Massive footprints of the microscopic

While recently browsing through the archives of IT Conversations I found this great installment of Tech Nation with Brian Greene, a leading expert on Superstring Theory and the author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos. He talks about his two books and delivers some of his trademark analogies and metaphors for explaining the sometimes hard to grasp complexities of astrophysics. The segment of his interview that I found particularly interesting is when he talks about one of his latest ideas for detecting the existence of superstrings. Strings-if they do exist-are far to small to be witnessed directly with current technology, and even indirect methods such as particle acceleration have proven to be ineffective. Greene suggests that the evidence of strings might in-fact be visible on massive scales spread out across the cosmos. He theorizes that superstrings could have left imprints in the universe when it was condensed into an unimaginably small size just before the big-bang, and as the universe expanded, the imprints of these ancient strings expanded with it, and might still exist today spread out across the universe, detectable by patterns in temperature variations. (He uses a brilliant inflated balloon analogy to explain this)

I have to admit, it seems a bit far fetched. Particularly when you consider that the pre-big bang universe was just one homogenized molten ball of matter with nothing even suggesting the galaxies and stars that would later develop, its hard to imagine that the footprints the strings left behind could survive in a recognizable and detectable form. And if these imprints do exist it might be extremely difficult to detect the temperature patterns across vast regions of space.
But one really cant deny the beauty of this theory. I hope my skepticism turns out to be short-sighted.

Listen to Moira Gunn interview Brian Greene on Tech Nation

TheWeblogProject. An open source movie about blogging

"TheWeblogProject is designed to be a completely different movie, because featured stars, producers, fundraisers and actors of TheWeblogProject movie are the bloggers themselves. TheWeblogProject is different from a traditional movie in several other respects:

It will be distributed, FREE, via P2P and via the Internet Archive, under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

It will be Folksonomy-enabled.

Open source: complete source footage will be distributed to all supporting bloggers for unlimited remixing."

Brilliant. I love seeing these creative uses of open source licensing.
Lets hope the prank porn submissions are kept to a minimum.

More info on The Weblog Project

Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple

These three Lectures given by theoretical physicist Hans Beth in 1999 basically sum up all of the developments of quantum mechanics in the 20th century.

"Intended for an audience of Professor Bethe's neighbors at Kendal, the lectures hold appeal for experts and non-experts alike. The presentation makes use of limited mathematics while focusing on the personal and historical perspectives of one of the principal architects of quantum theory whose career in physics spans 75 years."

"Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple"

Fly the Repressive Skys

Thinking of taking a trip to North Korea? Look no further. The "Korean Friendship Association" (sort of the official fansite of the DPRK) is organizing a very specal delegation to the DPRK this summer and they've put together this super-slick flash movie that highlights all of the countries' limited attractions. It includes plenty of government approved, generic (stock photography?) photos of the lush countryside and Pyongyang's drab, boxy architecture. Plus fun multicultural relay races! I guess their not so bad after all.

The site claims:

"This trip is unique in its kind because for the first time in history the vistor will have the opportunity of not only visit main monuments and spots of the DPRK, but to share a part of life in North Korea by helping the citizens in their daily affairs and share with them work, dances and meals."

Sign me up.

Link to flash movie

North Korean propaganda posters
Korean Friendship Association website

Good sportsmanship?

I wonder what the FCC has to say about this.

Yahoo! sports news

KANA HAKKLIHA!

Those crazy 1980's Estonians! Its amazing what a little soviet occupation can do to a country's attitude regarding avian cruelty.

Watch this bizarre and freakish Estonian TV commercial for minced chicken meat.
(Keep in mind this is not a re-edited version of some old commercial, this is the way it originally aired)

I still think its ten times better than the average McDonalds ad.

See more of these fascinating Estonian commercials here