tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87590902009-12-21T14:27:30.446ZInfrequent and random comments on maths and theoretical physics as seen from the point of view of a padawan postdoc.Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-11820522787303385122008-07-01T12:11:00.012Z2008-07-01T21:49:19.239Z

Another day, another cup of soup and a sandwich for lunch. Today it was ham soup and a pineapple sandwich (my Dutch and my taste buds are not good enough to understand what the other ingredients were).This morning we had a review lecture on the pure spinor formalism by Nathan Berkovits. If you want to learn this formalism, why not start with the reviews here (and here [or the blog article here])

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-2245673559172816012008-06-30T20:41:00.008Z2008-07-01T19:32:26.651Z

The tram door closed viciously on Pierre Vanhove's rucksack and off it tootled away from Centraal Station (the tram, not the rucksack). My travelling companions were all on board, and only I was left behind with the rest of the amputated tram queue. The man behind me in the queue said "welcome to Amsterdam" in friendly English. We struck up a conversation and he asked what kind of conference I

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-41270400827978651082008-05-30T19:28:00.006Z2008-05-31T11:08:01.700Z

Well, that's how long a year-a-half is. What did I miss? The E8 genome was mapped with the fanfare of a press conference, the string wars continued, N=8 supergravity may be ultraviolet finite (also see the argument via string theory properties) if a no triangle hypothesis holds, funding was decimated/bleak/downsized, unparticles were cool, low dimension supergravity was maximally gauged here,

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1165339055165106262006-12-05T17:11:00.000Z2006-12-05T17:17:35.196Z

In my email today, a gentle call to scientists to support JHEP. One must wonder if JHEP is in trouble. Let's hope not. Read on:Dear Colleague,In the first half of 2006 our Journals have seen many important changes: a new instrumentation journal, JINST, has been launched, new scientific directors for JHEP and JCAP have been appointed to replace Hector Rubinstein, now Scientific Advisor to SISSA

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1163019019192597872006-11-08T20:26:00.000Z2006-11-08T20:54:35.123Z

Just a short note to let you know that Lisa Randall, will be online tomorrow (Thursday 8th Novermber, 2006) for an open discussion about physics, strings, Warped Passages and how to create your own universe (presumably). The event is being run by Discover magazine, and to whet your appetite you can read an interview with Lisa from Discover earlier this year here. I don't know exactly what you

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1158065931993813602006-09-12T19:54:00.000Z2006-09-12T19:00:13.936Z

First, there have been a number of introductory posts on the Barrett-Connes standard model spectral triple over at the n-category cafe, in particular see posts I, II, III and IV. Second John Barrett has been talking about his approach to finding the appropriate spectral triple in Cambridge yesterday, his paper, "A Lorentzian version of the non-commutative geometry of the standard model of

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1157366540812590082006-09-04T23:24:00.000Z2006-09-04T22:29:15.123Z

Sorry for the lack of posting this summer, but I have been trying to write up my thesis. In fact I still am trying, and for no sensible reason I am now doing this at the Noncommutative Geometry Workshop at The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge. The institute is a wonderful place, although I haven't looked around much I have already heard about the lawn on the roof (

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1154816991379836162006-08-05T23:24:00.000Z2006-08-05T22:32:09.480Z

I just had this advice entitled unequivocally "Don't Become a Scientist!" taken from Jonathan I. Katz's website forwarded to me by a friend (who quit physics to work in the financial sector) - I wouldn't have thought it to be of general interest, but apparently it is interesting enough to become a forwarded email in certain circles. It is, of course, of interest here, where all advice to young

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1150402455487055882006-06-15T19:58:00.000Z2006-06-15T20:14:15.553Z

Perhaps The Klein Four have passed you by as well as me. Well fret not. They are an a capella group from the maths department of Northwestern Univeristy and they shot to fame last year with their love song Finite Simple Group of Order Two, which can be watched online:They have an album out, full of more maths puns than you can shake a stick log at, which you can purchase via their website (where

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1150372414680793962006-06-15T11:53:00.000Z2006-06-15T11:55:32.653Z

Via the BBC, Empty plinth sidelines sculpture a very funny, non-physics story about a sculptor who packaged his work together with a plinth for it to stand upon in a gallery. The Royal Academy of Arts decided that they had received two separate entries into the competition to be exhibited and a panel of judges decided that the plinth was the better work of art and put it on display. Hilarious.

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1148837873242477352006-05-28T17:34:00.000Z2006-06-05T13:32:37.480Z

I find myself surrounded by the very pleasant scenery of Corsica, where I am attending the Cargese Summer School. I am sitting in a computer room, opposite the lecture theatre and there is a gentle mineral fragrance in the air carried by the rain. Fortunately this is the last day of the school and the first day an afternoon trip to the beach has been rained off. That's right: trips to the beach,

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1148262685706574422006-05-22T00:32:00.000Z2006-05-22T01:51:25.756Z

Well it's been a while... I've often heard people wonder how researchers find the time to write a blog and do their work. Well while some bloggers are superhuman, this one is not. I've had a busy and not to mention stressful start to the year and really the blog only gets my attention when everything else is in good working order. What have I been up to? Well first of all I was applying for

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1143122504107373102006-03-27T17:34:00.000Z2006-03-27T15:52:16.883Z

Yesterday we heard the first of three different talks from Renata Kallosh. Her first chosen specialist subject was innocuously titled BPS and non-BPS Black Hole Attractors. This first talk really was for the back row of the audience at our school, where all the experts were sitting. Perhaps due to the time constraint, quantities were not defined and many ideas were assumed to be known by the

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1142845635926291312006-03-22T15:00:00.000Z2006-03-22T14:03:27.506Z

So, I find myself in Frascati, just 20km south-east of Rome attending SAM 2006 (School on the Attractor Mechanism). This is my first visit to Italy, and so very exciting for me (food, coffee, wine, olives, historic sites, art, physics...). There are 30 or so of us here at the Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, where all the roads are named after famous theoretical physicists! The high energy

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1141260484886750312006-03-01T23:28:00.000Z2006-03-08T11:32:34.700Z

Yesterday afternoon was quite a chilly day in London, the kind of day when being crammed into a packed and warm lecture room below ground level in the basement of Queen Mary college from where you can hear the tube rattle by was quite an attractive prospect. So at three in the afternoon yesterday that's where I and other London theoretical physicists gathered to hear Terry Gannon talk about "The

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1140434795574539532006-02-20T11:26:00.000Z2006-02-20T11:51:07.460Z

Flying in the face of recent efforts to redefine the scientist stereotype, described at cosmic variance, entropy bound and inkycircus*, comes the latest rebuttle from no less thanJose Mourinho, who manages to make his feelings known during an interview about Chelsea's pitch condition prior to their Champion's League fixture with Barcelona: 'Sometimes you see beautiful people with no brains.

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1139268875287753462006-02-06T23:29:00.000Z2006-02-11T22:21:07.780Z

A week ago last Friday John Silvester from KCL's very own maths department gave us a very entertaining geometry colloquium under the esoteric title "Pendulums, Pencils, and the Poristic Polygons of Poncelet".John began with a couple of anecdotes. Having thanked the audience for his invitation to speak, he told us a story about an unnamed mathematician who was invited to talk on a BBC radio show

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1139255734132307902006-02-06T19:51:00.002Z2006-02-12T14:01:39.356Z

A quick pointer to the dark matter article that's on the BBC site at the moment as well as to the articles in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Nature and New Scientist. The story concerns the findings of the team lead by Professor Gerry Gilmore at Cambridge who, by making use of the very large telescope array, constructed 3D maps of distant "dwarf galaxies" and have inferred from

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1138876630529151632006-02-02T10:36:00.000Z2006-02-02T10:37:10.610Z

A quick couple of links to two new articles about maths/physics blogging that both, coincidentally, came out this month. First Craig Laughton, of Gooseania fame, wrote an article about mathematics blogs for Mathematics Today; it's available online, so you can read it here. Second, physicsweb have a blogging editorial and a blogging article from Physics World available online. I guess blog is the

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1138064031787622232006-01-24T18:23:00.000Z2006-01-24T18:28:06.073Z

Long time, no post eh? Well, if I said I met a girl as a consequence of a new year's resolution and got distracted but that she left last week for her home country you'd understand wouldn't you? Good. Oh, I was a little ill too. So yesterday I headed over to City University Londonfor the first time ever, it's near Angel station in London and it actually has buildings that can compete with King's

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1137336138244809402006-01-15T14:16:00.000Z2006-01-15T14:42:18.330Z

Well I thought I would just write a reminder to all of you interested in GOATs (greatest of all time) that Clifford at Cosmic Variance has been running his vote for the top five physics papers of all time for just under a week. To make your vote just leave a comment under your favourite paper's post on the site, any noise will do (but only one noise is counted). The current standings are:Newton's

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1135273187998007322005-12-29T18:30:00.000Z2006-01-03T14:30:34.973Z

The semester has ended, there are no weekly seminars to write about, I have had my yearly winter cold (but that was not interesting enough to say much about) and now Christmas has come and gone, but just before it began (I mean December 25th rather than the retail definition of mid-October) I started to write up the following...For the last few days I have been getting up much earlier than normal

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1133931832357811802005-12-07T05:06:00.000Z2005-12-07T05:24:05.706Z

Two noteworthy events occured at King's College last Friday. One of which involved "one-hundred drunk LSE students" rioting in the lower levels of our Strand campus and the other did not. The rioters flooded our building and caused havoc, some attempted to invade the maths classrooms no doubt eager to benefit from the wisdom of our faculty, and others began ripping ceiling tiles from the English

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1133452679229027042005-12-01T15:23:00.000Z2005-12-03T19:57:51.806Z

Here's some very short (actually it's already started) notice of the physics equivalent of Live 8. To celebrate the world year of physics physicists, internet pioneers and others will be participating in a marathon 12-hour broadcast performing covers of classic pop songs to raise awareness of physics live on the web and will discuss Einstein's theory of special relativity and more. In the words

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8759090.post-1133208588293791262005-11-28T19:44:00.000Z2005-11-28T21:04:00.503Z

One of my fondest memories from my further maths lessons back in my school days occurred when one of my colleagues brought to our attention the many ways a mathematician may trap a lion. In many a surreal moment I have stared wanly into the middle distance trying to recall exactly what was in the list, and the best I could do was simply remember with fondness that it was funny. Fortunately for me

Paul P. Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00266156201156998028noreply@blogger.com3