Pun Salad

In my youth, I was a physics major, and my graduate career, such as it was, was at the University of New Hampshire. (I got my Masters degree before flaming out pre-PhD.) I try to keep up with the field at a dilettante level, and pay some attention to the doings at UNH's Department of Physics. Which is how I became aware of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (CPW); she is (now) a tenured Associate Professor in the department, and also in Women's and Gender Studies. I reported on her first book, The Disordered Cosmos, here.

Back in the day, physics "survey" courses were labeled, somewhat disdainfully, "Physics for Poets". (The geology version: "Rocks for Jocks".) Especially in the early going, this book reads like transcribed lectures from CPW's "Physics for Poets" course, if she had ever given one. (That hypothesis is strengthened by the book's subtitle.)

And there's nothing wrong with that! CPW is enthusiastic about the field, and she does a decent job conveying the mysteries and weirdnesses that abound in modern physics and cosmology. But one of the constraints of a "for poets" course (or book) is math: you can't write a freaking formula, lest >90% of your students (or readers) zone out (or stop reading). Alas, the only tool we have to describe such phenomena accurately is math. Without that, you're mostly handwaving, albeit in an entertaining way.

CPW's shtick is to interlace her physics with hard-left ranting; odd and irrelevant observations; plugs for her favorite authors poets, and TV shows; and occasional f-bombs (keeping it real!). This may work better for some readers than it did for me. Unfortunately, the rant/physics ratio seems to go up as the book moves along. Genocide, the Middle Passage, Colonialism, capitalism (with its associated evil, neoliberalism), etc., etc., etc. are continual targets of CPW's drive-by commentary.

She is a big fan of the late thug/poet Nikki Giovanni; this made me recall what I wrote about her back in 2009, when UNH invited her to keynote its 2010 Martin Luther King "celebration". (Which they stopped celebrating a few years ago.)

CPW does not like Erwin Schrödinger, avoiding terms like "Schrödinger's Cat" and "Schrődinger Equation". Even though she's complimentary about "queer" manifestations of sexuality, it seems that Erwin's type of queerness was a bridge too far.

Some things just made me wonder what point CPW was trying to make. She identifies Plato as "a philosopher from the Balkan peninsula of Asia." She's talking about Greece! (A couple pages later, Aristotle is "another Balkan peninsula philosopher.")

CPW refers throughout to the "nightmare global-warming scenario", seemingly unaware that even its past advocates have given up on its plausibility.

A trip to Dodger Stadium would not have been complete without the mention of the "mostly Mexican-American families" that Los Angeles kicked out of Chavez Ravine for its construction.

For same reason, CPW can't help but observe that John Stewart Bell (he of Bell's Inequality) "absolutely comes off like a bit of a queen."

Some outright bloopers seemed to have been missed. Ones I noticed: a footnote on page 80 uses the word "acceleration", which should have been "direction"; there's a missing minus sign on an exponent on page 86; the word "enormity" is misused on page 176; and this discussion of a plot point on Star Trek: Discovery on page 250 is truly mystifying:

But it turns out while Dr. Culber was dying at the end of set nonbreaking space between his husband—ship's engineer Paul Stamets (beautifully played by Anthony Rapp)—unintentionally transferred Culber's essence to a fungal network with a kiss.

Nonbreaking space: the final frontier!

As seen in Power Line's "Week in Pictures":

These days you take your patriotism as you can find it. As the WSJ editorialists point out, you might need to look elsewhere than in those museums on the National Mall: How the Smithsonian Lost America’s Plot. (WSJ gifted link)

You can download "Saving America's Story" here. The Trump Administration does a lot of stupid and despicable stuff, and there's a lot of Trumpish crap on that page, but the document itself is pretty convincing.

Also of note:

• It's a high bar, but they're trying to clear it. George Will notes Democrats’ extremism and stupidity are catching up with the GOP’s. (WaPo gifted link)

  Platner’s campaign was born of the cynicism that permeates the Democrats’ devotion to identity politics. Never mind that Platner is a lout whose work résumé is thinner than his record of sponging off his parents. Rather than assess him as — Heaven forfend! — an individual, Democrats anointed him the embodiment of a category: the working class. He could be their favorite thing, a victim. He could make vivid their simpleminded binary of “oppressors” and “oppressed.” Oblivious of their insult to America’s working class, Democrats wonder why what once was their base has abandoned them.

  Republicans, however, should shed any post-Platner delusions of moral superiority. Ten years ago, they turned the louche star of the “Access Hollywood” tape, and the payer of hush money to his porn star paramour, into a president. Conjured from the populism of celebrity worship, he today is frighteningly out of his depth, dumbstruck that his son-in-law, in tandem a New York real estate crony, cannot pacify Iran and end the war against Ukraine.

  America’s still-multiplying embarrassments are rank weeds fertilized by the manure of populism. And by populism’s inherent, aggressive disdain for the importance of character in politics. Populism is almost everything rejected by America’s unsentimental Founders, who, a few days ago, the nation briefly, and often uncomprehendingly, celebrated.

  "Manure of populism" is a slightly nicer way of saying "populist bullshit."

• Gratitude is fine, but she could also use my Amazon links. David Harsanyi has some advice: AOC Should Thank Baby Boomers for the World They Left Her. (I assume the same advice applies to any boomer-basher.)

  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she knows why socialism is on the rise: Blame it on the boomers.

  "Millennials and Gen Z combined, now for the first time, are eclipsing the number of baby boomers," she explained recently. "Young people overall feel a tremendous amount of betrayal about the world we've been left."

  It's inarguable that younger generations feel this way. The notion that millennials and Generation Z are toiling in a uniquely grueling economic era, however, is utterly delusional.

  But convincing young people they've been handed a broken world only fostered an unprecedented sense of hopelessness. You are not victims of "oligarchs," unfettered capitalism or any other imaginary monsters.

  And our periodic reminder to the youngs: yes, we Boomers got wealth, but we are not taking it with us. We haven't figured out how to do that.

• As it turns out, there was another lie involved. As reported by NPR (and many others) back in 2013: Obama's 'You Can Keep It' Promise Is 'Lie Of The Year'.

  But calling it the "Affordable Care Act" was apparently another fib, as the WaPo editorialists document: Of course ACA premiums are rising. (WaPo gifted link) Using small words where possible:

  If it wasn’t obvious before that the famous bill passed to make health care more affordable has done anything but, it should be now: Individual plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges are projected to spike by about 14 percent in 2027, according to recent insurer filings.

  The ACA imposed a wide array of mandates on health insurance. Those mandates are expensive. To make up for the increase in costs, the ACA distributes subsidies so consumers don’t feel the impact of the increase.

  Unfortunately, the editorial writers leave some room for blaming private insurers for the unaffordability. If you missed it, here's Noah Smith's take (blogged here last month): Insurers aren't the main villain of the U.S. health care system.

• Aw, say it ain't so, Chris. The Free Beacon's headline puts my current CongressCritter (and possibly my state's future Senator) in the spotlight's glare: 'Anti-Corruption' Senate Candidate Chris Pappas, Whose Ex-Lobbyist Husband Works for Uber, Sits on House Transportation Committee That Uber Heavily Lobbies.

  Rep. Chris Pappas (D.), running for Senate in New Hampshire on an "anti-corruption" agenda against "corporate special interests" in Washington, serves on a House committee that oversees Uber, where his husband, a former lobbyist, serves in an executive policy role.

  Pappas, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is married to Vann Bentley, a policy manager for cybersecurity and privacy at Uber who previously worked as a lobbyist for Amazon, according to his LinkedIn profile.

  I wasn't planning on voting for him anyway.

  Interestingly, the article mentions that Pappas is "running against former senator John Sununu". Who hasn't actually won the nomination yet. But his primary opponent, Scott Brown, goes unmentioned in the article.