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Science (and food) the world over
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I’m in the midst of four weeks which I’ll have spent mostly on the road, and as a working trip, it’s a good opportunity to discuss some of the science I’m doing, for a change. I spent last week at Lancaster University, at Origins 2005: The Origin of the Primordial Density Perturbation. Despite its location…
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The Way We Live Now
In 1987, at the height of the Reagan era, LA’s greatest punk (?) band, X, released what even then we knew would be their swan song, See How We Are. X were never ashamed of the poetry in their rock’n’roll, and in the title track they use it to remind us that the political is…
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Quote-Unquote (me)
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It must have been a slow news day, because I’m quoted in The Guardian: Scientists create ‘black holes’ on Earth, by Alok Jha. (Also, if you’re at Imperial‘s Blackett Lab today, you can see an excerpt on the plasma screen by the lifts.) The story is about a paper by Horatiu Nastase of Brown University,…
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Quote of the day
From the Times Higher Education Supplement: Brian Eno “said that art schools should model themselves on the physics department at Imperial College London. This would see art school academics lead projects with students as apprentices or co-workers.” Yes, that Brian Eno: “Mr Eno, 57, has produced five U2 albums and co-written three David Bowie albums.…
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Wilco
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I’m feeling… I’m feeling all rock’n’roll and shit. -Jeff Tweedy, Wilco, London Hammersmith Apollo, 14 March 2005.
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Blinded by science?
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In honor of National Science Week, the UK Governmental Office of Science and Technology has commisioned this MORI poll from which we learn that the great British public approves of science and scientists. Never having really looked at an official poll before, I was amazed to find that the official publication (PDF) runs to 186…
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Intellectual Property
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Who owns my ideas? After listening to Stanford law prof and internet pundit Lawrence Lessig, I’ve decided that my words, meager though they are, should be officially free to all. Right now, this blog is hosted by Imperial College, and I’ve done my best to find out if they impose any of their own restrictions…
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Einstein
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The New York Times had an article this week on the future of Physics, curiously posing the issue as The Next Einstein? Applicants Welcome (by Dennis Overbye). Most striking was that every single one of the eight or so physicists interviewed for the article was an over-fifty male from the USA, Canada, or the UK,…
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Nevermind
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Came home last night to the pop music punditry of “Classic Albums: Nevermind” on BBC2, a reverent eulogizing of Nirvana’s Nevermind. It reminded me of my own rock critic prehistory, when I actually wrote one of the first ever reviews: Nirvana recently did an all-ages show here in Chicago, which I guess means I’m supposed…
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Fear, Loathing, Politics
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I pulled out my dog-eared early-80s paperbacks of the now-late Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Great Shark Hunt just before watching my downloaded versions of The West Wing (the current season showing in the US, not three seasons behind like here). Hunter Thompson was a politics junky (and memorably…
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