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Majorana in superposition
This morning I found what is undoubtedly one of the weirdest papers ever to appear on the arXiv, “Ettore Majorana: quantum mechanics of destiny“, by O. B. Zaslavskii. On the one hand, it’s a short retelling of the life of Ettore Majorana, a major figure in the development of mid-20th-Century particle physics. On the other,…
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When they think we’re not listening
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We learned yesterday that President Bush has a bit of a potty mouth (at least when he’s abroad; I bet Cheney makes him wash his mouth out with soap when he talks dirty back home) and a not particularly nuanced view of foreign policy: Bush: What they need to do is get Syria to get…
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The size of the Universe
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I’m quoted today in article in New Scientist, “Universe Weighs in Surprisingly Light”. I spoke to the author, Zeeya Merali, last week about a recent article by Hans Fahr and Martin Heyl, in which they define a “radius of the universe” and therefore the amount of mass inside that radius. Because their calculation is done…
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Aliens in London?
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The aliens are taking over London: (Actually, this is a picture of one of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeesten, encamped in London for the summer, courtesy of the ICA.) And this must be the mothership: (And this is the summer’s Serpentine Pavilion, designed by architect Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond of Ove Arup.)
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Brian Aldiss on Food and Civilization
In the years of the Han emperors in China… the Chinese perfected the crossbow with which to defeat the barbarians. The barbarians did not have the skills necessary to cast the bronze locks the crossbow requires. With the barbarians taken care of, a time of peace prevailed within the newly united states of China. So…
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Marx: Science and Paradox
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It is … paradox that the earth moves round the sun, and that water consists of two highly inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things. –Karl Marx, Das Kapital, quoted by Francis Wheen in The Guardian. Or that objects in motion tend…
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Peer review
Scientists complain a lot about peer review. It’s a safe bet that most of us think that our papers are generally not improved in the process, but in the usual self-congratlulatory way, most of us probably think that we’re in the minority of good referees who actually make useful suggestions, or catch egregious errors. We…
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Beatles-Stones-Who
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If you grew up suburban in the late 70s (after they had all left their best days behind), one of the most important questions was, of course: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or The Who? ITV4 is showing “The Kids Are Alright”, a documentary made about The Who just before Keith Moon died. Amped-up on…