How about this.
MJ Clarke. Batting stats by position.
Overall, 75 Tests, 17 hundreds, 5261 runs in 125 innings @ 46.97 - pretty good, but I'd say below his potential. He should be averaging 50-52.
Batting at #5... 75 innings (the equivalent of 45-odd Tests), 14 hundreds, 3837 runs @ 57.27 with centuries against every proper Test team and in all conditions.
If we were talking about a batsmen who averaged 57+ after 45 Tests and was just over 30 we'd be wondering how much longer we'd need to wait before declaring him an all-time great.
Moral? KEEP HIM THERE.
Don't let impressive-sounding, warm-fuzzy notions about what "leaders are supposed to do" cloud our judgment about the fact that it's not worth trading an ATG batsmen for a mediocre/poor one to satisfy some bizarre craving.
Captains are supposed to score as many runs as they can for their team (batting captains, that is). That's what Clarke will do at #5. Doing so will stabilize the middle order and give everyone else the confidence that comes from seeing him play a knock like that 151 a few weeks back.
Yes, the top order needs work. That's what Marsh, Khawaja, Watson are for. We don't need Clarke to bat 4.
Sunday 4 December 2011
Thursday 10 November 2011
SA vs Aus, 1st Test Day 1 Notes from the Boundary
MJ Clarke.
That is all. He's not done yet either.
---
Oh and Steyn was rather good as well.
That is all. He's not done yet either.
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Oh and Steyn was rather good as well.
Friday 4 November 2011
EuroZone fail, #2
Well, I did predict it wouldn't work, but I have to admit that I wasn't expecting it to be scuttled quite like that.
As much as I hate to say it, this is a pretty bloody good argument against democracy of the more direct kind at the moment. You simply cannot have such complex issues decided on plebescite at short notice. You will always get the wrong outcome due to the subtleties being missed - subtleties which are the most significant part of the game.
As much as I hate to say it, this is a pretty bloody good argument against democracy of the more direct kind at the moment. You simply cannot have such complex issues decided on plebescite at short notice. You will always get the wrong outcome due to the subtleties being missed - subtleties which are the most significant part of the game.
Thursday 27 October 2011
The European bailout package
Won't work IMO.
I base this on a mixture of sceptical criticism at the details of the plan itself (100 billion Euros being raised in six months, two thirds of which are coming in banks from the worst-hit countries including Greece... hmm) and sheer intuition.
We'll see whether I'm right or not soon enough.
I base this on a mixture of sceptical criticism at the details of the plan itself (100 billion Euros being raised in six months, two thirds of which are coming in banks from the worst-hit countries including Greece... hmm) and sheer intuition.
We'll see whether I'm right or not soon enough.
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Chem Nobel Prize
Goes to quasicrystals and specifically Shechtman - Technion having a good run of late, eh? - 27 years after the fact. Nobel Committee back to form, then.
A few people have asked me, so I'll say roughly the sum total of what I learnt about quasicrystals from the lecture a few weeks ago:
They're ordered non-crystals. Meaning that they're still ordered in some way, and have some sort of symmetry, usually rotational (I don't know if you can have glide symmetry alone without translational... but it doesn't really matter as I would be astonished to find a real-life material with glide symmetry. We're talking condensed matter phys-er, science here. Real world). But not translational. Meaning if you move it around at all it'll look different - as opposed to a true crystal, where if you move it the right amount (specifically, move it by an integer linear combination of the lattice vectors), it looks exactly the same.
So that's all I know about quasicrystals. Sorry.
EDIT: And yes, the place I learnt (briefly) about quasicrystals was in a Condensed Matter Physics course.
A few people have asked me, so I'll say roughly the sum total of what I learnt about quasicrystals from the lecture a few weeks ago:
They're ordered non-crystals. Meaning that they're still ordered in some way, and have some sort of symmetry, usually rotational (I don't know if you can have glide symmetry alone without translational... but it doesn't really matter as I would be astonished to find a real-life material with glide symmetry. We're talking condensed matter phys-er, science here. Real world). But not translational. Meaning if you move it around at all it'll look different - as opposed to a true crystal, where if you move it the right amount (specifically, move it by an integer linear combination of the lattice vectors), it looks exactly the same.
So that's all I know about quasicrystals. Sorry.
EDIT: And yes, the place I learnt (briefly) about quasicrystals was in a Condensed Matter Physics course.
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Congratulations Brian Schmidt
On a well-deserved and very fast Nobel Prize for Physics (took them about 10 years, not 20). Non-zero Λ is a big, big deal.
For the uninitiated, he was a key member of the two teams that independently but more or less simultaneously made the first properly comprehensive attempt to make a determination of the amount of mass in the universe (Ω_M, in fact, the "proportion" of mass/energy in the universe that is, well, stuff, like me and you).
What they were expecting to find was that Ω_M is about 0.3, ie. the amount of "proper stuff" in the universe is close to 30% of the "critical density" - ie. the total amount of mass/energy (which includes "proper" matter and other things like light etc.) that would be needed above which the universe would eventually collapse in on itself due to gravity.
(Note: if you're heard of "dark matter", that counts as "proper stuff" too)
What they instead found was completely different. Their supernova measurements didn't fit what they would expect if Ω_M was about 0.3 and nothing else. Or 0 and nothing else. Or 1 nothing else. Or Ω_M = anything, and nothing else in the universe.
What they instead found was that their data and the data of the other team - both independently obtained by similar but different methods - fitted a model which had in it what's called a non-zero cosmological constant (Λ). The same cosmological constant that Einstein stuck into his equations to have them make sense, and then took it out and called it "the biggest blunder of my life".
Turns out this blunder won a few people a Nobel Prize.
A cosmological constant, by the way, is a term in the equations of general relativity, that when you apply it to the universe, basically attaches an energy to the structure of space itself. Dark energy is another term that's often used. The upshot of it is that with the non-zero Λ, the universe isn't just expanding, it's accelerating. This surprised the hell out of everyone, but surprisingly it gained acceptance pretty fast - one because the data was clearly good, and everyone else's data started matching up when they tried similar experiements, and two, it explained a lot of weird things that flummoxed people for a long, long time.
A better explanation can be found on his website: http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~brian/PUBLIC/public.html
He's on the left. On the right is the leader of the other team, I believe, who is a co-laureate. But the other guy doesn't lecture my astronomy course.
For the uninitiated, he was a key member of the two teams that independently but more or less simultaneously made the first properly comprehensive attempt to make a determination of the amount of mass in the universe (Ω_M, in fact, the "proportion" of mass/energy in the universe that is, well, stuff, like me and you).
What they were expecting to find was that Ω_M is about 0.3, ie. the amount of "proper stuff" in the universe is close to 30% of the "critical density" - ie. the total amount of mass/energy (which includes "proper" matter and other things like light etc.) that would be needed above which the universe would eventually collapse in on itself due to gravity.
(Note: if you're heard of "dark matter", that counts as "proper stuff" too)
What they instead found was completely different. Their supernova measurements didn't fit what they would expect if Ω_M was about 0.3 and nothing else. Or 0 and nothing else. Or 1 nothing else. Or Ω_M = anything, and nothing else in the universe.
What they instead found was that their data and the data of the other team - both independently obtained by similar but different methods - fitted a model which had in it what's called a non-zero cosmological constant (Λ). The same cosmological constant that Einstein stuck into his equations to have them make sense, and then took it out and called it "the biggest blunder of my life".
Turns out this blunder won a few people a Nobel Prize.
A cosmological constant, by the way, is a term in the equations of general relativity, that when you apply it to the universe, basically attaches an energy to the structure of space itself. Dark energy is another term that's often used. The upshot of it is that with the non-zero Λ, the universe isn't just expanding, it's accelerating. This surprised the hell out of everyone, but surprisingly it gained acceptance pretty fast - one because the data was clearly good, and everyone else's data started matching up when they tried similar experiements, and two, it explained a lot of weird things that flummoxed people for a long, long time.
A better explanation can be found on his website: http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~brian/PUBLIC/public.html
He's on the left. On the right is the leader of the other team, I believe, who is a co-laureate. But the other guy doesn't lecture my astronomy course.
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