Just watch the YouTube video …. it is rather funny.
From Instagram
From Instagram
The Lives Of The Stars
Well, I’m back from the visit to the preview of the Griffith Observatory that I mentioned to you I was going to. It was a rather good visit. They organised it well, and -boy!- have they done a great job on the restorations! I’ll try and assemble the several pictures that I took into some sort of narrative for you, and report soon. While you wait, here’s one of my favourites:
This is particularly poignant, in my opinion. The children are looking at the lovely Click to continue reading this post
New Colleagues
Ah! The joy of new colleagues! I have somehow forgotten to tell you one piece of the great news that we had here at USC Physics and Astronomy recently. We got three new faculty, and one of them is here in action (I’ll tell you about the others later), telling us about the physics behind the 2006 Physics Nobel Prize. This is Cosmologist/Astrophysicist Elena Pierpaoli:
She’s one of those people who works closely on (among other things) the data from Click to continue reading this post
Brown and Nerdy
Well, here’s an amusing response to Weird Al Yankovic’s video* (see my earlier post on the issues I had with it). He makes his point with charming clumsiness, but… he makes the point.
Still here:
…and YouTube links here, and here. (Watch them in order for maximum hilarity.)
-cvj
(*Thanks CS Guy!)
Strings on Sunset
So I heard something on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip just now. (This is the new show written by Aaron Sorkin that I instinctively started to watch a couple of weeks ago because I like his writing, and it is actually a drama about the process of writing, so what’s not to like? -Ok, I’m a bit bothered by the overall annoyingness of the lead actress’ performance, but I imagine she’ll get better.)
I caught a line that went something like “we’re not looking for a girl with a phd in… string theory or anything, ok? There’ll be at least half a dozen women there who’ve Click to continue reading this post
Manifold Yau
Well, here’s yet another discussion of Yau to gobble up. It is a New York Times article by Dennis Overbye on Yau, his life and work*. I’ve no idea why this was written, or what the timing was. I’d like to believe that it was just because it is a good subject -because it is- and that it is worthwhile to do an article about a Mathematician of considerable stature in the field, and about the ins and outs of the world of Mathematics -because it is. But I can’t help but wonder if this would have seen the light of day if there was not the big argument going on about the New Yorker article and Yau’s displeasure with its contents. (Image on the right -click for larger- was taken from this site. It is a slice of a Calabi-Yau manifold. There’s more in the article about Yau’s work on those.)
Well, I don’t care what the reason is. I love to see articles of this type written about this Click to continue reading this post
The Yankovic Singularity
So I actually had no idea that Weird Al Yankovic was still doing his, er, particular brand of music. (Singular, one might say.) I actually thought it stopped a long while ago, not long after the Thriller parodies. Well, not long ago he did a video/song called “White and Nerdy”. I looked at it*, and so can you, on Myspace video (wow, I had no idea they had a video service). Here is the link.
Among the things featured in the video’s visuals are Schrodinger’s equation, Stephen Hawking’s BHOT, M C Escher (It’s a rap video, so…) Here are some stills (click for larger):
I laughed, I’ll admit. I find his fresh-faced and cheerful style quite funny at times. But then I got thinking. I can’t decide whether I should be depressed at the potency of the stereotypes he is playing with, or just carry on giggling. For example, why did the guys who were representing the complete opposite of being nerdy (and into science, reading, and the like) have to be cast as black? Worse than that (or at least equally as Click to continue reading this post
Not In Tower Records
Well, this arrived the other day:
It’s a rather highly-produced DVD of the “Uncertainty” event from August 31st event, produced by the people at the Annenberg School of Communication. (See description and discussion in this previous post.) Gosh. Well, since this might be my only appearance on a DVD of such vast distribution (i.e., I expect it was in a number of other mailboxes around campus), I imagine I should be breaking open a bottle of the bubbly. But instead, having just got back from the airport, I’ve got to go play catchup, such as introducing the colloquium speaker(s) in a few minutes.
Rather than wait for it to appear in a store near you, or on Amazon (a very long wait), if you are interested in seeing the event, I’ve heard that there is working video at this link. Apparently (I have not seen it) the sound is poor for the first several minutes, and then it picks up.
-cvj
To The River
Got to sleep at 6:30am after the post-memorial-conference banquet, and its aftermath…
Up again at 9:45am to rush around to get ready to go for a quick walk (how can one not do that when visiting Cambridge?) and then check out of the hotel.
It is always pleasant to go for a walk around here, no matter how short, so I did a quick jaunt around the alleyways near Trinity, and a little beyond.
Had the sudden urge to buy some handkerchiefs, as so many of mine seem to have disappeared off down one of those household wormholes that I know will be discovered one day. But there was just no time… No, I’ve no idea why I’m telling you this either. Must be the jetlag.
-cvj
The Letters Keep Coming
I just checked the website of Yau just now, for more developments on the argument with the New Yorker. It seems that since Hamilton’s strong letter, there have been several more, from various luminaries in the field. You can find them all on the site.
-cvj
Cambridge Entanglement
Spotted near King’s College:
Always funny how these things happen. Or maybe it is just how my mind works. During the lunch break, after talks by Gary Gibbons, myself, and Roberto Emparan, it sort of stands to reason that I would run into some scene on the streets of Cambridge that was string-themed in some way. 
These (click for larger) are two architecture students I met tangling up the model of the city with balls of knitting wool/yarn. I liked this immediately, and chatted to them about it. They said that it is for National Knitting Week (who knew?) and they were going to try to “string (or knit) together all of Cambridge” as part of their celebrations.
“And well, why knot?”, I asked myself*, as I walked on my way.
-cvj
(*sorry)
Meeting in Memory
Nipped across to Cambridge to give a talk at the Andrew Chamblin Memorial Conference. Link here.
Speaker and participant list means that I should have some very interesting conversations, both about physics and other. The conference celebrates the scientific work of Andrew Chamblin, who died earlier this year. (See posts here and here.) It is a sister conference to the one held in Louisville earlier this year. This is a great loss to the field, and this will no doubt emerge in the talks from lots of his former collaborators, and in the private conversations. Andrew was so bright, creative, and enthusiastic about the physics (and so much of everything else) and so he was a wonderful collaborator.
I also hope to go and sit in a couple of the places where he loved to sit, and remember him here in Cambridge, where he was so happy.
I do so miss him.
-cvj
Happy Flipping Memories
A couple of magazines showed up in the post the other day, unlooked for (as JRR would write). Spent a short (unfortunately) time lying on my bed in the sun flipping through them, and it reminded me of my youth. Do you remember something similar? You’d go out and get that next issue of that magazine you’d been waiting for and you’d just drink it all up in a general way for a while, lying on your stomach, legs kicking in the air: The smell of the pages, the glossy pictures and other juicy tidbits of writing and other stuff to digest more fully later on….
For me, when I was young it was mostly magazines about music, electronics, computers, science, photography… some crochet, macrame, and knitting (yeah, I know – I’ll tell you more later), and of course lots of comics (these latter I did not browse first… I would read Click to continue reading this post
Very Specific
Yep, another one for Caolionn:
(Just so the sign’s viewer is not in any doubt.)
I can’t remember whether I blogged this from last time I was in the UK. But yes, it’s always refreshing to be reminded so bluntly that I’m back home. This was from back in the Spring, but I just remembered it.
-cvj
Moonlighting?
Spotted on Hollywood Boulevard:
Moonlighting Physicist?
(Click here for detail.)
On a serious note… It is still scary to think that this might still be the most common sort of image of a scientist in many people’s minds… We’ve a lot of work to do.
-cvj
