FOLLOW-UP: Rebutting the New York Times Review of "A Universe From Nothing"

Somehow a few months ago, my family discovered the existence of this blog, and the first post they read was this one, for which this post is a follow-up. They then bought the aforementioned book for me so that I could read it and perhaps understand the criticisms laid out in the New York Times article that I rebutted.

Well, I read the book. It was a fairly interesting read. Having taken the class 8.033 — Relativity, I would say that everything up to around the middle of the book is stuff I've seen before in the context of general relativity. After that comes some stuff that is new to me, like the ideas behind inflation, virtual particles, and how multiverses can be explained within the framework of quantum field theory. They were all new and fairly strange ideas, but I accepted them fairly easily because it was clear how they fit into the framework of quantum field theory. After finishing the book, I went back to read the book review as well as my rebuttal of it, and I have to say that in many ways, the book review looks even slightly more ridiculous than before, and I'm actually quite happy with the assessment I laid out about a year ago.

Read More

Rebutting the New York Times Review of "A Universe From Nothing"

I was talking to my family today, and they mentioned that this week, Stephen Colbert interviewed physicist/author Lawrence Krauss on The Colbert Report, where he promoted his new book "A Universe From Nothing". They also talked about how they saw a review of this book on the New York Times that seemed rather critical of it, and they suggested that I read that review.

In fairness, I have not read the book, nor have I (yet) watched the interview on that show. But reading this article made me laugh and cringe simultaneously, and I am going to lay out why. I should also say that the book, which is supposed to explain how quantum field theory lays the groundwork for the universe springing from nothing, is for a popular audience. I would say that among the scientific community, the predictions of relativistic quantum field theory have been accepted for decades. Follow the jump to see what else I think about this.

Read more »

Read More

Movie Review: 2012: Doomsday

I have to confess that (1) I'm not a huge fan of apocalypse films and (2) I had some preconceived notions of the movie before watching it. The entire premise of the movie is based on the Mayan "Long Count" calendar ending on 2012 December 21, but the truth (according to the Mayans) is that when the calendar reaches its end a new era begins and the calendar will restart (i.e. the world won't end) and that the date isn't actually 2012. I felt like this would destroy the premise of the movie, leaving in its wake just another generic apocalypse movie. However, my family really wanted to watch it, so I gave in and watched as well.
2012 is 83 minutes long, and thankfully no more; it was pretty bad. For one, the dialogue was some of the cheesiest trash I've ever seen, and this especially comes out when some of the characters vocalize the conflict between their newfound faith and their aversion to faith. But then, people don't generally watch apocalypse movies for the dialogue, so I figured there would be some awesome whiz-bang special effects to make up for the utter lack of dialogue.
I was wrong on that count as well. The rain and snow effects were some of the worst I've seen. When snow was falling in central Mexico, it looked like it was falling on a screen placed in front of the rest of the characters and scenery. Furthermore, it seemed to stick to the characters' hair but not to the surrounding fauna and flora, which makes no sense considering the characters' hair is probably a lot warmer than the surrounding plant life. The rain effects looked like they came straight out of an Indian movie from the 1960s (they were that bad). KDE 4 (or even TWM in Slackware) has better rain and snow effects than that movie.
Finally, all the preaching and talk about the anointed messengers (who, except for the indigenous girl and her baby, were all white Americans) of Jesus was a bit uncomfortable. I strongly suspect that this was actually a Christian filmmaker that made this movie (evidenced by the production group "Faith Films"), which also accounts for the pathetic effects and garbage dialogue. I'm surprised that such a niche movie made it into mainstream movie theaters.
In short, don't watch this movie (unless you're into preachy Christian films, and if you are, I have nothing against you).
(UPDATE: It turns out that I watched the wrong 2012. The real 2012, based on the Wikipedia article, is nothing like this. What I watched was some poorly-done evangelical knockoff. Wow! (UPDATE: As it turns out, my family bought this from Wal-Mart, explaining the emphasis on Christianity. Also, the title of this movie is 2012: Doomsday (which would probably have avoided trademark issues with the real 2012). I've updated the title accordingly.))

Read More