The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos

By ESO/S. Guisard (http://www.eso.org/public/images/milky-way-cactus/) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Gravity = 9.8.

This is the only thing I remember from high school physics. I don't even know what 9.8 stands for, but I do remember the number, because my teacher had repeatedly told our class "if you retain one thing from this semester, it's that gravity = 9.8." And I listened to and followed that instruction, to the letter.

I've always liked science but I'm no good at math, and I think I had some bad teachers who somehow were able to make science boring. This is hard to do! Science is amazing - at least certain kinds of it. The study of Cosmology - reality and the universe - is one of those amazing kinds of science. Heck, it's probably responsible for at least 25% of Cracked.com's "Mindblowing" listicles. Reality is a lot weirder than most people think it is. For example, there is a very small but non-zero chance that if you were to walk into a wall, you will pass right through it. It is not impossible, scientifically speaking. The particles in your body all just have to line up in exactly the right way.

One of the things I like about owning a tablet is that it's made it easier to read a lot more books than I used to. Lately I've been reading a couple from theoretical physicist Brian Greene. I like him because he panders to people like me that love science but suck at math. I wouldn't call his books "dumbed down" (we're still talking 557 pages per book about the big bang, entropy, the arrow of time, inflationary theory and string theory) but they are not written for other physicists, as so many physics books are. According to him, much of what makes up reality on the deepest levels is hard for even other physicists to understand. But he makes it accessible even for laypeople.

Here's another fun factoid: according to the inflationary model of the big bang (the only theory that really makes sense and is supported by evidence still around us), our universe at one time was not only smaller than a grain of sand, it was also very light. The standard big bang theory would hold that it was both incredibly dense and incredibly heavy, but the inflationary theory holds that it could have weighed less than a speck of dust. Greene believes it probably weighed more like 20 pounds. That's the kind of thing that makes me put the book down and just think for a little while, because it opens up all sorts of questions as to what the universe actually is. The entirety of everything that's out there, all that vast space and billions of galaxies and their suns and planets, was something somebody no larger than we are could have literally held in their hand.

My wife often asks "but how do they know?" This is a legitimate question about many of the larger theories of existence and matter. But Greene lays out logical arguments for everything, and presents competing viewpoints when appropriate. Everything that we actually know about the universe - especially the weirdest parts (because we'd never have come up with some of this stuff ourselves) - is supported by physical and experimental evidence that's laid out in these books, not to mention math. Much of it has been tested so thoroughly as to be indisputable precisely because it's so unbelievable. And in at least one case - the Higgs boson - a major theory described in these books was actually experimentally confirmed just after the book was published!

(String theory as it currently exists is just that - a theory - but many other subjects in these books are confirmed as real, including the Higgs ocean that gives all matter its mass.)

I'm at that age where I start to wonder what we're doing here. Is the accumulation of all this stuff our purpose in life? Think about humanity's lasting legacy. After your death, what will you have done that will be remembered in 100 or 1,000 years? Some marketing campaign you worked on? I highly doubt it. Some gadget you helped put together? I doubt that too. Even music or art - they can, in very rare cases, last a few hundred years, but that's about it.

Humanity's only real legacy is science. The discoveries we've made in science are the only truly lasting marks we make - the only building blocks of our civilization that don't disappear. And science inexorably marches forward - we never go backwards in science, or forget things we've learned. To me, this must mean something. This has to be somehow related to our purpose in life. On this planet, at least, we are uniquely able to comprehend the larger universe. And we're all made of the same atoms that make up the stars - as Carl Sagan said, "we are a way for the universe to know itself."

Humans have a tendency to get tunnel vision, and to lose perspective on all but their own little personal world. In some ways that may be necessary for short-term survival. But even as the internet has made global news and information easier to come by, you see people becoming indignant about things happening half a world away because those things don't fit in with their personal world view. How, then, can you expect the average person to gain a universal perspective, and to really intuitively realize their place in the universe?

There was an article on The Verge a while back about how most young kids today will never see a starry sky due to light pollution. The really distressing thing was the number of people in the comments who didn't understand why this was a problem. Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series doesn't get enough credit for its social commentary (I guess it was too funny for people to notice), but in the third book of the series "Life, the Universe and Everything", there is a planet called Krikkit (its similarity to the English word "cricket" not being coincidence) that's stuck in a dust cloud where no one can see the stars. The people are friendly and good-natured, but as soon as they discover that other stars and planets exist, they determine to wipe them out. The resulting war costs half the population of the galaxy.

(It's no small point that it turns out that these people, who had no universal frame of reference for their existence, were being intentionally and easily manipulated into their xenophobic and warmongering ways.)

It was obviously written as absurdist comedy but the point is perhaps unintentionally made that failing to understand or "feel" that we're part of a larger universe can have real consequences. At best, it severely limits a person's thinking and perspective - it starts to really matter if you get that new iPhone on day one, or if you can someday make more money in a year than any of your friends. And we've seen what kinds of real problems that can cause.

Despite living in New York for most of my life, I've been lucky enough to see a view of the Milky Way similar to that at the top of this post (many times, in fact), and I think it's important for everyone to do so. There are still many places in this country with a clear enough sky to see it. Once you do, it's hard to ever think about the world the same way again.

I recommend reading both The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos.

Citi Field 2013 - still a home run?

Citi Field is the Mets' beautiful stadium that opened in 2009, and my hometown ballpark for my favorite team. But is it still the home run that most people initially thought it was? I first visited in 2011 and finally made it back today - read on for my thoughts on the stadium in general, and how it's aged since my last visit.

First, let's jump back a tiny bit.

Photo by Mr. Kjetil Ree. (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

(Sorry - I've been to Shea many times but apparently never took a picture of it myself!)

Shea Stadium, which Citi Field replaced, was a lot like the Mets themselves - the butt of jokes, originally unloved, but it developed a certain charm over the years, and a lot of unique history. Most Mets fans grew a little attached to it, and we were kind of sorry to see it go. (Yeah, kind of - I'm choosing my words carefully here.) Sure, it had an upper deck that was angled about 80 degrees and topped out seemingly about the height of the Chrysler Building, but it also had a giant outfield scoreboard that made a perfect target for Darryl Strawberry and Mike Piazza. The stadium was completely one with the team that played there - it was even fully painted in the Mets colors inside and out at the end. Whenever anyone thinks of the 1969, 1973, 1986 or 2000 Mets, they think of Shea.

All four Shea infield bases are still represented in the Citi Field parking lot, and I finally found them today. We actually parked today in what was center field at Shea.

We Mets fans were still excited to get one of those beautiful new retro ballparks we'd been jealous of ever since Oriole Park at Camden Yards was first built in 1989. Citi Field was designed as a retro-classic baseball-only park that evokes Ebbets Field (former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers), but with modern amenities and great sight lines from every seat - in short, everything Shea Stadium was not.

This is the famous Jackie Robinson Rotunda, modeled off the rotunda at the Dodgers' Ebbets Field. The Mets have defended this Dodger-fest as celebrating a "great American". Technically true but kind of disingenuous. Obviously, Robinson's being celebrated because he was a baseball player - and he's a baseball player that happened to play for a different team. The problem isn't that he's being celebrated - he should be - just that he dominates what is literally the main entrance to the Mets' stadium, and he was a Dodger. Don't the Mets have any "great Americans" to celebrate?

Visually, I have always wished the arches on the exterior extended all the way down the facade (see the exterior pic above), not just the rotunda.

Off to the right in the rotunda is the Mets team store and museum, which are connected. The team store is vastly overpriced but does have an insane amount of merchandise. The museum celebrates the great teams and players of the Mets past (and this solved one of the early complaints about Citi - in fact, the Mets museum is better than the Yankees museum in their new stadium!).

It was always a beautiful park, but in 2011 it didn't feel much like the home of the Mets, with the rotunda, the black walls and trim, etc. Most of the complaints have been well documented, so I won't go too deeply into the rest of them here. I was curious to see what improvements have been made over the past couple years, though, and if any more changes might improve the beauty and atmosphere of the stadium further.

First, there's that black wall - the 16 foot "Great Wall of Flushing" that was the Mets' contrived answer to Fenway's "Green Monster" - though a lot further from home plate. In 2011:

Pretty close to the same view (solely by chance!) in 2013:

Another angle that shows the lower, closer fence:

Personally, I don't like the way they did this. They did need to do something. Classic "jewel box" parks sometimes had fences like this to compensate for irregular dimensions dictated by exterior surroundings, but Citi Field already had a spacious outfield, so the 16 foot wall was really a contrivance that was unfair to hitters. In fact, two of the four home runs we saw today would have been doubles two years ago, but the method used to install the new fence feels like a Band-Aid. It's a brand new stadium that now has two fences because they messed up the first one. It reminds me a lot of the previous Yankee Stadium, which actually had three different outfield fences - but that stadium was fifty years old when that took place, so it was a little more excusable than on a stadium that was just built.

On the plus side, it does help the atmosphere that the new fence is blue.

Interestingly, this 2013 shot is also pretty much the same view as my pano above from 2011! I guess we like this spot - at Citi, none of the seats feel too far away, and on this side you have a perfect view of the scoreboards; from this height you also get a view outside of the stadium over the Pepsi Porch. (A little tip - avoid the first few rows of any section above field level at Citi. The railing gets in the way, and there's a chance the even more intrusive stairway railings could also obstruct your view.)

We had a little adventure today too - a 56 minute rain delay:

That song the organist's playing sounds really familiar, doesn't it? Hint: it's Purple Rain.

Other than this, the weather was very nice. And I don't think it kept many people away - it was sunny before the game and after this passed. I was joking with my wife during the storm that they should have built a dome.

But you will notice how few people are in my 2013 shots, and that brings up another point, which is that I'm a little concerned the Mets aren't making enough money to do proper upkeep. A lot of the stadium was dirtier today than 100 year old Fenway Park was when my wife and I visited a couple of weeks ago, and there were certainly no ushers at Citi to wipe off our seats before we sat down like there were in Boston. Many of the seats were covered in bird poop or just general dust and dirt (from lack of use). A lot of the walkways this time were strewn with garbage and gum or were starting to visibly chip and decay. Weathering and fading of paint is already happening.

I didn't see anyone cleaning, there generally wasn't a lot of staff around and the staff there was seemed apathetic. At the concessions, one clerk was actually eating lunch as she rang me up.

Some of this may be general depression over having such a crappy team and small crowds late in the season. I hope that's all it is, and that next year the stadium will be gleaming (and crowded) again. Shea Stadium went through its ups and downs too; by the early 80's it was already kind of a dump, but in the 90's after a very slight renovation it was actually pretty nice again. The quality of the team does seem to make a big difference to how well the stadium is maintained.

There might be another related correlation too - I'm really curious to know if there's a link between building a new stadium and a decline in team quality. Both the Mets and Yankees have visibly declined in quality since building their new stadiums. The Yankees still have one of the highest payrolls in baseball, but the Mets have gone from one of the highest in the 00's to one of the lowest now, and I have to believe it's because they're having to divert a lot of their (already-lower) revenue to paying off the new stadium.

I left empty-handed from the team store because despite the great selection, prices were literally 60% higher than I could find elsewhere. One example of something I was specifically looking to buy: a Gary Carter Cooperstown Replica Jersey can be had for $89 online, but was $140 at the team store.

No line at the Shake Shack today.

Food is also a big ripoff, and in fact, one fan randomly shouted his own complaint about that to us as we were buying ice cream! $6 for an ice cream cone, $8.25 for a beer. At Blue Smoke, for two sandwiches, one order of fries and two diet Pepsis, we spent $35. Both times I've gone to Citi Field, I've expected to gorge myself on the great food they have, only to end up barely satisfying myself because of the crazy prices. (ProTip: Blue Smoke is better than Shake Shack, though it's possible there's even better food hidden away - there's a lot of "hidden" stuff to find at Citi Field.)

So here are some suggestions I have for making Citi Field better, in case any Mets brass see this:

* Reduce concession and store prices. The Mets seem to be doing all they can to make back the $800 million cost of this stadium - and I haven't even mentioned the extreme amount of advertising! The problem is they are pricing people completely out of the things they need to sell in order to make that money. I might have bought that jersey for $100 or $110, and they'd still have made a profit (I know how much clothes cost to make) - but as it is, they got nothing from me. That's a net loss because the price was too high - you only get the profit when you get a sale.

Prices for baseball in New York have gone completely out of whack lately because of the two new stadiums, and everybody knows it.

* I actually think the entire outfield could use a bit of renovation both to really correct the fences and to make the ballpark an even nicer place. First, increase the slope of the field level seats in left, center and above the "Mo's Zone" in right so they can meet flush with the new fence. Ideally, remove the Promenade seats (the upper deck) in left - no one ever sits there past opening day, and removing that entire deck would make the stadium feel a lot more open. The reduced capacity can be partially made up by the added seats fixing field level would provide (and these seats generate more revenue). That second part may be more of a wish list item, but I think the first part is actually realistic.

* Probably not gonna happen as it's strictly a vanity thing, but add arches all the way around the exterior - I feel like it looks unfinished as it is now (and always has). This doesn't seem like it'd be a huge project - the frame of the stadium appears the same all the way around, and the arches just look like inserts. See here:

Past the rotunda, the facade has kind of a 1960's bus station look without the arches. It's not going to age well.

* Maintain both the stadium itself and standards for professionalism among stadium employees, even if the team stinks. During the lean years, the stadium is the only thing the team has to entice paying customers.

* Paint some more stuff blue or orange. There's still far too much dour black - Citi Field is oddly dark in its color scheme, and it goes towards the place still not feeling "Metsy" enough. It still feels like the people running this team are ashamed of it. At the very least, they don't understand branding - every nook and cranny in this stadium should scream "Mets" - like Shea did. A lot of the black is starting to fade to grey anyway - it needs to be repainted.

Partly I think these are regular sorts of issues that either crop up or make themselves apparent with any new stadium after a few years, and I also think that Citi Field will have a different feel after it's got some history behind it (and a team worthy of it). It still feels almost like the Mets are playing away games here. Even with no further updates to the stadium, that will probably change once the team makes some memories at Citi.

It's still a fun place to be, and I like it better than the new Yankee Stadium (watch for a post on it soon!). It's also incredibly easy to get to by any mode of transportation - people really don't give it enough credit for this! Try driving to Yankee Stadium (I have!) - it's a nightmare by comparison. It takes me 20 minutes to get to Citi from my house, and getting in and out of the parking lot takes literally 30 seconds from parking spot to the highway.

Oh, and I can't complain too much about prices - our tickets today cost six bucks each. It's ironic that the one bargain at this stadium is the price of the tickets to see the game - though that's largely reflective of the quality of the team.

Of course, the Mets lost.

See the fish, eat the fish, drink the coffee: Boston 2013 Day 2

The big reason my wife and I go to Boston every so often is actually the food. Sorry, NYC people, but there are some things we just don't have the best of - you gotta get out more! One of the things Boston does better is, obviously, New England clam chowder. Hey, you wouldn't say someone could get a decent slice of New York pizza outside of New York, right?

This is Legal Sea Foods, which is a Boston-based sort of casual seafood restaurant chain, but about eight notches above something like Red Lobster. We actually didn't go here for the chowder, because I've had it before and it's not my favorite. They've won some surveys I guess, but I find it a little light and milky for my tastes. I'll get back to talking chowder in a little bit - I'm going chronological here.

We did go to Legal (or as Bostonians call it, "Legal's") for the fish, which is always fresh and good every time I've gone there and at every location I've gone to, and this time was no exception. I had a "Boston Scrod" (I forgot to ask what it actually was that day) that was just simply breaded and baked... it was so good.

This is their version of Boston cream pie. I have never had a real Boston cream pie before (it's apparently actually a cake), I've only had it in donut form. This was amazing, like a highly evolved... er, Boston cream... donut.

Across the street is the New England Aquarium. This was the line to get in. Yikes! You can't even *see* where the actual rope line starts, that goes around and around about 20 times. I and a few people ahead of us had the bright idea to buy tickets with our phones, pick them up at the will-call window and bypass this entire line, so we did.

Penguins at the aquarium! Truth be told, we got a little spoiled on aquariums by the amazing one in Okinawa (seriously, click that link and watch the video) - the New England Aquarium is tiny and cramped by comparison. But they do have many penguins of different types, which the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium didn't.

This is the best cappuccino I have ever had. We stumbled onto this place by chance on our first visit to Boston - it's the Caffe Vittoria in the North End. We ordered cappuccinos on that first trip and were both amazed - the top, we think, is actually brûléed chocolate, underneath is always the perfect amount of froth, and below is just the smoothest possible espresso. I almost always have to add a little sugar to cappuccino, but not here - and not because it's sweet, just because it's so smooth. We come here every time we go to Boston now. We looked the place up after that first trip and discovered that a lot of other people feel the same way we do about their cappuccino.

The last time we went to Boston, we literally drove 4 hours just for this cappuccino and a bowl of clam chowder, then we drove 4 hours home.

Hard to miss Caffe Vittoria - it literally surrounds a cigar store with a giant cigar as a sign. It's on Hanover Street.

Now, back to the chowda!

Since we started coming to Boston, I've had the chowder at a bunch of different places all described as the "best" by someone - Legal Sea Foods (several different ones), Atlantic Fish Company, Union Oyster House, etc. They're all different and they're all good, but... maybe Bostonians would think this is sacrilege, but my favorite clam chowder is right here:

Quincy Market. We actually made a special trip back here just before leaving so I could get the clam chowder I really wanted. My Fenway Park/Legal Sea Foods chowder the night before just didn't take.

I dunno how appetizing this picture looks to anyone out there, but to me this looks like a bread bowl full of heaven:

Yes, a bread bowl. I love the bread bowl - so sue me. I'm always secretly worried that to a Bostonian this is kind of equivalent to going to New York just to eat a stuffed pizza at Sbarros. I hope that's not the case, because this really is great clam chowder - it's really clammy, really fresh, and just has a really balanced broth. I don't know if it's really the "best", but it's better than all the other places I've been to that people have said were the best.

The place I usually go to is this:

Boston Chowda Co. But there are a couple other chowder stands in there too... I've been to at least one other and I remember it being pretty much the same. You probably can't go wrong in there.

That was our weekend - took the scenic route back on the Merritt (which can be an adventure at night) and we were back home in New York, where I have to eat clam chowder out of a can and root for the Mets.

Fenway Park - Boston 2013 day 1

I haven't written as much here lately but that's not for lack of activity. Over Labor Day weekend, my wife and I went to Boston for the hell of it. It's not the first time; sometimes we go for only a few hours and then drive right back. It's just a little 300 mile road trip.

This time we stayed overnight. The first day we visited Fenway Park (never been there before) and saw the hated Red Sox beat the hapless White Sox. I actually rooted for the Red Sox because I don't really care; I was just there to see the park.

I've been more into baseball lately - I used to love it, and then lost a bit of interest when players started wearing these ill-fitting uniforms in the 90's (I'm kind of kidding, although I do think most baseball players look ridiculous these days). I'm really into baseball parks right now. I think stadiums in general are some of our most impressive and potentially lasting monuments (except that we have a bad habit of tearing them down usually after just a few decades). And they're definitely among the last big public works we in the United States specifically put any real effort into making beautiful and uplifting public spaces.

Fenway's the oldest park in baseball at 101 years, and it really is amazing for that reason. There's nothing "retro" or contrived about it - it's authentically old and quirky.

Despite its age, Fenway's got plenty of good food. The Fish Shack is run by Legal Sea Foods, and the clam chowder tasted just like the stuff you get at their restaurants (I've had it - more on that in another post). The fish & chips was a little disappointing, though.

Something great about these old concourses too, even though you can't see the field from them like in a new stadium.

The view from our seats. A little far away, but at least they were unobstructed! And not too expensive despite coming from a reseller (aka a legal scalper). I liked that the usher actually wiped down the seats before we sat down - they do it for everyone.

The Red Sox web site is interesting in that it obviously knows where the obstructed seats are and sells them last, regardless of section - I tried every single option I could think of to get different seats on their site and every one of them had a beam directly in front. If you're a n00b like us, you really need to be careful about this at Fenway! It's very easy to get stuck with a view like this one (those seats look like they're right behind where we were). Such are the joys of an actually-old ballpark. I ended up buying our seats from Ace Ticket after looking at seat views on Precise Seating, which really helped a lot.

Panorama shot. That's the foul pole near the center of the shot.

Green monster! I still remember watching Gary Carter's two home runs in the 86 World Series over that thing on TV, back before they had the seats up there. (It looks weird without seats now, when I watch old games.)

Sadly, no home runs on this night. I'm usually okay with that - I like small ball - but I just wanted to see a home run hit over the monster.

The game's scorecard. I don't usually keep score but wanted to see if I still could. I think the last time I tried to do it was at a California Angels game my dad took me to in like 1987. I still have that scorecard somewhere and now that he's no longer here, it's a meaningful souvenir to me - something about having a personal, handwritten record documenting something you shared with somebody else. Anyway I was happy to see after the fact that my scorecard on this night was pretty much right, if a little messy. (Though I'm glad nobody batted around in any inning.) You really shouldn't keep score in pen.

I was originally going to write about the whole little mini-trip here, but this is long enough so I'll do day 2 in a separate post!