Quarky Literature

As everyone knows (this is in jest, for not everyone really knows), the quarks were named quarks after a short poem of James Joyce in Finnegans Wake. So far, I have been able to not finish any novel by James Joyce, even though I have started them many times. They are too dense and I [...]

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Monsters vs. Cliches

I went to see Monsters versus Aliens tonight. It was in 3D and it was great fun in a childish sort of way, where there are no consequences nor after effects to seeing the movie. Now I’m rapidly typing, trying to see if I can beat Clifford to a movie review.         [...]

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Some links

While I am still snowed under, and in the process of finding out how to automate posting my Delicious links to this blog, here is a manual dump of some of the things I found interesting recently. Let me know in comments if you know how to generate weekly (not daily!) link posts like this [...]

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On Freeman Dyson

The NYT has an interesting article on Freeman Dyson and his views on science.  I recommend reading it. I also recommend reading the book  Project Orion, by George Dyson (Freeman’s son).

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For restful moments.

When I have a change of pace and need some calm in my life, I sometimes listen to Keiko Matsui. She is a very talented jazz pianist. The song below is called Water Lily. I also recommend Flight of the Angels (I couldn’t find a good video) and Steps of Maya.  

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Poor planning from students

Students tend to suffer from poor planning strategies. Right now I  can see this happening with the final projects that the students in my class have to turn in. Many left it for the last minute, even though they knew they had to work on them since the class began and even though I tried [...]

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X-ray visions

Recently I went to the dentist and had a full set of routine X-rays taken. The technology has changed a lot since my childhood. Mostly because now my dentist hooks up his laptop to an electronic device that is put in my mouth and the X-rays are ready within fractions of seconds after exposure. This [...]

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Exact Lattice Supersymmetry

Our first guest blogger is Simon Catterall from Syracuse university, who graciously agreed to write a post about the ongoing research attempting to formulate supersymmetric theories on the lattice. Enjoy! Introduction The problem of formulating supersymmetric theories on lattices has a long history going back to the earliest days of lattice gauge theory. However, after [...]

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Headaches, Coffee, Sugar, Deadlines…

The past few weeks have been a non-stop roller coaster of deadlines that I have had to meet. Althought I have started to learn to say NO to people when they ask me if I can do certain things, I have said YES for too many things that have had a deadline recently, and I’m [...]

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i-Switch

My love affair with computers and computer science started before entering high school. During seventh grade, I used to pack my lunch twice a week, and take the bus after school to Tel-Aviv university. There I got acquainted with a whole new world, involving programming languages, punch cards, and room-filling humming machines called computers. Those [...]

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