In case you haven’t been paying attention, the world cup just finished the first round of games, and now its going into the elimination rounds. Surprisingly this year only 6 of the European teams made it to the elimination rounds, and all of the South American teams (5) moved forward.
last time around 10 of the 16 where European teams, and the final four were all Europe.
Indeed, this year might see a rather heavy dose of South American teams in the final stages.
The cup started slowly and there have been some good games, but the playing is not as high in emotions as I’ve expected so far. Some countries have surprised with how well they play (e.g. Japan and Chile), and many more have surprised on how poorly they played given the expectations (too many to mention them by name, but France is particularly egregious in this).
I was glad to see that many teams that relied only on defense to push them forward were kicked out, so that the more aggressive teams passed to the next round.
I would like to see the final be Holland-Argentina, with Uruguay-Spain paying for the 3rd place. I’m hoping this is the time Holland will win.
Of the next round, the games of England-Germany and Spain-Portugal should be really good. I also have high hopes for Brasil-Chile, but I’ve found that Brasil has not played as strong as they should. We will see.
My prediction: Argentina
Your wish for an Argentina-Holland final is a the most likely scenario IMHO.
But I am hoping the US reaches the semis, and it is possible. The US is grossly underrated by the soccer “giants”, but i can see US beat Ghana.
Then it comes down to Robben vs Messi (a gross simplification as both teams have great talent)I. give the latter the edge (plus, they have Maradona as coach which helps too)
Damn the vuvuzela! May burn in hell. The worst world cup ever…
Let’s face it – it’s a Latin American game.
While Europe sucks in South Africa, our brothers in Slovakia got into the spider so whether or not it’s a successful game for our regions depends both on our location and the length scale.
Lubos,
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Go back to TRF and stay there. By the way, Lubos, you say that it’s not surprising that Mexico doesn’t have a string theory group because Mexico’s average IQ is 85. So I guess they’re not studying string theory because they aren’t SMART enough for it? Which is why they are settling for alternatives to string theory, because they are just too stupid. Well, how come India has an average IQ of 81 AND they have string theory groups?
Lubos, look at this:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/who_has_best_limit_bs_mesons#comments
and this:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/lubo-motl.html
Dear Mark, your comment is very interesting in this context because this thread, including my comment, was about soccer so far.
The Google commercial at Dorigo’s blog is fun. I rarely receive similarly fun ads.
Mexico’s lack of top high-energy theoretical physics is a combination of many factors – lower IQ, lower education, and especially missing competition at the universities which is very similar to that of the post-socialist countries such as the Czech Republic.
India has “castes” so the width of the IQ distribution is wider than in Mexico. Equivalently, the higher “castes” produce many people who are at the Western level, and we know many great Indian string theorists. 1.2 billion people is a lot – it’s still 12 times more than the population of Mexico.
So 24 good Indian string theorists translates to 2 good Mexican string theorists if you approximate these countries as having the same pre-requisites including IQ. These might be realistic numbers and “2″ may be too few to create a stable enough “group”. So one can only do string theory “in isolation” if he is in Mexico.
Mexico is surely not the only country that is in the same situation.
It’s annoying that such things are taboo. No one is afraid to say that some countries are weaker in soccer – and probably will be left behind for decades. But egalitarianism is important enough for certain people that they’re ready to pay all of theoretical physics for the sake of this (fake) equality. I will not sacrifice it.
There’s no equality. Mexico can’t compare with the U.S. in top physics just like it can’t compare in space research or anything like that. Mexicans are warm people and there can still be brave and smart individuals who may be praised but if we talk about the whole nations, I told you the answer. It’s very bad if someone wants to terminate the freedom of speech and thought when it comes to similar – pretty important – topics.
Lubos, on your blog you said: “There’s no string theory group in Mexico – another fact that shouldn’t be shocking given Mexico’s average IQ around 85. The IQ increment needed to go from non-stringy quantum gravity to string theory is around 20. But you need many other pre-requisites, too.”
So you said there is NO string theory group in Mexico.
A commenter on Peter Woit’s blog, Ricardo, said this:
“Regarding Lubos comment there is a string theory group in Mexico, although small, and they even have annual meetings:
http://fejer.ucol.mx/elena/mexicuerdas/index.html
I am a grad student at UNAM, and you’re right when you say there is a group of people “unconvinced and more interested in other approaches” when it comes to strings as a unifying theory, I myself am one of them. I should also mention that people working in string theory in Mexico are more geared towards duality than finding a TOE, at least in my perception.”
Now that you know there is a string theory group in Mexico, can you change what you said (or admit your mistake) on your blog? An update? An addendum?
Thank you.
The reason I post on this blog whenever you’re around is because you delete comments from people who provide you with arguments against your claims on your posts.
Forgive me for posting comments which have nothing at all to do with the post.
…. and back to cheering Holland to win the worldcup again!
now al together:
Hup, Holland, Hup…
Dear Mark, Tibbles, Tim, Rene, and hundreds of other names you are using on the blogs you keep on spamming,
I am not deleting comments from any people. I am only deleting comments from genetic scum like you.
The reason why you keep on harassing people is that you are a genetic garbage from Austin – the type of individuals who will be aborted in the future because the mothers will be informed that something like you would be born instead of a human being in advance.
Lubos,
Allow me to present a complaint against you and your tactics from Sabine Hossenfelder. That will show that your description of me applies to yourself as well. By the way, Lubos, my comment above, where I mentioned a commenter, Ricardo, is a perfectly sensible comment in refutation to you. The fact that you refuse to correct something you say about Mexico in order to serve your disturbing views about people who do not study string theory makes you an even worse genetic scum than I am. In response to Ricardo, Woit says something which I am sure most people who see your blog would agree with: “As for whether Lubos is serious, that’s always hard to tell, but I do think that the ideas that string theorists are smarter than other theorists, and that skepticism about string theory indicates a lack of intelligence are among his deepest and most sincerely held beliefs.”
No on to Hossenfelder’s remarks about you, made from her (unfortunate) exposure to you:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/lubo-motl.html
“Luboš has repeatedly insulted me, my husband and my friends. He has misquoted me, and used alleged quotations of mine to insult others. He has an incredible amount of times accused me of having said things I never said, only to then explain, based on this, that I am ‘stupid’, ‘silly’, and ‘a crackpot’ with ‘crackpot friends’. He is in no way interested in understanding my opinion, or my point of view. He has proclaimed I should not have a Ph.D., that my ‘female brain’ only ‘parrots nonsense’ and all my papers are ‘bullshit’ – the latter evidently without having read them. He has treated others the same way previously, and will probably proceed doing so.”
With one exception (Brazil’s victory in Sweden 1958), european teams win in Europe and south american teams everywhere else. Since South Africa is not Europe, a south american team will win this time.
“worldcup”
Sounds like a vacuum-to-closed-string amplitude