That all changed rather dramatically in recent years, with the founding of the Institute for Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo. The IPMU was one of the World Premier International Research Centers that were founded in Japan in 2007, to foster excellence in research but especially to lower barriers between Japan and the rest of the world. The IPMU acted aggressively to hire scientists from outside Japan and host programs that would bring visitors from around the world. And the effort succeeded, with astonishing swiftness; I know that among people I talked to, IPMU was quickly recognized as an attractive place to go with top-notch scientists working there. You can see the results through one person’s eyes at the blog of Susanne Reffert, one of IPMU’s postdocs.

Now all of that success is in jeopardy. As detailed in this letter from Hitoshi Murayama, founding director of the IPMU, the new government in Japan “is actively trying to slash support for programs in science,” and the IPMU is one of the targets. New commissions (staffed by non-experts) have been tasked with reviewing a wide spectrum of programs, and recommending everything from 30% cuts to 50% cuts to outright termination. These cuts are extending throughout science, although new efforts like the World Premier centers are in particular danger.

Admittedly, we live in a time when budgets are tight, and nobody is going to completely escape the pain of the current global economic crisis. But this would be a very short-sighted move on the part of Japan, to undo the great strides they had made in connecting with the international effort in fundamental physics.

Fortunately, there’s something you can do! Hirosi Ooguri here at Caltech informs me that the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science is actually soliciting input from the worldwide scientific community. You can send an email to “nak-got [at] mext.go.jp”, with a subject line “No. 14, WPI.” That will reach people who matter, including Senior Vice Minister Masaharu Nakagawa and Vice Minister Hitoshi Goto.

It would mean a lot if the Japanese government understood how much the rest of the world appreciates the close connections with scientists in their country. Science is not a zero-sum game; when it’s succeeding somewhere, everyone benefits. Here’s hoping the IPMU makes it through this episode intact, and continues to flourish in the future.

Once beam has circulated stably in both rings, some time next week the LHC team will attempt to collide protons at the injection energy of 450 GeV (a total center of mass energy of 900 GeV). While this is much less than the Tevatron is colliding presently, it could provide some sorely needed initial data for the detectors to do timing and calibration of the various subsystems. There will even hopefully be a few collision events recorded with clear “dijet” structure – collisions where quarks and/or gluons inside the protons hit head on and effectively bounce sideways into the detector, giving two back-to-back collimated sprays of particles. Pictures of such events will be great to see, at long last!

You can follow progress live on twitter: http://twitter.com/cern and I will update this post as I learn more.

10:32 PST: The LHC has gotten beam around clockwise, to Point 6! Woo hoo!

10:45 PST: Magnet quench – should be recovered soon…

11:25 PST: Beam has reached Point 7!

11:30 PST: Point 8! Next beam will be sent past Point 1 where ATLAS is…

11:39 PST Beam all the way around the ring! WOO HOO!! It’s baaaaaack! The LHC Page 1 display shows that the injection probe beam made it more than once around the machine:

11:54 PST: Next goals: do the same with the counterclockwise beam. Will they attempt RF capture tonight? Trying to find out…

13:11 PST: Turns out (no pun intended) they decided to go for RF capture of the clockwise beam rather than probe counterclockwise. They are up to 10 million turns with the RF on! Fantastic!

13:30 PST: Having captured the beam for several minutes, the LHC will now switch to counterclockwise.

14:53 PST: About to go for a full orbit of the counterclockwise beam…done!! Now to RF capture!

15:30 PST: Counterclockwise beam is RF captured! The LHC is operational…colliding beams within a week? Stay tuned.

Unfortunately the video doesn’t seem to be embeddable, but you can go to the video page and click on the “David Gross” entry. (The others are good, too!)

You all know my perspective here — time probably exists, and we should try to understand it rather than replace it. But I’ll agree with David — let’s not ignore more “practical” problems, but not be afraid to tackle the big ideas!

It’s been a mixed bag so far; while I’ve had great fun interacting with people here in Australia, I’ve also been struggling with a nasty cold I picked up on the flight over. Spent yesterday mostly in bed, too fogged up to even work on my talk for Friday. But when I’ve had the strength to be up and about, it’s been a treat. Here’s an iPhone snap of the University of Sydney; that clocktower in the middle houses, appropriately enough, the Centre for Time.

One of the perks of civilization that hasn’t quite caught on in these parts is affordable internet access in hotel rooms, so don’t expect a lot of blogging over the next week or two. Instead, I can point you to a couple of recent videos. One is an extended interview for Edge, entitled Why Does the Universe Look the Way it Does? It is an interview (presented in text and video), not a carefully pre-planned document, so not all thoughts are arranged as elegantly as one might like. Here is some of the flavor:

We are in a very unusual situation in the history of science where physics has become slightly a victim of its own success. We have theories that fit the data, which is a terrible thing to have when you are a theoretical physicist. You want to be the one who invents those theories, but you don’t want to live in a world where those theories have already been invented because then it becomes harder to improve upon them when they just fit the data. What you want are anomalies given to us by the data that we don’t know how to explain.

The other one is a panel discussion on Time Since Einstein, from the World Science Festival. As the description there says, it features Roger Penrose, David Albert, and some other people it would be too exhausting to list individually. Here’s part 1 of 5:

World Science Festival 2009: Time Since Einstein, Part 1 of 5 from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Now if only my immune system would finish off the little viral buggers inside me, I could get out and see a bit of this interesting country.

Well, the race is on! Here’s the data on what I know of so far. We’re up to 8 proposals at 24 hours before the deadline. With the enormous sample of two, count ‘em, two data points, we’re on the same curve as we were for Cycle 17 (plotted in black), but scaled down by a factor of 27. The blue line is extrapolating an exponential to the current rate of proposal submission. Both tracks argue for about 30 proposals going in. The scaling factor of 27 suggests that there will be an average of 27 people on each proposal, if Steinn’s argument that the number of proposals is set solely by the size of the community holds. The late-time development of this curve could be way off, however, because there is no way to put one of these together at the last minute. (On the other hand, the proposed experiments are so immensely complicated, that maybe the only way you get them done is waiting until the last minute).

I’ll update the plot if people give data in the comments! (Updated! I cut the blue exponential fit in the revised plot, as it was a lousy match.)

At 2:28 pm Eastern Standard Time, the space shuttle Atlantis left Earth. It was a flawless launch.

It is, of course, hard to describe the experience of watching it go up. I was surprised by just how bright it was. It’s like a mini-Sun, which is roughly right since it burns its liquid hydrogen/oxygen fuel at 3000 C, just a factor of two short of the temperature of the Sun. And, of course, it is loud. Not “hurt my ears” loud. More like “my whole body is vibrating” loud. Very intense.

The whole thing was over in a couple of minutes. I guess the shuttle was eager to get to space. It’s been all dressed up and waiting for days. All too soon the painfully bright light had disappeared. The overwhelming sound had subsided. And the only sign of the absolutely amazing event we’d just witnessed were the slowly dissipating clouds of smoke.

At the end of the day, it is an incredible accomplishment. We have just shot six people into space.

Wow.

- 5 astronauts have masters degrees. 3 were successful football players. 1 has a PhD (and an MD as well, just for good measure). I’m not sure what that says about the requirements to go into space.

- The astronauts go into quarantine for a week before the launch. They don’t want any swine flu in space.

- We are on hallowed ground. This is where humans left the Earth to touch the Moon.

- This is the 129th space shuttle launch. The first was in 1981, for an average of one launch every three months. The whole idea was to make space launch “routine”.

- I calculate that it takes roughly thirty times more energy to get to the space station than it does to get a jet aircraft to altitude. Radius of the Earth: 6,400 km. Altitude of a jet: 12 km. Altitude of the space station: 350 km. (Gravitational potential energy goes as one over the distance.) However, it is to be noted that you want to actually stay up there once you get there, which means you need to be moving pretty fast (specifically, 28,000 km/hour at the altitude of the space station). Kinetic energy goes as velocity squared. This is why you need a kiloton bomb (see my previous post) to get up there.

- As a mission control specialist described launch: “It’s like going over the top of a rollercoaster. Forever.” Actually, that sounds more like what it must be like in orbit: free-fall.

- They monitor everything that happens on the space station. Including light switches and toilet flushes. Think big brother.

- The countdown clock is not linear. There are a number of planned “holds”, where they STOP THE CLOCK and check various systems, and then resume.

- We are roughly 3 miles from the launchpad. This distance was selected by calculating, should the unthinkable happen, how far a 50 pound chunk of debris would fly. We are just beyond that distance, trying not to think about what 40 pounds might do to the media tent.

We are now 1:35:37 from launch.

Here’s the full schedule of events:

Monday November 16
EST EVENT
12:03 am Clear Launch Pad
12:53 am Fuel cell activation
2:03 am Countdown enters two-hour hold at the T-6 hour mark
2:18 am Clear “Launch Danger Area”
4:30 am Mission Management Team meets to give go for tanking
4:30 am Crew wake up
5:00 am NASA TV: External Tank fueling coverage begins
5:00 am Crew breakfast
5:03 am Countdown resumes at T-6 hour mark
· External Tank loading begins (transfer line “chilldown”)
5:30 am Crew undergoes final medical checks
5:48 am Liquid Hydrogen Low Level Cutoff (LLCO) sensors go “wet”
6:03 am Liquid Hydrogen “fast fill” begins
7:18 am LH2 “topping” begins (gaseous Hydrogen vent valve cycling)
8:03 am Countdown enters 2½ -hour hold (T-3 hour mark)
· ET in stable replenish
· Closeout Crew to White Room
· Final Inspection Team (FIT) “walkdown”
8:30 am Ascent Team on console in Mission Control
9:15 am Crew photo opportunity (taped for playback later)
9:30 am LAUNCH COVERAGE BEGINS on NASA TV
9:58 am Crew receives weather briefing from Ascent Team
10:08 am Crew suits up for launch
10:33 am Countdown resumes at the T-3 hour mark
10:38 am Crew departs Operations & Checkout Building for launch pad 39A
11:00 am Mission Management Team on console in Launch Control Center
11:08 am Crew begins to board Atlantis
11:28 am T-38 weather reconnaissance (Astronaut Steve Lindsey)
11:58 am Crew communications checks
12:23 pm Atlantis’ hatch is closed and latched for launch
12:43 pm Shuttle Training Aircraft weather recon (Lindsey)
12:28 pm “Video 1” Wolfe Air Aviation Cessna Skymaster 337 takeoff
12:53 pm White Room Closeout
1:13 pm Countdown enters a 10-minute hold at the T-20 minute mark
· Firing Room computer programs verified
· Landing convoy status check
· Abort landing sites checked
· Inertial Measurement Unit preflight alignment verified
· Preps for computer software transition to terminal count
1:23 pm Countdown resumes at the T-20 minute mark
1:34 pm Countdown enters ~45-min. hold at the T-9 minute mark
· MMT conducts final “Go-No Go” poll for launch

T Minus EST EVENT
- 9:00 2:29:11 pm Countdown resumes at the T-9 minute mark
- 7:30 2:20:41 pm Orbiter Access Arm (OAA) retract
- 6:00 2:22:11 pm Verify Auxiliary Power Units (APU) ready to start
- 5:01 2:23:10 pm Launch window opens
- 5:00 2:23:11 pm Auxiliary Power Unit start
- 4:55 2:53:16 pm Liquid Oxygen replenish terminated
- 4:00 2:24:11 pm Purge Sequence 4 hydraulic test
- 4:00 2:24:11 pm Inertial Measurement Units to inertial
- 3:55 2:24:16 pm Flight Control Surface profile test
- 3:30 2:24:41 pm Main Engine profile test
- 2:55 2:25:16 pm LO2 tank pressurization
- 2:50 2:25:21 pm Gaseous Oxygen Vent Hood retraction
- 2:35 2:25:36 pm Fuel Cells begin using internal reactants
- 2:30 2:25:41 pm Clear caution and warning memory
- 2:00 2:26:11 pm Crew closes visors & initiates oxygen flow
- 1:57 2:26:14 pm Liquid Hydrogen tank pressurization
- 1:40 2:06:31 pm Solid rocket booster joint heater deactivation
- :50 2:27:21 pm Atlantis to internal power
- :31 2:27:40 pm Onboard computers take control of countdown (T-31 sec)
- :21 2:27:50 pm Solid rocket booster steering test
- :06.6 2:28:04 pm Main engine start (T-6.6 seconds)
T-Zero 2:28:11 pm LAUNCH (Space station 225 miles above central South Pacific)

+ 5:00 2:33:11 pm Launch window closes
+ 8:22 2:36:33 pm Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) commanded
+ 8:28 2:36 39 pm Zero thrust – orbit is 136 x 36 statute miles
~2:30 pm 3:30 pm NASA TV: Post launch news conference

You can watch the whole thing on NASA TV if you like.

To be honest, I’m surprised by how excited I am. Yesterday we toured the facilities at Kennedy Space Center, and got to see the shuttle up close. It is impressive. Of course, it’s huge. But it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the simple essential fact: this object is going into space! However, there’s something more primal about all this. I think every kid growing up since the 60s (and presumably well before?) must have had an “obsession with rockets” phase. What could possibly be cooler? They are huge. They go really, really, really fast. They make loud noises. They go exotic places. They are the perfect vehicles for a child’s imagination. As we grow up, most of us lose our fixation. But, as I’ve found out in the last 24 hours, it hasn’t been lost, only misplaced. When you actually see a rocket about to head into space, it’s a completely overwhelming experience. All those emotions come roaring back, and you’re left mesmerized and excited and giddy, just like you were as a 10 year old.

We just took a little break and walked down to wave to the astronauts. They are in the astrovan, an (entirely appropriate, completely antiquated) airstream motorhome. They stopped briefly to say goodbye. Their next stop is the shuttle (and then 300 km up). You might think that this is just part of a media stunt, a final wave for the cameras. But, at the end of the day, these six individuals are about to strap themselves to the top of 1.2 million kg of liquid oxygen/hydrogen (by my calculations, the equivalent of 0.7 kilotons of TNT—a “small” nuclear bomb). This is not all just fun and games; it is a deadly serious enterprise.

We are now 1:53:33 from launch.

There are more photos/real-time updates at our twitter feed, and even more information at the NASA tweetup page.

So we rearranged our schedules, met yesterday in Denver, woke up at 6 am this morning, and are now at Kennedy Space Center with 100 space twitterers. They’ve got a full program here with astronauts and a tour today, and the launch of mission STS-129 to the space station at 2:29 pm tomorrow. The event just started… So stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted. We will be blogging as well as loosing our tweeting virginity @cosmicvariance. You can follow the rest of the gang by looking for #nasatweetup.