"Superstrings" at the Dana Centre

Last night I went to the lecture "Superstrings" at the Dana Centre, with Bill, Ruth, Nim, Pauline, Susan and her son. I really enjoyed it!
Take a journey from Einstein to modern particle physics with an unusual double act. Brian Foster, Head of Particle Physics at Oxford University, and Jack Liebeck, an up-and-coming virtuoso violinist, perform physics.
The professor was interesting and funny and the violinist was very good!
They looked at the importance and development of Einstein's theories of relativity, the standard model of the universe, quantum physics and finally superstring theory. (Which was colorfully illustrated with "excited" pasta shapes.) The muscial interludes on the violin were very nice. Though I didn't hear the extra dimensions in the fugue. But it was great fun. It was more of an introduction to the idea of superstring theory than an explanation of it, which having seen Brian Greene's lecture before means I did them in the wrong order. But still I greatly enjoyed it and felt like I learned quite a bit. I think Ruth's comment was the best when she said it was like taking her physics degree and stamping it down into 45 minutes.

I shall definitly have to go to more lectures in the future there. The ones I am toying with for November/December are.

http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/11/16/172
About the formation of personal identity, could be interesting

http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/11/21/201
Chinese medicine (which despite my interest in China I've not really investigated)

http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/11/23/202
Death, which looks at ways people die, near death experience and decomposition.

http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/11/30/204
Stars, 3d images of the sun which will then be made into music.

http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/12/14/182
Religion and science, for christmas, because it wouldn't be christmas without a huge fight!

The full list of events is here
http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events

Good news!

In the light of singing the praises of last nights lecture I forgot the totally AMAZING thing that happened at work yesterday. The man (I really need to find out his name and job title) who was helping with the Chinese moon festival came up to me and said he was putting together gallery talks for the coming year and asked if I'd be interested in doing any! I have no idea how many, or if they will be on objects related to the library or to the Chinese gallery, but its very exciting! Having "Given gallery talks on Chinese objects at the V&A" would be such a fantastic thing to have on a CV! Fear of public speaking nonewithstanding, it would be great fun! The trick would be to be clear and professional sounding and refrain from gushing about how cool everything is! But so great! I could talk about Guan Yin's sex change, Tang dynasty tombs, burial, bronzes, the amazing collection of Ming Xian hagiographies, so many different ideas! The only thing is that it won't be until at least March next year, which is great in that it gives me lots of time to prepare, means that I'll have to at least keep some Saturdays (to retain employee status) at the V&A until then! But I'm very excited. Its great to finally meet someone at work who appreciates my knowledge of Chinese history and wants to use it!