Blue Monk, Birthday Monk

By | |
1 Comment

Hey, it’s also the 90th birthday of Thelonius Monk, one of my favourite musicians for sheer character, originality, electricity and overall brilliance. I noted the day not because I have committed to memory the birthdays of my favourite musicians (I barely remember mine each year) but because there was a nice NPR piece on him just now. Have a listen if you like (here).

I’m going to celebrate with a treat. Wall to wall Monk on my iTunes for the next couple of hours while I work, and here on the blog, two of my favourite videos of Monk in action playing the wonderful “Blue Monk”. The first one (look who’s watching on while he plays!) is shorter, sparser, and is sort of cooler (in a way I can’t define – his movements have a lot to do with it) while the second one is longer, denser, (it has other soloists) but has more in the way of fascinating harmonies popping out from under his fingers, along with more of his unusual and highly effective percussive playing style. Note by the way that the first is from the amazing 1957 video/film recording “The Sound of Jazz” that has so many musical giants playing and walking around the studio that it’s almost overwhelming. Get it if you want a simply sublime musical experience. (You can find clips on YouTube, like this one of Billie Holiday (surrounded by other greats on sax, trumpet, trombone…), which brings me to tears of both joy and sadness every time.)

Ok… the Monk recordings follow. Enjoy… Watch the feet! I love the feet!

Click to continue reading this post →

Nobel Birthday Present

By | |
Comments Off on Nobel Birthday Present

Chemistry gets the focus today. From the Academy:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2007 to Gerhard Ertl (Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany), for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces.

Apparently, it’s also his birthday!! That’s a remarkable present to get!

There’s a description of the work (which has important applications all over science and technology – the solid things around us are not infinite, so surfaces abound) here Click to continue reading this post →

Nobel Prize for Giants

By | |
5 Comments

The Nobel Prize for Physics was announced today! From the Nobel Prize site:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2007 jointly to Albert Fert (Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/THALES, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France) and Peter Grünberg (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany) for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance.

“Giant Magnetoresistance” sounds like something from a pulp science fiction novel or Star Trek episode, right? That may well be, but it is worth noting that this effect is what is responsible for your ipod (or other device using those remarkably compact hard drives for storage – like your laptop) being so small! (It is called “giant” because it is a much more powerful version of the magnetoresistance that was already known about. Magnetoresistance is a material’s ability to change its electrical resistance in response to an applied magnetic field**.) There’s a nice conversation about it with Richard Harris on NPR this morning (click here to read transcripts and also link to audio), and here’s the excellent summary from the Noble Prize site itself:

Click to continue reading this post →

Too Many Events Today

By | | , , ,
3 Comments

annenberg panelIn my fog of too many things to do, I forgot to tell you about this event, which happens today at 5:30. I only remembered this morning as I dug a slightly better than normal shirt (for the event) out of the laundry pile and started to iron it:

At USC’s Annenberg School of Communication:

“Does Science Get A Fair Shake in the Media?”

USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism and Scientific American presents a discussion with leading journalists and scholars to “examine all the elements that go into informing the public about the latest scientific discoveries and the challenges the media faces in getting the science right for a story. Guests include author and journalism professor K.C. Cole, astronomy and physics professor Clifford Johnson, biological sciences professor Michael Quick, Reuters biotechnology reporter Lisa Baertlein, and author and environmental journalist Marla Cone. Scientific American editor in chief John Rennie will moderate.

Reception follows discussion.

So that’s going to be great. I recommend it. Location and travel information here.
(I borrowed the picture above from their publicity site.)

I have a dilemma. On the one hand, we have an interesting colloquium today in the Click to continue reading this post →

Artificial Life?

By | | , ,
3 Comments

Sheril had a post about this over on the new blog Correlations, but it is so interesting (and so potentially far-reaching) that I thought I’d point to it here too.

Craig Venter’s been at it again. This time one of his teams of scientists has apparently created a synthetic chromosome in the laboratory. As he said to the Guardian:

this landmark would be “a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before”.

Click to continue reading this post →

Not Following the Script

By | | , , , ,
3 Comments

Well, it was a weekend of an unexpected character. Fantastic outside, but I did not see as much of it as I’d have liked. I was working on a script, you see. It needed to be worked on immediately and at the last minute because the work of turning it into the final product that will get seen started this weekend, and so I wanted to make as many comments and suggestions as I could before it was too late. It’s science – don’t worry. Also, it is rare to get to work on something that I know will get made (most things get shelved and never see the light of day), so that was sort of fun. I won’t tell you what it is (sorry) since I’m not actually a writer on the project, but I got the chance to look at the whole thing and make a lot of comments and suggestions, rephrasings, alternative lines, and so forth. All in a good cause. I think it will be out next year.

Yes, I know. “I was working on a script…” Sounds rather like I’ve finally caved in and succumbed to living in Los Angeles completely, working on a script like everyone else Click to continue reading this post →

Categorically Not! – Small Differences

By | | , , , ,
2 Comments

Edward Murray on Harpsichord at Categorically Not!The next Categorically Not! is Sunday October 7th. The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series – started and run by science writer K. C. Cole – of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area.

Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events. (Above right: Edward Murray performing on the harpsichord, in the event with the theme “Strings”.)

The theme this month is Small Differences Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Click to continue reading this post →

A Kick From Sputnik

By | | , , , , ,
13 Comments

sputnik1Today’s the 50th anniversary of an event that might be thought of as an extreme way of nationally getting really serious about Science education. Sputnik was launched by the USSR. The little pioneering satellite passed overhead several times a day, sending a powerful beeping signal over a radio channel. America immediately became scared, worried and paranoid and essentially declared it a national emergency to respond by a focus on better education in some science and technical subjects. Songs were written. The entire culture was changed.

Fear and paranoia are certainly not the ways I’d like to see us come back to recognizing the value and urgency of improved science education (not the least Click to continue reading this post →

Some of What Matters

By | | , , , , , , , , , , , ,
12 Comments

Below I’ve reproduced the text of the approximately 20 minutes of that which I presented at the What Matters to Me and Why event on Wednesday. I mentioned my preparations for it in a previous post. The event was well attended, in an excellent setting (a hidden campus cafe I’d somehow not known about before, Ground Zero). There were students, faculty, staff, alumni, and several others. I chose to give a structured address to start so as to make sure that I did not go on for too long, as I might in a more off-the-cuff delivery. I very much wanted to leave plenty of time to interact with the audience through their observations and questions. I delivered it partly from memory and partly from reading, and wanted it to have a bit of a feel of being read a story, rather than a formal speech. I don’t know how successful that was, but it was fun for me. I think I might try that approach again some time.

[Update: – Audio of the event here.]

Overall, I think the event worked well, and I had a great time. A number of people (kindly) said at the end that they had a good time, and I hope everyone else did too!

___________________________________________________________________________________
Hello Everyone.

First let me say that it is an honour to be here. I’d like to thank everyone concerned for inviting me to speak in this series. I imagine that everyone starts their piece by saying that they struggled to find a way of saying What Matters to them and Why in a short time. So I won’t dwell on that, except to say that it’s especially hard when, the day before preparing, you realize that it’s not going to be that hour long presentation you were expecting to squeeze your essence into, but 20 minutes!

Some time ago, when people started mentioning that they’d seen that I was a guest in this event, and that they were looking forward to hearing what I will say (!), I’d respond that I too was curious about what I was going to say, and would also try to show up and find out. This was actually true. The other thing that I (half-)joked was Click to continue reading this post →

WIRED Science – Show Tonight and Website is Live!

By | | , , , , ,
2 Comments

wired science bannerA quick reminder The show WIRED Science (that I mentioned earlier) debuts tonight! Notice also that the website with all the extra material is now live (and rather amazingly well designed -well done the New Media division at KCET), and – don’t forget – debuting also (and already live) is the new blog Correlations (I gave you the back story on that here). You can find a link to it from the site, or go directly here (but go look at the main site too). Please go along and say hi to us over there on our welcoming blog posts. And Tell Your Friends! (That includes you, science-oriented bloggers – it’s in a good cause!).

chris hardwickHere’s a teaser for the program, and one of the reasons I have high hopes for it. Here, they strip aside all the fancy stuff and just put a good person in front of the camera to get people thinking about something simple. This is a great thing when done well, and they’ve got the people who can do it. Here’s presenter Chris Hardwick doing a brilliant job of telling you what’s inside a simple everyday product in an entertaining way (link with transcript here, or play right here by clicking below):

Click to continue reading this post →

What Matters?

By | | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
6 Comments

palm flower frondsI’ll let you know.

Huh? Today, I’ve to think about two things I have to talk about over the next couple of days. I’ve to give a physics seminar on Thursday at UCSB, but more urgently, I have to think about What Matters To Me and Why. Why? This is because in the Spring I agreed to be one of the presenters of the four-times-a-semester USC event of the same title, hosted by the Center for Religious Life. This excellent series is run by Rabbi Susan Laemmle, the Dean of Religious Life, with a committee of students. Here’s how it is supposed to work (extract from their site):

At each WMMW session, the featured guest spends about twenty minutes addressing the topic “What Matters to Me and Why,” and then the floor is opened to informal dialogue for the remainder of the hour. Just as there is no one way to address the topic, so there will be no one direction in which dialogue will proceed. The student contact from the WMMW committee introduces the speaker and makes sure that the session goes forward in a professional yet friendly manner. An indirect purpose of WMMW is to maintain an arena in which people can talk about important, personally charged questions in an open, mutually respectful way.

A typical session is described here. This is going to be a tough one. Not because nothing matters to me but because everything seems to matter, and I cannot effectively rank these things to say what matters most in any way. I only learned yesterday that I only have about 20 minutes to say what it is that matters. This either makes things harder or easier, I can’t decide yet. Probably harder. Now I really have to think.

I jokingly thought a few months ago that I ought to just look at my last few blog posts the day before and just talk about what’s in those. What can I see… Well, there’s public transport, community and the environment, composting and gardening, science and television (and scientific honesty). Not bad. (Good thing I did not do that post on dating. Probably not a good topic for WMMW…) I can probably weave something out of those. Do I blog about those things by accident, or because there are some themes there that are being brought out? What are the big themes in those then? Random scattered thoughts follow….
Click to continue reading this post →

More Encounters On the Road Less Travelled

By | | , , , , , ,
11 Comments

Julia Russell - eco homesHey, guess who I saw today! Recall, that I passed a woman on a tricycle a while back? Well, at exactly the same spot, I passed her again today. She’s called Julia, as you may recall from her comment on the blog sometime later, (as I’d met her subsequently and said hello properly). I briefly said “hello and how are you” this time as our bike and trike passed each other, but I apologized for having to rush off, and rushed off. I was trying to catch the next bus in order to get to my classroom by 9:55am. The class’ first midterm was at 10:00am today and I wanted to make sure to be on time. So I dashed off to the stop…

…Only to be accompanied five minutes later by Julia, calmly arriving on her tricycle. She was also catching the same bus, it turned out, and I’d landed in the gap between buses and needed to wait anyway. After checking with me that this was indeed the stop she needed, she chained her splendid red machine to a tree. I contemplated taking a picture of us and the two extraordinary conveyances together to show you. However, while I dithered over this, the bus came. So I’ll cheat and re-use the old picture (right).

Anyway, we chatted quite a while about things (including the frustration of trying to Click to continue reading this post →

Composing Compost: Fun with Microorganisms

By | | , , ,
14 Comments

So finally I completed the project that began with the chicken wire matters I spoke of a while ago. Work and such things have a way of intervening for weeks, preventing a good idea from going from conception to completion in what should be a day or two. The plan? To stop throwing away lots of wonderful organic matter and keep it instead, turning it into compost. This makes sense because so much of my garden has rather poor soil, for a start, and for a second matter it just seems wrong to not do it. for a third, it’s fun to do experiments with some microbiology for a change. Microbiology? Well, the object of the exercise is to let nature turn any organic material that you have into compost – full of nutrients for growing new things. Compost is also good for moisture control, good drainage, and a host of other things that are beneficial to plants in the garden. How does nature do this? Bacteria, mostly. But for the bacteria and other microorganisms to do their job (digesting the material), one needs to give them good conditions to live in. Conditions involve the right amount of moisture, air, and food, and the point of my project was first to prepare containment for the compost manufacturing process, and then to prepare a good combination of raw materials, place them properly, and then leave the little organisms to their own devices to do their thing. Here’s a good webpage at Cornell about the various stages of composting, the temperatures involved, and the various organisms (bacteria of various sorts, actinomycetes (a kind of filamented bacterium), fungi (various molds and yeasts), protozoa) that come into play at the various stages.

compost projectSo, phase one: Containment. Well everything is going to be kept together with a cylinder of chicken wire, and so measurement of the desired radius [tex]r[/tex] followed by a quick computation ([tex]d=2\pi r[/tex]) to give me the length I needed to cut, and I was away. Shortly after I realised that my measurements were to be determined by the size of the mouth of the large trash bags I’d bought to add as the liner of the containment cylinder. So I ended up readjusting everything to fit that. I cut everything a bit big to allow for the overlap I Click to continue reading this post →

Fun With Alkali Metals

By | | ,
14 Comments

Speaking of science television shows (as I’ve been in a number of recent posts), have you seen Brainiac, over in the UK? It came up in conversation recently* and so I went to YouTube to have a look:

[Update: Ugh. They faked the final two explosions. Have a look here. Thanks Tristram Brelstaff for pointing this out. See my comment additions below in the explanation also.]


“The dog’s nuts of the periodic table…” Must remember to use that in my physics 100 class next year….

Ok… it’s definitely fun for the kids! The science? When they calm down, you get to tell them about why this extreme reaction happens. Here’s a rough explanation:

Click to continue reading this post →