Thursday, 21 July 2011
Saturday, 16 July 2011
reviews
I've just come across this selection of Amazon.com reviews. From Amazon's extensive product list, "Bewerter" has reviewed:
- a chair;
- an electric fan;
- and a popular book on Algorithmic Information Theory and philosophy of Mathematics
This is so interesting. First of all there's the Amazon customer's name: "Bewerter". That means "reviewer", doesn't it? Certainly not "mathematician" or "sedentary person" or "cool guy". And the objects reviewed, though few in number, are so spectacularly diverse. What do they have in common? Only that this chap (somehow I think it's a he) has reviewed them.
Is Bewerter showing us a new way of looking at the world? One rooted in Web 2.0 and the new forms of online capitalism? Where the defining attribute of objects is not function or content, but how they've been reviewed?
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Glasgow Science Festival
Next Wednesday I make my contributions to the Glasgow Science Festival. I'm giving a talk: Fat tails, stock market crashes and the extinction of the dinosaurs: thinking about unlikely events" I have my own take on these stories, of course, starting from some of my professional interests, but best-selling books have also dealt with related topics recently.
I have to expect, for instance, that some of the people in the room will have read The Black Swan by N N Taleb. So I'm reading it myself to have some idea of what he says, and in case there are some good ideas in there I can steal. At the moment this feels like excessive dedication to duty. Mr Taleb has some interesting things to say but he does say them at length. I have no idea what he's like in person but he comes across in print like a certain sort of person you meet in academia: highly intelligent, creative, arrogant, opinionated, garrulous, both inspirational and tedious, difficult to be around. A thin, elegant monograph could have put the same central ideas elegantly and compellingly - and the central ideas are very interesting. But that book wouldn't have been a best-seller, appealing to people who like the image of the hectoring visionary, and Mr Taleb would have had much less fun writing it. Unfortunately a book that is fun to write might be less fun to read.
Haven't finished it yet, maybe it'll get better. Already I dislike anybody in the audience who's read it! (only joking ,please come along even if you have).
One of his recurring images is of the turkey that gets used to regular feeding, to a stable, comfortable environment, oblivious to the possibility of a sudden, dramatic change in its fortunes. Were we turkeys in DACE? I don't think so - but even a keen awareness of bad possibilities doesn't allow you to predict exactly when they will happen. Perhaps this is Mr Taleb's point, and he'll have something useful to say on these lines before I finish the book.
I know I also need to read the sections on natural science before forming a final view. Don't know if I'll mention him or not next Wednesday, let's see where he leads.
Maybe see you there anyway!
I have to expect, for instance, that some of the people in the room will have read The Black Swan by N N Taleb. So I'm reading it myself to have some idea of what he says, and in case there are some good ideas in there I can steal. At the moment this feels like excessive dedication to duty. Mr Taleb has some interesting things to say but he does say them at length. I have no idea what he's like in person but he comes across in print like a certain sort of person you meet in academia: highly intelligent, creative, arrogant, opinionated, garrulous, both inspirational and tedious, difficult to be around. A thin, elegant monograph could have put the same central ideas elegantly and compellingly - and the central ideas are very interesting. But that book wouldn't have been a best-seller, appealing to people who like the image of the hectoring visionary, and Mr Taleb would have had much less fun writing it. Unfortunately a book that is fun to write might be less fun to read.
Haven't finished it yet, maybe it'll get better. Already I dislike anybody in the audience who's read it! (only joking ,please come along even if you have).
One of his recurring images is of the turkey that gets used to regular feeding, to a stable, comfortable environment, oblivious to the possibility of a sudden, dramatic change in its fortunes. Were we turkeys in DACE? I don't think so - but even a keen awareness of bad possibilities doesn't allow you to predict exactly when they will happen. Perhaps this is Mr Taleb's point, and he'll have something useful to say on these lines before I finish the book.
I know I also need to read the sections on natural science before forming a final view. Don't know if I'll mention him or not next Wednesday, let's see where he leads.
Maybe see you there anyway!
Saturday, 28 May 2011
cro-mo
DACE may survive. People who are following the Save DACE Facebook or website know this. DACE no longer exists, of course, but it has been singled out in the past few months as though it does so I at least have begun to speak about it again as though it did. I think in many ways it still does. And some of the recommendations of the consultation panel amount to a revival of DACE.
It would be increasingly strange, at the moment, not to comment here on what's been happening. There's a lot to be said, but some of it shouldn't be said in this setting. Some of it is much bigger than DACE.
Anyway I've been enjoying bike runs at the weekends. I believe I'm not a very fast cyclist but I enjoy cycling on a fast bike. I love those weekend sensations: of setting off from the house on my road bike and thinking, "wow, this is fast even just rolling downhill"; of shooting uphill in high gears; of having been out for a long time and feeling you can just keep going and going. I've begun to pore over descriptions of more expensive bikes, wondering if they would actually feel faster, if I might travel less pathetically slow on one. I've learned that so-called cro-mo steel alloys have excellent strength to weight ratio and are preferred for bike parts for this reason. "Cro-mo" is steel alloyed with chromium and molybdenum.
Molybdenum, what a strange name. Element number 42 - nice number, six times nine. Where does it come from? Actually we know the answer to that question. It is produced in the interiors of red giant stars in the so-called s-process, and behind the blast wave that travels outward through a star in the explosive events of a supernova, in the r-process. "s" stands for "slow" and "r" for "rapid". Both involve the absorption of neutrons by nuclei, and radioactive decay of resulting, unstable nuclei. Immediately after the supernova explosion there are lots more neutrons flying around than normal, even for the interior of a star; hence the "r".
There is enough molybdenum now, in the Earth's crust, for us to be able to use it in cro-mo alloys and work towards those sensations of speed, because the universe is 13.7 billion years old and there has been enough time for lots of generations of massive stars, becoming red giants, spawning supernovae, and enriching the abundances of such heavier elements in the Milky Way as a whole.
If I ever get one of those nice bikes with the cro-mo parts and enjoy sensationally fast feeling bike rides in the myriad tiny, sunlit roads south of Glasgow, my thoughts will doubtless turn occasionally to the Sun's far future, to a time when it has swollen and engulfed the Earth and molybdenum is getting manufactured with many other rare substances in its deep interior, when DACE and universities and human beings are part of history, possibly lost from all conscious thought. I'll relish that sense of speed and think about the age and far future of the Universe.
(Supernova 1987a image: NASA, ESA, K France, P Challis, R Kirshner)
It would be increasingly strange, at the moment, not to comment here on what's been happening. There's a lot to be said, but some of it shouldn't be said in this setting. Some of it is much bigger than DACE.
Anyway I've been enjoying bike runs at the weekends. I believe I'm not a very fast cyclist but I enjoy cycling on a fast bike. I love those weekend sensations: of setting off from the house on my road bike and thinking, "wow, this is fast even just rolling downhill"; of shooting uphill in high gears; of having been out for a long time and feeling you can just keep going and going. I've begun to pore over descriptions of more expensive bikes, wondering if they would actually feel faster, if I might travel less pathetically slow on one. I've learned that so-called cro-mo steel alloys have excellent strength to weight ratio and are preferred for bike parts for this reason. "Cro-mo" is steel alloyed with chromium and molybdenum.
Molybdenum, what a strange name. Element number 42 - nice number, six times nine. Where does it come from? Actually we know the answer to that question. It is produced in the interiors of red giant stars in the so-called s-process, and behind the blast wave that travels outward through a star in the explosive events of a supernova, in the r-process. "s" stands for "slow" and "r" for "rapid". Both involve the absorption of neutrons by nuclei, and radioactive decay of resulting, unstable nuclei. Immediately after the supernova explosion there are lots more neutrons flying around than normal, even for the interior of a star; hence the "r".
There is enough molybdenum now, in the Earth's crust, for us to be able to use it in cro-mo alloys and work towards those sensations of speed, because the universe is 13.7 billion years old and there has been enough time for lots of generations of massive stars, becoming red giants, spawning supernovae, and enriching the abundances of such heavier elements in the Milky Way as a whole.
If I ever get one of those nice bikes with the cro-mo parts and enjoy sensationally fast feeling bike rides in the myriad tiny, sunlit roads south of Glasgow, my thoughts will doubtless turn occasionally to the Sun's far future, to a time when it has swollen and engulfed the Earth and molybdenum is getting manufactured with many other rare substances in its deep interior, when DACE and universities and human beings are part of history, possibly lost from all conscious thought. I'll relish that sense of speed and think about the age and far future of the Universe.
(Supernova 1987a image: NASA, ESA, K France, P Challis, R Kirshner)
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Crazy men
Well, this isn't really a "DACE Memorial Blog" at all, is it? It's mostly me sounding off about things that amuse me. So here's a new one - there'll be lots of real DACE talk any day now.
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an amazing photograph, just moments after launch, of the Redstone rocket that took the first American into space, 50 years ago today. What strikes me, looking at this picture, is what a tiny wee rocket this was, compared to the Saturn monsters that powered men towards the Moon. Look at the details that gave scale: the platform on the hoist just next the launch pad, presumably just big enough for a couple of people; the windows in the cabins that are part of the launch gantry. Not to mention the actual Mercury capsule itself, one-human sized, no doubt painfully cramped, perched on top of this very long pipe bomb. They stuck Al Shepherd on top of a great big firework and shot him into space - just; sub-orbital.
He got significantly higher than Joseph Kittinger had just months previously, but in a much more explosive way. Kittinger ascended gently to just under 20 miles altitude, by balloon. Then he jumped out. Nobody has ever fallen further.
Which man was crazier?
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an amazing photograph, just moments after launch, of the Redstone rocket that took the first American into space, 50 years ago today. What strikes me, looking at this picture, is what a tiny wee rocket this was, compared to the Saturn monsters that powered men towards the Moon. Look at the details that gave scale: the platform on the hoist just next the launch pad, presumably just big enough for a couple of people; the windows in the cabins that are part of the launch gantry. Not to mention the actual Mercury capsule itself, one-human sized, no doubt painfully cramped, perched on top of this very long pipe bomb. They stuck Al Shepherd on top of a great big firework and shot him into space - just; sub-orbital.
He got significantly higher than Joseph Kittinger had just months previously, but in a much more explosive way. Kittinger ascended gently to just under 20 miles altitude, by balloon. Then he jumped out. Nobody has ever fallen further.
Which man was crazier?
Sunday, 27 March 2011
"Between the immense galaxies and the infinitesimal particles"
We've just come to the end of a DACE course on "Life in the Universe". Martin Hendry, Graeme Ruxton, Helen Fraser (Strathclyde) and I took a look at several aspects of this perennially fascinating subject.
Even the title opens up whole classes of questions:
"life" - what is it, anyway?
"the universe": how big? containing what sorts of objects? why does it look the way it does?
"in": why life on Earth? and not lots of other places? where else might we find it? can we spot it if it's out there? are there deep connections between our own emergence from inorganic matter and the universe in which we find ourselves?
From SEED magazine, here's a very nice blog posting touching on similar topics, with a leaning to biochemistry and the insights to be gained from artificial organisms, and a few very illuminating phrases, like "software that makes its own hardware". And emphasising that, between the fundamental questions associated with the very large and the very small, there is also the question of the emergence of complexity, of "life and its place in the cosmos" where a "revolution in understanding" will be just as fundamental.
Compared to professional research, a course like this is a different sort of fun, a chance to look up from the detailed equations or observations to the big picture. The sort of teaching experience that involves out-of-the ordinary conversations with colleagues and people from a huge range of backgrounds, and sends you back to your research with new questions in mind. Just as much fun for us as for the participants; just what we should be doing in a university, consultation or none.
Even the title opens up whole classes of questions:
"life" - what is it, anyway?
"the universe": how big? containing what sorts of objects? why does it look the way it does?
"in": why life on Earth? and not lots of other places? where else might we find it? can we spot it if it's out there? are there deep connections between our own emergence from inorganic matter and the universe in which we find ourselves?
From SEED magazine, here's a very nice blog posting touching on similar topics, with a leaning to biochemistry and the insights to be gained from artificial organisms, and a few very illuminating phrases, like "software that makes its own hardware". And emphasising that, between the fundamental questions associated with the very large and the very small, there is also the question of the emergence of complexity, of "life and its place in the cosmos" where a "revolution in understanding" will be just as fundamental.
Compared to professional research, a course like this is a different sort of fun, a chance to look up from the detailed equations or observations to the big picture. The sort of teaching experience that involves out-of-the ordinary conversations with colleagues and people from a huge range of backgrounds, and sends you back to your research with new questions in mind. Just as much fun for us as for the participants; just what we should be doing in a university, consultation or none.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
strategy
What an incredible two days we've just lived through, many people more intensely than me. When - if ever - were such events last seen in a British University? Here's what was happening yesterday. And here's what's happening today.
This afternoon I attended an emergency meeting of Glasgow UCU. Originally called to respond to the consultation process it wound up also commenting on the extraordinary events of the previous 36 or so hours. Although rather an aside to the key issues, there was some discussion of the now-closed Research Club, former occupant of the Hetherington House (now the site of the student occupation); and here's the connection to the specific territory of this blog.
Susan Stuart pointed out that mature students particularly found the Hetherington Research Club a friendly, useful place, congenial, easier for them to be in than the Unions. I also know this was the case, that many former DACE students, from Access and other programmes, made the Research Club their headquarters. Reasons aren't hard to guess. First, they were among grown-ups. Second, they were in the sort of place many of them imagined when they started making their way to University: a place where you can have all sorts of conversation on all sorts of subjects with all sorts of people, where drunken nonsense rubs shoulders with intense debate, where most people value ideas and are happy to talk about them. A supportive environment, multi-disciplinary, research-led ... in fact with all the attributes highlighted in the University's strategic plan; surely thus a core resource for the University to realise its aims.
This afternoon I attended an emergency meeting of Glasgow UCU. Originally called to respond to the consultation process it wound up also commenting on the extraordinary events of the previous 36 or so hours. Although rather an aside to the key issues, there was some discussion of the now-closed Research Club, former occupant of the Hetherington House (now the site of the student occupation); and here's the connection to the specific territory of this blog.
Susan Stuart pointed out that mature students particularly found the Hetherington Research Club a friendly, useful place, congenial, easier for them to be in than the Unions. I also know this was the case, that many former DACE students, from Access and other programmes, made the Research Club their headquarters. Reasons aren't hard to guess. First, they were among grown-ups. Second, they were in the sort of place many of them imagined when they started making their way to University: a place where you can have all sorts of conversation on all sorts of subjects with all sorts of people, where drunken nonsense rubs shoulders with intense debate, where most people value ideas and are happy to talk about them. A supportive environment, multi-disciplinary, research-led ... in fact with all the attributes highlighted in the University's strategic plan; surely thus a core resource for the University to realise its aims.
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