Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Cherry tree blossoming in January, Cambridge, MA

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

… was this cherry tree, blooming five months ahead of schedule after a warm, almost freezeless, almost snowless December.

El Niño at work? Maybe…

Beautiful sunny day today, after another beautiful sunny day yesterday. Frank and I went for a glove-less stroll through one of America’s first garden cemeteries, dedicated in 1831.

Lots of beautiful monuments, lots of peace, lots of birdsong. My favorite monument was a white sphinx said to combine “the strength of the lion with the beauty and benignity of woman.” The eagle growing out of her head is an unexpected plus on both of these.

We did not disturb the peace of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Buckminster Fuller, Isabella Stuart Gardner, B.F. Skinner, Fannie Farmer, or the salamanders who lurk under vernal pools.

But this cherry tree! It reminded me of something Dave Winer said…

Herman Heine Goldstine (1913 – 2004) built the world’s first big computer (18,000 vacuum tubes!) at the Aberdeen labs during World War II.

But the serendipitous placement of the young mathematician in a lab that needed maximal calculations almost didn’t happen. As Goldstine recalled, in a much-later interview:

I got notification to go into the Army in July something of 1942, and I was sent to the Air Force in Stockton, California. …I got orders to leave Stockton from the Adjutant General [to go work on math at Aberdeen], and simultaneously I got orders from the local post to proceed to I’ve-forgotten-where on the way to Japan or some eastern place.

I called the commanding general, and he said, “Which do you want to do? ” I said, “I want to take the Aberdeen post.” And he said, “Well, the orders from the Adjutant General in Washington obviously take precedence over the orders from a post adjutant in some fort in Stockton, California.” “Son” he said, ”if I were you, I would get out of the camp, if you’ve got an auto,” he said, “I’d get in the auto, and start driving. Let the paper work catch up later on, because otherwise you’ll just have an impossible time.” So I got in the car and drove east.

Goldstine’s interviewer Albert W Tucker was not only a great eliciter of other people’s stories, he was also a great story-teller himself–Tucker invented the Prisoners’ Dilemma “story” to make a game theory paradox more accessible. If you enjoy reading scientists’ stories first hand, I recommend the many interviews Tucker did for Princeton’s math history project.

For more Goldstine stories, I recommend the recent Biographical memoir (pdf file) in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, June, 2006.

What scientist’s ego could possibly resist “Einstein Hollow Face” from brain-toy shop Grand Illusions?

It’s a supersized white plastic Einstein illusion that seems to be so fascinated by Y-O-U that it turns its head to follow your every movement (See movie here.)

It’s fun but disturbing, so–somewhat more upliftingly–here’s a cartoon that inspired me in 2005:

Lovely and mysterious photo shows tender blue sky with crescent moon and crescent Venus.

(Thanks to Tingilinde for the link! )

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science…

It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man…”

Albert Einstein

The little boy on the right grew up to be José Raúl Capablanca–playboy, celebrity, and (computers now tell us) the best chess player our planet ever saw, says ChessBase News. How do you compare chessplayers who never played against one another? Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko used the open-source program Crafty to analyze games played over the course of more than 100 years by 14 World Champions. They scored players move-by-move, comparing each move played against the “best” move Crafty could find with a search depth of up to 12 “plies.” (Read their scholarly article for the whole story.)

It’s a fascinating example of the way scientists crack problems that most people assumed would forever remain undecidable.

My thanks to Frank Wilczek for emailing me this story!

The World Chess Network has lots more photos and stories from Capablanca’s life.

Is your resume a little boring? Check out this employment offer from Sweden:

If you have a Swedish hunting certificate and a medical background then you may have an unusual opportunity to combine your skills in Stockholm and Norrland…

“[W]e happen to know that there will be a lot of zombies in Stockholm on Friday the 13th. That’s when they traditionally appear, you know,” said Mona Holmquist.

But she was vague about the salary – and about whether there would be a bonus for landing one of the undead.

“I think that’s something for our HR department to decide,” said Holmquist.

Yes, do question HR carefully before you sign up!

Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony 2006 @ Harvard Originally uploaded by fantastine1234.

I’ve been smiling all day, but people over at the Chronicle of Higher Ed are very sad… They missed the 2006 Ig Nobel prize ceremony last night because their spam filter ate press releases containing words…not “dung beetle” or “electromechanical teenager repellent”…but maybe the description of Kees Moeliker’s prize… Whatever the reason, I’m nominating their spam filter for its own Ig! Streaming video of the event should go up at http://www.improbable.com/webcast.html soon–at the moment, alas, the site’s getting so much traffic that things there are sloowwwwww. While you’re waiting, here’s some news coverage of last night’s craziness:

Candace Lombardi at CNET has the star quote from Ig winner Francis Fesmire.

“I someday really wish to be recognized for my work in cardiac research, but my son told me to look on the bright side. It’s sort of like winning a Darwin Award, but you don’t have to die.”

David Brooks of NH notes one serious problem.

People from NH are seriously under-represented on the list of past Ig Nobel winners!

Steve Nadis at Nature has some great quotes

“Another classic Ig tradition — scientists attempt to sum up their field in seven words. Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does dark matter and dark energy: ‘What you see isn’t what you get.’ “

I guess that has to be my favorite quote. Well, to be honest, my favorite quote was one applause line in Marc’s list of show contributors — “And our slide jockeys, in the back, Betsy Devine and Keith Clark!”

p.s. The great “24/7” slide in the photo is one by Keith!

Whew–just home from the party, to which I brought two dates:

1. Frank Wilczek and
2. the dummy of Frank Wilczek that that sat with Shelley Glashow at the 2005 Ig Nobels.

Just a few of tonight’s most exciting events….

Cane-wielding Minor Domo Julia Lunetta told me about an awesome podcast called Second Shift.

Pizza flippers hijacked to outer space–what a concept–I can’t wait to hear this!

I got my copy of Marc Abrahams’ new book The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself signed by many Ig notables.

If we get really, really poor–I can sell it on eBay!

Mathematica author Stephen Wolfram has a new project about to launch…

…so cool I’m sure it’ll show up in everyone’s Wired RSS feed. In other news, he has absolutely no idea how many of us used Mathematica to write our own Sudoku-solving programs.

In other news, red wine plus chocolate cake makes people very, very sleepy. Here’s hoping I wake up in time for the Igs next year, in case I win my own prize for that last insight!

The magicians before the magic begins

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

That is to say, I got to play the part of a clueless and unrehearsed Ignitary being shephered through my paces by an IgNobel Minor Domo–who really, really knew what she was doing.

Tonight, I’ll be in the back of the darkened theater, running IgNobel slides with graphics guru Keith Clark. Frank will once again be the Nobel laureate. For added reality factor, he will be flying in from Minnesota this morning and teaching a graduate class this afternoon before he hits stage, unrehearsed (as are most Ignitaries) but ready for whatever madness Marc Abrahams conjures up.

In the photo, IgNobel maestro Marc confers with soprano Margot Button–BTW, I snapped more rehearsal photos and put them on Flickr.