Blogs / Cosmic Variance

Ok, so you’ve noticed that some of us do a bit of tut-tutting on this blog from time to time. I’m certainly guilty of that. Well, I decided to go Tut-Tutting big time last night and go to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA) special King Tut (yes, Tutankhamun) exhibition last night. The Egyptian government authorized a special exhibition of some of the treasures to go on tour and it has been here for a while. They’ve made it a huge commercial endeavour, tickets run at $25 each, and the advertising for it around the city reached remarkable levels of perpetual visibility earlier this year. It is coming to an end soon. The official website is at this link.

I think that they did an excellent job, overall. The placing and spacing of the artifacts allowed you to walk around them and properly take them in. There were not too many objects in each room, and the signs and labelling were thoughtfully laid out. The fact that it was an evening visit probably helped make it an enjoyable experience…..seeing the layout of barriers at the entrance for the huge lines they much get during the day and on the weekend, I imagine it must be a dreadful experience to come at that time.

A major contributor to making it an excellent couple of hours is Omar Sharif. He did the voice work on the personal audio tour devices. (Since first trying one of these in Taiwan in 1997, while looking at the vast collection of artefacts in the National Palace Museum there, I can no longer imagine seeing exhibits of this sort without an audio guide… it is at least 30% of the exhibit, in my view, when done properly.) Sharif’s voice work was one of the best performance I’ve ever witnessed from him. It starts off a bit corny, but works really well once you get used to it. He’s not just reading a script – he’s really into it- and he’s distintly got laughter in his voice (perhaps chuckling a little here and there!) at things which are amusing or ironic (such as their care about embalming internal organs, while they just pulled the brain out through the nose and toss it away), and reverent in the appropriate places, without being too over-dramatic. And all the time he’s giving you useful information that would be just a mess to try and put on the signs and labels, given the number of people trying to read them.

Anyway, the thing that tried hard (but failed) to spoil it all is near the end where they have a loud display concerning the issue of why the fellow was dead at age 19. It was annoying because it was too loud and spread to the room before, where you should be contemplating the tomb itself (what they think-wrongly- is the climax of the exhibit) in thoughtful near-silence. Instead, you can here in the distance the corny-movie-trailer-voice (definitely not Sharif…I’m sure it is one of the movie trailer people) booming “The Mystery Continues!”, every 60 seconds or so…..

But the artifacts are just wonderful. You get caught up in the workmanship, relationships to other artefacts, history, etc…. Excellent. Well worth the visit.

They don’t let you take cameras in. I have some respect for that…..especially given how intrusive people can be with those things (I still have terrible, terrible memories of the mob in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris in Summer 2004). I’m also a bit weird about whether I ought to be taking snaps of some of this material to be gawped at randomly and out of context. It deserves to be looked at properly, perhaps, maybe out of respect for the culture (all of our Western culture…), and the dead. Maybe not. I don’t know. I have not thought it through.

Anyway, you know me by now. Camera often at the ready for a secret shot of significance to share with you. When I saw this little object, I just had to do it. It is a cosmetics jar from the burial chamber, and I think that I’ve no qualms about sharing a snap of such an object. It was so charming (big cats sticking their tongues out were involved, so how could I resist?), and so exquisite that I spent 15 minutes tracking the museum officials until I got my chance to do one of my no-flash keep-hand-steady shots, (which I made sure disturbed nobody, I stress). Here it is. Enjoy:

Next, Tut-Tutting about Tut Tat!

-cvj

From their website:

Visions of Science is a photographic awards scheme organised by Novartis Pharmaceuticals to encourage ongoing discussion about science.

So, what is a Vision of Science? To the judges of the Awards, a Vision of Science is an attention-grabbing image that gives new insight into the world of science and the workings of nature. It may show something never seen before, it may explain a scientific phenomenon, it may illustrate scientific data or it may simply be an image that shows the beauty of science.

The panel of judges remains a sound mix of scientists, photographers and picture editors.

Visions of Science is organised by Novartis Pharmaceuticals. The Daily Telegraph is the key media partner. The category prize money of £7,000, together with support and advice comes from the Science Photo Library. Special awards this year have been sponsored by the Institute of Physics, the BMJ, Science Learning Centres and Kodak Ltd.

Some of these images are just fantastic (check out the paper clip one in particular). Get over there and take a look – immediately!

[via Gordon Watts, over at Quantum Diaries]

Yes, I proposed marriage three times today.

Hmmm, I see I’ll need to explain.

Well, it all started back in September, at the installation of our new Provost. (Yes, they use that word, like he’s a new light bulb, operating system, or something.) Everybody went along, since the rumour was that he was going to give some hints about what new directions he was going to take the University (still in that solid angle that is steeply up), in the form of maybe announcing some new Initiatives. (You have to capitalize that word around here). You can read his speech (or a transcript of something like it) here I think (don’t know if it is linkable from outside the USC network).

Sure enough, as had been leaked, there was an announcement of a new Nanoscience thing. This means that there will be a focus on attracting new research effort, faculty, and facilities under this heading, (and there is always the worry that you won’t be able to do anything unless it fits under that umbrella, so everybody is paying attention for that reason too). So he spoke about that for a while, and I was standing there thinking whether I could argue that Planck scale physics is really a sort of ultra-Nanoscience…. (recall my ipod Planck joke, by the way, and its explanation).

But then he started talking about another Initiative! The Provost’s Initiative on Arts and Humanities. Basically he wants to further enhance and enrich the life of your everyday USC student with more engagement with the Arts, etc. He reminds us of the list of the University’s core values (which I won’t trouble you with), and then says:

These core values represent USC at its very best. They form its foundation and drive every aspect of President Sample’s creative vision for our future. And so we must pointedly ask: how can the university incorporate the rigorous exploration of these values into each student’s experience at USC, regardless of discipline? I believe we should turn to the arts and humanities. These disciplines fully capture the values of the university and provide students with an outstanding opportunity to examine their own relationship to these values on a truly personal level. The arts and humanities bring these values to life- illuminating their complexities and nuances…

He goes on like this for a while, quoting ancient poets and philosophers left, right and center. (These top guys are truly masters of this sort of speech, by the way, and they really mean what they’re saying and want you to believe it too. You can’t imagine anything like it in a UK university. Everybody’s just too jaded and cynical and would just fall about laughing if their top administrators started in with this stuff.) So I’m lapping it up, since I did not expect quite this level of eloquence and possibly geniune vision. (Since Clinton left office and Bush came along, I’ve forgotten what it can be like to listen to genuinely inspiring speeches from your top officials, I suppose, as opposed to excruciatingly cringe-making ones.) He talks for example about the idea of projects involving USC and art galleries, theatres and other venues around the city, etc…. He talks for a lot longer than he did for the Nanoscience Initiative in fact!

So at the end of the speech, I walk up to some of my faculty colleagues also standing near the back (where the excellent food is still being served hot -one of the main reasons to go to these sorts of events: the catering is above and beyond the call of duty, with on-the-floor chefs cooking the finger food on the spot!) and go “You know, I don’t know whether I should be turning to do Nanoscience, or whether I should write a play.” Two of us then went in unison (I kid you not), “Well, how about writing a play about Nanoscience?!”

I then turned and walked away only to be facing my good friend, Los Angeles Theatre scence playwright and colleague from the School of Theatre, Oliver Mayer. I said the same opening sentence to him and again we completed the joke together. We sat, had more wine (it’s 4:30pm on a weekday, but you don’t install a new Provost everyday…..) and I told him about my standard bugbear about which you’ve heard so many times: Better representation of science, scientists, and the scientific process in the arts and media should be part of the battle of increasing the public’s awareness and appreciation of science and the crucial role it plays in society, etc…… I won’t repeat myself again (see also e.g. here , in comments). He caught on immediately, and spoke of the fact that in all the the characters and scenarios he’s written about, he’s never explored scientists and science, as it is outside his realm of experience. So I then spoke of my general frustrations about this being the case not just for playwrights, but also for actors, filmmakers, journalists, their editors, etc. We spoke about speaking more (you know, “my people will call your people” -except neither of us are important enough to have “people” to call each other-) and we parted.

(more…)

Photographer Bobby Neel Adams splices together portraits of the same person at very different ages (as well as other intriguing work).

Well, I’ve just returned from an excellent concert at Frank Gehry’s wonderful Walt Disney Concert Hall (photo at left by Tom Bonner). The Los Angeles Philharmonic (the Hall has been its home since it opened in Fall 2003) had as guest conductor Andras Schiff, who is one of those marvellous people who can direct from the piano while playing remarkably complex material. It was a program of Mendelssohn (String Symphony No. 10 in B minor), Schumann (Introduction and Allegro appasionato, Op. 92), Haydn (Piano Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII: 11) and closing with Schumann again (Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38 -Spring).

Schiff was just fantastic, and the orchestra was really solid, as usual. He played the Haydn with delight and a level of electricity that I’ve not seen for a while brought out of that material, even though its brightness is quite conducive to that sort of treatment.

So much about watching an orchestra while listening to it fascinates me, and I love having seats that get me as close as possible to watch what is going on. Different things fascinate me on different evenings, depending upon my mood. One thing that was particularly interesting in both Schumann pieces, even though separated in time quite a bit, was how the composer splits some of the lines across the instrumentation, starting a lot with french horns but then breaking it across to trumpets and some interesting doubling with flutes and oboe. I’ve not noticed it quite so clearly before in this work. Part of this may have been my mood, and part of it may be the fact that the acoustics in the Disney Hall are so amazing that I’ve (re)discovered aspects of several pieces that I thought were familiar by listening to them in that place. Something about the careful design of the space has produced the remarkable ability to separate out every instrument in the orchestra -even when at full size (which is was not this evening)- and allow you to hear them clearly.

The other thing that catches my attention a lot are the musicians who are not doing something the whole time. This can be interesting for a host of reasons, and not just the obvious, which is your curiosity about what they must be thinking about while waiting, and when are they going to come in. This is often the timpanist, but it is quite easy to work out when they are going to be needed most of the time. But tonight was a special treat for me. They had a triangle guy on the last piece! If you don’t know the piece very well -and I did not- it is not clear when he’s going to come in, and so you can sit and try to anticipate depending upon how the music is developing. The piece’s popular title is “Spring” so there’s clearly going to be some need in several places for bright sparkly springy bits in both quiet and loud places. Challenge to get into the mind of the composer there and see if you can anticipate. The other thing that was notable was that Mr. Triangle had not one but two chairs. He had one in which he sat in a state of readiness for the majority of the piece, but eventually he did stir himself, and pick up his triangle and one of his two tiny metal traingle-beater-sticks (do you “beat” a triangle or “tickle” it? And why do you need two sticks?) he had carefully laid out. He did his thing for a short while and then he sat in the taller chair, as he was to play soon after. I think of that second chair as his chair of preparedness – in the other chair he’s merely in readiness – or is it the other way around? I’ve enlarged the picture of the orchestra that I snapped secretly (no flash or noise of course) to show you the triangle guy, his chairs, and his equipment.

Well, while I was watching and listening to him in action, I began to wonder: Why is a triangle a triangle? Would a square sound as good? Or a pentagon or other polygon? Are triangles equilateral ones or isosceles? I think the latter, but I’m not sure. And was there a reason for his having two ticklers/beaters? (He did swop from one to another at one point, and I listened for a tone difference but was not sure if I heard it.) There’s got to be some interesting physics in the vibrations of such shapes….is the triangle shape just a traditional one or is there some experimental reason behind the preference for that shape?

Well, I’ll go to bed with these important questions on my mind, along with the pressing puzzle of what on earth to wear to tomorrow night’s Hallowe’en party in West Hollywood. Apparently it’s a 70s disco theme. I’ve no clothes for that….can’t I just go as a scary Physicist from the 21st Century, i.e., me? At parties, women (and men) already run screaming when I tell them what I do anyway, at any time of year, so I don’t need a costume.

-cvj

I walked to the bus today rather than cycled, as I’m going to a concert later tonight and don’t want to have to try to leave the bike with the coat-check people at the concert. This means that I have a bit more time on my journey, and decided to see what was on my ipod, which has been continuing to faithfully download podcasts of things even though I have not listened to any for quite a while. As I have not taken the time to figure out how to organize the podcasts in a useful way on the pod, I can end up flicking through them at random now that I have so many un-listened-to ones. In this way, I found that on the BBC’s Radio 4 (the greatest speech radio station ever?), the series called “In Our Time” is back for a new season, and they did a rather nice show on Magnetism last month (29/09). I recommend it.

Beware of In Our Time, as it is a bit like the spoken word equivalent of KCRW’s 9:00am music programme entitled “Morning Becomes Eclectic”, which I sometimes prefer to call “Morning Becomes Pretentious”: It can get a bit puffed-up and full of itself and otherwise carried away with its worthy business of being beyond category, and can end up being a bit off-putting to the casual listener (ahem, there’s a lesson in there somewhere for us all)…. but there’s excellent stuff in there (which ultimately makes them worth-while, in my opnion). Witness the opening words of presenter Melvin Bragg (still amusingly regarded by many in the UK as the model living Renaissance Man), which he actually reads out to introduce the programme:

Pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, tells a story of a legendary Greek shepherd called Magnes who, while guiding his flock on Mount Ida, suddenly found it hard to move his feet. The nails of his sandals held fast to the rock beneath them, and the iron tip of his crook was strangely attracted to the boulders all around. Magnes had stumbled across the lodestone, or ‘Magnetite’, and discovered the phenomenon of magnetism. Plato was baffled by this strange force, as were Aristotle and Galen, and despite being used in navigation, supposedly suspended over the body of Mohammed and deployed in the pursuit of medical cures – apart from some 13th century scholastic studies – it was not until the late 16th century that any serious scientific attempt was made to explain the mystifying powers of the magnet.

…but before you just run away, or at least leave your skateboard firmly outside the stuffy Cambridge Senior Common Room he’s clearly going to simulate for an hour or so (at 9:00am on a Monday morning -I love the BBC!), do have a listen. It is actually a nice discusson. He has three excellent guests, Stephen Pumfrey, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Lancaster, John Heilbron, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lisa Jardine, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London.

He asks further in his introduction:

Who pioneered the study of magnetism? What theories did they construct from its curious abilities and how was the power of the magnet brought out of the realm of magic and into the service of science?

This is the basis for a fun discussion, which – if you need further motivation – has history, geography, physics, cartography, polictics, religion, art and sex in several places. (Particularly funny when the sex comes up, because everybody gets uncomfortable at the mere metion of the word, and one person is a bit too close to the microphone and keep’s making a loud “hmmm” noise in one or two places which are borderline juvenile.)

My only criticism of the programme is slight, and is my usual one about the bias of the broadcast establishment in the UK about things they consider “intellectual”. It is still very much from the Art and Humanities perspective and less an actual Science one. So notice that all the guests are Historians of a very very bygone age (but yes, an interesting one) and so by the end of the programme they get to “modern times” by mentioning Faraday once or twice! This is usually the case with these sorts of programmes. One could get the impression that no actual physics has happened since 1926 or so….. In this case, they don’t even make it out of the 19th Century.

Nevertheless, it is classified on the BBC website as a History programme, so I should be grateful when they do any science in this primetime slot at all. For what it is, it is a very accessible and pleasant exploration of the early and middle history of the concepts upon which Magnetism impinge….. As you may know, much of the puzzling over magnetism was during the development of many central ideas in science such as action at a distance, the overthrow of the earth-centric view of the world, etc.

In other news, the BBC has finally made it into the late 20th Century by allowing you to download/stream programme episodes older than a week past broadcast, and so you can find the link to the programme here.

Enjoy, and come back and tell us what you think.

-cvj

This is a reminder to mark your calendars for October 30th. Recall my post on the Categorically Not! series of events held at the Santa Monica Art Studios. The first one of the new season was a tremendous success, and I described it here.

Well, the next one of the new season is on Sunday. Here is K.C. Cole’s teaser:

Normally we think of space as an empty canvas—bland, passive and static. But Einstein taught us that space is elastic; it can wiggle and warp; bend light; cause objects to fall to the ground. Modern day physicists envision universes with up to 10 dimensions of space folded into complex shapes like so much Origami. Actors, athletes and dancers also explore space, using their bodies to make space palpable, filling it with structure, tension and emotion. Most basically, spaces are the places we inhabit; they can bring us together or keep us apart. The space we’re in determines, to a large extent, both our perspectives and our possibilities.

For our October Categorically Not! Case Western Reserve University physicist Lawrence Krauss—author of the popular books The Physics of Star Trek, Atom, and most recently Hiding in the Mirror—will explore our longstanding love-affair with the idea that there is more out there—literally—than meets the eye, perhaps tucked away in extra spatial dimensions. From a more down to earth perspective, USC geographer Michael Dear, who has just completed a 4,000-mile exploration of the US-Mexico border, will talk about the way we create ‘place’ out of ’space’ in our personal lives, communities and our world. Without geography, he wisely says, there would be no society. Bringing in the artistic dimension, we have Margo K. Apostolos, [picture top left, USC news] Director of Dance at the University of Southern California and former NASA Faculty Fellow at JPL; Margo works not only with human dancers and athletes, but also (dancing?) robots. She will discuss dance as an art of space, time and motion.

As usual, it is held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, come at 6:00pm for drinks, cookies and a look around the space, and there’s a 6:30 start. For more information, visit the Categorically Not! website.

Hope to see some of you there!

-cvj

P.S. In view of last time, please send pointed critical remarks about the above quoted blurb to KC Cole, and not to me, thanks. However, discussion and exploration of the ideas within it are welcome in the comment section, as usual.

I just heard that one of my favourite Jazz pianists and vocalists, Shirley Horn, has died at age 71. I can think of few people who have mastered the mingling of voice and piano -in any musical genre- to quite the level she had. She’s one of the first vocalists (or pianists) I think of reaching for when I want to immerse myself in some musical work that is clear and uncluttered, slow and unhurried. Her phrasing is just incredibly thoughtful. Her clever use of space is up there with Miles Davis’, and indeed he loved her work (he was not a big fan of singers in general – early Sinatra is one of the few other vocalists I can think of that he liked, again for great phrasing) and he encouraged her early in her career.

Here’s a website with a discography. Two of my later favourites are Softly, and You Won’t Forget Me. Have a look at today’s Washington Post article on her life. You can also find video, audio and a transcript of a PBS Newshour Jim Lehrer 2004 interview with her here.

May she live on through her wonderful music. She can end this post better than I can, from words of the song Here’s To Life that often ring in my head:

No complaints and no regrets; I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets…

Here’s to life — here’s to love — here’s to you.

-cvj

Just got back from taking my mum to the movies. The new Wallace and Gromit film! It’s wonderful. It hit several of my buttons: As you know (perhaps) our heroes are inventors and have wonderful homemade gadgets, and solve their problems by thinking, and often employing a little exaggerated physics when in a tight spot. The physical humour is just wonderful in all of the short film’s they’ve done, and there’s more of that in this feature-length film. Also there’s a special bonus for me this time: Gromit, my favourite (right, with rabbits), is -of course- a keen gardener! And it’s all about the humane trapping of garden pests, which fits nicely with part of the comment thread of my last post!

Went to see it at my favourite movie theatre, the Arclight, which I’ve told you about before (here and here), and it was in the fantastic Cinerama Dome. Another great thing about the Arclight is that they have interesting film-related displays in the lobby contributed by the film-makers. Guess what they have on display now? Two of the model sets from the film!

They are just great. I carefully took some snaps through the glass cases for you. (My secret for success: no flash, hold your breath, squeeze-don’t-press.)

Here’s Wallace and Gromit in the basement. I won’t tell you what’s going on in case you have not seen the film yet (above right has another shot from that same set):

Here’s Gromit, examining his prized vegetables in the greenhouse:

These are particularly bitter-sweet to see up close, since the recent news of the terrible fire which destroyed most of the sets and props from all the previous work of the Aardman Animation studios.

Anyway, tonight was a lovely evening before a terribly busy work week. Setting alarm clock for 5:45am. Sigh….

-cvj

Photon (colourless light carrier), by Jan-Henrik Andersen. (Ink on canvas, 42×56″)

From* an article by Elizabeth Wade, in Symmetry Magazine, on a gallery of artworks about particle physics. Quoting:

Ultimately, Andersen hopes to have his visualization of particle physics used for educational purposes. “The distance between Fermilab [a particle physics laboratory] and the dinner table is getting larger,” he says. “I want to aid communication between a larger audience and physicists, and make this fantastic and beautiful part of our world conceptually available to a broader audience.”

Godspeed.

-cvj

*via Boing Boing.