December 2005 Archives

For some light holiday reading, check out this slightly mistitled article from the NY Times on the still-unsolved mysteries of Quantum Mechanics. It’s always good PR to have Einstein’s name in the title, but really it’s about a theory -- Quantum Mechanics -- that Einstein didn’t like much. That article spawned an excellent post from Sean Carroll attempting to tease out the Quantum-Mechanical idea that the world is, at bottom, probabilistic. 97 thought-provoking comments and counting, including my own reaction to Sean’s statement that “what we can observe is only a small fraction of what really exists” and pointing to the quantum-mechanical wavefunction as “what really exists”: I don’t think this can be correct, since the wavefunction depends on what we know, not on what is out in the world. The wavefunction is certainly a useful (to again use Sean’s words) construct to enable us to do calculations; but that doesn’t make it real.

Today, Sean has posted this followup, talking about the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (which I admit seems ridiculous to me, although it has many eminent adherents): whenever a quantum-mechanical “decision” happens, the world splits in two, one with each of the possibilities. One world where the canonical Schrodinger’s cat is dead, one where it is, happily, alive.

Now, the problem with all of these discussions is that most of the possible interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are distinctions without difference: they make identical predictions which the fit the well-known and well-tested rules. (Not quite like Intelligent Design vs Evolution: ID makes the same predictions as Evolution by throwing away any predictions that don’t fit the facts a posteriori, whereas the different interpretations of Quantum Mechanics are a priori identical, alas.) Chris Fuchs likens the situation to physics before Einstein came up with Special Relativity -- one hundred years ago. All of the facts were in place -- Lorentz contractions, Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism, the Michelson-Morley experiment showing that light didn’t seem to propagate through an ether -- but it took Einstein’s genius to notice that this could be explained by two simple principles: the speed of light is constant, and physics is the same in all inertial frames. So, it all comes back to Einstein in the end, especially while it’s still 2005.

...from a photo of a park in Tokyo, a bit more in keeping with the name of this blog.

I was going to present a long disquisition on secularism, religion and society at large, but this is better:

“Whether you believe with an absolute literalism or with a more analogic faith, whether you believe at all, whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or merely human, the word we would like to feel most profoundly now is Peace.”

--New York Times Editorial, December 25, 2005

Happy holidays!

• Sitting at the front of the top of a double-decker bus;
• Borough Market: chorizo & rocket sandwiches from Brindisa
  

Not so pleasurable: no public transport on Christmas Day (even without a strike!). How am I supposed to keep my busy social schedule??

Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So it all gets better from now on (Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a perfectly reasonable response to the darkness).

But what else? A Republican-appointed member of the federal judiciary has slammed the Intelligent Design crackpots, seeing them for the crypto-creationists they can barely hide being (although both Slate and Salon don't see it as an unalloyed victory for rationality). As usual, PZ Myers at Pharyngula has lots to say on the issue (as a biologist with much more standing than me, a mere cosmologists, at least until the young-earthers get back in the game). Meanwhile, Evolution has won Science Magazine's Breakthrough of the Year -- certainly a political choice, in light of the IDers ridiculous claims to be doing real science.

On the downside, my family in the New York City suburbs are finding it mighty hard to get around, even in the family gas-guzzlers. This is a tough one: I'm a big fan of unions, but it seems like both sides (the Transit Workers Union on one side, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority on the other) were working toward a settlement when the Union walked away from the table. (Although needless to say, the politicians overseeing the MTA didn't handle this as well as they could have, with Governor Pataki of New York somehow finding himself in New Hampshire -- first port of call for would-be Presidential candidates -- on the eve of the strike, rather than back home hammering out a deal.)

Update: So it looks like the NYC Transit strike is over... instead, we Londoners will have to contend with our own strike, shutting down the Tube on New Year's Eve! This seems to be a way to get out of an agreed-to set of 24-hour workdays over the course of the year.

• Last week I participated in a collaboration between the Dana Centre (the adult wing of the Science Museum) and some artists, entitled “Big Ideas.”
• Imperial College is to be leaving the University of London.
• Fantastic late-night Dinner last weekend, with (among many others!) Kosso, Rachel, Imp, Deirdre, Sophie, Barry, guest of honor Robert Scoble, and, amazingly, subsidized food and, yes, really, I'm not making this up, free champagne from Microsoft. The latter was captured by Ian, including a picture in which I look very louche indeed. I also seem to have volunteered to do a podcast with Gia for her work with the new movie, Sunshine, and finally repaid my free-wine debt to Jason and Nick from Stormhoek vineyards by explaining all of cosmology to them in about half an hour (lubricated by wine, of course).

An unexpected highlight was the fantastic exhibit of photographs from Hiroshi Sugimoto (at the Mori Gallery, on the 53rd story of the otherwise very shopping-mall-like Roppongi Hills “city-within-a-city”.

I've seen smaller exhibitions of his work at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, New York City (where he lives and works), but this retrospective proves him to be a major artist. He makes real objects -- iconic 20th Century buildings, the meeting of sea and sky on a distant horizon, Japanese Buddhas -- look fake, and fakes -- waxwork dummies, museum dioramas -- look real. In front of the conceptual cleverness, however, lies an almost painterly eye for texture and, most of all, composition, as well as a deep understanding of of how we see and respond to light and shadow.

(And speaking of fakes, here's what else I did today.)

I also spent 45 minutes on line getting into an exhibit of works by Hokusai, the 18th-19th Century printer, draughtsman and painter: justly some of the most famous of all Japanese artworks, remarkable in their vividness and detail (the screensaver and mousemat versions don't do them justice). Remarkable, that is, when I could see them. I got an excellent education in the difference between Japanese and American ideas of “personal space” as I got buffeted by schoolkids, old ladies, and everyone in between jockying for position right in front of each and every drawing, woodblock print, and painting.

After that and the rest of my hectic visit, I trekked across town to Senso-ji, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple, hoping for a peaceful campus of Zen temples like in Kyoto. I should have realized that the chaos of Tokyo would never let that stand. Rather, Tokyo temples are raucous affairs, as monks, worshippers and tourists with their cameras (more even from Japan than abroad) jostle one another amidst the incense burners and food stands.