin that are worth a look, one about Darwin’s presentation of the evolution idea to the Linnean Society (150th anniversary of that last year) and the other about the wonderful Darwin Online project. See here and here.

Earlier this week I noticed that BBC Radio 4’s excellent series In Our Time (which I’ve mentioned a number of times here and will again) did a four part special documentary on Darwin. I’ve not listened to it yet, but I’ve a feeling it’ll be good. (I’ll be dropping all four parts onto my phone for listening to in those idle moments on some travel I’m about to embark upon.)

Snipping some of the synopses: Click to continue reading this post →

Presidential Poetry

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More encouragement (see my earlier piece about education and about science and more science) comes around the matter of poetry and the presidency. Larissa Anderson, on Weekend America this Saturday, reported on the president-elect’s evident interest in poetry. Derek Walcott was featured in the piece as well (I was pleased to hear this since I like his work, and it is also good to hear about the work of a Caribbean thinker on the national stage – it does not happen often enough for my liking) and had some very interesting things to say. From the transcript of the piece (see that link for audio):

Walcott says it’s good for people in power to read poetry because human beings are complex and contradictory, and poetry can capture that. Like in Langston Hughes’ poem “Theme for English B” when the black student writes to his white teacher, “Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. / Nor do I often want to be a part of you. / But we are, that’s true!” Or in Walt Whitman’s line, “I am large — I contain multitudes.”

Walcott likes the idea of a president who reads poetry and thinks about this kind of human truth. Someone who can see beyond the act of political posturing.

Then he read his recent poem, “40 Acres” that he wrote for Obama, which I thought was rather good. He also described some of the process of writing it – also excellent to hear. Finally, the piece reported on something he said that reflects my own Click to continue reading this post →

Thermodynamics and Gravity

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ads_ballI noticed that Robert Helling shared some thoughts about thermodynamics and gravity today on his blog. He is understandably confused about several aspects of the issue, especially when applied to cosmological issues. (What is the entropy of our universe? Does the Second Law really apply? Does equilibrium thermodynamics even apply here?)

I’ve nothing remarkable to add to the discussion at this time except to note that a blanket statement that thermodynamics and gravity don’t seem to go together (which I don’t think he’s strongly saying) is not one I’d make, since we have a major class of working counterexamples.

The context is the gauge/gravity duals I’ve talked about here a lot, starting with AdS/CFT and beyond. There we know that the gravitational systems are essentially able to display the more garden variety thermodynamics by being immersed in the (regulating-box-like) anti-De Sitter type backgrounds. Then we see that black holes Click to continue reading this post →

Merry New Year!

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pods on a tree at new year Yes, that’s right. You read Merry and not Happy.

I’m breaking the mould. I’m upping the stakes. I’m wishing one and all a year of merriment. I’m afraid it can’t be returned, so you’ll have to work with it as best you can. I’m certainly going to.

To achieve the mean of Happiness that the millions of Happy New Year wishes every year are evidently striving for, we need to be aiming for some Merriness from time to time to keep us on track at settling at this particular position on the multidimensional emotional landscape.

Someone has to take this important business in hand, and so I’m having a go, Click to continue reading this post →

As 2008 Draws to a Close…

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I thought I’d follow Janet and do a sort of end of year review or summary (or, really, snapshot) in the following style: List the first sentence of every first post of the month for all twelve months. I’ve no idea what this will produce, so here goes:

* * *

January
I’ll admit that I was quite surprised by this.

February
Lovely layers in the distance on a hike at Runyon Canyon this morning, looking North East.

March
A snapshot from last Friday night (a week ago).

April
Well, I learned recently* that the BBC wildlife program makers have done it again, breaking new ground in scientific discovery while making a new series.

May
Well, here’s a turn up for the books.

June
Well, you’ve probably guessed that I’ve been somewhat distracted for several days.

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Moanin’

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freddie hubbard

One of my favourite trumpet players – one who helped transform the instrument – is Freddie Hubbard. He died on Monday morning. Sadly, this means that the last of a line of great trumpet giants of the middle period has passed. (I’m thinking of a line including Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan – Hubbard was the next. See my article on this from last year.) There’s a Herald Tribune obituary by Peter Keepnews here, and NPR has a reflection by Howard Mandel here.

There are a lot of YouTube clips of him playing, but sift carefully since (from a quick scan) what’s there is not a great mixture, I’d say. At least to my tastes there’s not enough stuff representative of his greatest periods as compared to the later work. I picked out a few bits for you below, but I’d recommend, if you are looking to more Click to continue reading this post →

Red, Yellow, Blue, Green…

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red yellow green blue…among other colours.

View of the day from the garden. (Winter. Number x in a limited series of y.) (Click for larger view.) The rains have gone for a while. The sun is back, with clear blue skies to close out the year.

I’m trying to rest. Well, I’m working on various projects at home, mostly. Colours are on my mind a bit in one of these projects, actually. Later today I’m going to be down in the (only slightly mad-scientist) workshop making a portable screen on which to project films.

Projecting onto the wall is good, but I want to make a silver-grey screen with a dark border that will really pop the colours out. Some of this is about not projecting onto Click to continue reading this post →

Cracked

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christmas crackers crackedAt some point during Christmas dinner (prepared in collaboration between my mum and I) I remembered that on top of a high cabinet, out of reach and almost forgotten, there were a few Christmas crackers from three or four years ago.

We cracked a couple, of course. Wouldn’t you have?

These were rather good crackers, with solid presents in them. We popped them open simultaneously, and used the rule that who got the larger portion of a cracker won its contents.

Click to continue reading this post →

Goodbye Eartha Kitt

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eartha kitt (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Sad news from the entertainment world today. Eartha Kitt died today. I thought I’d mark this with a post here. What a wonderfully odd character she was! I’m often a big supporter of those who march to the beat of a different drum, and she certainly fits the bill.

There’s an excellent Washington Post article by Wil Haygood describing a lunch with Click to continue reading this post →

The Earth Also Rises

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the earthrise picture from 40 years ago

Sheril reminds us that it is 40 years to the day that this photograph was taken (by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission), and invites us to ponder how much has happened to and on it over the last 40, and how it might be in 2048. A good end of year meditation.

Happy Holidays to all!

[Update: A very good NPR piece on the mission and the photo is here, with audio and partial transcript.]

-cvj

Tracking Santa

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Ok, since it is two days until Christmas I suppose I can stop ignoring all the flashing lights and twinkly things and incessant “Holiday Music”. (Yeah, how time flies..!) I’ll even do a post discussing Santa. You see, it came to my attention that Google Earth, in collaboration with NORAD, no less, will be tracking Santa on Christmas Eve. See here and here for more details.

It sort of got my attention for the obvious reason -they’re tracking Santa!- but then when I went to browse the site, I thought I’d certainly point it out to you since on the further information for kids page (yes, in case you weren’t sure, it seems that children are a major target in this operation – check out the links to, er, fun things for them) there’s an “About Santa” page. Well, I had to click, since I’d certainly learn something. Indeed, I learned that some physics thinking has gone into pondering the Santa Phenomenon:
Click to continue reading this post →

Summer Reading: Falling For Science

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(Yes, I know it is not Summer (here), but I love the idea of Summer reading lists so much that I will continue to discuss some books under this series title, whatever the time of year.)

I just heard a piece by Robert Krulwich on NPR about the book “Falling for Science: Objects in Mind”, which is a collection of essays with an introduction by Sherry Turkle, who’s a social sciences professor at MIT. Krulwich says:

“…written by senior scientists (artificial intelligence pioneer Seymour Papert, MIT president and neuroanatomist Susan Hockfield, and architect Moshe Safdie, for example) and by students who passed through her classes at MIT over the past 25 years. They were all asked the same question: “Was there an object you met during childhood or adolescence that had an influence on your path into science?”

And after a tidal wave of Legos (7 different essays), computer games and broken radios, I found a few wonderful surprises. One MIT student reported how she couldn’t stop braiding her My Little Pony’s tail, weaving the hairs into endlessly repeating patterns (a clue, perhaps, to her fascination with mathematics)….[…]”

He goes on to interview software designer Joseph Calzaretta about his childhood encounter with stop signs. It’s a really nice story. The whole radio piece is here, with audio and transcript. (There’s another version here with the excellent “Eggs in a Basket” story emphasized instead.)

This is actually an issue that fascinates me, and I don’t think that the question should be quite as narrow as above – focusing only on people who went into science. I think that -especially as children- we are all scientists, exploring the world around us, Click to continue reading this post →