Ridiculous

This is what happens when you enjoy a big cafe au lait in the morning but an afternoon espresso (and you are loath to dirty up a hand wash only espresso cup):

As I was about to take a sip, I thought 'Good thing no one can see this... I must look ridiculous!'

Our Home's Natural Thermometer

Every morning, I open the kitchen shades and look at the leaves on the rhododendron bush.

If they are tightly curled up and I have a day off, I consider lighting a fire for the day.  If not, well that's global warming for you  - Even winter in New England is getting mild enough those big old flat green leaves can just stay flat with no fear this winter day!

A Merry Solstice Fire in the works for today!

Joy of Reading

 From my earliest days of learning to read until (I am sure) my dying days, I love to read.  

My earliest memory of this is working my way through The Swiss Family Robinson with my mother.  She would read one paragraph and then I would tackle the next (I'm assuming it was a 'for kids' version of the novel, but I really don't recall).  (In response to learning the word 'mankind', I asked my mother what all the women were doing.  A feminist emerging in little Kenny even way back then!)

In 2008 I joined Goodreads (which, aside from this blog, is my only form of 'social media') and each year the site summarizes your reads that year.   Here's a quick screenshot of each year thus far:

A Home Run on the Wheel of Privilege?

Teachers talk a lot about privilege these days.  It comes up in professional development all the time.  In a recent session, one of the discussion leaders said "It's rare that anyone has privilege in all the sectors - it's a complex and mixed bag for most folks."

Afterwards, I thought, well, hmmm, I might just have a home run in luck on that there wheel:

('slim' and 'rich' may be stretches, but it all depends on your metric, right?)

In class the other day, I left my home screen projected on the board and just after my students noticed a document titled "The Chemistry of Bourbon", they saw this graphic.  So, I proceeded to tell them the story of how lucky I am to have privilege in all sectors.  After a few chuckles on the 'slim' category, some rapscallion (OL?) calls out "Good thing they don't have a sector called 'Has Hair' on there!"

 

Wedding in Corsica

1969. Corsica.  The parents getting married. 

Mom is on the arm of her father and right behind my Dad is his father.  Both grandfathers are younger than me (or about my age) in this picture.  That blows my mind!

Thanks to my bro for catching this screenshot on a digitized version of an old film we found in a box from France years ago. (another, older film of a Wedding in Algeria here)

Uh-Oh, Twelve Orders of Magnitude Different = Magic

1. Omega being the last letter of the Greek alphabet, that one goes way back.  I can't even remembered when I first learned the expression "from alpha to omega..." meaning from beginning to end.

2. Omicron came to me much later.  Not having studied classical Greek, I encountered it in math and physics classes where they regularly run through the Greek letters for variables and constants.

3. Metric prefixes is something that was taught to me over and over and now, in the modern computer world, are unavoidable.  Who doesn't know a Mega of something is big (10^6 precisely) and a Micro of something is rather small (10^-6 precisely)?

1+2+3 = This morning, Irene was reading about the latest variants in the Corona virus and she exclaims "Did you ever realize it is O-Mega and O-Micron as in Big O and  Little O?"  Oh my, I did not.  So obvious though, once pointed out - how could one have missed it??

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzlK0OGpIRs)

Turns out it is more like long o sound and short o sound, capital and lower cases are something else in Greek (unless it's the omicron, where there appears to be zero difference):

𝛀𝛚 𝚶𝛐

The OG sci fi movie

Just finished the marathon that is watching the 1968 Kubrick classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" with both of my kids.  Their incredulity, bewilderment, and begrudging enjoyment mirrored my own.  The scenes were even longer, ponderous, and slower-paced than I remembered (and I remembered them as painfully slow). 

In a surreal realization, I suddenly recalled that I only ever watched the movie all the way through once before and that was in the famous Atlanta Fox Theater.  My Grandfather, Dad, Uncle, and I went and saw it together on the 15 year (?) anniversary of the movie (making me my son's age today).  Another timeless moment connecting the generation after me with the generations before.  I remember that an MC introduced the film.  He came onto the stage from a lift below the stage playing on an organ.  I recall asking my grandfather what it all meant after it was all over and he said "I think it was about God." I remember being old enough to not agree and also to know better than to say so.

During today's viewing, we noticed so much inspiration George Lucas got for his 1977 Star Wars: the long shots of long ships, the landing bays, the heavy breathing soundtrack, the primitive digital displays, along with so much more...  There's the original, hard-to-access work of art and then there's the universal work of entertainment.

International sauces

I was reading an article about the old Roman garum sauce and how it used to be wide-spread throughout the empire but is almost unknown today.  When they were describing it, I thought, wait a second... isn't that just fermented fish sauce which is ubiquitous in asian cooking? (it is)

Then I saw, casually hanging out on the side of that article that that most American of sauces, ketchup, has, as its ancestor, the same fish sauce!  That sweet tomato-based (as new world as it gets insofar as condiments get!) gets its name from a Hokkien Chinese word, kê-tsiap!  A quick internet search makes me feel like the last person on Earth to find this out.

Reminds my of how I was a teenager before I realized that the delicate french condiment mayonaisse that my grandmother would whip up from scratch just before the meal in France was supposed to be the same thing as what I knew as "mahnaze" in a jar from the store in Alabama.

Oh, now I'm thinking on one of my favorite scenes from the great Pulp Fiction:

I've got to try dipping my next batch of french fries in fish sauce, right?

Student Doodles

 I wish I had thought of this a long time ago!  Students will often doodle on the side or back of their quizzes/tests.  I will make a concerted effort to scan and upload some of them here going forward.  

2021

2018 (?)

Explaining how a rotating spaceship can simulate gravity (Nov 2021)

Mar 2022

Junior Semi

WHS courtyard transformed into dance floor and reception hall:

Something more than just masking up...

 Just another first block astronomy class...

(unfortunately it was only about half the class because of the way I scheduled it)

Note the pumpkin on the far right.  I let a couple of students (NN and SX) store their bootleg pumpkin for the day in the back of my room.  As payment, I demanded they carve it with a physics theme.

Voila:

Ghostly parabolic position versus time graphs

A free body diagram of the forces on an upside-down pumpkin on a pumpkin experiencing those forces.
So meta, it's scary.

Test Score Metrics

Both of my kids recently took science tests and felt they didn't do well.  I asked them each, "Well, how did you do compared to the class average?"  Basically, neither was sure. Coincidentally, I am in the middle of grading a science test I just gave and thinking about where the class average is, what the distribution looks like and whether (and how) I should scale it.

In talking to my kids, I realize that my instincts on thinking about how well you did on a test being a relative thing comes from (1) being a physicist and (2) being a physics student.  Physicists know better than most that EVERYTHING is relative:  Velocity, Energy, Size, Temperature, Time, Length, etc.  But, more on point, test scores in physics tend to be low.  I don't know that I ever took a single physics test in 7 years of studying physics that wasn't scaled or manipulated in some way.  It's not uncommon in college but it is actually commonplace in physics.

Here's my favorite story about this (you'll see why shortly ;) ):

First year of grad school, CMU.  Dr. Russ's Quantum Mechanics course.  First test.  He folds the tests lengthwise after grading them for some reason and very soberly handed them back to us one by one.  As each of us saw our percentages we slunk down low in our desks and didn't make contact with each other.  I can still picture that big red 67% in a red circle beneath my name on that folded packet of work and feel it as defining me as a failure.  I'm going for a PhD in this stuff and I can barely eek out a "D"??  Russ doesn't say a work about the scores, just dives into talking through each of the problems and pointing out the niceties of solving them elegantly. Finally, my friend Dan Cormier from the back row tentatively asks "Dr. Russ - how did people do on this test?  What was the average?"  The professor looked a bit sheepish and says, "Well, I don't know the average, people did all right - it's tough material and there was a wide range of scores.... the high score was a ... a ... umm, Ken - what did you get  - was it a 67?  Yes, the high score was a 67."

Well, it isn't often you feel such a reversal of emotion.  I think I probably sat up straighter in my desk immediately after his answer.  My buddy Phil Koran called me "The Quantum Cowboy" for a few months after that.  Wonder why that nickname didn't stick??

So, kids - how did you do on your test, in a relative way?

The Neuroscience of Worms, Lecturing, and French Cinema

The other day, I was talking about vectors in class.  I soon noticed one usually attentive and expressive student (nontrivial in these days of mask-wearing!) (SX) was clearly bored.  I instantly lost all interest in continuing the lecture and quickly transitioned over to having them do independent practice.  

As often happens, this particular professional experience triggers a strong memory I have from graduate school.  After passing my PhD qualifiers and chosen a field of study for my PhD, I rotated into the CMU Physics Department's monthly colloquium spot and did a presentation on computation neuroscience.  I was pretty nervous but I thought the subject pretty interesting (obviously), but I did notice one of my favorite professors (Dr. Garoff - also an expressive and attentive person) was looking a bit bored and slightly distressed.  I finished my talk as planned but didn't feel good about it.  When I ran into him a few days later and asked him if he thought I was going down the wrong path for my PhD or anything, he was very surprised and said something like "I really should monitor myself more because I don't want people reading into my expressions!  I was having a bad day for completely personal reasons and was distracted by my own thoughts during your talk - it had nothing to do with you."

So, why with a sea of faces to chose from and a captive audience and a mission to perform am I still so susceptible to random feedback from certain faces?  This was on my mind when I read about how neuroscientists have recently determined that worms, while eating their way thought the dirt will release a neurotransmitter when detecting high levels of nutrients in the local soil which causes them to slow down instantly.  

This mechanism suggests that neural pathways are constantly being adjusted by pretty simply cues from the environment.  I thought "Aha - I am the worm and when the soil comes back as not very tasty, my brain tells me something is wrong.  It is as simple as that."

It all comes back to Mon Oncle d'Amerique!

Mushroom > Pumpkin

Hey, who kicked this weird white ball into my yard?

Wait a second... This is no ball... I had to snap it off of a very tiny stem:

This is largest spherical mushroom I have ever seen!

What to do with such a thing? Why Halloween decor of course:

Spooky fungus to scare our trick or treaters!

This is the Dichotomy

 I recently read the following quote from Dr. Fan Wang:

"... All perceptions are illusions, but just because it's in the head 

doesn't mean it's not real.  Everything's in the head."

And there it is:  as succinctly put as possible.  There is simultaneously an objective reality out there and our own experience of it, which is neither objective nor 'out there'.  Therein lies the problem with all oversimplifications and the source of much confusion.  Imagine the good that could come from wide-spread understanding of this simple truth.  

(as an aside and a plug: this is why we need science:  Reality can not be understood simply through your subjective, passive experience of it)

You know, this is not so much a dichotomy as it is an example of a Bohrian 'Profound Truth':  

All we know is what is in our head: that is our reality.  However, what is in our head is an illusion.  Illusions are our experience of reality.  

(Back to shadows on the wall and Plato, anyone? Neuroscience brings us full circle!)  

Science Experiment or Existential Experiment?

Late last spring (maybe early summer?), I bought a basil plant from the supermarket.  I split it into two pots and put one outside and kept one in the green house.  Amazingly, they are both still alive:

Look at those leaves, though!  If you showed me just those leaves, I'd think they were two different varietals of basil!  But they are the exact same plant - only the one outside had to deal with the rain and wind and direct sunlight.  The outside leaves are thicker, more crinkled and a darker shade of green.

If there's no metaphor lurking in this post for you, then maybe you should split yourself into two and go down two different pathways in life...

Now I'm thinking about Quantum Mechanics (many worlds interpretation) and Robert Frost (paths in the woods) and William Blake (grains of sand) and wondering about the aromatics of these two different-but-same leaves...

Sometimes people ask me what I'm thinking about when I'm just sitting around - looking pensive and not really doing anything.  Well, sometimes I'm just thinking about basil!

Better than Recycling

A few days ago, Seb discovered he really enjoyed drinking from the glass on the left:

Little does he know how happy this makes me.

This was originally a mustard container my grandmother bought in France in the 70's.  One summer I brought it back with me because i thought it was cool.

I still think it's cool. More consumer products like this please.

(The glass on the right is also from my grandparents, but has never contained mustard but is rather my designated whiskey glass these days)

Fandom + Philanthropy + Running

 

What does one do if one needs motivation to get into shape, is a fan of Doctor Who, is socially isolated because of a world-wide pandemic, and is ready to give to charity?

Why, Fantropy's Whovian Running Club of course! Perfect for a giving nerd during a pandemic.  You run on your own, in your own time, on the honor system.  Most of your race 'fee' goes to a charity and you get one of these cool medals in the mail (that's my collection thus far above).

Many thanks to my colleague KC for keeping me going!

Rebranding

As last year's seniors enter their colleges this fall, it provides the classic opportunity to rebrand themselves. Not that people need to, but it is a rare opportunity in life to attempt some kind of wholesale change.  Most change is incremental.

Here you can see examples of both:

AP Physics 1 & 2 splitting into AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2.  Next, a new edition with substantial updates for both (you can see remnants of this with all the sticky notes still on my old copies).  

Under those books is the recently published Physics the Easy Way.  Barrons has rebranded this entire line of books to "360 Study Guides".  I joked that I wanted to email my editor that I would have preferred "2 Pi Study Guides" but not everyone appreciates nerd humor.

Something old, something new; something not fluorescing, something digital emitting

 In the back room (aka the 'scary room'), there is an array of these very old, institutional feeling fluorescent fixtures: 

As the bulbs fail, I can't bear to replace them with more fluorescent bulbs (not to mention I don't like the fixtures in the first place).  Then, walking through Costco, I noticed some LED panels on sale.  On a whim, I bought one which then force me to do the following:

-take down the old fluorescent fixture

-wire in the new LED panel

-attach the new panel to some cross-beams of my own design (home depot excursion required)

-break off the old fixture's side panels and glue them to the new one

The problem is that, now, I dislike the old fixtures even more in contrast:  When I turn on the light switch, the new light comes on instantly and rains down lovely photons concerted from electricity just about as efficiently as possible.  Meanwhile, the old ones sputter on (or not) and wheeze down some inefficient yellow dominated photons...

As much wood as a wood chuck could chuck

Years ago, we had some trees cut down. These were 100 year old oaks that were easily over 60 feet tall.  I toyed with the idea of them leaving the wood for me to cut up into firewood for our wood stove.  The guy talked me out of it by mentioning how much wood it would be.  "About 6 or 7 cords of wood all at once!" he said.  Ever since, I've wondered if I made the right decision.  Especially around this time of year when I often order seasoned firewood ahead of the winter season.

Late last spring, a medium sized tree fell into my father-in-law's backyard:

We chain sawed it into bite sized chunks and I brought them back to my place over the course of several visits:

Over the summer, I've axed my way though the pieces and it wound up being about 1/2 a cord:

   

I guess maybe I do feel better about that decision years ago even if I don't think I'll order any additional firewood for this winter...