Working at home in the morning today, trying to find a pool of calm to think about physics after the organisational storm of the last couple of days, culminating in the excellent Energy colloquium about which I’ll post shortly.
Sitting outside on the patio, working through the world’s supply of coffee and tea (one has to do one’s part) while scribbling is always very nice. There are distractions, of course, and some of them are pleasant. Two recent ones:
(1) This giant beetle (larger than the size of the top joint of your thumb!) which is a beautiful iridescent green (not revealed in the picture - it left before I could get a good angle to photograph its underbelly). In flight it is huge and loud, like the helicopters that fly over a lot in this city’s busy skies. I had to get up and run to shut the windows it was busily trying to enter. It is so (at first) terrifying in flight close up that my first thought was that if it found its way into the house, I would just give it the keys and leave. But once it alighted on a surface and I could look at it and see how beautiful it was, I was hooked. Does anyone know what this wonderful/scary/beautiful creature is called? ((S)he did not stop to chat.) Specifically, I mean - what type of beetle is it?
(Another iridescent green visitor I’d like to capture on “film” is a marvellous tiny hummingbird (of some sort) that keeps coming to visit the stralitsias, the buddleias, and the salvia leucantha (Mexican sage) that are all blooming in the front garden now. But this beauty moves way too fast, and is rather shy.)
(2) The sounds of my mum (visiting for a while from the UK) chuckling away as she reads J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” with evident enjoyment (she has not even noticed me snapping this picture). She’s recently discovered Potter, and so I expect she’ll have several days of fun to come, reading these books. (I’ll have to borrow or buy the later ones for her since I’ve never read further than the first one, which someone bought for me several years ago. - Yes, I know it should be “…Philosopher’s Stone”: don’t get me started on that topic!)
-cvj
October 11th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Clifford,
What does your family think of your choice of career? Is anyone else in your family in the sciences? Many people in my mom’s family are in scientific lines of work (mainly in the Life Sciences) and my mom edited a research journal, but she still can’t understand my fascination with Physics and Math.
October 11th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
citrine: Ha! You’ve picked up on a topic I wanted to do a separate post about! I actually don’t really know what they think in specific terms. Nobody in my family has much understanding of what academics do, really. It is not really part of their world. At best, I think that most of them think that I’m really just a sort of high school teacher, the kids a just a bit older. There’s no real sense of what that whole other component of research and everything that goes with it might be. My father (and a lot of other people from extended family - distant (geographic) cousins, etc) can be particularly frustrating in this because he thinks that I’m just a perpetual student. After all, why would I keep moving around the world going to all these different universities other than to be “studying”? So he still asks me sometimes “how’s college?”. Sigh.
I try to get them to watch TV shows or listen to radio shows (no matter how bad) about the sorts of ideas that my research is about, but I’ve no idea if that helps. Even if I’m in those shows.
In general, they are of course very supportive, which is what matters most. They have a sense that I’ve acheived something in whatever it is that I do (whether they understand it or not) and so are proud of this, which is very nice to know. But their only real “evidence” is in (the existence of - not neccessarily the content of ) the occasional newspaper or magazine article about me, or if I show up on a radio show.
I think that my sister and brother are closer to understanding what I do that my parents, who are from a different generation and culture. But even then, I’m not sure how close.
It actually makes it a bit lonely sometimes not to be able to explain what it is that occupies most of my waking thoughts, or to be able to explain when I’m excited about a result, but its been true to some extent since I was barely in my teens, and so I’ve sort of gotten used to it. I suspect that this general feeling to some extent is shared by many.
Cheers,
-cvj
October 11th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
“I suspect that this general feeling to some extent is shared by many”.
Well, I know what you mean. As an undergrad I had to explain to relatives who always asked “can you explain again what it is you are studying?”. (mathematical physics). If it was history or languages I would not have had that problem. Then when I got a phd and was pumped up since I was now “a Dr” my dear old grandmother said, “but are you a real doctor?”. “Real doctor”=guy with stethoscope. And “you could get a job in a hospital now”. She was a little bit dotty by then, but I do know where you are coming from:)
October 11th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
Clifford, great beetle and patio, and wanted to tell you that I got all my Potter books from amazon.com UK, which means sweaters are jumpers, sorcerers are philosophers, and all in general is exactly as the author intended it to be. The books are not the like ones I love from my childhood (Tolkien, Lewis, all the Baum books, L’Engle), there is something missing and I think it is a bit of the depth, but they are so lovely anyway and many sweet messages about trust and love and friendship…I’m glad your mom enjoys them too!
I’m going to guess that the beetle is Euchroma gigantea. I love the name even if it isn’t correct (and I think it isn’t).
October 11th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
jennifer: and moms are mums….
I hope it is not Euchroma gigatea…”metallic wood-boring beetle” according to google. Scary thought. Houses are wooden over here (as you probably know). It’s enough to have to worry about termites, not a swarm of beetles that look like they’re from the School of Engineering!
SteveM: Yes, I get the “Dr.” thing a lot from random people, who will then begin to tell me their ailments. No relatives of mine do that though!
-cvj
October 11th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
How about a green fig beetle, Cotinis mutabilis?
October 11th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
I know a guy in the UK who explains that the medical doctors aren’t really ‘doctors’ at all, they just have a couple of bachelor’s degrees (or somesuch), if he gets the medical confusion aimed at him.
I think that, in the US, medical doctors are in fact genuinely considered to be doctors, something about a ‘first professional’ doctorate, or something similar. Pretty sure that Wikipedia have it all in tedious detail.
I never understood the fascination with the title, though, to be honest. I knew one person who ran out and changed all their checkbooks, etc, to reflect their new qualification, upon award of the PhD. Maybe it’d help be get upgraded on aeroplanes, but unless someone’s positive semi-definite matrix collapses, I’m probably going to end up with a red face if I’m called on to actually do anything.
October 11th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
“Yes, I know it should be “…Philosopher’s Stone”: don’t get me started on that topic!”
Pardon me, but I can’t resist. I’ve been to the UK twice in the last 3 months and two publishing-related issues that I’ve encountered continue to gnaw at me:
- On trip 1 I purchased the new Harry Potter book for consumption on the return flight home. Unbeknownst to me, I picked up the “childrens’” version of the book and the clerk asked me if I was sure I didn’t want the “adult” version (that presumably contained sex, violence, and profanity missing in the childrens’ version?!). A bit confused I purchased the version in hand. I noticed on the way out the adult version merely just had a more “serious” cover. Q1: Why the difference? Does one feel more “adult” on the train with a more serious cover despite the fact that it clearly says “Harry Potter and …” and that everyone knows what sort of book it is? Q2: Why is there only a “childrens’” version available in the US?
- On trip 2 I purchased a history book at Heathrow about an English mercenary in medieval Italy called “Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman” (the snazzy title grabbed me and the book was quite entertaining). However, here in the US it’s called “The Devil’s Broker” with some long, boring subtitle. Related to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone”, Q3: Why is this done? Can you imagine the same thing done with music (album/song titles)?
Sorry if this is too much, but it really has been gnawing at me and I obviously needed only the slightest pretext to begin venting…
October 11th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
Adam: My father-in-law, who was a physicist, was very ill during the last few years of his life, and my mother-in-law always made sure to include his “doctor” title when talking to MDs about his medical care. She figured this would get him better treatment, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. I think it was also a way of trying to preserve his dignity.
zevatron: Q1: I think you have it right — it’s a way of making adults feel more secure about reading the book in public. Q2: Not sure. Maybe they just figure that Americans don’t have any adult dignity to protect. Q3: Titles get changed for lots of reasons. I believe that the argument for changing to “Sorcerer’s Stone” was that Americans would find the word “philosopher” off-putting. Titles are sometimes changed because the book is being marketed in a new way (e.g. as a “literary” novel rather than a genre book, or vice versa). Bottom line: it’s all about marketing. And marketing is an arcane practice that is often based on a pile of weird, untested and/or untestable assumptions.
October 11th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
janet, thanks for the feedack.
Q1: I guess that’s the explanation, but it still makes no sense to me.
Q2: Sadly, I’m afraid you’re right.
Q3: As you point out, I’m trying to find logic where none exists.
BTW, as a physicist I can say that while my parents have no understanding of what I do (I’m the first in my family with an advanced degree), they were (and still are) unfailingly supportive and proud of me. For some reason it makes me feel slightly weird, but my mother addresses letters and packages to me as “Dr. ,,,”.
October 11th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
zevatron…..Ooooooh this is a topic close to my heart. It relates to my other pet peeve of which I have spoken before: Editors (etc) have decided to protect the public from thiings that are “unfamiliar” or “difficult”, and in doing so seve only to reinforce the problems they percieve to be there. This happens so much in science journalism, and you see it elsewhere too. It’s just so stupid and hypocritical.
So:
- Nobody will understand “philosopher’s stone”, so use “sorcerer’s stone”. (Potter)
- Nobody will understand “license revoked” so use “license to kill” (James Bond is in incredibly stupid alternative choice, actually)
…and it goes on. The question arises: If what the editor (or marketing person) says is true and these thigns are too “difficult” for the public - and I mostly don’t think it is so…..it is such an arrogant position to take - how will those people ever understand these “new words” if they are not exposed to them?
Same thing about science concepts in the media. Sigh.
-cvj
P.S. Janet: It is not just about marketing, or they would only have changed the covers. There are several examples of parts of the actual text of books being rewritten for a US audience. And it hardly ever happens for US books going to the UK market, by the way.
October 11th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
Maybe you could watch the Einstein bio with your mum tonight on PBS and let her see how you are connected to that.
October 11th, 2005 at 7:28 pm
Clifford, I suppose I knew the answers before I asked the question but it still burns me. I mean, can you imagine the same thing done for music? I may waste the rest of my evening imagining “dumbed-down” titles for US versions of Beatles or Led Zeppelin album titles. I haven’t run across the re-writing phenomenon yet; I’m too scared to look and see what lurks in the US version of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”.
October 11th, 2005 at 9:15 pm
spyder: THanks for the reminder, I’d completely forgotten about it….. I’ll have a look. Saw a preview and it looks like it won’t be totally hateful.
-cvj
October 11th, 2005 at 10:15 pm
Me too! Thanks to spyder’s comment, I remembered to watch the bio. Kept my interest for the entirety; I appreciated the framing of the story around the equation. A touch melodramatic at times, but not totally hateful. ; )
October 12th, 2005 at 1:48 am
[…] My family and friends are constantly trying to figure out just what it is that I do. As noted in the comments on Clifford’s recent post, our loved ones - loving as they are - just don’t get it. They all seem to understand that we have accomplished something, but really don’t have a clue as to what that something is, or even how we spend our time. My best friend’s husband summed it up best: “Just what is it that you do during the day?” he asked. I tried to explain, but his eyes glazed over quickly. I now have a neat one-liner, meant to answer such inquiries: “I get paid to think.” For me, that seems to sum it up fairly well. […]
October 12th, 2005 at 3:39 am
Well as Clifford’s sister I am immensely proud of what he has achieved and I am guilty of not understanding exactly what it is that he is researching and doing. I can remember in 1986 when he tried to explain what he was doing at the start of his first degree and I began to understand why he chose that particular field of science and I can understand the fascination while not understanding the subject. What appears to be happening over here in the UK is that with the lack of support for science, the exposure on the radio is greater so there are various discussions I can tune into and get a measure of understanding of what he is doing over there! Reading the postings on this blog site also helps me understand what is going on in the physics world - naturally it was my most hated subject at school. I will never get it all but with the help of the level of exposure via the media in general I will get some of it. Bring it on and don’t stop trying to explain, when the glazed look in the eyes come to your audience, change the subject but tackle it again later and yes speak about what you are working on and your students etc, what we do in our careers are perhaps not even remotely interesting so if you give us the time of day when we are blabbing about what we do then we are honour bound to do the same - black holes, D-branes whatever!!
October 12th, 2005 at 8:12 am
Matrix: Thanks, sis! -cvj
October 12th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
Clifford, I think the degree to which the text of the Potter books has been changed for the American market has been exaggerated, mainly by people who were (rightly, I think) aggravated by the change of the first book’s title. Something like 35 words were changed in the first book, and in later books most if not all of the British idioms remain — there is a great deal of snogging in the most recent one, they wear trainers and jumpers and so forth, the Quidditch pitch is a pitch, not a field, etc. My husband, purist that he is, always insists on getting the British editions. I haven’t gone through any of them with a fine-toothed comb to compare them to the American editions, but as far as I can tell the main difference is that the spelling and punctuation have been changed to the American style, something that is done with virtually all British books published in the US (and the same is done in reverse).
The differences in covers and the change of the first book’s title are the kinds of decisions that are made by sales & marketing, whereas changes in the book’s text are generally made by editors, so I’m not sure that it’s fair to conflate them. It’s very amusing to analyze the differences in the cover art — my favorite covers for the books are the German ones, because they are just so German! See: http://www.carlsen-harrypotter.de/basic1/buecher/content.html
October 12th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
“Something like 35 words were changed in the first book, and in later books most if not all of the British idioms remain — there is a great deal of snogging in the most recent one, they wear trainers and jumpers and so forth, the Quidditch pitch is a pitch, not a field, etc.”
Clearly the reason that the later boos were not messed with is because people complained loudly about it. So the point still stands: why do those people feel the need to have attempted those changes in the first place?
Covers I have no issue with.
-cvj
October 12th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Actually, it’s not clear to me that the later books weren’t messed with (much if at all) because of complaints. I think a lot of it probably had to do with the editorial cycle and the imperative to bring the book out everywhere simultaneously — less time for fiddling in the process of getting the book into print. (The fourth and fifth books were really poorly edited to begin with, IMO.) This was not an issue with the first book because it didn’t come out in the US until it after it had come out in the UK. With the first book, there was a lot of concern about making the book “accessible” to Americans because the publishers weren’t sure it would take off as it had in the UK. Once the books became so popular in the US, that became less of an issue.
As for their rationale for making the changes, the editors have talked about that — basically they wanted to make it easier for American kids to understand what in the books is part of the world Rowling created, rather than thinking that ordinary British idioms and vocabulary were things that were made up for the books. I’m not sure the changes they made helped much with that, or that it’s even a reasonable goal, but that was the explanation. Rowling approved the changes at the time, though now that she has more clout she might not be willing to do that.
The thing that bothers me about changing “philospher’s stone” to “sorcerer’s stone” is that the philosopher’s stone is a concept with a very specific history in alchemy. Changing it is kind of like changing “the immaculate conception” to “the clean conception” because “immaculate” is just too difficult a word.
October 12th, 2005 at 11:42 pm
On Parents and Physicists
First Clifford and then JoAnne have recently written about what their families think of them being physicists and whether they understand what it is their children actually do. These are interesting questions, not only because they explore the persona…
October 13th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Quote:
>Changing it is kind of like changing “the immaculate conception” to “the clean conception” because “immaculate” is just too difficult a word.
>
. . . the church of the conception without messy exchange of bodily fluids . . .
—
Having once indulged in amateur entolmology in my youth, I continue to find insects and arachnids to be beautiful and interesting. I try to do my part to educate the young people who cross my path about appreciation for insects and the lack of necessity for summarily squashing some of them.
October 13th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Me too. And I certainly could not squish something so huge and so beautiful, even if I wanted to.
-cvj
October 13th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
jackie M - It is indeed Cotinis mutabilis - fig-eater beetle! Thanks! ….and now I know who’s been getting to some of the delicious figs I’ve been growing before I do!!
Thanks again!
-cvj
October 15th, 2005 at 12:53 am
Wandered on to your site. Hope you don’t mind if I add my two cents.
Here in Southern California the beetle is known as a fig beetle and I’ve heard someone say ‘Japanese beetle’ as well.
I bought both versions of Harry Potter in the beginning (we had a friend in England at the time). One term that delighted us: popping your clogs translated to American as kicking the bucket.
October 15th, 2005 at 1:02 am
ellroon: Thanks. Two cents are welcome. If everybody contributes a little like that we’ll all be the richer.
fig-eater beetle vs fig beetle. Both names are in use. See the wikipedia entry, and the narrative on adults of the species they link to near the end.
Oh, and it should not be confused with the Japanese beetle*.
Cheers,
-cvj
*I love Google.
October 15th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Thanks. Appreciate knowing the difference.
October 16th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Apparently they also eat dung. Yuk, dung.
June 27th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
[…] First Clifford and then JoAnne have recently written about what their families think of them being physicists and whether they understand what it is their children actually do. These are interesting questions, not only because they explore the personal side of being a physicist, but also because a close look at physicists’ parents might shed some light on the kinds of backgrounds that help kids to succeed in science. […]