Douglas Adams lives on at CERN

I'm a big fan of Douglas Adams' work, though I don't believe he ever quite achieved the same manic wonder with his books that he did with the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio scripts. I am less certain, though, about his obsession with Apple computers as it gave his ideas on technology a gloss where style was more important than substance.

Specifically in one of his books (I think one of the Dirk Gently books, but I can't be bothered to check), one of his main (if dead) characters is an entrepreneur who makes his money out of add-on software for spreadsheets that turns the financial data into music. Somehow you can spot bad company results by discords or some such guff. You really have to be blinded by the technology to really imagine accountants responding well to a package that only runs on Apple and that turns your finances into electropop or Stockhausen.

The reason I bring this up is a BBC report (genuine, unlike my news from the USND at Hoople yesterday) that 'Scientists have simulated the sounds set to be made by sub-atomic particles such as the Higgs boson when they are produced at the Large Hadron Collider'.

Unfortunately the idea that they have simulated the sounds 'made by' particles is rubbish. They aren't simulating the sound of collisions. What they are doing, a la Adams, is representing the data from collisions musically, with position represented by pitch and energy by amplitude. It's really no surprise when we discover that a composer is involved in the project. Yes it's one of those half-brained, waste-of-tax-payers'-money attempts to do a science/arts crossover. (Where's the Chancellor's axe when you need it?)

But to suggest that this is seriously going to be used to analyze the data is insulting our intelligence. A software engineering is quoted as saying When you are hearing what the sonifications do you really are hearing the data. It's true to the data, and it's telling you something about the data that you couldn't know in any other way.

I'm sorry, leaving aside the irritating word 'sonifications', this is balderdash. It may make it easier to spot certain very specific things than it is if you check the data by eye. But who is going to check it by eye? A proper computer analysis would be able to spot anything the ear could pick up from the sounds, and much more. It's a gimmick. You can either look at it as a silly art project or a good way to get publicity. But I no more expect particle physicists to start analyzing data by digging the musical vibes (man) than I expected Adams' accountants to be jiving to the company reports. It's not going to happen, and I'm rather disgusted by the BBC science reporting that they reported it straight without the hint of a raised eyebrow.

Want to know more about the Original Radio Scripts? See at Amazon.co.uk or at Amazon.com

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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