Stephon Alexander

On Einstein and Voodoo

Once again I'm at the stage of a research project where I have to buckle down and calculate. Many of you might have this idea that theoretical physicists love to pin their pen to the paper and run symbolic marathons endlessly. Well I'm not the one. I actually dislike doing calculations (o.k. I'm telling a half-truth). Months of visualization exercises, which leave me either giddy or experiencing motion illusions, have come to a disappointing end. That stage of trying to imagine the physics and get a grip on that speckle of 'reality' is where I find joy in my work. But this time there was a glitch in my process.

So I've made friends with a few cognitive psychologists at Stanford. They do research on trying to understand, among many other things, how we got to be so smart; how is it that humans can create ideas like differential topology and superstring theory? When I first heard that people were actually doing research on 'abstract domains' concerned with the type of thinking that I do, I got a bit weary. But as time went by (and after debating with my cogsci pals for a while) I finally swallowed the fact that I have an organ called the Brain.

One day while going for my ritual run at the top of Potrero hill, to relax my brain from a dreary calculation marathon, an Einstein quote crossed my mind: "The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it's comprehensible." Just think about that- I think it’s profound.

That quote triggered the stunningly bizarre realization that my Brain and all the damn Neurons and such are firing away to create the very physics and math that I suppose is so fundamental. If indeed we can come up with physical law and mathematics which make predictions about our universe during an epoch billions of years before humans existed, then whatever underlies the functioning of our Brains to generate such ‘incomprehensible’ tasks has (based on logical grounds) to be more fundamental than the theories that we create.

This realization depressed me. I felt for a while that I was in the wrong field. I bet that if Einstein was still with us, based on his quote, he would have gone into Cognitive Psychology or Voodoo.

Cosmologist meets Cosmetologist

The other day while doing a calculation at a Cafe and frustratingly twisting my fledgling dreads, I noticed this tall guy with long dreads. I approached him and said, "Excuse me, your dreads are cool, how do I get mine like that?"
He responded, "The only person that can do it is Rhonda, she manages this spot in the Lakeside district of Oakland called Nappy or Not"
I was down.

So here I am sitting in Rhonda's salon while Rhonda is applying a 'secret' locking technique to my hair. Her fingers move like a Spanish guitarist. I'm having a blast here in Nappy or Not. It feels like back home in the Bronx; folk telling jokes, good soul music in the background and lots of gossip-good stuff that is.

I tried to withhold my professional status-shamefully, I told a half-truth, that I'm a musician. But eventually it came out that I do cosmology. The ladies in the salon were all over it. It turns out that Rhonda is into metaphysical things-after all she is a cosmetologist-I think of it as a subfield in Observational Cosmology. They actually require a liscence to do their jobs, unlike cosmologists.

If you're ever in the Bay area and want to get the 'baddest' hairdo on the west coast and a good time, you gotta come hang with Rhonda and the crew at Nappy or Not (E18th St & Park Blvd.)

Holla.

hip hop cosmologist

Due to a lack of genuine ideas in physics, I've resorted to producing rap beats on my Mac for the time being. It's amazing how far music production software and hardware have gone. One of the most famous rap songs, "Paid in Full", by Eric B. and Rakim, was done on a $100 Casio '80s CZ-100 keyboard; those you see nowadays in pawn shops for $15. The beat was produced by Marley Marl and found its way into pop music; remember Susanne Vega's famous song with that phat rap beat, or how about Enigma's Gregorian Chant-the same beat, all done on a cheap toy synthesizer. Forget the need for hardware! When I was in Afrika Bamabatta's studio back in the 80's, I remember seeing racks of hardware with cables strangling each other until they reached the humongous speakers at the corner of the studio.

I say all this because now with one piece of software, I can reproduce the effects of a full racked recording studio worth tens of thousands of dollars. I can make music on Airplane flights to conferences and talks. I know, you're concerned that I'll have a career change and become a rap producer. Not that I'm envious of Kanye West, but the thought of playing with this cool new software, making beats and getting paid on the order of $50,000 for each one is very tempting. But, I'll have to be as talented as Kanye. Anyway, in the meanwhile, I might write my lectures over some phat ass beats. I'll have my students deliver freestyle oral exams... that’s it, I’ll be the first hip hop cosmologist. Oh well, back to my backreaction calculation.