Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

Multitudes of more photos of the Reynolds clan on their expedition to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau can be found on facebook (specifically Kathy's and Megan's pages), but here are a couple of my favorites.

Here is the Alpsee, the lake closest to the castles. There are many lakes in the region, but on the day we were there, there was not much visibility - since it was snowing - so we could only see a few. At this particular moment, it does not appear to be snowing, so I got a decent view.

Here is the Hohenschwangau castle, the birthplace of King Ludwig II, the "crazy king,"  and when he grew up he built ...

... Neuschwanstein castle (among others - in my German class we discussed how Bavaria was not very happy with Ludwig II spending so much money on castles, but it seems to have been an excellent long-term investment, since yesterday Megan and I estimated that on a typical day they receive about 100,000 EUR just in entrance fees, and that doesn't include all the food and souvenirs and entrance to Hohenschwangau and train tickets and bus tickets and food and souvenirs, which means that they certainly net several hundred millions per year, Boy wouldn't Ludwig be happy now).

Now, the question is, was Neuschwanstein really the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland/world? On this gray day, it did appear so much to me. The stone is not white, but more a subdued grayish brown. Although the turret looks pretty good, the shape is a little different. Judge for yourself here.

Schnee in Pullach!!

Finally, the day after Christmas, it snowed in München. There was about 4 cm on the ground when we awoke. In fact, a friend who is up in Hochfügen (see this post), a popular skiing destination, said that 20 cm fell there. This is very late, as often the first snow is in October, and there is usually snow on the ground by the first of December. In any case, the skiers are loving it, because the local Alps now have snow for some downhilling.

So, we decided to head to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau for the day (along with all the other hordes of tourists - we heard lots of languages, Japanese, Italian, Russian...), and this was our walk to the S-bahn. Of course, the Reynolds girls are walking in the middle of the street. But it's only suburban Pullach (technically really Großhesselohe).

And here is the small Platz at the S-bahn station. There's a restaurant and a cafe, and a Kinderplatz (children's playground) and some other things (like a fruit stand) that are only open in the summer. But a gorgeous scene. Certainly not Florida!

Frohe Weihnachten und schöne neue Jahr!

Glyptothek (1)

Last week I was sick (Ich war krank) so I didn't feel like posting. I'm back in the world of the living again, so here goes.

Last Sunday I visited several museums - and Sunday is a good day since admission is only 1 EUR - and had a good time. There are some very nice collections. I accidentally took the wrong U-bahn train (the first time!) but this ended up being serendipitous, since I went to the Glyptothek first, the museum that I planned to visit last. It turned out to be my favorite. It's essentially a museum of ancient scupltures, with pieces like the "Barberini faun",

the Medusa (luckily I didn't turn into stone),

and statues from the West Pediment of the Aegina Temple. (Actually, the statues from both the West and East Pediments are on display.)

The Temple pays homage to the Greek goddess Aphaia, and was built in about 500 BCE on the island of Aegina. It's too bad that they are not back on the Greek island, because that is probably where they belong. But the display is very nice, and it has quite a bit of explanatory text (in German and English) that is nice. The way that the artist depicted the Trojan war, confined by the triangular space, is very cool.

semester@HM

Das Magazin der Hochschule München.

In the Dezember 2014 issue there is an article about the Fellowship-Programm where they interviewed me and the other Gastprofessor, Chih-Kuang (Jack) Lin.  If you can read German, here it is. If you can't read German, ask my sister or daughter to translate for you. Or, if they want practice, they could place a translation in the comments (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Update: Here is a link to the pdf of the full magazine.

Nordfriedhof

The Mach number, almost as good as the Reynolds number, is one of the famous non dimensional quantities in physics. It is especially useful in fluid dynamics (as is the Reynolds number) because it allows you to perform experiments that are of a different size, different flow speed, using a different viscosity fluid, than the theoretical situation you are trying to replicate. However, even though these physical quantities are different, as long as certain dimensionless quantities match your desired situation, the experiment will be an accurate predictor.

Instead of having a gravestone among other gravestones, Mach has a pillar set apart from other gravestones. I assume that he's buried underneath. There are words on 3 of the four sides of the pillar. First, an explanation of who he was (as if that was needed!).

Second, the usual information. Interestingly, on German gravestones it often states what the person did, i.e., architect, artz (doctor), ingenieur (engineer), etc. Mach, of course, was a physicist and a philosopher.

The third side, not shown, was information about his son, who presumably is also buried here.

Arnold Sommerfeld was the other grave I wished to visit in Nordfriedhof. He was one of the founders of quantum theory, working with Niels Bohr to develop the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition (one of the attempt's of "old quantum theory" to explain atomic spectra that didn't really work). His doctoral students include Werner Heisenberg, Hans Bethe, Wolfgang Pauli, Rudolf Peierls, and Peter Debye, many of whom won Nobel Prizes.

As I mentioned here, he my academic ancestor. You can my family tree here. You'll see that I currently have no PhD students, but my advisor, Burton Fried, has several. In addition, his advisor, Gregor Wenztel, also has several. And of course, his advisor, Arnold Sommerfeld, has many. And if you go back even further, you'll see that I am "descended" from great mathematicians like Gauss, Poisson, and Fourier. I don't presume to have anywhere their intellect, but it is nice to know that perhaps some of my skill comes from them. Certainly much of the way I approach problems is due to Fried, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is often like that.

Education wisdom

Sometimes the internet just sucks you in. Really. In. Yesterday evening I attended a colloquium at LMU on galaxy formation (like, how did the structure of the universe come to look like how it does?). Unforutnately, the speaker gave a talk for experts, of which I am not one, and spent a lot of time on the details, which I'm sure were interesting if I understood the issues, and not very much time on the big picture (for us novices). But I did take some notes, and I was searching on the web trying to understand AGN feedback and star formation in the early universe and why dark matter stays in the halos of galaxies but does not collapse into the core. (Not in a detailed, mathematical, way, but just an overview for a person with some physics background, which I have. I believe it was Fermi who, when asked by a speaker how they should pitch their talk, replied, "as if to a person with infinite intelligence, but zero knowledge." I like this very much, because one of the most common faults of scientific talks, if not THE most common fault, is that they assume too much knowledge of the audience. Even though they use big words and sophisticated language, if you watch closely they are not usually assuming that the audience is smart - although if the audience were infinitely intelligent they could follow anything - but usually that the audience has knowledge that they don't have. Or at least they don't have knowledge that the speaker is assuming that they have - and the speaker should know better.) And I ran across this blog called Rate Your Students. It discusses issues that professors have with their students in a funny way. Now, I've read several of the "best of" posts, which can also be found under "The Ring of DistinKtion" or "Things We Can Do to Improve..." but my favorites (so far) are On Grading and On Evaluations. Both of these (and probably more) should be read out loud for maximum effect. And do you notice what I've done? Since I really have nothing to say, I've pointed you to other sites so that you have hours of reading pleasure while thinking about how much fun you're having on Plasmaphile. I've multiplied your enjoyment with only a little work of my own. Ahhh, the internet.

PS. I've done a little research (i.e., Google, which amazingly, is what students think research is these days - I wonder if RYS has a post on that topic?), and John Baez (excellent math and science website, by the way, claims that it was Leo Szilard who made the statement about intelligence and knowledge. Well, I won't quibble. Both Szilard and Fermi had way more intelligence AND knowledge than I do!

Update: David J. Linden, in The Accidental Mind, claims it was Max Delbrück. I've found many more (unattributed) examples. I'm beginning to think that this quote has entered our collective consciousness and it may well be impossible to determine its origin.