Reviews editor at PhysicsWorld.com, Margaret Harris gives a list of her top 10 physics-related books for 2009. Some of them are intriguing to me.

10. The Physics of Rugby by Trevor Davis (Nottingham University Press).

Hmm.. if the book is about bicycle I might check it out.

Another interesting thing is how this book is received in different Amazon sites: three stars in US vs five stars in UK.

A similar book, also mentioned by the reviewer in Amazon US, is The Physics of Baseball by Robert K. Adair. The professor who taught me General Physics mentioned this book to us many years ago.

9. First Principles: The Crazy Business of Doing Serious Science by Howard Burton (Key Porter Books).

The book is about the process of scientific management.

“First Principles” means the most basic and fundamental propositions or assumptions that cannot be deduced from others. In physics, a first-principle (or ab initio) calculation starts directly at the established physics laws and doesn’t make assumptions such as model and fitting parameters.

8. Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity by Basil Mahon (Institute of Engineering and Technology)

A bibliography about Oliver Heaviside. We all benefit from his vector formulation of Maxwell’s equations, in replace of Maxwell’s ponderous 20-variable ones. But except this, I know nothing about him.

7. Atomic: The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb by Jim Baggott (Icon Books)

Receive pretty well in Amazon UK.

6. Lives in Science: How Institutions Affect Academic Careers by by Joseph C Hermanowicz (University of Chicago Press)

Not yet in Amazon UK.

Whoever wants a career as an academic physicist might  want to read this book. The conclusion is “academic physicists are a dissatisfied bunch, and the more elite their university, the more likely they are to be unhappy at the end of their careers.”

Tell me about it.

5. 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense by Michael Brooks (Profile Books).

Lots of things just don’t make sense to me … but maybe we should define what sense we refer to.

4. Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung by Arthur I Miller (W W Norton)

Carl Jung was “a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology (also known as Jungian psychology)” (from Wiki)

3. Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century by Masha Gessen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

“In 2006, an eccentric Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved one of the world’s greatest intellectual puzzles. The Poincare conjecture is an extremely complex topological problem that had eluded the best minds for over a century. In 1998, the Clay Institute in Boston named it one of seven great unsolved mathematical problems, and promised a million dollars to anyone who could find a solution. Perelman will likely be awarded the prize this fall, and he will likely decline it. Fascinated by his story, journalist Masha Gessen was determined to find out why.”

This is interesting to me but I don’t know how truely we can get to know Perelman.

2. Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World by Eugenie Samuel Reich (Palgrave Macmillan).

When this fraud came out in 2002, I was very surprised that this could happen. So many brilliant scientists and top scientific journal editors were fooled by this young, to-be-superstar, physicist Jan Hendrik Schon. I had been wonder whether there’s a book about this. Definitely want to read this.

1. The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo (Faber and Faber).

Mentioned this before. I already got this book but haven’t had time to read it yet.

When I tried to download the latest update for Google Earth (from 5.0). At the first time I clicked “Agree and Download” and a pop-up window showed up asking me where to save googleupdatesetup.exe. Somehow I noticed something different in the previous page, so I went back and looked carefully.

When you ask for Google Earth, Google gives you Chrome for free? Well, that’s all right if they want to sell Google Chrome, but please don’t put it as the default setting.

I have tried Chrome before and I don’t want it. It will make me feel terrible if later I find Google Chrome is installed in my PC, even though it’s because I don’t notice the default option on the download page.

Further more, there’s an advanced setup below the download button. When you click at it, you will see the two options enabled:

I optioned off the automatic update, because I don’t know how Google does it. Remember that annoying Google Update? Google later changed its way to handle updates but …

Clicked the download buttoning, a pop-up asked me where to save GoogleEarthWin.exe. So, what’s that googleupdatesetup.exe at my first try?

During the installation, wanna-be smart Google uses the language set for non-unicode programs in my PC. I wish they can be smarter to notice that English is set in my Regional Option.

Toward the end of installation, it has two options enabled: one is to start Google Earth, and the other is the third option in above screenshot, which I never enabled!

Google, aren’t you too pushy?

Another guess-the-tune time. Listen to this. Does it sound familiar to you? If it does, what is it in your mind?

Don’t you think so?

The tune is from Gregorio Paniagua – La Folia: Oratio pro-Folia – Fama Volat – Citrus-Hesperides

Further reading:

• La folia in Wiki
• La Folia – A Musical Cathedral

David Pogue said, “Not Yet the Season for the Nook“, in a review in New York Times.

Despite of many the same things between Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s Nook, e.g. price, frame, 6″ E-Ink screen and cellular connection etc, there are some differences, as claimed by B&N:

• LoanMe feaure
• Wi-Fi
• A catalog of one million titles
• A beautiful color touch screen

Well, Kindle doesn’t have the first two features and don’t have one million titles for Kindle on Amazon site. However, that doesn’t mean you cannot get those extra title shown in B&N elsewhere (just use AddAll ebook search).

As for the color touch screen, ah, that’s one of the two main complaints from David Pogue. The other is “the Nook’s half-baked software”. Quote of David’s saying:

To use the technical term, it’s slower than an anesthetized slug in winter.

And it’s buggy. …

Despite of some hardware advantages on the Nook, David considers Kindle as a better machine (“faster, thinner, lighter and much easier to figure out”).

From this and the preview reviews, it seems that we can wait until the Nook 2 is out, with all the bugs resolved. I’m sure that there will be other players coming into the market soon.

First, B&N won’t be able to ship the Nook before 2010 (Reuters). Meanwhile, you can read the reviews based on the demos from different sites to see whether you’re going to wait.

• Your First Look at Nook (Technologizer) – also provides the comparison chat of specs in Nook, Kindle and Sony Reader Touch.

A mostly appealing collection of features add up to the Kindle’s most formidable rival. It’s definitely a 1.0 product, though, with a slow, sometimes clunky interface.

• Bames & Noble Nook review (Engadget) – gives a thumb up for the hardware part but a thumb down for the software.

Nook has a leg up on the competition … by providing an attractive package and feature set, offering personalization (via add ons and accessories), a huge selection of books, perks like the LendMe feature, that color screen, and the excellent buying experience. On the other hand, when it came to day to day use, we felt let down in a big way

• Barnes & Noble Nook Review: Pretty Damn Good (Gizmodo) – also enjoys the device overall, despite of the current buggy software.

It seems to me that the software or the user interface part is the main weakness in Nook. But I guess that depends on person and I don’t care about some of their complaints. For instance, Gizmodo reviewer said: “why isn’t there AAC playback?” In that case, should I complain that why there isn’t flac playback?

Also, some people care about the reading experience of PDF in Nook (or in Kindle). I have to said that, PDF is not created for ebook reading. Therefore, the reading experience cannot be the same sa ePub or other ebook formats. Either you read it in its own native format (PDF) or in the converted format (e.g. to ePub). The former will give you the same experience as you read in computer or laptop (cannot change the layout & font size; only zoom the whole thing), while the latter might give you better reading experience if the conversion is done right.

For the conversion from PDF file, you can look into Calibre (the best ebook library with lots of conversion tools) or Mobipocket Reader.

Medicit.tv will broadcast the 2009 Nobel Prize Concert at 6:30 pm (GMT) on Tuesday, December 8. Argerich will play Ravel’s piano concerto in G major with Yuri Temirkanov conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. There will be also the TV broadcast at a later time in the same evening. It is said in yahoo group discussion that there will be a DVD release.

People in Americas can watch it at work, while people in Asia will have to stay up all night if they want to watch the live broadcast.

[Update]

• The Nobel Prize Concert – The first-hand account on the concert. BTW, Argerich is indeed humble and modest. She always gives the over-90-degree bow several times during the ovation.
• Interview in Stockholm – Argerich was quite friendly despite that the interviewer seemed not to be well-prepared.

I just borrowed “Tristan und Isolde” CD from the library and listened to the prelude.

Uh.. sound very familiar. I must hear it somewhere.

In a movie? I checked IMDB and Googled it. In “Wagner in the Movies“, it said Hitchcock’s “Murder!”(1930) used it at one scene. No, not this one; I never saw a movie this old.

So, where?

Could it be some of Mahler’s works? (Don’t ask me why I thought of Mahler; probably because of the string part). Symphony No. 2?

Wiki:

Bülow told Mahler that “Totenfeier” (would become the first movement) made “Tristan und Isolde” sound to him like a Haydn symphony.

That’s the only reference related to “Tristan und Isolde”. Probably not this.

While checking on this symphony in the library, I hummed the tune and, suddenly, the tune transformed to another one.

Wait, I remember this. It’s from Bizet’s Carmen: Parle-moi de ma mere! (Act I)

Listen to this and focus on the part from 23 sec to 30 sec. Try to hum the tune.

And then listen to this. Also try to hum it.

Can you hear the similarity between them?

Or, I’m just crazy?

Long time ago, I showed how I saved this damaged CD by using Exact Audio Copy (EAC). I thought about ripping all my CD collection and saving them in my hard drive, but I only converted few of them.

Recently I got serious about this so I started from the beginning (most of them are ordered by composer). Since I haven’t listened to them for a while, many discs are covered with mold. I had to clean them (with water) before ripping it. Some discs have more mold than the others.

Here is one that I just cleaned. The case was broken through one of my movings (across the ocean).

Close look at the disc:

Fortunately this CD only has less than 44 min, so that the two holes and the transparent parts on the edge do not affect the playing. Actually these transparent parts are already there before I cleaned it with water. Therefore, I really don’t know how this happened. (Hmm.. see the news article in the end)

I bought this CD in early 90s so it has been at least 14 years. But just 14 years! The booklet is still all right, so it looks like the paper does much better job in preserving data.

So, CD is not safe, nor is DVD (or Blu-ray discs). Hard drives and memory cards are afraid of hard impact and humidity, and can die any time without warning you. Or, they won’t work because no available device can read them.

This life cycle of media might be shorter and shorter with newer technology or development coming out. Is it too much to ask for a lifetime, say 50 years?

Related Article:

• Is Music Safe on Compact Disc? (BBC News on 08/27/2004)

“When the CD is made, protective lacquer is dropped onto each disc, which is spun to spread the lacquer to its outer edges,” said Mr Varley.

“If this is not done properly, the lacquer may not cover the disc, enabling air to penetrate and oxidise the aluminium. Over time, this rusting effect can ruin the CD.”

Record companies Warner Music, EMI, BMG, Sony and Universal declined to comment on the deterioration of compact discs. (…)

But Philips, which co-developed the compact disc with Sony, said CD deterioration was an isolated problem.

Is that so?

Here are two tunes from an opera in my recent listening:

• Tune 1a
• Tune 2a

Can you recognize the tunes? Which opera is it? Wait, if you think you know the answers, you might want to think twice after listening to these two:

• Tune 1b
• Tune 2b

Just give you some hint. The last two tunes (b) are from a different opera, as you may know it by heart, Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote” (The Magic Flute).

But that’s not the opera for the first two tunes (a), even though they sound familiar (try to compare 1a vs 1b and 2a and 2b). So, what is it?

The answer is ..

These two tunes are from Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers; below is from a live recordng by Teresa Berganza, Luigi Alva and the conductor Silvio Varviso).

• Tune 1a is from “Serenate il mesto ciglio” in Act I. (Giuliana Tavolaccini as Elvira)
• Tune 2a is from “Con tutta…La femmine d’Italia” in Act II. (Paolo Montarsolo as Haly)

Tune 1&2 b is take from the opening of this famous aria.

When I first listened to Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri yesterday, I immediately recognized the similarity between these two. Even though it’s only just for few notes. But they do sound pretty close, don’t they?

Maybe when Rossini was composing L’Italiana in Algeri, where introduces “Pappataci”* in Act II, he couldn’t help having Papagano’s tune in mind. Well, that’s just my wild guess.

* From Wiki’s Synopsis: “Lindoro tells Mustafà that Isabella will declare him her adored ‘pappataci’ [literally a 'silent eater': a man unable to resist the opposite sex]. This, as Lindoro explains, is an Italian custom and a great honour, as the ‘pappataci’ enjoy an idyllic life dedicated to eating, drinking and sleeping.”

Recently just thought about upgrading my audio gears. But let me say this first: I’m not an audiophile. Nor do I have golden ears. Just want a good improvement within the affordable budget.

Before I thought about using my Sony portable CD player (D-NE900), but its battery was half dead and I heard some additional electrical noise when using AC power. Playing CD in my PC’s player would make the fans become noisier. Plus, I had to take some CDs with me from time to time. Therefore, I started to listen the flac image (ripped from CDs via EAC) using foobar 2000 (PS: I prefer a flac image + cue file over the individual tracks for the ease of organization).

The speakers for PC are just the low-end Altec Langsing AVS200. I chose this pair because of its size (very important) and reasonable sound at this price tag. Of course, it cannot match up the audio system I have at home.

Using a pair of decent headphones, like my Grado SR60, directly with PC is also not a good idea, for it could pick up the noise from PC as well.

So, I have lived with the sound from AVS200 and the stock PC sound card for a while until recently. I realized that I have spent more time in listening music via PC at work than my home audio system or Grado SR60. How could I let myself be satisfied with such a poor sound?

When thinking whether I should get a music player with better audio quality and support for flac, I should think about improving my listening with PC/NB (especially I also watch DVDs in my MacBookPro). The answer for this is to get a USB DAC.

Since I have Grado SR60 (dynamic open-air, supra-aural) for a while, I thought, why not upgrade the headphones as well? Not that Grado SR60 is not good; in fact, it’s probably the best you can get at this price for a decent full-size headphones. But this time I would like to have ones producing different kind of sound, more roomy than focusing*.

I actually had done a lot of homework before going to an audio store.

Candidates for headphones:

• AKG: K240 MK II, K271 MK II, 601, or even 701 or 702 if I lose my senses
• Sennheiser: HD-555 or even HD-595
• DENON: AH-D1001K

Candidates for USB DAC (with extra features)

• Firestone: Fubar II or III (+ headphone amp)
• Travagan: Green (+ headphone & speaker amp) or White (+ headphone amp)

Travagan’s Green will be shipped with a pair of 2″ mini full-range speakers. I first thought that these can replace AVS200. I was also inclined to get K601 at first. But things changed when I was in the shop. I bought the discontinued AKG K240 Studio (semi-open, circumaural) instead and got Fubar III, not Travagan’s Green.

The store owner praised K240S over the updated MK II. I compared K240S with Grado SR80 and Sennheiser HD-555, and I did like K240S more, though I didn’t check with K601 or K701. I was afraid that my hearing couldn’t match with these high-end headphones.

As for USB DAC, I didn’t test the products, even though I took some music files with me. I guess, I got influenced by the shop’s opinions (well, I was too easy). Besides, I also considered whether I would need these mini speakers if now I have two pairs of excellent headphones. Not mention the sound from speakers would leak out when listening at work. Although Fubar II is cheaper and can be used with my Cute Beyond (Firestone’s; older version), I like Fubar III’s compact size.

Now I just have to run these two for a while to fully open them up.

Last night, I was so excited, especially the new headphones, that I listened to them until very late.

Here is my old Grado SR60 — pretty plain.

* I can’t express this feeling well. This headphone guide gives a better explanation. See the part of “Supra-aural Sound vs. Circumaural Sound”

No one is right or wrong! Some people love headphones because they offer great detail and a supra-aural Grado headphone shines in this area. And, some people prefer the sound of a good, larger circumaural headphone because to them it sounds more natural. Which you would prefer probably would depend on your tastes in music!

Although the author favors Grado’s products, he also gives an objective account on AKG’s & Sennheiser’s.