W O R D S 1

I just got back from seeing Michael Moore's new movie, "Farenheit 9/11." This was a very compelling film. I consider it every American's patriotic duty to see this movie and try will all the will they can muster to fully grasp the ramifications of what our "elected" commander-in-chief has contributed in doing. The "War on Terror" seemed like such rhetoric even as it was shoved down our throats by the media, but this film really made it all the more transparent. If there's anyone here who wants to see this movie, but doesn't have anyone to go with, I volunteer to see it again. PLEASE GO SEE THIS MOVIE. And, perhaps more importantly, get someone who is unsure of how they feel about this country's current administration to go see it.

Brian posted at 1:18 AM.

Thanks to my buddy Stik, I read this article, adapted from a press release published by the University of California, Santa Barbara. It's some more recent insight into String Theory and particularly talks about string cosmology and an experimental approach to confirming the existence of strings as the fundamental building block of the universe. As I've mentioned with regard to String Theory, it's almost entirely a theoretical and mathematical exploit, because the size of the particles we're talking about are so small, there's likely no way to ever see them. So, this is exciting news indeed.

There were a couple things that stuck out for me in the article.

The first was the mention of the curled-up spatial dimensions that exist unseen because of their unique shapes which basically allow them to "hide" their spatial existence. The article says, "Some of the "extra" dimensions are thought to be curled up or compactified and therefore exceedingly small; and some, to be larger, perhaps infinite."

Now, according to Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, it is not even a point of contention that these curled up dimensions might be infinite. In fact, he stated something to the effect that when working out certain calculations having an answer of "infinity" usually denoted that something was amiss in the calculation. I am interested in whether what Greene was talking about and what the people over at UofCSB is really the same thing.

I think it is the same thing only because I particularly remember thinking how short-sighted it was for theoretical physicists to simply disregard the possibility that a curled-up spatial dimension could be infinite.

The next book I'm reading, which I've just started, is Mario Livio's The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, The World's Most Asonishing Number. Phi (pronounced 'fee') is the number which corresponds to the particular pattern that appears in such things as chambered nautlii or the 12-sided polygon (12-sided die for fans of Dungeons and Dragons). Anyway, the interesting thing about Phi (other than it's numerous seemingly unrelated occurrences in nature), is that it's an irrational number, meaning, 1.6180339887..., it's never ending and never repeating - no pattern. This seems to me like an instance of the infinite in nature.

Ah, what do I know about theoretical physics anyway? I got a D in Algebra II/Trig!

In my readings, I've noticed there are very few female theoretical physicists, cosmologists or mathematicians of any considerable noteworthiness. So when I saw this:

"During the "Superstring Cosmology" program at the KITP, Alessandra Buonanno (Institut d'Astrolophysique de Paris) provided an overview of the possible gravitational wave signatures from the early universe. "When she gave the talk," said Polchinski, 'I didn't pay careful attention because I wasn't thinking about that, but later I went back to her talk in the KITP online series and started clicking through and got to where she talked about gravitational waves from cosmic strings. She had these curves which were quite amazing.'"

It was funny. My stereotypical idea of what a theoretical physicist might be like makes me think he didn't even realize how this quote might be read.

Ahhh, science and boobies.

Brian posted at 11:52 AM.

On my flight home from New York last weekend, I finally finished the last 23 pages of Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. Though I've finished the book, my final thoughts will take a couple of postings. As I've said before, this was a pretty dense book. Many paragraphs were of the order that required more than one reading to fully grasp.

One thing I feel I did understand was that the entire concept of String Theory is almost entirely theoretical. Basically, String Theory is the idea that the universe can be explained in entirely mathematical terms or not. And because of the size in which String Theory deals, there is almost no way, experimentally, to prove that String Theory is correct. At least, not yet.

Since the enlightenment, or even going further back, to Aristotle, there has been an underlying human need within our society to explain the universe in rational terms. It seems to me that String Theory, because of certain mathematical relationships too uncanny to dismiss, is trying to do this.

Another thing that Greene touches upon in his book is the completely different way in which physicists and mathematicians attack problems using the same mathematical tools. Here is an excerpt that I think really eloquently illustrates the difference between physicists and mathematicians AND delves a little bit into the psyche of what kinds of people seek out careers in either profession:

"This reflects the large cultural divide between the disciplines of physics and mathematics, and as string theory blurs their borders, the vast differences in language, methods and styles of each field become increasingly apparent. Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules and brush the edge of acceptability in the search for solutions. Mathematicians are more like classical composers, typically working within a much tighter framework, reluctant to go to the next step until all previous onces have been established with due rigor. Each approach has its advantages as well as drawbacks; each provides a unique outlet for creative discovery. Like modern and classical music, it's not that one approach is right and the other wrong - the methods one chooses to use are largelly a matter of taste and training."

Maybe this metaphor spoke to me because I'm a musician, but either way, I think it sort of paints a picture.

String Theory deals with all forms of physical reality. In this way it is different from quantum theory, which only deals with matter on a subatomic scale, or Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which deals with objects that are either huge or moving at incredible speeds, such as those speeds nearing the speed of light. So, String Theory gets to deal with black holes. What's very interesting about black holes (and unfortunately, I'm not sure if this data is from RESEARCH or from EXPERIMENTAL DATA, but...) is that despite the fact that they are huge and suck up everything that comes within reach of their event horizon, "except for a small nubmer of distinguishing features, all black holes appear to be alike." Those distinguishing features, i.e. mass, electric and force charges and spin, are the same exact features that distinguish elementary particles such as quarks, muons and taus from one another. Essentially, These gigantic galaxy-sized phenomena are overgrown elementary particles!!!! How crazy is that?!?!?

When I consider ontology, I often imagine the universe as being infinitely tiny, rather than infinitely large, and the fact above only makes me wonder at it all the more. I think about the entire sequence of one's life, particularly my own, as being some infinitessimally minute factor in some larger scheme. Like, take for instance all of the complexity in respiration. If we were able to zoom down upon on a molecule of oxygen being inhaled by a goat for example, and then down to one atom, and then one electron and then realize that the electron was really a black hole in a micro-universe, and then there's this little guy named Brian in that universe and his entire life, which seems so long to him, is in the macro-universe a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second, and regardless of what his life seemed to amount to in his perception, it was really just this tiny role that only had the same kind of role I actually have NOW with the nearest black hole. Which in turn only has this little tiny interaction with it's own atom, in fact, the elecron only exists as PROBABILITY in an atom, and then that atom is part of a molecule, which gets sucked up in that chemical reaction that we learned in Biology class which makes CO2.

OK, yes, I am a freak.

Brian posted at 11:09 AM.

Brian K. Vaughan, who writes Y the Last Man, for DC's Vertigo imprint, is definitely one of the best storytellers in the comic medium. Each issue has its own arc of action that is enthralling while still moving forward the overall arc of the larger story. It's a skill that a lot of serial writers seem to be lacking.

Additionally, the artwork on the cover of this month's issue #23, by Massimo Carnevale is absolutely wonderful. One can practically hear the howling of Yorick's companion, Ampersand. The makeshift grave markers are macabre and the insertion of the branch in the shape of a Y is clever though almost bordering on over the top. But I guess that's sort of what comics are all about, isn't it?

Brian posted at 3:42 PM.