I have prepared the Tools of the Office of Dad*: 
-cvj
*At least until lunchtime. Then, another set to prep…
From Instagram
From Instagram
‘t Hooft on Scale Invariance…
Worth a read: This is ‘t Hooft’s summary (link is a pdf) of a very interesting idea/suggestion about scale invariance and its possible role in finding an answer to a number of puzzles in physics. (It is quite short, but think I’ll need to read it several times and mull over it a lot.) It won the top Gravity Research foundation essay prize this year, and there were several other interesting essays in the final list too. See here.
-cvj
Quick Experiment…
On my way back from commencement day on campus last Friday I got to spend a bit of time on the subway, and for the first time in a while I got to do a quick sketch. (I have missed the subway so much!) Yesterday, at home, I found myself with a couple of new brushes that I wanted to try out, and so I did a brushed ink sketch from the sketch… 
It felt good to flow the ink around – haven’t done that in a while either. Then I experimented with splashing a bit of digital colour underneath it. (This is all with the graphic book project in mind, where I think at least one story might Click to continue reading this post
Because…
Because Date Night #2 since the Arrival!
-cvj
A Mother’s Day Flower
Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in my life, to all others, and especially to the wonderful mother who recently made me a father! Thanks for all that you do every day.
After a recent bit of rain this single spectacular bloom was poking out from the undergrowth, in a seldom-tended part of the garden. So vivid! It almost looks like I’ve done some sort of enhancement to the colours and contrast post-photo. But I have not.
-cvj
Morning Jigsaw…
Before (upon finding no instructions but the picture on the box)…
After (once it was clear all the screws were the same size, so no serious assembly mistakes were possible)… Click to continue reading this post
LAIH Field Trip – Parks and Recreation
[click for larger view]
Last Friday’s luncheon for the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities had a double treat. First, it was a field trip to another interesting and exciting Los Angeles space – Clockshop/Elysian, down near the river in Frogtown. Clockshop is a wonderful arts organisation whose concerns fit very neatly with many of ours: From their website:
Clockshop is a multifaceted arts organization that works at the intersection of politics, urban space, and cultural production to explore the forces that shape our lived environment. We program events and screenings, and produce artist projects and conversations. […]
Elysian is an excellent restaurant, the main space where Clockshop events are held, and we were served splendid lunch there while Clockshop director Julia Meltzer told us a little about Clockshop.
[click for larger view]
The second treat was a talk (over coffee and cookies) by Jon Christensen (editor of Boom) entitled “A Century Beyond John Muir: A 21st Century Vision for California Parks”, detailing a project to rejuvenate, expand (and enhance the awareness Click to continue reading this post
Rough Stuff
[click to enlarge.]
(Sort of liking my rough work today. Maybe I should have done it all in this rough style. Each panel would take minutes instead of hours. Hmmm…)
-cvj
The Works…
You know what? I’m going to throw this into the works and see what happens…
-cvj
In Case You Wondered…
Dear visitor who came here (perhaps) after visiting the panel I participated in on Saturday at the LA Times Festival of Books. (“Grasping the Ineffable: On Science and Health”) What a fun discussion! Pity we ran out of time before we really began to explore connections, perhaps inspired by more audience questions.
In any event, in case you wondered why I was not signing books at the end at the designated signing area, I thought I’d write this note. I was given the option to do so, but the book that I currently have out is a specialist monograph, and I did not think there’s be much demand for it at a general festival such as the one on the weekend. (Feel free to pick up a copy if you wish, though. It is called “D-Branes”, and it is here.)
The book I actually mentioned during the panel, since it is indeed among my current attempts to grasp the “ineffable” of the panel title, is a work in progress. (Hence my variant of the “under construction” sign on the right.) It is a graphic book (working title “The Dialogues”) pitched at a general audience that explores a lot of contemporary physics topics in an unusual way. It is scheduled for publication in 2017 by Imperial College Press. You can find out much more about it here.
Feel free to visit this blog for updates on how the book progresses, and of course lots of other topics and conversations too (which you are welcome to join).
-cvj
Festivities (I)
Love this picture posted by USC’s Facebook page*. (I really hope that we did not go over the heads of our – very patient** – audience during the Festival of Books panel…)
-cvj
*They don’t give a photo credit, so I’m pointing you back to the posting here until I work it out.
Festival Panel
Don’t forget that this weekend is the fantastic LA Times Festival of Books! See my earlier post. Actually, I’ll be on a panel at 3:00pm in Wallis Annenberg Hall entitled “Grasping the Ineffable: On Science and Health”, with Pat Levitt and Elyn Saks, chaired by the Science writer KC Cole. I’ve no idea where the conversation is going to go, but I hope it’ll be fun and interesting! (See the whole schedule here.)
Maybe see you there!
-cvj
Southern California Strings Seminar
There’s an SCSS today, at USC! (Should have mentioned it earlier, but I’ve been snowed under… I hope that the appropriate research groups have been contacted and so forth.) The schedule can be found here along with maps.
Welcome!
-cvj
Beyond the Battling Babes
The recent Babe War (Food Babe vs Science Babe) that probably touched your inbox or news feed is a great opportunity to think about a broader issue: the changing faces of science communication. I spoke about this with LA Times science writer Eryn Brown who wrote an excellent article about it that appears today. (Picture (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times) and headline are from the article’s online version.)
(By the way, due to space issues, a lot of what we spoke about did not make it to the article (at least not in the form of quotes), including: The increased access the general public now has to science and science-related content (both good and bad), which I think is a good thing; The need for continued efforts to raise the overall level of basic science literacy members of the public have, in order to help them distinguish signal from noise; The wider range of people who feel they can join the conversation about science (also a positive, but see the previous point);… And so on.)
Enjoy the article! I think it examines some of these issues rather nicely.
-cvj
Naan
Oh Naan, I have the measure of thee… (Well, more or less. Ought to drop the level in the oven down a touch so that the broiler browns them less quickly.)
(Click for larger view.)
Very tasty! (The Murphy’s stout was not a part of the recipe…)
-cvj
