Comments on: Cosmic Variance

By: anon

anon — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 20:30:51 +0000

“Never have so many smart people been concentrated in such a brutal job market.”

How true. In college (Ivy), I realized that I wasn’t smart enough to keep up with the rest of the physics department. Between that and changing interests, I switched to another technical department and instantly became very good.

“The odd thing about physicists is that many believe they are much better capable at solving problems in other fields than those working in those fields.”

Equally true. I never figured out what amazed me more about physicists – the concentration of brains, or the intellectual arrogance.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:26:45 +0000

Sure, one might get the impression that theoretical physics is all about solving equations over meals at four-star restaurants and discussing signatures of extra spatial dimensions during tours of Napa vinyards. But keep in mind, there are also the constant travel to exotic locations and the endless pestering by paparazzi. We suffer for those exorbitant salaries we get, I assure you.

By: Branedy

Branedy — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 08:50:14 +0000

When I used to work at SRI International, I used to lunch with the odd folks there and was always amused by their ability to truly say “Why Yes!, I am a Rocket Scientist”. Very funny. I really miss the disscussions there. Thanks for the link.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 07:37:34 +0000

I hate to keep paddling the thread in this direction, but there are some new dishes out there in the neighborhood of Barcelona:

To start there is "pistachio truffle cooled in liquid nitrogen" or "air of carrot," a beautifully presented dish of frothy carrot foam.

In a number of endeavors it's difficult to separate discovery from invention. Just thinking about it gives me a hadron.

By: Tad Brennan

Tad Brennan — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 01:50:42 +0000

“an entity predicted by Larousse but hitherto unobserved”

You surely must be alluding to the bon mot (bonne bouche?) of the chef Brillat-Savarin:

“The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star”.

(Nice to imagine someone being a Platonist about cookery, i.e. the dish was really out there, mind-independent, just waiting for us to discover it. What is it to discover a new dish? To discover a fact about the human palate? Well, parts of that are mind-independent, I suppose….)

By: greensmile

greensmile — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 01:45:22 +0000

Thanks!…seriously. I can’t get slashdot to post bits that contain actual physics knowledge and require educated physicists for intelligent comment.

By: engels

engels — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 00:59:13 +0000

I don’t care how many stars Michelin gives it – I’m not eating that.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 23:34:39 +0000

When I worked for an electron microscope maker I used to listen to discussions like that all the time. The odd thing about physicists is that many believe they are much better capable at solving problems in other fields than those working in those fields. I would hear about how dim Material Scientists were, how Economics would be massively more simple if it weren’t for economists (which actually makes sense, but not in the way they intended it), and how Mathematicians would give awards for work Physicists would later prove irrelavent. I don’t even want to get into what they would say about computer scientists (still hurts). I was so depressed by the end of the whole thing I was extatic to work in software again. Now I miss the lunch conversations quite a bit (lunch conversations in the software industry are far too work and money oriented) so hopefully cosmic variance can fill the void a bit. Seems good so far! Thanks for the link.

By: Ian Whitchurch

Ian Whitchurch — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 23:32:56 +0000

Not goanna happen. The Stanford rig gets you to a substantial fraction of C, and thats fast, and there is no way in hell the Michelin people are goanna give four stars to fast food.