Short posts from Andrew Jaffe
Jasper Johns’ “Slice”, a mashup of the CfA galaxy redshift survey, spied on a visit to the Guggenheim Bilbao. I recognised the pattern of dots — famous among cosmologists — from across the room, surprised to see it amongst Johns’ usual flags, targets, crosshatches, and numbers.
Being an atheist and born Jewish, and only having walked the last 20km of the Camino de Santiago, I was surprised to feel so moved by our arrival at the Cathedral.
Casualty, lost to the rocks of the iron-age fortifications of Os Castros de Baroña, Galicia.
“I never got to be an astronaut, but I did get to be part of the Planck Satellite team.”
—Me, interviewed by Brian Clegg on PopScienceBooks about why I do the science I do, and why I wrote The Random Universe.
UK universities face ‘financial crisis’ amid collapse in international students
University leaders are warning of financial turmoil in British higher education after new figures suggested a collapse in international student numbers would deprive the sector of vital income and undermine its future.
The problem is having so heavily relied on gouging foreign students to begin with.
The Random Universe in Physics World:
A masterful and refreshing take… I found the book’s thesis – that uncertainty is not a hindrance to knowledge, but an opportunity to learn (and learn more) about the world – simultaneously liberating, humbling and empowering.
— Chrysi Malouchou Kanellopoulou
It’s wonderful when the front page of the newspaper is about astronomy instead of, well, almost anything else.
The full image of the sun looks like a disc, but you can see the shape of the ongoing partial eclipse due to the imperfect optics of my phone camera.
Partial
Who else is off to Spain (or Iceland, or Greenland, or… ) for the eclipse?
“Man of science”
60 looking (surprisingly?!) good so far.
Thomas Bayes proved we can never be 100% certain of anything — but that probability tells us exactly how to learn anyway. That’s the core of my SXSW 2027 proposal, from the physics of the cosmos to the beliefs we live by.
Vote here (free, 30 sec) — closes Aug 23.
Exactly two years ago, we were on the first day of our sabbatical year, starting in Indonesia but with extended stays in Tsukuba, Japan; New York City; and Leiden, Netherlands. We’ve been back almost a year but I still think about our year abroad every day.
Clafoutis
Peter Coles points out, I fear with some justification, that the recent STFC cuts to high-profile fields of physics like astronomy, cosmology, and particle physics might have as much (or more) to do with internal conflicts and jealousy within physics as with financial issues.
This is only of niche interest, but it’s great to be at the Sterrewacht group at the University of Leiden, drinking from an old-school early-90s vintage CITA (Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics) mug.
This White House paper marks a huge change to US science funding, trying to pick tech winners, alongside its efforts to align science with its right-wing ideology.
For a party supposedly against communism, they are doing their best to reproduce some of the worst excesses of the soviet state.
UK Science moves from DSIT to DBIST. Should we be worried? (I have no idea.)
Good (depressing) discussion of the effect of the large cuts to the UK’s astrophysics and particle physics programs. (The government’s own “explainer” is not very good…).
Presented at a meeting today: “Remaining challenges are systemic rather than structural.”
What does this mean?
Goodyear Blimp over the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Fun paper “The Squealer: Sensification of model exploration and model misfit” with new co-authors Andrew Gelman, Eliot Carlson and Philip Greengard, all computational statisticians in the New York area.
Heading off on a wild suit chase, somehow involving the exchange of bank details and morning dress in an English pub.
Hey Peter, I’m not planning on retiring any time soon!
This meeting has been going on here at Imperial College for a few days. I am humbled and honoured by my friends and colleagues who have come to London.
An intersection of my obsessions: @andrewhickey.500songs.com’s “500 Songs” episode on “Hey Jude” opens with a discussion of how we (our brains/minds) build and refine models of the world that could have come straight from my book The Random Universe.
Five-star review by Brian Clegg of The Random Universe:
Probably the best book I’ve ever read on what the scientific method really is, how scientists build models, how they deal with randomness, uncertainty and the pitfalls of induction. Engaging stuff.