Second Sight

SL5B Science Panel, Today, 5PM PST

Posted on July 1st, 2008 — permalink

I’m going to be one of five panelists on the “SL5B Science Panel”. What is SL5B, you ask? Second Life’s Fifth Birthday! It was five years ago that Second Life started it’s open beta. Everybody talks about Second Life as being so “new” that it’s hard to believe that it’s been around that long.

Indeed, it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been a part of Linden Lab for approaching 20% of the time that Second Life has been live…

The panel will be at SL5B Linked (181, 190, 25).

Panelists on the SL5B panel are:

Ourania Fizgig (RL: Adrienne Gauthier) is an instructional technologist in the Astronomy Department at the University of Arizona. She brings ASTRO101 students into Second Life and is also managing the International Year of Astronomy 2009’s presence in world.

Troy McLuhan produces multimedia exhibitions and events in Second Life. His background in applied math and physics, and Purdue PhD in astrodynamics serve him well in his active role in the Science Center group as well as his space related initiatives. http://www.troymcconaghy.com.

Pema Pera is an astrophysicist and head of the program of interdisciplinary studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA, and involved with MICA, The Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics, a group of astrophysicists and others interested in astrophysics. He is also interested in building virtual communities, and in computational science as well as in broadly interdisciplinary studies. See his paper on http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1655 (click on “pdf” for the full article).

Prospero Linden is Rob Knop in real life. Until year ago, he was a professional astronomer, first on the team that discovered the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion, and then an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University. Last year he joined the engineering team at Linden Lab. He gives monthly astronomy outreach talks (as his alt, Prospero Frobozz) in association with MICA, the Meta-Institute of Computational Astronomy. http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/blog.

Bjorlyn Loon (Lynn Cullens in RL) has been writing and communicating about science and technology for 30 years. She has worked in archaeology, carnivore studies, historic preservation and the history of science, but has a real passion for biology and conservation. In Second Life, Bjorlyn has directed the Communications Team for Burning Life, founded and manages the Science Friday group and sim for Ira Flatow, was a recent award winner with The Tech in SL, and now is the full time Director of Communications for Metanomics, the popular business and policy program on virtual worlds.

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Shakespeare in Second Life : Staged Reading of “Twelfth Night”

Posted on June 23rd, 2008 — permalink

As many of you know, I’ve performed already in the first two “miniproductions” with the SL Shakespeare Company.

Currently, SLSC is putting on a staged reading of Twelfth Night. They are doing one act each weekend, with three performances of each act. Every time there is a different cast, and even when there are the same people they are reading different roles. I was in one of the three performances of Act I, and will be in a handful of other performances, although because of my schedule I’m not going to be in very many of these.

See the SLSC website for showtimes and more information.

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Public astronomy talk in Second Life, “Kepler, Newton, and Einstein: ‘Wrong’ Theories and the Progress of Science”

Posted on June 11th, 2008 — permalink

I’ll be giving this talk in Second Life tomorrow (Thursday) at 10AM PDT (in-world time). This talk was originally scheduled for last Friday, but Second Life was having serious problems at the time as a result of networking problems from our upstream ISP.

The talk will be part of the Dr. Knop Talks Astronomy series hosted by MICA. It will be at the Galaxy Dome in Spaceport Bravo.

Remember, basic Second Life accounts are free, as is the client software!

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Technical talk on Dark Energy and Vacuum Fluctuations in Second Life this Friday

Posted on May 8th, 2008 — permalink

In addition to the popular-level astronomy talks I’ve started doing as part of MICA, there will also be regular “journal clubs.” This is something you’ll see in physics and astronomy departments sometimes: people take an interesting paper from the recent literature (really, from preprints nowadays), and lead a discussion about it with their colleagues. It’s one way of trying to keep up with some of what’s going on in the literature, and it’s also a way that one scientist can share his particular area of interest with his immediate colleagues.

This Friday, George Djorgovski will be leading a journal club in Second Life at 8AM SLT (pactific time) on the paper Dark Energy from Vacuum Fluctuations by Djorgovski and Gurzadyan. Note that while in this case, the author of the paper is talking about his own paper, that’s not always the case. In journal clubs I’ve been too, sometimes people talk about their own work, and sometimes they talk about other interesting papers from the literature. For instance, when I was at Vanderbilt and still working with the Supernova Cosmology Project (which used optical and infrared astronomical data), I gave a journal club about the WMAP 3-year results — very releavant to cosmology and my work, but not something in which I was involved.

The journal club will be where all of the MICA meetings currently happen, at the ISM Workshop in Spaceport Bravo.

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Popular Astronomy Talk in Second Life : The Death of Stars (2008-May-02)

Posted on April 28th, 2008 — permalink

I’m going to be giving my second “Dr. Knop Talks Astronomy” popular talk in Second Life as part of the fledgling Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics.

The talk will be at The Galaxy Dome in Spaceport Bravo, this Friday (May 2) at 8AM pacific time (which is the same as in-world time in Second Life).

Drop by if you’re interested! Here’s the longer description of the talk:

In Fire and In Ice : The Death of Stars

Stars live for millions or billions of years, but they don’t liveforever. When a star reaches the end of its lifetime, spectactular fireworks can result. In this popular talk for interested layman, Dr. Knop will outline what it is that keeps a star together during its lifetime, and what happens to stars of various different sizes when that process finally breaks down. He’ll talk about the ejection of planetary nebulae, the cooling of white dwarves, and the most spectacular of stellar events, supernovae.

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Is the Large Hadronic Collider going to end the world by making black holes or strangelets?

Posted on April 11th, 2008 — permalink

No.

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Dr. Knop Talks Astronomy

Posted on April 3rd, 2008 — permalink

The Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics is a new venture being spearheaded by Piet Hut, also known as Pema Pera in Second Life. Piet and collaborators have already done some actual scientfic collaboration a virutal world, through Qwaq. However, he— and others, to the point that I can start using the pronoune “we”— are starting to do more in Second Life in an attempt both to bring in more astronomers, professional and amateur, as well as interested community members. Activities are going to include a regular journal club, as well as a monthly outreach talk at the popular level. I will write more about MICA later.

Right now, though, I want to (at the last minute) publicize that I will be giving tomorrow’s in-world popular talk. I’ll be talking on the title “The Power of the Dark Side: How Dark Matter and Dark Energy dominate our Universe”. This talk will be in The Galaxy Dome in the ISM’s Spaceport Bravo. This is going to be a version of a talk that I’ve given before, last Spring when I was still at Vanderbilt and going around giving AAS Seyfert Shapley Lectures. (I think I gave five of those last year.) The talk will be in-world using Second Life Voice, and will be at a level accessible to all (although I always do try to challenge your minds when I give these sorts of talks).

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Obama should not suffer for being maximally ethical

Posted on March 23rd, 2008 — permalink

I read a particularly annoying letter to the editor in The Tennessean this morning that assets that Obama’s candidacy is “over” because he refused to abandon the preacher, a longtime friend, who made some racist (anti-white) statements.  What’s more, this letter writer, Edgar Davie, seems to think that this is as it should be.

I certainly hope that Davie is wrong in his prediction; I know that he is wrong in his moralizing.

In our soundbyte-and-scandal driven media-saturated election season, the most extreme response to any negative feedback seems to be what people always demand. If somebody in the Clinton campaign makes a statement about race that others find offensive, rather than thinking about it and engaging it, that person is expected to resign.  If an ally of a candidate makes statements that we would find alarming if made by the candidate himself, the candidate is expected to fully repudiate and reject that ally in all ways.

And, yet, what does Obama do?  He shows that we can be thoughtful, that we need not have the most extreme reaction to the slightest offense.  He shows that in fact reality, including human relationships and difficult issues, are complicated.  They need to be met head on with care and consideration, not with immediate and extreme reactions designed for media spin control.  This is exactly what we should want in a presidential candidate.  Obama’s famous race speech should in fact be getting him all the positive responses we’ve seen because it’s the perfect response, it’s what we need to have been doing all along.  I just hope that Davie is wrong in asserting that the thoughtful response will be forgotten before the demands for a thoughtless and immediate response.

Consider: Rev. Wright is a longtime and deep family friend of Obama.  Myself, I have friends whom I still consider friends even though I have heard them espouse beliefs about homosexuals that I consider bigoted.  I have grandparents and relatives that I still love despite having heard them make statements about race that I consider bigoted.  Am I just as much a bigot as them for refusing to completely cut off my relationships because they say things that I disagree with?  Ask yourselves; does everybody in your life that you value hold identical views with you about such charged topics?  Have you completely abandoned all of those who may have publicly expressed a bigoted view? And, if not, why demand that Obama do so?

Specifically with regard to his relationship with Rev. Wright, the most important statement Obama made was this: “I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy.”

Obama has condemned the words that he disagrees with, that he finds wrong and offensive… and that so many of the rest of us find wrong and offensive.  If the campaign is about Obama, and not about finding a reason to somehow justify not voting for Obama, this should be enough.  Why then do people demand that he completely abandon the man, the cherished and loved friend of his family?  We really do not want a president who will do that.  We want a president who will engage those whom he disagrees with, those whom (dare I say it) are wrong.  Who will continue to take their wisdom where they are wise, who will try to change their hearts where they are wrong, but who will no matter what continue to respect and value them as human beings worthy of our care and compassion.

Everybody, grow up.  Obama has.

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Five Great Science Education Places in Second Life

Posted on March 17th, 2008 — permalink

I originally wrote this for Second Opinion, Linden Lab’s internal newsletter. It was going to appear as the “Fab Five”… in what turned out to be the issue after the last issue. Oops. Since it never saw light of day there, I figured I’d post it here.

It’s been a number of months since I wrote this. Were I doing it now, there may be some other sites I would have been tempted to include. In particular, the weekly Science Friday broadcasts are something not to be missed. The in-world broadcats, complete with the lively discussions we have in text while listening and the occasional question from a Second Life avatar read on-air happen at the Science Friday Island.

(more…)

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Non-news from Second Life

Posted on March 14th, 2008 — permalink

Read about it on the official blog.

I’ve seen some reactions already that use words like “dramatic shift” or otherwise seem to indicate that this is some kind of “stepping down.” Read what Philip says on the blog. It’s all true. He’s still Our Leader.

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