Categories: science, restaurants, big-bang, maths, riemann-hypothesis
Tags: Newcastle, Science, Restaurants
Date: 15 April 2010 14:12:58
Couple of interesting articles in this week's 'New Scientist'.
The first is about quasars, which are galaxies that periodically emit pulses of light. The Big Bang theory predicts that the universe is expanding, something confirmed by Edwin Hubble's observations of the red shift of galaxes back in the 1920s. As a result of this expansion, the light from distant objects is 'stretched' and the wavelength becomes longer, moving to the red end of the spectrum (this is what red shift means). Now, objects like supernovae (the last mega explosion of stars substantially larger than the Sun) display this behaviour, but Mike Hawkins from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh has found that light from quasars does not behave like it should. Some have explained this by postulating black holes between earth and the quasars distorting the light and others have suggested that the dark matter that makes up most of the universe is causing it. It's an interesting mystery.
The second is about something I nearly did my PhD on: random matrix theory. A matrix is a two-dimensional array of data. A football league table would be an example. Random matrix theory came from Eugene Wigner, a German physicist working on quantum theory in the 1950s, when he suggested just guessing some unknown values to do with quantum energy levels. His randomly chosen numbers bore an uncanny resemblance to reality and this approach has proved useful in a range of physical contexts, though no-one knows why this should be the case. Again for an as-yet-unknown reason, random matrices are connected to one of the great unsolved problems in pure maths, the Riemann hypothesis. I find the 'strange effectiveness', to quote Wigner, of maths and the interconnectedness of the world of maths and physical reality fascinating. If I ever did a second PhD, I'd love to look at this from a theological point of view. Sigh, one can dream....
On a more mundane note, last night I attempted to take my housemate, from hereon known as Stewpot, to a restaurant I tried with TractorGirl last week. They were fully booked, so we ended up, via a four-mile walk into Sunderland and a half-hour Metro ride, in La Tasca in Newcastle. They have an 'all you can eat for a tenner' menu which was great value. The only downer was the way the waitress insisted on calling us 'guys' at the end of every sentence - why? We ended up in one of our favourite cocktail bars and it was lovely to spend some time with a nice, relaxed Stewpot after a lovely day with TractorGirl. All in all, a grand day. Eeee!