Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

Rule of Threes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 29, 2014 at 5:53am

Image Source: Link Below

More than 40 years after a Soviet nuclear physicist proposed an outlandish theory that trios of particles can arrange themselves in an infinite nesting-doll configuration, experimentalists have reported strong evidence that this bizarre state of matter is real.

In 1970, Vitaly Efimov was manipulating the equations of quantum mechanics in an attempt to calculate the behavior of sets of three particles, such as the protons and neutrons that populate atomic nuclei, when he discovered a law that pertained not only to nuclear ingredients but also, under the right conditions, to any trio of particles in nature.

While most forces act between pairs, such as the north and south poles of a magnet or a planet and its sun, Efimov identified an effect that requires three components to spring into action. Together, the components form a state of matter similar to Borromean rings, an ancient symbol of three interconnected circles in which no two are directly linked. The so-called Efimov “trimer” could consist of a trio of protons, a triatomic molecule or any other set of three particles, as long as their properties were tuned to the right values. And in a surprising flourish, this hypothetical state of matter exhibited an unheard-of feature: the ability to range in size from practically infinitesimal to infinite.

“It’s a pretty wild idea,” said Randy Hulet, a physics professor at Rice University in Houston. “You get this infinite series of molecules.”

Quanta Magazine: Physicists Prove Surprising Rule of Threes

Caged Free...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 28, 2014 at 9:30pm

Caged Free
“I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.” Paul Dirac, a founder of Quantum Mechanics

© 28 May 2014, the Griot Poet

Like a hit to the gut
And knife plunged to its hilt and twisted,
The news of your transition struck me, moved me…
Saline and histamine tracing its trail of tears down my cheeks,
I work nights…I needed to sleep (but could not).

You’d settled from Missouri to my hometown of Winston-Salem, NC
Taught at the namesake School of Fine Arts and Wake Forest
I met your beautiful niece (your twin) in Austin, Texas when she was a student at NC A&T
I had a squandered opportunity to meet you I’ll forever regret
As you make your way into the pantheon of greatness with Alex Hailey, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Shirley Chisolm, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Albert Einstein

I thank you

For singing past your muted silence,
For flying from your cage to freed verse,
For turning your pain into poetry
It made my own similar abuse – met out by an “uncle” – more tolerable.
Like you, I scribed my emotions and blues and songs and sonnets which I’ll wistfully esteem you now write on the tails of comets

Gone is our literary apothecary
Cursing to you was so undignified, and evidence of a lack of vocabulary

You could dress someone down with the boom of that distinctive voice
Dance with Amiri Baraka in memory of Langston Hughes…
Address poetry venues and presidential inaugurations “On the Pulse of Morning”
You qualified “our stories” as significant, despite countless debates of whether or not for reparations
The repair of our souls was in the courage you had to speak the truth of our history despite its harshness; its ugliness or the blowhards that labeled you “feminazi”
You met misogyny with dignity – ignoring the idiots as insignificant to your “phenomenal-ness”
Most deserving of medals, honors and accolades

Know this, like no other:
May is a bittersweet month for me
As in twenty days and five years space
I have lost
Two mothers….

2-D Transistors...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 28, 2014 at 7:01am

Argonne National Laboratories: Link Below

The electronics world has been dreaming for half a century of the day you can roll a TV up in a tube. Last year, Samsung even unveiled a smartphone with a curved screen—but it was solid, not flexible; the technology just hasn’t caught up yet.

But scientists got one step closer last month when researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory reported the creation of the world’s thinnest flexible, see-through 2-D thin film transistors.

These transistors are just 10 atomic layers thick—that’s about how much your fingernails grow per second.

Transistors are the basis of nearly all electronics. Their two settings—on or off—dictate the 1s and 0s of computer binary language. Thin film transistors are a particular subset of these that are typically used in screens and displays. Virtually all flat-screen TVs and smartphones are made up of thin film transistors today; they form the basis of both LEDs and LCDs (liquid crystal displays).

“This could make a transparent, nearly invisible screen,” said Andreas Roelofs, a coauthor on the paper and interim director of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. “Imagine a normal window that doubles as a screen whenever you turn it on, for example.”

Nano Letters: Link Below

Argonne National Laboratories:
Flexible, transparent thin film transistors raise hopes for flexible screens
Nano Letters:
All Two-Dimensional, Flexible, Transparent, and Thinnest Thin Film Transistor

Space Race Post Sputnik...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 27, 2014 at 6:57am

ISS Robot Arm - Space Daily

Round 2 on the way! Don't worry: we'll hit 'em with "intelligent design." They'll never see it coming...

Russia is developing a national program of manned space explorations which will replace the International Space Station (ISS) program after 2020, the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, said Thursday.

"The development of the national strategy of manned spaceflight is underway now. Along with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the industrial sector we are preparing a certain concept beyond the ISS," Roscosmos Deputy Chief Sergei Savelyev told reporters at the 18th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. 1

VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME, Russia (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin told astronauts in orbit on Friday that Russia will send up the first manned flights from its own soil in 2018, using a new launch pad he said will help the once-pioneering space power explore deep space and the moon.

Speaking by video link with the International Space Station's crew from the building site, Putin said it will be open to use by the United States and Europe - playing up cooperation on the anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's 1961 flight, which set off the Cold War space race. 2

1. Space Daily: Russia develops manned space program to replace ISS, Saint Petersburg, Russia (Staff Writers)
2. Huffington Post Science: Russian Space Program Will Launch Manned Mission From Own Soil In 2018, Putin Says, Denis Dyomkin

Solar Roadways...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 26, 2014 at 5:59am

...IF we're smart enough to actually do it!

If other countries followed our lead, the number one reason for conflict - resources - would be reduced significantly. We'd have to resort to actually solving real-world problems via cooperation, and might just make a buck and a life in the process.

A small US-based company called Solar Roadways are developing a solar road surface that, if installed nationwide, has the potential to produce more renewable energy than the entire country uses. In fact, they’ve actually already developed a working prototype that’s been installed in a parking lot, and they’re now crowdsourcing funds in order to tweak the design and move towards production.

Solar Roadways, which was started by Scott and Julie Brusaw in 2006, designed and developed hexagonal glass solar panels studded with LED lights that could be installed on a variety of surfaces such as roads, pavements and playgrounds. These panels would more than pay for themselves and would benefit both businesses and homeowners as the energy generated from driveways and parking lots could be used to power buildings, and any excess can be sold back to the grid.

The panels also contain heating elements to melt ice and snow so are ideal in winter conditions, and LEDs to make road lines and signs which have been previously shown to reduce night time accidents. The surface could also be used to charge electric vehicles as oppose to fossil fuels, and future technology could even allow for charging whilst driving via mutual induction panels. Amazingly, the team also found that car headlights can produce energy in the panels, so cars driving around at night would be producing some electricity.

Dumb Down Dividend...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 25, 2014 at 9:30am

Pando Daily

"Federal funding cuts, and the insidious damage caused just since March by federal budget sequestration, have forced nearly one in five U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas to continue their research.

"While that immediate threat of a brain drain is alarming enough, it’s the long-term effects of sagging federal research funding that pose the greatest threat to our very survival. The cause-and-effect is simple: If Congress continues to refuse to fund the future, the decline of America’s much-touted “innovation economy” will accelerate fatally." 1

***

“This is a new kind of storm associated with climate change,” Tom LaPorte, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Water Management, told Medill Reports on day two of the April flood. Extreme flooding is part of a pattern that has emerged in the last two decades, according to Illinois State climatologist Jim Angel.

"Now a major insurance company is suing Chicago-area municipal governments saying they knew of the risks posed by climate change and should have been better prepared. The class-action lawsuits raise the question of who is liable for the costs of global warming.

"Filed by Farmers Insurance Co. on behalf of itself, other insurance companies and customers whose property was damaged by the surge of storm water and sewage overflow, the lawsuits allege the governments of Chicago-area municipalities knew their drainage systems were inadequate and failed to take reasonable action to prevent flooding of insured properties." 2

***

"South Carolina’s state beverage is milk. Its insect is the praying mantis. There’s a designated dance—the shag—as well a sanctioned tartan, game bird, dog, flower, gem and snack food (boiled peanuts). But what Olivia McConnell noticed was missing from among her home’s 50 official symbols was a fossil. So last year, the eight-year-old science enthusiast wrote to the governor and her representatives to nominate the Columbian mammoth. “Fossils tell us about our past,” the Grade 2 student wrote.

"And, as it turns out, the present, too. The bill that Olivia inspired has become the subject of considerable angst at the legislature in the state capital of Columbia. First, an objecting state senator attached three verses from Genesis to the act, outlining God’s creation of all living creatures. Then, after other lawmakers spiked the amendment as out of order for its introduction of the divinity, he took another crack, specifying that the Columbian mammoth “was created on the sixth day with the other beasts of the field.

"If ignorance is contagious, it’s high time to put the United States in quarantine." 3

The republic is dying...

I repeat: the republic - a "political system with elected representatives: a political system or form of government in which people elect representatives to exercise power for them" - is dying.

From the Citizen's United [4] ruling to government-by-reality-TV, we're cashing in on our limited, self-delusional mythologies, "shining city on a hill" we tell ourselves. Intelligent Design rammed down the throats of school districts will turn us into the laughing stock of the globe if not the universe, if ET bothers to pay attention. Our legislators chase chimera Sharia Laws, while in Orwellian doublespeak attempt to enact them. The Exodus will be first the scientists, then engineers will follow industries as they spring up on other nations' shores. Those "good-paying-jobs" will most likely, not come back.

Suddenly, people will start seeing it: frequent disastrous storms pooh-poohed by the numb skull Neanderthals in front of talk radio microphones with all opinion and no degree; the crumbling infrastructure of our cities and bridges reported on a weekly basis; our academic standing K-12 and post secondary sliding into the abyss of non-competitiveness; the newest technological discoveries coming at staccato pace from Europe and Asia; an American Nobel Laureate oxymoron and decades in our past; food-born pathogens prevalent as they will no longer be regulated; smog climbing as killer in the US (similar to conditions now in China); already public and school shootings are becoming the new, sadistic "normal," and the so-called patriots, pointing their numerous weapons at the dark, evil government-black helicopters-Illuminati will realize their prejudices and stoked xenophobic fears were used against them by manipulative demagogues with no skills other than shouting fire in crowded buildings - out to make a fast buck, and careerist politicians striving to do as little legislative duties as possible. They will realize they were being played by provocateurs that never had the public good in mind. They were instead (especially those in government) enriching themselves, giving themselves annual raises and denying it to the population; representing more special interests and fundraising corporations and individual billionaires, thus "corporations are [the only] people" other than the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and a network of dark money organizations they're interested in caring about: the rest of the carbon-based life forms they herd with speeches, slogans, sermons, Jingoism and talking points. Until, as the Sanskrit, the air breathers become Bodhi - "awakened," and heaven help us all when their arsenals are brought to bear.

I say "us," the regulars, the people that played by the rules, never wanted to be super-rich, just comfortable; wanted to at least pay for college for our kids without both of us going to debtors prison; wanted life to be better than what we lived through. The Charlatans tend to live in exclusive, well-guarded enclaves, secured and well-armed from those they've deceived, the rest of "us" will be canon fodder for the rage that's coming.

The Charlatans that will have caused this pending disaster [5] of Dystopian proportions will have the will - as psychopaths are above all, self-preserving - and the means to leave this approaching ruin of their own making: from shining city to dung heap.

That I observe, also tends to be the self-preserving natural habits and modus operandi...of locusts.

1. Forbes: US Scientists Are Leaving The Country And Taking The Innovation Economy With Them, Janet Rae-Dupree

2. Washington Post: Climate change: Get ready to get sued, Gail Sullivan

3. Macleans: America dumbs down: a rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking, Jonathon Gatehouse

4. Citizen's United ruling: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html
5. Alternet: "Bloodiest Thing The World Has Seen," David Cay Johnson on Inequality's Looming Disaster

NCNR Neutron Batteries...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 24, 2014 at 6:38pm

At top of this image a, sodium fills in layers of the crystal, represented by one bright yellow dot followed by three darker ones; at bottom, the layers’ magnetic ordering is shown as green and purple dots representing magnesium at two different charge states, with the green-in-purple dots representing a mixture of the two charge states. Artwork generated from a scanning tunneling microscope image.
Credit: NIST

Analysis of a manganese-based crystal by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced the first clear picture of its molecular structure. The findings could help explain the magnetic and electronic behavior of the whole family of crystals, many of which have potential for use in batteries.

The family of crystals it belongs to has no formal name, but it has three branches, each of which is built around manganese, cobalt or iron—transition metals that can have different magnetic and charge properties. But regardless of family branch, its members share a common characteristic: They all store chemical energy in the form of sodium, atoms of which can easily flow into and out of the layers of the crystal when electric current is applied, a talent potentially useful in rechargeable batteries.

Other members of this family can do a lot of things in addition to energy storage that interest manufacturers: Some are low-temperature superconductors, while others can convert heat into electricity. The trouble is that all of them are, on the molecular level, messy. Their structures are so convoluted that scientists can't easily figure out why they do what they do, making it hard for a manufacturer to improve their performance.

NIST: NCNR Neutrons Highlight Possible Battery Candidate, Chad Boutin

Tesla Reborn...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 23, 2014 at 6:37am

Charge it: An iPhone in an Energous case gets a charge from the transmitter in the background.

...an appropriate application, seeing he predicted the mobile phone in 1909:

“Do you want us to charge your phone?” George Holmes asks. Normally, that would be an odd question. But Holmes is the vice president of sales and marketing for Energous, a company that is developing technology called WattUp that will allow you to charge smartphones, tablets, and other small gadgets from across a room without wires.

Energous hopes other companies will license this technology and build it into all kinds of products and places, so you can easily power your iPad while sitting on the couch browsing Instagram, or top off your phone while buying a coffee or playing Candy Crush in an airport. It will face competition, however, from a startup called Witricity that uses a different method, and already has the backing of some major electronics companies.

For now, WattUp’s technology is still in the demo stage, which means it’s not very good-looking. But it works, and during a visit to my San Francisco office, Holmes wants to show it off.

MIT Technology Review: Wireless Power from Across the Room
Nikola Tesla:
Global Wireless Energy Transmission for Telecommunications and Other Purposes

Brief History of Quantum Physics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 22, 2014 at 6:06am

Bio: Claude Cohen-Tannoudji is a French physicist and Nobel Laureate. He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms. He is still an active researcher, working at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Read more at http://izquotes.com/quote/220498

Physics Database: The History of Quantum Physics

Golden Anniversary...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 21, 2014 at 7:41pm

Atlas Experiment Blog

If you’re over 50, you probably remember the Big Bang—indeed, it would be hard to forget it. One moment you’re part of an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point that contains the entirety of the universe, and the next moment you’re accelerating outward faster than the speed of light, expanding along with space-time itself. That’s a remember-when day if ever there was one.

You might argue that the Big Bang occurred a bit earlier than 50 years ago—13.8 billion years earlier, in fact—and most people might agree with you. What actually happened 50 years ago was that Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Labs made measurements of the cosmic background radiation that provided the first solid evidence of the Big Bang’s existence. Still, that didn’t stop Bell Labs itself from noting the event with a recent e-mail blast inviting recipients to “Celebrate the 50th Anniv. of the Big Bang.” In light of a just-released AP poll showing that a stunning 51% of Americans say they are “not at all confident” or “not too confident” that the Big Bang even occurred, the last thing we need is more confusion on the point. 1

It was 50 years ago May 20 that two scientists in the famous Bell Labs in New Jersey, while experimenting with an antenna, discovered the first evidence of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

The discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation eventually brought Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson the Nobel Prize for Physics and gave more credence to Bell Labs as a premiere research institution in the United States. 2

1. Time: The Big Bang Did NOT Occur 50 Years Ago, , Jeffrey Kluger
2. E Week: Bell Labs Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Big Bang Discovery, Jeffrey Burt

Reporting Science 2...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 21, 2014 at 6:48am

mage Credit: CNN. Courtesy of Engadget

Conclusion of the interview with Miles O'Brien last Wednesday. Makes you think on what we as an electorate (voting public) should be asking our elected officials to have training in, and not memorized talking points/sermon pieces from donors. One is responsible governance: the other is short-sighted profit motives that could threaten our very survival. You can't spend it, and your heirs can inherit it if the planet's screwed...

In the conclusion of Neil’s interview with veteran science journalist Miles O’Brien, the two discuss the inherent conflict between the goals of true journalism and corporate America. You’ll hear how Miles was finally able to convince CNN that the climate change debate was over, or at least, that both sides were not equivalent from a scientific point of view. He describes going to Spaceflightnow.com after CNN fired its entire science and technology division, because “after all, what do we know about the Kardashians.” Learn about the rise of “boutique journalism” in opposition to “Wal-Mart” journalism, and how journalistic integrity is most often found not on network or cable TV, but in family-owned newspapers and non-profits like PBS. Miles also recounts how the use of technology in journalism has evolved over the years, while in the studio, comic co-host Chuck Nice and Neil rip on the overuse of some of that technology, like 3-D holographic reporters in the 2-D medium of TV. Source: StarTalkRadio.net

An App For That...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 20, 2014 at 6:57am

Source: Physics World link below

...or, at least, there soon will be.

Do you feel nervous when you make a credit-card transaction using your mobile phone? Your worries could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a low-cost device that could bring powerful cryptography to portable devices. That's the aim of Bruno Sanguinetti and colleagues at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, who have created a quantum random-number generator (QRNG) that uses low-cost electronic components including a mobile-phone camera.

Modern cryptographic protocols require the rapid generation of sequences of truly random numbers. These are used to create the "keys" that allow individuals to encrypt and decrypt sensitive information such as passwords and bank details. Coming up with these numbers is a significant technological challenge because computers are completely deterministic and are therefore not capable of creating truly random numbers. Cryptography systems tend to rely on "pseudo random-number" generators that output sequences of numbers that are nearly random. While some of these generators are very good, a cryptography system based on pseudo random numbers is easier to hack than a system that uses random numbers.

Truly random numbers can be generated by making measurements on physical systems that are inherently random – such as the radioactive decay of nuclei or noise in an electronic circuit. However, existing measurement techniques tend to be either very expensive or too slow to be of practical use. Securing your mobile phone, for example, needs a generation rate of about 1 kbit/s.

Physics World:
How to make a quantum random-number generator from a mobile phone, Hamish Johnston

Particle Fever...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 19, 2014 at 6:42am

PARTICLE FEVER: a documentary film by Mark Levinson and David Kaplan

Source: Skeptic.com for synopsis

“Mind Blowing” — The New York Times

Particle Fever follows the inside story of six brilliant scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe, documenting the successes and setbacks in the planet’s most significant and inspiring scientific breakthrough.

Short Synopsis

Imagine being able to watch as Edison turned on the first light bulb, or as Franklin received his first jolt of electricity.

For the first time, a film gives audiences a front row seat to a significant and inspiring scientific breakthrough as it happens. Particle Fever follows six brilliant scientists during the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, marking the start-up of the biggest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet, pushing the edge of human innovation.

As they seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe, 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries joined forces in pursuit of a single goal: to recreate conditions that existed just moments after the Big Bang and find the Higgs boson, potentially explaining the origin of all matter. But our heroes confront an even bigger challenge: have we reached our limit in understanding why we exist?

Directed by Mark Levinson, a physicist turned filmmaker, from the inspiration and initiative of producer David Kaplan and masterfully edited by Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, The Godfather trilogy), Particle Fever is a celebration of discovery, revealing the very human stories behind this epic machine.

Site: http://particlefever.com/

Deja Vu All Over Again...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 18, 2014 at 7:30am

Pro Publica (link below)

"It's Deja Vu, all over again." Yogi Berra

I was born in Winston-Salem, NC at Kate Bitting Reynolds Hospital (named after tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds' sister-in-law) in 1962, one of about a dozen African American hospitals at the time in the US. I emerged in a segregated south eight years in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. Kate Bitting was also my mother's employer - she was an LVN. My father - a US Navy vet of WWII - was a line worker for the local textile mill, a vanishing industry in today's America, among contemporary others. They, like my older sister, who worked as a payroll analyst at R.J. Reynolds - earned retirements for their efforts and fidelity.

East of US 52 in Winston-Salem, NC, a neighborhood was established on Cleveland Avenue - the result of American Apartheid/Jim Crow - along with restrictive covenants preventing my parents from considering the purchase of a home in any other, more desirable location (or, ANY African Americans being in covenant-covered suburban hamlets after sundown).

I knew the Teflon kingpin "Po Charlie," and all his drug houses - I avoided entering them out of a respect for, and healthy fear of my parents. He brazenly announced when "5-0" was coming for a raid, knowing due to his paid informants in the department in those days, they'd find nothing. A switchblade pulled on my best friend and I by a young lady's brother - she had been the sad victim of a rape apparently, unbeknownst to me - generated a forked sprint by myself and my best friend: he up 19th street, I up 21st! (We joked about it over the phone later: he'd gotten to his home first.) I saw Charlie's minions and prostitutes plying their trades as I walked to school.

My heroes were segregated along with me: teachers, doctors, dentists, and clergy - the closest I'd ever get to Martin Luther King before or after his demise; listening to his fellow baptist ministers thunder jeremiads on the wrongs of society every Sunday morning. Education became important to me at its evident denial under "separate but equal": books decades out-of-date; written/crayoned in or pages missing. Our teachers at the time, pooled their own funds and stencil-copied (pre-Xerox tech) lessons to supplement the anvil-weighted chains southern gentility clanked tightly about our ankles. Our angels were determined we would not be denied.

My older sister - a student at Winston-Salem State Teachers College (now Winston-Salem State University) did like a lot of other young people, and put her life on the line numerous times (more than I care to remember) for the world we have today - some now myopically taking for granted, it's diversity and expanded freedoms have always been "here." Others now, descendant of this hierarchical privilege, fretting the universal constant - change - regretting and pining over a nostalgic utopia that on our side of town, never existed.

"With all deliberate speed" meandered into North Carolina via forced busing when I left Fairview Elementary for Rural Hall finally in '71 - a former restricted covenant utopia. Looking at news reels of the high schools at the time: chains, baseball bats and fights; riots, teargas and protests - the older set-in-their-ways had more tumultuous adjustments to make, from those that had no problem with the established southern "order" to shackle us in place; simultaneously without thought or shame calling us "lazy." The world over, from Ireland, England and Nigeria with Boko Haram: extreme poverty, isolation, xenophobia, oppressive sexism, religious extremism and encouraged ignorance eventually breed gangs and violence.

"Welfare queen" entered the lexicon vis-a-vis "the gipper": cool conservatism was born in the B-movie actor-president, and the poster child of young conservative cool played by Michael J. Fox on "Family Ties." Due to that fictional example, it possibly contributed to Reagan/Bush Sr. taking more of the youth vote in their landslide victory against Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. It was "morning in America"; bigotry was "in" and Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy" was modernized to be so attractive, coded, subtle in subterfuge and effective enough to attract black conservatives not discerning (or ignoring) his political Jujitsu.

"What's past is prologue." William Shakespeare

No soon after a section of the voting rights act was gutted by the "Supreme Court" in the 21st century, southern states in the old confederacy enacted voting hurdles reflecting back to restrictive covenants in real estate, estimating soap bubbles and poll taxes. Sadly, so did my home state of North Carolina enact the most draconian ID laws on the flimsiest misappropriation of mathematics.

The problem is, we're no longer in the past. The Soviet Union fell in 1991 (though Vladimir is staging a nostalgic, oligarchic comeback). We are two years away from being second in the world to our banker, yet we're fighting openly and online, an uncivil war, that in the magical thinking of reestablishing "tradition"; "the-good-old-days" will funnel us all very quickly - strained through that filter of libertarian utopia example: Somalia - down the drain of history...as a failed state.

ProPublica's Nikole Hannah-Jones details in her latest report how gerrymandering of school attendance zones and, surprisingly, support from a small pocket of black elites has transformed Tuscaloosa’s education system into a remnant of its former glory. Central High School today doesn’t have the same caliber of teachers or curriculum as its integrated sister school, Northridge. Central is also on a state watch list and has been plagued with low graduation rates -- all problems associated with segregated schools, which the Supreme Court thought it had addressed 60 years ago.

ProPublica: Resegregation, 60 years later, Minhee Cho

Magical Thinking...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 17, 2014 at 9:00am

The series COSMOS has been under heavy assault by science deniers from the first show. When science deniers on mainstream cable news (the ORIGINAL cable news, I might add) accuse Bill Nye of being "a bully," we've gone past the Rubicon; completely off-the-rails.

What precisely has this faux "knowledge" of intelligent design/young Earth/flat Earth/young Universe/dinosaur bones via Beelzebub/Mood Rings/vibrating crystals/telepathy and telekinesis/Loch Ness Monster/Leprechauns/UFOs/claims of faked Moon landings/pyramid-building aliens/unicorns/Bigfoot helped us "design"? Or patent for reproduction and consumption? When did boondoggle become science?

Has it generated any cures for cancer? A new electronic usage for graphene on the horizon? Room temperature superconductivity? Quantum supercomputers? A faster way to get to Mars? Near-warp drive? Or better yet: how are we going to supply drinkable water for an expansive, global population? Talk about "wars and rumors of wars": lack of resources has always resulted in human conflicts, especially when you have the bigger weapons.

Producing web sites and You Tube videos are entertaining, but they're not created for venues where they'll be torn apart; rigorously debated using the Scientific Method. They are not generated (or, inclined towards) solving any real-world important problems, and just because you have an "opinion," no matter how loudly you state it, it does not make it "fact."

Scientists, the 97% that have consensus on the subject, would LOVE to be absolutely wrong. Hurricanes Katrina/Rita/Irene/Sandy/____; droughts and fires (San Diego and southern California); melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels convince them otherwise. They live on the planet too, and have a vested interest - their own lives and their families - in the continuance of the human species.

Deniers - the 3% - are cock-sure they are "right." An estimate by a Anglican Archbishop found nowhere in the Bible becomes the unquestionable 6,000 year age of Earth, the Universe and stars (never mind the whole speed-of-light-red-shift-thing: they have Conservapedia to faux "refute" that). The excuses on AM talk radio from meat heads with no science background (and no degree period), are typically "the sun is getting hotter"; "we're going through a natural cycle," blah, blah, blah. A coworker at a previous company (a stochastic modeling firm) could not believe the data I sent from the NOAA to refute their conspiratorial claims from a similarly-inclined "theory" site. Of course, in the same office was a moon-landing denier - who wasn't on the planet, mind you - but brimmed with male-member certitude the laptop-generated You Tube video on the conspiracy, requiring no doubt preternatural government thought control greater than a Vulcan mind-meld, was genuine (glad I don't work there anymore).

It's not a punchline to ask: what pray tell,is the plan B if the 3% are wrong, and it all blows up in our faces? I've stated the climate scientists have a vested interest - survival - in being off-the-mark. The fossil fuels industry funding the 3%-ers have a vested interest, too - money. "My bad" just won't do it if we screw this one away, more like "bend over and kiss your rear adios!"

Millennial voters will have to participate in representative democracy and make their voices known at the polls. They need to demand science literacy in those who wish to lead our nation going forward, and call politicians when the the same are clearly trying to BS their way into power. This is the only world the young know, and I think they'd like to inherit one somewhat intact.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

And now, cue the trolls...

Tomorrow: Deja Vu All Over Again

Separate Is Not Equal...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 17, 2014 at 9:00am

A salute to the 60th Anniversary of the Brown Decision, and Moral Mondays in my home state of North Carolina. The struggle obviously continues...

Segregated America

After the Civil War, millions of formerly enslaved African Americans hoped to join the larger society as full and equal citizens. Although some white Americans welcomed them, others used people’s ignorance, racism, and self-interest to sustain and spread racial divisions. By 1900, new laws and old customs in the North and the South had created a segregated society that condemned Americans of color to second-class citizenship.

Taking away the vote

Denying black men the right to vote through legal maneuvering and violence was a first step in taking away their civil rights. Beginning in the 1890s, southern states enacted literacy tests, poll taxes, elaborate registration systems, and eventually whites-only Democratic Party primaries to exclude black voters.

The laws proved very effective. In Mississippi, fewer than 9,000 of the 147,000 voting-age African Americans were registered after 1890. In Louisiana, where more than 130,000 black voters had been registered in 1896, the number had plummeted to 1,342 by 1904.

Poll tax receipt

Poll taxes required citizens to pay a fee to register to vote. These fees kept many poor African Americans, as well as poor whites, from voting. The poll tax receipts displayed here is from Alabama.

The Decision: A Landmark in American Justice

In 1952 the Supreme Court decided to hear school desegregation cases from across the country. When the trial began, everyone in the courtroom knew that the future of race relations in America hung in the balance. The attorneys for both sides believed that law and morality supported their arguments.

A victory by the plaintiffs would mean that the highest court in the land officially endorsed the ideal of equal opportunity, regardless of race. Defeat would mean that the Supreme Court continued to sanction a system of legal segregation based on the notion of racial inferiority.

“With All Deliberate Speed”

The Brown decision declared the system of legal segregation unconstitutional. But the Court ordered only that the states end segregation with “all deliberate speed.” This vagueness about how to enforce the ruling gave segregationists the opportunity to organize resistance.

Although many whites welcomed the Brown decision, a large number considered it an assault on their way of life. Segregationists played on the fears and prejudices of their communities and launched a militant campaign of defiance and resistance.

Smithsonian: Separate Is Not Equal: Brown vs. Board of Education

Tomorrow: Deja Vu All Over Again

Thinking Science...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 16, 2014 at 4:30am

So, you won't think it's just me...

On the blog "Physics and Physicists," Zapper Z writes the following:

A while back, I started a series of blog entry titled "You Can Teach Yourself To Think Like A Scientist". In Part 3 of this series, I mentioned about the general principal that one might be able to draw when reading the statements made by a US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. To refresh your memory, in a GQ Magazine interview, the senator was asked on how old he thinks the Earth is. He evaded answering the question by claiming that he's not a scientist, and that the issue has nothing to do with the economy of the US, which one would gather is the more important issue on his plate at that time.

Based on that interview, I tried to illustrate trying to extract the principals that Senator Rubio was using, which presumably are the principals that guide him in his decisions. His refusal to answer this question and based on his responses, one can conclude that he would rather defer such questions to experts. There's nothing wrong with that, and certainly, being put in a position like that, deferring to the experts is a rather smart way to respond to such a question.

However, such a principal no longer applies anymore, it seems. In the latest news report, it seems that Senator Rubio thinks that he's a climate expert.

"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio said.

The dear senator is picking himself up from a personal debacle with tea party constituents, i.e. actually trying to solve problems with immigration reform, an effort he now absolves himself of.

The title of his blog entry is "US Senator Marco Rubio Shifts Position And Thinks He's A Climate Expert." A long title/URL I'll admit.

The point he's making is the convenience of duplicity; clearly demonstrable Orwellian doublespeak. The senator is obviously making a political calculation, not reporting facts, or new data that would make him reconsider the science.

Governor Romney was for climate change in Massachusetts, working to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions until he was against it to win his party's presidential nomination, and gaff about it at the GOP convention (kind of like his flip-flop on the public mandate regarding healthcare reform). Unfortunately, we cannot ignore it, nor couch the group into a witty comedic punchline.

Tomorrow: Magical Thinking

At The Bottom of the World...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 15, 2014 at 6:18am

Antarctica's Twaites Glacier, one of the six glaciers of the Amundsen Sea Embayment of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Credit: NASA

Sea level rise estimates are going to need to be revised upward: A portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that is home to some of the fastest-flowing glaciers on the continent appears to have entered a state of retreat and melt that is “unstoppable,” two new studies have found.

“It has passed the point of no return,” said Eric Rignot, lead author on one of the studies and a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been of concern to climate scientists because it contains enough ice to add 10 to 13 feet to global sea level rise were it all to melt. (Because the ice sheet’s ice is bound to land, it increases the volume of the ocean as it flows into it, like ice cubes added to a glass of water; sea ice, on the other hand, doesn’t change the ocean’s volume as it melts because it is already displacing that volume, just as a melting ice cube doesn’t add volume to the glass.)

Scientific American: Melt of Key Antarctica Glaciers "Unstoppable"

Tomorrow: Thinking Science

Reporting Science...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 14, 2014 at 5:04am

Media Bistro

An interview with Miles O'Brien and how science in an entertainment-driven media frequently gets reported, often by many who don't have a science background or training. Mr. O'Brien did bring his training as a history major and enthusiasm for getting stories accurate - he demonstrates his chutzpah during the interview. Miles sadly had a traffic accident where a portion of his arm had to be amputated afterwards, (he seems to be in good spirits). If anything, the interview gives perspective on how science is reported to the nation, what holds our attention and what we ultimately emphasize and deem as important. Unfortunately, it also describes quite well the tripartite Venn diagram between dogma, ignorance and science denial. Source: StarTalkRadio.net

Tomorrow: At The Bottom of the World

Acoustic Tractor Beam...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 13, 2014 at 7:48am

Credit: Physics World (link below)

An acoustic "tractor beam" that can pull an object by firing sound waves at it has been created by physicists in the UK and US. The beam was made using a commercial ultrasound surgery system and differs from previous tractor beams that use light. The researchers say their technique could be readily adapted for medical applications that manipulate objects or tissue within the body.

The new tractor beam has been created by Mike MacDonald and colleagues at the University of Dundee, University of Southampton and Illinois Wesleyan University by using an ultrasound ablation system, which is normally used to destroy tumours thanks to focused beams of intense sound. First proposed in 2006 by Philip Marston of Washington State University and realized using light in 2010 by David Grier and colleagues at New York University, the technique involves firing two beams of ultrasonic waves upwards at a triangular-shaped target at about 51° either side from the vertical direction. The target is shaped such that the beams bounce off opposite sides of the triangle, causing the reflected sound to travel straight up (see figure "Reflecting beams").

Physics World: Physicists sound-out acoustic tractor beam