It is all in the name…

This years Ig Nobel prize in psychology went to Laurent Bègue, Brad Bushman, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra and Medhi Ourabah, for confirming that drunk people think they are more attractive than they really are. The experimental work they conducted was published in [1].

This effect had long been observed in the “wild”, but now we have experimental proof that the effect is real.

I might just have to confirm this myself, for science you understand. Any one fancy a beer?

Groundbreaking experimental psychology in action!

Reference
[1] “‘Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder’: People Who Think They Are Drunk Also Think They Are Attractive,” Laurent Bègue, Brad J. Bushman, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra, Medhi Ourabah, British Journal of Psychology, epub May 15, 2012.

Link
Ig Nobel Prize winners 2013

On the 2nd of September CERN announced that at it’s Entrance B at 17.10 on 26 August 2013 a baby boy, called Lorenzo was born! The baby was a little eager to be born and so the parents stopped at CERN to seek assistance.

In all my 20 years at CERN, I’ve seen many things, but this is a first. In fact the last time something similar happened at CERN was 40 years ago.

Véronique Fassnacht, Head of the CERN Medical Service

Link
New hadron discovered at Entrance B (mother and baby doing fine) CERN Bulletin

There is a romantic image of Albert Einstein as a lonely patent office clerk who from nowhere revolutionised our understanding of the Universe. While it is true that Einstein’s papers of 1905 were published while he was working at the Swiss Patent Office, he was not an “outsider” and was well qualified in physics. This is all well documented, so I will not examine the details here, rather I will just highlight Einstein’s education and early achievements.

• 1901 Einstein completed a 4 year mathematics and physics teaching diploma at Zurich Polytechnic. In the same year Einstein published his first paper in Annalen der Physik, which is a good journal. He acquired Swiss citizenship that year and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office.
• 1905 Einstein obtained a PhD from the University of Zurich under Alfred Kleiner. This was his “annus mirabilis”, the year in which he published works on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy which brought him to the wider attention of physicists. Much of this work was done while at the patent office as well as in his spare time.
• 1908 Einstein was appointed lecturer at the University of Bern.

Einstein’s disservice to physics
So we see that Einstein was well qualified in physics by the time he published his best known works in 1905. He has a diploma in mathematics and physics, and had completed his PhD studies. Einstein was an “unknown” in physics in 1905, he only just finished his PhD, but he was by no means an “outsider”.

Einstein’s biggest disservice to physics was not being able to get a teaching job in 1901. Unfortunately, finding jobs is not easy and many good people struggle today, just as they did in Einstein’s time. Anyway, this has lead to the false image of Einstein that many quacks have; “if a simple patent office worker can revolutionise physics, then so can I“.

Link
Albert Einstein – Biographical (Nobel Prize website)

As part of the Manchester Science Festival, The University of Manchester is going to the Science Spectacular. There will be a tour of research at the University and the chance to take part in some great science challenges. There will also be the opportunity to talk with some of the scientists and engineers behind the research conducted at Manchester.

If you are anywhere near, why not go along?

Link
Science Spectacular The University of Manchester

Alan Bacon, a graduate in documentary, film and TV from the University of South Wales, had a rather unusual interview at an electronics store in Cardiff, Wales.

I ended up dancing to Around the World by Daft Punk, doing rubbish robotics in my suit in front of a group of strangers.

Alan Bacon

Well, I just hope any future job interviews I go to don’t require me to dance!

Link
Currys interview ‘humiliation’ as graduate ‘made to dance’, BBC News Wales.

Hollywood seems to have taken an interest in the tale of Prof. Paul Frampton, who in November 2012, was convicted and sentenced to 56 months for drug smuggling in Argentina. You can read an earlier post about this case here.

Described as a modern take on Lolita, the story follows Paul Frampton, a divorced theoretical particle physicist, who meets Denise Milani, a Czech bikini model, on the online dating site Mate1.com. Milani’s pictures on the site show a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty with a supposedly natural DDD breast size. The two begin to correspond and plan their perfect life together, but first, the woman asks the British professor if he would deliver a special package to her, setting him on a course of danger.

Maxine Swann in the Hollywood Reporter

I really hope that Brian Cox gets to play Frampton. Not that one, this one…

Links
Fox Searchlight Nabs ‘Professor and Bikini Model’ for Steve Zaillian to Produce (Exclusive), The Hollywood reporter.

Paul Frampton: The Movie, IOP Blog.