Comments on: Folding Money

By: Rubicon

Rubicon — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:17:26 +0000

Meme of Four

Okay, this game is called the meme of four. Try it yourself, and pass it along. I have discovered that four is not enough for some categories, too many for others. Four Jobs You’ve Had Potato-truck driver Oil rig derrickman Statistical demographer Le…

By: It Just Keeps Getting Better | Cosmic Variance

It Just Keeps Getting Better | Cosmic Variance — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 15:40:33 +0000

[...] It’s one of those excellent “bendy buses” (as I like to call them), and it is a completely new design that is rather large and spacious. This is the first Metro Rapid route they have put them on (they first started using them on the special Orange line in the valley), and they’re excellent. It’s much more like riding the subway than a bus, as the ride is very smooth. Also, there’s even more room under the seats for things like my Brompton. (In the picture of the interior, the reason there’s nobody on the bus is becaue I took at 6:15am today, and it is at the start of the route. Within 15 minutes it was being used by several people.) [...]

By: Perhaps It Has Begun! | Cosmic Variance

Perhaps It Has Begun! | Cosmic Variance — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 21:17:44 +0000

[...] Yesterday, while on foot to a lunch meeting on campus, guess what I saw…. Another Brompton! You’ve no idea how exciting that is. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, and you most likely don’t, see my earlier posts here, and here.) Sure, it’s nice to be maybe the only bike of its sort in the city, and while tiring to have to explain what it is all the time, sure, it’s nice to get the rounds of applause and requests for autographs every time I fold or unfold it in public, but I really prefer the thought that people are waking up to the idea that this is the way to go. Cycling more, and using public transport in combination with that. As I’ve said before on this blog, LA is an ideal city for cycling (mostly flat, perfect weather most of the time) and the best way to take advantage of the bus, rail and subway system (sigh…yes, they exist, but there are gaps) is to connect them up with a bike. And a folding bike is ideal. A beautifully engineered, comfortable, and compact, really fast folding one is even more ideal. [...]

By: The Walk Up Mount Wilson | Cosmic Variance

The Walk Up Mount Wilson | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 06:35:00 +0000

[...] So I unpacked a little, did some shopping at the local Trader Joe’s (giving me an excuse to test the bike to see that it had made the return journey well – it had), gave my usual explanations about how the bike worked to a few random inquisitive locals, and came back home and went to bed. The next morning saw me rise at 5:30am and get my gear (sandwich, water, nuts, fruit -the last of the Aspen peaches- , directions, boots, more water, etc) ready to get significantly high up the mountain before the sun got too hot. As it happened, I was later leaving than I intended, but I drove over to the trailhead and bent my back into the task by 7:50am. The sun was already beginning to beat down, actually, but was not yet unpleasant. It was a wonderful hike, and I was thinking about great works of physics for most of the way, and in that frame of mind found it inspiring to be going up the Old Mount Wilson trail where lots of great physicists had tread before. [...]

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:32:16 +0000

That’s great Gordon. I didn’t intend to seem mean, but do try to keep contributions to a thread of discussion at least vaguely on-topic, or one endangers the coherence of the discussion. Thanks for understanding.

Best,

-cvj

By: Gordon Chalmers

Gordon Chalmers — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:44:24 +0000

Ok.

But I figured out how to count integer solutions to polynomials today, and it is very explicit, via the contour integral.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:36:48 +0000

Oh…. Somewhere between extraordinarily unlikely soon, and never. (But maybe there’s a British inventor going around trying to get a company to build his/her design for something similar!) Now please Gordon, don’t start posting a long series of equations telling us about your warp drive theories. If you’ve got such an idea, write a paper and publish it through the normal channels. Cheers,

-cvj

By: Gordon Chalmers

Gordon Chalmers — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:20:59 +0000

Here’s a question:

When do you think the powers that be will come up with ‘warp drive’?

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 05:37:16 +0000

Oh, never be shy to find a physics link in the dross that I post up on this site!

Yes, they used to make ice-cream that way in Santa Barbara when I was there. Despite my physics training, I’ve always been a bit suspicious of the liquid nitrogen assisted ice-cream. Always been a bit concerned about what’s left over after the stuff has boiled off leaving the tasty ice-cream.

Might be the same problem that stops me from believing that a Boeing 747 will take off when I’m watching it taxiing along the runway immediately prior to take off – never looks like it’s going fast enough!

-cvj

By: Aaron Bergman

Aaron Bergman — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 05:30:47 +0000

On a somewhat physicy note, I found this in the NYT (BugMeNot is your friend) about people trying to sell the old physics department trick (and other departments, apparently) of making ice cream out of liquid nitrogen. (On another note, links in the insta-preview thing don't seem to work.)