Long hair is theoretical.

The title of this post is not original. It is a quote from Rob Cook's exciting PI lecture Behind the Scenes at Pixar. I found this quote the most puzzling and representative of the challenges computer animators face.

It takes 5 to 6 years to make a Pixar movie and computers are involved close to the end of the creation process. Technology, that creates the around 250 billion image dots (pixels) of an animation movie, is a tool in the hands of the artists.
In his painting creation analogy Rob Cook thinks that technology in animation movie creation is used like a painting brush.

There are lots of previous steps that must be followed as with any normal movie. Starting from the creative step of story telling by the director followed by the visual story telling by the story artists to casting, voice recording, editing, etc.

Computers are involved in creating the 3D models, layout, animation, simulation, shading, lighting, special effects and images rendering.

Reproducing reality is not trivial. This is because, in my opinion, the laws of physics must be accounted for, especially gravity and light effects.

If you look at a cartoon or most of the video games you realize that there is something missing in the animated characters that doesn't give them the feeling of being real.

It was puzzling for me to learn that 90% of the computer simulation efforts put into reproducing realism like effects is in simulating the clothes and hair of the subject in motion.

Mathematical models (like Finite Element Analysis) are used to simulate the stretches and stresses clothes are subject to while subject moves.

Moving hair simulation is another challenge. A challenge sometime so big that in the case of long hair simulation, made the Pixar team temporarily conclude that simulating "long hair is theoretical".

Every second of an animated movie requires lots of effort. A well rewarded effort if the movie makes our virtual life experiences richer.

Links:
1. Animation World Magazine: http://mag.awn.com/

2. Papers by Rob Cook: http://graphics.pixar.com/library/indexAuthorCook.html

3. What's Pixar's RenderMan: https://renderman.pixar.com/products/whatsrenderman/index.htm

Lovely loving Oscars.

This year's Oscars were different. From the secrecy of who'll be hosting the show (and the curiosity it created) to the new lovely formula of nominees presentation.

Some people didn't like the lovely formula where different celebrities were presenting the nominees achievements. What's wrong people with being positive especially during these dooming times and after such a nice Red Carpet display of gorgeous gowns?

Speaking of secrecy... Hollywood revealed also us some of its secrets in movie making. I liked the part where parts of screenplays were matched with the movie scenes described by them. I hope to learn more of these secrets during the next PI lecture Behind the Scenes at Pixar presented by Rob Cook from Pixar Animation Studios.

If I have to label the OSCARS of this year I would say that Hollywood proved that it dares and can think different during different times.

How does it know?

Ben Schumacher ended yesterday's PI lecture with his inspiring Physics credo about the Universe, in my opinion.

To make his point he used his favorite "Thermos bottle" joke that paraphrased is like this: 3 guys were asked what is the most amazing invention in the world? The first guy said that it is television, the second guy said that it must be the jet engine while the 3rd guy answered that it is the thermos bottle. When the other guys asked that they don't get it he answered that if you put cold stuff in the thermos it stays cold while if you put hot stuff it stays hot. So what is so amazing about this asked the other two guys? The 3rd guy answered: how does it know?

This question in Schumacher opinion (paraphrased) is a fundamental physics question telling us that every part of the Universe sends information. The Universe is a gigantic information network governed by the laws of physics. These laws define what is possible and what not.

Possible-impossible inspired.

In the wake of the next PI lecture on The Physics of Impossible Things, I did some research on this topic and found an interesting CBC link of Bob McDonald interview with Michio Kaku, the author of Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel.

I found also interesting close to the end of the radio show (at minute 17:32) Bob's comments about Arthur C. Clark and his video self obituary.

It's an exciting time to be a thinking being.

Frank Wilczek ended his PI lecture with the following two enthusiastic statements:

It's an exciting time to be physicist, it's an exciting time to be a thinking being.

I was just thinking why he is so enthusiastic?

First of all since SUSY's experimental evidence "will be glorious" as he said. Then since "Unification loves SUSY" as he put it. SUSY will help theoretical physicists to get to the Physics' holly grail, the Grand Unification Theory, a theory that will unify the nature's 4 fundamental forces.

Frank confessed that his vision is only "la creme de la creme" of what the new golden age will be.

It just happens that these days I'm listening Fernández-Armesto's audio book "Ideas That Shaped Mankind: A Concise History of Human Thought" and learned that the idea of nothing has obsessed mankind for long time.

Now I found another reason of Frank's excitement. Mankind will learn at last what nature's nothingness looks like and what was before the Big Bang. Susy's third identity is the nature's deep inner space with its mesmerizing song of quantum fluctuations.

Apples and oranges.

How things so different like apples and oranges could be interchanged? Frank Wilczek thinks that he has a trick to do the job if we substitute apples with electrons, oranges with photons and LHC will witness that fundamentally they have something in common.

After reviewing the first part of his PI lecture, Frank Wilczek presented his vision of what will setup the new golden age in physics.

He started with the fancy picture of a 2009 paper calendar shaped as a dodecahedron (a highly symmetric three dimensional geometric object).

He made the analogy of dodecahedron assembly with the state of theoretical physics today that has only few of the pieces required (given by the Standard Model or Core Theory as Frank likes to name it). For example, it is known that electrons are related with quarks and photons relate with gluons. Electrons and photons are quite different since electrons reject each other (causing matter's hardness) while photons attract themselves (lasers work this way).

The idea that electrons and photons might have something in common would have outraged the theoretical physics community 40 years ago. Now it is a not such a crazy idea anymore as electrons and photons could be part of the same structure in another quantum state. This is what the supersymmetry (SUSY) theory predicts.

Frank Wilczek hopes that LHC will reveal (by creation) the other missing pieces of the dodecahedron puzzle.

Why Frank Wilczek thinks that SUSY will open the gate of a new golden age? Read my next post!

From disturbance to creation.

In order to see something you have to create it. An almost mystical idea that characterize the deep quantum world, confessed by Frank Wilczek during his PI lecture. Using Einstein equation E=mc² if you provide enough energy you create something that probably LHC will capture.

Frank continues by making the point that this is quite a difference by comparison with the second golden age of quantum mechanics where in order to see something you have to disturb it as Heisenberg uncertainty principle proves it.

Ultrastroboscopic Nanomicroscoping.

The title of this post is a weird kind of verb that I've learned about during Frank Wilczek's PI lecture. The verb represents what the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is going to do, since LHC is a ultrastroboscopic nanomicroscope, the world's most powerful microscope.

LHC, in Frank's opinion (paraphrased) is our civilization response to pyramids. LHC was not built out of vanity but as a monument to human curiosity. It is a symbolic expression of what human race is and what can be done through collaboration.

Thousands of circular magnets were mounted with high precision and cooled at 2 absolute degree (Kelvin) to accelerate and guide the elementary particles beam towards their dooming destruction in the benefit of science.

LHC pushes the technological limits of advanced electronics and information processing. The electronics will sense the results of human induced small big bangs and the information processing infrastructure will analyze the huge amount of data generated. The LHC computing grid is an Internet on steroids with thousands of networked computers providing a tremendous data processing power.

After LHC presentation Frank Wilczek asks a simple question: what LHC does? And the intriguing answer comes: to look at "empty" space. Empty is quoted since the nature at its deepest level looks empty but this emptiness has it all, it is a lava lamp kind of quantum fluctuations.

SUSY is a triple identity character, in my opinion. LHC is one of its identity. It is the experimental tool that will validate the contenders' beautiful theories since a beautiful theory doesn't mean it is valid. LHC is the reason for a new golden age in physics.

Frank and SUSY.

Frank is in love with SUSY but he is not the only one aspiring for her heart. SUSY is luring her contenders with a mesmerising song that is hard to hear and decipher. Will Frank be able to understand SUSY's message and conquer her?

This is a short paraphrase of yesterday's amazing PI lecture Anticipating a New Golden Age of Frank Wilczek. OK, I have to admit that I had hard time choosing a title for this post. First I've chosen "Apples and Oranges", then I said maybe "Oranges and Apples" would fit better :) After a while as the lecture content was resonating with me I came up with "So you think you can dance Physics?", "The Tricky Happy Dancer", "The Nobel Dancer", "The Tricky Contender" or "ultrastroboscopic nanomicroscoping" titles.

Why so many titles? Because the lecture had all of the above and more, relaxed presented on the background of very serious fundamental physics ideas.

By now I think you have guessed who Frank is. Stay tuned to find out who SUSY is and how Frank is fighting to get to her heart.

Anticipating a rare and real treat.

Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek is coming back to Waterloo with a PI talk that I'm anticipating as special. I'm eager to learn what golden tricks beyond the Standard Model his smiles will reveal.

A Smiling Nobel Scientist.

It was on June 6, 2006 when I've enjoyed a delightful profound and intriguing lecture presented by a scientist that was approaching some of nature's deepest secrets with smiles. I've learned then about the passions of the Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek, a Perimeter Institute friend. Some of his passions expressed as: mass without mass, massless building blocks or the music of the void wouldn't make sense without explanations. The simplicity of explanations that followed showed that our visible reality at its deep structure is like a fluctuating lava lamp where something comes out of nothing.

Watching the lecture recently I enjoyed again the comments about the power of mathematics and how physicists think and get excited when there are ways to prove their theories.

After talking about the origins of the ordinary matter (that is only 5% of Universe's matter), feebleness of gravity and LHC promises the audience was treated with the fast motion video presentation of a Nobel Prize banquet (starting at minute 76 of PI video stream).

Here it is for you to enjoy: A Night with Nobel - The Origin of Mass and the Feebleness of Gravity PI lecture.

Hot, hot, hot!

It was hot in the Waterloo Colegiate Institute lecture hall last Wednesday during the first Perimeter Institute (PI) public event of the new 2008-2009 season but for the audience of around 600 people the captivating Brian Greene's lecture "Black Holes and a Myth of Icarus" made the heat unnoticed.

Brian started the lecture with his passionate confession about the need to educate the public about science by telling the great stories behind scientific discoveries in the accessible form of storytelling.

Then, kind of similar with the main character of his new book "Icarus at the Edge of Time", Brian Greene took the audience into an exciting visual journey in the world of black holes. True to his reputation of great science popularizer he proved that understanding General Relativity, Black Holes, Event Horizon, etc. doesn't need to be complicated.

He elegantly ended the lecture with the mystery of what his fictional galactic Icarus finds after returning from the journey close to black hole's perimeter, suggesting that the answer is in the book.

Brian brilliantly demonstrated that science inspired stories could be really hot, hot, hot!

What's possible?

Speaking of possibility...

Making predictions is a challenging enterprise. Two previous PI lectures revealed different approaches to forecasting: probability and possibility. While the probable approach is suited for repeatable phenomena the possible one is using reason and imagination in forecasting. Jules Verne predictions that became reality are well known. Sometimes possibility comes first to enumerate the elements that are the subjects of probability research.

In the PI lecture "Science Fiction and Reality" presented by Gerard 't Hooft we learn about scientific reality and how difficult is to make predictions. Here are some highlights, of the video annotated in the (minute:second) format:

7:57 atom scale matter manipulation
8:40 atom size computer chips
9:40 the potential of nanotechnology
13:00 genetic engineering
14:30 carbon nanotubes strength
16:30 Moore's law
18:20 computer intelligence better than human's (debatable in my opinion)
20:40 robots
23:02 Universe is made of same stuff than Earth
24:20 space shuttle is the most efficient way to go out of space if energy is the price to pay
26:40 Black Holes (BH)
27:30 BH cannot be used for transportation due to high forces developed
32:25 tether propulsion: use of cables to pull into space

The rest of the lecture continues with:
- the over optimistic predictions about robots use in the year 2000,
- how few have foreseen the personal computer, internet and the role of cell-phones,
- why it makes sense to colonize the Moon and the solar system,
- capitalistic scenario of Moon colonization with Cambots and galaxy conquering with Neumannbots (robots that reproduce themselves).
- humans will not be able to go outside the solar system (debatable in my opinion)

Nitrogen fireworks in Waterloo.

Best ever!

This is how I would label PI's last public lecture of the 2007-2008 season "Time and Einstein in the 21st Century: The coolest stuff in the universe".

It happened at the beginning of last month but its reverberations will be felt for long time.

Here are some "keywords" that would characterize the lecture: time, atomic clocks, balloons, "really, really cold stuff", slow atoms, excitement, explosions, nitrogen "fireworks" (balloons exploding), "lots of really really cold stuff flowing on the floor", incredible clocks precision.

William D. Phillips, a Nobel Prize laureate, proved that science lectures could be really, really, really entertaining.

What's probable?

To be or not to be. This week local news about the performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet play at the Stratford Festival reminded me of the past PI lecture "The Curious World of Probabilities" presented by Professor Jeffrey Rosenthal from University of Toronto.

Probabilities are about scientific discovery based on sampling or past experiences. If you think that studying them cannot be fun then watch the lecture to convince yourself of the contrary.

Probabilities could be evil for those that dare to bet against "the house" in the long run. The law of large numbers (the more experiments you make the closer you are to the true probability of the phenomenon) explains why only few win at casinos. Watch the video animation of playing the Craps game for a sample of the law of large numbers in action.

Probabilistic thinking is useful though in our daily life as it can alleviate worries in different bad situations. For example: airplane crashes, terrorist attacks and homicides are quite unlikely. Professor Rosenthal gives us a sample of stay cool probabilistic thinking when he received the bad news of a lupus test.

Designing computer games or medical studies, assigning seats during exams, forecasting political elections are all examples where randomness is needed.

The lecture ends with a funny video animation of Monte Carlo sampling, a useful technique used to solve complicated problems when no other deterministic approach could be used.

What Banged?

If you ask someone this question you get different answers depending on who, when, where, etc., you ask. Today though, any Ontarian for sure will give the same answer: a nasty snowstorm banged over Ontario.

If you ask the physicists today "What Banged?" you get also different answers. This is not because they are not thinking at the same thing (The Big Bang) but because in the last few years the usual view about the Big Bang started to change.

Neil Turok is one of the major players in this pioneering quest to find answers to the very fundamental question of mankind: what was before the Big Bang? Until few years ago almost any physicist believed that Big Bang came out of nothing. So questioning what was before looked ridiculous.

Last week during Neil Turok's PI public lecture I learned that the nothing before the Big Bang was something as result of a previous Big Bang. There are theories and observational data to support a cyclic model of the Universe. What an achievement for Neil to be able to answer at last his teacher question of, What Banged?

What exciting times we are living now when mankind is in a similar exploratory endeavors as the continents, the world and the solar system were discovered few centuries ago. Today's explorations are at a different scale and done with different means.

We are talking about the limits of the Universe about its shape or how far back in time we can go. At Universe's scale theoretical models and testing them with experimental data are the only means the mankind have to explore it. They are also the best means to appreciate the Universe as Neil Turok stated in his Credo at the end of the PI lecture.

I'm glad that Perimeter Institute (PI) and Waterloo is part of it. It was also last week when PI gathered physicists in Waterloo to explore "Novel Theories of the Early Universe".

Dreams come true!

A guy rides a bike powered by a rocket. Another one thinks that he should be ready to move and live on Mars just in case the life on Earth is menaced by a lost asteroid. A third guy enjoys and thrives on the technological space challenges. Another guy wants to be the "Ford" of space travel. These were only few of the second space revolution "players" in the Perimeter Institute's Michael Belfiore Rocketeers story.

Some of them are quite rich and could choose to live a comfortable and lavish life. What drives these guys? What they want? What all of them have in common?

No matter what are their motives they all are the same dream chassers as the previous visionaries, explorers, inventors, researchers, scientists, etc. They are "crazy" enough to come up with uncommon ideas and have the energy and perseverance to strongly believe in their dreams until they become true.

Each PI lecture gets me thinking even if I have time or not to share my thoughts with you. When I entered the WCI auditorium I had the feeling that it was like a rocket ready for a space travel aiming at a wonderful destination suggested on the auditorium's stage. In spite of bad weather adversities the PI ship of explorers of new horizons was almost full. Watch this video metaphor prologue about this lecture.

Michael made me thinking about the dream chasers when he started the lecture with the "crazy" idea of replacing bombs with people (in the top of the initial rockets) that initiated the first government sponsored space revolution.

Then, at the beginning of the second space revolution another "crazy" idea was born: that private sponsored space travel is possible. It was not only possible but its success came sooner than expected. Michael went through the story of the X Prize, then of the Canadian space traveling dreamer Brian Feeney (the da Vinci project initiator) and other projects and ideas to approach private space travel. He ended the lecture with the beautiful story of the latest and most practical project till now: the Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. It is hard to believe that this ship tries to solve the toughest problem of space travel: the safe reentry into the atmosphere.

The last video clip of the Virgin Galactic flight conveyed the dreaming feeling of weightlessness (confessed by those that lived it). It took the audience few moments to wake up. It was like a dream that you didn't want to end.

Dreams come true after all.

Ready for the ride.

Michael Belfiore is coming to town and PI, Kitchener-Waterloo and WCI is ready for an exciting ride into the world of rocketeers. PI's next public lecture Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space is an unique opportunity to learn first hand about the pioneers that dare to make the sky a familiar space for the masses.

It is hard to believe that only few years since the first outer space private travel we are so close to the second space revolution. I'm ready to find out how it has started and what the future holds for space tourism endeavors.

Bring more chairs please!

This is what I was hearing before the beginning of yesterday's PI lecture. And chairs were continuously added (getting in the way of my camera that was looking for a perfect snapshot) to accommodate the latecomers or those that weren't lucky enough to get tickets. The front seats were reserved for special guests among whom I spotted Raymond Laflamme, Lee Smolin and other PI researchers.

Right before the beginning of the lecture a very special guest joined the audience. It was Mike Lazaridis, the father of PI, that was wearing a nice University of Waterloo leather jacket.

And so, the overloaded WCI lecture room was ready to sail into discovering the unknown world of information fundamentals. And what discovery it was...

Bob McDonald, the host of CBC's Quirks & Quarks was the captain of this ship (someone had to keep it on course and guard the order just in case the debates became too heated).

Bob started the debate by stating that physicists see information differently than the rest of us. They are interested to know what information is made of. For example while most of us after taking a bite of an apple see a BITE, the physicists see a BIT, and he paused... and the room started to laugh. Millions of bits, he continued, that give the shape, color and texture of the apple.

That was a good introduction for Bob to ask the panelists how do they define the information.

Information is everything, answered Seth Lloyd shortly. Then he elaborated the idea that through the works of Maxwell, Boltzmann and others, physicists have defined the information (in their effort to quantify entropy) around 150 years ago, well before information age was born.

Then, Leonard Susskind defined information as predicting of what is next. And he used the example of a bathtub of water. Knowing all the information about each molecule of water (velocity, position, etc.) allows you to predict what will happen next. "That's a lot of information" said Bob. And he continued with the question of how close are we to know all that information. Leonard replied calmly that before getting into the bathtub he knows at least its temperature and the volume :)

Tony Leggett then defined the information as being about something and embedded into something. He used the example of a map. Leonard disagreed that the information about Waterloo being north of Kitchener is on the map since it is about their physical position on the Earth's surface.

This small debate created the opportunity for Bob to ask if there is any information that is not physical? And the answers were yes, no, yes, no.

Then Chris Fucks used an example from the probability theories to make the point that there is a difference between the world as it is and what someone knows about it.

And so it went for the rest of the panel discussions. What a nice way to end a year full of great public lectures. And it looks like the next year will be greater.

Thank you PI for illuminating us!

And the answers are...

Well... after such a spirited and pleasant debate during today's PI public lecture I end up with more questions than answers. This comes to confirm the saying that the more you know you realize how much you don't know.

Here are some ideas that I've gathered during the debate:

- physicists have defined the information around 150 years ago well before information age was born
- information is about predicting of what is next. It has to be about something and is embedded into something.
- in quantum mechanics you cannot clone information.
- is information limited by the laws of physics?
- what is the hardware/software of the Universe as a computer? What operating system is it running, who is its programmer and what is the purpose of this computer?
- what is the difference between information, data and knowledge?
- what is the future of the information age?

Stay tuned for details.