Einstein

The New York Times had an article this week on the future of Physics, curiously posing the issue as The Next Einstein? Applicants Welcome (by Dennis Overbye). Most striking was that every single one of the eight or so physicists interviewed for the article was an over-fifty male from the USA, Canada, or the UK, even though they all mostly claimed that the quest for a 'Next Einstein' was meaningless (like rock'n'roll's perennial failure to find a next Dylan).

Anyway, by now most of you know that this is the "Einstein Year", the centenary of Einstein's annus miraculis when he discovered special relativity, explained the Brownian motion, and teased out the processes underlying the photoelectric effect. You can follow the festivities, such as they are, in the blog series Quantum Diaries. Mostly I am jealous I didn't rate selection as a physicist-blogger, so you'll just have to come here to read about my exploits. (Update: OK, I'm not really jealous, since most of what I write about isn't physics, anyway.)

Alternately, the professionals among you should check out Physics 2005: a Century After Einstein, a meeting sponsored by the Institute of Physics, where I'll be talking about the detection of Gravity Waves using the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. (And I promise I will someday blog about my research, too, but for now you can read a little about it on my extremely out-of-date home page, or otherwise follow my exploits using NASA's ADS.)