This is a quick reminder about the “Apocalypse” Categorically Not! event this Sunday (see here or here), featuring Marc Kamionkowski, Jonathan Kirsch, and Carolyn See.
I’d also like to let you know about the next Southern California Strings Seminar, next week Friday and Saturday at USC. A number of topics in string theory will be discussed, from applications to topics in Mathematics (the Langlands program), through black hole physics, and all the way to applications to the physics of experiments involving collisions of heavy nuclei. More about this regional meeting over on Asymptotia.
-cvj
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:50 pm
[...] JoAnne, over at Cosmic Varience, had a crazy one: The customs agent stopped me dead in my tracks. He first asked, “Are you an American.” Obviously I answered “yes” straight-away. Then he asked, “OK, then, what is the square root of 98?” [...]
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:52 am
Oh, THAT kind of string – I misread “Seminar” on first pass. But that did bring a thought to mind. To an outsider, accomplished physicists seem to also be accomplished musicians, more likely so than other professions. If so, why is that? Do brains that function well on physics also have a stronger propensity for or need for music? Searching this blog for “music” yields a lot of hits. Biographies of physicists seem mention music as an important aspect of their lives. Is this propensity due more to innate characteristics or to environmental effects?
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:38 pm
JMG:- Good question. I do not think that anyone knows the answer. It is a well-known anecdotal correlation, indeed. I suspect it is less to do with some innate ability than it is to do with what sort of things attract people who are also attracted to physics….. combined with the “have a go” attitude we also have a tendency to have.
-cvj