J Larsen

I think Hawkings deserves a Nobel because I trust the data. But I also respect the skeptics who distrust black hole data, because science needs skeptics! (I also have to say I'm not the most knowledgable person about observational black hole physics. It's more accurate of me to say that people who I know and trust who are very familiar with the data trust the data.) In addition to those who simply distrust the data, there is evidently another camp of quantum cosmologists who think that the effects described by Hawkings theory are better described by a quantum-mechanical theory. Of course then you're faced with the problem of quantum gravity, which most theorists seem to be giving up on. (Even Witten isn't working in string theory anymore. I was originally a string theory student but quickly jumped ship myself.) You've remembered the Aspect experiment correctly. The really amazing things about that experiment are the distance over which they were able to maintain the correlations and the mechanism they came up with for randomizing the detector orientations between measurements. Oh yeah, the result was pretty impressive, too!

I knew there was another multi-winner, and I just remembered who it was. Marie Curie won in physics for the discovery of radioactivity and in chemistry for the isolation of various isotopes of uranium.

I said three Nobel-prize worthy ideas; I didn't mean to imply he won more than one. Yes, he won primarily for the photoelectric effect, but his work on special relativity was commended on the certificate accompanying his medal and check. General relativity wasn't published until eight years later (oops, make that 14 - I was thinking he won in 1927 for some reason). When he won his award, the experimental status of special relativity wasn't secure enough to merit a Nobel for the theory. I don't know that Hawkings ever will win a Nobel. All of the black hole data is in much more dispute than what you'd think from the popular press. The guy who REALLY should have a Nobel by now is JS Bell, for his theoretical proof (verified by experiment!) that quantum non-locality is an essential part of nature and that no local theory can accurately describe the universe! Actually, Alain Aspect should share in that award for the ingenious experiment he devised to decisively demonstrate the violation of the Bell inequalities.

Here's another analogy. Say the Dodgers go 0-162, but they lose every game by only one run. The Giants go 110-52, but they get their 110 wins by only one run each and in all of their 52 loses they are blown out by at least 10 runs. Which team had the better season? Obviously it was the Giants. If you think of each game as a race, I think it's a decent analogy. Driver B (the Dodgers) barely loses on a consistent basis while Driver A (the Giants) wins a large portion of the time while losing badly the rest of the time. Okay, this is admittedly a totally lousy analogy, but as a lifelong Giants fan, it's fun to imagine the Dodgers going 0-162.

This doesn't necessarily apply here, but does anyone else get tired of lit crit types interpreting anything longer than its width as a phallus?

It's clearly driver A. Driver B is at best a second-tier hall of famer. Driver A, winning half of his races, would likely go down as the greatest of all time. Which team is more dominant: the one that has the most playoff appearances, or the one with the most championships? Clearly, the team with the most championships. Who is the greater physicist: Einstein, for his three Nobel-prize worthy ideas (photoelectric effect, special relativity, general relativity), or T. Suzuki for his record of 1,312 published academic papers? Well, I sort of doubt many of you have even heard of Suzuki, which goes a long way towards answering my rhetorical question.

I think the thread has been taken a little too seriously. There is a distinct difference between the faux-malady ADD and simply being scatterbrained. The later condition, which is what I think Berigan et al. are describing, and which I often suffer from (especially when stressed and/or sleep-deprived, which is most of the time lately), CAN be recitified in many (perhaps most) individuals by practicing concentration exercises and possibly through meditation. I'm not the meditating type myself, but it does seem to work well for my girlfriend.

Hey, I really am a "visual mathematician". I guess I can leave all that self-doubt behind. I actually remember taking one leg of the real IQ test when I was very young. Aside from the vocabularly questions (which I don't think are included in authentic IQ tests), these questions are fairly similar to what I remember. I recall I had a couple of questions that went like this: "Imagine light is shone on the object depicted below from the upper right-hand corner of the page. Which of the following is the resultant shadow?" At the time they didn't tell us we were taking an IQ test, and we were probably too young to have understood the import of that even if they had they told us, so it was actually kind of fun. BTW, I was recently reading about the history of the IQ test. Evidently they were originally designed at the turn of the century to help elementary school teachers differentiate between underachievers and students with legitimate learning disabilities (although back then "learning disabilities" were not thought of in the same way as they are now, obviously). The inventor of the test was reportedly quite embarrassed as he saw the test scores fuel "intellectual elitism" among certain people. He repeatedly said that was never the intention of the test and that the meaning of the scores was being taken out of context.

No offense intended, but I find most of Joy of Cooking's recipies to be rather bland. They are generally quick and easy, though, and it does have a couple winners. The Chicken Kiev is good, and I like the manicoti recipe. The deserts also generally come out well.

As I'm doing more and more of my listening (and living) in my office, I'm looking to upgrade my office sound system. Currently I just have a Sony Discman (circa 1996) plugged into a set of Altec-Lansing computer speakers. I used to have a pair of much-better sounding Labtec computer speakers, but they died on me. The Altecs sound embarrasingly bad - very boomy base, brittle treble and basically zero mid-range. Any recommendations for a decent sounding boom box, mini system, or computer speakers for under $200? Thanks in advance. PS: I can't go the headphone route. It's not practical for me.

Hey Phil, what part of SF are you from? I grew up in the 94109 part of town (just above Polk St. near California St.).

I could never understand the mindset that led one from "you're cheating on me" to "I'm going to kill you".

Mny - Pat is a childhood friend of mine and is doing a PhD in medicine at Stanford. I'm in the mid-to-later stages of a PhD in physics. But I have to admit I've been in the mid-to-later stages for a while. I had a couple false starts and a major left turn in my research. I still have two or three years to go before I'm considered a "slow" PhD, thanks to my fast start.

I figured as much, but he's been there quite a while himself. At least eight years, and maybe more like ten. I guess those degrees can take a while to finish! In my field, most people get their PhD in five or six years if they're going to get it at all.

Mny, this is a longshot, but do you know a guy named Pat Divine? He's finishing a PhD MD at Stanford.

I collaborate with a couple guys at Stanford, but it's a very recently formed partnership.

Geez, I spent a good portion of these years learning math and physics. I did take a couple years off to fuck around, but it was exceptionally unproductive fucking around; i.e. go to work, leave work as early as possible, call around to see who wants to go out for drinks and catch some djs. Repeat 730 times, then return to school. I did have some fun doing that, but I really didn't do much to "grow as a person" in my years away from school. Being 18 was sort of cool because I had an incredibly hot girlfriend back then. Unfortunately, she turned into a speed freak when I was 19 (which is part of what inspired me to take some time off school).

Baby back ribs and collard greens!

Thanks Mny, I'll check that out. The reason I got the remake is that I wasn't feeling too well so I didn't feel like going to the video store and it was the most promising selection on pay-per-view at the time.

Here's what I've watched over the last couple weeks: Y Tu Mama Tambien -entertaining enough, but vastly overrated IMHO Insomnia - Harry Potter 2 - not a bad movie, it passed a couple hours while I wasn't feeling well Blue Velvet - I hadn't seen this in five years or so. It may be Lynch's best. Insomnia - An interesting spin on the police-detective genre. Easily recommended to people who like Inspector Morse or even, say, Law & Order, etc. Forgot to mention that Robin Williams does an admiral job with the "bad guy" role in Insomnia. After seeing him waste his talents in so many sugary roles over the years, it was really nice to see him in a grittier role. Maybe I should check out Two Hour Photo as well.

Thiss thread inspired me to borrow a copy of Genesis "Foxtrot", depsite my extreme anti-Phil Collins and anti-Peter Gabriel stance (a result of their 80s solo material). I was fairly impressed. It certainly has about a million times more "artistic value" (for lack of a better term) than anything I ever expected to hear from a Phil Collins project. For me it was like listening to a solid bop set from the 70s and later learning that one of the sax players was Kenny G. It was a bit stunning and made me feel slightly dirty.

Many newer amps don't have phono stages, hence the need for phono pre-amps. If your amp came with phono jacks in the back, you don't really need a phono pre-amp, although if you're dissatisfied with the way records sound through your amp you might still want one anyway.

I have to say I was underwhelmed by the new Radiohead on my first couple of listens, but it's really growing on me - fast. There are a couple duds (esp. the "we suck young blood" song), but all in all it's a very impressive record. Some very intelligent lyrics to boot. I can't believe I'm getting into a modern rock group. What's happening to me? The more musical common ground with the gf, the better, I guess.

It's like city street rock, but faster. Unless it's LA freeway rock.

Free for All was my first Blakey, and it inspired me to quickly expand my collection of his BN output. All of the Blakey albums featuring Shorter are easily recommended. It's hard to go wrong with this period of the Messengers. Free for All remains my favorite Blakey feat. Shorter record, likely because it was my first one.