Frank Common Sense
Did you catch the discussion on NPR’s Science Friday just past? I was particularly pleased to hear some calm, thoughtful responses from someone who definitely knows his way around the issue, on a major broadcast. What issue? Whether or not we high energy physicists are carefully endangering planet earth (or even the whole universe) by switching on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) later this year (or whenever it is due to start collisions). You’ll recall the lawsuit, since I posted on it here (with links to other thoughts), and perhaps you even recall my April Fool post on the matter.
Well, Ira Flatow was talking to Frank Wilczek! It was a good, informed chat around the issues that also gave Frank a chance to explain a little about what the machine was really constructed for (since this seems to so easily fall out of these public discussions of black holes and extra dimensions and strangelets (interesting as they are), and to plug his book that is due to come out. Since it’ll almost certainly be a really interesting […] Click to continue reading this post
Two Thursdays ago I went up to Santa Barbara to give a seminar. I had a great time, and it reminded me why it can be so much fun to go somewhere and visit for even a short time and do that. I got to catch up with several old friends, including Santa Barbara itself, where I lived for a number of years in the 90’s when I was a postdoc. I spent time chatting with the various people there before (at lunch) and after (individually) the seminar, learning about some of the research they’re doing, and also talking about other matters physics-wise and gossip-wise. I wish I’d had more time to talk since I did not get to talk to everyone I wanted to talk to, and not at as much length as I would have liked. (This was partly due to the fact that I spent the morning in my hotel room writing some of the slides for my talk. – I had a presentation the day before to focus on, along with a departmental visitor to host, and the day before I was also occupied. Don’t ask about any earlier than that – I never prepare new material that much in advance. Not because I don’t want to, but it just never happens… if I have more than a day or two, I will find that there’s other stuff I have to do.)
There’s another article about the search for the Higgs particle, the recent rumour kerfuffle involving the Tevatron, and the upcoming LHC experiment at CERN. (See related articles at bottom of this post.) This time it is in the 
The city’s Center for Reduction of Noise Pollution issued a public call to action last month, citing an increased number of confrontations spawned by a new phenomenon: It’s called “ring rage,” and it involves strangers getting into fights over obnoxious cell phone ringtones.
Sometimes the journalists and editors get it right. In fact, they get it right a lot of the time, but you hear more about the complaints (sometimes from me, sometimes elsewhere) about them getting it wrong, when it comes to things like science coverage especially. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the set of questions and answers that are in a new article on MSNBC that a number of people pointed out to me yesterday and today. It starts out as an article about Brian Greene’s science outreach efforts (books, and tv and movie appearances, including a new one), with some discussion of how this is regarded by his colleagues, the value it has had in raising public awareness of physics (and fundamental science in general, I would argue), and so forth. All that is interesting, but not nearly as interesting to me right now as the later parts of the article which is simply a question and answer session. (Picture above right is from a fun joke I carried out last year that you can read here – be sure to read the comments too.)
