Category Archives: People who love their jobs

Fella of the Royal Society: Q&A with Keith Moore

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library
— J.L. Borges

No, I haven’t read any Borges but this is one of those quotes that is very popular with my ilk.  But, libraries are indeed wonderful things and I remember hanging out a lot – and later volunteering – at the old Albany (California) Public Library on Solano Avenue in the late 1970s.  Don’t look for it there now, it is a youth center affiliated with the YMCA.  I spent as much time at the Doe and Bancroft as any science major at Cal could.  The specialty books and journals were in Hildebrand Hall but the atmosphere in the general purpose stacks was unbeatable.  The Internet has obliterated what little attention span I once had so sitting down and reading a physical book is next to impossible and yet the lure, the promise, and the perfume of endless shelves of books is still strong.

“Objectivity” is one of Brady Haran‘s strongest and most addicting channels.  Most of the episodes are filmed at the Royal Society‘s Library in London and feature Keith Moore, the hypnotic and wildly popular head librarian who pulls from a bottomless collection of manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and  instruments from Newton to the present.  The Brits were pieces of work for several hundred years but there can be no denying that they made a few positive contributions to somewhat offset their spherical bastardy.

Visiting the Society’s collections may just be sufficient to deal with the rigors of travel in whatever a post-COVID landscape may look like as well as London’s notoriously high prices.

Enjoy the long-requested Q&A with The Man which includes a very candid answer to a probing viewer question.  Be sure to check out the rest of the channel – some selections below.

Youtube Channel: Objectivity

It was the Dukes: Balls for Test Cricket

Baseballs are one-and-done, discarded after even the merest nick or scrape.  Cricket balls  are used continuously and degrade progressively after countless bounces off the pitch and strokes of the batFast bowlers start off with the new ball giving way to medium pacers and finally the slow bowlers take over when the damage has been done and make the ball dance.  Crafting the classic red balls for  Test Matches is a fascinating blend of art and manufacture – Dilip Jajodia explains.

Youtube Channel: Dukes Cricket

Sage on the Stage: Prof. Balakrishnan on math and physics

The Internet overall is hastening the demise of what’s left of civilization.  That’s hard for an early adopter to say but even harder to refute.  The availability of online courses is a refuge of sweet in a tsunami of  bitter.   These series by Prof. Venkataraman Balakrishnan of IIT Madras explain subjects I thought I knew and give me an incentive to understand topics I never thought I would.   One man, one chalkboard – utterly engrossing.

The sequence: Classical physics, Selected Topics in Mathematical Physics, Topics in Nonlinear Dynamics

Youtube Channel: nptelhrd

Jet set: AgentJayZ explains it all

We take the jet engine for granted but the invention by Whittle and von Ohain will dazzle anyone who takes the time to burrow into the details. It’s simple on the surface – Intake, compress, combust, and exhaust(*) – but immensely complex and even beautiful in practice. Enter AgentJayZ, a Canadian engine repair technician for S&S Turbine Services, a company that repairs, restores, and/or refurbishes jets for military and civilian customers. This involves a lot of detail work followed by testing which the Agent documents gleefully on his Youtube channel. Yes, there are people who get to light afterburners without ever leaving the ground.

Even more impressive is his growing collection of answers to viewer questions. 86 lengthy episodes as of this post where he explains fine points of engine-ering with equal parts fact, humor, and snark.

My question? What is it like to love your job that much?

(*) A much coarser summation exists.