28 Comments on “Theoretical Physics Goes Corporate?”   rss feed

1. damtp_dweller on May 13th, 2006 at 9:10 am

   It can sometimes go too far the other way though. Sometime last year there was a TV advert in the UK for a well-known brand of shampoo which had lots of complicated-looking equations in the background to bolster their claims that this stuff was scientifically-tested. Great, I’m all for well-tested hair products. The problem, however, was that the equations were none other than Maxwell’s equations. Bizarre.

2. Arun on May 13th, 2006 at 9:49 am

   http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2005/12/year_in_science_icons.php
   for what a real blackboard looks like

3. Dave Bacon on May 13th, 2006 at 11:18 am

   That SUV ad is excellent, but that has to be the least sloppy blackboard work I’ve ever seen!

4. JoAnne on May 13th, 2006 at 1:06 pm

   The SUV ad was in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago - someone brought it in and hung it in the SLAC theory group coffee room. The equations are eerily reminiscent of those in section 10.2 of Peskin & Schroeder’s field theory book. I wanted to blog on it, but discovered that the Wall Street Journal doesn’t let you read anything on-line unless you subscribe.

   Alas, Clifford, I am sure the model is not Lisa Randall.

5. JoAnne on May 13th, 2006 at 1:09 pm

   PS: Clifford, I am willing to bet that those responsible for the ad are (yet) not aware of what they are missing by not reading our blog.

6. Cynthia on May 13th, 2006 at 1:26 pm

   Excellent post! If Seth Lloyd can successfully harness Loschmidt/Laplace’s demons for his quantum computing project, perhaps this Lisa Randall look-alike can improve the fuel efficiency of a SUV by squeezing a few of these demons into the gas tank of an SUV. A nineteenth century preamble to twenty-first century physics: Boltzman tells Loschmidt, “Go ahead, Reverse them!”

7. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 2:33 pm

   JoAnne…. Oh well. I was sort of hoping that Lisa had helped open up a new revenue stream for those with our skills… Equation-writer-for-hire. Talent scouts, please contact my agent. I do everything from just small shots of a hand writing equations right up to full double page spreads. I’m not cheap, but I’m worth it.

   -cvj

8. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 2:35 pm

   Also, JoAnne?…. Scanner.

   -cvj

9. JoAnne on May 13th, 2006 at 3:05 pm

   I like the idea of being an Equation-writer-for-hire. Definitely within my skill set!

10. Arun on May 13th, 2006 at 3:06 pm

    Why scanner? Found it here in a minute
    http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/ford_bold_invents

11. Plato on May 13th, 2006 at 3:23 pm

    In regards to Mike Lazardis, JoAnne made a early posting in regards to contributions, and this is one that I am most proud of, in regards to fueling societal values in regards to what you science people do.

    My respect, for Smolin and the work they have done in this institution. Shall we say, selfless? Not “ego biased” while serving a greater purpose?:)It’s hard work for anyone to overcome, while setting our sights on the good we see in humanity, makes it easier.

    Sorry. Someone else made the observation first Clifford.

    [....snip....-cvj]

12. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 3:41 pm

    Plato…

    For the umpteenth time:- this is not a breaking news website. We are not in competition to bring things out “first” ok? I blog about what interests me and what might interest the readers. Whether it has been blogged about before is irrelevant.

    Also: Be aware that there are several more researchers at Perimeter besides Lee Smolin, who’ve also worked incredibly hard to make the place a success.

    Cheers,

    -cvj

13. Alexey Petrov on May 13th, 2006 at 3:58 pm

    I can explain the SUV ad (it’s Ford, right?). It _is_ a slightly spiced-up page of calculations from the Peskin and Schroeder book. And this is not Lisa Randall. This ad was made by a company that is headquatered in Detroit — I have a business card of one of the authors of this ad!

    What happened is that couple of months ago I was sitting in my office at Wayne State, looking over my QFT notes that I’m supposed to teach next Fall, when a guy showed up at my door and asked to “write down a complicated-looking equation.” Now, that’s not a usual question that I get when I sit in my office during the lunchtime! He quickly explained that he works for this advertisement company and they were contracted by Ford to produce a series of ads that should highlight the talent of Ford engineers and at the same time appeal to young people. (He showed me a prototype of an ad with that girl sitting next to a blackboard.) So his boss sent him to the closest university — which is WSU, 5 min down Woodward Ave. from their office, to fish out a “complicated equation.” The rest is simple — I use Peskin and Schroeder as a main text for my course, so producing a list of equations was relatively straightforward. I must add that I received no monetary (or any other) compensation…

    Amazing, isn’t it? If you need to contract them, I’ll send you the business card of the guy who I talked to — once I get to my office (I just got back from the Minneapolis QCD conference)…

14. Cynthia on May 13th, 2006 at 3:59 pm

    It appears that if one is going to be an equation-writer-for-hire then one needs to be able to show a hint of lingerie.

15. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 4:13 pm

    Alexey Petrov:- Thanks! I was hoping that this might be the way to find out the back story. Excellent. So I was wrong, indeed, about my guess that it was Lisa, as others have said. I was expecting that there was some connectivity to her book-tour campaign. Would have made a lot of sense to have done the ad given that context. Oh well.

    So you are an equation-writer-for-hire! Excellent! Next time, perhaps politely ask if you will be compensated. If you were consulting on the colours, or the clothes she was wearing, or the background music choices (for a tv ad), or a host of other things, you would have probably been offered some payment, however minimal. Why should your science knowledge not be taken seriously too? It also means that the whole thing is taken more seriously by the corporate types also. If you’re free…you’re often not percieved as valuable. A nominal fee can’t hurt. This is just my opinion….feel free to ignore.

    Thanks!

    -cvj

16. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 4:14 pm

    Cynthia:- No problemo. I’ve got excellent lingerie to flash, if needed.

    -cvj

17. Plato on May 13th, 2006 at 4:27 pm

    Yes Clifford. Why the struggle?

    You cut the mathematical explanation of Lazardis picture? Why?

    [...snip..... -cvj]

    It’s not breaking news as you say.

18. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 4:34 pm

    Plato. I already gave that link. Thanks.

    -cvj

19. Plato on May 13th, 2006 at 4:43 pm

    Clifford.

    The equation…?

    A personal perogative of course?:) Just trying to operate within the contraints

20. JoAnne on May 13th, 2006 at 4:46 pm

    Alexey: Excellent! You go dude! Please write Michael (Peskin) and tell him the story - he found the ad in the Wall Street Journal and was tickled pink (and terribly curious about its background).

21. Clifford on May 13th, 2006 at 4:48 pm

    JoAnne… are you saying that Michael does not read the blog?!! I’m shocked. What’ve you been doing all this time…? Go get him reading!

    Plato… Precisely.

    -cvj

22. Plato on May 13th, 2006 at 4:54 pm

    …a script writer, with an attitude.

    Wonderful

23. blinkin on May 13th, 2006 at 5:11 pm

    Too bad. I was hobing it was Lisa Randall as well. She came and spoke at $local_university last year, promoting her book on string theory. I had to tear myself away in order to make the beginning of my evening shift as a helldesk operator…

    Also, your blog is awesome guys. I’ve been reading it for a week now (caught the link on one of Seed’s Zeitgeist digests), and have been entertained, educated, and generally found your posts to be generally enjoyable.

    -blinkin the misanthropic it gremlin

24. Pingback from Physics goes Corporate at hey blinkin on May 13th, 2006 at 5:27 pm

    [...] Cosmic Variance has a nice article up on the use of theoretical physics to attract attention to advertisements.  Like the article’s author, I was also hoping the mystery woman writing equations on a blackboard for an SUV ad would turn out to be Lisa Randall, simply because she’s that cool (she came and spoke here as part of a guest lectureship series christening the College of Science and Mathematics’ new auditorium.. I found leaving for my evening helldesk shift very difficult). [...]

25. Moshe on May 13th, 2006 at 8:30 pm

    Speaking of the PI, they have those wonderful concerts in the main lecture hall (where last year’s summer school took place), and the blackboard is especially decorated with neat-looking equations (or maybe just not erased before the concert). It works very well with string quartets.

26. John Branch on May 14th, 2006 at 10:09 am

    I too think Lisa Randall is cool, and I’d be glad to see her appear in an ad, but I’m actually glad this one isn’t using her. Its focus is on the idea (equations and complicated brainwork as a component of engineering invention), not on the person, so she’d be wasted in this presentation. Her image (i.e., her face) isn’t yet familiar enough for the kind of ad that Apple Computer had going for a while that allied the slogan “Think different” with estimable, recognizable persons such as Einstein, Gandhi, and Amelia Earhart. But I think she may be cool enough for an American Express ad; some of the people in those have familiar faces (Kate Winslet), some have names that most of us know (M. Night Shyamalan), but the concept, I think, is to link an accomplished person with the credit card. There’s an exchange of prestige going on in those ads–if you know the person, AmEx gains something from the association, and if you don’t, the fact of their appearing in the ad grants them some status and helps familiarize you with their face, their name, their work. I had no idea what M. Night Shyamalan looked like until AmEx showed me. I’m ready to see Lisa Randall join their company, and if not now, maybe in five or 10 years.

    By the way, I think I discovered Cosmic Variance because a New York Times article on her mentioned a discussion here as to whether she resembles Jodi Foster. (Which so far I haven’t gotten around to looking up.)

    To indulge in a spot of self-promotion, I have a kind of remixed picture of Lisa Randall at Flickr. I’m not that happy with it now, but it’s got a hint of equations on a blackboard.

27. Pingback from Life in physics and nearby » Being an equation-writer-for-hire on May 15th, 2006 at 1:08 pm

    [...] I like reading phyiscs blogs. People talk about different things, some of them are interesting, some are not — real life, right? Here is the post I recently read in one of my favorite blogs, Cosmic Variance: it is called "Theoretical Physics Goes Corporate." One of the points that they raise in that post is that big corporations are starting to realize the power of mathematical equations as a commercial tool — it attracts customers! One of the ads that Clifford Johnson (one of the four CV contributers) has in mind is this: [...]

28. Pingback from Charm &c. » Blog Archive » Hit-and-run III on Jun 19th, 2006 at 2:38 pm

    [...] Having kept my eyes open for “casual physics references in popular culture” since this Cosmic Variance post, I am pleased to report a sighting. The Guardian, in an article on death metal, says of the band Amputated: Their sound is intense and animalistic. If scientists at Cern’s particle accelerator were to shoot a pig rather than protons round their 27km facility it might sound like the Bristol band’s lead singer. [...]

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