{"id":2921,"date":"2008-09-12T09:49:38","date_gmt":"2008-09-12T09:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/09\/12\/asking-the-big-questions\/"},"modified":"2008-09-12T09:49:38","modified_gmt":"2008-09-12T09:49:38","slug":"asking-the-big-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/09\/12\/asking-the-big-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Asking the Big Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Science in the 21st Century meeting is being held at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.perimeterinstitute.ca\/index.php?lang=en\">Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics<\/a>, which is in a really nice building in the middle of Waterloo. It&#8217;s a building that was quite clearly designed with physicists in mind, as there are numerous little common spaces where people can sit around and argue, and there are chalkboards everywhere.<\/p>\n<p><p>Most of the chalkboards are covered with bits of physics&#8211; matrices, field equations, little diagrams, etc. It really enhances the sense of being in a place where people are working on the Big Problems.<\/p>\n<p>And when I went for a walk outside yesterday, I noticed that the chalkboard in the middle of the courtyard (of course there&#8217;s a chalkboard in the middle of the courtyard&#8211; you don&#8217;t think they confine themselves to thinking indoors?) has, in the upper corner:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Why Are Bananas Bent?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s good to see that they&#8217;re leaving no stone un-turned in the quest for knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting ends today, and then I&#8217;m driving back to Toronto to catch a tiny little plane back to Albany to see Kate and SteelyKid. Don&#8217;t expect anything all that coherent from me for the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Science in the 21st Century meeting is being held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which is in a really nice building in the middle of Waterloo. It&#8217;s a building that was quite clearly designed with physicists in mind, as there are numerous little common spaces where people can sit around and argue,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/09\/12\/asking-the-big-questions\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Asking the Big Questions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-silliness","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}