Christopher Hirata Fact Sheet

Basic Data

Time of birth.................. 1982 Nov 30 05:46 GMT
Place of birth................. Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States of America
Location of birth.............. Earth. 42deg15min N. 083deg38min W.
Height......................... 5 ft 8 in (173 cm)
Weight......................... Zero. (see note 1)
Rest mass...................... 136 lbm (62 kg)
Rest mass energy equivalent.... 1300 megatons TNT
Gravitational monopole moment.. 2.5E-04 in^3/s^2 (4.1E-09 m^3/s^2)
Integer part of age in years... 23 (see note 2)
Ethnicity...................... non-ethnic
Occupation..................... postdoc
Employer....................... Institute for Advanced Study
Thermal neutron cross section.. 1.3E+27 barns (total, spin-averaged)
Moment of inertia.............. 17 to 120 lbm ft^2 (0.7 to 5 kg m^2) (see note 3)
Thermal power output........... 0.1 Btu/sec (100 W)
Radioisotopic power output..... 1.6E-12 Btu/sec (1.7 nW)

Notes.

  1. My metaphysical interpretation of the Equivalence Principle is that gravity is a fictitious force.
  2. Used to be 21 at parties. Still wish I were.
  3. Moment of inertia is given about center of mass, but varies depending on direction of axis and time of measurement.

My Favorite ...

State.......................... California
Chemical element............... carbon, C (Z=6)
Isotope........................ uranium 235, U235 (Z=92, A=235, N=143, I=7/2, P=-1)
Color.......................... 405 nm (the Hg I line)
Scaling law.................... gravity's inverse-square law
Symmetry....................... isospin SU(2) (even though it's approximate)
Group.......................... J = A5 (see note 4)
Field.......................... C (see note 5)
Elementary particles........... neutral pion and neutron
Function....................... f(x)=0
Special function............... the gamma function
Flavor......................... charm
Multipole expansion term....... quadrupole
Type of rock................... granite
Type of star................... white dwarf
Type of volcano................ cinder cone
Type of organism............... mushroom
Type of cloud.................. mushroom
Conic section.................. ellipse
Quadric surface................ hyperboloid of one sheet
Girl........................... Annika Peter

Notes.

  1. My original favorite group was J, the group of parity-conserving symmetries of the buckyball. It has order 60, and is simple. I have since learned that J is isomorphic to the alternating group of the fifth order, A5.
  2. My friend Michael Schein (a graduate student at Harvard) writes to me: "If your favorite field is C, then you are a really boring person. The problem is that C is algebraically closed. While that gives you the Nullstellensatz and makes algebraic geometry much simpler, it also means that there isn't much interesting arithmetic. The field Q and its finite extensions are much more exciting. You should go into number theory and study them." I maintain that C has far more demonstrated relevance to the world than the finite extensions of Q. (C is the complex numbers, Q is the rational numbers.)