Science

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AWa1cp-Somo/ScdhS3G4k2I/AAAAAAAAAY8/h-PQBrPGYJ4/s1600-h/IMG_1478.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AWa1cp-Somo/ScdhS3G4k2I/AAAAAAAAAY8/h-PQBrPGYJ4/s400/IMG_1478.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316324861792523106″ //aspan style=”display:block; margin:10px 0px 10px 60px; font-size:smaller;”The a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semperoper”Semperoper/a in Dresden/spanbr /br /Despite this posted under Stefan’s name, it’s your all-time favourite Bee writing here, cursing her husband’s German kezboard, if zou know what I mean. We are currently in Dresden for a a href=”http://dresden09.dpg-tagungen.de/index.html?lang=en”meeting of the DGP (German Physical Society)/a, and we are LATE, as Stefan keeps pointing out. Therefore I’ll just wish you a good start into the week, more from the conference later.div class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-3753658347427581152?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

The a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2009/03/trouble-with-economics.html”previously mentioned /aconference “a href=”http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Events/The_Economic_Crisis_and_Implications_for_Science/The_Economic_Crisis_and_its_Implications_for_The_Science_of_Economics/”The Economic Crisis and its Implications for The Science of Economics/a,” to take place at PI May 1-4, meanwhile has a a href=”http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Events/The_Economic_Crisis_and_Implications_for_Science/Invited_Speakers/”list of invited speakers/a to offer. It includes a href=”http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/”Nouriel Roubini, a Prof. for Economics at NYU/a, who you might know from a href=”http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/”his blog/a, a href=”http://www.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/”Brian Arthur from the Santa Fe Institute /aand PARC, and a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/03/10/science/10quant.2.ready.html”Eric Weinstein who smiles at you/a from a photo in Dennis Overbye’s recent NYT article “a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/science/10quant.html?_r=1amp;pagewanted=all”They Tried to Outsmart Wall Street/a.”br /br /For a somewhat different take on the economic crisis and its implications for science: The NYT recently featured an article “a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/arts/07grad.html”Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times/a” and reportedbr /br /blockquote“Fulltime faculty jobs have not been easy to come by in recent decades, but this year the new crop of Ph.D. candidates is finding the prospects worse than ever. Public universities are bracing for severe cuts as state legislatures grapple with yawning deficits. At the same time, even the wealthiest private colleges have seen their endowments sink and donations slacken since the financial crisis. So a chill has set in at many higher education institutions, where partial or full-fledge hiring freezes have been imposed.”/blockquotebr /The Globe and Mail today offers a similarly depressing piece “a href=”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090323.wgraduates23/BNStory/National/?page=rssamp;id=RTGAM.20090323.wgraduates23″Black days for those dreaming of the ivory tower - Graduate students hoping for tenure-track positions face bleak prospects as universities cut budgets and freeze hiring/a” which cites Mr. Burgoyne, president of a href=”http://pgss.mcgill.ca/”McGill’s postgraduate student society /awith saying “People are very worried. People are scared. Jobs, they are just disappearing.”br /br /Meanwhile, the APS is conducting a survey a href=”http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=SpfM8HN_2f2TSrveTmuQeN0g_3d_3d”emHow is the economic downturn affecting your organization?/em/a, that I encourage you to fill out if you are a physicist presently working in the USA.pppdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-1592302258407671242?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

a href=”http://www.indigoproductions.be/images/EU_flag.jpg”img style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 223px” alt=”" src=”http://www.indigoproductions.be/images/EU_flag.jpg” border=”0″ //aEvery time I arrive at the airport in Frankfurt and go through passport control under the EU circle of stars it strikes me how GERMAN the border officials look. Maybe it’s just that the uniforms are green instead of blue, or maybe it’s because noticeably more of them are blond and blue-eyed than South-, East-, and Westward of here, but without that intimidating Viking chill you find further North. And if you arrive from North-America it’s impossible not to notice how silent they are. They might just give my passport an uninterested look, hand it back, and nod over my shoulder to the next person. The guy on Wednesday was comparably chatty and mumbled “Schön Tach noch” (about: have a nice day).br /br /And as usual, Germany looks different from the inside than from the outside. The only thing I seem to read in newspapers and magazines overseas about Germany is the chancellor a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/business/worldbusiness/10germany.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/M/Merkel,%20Angela”Angela Merkel’s hesitation to throw more of taxpayer’s money out of the window/a, which drowns these day in a vast sea of articles about layoffs, commentaries on The Great Recession, declines in consumer spending, rises in unemployment and other over-interpreted statistics. Browsing through a German newspaper however, reporting on the financial crisis remains in the business sector. Unlike six years ago, so far nobody of my friends or relatives has lost his job, and I haven’t noticed any unusually large amount of closing sales either. Instead, Frankfurt has just “added a new dimension to shopping” with a recently opened 8 floor storehouse on Frankfurt’s main shopping street Zeil, named in best Germenglish “a href=”http://www.myzeil.de/index.php?lang=en”MyZeil/a.” I have the best intention to visit the place and to support the German economy with my new credit card (in case Stefan recalls where he put the respective letter from the bank, cough).br /br /Instead of global or national hiccups in the financial systems, the topics of the month are apparently a href=”http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2009/p09-008e.html”the upcoming NATO summit in April/a in Kehl, and the country is still collectively in shock about a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/europe/12germany.html”the recent school shooting where a nutcase of a teenager killed 15 people/a.br /br /Besides this, a href=”http://www.bundestag.de/Parlament/wahlen/index.html”Germany has a federal election upcoming this year in September/a, meaning the election campaigns are slowly starting. As a consequence everybody is criticizing everybody else. a href=”http://www.economy-point.org/d/dirk-kurbjuweit.html”Dirk Kurbjuweit/a (a well-known journalist) just published a book “a href=”http://www.amazon.de/Angela-Merkel-Die-Kanzlerin-alle/dp/3446207430″Angela Merkel: Die Kanzlerin für alle?/a” (Chancellor for Everybody?) a href=”http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/kritik/931060/”portraying her as too eager to please everybody and having lost direction/a. And Daniel Friedrich Sturm wrote a book “Wohin geht die SPD?” (Where does the Social Democratic Party go?). That’s a good question indeed, maybe somebody should a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ws8XY4ubvXg/ScObAEIY0MI/AAAAAAAAAvM/ObcaaDNlXHg/s1600-h/41uwbpmAXHL__SS500_.jpg”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315262410638545090″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px” alt=”" src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ws8XY4ubvXg/ScObAEIY0MI/AAAAAAAAAvM/ObcaaDNlXHg/s200/41uwbpmAXHL__SS500_.jpg” border=”0″ //ahave asked it like 20 years ago. But what’s really new about this is that, guess what, a href=”http://spd.dtv.de/”the guy has a blog/a.br /br /Speaking of books, Lee Smolin’s book “a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2006/08/lee-smolins-trouble-with-physics.html”The Trouble with Physics/a” will be published in German on April 14th under the title a href=”http://www.amazon.de/Die-Zukunft-Physik-Probleme-String-Theorie/dp/3421042969″“Die Zukunft der Physik: Probleme der String-Theorie und wie es weiter geht”/a (The Future of Physics: Problems of String-theory and how it will go on), according to the blurb “ein erfrischend provozierenden Buch” - a “refreshingly provocative book.”br /pbr /pbr /p/pdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-1099956338198167433?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

Do you recognize the place?br /br /centera href=”https://project-cernland.web.cern.ch/project-CERNland/”img src=”http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~scherer/Blogging/LHC/cernland.jpg” border=”0″/center/abr /br /It’s the lawn in front of the a href=”http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000363″CERN Cafeteria/a! br /br /This lovely scene is the backdrop of a picture puzzle, and just one small part of a href=”https://project-cernland.web.cern.ch/project-CERNland/”CERNland/a, a cute interactive site for young kids to explore a bit about CERN, the place, the people working there, the experiments, and the physics background. br /br /Thanks for the link, Sabine, it’s really great (… OK, the sound is a bit tedious, to my ears at least, but that’s what the volume control is good for).br /br / Enjoy!br /br /hr noshadediv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-4349585379588221582?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

I just came across these interesting survey results on “a href=”http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/political_ideology.html”The State of American Political Ideology, 2009/a,” which documents the findings of a study by the Progressive Studies Program at the a href=”http://www.americanprogress.org/”Center for American Progress /aabout political values and beliefs in America.br /br /According to their tastefully red-white-blue website decorated with stars and stripes, the Center for American Progress is “a think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action.” They have hijacked the words “progress” and “innovation” and explain their “work builds upon progressive ideals put forth by such leaders as Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, and Martin Luther King,” and “draw from the great social movements of the 20th century—from labor rights and worker safety, to civil rights and women’s suffrage” to “translate those values into new ideas and action firmly rooted in the economic and political realities of the 21st century.” That’s just so you know what page we are on.br /br /The results in the report are based on 1,400 interviews with adults 18 years or older. They have put political ideologies on a sliding scale from 0 to 400 with 0 being the most conservative position on the continuum and 400 being the most progressive (according to their report “an innovative categorization of ideology”), and calculated the score from responses to 40 statements about government and society. br /br /They find a mean ideological score of 209.5. Interestingly, Americans are apparently most progressive about the role of government and least progressive on cultural and social values. Ideas about economics and international affairs fall in-between. Less surprisingly for what is essentially a two-party system in which every party is trying to adapt to the popular opinion of the day, they find there really is no “far right” or “far left,” but rather “far center-right” and “far center-left.” Do I need to add that a one-dimensional sliding scale with a pre-chosen notion of “progressive” for political, economical as well as social questions doesn’t quite accommodate plurality either?br /br /As a PS to my recent post on a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-does-americal-dream-mean-to-you.html”The American Dream/a, let me quote these replies in regard to the present economic situationbr /br /blockquote“The economic recession is clearly affecting many Americans. A full two-thirds of Americans (67%) report that their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living, with 23% saying their income is staying even and only 6% saying it is going up faster than the cost of living. The belief that family income is failing to keep pace with rising costs is uniformly held across ideological, partisan, race, and income lines.br /br /Despite the harsh climate, many Americans continue to believe that they have achieved or will achieve their own understanding of the American Dream in their lifetime. More than one-third of Americans (34 %) say they have already achieved the American Dream and another 41 %believe that they will achieve it in their lifetime. Roughly one-fifth of Americans (18 %) say they will not achieve the American Dream in their lifetime.”/blockquotebr /br /You can read the a href=”http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/pdf/political_ideology.pdf”full report here/a, and a href=”http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/progressive_quiz.html”find out your own score here/a. Readers of this blog won’t be surprised that apparently I’m “extremely progressive”br /br /br /img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313049908859361922″ style=”DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 209px; TEXT-ALIGN: center” alt=”" src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ws8XY4ubvXg/Sbu-vgt72oI/AAAAAAAAAvE/xI5V_w65xt4/s400/quizresults.jpg” border=”0″ /br /br /Humor me and leave your score in the comments.pppdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-6443653421459044794?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div