Uh, LA Has A Subway Too!

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Well, this was nice to see (story here, extract below), and it’s really excellent that they did it:

Peter Brown enters the No. 1 subway train on New York City’s Upper West Side, not far from his apartment. But to Brown, he is in the Capulets’ orchard, looking up at an imaginary balcony. In a trained, strong voice, he calls out these immortal words: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun.”

Troian Bellisario boards the same No. 1 train through a different door and senses the bewilderment of the riders as they eye the lovesick Brown warily. Is he talking to himself? Practicing something? A weirdo?

But then Bellisario crosses to him, stands up on a seat and replies: “O, speak again, bright angel!”

A teenager looks up from her iPhone. “Oh, my God. It’s Juliet!”

And so begins the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet […]

(Image: Rahav Segev/Photopass.com)

…But the obvious thought springs to mind. I can’t help but think it is sad that, as USC students, they did not also do it on the Los Angeles subway system. We have one, you Click to continue reading this post →

Bit Like Watching The Olympics…

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(…but without the relentless parade of bikinis, happily.)

What am I talking about? You can watch live over the web the proceedings of the Strings 2008 conference taking place at CERN. The official site is here, with links to the webcast, schedule, talk titles, and so forth. (Sorry I’m a bit late in pointing to it!)

Enjoy!

-cvj

Welcome Invasion

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paraphenalia for discussion magnetism

“Invasion” in the sense of something that took me away from my regular time usage, I should say. I just spent an interesting period of time this morning viewing a pilot for a new TV show. It has a large science component, and will be on one or other of the Discovery Network’s channels. I appear in it (talking mostly about magnetism), and I blogged about some of the filming of it here.

I have to say it was a pleasure to spend a bit of time looking at the (nearly) finished product and commenting here and there on the script and so forth. The concept of the show is really good, and they manage to carry it out with humour while still getting Click to continue reading this post →

Susskind and Cole on C-Span2

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I just happened (while flicking channels to try to avoid the naked mud-wrestling, oops, women’s beach volleyball*) to run into a broadcast of the Los Angeles Public Library conversation between KC Cole and Lenny Susskind about the amusingly titled “Black Hole War” between him and Stephen Hawking and the circle of ideas and theories connected with all of that wonderful area of physics. (I blogged about it here and here.) It looks like it was really good (I just caught some of the questions and answer Click to continue reading this post →

Art Walk

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Of course, being back in the city means getting back into the routine of enjoying all the fantastic things to do here during a hot Summer. There are too many things to choose from, but one of my favourites is the Downtown Art Walk. (Previous post on it here.) It’s the second Thursday of every month. Strangely, it is still not very well known, even though it is one of the best activities I can think of to do to blow off steam at the end of the day. Or for the whole day. The art is all over the place, in that there is good stuff mixed in with a lot of, uh, other stuff, and so it is fun to hunt for it. Two reliable highlights for me, and maybe the most fun of all, are (1) the fact that these galleries are housed in lots of fantastic old and decayed spaces in old buildings in the core of Los Angeles’ centre. In fact, I often find myself looking at and enjoying the spaces more than the art. (2) The people. Representatives of every Los Angeles archetype, and several more besides, can be found wandering the streets of downtown during the Art Walk… and squeezing into the galleries and sampling the free (or cheap) wine, and generally rubbing shoulders with everyone else. How often do you get a wider cross section of Angelenos out of their cars and, horror, walking and, horror of horrors, mingling with others? Worth going just for that. There’s a brief history of it here, written by Bert Green, (hey, I did not know that I’ve been coming to it almost since it started) and the website for the Art Walk is here.

I wandered around some of my favourite galleries and studios, looking at the art, people, buildings, and spaces. Everything changes so much between monthly events and so it is always a pleasant surprise to learn which gallery will interest me most on Click to continue reading this post →

Breathing

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faith machine by robert reynolds

This is a piece by Robert Reynolds, currently on display at the Bert Green Fine Art Gallery in downtown LA. It is called Faith Machine. You’ll have to ask him what he’s trying to depict (Bert, the gallery owner, gave me a bit of a run down, but I don’t want to garble it), but I loved it simply because it’s a working, moving machine, and those bellows are just wonderful, with a motor turning at the back driving a piston that pumps the bellows, blowing smoke (or something) up through the seats (which are actually old school seats). There are some interesting messages in there, evidently, and I’ll leave you to work out your own angles.

I found the sound of the pumping bellows and turning wheel to be very biological in its effect, and quite hypnotic. I made a short video and you can view it below. (I hope that Click to continue reading this post →

Some Science With Your Politics

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Well, there’s all sorts of rhetoric on all various matters from the main presidential candidates, and there’s still a long way to go until November. It’s nice to hear a bit of chatter about global warming, gas prices, research into alternative fuels, cars with higher efficiency, and other issues that have a high degree of science playing a role in shaping our decisions about our policies and actions, in all aspects of society. (Although there is some occasional mention at some points at state level, it would be nice to hear a lot more about concerted thoughts about public transportation infrastructure, but perhaps that’s just way too much to ask in a society still rather naively obsessed with individualism at all costs.)

So what are the official positions of the candidates on science, across the board? Well, Click to continue reading this post →

First Fig Fun

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figs and cheeseWell, for some of this time I’ve been away I’ve been a bit worried about the fig tree. Why? Well, as I was leaving town, it was hugely laden with fruit that looked rather like they were going to peak while I was away. I certainly did not want that to happen since the squirrels and other critters would have a field day (or several!), and get used to the idea that they had full access to the tree with no dissent from me.

Well, it turns out that the tree held out longer than it seemed that it would, so while the peak came while I was away, it was only for a week or so.

So I lost several figs, and had to deal with the sticky, frenzied-ant-infused mess left Click to continue reading this post →

A Bad Mother—(Shut Your Mouth!)

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isaac hayesWell, you’ve heard the news (and I’m sure I’m not the first to use the above title in this context) about Isaac Hayes, I imagine. He died yesterday. You’ll almost certainly have heard the theme from Shaft, if nothing else from his work. I grew up with a lot of that music all around me, back in the 70s, so I have a lot of fond memories that start flowing whenever I hear that theme, and a number of other pieces by him.

His music helped form the foundation for so much of what was to come – disco, soul, and related forms, principally. He’ll be missed, both as the musician and (of course) as South Park’s much loved character, Chef.

NPR has a report and tribute today, here (audio and transcript), and turn up the speakers, click on the following, and dance around a bit in celebration of Isaac Hayes!
Click to continue reading this post →

E.Coli Stories

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e.coli image from http://www.foodpoisonblog.com/Not long ago, science writer Carl Zimmer spoke at the Zócalo series. He was talking about the subject of his new book, E. Coli, and wove a lovely story of how the E. Coli have taught us so much about life over the years, and how they continue to do so. So much of what we know about the workings of DNA, for example, came down to studies of a very clear model system, and E.Coli was the system chosen by Biologists (and Physicists interested in fundamental issues surrounding the nature of life, DNA, etc.) (Updated attribution: Image above left – click for larger view – is a painting from shardcore. Many more paintings and other art there. Worth looking.)

The talk, for a general audience, is highly informative. It is only about an hour long, and worth your time. It was broadcast last night, and I found it rather good indeed. I Click to continue reading this post →

Beaming With Anticipation

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CERN Control CentreI just learned from the US/LHC blogs that the first circulating beam of the Large Hadron Collider will be attempted on September 10th. The press release is here, and is from where I stole the image (left) of the fancy-looking CERN Control Centre. This is so exciting! It’s not long now for possible new physics (some months or so beyond that date, or early 2009) from this long, long awaited machine. In the meantime, lots of other warm-up test will be going on too. Link here for more.

For more on the LHC and why we care, see several older posts here (this one links to lots of things), including the ones pointing to the nice NPR pieces (here, and here). Be sure to watch the excellent videos showing you the inside of one of the detectors (links Click to continue reading this post →

Not a Free Lunch

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Yesterday saw a mass desertion for a while here at the Aspen Center for Physics. Howie Haber (UCSC) organized a large group (twenty-two) of participants (and some of their guests) of the program entitled “LHC: Beyond the Standard Model Signals in a QCD Environment” (info here), to go for a group lunch at the excellent Pine Creek Cookhouse, 12 miles away up Castle Creek Road. And, I should mention, 1700 or so feet up. The latter is significant since about two thirds of us, led by Howie, cycled up there! It takes a while (times ranged from 1 hr 20 minutes to about 30 – 40 minutes more than that), and there are about two or three major long, punishing hills to deal with, but it was worth it!

Here are some (not all) of the cyclists at the destination (restaurant is a low-slung cabin-style affair out of shot to the right). Howie, our organizer, is in the middle at the front. (Click for larger view):

Lunchtime ride up to Pine Creek Cookhouse from Aspen Center for Physics

(Er, for the record, I’m slightly embarrassed by wearing socks with my sport sandals – a personal no-no – but I wanted to protect my feet from 12 miles of pedalling friction, so made an exception.)

Here are some random shots of happy arrivals (click each for larger):
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Experiment IV

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Ok. Time for a bit of fun, or something. It’s rainy here, and I’m waiting for things to dry out before I go home. I’m between tasks, and I’m woozy from that extra beer at the weekly picnic (thanks, Ben!) so that’s my excuse. Not that I’ve ever needed one.

The other day while hiking I found myself singing Kate Bush songs. No, really. I get into a Kate Bush mood sometimes. Deal with it! Anyway, “Experiment IV” sort of stuck in my head and went around several times. It’s all about a science experiment, even if only a slightly naive exploration of how the military exploit scientific research. I simply love the way she made the phrases “We only know in theory what we are doing” and “We recorded it and put it into our machine” work with the rhythm and melody lines. Then I remembered, and checked on YouTube, how she’d construct these really excellent videos which were miniature movies, telling a little story, at least two of them (this song, and “Cloudbusting”) involving scientists.

Now of course, the scientists were the usual men-in-white-coats scientists (however, the image right is explained below). Kate Bush, Experiment IV performance (still)I know I go on a lot about trying to have in the media a wider variety of images of what scientists can look like, but that does not mean that I don’t like things that sometimes have the old chestnuts. Cloudbusting has Donald Sutherland as the scientist-father-figure, and Experiment IV has a similar figure (played by someone I don’t recognize) as the scientist whose work is exploited. There are a number of actors in supporting scientist roles too – look out for (I think) a Click to continue reading this post →