Simon Singh
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Simon Singh globally... Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Simon Singh
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City/Place:
London
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Country:
United Kingdom
Life & Work
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Bio:
My family have been farmers for generations in Punjab, India. In 1938, my grandfather left his village of Thakarki and settled in Somerset in the southwest of England, and in 1950 my parents emigrated to Taunton. A few years later they moved to Wellington, and that is where I was born.
Although I did not know it at the time, Somerset is a fertile ground for budding scientists. Just 5 miles from where I was born is the town of Milverton, the birthplace of Thomas Young, the polymath who made breakthroughs in a wide range of subjects. Most important of all, he advocated the wave theory of light. He studied at Emmanuel College Cambridge, and in due I course I attended the same college, but I failed to make any significant contributions to the foundations of physics.
My mum always emphasised the importance of education, my dad got me interested in how things work and my big sister made sure I did my homework. It was not long before I was doing well at St John’s Primary School and at the age of nine I declared that I wanted to be a nuclear physicist. Bizarrely, I actually remember this moment with clarity.
Although I considered being a glam rocker and a footballer, I stuck to my scientific ambitions, largely inspired by TV boffins. I have always loved watching TV, and the early 1970s was great for scientists on the box. This was post-Apollo era, so Patrick Moore and James Burke had become prime time TV stars. Alongside them, Carl Sagan, Magnus Pyke and Heinz Wolff became my role models.
I think that it is great to have some idea of what you want to do with your life. I was lucky that I realised that my future lay in science, so I knew where to concentrate my efforts. I studied A levels in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and thanks to my great teachers I managed to get the grades I needed to study physics at Imperial College, part of the University of London. I had originally applied to Cambridge University, but they rejected me. In hindsight, it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Before starting my physics degree at Imperial College, London, I spent a year at GEC Hirst Research Centre, Wembley, working on gallium arsenide monolithic microwave integrated circuits. GEC were sponsoring me during my studies. It was an interesting year and I grew up a bit, but the main lesson I learned was that my future did not rest in industrial research and development.
Instead, I knuckled down, studied hard and aimed for a career in academia. However, while working for my degree, I did a few things that in hindsight helped to set me on the course that I am currently on. My first adventures in writing involved occasional articles for student newspapers and helping to edit a couple of newsletters, namely Schrodinger’s Cat for the physics department and Otto for my hall of residence. I did not write for college newspapers with the intention of being a journalist, but it turned out to be my stepping stone to journalism when my career path took a dog leg.
It is often strange how an experience at one point in your life unintentionally turns out to be exactly what you need a few years down the line. Another example of this occurred after my second year of studying physics. I spent the summer at the University of Delaware on the American East Coast, as part of a student exchange programme. This was one my happiest summers and it would not have happened if I had not previously worked at GEC. My year at GEC gave me the perfect qualification for the position at Delaware, because they both involved gallium arsenide. However, I had not gone to GEC in order to get a job in Delaware.
Between leaving Imperial College and starting my PhD, I spent a couple of months teaching at Doon School in Dehra Dun, one of the best schools in India. Once again, this is an illustration of how an experience paid off in an unexpected way. I taught in order to travel and live in India for a while, but the teaching experience that I picked up would become invaluable when I became a journalist, as I learned how to explain scientific concepts in a vivid and clear way.
My PhD in experimental particle physics was based at Cambridge University, but I spent most of my three years working at the European Centre for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva. I worked as part of the UA2 collaboration, which had previously won the Nobel Prize for discovering the W and Z bosons. It was a wonderful three years.
CERN has a network of so-called accelerators. These accelerators smash particles together, often matter and antimatter travelling almost at the speed of light. In the case of my experiment, we were colliding protons and antiprotons, in the hope that the intense energy of the impact would create other particles.
Theory suggests that there is a particle called the top quark, and we hoped that the collisions would create some of these hitherto unseen particles. We ran our experiment for a couple of years, smashing billions of particles in the accelerator, but there was no sign of the top quark. Nevertheless, by its absence, I could deduce something about the top quark, so I was still able to complete my thesis.
The top quark was eventually discovered at America’s Fermi Laboratory in the early 1990s, just a couple years after I finished my PhD. It turned out that the top quark was surprisingly massive, and our accelerator at CERN had simply not been powerful enough.
Particle physics was great fun. My three years at Cambridge and CERN were challenging and stimulating. However, I could see that there were people around me who were on a different planet when it came to understanding and researching physics, and it would be they who would go on to make their names as pioneers. As for me, it was time to change career. I had always enjoyed talking about and explaining science, so I took the decision to move towards a career in journalism and science communication. In particular, I have always loved television and felt that this was the most influential medium, so I started applying for a job at the BBC.
In 1990 I joined the BBC’s Science Department, where I was a producer and director in programmes such as Tomorrow’s World and Horizon. In 1996 I directed Fermat’s Last Theorem, a BAFTA award winning documentary about the world’s most notorious mathematical problem. The documentary was also aired in America as part of the NOVA series. The Proof, as it was re-titled, was nominated for an Emmy.
The story of this notorious mathematical problem was also the subject of my first book, imaginatively entitled Fermat’s Last Theorem. This was the first book about mathematics to become a No.1 bestseller in the UK. In America the book was called “Fermat’s Enigma”.
In 1997 I began working on my second book, The Code Book, a history of codes and codebreaking. As well as explaining the science of codes and describing the impact of codebreaking on history, the book also shows that cryptography is more important today than ever before. After all, we live in the Information Age, and one of the best ways to protect information is to encrypt it.
The Code Book has resulted in a return to television for me. I presented The Science of Secrecy, a 5-part series for Channel 4. The stories in the series range from the cipher that sealed the fate of Mary Queen of Scots to the coded Zimmermann Telegram that changed the course of the First World War. Other programmes discuss how two great nineteenth century geniuses raced to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and how modern encryption can guarantee privacy on the Internet.
My other books include “Big Bang” and “Trick or Treatment?“. After publishing an article about chiropractic in April 2008, I was sued by the British Chiropractic Association in a libel case that last two years, which I eventually won. Along the way, I became closely involved with the Libel Reform Campaign, and I continue to lobby for a fairer libel law.
My latest book (2013) is The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, which explores the vast amount of mathematics smuggled into the world’s most successful sitcom by its highly numerate writing team.
As well as solo lectures, which I enjoy, I have taken part in several bigger shows, including Theatre of Science with Professor Richard Wiseman, Nine Lessons… with Robin Ince and the 2011 Uncaged Monkey Tour with Brian Cox, Ben Goldacre and Robin Ince.
The skeptic movement has taken up more of my time in recent years, and I have been delighted to talk at various Skeptics in the Pub events, take part in James Randi’s international TAM events and support efforts such at the 10:23 homeopathic overdose challenge.
I have also helped to start education projects. UAS encourages university science departments to work more closely with schools, while the Enigma project conducts maths/cryptography workshops in schools with a genuine Enigma cipher machine.
CASE, Sense About Science and the Science Media Centre are three excellent organizations, and I have been working closely with all of them over the last few years. In particular, Sense About Science has been at the forefront of the Libel Reform Campaign.
Clips (more may be added)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
Have you ever noticed how different places scattered across the face of the globe seem almost to exist in different universes... As if they were permeated throughout with something akin to 19th century luminiferous aether, unique, determined by that place’s history...
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
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