There I’ve seen plenty of physicists, I mean, plenty. Bunch of theoretically clever guys all busy gettin’ their theories work at best. Still, so far I haven’t seen one working, but it’s probably a matter of time, or money. Because it’s true that money = time. So it’s also true that space-time = space-money. In particular, space-time = matter, and then space-money = matter. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t want to get lost into this. Let me go to my point.

The point is that theoretical physics is sick. And I’m sick as well, of something so sick.

I have this image from my italian years, bared in my mind, of a young folk into the hole diggin’, and an older one on the top of the hole, not moving a single arm but for pointing where to dig. I guess this happens everywhere in the world. You need young people to do hard work. Or hard work. Or hand work.

Thus you need young people to do handwerk (i.e. german equivalent of hand-work). I gave you this picture, I’ll get back to it later.

This is happening in Theoretical Physics as well. I was in Santa Fe in October 2010, visiting my supervisor, Fotini Markopoulou. I had a good time there. I met two of my heroes, Cormac McCarthy and Murray Gell-Mann. If you don’t know the first but know the second you’re a physicist, but if you know the first but not the second you’re a wise guy. Both contributed to the world with beautiful pieces. Gell-Mann contributed with 8 pieces. In particular with 8 quarks. McCarthy is author of beautiful books as Blood meridian, No country for old men, The road.

So, I was there, having lunch, when this old folk from Los Alamos start giving advices to young guys.

“The best advice I can give you, in order to get a job, is to specialize. Become the guy who knows the most about complexity of monkeys into wet forests under the shade of the moon and you get a job.”

Probably he didn’t use the exact same words, but that is the concept.

Two years or less after I’m here sitting. Got 10 papers on arxiv, a dozen of hands of citations, a paper which is probably half-wrong (shit-happens, although it is published – werk!). I’m not saying, but if you check my papers they’re not on the same subject. I didn’t specialize in something ’cause I like physics.

According to the old folk I should be out of the games. And in fact, post-doc offers at hands, so should be. I got an offer from a firm, which for me is still good, since I would had the chance to hang around here in Berlin another while. Probably I might also manage to have a decent life, a wife and a baby. Maybe a dog, but that’s another matter. People telling me: “oh but you’re student of my hero, Lee Smolin, you cannot not find a job!”. Well, dudes. Wake up. Life in physics is shit.

Every 2 years you move from place to place. And when I say “place” I mean actual time-zone, or continent.

Get a wife and tell her she got to move every 2 years. I won’t be surprised if she dumps you after the second post-doc, since you’re too busy trying to get a grant, get stuff published, get jobs and do actual “indipendent and original” research, you forget to give her some love (and by love I don’t mean some flowers). I see this pattern all around me. I could write a paper and get it published into the American Academy of Social Sciences with such a point.

So, for all the reasons above you don’t have the time or will to think too much. It’s easier (even though it might not seem so at a first sight), to get the review of AdS_{d}/CFT_{d-1}, go through it, and start work it out for a reasonable d, which usually ranges from 2 to 10^35. If you put the number, you’ll realize there’s space enough to fill all the string theorists of the Earth.

So, become the expert of something and get a job. Get your own d, and get a job. Maybe put the word “orbifold”, “super-* N=\sigma” and so on and get a job.

It’s true that I’m a student of Lee and Fotini and so I might have been influenced, however you see that there is a problem. A clash.

dudes, stop doing calculations. think, wtf.

The picture of the old guys telling the young what to do and saying “I would do it better” works for hand work, maybe. But definitely it won’t in theoretical physics. What’s the reason?

The reason is that your brain is young up to 39 yo. Then it starts the long descent to senility. You have the best ideas when you’re young. If you spent the best years of your life working on the technical details, do you expect the old guys to see the big picture? Well, no. Hands at statistics, that’s not how it works. You have the ideas (of course: we’re talking about respectable physicists here, young, but respectable), and then THEY should do the calculation, since they have more experience in doing them, what the hell! Ok, this is a paradoxical statement, of course. Still, try get my point.

I don’t see the point of the old guy in Santa Fe: get specialized.

We’re not hand work. No, we are not. At least, I am not. And I won’t you let ruin the best hobby of my life, physics, because of your prejudice against young people. I can do this during my PhD but I won’t let you do it during my Post-Doc. I prefer to quit and maybe find some spare time to work out my stuff while working in industry, than letting you ruin my childhood dream of becoming a physicist, while reading the “Book of Physics” of Asimov, Jule Verne’s or Feynman’s books.

No, I won’t.

Credo che sia così che comincia. Cominci a comprare quei Croissant che tanto le piacciono, poi il mais. Pensi: “Chissà questa sera cucino qualcosa di diverso”. Poi arriva lo spazzolino rosa. Le prime mutandine da donna trovate tra le tue, i calzini a righe. Mi scompare un pigiama, ma poi ricordo di averlo lasciato da lei. Tutto finisce, se va bene, con il portare un bel po’ di valigie su al quarto piano.

Però lo faccio con piacere.

In particolare perché talvolta ti spogli e ti accorgi di avere un cuoricino disegnato sul petto dalla sera prima, di cui ti eri totalmente dimenticato.

E quello si, si che vale tutte le valigie portate su al quarto piano.

Sarah Burke is dead. Still, she left behind, unconsciously, a huge bill to pay.

This is one of the paradoxes of a system which is not human. You’re not only left without protection on the edge of a chasm of pain, but you’re supposed to struggle also with the health system, which start calling at night to remember “you gotta pay”.

Humanity lost somebody important. Still, they won’t give a fuck. Awaiting in their cozy black chairs to pay their Yatch in Malibu, they check number after number up to the decimals.

Frankly disgusted.

PECHINO – Apple ha sospeso le vendite dell’iPhone 4S in Cina dopo gli episodi di delirio collettivo che hanno messo a serio rischio la sicurezza dei venditori e dei negozi. “La richiesta è stata incredibile”, ha spiegato la portavoce della compagnia nel paese, Carolyn Wu, “e le scorte in magazzino sono esaurite”. Lo store di Pechino era stato preso d’assalto e una guardia era stata malmenata. Ci sono stati lanci di uova contro il negozio. “Non siamo in grado di riaprire lo store di Salitun (a Pechino, ndr) per la ressa e di metterlo in sicurezza, perciò l’iPhione non sarà disponibile sia nella capitale che a Shangai”.

Devo ammetterlo che lo sapevo. Intendo, che il mondo va a rotoli. Ovunque, tutto. Io, tu. Egli. Essi.

Stiamo inconsapevolmente folli. Il mondo corre. Tu corri.

Tutti corriamo.

Fermiamoci un attimo. Respiriamo.

Tutto andrà per il meglio.

Tutto andrà per il meglio.

Basta ripeterselo.

da Repubblica.it

]]> http://nemostory.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/lho-sempre-detto-che-e-un-mondo-di-matti/feed/ 0 dr4k4n http://nemostory.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/band-of-brothers-da-charlottenburg/ http://nemostory.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/band-of-brothers-da-charlottenburg/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:48:16 +0000 dr4k4n http://nemostory.wordpress.com/?p=266 ]]> Seconda puntata di Band of Brothers.

Sento la parola “Crucco” in continuazione. Il gioco caricato sulla Wii è Medal of Honor: European Assault.

Sotto casa 12 placchette con i nomi degli ebrei che sono stati presi dalle case dove ora abito, 60 anni fa, e che

non sono più tornati.

Tutto questo mi da una strana sensazione.

Veramente strana.

Ma quando tutto sarà perduto, molto varrano i fucili arruginiti che la gente teneva stipati in soffitta, le baionette del

nonno, le pietre delle strade sabbiose prosciugate dal mercato finanziario. Se questi signori credono che la gente affamata si farà problemi

a ritagliare le loro teste, si sbaglian di grosso.

Ho pensato che fosse perfetta per ballarla con te.

Sopra le nuvole c’è il sereno
Ma il nostro amore
Non appartiene al cielo
Noi siamo qui
Tra le cose di tutti i giorni
Di giorni e giorni grigi

Aria di neve sul tuo viso
Le mie parole
Sono parole amare
Senza motivo
Prima o poi tra le nostre mani
Più niente resterà

È una vita impossibile
Questa vita insieme a te
Tu non ridi non piangi
Non parli più
E non sai dirmi perché

Lungo la strada del nostro amore
Ho già inventato
Mille parole nuove
Per i tuoi occhi
Più di mille canzoni nuove
Che tu non canti mai