Seminars...

Paul Baum (USA) giving a seminar

For those of you that didn't know, I'm a grad student in mathematics these days. My two advisors are from the Russian school of mathematics, specifically Moscow State University back in the Soviet days. It seems that the culture of mathematics in Russia and the Soviet Union is/was completely different to that in the west. There is a much greater emphasis placed on examples and simplicity of exposition as well as a much smaller divide between pure and applied mathematics.

Nowhere is this difference more apparent than in seminars in Russia and in the UK. British seminars normally last for an hour and consist of a speaker talking about some part of their current research to an audience of academics who are invited at the end, if there is some time left, to pose some questions relating to the talk. Because of the time constraints, it is rather difficult to ask questions throughout the talk for fear of putting the speaker under time pressure towards the end. Perhaps as a result, there is a terrible risk at any given seminar of being completely lost before the seminar has begun. For instance, suppose the seminar begins

'Let S be a category fibred in groupoids over a topological space X...'

If you are not familiar with one or more of these words, there is a good chance that the remainder of the seminar will be spent counting water stains on the ceiling, doodling and trying not to fall asleep.

In contrast, my impression of Russian seminars is that they have no fixed end-time. This means that foolish questions from people not completely acquainted with the specifics of the topic at hand are welcome. It seems that these seminars may last up to four or five hours, with tea and snacks served throughout. There is therefore an expectation that attending a Russian seminar, one will understand something or other by the end.

Of course this leads to difficulties when Russian and western mathematicians meet at seminars. Russian mathematicians expect to have learned something by the end while western ones are content with the possibility of being bored witless by a string of incomprehensible phrases, knowing however that it will be over in an hour.

No seminar I have attended has resulted in the following chaos, taken I think from a (sociology?) seminar in the US.

I think sitting through this would be much more excruciating, if less soporific than an hour of incomprehensible maths.

The Blue man of Beijing

Le Fox and I, listening to BBC's wonderful Radio 4 this morning were rather struck by the assertion by someone or other that China had used various technology to make sure that there woud be no rain during the Olympics. Slightly bemused, I decided to check up what this was all about.

It turns out that indeed, the authorities in charge made sure of good weather artificially using the technique known as 'cloud seeding'. The basic idea seems to be to introduce various chemicals into clouds which contain supercooled water to form ice crystals which then cause rain. One such checmical is silver iodide (AgI) which apparently has a structure similar to ice crystals and thereby induces so called heterogeneous nucleation. For your viewing pleasure, here's a demonstration of spontaneous freezing of supercooled (colder than freezing point) water:

It turns out that actually a great numer of countries use this technique to induce precipitation from clouds, either using aeroplanes fitted out with special tanks of silver iodide (or dry ice) or using anti-aircraft guns to fire canisters into the clouds. China spends $90 million per year on cloud seeding, citing an instance in which clouds in Tibet were seeded giving an inch of snow as a major success. Such techniques, as far as I understand are used merely to induce rain to fall from existing clouds rather than to form clouds themselves. In the week preceeding the olympics huge numbers of canons and rockets were used to fire large quantities of silver iodide into clouds abover Beijing. This had the dual consequences that heavy rainfall beforehand meant that the olympics would be rain free and that the ostensible pollution for visitors would be greatly reduced.

It's a rather natural question to wonder about the environmental consequences of such meteorological manipulation. Looking around on the internet, it seems that high levels of silver are relatively harmless to humans. The only symptoms experienced by people with a high exposure to silver in factories is a series of respiratory problems, mostly caused by powdered form of the silver rather than any chemical reaction. One slightly bizarre symptom of long-term exposure to silver is so called argyria, a condition whereby silver is deposited in the skin of the sufferer, giving them a bluish-grey tint. This seems to mostly affect ingesters of so called colloidal silver, which was widely used as a cure-all around the world. Prolonged exposure leads to such cases as Paul Karason featured below. Indeed, although there is no particular danger to his health, his skin will remain blue for the rest of his life. Apologies for the slightly cheezy reporting style.

Rather more significantly, silver plays an important role in the potassium/sodium cycle in fish by inhibiting the action of a regulatory enzyme. Interference with this cycle causes fish to take large amounts of water into their tissues very quickly leading to cardiovascular collapse.

Though the idea of cloud seeding seems fairly cool in many respects, especially in countries where agriculture is heavily dependent on consistent and predictable rainfall, it seems that the environmental cost to aquatic life at least indicates that some tempering of the process ought to be necessary.

For some more info on the whole process check out these links:

• Wikipedia's page on Cloud Seeding
• A Dartmouth College toxicology report on silver
• A Salon.com feature on the use of cloud seeding ahead of the Olympics

Leningrad Cowboys

Reading Le Fox's post about Aki Kaurismäki reminded me of a film of his that I've been meaning to see for a very very long time, Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Various clips are available on YouTube, not least of the remarkable legacy of the film, the Leningrad Cowboys. If you don't know of them, they're a Finnish cover band. The following video will tell you the rest. And yes, that is the Red Army Choir.

Speed Stacking

For more information on so called Speed Stacking, check out the Wikipedia page for a brief history and the World Speed Stacking Association (WSSA) website to get involved in this vibrant and fast growing sport.

Doppelgänger

The other day, I watched Nick Broonfield's feature length documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife. The action takes place in the South Africa of 1991, painted as a place fraught with internal divisions and the inevitable conflict that results. The story follows Nick Broomfield himself whose aim is to pin down the enigmatic and frankly terrifying leader of the AWB, a far right movement composed of white South Africans looking for a return to full blown apartheid. 'The Leader' as he is known, Eugène Terre'Blanche, is firebrand in his rhetoric, prolific in his poetry, steeped in racism and spurred on by tales of adversity faced by Boer generals during the war.

In fact, the impossibility of actually getting hold of the leader leads Broomfield's attention being more drawn to the leader's driver JP. He seems to be torn between his sensibilities as a member of the AWB and the overbearing and intimidting manner of the leader. The whole story becomes takes a turn for the sinister when it emerges that JP along with various other shady characters in the AWB could perhaps have been involved in various terorrist acts against blacks.

In the end, it's a very interesting film which gives great insight into the political situation in South Africa at the time. Watching it however, you do end up wondering how responsible Broomfield has been in his editting for the overall image of the AWB. (There was a libel case from Jani Lane, a then prominent journalist immediately following the fim's release.) In any case, I was left wondering in the end if the esteemed leader had been moonlighting as the frontman of a rather famous American band...

Quality Airport Hotel Dan

When I arrived at my hotel in Denmark yesterday, I felt like I was in an Aki Kaurismäki film. It was ten thirthy on a Sunday night. I had not eaten anything. I sat at the bar and asked for a sandwich and a beer. There was nobody but the bartender and a group of three Danish drunk men. Later I was in my impersonal bedroom and as I was in bed, the situation reminded me of the follwing scene in the Jim Jarmush film Mystery Train:

Feynman Strikes Back

So Worth It...

OK, so he'll probably never compete in any tournament of significance ever again... but man I bet that felt good.

McCain chooses running mate

John McCain this afternoon announced he was choosing the world's most intelligent human, Cerebrium, to be his choice for Vice-President in next November's US General Election.

Introducing his running mate at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, the Republican nominee praised his partner as 'a man with a distinguished record and superhuman powers of intellect' and denied vicious rumours circulated in Democratic circles that Cerebrium had once been a partner in Lex Luthor's plan to conquer the planet.

Addressing a cheering crowd at the rally, Cerebrium announced a raft of new policies, such as utilising his perpetual motion device to solve world energy problems, inventing a genesis device to make previously infertile land arable and thus solve world hunger, and perfecting a new untraceable steroid to make sure the US wins more gold medals than China at the next Olympic Games.

Some analysts praised McCain's choice, saying that Cerebrium had long ago devised the solutions to all of humanities problems, while others criticised the selection, pointing out that Cerebrium completely failed to connect with blue-collar and Hispanic voters, two key demographics in the hotly contested election.

A native of Long Island, NY, Cerebrium's hobbies include 11-dimensional Sudoku, and infinite two person games of perfect information.

Philonous's MashUp Collection

Inspired by Danzig vs. Shakira, I've hand picked some rather good (if I do say so myself) mashups and put them together in this easily digestible format...

You are watching

1. Prodigy vs. Enya
2. Snoop Dog vs. Led Zeppelin
3. Pink vs. Billy Idol
4. Michael Jackson vs. Metallica

Urban Nomad

Cruising the internet as I'm apt to do, I just came across a Mancunian Generation X of a blog about the joys and emptiness of living in the city centre. RenterGirl lives in Dovecot Towers and writes of a fairly lonely, natureless existence pockmarked by the odd Eastern European gang murder and a constant barrage of early morning wake-up shouting courtesy of students returning from some club or other. Is this the legacy of Manchester's recent building boom? Block after block of 'prestigious' (?!) new developments going up unfeasibly fast only to be filled with twenty-something serial tenants, paying off student loans and rattling around their open plan living spaces bedroom mezzanines. It smacks of a souless distopia.

Perhaps I'm being pessimistic in my sudden horror that indeed, all city centres might be like this and those of us somehow drawn to city living are doomed to the RenterGirl experience.

Check out:

• RenterGirl's Blog
• A Guardian article on RenterGirl

Danzig vs. Shakira

Math Capella

I was first sent this back in 2005 at which point I didn't really know what it was all about. Now that I'm finally in the position where I actually get the jokes, I figure I can share it with you without loss of face. Behold the Klein Four: an A Capella group composed of mathematics students at Northwestern University near Chicago. They're clearly differential geometers/mathematical physicists. It's what all the cool kids do.

This simply cannot be beaten for sheer density of maths puns. Buy T-shirts here.

This is my thing.

Was very interested to see that there is some growing popular interest in tourism around Native American mounds- the stuff I wrote my Masters thesis on and want to do my PhD on.

The New Yorker actually devised a road trip to view some of the most impressive, which you can read here http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/travel/escapes/15mile.html.

I will definately consider doing it when I get back, even though I've already been to most of the sites. They're still very impressive, and definately under appreciated (and unknown) by the majority of tourists. Perhaps the economy will encourage people to do more travelling at home, and then discover these sites!

Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum

No comment necessary, but here's a quote (to read, click on the title).

A giant inflatable dog turd created by the American artist Paul McCarthy was blown from its moorings at a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a window before landing in the grounds of a children's home.

Philonous: Here's a picture of the offending installation:

Contraceptive pill 'can lead women to choose wrong partner'

Whoa. Yeah that's the headline in the Guardian. Say what??? I thought I smelled some conservative anti-feminist anti-sex thing going on. But actually the scientific study here references tests done that claim women are unable to 'smell' appropriate partners, who would be best suited to produce offspring, and be potential mates. What???

"Not only could MHC similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, it could also ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners."

I realize that smell and hormones play a big instinctual part in creating these relationships, but I think that the tagline of this article and its message are anti-contraception. And I am not down with that. I'm apt to think that this study was supported by funds with interests in my aforementioned 'anti-' list.

Ring of Beads, Solution

Ok, so here's the long awaited solution.

Let us suppose for a moment that in fact all the beads are of the same colour, i.e. indistinguishable. Then we know that they will return to the same configuration: any collision of two beads may as well be thought of as beads passing straight through each other so we will have the same configuration after one second.

Now to the problem. Here we can distinguish between beads. Nonetheless, by the previous argument, we know that after a second, the configuration of the beads will be the same apart from some of the beads perhaps being swapped. Well performing this permutation of beads again and again must lead to the original position at some point. Et voila.

Literary Criticism Criticism

Cheers for the link Archie.

Crap on film

According to Philonous I must now defend myself and my tastes. Why did I like Man on Wire? In a bizare way, I do agree with P in many respects. I wouldn't want to be friends with Phillipe Petit and his entourage. What annoyed me most was the fact that Philippe is so egocentric and self-absorbed when all the others (especially his former girlfriend) seem to have no life of their own, and devote their time to him. I couldn't sympathise with any of them although I found it quite entertaining to see how they were trying to intellectualise funambulism - describing their friend's act as beautiful, poetic art. All I saw was a man on a wire. What I find fascinating is the marginality of it. Isn't it a funny thing to set yourself the objective to walk on a wire set between the two highest towers on the planet? I think what made the film so interesting was the lack of common sense and vertigo of Philippe Petit. My perception is: rather than having something than no one has, he lacks something that everybody has. The idea of standing in the void entertained me for the whole length of the film. I strongly recommend that you see it....

Man on Wire

Le Fox and I on Monday went to see Man on Wire, the story of Phillipe Petit who today in 1974 walked a tightrope strung between the then newly built World Trade Center towers. The film tells the story of the meticulous planning involved, the setbacks, the triumphs. It is a sort of documentary mixed with an action adventure movie with some original footage and other parts acted out with interviews with the main protagonists in the background.

Petit is a French nutcase of the highest order, endowed with the classic one-slice-short-of-a-loaf eyes and the odd maniacal twitch. The footage of him on the wire is truly breathtaking and incredibly beautiful. He even comes across as rather eloquently poetic, if a little bat-shit crazy. Tying the whole thing together are his partners in crime; it was after all illegal as is made clear at every possible opportunity. Ever present is his long suffering and slightly obsessed lover who he seems to have plucked from a life more ordinary aided by his incurable zaniness. With Alistair Darling like hair/eyebrow colour disparity is his rather more sensible friend whose role it was to provide the sanity, though I would argue he fell somewhat short.

It promised to be a gripping and breathtaking thrill ride. It wasn't. The film felt bloated, self obsessed, melodramatic and completely overdone with a ridiculous soundtrack of pretentious semi-ethereal music for which Michael Neimann presumably went to the considerable effort of taping Smooth Classics at Seven. Rather than wasting the cartilage in my fingers, I think I'll leave it to the following scathing review posted on IMDB.

Utterly Pathetic, 3 August 2008,

Author: nickclarkel99 from Ireland

I went into this movie with an open mind but fascinated to find a character who so completely encapsulated everything that i hate. Phillipe Petite and sycophantic friends disgorged their version of events as if they had discovered a cure for aids/cancer/death. I found their admiration of this glorified clown confusing in the extreme, only surpassed in intensity by Phillipe's admiration for himself. Petite manages not only to blow his own trumpet but also the horn, tuba and saxophone. This event seemed primarily concerned in stroking the ego of Phillipe and his desperate aching and repulsive need for approval, probably motivated by a childhood lack from his military father. I eventually felt sorry for Phillipe, though he seemed perfectly happy continuing on, riding even now the wave on his perceived greatness. Though this is like pity for a dog one thinks has a boring life - pointless, Petite is bizarrely fulfilled and to reveal to him the irrelevance of his deed would surely crush his fragile and childlike mind. 1/10

Philonous' verdict: Man on Wire = Crap on Film

Check out the following links if you must:

• http://www.manonwire.com/
• User Comments for Man on Wire at IMDB
• Phillipe Petit's Wikipedia page
• Smooth Classics at Seven

Note: This post may or may not have been deliberately provocative. Let's just say that Le Fox seems to enjoy this movie.

Ring of beads

Here's a great puzzle I heard at a conference in Leicester the other week.

On a circle of wire are a number of (point) beads moving at the same constant speed; for simplicity's sake let's suppose that they would complete one complete circuit in a second. Since they are not all necessarily moving in the same direction, they may collide - we assume that any such collision is completely elastic, that is, they are still moving at the same speed after the collision, just in opposite directions. Suppose all the beads are different colours.

Given any starting position for the beads, will they return to precisely this position in some finite time?

Answer to follow soon.