My title comes from a quote by jazz trombonist and composer, J. J. Johnson (1924–2001). The rest of the quote reads, “when you don’t have to practice.”
Johnson spoke from experience. His instrument, the slide trombone, was thought too slow for the fast, intricate melodies and improvisations of bebop, a style of modern jazz that emerged in the 1940s. Having proved that wasn’t the case, Johnson went on to enjoy a long and successful career. Even if you’re not a jazz fan, you might have heard Johnson’s music: He scored episodes of the iconic 1970s TV shows, The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky and Hutch, and CHiPs.
The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volumes 1 and 2 (1955) collected tracks that Blue Note had issued earlier on 10-inch LPs.
As an editor at Physics Today, I’m occasionally invited to give talks. Such invitations are an honor, and I strive to put together an engaging combination of words and visuals. But I would hardly say that I’m an accomplished speaker—unlike my wife, Jan.
When I first met Jan she was in the final year of doing a master’s degree in remote sensing at the College Park campus of the University of Maryland. The university’s remote sensing group was part of the geography department, whose chair at the time was John Townshend.
To Townshend, giving talks was so vital to a scientist’s career that he insisted that all the department’s graduate students, including Jan, had to give them—lots of them. One type of talk entailed a student discussing how the authors of a paper used data to reach their conclusions. The topic didn’t have to be in remote sensing or even geography. Jan once spoke about basking sharks. By the time she graduated, Jan estimates she had delivered about 12 talks.
SPICE
Jan’s and my contrasting talents came to mind on Tuesday when I received an email message from Jairo Sinova of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. Besides being a physics professor, Sinova directs the university’s Spin Phenomena Interdisciplinary Center (SPICE). His email announced the availability of a new set of talks on the SPICE YouTube channel:
In our latest update you can find the talks of the inaugural SPICE Young Research Leaders Group Workshop: Frontiers with Strongly Correlated and Topological Mesoscopic systems at the workshop’s talks website.
This workshop, which was the first of its kind, aimed to start new and increasing collaborations, and seek for research topics across disciplines in condensed matter physics. The workshop format focused on groups of researchers at their early careers but with already established and highly regarded research profiles.
Out of curiosity, I looked at some of the talks—and was surprised and impressed. The words “strongly correlated,” “topological,” and “mesoscopic” of the workshop’s theme might portend formidable physics. Yet Dima Abanin, for one, began his talk on many-body localization and periodically driven systems with a joke and continued with an accessible introduction.
When I checked Abanin’s website at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, I discovered that he’d given 18 seminars in the past three years.
Unusual Arctic fire activity in 2019–21 was driven by, among other factors, earlier snowmelt and varying atmospheric conditions brought about by rising temperatures.
January 06, 2023 12:00 AM
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Physics Today - The Week in Physics
The Week in Physics" is likely a reference to the regular updates or summaries of new physics research, such as those found in publications like Physics Today from AIP Publishing or on news aggregators like Phys.org.
