Attend lectures and readings occasionally

Old-school charm. Love the Pullman.

Wonderful topic with sadly bored-seeming/unprepared panelists. Oh well.

I forgot to say we went to hear Steven Pinker talk about his new book. He’s a pretty charismatic speaker, but he “lectured from Powerpoint,” as it were, which wasn’t really necessary since his slides were just summaries of what he was saying. Also, his connections between language and human nature were sadly flat, as the idea that our languages reflect how we think, feel, and interact is… well… rather obvious. Perhaps the book got deeper into things, though.

David Lieberman. Theoretical evolutionary biology (sort of ;-)). Very cool, more of a summary soon I hope.

Lang Elliot and Will Hershberger are my new heroes.

At the Coolidge, in support of Anya’s short screenplay, which she wrote in a Grub Street class last summer. Hooray for her!

...so I know who’s coming! They have readings practically every night.

Lovely! But it’s been almost a year since the last time I went to a reading—terrible record.

Part of the Museum of Science’s “Lecturology” series (I think that’s a silly title—it’s not the study of lectures).

Theoretical physics is extremely frustrating because unlike other branches of science, when theoretical physicists tell you that things “exist” (like “strings,” “branes,” “KK particles,” etc), what they really mean is, “I have posited the existence and characteristics of this thing. If it does in fact exist, the functioning of these other things (some of which may or may not exist themselves) makes sense and my equations come out right.”

This allows them to come up with all sorts of fascinating theories that they cannot demonstrate, unlike practical physicists who can swing balls and drop weights off buildings and show you things. It also makes them extremely difficult to understand, because they swing back and forth between statements based on experimental results and statements based on the abstractions, and it is hard to see the transitions. Also they are difficult to understand because they tend to say things, and draw diagrams, that make them sound like lunatics.

Given all that, I think Lisa Randall gave an excellent talk tonight.

Went to the 33rd “Little Grey Book” Lecture last night—fun!