Running around these days, doing some linear combination of actual work and talking about things. (Sometimes the talking leads to actual work, so it’s not a total loss.) If you happen to be in a sciencey kind of mood when I’m in your vicinity, feel free to come to a talk and say hi!
- Today, if you happen to be in Walla Walla, Washington, I’ll be giving the Brattain lecture at Whitman College, on the Higgs boson and the hunt therefor.
- Next week I’ll be in Austin, TX. On Thursday April 17, I’ll be speaking in the Distinguished Lecture Series, once again on the marvels of the Higgs.
- In May I’ll be headed to the Big Apple twice. The first time will be on May 7 for an Intelligence Squared Debate. The subject will be “Is There Life After Death?” I’ll be saying no, and Steven Novella will be along there with me; our opponents will be Eben Alexander and Raymond Moody.
- Then back home for a bit, and then back to NYC again, for the World Science Festival. I’ll be participating in a few events there between May 29 and 31, although precise spatio-temporal locations have yet to be completely determined. One will be about “Science and Story,” one will be a screening of Particle Fever, and one will be a book event.
- I won’t even have a chance to return home from NYC before jetting to the UK for the Cheltenham Science Festival. Once again, participating in a few different events, all on June 3/4: something on Science and Hollywood, something on the Higgs, and something on the arrow of time. Check local listings!
- A chance I will be in Oxford right after Cheltenham, but nothing’s settled yet.
- That’s it. Looking forward to a glorious summer full of real productivity.
Re: Intelligence Squared Debate. Given MWI and the implied quantum immortality, it seems the first question to answer is whether there is death after life? I always recommend people read Robert Charles Wilson’s short story “Divided by Infinity”
http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/08/divided-by-infinity
Links to the Cheltenham events
http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2014/higgs-the-particle-at-the-end-of-the-universe/
http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2014/the-origin-of-the-universe-and-the-arrow-of-time/
http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2014/science-and-hollywood/
Welcome to Austin! I’m inviting my 10th grade daughter (said she’ll come! last summer she attended a stem cell lecture at Harvard while participating in a biology program at Brandeis). She’s the academic spark in the family; I’m the layperson who appreciates all that you do. I have your Time and Higgs books on Kindle, and GC DM/DE course. This week four Presidents are in Austin, but the real excitement is the following week! Look forward! footnote: Hogg Auditorium is named after the first native governor of Texas, James Stephen Hogg, and the inaugural event when it opened in 1933 was a lecture by poet Robert Frost, of your alma mater Harvard, 1897-99. He received an honorary degree later in life, having left school voluntarily due to illness.
I hope the events and speaking tours can still count as real work, right hah?
But seriously, actually doing science might be where the heart is, but you are but one scientist (even if a great one). Meanwhile, these speaking tours and events are potentially inspiring an entire generation of scientists. That’s some important work if you ask me, and you do a bloody good job of it!
I expect you’ll be running into Brian Greene at the World Science Festival in New York, Sean. In case the affliction is contageous, take care not to catch a case of ham-itis from Dr. G. And should you find yourself sandwiched* between him and N. DeG. T. at a luncheon or something, I might wonder if some analog of garlic, a mirror, and a crucifix might be in order to fend off the curse. We like you just the way you are, Sean!
* A.k.a., a broken symmetry ham sandwich.
Already got my tickets planned, ready to submit when booking opens tomorrow. Hospitality at the Town Hall is pretty good, but if you get the chance please do wander around town and enjoy the pubs and cafes and restaurants.
No, I don’t work for the Cheltenham Tourist Centre. Honest.
It was a great talk at UT-Austin last evening, but I must apologize to Sean for the condition of the old auditorium. I had not been back there in quite a while, and it has not been kept well. There are other auditoriums on UT campus I’d have preferred. Fortunately the venue could not dampen the gifted opportunity to meet with Sean and enjoy an evening of his company. Afterwards I celebrated with pizza, double ice cream and stayed awake till 4 in the morning full of ideas. Not a physicist by profession, I sure felt like one!! Thanks, Sean!
Thanks, David!