Sunday, October 01, 2006

ö physics: the best of times or the worst of times? [new yorker]  It is the best of times in physics. Physicists are on the verge of obtaining the long-sought Theory of Everything. In a few elegant equations, perhaps concise enough to be emblazoned on a T-shirt, this theory will reveal how the universe began and how it will end. The key insight is that the smallest constituents of the world are not particles, as had been supposed since ancient times, but "strings" - tiny strands of energy. By vibrating in different ways, these strings produce the essential phenomena of nature, the way violin strings produce musical notes. String theory isn't just powerful; it's also mathematically beautiful. All that remains to be done is to write down the actual equations. This is taking a little longer than expected... [...] It is the worst of times in physics. For more than a generation, physicists have been chasing a will-o'-the-wisp called string theory. The beginning of this chase marked the end of what had been three-quarters of a century of progress. Dozens of string-theory conferences have been held, hundreds of new Ph.D.s have been minted, and thousands of papers have been written. Yet, for all this activity, not a single new testable prediction has been made, not a single theoretical puzzle has been solved.  permanent link #     ^ TOP ^  what is this place?

ö The Inner Life of a Cell This is an amazing eight-minute Flash animation from BioVisions at Harvard. Since it's not narrated I had no idea what anything was, but things go by pretty fast, not much time for narration anyway.  ... the animation illustrates unseen molecular mechanisms and the ones they trigger, specifically how white blood cells sense and respond to their surroundings and external stimuli. Nuclei, proteins and lipids move with bug-like authority, slithering, gliding and twisting through 3D space. "All of those things that you see in the animation are going on in every one of your cells in your body all the time," [...] I've been in the medical animation field for seven years now, so I'm a little jaded, but I still get surprised by things. For instance, in the animation there's a motor protein that's sort of walking along a line, carrying this round sphere of lipids. When I started working on that section I admit I was kind of surprised to see that it really does look like it's out for a stroll, like a character in a science fiction film or animation. But based on all the data, it's a completely accurate rendering.  permanent link #     ^ TOP ^  what is this place?