Why No Anti-War Rants?

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There’s a post over on Arun’s Musings where he starts:

If you look at Cosmic Variance or CVJ’s new blog, Asymptotia, you wouldn’t know that a couple of wars are on. In contrast, there is SusanG’s lament about a loss of innocence on dailykos.com.

and continues:

Which world do we live in? Is it the idyllic world biking to the farmers’ market for fresh veggies? Or is it the dangerous world, where one has to learn about a lot of things fast, and constantly, in a mostly futile effort, raise one’s voice against lunacy, where one cannot afford to be ignorant about anything?

This got me thinking a bit about what Arun was getting at. Does he really think that those two worlds (one supposedly idyllic, the other dangerous) are disconnected? They certainly are not in my mind. Quite clearly connected. See the example (only one of many) in my reply to him reproduced below.

And on the first extract: First, let me say that I’m pretty sure he was not being critical or anything… merely commenting on the contrast. Nevertheless, it got me thinking: Is it really that we must all lament and yell loudly about the situation in the Middle East all the time? Even while there are others -more informed than I- saying it better and more loudly? Even if one might not neccessarily think that one has anything original to yell? Actually, I don’t know. I’m not one for political rants just for the sake of it. I just end up sounding shrill. Although I have my moments when I don’t care, and I just go for it…… But mostly, my own thought is that I don’t think it would preserve my sanity to infiltrate every aspect of my life with the depressing situations, and so -while I am not apathetic- I don’t feel obliged to scream and shout about it in my blog posts. If I think of or spot something somewhat new, or poignant, I’ll pass it on. But sometimes silent contemplation is not a bad thing. If there was nobody talking about it honestly, or if there were scarce few sources of good information out there, that would be another thing altogether. Remember the early days of Katrina, and how slow real information took to start coming out. Blogs were great and valuable sources then. Risa over on Cosmic Variance led the blogging team there in putting up a lot of posts on the aftermath, which some of our readers found to be of value, since it only came out in the mainstream in partial form, or not at all. I don’t feel that is the case here, but I could be really wrong. People are now much more aware of the craziness of the situations in the Middle East, and I don’t imagine ever being the go-to source for information or informed comment about the situation on the ground. Me going “yeah, me too, I’m pissed off!” does not seem a valuable contribution. I can (and do) contribute in other ways, I think. But I love that some people do just yell. Howl! It is good. We need voiced raised in chorus, on any issue worth speaking about. And war and the accompanying needless slaughter is one.

So anyway, this is what I wrote to Arun, who I believe means well:
Click to continue reading this post →

Punch and Judy Science Coverage

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Punch and Judy

(Since I took the image from their site, and since they are making available lovely examples of the traditional puppets, I’ll make sure you can link to the punch and judy company I found.)

There is a style of coverage of issues which the media in the UK uses a lot, which is really loved by the viewers and listeners. I think it has to do with the tradition of Punch and Judy, which is deeply ingrained into the psyche of a child growing up in the UK. Basically, there’s a fair amount of conflict between two puppets -Punch and Judy- (sometimes coming down to beatings with a bat or truncheon, and yelling of “oh yes it is!” vs “oh no it isn’t!”) and the kids and adults sit and watch this and have a good laugh. Occasionally there are other traditional characters, like the crocodile, and the policeman, but it’s basically just an entertaining conflict between two traditional puppets with funny voices done by the person behind the screen.

Often, it is a lot of fun, actually.

What the BBC’s Radio 4 (especially) likes to do, is use this formula to sustain the listenership of their morning show called “Today”. Basically, a huge percentage of the population all listens to this show every morning. It is a pretty excellent source of news and current affairs that you listen to as you get ready for the day, and/or on your way to work/school/etc. There’s a bit of chatter in the studio, and a lot of reports from around the country and the world on various things, sent in by journalists.

At certain points in the programme, they have the Punch and Judy format. The primary one is the big interview just after 8:00am. These are most enjoyed when they have someone like the journalist John Humphrys to do the interview with some senior politician of the day. This is basically a blood sport that is appreciated by one and all, which has a useful primary output: You get real information about political positions, the unvarnished story behing matters of policy, etc., as a result of a skilled interviewer breaking past the fascade. Actual political decisions at the highest levels have been changed as a result of what has been brought out in such interviews. As an example of the style, see this post that I did about one example a while back.

When applied in certain other areas, the Punch and Judy style has serious shortcomings as a means of getting across real information. One constraint is that they are very mindful of appearing “unbalanced” and so oftentimes they will inappropriate put together two representatives to bring the argument for each “side” of the debate, producing a pairing which does no favours to either side, and ends up confusing or trivialising the issue in the name of, essentially, entertainment. (I’ve witnessed them use a popular comedian in a supposedly serious debate about an environmental issue, for example. Or pair a “research scientist” (male, of course) with a “worried mum” on a debate about immunization. I know what you’re thinking about this latter example: Seems like a reasonable choice of representatives, right? Not if the debate comes down to dryly digested facts and figures about trials and the history of immunization on the one hand, and “but will my Binky get autism?” on the other. Both valid concerns, but a useless set-piece debate to set up.)

One of those issues poorly served by this is science. It is not that the format fails in and of itself, but rather, the editors of the programme often simply give up on trying to do a good job of getting across good science information in favour of having a good Click to continue reading this post →

Saturday Shopping in Aspen, II

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vegetables from Aspen Market

Missing from the picture: $7.50 worth of long, colourful strands of flavoured pasta. I forgot them at the market stall at which I purchased them because I got into one of several conversations about the bike. Blast! I shall have to see if they remember me next week and believe that I forgot the pasta there.

Also missing: The roasted peppers! The roasted pepper people were not there! I shall have to roast some of these myself. (No idea what I’m talking about? We had a good discussion about them last year, in the comment stream of this post.)

Other vegetable shopping pics: Hollywood, Santa Monica, Aspen.

-cvj

A Powerful Little Helper?

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It’s late here at the Physics Center, and there is a hugely violent thunder and lightning storm outside. Good time to work.

While wandering the corridors in thought….. spotted this and photographed it for your viewing pleasure:

Einstein Doll

I did not pose this or anything. It was just standing there just like that, next to a public blackboard. Notice the chalk in his hand, and everything! Excellent. (The baggy jumper/sweater and chalk are nice details.) I imagine he was posed there by some other person (but consider ….what if not ?!)

Is it just me, or does this put you in mind of the excellent “Team America” as well? Does anyone know where this doll is from? Are there other scientists in this series? Maybe someone could do a whole series of short movies with them… moments of dialogue between famous scientists acted out by dolls…

Ok. Another crazy/stupid idea released into the wild. Back to work.

-cvj

More Future Scientists Revealed!

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Just like last year, I can reveal to you several pictures of scientists of the now and of the future:

Marie E. Nielson

That’s Marie E. Nielson (left), in grade 8, talking about her mathematics project on experiments with perfect numbers. More here.

The California State Science fair took place again this year at the California Science Center, across the street from USC. I was a judge last year, which is such fun. Please consider getting involved in your local science fair; see my description here, and here is an extract:

The judges come from all sorts of backgrounds, academic and industrial, and this brings its characters, […]

By about 8:15am you’ve forgotten the initial thoughts and feelings of dread and you realize that it’s just a great thing to be doing! Why? There are hundreds and hundreds of kids wide-eyed with enthusiasm about Science!!! These are the ones who’ve done well in their regional fairs, and now they’ve come to the Big City. They’re all over the place and you can feel their excitement and relish the taste of it because you remember what it was like to go to your first Big Thing and find that there are other kids just like you. You remember what it was like to go up to the Big Scary City for the first time. You remember what it was like to have Someone take an Interest in some Thing that you’ve been devoting your life to for the last year. There are kids with those feelings written all over their faces all around you.

This year I was unable to do so due to a trip across the Atlantic concerning the birth of my sister’s son (details of the london trip here, here, here and here; Last link has a fun trip to Harrods and to the Science Museum). But my USC colleague Chris Gould -the chief organisational engine behind the fair- has prepared hundreds of photographs again, and you can go and have a look here, and see some of the project descriptions also.

Here is the marvellous display of the project of Victoria Hutchins (grade 6), from Monterey, about using planetary observations to determine that the planets orbit the sun and not the earth:

display of the project of Victoria Hutchins

She built her telescope, and understood the role of the phases and apparent size of Venus in determining that the Copernican system is a better fit of the data than that of Ptolemy. This is of course one of the classic results of Galileo. More here.

Here’s a shot of several projects from Junior Zoology: Click to continue reading this post →

Open Heart Surgery

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For those of you who have been wondering, here are a few notes on various projects in the garden. You might recall (if you read my writings over on CV about a year ago on the subject) that I built a circulation system for the garden which drips water periodically at the roots of some of the plants. It has two control valves (one for the back and one for the front) that, after crawling around under the house with bits of string tied to my arms and a flashlight in my mouth, are connected by wired to a programmable timing device in the basement. Well this year saw me improve the system a little bit for the new season of heat.

I’d made one major silly mistake last year that as a physicist I should not have made. The pipes the run from the water supply to the pump (and are therefore under pressure all the time) were made of the same flexible black pvc as the rest of the system’s major arteries. most of the rest of the system is under leaves, dirt, or mulch, and therefore protected from the sun (and not under much pressure anyway) while this crucial section just sits there staring back at the sun all day. I happened to be home one day when the inevitable happened for the first time. The sun rapidly heated up and softened the pipes and the snug joints just slid open and there was water everywhere! If I was not home that day, hundreds of gallons of water would have been wasted (and poured into my foundations). Major design flaw. So I decided to do this year what I should have done then and replace the pipes with a heavier gauge white pvc, with secure joints.

I’d never done this before, and so I learned a lot that day. One of the things I love about this sort of project is how amazingly standardized all fixtures and fittings are. After wandering around the plumbing section of the hardware store for not too long, and consulting some sketches I’d made at home of what I wanted to do, it was pretty easy to get all I needed (various coupling joints, elbows, and lengths of pvc) to replace the old sections. Everything fits together snugly and one is reminded of ones childhood days of fun making things out of Lego, Mechano, and Better Builder (do I recall that latter correctly? does not seem to exist any more).

plumbing with pvcThere was some fun chemistry as well. I was puzzled for a while about how I was going to put threads on the plain pvc pipes and joints I’d picked out. First, the male and female parts did not seem like they wanted to go all the way into each other without a fight to make a secure joint, which was a worry. Also, there seemed to be no threading machine (to make screw joints), and I did not fancy the prospect of having to buy one, in case it was expensive. Silly me. There’s an entire system of chemistry that makes the joints secure! You paint Click to continue reading this post →

Unite d’Habitation

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On the 14th of July of this year, Bastille Day – the important French holiday – we inhabitants of the mathematics “monastery” at which I was staying in Luminy in the South of France (see a CV post about this here) were forced to wander out into the outside world. There was no food and no lectures, you see. So off to Marseille! The plan was to go up to have a look around the city and stay for the fireworks in the evening if we were not too exhausted. I was accompanied by Ilarion Melnikov (a postdoc at Chicago) and Claudine Chen (a postdoc at Penn State) initially, and the plan was to wander up to the city, and meet up with David Kutasov (professor at Chicago) to wander around the port.

I found Marseille a big surprise in one major respect, which in retrospect I should have anticipated. (1) It is huge. Larger than Paris geographically, and among France’s cities it is second only to Paris in population. I did not get that impression from walking around it. (2) Given fact (1), there are no great museums or galleries that you might expect for a city this size!

It’s quite remarkable in a way. I imagine it is because France’s organization may be even more highly centralized than I’d realised. Perhaps even more so than England was not so long ago, back in the day when if you wanted to see that type of thing you had to go up to the “big city”, London. Perhaps that’s the same here and now, given the Marseille observation (confirmed by locals, I hasten to add), but I should not generalize.

le corbusier buildingThe absence of big museums showing art from around the world, etc, is not a shortcoming in an of itself. That is not what I am saying. It was just interesting, as one has got more used to a much more decentralized model of how things are distributed in a country. What is just great about Marseille and the region is simply that it does not matter. The attitude seems to be: Just come, wander around the port, look at the work of the local artists here and there, swim in the nearby excellent beaches, and go find a good restaurant and sample the Bouillabaisse with a good beer or glass of wine. What more do you need from life? Well, when the temperature is high and the sky is blue, it is hard to disagree. Just do as the local do.

But there are, as with any city, hidden treasures. Click to continue reading this post →

Welcome

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Welcome, readers old and new, to Asymptotia. I hope that the things that you find here will be interesting (and perhaps even enjoyable), and at least a welcome distraction from your main activity. Perhaps you’ll find several reasons to return regularly for more. If you consistently don’t like what you find, that’s ok, I won’t be offended. Just move along to elsewhere and don’t get in the way of those who would like to stay.

One way to help enhance everyone’s experience here is to join in with the chatter and discussions in the comment threads following the main posts. Just say “hi” and let everyone reading know you found the article provoking in some way. Share your own experiences, point out other sources of relevant information, contrasting views, etc. Engage in conversations with me and -most definitely and probably more interestingly- with other commenters. Imagine that we’re all in a lounge somewhere sitting together chatting, perhaps in the warm sun or by a fire, each drinking our favourite drink, each perhaps nibbling on something sweet or savoury that takes their fancy. Let’s try to engage with each other in the spirit of the environment just described. (If you’re not sure what I’m getting at, see the comments policy at this link.)

So…. Enjoy.

-cvj