tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10556122466102865252024-03-16T01:10:29.675+00:00 The Fictional Aetherby Mark D HannamUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-40907331951419806672023-07-18T09:02:00.000+01:002023-07-18T09:02:40.518+01:00Moving home<p> For any loyal readers who have regularly checked for updates over the past 18 months: </p><p>(1) My sincere apologies for the gaping emotional and intellectual hole I have left in your lives. </p><p>(2) My attempts to fill it will henceforth appear on a new incarnation of The Fictional Aether on Substack. </p><p>The new site will have many benefits. </p><p>If you subscribe, you will never need to refresh the page in feverish desperation ever again -- you will get an email notification whenever a new piece is published! With your interests at heart I have subscribed to several Substack accounts myself, and I am happy to report after many months of scrutiny, that they <i>do not</i> pummel you with spam. You get an email every time there is a new publication, and nothing else. All you have to do to sign up is enter your email address. Wow!</p><p>Not only that, but the comments section actually works. If we wish, we will actually be able to communicate with each other! Incredible!</p><p>But wait, there's more! You will have the option of showing your appreciation with real money. Or, at least, digital money that I will gratefully use to buy real things. That is entirely optional, but at least the option is there, which was never the case over here on Blogger.</p><p>Finally, this fresh new publishing environment, plus the energising thrill of your support, will drive me to write oodles of wonderful new stuff to enrich your life. </p><p>Hopefully.</p><p>To find out what happens next, head over to <a href="https://fictionalaether.substack.com/">substack and sign up</a>. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-89518417407113622072022-01-19T20:45:00.000+00:002022-01-19T20:45:48.329+00:00You'll shoot your eye out: the shock of the recoil<p>The latest data dump from gravitational-wave detectors turns out to be full of juicy science, just waiting to be scooped out. </p><p><a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2021/12/breaking-news-scientists-measure.html">Last month</a> it was the first measurement of black holes enacting one of the most gorgeous quirks of Einstein's famously peculiar theory of gravity. Two black holes were spiralling into each other and one of them was spinning almost as fast as physically possible and that, through a process with no analogue in our daily experience, caused the entire orbit to affect a gentle sway. The effect was ten billion times stronger than previous measurements, which were from much less extreme events, by which I mean two stars that have been squashed to only ten kilometres across and are orbiting each other ten times closer than Mercury orbits our sun, and are therefore rather pedestrian compared to black holes colliding.</p><p>This month came a new wonder from the same event: after the two black holes merged into one, the final massive black hole -- over sixty times more massive than the sun -- received a huge kick from the gravitational waves it gave off and shot away across space at over 700km per second. At least! It was more likely 1500km per second, and could have been as high as 2500. Ok, these are all extreme crazy astronomical things, everything goes fast. Is that really such a big deal? Yes! If this merger happened deep in the obscure innards of some galaxy, the final black hole would be hurtling fast enough to escape the galaxy and zoom off into empty space. </p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.11300">The first result</a>, the long-awaited first measurement of precession, emerged from a month of careful detective work by my group in Cardiff, and came out just before Christmas. <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.01302">The new recoil result</a> is from a group of nine people working at eight institutions across the US and Germany. They put their paper up on the arxiv in the first week of January. So really all this poring over the new data was going on at the same time. </p><p>As I wrote in the last post, I have been working on precession since around 2010 and gravitational-wave astronomers have been eagerly looking out for it since the first detections in 2015. My emotional attachment to recoil goes back further. I first met recoil as a postdoc in 2004 at a journal club, where I learned a tantalising fact. And since it was the only interesting thing I had ever learned in a journal club, I never forgot it! </p><p>In classic clickbait fashion, I couldn't possibly have guessed what would happen next. Prepare for swashbuckling science adventures and serious cursing-and-spitting drama!</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Flashback: science and gossip</h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKG9A_DtBfBWlvRINMYdRc6h92-DfROFgwiZS8dOTl1y9tbdwib7PLGe1U-XG454QBBYwBYQprRydEjHVFWoC8xsJ8hufMw0SAg-2psl0DlG_1oAEwkVGrvD-M4zxg5rseWS5MdYzMBHcKvzTabdOJ_1JJoMGyF-DKt1DCsSuAMu_W5yv9rDoENaaP1w=s1426" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="1426" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKG9A_DtBfBWlvRINMYdRc6h92-DfROFgwiZS8dOTl1y9tbdwib7PLGe1U-XG454QBBYwBYQprRydEjHVFWoC8xsJ8hufMw0SAg-2psl0DlG_1oAEwkVGrvD-M4zxg5rseWS5MdYzMBHcKvzTabdOJ_1JJoMGyF-DKt1DCsSuAMu_W5yv9rDoENaaP1w=w200-h177" width="200" /></a></div>The recoil happens because the gravitational waves from a binary carry off linear momentum and according to good old Newton's "every action..." third law, the binary recoils in the opposite direction. When the black holes are in orbit most of the recoil is "sideways" to the orbit, and the direction changes as the black holes go around. The usual analogy is to one of those spinning lawn sprinklers: as the little arms spin around, the water shoots out in different directions, and so instead of the sprinkler being pushed backwards it gets pushed in a circle. The same thing happens with the binary. <p></p><p>This is not much of an "analogy": they're just two illustrations of the same physical effect. One fires off jets of water and the other undulations in the geometry of space and time. Except that only one of them will get you drenched in your back yard.</p><p>The exciting part of the recoil effect is the last bit. The two black holes are spiralling towards their centre of mass, which is itself moving in a circle due to the recoil effect. As the black holes get closer they go faster, and the gravitational-wave emission gets increasingly intense, and so the recoil gets stronger and the centre of mass circles faster and faster. Then POW! the black holes collide, and the emission shuts off -- and the final black hole just keeps going. It's like when your child is in the living room swinging a toaster by its electrical cord, faster and faster, and you know that at any moment their grip will slip and the toaster will fly off in some random direction. You have no idea what the direction will be, except that it will cause maximum damage.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbbXUaoXUl21WV0mQ94QnPWQlQ9b-z7c8GY-uX8yTvREda_R0ule4-W71KE0zTUyTqIN9QwEmRXrQzCY8Ekk0YvN3_xABksEV-MFP-nAoAv8SXlewNn-jx05RbWViA08YRBK3K_NJj0uv3mS_y4itKmvrwdHbiXbp54iQ63Uwi9Gr-gfI8vVbUTooFcQ=s286" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="176" data-original-width="286" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbbXUaoXUl21WV0mQ94QnPWQlQ9b-z7c8GY-uX8yTvREda_R0ule4-W71KE0zTUyTqIN9QwEmRXrQzCY8Ekk0YvN3_xABksEV-MFP-nAoAv8SXlewNn-jx05RbWViA08YRBK3K_NJj0uv3mS_y4itKmvrwdHbiXbp54iQ63Uwi9Gr-gfI8vVbUTooFcQ" width="286" /></a></div>The tantalising bit about this, back in 2004, was that in the black-hole case no-one knew how fast the final black hole would move. Remember that this is an effect that emerges from deep in the mathematical murk of Einstein's theory. To calculate it people had to resort to simplifying approximations, and all of these broke down at the point of collision. The crucial final recoil was out of reach. All people could do was make estimates. Since the 1970s there had been ever more sophisticated attempts to get a reliable value for the recoil. After all, this effect could be big enough to kick black holes out of their home galaxies, so it could be a significant astrophysical phenomenon. Was it "only" 50km/s? Was it 500km/s? Was it even higher?<br /><p></p><p>For me the exciting clincher of the story was: obviously we <i>will</i> be able to work out the recoil, once and for all, when we are finally able to produce computer solutions of Einstein's equations for black holes merging. Which was exactly what I worked on! So I was extremely pleased to be given another good reason to get out of bed in the morning. </p><p>Fast forward two years, and suddenly those numerical solutions were possible. In principle the elusive recoil was just a number you could read off when the code was finished. And so the handful of groups around the world that had black-hole codes were in a rush to snatch this juicy piece of low-hanging fruit. </p><p>I was lucky enough to be in the group that got it first. In October 2006 we worked out what the largest recoil could be from two black holes colliding. I still remember the exact number: 172.5km/s. Job done. </p><p>But it wasn't over. We hadn't looked at whether the recoil could be larger if the black holes were spinning. And this was where the race really heated up. </p><p>In early 2007 -- January 26th, in fact -- a paper appeared that showed that spinning black holes could produce a recoil of almost 500km/s. Bloody hell! That blew our measly 172.5 out of the water!</p><p>But save your surprise, because only three days later yet another paper appeared: if the spins are tipped over, you <i>could</i> get an even larger recoil. Maybe as high as 1300km/s!</p><p>Now we step out of this rarefied talk of numbers and into the real world of ambitious human beings in desperate search of a prize. The latest paper looked like a panic reaction. They had not done the computer calculations to find the 1300km/s; they had done a pen-and-paper estimate of how much bigger the new spin effect could be, and were postulating the large recoil. Why didn't they just <i>do</i> the calculation? </p><p>The nerve-racking reality of some research is that as soon as you spot a result it's like walking past a gem in the gutter across the street. It's a miracle you noticed it, but now that you've seen it, you're sure that it must be blindingly obvious to everyone else, especially all those people walking RIGHT PAST IT. You'd better dash across the street RIGHT NOW and grab it! Even if you have to risk getting run over to do it!</p><p>In our group we guessed that these people had been working on their "1300" computer calculations, then the "500" paper came out, and they decided they'd better get their clever insight out quick. (For reasons that may become clear, I have never verified this guess.)</p><p>Risky move. Now we were asking ourselves, could <i>we</i> do it first? Some of us thought not: there were several subtleties to this effect, and it could take ages, and surely this other group was far ahead. But one of the other postdocs thought, to hell with it, let's just try. He started off the code, and a day or so later the result was in... not 1300, but 2500! This was well beyond anything anyone had ever dreamed of. We immediately started to write it up. </p><p>You might read this and think: that's a bit underhanded. Those other people had realised this cool effect, and they were clearly working on it. It's their thing. Let them do it. </p><p>As a young fellow still new to the niceties of scientific etiquette, I raised this very question with our supervisor, who I should say was at all times an extremely scrupulous and courteous person. He had an unexpected take. "They pointed out a possible effect, and we have found it. This is science at its best." His conclusion was especially memorable: "They will be <i>happy</i> that we have followed up their suggestion."</p><p>What a fascinating prediction! Fortunately, I was able to be a good scientist and experimentally test it. We were all about to leave for a conference and our competitors would also be in attendance. If all went according to plan, our paper would likely appear on the second day of the conference. I could see for myself how happy they would be!</p><p>I could string out the suspense with all of the antics of the next few days, but we should get straight to the experimental results. I won't go into my altercation with a German train ticket collector that almost lead to me missing my flight to the US. Or how all the conference participants viewed us as a bunch of losers for huddling in a corner during the conference's first day coffee breaks, tapping on our laptops. Or the discombobulated plenary speaker who was struggling to review the current state of the field, hours after our paper appeared. </p><p>I will just report immediately that our competitors were <i>not</i> happy. </p><p>On the other hand, let me reassure you that no scientists were permanently harmed by the events in this story. It was an exciting time, packed with big results. Some people called it a "gold rush", and that's pretty much what it was. Everyone in our two groups went on to successful scientific careers.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The flashback ends</h3><p>So: back to the new result. One of the cute subtleties of these large recoils is that they depend on the direction of the black hole's spin axis relative to the orbit. If the biggest recoil happens when, for example, one black hole's spin is pointing at the other black hole, then the recoil will be zero when the spin is at right angles to the other black hole. The spin's direction stays roughly fixed in space while the black holes zip around in their orbit. So the direction of spin relative to the other black hole changes very rapidly during the last furious orbits before merger. You cannot tell whether the final recoil will be huge or whether it will be zero, unless you nail down a measurement of the spin's direction. Sadly, the spin's direction has a very weak effect on the gravitational-wave signal, so it is extremely difficult to measure. </p><p>(For nonspinning black holes, our old 172.5km/s result appears when one black hole is roughly three times as massive as the other, and so a small-ish recoil was already inferred from an earlier gravitational-wave detection, GW190412. It's the huge spin-induced galaxy-escaping recoils that are hard to measure.)</p><p>But not for this new signal, GW200129! The signal is strong enough that you <i>can</i> measure the spin's direction just before the black holes collide, and so you <i>can</i> measure the recoil! This is what was reported in the most recent paper. We have now entered an era where gravitational-wave detections are strong enough to pull out these subtle but powerful effects. </p><p>Is this another gold rush? Not quite yet. It's still the occasional gem in the gutter. Beware of scientists dashing madly through traffic.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Previously: </b><a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2021/12/breaking-news-scientists-measure.html">the first precession measurement</a></p><p><b><a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/p/gravitational-waves.html">More on gravitational waves</a> </b></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-12846913535526442782021-12-22T11:29:00.002+00:002021-12-24T11:17:55.041+00:00Breaking news! Scientists measure an exciting phenomena you have never heard of!<div>I. When black holes wobble</div><div><br /></div><div>Precession! We have finally observed precession in gravitational waves!</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm told there are several people in the world who do not feel a wild thrill of joy at those words. There are people who have not been breathlessly waiting for this moment for over five years. There are even people -- it's difficult to believe, but I will trust my sources -- who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. </div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>I'm talking about black holes in orbit around each other. You can draw the orbit on a piece of paper. If this were good old Newtonian gravity, you would draw an ellipse. That would be a fine orbit for two objects, and it would be the orbit forever. </div><div><br /></div><div>In Einstein's gravity, the orbit will change. It will change in several ways.</div><div><br /></div><div>One effect is that the whole orbit slowly rotates around its central point. Put your pen into the centre of your picture, and slowly turn the paper. The orbit of Mercury changes in just this way: the ellipse turns by a hundredth of a degree every year. This tiny effect was measured in the 19th century, and explaining it was the first triumph of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Einstein said that when the correct rate of orbital change emerged from his calculations, "<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/11/einsteins-great-moment.html">For a few days, I was beside myself with joyous excitement.</a>"</div><div><br /></div><div>(To make things confusing, this is one type of precession, just not the kind we will eventually talk about. The word "precession" is a word most people never meet, and have not the slightest idea what it might refer to, and yet it turns up all over the place in physics, every time referring to a different non-intuitive effect that you were blissfully unaware of.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Another effect is that the orbit is not a closed ellipse. I'm sorry, but you have to draw your picture again. Now the ellipse does not quite close up after an orbit, and the next orbit is very slightly smaller than the first. This is the effect of gravitational waves: the waves carry away energy, and the orbit shrinks. This effect was seen in the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar, where two neutron stars are seen to orbit each other slightly faster (and therefore closer) each year. That was the first observational confirmation that gravitational waves are real. </div><div><br /></div><div>And of course gravitational waves themselves were observed in the dramatic inspiral and collision of two black holes by the LIGO detectors in 2015. Since that time gravitational-wave detectors have observed over 80 black-hole collisions, and several other collisions of two neutron stars, or collisions of a neutron star and a black hole. In none of these have we found elliptical orbits (so an especially extreme version of the Mercury-like orbit I described earlier), or orbits that display a strange third effect. </div><div><br /></div><div>The third effect shows up if the black holes are spinning, but spinning around an axis that's tipped over compared to the axis of the orbit. Imagine a car. The wheels are spinning around their axles. Now you drive through an oil slick and send the car into a spin. The car is spinning around an axis that's 90 degrees to the axes that the wheels are spinning around. When the black-hole spins are tipped over like this, the orbit will precess. </div><div><br /></div><div>To envisage precession you don't have to draw another orbit. Instead, take a pencil and stab it right through the centre of the orbit. Push it through enough that you can stand the pencil on its end, and your piece of paper is suspended in space. Now hold the pencil with the tip of your finger on its end, and tip it over a little -- not too much, or the end will slide away and your nice picture could get crumpled -- and then rotate your finger in a circle around where the top of the pencil used to be. Now the orbit is precessing. </div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhL6UiCFe48PUHgjqyuEb2WoFldPBFEydk3-aGfERItiig6aT4y1fjtJgd_ZK0QOqBoaqBMTzkyYPQLwoJqhtQoUciKv88AxEY0Idv7AvfuWiT-ObQJ8yiKFFVHSm9BzNYA3KJTv-19AreLqBCa0Iwqq6IloDXmZlaVKTlUTngkUdzGSuuG22oAdNuThQ=s1064" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1064" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhL6UiCFe48PUHgjqyuEb2WoFldPBFEydk3-aGfERItiig6aT4y1fjtJgd_ZK0QOqBoaqBMTzkyYPQLwoJqhtQoUciKv88AxEY0Idv7AvfuWiT-ObQJ8yiKFFVHSm9BzNYA3KJTv-19AreLqBCa0Iwqq6IloDXmZlaVKTlUTngkUdzGSuuG22oAdNuThQ=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A beautiful diagram of orbital precession, <br />which I will not explain. (From <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.05707.pdf">this paper</a>.)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>As the orbit precesses, so do the spins of the two black holes. </div><div><br /></div><div>These precession effects are present in general relativity, but not in Newtonian gravity. They are usually ridiculously weak. The precession of one of the spins was first observed in binary pulsars (again, two neutron stars in orbit, not black holes), where the precession you were tracing out with your pencil was so slow that it would take 300 years to make a full circle. </div><div><br /></div><div>The effect can be much stronger in two black holes that are orbiting so close that they are about to merge. That's where it gets exciting. We have been listening to the plop! of two black holes slapping into each other since the first gravitational-wave detection in 2015. And with every one of them, we have been hoping to spot the tell-tale signs of precession. </div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, the effect of precession on the gravitational-wave signal is so subtle that it is usually imperceptible. The signal is directed mostly out of the plane of the binary, both up and down, and the precession slowly changes that direction. A detector sits in just one direction, far away, and so the signal it observes rises and falls in strength as the binary precesses. But it's usually a tiny effect. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the last five years we have measured over 80 gravitational-wave signals from black holes merging, and not one of them has been identified as precessing. Time after time one analyst or another has looked at the data and said, "Look! That must be a sign of precession!" But it always goes away. </div><div><br /></div><div>Not this time. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>II. How long must we wait? </div><div><br /></div><div>I started working on precession over a decade ago. My collaborators and I make theoretical models of gravitational-wave signals, which are compared against gravitational-wave detector data to work out the properties of the black holes we find. How massive are they? How fast are they spinning? And are the spins tilted, causing precession? The models are made from computer solutions of Einstein's equations, and approximate pen-and-paper calculations of the signals' features and, well, any tool and trick we can get our hands on to make the models as accurate as possible. </div><div><br /></div><div>Gravitational waves had of course not been observed back in 2010, so no-one was thinking much about how hard precession would be to measure. Instead they were thinking about how hard it was to model. Several efforts around the world, including the one I was involved in, had made pretty good models (as we thought at the time) of signals from binaries that did not precess. They were relatively simple. The signal gets stronger and stronger as the black holes orbit closer, then dies off after they merge. But precession was a nightmare. All those wobbles complicate everything, and the signal can look completely different depending on how the binary is oriented in relation to the detector. </div><div><br /></div><div>Over the next few years a small group of us came up with a trick to vastly simplify this problem. I say simplify, but it wasn't until 2015 that we had a decent precession model ready -- indeed, our first model was ready to use only a month before the first detection, on September 14th. It was incredible to be part of the first detection, and wonderful that the analysis was using our model, but of course the precession part really wasn't necessary: there was no precession measurable in the signal. </div><div><br /></div><div>And so it went on, for detection after detection. The detectors have been made more sensitive and the models have been made more accurate, and still no precession. In the absence of an actual precession measurement, there have been studies of the statistical properties of all the black-hole binaries that form in the universe, to see how likely precession is. Frustratingly, every successive study, with more and more observations to work with, finds increasingly compelling evidence that black holes in binaries have spins pointing in completely random directions, meaning that they <i>must</i> be precessing. It's just too weak an effect to measure. We have done theoretical studies to come up with a "precession parameter", to tell us how much of the black holes' spins are causing precession, and a "precession signal-to-noise ratio" to tell us how much of the signal's power is due to precession (usually not much!), and papers asking, "When will we observe precession?" (the answer: it depends). </div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_1j02fQg857NlFPSTh3ChWLmZx6y_unnr25WpAGNUqwRK5-25icGcrVFNZF4BAJ3xaNoPksI0MuIPxOs2141kGKEg-td3zTtCuyRh9Eu1s25lYj9OCXyVZlqxSUN-uLcpCoCISqBsQYStCBLbzvYN8e1bMMbTMvBNPqUBiR56ls7HNw0CvZE5DRgIaQ=s1238" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1238" data-original-width="784" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_1j02fQg857NlFPSTh3ChWLmZx6y_unnr25WpAGNUqwRK5-25icGcrVFNZF4BAJ3xaNoPksI0MuIPxOs2141kGKEg-td3zTtCuyRh9Eu1s25lYj9OCXyVZlqxSUN-uLcpCoCISqBsQYStCBLbzvYN8e1bMMbTMvBNPqUBiR56ls7HNw0CvZE5DRgIaQ=w254-h400" width="254" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Measurement of the spin of the larger black<br />hole, and how much it is tilted with respect to <br />the orbit. The spin is both large, and tilted<br />by almost 90 degrees. <br />(All the details are in <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.11300">the paper</a>.)</td></tr></tbody></table>Now the wait is over. We have the signal GW200129. It came from two black holes, one roughly 20 times more massive than our sun, and the other roughly 40 times more massive. Most importantly, the large black hole is rapidly spinning at 90% of the maximum spin allowed by all sensible general relativists. And the spin is tilted almost 90 degrees to the orbit. This thing is seriously precessing! If we compare the precession rate to what was previously measured in binary pulsars, it is <i>ten billion times</i> faster: the binary pulsars take over 100 years to complete a precession cycle, while GW200129 does it more than once every second. You can read all the details in <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.11300">our paper</a>, which appeared on the preprint arxiv today, from myself and my tireless collaborators Charlie Hoy, Jonathan Thompson, Steve Fairhurst and Vivien Raymond, and building on the amazing work of others in the LIGO, Virgo and Kagra collaborations. </div><div><br /></div><div>The imprint of precession on the signal is still weak. If you compare the precessing-binary signal that we found best matches the data, and the non-precessing-binary signal that best matches the data, you cannot tell by eye which one is more likely correct. It is only with a very detailed analysis of the data that you can tell that the precessing signal is clearly preferred. But, given the subtlety of the effect, and the fact that it has not been observed before, it's reasonable to ask just how reliable this measurement is.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>III. Our systematic nemesis</div><div><br /></div><div>That takes us into the story of how this was found, and what is likely to become a common problem in gravitational-wave astronomy, where we are continually haunted by the spectre of systematics. "Systematics" might sound like some steampunk affectation. If only. For scientists at the bleeding edge of discovery it stirs a grim terror deep in their stomachs. Systematics refers to the always growing collection of theoretical uncertainties, analysis issues, data problems, and ambiguities of interpretation that mean that a definitive answer is only possible after the most gruelling detail-by-detail detective work, or, more likely, not possible at all. GW200129 was not quite <i>that</i> bad, but it carries the rumble of storms on the horizon. </div><div><br /></div><div>GW200129 was one of the signals in the new catalog of gravitational-wave detections published by the LIGO, Virgo and Kagra collaborations in early November. There was not a lot of fanfare about the signal; any definitely "exceptional events" in the catalog were published earlier in their own separate papers. The nature of GW200129 was less clear. Its properties were analysed using two different theoretical models. One suggested that it was a rather vanilla binary, much like the very first detection (the two black holes have nearly equal masses, and there is not much sign of spin). The other analysis was more tantalising: it suggested that one black hole might be roughly twice as massive as the other, and the more massive black hole might be rapidly spinning and causing significant precession. It was unclear which was correct. </div><div><br /></div><div>On the one hand, the "vanilla" result came from a model that took longer to calculate, and this meant a less fine-grained investigation of the many parameters of the binary -- not just the masses and spins, but also the orientation of the binary to the detector, and its position in the sky, and a host of other variables. Perhaps that meant this analysis just hadn't uncovered the more exciting result yet? </div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, the exciting result had a number of suspicious features. It preferred a precessing binary, but it also gave some evidence for the vanilla result. Support for two different answers can be a sign that something has gone wrong -- perhaps this analysis also hasn't reached its final conclusion yet, or there is an error somewhere, or some strange noise artifact in the data that obscures the true answer. Also, the analysis preferred <i>really</i> high spins, such high spins that you might worry that it is struggling towards values higher than possible. As much as we would like to interpret that as, "We've discovered a new physical phenomenon!" the usual answer is, again, that something has gone wrong. And finally, all observations so far tell us that black holes seem to mostly have low spins. A very high spin is unlike anything we've seen before, so we should look very carefully before concluding otherwise. </div><div><br /></div><div>And so we are stuck between two possible answers. The initial LIGO-Virgo-Kagra (LVK) analysis does exactly the right thing: points out the two possible answers, and notes that after all of their attempts to hunt down every possible error the most likely explanation is model systematics. Yes, that terrifying word! The two theoretical models give different answers, and until we can decide which is correct (if either), we are stuck. </div><div><br /></div><div>When a few of us first looked at these results, we assumed the problem was really just some hiccup in the analysis. Results bounce all over the place in weak signals. No big deal. But if you look back through the paper to see how strong the signal is -- it turns out to be the loudest gravitational-wave detection ever from a binary black hole! (The only louder detection was the first neutron-star binary, GW170817.) Shouldn't the loudest signal also be the easiest to measure? Ok, sure, precession is subtle, but isn't there <i>something</i> we can do with such a fantastic signal? </div><div><br /></div><div>One option would be to analyse it with another model. There is one other model available, and it is in general more accurate than the others. It was not used to analyse the detections in the LVK catalog because it only works on some signals. The model includes only the last few orbits before merger, and so cannot be used to analyse signals where many orbits are present in the data. </div><div><br /></div><div>GW200129 is borderline. If you start your analysis at the same signal frequency as the standard LVK analysis, the model will miss out a tiny bit of the signal. Does that matter? Probably not. Can you be sure if you want to claim a major result? Hmmm, maybe not a great idea. But you can also start your analysis at a slightly higher frequency. Now you will be analysing a bit less data, but maybe it is enough to determine what is going on. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's worth mentioning that deciding to do this was far from obvious. I was busy with other things. Everyone I work with was busy with other things. Some had been knee-deep in other analyses for the LVK catalog and were in no hurry to start something new. And anyway, it was likely nothing. What were the chances this really was a precessing binary? None of the other 80 signals had been! And could those two models that were used really be so different? They were a hell of a lot more accurate than the model we used back in the days of the first detection, when we saw a signal that looked almost identical to this new signal (at least in its vanilla incarnation)! If this was nothing special, and the disagreements between the two analyses were just an error, then it was an error so deeply buried that no-one else had found it. This could be a wild goose chase. </div><div><br /></div><div>And that is before get to the two-years-into-a-pandemic malaise, which makes it difficult just to get out of bed in the morning.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand... The LVK results had been published, and the detector data were public. There are a number of excellent gravitational-wave data-analysis groups outside the main collaborations, who could all have spotted this signal in the catalog, and also be rushing to perform an analysis. And maybe someone in the main collaborations had been pondering these data for months (the name of the event tells you the date it showed up in the detectors: January 29th, 2020, almost two years ago!), and would now hit on the same idea and were rushing to do their own private analysis. Or another group who, like us, had their interest piqued by the final published results? </div><div><br /></div><div>Wild things happen when a cool result is in the offing. How would we feel if we decided that this just wasn't worth the extra bother, and later read someone else's jubilant paper? </div><div><br /></div><div>If there was really something here, the race was on. </div><div><br /></div><div>We took a look at the papers that discussed all the models available -- the two models used in the LVK analysis, and the potential third model. We used results from some of our previous work to determine how accurate a model would need to be to accurately measure a signal this strong. It looked like the two models that had already been used <i>might</i> not be accurate enough, but the third model certainly would be.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ok. We would take a look with this third model. At least we knew it was accurate enough to avoid the dreaded systematics issue, so if the exciting result didn't show up, we could be done and move on with our lives. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyone who has ever been involved with a scientific project knows precisely where this reasoning leads. You never, ever, ever, find something that makes you say, "Ok, never mind. We're done." It is always the same trap and you walk into it every time. </div><div><br /></div><div>And so it was. The third model told us that it was a precessing binary. But with caveats. Like the "exciting" result from the LVK analysis, there was also some support for the "vanilla" result. And there was the suspicious preference for ridiculously high spins. So: more checks. </div><div><br /></div><div>The signal was found in all three operating detectors, LIGO Livingston, LIGO Hanford, and Virgo. It was very strong in both Livingston and Hanford, so we looked to see if we got similar results when looking at the data from just one detector (plus Virgo) at a time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Uh oh. Livingston gave us the "exciting" precessing signal, and Hanford gave us the "vanilla" signal. Now what? Maybe the precession was just a noise blip in Livingston? Or maybe a noise blip had obscured the true precession in Hanford? What a mess.</div><div><br /></div><div>One way to check if the result made sense was to repeat the analysis, but on a pretend signal that matched the one we thought we had found. Perhaps precession would again be found in one detector, and not the other? That seemed a long shot, but the opposing result -- a clear precession measurement in both detectors -- would put an end to our game. The toy analysis would prove that the real analysis had mislead us.</div><div><br /></div><div>These analyses take several days, and even longer with inevitable problems with computer clusters and overlooked subtleties in the setup, and in the mean time we mostly convinced ourselves that the precession <i>must</i> be noise. We came up with all kinds of theories for how certain kinds of noise could mimic the precession. </div><div><br /></div><div>None of these ideas quite worked, but in the end it didn't matter. Our toy analysis recovered almost the same results as the real one. The spin measurement does hug up against high values. There is some support for a near-equal-mass non-precessing system, even though the precessing-binary result is overwhelmingly preferred. And the precession is indeed measurable in Livingston, but not in Hanford. After a lot of hand-wringing over how this could possibly happen, we realised that it's the same problem we always have. Precession is hard to measure, and the signal in Hanford, while strong, is only about two thirds as strong as that in Livingston, and so while the precession is measurable in one, it is not in the other. </div><div><br /></div><div>We also did many checks on the accuracy of the theoretical models. We found plenty of reason to suspect that the two models used in the original analysis were not accurate enough for high-spin high-precession binaries. This was hardly a conclusive result: there may be ways to edge around these small problems, and get out a clear answer. But not without a lot more work. Instead, the third model appeared to be well within the accuracy we needed; we could just use its results, and be done. </div><div><br /></div><div>We had our result!</div><div><br /></div><div>But this is where the ominous rumblings of future problems come in. All of the models are extremely accurate when the black holes have low spins, which is what most observations suggest is most common. Indeed, if the first detection had been like GW200129 we would not have known for several years. All of our analysis would have definitively concluded that there was no sign of precession in the signal. We would not know the truth until three or four years later, when a more accurate model would have given us a shocking surprise. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is the kind of nightmare scenario that waveform model developers like me love to use as a justification for working on ever more accurate theoretical models -- but I doubt anyone really expected to see such a dramatic example. And having been hit by one surprising consequence of systematic errors, it's easy to believe that more surprises are in store. It is obvious that you need to be very careful with exciting new measurements, but not so obvious that you sometimes need to be just as careful with yet another apparently unremarkable measurement. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>IV. Onwards!</div><div><br /></div><div>GW200129 is an incredible signal. It is both our first clear measurement of precession in black-hole binaries, and our loudest binary-black-hole signal to date. It is sure to provide us with more wonders. And it raises the question of how such a binary would have formed. So far most black holes in binaries seem to have low spins, and there are several possible astrophysical mechanisms that would explain that. This one is entirely different, and seemingly rare. Or maybe such binaries are more common than we thought, and only now are our detectors sensitive enough to spot them? </div><div><br /></div><div>The detectors turn on again in a year, more sensitive than ever, and will produce the data that may hold the answers... if our models are good enough. </div><div><br /></div><div>So: time for a nice Christmas break, and then back to work! </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/p/gravitational-waves.html">More posts on Gravitational Waves</a></b></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-43647564176232778372021-03-07T08:43:00.002+00:002021-03-16T16:47:18.548+00:00The Which Hunter<div><div>Here follows the story of my adventures with an obscure rule of English usage. Brace yourself.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story begins in my first year of graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of the emeritus faculty was Eugen Merzbacher. Many years previously he wrote what became a standard quantum mechanics textbook. It was so ubiquitous that when one of my fellow PhD students visited the university before accepting their offer of a place in the graduate program, he was utterly starstruck to discover that he would be hosted at Merzbacher's house. He breathlessly recalled his time in the home of the maestro. "I couldn't believe it! In the morning Merzbacher <i>cooked me eggs</i>!" </div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div>Merzbacher no longer taught, but I later met an older student who had taken one of his last quantum mechanics classes. "He was really getting old. At the beginning of the lecture he'd get confused over the simplest stuff. He'd fumble over the uncertainty principle. But as the lecture went on, he warmed up, and by the end he was on fire. It was incredible to watch. He was at the board, writing down Clebsch-Gordon coefficients from memory."</div><div><br /></div><div>So I was excited when Merzbacher sent a department-wide email asking if any student was willing to help him proof-read a new edition of his textbook. He was even offering a nominal payment. I responded instantly. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBYu6RnmU7BxUpbWybzLK2kYexfDjtxTq_5UprtjipCEqN57mqu4Uyzkry1Sryl-07xGnmc734LS8iExrrbAuRxPNzWXONr82jjsDwZF9iZsMfndpx6dmX9Mc8UWc1XNdaTXYH4UEWmDzX/s499/merzbacher.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="350" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBYu6RnmU7BxUpbWybzLK2kYexfDjtxTq_5UprtjipCEqN57mqu4Uyzkry1Sryl-07xGnmc734LS8iExrrbAuRxPNzWXONr82jjsDwZF9iZsMfndpx6dmX9Mc8UWc1XNdaTXYH4UEWmDzX/w140-h200/merzbacher.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>I remember only three things about the experience. </div><div><br /></div><div>The first was our initial meeting. I was determined to impress him with my devotion to our chosen profession. He would see that I, too, lived and breathed and dreamed science. He asked me how good my English was. I immediately blurted out, "Probably better than my physics." Shit! You couldn't hide a thing from this crafty old guy! </div><div><br /></div><div>The third thing I remember is that I did a terrible job. There wasn't much time and I soon realised that a proof reader has as much affinity to a true reader as a lie detector does to a philosopher. I barely had time to identify that the spellchecker had missed a few wrung wards, and check the typesetting of equations by comparing with the previous edition. By the time I got to the last chapter, I would have passed right by "All work and no play makes Eugen a dull boy". When <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E28RCW0/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00E28RCW0&linkId=c61b816f5a6deca08d66bbeb1f2a3700">the book was published</a>, my pride at seeing my name amongst the acknowledgements was transformed to shame when I spotted an early chapter that opened with a large, prominently displayed fundamental equation without an "=" sign. </div><div><br /></div><div>But let's go back to the second thing I remember, at our original meeting. After I had mixed up which discipline I should brag about, he confessed that he was still, even after multiple editions of his famous textbook, learning basic things about grammar. </div><div><br /></div><div>"For example," he said, "Do you know the difference between `that' and `which'?"</div><div><br /></div><div>I had learned to keep quiet.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I just heard about this," he said. "If you take away the part of the sentence after `that' or `which', and you still have a sentence that makes sense, then you use `which', with a comma. If it doesn't make sense without it, you use `that', without a comma." </div><div><br /></div><div>It was a perfectly clear lesson, and I have never forgotten it. </div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know why. My subconscious has failed to absorb many standard grammar rules -- no doubt all my friends make less mistakes than me -- but this one is baked in. </div><div><br /></div><div>Fortunately one rule is all you need to be a grammar snob, and I enjoyed many years of stern scolding and disappointed tut-tutting. It helped that I was surrounded by easy targets. Scientists are by and large an unruly mob of illiterates. At high school they didn't fall in love with science, they just fell in love with the classes with no essays. Their idea of an eloquent thinker was Yoda. These bumbling peasants had no idea that they were starting a career where success is entirely dependent on formal writing... or that my smug opprobrium would be waiting for them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of them try to fight. They argue that the rules of grammar, let alone the niceties of recommended usage, are irrelevant. It is the truth that matters. Data, calculations, the rules of logic. Am I with the discoverers, the inventors, and the geniuses who have spent the last centuries pushing back ignorance and superstition, or am I with the politicians and lawyers and other liars?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghofBDJnDwEZcf0TBQWbmKbArxx3CC9AwhQdv9Er4TD6TMjpXKFFF2T-Jfapozro-JuOgtcYA8ha968X9bYO94bv6YINfvOPGVJGWhXpBeeYw6hiqm0cUxZGNuSu-UZyKcJ-USli6l5rs/s499/strunk.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="315" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghofBDJnDwEZcf0TBQWbmKbArxx3CC9AwhQdv9Er4TD6TMjpXKFFF2T-Jfapozro-JuOgtcYA8ha968X9bYO94bv6YINfvOPGVJGWhXpBeeYw6hiqm0cUxZGNuSu-UZyKcJ-USli6l5rs/w126-h200/strunk.jpg" width="126" /></a></div>Most of these repugnant yokels are sunk when no-one will publish their papers, but some make it through, without once opening a copy of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/020530902X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=020530902X&linkId=15a28137da67b4b484a765ce1956480f">Strunk and White</a>. After all, Merzbacher made it to the end of his career without reading their sage advice on that and which: "It would be a convenience to all if these two pronouns were used with precision. The careful writer, watchful for small conveniences, goes <i>which</i>-hunting, removes the defining <i>whiches</i>, and so doing improves his work." You tell 'em, boys! If only E.B. White had not wasted all that time writing about <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141354836/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0141354836&linkId=4febc573d69af0539cc2ee9894c6c3a2">mice</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141354828/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0141354828&linkId=aaf41d92f30a803e795b6cd4b1a2c2a8">spiders</a>, and instead taken a useful job as editor of the Physical Review!</div><div><br /></div><div>Alas, it was not to be, and the field is littered with the unlettered. But they are easily punished. Feel free to steal all their ideas -- there is no way they can prove precedence, because no-one can understand a word they wrote. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJPfMEeH7VNuVmq3-vtginL1APCpFjAEO0QF_ft91Z2pIcLBJ8KYCyA4BQFZ65or50rHreolY28JAM7skgnK4RZMcyhHwzwIyLHl-nCCb6GUi8q8ZqVjKF0FbKQULA0-jiFtYY2c0uATi/s311/fowler.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJPfMEeH7VNuVmq3-vtginL1APCpFjAEO0QF_ft91Z2pIcLBJ8KYCyA4BQFZ65or50rHreolY28JAM7skgnK4RZMcyhHwzwIyLHl-nCCb6GUi8q8ZqVjKF0FbKQULA0-jiFtYY2c0uATi/w141-h200/fowler.jpg" width="141" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I lived my blissful life as a which-hunter for over a decade, and then I moved to the UK, and was sunk. Is that because the population are all fiendish wordsmiths? Ha ha! Don't be absurd. The English act as if they are even more ashamed of their language than of their cuisine. "We put this language together, and, by God, we're going to take it apart." No, the problem is that in UK English you are free to choose between "that" and "which" for your restrictive clauses. Noble souls have fought this -- <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/019958589X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=019958589X&linkId=ec3137d4446a76df56d97d56b58dc044">early editions of Fowler</a> lamented that "better use might have been made of the material to hand" -- but the struggle is almost lost. (I say "almost" only because I see that the feisty first edition of Fowler is back in print.)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLS5bGkXmVrshHTolj6Sa4M2Q7nvk2HVcDWKBvLYkpvKr4AHZeI9G19EOy4KuF5d8bTH9dL6UjnbQug_0g8m3iD4k-Vm9-XioCqVjk-FThENALZdGe64q4PjLN4EXxNCIQocMufgbvyWDs/s325/lobster.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="211" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLS5bGkXmVrshHTolj6Sa4M2Q7nvk2HVcDWKBvLYkpvKr4AHZeI9G19EOy4KuF5d8bTH9dL6UjnbQug_0g8m3iD4k-Vm9-XioCqVjk-FThENALZdGe64q4PjLN4EXxNCIQocMufgbvyWDs/w130-h200/lobster.jpg" width="130" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps it is better that way. Like many a word prude before me, I have taken solace from David Foster Wallace's long 1998 disquisition on modern usage. And not just the Harpers cut, but the unabridged version in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/034911952X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=034911952X&linkId=9b555df6d311fee736227633450546b5">Consider the Lobster</a> -- twice the length, and twice the footnotes! His pyrotechnical prose can be irritating, but in this case, in such an enthusiastic celebration of language, it is fitting. If he had realised that ridiculously outsized footnotes are an amusing lark only once, this article would have been that one perfect place for them. </div><div><br /></div><div>The excuse for his meditation was the publication of a new usage guide, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0195078535/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0195078535&linkId=10f1307ba307ec1b4e2b0abd465717ed">A Dictionary of Modern American Usage</a>, by Bryan Garner. It warmed my heart to later read about Garner's surprise when the article made him famous -- try the intro to <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/099111812X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=099111812X&linkId=a968395eb48245b5953fc78ea6e9cfe5">his book of an interview with Wallace</a>, published eight years after Wallace's death, or <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/bryan-garner-5-18-15/id814550071?i=1000357042993">this podcast with Garner</a> -- and I slowly absorbed the lesson that both Wallace and Garner impart: the grammar grouch lives a frustrating life. Ignorance would be bliss. </div><div><br /></div><div>So now I am old and wise and forgiving. Whenever I see a "which" that Strunk and White and Fowler and Garner and any good American editor would disapprove of, I have learned to smile and remember my little encounter with a wise old man from a previous age. And try <i>not</i> to remember that I almost ruined his book. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>--------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Of course, you're very welcome to <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MarkDHannam">buy me a coffee</a>!</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-81364540522832047502021-02-08T10:40:00.003+00:002021-03-04T17:14:07.122+00:00Coronavirus Update: A UK-dwelling Kiwi faces his mistakes<p style="text-align: left;">It is just over a year since the severity of Covid became undeniable: China began its strict lockdown on January 23. Remember that? An unprecedented measure that we were told would be unthinkable anywhere else. In some ways it was: the worst of the transmission was stamped out in six weeks, by early March, just as other governments were scrambling to prepare their "we were taken by surprise" excuse.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I was faraway in Rome, but on January 31 two Chinese tourists tested positive at a hotel. We already knew that it took seven to ten days for symptoms to show, so we anxiously watched for signs of further infections a week later. After two weeks there was still nothing, besides reassuring photos of Spallanzani hospital in a state of over-the-top precaution. Crisis averted. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">On February 7 my family left Rome for the Venice Carnivale. While we jostled with the crowds at the Cannaregio canal on the first night, a TV reporter told us that in fact attendance was lower than normal. "Lots of Chinese cancelled their trips," she told us, as if it had nothing to do with the Italian government cancelling their flights. The camera was turned on me and I was asked if I had been worried about the virus. Somewhere out in the vast wastes of the internet there is a local Italian TV website with footage of me exuberantly crying, "Ha ha! There is no coronavirus in Venice!" If anyone ever finds it, I'll claim it was a Trump impersonation. </p><div style="text-align: left;"><p>That was the least of my mistakes. Within a month Italy had transformed into the scariest place in Europe, and obviously my big mistake had been to leave the UK. But two months after that, reality had convulsed again, and while British nurses were still using bin bags as PPE, I was allowed to explore the Sistine Chapel alone. <i>And</i> I could find a parking space outside. </p><p>It was several more months before I understood my <i>real</i> mistake had been decades earlier: I should not have left New Zealand. </p><p>Who would have thought? Sure, I was always told that New Zealand was a beacon of hope and leadership admired throughout the world, but when I visited the world, it turned out that no-one had heard of New Zealand until it featured in a fantasy film. </p><p>Now it feels like a fantasy to me, too. Each morning I can visit the <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19">Radio New Zealand</a> website and read that, once again, there were no cases of community transmission. Which is less comprehensible: that New Zealand pulled this off, or that no-one else repeated it? </p><p>There are plenty of experts available to explain this to me. New Zealand had many weeks of advance warning. By the time they went into lockdown, so had everyone else. It's a bunch of islands. They have a small population. </p><p>These all sound like good points, but... just a minute. What's this? Australia has done it, too? Seriously? They suffered over 900 deaths before October, and only five since. If there's one thing that growing up in New Zealand taught me: if Australians can do it, <i>anyone</i> can do it. </p><p>Before someone sarcastically asks how many land borders Australia has, I will admit that here in the UK, whence I masochistically returned during the tantalising infection lull of July, we would never be able to close the borders. After all, think of those thousands of trucks that arrive every day through the channel tunnel. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4QQ2MZwYes25ILpNe5hDZm_0QiKxihg1sxdPvqaZL4vsA96Zs-LPfJJmzHtNbYN5ZLDUoAmmZ4Q0Fym5qqRx18QJYFK5f4bECytzaMpQ8oOnF22KsrvaS_E6-MaIZkquC1uvChlC2cwC/s1200/boris.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4QQ2MZwYes25ILpNe5hDZm_0QiKxihg1sxdPvqaZL4vsA96Zs-LPfJJmzHtNbYN5ZLDUoAmmZ4Q0Fym5qqRx18QJYFK5f4bECytzaMpQ8oOnF22KsrvaS_E6-MaIZkquC1uvChlC2cwC/s320/boris.jpg" /></a></div>But when the world-beating UK variant turned Britain into Plague Island, it was suddenly discovered that, if it was <i>really</i> necessary, then the trucks could be parked on an abandoned airstrip until we worked out what to do, and the forsaken drivers could dig themselves latrines in a nearby field. Gosh -- couldn't someone have thought of that back in March? And, after six? eight? ten? months of scoffing, we've discovered that quarantine hotels for airline arrivals are, in fact, possible.<br /><br />Was this really a surprise? After all, has there been a single piece of bold and successful UK government policy <i>this century</i>? <p></p><p>It was a brilliantly comic exercise in political satire. Every one of their excuses was ridiculed by reality. Sometimes you had to wait months for the punchline, and sometimes the rake swung into their face the moment they spoke... and sometimes they walked into the same gag over and over again, like Homer Simpson. But what genre of comedy was this? It was not quite slapstick, where the joke is in how deliciously the morons are punished for their stupidity. In this edgy macabre variant, Boris Johnson steps on a banana and a thousand people slip into an ICU. Then with perfect comic timing he turns to the camera and quips, "We did all we could." That must be what they call "deadpan".</p><p>For months the British could wallow in the comforting familiarity of their national self-image as long-suffering bunglers -- until all of the competent and organised neighbours screwed up as well. Even without paying people to pack into restaurants and cough on each other!<br /><br />What was wrong with them all? It's supposed to be simple. The infection rate is either rising, or falling. That is the one golden rule, and it is impervious to excuses. Even third-rate hack leaders are capable of understanding it -- look at Scott Morrison's Australia. You are either working to eliminate the virus, or you are forever extending the y-axis of your log-graph of deaths, while you wait for a vaccine. </p><p>And now there is a vaccine! Hooray! What a happy surprise! Although, of course, not a surprise for people in my profession. It's only in the movies that some burly action hero saves the day. In the real world it is us scientists. Allow me to bask in the smug glory that my people richly deserve. (Yes, <i>my</i> people. Black-hole physicist, virologist, same thing. As I will explain further in an upcoming grant application.) And while I'm at it, I will congratulate myself for living in the right place after all. The UK vaccine roll-out is among the fastest in the world, and on the exact day that I write this, Wales is the fastest in the UK. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXWwfLrEtRWXRtiPmGR9VOKqRwbNJ5Th3mhMRGUxHUhgM09798emRjQUR4_GA15xD4AEZLCgj_DSX_HlML08OpJD2ruZ2J9qDShicgDZFBldBJhWni7vWKqNtBeEEcAxWW0KgFcMdTlKc/s1420/festival.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXWwfLrEtRWXRtiPmGR9VOKqRwbNJ5Th3mhMRGUxHUhgM09798emRjQUR4_GA15xD4AEZLCgj_DSX_HlML08OpJD2ruZ2J9qDShicgDZFBldBJhWni7vWKqNtBeEEcAxWW0KgFcMdTlKc/s320/festival.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New Zealanders enduring January with fortitude.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Ha ha! Those suckers in New Zealand! Now the laugh is on them. </p><p>When you have good fortune like this, you have to make the most of it. </p><p>I called up my brother in Auckland to gloat. </p><p>He refused to listen. "I can't talk now. I'm on my way out to a dinner party. Can I call you later?"</p><p>I waited a few hours, but I couldn't contain my excitement, so I phoned an old school friend in Wellington. </p><p>"Sorry, mate, I can't hear you over the noise of this concert."</p><p>I was beginning to think that they were in denial. I made one last attempt. I emailed a fellow scientist to arrange a zoom call. </p><p>"Zoom? I deleted that back in July."</p><p>What a bunch of sore losers! Some people just cannot face the truth. </p></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>My Roman Viral Sojourn</b><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">March 10, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">March 18, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a><br />March 27, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">Lockdown for Dummies</a><br />April 7, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-water-carrier.html">The Water Carrier<br /></a>April 17, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/numbers.html">Numbers<br /></a>April 30, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/liberation-day.html">Liberation Day<br /></a>May 25, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/05/while-future-hides-behind-mask.html">While the future hides behind a mask</a><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you liked this, you're very welcome to <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MarkDHannam">buy me a coffee</a>!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-32188848582726636152020-10-30T18:26:00.004+00:002021-03-04T20:08:59.547+00:00The Gimlet<p>Let's face it, the plague is here for the winter. Your government has failed you, so you must rely on yourself. Or, more realistically: on alcohol. </p><p>Fear not, friends! I bring you salvation and succour, in the form of a lime green waterslide of a drink, that will have you swishing and sloshing and whooping all the way through to Spring -- and beyond. Allow me to present The Gimlet. </p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Am I advocating that you blot out reality by getting blotto? Do not be so crass. This is more than just a cocktail. It is a fresh new outlook. It is a civilised state of mind. It is, if you follow me to the very end, a discipline, a physical and mental regimen, that will guide you along a fragrant path to tranquility and sanity. </p><p>The basic gimlet, which is the first step on our journey, and the vital intervention to bring you back from the brink, satisfies the two most important criteria of any good cocktail: (1) easy to make, and (2) an impeccable literary pedigree. The second is crucial now more than ever. Amidst the crashing waves of the pandemic, and fears of political instability and the fall of modern civilisation, and heart-rending news of human brutality and injustice -- we need the highest moments of our species to rescue us from the lowest. And liquor to calm the nerves.</p><p>I first learnt of the gimlet from my father-in-law, always an indispensable booze mentor. He sold it on Important Criteria Number One, its simplicity: two parts gin, one part Rose's Lime Juice, shake with ice, pour it out, done. He also maintains that every worthy cocktail is made worthier with the addition of a maraschino cherry, so long as it comes from <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AQB146W/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00AQB146W&linkId=f7a1d8eff7c5ea6fbfb4449120c5e55d" target="_blank">Luxardo</a>. It is hard to argue. </p><p>Are we finished? Oho! Not by a long shot!</p><p>This is indeed a very fine drink, and I suggest you make one immediately. For the gin I prefer Bombay Sapphire, but if you must slum it with Gordons or Tanqueray, all power to you, and if you are into those whacky bespoke hipster gins, that's none of my business; we all make mistakes. The cherries are optional, but not the brand. Do not soil your beverage with those flourescent red baubles from factory-made fruit salad. Insist on Luxardo. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AQB146W/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00AQB146W&linkId=f7a1d8eff7c5ea6fbfb4449120c5e55d" target="_blank">Amazon have them</a>, and everyone has Amazon, so there are no excuses. (If you want to buy them in a physical store, and happen to be in Rome, I know a good spot. In Campo di Fiori, past all the overpriced silly pasta shapes for the tourists that are no longer there, and past poor old looney Flaming Bruno, there is the nondescript bakery at the far end, and they usually have Luxardo cherries at a price that is worth the Covid risk of the journey.)</p><p>And then there's the Rose's. Now we come to a minor snag.</p><p>The Rose's sold in the US is not the same as that in the UK, or, I imagine, its ex colonies. The UK recipe is (presumably) close to the original concoction from 1867, invented to preserve scurvy-fighting lime juice for sailors, without the need, ironically, to mix it with alcohol. The whole lime juice thing also precipitated the nickname "limeys" for the British, and although I have never heard that term used in the wild, it does sometimes pop up as an insult spoken by Americans in films written by, yet more irony, the British. (For example, A Fish Called Wanda, which I also recommend as an emotional salve.) Anyway, if it ever was used to insult the British, the joke is on America, because US Rose's is nothing but a brutal bath of high fructose corn syrup. </p><p>It gets even nastier if you hark back to everyone's favourite definition of the gimlet, from Raymond Chandler's "<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241954363/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0241954363&linkId=a73c243c27c77547112408726e7b8699" target="_blank">A Long Goodbye</a>". On p. 20 of my copy, we find: "A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow." Jesus Christ! Put in an equal measure of Rose's -- and American Rose's at that! -- and by God you'll have some serious insight into the psychological turmoil of Terry Lennox, the sozzled limey who introduces it to grizzled PI Philip Marlowe. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihwFlZtqlnTFTO45Ymwf-QrIpnF5mWL-1C-XkaesJ2QgEGVvY-4kP-T9Opl8mzdkyrJ-AOCO6q03iKWv6biLQefVsqLpfhbFxBpY9WcAGtGd2uG_WDDs6gQz1WZoH_yNb5K7LzSivIjHeJ/s278/longgoodbye.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihwFlZtqlnTFTO45Ymwf-QrIpnF5mWL-1C-XkaesJ2QgEGVvY-4kP-T9Opl8mzdkyrJ-AOCO6q03iKWv6biLQefVsqLpfhbFxBpY9WcAGtGd2uG_WDDs6gQz1WZoH_yNb5K7LzSivIjHeJ/s0/longgoodbye.jpg" /></a></div>The best that can be said for all this -- don't worry, be patient, we're getting to gimlet nirvana, and I promise you it will be worth it -- is that it got me reading Raymond Chandler. <p></p><p>It was not the only nudge in Chandler's direction. He is also cited as an influence on the Coen Brothers' cinematic masterpiece, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Lebowski" target="_blank">The Big Lebowski</a>. Joel Coen said, "We wanted to do a Chandler kind of story.... having a hopelessly complex plot that's ultimately unimportant." Even its detractors agree that they succeeded, or so I am reliably informed; I never deign to speak to such philistines. The film also had a signature drink, and became as associated with the White Russian as The Long Goodbye is with the Gimlet. </p><p>The film has an exquisite script, and that is the ultimate salute to Chandler. None of us go to Chandler for his plots, and very few for his drink recipes. Even the signature hard-boiled detective pose had become cliched long before Chandler ripped the last sheet from his typewriter. No, we go to Chandler for the prose style. And boy, is it a knock-out! Even after all these years, it still leaps fresh and sharp from his pages. Or should I say sour and sharp, like when you put too much fresh lime juice in your gimlet? Which is, of course, the perfect amount. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. </p><p>These days Chandler gets a bad rap as a misogynist, and you'll find plenty of that in The Long Goodbye without even looking. If you refuse to drink in homage to a crumbling pillar of the patriarchy, gimlet advocates of modern vintage and flawless fuck-you attitude are easy to find. </p><p>For example. In September 2019 Phoebe Waller-Bridge was awarded a bundle of Emmy awards for her TV series Fleabag. Every one of them was thoroughly deserved; Fleabag is by far the most incredible comedy I have watched in many years, if not decades. In customary bad-ass style, Waller-Bridge was photographed languishing with her trophies at a party, smoking a cigarette and drinking -- could it really be? -- a gimlet! Yes, indeed it was. Confirmation came some months later, in an interview with my favourite intellectual news journal, <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/phoebe-waller-bridge-cover-december-2019" target="_blank">Vogue</a>. She revealed that she had discovered the gimlet shortly after I did, probably also from my father-in-law. She expressed her devotion almost as well as I would: “I have really always wanted a cocktail that you order with total confidence; you know, that thing that you order and everyone’s like, Holy shit, she knows what she’s doing with her entire life.” </p><p>Preach it, sister!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy7iIBfWPTDgU5eQPOMMqFbXWm6LEtH7mpUERJ3hF5SUJdz_KWq_Hh5VfL-Qbt5PhWOQa9JLvFqh4fRwU0K9Hcu3LS_wbf2_201-VFRhJMPGGBaFIR958YCu6FaeMFZTz_v38t9Knj1GIn/s910/phoebe-waller-bridge-smoking-at-emmys-after-party-photo.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="728" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy7iIBfWPTDgU5eQPOMMqFbXWm6LEtH7mpUERJ3hF5SUJdz_KWq_Hh5VfL-Qbt5PhWOQa9JLvFqh4fRwU0K9Hcu3LS_wbf2_201-VFRhJMPGGBaFIR958YCu6FaeMFZTz_v38t9Knj1GIn/s320/phoebe-waller-bridge-smoking-at-emmys-after-party-photo.jpg" /></a></div>There was also a surprise: hers is a vodka gimlet. <p></p><p>A <i>vodka</i> gimlet? That had not occurred to us, dude. Is the gin-to-vodka swap a showbiz thing? After all, Elton John had previously recommended to me the vodka-and-tonic, in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. </p><p>I gave it a try. It was good. In fact, I couldn't really tell the difference. Just to make sure, I tried half-gin and half-vodka. Also fine. It reminded me of Troy Patterson's <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/the-gimlet-a-history-of-gin-and-roses-from-the-british-navy-to-raymond-chandler.html" target="_blank">characteristically fizzy disquisition on the gimlet</a> from 2013 (he became much less fun after joining the New Yorker in 2017), where he claimed that it is the most unscrewuppable of cocktails. This, sadly, is not true. I could take him to several Cardiff bars that would make him spit out his words. Or I would, if it were not for this damn pandemic. But that is yet another argument for the gimlet as perfect plague cocktail: the best examples you drink will be those you make yourself. </p><p>And so back to our real topic, and its perfect construction.</p><p>By now the gimlet will be a serious part of your life. You will be fully equipped with a cocktail shaker, a jigger, and a stylish set of coupe glasses. There will be six spare jars of Luxardo cherries in the cupboard.</p><p>After the gimlet has spent all this time improving you, it is time for you to return the favour. "Impossible!" you cry. I would have agreed, until the serendipitous summer of 2018, when the <a href="https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2018/08/03/Lime-cordial-shortage-caused-by-factory-fire" target="_blank">UK Rose's factory burnt down</a>.</p><p>It is now time for you to also acquire a good lime squeezer. If you cannot find one, sometimes they are inexplicably mis-labelled as "lemon squeezers". </p><p>You will also need some simple syrup. It is aptly named. Put one cup of sugar in a pot, and one cup of water. Heat it until the sugar has dissolved. Let it cool, and store it in a container in the fridge until you need it. As a veteran gimleteer, I use an old cherry jar. If you are ever in urgent need of a gimlet, but have run out of simple syrup -- and believe me, one day it will happen -- there is no need to panic. It takes but a moment to prepare a serving size in the microwave (remember, equal parts sugar and water), and it will all be suitably chilled in your cocktail shaker. </p><p>If you want to make a pair of gimlets, because they are always better shared, this is what you do: </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiErJVzuDGHNltBdWBQEio0nKprKc_qtsfHtgoSYesTwp26a5V3-Kc4shAVi6Ofwu0h6IrFAqPXsgd4nRB4refhELvdtX8ZedQytVLBwVGzJ9KmiWaD2kadpV15bpeDoWyndkcCXaxnFePj/s811/12398f68-1927-46d2-aff3-85f6374183d0.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="811" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiErJVzuDGHNltBdWBQEio0nKprKc_qtsfHtgoSYesTwp26a5V3-Kc4shAVi6Ofwu0h6IrFAqPXsgd4nRB4refhELvdtX8ZedQytVLBwVGzJ9KmiWaD2kadpV15bpeDoWyndkcCXaxnFePj/s320/12398f68-1927-46d2-aff3-85f6374183d0.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Put two large measures of gin into your cocktail shaker. Slice in half two limes, and squeeze them into the shaker. No two limes are the same, of course, so each gimlet will be different. I know that surprises are unwelcome in these terrifying times, so I hope you can handle this smidgen of unpredictability. Now put in one large measure of simple syrup. Add some ice, shake it up until the shaker is so frozen cold that you cannot bear to continue holding it, and then pour out the cloudy green elixir into two coupe glasses. Your jar of cherries should be to hand, so that you can use a clean spoon to put a cherry in each glass, plus a dollop of cherry goop for good measure. <p></p><p>And you're done. <br /></p><p>If you have so far experienced only the Chandler original, and have quite deservedly savoured every sip, then I envy you this moment.</p><p>After your first taste, I think you will agree with me. For the first time in months, you will utter, "Yes, everything is going to be Ok."</p><p><br /></p><p><br /><br /><b>Yes, of course you can...</b><script data-coffee-color="#ffffff" data-color="#FFDD00" data-emoji="🍸" data-font-color="#000000" data-font="Cookie" data-name="bmc-button" data-outline-color="#000000" data-slug="MarkDHannam" data-text="Buy me a gimlet" src="https://cdnjs.buymeacoffee.com/1.0.0/button.prod.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-86346828937453136242020-05-25T13:46:00.003+01:002020-05-25T13:46:53.392+01:00While the future hides behind a mask<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Allow me to contemplate the past few weeks, as I sit out on the balcony on a pleasant Roman evening. Down below, people go past, every few minutes, in masks, jogging or walking a dog, or talking on a phone, or a family on bikes. Slightly less often, a screaming ambulance passes on the main road. They do that all day long. In the cool of the evening, less pollen floats past than in the afternoon. Less trash, too.<br />
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On May the 4th, Italy exploded out of lockdown. In Rome, crowds sang in the streets. Cars honked to the tune of "Volare". Yesterday it was cold winter. Today it is scorching summer.<br />
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Perhaps I exaggerate. The ability to step outside in the morning, cross the road to the neighbourhood bar, greet for the first time in months the barista delighted to be back in operation, and return home with a takeaway coffee, passing shops that yesterday were only shutters, and people moving with a spring in their step, even if you can't see the smile under their masks -- that experience produces euphoria that distorts reality.<br />
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What is the reality? Are all these people busy spitting the virus at each other? Are all those Roman noses hanging over the tops of masks hoovering up droplets of disease, and powering up a devastating second wave? Isn't that what all those ambulance sirens mean? Or do they merely reflect an excess of car accidents because the locals are out of practice gesticulating while steering? Either way, the sirens are mere anecdotal evidence. Perhaps the numbers will continue to drift gently downwards. Perhaps it is enough to wear a mask -- properly! -- and veer around strangers as if they smell like they just lost their balance over a seatless public toilet.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX94fi89J048K9YlgruUm0jgqAtnITnXbiizhObNp68yfhBpJpb-HdmOh7kTilZtEMgPFjSsP4XtWoBLVt2F8K0H3zh5pwtPes0i8CxlZ8uljE2_JZCDHSY03K9S62W61yLgTTG9pK7xI-/s1600/IMG-3665.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1142" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX94fi89J048K9YlgruUm0jgqAtnITnXbiizhObNp68yfhBpJpb-HdmOh7kTilZtEMgPFjSsP4XtWoBLVt2F8K0H3zh5pwtPes0i8CxlZ8uljE2_JZCDHSY03K9S62W61yLgTTG9pK7xI-/s320/IMG-3665.JPG" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Are Bruno's months of peace nearly over?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If I have correctly misread the Wikipedia page on 20th century philosophy, reality is irrelevant: perceptions are everything. And don't forget Chomsky, yabbering that perceptions are plugged directly into the pronouncements of governments and the media. Deliberate all you want about the best and safest way to behave, in the end it makes little difference. When people are allowed outside, they will go outside. When everyone you meet out there is wearing a mask, you will wear a mask, too.<br />
<br />
Back in February, it was only the paranoid ignorant dolts who wore masks. Hadn't they heard that they offered no protection at all? In March masks were only for assholes who snatched them directly off the faces of selfless doctors. As April progressed, the pharmacies stocked up, and we could go back to agonising over the sort of ethical dilemmas we were more familiar with: which mask is best for the environment?<br />
<br />
Now we are accustomed to them. It used to take half an hour to prepare to leave the apartment. Now the mask goes on instinctively. <br />
<br />
I am eager to see the city again, amid the uncertainty of just what is safe.<br />
<br />
One day I took the bus into central Rome, for the first time since lockdown began. Only a few of the seats were available to sit on; the rest had signs labelling them as forbidden. The front section of the bus was sealed off with a chain, to keep passengers away from the driver. Whenever someone got on the bus, they looked around, realised that there was nowhere to sit, and all of the standing passengers -- there were never more than four on my journey -- would quietly move to be equidistant from each other. Somewhere just inside the city walls a seat became free. When we reached Via Nazionale, everyone got off, and I was so surprised that I got off, too. From there I was on foot.<br />
<br />
The centre of Rome turns out to be the safest place to go. There is no-one there. Shops are slowly opening, but the shops are all for tourists, and the only tourist is me. The litter has come back, too, although now it is mostly discarded surgical masks and gloves, either blue rubber, or those dreaded <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">supermarket plastic bags</a>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnv6Zqh3kMSHWUA3P-NseDjt6dYuO05hJbA5DterSvB-n-oxhdEA72koRnLa0OJ10Jn6IBhYeMo2iljbnqxqZCx6sIT-IxuLL3N8EflV923ZUANtd7rs2huulHhbgXZ5_CsZmkUBTwnX6N/s1600/2DE9641E-2D45-45B1-A6BE-71A28A501CF8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnv6Zqh3kMSHWUA3P-NseDjt6dYuO05hJbA5DterSvB-n-oxhdEA72koRnLa0OJ10Jn6IBhYeMo2iljbnqxqZCx6sIT-IxuLL3N8EflV923ZUANtd7rs2huulHhbgXZ5_CsZmkUBTwnX6N/s320/2DE9641E-2D45-45B1-A6BE-71A28A501CF8.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Translation: who's afraid of pickpockets?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On another occasion I took the 64 from Piazza Venezia, through the city and across the Tiber to the Vatican. Tourist guidebooks refer to this route as the "pickpocket express". Picking my pocket would be quite a feat on a bus with six passengers. This summer the pickpockets are going to have nothing to do but commiserate with the prostitutes. Perhaps over Zoom. <br />
<br />
One evening I drive the family into the city for a walk. Traffic is almost non-existent, and parking is surreal. I can park within 30 seconds' walk of the Colosseum; the only other car is a disconsolate taxi. We walk up the Palatine Hill. It probably hasn't been this quiet since Clement VI took a stroll up here, also pondering plague.<br />
<br />
It is hard to believe that the number of new cases will continue to fall. They didn't just open up parks, and restaurants for takeaway -- they also opened factories. As a privileged academic, I have never been inside a factory, but my collection of Industrial-Revolution-era lithographs assure me that factories are dirty, crowded places with poor ventilation, and each of the miserable men who work in them lives with his wife, grandparents, and seven children, in one basement room. If the factories are open, the numbers must shoot up.<br />
<br />
And yet they do not. On the 18th more shops open, including restaurants and hairdressers. The restaurants are empty -- we are not sure if we are patronising them to offer support, or just because this is our only chance before they all close down -- but the hairdressers are packed. And yet, another week later, the seemingly inevitable surge has not yet arrived.<br />
<br />
Could it be that masks, and keeping our distance, and liberal application of hand sanitiser -- and the other <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-regimen-for-reentry">myriad means to be careful and diligent</a> -- really are enough?<br />
<br />
It is difficult to dare to hope.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously in Rome</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>B.C. (Before Coronavirus)</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">All Roads</a><br />
<br />
<b>A.D. (After Doomsday)</b><br />
March 10, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a><br />
March 18, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a><br />
March 27, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">Lockdown for Dummies</a><br />
April 7, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-water-carrier.html">The Water Carrier</a><br />
April 17, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/numbers.html">Numbers</a><br />
April 30, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/liberation-day.html">Liberation Day</a><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-82631516827442369612020-04-30T11:20:00.000+01:002020-05-25T13:47:43.098+01:00Liberation Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have successfully propelled myself into a compositional twilight zone, where I am convinced that no-one finds my missives interesting, because right now <i><a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/numbers.html">no-one finds anything interesting</a></i>! It turns out to be a brilliant strategy. On the one hand, I struggle to find a reason to carry on, but on the other, so does everyone else. I've plugged myself directly into the zeitgeist!<br />
<br />
So -- let us proceed.<br />
<a name='more'></a>I started to write this on Saturday, which was Liberation Day here in Italy. It had nothing to do with ending the lockdown. Liberation Day commemorates the moment when the Italian people turned on the Fascists in 1945. I am not sure what message that sends to us. Does it give us hope that the people all over the world who today follow moronic populists, will one day finally see sense? Or does it make us despair, because you only ever see sense after you've had the shit bombed out of you?<br />
<br />
Alternating waves of hope and despair are common these days.<br />
<br />
Also uncertainty: we are about to enter entirely uncharted territory. The exponential rise of the virus was easy to understand -- <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/numbers.html">for some of us</a>, at least -- but now everything is messy. No-one could predict how well lockdown would work in each country, but that was nothing compared to the unpredictability of what will happen as the clamps are loosened. Will someone -- anyone! -- keep the spread under control? Or will we be back in the land of spikes and surges? No-one knows. <br />
<br />
For now, let us mark the end of Round One. Let's hand out some Initial Response Awards. Don't be squeamish. Ignore all those insufferably even-handed articles that argue that comparisons are difficult. Rubbish! Comparisons are extremely easy! Take a look at the numbers -- <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">Johns Hopkins</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemiology">Wikipedia</a>, whoever you prefer -- and open your hearts and minds to their full potential for amazement and horror.<br />
<br />
Who came out ahead?<br />
<br />
There has been a lot of celebration of my home country, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_New_Zealand">New Zealand</a>, which struck early and hard, and has dispensed with that "flatten the curve" nonsense: they crushed the curve: so far ~1500 cases, and 19 deaths. What a relief to find a Western democracy that can do something besides make excuses! It would be a more instructive example if it were a landlocked nation bordered by Italy, France and Germany, that kicked off lockdown on leap day in February -- but New Zealand could not bear to give up its beaches, and Europe's leaders could not bear the risk of being made to look even worse by Jacinda Ardern.<br />
<br />
However, New Zealand was not the winner, not by a long shot. Among democracies, the Initial Response Award undoubtedly goes to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Taiwan">Taiwan</a>. They identified their first case on January 21st -- I kid you not! January! -- and since then have recorded a grand total of only 429 cases, and if that hasn't already knocked you off your chair, how about this: only six deaths! That last number has not changed since the 10th of April. You have to wonder how most world leaders can bear to read such statistics. Most of them don't have to, of course, because China has convinced them to pretend that Taiwan does not exist. <br />
<br />
Which brings us to Taiwan's secret weapon. Simple: raving paranoia over the Chinese government. That was their lucky break. Yeah, sure, six months ago, if you had asked the Taiwanese to find one word to sum up the experience of being a mere two thousand kilometres from the kind of possessive authoritarian superpower that still worships a mass-murdering psycho like Mao Zedong, they are unlikely to have responded, "lucky". Ah, how times have changed!<br />
<br />
If you take a pish-and-posh attitude to democracy, you can give the award to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Vietnam">Vietnam</a>: first case on January 23rd, only two hundred and seventy cases so far (my style guide instructs me that low numbers should always be written out in words), and ZERO deaths. But, let's face it, the whole point of this exercise is to pass judgement on our own governments, so we will leave Vietnam aside, and move rapidly to the other end of the spectrum. <br />
<br />
As we all know, Round One's biggest loser is Trump's unfortunate America, where domestic abuse victims officially number 328 million. It did not have to be that way. The virus could easily have infected over a million people in just about any country -- even little old New Zealand -- if treated with sufficient ignorance. As such, populist demagogues duly took up the challenge, and raced Trump to the bottom. In the UK, Boris Johnson thought he was in with a chance, until someone spilled the beans on his brilliant "herd immunity" wheeze. He was driven to such desperation that he became a virus vector himself. Poor guy. If only he had dismantled the National Health Service sooner, it might have worked!<br />
<br />
Anyway, that's all behind us. Now it is time for Round Two: The Reopening. As I said, this is new territory. No more "SARS advantage" for those Asian countries! Everyone has an opportunity to screw up. And everyone has a chance to get their shit together. Maybe Bolsonaro will succeed where BoJo failed, and make Trump look competent?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWxYhW9VrxEyPp3TZPaJK_CEg56AOnk4CKooUm1hPoK01qH8pdGDaCTZuOOFIu-UbSpV-rtpREMZcVc9cX5fNyt5Q1QZ25_7YEyGz8ys5lO3G0Gq_79p_D-cVUhu7VM9_LAYwFz_w4cSG3/s1600/beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWxYhW9VrxEyPp3TZPaJK_CEg56AOnk4CKooUm1hPoK01qH8pdGDaCTZuOOFIu-UbSpV-rtpREMZcVc9cX5fNyt5Q1QZ25_7YEyGz8ys5lO3G0Gq_79p_D-cVUhu7VM9_LAYwFz_w4cSG3/s320/beach.jpg" width="320" /></a>The permutations are endless. Some places are opening elementary schools, others high schools, and some will leave schools until last. Whichever reopening order you prefer for bars, restaurants and hotels, you can find a country that agrees with you. Australia is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/apr/28/bondi-beach-and-bronte-welcome-back-swimmers-as-coronavirus-lockdown-relaxed-in-pictures">reopening beaches</a>; Spain is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52471208">bleaching them</a>. The state of Georgia is opening <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/04/24/sports/ap-paul-newberry-bowling-.html">bowling alleys</a>. Sweden is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/swedish-city-lund-dump-tonne-chicken-manure-park-deter-visitors-coronavirus-lockdown">smeared in manure</a>. The UK does not yet have a plan, because it is waiting for some "science" to hide behind -- as Marina Hyde perfectly characterised it, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/24/donald-trump-coronavirus-president-advice-bleach">nerd immunity</a>".<br />
<br />
It could be a dull trek back to "old normal". Or it could be time for the next topic in the global elementary mathematics course: move over "exponential growth", it's time for the inflection point!<br />
<br />
Hence the mixture of hope and despair. In Italy, the cause for despair is obvious. The rate of new infections has dropped at such a glacial pace that the only sensible policy would be to maintain the lockdown until the entire population has escaped to Germany. Yet the government has decided that coffee bars can open for takeaways on May the 4th.<br />
<br />
Yet there is also hope -- because, well, the coffee bars will be open on May the 4th.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next:</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/05/while-future-hides-behind-mask.html">While the future hides behind a mask</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously in Rome</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>B.C. (Before Coronavirus)</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">All Roads</a><br />
<br />
<b>A.D. (After Doomsday)</b><br />
March 10, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a><br />
March 18, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a><br />
March 27, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">Lockdown for Dummies</a><br />
April 7, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-water-carrier.html">The Water Carrier</a><br />
April 17, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/numbers.html">Numbers</a><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-37714292626416333092020-04-17T07:05:00.000+01:002020-05-25T13:48:19.854+01:00Numbers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Are you in the mood for another clever take on the novel oddity of the year of the novel coronavirus? I know you are -- why else would everyone else be writing them?<br />
<br />
I have an entire New Yorker issue overflowing with "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches-from-a-pandemic">dispatches from a pandemic</a>". The only problem is that they are <i>reeaallllyyy</i> boring. Come on, guys, the prank bog-roll-substitute issue hasn't been funny since March!<br />
<br />
But of course <i>all</i> of the news is boring. Do you know why?<br />
<br />
Wait for it. Here comes my clever take.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
It is all boring, because there is only one thing we really care about: the numbers. It is all driven entirely by numbers. You can read all the stories you want about the youngest victim and the oldest survivor, the latest celebrity to fall ill, or the craziest Trump rant, but in the end, you only care about one thing: the numbers. Are they still going up, and when will they come down?<br />
<br />
Journalists are unable to deal with this. It is clear they wasted their youth skipping maths classes. They were so cool that instead they hid in the library memorising dramatic adjectives. "Cases spike in worst day yet!" When will they learn that exponential growth means that the case numbers will spike <i>every</i> day? I am afraid that the answer, after week after week of numbers "spiking", "surging" and "exploding", is: never.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixRjPoi_Dttrw90SRRgy68_Id0u4Hbw5hk4b_trTvppLpbGZcBUsHmheF1ZWAEJsjwR9x7wpdEzie1Ikq75aufeyDKf0s1oF3rwwbBz2QjtXC-9RJ9NWog1twxPDscBao1vsQE0L27za5M/s1600/Screenshot+2020-04-17+at+08.02.07.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="926" data-original-width="1254" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixRjPoi_Dttrw90SRRgy68_Id0u4Hbw5hk4b_trTvppLpbGZcBUsHmheF1ZWAEJsjwR9x7wpdEzie1Ikq75aufeyDKf0s1oF3rwwbBz2QjtXC-9RJ9NWog1twxPDscBao1vsQE0L27za5M/s320/Screenshot+2020-04-17+at+08.02.07.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The primacy of numbers plays havoc with the second-by-second blow-by-blow news cycle. The <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/">Johns Hopkins virus tracker</a> calls itself "live", but in reality most places update their numbers once a day. There is only one story anywhere in the world, and on the upward journey there is only the grim monotony of one headline per day, "worst day yet". On the way down meaningful news comes even less often: the numbers fall so slowly that progress is only discernable weekly. <br />
<br />
Since so few people are attuned to the new reign of numbers, they have no idea why the endless torrent of drama that in any other year would keep them rivitted to their screens for however long it lasted, now feels hollow.<br />
<br />
People who <i>do</i> understand numbers are no help. They just make it worse. The most insufferable are, of course, the physicists. <br />
<br />
It is an especially embarrassing time to be a physicist.<br />
<br />
Half of my colleagues are convinced that fitting an exponential function to virus data is equivalent to being an epidemiologist, and the other half are getting a "sci-comm" hard-on about just <i>explaining</i> exponential functions. For roughly two months before the lockdowns kicked in, every day was a new opportunity for them, and every new "worst day yet" headline was more evidence of failure -- although perhaps that helped distract them from the tragedies behind the headlines.<br />
<br />
(If you want an exponential tutorial from me, forget it! If you have not yet learned what "doubles every two-to-three days" truly truly means, you never will.)<br />
<br />
Even people I respect have been unable to resist posting logarithmic plots on social media, and people I used to respect have exuberantly extrapolated them into the future. On March 19 someone else (who I don't know and find no cause to respect) <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07912v1">performed a curve fit</a> through the data from China, then did the same through the then-current data from Italy. They confidently predicted that the Italian death toll would be 6000, and the "crisis would end" on April 15th. In the face of new data (Italy's death toll cruised past 6000 less than a week later), the hapless whizz should have realised the folly of their enterprise. But no! <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07912v2">The paper was updated</a> on March 31st. Apparently the trend changed "drastically" on March 17th, because on that very day "the Italian health system reached its capacity limit". Whatever. The new prediction was 17,000 deaths, all finished by May 8th. That was definitely an improvement: this time it took eight days to be proved wrong. The current death toll in Italy is over 22,000.<br />
<br />
Fortunately this is no longer the 1950s, and no-one pays attention to physicists, except, perhaps, other physicists. So you have to wonder: who is this shit written for? It is too stupid for anyone with the intellectual firepower to remember their PIN number, but too sophisticated for a UK government minister. When it comes to those bozos, you may wonder what kind of academic bumbling bottom-feeders they get their advice from.<br />
<br />
They are so desperate they even gave me a call.<br />
<br />
"Mark, you have just the expertise we need!"<br />
<br />
"I know nothing about viruses. In fact, I have never taken a single course in biology. I study colliding black holes."<br />
<br />
"Oooh, that sounds very fancy! You're perfect. Will you do it?"<br />
<br />
Having spent a decade in UK academia, I understood that I had to adhere to important points of principle. Like displaying petty rivalry towards institutions the wider world has actually heard of.<br />
<br />
"If you need scapegoats for murderous policies, why don't you ask those ignorant suckers from Imperial College and Oxford?"<br />
<br />
"You clearly don't understand just how many ignorant suckers we need."<br />
<br />
I still had moral reservations. "How much will you pay me?"<br />
<br />
"This is an opportunity to perform an invaluable public service."<br />
<br />
"You mean NOTHING?"<br />
<br />
"This is an opportunity to perform"--<br />
<br />
"Goodbye!"<br />
<br />
Just think who they must have got in the end!<br />
<br />
But back to the numbers.<br />
<br />
The numbers are terrible, but they also ignite in me a strange hope. If the numbers are everything, and the numbers are stark and irrefutable, then there is a chance that they will slice through politics like an iceberg through a poorly navigated ship. The politicians can obfuscate all they want about what impressive measures they undertook, and how quickly and decisively they acted, and how strong was their leadership, and they can try to woo you with patriotic bollocks about how well you all rallied to the challenge and fought and won -- but in the end, the numbers will wash it all away and leave the truth.<br />
<br />
Which country had the most cases? Which country had the worst death rate? Which country was slowest to recover? When this is over, and eventually it <i>will</i> be over, even if it is a little later than May 8, we can hope that the numbers will be stark enough to speak for themselves.<br />
<br />
Already, the United States, which roared out of the 20th century as the undisputed global leader in technological innovation and scientific discovery, with the most effective research organisation and infrastructure in the world, and overflowing with fantastic resources and even better people, currently has more than three times as many cases as any other nation, and more than seven times as many as the world's most populous nation, China. With every passing day it accelerates yet further ahead. Half of the US population knows the reason. By the time this is over, will the numbers have bored through to the brains of the other half?<br />
<br />
In the United Kingdom, now run by a government elected by people who know in their hearts that they are smarter, more ordered, more rational, more moral, and simply superior in every way to the smelly masses of Europeans who they have the misfortune to live next door to, in that great nation, the numbers are shaping up to show that their leaders' response has been the worst in Europe. Worse than Italy, taken by surprise, and fumbling with a succession of leaky lockdowns. Worse, even -- oh, the shame! -- than Ireland.<br />
<br />
What are the chances that the numbers will be horrific enough to change minds and teach lessons?<br />
<br />
That is a grim kind of optimism. I'm not sure I can bring myself to hope that they will be <i>that</i> bad.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next:</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/liberation-day.html">Liberation Day</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously in Rome</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>B.C. (Before Coronavirus)</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">All Roads</a><br />
<br />
<b>A.D. (After Doomsday)</b><br />
March 10, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a><br />
March 18, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a><br />
March 27, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">Lockdown for Dummies</a><br />
April 7, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-water-carrier.html">The Water Carrier</a><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-39802550785725192722020-04-07T08:31:00.003+01:002020-05-25T13:48:51.593+01:00The Water Carrier<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Living in Rome was not always easy, even before the virus arrived.<br />
<br />
The bureaucracy. My embarrassed bumbling in Italian. The deaf old reprobate upstairs with the 24-hour full-volume TV. That morning when I let three buses pass in the rain, before one arrived that I could board without having my ribs crushed. Sometimes it felt like it would have been better to stay at home. But then all would be well, for the corniest of reasons: the food and drink. One moment I doubted I could face another day in this grim old city, and the next, after a morning cappuccino and cornetto, I zoomed out of the bar, transformed into the natural successor to two millenia worth of Roman heroes. A sneaky <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppl%C3%AC">suppli</a> at lunch could make me feel like the luckiest man in the world. The vista of the meat and cheese section at the supermarket was proof that this was heaven on Earth; passing the olive display, it was difficult to resist grabbing them by the fistful.<br />
<br />
Now solace is harder to come by. The coffee bars are all closed. There is not a suppli in sight. The supermarket's meat-and-cheese section is still there, but the open-air olives are less appetizing. Maybe because they are within spitting distance?<br />
<a name='more'></a>But this is Rome. Miracles abound. There is still a sacred water that can make me feel blessed.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizrBPHjDQV9_O6_meFti2Kq07iC8bMnT59-LJf4bpNvNy73aWdu_C7LGMnDUIHECtKvQqwvy5F0uXsSQZ49pI0AYimDL_un-yk-iR7xOAv9gEAMSYEh2ph1TzlRNrlh6bgYdK5PA3r1U0/s1600/4_div_DRAG-ONLY-IMG-VERT_20190730_121647.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="903" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizrBPHjDQV9_O6_meFti2Kq07iC8bMnT59-LJf4bpNvNy73aWdu_C7LGMnDUIHECtKvQqwvy5F0uXsSQZ49pI0AYimDL_un-yk-iR7xOAv9gEAMSYEh2ph1TzlRNrlh6bgYdK5PA3r1U0/s320/4_div_DRAG-ONLY-IMG-VERT_20190730_121647.jpg" width="320" /></a>That is not a metaphor: there is a mineral water spring in the neighbourhood named <a href="https://www.acquasacra.it/">Acqua Sacra</a>. We have a plastic crate of twelve 750ml bottles of water, each packed with an endless supply of the most perfectly tiny bubbles. I used to dislike sparkling water; the big, crude, clumsy bubbles were not for me. But Acqua Sacra is sublime. Its minuscule bubbles provide a cell by cell massage as they fizz down the throat. A second glass at dinner feels positively sinful.<br />
<br />
All of my bottles had been empty since the beginning of lockdown. I did not have the nerve to drive to the spring shop to buy more. We are not allowed to leave home, except for essential items. Sure, <i>I</i> think the water is essential, but could I make my case when my car was stopped by a policeman with a sub-machine gun?<br />
<br />
Besides, I dared not move the car. On the best of days, whenever I returned from a <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">wild drive through Rome</a>, I spent half an hour patrolling the street for a free parking space. I learned that if you spied a set of reverse lights on a parked car, you were entirely within your rights to stop in the middle of the street and block all traffic while you waited for it to back out, even if the passengers first had to stow all their luggage, buckle two children into carseats, change the oil, and smoke a full pack of cigarettes.<br />
<br />
That was the situation in normal times, when the roads were clogged with tens of thousands of drivers all playing chicken. Now the roads are almost empty. Almost, but not entirely. If I surrendered my space, how long before I found another one? Would I still be circling the block into the night? Double-parked with a good view down the street, at 3am, like a cop on stake-out? <br />
<br />
So, what to do? I was convinced that a daily glass or two of effervescent excellence would transform lockdown into luxury. I needed a refill!<br />
<br />
I could carry back my crate of empties, but there's no way I could bring home the full bottles. <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">If only I had stuck with PE Joe</a>!<br />
<br />
For several days I had been toying with the idea of using my daughter's school bag. If that sounds crazy, you have not seen the bag. It is a massive purple roll-on suitcase, and not only that -- and this is what made it so potently irresistible to her -- it lights up. I could fill the bag with bottles, and wheel them to the shop! It was a brilliant plan. The night I thought of it, my virus nightmares were replaced by dreams of skipping through the streets with my lovely purple case of fizzy bottles rolling happily behind.<br />
<br />
But first: I had to fill out the <a href="https://www.interno.gov.it/sites/default/files/allegati/nuovo_modello_autodichiarazione_26.03.2020_editabile.pdf">government self-authorisation form </a>to leave my apartment. This form assures the police that I have left home for a legitimate reason. The great thing about this form? I get to fill it out myself, and I can write anything I want. Not so great: the police get to feed me into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocca_della_Verit%C3%A0">Bocca della Verita</a>. Also not great: I have to write out a new form every time I go out, because the government are in search of Platonic perfection, and keep changing the wording. From "the undersigned" all the way to the actual signature, the form now stretches to 360 words, which does not sound like many, but by the end I felt like I had transcribed the third volume of the Divine Comedy (the boring one).<br />
<br />
The only thing that kept me going was my dream of my purple suitcase of holy water.<br />
<br />
I am sorry to say, dear reader, that when it came time to fill the joyous schoolbag, my hopes were horribly dashed. You were right after all: it was too small!<br />
<br />
Oh! The misery! I was on my hands and knees in front of the glowing purple case, furiously willing it to be bigger. Surely there was a way to get those 12 bottles in there! But no! Nothing worked. It was as futile as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8sNT-VFCow">Ernie trying to rearrange four cookies into five</a>.<br />
<br />
There was no other course of action but to lie on the floor of the kitchen, crying and thrashing.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y8sNT-VFCow/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y8sNT-VFCow?feature=player_embedded" style="clear: right; float: right;" width="320"></iframe>My family came in to watch me.<br />
<br />
"What's wrong with Daddy?"<br />
<br />
"He's throwing a tantrum."<br />
<br />
"Mummy, please do something."<br />
<br />
"I have. I put a video on Facebook."<br />
<br />
Then they all asked, in unison: "Why don't you use a bigger suitcase?"<br />
<br />
Even in the depths of my existential crisis, I recognised genius.<br />
<br />
I went to the bedroom and brought out our largest wheelie suitcase. If I stood it on its end, the crate of bottles sat comfortably inside. Hooray!<br />
<br />
Finally I was outside. The Eternal City was at my feet.<br />
<br />
I crossed Via Nomentana, ridiculously devoid of traffic.<br />
<br />
I walked through the park, where people pretended to walk their dogs.<br />
<br />
Whenever I approached someone, we moved to opposite sides of the path, and twisted away, to make it clear that we had no plans to breathe on each other. As we passed, we leaned outwards, as a perverse demonstration of human brotherhood. "We're in this together -- so back off!"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIEzNuLMXyw2gARkrEDVMTgC6TwNUqLctPzhq0agTchFZYwJaU6c-XVgbfLGmMfsYIDjtY5Y-_rvCbT_txsoIk5F2A_G67uMIS1nlh3ozsrVSXg5Wtbc1X3UGHvlxen6sUELTdV__KFlwx/s1600/ponte_nomentano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIEzNuLMXyw2gARkrEDVMTgC6TwNUqLctPzhq0agTchFZYwJaU6c-XVgbfLGmMfsYIDjtY5Y-_rvCbT_txsoIk5F2A_G67uMIS1nlh3ozsrVSXg5Wtbc1X3UGHvlxen6sUELTdV__KFlwx/s1600/ponte_nomentano.jpg" /></a></div>
After I crossed the ancient bridge -- and one should be careful before using that word in Rome; <a href="http://www.sovraintendenzaroma.it/i_luoghi/roma_antica/monumenti/ponte_nomentano">this particular bridge</a> dates from only the 6th century AD -- I was on empty residential streets. Just me and my suitcase of quietly clinking bottles. The streets could have been empty for many reasons. A national holiday? The final of the World Cup? But of course we know why they were empty. It was the same reason every street on Earth was empty. Civilisation had been put under sedation.<br />
<br />
It was a fifteen-minute walk to Acqua Sacra. That was the furthest I had gone in over three weeks. The air was thick with Spring, the sounds of birds and smells of flowers. What a pity the nature lovers could not enjoy it. As soon as they came outside, they had to rush back in to scribble a manifesto for a future world. The air could be this clean forever! Sure, guys. I hope you don't mind me enjoying it now, while you stay inside and finalise the details. <br />
<br />
I took a short cut up some steps, and then I arrived. I opened my suitcase and took out my crate. I left it with the other empty bottles, and retrieved a new crate from the covered shed next to the main building. I took my crate to the payment window. The whole crate cost around three euros fifty -- I can never remember the exact price, because I am always stunned by how cheap it is. Then I put the crate into my suitcase, zipped it up, and made my return journey.<br />
<br />
Feeling blessed once again.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next:</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/numbers.html">Numbers</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously in Rome</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>B.C. (Before Coronavirus)</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">All Roads</a><br />
<br />
<b>A.D. (After Doomsday)</b><br />
March 10, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a><br />
March 18, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a><br />
March 27, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">Lockdown for Dummies</a><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-80405942405194529692020-03-27T11:34:00.003+00:002020-05-25T13:49:18.890+01:00Lockdown for Dummies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Welcome, everyone! Welcome to lockdown-land! What took you so long? Those of us in Italy have been waiting for you for over two weeks. Never mind! It's great to see you all! Forgive me if we don't shake hands.<br />
<br />
There's no need to be frightened. You're much safer here. What's that? You're worried it will be difficult? Maybe a little challenging to your mental health? Ha ha! Nonsense! Your mental health will be fine -- unless of course you try to stay sane.<br />
<br />
It can be difficult in the beginning, when everyone has a positive attitude. Video classes for the kids, virtual meeting rooms for work, WhatsApp messages in emoji overload, sourdough in the oven, collective singing and applause from the balconies. I assure you it will pass. For now, it's for your own good. The more of it you endure, the faster you'll reach a pleasant state of lunacy.<br />
<br />
Social media is invaluable. If you're one of those unfortunate individuals of an especially robust temperament, unflappable, taking everything in your stride, then fear not: you can rely on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to relentlessly pulverise your mind. You might keep it together through the first forty articles of tips to organise your day, lists of books to read and documentaries to watch, boastful posts on the glories of lockdown zen, and whizz-bang science experiments to impose on your imprisoned children -- but eventually you will crack. <br />
<br />
Do not go outside. That only prolongs your grasp on normality. Be thankful if you are in one of those countries where you are not allowed outside, except for food. It is like that in Italy. At first I found an excuse to go shopping every day. I also snatched at every opportunity to take out the trash. The rubbish bins suddenly became one of the most popular Italian travel destinations.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuILhSvctWwWAgfWH6CdrQzjimcsx3f4kM6ygkKLEuROMcQ-XaGZT6z9bXKHbDSpy2M3RFM8VYgQ1r6gfVktdkVptHgGL28yVicaIh1wuqCztEKzXwTGz8-uuBAUKanFIDPuklp8S80EOj/s1600/IMG-3160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuILhSvctWwWAgfWH6CdrQzjimcsx3f4kM6ygkKLEuROMcQ-XaGZT6z9bXKHbDSpy2M3RFM8VYgQ1r6gfVktdkVptHgGL28yVicaIh1wuqCztEKzXwTGz8-uuBAUKanFIDPuklp8S80EOj/s320/IMG-3160.JPG" width="240" /></a>Thankfully Roman rubbish collectors have embraced the new trend. Once upon a time, garbage collection was a citywide disgrace. Over Christmas, our bins went weeks without being emptied. The food waste bin was full within two days, and after that, my desperate neighbours piled their green biodegradable bags on top. I watched in horror as the oozing pile of bags grew higher. In the New Year, the situation improved. Rubbish collection became regular and then, to the astonishment of all -- frequent. Was it a Christmas miracle? Did Babbo Natale pay attention to all those parents who shoved past their kids at the shopping mall to climb onto Santa's lap and beg for better waste management, and bring the city a brand new recycling plant? Or was it just some old-fashioned busted kneecaps? Whatever it was, it was nothing compared to their current fastidiousness.<br />
<br />
The trips to the bins soon end. Human avoidance becomes instinctual. Leaving the apartment feels unnatural. Now taking out the trash feels as furtive and despicable as robbing my child's piggy bank. The sooner the edge of the universe shrinks to the walls of your home, the better. There is nothing going on out there that you want to know about.<br />
<br />
Except that you want to know everything! You re-load the news pages relentlessly. You bounce fitfully from one virus tracker to another. You spy a brief glimmer of global hope when you read about dolphins in the Venetian canals, only to discover a minute later that <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-fake-animal-viral-social-media-posts/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=facebook::cmp=editorial::add=fb20200320animals-coronavirusfakeanimalnews::rid=&sf231736060=1&fbclid=IwAR23X9hvhwwXOjjnLFXFuu3Znc7hzExIX_WmD_9QZ0qMDrBEUVCfWVV2LMA">the story was fake</a>. Along the way you read countless articles advising you to limit your news intake. Pish and posh! Repeated news overdoses are your ticket to the mental nirvana of drooling and gibbering. Once you're there, the next two months will go by in a blur.<br />
<br />
Just a minute, you protest. What about the children? Who will look after them while I am rocking gently back and forth in the bathtub? I'm glad you brought that up. It is essential that you practice nervous collapse responsibly.<br />
<br />
There are many ways to fast-track them to your own state of mental mush. Tell them it's the zombie apocalypse. ("You think I'm joking? Look at those figures shambling down the street, in face masks. Zombies!") Pretend that lockdown is officially defined as being locked in the closet. Tell them that the coronavirus has infected Minecraft. If none of that works, you may just have to be patient, and wait for the cumulative effects of distance learning. Soon you will envy them their catatonic state.<br />
<br />
If you are having trouble "adjusting your attitude", it can help to give yourself something even worse to focus on. You could hack off a limb, but that is risky; remember that the hospitals are already full. Fortunately the internet once again comes to the rescue, in the form of exercise videos. After two weeks of doing nothing more nutty than trying to put myself into cryogenic storage by climbing into the freezer, I was saved by the beginning of lockdown back in the UK, and the arrival of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=2ahUKEwjCqYags7roAhWiQEEAHcGGD80QwqsBMAR6BAgJEA0&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRz0go1pTda8&usg=AOvVaw0oQdfO3WgJt7656IGZAsTf">PE Joe</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmmQQ2NT9cbaRlnzQvK23vAwo_MrUUmMY-O6RC3PLg9YhA3zAKONNtuESyTDUFs1ovldQX2C3_VrBwrhRQaDmRPN9oUkvD4CYifYyd8PQHjeDnuZjU-j5kXbtdZkVEDfVvZHVQhg_hZX-L/s1600/PEJoe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmmQQ2NT9cbaRlnzQvK23vAwo_MrUUmMY-O6RC3PLg9YhA3zAKONNtuESyTDUFs1ovldQX2C3_VrBwrhRQaDmRPN9oUkvD4CYifYyd8PQHjeDnuZjU-j5kXbtdZkVEDfVvZHVQhg_hZX-L/s1600/PEJoe.jpg" /></a>PE Joe is a sadistic bearded bastard who provides a daily half-hour exercise routine on YouTube, direct from what purports to be his bland pastel-coloured living room, but is more likely a movie set deep in his Fortress of Pain, erected inside one of his more spacious dungeons. Joe delivers the standard chipper lobotomised fitness instructor spiel while leading you through a series of deceptively easy exercises. "I've got a sweat on," he lies, half way through. "Give yourself a clap. You're going great!" At the end of the half hour, I believed him. I felt fantastic! For the first time in two weeks, my heart was pounding, my lungs were full of air, my mind was fresh. "Here's a shout-out to Mark, in Rome!"<br />
<br />
It was not until the next morning that I understood what a vile trick he had played. My muscles had seized up. I could barely move. When I went to the bathroom, it took me five excruciating minutes to lower myself onto the toilet seat, and I could not get up again before lunch time. It was no use when I did: my trousers were still on the floor, and whenever I tried to bend down to pick them up, my tendons caught on fire. I had to stay there for the rest of the afternoon. I held teleconferences with the video switched off. "Another shout-out to Mark, paralysed on the bog!"<br />
<br />
But it was all for the better. They say I'm not allowed to leave the house? Who cares! I no longer <i>wanted</i> to leave the house. I didn't want to leave the bathroom!<br />
<br />
Was it all a genius move by the World Health Organisation? If PE Joe's YouTube channel goes viral faster than covid-19, the world will be saved. Billions of people will be frozen, rigid with pain, with no intention to leave home before July.<br />
<br />
I'm afraid Joe may be too annoying to be seriously contagious. If so, it is up to us, on our own, to achieve a truly vegetative state. Or, if we keep sharing our prodigious output of vacuous idiocies, perhaps it is a goal we can reach together.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next:</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-water-carrier.html">The Water Carrier</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously in Rome</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>B.C. (Before Coronavirus)</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">All Roads</a><br />
<br />
<b>A.D. (After Doomsday)</b><br />
March 10, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a><br />
March 18, 2020: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-26322637462728195292020-03-18T22:17:00.000+00:002020-05-25T13:49:59.758+01:00Locked down, and going out<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Greetings from Rome, which is very excited its nation is leading the Western World for the first time since 476AD. It's a week since the full coronavirus lockdown began here, and finally the neighbours are catching up. If your government has not yet adopted the lockdown craze, fear not; it is impossible to resist for long. At least, you'd better hope so. Even the most stupid and incompetent leaders, meaning of course Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, will get the right idea eventually. The only question is how badly their countries will be hit by then, especially since both nations are already weakened by both woefully unprepared infrastructure, and vast swathes of the population severely immuno-compromised by shame.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
By contrast, Rome feels blissfully safe. My kids no longer go to school to sit all day in a thick smog of their colleagues' diseased sputum, I no longer ride to work on the No. 90 Express to Infection, and instead we all sit inside all day suffering no worse contagion than that mild irritant called "enjoying each others' company." The only time I could realistically catch the dreaded infection is when I go to the supermarket.<br />
<br />
Trips to the supermarket are now my prime adrenalin rush. The excitement of leaving the house! The fear of contamination! My pride in providing for my family! My shame when I fail to secure the last of the eggs!<br />
<br />
There is a line outside the supermarket, because the number of people allowed inside is restricted. They only let someone in, when someone else comes out. The line stretches the length of the store, but everyone stands one metre apart, so in reality it is less than ten minutes long. At the head of the line, in that last minute of nervous anticiptation before entering, the person at the door asks you to put on gloves. The gloves are in fact plastic bags, dispensed on the same kind of roll as the bags you put your fruit in.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE3GliWlm85GJ1O-LMBhCu1gIUZvjfTTYQs0Q0JHDpqQvisG6ahjEqMwT30N6rnDDmBMhx6qmleQEbpzbMx_3JP9ehalR1KNObeJB6DoqPOFxA4-jVJ_EEUddRuRMyW2pqS8og3Fs660Sg/s1600/IMG-4835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE3GliWlm85GJ1O-LMBhCu1gIUZvjfTTYQs0Q0JHDpqQvisG6ahjEqMwT30N6rnDDmBMhx6qmleQEbpzbMx_3JP9ehalR1KNObeJB6DoqPOFxA4-jVJ_EEUddRuRMyW2pqS8og3Fs660Sg/s320/IMG-4835.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
The purpose of the plastic bags is not to protect me from infection -- it is to <i>distract</i> me from infection. I need to be distracted, because the building is so busy inside that it may be a deliberate infection factory so heinous that it would be the envy of the UK government. But with two plastic bags on my hands, transformed into a clown shopper, I have other concerns. The bags may not bother me while I pick up a bottle of milk, or luxuriate in my ability to buy a 12-pack of toilet rolls, but when I reach the fruit and vegetables, the circus begins.<br />
<br />
First I am confronted with the roll of actual plastic bags. The free end is hidden, so I have to turn the roll, but my bag hands cannot grip, so all I can do is stand there thumping the roll, perhaps for several minutes. Finally I have the end of the roll, and tear off a bag. Now I have to open it. Even under normal circumstances -- by which I mean, not being in an underground Roman supermarket packed with zombie disease carriers -- even without all that, you know how difficult it is to open those stupid plastic bags. In panicked-paranoid-pandemic-land, with hands that are also plastic bags, it is a true nightmare. Yes, that is what it is. It is a classic nightmare scenario. I am in a supermarket, surrounded by superspreaders, and I cannot leave until I have separated the opening of a plastic bag -- and my hands don't work.<br />
<br />
Finally the bag is open. I put apples in it. It's hard to hold on to the bag, and hard to hold on to the fruit, and hard to keep the bag open, but so long as I squeal and gasp often enough, it all works out. Everyone stares at me, but they do that anyway, because -- guess what? -- they all think I have the plague!<br />
<br />
Now comes the hard part.<br />
<br />
In Italy you weigh your own fruit and vegetables. You put your bag on the electronic scales, and you type in the appropriate code, and it prints out a sticker with the price on it.<br />
<br />
Well.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_ZpsfP7kFA6CVxzfQ6P8m4NEeDxX2S5zSvErRBM2mptQPQ5vFLpboltJ7sUUmd7FIbH8cqLHgxxOPl4o_J_tPKhtDeXoqJ7ShF3xJekN4wA-DNcOaKQlJKbvI8FnAoLAdwBhLupocpaD/s1600/IMG-3412-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1444" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_ZpsfP7kFA6CVxzfQ6P8m4NEeDxX2S5zSvErRBM2mptQPQ5vFLpboltJ7sUUmd7FIbH8cqLHgxxOPl4o_J_tPKhtDeXoqJ7ShF3xJekN4wA-DNcOaKQlJKbvI8FnAoLAdwBhLupocpaD/s320/IMG-3412-2.jpg" width="288" /></a>I navigate through the viral predator-prey crowd, and make it to the scales. I put my bag on the metal plate. Then of course I wend back through the human minefield, because I forgot to look up the code for apples. Then I do it all again. Now I put in my code, and print out the sticker.<br />
<br />
The sticker sticks to one of my bag hands.<br />
<br />
I try to put the sticker on the bag of apples.<br />
<br />
Now my bag hand is stuck to the bag of apples.<br />
<br />
I try to pull it away with the other hand bag.<br />
<br />
All I achieve is the discovery that those price tags stick extremely well. They must have been invented by an adhesive fanatic. Is this really an economically viable amount of glue to put on every sticker?<br />
<br />
This is getting desperate, and it only gets worse when the bag of apples starts to rip.<br />
<br />
Jesus! If all the apples land on the floor, I'm going to have to start from the beginning. Or run home crying.<br />
<br />
The only option is to stand in the middle of the narrow aisle -- did I mention that the aisles are so narrow that two people cannot pass without suspecting each other of sexual assault (presumably by design)? -- and to comically dance slowly back and forth for several minutes until I at last manage to extricate all three bags, preferably with the price stuck to the correct one.<br />
<br />
Then I breathe a sigh of relief, put the apples in my basket, and head back to get oranges.<br />
<br />
At this point I find it therapeutic to occupy my mind with some calculations.<br />
<br />
What are my chances of contracting the virus while in supermarket purgatory?<br />
<br />
Let's see. As of this writing, there are about 600 confirmed coronavirus cases in the province of Lazio. We can estimate that the real number of cases is ten times higher. There are roughly six million people in Lazio. So one in every thousand people is infected. At any given time there are probably fifty people in this supermarket, and one person leaves and one person enters every minute. What are my chances of encountering a carrier? Given that there are seven produce items on my shopping list: guaranteed. <br />
<br />
I apologise if you could not follow my sophisticated calculations. You need to get used to it. Impossibly broad conclusions drawn from spurious data using opaque methods are the way of the future. It's called "machine learning". I know that it is much easier to follow along with those armchair analysts as they gleefully produce yet another exponential curve fit to the virus data, but their days are numbered. Yes, it is useful to understand that if the number of infections doubles every two or three days, then you go from one to a million cases in between five and eight weeks, but this simple model does not take into account the fact that somewhere between weeks two and six, all hell breaks loose. At that stage wild unjustified speculation can only lead to widespread panic, so it is important to pretend that it is not speculation at all, but "science". Hence woo terms like "artificial intelligence". <br />
<br />
Fortunately, we have all been trained to deal with uncertainty. After three years of Trump and Brexit, we are ready for the next level. Will this all be forgotten next year, like the Spanish Flu? Will humanity instead have plunged into brutal anarchy? Or will a new dawn of peace and love have arisen? Anything is possible (except the last one). All we have to do is lock ourselves at home. Furiously reloading the news in hopes of a miracle could keep us occupied for eternity. It is far more exhausting than expected, but much less exhausting than it is for the unlucky few who have to sit in a hospital bed, fighting to breathe.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next:</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/lockdown-for-dummies.html">Lockdown for Dummies</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously in Rome</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>B.C. (Before Coronavirus)</b>
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">All Roads</a><br />
<br />
<b>A.D. (After Doomsday)</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/rome-goes-viral.html">Rome Goes Viral</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-23088002058472070792020-03-10T21:23:00.000+00:002020-04-02T19:07:28.008+01:00Rome Goes Viral<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I started my sabbatical in Italy, <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">I was afraid</a> that it was at the expense of the full immersive experience of Brexit pandemonium. I need not have worried. The true Brexit D-Day has been kindly postponed until after my return, and in the meantime -- wow! -- I find myself atop Europe's coronavirus geyser!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
This is the second time in two years that my family have stockpiled food. <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/02/dispatch-from-brexit-britain.html">It felt silly doing it for Brexit</a> (the March 31st original, not those cliched sequels), but it was good practice. In Rome, one year later, our Apocalypse Shopping List is finely tuned, albeit with slight modifications. I am afraid the baked beans had to go. All we could find to replace them were an exhaustive list of pasta shapes, a wide variety of cured meats, some hefty blocks of parmiggiano reggiano and pecorino Romano, and several cases of good wine. I hope we'll be Ok.<br />
<br />
We started our collection two weeks ago, when the first lockdown was declared in several Northern towns. Rome is chaotic enough at the best of times -- it was surely only a matter of days, if not hours, before this two-thousand-year-old bubbling human soup finally boiled over. There would be crowds rioting in the streets, indiscriminately burning cars and mauling foreigners, and taking advantage of what looting they could before the military sent in the tanks. Given this sober assessment of the situation, it seemed only prudent to pop down to the supermarket.<br />
<br />
I had forgotten that this city is an old hand at foreign invasion. The locals were cool. They shopped calmly. Admittedly, the UHT milk shelf was almost empty, but on the other hand, no-one tackled me when I took the last bottle. Apart from the check-out workers wearing gloves, there was nothing else out of the ordinary.<br />
<br />
Out here in the burbs, it was difficult to detect any effects at all. Ok, there was the priest who came to our door, offering to bless our apartment against coronavirus. My wife objected when I sent him away. "You just gave up our chance to experience Peak Italy!" I could hardly argue, and I felt pretty bad. Then friends told us that he was probably the notorious Thief Priest of Monte Sacro -- once he has you bowed and praying, he relieves you of your capitalist guilt. Sounds more like Rock-Bottom Italy to me.<br />
<br />
Otherwise, people's lives continued as normal out beyond the ancient walls.<br />
<br />
The centre was a different story. <br />
<br />
For the next two weeks, Rome was a visitor's paradise. Every tourist to Rome wishes all the other tourists would bugger off. Now they had. There was no line at the Colosseum, and all the "Skip the Line" hawkers were gone, probably mugged in a dark alley by rabid scam-artist fake Centurions. You could gaze at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel while lying on the floor. If you needed a tranquil spot to practice your meditation technique, what could beat the Trevi Fountain? The heart of the Eternal City had not been this deserted since they filmed "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Open_City">Rome, Open City</a>".<br />
<br />
While the selfie simpletons fled, how many art lovers and classical scholars were flocking to board the empty planes going the other way? You can picture them, sprawled out across four vacant seats, binge-watching Fellini, salivating at the thought of strolling sedately through corridor after corridor of the Vatican Museums, with their face re-enacting the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Saint_Teresa">Ecstasy of Saint Theresa</a>.<br />
<br />
I hope they moved fast. On March 8th the government closed all the museums, and on March 10th the whole country was locked down: Rome, Closed City.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I awoke on the morning of the 10th expecting the worst of the reporters' hyperbole. Closed shops, empty streets, an old man gunned down for trying to walk his dog. But no. The bar across the street was still open. We could only enter when others left, to allow everyone to keep a minimum of one metre apart, and there was a whiff of disinfectant in the air, but the cappucino and cornetto were as perfect as ever. We also had to wait in line outside the supermarket, but I was inside in less than ten minutes, and the place was still an oasis of reassurance. If anything, it was even better stocked than usual. People may be stripping the stores bare in the UK, where there are a 20th as many cases, and brawling over bog rolls in Australia (with a 100th the number of cases), but the only change in Italy was that now the check-out workers had upgraded to face masks.<br />
<br />
Maybe this does not fit your Italian stereotypes? Surely the Italians do nothing but scream and gesticulate wildly and swindle everyone? Yeah, right, and the British are tolerant pragmatists. Time to re-wire your shabby prejudices.<br />
<br />
The majority of my experiences are of people fastidiously following rules. To see that, all you have to do is get on a crowded bus and watch someone spend half of their journey edging through the crush of standing passengers, so they can finally reach the machine to stamp their ticket. Unfortunately, if you have not witnessed it yet, you will have to wait a few months for another chance. For now you can watch the people queued in absurdly long lines outside shops and cafes and bakeries, because they are all standing one metre apart, as requested by the notices posted on every door.<br />
<br />
I would love to explore further. If the "lockdown" is not as draconian as the name implies, I hope to witness for myself the empty expanse of the Piazza del Popolo, listen to birds chirping at Bruno's statue in Campo di Fiori, and stroll the streets of Testaccio, jeering at the British and American ex-patriot parasites starved of their usual heavy diet of rich saps lining up for pasta making classes.<br />
<br />
How bad will it get? Unlike the proliferation of sudden experts on social media, I have no idea.<br />
<br />
The situation may improve in hotter weather, when more windows are open and people spend less time confined together indoors. Sounds great! Isn't it already pleasant enough to sit out on the balcony in the evening enjoying an Aperol Spritz? Unfortunately, everyone else has to play along. The Romans still act as if it's the dead of winter. They wear their thick puffy jackets zipped up to the neck, and set their faces to the gentle breeze as if they were rounding Cape Horn. But today they turned off the heating in my apartment building, so maybe spring has officially arrived after all.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next:</b><br />
<div>
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2020/03/locked-down-and-going-out.html">Locked down, and going out</a>.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-71669314531363456982019-11-22T20:37:00.001+00:002019-12-13T09:53:14.401+00:00Political Broadcast -- The Brexit Election<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I interrupt my delightful series of posts on <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">my sabbatical in Italy</a>, to write a little about the upcoming UK election, on December 12th.<br />
<br />
From my vantage point within the operatic chaos of Rome, it is perfectly obvious what is the Number One issue of this election, in fact really the <i>only</i> relevant issue, and equally obvious how any sensible person should vote. But word trickles through to me that it is not obvious to everyone. There are, media pundits tell me, large quantities of people confused about who to vote for. They are despairing at their options! They are throwing up their hands! They are going to -- horror of horrors! -- sit this one out!<br />
<br />
As a pompous conceited theoretical physicist, even I cannot believe that so many people are so blisteringly stupid. That means it's hats off to the booming misinformation and obfuscation industry. Nice try, guys, but your dastardly campaign to wipe out human civilisation is at an end. I can take you down in 1200 words. Maybe less. (I did mention conceited, didn't I?)<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The big issue is, surprise surprise, Brexit -- that pesky spanner thrown into the machinery of British politics. Ever since it went in, the whole system has made that sickening screeching noise of rending metal. Cogs are flying off everywhere. Hopes that it would work its way through have collapsed, and at the same time no-one knows how to get it out. Brexit prompted an out-of-cycle election in 2017, and it prompted this one now. And why not? Brexit was originally billed as the catalyst for an economic crisis, but it has been much worse: now it feels like an existential threat to the nation itself.<br />
<br />
But guess what? We, the people, have been given a chance to fix it! Is this the rousing inspirational tear-jerker ending to a Hollywood movie, when the <i>entire population</i> swings in to save the day? Or the final sneering mockery of the notion of democracy? Let's see.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeIsTBWD_evg8ax9C4IWydacFy4u-CqliGgjjYlQu6x9n_YmJ2L5IjVD9Q8QMjxXK8JkbQgUoWgJoyids8QKLhV659KD1l5iRPKcr4-DnXJ6rmnWGBvOQTYV_wh4V18TVMqwVNrIiVMdFs/s1600/Polling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeIsTBWD_evg8ax9C4IWydacFy4u-CqliGgjjYlQu6x9n_YmJ2L5IjVD9Q8QMjxXK8JkbQgUoWgJoyids8QKLhV659KD1l5iRPKcr4-DnXJ6rmnWGBvOQTYV_wh4V18TVMqwVNrIiVMdFs/s1600/Polling.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
As every UK voter is painfully aware, it is not going to be easy. There are two main political parties. The Conservatives, who used to be run by a literal pig fucker, have since turned rotten. Then Boris Johnson took over. It should be easy to vote against them. Unfortunately, the opposition party is run by a man who is, quite miraculously, <i>less</i> popular than BoJo. There is a third party that promises to cancel Brexit, but in a traditionally two-party system it is fanciful to think that they could win outright.<br />
<br />
Fear not, there is a semblance of a solution. It is called tactical voting. If Remainers band together to support just one Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National, Green or Plaid Cymru candidate in their electorate, there is hope of defeating the Conservatives. The result would be a motley coalition hodge-podge, certainly hideous to behold, but it would be our best hope of turning course away from Brexit.<br />
<br />
Several myths and misconceptions stand in the way of this outcome. I will now dispense with them.<br />
<br />
The biggest problem is that some people are actually sold on Brexit. If any of you made it here, let's try to remain civil, and press on. What is wrong with Brexit? I mean, apart from giving up the strength of being part of a major trading block, and losing automatic free trade with 27 of our closest neighbours? And apart from the major cost involved in extricating ourselves? And apart from the fact that no-one has presented a coherent plan, even three and a half years after the referendum, for what precisely we want at the end of the procedure, or how to get there?<br />
<br />
Apart from that... I believe the strongest point is one I first saw made by the economist Paul Krugman, just before the referendum. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/opinion/fear-loathing-and-brexit.html">In a column on June 17th</a>, 2016, a week before the vote, he predicted that Brexit would leave the UK 2% poorer than if it remained in the EU, "essentially forever", but was nonetheless lukewarm in his support for Remain. He is no EU fanboy. Then came a key point: "The EU’s failures have produced a frightening rise in reactionary, racist nationalism — but Brexit would, all too probably, empower those forces even more, both in Britain and all across the Continent."<br />
<br />
And so it has come to pass.<br />
<br />
Most experienced members of parliament were against Brexit -- because they understood its likely costs -- so after the referendum they were excluded to the margins. Into the vacuum flew the once-marginal politicians who <i>did</i> support Brexit, in other words, the most extremist, inexperienced, incompetent, dimwitted clowns. These are the people who assumed the most important roles in government. As frustrating and shifty as politicians often seem, the mainstream was now populated <i>almost entirely</i> by a whole new subclass of grifter goons. Theresa May, arguably quite competent, experienced and responsible, was eventually pushed out as well, so that this steaming shit-heap could be presided over by the leader it deserved.<br />
<br />
If you really do believe that the UK would be better off outside the European Union, then you should campaign to abort this botched operation -- you should vote <i>against</i> your preferred path being defiled and hijacked by the worst charlatans in British politics -- and support those who can come back in ten years' time with a real plan.<br />
<br />
Ok, so now we are all against Brexit.<br />
<br />
Now to the opposition, and the wretched Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party. This is where many people play the balance game. Boris Johnson is crap. Jeremy Corbyn is crap. So they must be equally crap.<br />
<br />
No!<br />
<br />
I have no partisan view of Corbyn. I cannot follow the tribal struggles within and between these political parties, and I was barely aware of his existence before the referendum. But I have seen how he behaved afterwards, and there is nothing positive to say. He failed to mount a serious opposition to Brexit. It is irrelevant that many Labour voters supported it. That means it was time to lead -- to lead them out of their error. Was he being strategic? If he was, then emerging with historically low popularity levels is quite the genius power play.<br />
<br />
That said, let's get some perspective. Crap politicians are standard fare. Boris Johnson is not a crap politician, he is an abomination. In a choice between the two, you have to pick Corbyn, every time. I am sorry that there is no choice that warms your heart and fires your ideals. That's life. Let's stop the handwringing and grow up. This is the choice we have. In the end, it is not a difficult one.<br />
<br />
What about the Liberal Democrats? I have no clue what their policies are, except that they want to cancel Brexit. Given what I have said, that should be enough. And it would be, if they had a chance. Yes, in our Hollywood film, of course they would surge to surprise victory. But we do not live in a movie theatre. If you are in a constituency where the Labour candidate has a better chance than the Lib Dem one, then for God's sake vote for them. If it is the other way around, then go for Lib Dem.<br />
<br />
And if you dislike the Lib Dems? There are people who are still peeved that the Lib Dems formed a sell-out coalition with the Conservatives in 2010. "I just cannot bring myself to vote for them." Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me? These are desperate times, so please get over your prissy concerns. When your plane crashes in the Andes, I am afraid that you have to eat your dead friends. Be glad the election is not so distasteful. I hate McDonalds, but I am glad of their cheap cheeseburger when the pubs have closed. That's more the level of it. Just do what needs to be done. Remember those unforgivable morons who also "just couldn't bring myself" to vote for Hillary Clinton? Do not be one of them.<br />
<br />
For this election, do not ask whether you are inspired by leaders or parties or policies. The opportunity to stop Brexit -- and if we fail, the last opportunity! -- should be inspiration enough.<br />
<br />
<br />
To keep track of the tactical voting recommendations, go to:<br />
<a href="https://www.remainunited.org/">https://www.remainunited.org</a><br />
<br />
And you can do comparative shopping between tactical voting sites at:<br />
<a href="https://tactical.vote/compare">https://tactical.vote/compare</a><br />
<br />
<br />
See you on the other side!<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Update December 13, 2019: </b>Bugger.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previous Brexit Rants:</b><br />
February, 2019: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/02/dispatch-from-brexit-britain.html">Dispatch from Brexit Britain</a><br />
June, 2016: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/06/in-praise-of-immigrants.html">In Praise of Immigrants</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-50366628301852833502019-11-08T11:14:00.000+00:002019-11-22T20:07:56.988+00:00All Roads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Traffic is one of the great spectacles in Rome. As a tourist, if you lower your eyes from the Colosseum, or St Peters, or the vast mad monstrosity of the Typewriter, your gaze will twitch and tremble at the sight of the traffic. At its best, a roaring swarm of cars and motorcycles on a four-lane road with no lane markings, veering and swerving and braking in a vulgar affront to the laws of reason, if not physics. Crossing these roads is exhilarating enough -- the sight of it would leave mere firewalkers aghast -- so how terrifying and wonderful must it be to actually get behind the wheel of a car, and accelerate directly into the maelstrom?<br />
<br />
I have done it, and I have lived to tell the tale.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>(As I scientist, I should caution that these are preliminary findings. Oh how poignant this account will be when I am strung up and mummified in the hospital, having flipped the car off the Grande Raccordo Anullare! Or blasted so violently into the Aurelian walls that the authorities are forced to leave my front bumper embedded in the ancient concrete, to be admired by tourists for millenia to come! But let us banish such macabre thoughts from our minds! Your champion charioteer has returned from the modern Circus Maximus, now citywide and wilder than ever -- enjoy his words, while they last.)<br />
<br />
I enter the city from the North. I am nervous, but the SatNav keeps my spirits up with its continuous comic routine, pronouncing all of the road names with the most ludicrous impersonation of the sort of elderly Englishwoman who packs for her week-long Italian coach tour with seven days' worth of cucumber sandwiches, 100 PG Tips tea bags, and a six-pack of toilet rolls. Her philosophy: play fast and loose with foreign food, and risk your bowels loosening fast in foreign bathrooms. She tells me, "Take the slip road to Vye a dye set a bag knee. Keep right at the fork and stay on Vye a buff a lot, ah." I do what I am told, even if the sign says that I am taking an entirely different road, called "Via di Settebagni". I passed an exit for a town called Settebagni half an hour earlier. Seven Bathrooms? Is that a Benigni film I missed? Or Sally SatNav's worst holiday nightmare? Now I go right at the fork, and I am on "Via della Buffalotta", which sounds almost as funny as what Sally said. Buffalotta could have been the name for Liz Hurley's character in Austin Powers, before they thought of something better.<br />
<br />
Sally did her job. I am now in Rome, and I did not even realise! I check. Yes, I have passed the official border of every city: the IKEA is behind me.<br />
<br />
I use my mirrors to study my fellow road users. Have they just become a little more aggressive? Better to be on the safe side, and put my foot down.<br />
<br />
Obviously not enough -- a motorcycle zips past on one side, and a small car on the other. How did they do it? This is a narrow road with a steady stream of traffic in the opposite direction. I quickly learn that on a Roman road, no gap is too small for someone to pass you. Vehicles come in a surprising range of sizes, like in the film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)">Brazil</a>. There is seemingly no limit to how small a "car" can be. Forget the Cinquecento. Forget Smart cars. There is a category of single-person vehicle that looks like a motorcyle-plus-rider wrapped in cling film.<br />
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<br />
There is also a dizzying range of speeds. That number on the road signs cannot be the speed limit. The average? This system is so chaotic that the average is surely undefined. Could it be the minimum? No, the minimum is of course zero. Just look at all those double-parked cars! Not to mention the regular phenomenon of the high-speed four-door sedan that is one moment belting along in front of you, and the next, in the blink of an eye, stationary with all four doors flung open and people streaming out.<br />
<br />
To my amazement, I am cool with it all. I am sanguine. There is nothing to fear, because these people are professionals. Do I need to unexpectedly cross three lanes and veer off a side road? No problem: everyone gets out of the way! Should I slow down before entering that highway at ninety degrees? Not at all! Just charge right in!<br />
<br />
At first I assume that the intoxicating feeling of invincibility is due to the other drivers. They know how to steer clear of me. I am a Beginner Level nuisance. There is nothing I can do that will put me in the least bit of danger -- unless I meet another foreign car.<br />
<br />
But then I realise that it is more than that. I have become a part of the swarm. I have joined the Roman traffic hive mind. What they know, I know. What they can do, I can do. Once upon a time I was an innocent pedestrian who marvelled at how the cars could weave around me. Now it is I whirling around pedestrians without a care in the world. And there are so many of them! It feels like there is a zebra-crossing every twenty metres, inhabited by the most foolhardy and oblivious plodders you will ever meet. Doddering old fogies! Children playing football! Crawling babies! Zombie tourists! Drunk blind breakdancers! They are all shambling in front of me, and I miss every one of them without my foot once rising from the accelerator.<br />
<br />
Are my fellow drivers aggressive? Not at all! We share a state of communal bliss. We bathe in a warm glow of camaraderie. Sure, we are forthright and robust, but we love each other, too. You want to push in to that lane of traffic? So do I! Let's see which of us manages it! Oh look, that other car cut in on both of us. Bravo!<br />
<br />
I cannot wait to reach the heart of the beast: Piazza Venezia. But first, a detour to prolong the adventure. Or was I ignoring Sally? No matter -- I'm off on a tangent, on Tangienzale Est. It is a ribbon of road hoisted high above the city, ridiculously narrow, and twisting, and turning, like a kid's slot-car track. And then -- wheee! -- we plunge down into a tunnel. My previous public-transport travels of Rome had not prepared me for the maze of roads that pass under the city. Or the sudden silence of Sally SatNav. There is no signal down here. Will the drivers' collective consciousness lead me out safely? This is the ultimate test. It is the climactic scene in Star Wars. "Luke, you have turned off your targeting computer." All I can do is sit back and wait for the whispers from my comrades. Should I also close my eyes? No, perhaps not.<br />
<br />
Then I am out! Daylight again, and Sally is back. "Stay right at the fork." Sure thing. I am amazed at her calm. She should be saying, "You dipshit! You screwed up so badly that you're on the opposite side of the city." Or maybe she is secretly having as much fun as I am.<br />
<br />
Eventually we make it. I do a few victory laps around the piazza before heading home. Then I finally discover the only downside to this revelatory, therapeutic, life-affirming experience. Parking.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously:</b><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">Certified Mail</a><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-9536675719268373122019-10-21T07:40:00.000+01:002019-11-22T20:06:58.528+00:00Certified Mail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Previously: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">A Letter from Rome</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Rome is a place of untamed primal forces. Your fortunes will experience wild mood swings.<br />
<br />
One moment I was the resplendent champion of the routine retail transaction, the next I was being flailed in a state-funded hell. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy#Inferno">The Divine Comedy, Part I</a>, if Pasolini had taken another crack at it, for Amazon.<br />
<br />
To recap: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-letter-from-rome.html">I needed to mail a letter</a>.<br />
<br />
Ho ho ho, you might chortle. No problem. Slap on some stamps and put it in a mailbox.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Well. Heh heh heh, I will respond. You obviously know nothing of the infamous Italian postal system. I admit I know nothing, either, but I have heard plenty of stories. Like the Roman postmaster who had once accumulated a warehouse of undelivered mail so large that even he found it embarrassing, like that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and had no choice but to dispose of it in the most inconspicuous way possible, and so dumped it in the Tiber from a great height, in a strong wind. Since google is unable to retrieve news stories older than one week that do not contribute to social media outrage, I cannot confirm the facts. Maybe he actually threw them down a mineshaft, or fired them into space, or put them out with the ordinary garbage, where they are still waiting to be collected, but no-one has noticed because this is entirely normal. Whatever really happened, the message is clear: do not trust Italian mail. The only people who should dare to use it are corrupt politicians with incriminating documents they want never seen again.<br />
<br />
So: I wanted to send my envelope by registered mail.<br />
<br />
I should explain that my envelope contained an expense claim, and was being sent to Germany. I had asked the German institution in question if I could email them electronic documents -- in fact I had pleaded -- but they responded that they required originals. "In Germany we are very strict with rules," they added, and then, and I swear that I am not making this up, spit in my face and call me <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B010EUH2H4/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B010EUH2H4&linkId=c04aeca45263d77f97dc9652c4c26897">Dave Barry</a> if I am, they added a smiley-face emoji.<br />
<br />
Caught in this fiendish net of European stereotypes, I had no choice but to take my envelope to the post office.<br />
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<br />
Flush from your mind any quaint images. This was not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Postino:_The_Postman">Il Postino</a>. If there was a sequel to that film, the son would have failed to appreciate his hapless father's early experiments in mixed-media poetry, and instead followed his example of joining the postal industry -- and ended up a miserable anonymous functionary in a drab high-rise office block, dreaming of being a fisherman.<br />
<br />
Anyway. This post office was a slick modern operation. There were at least five tellers. There was a touch-screen monitor, from which you could select your desired service, and would receive a number, and take your turn. (I suspect you will be hearing a lot of this "take a number" lark as the year goes on.)<br />
<br />
When I arrived, there were no customers. I dithered about whether to try to get myself a number.<br />
<br />
Before I could decide, one of the tellers yelled, "Prego!", which must be Italian for "What the fuck do you want!?"<br />
<br />
I approached her. All I needed to say was that I wanted to mail a letter, but this place was intimidating, and the woman behind the counter was terrifying. Like a fool, I revealed my weakness, and asked if she spoke English. That was her cue to strike.<br />
<br />
"No!" she snapped. Her tone communicated utter contempt. I immediately understood what she meant to say. When you hear the Italian word "no", it is usually straightforward to translate it into an English word, which is "no". But at that moment I realised that in Italian the exclamation "no!" has another colloquial meaning, which is, "I am going to smash your face in!" The way she said it was enough on its own to induce a nosebleed.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
There was another teller, who <i>did</i> speak some English. My current teller indicated her to me, also with contempt. The English speaker must have been despised for her depraved skill. Who knows how her colleagues tormented her! Was it worse than what Alan Turing's schoolmates did to him in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game">The Imitation Game</a>? You can be sure. These people had no time for sanitised Hollywood fluff. Their favourite film was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal%C3%B2,_or_the_120_Days_of_Sodom">Salò</a>. I expect that she lived in fear. For safety, she remained at all times in public view. She never drank a drop of water at work, so that she could last all day without having to enter the employee bathroom alone. At night she ran from the building and never looked back. The one time she was too slow, it was over a month before she left the hospital. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
The experience had brutalised her. Instead of serving me, she demanded that I take a number.<br />
<br />
So I went to the touch screen and got a number.<br />
<br />
Naturally, the number sent me to a different teller.<br />
<br />
This teller also spoke no English.<br />
<br />
Sure, "I want to mail this letter" is not a difficult sentence. But this room, which I interpreted as incontrovertible proof that Italy engages in state-sponsored torture, had frozen my brain. Forget Italian -- I would have been unable to speak English! Even telepathy would be in vain. If she could look directly into my mind, all she would see is, "Do what you like, I will never lead you to my wife and children!"<br />
<br />
Fortunately she somehow divined my purpose in entering a post office: to mail a letter. Perhaps the letter that was hanging from my limp hand?<br />
<br />
She gave me a form to fill out. In my panic I could have written anything on it. My last will and testament, the lyrics to "Please Mr Postman" -- anything! I am fairly sure I also wrote the address, even though I was interrupted by the teller, when she barked, "Are you finished!?"<br />
<br />
Oh, I was finished, all right!<br />
<br />
I gave her the letter, and the form, and some money, and was given a receipt. Then I ran for my life.<br />
<br />
My hopes of survival here had plummeted. That was not even an example of the famous bureaucracy. That was just what Malcolm Gladwell would call a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell#Talking_to_Strangers">failure to communicate</a>.<br />
<br />
What would they do to me next?<br />
<br />
<br />
Next: <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/11/all-roads.html">Driving</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-30640333129449547492019-10-08T08:36:00.001+01:002019-10-29T16:18:53.199+00:00A Letter from Rome<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Time for a change. I have relocated to Rome.<br />
<br />
I know what you are thinking, but, No, I am not fleeing <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/02/dispatch-from-brexit-britain.html">Brexit</a>. Given that Brexit is a phenomenon defined above all else by incandescent uncertainty, only a fool would make life-altering decisions based purely on predictions of its outcome. In fact, the risk of missing Brexit was one of my few reservations in moving: how often do you get to witness complete social breakdown at close quarters? I could never forgive myself if I lost the chance to pimp my biography with the juicy line, "fled civil war". Ultimately I took stock of the global situation and concluded that the risk was small. The chance will come again soon enough.<br />
<br />
This is a brief relocation, for one year. "Spent a year in Rome" is also a standard line in the best of biographies. Was my motivation merely to inject further glamour into my resumé? Surely not: its dazzle already blinds my lesser contemporaries, to the horror of my innate modesty.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Was it a loftier goal? For example. To fulfil the promise of an intellectual life. To truly live the dream of academia. To repudiate the dull bleating chorus of complaints, that academia is all bureaucracy, paperwork, meetings, students who fail to appreciate courses that were carefully tailored to boost institution rankings, and administrators who cannot understand why a succession of courses, workshops, and away days, complete with flip charts, break-out sessions and high-profile motivational speakers, do not translate immediately into sumptuous grants and glittering publicity, and are forced to propose a committee on a strategy to formulate a series of further courses, workshops and away days, to recommend a template for a set of key performance indicators that can be tabled for inclusion in a white paper on the solution to whatever it was we were talking about -- and all of this, again and again and again, day after day, week after week, year after year, being bulldozed into an endless landfill of meaningless tasks that utterly bury the laughably naive notion of intellectual curiosity and rigorous scholarship.<br />
<br />
Is it really like that? Who knows! Everyone just loves to complain. But what a great service I could do for my fellow scholars -- to spring that psychological trap, and exemplify academia at its luxurious best, with the ultimate in sabbatical destinations.<br />
<br />
Could that have been the goal? Or was it just for the coffee?<br />
<br />
Over the course of the year I expect I will find out.<br />
<br />
The sense of freedom is certainly invigorating. So is the detonation of every structure in my old work life.<br />
<br />
At home, I knew how things worked. I was the director of a research institute. I knew how to get things done. I could negotiate the hiring of a new faculty member. I could get a new degree programme approved. I could get PhD students graduated. I could also successfully order a new laptop, renew my staff ID card, or go the department office and pick up a new set of whiteboard markers. New students asked me where to go to get a building key, new postdocs asked for advice on finding a flat, and not-even-new faculty asked me for advice on promotion applications. Although I always had the internal sense that I was just as confused and bumbling as on my first day at undergraduate university orientation, I was dimly aware that I was in reality fully functioning in an environment I knew very well.<br />
<br />
Now I am in Rome.<br />
<br />
I spent this morning working out how to buy an envelope to mail a letter.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I did not dare ask the secretary. What if she sent me to someone else, who sent me to yet someone else, who told me that I needed to be registered as part of some particular funding line, and then I spent half the day determining which funding line that was, and then applied to be part of it, only to find out two weeks later that it was the wrong one after all? For God's sake, I can afford my own envelope and stamp, can't I?<br />
<br />
So off I go, out into the city, to find a stationary store.<br />
<br />
Ah, the streets of Rome! It is immediately clear why Rome is the home of a major world religion. Your faith is affirmed every time you cross the street. Just close your eyes and step out into four lanes of heavy traffic. The cars will not stop, or even slow down. More likely they will accelerate. But they will not hit you. They swerve. They weave. So do the motorbikes, and the buses, and the trucks. They do it so naturally that sometimes they do not even bother to honk their horns. It is an exhilirating experience. It even affirms the convictions of atheists: if you have not experienced the divine by the time you open your eyes at the other side of the street, you never will. Does it always work? I believe so. If anyone failed to survive, they never told me about it.<br />
<br />
So, to the <i>cartoleria</i>.<br />
<br />
This looks like it will be easy. The envelopes are immediately visible. But I also need paperclips. I cannot see any. Staples, rubber bands, tape, glue, but no paperclips. Am I going to have to ask? I look up "paperclip" on google translate. I brace myself. This is not going to be fun. My simple question in amateur Italian is sure to induce a monologue. Perhaps detailed directions to the specialist paperclip shop. Or a catalogue of questions on what specific style of paperclip I am searching for. Or a disquisition on the tortuous history of the paperclip. Whatever happens, the shop assistant is unlikely to share my rudimentary Duolingo knowledge of Italian, and understand that the ideal response is to point silently to the appropriate shelf, because they have no use for the only phrase they can remember, "This is a penguin."<br />
<br />
I approach the counter, and a miracle occurs, almost as impressive as the traffic. Right next to the cash register, there is a paperclip display! Boxes and boxes of paperclips. Ordinary paperclips, teeny paperclips, huge paperclips, plain metal paperclips, and paperclips in fun party colours. What a relief! I choose a packet of cheerful green paperclips, and make my purchase.<br />
<br />
Woohoo! Yes, I am victorious! I went to the stationary store, I found the paperclips, and I bought them! Julius Caesar knew how I felt; on a similar ocassion he paraphrased my very sentiments.<br />
<br />
On the way back I stop for a celebratory coffee. The bar is called "C'era una volta," which means, "Once upon a time." I know that because Rome is now at my fingertips. The place is crammed with people, but I know how it works. I force my way to the back of the establishment, where I have to first pay for my coffee and take a receipt. There is an old woman at the counter buying cigarettes. She discovers that the even older woman behind her is one of her friends. They exclaim in excitement. The old woman is thrilled to see her friend looking so well, i.e., alive. "Sei bella! Sei bella!" she cries. "You are beautiful! You are beautiful!" (Wow, look how I translated, in real time, amidst the chaos of a crowded cafe!) She also indicates that it is her friend's face in particular that is beautiful, by repeatedly slapping it. Ah, Italy! Every minute you teach me something new. Now I know that when I greet my friends, I should whack them in the face. Soon I will be indistinguishable from the locals.<br />
<br />
I get my ticket, and I give it to the man behind the bar. He tears it to indicate that he has taken my order. He checks that I want my coffee "normale". What other options are there? That is a question for another day, as I continue my triumphant journey. He provides me with a saucer and a spoon, and calls my order to the woman operating the coffee machine. Moments later she hands him an espresso, and he delivers it to my saucer. I mix in a packet of sugar, and drink my elixir.<br />
<br />
Then I head back to my office, to pursue great thoughts, which is of course why I am here.<br />
<br />
Although it really could have been just for that coffee.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Stay tuned for the next instalment:</b> <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2019/10/certified-mail.html">do I actually send my letter</a>?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-73569723020392571822019-02-10T20:27:00.001+00:002019-02-11T14:02:48.517+00:00Dispatch from Brexit Britain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Brexit is exciting. The UK is slithering down a political mudslide towards a major historical catastrophe -- and I get to ride along with it! Wheee!<br />
<br />
I realise this may not be fun for everyone. For example, the Europeans in the UK who will be either hounded to leave or hounded because they stayed. I wonder which will be worse? A more interesting grouping are the poor and unskilled, regardless of where their birth certificate was printed. Is it worse to be foreign and driven to leave, or British and unable to?<br />
<br />
Among these unfortunates are of course the unrepentantly xenophobic and stupid who voted for Brexit. I am trying to shed myself of any sympathy for them, but even someone of my limited empathy knows perfectly well that most of them were duped into voting for their own misery by wealthy scumbags who are as certain to make a tidy profit out of this as their supporters are to suffer. If they (the poor unfortunates) have not yet understood their folly, should that drive my sympathy up, or down?<br />
<br />
As you can see, there are many fascinating questions to ponder.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
And what of myself? How will I fare? For a start, I am not British, so I am spared their aching shame and collective guilt. It is hard to imagine how humiliating and embarrasing it must be to be British right now, even with the sight of so many of them at such close range. Also, as a perfectly comfortable university professor, I expect to be cushioned from the worst of the economic blow. In fact, I am even better off than that. Usually you have to be a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich">billionaire tech asshole</a> to be able to make plans to run away to the most distant corner of the world in the event of an apocalypse; I, however, am already blessed with a New Zealand passport. I agree that it is somewhat repugnant to wallow in your good fortune and privilege but, on the other hand, isn't that what it's for? <br />
<br />
Perhaps I should clarify, for outsiders, the nature of the crisis ahead. The UK will cease to be a part of the European Union on March 29th of this year -- a mere few weeks away. This may sound like some dull political formality, and it would be, if there were a plan to disentagle the two entities' legal, financial and political ties on that date; the flow of money and the operation of business, for example, or, perhaps more striking, the flow of food and medicine.<br />
<br />
Surely, you complain, there must be a plan! Politicians cannot be <i>that</i> stupid! Ha ha, yes, of course there is a plan! After March 29, all of these practical connections will continue as normal for two years, or longer if necessary, until long-term arrangements have been made.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
The only problem is that the UK parliament does not like this plan, and refuse to approve it. The politicians <span style="font-family: inherit;">who are in favour of Brexit fear that this plan will lead to a "Brexit in name only" that will last indefinitely. This is a</span> fair point. The politicans who are against Brexit essentially agree, with one additional observat<span style="font-family: inherit;">ion: if we are not really going to change anything, why don't we ditch the whole Brexit thing entirely? This is also a fair point. And so we are at an impasse. At least, until the UK slips through the Brexit event horizon, into the </span>twilight<span style="font-family: inherit;"> zone, via, as </span><a href="https://twitter.com/davidallengreen">my favourite Brexit commentator</a> regularly reminds us, "the automatic operation of law". </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the lovely things about Brexit, as a continuous breaking-news drama, is how simple it is. The situation I described has been unchanged for many months. Despite yelling in parliament and talks of meaningful votes and amendments and the Prime Minister </span>periodically nipping off to Brussels and returning with "conce</span>ssions", which I think are the name for those perfume and booze samples they foist on you as you rush through Duty Free, not a single substantive thing has changed. I have zero training in UK political processes, global economics, or international law, but I have had no trouble following. It is a dream combination for the media networks: pure spectacle, but still with real consequences to add dramatic bite. It is the most brilliant ratings winner ever devised. Forget voting contestants off an island. Let's vote the island off the list of major Western economies! And the audience <i>lives on the island</i>! What genius! Any moron can enjoy it, and many are. The tension is ratcheting up, and we are loving it!</div>
<br />
I am told that the shits who are pushing for this have a dream: that the UK become a bargain-basement tax haven moored conveniently off the coast of continental Europe. Tourists to the UK who venture beyond the swish environs of Kensington will concur that the country already has exactly the right look. In many cities high street shops are already closing to make space for even trashier merchants than were previously there. In the mean time, the empty store fronts are guarded by pamphlet-wielding Christian evangelists (there was some book they used to give away, but who reads books anymore?), and homeless people in tents.<br />
<br />
We should not give the Brexiteers too much credit. The closed shops and the homeless tents are in fact the result of a decade of economic austerity. Since choking the economy has so utterly failed to energise it, we can only assume that if we peer into the homeless tents, we will discover that one of them is occupied by David Cameron. We can also assume that their number will multiply over the next two years, and ultimately they will also provide minimal shelter to Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and the rest of their band of bandits. Of course, this is not how the world works. Although they have learned little about responsible governance, informed decision making, or even such basics as honesty and compassion, they <i>have</i> learned how to insulate themselves against their own incompetence. That almost makes it sound like an achievement.<br />
<br />
What does this mean for the rest of us? That is one of the other marvels of Brexit: it is a beautiful lesson in the meaning of the word "uncertainty". No-one has any idea. A reasonable guess at present would be that parliament ultimately caves in and approves the Withdrawal Agreement, then the EU agrees to shift the March 29th deadline to allow remaining necessary legislation to pass and arrangements to be made. But that is almost identical to the reasonable guess one might have made in November, but without the need for any deadline extensions. And it arises from the same rational observations that would have presumed, back in July 2016, that no sensible government would trigger Article 50 before agreeing on what to do next, or, only a few months earlier, that no sensible electorate would vote for Brexit in the first place. "Reasonable guesses" do not have a good track record on this topic.<br />
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This is why it is so easy to be both cavelier about the whole thing, and unceasingly petrified.<br />
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For example: if the dreaded No Deal Brexit occurs, there are predictions of significant food shortages. Even if I cannot bring myself to believe that will happen (through lack of imagination), I <i>can</i> believe that the thought of it will drive people to panic and they will strip the supermarkets down to their last sprout. And finally I start to properly worry and face the hard reality of painful questions.<br />
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Stockpiling food will be no problem for the British -- they <i>like</i> baked beans. They will be whooping and farting through April with gleeful abandon. My sophisticated palate will not be so lucky.<br />
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Will I still be able to drink a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimlet_(cocktail)">gimlet</a> before dinner? I can stock up on gin and maraschino cherries, but fresh limes will not last in the fridge more than two weeks. Will I really have to downgrade to Rose's lime juice? And will I have to make my morning cappucino with -- shudder! -- frothed UHT milk? <br />
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And what if none of it comes to pass? How silly will I feel then? Sure, I can fill up the spare room with sacks of flour and rice and tins of fruit, but I am going to feel pretty stupid when guests come over in six months' time.<br />
<br />
"Ha ha! Remember those suckers who panicked and stockpiled food?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah, what a bunch of losers."<br />
<br />
"So I'm sleeping in the spare room, am I?"<br />
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"Don't be foolish! Take the master bedroom!"<br />
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On the other hand, I do not fancy my chances of breaking through the line of soldiers guarding the Tesco warehouse.<br />
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That's what it has come to. We have no idea whether this is a drawn-out comedy or an even longer tragedy. Pre-Brexit Britain is like living inside the Schroedinger's Cat experiment. It cannot be possible, and yet here we are.<br />
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Is this what other critical moments in history felt like? And did the participants also make flippantly aloof jokes, right until the axe fell?<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-29632422039266850862018-12-04T20:11:00.001+00:002018-12-04T20:15:12.251+00:00Digging in the Stellar Graveyard<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Or: double your black holes!</h3>
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The LIGO and Virgo collaborations <a href="https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-P1800307/public">have published their catalog</a> of gravitational-wave detections from the first and second observing runs (2015-17). The news: four more binary-black-hole mergers, and the "LIGO-Virgo Transient" from October 2015, LVT151012, now upgraded to a bona fide detection.<br />
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That doubles the number of binary-black-hole mergers observed so far: five had been published already, and now we have ten. Along with the binary-neutron-star observation from August 2017, that fits nicely with <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/06/black-holes-rule.html">my rough prediction a few years ago</a>, that we would likely observe ten black-hole mergers for every binary neutron star. Neutron-star mergers might be the furnace that creates gold in our universe, but the real gold rush of gravitational-wave detectors is a bounty of black holes.<br />
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Where did all these new black-hole mergers come from? They were always there; we have known about them for over 15 months. Why were they only published now? Lots of reasons. One was that the <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/10/kaboom-two-kinds-of-astronomy-collide.html">GW170817</a> binary-neutron-star merger came with a lot of juicy follow-up science, and dealing with that came first. It also took some time to clarify that these extra observations really were detections: they were all weak signals, and required careful checks to verify them. Part of that checking was more careful calibration and cleaning of the data from both the first (O1) and second (O2) observing runs, and a re-analysis of all detections with the latest analysis codes. Think of these as remastered tracks of those incredible sounds of the cosmos. As we all know, a re-mastered re-issue always comes with some bonus tracks.<br />
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To stick with the recording-industry metaphor (without going quite as far as the LIGO-Virgo social-media <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc">Spinal Tap</a> allusions): are the new signals going to get lots of initial critical praise, be touted by afficionados as truly more interesting than the popular hits, but ultimately forgotten by history?<br />
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Yeah, probably.<br />
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Since the new signals are weak, their properties come with large uncertainties. The most interesting is arguably GW170729, with likely the highest total mass of any binary observed so far: 85 solar masses, give or take 10. But within the prodigious weak-signal error bars it is also possible that GW170823 is actually more massive. The signals' weakness also prevents us from measuring new physical effects. The black holes of the GW170729 binary possibly have the highest ratio between their masses of any signal so far -- that "possibly" qualifier is again an allusion to error bars -- making it a prime candidate for uncovering signs of contributions to the signal beyond the dominant "quadrupole" part. If only it were stronger! With an SNR of 10 or 11 (depending on which set of search results you prefer), it is hard to measure its properties with great accuracy. It could also include the most rapidly spinning black holes that we have ever observed... and it could not.<br />
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On the other hand, for now this still counts as doubling the number of binary-black-hole signals we have, and improves our estimates of how populations of black-hole binaries behave. The estimate of the rate of mergers in the universe has become twice as accurate as at the end of the first observing run: there are between 20 and 100 of them every year, in every cubed gigaparsec of space. (If that improvement is not dramatic enough for you, before the first detections the rate was estimated to be between 10 and 10,000; we have come a long way in three years!) And although no-one would class eleven signals as significant statistics, this is already enough to give us strong evidence that stellar-mass black holes do not spin rapidly.<br />
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All of this will improve dramatically with the next observing run, due to start in 2019. If the detectors' sensitivities are improved as planned, there will be between three and five times as many detections as we have had so far. It could be more, since after all the people who do the detector commissioning are absolute heroes, and it could be much less, if one of them goes berserk with a blow-torch. We will see.<br />
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There are other interesting developments to watch as well. In the last year two data-analysis groups decided to leave the LIGO-Virgo collaborations and strike out alone. Fewer friends to work with means fewer teleconferences, less negotiation, less politics, but also, well, fewer friends to work with. However that plays out, for the outside world it also means more checks of the results from independent groups who know what they are doing.<br />
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That makes a nice change from independent groups who do <i>not</i> know what they are doing. The "Danish paper" controversy, involving claims of unexplained "correlations" between the LIGO detectors, has sadly sputtered on. What could have been generously interpreted as over-excitement <a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-irresistible-allure-of-controversy.html">18 months ago</a> has veered into crackpot behaviour. The problems with this re-analysis have been pointed out by <a href="http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2017/06/18/a-response-to-on-the-time-lags-of-the-ligo-signals-guest-post/">LIGO members</a> and independent groups (both an <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.04071">ex-LIGO group</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.00347">others</a>), but never properly acknowledged or addressed. The leader of the effort still loudly proclaims to anyone who will listen that he does not believe that there have been any gravitational-wave detections at all. Recently "anyone who will listen" included writers for New Scientist, which appears to aspire to be the Daily Mail of science journalism. This was an 18-month-old non-story that had already been roundly debunked, so their preference for a breaking-scandal cover story over the most basic due diligence was worse than amateurish; it was disturbing. How are we to have the least trust in this magazine, or, by association, any of its neighbours on the newsstand? If I point out a New Scientist story on climate change to an oil-company shill, they will respond, "They are just parroting the party line" -- and it appears they will be absolutely correct. If you will splash a story across your cover purely because some random scientist has phoned you up to spout their latest claims, when they are as patently bogus as the "grave doubts about LIGO" story, then we have no hope of trusting a single word you print on complex highly politicised topics.<br />
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The sensitive reader may be shocked that I sullied this account of the lovely new LIGO-Virgo results with that shabby story. But to me both are interesting and important. The science is a testament to the amazing things that human beings can achieve. But the so-called "controversy" is a reminder not only of how hard we have to work to get things right, but also how hard we have to guard against those who make profit from getting things wrong -- and call them out on their shenanigans.<br />
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<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/p/gravitational-waves.html"><br /></a>
<a href="https://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/p/gravitational-waves.html">More on Gravitational Waves</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-37369102254389770572018-10-03T14:57:00.000+01:002018-10-03T16:18:51.922+01:00Losing the Nobel Prize<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Review: "<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1324000910/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1324000910&linkId=a5566a96d5ada28f717091e69cbf26f7">Losing the Nobel Prize</a>", by Brian Keating</b><br />
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The obvious question: did Brian Keating really write a book just to complain because he did not win the Nobel Prize?<br />
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After all, it is called, “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1324000910/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1324000910&linkId=a5566a96d5ada28f717091e69cbf26f7">Losing the Nobel Prize</a>”. But that could be merely a hook to snare your salacious attention. The book is really a very personal memoir of his life in science, and a history of cosmology, and a behind-the-scenes account of the BICEP2 botched non-discovery of gravitational waves from the early universe, and a critique of the twisted culture and arcane practices associated with the Nobel Prize. Wow: four books in one! Five, if you still think it all adds up to grumbling.<br />
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Lots of people grumble about the Nobel Prize. They complain that it does not reflect how the world of science really works. The Nobel succumbs to the myth of individual heroes; it shows a great lopsided bias towards those most visible, most previously lauded, and most Western, white and male; and it operates under a set of arbitrary arcane rules.<br />
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I fail to see the problem. That sounds like an accurate reflection of science to me.<br />
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Nonetheless, Keating demands reforms: get rid of the three-people limit, and in particular allow the Prize to go to collaborations; death should be no impediment to Nobel glory; and stop being such a bunch of sexist pigs. These might sound quite reasonable — so reasonable that you might wonder why he requires an entire book to explicate them.<br />
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The rest of the book is for his four other topics. <br />
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Ultimately (meaning some time after I finished it) I decided that I like <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1324000910/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1324000910&linkId=a5566a96d5ada28f717091e69cbf26f7">Losing the Nobel Prize</a>. It is an unusual book, and I like it for unusual reasons. I like that Keating’s motives are suspect. Surely this is a book motivated by anger and frustration and resentment? Keating claims not, or at least not entirely, but I am sure I caught him twitching from time to time. Is this book the fruits of recovery, the means of recovery, or the evidence that recovery is impossible: a full expose of madness? I put it to you: how often does a popular science book provoke such delicious questions? It is a hell of a lot more fun than all those other painfully earnest golly-gosh science books!<br />
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I liked that Keating had no qualms — again, it is unclear whether this is from bravery and honesty, or because he is too far-gone to realise — about laying his faults bare. It is rare that a true hot-shot scientist admits what perverse forces drove them on. And not just classic demons like ambition and rivalry, demons you can brag about, but embarrassing and ridiculous demons, too. He freely admits that his science ambitions were driven by the lure of winning the Nobel Prize. Yes, just that one prize, that one medal, that one trip to Stockholm, that one arbitrary man-made accolade that every actual winner is quick to insist was furthest from their minds. This is easy to dismiss as pettiness, and could easily disqualify Keating as someone whose opinions we should listen to. His book does not completely succeed in deflecting those reactions — plenty of reviewers shook their heads over it — but I nonetheless find his confessions admirable.<br />
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I liked that his ego was both visible and a bit off-putting. I liked that he talked about his religion, because it was a regular reminder that regardless of their achievements, scientists are still irrational human beings. I liked, ultimately, that the reader is put in a permanent state of vague suspicion. It may not seem like a compliment to praise what was almost certainly not intended, but that is the wrong way to look at it. Keating plunged in and told his story, and by its very nature we are going to be suspicious of his motives, and his chances of emerging rosy and virtuous at the other end were always extremely low, and yet he did it anyway. Good for him!<br />
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I liked his potted history of astronomy and cosmology. I knew very little astronomy or cosmology when I started, and now I know more. (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/04/06/losing-the-nobel-prize-makes-a-good-point-but-misses-the-bigger-picture-book-review/#18638d16184c">Some reviewers</a> have complained that the history is selective, or that he <a href="http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/04/book-review-losing-nobel-prize-by-brian.html">muddles some details about inflation</a>, but I am not expert enough to comment.) The history was also made easy to read by the standard narrative technique of withholding the juicy drama until the backstory was out of the way. By “standard” I mean that it is standard in fiction; in a conventional popular science book there is rarely any juicy drama to build up to.<br />
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He also beautifully evokes his youthful fascination for science, and his wonder at the universe that still helps fuel his work. These are stock sentiments in popular science expositions, and besides being worn-out cliches, they often come across more as part of the performance than as authentic emotions. I have no doubt that Keating is an expert at ramping up the rhetoric for grant applications and public talks, but the stories of his adventures with his first telescope at age 13 nonetheless transmit a clear message: however jaded, cynical, and shrewdly ambitious a scientist may become, it always started with a true, pure enchantment with nature. The juxtaposition of the wide-eyed child with the battle-worn adult does not inhibit the communication of wonder, but rather throws it into greater relief. The ingredients of great science can be both child-like amazement and amazing childishness, but that makes the achievement no less great, and perhaps even more astounding.<br />
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But all of this is just build-up to the big story.<br />
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The “big story” is of course the BICEP2 drama.<br />
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When the book reached the BICEP2 drama, I was a little disappointed. The science neophyte might be shocked by the politics and personalities of big science, but many actual scientists will have experienced no less shenanigans getting a single paper written than Keating owns up to in his account of the wrangling over BICEP. To summarise the story as he tells it: Keating came up with the idea for the first BICEP experiment. It was not sensitive enough to detect the B-modes that were thought to be incriminating evidence for cosmological inflation. A second experiment (you guessed it, BICEP2) was built, but by this time Keating was also involved with a third experiment, and due to this conflict of interest he was not made a leader of BICEP2. The story as told is not entirely convincing, and very likely this is because there are a lot of sordid details that Keating does not want to put in. Maybe he thinks they will make him look bad, maybe they will make others look bad and he does not want to completely piss off people who are, after all, still his colleagues, or maybe he thinks it will all be too complicated and boring. I’m going to hedge my bets and guess that it is all three. It does not matter: in the end the revelations of the inner sausage-making of science are no more than a teaser. (A teaser for a film? Oooh, now we’re talking.)<br />
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The story of the results themselves is well known. They announced that B-modes were found, there was huge excitement, followed by questions about how much the measurement was contaminated by space dust, followed by dialling back the strong detection claim. Keating takes us through the pain from the inside. He says he was worried by dust all along, although that is not the interesting part — that is about as interesting as the 95% of the French population that claimed after World War II to be part of the Resistance. What are interesting are the arguments the BICEP2 team made to each other to convince themselves that the results were solid. Part of their claim rested on an illicitly digitised slide from a public talk from a competing experiment (which they convinced themselves was not the central pillar of their evidence, although it seems that it was), and part rested on an estimated 95% confidence that everything would hold up. As Keating puts it, “Would you enter a lottery, the biggest one in cosmic history, if you had `only’ a 95% chance of winning? Of course you would!” One could quibble that this is not how scientists are supposed to think, but of course that often <i>is</i> how they think — and I guess 95% of the time they get away with it! (Although you may also be reminded of those ridiculously exaggerated safety estimates before the fateful Challenger flight.)<br />
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The months between the announcement and the come-down were painful. Keating describes the pain, but from an equivocal position: he was half cheering the results, half pissed off that he had not been the one announcing them. His unusual vantage point prevents him from fully immersing us in the scientists’ suffering, but I think that is worth it for the chance to illustrate how the business of science overflows with complex emotions.<br />
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The book ends with an appeal to scientific co-operation, as exemplified by the Simons Observatory of which he is now director. I am not sure how thoroughly inclusive this operation is — I wonder if his old adversaries at BICEP2 are signed up? — or how thoroughly he has exorcised his addiction to Nobel glory — “Aggrieved reformer finally wins Science’s Biggest Prize!” is not as impossible a headline as Keating implies — but in the end lingering doubts are better than sham certainty. I welcome the discomfort.<br />
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<b>Also</b>: <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/10/woohoo-i-just-won-nobel-prize.html">when I won the Nobel Prize</a>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-7330880460594107052018-08-28T22:41:00.001+01:002021-03-23T10:43:02.947+00:00The Ashtray<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0226922685/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226922685&linkId=bcc4e90ccbb485a446c85699b1bd2279">The Ashtray</a> may be the world’s first coffee table book of philosophy. It a glorious soup of styles. There are lavish photographs with often only tangential connections to the text, and no nearby captions — art reproductions, photographs, movie stills, people, places, things, the Minister of Silly Walks, Humpty Dumpty, an Aardvark. There are notes that run down the margins and accumulate a word count that competes with the main text. The topic of the book, a thought-provoking mix of intellectual assault on Kuhn’s <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0226458121/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226458121&linkId=633edebdfbc66b3b3b937a30529f748d">Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a> and personal vendetta against Kuhn himself, flowers into digressions on philosophy, translation, Borges, Wittgenstein, the history of irrational numbers, fantastic animals in the fossil record, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. There are interviews, with philosophers, old friends, Steven Weinberg, Noam Chomsky. There are evocations of a lost age of academic freedom (“You were supposed to be teaching a course on Goedel, but you were using Mao’s Little Red Book”). There are abstract notions rendered in no-nonsense words. It is, in short, a blazing talisman for knowledge, enquiry, originality, uncompromising investigation, and just the sheer all-encompassing mental exuberance that we have to hope will be the cure to our grim times.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
That is an explicit goal of the book. In an early marginal note (No. 5, out of 290 throughout), Morris invokes 2017’s nightmare neologism “alternative facts”, and states, “This book, I hope, will serve as an antidote to those poisonous views.” Fat chance. I would love if it were a bestseller. I would cheer to footage of Trump voters lifting their MAGA caps to scratch their heads while they read it, or of newsrooms around the world with a copy on every desk, or someone using it to club Nigel Farage. I fear it is not to be. Even as an attempted knock-out blow to Kuhn, it is too wide-ranging, too digressive, and without a clear reproducible line of argument.<br />
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It is, however, the perfect therapy after reading Structure. If, like me, you have recently strayed deep into Kuhn’s labyrinth, The Ashtray offers you an immediate elevator to intellectual fresh air, and a cleansing shower into the bargain. So, science makes progress after all? Yes, of course it does! And what do we call the paradigm of the Ptolemaic astronomers? Oh, now I remember the word for it: wrong! Structure is a valuable book for every scientist to read, so long as you do not take it too seriously. The Ashtray is here to inoculate you from that disease.<br />
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It is also fun. Even the stuff about how words attach to reality. This is the part of philosophy I have never been able to get the hang of. If you decide to call your fish Goldie because its colour is gold, and then it turns green, is it still Goldie? Who cares! Surely the names are just shorthand, and if they prove inadequate, then that is just too bad. If Goldie is a name I have reserved for a fish that is gold, then I can no longer give that name to a fish that has turned green. If it is the name I attach to a particular organism, whose continuity through a change in colour could be verified in a multitude of ways, then it is still Goldie. Are we really going to staff entire university departments on this stuff?<br />
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That was unfair. That was like complaining that we should get rid of ambulances, just because they make a terrible noise. Ambulances are important, and so are defenders of realism.<br />
<br />
The word-stuff is supposed to get interesting when we move on to less tangible entities, like electrons and quarks. Are electrons real? What about wavefunctions? Ok, even I admit this is getting interesting.<br />
<br />
Another question. (Morris does not ask this in the book; I wondered about it while entangled in Structure.) Imagine we meet an alien species, and they have an entirely different picture of the subatomic world. They do not have electrons or protons or quarks or gluons, and they do not have wavefunctions, either. It is not that they have similar things with different names: they have a completely different picture. (Yes, a different paradigm!) In the world of the Ashtray, we would worry about whether we can translate between their picture and ours’. Morris would say that Kuhn would say that this is impossible (the two pictures are “incommensurable”) and Morris would say, No, there must be some way to translate. I agree. No, I partially agree, in the following sense, which is my real question: would we be able to translate the two pictures in such a way that they were, as us Earth scientists might put it, equivalent: given a mapping between the two, we may as well say that there is just one picture? Or do we live in a universe where multiple complete and completely independent pictures of reality can exist? By that I mean that we could learn to understand all the concepts that the aliens use, and their ways of doing calculations and making scientific predictions, and we could see that both their way and our way gave the same results, but we might also be able to construct a mathematical proof that the theories were in fact, for want of a better term, “incommensurable”. We could hold both theories in our heads, and use both of them, and they both work perfectly, and try as we might we cannot find any phenomena for which one works better than the other — but they cannot be translated.<br />
<br />
This is a question of uniqueness. Is there a unique description of reality, up to mappings and translations? Or not? Unless we meet those aliens, we may never know. And whatever the answer, it is no impediment to how we proceed now. It is just an amusing question.<br />
<br />
Here is a less amusing question. Is there even <i>one</i> description? This is closer to the monster Morris is trying to slay. Some people would argue that a complete coherent description of reality is not only impossible, but meaningless, because there is no objective reality out there to describe. There are just a mishmash of different human perceptions, and since we can only know our own perception (or think we know our own perception), I cannot even tell if I have translated between my perception and yours’, because I do not have direct access to yours’.<br />
<br />
Morris thinks this is bullshit. So do I. (<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">See here</a>.) Who would not?<br />
<br />
Kuhn, for one. According to Morris, history is littered with these philosophical scoundrels. Kuhn was lured to the dark side by Wittgenstein, and long before Wittengenstein there was Kant. On the side of Truth — literally! — Morris invokes Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam. Oh, you have not heard of them? Maybe that is why respect for reality is in its current sorry state.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBoemdlTclCRtuROfQ0Q6OywhrkHRPxwVBLK5zh_m8pUacBMbbzg_Eehno-8-SuP1r7I21jEypfMdaR2ug9-qPedWXAz5f7mLN77rO6S52KHbGvEWTp2qv8MERZ_2VWmBG-H_Qt8ccedO7/s1600/truth.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBoemdlTclCRtuROfQ0Q6OywhrkHRPxwVBLK5zh_m8pUacBMbbzg_Eehno-8-SuP1r7I21jEypfMdaR2ug9-qPedWXAz5f7mLN77rO6S52KHbGvEWTp2qv8MERZ_2VWmBG-H_Qt8ccedO7/s1600/truth.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_Coming_Out_of_Her_Well">Truth</a>. (Not an oil-painting of a scene<br />
from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_(2002_film)">The Ring</a>.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Who carried the torch on from Kuhn? The deconstructionalists? That name just came to me — I have no idea what a deconstructionalist is. If they are Kuhn’s heirs, Morris does not say. They are not his target. His target is Kuhn.<br />
<br />
Kuhn’s crimes, as I understand them, are twofold. The first is that he failed to declare his side. He pretended to explain scientists, who believe in the real world, without admitting that he did not. If Morris is right, Kuhn gave up on reality long before he started Structure, but said not a word about it in the book (he certainly did not start with, “Just to get it out of the way, I do not believe in objective reality”), until finally equivocating about Truth in the very last section. And that was his second crime: he could never directly state a position. A former Kuhn colleague paraphrases the style (with some admiration), “I have not done the research to find actual evidence for this… but it is true nonetheless, unless of course it turns out not to be”. Morris highlights numerous quotes from Kuhn’s later career that demonstrate that he refused to believe in reality, but I suspect you could find an equal number that argue the opposite — and that vagueness is in itself intellectual misconduct of the worst order.<br />
<br />
I realise that not accepting an objective reality, and helping to popularise such an immature philosophical position, is supposed to be the real crime. But if Kuhn had done it in the open, would he have had such an influence? The argument, "You cannot <i>prove</i> that reality is as it seems, so it must not be," is not an argument at all; it is a childish taunt.<br />
<br />
Those are what I take to be the crimes Kuhn is accused of. Does Morris secure convictions? Maybe; who am I to say? Besides, the book is too digressive and too much fun for that; too thoughtful and entertaining.<br />
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Talk of crimes makes us think of course of Morris’s most famous film, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(1988_film)">The Thin Blue Line</a>. Now there is a clear crime, and there is a clear question of guilt. That film not only brings Morris’s argument to life, but confronts us with its importance and relevance. The opposing worldview could be elegantly represented by another film, Kurosawa’s <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00T05OAQ6/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00T05OAQ6&linkId=3aa21ddacf262ecf39a7daa22451fccf">Rashomon</a>. The two would make the perfect double feature.<br />
<br />
In Rashomon a murder is recounted by multiple witnesses, but their accounts are contradictory, and we are left in confusion. The experience of watching Rashomon, at least for me, was frustration at the perversion of the mystery genre: you <i>have</i> to tell us the answer! That’s how it works! The Thin Blue Line is the reverse. We are presented with a real-life crime, a murder for which a convicted man is on death row, and Morris is determined to find out what really happened. Now the expectation is flipped: in real life we know that evidence is too scant, memories are too unreliable, and liars are too slippery. The pervading sense that we will not — we can not — know the true answer is so strong that it morphs into the epistemological nightmare belief that “there is no true answer”. Morris is there to slap us across the face and wake us up. No. There was a definite sequence of events. And in real life people are rarely smart enough to thread a consistent lie through all of the known facts; their duplicity can be uncovered. And so it comes to pass.<br />
<br />
The two films remind us (a point Morris returns to in The Ashtray) that we should not confuse fiction for reality. Rashomon gives us a fictional universe in which a definitive answer is impossible. It is a great work of art, and we are easily wooed into accepting it as a reflection of our world. We feel like we have learned something. The Thin Blue Line provides the corrective: if you want to learn about the real world, then study the real world, not the unreal.<br />
<br />
The other lesson is that truth, although it exists, is hard work to extract. Morris’s more recent effort, <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/02/wormwood.html">Wormwood</a>, dramatises the point that just because truth exists, that does not mean you will reach it, and even if you do, the search may not be worth the price.<br />
<br />
The Ashtray offers yet another perspective. It argues for the existence of reality and truth, but I was a convert from the outset. Better still, it demonstrates that, in this case at least, the search will lead you past a succession of wonders. The work of finding truth, whether for a journalist, a private investigator, a historian, a philosopher or a scientist, is difficult, tiring, discouraging, and the odds are stacked against you. But it is also one of the most enjoyable ways a human mind can occupy its time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Previously</b>: <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions.html">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a><br />
<br />
<b>Also:</b><br />
The amazing <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/career-advice-i-gleaned-from-errol.html">career of Errol Morris</a> (and what it can teach us all).<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">Errol Morris and Truth</a>.<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-brief-history-of-time-film.html">Errol Morris's A Brief History of Time</a>.<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/02/wormwood.html">Errol Morris's Wormwood</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-35278132432331266242018-08-07T07:28:00.001+01:002018-08-28T22:45:36.799+01:00The Structure of Scientific Revolutions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
That inevitable moment in the life of every pretentious pseudo-intellectual has arrived: I have read Thomas Kuhn’s <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0226458121/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226458121&linkId=3decd89770f45ee6e9995405c917e8d5">Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a>, and now I will pontificate about it.<br />
<br />
If you have no idea what I am talking about, the blurb tells us that Structure, first published in 1962, was “a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science”. The Introductory Essay in my copy opens: “Great books are rare. This is one. Read it and you will see.” You need more? Structure was the source of the term “paradigm shift”, and is a hell of a lot shorter than the source of the term “Catch 22”. (Admittedly less funny.)<br />
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Some preliminaries. I read the book once in 2015, prompted by those it has influenced. From the fans, the sociologist Harry Collins, and from the ranks of the detractors, filmmaker <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/career-advice-i-gleaned-from-errol.html">Errol Morris</a>. In particular, Morris wrote a series of <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/the-ashtray-the-ultimatum-part-1/">New York Times articles </a>about Kuhn, starting with an episode from his time as Kuhn’s graduate student, when Kuhn ended an argument by throwing an ashtray at him. Now Morris has expanded his essays into a book. It is called “The Ashtray”. In preparation for reading it, I decided to read Structure one more time.<br />
<br />
(I had an email exchange with Harry Collins about the Morris articles. In the last email Collins concluded that Morris was just out to make a buck on Kuhn’s memory. The email ended, “Hand me the ashtray”. Who ever said philosophy was dry and boring?)<br />
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The more important preliminary is that I am not, of course, a historian of science, a sociologist of science, or a philosopher. I know nothing of the book’s ancestors (I cannot comment with a shred of authority on who influenced Kuhn, or how original his ideas were), or its descendants (what influence the book had, what has become of its ideas, or the current critical view of it). I bought it, I read it twice, and here are my thoughts.<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
I. Scientists, Get Some Structure In Your Life. </h4>
The early sections were revelatory. Kuhn provides his take on how science operates, and my reaction was a repeated stream of, “Yes, yes, that’s exactly how it is!”, punctuated by, “Why has no-one told me this before?” Kuhn explains that most of the time scientists have a collected set of opinions, theories, and methods, which is what he calls a paradigm. Within those theories there is a set of legitimate problems to work on. Working on them uncovers more facts to flesh out the details of the theory, or to refine or expand the theory. Kuhn calls this “normal science”, and he characterises it principally as “puzzle-solving”.<br />
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Some scientists may be affronted to have their life’s work likened to a child putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but it sounds spot on to me. It also explains why so many scientists seem strangely disinterested in the mysteries of nature that lie only a few steps beneath their work: the motivation, the challenge, the goal, is not necessarily to explain anything, but to solve a puzzle. That is not all scientists, and certainly not the most visible scientists, who honk on continuously about the deep secrets of the universe (to great public cheering), but it is the bulk of the worker bees, who buzz along from one tricky puzzle to the next. <br />
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The message this worker bee took from Kuhn, and the bit that had me wondering why no-one had explained it to me before, is that this is <i>good</i>. There is a romantic notion that “real scientists” invent new theories and make breakthroughs, and everyone else is a second-rate hack, a mere wannabe. Bollocks. Science is about filling in the details of our current understanding of nature. That requires skill, dedication, patience, tenacity, and creativity, and if you are a scientist, it is work you can be deeply proud of. If you have a nagging feeling that ultimately you are a failure until someone names a theory after you, then you need to pick up a copy of Structure.<br />
<br />
My own field is a perfect example. In 2015 (a few months after I first read Structure) <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/p/gravitational-waves.html">gravitational waves were detected in the LIGO interferometers</a>. The result was announced to huge fanfare as a “breakthrough”, a “discovery”, and even heralded by some as a “revolution”. It was indeed an incredible scientific result, but it was 100% puzzle-solving Normal Science. A prediction from Einstein’s general theory of relativity was measured. It took 100 years; it took many decades just to work out <i>what</i> the theory predicted, let alone measure it. Some of my colleagues who cling to their childhood conception that real science means revolutionary discoveries, will argue that these observations also tested Einstein’s theory, to identify where it fails. Whatever spins your wheels, guys. So far all of the theory “testing” could just as well be called “validation”. For all we know, it will still be validation when these guys breathe their last disappointed breath. But they should not be disappointed. Comparing refined measurements against a theory, and filling in yet more details, is noble and essential work. Cheer up!<br />
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At this point you are probably wondering when I am going to get on to the juicy stuff with the revolutions and the paradigm shifts. If so, calm down, and read again from the start. If you are a scientist, your career is almost guaranteed to begin and end with the Normal Science, so get used to it. Plus, there was another revelation from the Normal Science sections.<br />
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The existence of a shared set of theories and opinions (i.e., a shared paradigm) is the true engine of scientific progress. This is what <i>defines</i> a science. The point Structure makes is that the alternative is a series of competing schools of thought — as in history, philosophy, economics, religion, etc., etc. What makes a science different is that there is enough evidence to lock everyone into just one agreed picture of what is going on. More precise data or new observations might lead to a new picture, but most of the time the situation is stable, and that stability is essential. A broad consensus exists for long enough to allow scientists to define a set of problems to solve, and to develop ever more sophisticated apparatus to perform experiments. Scientists often forget how important and how powerful that is. Without the consensus picture, without the paradigm, everyone is searching blindly, arguing over definitions and methods and making very slow progress. You cannot expect to win millions of dollars in funding for telescopes, particle accelerators and huge laboratory complexes, if no-one can agree on what fire is.<br />
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Put another way: the romantic picture of science as lone searchers who cook up brilliant new theories is exactly what science is <i>not</i>. A discipline filled with these glorious characters might be very exciting, but it is not a mature scientific discipline, and may not become one for a very long time indeed. Until it does, progress will be slow, and more likely nonexistent. (Yes, there is fun to be had applying this criteria to all the “scientific” fields we hate. Knock yourself out.)<br />
<br />
So far, so good. But what happens when the current theory stops working? When inconsistencies show up, or data that does not fit? At first, nothing: usually the current picture can be modified to fit the new evidence, or the evidence turns out to be wrong; either way, the problem is likely to go away. But sometimes the problems mount up, and the current picture starts to break down. There is a crisis. Normal science ends, and there is a period much like the pre-science chaos: lots of ideas, which get increasingly desperate. People are in confusion, and some scientists may start to doubt their vocation: “nothing makes sense any more!” Finally there is a new idea, which does fit all the facts, or at least fits them better than before. People may resist it, but if it ends the nightmare of utter confusion, they will eventually settle on it. That becomes the new picture: the paradigm has shifted. If the new picture sticks, then eventually everyone calms down, and Normal Science resumes. Think the Copernican picture of the Earth orbiting the sun, the dawn of quantum mechanics, and Einstein’s theories of relativity. (Kuhn has many examples from chemistry as well.)<br />
<br />
Once again, this rings true, and is much more compelling than the notion that a theory is “falsified” and then rejected until someone comes up with a new theory. Rather, a theory clings on for dear life, until it has no choice but to give in to its successor.<br />
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I have no idea if anyone ever really believed the “falsifying” thing. Falsifiability is associated with Karl Popper, but how many scientists have read Popper? Or Kuhn, for that matter? Our conception of what science is, and how it works, is so crude that it may as well have been explained to us in a child’s picture book. It probably <i>was</i> explained in a child’s picture book! “Structure” is good on this as well: scientists do not read scientific history, and that is also fine. The consensus of a shared paradigm means that there is nothing to be gained by reading old science, and in fact it may be worse than a waste of time. Newton’s ideas have been refined and are better presented in an undergraduate textbook than in Newton’s own writings. No-one reads Newton, or Maxwell, or Planck. Studying Einstein’s papers is not going to provide a deep insight into the great man’s thinking: in fact, Einstein’s personal thinking is far less useful than the collective wisdom of all those who have worked since, as condensed into text books and current papers. It is not surprising that Kuhn exudes a whiff of disgust at this — he studied the history of science through close reading of original texts — but the point is valuable: this is another of the defining features of a mature science, and another reason why it works so well. If there is an upheaval in your field when someone uncovers a genius’s long-lost manuscript, then your field is probably not a science.<br />
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All right. That’s the good stuff. The Normal Science, the sharp insights into what defines science, the passage through crisis and revolution. We are fine all the way up to the end of Section IX. Then it gets screwy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
II. Beneath A Collapsing Structure.</h4>
Kuhn talks about revolutions as a change in world view: scientists now see the world differently. Ok. Fine. We have a new point of view. But this is not strong enough for Kuhn. He struggles to impress on us just how fundamental this change is, almost, but not quite, claiming that the world itself changes. As Kuhn got excited about gestalt shifts (is it a drawing of an old lady, or a young girl?), and the nature of human perception, I became confused over just what kind of book this is. Is it history — describing what has happened in the past, and identifying patterns in the history of science? Or is it amateur cognitive psychology — explaining how the human mind interacts with the real world and builds up (and changes) its interpretation of it? Or is it sociology — how communities of scientists operate? Or, finally, is it philosophy — a thesis about the very nature of reality and our (in)ability to know it? The book’s fans may claim that it is such a work of genius that it is all of these combined; its detractors as a failed mishmash.<br />
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Kuhn repeatedly frames the book as tentative, a “sketch”, an essay, to later be fleshed out into a full book. (Kuhn lived another 34 years, and never wrote that book.) If we take it in that spirit, we can almost overlook the oddities of the last sections. As the insightful signals start to sink into philosophical noise, there are still gems to be had. Even the troublesome notion of incommensurability, that scientists from two paradigms work in different worlds and cannot communicate between them, which is the starting point for the complaints Errol Morris makes — even this is a useful insight. It can indeed be incredibly difficult to communicate with those who see the world through a different framework. The history of science is packed with examples of old codgers who could not accept a new theory. Poincare and Lorentz, who got so close to the revelation of relativity, refused to ever accept it. Possibly they could not accept it precisely because their ideas were close to it. Possibly they were just stubborn. Like Planck (almost) said, science advances one funeral at a time. But this is not true of everyone: people do come to understand new theories, they do work out how to translate between them, and they do come to see the advantage of changing their mind.<br />
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In the last section Kuhn asks how science has made so much progress. His answer? Scientists are only human: whatever they have done, they will look back and call it progress. He brings up the standard claim that science approaches truth, and dismisses it as naive: the assortment of impressions we have collected during our haphazard intellectual journey can hardly be called truth. This makes it sound like Kuhn is doing a hatchet job on science, but how can he be, when his knowledge of science history and his appreciation of scientists’ achievements is, from page to page, deep and indisputable? When I got to the end of the book I read the last four sections one more time, and simply could not fathom his conclusions, or entirely clarify what they were. <br />
<br />
Why does he say so little about the role of experimental data in both challenging paradigms and in resolving revolutions? In particular, why so little appreciation of the incredible <i>improvement</i> in the range and precision of experiments over the decades and centuries? In the Postscript, written several years later, he refers to the “progress” from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein and notes, “…in some important respects, though by no means all, Einstein’s general theory of relativity is closer to Aristotle’s than either of them is to Newton’s.” Whaaat!? He objects to the modern conclusion that Aristotle’s views were merely mistaken. Sure, Aristotle was very clever, perhaps he was the cleverest human who ever lived — why not? — but how could he be anything other than mistaken without a telescope to see the heavens; without a wristwatch, a precision balance or a micrometer to measure time, weight, and distance; without a pipette, a photographic plate, or a particle accelerator? Jeez, the man didn’t even have a bunsen burner! Of course he was mistaken! Ok, I get the point — the role of human misinterpretation, personalities and peer pressure have been overlooked and under-appreciated in the history of science — but reading Structure, I had a queasy sense of the scales being tilted so far the other way as to topple over entirely.<br />
<br />
I take the point that data have to be interpreted, and Structure is good on how the same data may tell us different things before and after a revolution, and in between scientists will argue over what the data are saying, not to mention which data are relevant and correct, and which are irrelevant and flawed. The community may also settle on a conclusion before the data warrant it. (A wonderful set of cautionary examples can be found in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1107604656/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1107604656&linkId=a7048f2409006fc3f1f488b40fd89468">The Golem</a>.) That is the short-term picture, and it is invaluable to understanding how scientists operate, as communities of human beings, but it is not enough to explain the long-term success of science. With more refined study, a wrong answer will be found out, whether it takes a year, a decade, or a century.<br />
<br />
Paradigms do not hit a crisis for social reasons. We would love nothing more than for the Earth to be at the centre of the universe, for there to be no universal speed limit, and for the intuitions we have built up about the world around us to apply at atomic scales as well. We cannot cling to those ideas, not because society does not allow us, but because they are wrong — demonstrably wrong. Surely this is a fundamental defining feature of science? Human beings love to be right, they love to persuade others they are right, and they love to delude themselves. In art, politics and religion you can win by force and by wit, and unfortunately those will get you a long way in science as well, but eventually you hit the hard wall of reality. Reality is the constraint that makes all the difference.<br />
<br />
I am not the first scientist to read this book and wonder why he takes a stance on scientific progress so extreme as to seem deliberately obtuse. To step back from the long arc of the human study of nature, through gravitation, electricity, magnetism, atomic structure, molecules, DNA, the big bang, all of it, and to paint scientific progress as akin to communal back-patting, strikes me as truly perverse. He might argue that that is not what he meant, but if he meant something else, perhaps he could have been a little clearer about it?<br />
<br />
Lurking behind all of this is a big question: what is science? Is it a Method, a procedure, a technique that humanity has hit upon, like cuneiform writing, Iambic pentameter, or the headlock? Or is it just another of those complex and pedantic cultural rituals, like Kabuki theatre, Catholic Mass, or cricket? Or is it the inevitable means by which an intelligent species can discover the nature of reality, through a powerful feedback loop of observation, analysis and identification of patterns? The first option is the schoolbook fairy tale. The second is the messy but fascinating world of scientific communities, which are well worth studying, and the proper subject of Structure. The third, which I am of course fond of, is nonetheless a wishful philosophical stance, and a waste of words to debate. I would argue, though, that there is scant evidence in all of human history and experience to make us seriously question it, and it is entirely compatible with the second option. It seems Kuhn thought differently, and his book left itself wide open to be embraced by the anti-authoritarian, anti-technology counter-culture of the sixties, and worse since. <br />
<br />
That is a pity. It is a pity for him, because the very real achievements of his book have been obscured by the nonsense bred from its last sections. Most importantly, though, it is a pity for the rest of us, who have to live in a world that mistrusts science. Is it really all Kuhn’s fault? I do not know, but I do know someone who believes that it is. So now it is time to spend a few hours in a room with Errol Morris’s Ashtray.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Next: </b><a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-ashtray.html">The Ashtray</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Also:</b><br />
The amazing <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/career-advice-i-gleaned-from-errol.html">career of Errol Morris</a> (and what it can teach us all).<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">Errol Morris and Truth</a>.<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-brief-history-of-time-film.html">Errol Morris's A Brief History of Time</a>.<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/02/wormwood.html">Errol Morris's Wormwood</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-79801156764625854212018-06-28T14:39:00.005+01:002018-07-01T09:43:02.900+01:00The Danish Paper: One Year Later<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Pre-requisite reading:</b> <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-irresistible-allure-of-controversy.html">The Irresistable Allure of Controversy</a>.<br />
<br />
Here is where I left the story one year ago.<br />
<br />
The “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.04191">Danish Paper</a>” had claimed to find previously unnoticed correlations in the background noise in the first LIGO gravitational-wave observation, <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/02/gravitational-waves.html">GW150914</a>, and many readers’ interpretation of this interpretation of the data was that maybe the first detection was not as slam-dunk as it first appeared. Sabine Hossenfelder wrote an <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/06/16/was-it-all-just-noise-independent-analysis-casts-doubt-on-ligos-detections/#3ebcc7a15516">online post in Forbes</a> that propelled the paper out of its just-another-arXiv-entry obscurity, with the innocent title, “Was it all just noise?” A subset of the LIGO collaboration bravely sacrificed time that would otherwise have been wasted doing actual scientific research, and leaped to PR firefighting duty, and their response, a careful dismantling of the Danish Paper’s claims, was released to the world through that true apotheosis of science communication, <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2017/06/18/a-response-to-on-the-time-lags-of-the-ligo-signals-guest-post/">Sean Carroll’s blog</a>. That was the point at which I decided to join the fun.<br />
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Why did I bother? Was it a cheap attempt at some publicity of my own? Certainly it was. But there were also points that I felt were not being made in this faux-civilised tit-for-tat. Several people called this public airing of doubts “science at it should be” — <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmcarroll/status/876846943623757824">Sean Carroll on Twitter</a>, Peter Coles i<a href="https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/questioning-ligo/">n his blog</a>, and many others — and this sloppy thinking needed cleaning up. I was also astounded that Hossenfelder had provided the paper such visibility, given that it was not only wrong, but so obviously wrong. In the rant inspired by all that, I argued against speculating on results like this, or even bothering to report them, until the dust has settled and the real answer is clear (or a real crisis or controversy remains).<br />
<br />
I then decided to follow my own advice, and wait a year and then return with the (hopefully) clear final story.<br />
<br />
So here we are. One year has passed, and the paper is published. It is time to revisit the story and my reaction or, as we sensitive twenty-first-century fellows like to say, to reflect.<br />
<br />
But first: what happened next?<br />
<br />
A few people expressed surprise that the spectacle of science being conducted in public had not transported me directly to intellectual Nirvana. (Notably <a href="https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/the-danish-paper-and-how-science-works/">Peter Coles again</a>, and Jason Wright <a href="http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2017/06/22/outreach-and-response/">here</a> and again <a href="http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2017/06/23/outrage-and-sensationalism/">here</a>, and later <a href="https://gizmodo.com/controversial-new-gravitational-waves-paper-shows-scien-1796343357">Gizmodo</a> here. Yeah, Gizmodo. Cool.) I tried to argue back that this was all spectacle and no science — “This was not science communication. This was just fly swatting”, was in one tweet I wrote. (Ok, I did not keep <i>entirely</i> quiet…) Even if this had been a respectful exchange between experts on an authentic controversy, I found the idea of it being conducted in public simply grotesque. Scientists are not trained to do their work on stage, and it is hard to think of any reason why they should. Science is already as public as it needs to be: results are published, and, if science journalists and “communicators” do their job well, significant results are discussed more widely. Perhaps that is a big “if”. <br />
<br />
There was also some response from the open-data disciples, who noted that not all of the LIGO data used to analyse the first detection were publicly available: taxpayers are paying for this science, and so the data must be there for all to use to check the results, and we should be profoundly grateful that someone <i>is</i> checking them. Indeed, we have a duty to show them how to use the data, so that it is as easy as possible for them to make those crucial checks.<br />
<br />
This was just too many layers of manure to shovel through, and I retired from the field.<br />
<br />
If such open-data blasphemy horrifies you, let me try to explain. This strident cantering around on a moral high horse belies complexities. Before we even get started, remember that the data can be open, but the detector cannot, so any verification of the results is partial at best. It’s like the approach of Christmas: no amount of wishing and hoping will save you from the reality of waiting, in this case for more, and more sensitive, detectors. Restricting ourselves just to the data, repeating any analysis requires specialist expertise. Demanding that scientists bring anyone who is interested up to speed is as ridiculous as demanding that concert pianists train their audiences to also be concert pianists. It is, of course, reasonable that the data come with <i>some</i> documentation and support — but that requires resources that funding agencies may have forgotten to provide along with their ethical exhortations. And the <a href="https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/ligo-and-open-science/">huffing and puffing</a> was unnecessary anyway, because the LIGO-Virgo collaborations had every intention of releasing the data in their own sweet time, <a href="https://losc.ligo.org/O1/">as they now have</a>. Again: more patience, less whining.<br />
<br />
As for the “controversy” itself, its much-celebrated public journey stalled in a bog of confusion. The Danish group <a href="http://www.nbi.ku.dk/gravitational-waves/gravitational-waves.html">responded to the rebuttal</a>, but neither accepted nor criticised most of its statements. So much for “science out in the open”. The Danish group’s response instead focussed only on whether one figure in their paper could be reproduced. They also tracked down a bug in the code used to produce the LIGO response, but it looks like fixing it made no difference to the conclusions, although, again, that point was neither conceded nor challenged. This all looked less like a scientific discussion and more like a politician being evasive in a TV interview. (Gosh, who would have thought that the public spotlight would encourage such behaviour!) If you stepped back and asked, “Did the LIGO detection fail to meet the standard five-sigma detection criteria?” the answer would of course be, “That was never explicitly questioned in the Danish Paper anyway.” If you asked, “Was any error at all uncovered in the official LIGO-Virgo analysis?” the answer would have to be, “None has been clearly identified.” Although you could be forgiven for declining to draw any conclusions from the public record of the so-called debate.<br />
<br />
Given this murky state of affairs, I was happy to sit back and wait for a year. After all, maybe in the end the Danish group’s work would contain useful and novel ideas that would improve LIGO-Virgo analyses? Was this in fact an interesting case of two communities failing to communicate with each other? (The Danish group’s background is mostly in cosmology.) Would my ranting prove premature? Might I even have to concede that Hossenfelder’s article, which I got in such a tizz about, actually forced these two groups to work out how to speak to each other?<br />
<br />
Short answer: No to all of the above.<br />
<br />
My assessment of the Danish Paper one year ago was, “Ignorable”. With the passage of twelve months, and not a single constructive development, I would qualify that assessment: “Definitely ignorable”. I wish my LIGO colleagues had not wasted so much time with it.<br />
<br />
I suspect that many people would disagree, and this is where we get to the bit where I do some reflection.<br />
<br />
There is one point I entirely failed to appreciate at the time.<br />
<br />
I reacted strongly because I thought that the Danish Paper was obviously flawed. By “obviously” I mean that, if you talked to a gravitational-wave data-analysis expert, you would be left in no doubt. I could not understand why others (like Hossenfelder) could not ask those experts, see immediately that this was a non-story, and move on. With every scientist who was quoted saying, “If this holds up, it is a big deal”, I became more amazed. What was wrong with these people!?<br />
<br />
The point is that, as a member of the LIGO collaboration, I was surrounded by data-analysis experts. I had not looked at the paper any more closely than all those people who claimed to be very worried, but I had complete confidence in the expertise of the people who were telling me what was wrong with it.<br />
<br />
People outside the collaboration could not do the same. There was no external community of gravitational-wave experts to turn to. If you doubted a result from LIGO, there was no-one to ask for a “second opinion”. What was obvious from the inside was not at all obvious from the outside. <br />
<br />
There are a lot of reasons to trust the insiders’ opinions — the strongest being that this community has lived in the shadow of Joe Weber’s incorrect detection claims for over forty years, and are petrified (even after six confirmed detections) of making a mistake — but, still, nothing beats a solid crowd of independent experts.<br />
<br />
I did not appreciate that, and that is why I was so confused by the reaction. That is why my rant had such a strong tone, and possibly also why "outsiders" <a href="http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2017/06/22/outreach-and-response/">found it so perplexing</a>. I now see that it was quite reasonable that people on the outside saw the episode positively, as an opportunity to explain the science more thoroughly, while from my inside vantage point, people had wasted their time and energy cleaning up a mess that should not have been made. At the time I diagnosed the problem as part of the craziness that results from high-publicity science. I still think that was part of it, but I now think that the embryonic state of the field is an equal part of the explanation: if there had been a broad well-recognised community of independent experts, the Danish Paper would probably not have been written, or, if it was, that the Forbes post would not have been published about it.<br />
<br />
I would still vote to ignore such a paper. A media kerfuffle is more difficult to ignore; terror of the capriciousness of jittery funding agencies is hard to wave away. One can argue over how LIGO did (or did not) respond, or the communications and mis-communications that lead to the Forbes article, but it is likely that any lessons will ultimately prove irrelevant. After all, the external (non-detector-collaborations) community is already growing. They can provide context in potential controversies, and they are also, of course, the groups of people who really will be able to double check results. Open data is only useful if there are independent groups of experts to look at it — the notion that a twelve-year-old whizkid from Saskatchewan will refute a major scientific result is a romantic myth — and in time those groups will be plentiful.<br />
<br />
A final point: my dismissal of the Danish paper’s results does not translate into dismissal of the authors. I know nothing about them, and have no reason to doubt their intelligence, technical skill, or their attempts to do a thorough, correct job. The issue is simply that they were unfamiliar with the subtleties of these data and how they were analysed. Sometimes an outside perspective reveals something new, and sometimes not. This time not. Next time it might be different. That would be great — my smugness could do with a corrective — and I will be very pleased when it happens. But I will also wait to be confident they are correct before I trumpet it to the world.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/p/gravitational-waves.html">More Gravitational-Wave Stories</a></b><br />
<b><br /></b>February, 2016:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/02/gravitational-waves.html">The Discovery</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/02/what-it-feels-like-to-detect.html">How it Felt</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/02/how-to-decode-gravitational-waves-from.html">How We Squeezed Out the Juicy Science</a><br />
<br />
March, 2016:<br />
Trying to Explain Gravitational Waves <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-bother-trying-to-explain.html">(Part I)</a> <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/03/is-spacetime-really-curved.html">(Part II)</a><span id="goog_106541713"></span><span id="goog_106541714"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
<br />
June, 2016:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-spacetime-operetta.html">Book Review: Black Hole Blues</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/06/black-holes-rule.html">Detection Number 2 -- Black Holes Rule!</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2016/06/rumours-secrets-and-other-sounds-of.html">Rumours, Secrets and Other Sounds of Gravitational Waves</a><br />
<br />
February, 2017:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-i-saved-world-with-gravitational.html">One Year Anniversary (of being world famous)</a><br />
<br />
June, 2017:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/06/nothing-to-see-here-they-are-black-holes.html">Detection Number 3 -- Nothing to see here: they are black holes</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-irresistible-allure-of-controversy.html">A hint of controversy</a><br />
<br />
September 2017:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-power-of-three.html">Detection Number 4 -- Virgo nails it</a><br />
<br />
October 2017:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/10/woohoo-i-just-won-nobel-prize.html">Did I just win the Nobel prize?</a><br />
<div>
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/10/kaboom-two-kinds-of-astronomy-collide.html">Binary Neutron Stars!</a><br />
<br />
November 2017:<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-election-day-event.html">Detection Number 6 - The election day event</a></div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-13745935263581573542018-06-20T19:55:00.005+01:002019-03-18T09:45:12.631+00:00A blog burst on the horizon: The Danish Paper redux, Losing the Nobel Prize, Philip Roth, Thomas Kuhn, and The Ashtray<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After another long absence, during which I was trying to do many other amazing things that I eventually did not do, it is time for a few more blog posts. This is an advance warning, mostly to make me feel sufficiently obligated that I really do write them.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
First off there is an older obligation to fulfil: I promised to update the story of the “Danish Paper” one year later. If you have no idea what that is, lucky you; I suggest you skip two paragraphs and do not, under any circumstances, <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-irresistible-allure-of-controversy.html">read my original piece</a>. (Brilliantly entertaining and enlightening as it was.)<br />
<br />
Now it is one year later. I am not sure anyone cares anymore, but since I was of the opinion that no-one should have cared in the first place, I will share my thoughts anyway.<br />
<br />
After that, it’s all books.<br />
<br />
Given that I spent the last few years plugging through all of Philip Roth, just in time for the poor bugger to die, you might think I would write about him. But there are too many books, and I have too little that is worth saying.<br />
<br />
Instead I will write about, of all things, the Nobel Prize. Now, I do not think the Nobel Prize is an interesting topic. Every September crowds of people flock to the internet to complain about it, but I find it hard to give a damn. Not about the institution of the prize, or about who gets them. Before the 2016 physics prize was announced I wrote a satirical piece in preparation for a possible LIGO win, which meant that for once I <i>did</i> care about the outcome: I wanted to know whether or not to click “publish”. In the end I had to <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2017/10/woohoo-i-just-won-nobel-prize.html">wait an extra year</a>. <br />
<br />
Now there is a new book called “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1324000910/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1324000910&linkId=c018ebcdeae3ee309fc156990c3adce0">Losing the Nobel Prize</a>”, by Brian Keating. Brian Keating was one of the scientists involved in the BICEP2 experiment, and he failed to win the Nobel Prize partly because he was outmanoeuvred from his early leadership role in the experiment, but mostly because the experiment’s amazing results turned out to be wrong. The trauma has caused him to think long and hard about the whole point of the Nobel Prize. When I heard word of Keating’s book, I tweeted my article at him in an act of shameless self-promotion. He responded, because he had not previously seen an old anti-Nobel Rai Weiss quote that I included. He also asked if I would like to review his book. Shameless self-promotion right back at ya! So here I am, trying to think seriously about the Nobel Prize. Thanks, Brian.<br />
<br />
It is a strange book to read after all that Philip Roth. I suspect that even Brian Keating’s cosmologist’s expanding-universe-like ego may excuse me for finding his prose a bit of a step down from the maestro’s. Nonetheless, I did find connections. Both writers devote significant space to father issues, and their writing is, ahem, influenced by their Judaism. Keating also employs a bit of authorial motivational ambiguity: is he just upset about not getting a Nobel prize, or is that merely a ruse to lure you into reading an account of the entire history of astronomy and cosmology, or is the appearance of a ruse just another ruse to hide the fact that in the end it really is entirely sour grapes? Sorry, but if narrative ambiguity is your true literary fetish, then <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099481359/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099481359&linkId=c755f2f69dea780e3a4a7e37dc8e64fd">The Counterlife</a> is there and waiting to blow your mind.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsJOI-wJu4FXeSmxloGYO7dxnMK_4MlZBJi_LCgYKMjhHlhdxrYZzXoycWhJeKFzX3GrdkZqHUQd3GLkVK8dnp3Xd48PkHzaPYaZjwWixy8z8HsZ0TxfYb_MZELNC9KMAB6hKcw84tY-OB/s1600/r32207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="649" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsJOI-wJu4FXeSmxloGYO7dxnMK_4MlZBJi_LCgYKMjhHlhdxrYZzXoycWhJeKFzX3GrdkZqHUQd3GLkVK8dnp3Xd48PkHzaPYaZjwWixy8z8HsZ0TxfYb_MZELNC9KMAB6hKcw84tY-OB/s320/r32207.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>
<br />
I know it is unfair to judge Keating’s book against Philip Roth. What can I say? This is just bad timing. Keating has suffered at the hands of poor timing before, although it probably never lead to a snarky little shit making cheap jokes at his expense. For my part, I will try to purge myself of my lame jokes and Roth obsession now, so that the actual article on the book is a bit more reasoned.<br />
<br />
With that in mind: although there can be no doubt that Roth’s greatest work of genius is <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099399016/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099399016&linkId=3584da0fe97c55fba4fe3252b9ba482e">Portnoy’s Complaint</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099477572/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099477572&linkId=b12a552a4602af2d30f1042fd2f77ae8">The Ghost Writer</a> will always be my favourite. I love the comic timing of the satire in the second section (which I also gushed about in one of my<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2014/04/fantastically-irresponsible.html"> old articles on climate change</a>). And <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099477572/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099477572&linkId=b12a552a4602af2d30f1042fd2f77ae8">The Ghost Writer</a> is one of those rare Roth novels with a great ending. Other highlights are <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099477564/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099477564&linkId=59404b772c4344c2964036e1ea87226b">Zuckerman Unbound</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099481359/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099481359&linkId=c755f2f69dea780e3a4a7e37dc8e64fd">The Counterlife</a> (again), <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099582015/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099582015&linkId=015b9dacf5aa7514257f19adcc6bb881">Sabbath’s Theater</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099282194/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099282194&linkId=eb82d655121ce11d2f7eccd2b28d07b0">The Human Stain</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/009951608X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=009951608X&linkId=64cd3a077e2e5821f31605ed2b62effd">Exit Ghost</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099478560/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099478560&linkId=11a3acd8441914b6ed0110702175b8a5">The Plot Against America</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099501465/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099501465&linkId=a7302eb785978d8720cc4941172f4a34">Everyman</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099542269/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099542269&linkId=638630a2e88137e1426b8b4622d160d8">Nemesis</a>. Everyone raves about <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099771810/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099771810&linkId=7eb754150f758639c803ac2082e9a4fe">American Pastoral</a>, and it is fine, but I could never really get behind it. The factual books, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00546DPIO/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00546DPIO&linkId=bde6a333bd867a3ff2fd50a60304c31a">The Facts</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099914301/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099914301&linkId=fce743c898923450de1cfb2967672ec6">Patrimony</a>, are also good. The most accessible book is <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099478560/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099478560&linkId=11a3acd8441914b6ed0110702175b8a5">The Plot Against America</a>, which is popular right now because of its parallels with the Trump presidency; certainly there are some uncanny parallels with Trump’s election campaign. (<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/philip-roth-e-mails-on-trump">Roth’s own clarification on these points</a> is great, too, although it mostly highlights to me how even one of the greatest prose writers of the past century met his match when trying to evoke the awfulness of Trump.) What I appreciated even more reading it this year was how cleverly Roth used a counterfactual history as a vehicle to evoke the experience of being a Newark Jewish child during WWII. Truly wonderful, although once again he falters at the ending. There were also some terrible books: the Nixon satire <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099389118/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099389118&linkId=99b4523206bc2c7242386220af7e0419">Our Gang</a> is just plain bad, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/009930791X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=009930791X&linkId=463d6de4d941dc90beea8674c77f5b7d">Operation Shylock</a> is abysmally bad, but nothing can compare to page after page of the failed comic tedium of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099889404/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099889404&linkId=a7480ee29d7d6f403d459583adbf9ccf">The Great American Novel</a>. (The two other real clunkers are <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099477513/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099477513&linkId=6d5767f7fdde7e9127e16f1cec1d2647">The Breast</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099801906/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0099801906&linkId=82000e4b74ce4db5badd59c64bdc40a1">Deception</a>, but at least they are short.) There is a lesson in there — even geniuses can produce rubbish, and not realise it (he thought <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/009930791X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=009930791X&linkId=463d6de4d941dc90beea8674c77f5b7d">Operation Shylock</a> was going to be hailed as his masterpiece) — but surely there is a way to learn it without actually reading those books. Anyway, there was enough in there to establish his reputation as a true master, and although he had far more reason to feel cheated of a Nobel Prize than Brian Keating, he was wise enough to take the view, or at least strike the pose, of not giving a damn about any silly awards; the notion of a global uber-award for literature was ludicrous even before they gave it to Bob Dylan.<br />
<br />
Ok, that’s out of the way. If you want to read a real Roth tribute, try <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/philip-roth-a-writer-all-the-way-down">Zadie Smith</a>.<br />
<br />
There are two other books I want to tackle.<br />
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I have written many times about the filmmaker Errol Morris. I loved his 1992 <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-brief-history-of-time-film.html">Hawking documentary</a>, among many other films; I found his life-story <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/career-advice-i-gleaned-from-errol.html">fascinating and enlightening</a>; I admire how he <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">gallantly defended the notion of Truth</a> long before it became so clearly an endangered species, which made me rethink my own understanding of Truth in science; and most recently I wrote about his Netflix series <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/02/wormwood.html">Wormwood</a>. At the core of my interest are a series of <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/the-ashtray-the-ultimatum-part-1/">New York Times articles</a> he wrote in 2011 about the science historian Thomas Kuhn. These have now been expanded into a book, which came out in May, and is called “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0226922685/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226922685&linkId=e04e4aa5b723cabd7c88873b54f0f49a">The Ashtray</a>”. I have been waiting since Morris dropped hints of it over a year ago. Even if the book turned out to be the articles reprinted verbatim with some glossy pictures, I was excited at the opportunity to read them again. I was so excited, in fact, that I decided to first re-read that talisman of Morris’s fury, Kuhn’s influential 1962 book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0226458121/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226458121&linkId=5f9fa9321e32ef4b1418103301ccd2df">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a>” -- frankly, Kuhn's prose would also have benefited from a little liver-buggery -- and organise my reactions into an article. Only then would I be fully prepared for the arrival of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0226922685/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thefictaeth-21&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226922685&linkId=e04e4aa5b723cabd7c88873b54f0f49a">The Ashtray</a>.<br />
<br />
So far, so good. I have read Structure (as we initiates refer to it), and the pondering is underway. The Ashtray has been ordered, and anticipation is so high that disappointment is almost guaranteed. But who knows. I will report back in due course.<br />
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<br />
<b>The Articles:</b><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-danish-paper-one-year-later.html">The Danish Paper: One Year Later</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions.html">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-ashtray.html">The Ashtray</a><br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2018/10/losing-nobel-prize.html">Losing the Nobel Prize</a><br />
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1055612246610286525.post-68282936829498462432018-02-18T20:44:00.000+00:002019-03-14T09:34:02.295+00:00Wormwood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here follow my thoughts on the latest Errol Morris creation, Wormwood.<br />
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Wormwood is a six-part series that Morris created for Netflix. If you have not watched it, you should. You should certainly watch it before you read what I have written; you should watch it in the most complete state of blissful ignorance that you can achieve.<br />
<br />
“Goddammit!” you curse. “I clicked here because I have five minutes to waste reading a superficially amusing pseudo-intelligent article — not six hours to watch a documentary! I’ll watch the damn film later, but right now I want something to read!”<br />
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Fine: go and read the other stuff I wrote about Errol Morris. You will find <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-brief-history-of-time-film.html">my review of his Stephen Hawking documentary</a>, “A Brief History of Time”, both entertaining and thoughtful. If you prefer scathing reviews, I recommend <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/01/review-theory-of-everything.html">my review of the more recent (non-Morris) Hawking drama</a>, “The Theory of Everything”, which was such a forgettable mediocrity that spoilers can hardly make it worse; its only redeeming feature is that it started me on my Errol Morris kick in the first place. You may be irritated that <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/career-advice-i-gleaned-from-errol.html">my article on Morris’s career</a> is framed as a faux-profound insight into life choices, but I guarantee that the gems of his biography will make up for it. And finally, we get down to what I consider the most fascinating aspect of Errol Morris, his dogged devotion to Truth. <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">I also wrote about that</a>, and, Yes indeed, there were more profound insights.<br />
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For all those who have watched Wormwood, let us continue.<br />
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Did I enjoy Wormwood? If I was asked that question in an Errol Morris interview, I would answer that I most certainly did. My explanations would be long, detailed, and only partially coherent. My response would last one or two whole minutes, which is a long time on film. But after this bloated rationalisation of my profound pleasure, there would be one of those subtle but noticeable cuts in the film, like a nervous tick, followed by a two-second-long shot of me pondering in silence. Then another slight jolt of a cut, to me meekly admitting, “Ok, no, I didn’t enjoy it very much.” If it was an interview in the style of Wormwood, filmed with ten cameras and with my interviewer sitting across from me, the next cut would show me staring off into space and asking, apparently entirely to myself, “What does `enjoyment’ mean?”<br />
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That is the genius of Errol Morris. His work is often richly satisfying, but it can be at its most rewarding when it is unsatisfying. Wormwood is long. It is slow. It is repetitive. And I am sure he would not want it any other way. Not only are you likely to ask, “Couldn’t it have been shorter?”, you are probably <i>meant</i> to ask that, just as you are meant to imagine Morris’s distinctive gruff voice barking back at you, off camera, “No!”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYU9PHMbZHS_1M7SQuAH12ECWQ75u23_ouvtlFQe7NVuJybSkGRCTZ32Ofzf0ISpYbkaUGKLvtvvBpvCg_768hxkFRrItgvKIUL316YNFi7d_aPLM5laKdO3uEdHTpwy72ei-7s-3bJxAx/s1600/wormwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1163" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYU9PHMbZHS_1M7SQuAH12ECWQ75u23_ouvtlFQe7NVuJybSkGRCTZ32Ofzf0ISpYbkaUGKLvtvvBpvCg_768hxkFRrItgvKIUL316YNFi7d_aPLM5laKdO3uEdHTpwy72ei-7s-3bJxAx/s320/wormwood.jpg" width="320" /></a>After all, Eric Olson has had to put up with this story for 65 years. In 1953 his government-scientist father died, after he “fell, or jumped” out of a hotel window. Eric was nine years old at the time. He was tormented for the next 22 years by the jarring ambiguity of “fell, or jumped”, until in 1975 the US government revealed that his father was also the subject of secret experiments with LSD. This was hardly a solution to the puzzle, more like an avalanche of new pieces, and Eric has been buried beneath them for the last forty-three years. Add forty-three and twenty-two to nine, and you not only get a number, you get a complete lifetime. This obsession took over his entire life. By contrast, we are treated to the abridged version, with a bonus of lush dramatisations.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FwKUgEQhcEOLwjwRe2CTFP9Moxt5beEq95ZaDy3gVS-Qmiy1id5FcwDT4HJAi7CPBMGErJrisLT1rVK373WbSPQMhQq8ghbqEV3wZV-XuL1wReFtU64T1qIp06d0PBXSIkbGCgsx28oM/s1600/EricOlson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FwKUgEQhcEOLwjwRe2CTFP9Moxt5beEq95ZaDy3gVS-Qmiy1id5FcwDT4HJAi7CPBMGErJrisLT1rVK373WbSPQMhQq8ghbqEV3wZV-XuL1wReFtU64T1qIp06d0PBXSIkbGCgsx28oM/s1600/EricOlson.jpg" /></a>Eric is what holds the film together. He is the ideal interview subject. His voice, his tone, and sentence after sentence of erudite, logical, considered explication of a man obsessed, and perhaps mad. He compares his situation to Hamlet’s. In case you are unaware of the highest achievement of Western literature: Hamlet’s father dies. Hamlet later learns that it was murder, although from a dubious source. Then Hamlet goes mad. No, I am mis-remembering. Hamlet claims to pretend to go mad, and his true state of mind is left in some doubt. It is his girlfriend, Ophelia, who undoubtedly goes mad, after Hamlet kills <i>her</i> father; we know she is not pretending, unless she fakes her own death. Why one father’s death leads to moody introspection and another’s to suicide is the sort of question that had to wait centuries for a proper feminist critique. Which makes me wonder if anyone has ever bothered to stage the play with the roles of Hamlet and Ophelia reversed? Ophelia becomes preoccupied with a means to nab her father’s killer (very well aware of how difficult it can be to have your accusations taken seriously), while her dopey boyfriend first turns petulant when she stops returning his calls, and then, when she bumps off his father, he literally goes off the deep end and drowns himself. If someone has done it that way, please direct me to the recording on YouTube. But perhaps that would be too much a 20th-century interpretation? A more modern take would leave Hamlet and Ophelia in place, and the question would be: does Ophelia kill herself because of how cruelly Hamlet has abused her, or because her father is played by Woody Allen?<br />
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Eric Olson and Errol Morris take the antiquated approach of naively allowing the play’s title to suggest its real subject, and focus on Hamlet himself. Eric lays out the parallels for us. Not only does his father die. Not only is there strong but incomplete evidence of murder. Not only does the son fear he is losing his mind. But we also have the political background: something is rotten in the State.<br />
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Denmark merely had a murderous leader — as if that were anything special! Wormwood has the post-war CIA, dabbling in warfare through drugs, chemicals and germs. Were they experimenting on their own scientists with LSD? Were biological weapons used in the Korean War? Did they have a systematic “procedure” to kill off anyone who found the work distasteful? We receive no conclusive answers to any of these questions, but compared to the stage where these scenes are set, Elsinore may as well be in Disneyland. The stench of rotten politics is everywhere. There are youthful cameos from Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. There is an interview with investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, whose great scoops range from the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, through to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib">Abu Ghraib</a>.<br />
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Let’s face it: this is a <i>better</i> story than Hamlet. Hamlet ponces around worrying about his dead father for a few months, then Laertes puts him out of his misery. Eric is not so lucky. He lives with uncertainty over his father’s death for <i>twenty-two</i> years before the craziness even starts. When Morris’s ten cameras finally catch up with him, sixty-some years later, we are presented not with a gibbering cabbage, but an extremely intelligent, calm, rational human being. We spend six hours with him, and he is never a bore, never tiresome, but endlessly fascinating. He also looks, in his early seventies, to have a decade or two more obsession left in him.<br />
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Eric is easy to appreciate. I would gladly re-watch him again and again. Morris’s dramatisations of Eric’s father’s last days were a bigger challenge. All of the scenes are richly atmospheric, in low light and subdued colours, full of those fifties cars and coats and hats and cocktails, which made me think of that description of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%27s_Crossing">Miller’s Crossing</a>: “A handsome film about men in hats.” It was very well done. It was also kind of a drag. Fellow Errol Morris fans might defenestrate me for saying that, so I will qualify: a thought-provoking drag.<br />
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If you have learned your lesson from “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(1988_film)">The Thin Blue Line</a>”, Errol Morris “re-enactments”, as they were called back then, are a trap. You are shown a past that may not be real. It could be a false memory. It could be a lie. In “The Thin Blue Line” the purpose seemed clear. We can be easily lured into a fake story, but necessary internal consistency of the facts will lead us to the Truth.<br />
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I had not realised what a comforting little tale “The Thin Blue Line” was.<br />
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In Wormwood, the purpose is far from clear. The very first scenes are Frank Olson’s apocalyptic nightmare visions before he dies, so we know from the outset that these scenes are not meant to be taken as fact. So what are they? Are at least some of them meant to be as-faithful-as-possible recreations from known facts? If so, which ones? Are they all just visions, either the feverish visions that have haunted Eric for the last sixty years, or the visions that came to Errol Morris after so many hours of listening to him?<br />
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Or is the purpose to teach us to mistrust what we see? Morris has written a wonderful book on photography, “<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Believing-Seeing-Observations-Mysteries-Photography/dp/0143124250/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518985745&sr=8-2&keywords=believing+is+seeing">Believing is Seeing</a>”, but he may have felt that Netflix could get his message to a larger audience. We are not sure if this is a documentary or a drama, but why should we ever be sure? A documentary purports to tell a story as if it is fact. Isn’t that more deceptive than a piece of fiction?<br />
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It is as if every choice Morris made was designed to prod our brains into activity. He has a unique talent to fill his films with careful artifice — the precise setting of the interview locations, with very particular positions of a table, a chair, a door (open or shut), a window, or a clock on the wall set to the likely time of Frank Olson’s death — and yet all of it pushing us to try to find the Truth.<br />
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Do we find the Truth?<br />
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No. That is our lesson. Morris generously allows Hersh, his grouchiest interview subject, to teach it to us.<br />
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Hersh provides the twist in the tale — but it is not like any twist you have seen before. “Guess what?” he says, with no relish at all. “I probably know the answer. But I can’t tell you.” This is a murder mystery where the answer is known, but withheld. No, not quite: we get the answer, but <i>certainty</i> is withheld. The whole murder mystery playbook is, ahem, thrown out the window. Instead of those luscious shots of Frank Olson in free fall, we could have had Agatha Christie writhing to her doom. (Now <i>that</i> I would watch over and over again!)<br />
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Hersh explains to us, “It’s wonderful not to have an ending. It is!” Is Morris unhappy that he cannot solve the mystery? As a detective, he must be. As a filmmaker, he should be overjoyed. Once more he illuminates new features on the craggy face of Truth. You can say, “Sometimes there is an answer, and sometimes there is not.” That is a dull platitude. Sometimes there is a very definite answer, but you cannot reach it. Sometimes someone else has the answer, but will not give it to you — and for excellent reasons. Sometimes you have the answer, but you do not have certainty. The 99% of the answer that you have should be enough, but it is not. The missing 1% drives you mad.<br />
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A few years ago the Errol Morris loyalty to Truth got me thinking about how <a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">Truth and uncertainty interact in science</a>. Although we must admit that, in the strictest sense, we do not have absolute certainly about anything, there are many things in science about which our uncertainty is so small that it is insignificant; to extrapolate from infinitesimal uncertainties to the credo that “nothing is certain” is not only extreme, but stupid.<br />
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I thought that was all very interesting, but now Morris has found something much more interesting. There are times when the uncertainty can ruin your life. Morris asks Eric, “Do you feel that you could ever let this go?”<br />
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Eric answers, “I feel like I have already let it go, but it hasn’t let me go.”<br />
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In the context of a murder mystery, he asks the blasphemous question: is trying to solve the crime really worth it? Even if he <i>did</i> have certainty, would that actually help? After he asks the last question in the film, “Is that better than not knowing?” he pulls a wonderful, quizzical, ironic face, and then repeats, “Is it?” before ending with the image from the Bible, and from Hamlet, that infects this whole enterprise: “Wormwood. It’s all bitter.” After that there is a great long shot of his face, which looks for some time as if the camera has frozen, until Eric moves his bottom lip and you realise that, No, it is only him who was frozen.<br />
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<b>Related:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/01/review-theory-of-everything.html">Review: The Theory of Everything</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-brief-history-of-time.html">A Brief History of Time (the Book)</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-brief-history-of-time-film.html">A Brief History of Time (the Film)</a><br />
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<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/02/career-advice-i-gleaned-from-errol.html">Career Advice I Gleaned From Errol Morris, For What It's Worth</a><br />
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<a href="http://fictionalaether.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-knowledge-truth-electric-chairs-and.html">On Knowledge, Truth, Electric Chairs, And Quasi-Local Mass</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0