Matt Hobbs - Part 13

LHC Imminent… Total Doom or Knowledge Renaissance?

Tomorrow the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC) goes online at CERN to a mix of excitement and foreboding. The excitement comes from the scientific community, and a section of the public that is interested in expanding the frontiers of our knowledge. The doom comes from a small section of the scientific community, and a larger portion of the public worried that once the machine is turned on the world will end – possibly through the creation of small black holes.

Well for all my physics training (now largely forgotten, and particle physics was a low scoring final exam) I have to say I believe we’ll all be fine. I’m looking forward to finding out something new about the universe, and whether this whole ‘Higgs Boson’ thing is actually true or not – a brief summary, the Higgs Boson is the ‘God Particle’ which many scientists believe explains how everything has mass and hence we exist, and the LHC has been built to test that theory. Personally I find the whole Higgs boson theory over complex and raises more answers than it solves but then physics is littered with examples of where a complex, slightly mis-perceived theory can suddenly be re-conceived as something simple and elegant. Normally this happens where the fields of mathematics and physics combine, developing new techniques in tandem and expanding our understanding. Tensor maths was an example of this, allowing complex quantum mechanics theories to be expressed much more elegantly – when you finally understand it there’s one of those ‘eureka!’ moments as it all comes together. Of course, I’ve forgotten how it all works now.

The other point here is that we don’t really know what will happen in the LHC for sure. Black holes might be the least of our problems. The experiment helps up understand what happened at the beginning of time, the big bang. Current theories on how our universe started need things like the Higgs boson to work. Of course this raises the question, that if the hugely massive Higgs Bosons, which decay infinitely quickly into smaller particles,have not existed in our universe since it was created – then surely, possibly, creating them could precipitate another big bang? A worrying though. But then when you think about it, before the big bang there was literally nothing – not vacuum, but beyond vacuum – an absence of any matter and any rules of physics. There was zip, nada, void. We can’t even recreate those conditions in our universe, simply because the universe exists. Now whether or not kick starting another universe with different rules is possible within this existing framework is surely a question that current scientists are not equipped to answer, given the constraint of being in this universe – so fingers crossed if another reality gets created we end up with super powers of some kind, and really cool ones at that. Statistically that’s about as likely as the end of the world, so let’s be positive about this.

So, either we’ll all be fine come end of day tomorrow*, or we’ll have amazing supe powers to impress our friends with, or we’ll all be wiped out of existence so quickly we’ll never know. Which means Jerry Bruckheimer will have no time to direct another Hollywood blockboster where Bruce Willis saves us from certain doom. It’s not all bad.

* I say ‘tomorrow’ but in fact the LHC is already running, it’s just tomorrow they start smacking very very small bits of matter together at very very fast speeds. Statistically if nothing has happened with three years of them starting this experiment, then we’ll probably be fine.. and since that doesn’t correlate with the predicted date of eschaton according to the Mayans (December 21st, 2012) I’m sure the two facts are unrelated and we haven’t just turned on some kind of reality bomb.

The End of a Toronto Institution?

I’m being slightly slow on the uptake here – last week the owner of the Bicycle Clinic on Queen Street West, Toronto was arrested for massive bicycle theft. The shop, a small hole in the wall location in the middle of trendy Queen Street, was raided last week and along with other locations, found to hold almost 3,000 bikes – all believed to be stolen. Pretty impressive work.

I’d walked past the Bicycle Clinic pretty much every time I’ve been to Toronto, the last time being a few months back. The place is a local institution, but it transpires this is more to do with every local knowing that if their bike was stolen they should head down to retrieve it (by argument or money) from the owner. Now the lengthy process of returning the stolen bikes to their rightful owners continues as a neighbourhood story ends.

The Night of Knives – Jon Evans (4/5)

The Night of Knives is another seat gripping tale of epic travels, technological wizardry and global wheeler dealings, and a damn fine read to boot. This time author Job Evans has set his tale in Africa, the technology is mostly mobile phones and the subterfuge… well, you’ll have to read that to find out as Jon plots a fine sequence of twists and turns that will keep you guessing and happily sitting on the edge of your seat – whether that seat is on the tube or on a sunny beach somewhere. Hopefully a beach somewhere safer than Jon’s Africa…

Go buy it now!

Book Review: The Night of Knives

Picture of book cover for Night of Knives - by Jon Evans

My good friend and talented author Jon has just had his latest magnum opus, The Night of Knives, released in paperback in the UK. It’s another swash-buckling tale of epic travels, technological wizardry and global subterfuge, and a damn fine read. This time the backdrop is Africa, the technology is mostly mobile phones and the subterfuge… well, you’ll have to read that to find out as Jon plots a fine sequence of twists and turns that will keep you guessing and happily sitting on the edge of your seat – whether that seat is on the tube or on a sunny beach somewhere. Hopefully a beach somewhere safer than Jon’s African idyll…

Go buy it now so Jon can fund his next epic trip and bring back tales for us all to enjoy through his eyes.

Stolicht da Mighty Boosh! Gript!

Through a random sequence of events (thanks Kate) I found out that The Mighty Boosh were doing their last ‘pre-tour’ show at Riverside Studios tonight. And through an even happier sequence of events I managed to get a ticket. This combination of events means that I’ve now, finally and very happily, seen The Mighty Boosh live – and not only live, but in a relative intimate, few hundred people venue. Huzah!

As you can imagine I’m pretty darn happy right now, high on the buzz of seeing Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett, as well as their talented accomplices, execute some fine Boosh magic live and unleashed. The show was a little bit on the haphazard side, as this is their pre-tour previews where they get to iron out the glitches, but then with the Boosh you feel that the glitches and subsequent recoveries are all part of the general mishmash of comic wonder. And wonder it is. There’s something simultaneously childish and childlike in the Boosh, and it’s good to see it brought across in the live show – even in this embryonic form.

Ahead be spoilers… be ye warned…

For those of you planning to attend the relatively sold out tour this year – expect to see some, if not all, of the following as the fine fellows refine and condense their mayhem; Future Sailors performed live (with the added bonus for us of ‘False Howard’ being in the audience watching), Bob Fossil leading a sing-a-long ‘I Can’t Go For That’, Tony Harrison’s genius chat show – complete with badly constructed, only partially Noel hiding, chair and special guests including Rudi with a blistering guitar solo, Bolo with David Attenborough and the genius of Rich Fulcher’s Eastern European taxi driver who does his act without English – Grip!, the crack fox, plenty of new songs and the culmination of the show with Howard’s genius post-apocalyptic epic play about how a failure to recycle will destroy us all (with notes from Chris Martin and an extra-extendary performance from the Fulcher tin man that you won’t forget – believe me I’m trying). Phew! I’m sure there’s more I’ve forgotten to mention, but by the time you see it some or all of it will have changed and, most likely, the chaps won’t be working pretty much directly off their scripts the whole time (to oft hilarious effect) so you can expect more audience interaction and banter as they get comfortable.

Thanks to The Mighty Boosh for an epic night. As always.

Hilarious Olympic Handover Antics

Well the Beijing Olympics 2008 is now over, and amazingly Britland managed to come fourth – following China, USA and Russia. Congratulations ‘Team GB’ – but please don’t take this as a reason to stick with that ridiculous, over branded name. What is it in the British mentality that can’t take pride in things that have been the same for a long time? We just have to re-brand and re-invent it all the time, normally to the embarrassment and frustration of most people. I think it’s something to do with the fact that, as British people, we don’t fully embrace the re-branding process but just pay lip service to it. Brand is something that has to represent your character fully, it isn’t just a flashy new logo (however jaggy and unreadable it is) or a nice tagline, everyone has to buy into the brand.

So with all this heroic expenditure on new Olympic logos for London 2012, and the general excitement/lack of government support for the Olympic re-generation in east London how come no-one spent a few minutes telling London Mayor Boris Johnson how to act at an international event? On stage we have three men in suits – the Mayor of Beijing, the head of the Olympic committee and Boris Johnson. Two of those man manage to stand still, with suits smartly closed – one of those men is moving back and forward on his feet, suit open showing an expanse of shirt clad belly, occaisionally waving into the crowd. Guess which one? Then there was the flag ‘waving’. To be fair though, it is a big flag. My only question is this – did no-one think, amidst all these millions of pounds of expenditure, that teaching Boris how to act would be helpful in representing our country? Or did the extra money go to really nice stickers on the London bus that was our main contribution to the handover ceremony? I would link to the video on BBC, but for some reason it’s hard to find now…

Of course if all this Olympics-ness raises a feeling of ‘nuh’ in your soul, then check out the Hipster Olympics instead. Whuh?

Magic Power Go!

Exciting news from the wonderful world of science – researchers have demonstrated wirelessly transmittable power over a distance of two metres! It’s all relatively straightforward stuff revolving around the relationship between magnetic forces and electricity, and also the concept of resonance – where energy can move between two things moving with the same frequency, in this case at the low value of 10MHz. In related good news, the energy most likely won’t affect people and animals in the way of the tunneling electricity as we don’t vibrate at that frequency. Just watch out if you’re on a trampoline.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami (4/5)

As well as being an popular global author of esoteric, whimsical novels, Haruki Murakami is also an ardent runner – competing in marathons and triathlons as part of his regular routine. In this book the author discusses his life as a runner, covering the period of a year when he competes in the New York marathon amongst others, and reminiscing about earlier triumphs and failures. Along the way Murakami gives some insight into what makes him work and get on with both running and writing, and how his sheer bloody mindedness keeps him going when it gets tough. To quote:

“Fortunately, these two disciplines – focus and endurance – are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. You’ll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise.”

There are probably no great revelations for budding runners in this book, but for those of us who enjoy gaining insight into the creative process of people we admire it’s a great read. Murakami blends his writing and running activities together into a coherent whole, and draws us back into his psyche to find the source of his focus. My only gripe about the book is its length – like After Dark it’s not the longest book ever – which given that Murakami’s writing about long distance running seems a tad ironic, but that said it is a good read.

The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins (4/5)

Hey, guess what – Richard Dawkins is an atheist. Who’d have thunked it. Actually pretty much everyone these days, since it’s all he really talks about. I remember the old days, when he used to explain Darwin’s theories of evolution, and genetics with such popular appeal that we all started to understand it. Now, all everyone talks about it how Dawkins doesn’t like God, or gods for that matter, which means that many people around the world have now linked teaching evolution to being godless heathens. Such is life.

Dawkins tries to explain his stance in The God Delusion, a book that is now at the ‘you have to read this’ level of popular acceptance. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not, the book will come up in conversation at some point so best read it now to save later hassle. That said, I don’t think it’s such a ‘must read’ as everyone makes out. Dawkins makes a lot of good points and tackles the defenses that most religious people put up to his arguments with aplomb, as well as re-polarising some mis-used quotes. This is all interesting stuff, but it ends up being a bit too much about Dawkins rather than about religion in general and its social impact. In the last chapter, Dawkins rushes along pointing out key observations of human evolution that might even indicate why we believe in something bigger – but this point is not adequately expounded upon to my mind. Perhaps if Dawkin’s detractors had focussed more on the quality of his writing, rather than kicking up a fuss and drawing more attention to his book they might have had more success. Either way, I leave the last word to XKCD.

Future Awesome: Burn After Reading

I just stumbled across the trailer for the new Coen Brothers film – Burn After Reading – and I am mighty excited. It’s a comedy spy movie starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney amongst others, and it even has an Elbow song on the trailer. What more could you want? Oh. You want more? OK, how about Frances Dormand and John Malkovitch then. Good enough for you now? Well OK then!