randform

From his last conference in spain Tim brought back the typical conference presents, like notepads and informations about the region of Castro Urdiales. Well I am not so interested in settling down in Castro-Urdiales so I flipped only briefly through the infos about the real estate developments of the region. However what caught my attention was the above paper strip. It is an explanation of how to use a spanish fan (there was also a plastic fan among the presents) (Warning: I had never been to spain so my astonishment about the fan may appear ridiculous to some spain experts).

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I try to stay up to date with what’s going on in the math and physics world by e.g. reading blogs of scientists. One of the probably most famous blogs in the mathematical physics world is this week’s finds by John Baez whom I visited on Friday.

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Due to the tube strike I learned a lot about London bus, tube and train ticket systems (e.g. like the above oyster card, a 10 pounds recharge card). I am happy that my sister has an insight into the matter because the system is fairly complicated (e.g. for taking a longer trip a day ticket is better). However it is not as crazy as the subway system in Tokyo, where on a longer trip it may happen that one needs to pass several toll points and buy new tickets each time. As I understood this is mainly due to the fact that the lines have seperate owners. The Tokyo subway ticketing system reminded me a bit of the toll policy in Germany in medieval times, where virtually every feudal sovereign put up a toll station (it reminded me actually also of the german current network). And likewise the ticket problem in my last post seems to be at least partially due to national borders.

Despite of new means of communication such as cell phones, videoconferencing etc. you will still have to meet with your potential collaborators/business partners etc. in person. This implies that traffic will increase with growing globalization. So if one wants to reduce carbon output in traffic one of the first things one should think about is how to improve the train system as an alternative to planes. A better website may be a start.

Yesterday I felt like going to Hyde Park.
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I will be soon in London for about ten days. Any comments on interesting things to see there are welcome! Blogging may be delayed/postponed.

Today’s post is about one of the rare examples where probably an artist made a discovery before the scientist did.

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This post is a follow up post to some posts (1,2,3) relating to the question of simulation. It is concerned with the question of how “real” a simulation can “feel”.
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Since I keep reporting from our bike trip, I thought it may be useful to report about the route itself.

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The city church of Torgau, built in 1119 is a Hall church (since it is built in late gothic style it may have taken a long time to built it). I am making this post not because of eventually ongoing rumors that Catherine Zeta-Jones thinks about entering a convent (which I definitely won’t believe unless there is more evidence..:)) but rather in order to have an opportunity to mention that Gerhard Richter’s new windows in the dome of cologne are now on display. But of course the church’s architecture is noteworthy in itself:

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Just an update of an old randform post about funny flying objects. This time you have the choice to read about big or small FO’s.