Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts (3116)
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| Original Credit: GreadBeyond on Flickr |
Geologists and politicians have been arguing for several years about whether hydraulic fracturing of shale to release natural gas can cause earthquakes. Finally, a comprehensive study released today by the National Research Council has settled the question: yes, fracking can. The number of earthquakes linked to fracking operations is very small, however; many more temblors are linked to conventional oil and natural gas extraction.
Furthermore, the greatest risk of earthquakes due to fracking does not come from drilling into deep shale or cracking it with pressurized water and chemicals. Rather, it comes from pumping the wastewater from those operations back down into deep sandstone or other formations for permanent disposal, instead of storing it in tanks or open ponds at the surface. In January, wastewater injection was blamed for earthquakes that had just occurred in Youngstown, Ohio, on Christmas Eve and again on New Year's Eve, measuring 2.7 and 4.0 on the Richter scale, respectively. Wastewater injection is also commonly used during conventional oil and gas production.
The epicenter of last year's earthquake my family felt in New York was a mining operation in Virginia.
Things that make you go...hmm.
Scientific American:
Fracking Can Cause Earthquakes, but So Can Oil and Gas Extraction
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| Credit: The Offbeat Drummer |
Physicist Richard Feynman helped create the atomic bomb, shared a Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics, and helped figure out the source of the space shuttle Challenger explosion.
But he was also subject to scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, as it sought to uncover communist sympathizers during the 1950s.
The FBI began keeping an eye on Feynman after other members of the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb, turned out to be Soviet spies, including Klaus Fuchs, the project's primary physicist. The documents, 361 pages, record statement after statement from the physicist's friends and colleagues, mostly praising Feynman for his brilliance, trustworthiness and loyalty to the country.
Like I said: nutty, but safe.
MSNBC Science: FBI Files on Feynman Released
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| OpenLibrarydotorg |
U.S. Reps. Rush Holt and Rodney Frelinghuysen visited the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory this morning [13 June 2012] to announce that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to restore $76 million in funding for fusion energy research.
The funding, which supports the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and other energy research laboratories, was not included in President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget request. Without the funding, the lab would face major cutbacks on research projects and staff reductions of up to 100 people, including scientists, engineers, and lab technicians.
“Fusion research is key to America’s energy future, and we are proud to have this important work in New Jersey,” said Holt, who was the assistant director of the lab before his election to Congress. “If you look around us today, you’ll see workers in lab coats, workers in suits, and workers in jeans and hardhats — in other words, a broad cross-section of the New Jersey workforce. All of these jobs, and all of their crucial research, are placed at risk by efforts to cut basic research.”
Helps to have friends/Physics PhDs (Rep Holt) in high places. He is the only one of two trained in physics, with respect to other congressional representatives and senators, few have backgrounds in the sciences. That may explain a lot of inane decisions from the bubble universe/echo chamber called "The Hill."
Link to article: Planet Princeton
Quantum computers are still years away, but a trio of theorists has already figured out at least one talent they may have. According to the theorists, including one from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), physicists might one day use quantum computers to study the inner workings of the universe in ways that are far beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputers.
DC Wiki: Ray Palmer
NIST: Quantum Computers Will Be Able to Simulate Particle Collisions
View Lissajous curve and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
Wikipedia: Lissajous curves (very good animation here)
Wolfram Mathworld: Lissajous curves (another way to look @ the math)
Not better in the sense of person: Penny as a character seems quite fun and likable.
Better I mean as role model, breaking away from the "traditional" assignments women are forced by societal expectations to kowtow to, sometimes deliberately steered from study in and mastering technical areas because somewhere along the way some idiot brainwashed a budding scientist or engineer with what was "proper" and "ladylike," similar to the Neanderthals that would rather them barefoot, pregnant and out of competition in the workforce. OK, off my soapbox now...
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| SapientUniversedotcom |
The aide (Karl Rove) said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Ron Suskind, NYT article, 2004
So, it is with heavy hearts we discern the truth: science is no cure for the made up mind, be it climate change, death panels or birth certificates, facts are for wimps and the dimension Rod Serling narrated on has become a functionality:
"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition."
Welcome to the USA: we create our own realities and act on them as if they were true. Engaging in creative obfuscation, we make faith a lie and lies its charleton pimp: never clear on the facts, but Paul Bunyan tellers of tall myths; reinforcing our worldviews only with those we agree with; only opening our mouths to bark the latest sound bite. It's no wonder as a nation we're falling behind in STEM careers; it's no wonder our children's attention spans are short: modeled after our adult Twittering own, with the lifespan of dung heap fleas.
Could we even agree - now in the 21st century - to disagree as well as Sam and Ralph?
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| See content in embed below |
ANSTO = Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (European spelling)
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| Brian Coxall - Theses on the Open Humanities |
Audacity: 1.The willingness to take bold risks: "her audacity came in handy during our most recent emergency."
From the web site: "We believe university-level education can be both high quality and low cost. Using the economics of the Internet, we've connected some of the greatest teachers to hundreds of thousands of students all over the world.
"Udacity was founded by three roboticists who believed much of the educational value of their university classes could be offered online. A few weeks later, over 160,000 students in more than 190 countries enrolled in our first class, "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence..."
Udacity: Courses
© 7 June 2012, Thom the World Poet, © 9 June 2012, the Griot Poet (response)
I have a friend who is paid by IBM
Just to sit around and solve conundrums
He is a poet-as several other IBM ex-poets
Whose lateral emotional bases allowed flexibility?
Yet whose individuality clashed with corporate groupthink
(You cannot make soup out of ice cream-
Ideas often threaten power structures focused upon control)
Investment post September 11 is in military, police, surveillance mega-industry
All of which constitute inertial economic drags upon productive creative processes
As schools now focus more on learning to the test
Movies and music become retro /recycled clichés eating off past visions
Toffler was right/De Bono was right-to sell thought processing to Corporations
Every cliché is true. Dick Tracy wristwatches exist/as do jetpacks
They have yet to be commercially marketed. Space travel exists (privatized)
Patents for new inventions compound Jetsons/2001/Star Trek previews of the possible
Venture capital supported enterprises seek solutions/even when most investment is military
Eccentric individualism has been replaced by robotic anime-
Programmed drones kill civilians with no responsibility
Technology has no morality. Science is value free.
Economics only one factor when it comes to innovative technology
What philosophy Armageddon? Sarin, anthrax attacks? Deliberate assassinations…
STUXNET cyber-warfare, universal surveillance, secrecy and censorship-
All limit both individual freedom and initiative. New ideas required
But first we need to replace those robots and drones
With poets, artists, philosophers-free thinkers all!
*****
We forget the lesson of "Ender's Game,"
As Mazer Rackham, of bugger-kill fame
And the faux military-industrial-complex declares fair game
A sentient race we make "other" with epithet
No science used to program
- A Google translator
- Or Star Trek "universal communicator"
To see what a hive-complex species thinks,
To know how an entire entity of beings
Lived in harmony,
Before Ender advertently: made them extinct!
Seeking only to live
Beyond its planetary borders
We were attacked in the story: what for?
Because: "they hated our freedoms"?
Orson Scott Card does not explore
The myriad possible reasons Earth was assaulted
In his treatise...as a species, we’ve got a history of pissing people off!
OBL of 9/11 fame made it quite plain: it was for the children
WE bombed in Iraq between false wars
And his twisted devotion
To eye-for-eye killings of more innocents
as if that would implore
Blood to flow that had once been poured,
Sinews and skin to assemble
Upon dry bones
"La vengeance se mange tres-bien froide,"
Or,
"Revenge is very good eaten cold," (Novel: Matilde, 1841)
As I compose verse to the coming sun,
I bear witness:
IT [revenge] makes a poor spark,
Or kick start
To a resurrection!
It's the old argument: nature versus nurture.
Yet, I've seen parents invest tons of money, time and training in what should be recreational sports programs more than happy to take their investment on the "promise" of becoming superstar athletes with the real (sad) potential of becoming paupers one day. A fraction of the same amount of time could be invested in learning to read and comprehend (needed to solve infamous 'word problems'), instead of endless hours spent mastering the 'next level' in video fantasies that don't matter once the subject has come up for air so-to-speak.
I'd rather nurture: it's something we could control versus wait on and wish for like lotteries.
Huffington Post:
Sho Yano, University of Chicago Student, To Become Youngest MD In School's History
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| "On June 6, 2012, Ray Bradbury, the Universe's writer, was called back to his galaxy." - Orange County Screenwriters Association |
JUNE 6, 2012
Ray Bradbury, recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91 after a long illness. He lived in Los Angeles.
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. In 2005, Bradbury published a book of essays titled Bradbury Speaks, in which he wrote: In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.
He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of marriage.
Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.
Web site: RayBradbury.com
CNN: Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury dies
NASA: Transit of Venus
It's title is above the graph; I pull it from the web site for Antioch University - New England's Psychology Department, ironically an apropos source: "Stressors We Experience in Graduate School."
We use humor to get through the experience of being humans at any cultural/socioeconomic level. I can easily imagine this rainbow graph with it's parabolic arc from Dilbert or PhD Comics. We tend to tolerate the red; rarely celebrating or appreciating the blue (optimal).
I don't mean to be a "downer" (Debbie or otherwise), and still think that pursuit of science in the sake of understanding the world around us and how it actually works is still a viable ambition. An understanding of science informs our thinking and decision processes governing the larger world around us. How/What we understand affects us - positively or negatively - in the societal long run.
Our hierarchical society dictates however, that only a few persons will make it to the apogee of the "Eye of Horus" (ref: dollar bill).
When confronted with data, I prefer to examine it, mull it over then plot strategies for how I will address its impact in my own life. I'd suggest for all that read the following to do the same:
For most graduate students in physics, a research focused career ranks more attractive than teaching, government work, or science outreach and writing. Most PhD physicists, however, will never attain a tenure-track position at a university. Upon entering graduate school, many students realize that the odds are against them, but they push forward regardless.
Students may not realize how their career perceptions will evolve throughout graduate school, however. A study published earlier this month has revealed that research careers become less attractive to graduate students as they progress through school.
Physics Buzz: Graduate School Burnout Quantified
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| Spacedotcom |
The 2004 and 2012 transits form a contemporary pair separated by 8 years. More than a century will elapse before the next pair of transits in 2117 and 2125. During the 6,000-year period from 2000 BC to AD 4000, a total of 81 transits of Venus occur. A catalog of these events containing additional details is available online at: eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/catalog/VenusCatalog.html
Additional information on transits of both Mercury and Venus can be found at: eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/transit.html
NASA Eclipse Site: 2012 Transit of Venus
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| Technorati - Education in Rural India |
This is an open letter I penned that's gotten quite a few hits on my Scribd.com account. It apparently struck a nerve.
It is an admitted rant, and a "Perchance to Dream" (quite off the Shakespearean original meaning), yet I'd rather dream and vent my frustrations at the inane "solutions" our leaders forward than to comply with muted silence, or impotent apathy.
It is also sad commentary that the complexity of speech by lawmakers has markedly declined over time, paralleling our collective preening for the clever soundbite suitable for cable television and You Tube; limiting thought process and debate to the infamous 140 characters...
...and, preening peacocks seldom come to consensus.
"Education is a basic necessity. It prepares, widens and allows exposure to the entire world through the mind. A sound education implies better quality of thought, which results in superlative quality of life."
Read more: link here, and below photo above. Similar sentiments expressed in this article (a very interesting cartoon that for a brief time, I lived).
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| Dilbertdotcom |
The problem is that most of the popular physics that the public enjoys constitutes perhaps 10% of the research that physicists worldwide are engaged in. Again, count the number of physics books in your local bookstore, and you will notice that about 90% of them cover quantum mechanics, cosmology, particle physics and "theories of everything". You would be hard-pressed to find volumes on condensed matter physics, biophysics, the physics of "soft" matter like liquids and non-linear dynamics. And yes, these are bonafide fields of physics that have engaged physics's best minds for decades and which are as exciting as any other field of science. Yet if you ask physics-friendly laymen what cutting-edge physics is about, the answers will typically span the Big Bang, Higgs boson, black holes, dark matter, string theory and even time-travel. There will be scant mention if any of say spectroscopy, optics, polymers, magnetic resonance, lasers or even superconductivity.
Tweedle Dum: If you think we're waxworks, you ought to pay, you know.
Tweedle Dee: Contrariwise, if you think we're alive you ought to speak to us.
Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee:That's logic.
The Curious Wavefunction: Physics's PR Problem
Cassandra "applying physics":
