Darth Vader vs. My Dog

The Paper of Record reports on a science debate, of sorts:

On one side of a vaunted cultural divide were Doug Liman, director of the coming movie "Jumper," about a young man who discovers he can transport himself anywhere he wants just by thinking about it, and Hayden Christensen, the film's star.

On the other were a pair of the institute's physics professors, Edward Farhi and Max Tegmark, experts on the type of physics the movie was purporting to portray, who had been enlisted to view a few scenes from it and talk about science.

On the one hand, I find this Physics of Star Trek sort of stuff a little cheesey. The teleportation in the book or movie really has nothing to do with the science of "quantum teleportation," and using Hayden Christensen as a hook to get people to think about real science has a faint whiff of desperation...

But really, who am I kidding? I'm writing a book that uses cute dog pictures as a hook to get people to read about real physics...

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I bet she knows more about quantum physics than Hayden Christensen, though.

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Are you sure? She looks like you just announced a pop quiz. Oh wait, you said more than Hayden Christensen, so you're probably right.

Your dog looks depressed.

Ah, James. That is not a depressed dog. Allow me to digress.

My wife once sat at the table eating dinner. Below her sat our recently adopted 4 year old golden retriever mix. "Honey you need to feed her more! She looks like she's STARVING!"

However, this was a dog who had eaten plenty that day, and in fact was saving a half bowl of kibble in case people dinner didn't pan out. I just smiled and exclaimed, "Ah! Tens of thousands of years of co-evolution, perfected!" The ability to look deep into the eyes of a human and convince him that you are in dire need of food, or of attention or, say, to be let off leash (as I suspect is the case with Queen Emmy there).

How I love dogs. Perfected.