Category Archives: One-Foot Putts

I like many things about France, including their physicists.  I am a fan of Carlo Rovelli, of the Centre de Physique Theorique de Luminy in Marseille, France.  I like the questions this man asks and answers.  Among them (free for anyone to explore at arxiv.org):

• How many quanta are there in a quantum spacetime?
• Aristotle’s physics
• Forget time
• Why gauge?
• Death and resurrection of the zeroth principle of thermodynamics

I first met Carlo Rovelli in the pages of “Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale” which I am proud to own.  I can’t believe that my copy of this book would go for $150 now.

I would like to live in a world where we bestow tributes, remembrances and adulations for a person well before he or she dies, rather than on the day following his or her passing.  Tens of thousands gathered to mourn the loss of Nelson Mandela and celebrate his being, when he could no longer appreciate such a gesture.

Peter O'Toole in 2003, receiving his honorary Oscar (AP)

The Kennedy Center Honors and the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Academy of Motion Pictures are rare examples of organized public tribute to fellow humans while they are still alive.  We need more celebrations of this kind.  I think Peter O’Toole and Johnny Cash would have agreed, as would our own friends and loved ones.