Saturday, October 14, 2006

Recent Arrival

The Perimeter Institute has a newsletter called 'Inside the Perimeter'. Its latest issue introduces me as a 'recent arrival'. Since I - and maybe also some of you - have wondered what I am doing here, here is what Angela Robinson wrote (including the photo, taken last week by my officemate Stefan) :

"After obtaining her PhD from Frankfurt in 2003. Sabine held postdoctoral positions at the University of Arizona and UCSB. At PI, she will be spending a lot of time on quantum gravity... as well as foundations... as well as keeping in touch with developments in string theory... as well as bothering everyone who knows something about cosmology.

In addition to her diverse interests in physics, Sabine is also an active blogger and painter, and likes spending time hiking.

As she settles into Canada, she is enjoying her new-found discovery of maple syrup, and eagerly awaiting the arrival of her furniture from California. If you know why her furniture seems to be circling the globe en route to Waterloo, you can find Sabine in Office abc, at ext. xyz to explain."


Indeed, maple syrup is a great stuff, totally addictive. I wonder how I could completely ignore its existence for the first 30 years of my life!

But what I miss far more than my furniture are my books, my files, CDs, and my clothes. I would really appreciate the opportunity to wear a different shirt next week. The bright side of this is (there is always a bright side!) that it makes a great conversation starter. When people meet me on the corridor, they keep asking for news from my furniture, instead of, say, to which precision the spin statistic of the top quark has been measured.

The newsletter is a very nicely designed more or less frequently appearing update on what is going on at the Institute, and related events at the Universities in Waterloo and Toronto. Besides the current visitors and the extensive scientific schedule, it lists all the other activities going on here, from movie nights over excursions to the public lectures.

The last page of the newsletter has a questionnaire. I don't know from whom it is, but we've been laughing a lot about #3 B, which tells us that

"3B: Super zing-zong theory is the only theory that successfully predicts the dimension of spacetime to within an order of magnitude."


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6 comments:

  1. you do look like a nice girl... but maybe the haircut is a bit too short ;-)

    - Rob

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  2. Hey Bee, don't forget to have fun with Zing Zong up north.

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  3. Nah, having shorter hair frees up more time. Plus it makes for superior cooling of the computational apparatus. And, err, I think maybe "nice" is not a good operator for Bee -- it's certainly not hairmitian.
    (:-)

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  4. Hey Rob:

    what haircut? Actually, I find it too long rather than too short. I look like a nice girl? See, that's the mistake they all make...

    Hi Garrett:

    The Hairmiltonian requires some boundary conditioner ;-) I've been told it gets quite chilly up here in winter, so I don't really have any need for superior cooling.

    Hi Anonymous:

    I have lots of fun with Zing Zong.

    Best,

    B.

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  5. I expect to see a new book soon:
    Not Even Zong: The Failure of Zing Theory and What Comes Next

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  6. William! I had to laugh so hard, I almost choked on a gummybear :-)

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