Thursday, April 26, 2007

Various


  • Why do hotels provide bags for the ice bucket which never actually fit? Remember when we braved the bucket with no bag?
  • Not bad for one year of work:

    James Simons, a 69-year-old publicity shy former math professor, uses complex computer-driven mathematical models to make bets on stocks, bonds and commodities, among other things.

    His earnings last year were $1.7 billion.

  • Watch out for very large foreign transaction fees on your credit card when going overseas.
  • I'm still utterly amazed at the corruption of this Administration. Whom to blame? The individuals who act without integrity in their position? Or the people who continue to support them? I always wonder at a system where a misanthrope like myself is at the mercy of a general populace. I don't feel a strong need to convince people of my way of thinking, but it's just hard to believe how anyone could tolerate this level of pervasive corruption.
  • No physics yet, so let me just comment that there's at least one string theorist not helping the cause. I've seen this person give better talks, but the latest was way too technical and uninteresting. I was ready to hear about the landscape as per the abstract, but that was only discussed in the last few minutes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Equivalence Principle violation falsifies string theory (BRST invariance) and its 10^1000 vacua. Required are: 1) theory allowing EP violation, 2) reduction to practice, 3) consistent with all prior data at all scales in all venues.

1) Affine, teleparallel, and noncommutative gravitation ignore the EP. GR is a wholly contained restricted case, EP=true. EP=false is to be tested.

2) 90 days in an Eotvos balance opposing left- and right-handed alpha-quartz. Two days in paired calorimeters opposing left- and right-handed benzil.

3) EP violation by opposite chirality mass distributions is 100% consistent with everything prior.

Do left and right hands fall identically? Somebody should look.