羽毛ケイトウ（赤） (Plumed Cockscomb: Red)

　羽毛ケイトウ（羽毛鶏頭、ヒユ科）。2010年8月30日、堺市・笠池公園で撮影。

Plumed Cockscomb; botanical name, Celosia argentea var. plumosa; family, Amaranthaceae. The photo was taken at Kasaike Park, Sakai, on August 30, 2010.

From tweets of yesterday (edited by rephrasing, adding words, etc.)

About Astrophysics

"Slowly, painfully Seiji Ozawa regains his bounce," New York Times. —'The conductor Seiji Ozawa has characteristically exuded life, energy and a positive spirit, both on the stage and in personal contact. [ . . .] "I felt that I was very happy that I became a musician," he said. "Music was so important. And then I had so much time, and I couldn’t do anything else, and music became more and more important." '

About Astrophysics

"Eight of the most extreme places in the solar system" (Slide show), Scientific American.

"Non-expanding cosmology attempts to oust Big Bang theory," Technology Review arXiv blog. —David F. Crawford, arXiv:1009.0953v1. (Retweeted by hey_leia)

About Peace and Politics

[Retweet of hutenma1's words] 普天間基地撤去を求める高校生の会：現在、署名2458筆。—署名に協力して上げて下さい。

About Physics

[Retweet of madgestar's words] "Exotic matter could show up in the LHC this year," New Scientist. (Retweeted by fermin771009)

[Retweet of jonmbutterworth's words] Physical Review Letters now accepted the first LHC paper to explore beyond the Standard Model.

About Science

[Retweet of Nobelprize_org] Mark your calendars with the 2010 Nobel Prize Announcement dates, starting on October 4: Announcements of the 2010 Nobel Prizes and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

About Universe and God

"Baroness Greenfield criticizes 'Taliban-like' Stephen Hawking," Telegraph. (Retweeted by Physlad and hey_leia)

Exchange of Words with Friends

[To haisyasan] 珍しい同姓のよしみでフォローさせていただきました。私の父の出身地は石川県七尾市東浜ですが、貴殿もその辺りにご関係はありませんか。

[From haisyasan] 先生の名前は存じております。残念ながら地元丹波篠山市の出身です。よろしくお願いします。

[To haisyasan] お返事のツイートとフォロー、ありがとうございました。丹波篠山のご出身ですか。それでも、はるか遠い祖先でつながっているかも知れませんね。よろしくお願いします。

ツルナシアサガオ (Morning Glory without Vines)

　ツルナシアサガオ（蔓無し朝顔、ヒルガオ科）。2010年8月30日、わが家の庭で撮影。

Morning glory without Vines; family, Convolvulaceae. The photo was taken at our yard on August 30, 2010.

From tweets of yesterday (edited by rephrasing, adding words, etc.)

About Books

"Many kinds of universes, and none require God," New York Times. —More about Stephen Hawking’s new book.

About Hobbies

[From chiamai] Hi! I finally dared to post a photo. Not good, but gives the idea of me not sleeping because of rain and stress :)

[To chiamai] Hi, It's an artistic photo with a flavor of abstract painting. Did you get it with a long exposure?

[From chiamai] Thanks for your kind words. I used a long exposure, but with an automatic setting in my camera. I have also taken 'normal' pics, but this corresponds more to my being half-asleep and a bit angry at the rain that woke me up.

[To chiamai] I see. Today I noticed your retweet at quite an early time of your zone. We also had rain this morning after a long while.

About Internet and Science

[Retweet of edyong209's words] Join in RT @Sheril_: "Thoughts from around the web on The Science Writing Renaissance," Discover Blogs, The Intersection.

About Physics

"Why spacetime on the tiniest scale may be 2-dimensional," Tech Rev arXiv blog —Will any kind of experiments be able to prove the idea mentioned? (Retweeted by fermin771009)

ウォーキング・コースの風景 １１ (Scenery in the Courses of My Walking Exercise 11)

　写真は堺市西区の南部に残る田園。2010年8月28日に撮影。もう稲穂の香りが漂っていて、幼い頃に住んだ田圃の多い小さな市（石川県七尾市。その後、村を併合して面積は拡大された）を思い出させた。写真中央の道の先を、昨日掲載の写真の和田川が横断している。

The photo, taken on August 28, 2010, shows rice fields remaining in the southern part of Nishi-ku, Sakai. There smelled ears of rice already. It reminded me of my childhood when I had lived in a small city (Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture) with a lot of rice fields. At the forward of the road lies Wada River in the photo posted yesterday.

From tweets of yesterday (edited by rephrasing, adding words, etc.)

About Astrophysics

[Retweet of newscientist's words] 'Astronomers create laser-powered "artificial star",' New Scientist. —"The glow helps astronomers to achieve sharper images by working as a reference point to correct their instruments, allowing them to adjust for the blurring effect caused by the Earth's atmosphere."

About Books

Began to read Marcia Bartusiak's The Day We Found the Universe (Vintage). —"While notorious for being a man of few words .." (p. x). You may ask if Dirac appears here. No, this man is Calvin Coolidge, the thirteenth president of the United States.

[madgestar's words came between my previous tweets about Bartusiak's book (sent in two), as follows: "Popular science books take off: a big bang in physics publishing," by TomChivers*, Telegraph. I wrote about this happening:] This is quite interesting, because the article cited writes about the publishing phenomenon of "the soaring popularity of popular physics books" like the one I am reading.

* The name of the person whose user name on Twitter is known is expressed by it.

[Retweet of oanasandu's words via astronomy2009 and chiamai]: Postcards from the Edge of the Universe". —A book with beautiful photos of astronomical bodies (free electronic versions downloadable).

[Retweet of oanasandu's words via astronomy2009 and chiamai]: Postcards from the Edge of the Universe". —A book with beautiful photos of astronomical bodies (free electronic versions downloadable).

About Physics

"Physicists build a memory that stores entanglement," Tech Rev arXiv blog. —"[T]he most exciting aspect of all this is that the entanglement survives the process of storage and release at all."

[Retweet of sciencedaily's words] "How long does selenium radiate in nuclear waste?" Science Daily. —"In order to estimate the safety of final storage for nuclear wastes, it is important to know the half-lives of the radioactive elements of the nuclear waste as accurately as possible."

"Peter Higgs, UCL and William Waldegrave," by jonmbutterworth, Guardian —This article refers to David Miller's cocktail party analogy of the Higgs mechanism. (Retweeted by jonmbutterworth with the comment, "Indeed. He [Miller] is the common link.")

About Psychology

"Forget what you know about good study habits," New York Times. —"The findings can help anyone from a fourth grader [. . .] to a retiree [. . .]"

ウォーキング・コースの風景 １０ (Scenery in the Courses of My Walking Exercise 10)

　写真は堺市内を流れる和田川。写真前方で石津川に注ぐ。2010年8月30日に撮影。

The photo, taken on August 30, 2010, shows Wada River in Sakai. This river flows into Ishizu River at the forward of the view.

From tweets of yesterday (edited by rephrasing, adding words, etc.)

About Arts

Yesterday, my wife and I went to see the 1934 German film "Abschiedwalzer: Zwei Frauen um Chopin" (Japanese title "別れの曲"), which had been shown in Umeda, Osaka, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth. It rather comically depicted Chopin's love of his motherland Poland and two women, Constantia Gladkowska and George Sand.

About Physics

[In reply to materion's words, "Fundamental laws of physics are same everywhere. If the fine-structure constant is not same everywhere, this would mean that it's not a constant."] You're right, indeed, but Dirac would be pleased in heaven.

[From materion] I do not remember if Dirac expressed something about variation of fine-structure constant.

[To materion] I mean Dirac large numbers hypothesis. It does not refer to fine structure constant, but the gravitational "constant" was assumed to be inversely proportional to the age of the universe.

[From materion] Thanks for pointing out Dirac's large numbers hypothesis. Gravitational constant must be in some way interconnected with the fine-structure constant.

サルスベリの花のある風景５ (Scenery with Crape-myrtle Blossoms 5)

　2010年8月24日、堺市・鈴の宮団地の小公園で撮影。

The photo was taken at a small park in Suzunomiya Estate, Sakai, on August 24, 2010.

From tweets of yesterday (edited by rephrasing, adding words, etc.)

About Books

Book Review, Guy Deutscher's "Through the Language Glass," New York Times. —The review is so good that it makes me want to read the book.

About Sports

都市対抗野球、珍しい私と同姓の多幡雄一選手（写真）のいるホンダ（狭山市、昨年優勝）を応援していたが、さる３日の対東京ガス戦で２—４で負け、連覇を逃していたことを、いまインターネット検索で知った。

About Universe and God

"Are we living in a designer universe?" Telegraph. —It is interesting that John Gribbin wrote this article just before "Hawking's denying God's creation fever." (I wrote the same comment on the Facebook page of Gribbin. He replied, "Well spotted!")

"Is physicist S. Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?" Poll, Gardian Yes: 37.5%, No: 62.5%. What do you think?

[From F414] God was created by imagination; the universe by energy. The universe came first.

[To F414] Yes, I think so too. I wanted to hear rather comments on the result of the poll. When I saw the result about 8 hours before the closing of the poll, "Yes" was 85%, and I thought the opinion of the British was sound. However, I was surprised at the final result.

[From F414] God is comforting; the unknown is not. Personally I love the unknown, the unthought, the not yet imagined; but that's just me.

[To F414] Science seeks for the truth of Nature; religion, the peace of mind as you mean by the words "God is comforting." From this point of view, the poll itself (or Hawking's saying) is nonsense. There should be no debate between science and religion.

Exchange of Words with Friends

[To chiamai] Hi, It's perhaps morning there. I woke up from a nap after lunch.

[From chiamai] HI! Yes it's morning, and I'm up a bit later as it's Sunday. Have a nice afternoon :)

[To chiamai] Your time zone is UTC+2 hours including +1 hour of daylight saving time (DST), right? Ours is UTC+9 hours. In what months do you use DST?

[From chiamai] Right, we are currently UTC+2 hours. DST in the European Union is used between the last Sundays of March and October. What about Japan?

[To chiamai] We used DST from 1948 to 1951 but don't use it now. Only in the most northern area, Hokkaido, it is used experimentally.

[From itadori3] サルスベリは今わが家に咲いている唯一つの花で、暑さにため息をつきながら毎日眺めています。猿がすべることからこの名前とか…。孫に教えたけど「ウソつき」という顔をされました。漢字は関係ない「百日紅」なんですね。

[To itadori3] サルスベリの木の肌は、サルがすべりそうなほどツルツルなので、その名があり、百日紅と書くのは、花の咲く期間の長さからの別名を当てているのでしょう。