Chúc Mừng Năm Mới! Enter the Water Dragon 2012

Happy New Year.  Here's an online fortune about this coming Lunar Year of the mythical Dragon. The days ahead are all about accelerated risk-taking and breaking through outmoded paradigms.  Bé Mèo is kicking and twirling in my belly.  I'm sure s/he is excited.

To all our friends, family and readers:

“Nhâm thìn vừa sang, hạnh phúc mênh mang, ý chí vững vàng, niềm vui rộn ràng, tiền bạc lai láng, sức khỏe cường tráng, cả nhà cười vang, chúc mừng năm mới”, “Gâu gâu gâu! Anh sống thật lâu, tiền vô như nước, gia đình đại phước, sức khỏe dồi dào, hạnh phúc tuôn trào!…”

Thor and theoretical physicists - movie review

Vịt and I finally watched Marvel’s Thor, a film based on a comic book that was inspired by the Norse god of thunder. It’s about an arrogant warrior who, at the start of the movie, violates a truce by attacking the Frost Giants. As punishment for breaking the truce, Thor is exiled to earth. What’s fascinating about the film is the Einstein-Rosen bridge for Thor’s passageway to our planet. Thank goodness movie producers sometimes side with the scientists to call the passageway the Einstein-Rosen Bridge instead of a wormhole. For that, the film keeps you in the realm of what is theoretically plausible, and what makes the film feel real.

My all-time favorite flick is the 1997’s Contact. Much of Contact “feel real” goes back to astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who wrote the original novel. Jodie Foster’s wormhole ride to a distant planet shows enough quantum theory to be surprisingly credible, and what might be possible one day. Anyhow, we’d give Thor a grade B. (Thanks goodness for fined abs Chris Hemsworth). We’d highly recommend Contact, if you haven’t seen it.