Search Results for: USC

Occupation

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I decided to wander downtown in search of the remnants of the Occupy LA march that started this morning at 4th and Figueroa. It was the two-month-iversary today and so there were special actions to mark the day. I got off the Dash F bus (took it up from the USC campus) and wandered up Fig, finding no clues. I wandered around for a bit more, but then I noticed the real clues were in the sky above. It’s something I’ve used before to figure out where the activity of interest is – look into the sky and watch the pattern of helicopters. There’ll be two types… The still ones up high are going to be TV, monitoring at a certain fixed distance… then there’ll be a lower one circling and moving around more. That’ll be the police, and at the center of that circle is what you are looking for. It was over the very center of the newer part of downtown, so I figured the movement was occupying right in the financial centre, and I was correct. Just North of Hope and 4th, or thereabouts, at the Alexander Calder sculpture (right where the opening pages of one of my stories for the graphic novel takes place, in fact (see here), so I know the area well from my location scouting)…

Anyway, both the protesters and the police were out in strength… a lot of police, in fact. Also lots of on-lookers, unsure of where and how close to stand. I stood back for a while as well, and then realized that there was no real issue with getting close and listening to what people were saying. So I did, and took some pictures for you: […] Click to continue reading this post →

Southern California Strings Seminar

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The next Southern California Strings Seminar is on Friday 21st October! The website is here. It is going to be held over at UCLA this time, and I expect it’ll be fun and informative, as these regional meetings have proven to be. This time it is a one-day event again. You may recall that the last one, on May 6th, was over at USC. See here. There’s a random picture from it above left.

Apologies to anyone who was […] Click to continue reading this post →

AdS Vs CMT

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So there are two workshops going on here at the KITP in Santa Barbara that pertain to issues in condensed matter physics. (You may recall that I am here for some of the week, and in LA at USC for the rest of the week – adds up to a full week each week.) One is Holographic Duality and Condensed Matter Physics (often referred to as AdS/CMT), concerning applications (I’ve told you about this here before) of techniques from string theory to issues in condensed matter theory and experiment, and the other is Topological Insulators and Superconductors. there are people from both communities on both workshops, and so it is an exciting and interesting time.

The KITP Fall picnic was yesterday, and this means that there’s the traditional football (i.e. soccer) contest between workshops. Not to resolve physics issues, you understand, but to blow off some steam before getting down to the business of eating all the food… Well, at the top of this post and in the following, you can see some pictures of the process of the string theory crowd getting slaughtered for a change:

The score was 5-0.

The KITP Director, David Gross, who has presided over very many matches where the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Looking Back and Forth

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Somehow after Wednesday I lost track of time, in a sense, in the natural course of having another very busy week. There were several things competing for time, and some of them may be of interest to you. (Left: Some lovely pink gladiolus flowers that have sprung up in my garden.) The Nobel Prizes kept coming, of course, with some very interesting winners announced. In addition to the ones I mentioned already in two earlier posts, I’ve got to find some people among our faculty who’ll be willing to spend 10 to 15 minutes making some informal remarks about the Who/What/Why aspects of the prize at one of two lunches I’ll be hosting in the coming weeks about the Nobel Prize. I’ve mentioned this before. It is an annual event I’ve tried to get going as part of the Dornsife Commons (formerly known as College Commons) series. I’ve locked in Physics and Peace, and want to get people for all the others. This year I know that if I have problems with Chemistry, I can step in if need be, although I’d rather not have to do that – I want to broaden participation, not do everything myself. Look out for those lunches (see here) and come along!

Speaking of doing everything myself, I’ve been continuing the weeks long struggle to get support, interest, and participation for the Science Film Competition I told you about earlier. Having spent a lot of time meeting with many faculty and other parties to build support and understanding, getting lots of faculty to make announcements (one time even coming down from Santa Barbara to campus to give a ten minute announcement in a class at the film school and going up again after!) and so forth – and thanks everyone who has helped! – I decided to amplify my focus on tackling […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Film Connections

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So journalist Pamela Johnson (no relation!) did a nice article last week about the science+film competition I mentioned to you (see also here). It is entitled “It Could Happen One Night”, and you can take a look at it here.

If you’re a student at USC and thinking that you can’t do this because you don’t know about science, or you don’t know about film… don’t give up! You might just need help to figure out how to get in contact with students who also want to get involved in making a film and want to learn more about one side or another (so you’re in the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Reaching Out

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So I’ve been spending a huge amount of time trying to generate awareness among the students and faculty about the newly launched film competition. I don’t know how much traction I’m getting, but we shall see. Lots of poster posting, and giving packets of postcards to colleagues in College departments such as Physics, Chemistry, and the Writing Program, and over in Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, and of course the Cinematic Arts School. I need to figure out a way of getting a foothold over in the various areas of the Keck School of Medicine, on the other campus… It’s open to all students at USC, but I need to make sure I target certain concentrations to maximize chances of getting interested students’ attention.

On Monday I did an interview with a student reporter for the Daily Trojan and that appeared this morning. (Have a read.) I’m a bit embarrassed that they missed out mentioning my colleague and collaborator Anna Krylov, but the main thing is that more people will learn about the initiative though the article. It was fun talking to Jasmine, the reporter. The key thing, for me, is that the collaborative aspect of all of this is forefront, since that’s the most important aspect. As I said in an email to another reporter this morning (which may or may not result in an article, we shall see): […] Click to continue reading this post →

From C to Zee

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End of the first week of semester. I’m already tired, I must confess. I think it is mostly a combination of running around doing various things for various projects including another big shoot this week for the science documentary series, and prepping all the publicity for the science film competition, which is now rolling along and gathering momentum, and through it all… the heat. It is just so very hot, and not using air conditioning much and walking and cycling in it to boot does mean that I’m tiring out a bit more. I’ve been waking up with those low level headaches from time to time that signal that I’ve not been cool enough during my sleep, despite having several windows open for throughput. Might have to give up and cool things down a bit with the air conditioning on a thermostat setting of some sort.

So through all that, (and not counting other things like steady progress with a research project, and the drawing here and there that I’ve told you about… oh! and the garden) I’ve also been teaching a course. It is on introductory quantum field […] Click to continue reading this post →

Crazy Week…

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Feels like a crazy week so far. Not sure why. I’m sort of recovering from a bamboozling amount of sunlight yesterday, so maybe I’m a bit addled in the head, compromising perspective. I was up in the brown hills somewhat North of LA on an old disused airstrip, shooting a very interesting segment for a TV show. I’ll tell you more later, but it involved being in the unforgivingly intense sunlight from 10:00am to 6:00pm… with only my hat to protect me between takes… long, sunbaked, takes. I’ll tell you more a bit later. It was very worthwhile. The whole thing is what can definitely be thought of as a great “teaching moment” which will be lovingly done in HD, and well-edited and so forth. More later.

Had to find some time today to email and chat with a couple of other writer directors for two other TV episodes that will appear. I was trying to get an idea of what science story they are trying to tell and help shape the kinds of questions and answers we might be able to explore in the (minor) contribution I’ll make to their shows. Tomorrow morning I will have to make myself presentable again in order to discuss the material on camera… one a 3D HD show, the other just garden variety HD. We’ll shoot until well after lunch, and then hopefully I can get back to other projects for the rest of the day once that has done. I’m behind on a number of things.

I’m supposed to be able to point you to the websites where we announce the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Multiverse Musings

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As you may know already there’ll be a new NOVA series on PBS in the Fall, based on one of Brian Greene’s books, The Fabric of the Cosmos. Last Fall I did some a shoot with them for my role in it (I’ve no idea how much they will use), and I learned a short while ago that they’ll be using some of it on the NOVA website too. They extracted some parts of the on-camera interview segments I did concerning the idea of multiple universes and transcribed them into something you can read online. Have a look here. I touch on the idea in a fragmented way, mostly being led by the questions I was asked, but it’s a fun topic to chat about, and may lead you in interesting directions should you wish to learn more, so have a look.

A word on the picture they are using (er…see above left). It seems to be one that the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Film Logo

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So, here’s yet another project I’ve been working on. I forgot to tell you about it. After the success of the short films I produced and directed (etc) two Summers ago (remember? Shine a Light and Laser), the next step was to get more people involved in the film-making, to learn more about how it is done, and what is involved, both on the science side and the film-making side. Specifically, I want students from both sides of the divide (science, and film, journalism, communications, etc) to have to work with each other to learn more about communicating science.

So, Anna Krylov (Chemistry dept., and a collaborator on an NSF grant) and I wrote a […] Click to continue reading this post →

Maroon Ride

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Toward the end of the week I gave in. Howie Haber had been regularly going on these long rides and suggesting that I come along. The one I would have done for sure, I said (truthfully) was the one with the tasty reward at the end – to Pine Creek Cookhouse – but the one that had been planned was two days after I arrived, and I did not think it was a good idea for me to do it without having acclimatized to the altitude. You may recall that a few years ago I did do that 12 mile route on a ride led by Howie, and it was fantastic. See the post here. So he asked me a couple more times to join a few riding up to Maroon Lake, which he was doing every other day, remarkably. It was a similar distance (well, a bit shorter – 10 miles) with perhaps a more steady, relentless climb to make up the 1500 ft altitude gain. But I did not get my mind into gear on the whole idea for some time (maybe especially since there was no tasty meal as a reward at the top). Then on Wednesday I gave in and stopped by Howie’s office and said I’d join him on Friday.

brompton folding bikeSo Friday morning we set off, joined by a few others (including Josh Frieman), for a lovely ride. Pretty quickly we separated out into our various paces and pointed ourselves up the valley (I warned my co-riders at the beginning not to wait for me as I have a slower pace on the Brompton – the beauty in the photo on the right). I eventually got into a good rhythm and made steady progress. While I was not as strong as I was in 2008 (or perhaps not as well-motivated?), I still enjoyed it, although there were times when I did ask myself out loud “why am I doing this?!”, but that was usually after the dashing of false hope when I thought I was almost there only to round a corner and see the road stretching […] Click to continue reading this post →

Bed Post

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I’ve a big meeting in the morning at 9:00am and have not the slightest bit of sleepiness in me at all, and it is 11:30pm. This may have something to do with me making a pot of coffee at about 9:00pm after deciding that it was way too early to go to sleep and I should do some work. I’ve done some, and now im in bed. Let’s see if a little blogging off the cuff about some internal stuff helps…

Well, sort of internal. Pretty sure you would not want full-on internal stuff. Even I don’t know what’s in there all the way down…

….hmmm, and now it is 13 minutes after midnight. The intervening time was spent prepping a draft of what I expect will be the next post, involving generating a video and uploading it to YouTube and so forth. Do have a look.

One of the more interesting things from today was getting excited about a paper I was asked to referee. It turned out that I really liked it a lot. I’d somehow missed it in the regular scheme of things, and so this time around I get to say that refereeing was really useful for me. I cannot tell you which paper it s, unfortunatley. It was actually about something that I’d planned to try to do myself, before I got distracted by another set of projects and never returned to the issue… So it was nice, a bit of the way through, to suddenly realize what was going on and sit up and take note. I’ve a few minor comments to the authors to encourage a bit of clarity in the presentation, but other than that my report will be “nicely done, chaps”. It has all served the purpose of reminding me to get back to some of those projects I had in mind three years ago. (Three years already! Geez…)

Was chatting with a bunch of different sorts of physicists today. It was enjoyable.[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Orange on the Table

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One day a few days ago I decided to make a quick meal from some things I’d find in the garden: Two orange food items were available – some crookneck squash and a few small orange tomatoes. Excellent.

How did the meal take shape? Quickly, simply, and tastily.

I chopped an onion, diced the squashes, crushed a few cloves of garlic, and chopped a red tomato into small pieces too (the three tiny orange cherry toms were not enough). I also finely chopped a small piece of ginger. I heated a tablespoon or two of olive oil in my large deep (high-sided) frying pan (another All-Clad treasure), and […] Click to continue reading this post →

Tales from the Industry XXXVII – Firestarter

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Well, Wednesday was unexpectedly exhausting, but quite a day. I intended to do a step by step report as I went along, but in the end we were too busy for me to do that, so instead I’ll give you a summary from memory. My instructions were to meet at 5:00am (yes, I know, 5:00am!) in the Temecula area with the film crew and a senior representative from the fire department. This meant leaving the night before and staying in a hotel nearby, so that I only had to get up at 4:30am instead of the two hours or more I’d have needed to otherwise. The meet went well (even with the slight confusion over two strip malls on opposite sides of the street both with a Starbucks, the meeting point…) and we set off in two vehicles into the brush.

Our goal was a particular area where we were going to take part in a key operation of the forestry and fire department (and related services the names of which I’ve forgotten) – a controlled or “prescribed” burn. The burn will act as a rather excellent analogue of a much larger issue of scientific interest, the main subject of the episode. I’ll let you actually watch the episode to learn more, so that I don’t spill the beans.

I say take part since we were not only going to film it (in 3D), but I would be – in my role as a sort of host of this segment – interviewing the Battalion Chief (Julie Hutchinson) about the burn, and then helping burn some of it myself! It’s certainly not every day one gets to help burn 100 acres – safely and legally!

It was a huge amount of fun, right from the morning briefing (6:00am), the borrowing of odd bits of safety equipment from various members of the crew so that our crew, and yours truly, were safely kitted out, to being instructed on camera by one of the fire chiefs how to use the drip torch (there’s one on the left) to set little pools of fire in the brush the required distance apart to get the required burn rate…

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Happy Mother’s Day!

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It is Mother’s Day over in the USA today, and although my mum and sister (both mums) are over in the UK where they have Mother’s Day a bit earlier (no, not hours earlier, weeks earlier) I still try to remember to make and send them cards to arrive in time for the USA one. For the card I made for my mum this year I used these spectacular roses I spotted on campus (during the recent festival) in the garden next to the USC Alumni house (it used to be the original USC building some 131 years ago):

Stunning, aren’t they?

I wish all Mothers, far and near, Happy Mother’s Day!

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →