Me and Paul Simon Down at the Widnes Railway Station

I came back from Widnes this morning for the outreach session. I noticed a plaque about Paul Simon there, and it turns out that this experience has --- without any intention at all --- given me something in common with Paul Simon! :)

Quoting from the wikipedia entry: "Widnes Railway Station is one of two stations where Paul Simon reputedly composed the song "Homeward Bound", the other being Ditton railway station. It is uncertain exactly where the song was written: in an interview with Paul Zollo for SongTalk Magazine, Art Garfunkel says that Simon wrote the song in a train station "around Manchester"[6] while in an earlier interview for Playboy Magazine Simon himself mentioned the train station was at Liverpool.[7] It is likely, however, that it was written at one of the two Widnes stations during a long wait for a train, as Simon was traveling back from Widnes, where he had been playing.[8] A plaque commemorating this claim to fame is displayed on the Liverpool bound platform of Widnes railway station.[9] Simon is quoted as saying "[i]f you'd ever seen Widnes, then you'd know why I was keen to get back to London as quickly as possible."[10]"

I just bought the song. I don't remember it, but it's really good (not terribly surprising for a Paul Simon song).

Frequentists Versus Bayesians

XKCD weighs in on one of the most heated debates in the history of the world.

D'oh!

I bet this dude now wishes that his wife had voted. D'oh! (That said, the reasoning behind not voting is rather sensible. The "D'oh!" still applies, though.)

(Tip of the cap to Travis Hime.)

Isn't It Ironic?

I love this classic demotivational poster about irony.

Score a Victory for Caltech

Apparently, a women wearing an 'MIT' shirt was barred from voting in Florida.

As a Caltech alum, I have mixed feelings about this. :)

It's bad for the country, but it's excellent ammunition against MIT. What a moral dilemma.

(Tip of the cap to Carlos Castillo-Chavez.)

What Happens at the PLEXMATH Kickoff Meeting Stays at the PLEXMATH Kickoff Meeting

Miraculously, my visa renewal and passport arrived just in time for me to buy last-minute tickets to Spain for the PLEXMATH kickoff meeting in Tarragona. (I am flying into Barcelona and then taking ground transportation.) The itinerary is slightly convoluted and more expensive than is ideal, but that is what happens when buying plane tickets at the last minute, but it's great to actually be able to attend the kickoff meeting for our big grant. (I had long since assumed there was no chance I could attend, so this is awesome!)

Eventually, we will put some genuine content on the project's website. My project partners on this grant are Alex Arenas, Marc Barthelemy, James Gleeson, and Yamir Moreno.

Scales in the Universe

I posted a video about size scales in the universe recently after seeing it in an article by Steve Strogatz. Well, here is a a really nice interactive website that allows you to explore the scales of different objects in the universe. Very cool!

(Tip of the cap to "I Fucking Love Science".)

Implicit Assumptions

This SMBC comic isn't funny, but I am posting it because it is so, so true. In high school and college, the unstated assumptions in courses like introductory physics courses drove me nuts. That's the main reason why I had trouble with Physics 1. To this day, assumptions made implicitly rather than explicitly still annoy the Hell out of me (as speakers and authors quickly find out).

Smile and Wave

This bit of graffiti, starring the Madagascar penguins (who are rather well-armed in this picture), is absolutely awesome!

And for another amusing demotivational poster, take a look at the shadow in in this poster. Hah!

The Eyes Have It

Wow, this bit of research is really awesome. A 12-year-old kid used a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual (the article doesn't indicate which edition) to help his father with some psychology research! The key thing they were testing was whether people are still drawn to look at eyes even when they're not in the center of a head. They wanted to distinguish whether people looked others in the eye only because of where the eyes happened to be located or at a deeper level. Awesome! I approve! I think this team might well have an Ig Nobel in their future... (Also, it just goes to show that beauty is indeed in the eye(s) of the Beholder.)

Another win, by the way, is the lead author's affiliation: "Lord Byng Secondary School, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada". Sweet!

(Tip of the cap to "I Fucking Love Science".)

Mathematics Anxiety Versus Physical Pain

According to a new study just published in PLoS One, mathematics anxiety can can prompt a response in the brain that is similar to that when feeling physical pain. I guess I do torture people after all.

(Tip of the cap to "I Fucking Love Science".)

RIP Pascual Pérez (1957-2012)

Pascual Pérez was found dead in his bedroom in San Gregorio de Nigua, Dominican Republic (after having apparently been stabbed during a robbery). Two of the Pérez brothers --- Pascual and Carlos --- were well-known to be space cadets, though brother Melido (who I found out from the above article is mayor of San Gregorio de Nigua) seemed to be a bit less nuts.

Tales from the ArXiv: Lovecraftian Edition

Sometimes a new paper on the ArXiv catches my eye, and this one, which has fittingly been posted on Halloween, certainly fits the bill. Indeed, this paper is rather Lovecraftian.

My favorite line from the abstract is the following: We propose a simplified example of such a geometry, and show using numerical computation that Johansen's descriptions were, for the most part, not simply the ravings of a lunatic.

Here are some more article details.

Title: Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific

Author: Benjamin K. Tippett


Abstract: In 1928, the late Francis Wayland Thurston published a scandalous manuscript in purport of warning the world of a global conspiracy of occultists. Among the documents he gathered to support his thesis was the personal account of a sailor by the name of Gustaf Johansen, describing an encounter with an extraordinary island. Johansen`s descriptions of his adventures upon the island are fantastic, and are often considered the most enigmatic (and therefore the highlight) of Thurston`s collection of documents.

We contend that all of the credible phenomena which Johansen described may be explained as being the observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature. Many of his most incomprehensible statements (involving the geometry of the architecture, and variability of the location of the horizon) can therefore be said to have a unified underlying cause.

We propose a simplified example of such a geometry, and show using numerical computation that Johansen`s descriptions were, for the most part, not simply the ravings of a lunatic. Rather, they are the nontechnical observations of an intelligent man who did not understand how to describe what he was seeing. Conversely, it seems to us improbable that Johansen should have unwittingly given such a precise description of the consequences of spacetime curvature, if the details of this story were merely the dregs of some half remembered fever dream.

We calculate the type of matter which would be required to generate such exotic spacetime curvature. Unfortunately, we determine that the required matter is quite unphysical, and possess a nature which is entirely alien to all of the experiences of human science. Indeed, any civilization with mastery over such matter would be able to construct warp drives, cloaking devices, and other exotic geometries required to conveniently travel through the cosmos.

Pretty Please?

I cannot overstate how much I agree with this article urging Tim McCarver to retire (though I'm sure that McCarver could). I've been ranting about his crappy announcing for more than 2 decades.

And this guy won the Hall of Fame's award for broadcasters...? Groaaaaaan.

Singularity Chess

This blog post about a game called "Singularity Chess" makes me want to think about chess in all sorts of spaces. :)

(Tip of the cap to Carlos Castillo-Chavez.)

Nurblizer

It's time to start nurblizing! (Take a look at the new issue of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal to see what I mean.)

For shits and giggles, I decided to try this on my research synopsis webpage, and the result is pretty damn amusing. Hence, I claim that nurbled academic text can be at least as amusing as nurbled political speeches.

How to Eat a Triceratops

In case you and your fellow t-rexes want to learn how to eat a triceratops, then you should take a look at this article.

(Tip of the cap to "I Fucking Love Science".)

Beautiful Visualization of the Time Evolution of Ideology in the United States Congress

This visualization of the time evolution of ideology in the United States Congress, which constitutes today's xckd, is absolutely gorgeous.

(It reminds me of a visualization that Jim Moody and my collaborator Peter Mucha are publishing in the journal "Network Science". I don't think they have posted that one on a website yet. It also reminds me of Martin Rosvall's "alluvial diagrams".)

The calculations of political ideology were done using DW-Nominate, by the way. I am biased, but I happen to know of a better method to do this. :)

Damnit, It's Cold.

Damnit, it's cold.

This message was brought to you by Expats for Warmer Weather (EWW), which has possibly the best acronym ever.

Titles

Wow, Oxford Playhouse sure gives a lot of choices for what title I should use.

This is really difficult: I can't decide between "The Very Revere", "Crown Prince", and "Chief Constable"