Wine recommendations by a physicist

Jo-Anne Hewett at the blog "Cosmic Variance" apparently was in charge of ordering wine for the SLAC summer school.

I have a similar job to Professor Hewett. I sometimes buy wine for large social functions, but unlike her, I have zero confidence in my ability to choose a good wine.

I wonder, maybe I should try some of these recommendations?

Communicating scientific results to the public

Lisa Randall has written very nice op-ed piece about the difficulty of communicating science to the public.

Thanks to Lubos Motl for the link.

What are your politics?

I took an online poll to find out. Here are my results.

You are a Social Liberal (63% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (36% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. loc: (49, -50) modscore: (22, 38) raw: (2635) Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Flight of the phoenix

The quantum mechanic is back!

I just saw a great episode of Battlestar Galactica a week ago. It's entitled "Flight of the Phoenix" which refers to a famous old movie about a wrecked, stranded crew who rebuild their airplane.

Like the movie, the Battlestar Galactica episode is a metaphor about a man whose life is wrecked and how he tries to find hope by constructing a fighter from the ground up. Not easy rebuilding your life from scratch! Nothing new about this story, but the acting is moving and believable. I wish real life were this easy.

"All right, here's the deal. We are going to build a new fighter."

Now for the lighter side of life, check out this link to Boston's messiest office. MIT physicist Alan Guth was nominated for an office "make-over" last spring. Read more for the before, during, and after cleanup pictures. Guth is famous for his contributions to cosmology. They are said to be important enough, that if verified, he would probably win a Nobel Prize.