I’m not sure whether it’s more accurate to describe my punditry as “fearless” or “shameless.” (This is just talking out loud, not a request for clarification.) Either way, I’ll be practicing it tonight on Milt Rosenberg’s show, a two-hour daily interview program here at Chicago’s WGN (720 on your AM dial). The other guests will be fellow Chicagoland bloggers Ezster Hargittai of Crooked Timber and Dan Drezner of the eponymous blog. We’ll be talking about — wait for it — blogging. As we are all academics, the view of the blogosphere we’ll be offering will doubtless be hopelessly narrow and unrepresentative, but fascinating nonetheless. Brief description of the show on Milt’s own blog, and you can listen live (9-11 p.m. Central) online here; it’s possible that it may be archived, I’m not sure.
I was on this show once before, several years ago, along with David Bodanis to talk about his book E=mc2. My role was that of an expert in relativity. It strikes me that it took well over a decade of professional training before anyone would think such a role was appropriate. Becoming an expert in blogging was much easier.
In other celebrity news, Peter Steinberg of Quantum Diaries was nice enough to describe me as a “physics super-blogger.” I have not yet decided whether this is damning by faint praise, or at least diminuition by modest association. The proximate cause of Peter’s description was the Einstein Conference we held last Saturday at the Francis W. Parker School, which turns out to be Peter’s old high school!
This is a photo of me and Angela Olinto at the panel discussion part of the symposium, snapped by Peter’s cell phone fancy digital camera and stolen from his flikr account by me. Angela is sporting her stylish spectacles while I am gamely trying to moderate our extremely distinguished panel (Angela, Michael Levi of the SNAP collaboration, string theorist Jim Gates, Argonne theorist Murray Peshkin, neutrino experimentalist and fellow Quantum Diarist Debbie Harris, and Fermilab Director Pier Oddone).
Some of you might not be very familiar with Quantum Diaries. It’s a wonderful idea to celebrate the World Year of Physics: grab some charismatic and energetic physicists and encourage them to blog for a year about what they’re doing. Sadly the year is almost over, but fortunately that means you can leaf through all the interesting entries that have accumulated. Other personal favorites include Caolionn O’Connell, Gordon Watts, and Stephon Alexander — but they’re all good! Who knew physicists were people, too?
Update: Eszter has a wrap-up of the Milt Rosenberg show — with pictures!
Further update: audio of segments of the Milt Rosenberg show is now available.
When I first looked at the Quantum Diaries some months ago, I was wondering why there were not more professional (>10 years in the field) English-speaking women physicists listed. To give a long view perspective.
I learnt lots from listening to John Ellis and Peter Steinberg, and I learnt a lot from groups here, as well Sean.
Some are better astute and linking to the origins of learning, then others, and more sensitive, yet very demanding for what is real.
Because you have a personal opinion about atheistic revelations I won’t hold it against you:) You learn to filter personal bias about things from those superbloggers, and discern personal opinion from actual fact?
I mean because you might hum in accordance as a opinion, does not mean it might be the right road to luminosity? It required a more detailed look. Thank’s a Krug.
So you look for the Distlers, and those who were very staunch “against supporting” to see why? Peter might have serve his use, but as time marches on, the tempered views needed to console the peering minds who view reasonable and effctive talk, to bring them into the questions of science and not stop the from wondering why.
Sorry to those who hold Peter on such a pesdestal, but at times who shall stand there and guide us in our thinking, if all one heard is the same rant over and over again?
Blogging is easier, but learning about relativity is always a struggle even for the best of minds? Non!
Peter, is reference to Woit in above statement, and not reference to Steinberg. What Steinberg offered was clarity. You see where the blogging had matured?
Sean,
I’m glad to learn that you’re a “very serious” physicist interested in “ultimate cosmology” (who will assuredly continue to contribute to the “great academic discourse as it continues from here to eternity”). If I may so much as “opine”, however, I believe in sooth that the “eggplant” expanded in exponential, rather than “geometric” or “logarthmic ratio”. But whatever the “mathematical equation”, may your multifarious, multidimensional, and multiversal claims continue to “radiate around the blogosphere”.
-Sam
P.S. There was some interesting discussion, but I would never have made it through it without our comedic genius of a host 🙂
I admit that I was baffled by the reference to “the eggplant that ate Chicago.”
Plato,
You say: “..if all one heard is the same rant over and over again?”
You are too cruel to yourself. It is not he who listens not, or is in the habit of repeating himself. It is rather the ignorant, who do not listen. The rants come from those who wear not a fig leaf of experimental data.
Talking about blogging, I can’t resist the temptation to quote something from CNN Money (http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/06/technology/blog_fsb/index.htm):
—
Elongated spellings (“soooooooo”), multiple exclamation marks (!!!) suggest a teenage female. The blogger is probably a teenage boy if a posting is rife with hip-hop terminology such as “aight” (translation: “all right”) and “true dat” (“I agree!”).
The twenty- and thirty-somethings are more likely to use complete sentences. These men tend to favor vivid adjectives such as “sordid” and “hilarious,” while the women favor elaborately emotive turns of phrase, such as “wishing I could just crawl out of my skin” (a real example). Male baby-boomers, on the other hand, tend to favor stale hip-hop-isms such as “jiggy” and “bling.” They also pepper their blogs with terms such as “prostate” and “IRA.”
—
So, if you are using the term “bling”, be aware that you are looking like a stale, male baby-boomer trying to seem younger than you are. No names mentioned, you know who you are. 😉