Comments on: A Teaching Moment: Angels & Demons

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:06:54 +0000

Just saw it, loved the movie, but the physics was sorta loose. Did not stay for the credits, but does anyone know if there was a technical advisor for the physics part, or was it just lifted from the DB novel ?
Interesting to compare enegies.
A Planck mass (~22ug ~ 10^19 anti-protons trapped)= 2GJ.
Wiki sez: 1 ton TNT ~ 4GJ blast yield.
A&D screenplay predix ~ 5 kiloton blast ~ 20 TeraJoules.
Thus proving that quantum gravity is essential to repay the catholic church for Galilei, the inquisition, and countless child abuses & molestations.
Long live the illumniati !

By: Boris on Angels and Demons | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Boris on Angels and Demons | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:36:33 +0000

[...] may recall us mentioning that Fermilab and USLHC are organizing a series of simultaneous public lectures to coincide with [...]

By: Rohan

Rohan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:33:51 +0000

I’m confused.
Does every Jesus have an anti-Jesus?
Is that the nature of this argument?

By: Low Math, Meekly Interacting

Low Math, Meekly Interacting — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:58:38 +0000

Cripes:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-accurate-is-watchmen

Leaking electrons? So Dr. Manhattan is surrounded by the glow of Cerenkov radiation? I guess the woman in the picture isn’t just getting a kiss, she’s getting a very lethal dose of beta rays.

By: Phillip Helbig

Phillip Helbig — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:23:54 +0000

I would just like to point out that readers here might appreciate Cecil’s wisdom
at http://www.straightdope.com/ where he answers all manner of questions.
Today’s article addresses the Higgs particle (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2850/what-is-the-god-particle).

Cecil Adams (perhaps a nom de plume for one or several authors) provides humorous
answers to many topics, including many involving the sciences. They are understandable
for the lay reader. Many questions have a background which is somewhat shaky,
involving, say, conspiracy theories, but Cecil always manages to provide an answer
which would make the Skeptical Inquirer proud.

An article somewhat related to the original blog post here:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2513/is-phi-a-mystical-number-as-claimed-in-em-the-da-vinci-code-em

By: Low Math, Meekly Interacting

Low Math, Meekly Interacting — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:14:20 +0000

I’m kind of hoping that some of that really good sci-fi makes it to a theater some day, so people like Dr. Carroll can sink some real teeth into it. My fear is the next installment will involve the Watchmen.

Now I loved comics (X-Men fanatic as a wee lad), but knew zip about this whole Watchmen thing unti now. From the reviews I’ve gleaned that the novel/film features a “quantum superhero” who, near as I can tell, does not experience the flow of time, but rather can perceive the block universe in toto, and maybe the many-worlds version. Maybe. That and he’s a glowing blue naked dude who’s reportedly hung like a…well, like an atomic Smurf with gigantism, I guess. Which kinda shoots the whole edutainment potential to hell, I imagine, if it ever lurked somewhere below the sapphire surface of Dr. Manhattan. Sigh.

By: coolstar

coolstar — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:36:37 +0000

LMMI has it exactly right on this one, RUN, RUN for your LIVES! I actually read the Brown novel “Deception Point” and it was SO bad, on SO many levels (science, politics, aeronautics, writing etc. etc) that I swore off EVER giving that hack any of my money again. He gives SF a bad name and has earned orders of magnitude more than many good SF writers who both CAN write and actually know some science. Oh, I had seen the Da Vinci Code, so I should have known better. I actually felt sorry for Tom Hanks having to say some of those lines much as I do for Star Wars actors having to repeat unactable George Lucas dialogue.

By: BobN

BobN — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:05:32 +0000

Hollywood has always seen scientists as mad, and science itself as something to be feared. I don’t see how this movie (or any movie I can think of, for that matter) is good PR for the physics community. It’s dumbed-down pseudo-science. Why lend it any authority? Just on the off chance it will spark some young people into taking up physics?

By: Cormac O' Raifeartaigh

Cormac O' Raifeartaigh — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:40:01 +0000

Excellent post and an interesting idea. I’ve read the book and will get in contact with the organisers..

By: Low Math, Meekly Interacting

Low Math, Meekly Interacting — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:18:08 +0000

I find it hard to imagine “HB, HG” was a terribly sincere effort, but it’s been a while. I read it at the recommendation of my advisor, to give me some perspective on “the bullshit that’s been written about Mary Magdalene”. He had such a loathing for the work and its authors I had it in my head the thing was a joke from the beginning. An entertaining joke, mind you, concocted by some odd characters, but fraud all the same. I’m pretty sure this was a couple years after Plantard was thoroughly discredited, but I don’t think he was held by serious scholars to be reputable even well before. If the other authors believed even half of what they wrote, they strike me as even more cranky than before.