Phew, What a Scorcher!

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I remember UK newspaper headlines like that from the 1980s when you’d have an unseasonably warm day. I wonder if they still have them? (The headlines, I mean, not unseasonably warm days…) Anyway, we had a day like that yesterday, with the high temperature in the mid 80s for a while. It came about all of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue.

So of course every other person in the city (and their dog, blades, bike, etc.,) went to the beach. (Or at least at times it felt like it was half the population…)

hot day at the beach

I wonder if the other half went to the mountains?

-cvj

B Flat, but Stay Sharp

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b flat key

Bâ™­, C, D, Eâ™­, F, G, A, Bâ™­

There’s something that resonates with me about the B flat scale. I don’t know why. I like the sound and feel of it. A lot of pieces of music are written in it (although I do not know if it is actually the most popular key), incidentally, and so I imagine that others like it a lot too. I wonder why that is? Is it just the result of convention? Is there something about the way we (those who like it a lot) are constructed that fits that frequency rather well?

Consider having a listen to Robert Krulwich’s NPR piece called “Have you heard about B flat?”. It’s got light humour sprinkled around liberally, and some amusing music. And there are a few pieces of information about the (apparent) unreasonable ubiquity of the note B flat in Nature. He tells you about B Flat and alligators, B flat and a staircase, and he ends with B flat and a black hole, and I’ll quote from the website for this one:

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Mars Attracts!

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mars water rocksThere’s a nice story about new photographic evidence from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for water having flowed on Mars. It is not really as dramatic as the photographs of late last year, but it is still an important piece of the puzzle overall (so do read about it), if harder to sell to the public as a “stop-the-press!” type of story. So here’s how three different news agencies tried to bring you in:

  • The BBC: Rocks reveal Mars’ watery past

    Not bad. The layering and colour gradations seen are is not direct evidence of water, of course. It could have been some other fluid flow, but…ok.

Next, we have:
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Point of View, I

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amy parishTomorrow sees the next in the series of events here on the USC campus that science writer KC Cole and I have arranged. They’re in the style of the Categorically Not! events I tell you about from time to time (held each month over at the Santa Monica Art Studios) but are over on the USC campus instead, amy wilentzas part of the Provost’s Visions and Voices events. You can read more in the links at the end of this post.

The theme is “Point of View”, and we’ll have an anthropologist, a journalist, and a film maker each give their take on the topic. Here’s an extract from KC’s poster about tomorrow’s event (held at 7:00pm at the Gin Wong Conference Center here on the USC campus):
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Waiting for Kenny

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The time: Saturday just past, just before 4:00pm.

The location (wide): The the splendid old May Company building, at Wilshire and Fairfax. It’s now the LACMA West building. (LACMA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image: Carol M. Highsmith)

Isn’t the building just great? So utterly LA:

may company building

The location (zoom in): The rooftop penthouse of said building. What were we doing? Click to continue reading this post →

Those Fun Paper Titles

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Scanning the listings on the arxiv just now, I found what has to be the best paper title I’ve seen for a while:

“Would Bohr be born if Bohm were born before Born?”

It is a paper by H. Nikolic, in the history of physics classification, and I have not read it, but I love the title. It’s brilliant!

This reminds me of the process that happens to me sometimes when I’m working on a research project. I suddenly think of a really great title, and then get excited about finishing the project so that I can write the paper with that title! (You’ll have noticed that I do that with some of my blog posts too.) It’s often just a nice turn of phrase, like Click to continue reading this post →

Novel Physics

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Well, I got an email from my dear friend and collaborator Nick Evans on Tuesday, and in all the craziness of my work week, I forgot to do this post. In the email, he says:

nick evansWe talked on a few occasions about the need for physics to meet popular culture… sooo.. over the last 2 years I’ve put together a novel about particle physics… it’s quite high level – aimed at A-level science students really… but hopefully it’s fun… I was really playing with mixing a novel and popular science… it’s mainly LHC science …[…] … we’ve done it as a web book Outreach project. [link here]

If it intrigues have a read…

So I’m passing it on to you. I’ve not found the time to read it, but I trust Nick enough to know that it is certainly worth a look. (To resolve a possible transatlantic confusion, I should mention that “A-level science students” in what he said does not refer to “grade A science students”. It refers to a specific subject level in the UK school system.)

Enjoy! (Come back and let us know what you think…)

-cvj

(See also blog comments by Nick’s former student, Jonathan Shock.)

Fresh Air From Gore

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al gore by eric leeAs you may know, Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has been nominated for an Oscar. If you want to hear more from the man himself (see also his remarks in the previous post), here’s an interview with him on NPR’s Fresh Air. It first aired last year, but it is very current. It’s so good to hear a politician speak so intelligently on these matters

You know, the last few weeks Click to continue reading this post →

Branson Adds Pickle

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AP photo of Branson and GoreCalling all scientists and engineers. You’ll get a $25 million prize from Virgin’s Richard Branson1 if you find a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Get to work!

Continuing his admirable campaign to do more useful things with his money instead of engaging in the (let’s face it) mostly silly stunts that used to characterize news stories about him, Richard Branson announced his new prize today in London (in the company of Al Gore) People are indeed working on this sort of thing, in case you’re wondering (see a post I did earlier, for example).

No, this is not a replacement for increasing our efforts to change our habits so as to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are dumping in the atmosphere. It’s an effort that is in parallel with those other efforts, and given where we are now (with the amount already in the atmosphere, the rate we are adding to it2, and the many huge populations around the world poised to develop further intense emissions activity, it is considerably secondary to the main concern of curtailing emissions. Nevertheless, it is certainly worth research effort.

There’s a BBC story on the press conference here. Al Gore’s comments in the news conference are a pleasure to listen to. Among the things he says:
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Bip

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Sorry, but it is just funny to me. There’s a history here, which adds to the humour. Start with the description by captain Todd Rogers:

“Vera walked down the aisle and used the pad of papers she was holding in her hands to kind of — the term I use is ‘bip,’ you know, when kids bip each other? — anyway, to strike Jan Schaefer. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a light brush to the hair. It was an actual strike.”

The video:



The video is better on this site, where you have a wider view, and from where I got the Click to continue reading this post →

Poincaré on Studio 60

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sphererabbitDid anyone else spot the Poincaré conjecture reference on Monday’s episode of Aaron Sorkin’s excellent Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? (Recall that I mentioned another science reference on this show in an earlier post.) A writer is trying to find a punchline to a joke. The joke is supposed to be in the style of the headline news on Saturday Night Live…

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