Marriage Again

Oh look!  It's another group of Christians complaining about gay marriage!

The Church of England has warned that proposals to legalise gay marriage could undermine its status.
It says giving civil ceremonies the status of marriage would "alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman".

What intrinsic nature?  Marriage is a human construct.  Historically it has been about inheritance and property rights, and polygamous marriages have been common.

...the Church of England said government proposals to allow same-sex marriages by 2015 would "alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history".
It said marriage acknowledged "an underlying biological complementarity which, for many, includes the possibility of procreation".

So, obviously, any heterosexual couple who get married and don't intend to have children are wrong to do so.  For fuck's sake, do these people ever think about what they are saying in their rush to be homophobic?

England 1 France 1

I know I'm a bit late, but I thought I'd comment on England's Euro 2012 opener.  In general, I though England's performance was okay; not great, certainly room for improvement, but not bad either.  In particular, it was good to see England play like a team rather than eleven individuals.  I also thought Gerrard had one of his better performances in an England shirt for a while.  Defensively, England were pretty solid.  Despite the French dominating possession, they had few real clear chances and only scored through a moment of brilliance from Nasri.  Offensively, England did not show too much but did have probably the best chance of the match, when Milner was put through by Young.

Conference Talks

I've been in Calgary since Sunday, and most of my time has thus been spent either listening to talks or writing my own.  Sadly, this means all I've seen so far is the University, though I will have time to do some proper exploring before I return home.  The one nice thing about this conference has been the weather, especially compared to the same conference last year or even Pittsburgh in May.

Euro 2012

The European Championships start tomorrow (in my time zone).  I've been looking forward to this for some time; for one thing, international tournaments are easy for to find (legally) online.  (In contrast, my home team -- Plymouth Argyle -- aren't easy to watch regularly in Vancouver).  Also, the last European Championships four years ago was one of the best tournaments I've ever seen, only beaten by Euro 96 for personal reasons.  So, with everything about to kick off, I thought I'd offer a few predictions to embarrass myself with later.

Cubic Zirconia

This year is the Queen of England's Diamond Jubilee.  Right now, more or less, are the main celebrations.  Despite being British, I really don't care.  Indeed, I am a republican, in the sense of being opposed to monarchies.  There is simply no reason to raise some family as special simply on the grounds of their heredity.  There's no magic that makes the Royal Family intrinsically bettter than me, or anyone else.

Back in Canada

My long trip has finally ended, and I'm back in Canada.  This should mean that I have no more excuses not to get back to things I've neglected, like this blog.

I am still quite jet lagged, despite having been back for two days; there's a nine hour time difference between Warsaw and Vancouver, and I'm too old to shrug that off, it seems.

I will be off to Calgary next week, for another conference.  This one is more general physics, rather than particle physics, so I expect to have more free time (in the form of skipped sessions).  In theory, this means that I'll be able to update with some regularity then!

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

One of the most useful, general tools in physics is symmetry.  To a scientist, a symmetry is any change we can make to reality that is undetectable.  For example, if I moved the entire universe five metres to my right, how would anyone know?  All we can measure are the relative positions of objects, e.g. the Earth relative to the Sun.  If I move the everything the same amount, then relative locations are unchanged.  This is then a symmetry of nature.  Hopefully, it is clear that there is nothing special about the distance and direction I chose; all such shifts are unobservable.

Why is this helpful?  The key lies in Noether's Theorem, named after the German mathematician Emmy Noether.  This states that whenever we have a symmetry in nature, there is a conserved quantity associated with it.  Conserved quantities make our lives easier, since they simplify calculations.  Amount in equals amount out is a pretty easy expression, after all.  (Not all physics demands advanced mathematics!)  For example, the symmetry I mentioned in the previous paragraph leads to conservation of momentum, while the fact that physics is constant in time means energy is conserved.