Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

EuPRAXIA...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 28, 2016 at 6:37am

Artist's impression of how electrons (blue sphere) are accelerated by a large electric-field gradient (cerise waves) created by an intense laser pulse. (Courtesy: Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science)

Topics: High Energy Physics, Laser, Particle Physics, Plasma Physics

In the era of xenophobic flight to suburbs, they termed the cities "doughnuts," meaning they were empty of value, like doughnut holes; the suburbs sweeter and of more worth.

It's not that good science is not being done here in the US: it's no longer what we're known for primarily. Now, it's creation museums, conspiracy provocateurs; reality TV stars running for president. We are becoming a doughnut hole nation.

Accelerator physicists in five European countries are developing plans for the world's first high-energy laser plasma accelerator facility for use by science and industry. If built, the facility will deliver high-quality beams of electrons with energies up to 5 GeV. The EuPRAXIA consortium includes researchers at 16 institutes in the European Union (EU), including the DESY lab in Germany, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, the French national research council and the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK. EuPRAXIA also has 18 associate partners worldwide, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the US, RIKEN in Japan and CERN in Switzerland.

The idea of laser plasma acceleration has been around for more than 30 years, and in 2014 physicists using the LBNL's Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator managed to accelerate electrons to energies as high as 4.2 GeV. The process involves firing very intense laser pulses into a gas to create a plasma. As a pulse travels through the gas, it rips electrons away from the positive nuclei, therefore creating a huge electric-field gradient in its wake. This gradient can be thousands of times greater than that found in conventional particle accelerators – and therefore can accelerate electrons to high energies over much shorter distances than conventional facilities.

Physics World: Consortium sets out to build European laser plasma accelerator
Hamish Johnston

Hawking Radiation...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 27, 2016 at 4:29am

Image Source: Universe Today
Hawking radiation near an event horizon. Credit: NAU.

Topics: Black Holes, Cosmology, Einstein, General Relativity, Phonons

IN BRIEF

Scientists may have found signs that phonons, the very small packets of energy that make up sound waves, were leaking out of sonic black holes, just as Hawking’s equations predicted.

SURVIVING A BLACK HOLE

Some 42 years ago, renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking proposed that not everything that comes in contact with a black hole succumbs to its unfathomable nothingness. Tiny particles of light (photons) are sometimes ejected back out, robbing the black hole of an infinitesimal amount of energy, and this gradual loss of mass over time means every black hole eventually evaporates out of existence.

Known as Hawking radiation, these escaping particles help us make sense of one of the greatest enigmas in the known Universe, but after more than four decades, no one’s been able to actually prove they exist, and Hawking’s proposal remained firmly in hypothesis territory.

But all that could be about to change, with two independent groups of researchers reporting that they’ve found evidence to back up Hawking’s claims, and it could see one of the greatest living physicists finally win a Nobel Prize.

Futurism:
Physicists Made a ‘Black Hole’ in a Lab That May Finally Prove Hawking Radiation Exists

'Spooky Action' in Photosynthesis...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 26, 2016 at 5:15am

Dipole-dipole interactions between two chromophores were imaged on the atomic level using scanning tunneling microscopy.
Image credit: Guoyan Wang and Daping Sun

Topics: Biology, Materials Science, Quantum Mechanics, Solar Power

Photosynthesis and other vital biological reactions depend on the interplay between electrically polarized molecules. For the first time, scientists have imaged these interactions at the atomic level. The insights from these images could help lead to better solar power cells, researchers added.

Atoms in molecules often do not equally share their electrons. This can lead to electric dipoles, in which one side of a molecule is positively charged while the other side is negatively charged. Interactions between dipoles are critical to biology -- for instance, the way large protein molecules fold -- often depend on how the electric charges of dipoles attract or repel each other.

One process where dipole coupling is key is photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, dipole coupling helps chromophores – molecules that can absorb and release light – transfer the energy that they capture from sunlight to other molecules that convert it to chemical energy.

Intriguingly, a consequence of dipole coupling is that chromophores may experience a strange phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. Quantum physics suggests that the world is a fuzzy, surreal place at its very smallest levels. Objects experiencing quantum entanglement are better thought of as a single collective than as standalone objects, even when separated in space. Quantum entanglement means that chromophore properties can strongly depend on the number, orientations and positions of their neighbors.

Inside Science: Scientists Capture 'Spooky Action' In Photosynthesis, Charles Q. Choi

Omid Kocabee...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 24, 2016 at 7:14pm

Image Source: Second Link below

Topics: Laser, Optical Physics, Photonics, Physics, Politics, Research

Omid Kokabee was a PhD student and researcher at the University of Texas, Austin in Laser Physics until his capture in 2011 during a family visit to Iran, and wrongful conviction by an authoritarian Iranian court. His health is fading; cancer claiming his right kidney. It was removed finally, but he's still in considerable pain and in real danger of dying. Instead of thinking of his scientific contributions to the US and the world at large, I fear our letting him languish this long is due to his being "other."

As much as I think the Iranian nuclear arms deal is a good thing - avoiding species extinction always is - an individual like Omid Kokabee is going through his own personal extinction albeit in a kind of psychopathic slow-motion.

Omid Kokabee was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize from the American Physical Society for “his courage in refusing to use his physics knowledge to work on projects that he deemed harmful to humanity, in the face of extreme physical and psychological pressure.” He has also been suffering from a number of serious health problems that have not been treated.

The timing of the petition delivery is critical: following a concerted effort on his behalf by a number of organizations and thousands of activists around the world, Iran’s Supreme Court recently vacated the ten-year sentence and is now going to review the case against Omid Kokabee. October 28 also marks the official presentation to the United Nations of the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed. Iran’s human rights record will also be closely scrutinized when its Universal Periodic Review in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is conducted starting October 31.

The delegation delivering the petitions to the Iran UN Mission is calling for Omid Kokabee to be immediately and unconditionally released so that he can receive urgent medical treatment for his numerous and severe health problems.

The letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader calling for the release of Omid Kokabee is endorsed by the following 31 Nobel laureates in physics: Leon Neil Cooper (1972), Brian David Josephson (1973), Anthony Hewish (1974), Burton Richter (1976), Samuel Chao Chung Ting (1976), Philip W. Anderson (1977), Arno Allan Penzias (1978), Sheldon Lee Glashow (1979), James Cronin (1980), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1981), Klaus von Klitzing (1985), Jack Steinberger (1988), David. M. Lee (1996), Douglas D. Osheroff (1996), Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (1997), William D. Phillips (1997), Daniel Tsui (1998), Eric A. Cornell (2001), Wolfgang Ketterle (2001), Masatoshi Koshiba (2002), Alexei Abrikosov (2003), Anthony Leggett (2003), David Politzer (2004), David J. Gross (2004), John Hall (2005), John Mather (2006), Toshihide Maskawa (2008), Konstantin Novoselov (2010), Andre Geim (2010), David J. Wineland (2012) and Peter W. Higgs (2013).

This is grand and noble, but it's also from an entry on Iranian Human Rights' site in 2014.

To remind what exactly authoritarianism is and why it's so destructive, I give this Eric Fromm ("Escape From Freedom") primer:

Authoritarianism: Fromm characterizes the authoritarian personality as containing a sadist element and a masochist element. The authoritarian wishes to gain control over other people in a bid to impose some kind of order on the world, they also wish to submit to the control of some superior force which may come in the guise of a person or an abstract idea.

Destructiveness: Although this bears a similarity to sadism, Fromm argues that the sadist wishes to gain control over something. A destructive personality wishes to destroy something it cannot bring under its control.

Conformity: This process is seen when people unconsciously incorporate the normative beliefs and thought processes of their society and experience them as their own. This allows them to avoid genuine free thinking, which is likely to provoke anxiety.

We're seeing this the world over: Iran, Europe and especially the United States. There is and always has been a war on science by authoritarian regimes be they religious or secular (fossil fuels has no cathedral I'm aware of, but they and other business interests control a considerable amount of news media and therefore modulate consent). Science tends to report what "is," not what business interests, the liturgical or the state wishes reality to be. It is this reason why we can't get any action on Climate Change in the United States and therefore adversely affecting the planet elsewhere with no "plan B." It is a formula for species extinction. Homo Sapiens literally translates from Latin to "wise man": this clearly is NOT.

I've created a White House Petition: http://wh.gov/ioO5v. There are others out there, I know, but 100,000 signatures in 30 days with social media makes me confident we can reach that simple milestone, and get our physicist home.

We are all Omid: those of us that support and participate in any level of science, K-12 and post secondary education or industry can suddenly find ourselves in a virtual or real gulag for being ourselves; for researching, advancing academically - thinking. Thoughtcrime is not so Orwellian anymore, refer to the Fromm primer above.

This is an election year, and in the off possibilty republicans take back the White House, I feel Dr. Kokabee's chances of returning to Austin and Physics research exponentially reduce from slim to nil.

I would attend the rally were I still living in Austin. I complete this post with tears for Omid, and a swelling of hope in my chest at this activism for a fellow scientist.

I've never been prouder being a physicist.

Related sites:

Free Omid

Imprisoned Iranian Physicist Loses Kidney to Cancer, Must Be Released Permanently

University Of Texas-Austin Students, Faculty To Rally For Imprisoned Physicist

Free Omid Kokabee; A Rally To Be Held At University of Texas-Austin

Starshot...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 22, 2016 at 5:30am

ESA/Hubble/NASA
The star system α Centauri is more than 4 light years from the Sun.

Topics: Physics Humor, Space, Space Exploration, Special Relativity, Star Trek

0.20 x 3.00 x 10⁸ m/s = 6 x 10⁷ m/s isn't warp drive, but it's still pretty fast. We'll also get to see some phenomena in the universe that would normally take us decades to visit, and within our lifetimes so long as our sturdy cell-sized craft and their respective sails aren't punctured with micro meteors or picked off by V'Ger. The benefit to us on Earth will be the spin off technology. As with the original space race, we won't be the only ones with small ships and tall sails out there.

Space has long fascinated humans, but few have dared to initiate an interstellar space programme. Now a coalition of entrepreneurs and scientists aims to design a fleet of laser-powered spacecraft that could reach α Centauri, the star system closest to the Solar System, in just two decades. The group envisions probes that could complete that journey — a distance of 4.37 light years (1.34 parsecs) — at 20% the speed of light.

“For the first time in human history we can actually do more than observe the stars,” said Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet billionaire who is funding the initiative, at a 12 April press conference in New York. “We can reach them.”

Called Breakthrough Starshot, the programme is based on an idea that has been around for decades: the solar sail. The theory is that a lightweight space sail could harness the momentum carried by photons in order to travel without fuel.

The Breakthrough Starshot team is betting that a burst of concentrated lasers, fired from the ground, could rapidly accelerate a mobile-phone-sized device equipped with microelectronics and a tiny sail — providing much more energy than could be harnessed from the Sun. Whereas NASA’s plutonium-powered New Horizons spacecraft took nine years to reach Pluto, the “nanocraft” envisioned by Breakthrough Starshot would pass by the dwarf planet and exit the Solar System in three days.

Nature: Billionaire backs plan to send pint-sized starships beyond the Solar System
Jeff Tollefson

750 GeV Diphotons...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 21, 2016 at 6:05am

The photons are indicated by the clusters of energy shown in green. (Courtesy: CERN)

Topics: Large Hadron Collider, LHC, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics

Last year, the LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments both reported a small "bump" in their data that denoted an excess of photon pairs with a combined mass of around 750 GeV. As this unexpected bump could be the first hint of a new massive particle that is not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, the data generated hundreds of theory papers that attempt to explain the signal. Of these, four different theoretical explanations – a particle predicted by a lesser-known version of supersymmetry; a particle linked to a new kind of strong nuclear force; a Higgs-like boson; and a decay product from other very heavy particles – have been selected for publication in this week's issue of Physical Review Letters.

Physics World: Theorizing about the LHC's 750 GeV bump, Edwin Cartlidge

Second Skin...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 20, 2016 at 5:23am

A new, extremely stretchable polymer film created by Stanford researchers can repair itself when punctured, a feature that is important in a material that has potential applications in artificial muscle. Credit: Bao Research Group

Topics: Biology, Chemistry, Materials Science

I remember going to play basketball with my friends Milton and Dwayne, we the "Three Musketeers," our heroes with names like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar fresh on our young minds. Racing across a rocky parking lot with broken glass, I managed to trip over my fourteen-year-old Pro-Keds donned feet, tumbling head over heels and scraping my back of skin from my left hip to midway my right shoulder. Pain like that - white hot like a poker from a fire - is not easily forgotten. My friends took me back to my mother, who they knew was a nurse.

After cleaning me with mild soap and Hydrogen Peroxide, she applied something called "new skin." It stung worse than the injury, but it sealed my back while it slowly healed. I wore loose shirts and had for a moment "street creds" (quite literally, since pieces of the street skid-marked in my back caused my dilemma).

This is obviously a lot better than new skin, as the application extends beyond the epidural. Hopefully this application is not as painful to future clumsy teens, and that there's a mother with bandages and brownies for their troubles.

* * * * * * * *

If there's such a thing as an experiment that goes too well, a recent effort in the lab of Stanford chemical engineering Professor Zhenan Bao might fit the bill.

One of her team members, Cheng-Hui Li, wanted to test the stretchiness of a rubberlike type of plastic known as an elastomer that he had just synthesized. Such materials can normally be stretched two or three times their original length and spring back to original size. One common stress test involves stretching an elastomer beyond this point until it snaps.

But Li, a visiting scholar from China, hit a snag: The clamping machine typically used to measure elasticity could only stretch about 45 inches. To find the breaking point of their one-inch sample, Li and another lab member had to hold opposing ends in their hands, standing further and further apart, eventually stretching a 1-inch polymer film to more than 100 inches.

Bao was stunned.

"I said, 'How can that be possible? Are you sure?'" she recalled.

Today in Nature Chemistry, the researchers explain how they made this super-stretchy substance. They also showed that they could make this new elastomer twitch by exposing it to an electric field, causing it to expand and contract, making it potentially useful as an artificial muscle.

Phys.org:

Researchers create super stretchy, self-healing material that could lead to artificial muscle

Carrie Kirby And Tom Abate

Hierarchy of Bodies...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 19, 2016 at 6:18am

FIG. 1.

One dimensional arrangement of masses forming strings in tension.
Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 119, 094901 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4941986

Topics: Astrophysics, Classical Mechanics, Kinematics, Planetary Science

Abstract

Here we show that bodies of the same size suspended uniformly in space constitute a system (a “suspension”) in a state of uniform volumetric tension because of mass-to-mass forces of attraction. The system “snaps” hierarchically, and evolves faster to a state of reduced tension when the bodies coalesce spontaneously nonuniformly, i.e., hierarchically, into few large and many small bodies suspended in the same space. Hierarchy, not uniformity, is the design that emerges, and it is in accord with the constructal law. The implications of this principle of physics in natural organization and evolution are discussed.

Introduction

Recent progress on the physics basis of evolutionary organization in nature^1,2 continues to bring together phenomena that were previously considered unrelated. To the animate and inanimate examples (animal locomotion, river basins, turbulence) that were unified as a phenomenon of free-morphing flow design for greater access over time,^1–18 we are now adding examples that belonged traditionally to solid mechanics. For example, the natural occurrence of hexagonal basalt columns is attributed to a principle of maximum energy release.19 The occurrence of cracks in solids is based on the same principle.^20–22 Soil cracking under the drying wind was explained as a phenomenon of evolutionary design that enhances mass flow and accelerates drying.²³ The aggregation of dust particles into clusters and dendrites was shown to be the result of the same tendency, to relieve electrostatic forces of attraction faster, through the evolutionary design of configuration.²⁴

Here we add to this growing list of evolutionary phenomena the natural occurrence of multi-size hierarchy of bodies suspended in space. The hierarchy of sizes is researched intensely and described regularly in planetary science and astrophysics.^25–31 Hierarchy emerges in two ways, through accretion (coalescence) and fragmentation resulting from collisions. Viewed from thermodynamics,³² the system of bodies in space is in a state of internal tension because of gravitational attraction between neighboring bodies. This system “snaps” freely by flowing internally and changing its configuration. Bodies coalesce into larger bodies, and their collision (with fragmentation) dissipates the tension and resulting kinetic energy, en route to reduced body-body attraction throughout the system. This phenomenon has been studied in celestial mechanics under several scenarios,^25–27 and is recognized as the basis for the formation process of planets and the asteroid belt.

Sizes increase over all scales through accretion.³¹ Yet, the natural phenomenon is not only the growth of the body sizes but also the spontaneous hierarchy. The fundamental question that we address here is why “hierarchy” happens spontaneously, and why a uniform distribution of bodies of the same (growing) size does not happen. We show that the gravitational effect alone does not explain the hierarchy of sizes of bodies in space. The additional physics principle is the natural evolution (selection) of flow configuration during accretion such that the flow and evolution to equilibrium are facilitated.^1,2

Journal of Applied Physics: The physics origin of the hierarchy of bodies in space
A. Bejan^1,a) and R. W. Wagstaff¹
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708-0300, USA

Dwarf Dark Galaxy...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 18, 2016 at 6:22am

Composite image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 showing the distorted ALMA image of the more distant galaxy (red arcs) and the Hubble optical image of the nearby lensing galaxy (blue center object). By analyzing the distortions in the ring, astronomers have determined that a dark dwarf galaxy (data indicated by white dot near left lower arc segment) is lurking nearly 4 billion light-years away. Credit: Y. Hezaveh, Stanford Univ.; ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Dark Matter, Einstein, General Relativity, Gravitational Lensing, Radio Astronomy

Subtle distortions hidden in ALMA’s stunning image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 are telltale signs that a dwarf dark galaxy is lurking in the halo of a much larger galaxy nearly 4 billion light-years away. This discovery paves the way for ALMA to find many more such objects and could help astronomers address important questions on the nature of dark matter.

In 2014, as part of ALMA’s Long Baseline Campaign, astronomers studied a variety of astronomical objects to test the telescope's new, high-resolution capabilities. One of these experimental images was that of an Einstein ring, which was produced by the gravity of a massive foreground galaxy bending the light emitted by another galaxy nearly 12 billion light-years away.

This phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, was predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity and it offers a powerful tool for studying galaxies that are otherwise too distant to observe. It also sheds light on the properties of the nearby lensing galaxy because of the way its gravity distorts and focuses light from more distant objects.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory:
Dwarf Dark Galaxy Hidden in ALMA Gravitational Lens Image

Mune...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 15, 2016 at 6:02am

(Credit: CruZeWizard/Shutterstock)

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Geophysics, Moon, Planetary Science

When I saw this, it sparked a recent memory that is surprisingly related. It sounds like screenwriters with active imaginations paid close attention in science classes, another benefit of a STEM education.

Ou peut-être parce que les scénaristes et les scientifiques sont de la France ?

Mune: Guardian of the Moon (also known as Mune The Guardian of the Moon) (French: Mune, le gardien de la lune) is a 2014 French 3D computer-animated adventure fantasy film directed by Benoît Philippon (which he co-wrote with Jérôme Fansten) and Alexandre Heboyan.

In an imaginary world, a small Sun and Moon were made by the first Guardians to warm up a small planet inhabited by different marvelous people. The first Guardian of the Sun harpooned a star to keep it close to the planet, and hung it by chains to a mobile temple that is like a huge quadruped animal made of rock. The first Guardian of the Moon descended into the world of dreams and carved the Moon in a quarry of oneiric stones, and threw it into the sky. Since then, the Guardians follow generation after generation and preserve the harmony of the world. The people of the day and those of the night live in relative harmony, even though they are very different from each other. But in the depth of the planet, Necross awaits the opportunity to set darkness over the world. Wikipedia

* * * * *

To solve a mystery about Earth’s core, scientists looked to the moon.

Viewed from space, Earth is a serene blue sphere. But beneath its surface, there is a roiling mass of liquid, nickel-iron alloy and solid iron almost 6,000 miles in diameter. The inner and outer core comprise almost a third of Earth’s mass, and together they generate a magnetic field that shields life on this planet from harmful charged particles emanating from the sun.

But Earth’s core, perhaps, can’t take all of the credit for saving humanity.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, scientists from the National Center for Scientific Research in France say the the moon plays a key role keeping life on Earth safe. Although the moon sits some 230,000 miles away, researchers believe its gravitational tug churns iron alloy in the core, which, in turn, helps maintain the magnetic field that protects our planet.

Discovery Magazine: The Moon: Our Silent Guardian, Nathaniel Scharping

Waves of Magnetism...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 14, 2016 at 5:14am

Magnetic order in (Sr,Na)Fe₂As₂: The crystal structure contains planes of iron atoms (shown as red spheres). Half the iron sites have a magnetization (shown as red arrows), which points either up or down, but the other half have zero magnetization. This shows that the magnetism results from the constructive and destructive interference of two magnetization waves, a clear sign that the magnetic electrons are itinerant, which means they are not confined to a single site. The same electrons are responsible for the superconductivity at lower temperature.

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Science, Superconductors

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has discovered that only half the atoms in some iron-based superconductors are magnetic, providing a conclusive demonstration of the wave-like properties of metallic magnetism in these materials.

The discovery allows for a clearer understanding of the magnetism in some compounds of iron, the iron arsenides, and how it helps induce superconductivity, the resistance-free flow of electrical current through a solid-state material, which occurs at temperatures up to 138 degrees Kelvin, or minus -135 degrees Celsius.

"In order to be able to design novel superconducting materials, one must understand what causes superconductivity," said Argonne senior physicist Raymond Osborn, one of the project's lead researchers. "Understanding the origin of magnetism is a first vital step toward obtaining an understanding of what makes these materials superconducting. Given the similarity to other materials, such as the copper-based superconductors, our goal was to improve our understanding of high-temperature superconductivity."

Argonne National Laboratory:
New magnetism research brings high-temp superconductivity applications closer
Angela Hardin

Point and Click...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 13, 2016 at 8:46am

Image Source: Good Housekeeping

Topics: Commentary, Diversity, Education, Internet, Politics

Before the Internet, any letters to a publication had to go to its editor, with a 140-word limit (unlike 140 characters now). If you made publication, you got to see your name in print and if you were a writer, increase your notice and curriculum vitae/"clips" to showcase with potential book publishers for fiction, non-fiction, poetry you were trying to market. That process used to take weeks and a lot of patience. Editors were and are impressive, credentialed and revered. To impress one is a big deal.

There's always a downside with every technological leap. We're selecting vis-a-vis an election cycle cum reality show this country's next chief executive. Everyone promises to "bring jobs back," even if their own companies were part of the many that took advantage of trade agreements and cheaper labor overseas. What neither of them will tell you is some jobs due to robotics and software innovations WON'T ever come back because there's no need for them to. James Boggs called it "automation and cybernation" in a very prescient read. The educational system is a testing havoc, enriching test publishing companies simultaneously NOT preparing our citizens for future jobs that pay cheaper salaries offshore, nor that our democratic republic was formed before the advent of "point and click" and American Idol. Meanwhile, we're in a cycle of ignorance about science and birth control at a present count of 7 billion people that all share the same resources - some with more success (those with lawyers; offshore tax shelters) than others.

The Internet allows writers to show their skills to potential agents and publishers through blogs and web sites. The Query Letter has evolved from hard copy to email; rejection letters however still take some time for the agent or publisher to click "send."

The comments section of this blog has some lively activity depending on the article, many of it spam that after repetition I delete without publishing; many trolls whose sensitivities I've somehow offended. It usually boils down to politics, religion or some combination of the two. Some exchanges I've had to terminate with a posted link from the FBI's cyber crime unit and a promise to meet the offender in court if they persist. I've also used the fine art of blocking that's available and empowering in social media.

This space of time we're in also warps our understanding of Civics that used to be taught in schools. Even the Governor of Oklahoma failed this test:

Gov. Fallin said she believes the final decision on the monument’s fate should rest with the people.

“You know, there are three branches of our government. You have the Supreme Court, the legislative branch and the people, the people and their ability to vote. So I’m hoping that we can address this issue in the legislative session and let the people of Oklahoma decide,” she said.

The article goes on correctly to say the legislative (Congress: Senate and House of Representatives), executive (President and Vice President) and judicial branches (HERE'S where the Supreme Court comes in), correcting the Governor's Faux Pas.

It is this lack of understanding that is frightening; this callous disregard from even elected officials knowing the simple basics of governance, not caring about important details on every level of the electorate.

I'm old enough to recall the concerns regarding the "Information Superhighway," back when a home computer cost in the range of $2,500 (my wife's then "employee discount" with Dell Computers) using a Pentium 486. That left understandingly a lot of minority households priced out of the luxury.

We now have faster, more powerful computers somewhere in the vicinity of our hip pockets. Our demand for the speedy novelty of sharing cat videos has driven economics to sweat shops where our electronic pacifiers are assembled by the equivalent of slave labor. The resources used to manufacture stolen in manufactured wars from tribes in third world countries starving, unable to benefit from the wealth beneath their feet.

This instantaneous nature gratifies us on a primal level; what used to take time to acquire we now expect in nanoseconds, be it legislation, product ordered online or pornography. Our notions of distance in the jet age similarly have succumbed to the same forces as our notions of process, rejection and time.

And sadly in doing so, we have empowered sociopaths.

The Guardian: The dark side of Guardian comments

As part of a series on the rising global phenomenon of online harassment, the Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006 and discovered that of the 10 most abused writers eight are women, and the two men are black. Hear from three of those writers, explore the data and help us host better conversations online

by Becky Gardiner, Mahana Mansfield, Ian Anderson, Josh Holder, Daan Louter and Monica Ulmanu

The Gift...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 12, 2016 at 4:32am

Image Source: National Geographic

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, General Relativity, Neutron Stars

In this talk Dr Victoria Kaspi of McGill University, an American-Canadian astrophysicist, who primarily investigates pulsars and neutron stars, discuses the frontiers of neutron star research. Neutron stars — compact exotic objects that appear due to gravitational collapse of a massive star after a supernova — are not only of interest to astronomers. Being made nearly entirely out of neutrons, they offer a chance to investigate particle theory at high energies making them objects of special interest for particle physicists as well. Physics Database

Neutron stars are ancient remnants of stars that have reached the end of their evolutionary journey through space and time.

These interesting objects are born from once-large stars that grew to four to eight times the size of our own sun before exploding in catastrophic supernovae. After such an explosion blows a star's outer layers into space, the core remains—but it no longer produces nuclear fusion. With no outward pressure from fusion to counterbalance gravity's inward pull, the star condenses and collapses in upon itself.

Despite their small diameters—about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers)—neutron stars boast nearly 1.5 times the mass of our sun, and are thus incredibly dense. Just a sugar cube of neutron star matter would weigh about one hundred million tons on Earth.

National Geographic: Neutron Stars

Tipping...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 11, 2016 at 6:16am

Image Source: Scientific American

Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases

Perhaps the lawsuit in Eugene, Oregon will start a trend. It's apparent our elected officials aren't concerned even with their own personal posterity; just the next election cycle: just getting reelected. Two liturgical quotes come to mind:

"The meek shall inherit the earth" (Matt 5:5) and "a child shall lead them" (Isa 11:6). For the sake of the human species, we can all only hope so.

The north pole is on the run. Although it can drift as much as 10 meters across a century, sometimes returning to near its origin, it has recently taken a sharp turn to the east. Climate change is the likely culprit, yet scientists are debating how much melting ice or changing rain patterns affect the pole’s wanderlust.

The geographical poles—the north and south tips of the axis that the Earth spins around—wobble over time due to small variations in the sun’s and moon’s pulls, and potentially to motion in Earth’s core and mantle. But changes on the planet’s surface can alter the poles, too. They wobble with every season as the distribution of snow and rain change, and over long stretches as well. Roughly 10,000 years ago, for example, Earth woke up from a deep freeze and the massive ice sheets sitting atop what is now Canada melted. As ice mass fled, and the depressed crust rebounded, the distribution of the planet’s mass changed and the north pole started to drift west. This pattern can be clearly seen in data from 1899 onward. But a recent zigzag in the north pole’s path (and the opposite movement in the south pole) suggests a new change is afoot.

Scientific American: Earth Is Tipping Because of Climate Change, Shannon Hall

Dystopia...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 8, 2016 at 6:00am

Image Source: The Nation - This Is Your Brain on Climate Change

Topics: Climate Change, Existentialism, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases

We are in an election cycle. A lot of memes have been generated, barring you support one "team" or the other. The chief concern when I was younger was "duck and cover" drills, as The Cold War and mass extinction wasn't a matter of ancient history: it was for me and my classmates our ever-present reality.

We still have those concerns as a country. We should vet our presidential candidates not just on what they can do for us locally, but what our example abroad - emulated for good or for ill - will mean to the human species.

I shuddered when I read The Nation's article: "This Is Your Brain on Climate Change" by Zoë Carpenter. If that was her intent, I think she accomplished it.

I didn't find any links to her reference to what the White House published this week, so I went searching:

FACT SHEET: What Climate Change Means for Your Health and Family was indeed published on Monday for immediate release. It is ironically my fifth year anniversary at my company, and the 48th year anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. Also on the Fact Sheet site - Climate and Health Assessment, from its first chapter:

Summary

Climate Change and Human Health

The influences of weather and climate on human health are significant and varied. Exposure to health hazards related to climate change affects different people and different communities to different degrees. While often assessed individually, exposure to multiple climate change threats can occur simultaneously, resulting in compounding or cascading health impacts (see Figure ES2).

With climate change, the frequency, severity, duration, and location of weather and climate phenomena—like rising temperatures, heavy rains and droughts, and some other kinds of severe weather—are changing. This means that areas already experiencing health-threatening weather and climate phenomena, such as severe heat or hurricanes, are likely to experience worsening impacts, such as higher temperatures and increased storm intensity, rainfall rates, and storm surge. It also means that some locations will experience new climate-related health threats. For example, areas previously unaffected by toxic algal blooms or waterborne diseases because of cooler water temperatures may face these hazards in the future as increasing water temperatures allow the organisms that cause these health risks to thrive. Even areas that currently experience these health threats may see a shift in the timing of the seasons that pose the greatest risk to human health.

Climate change can therefore affect human health in two main ways: first, by changing the severity or frequency of health problems that are already affected by climate or weather factors; and second, by creating unprecedented or unanticipated health problems or health threats in places where they have not previously occurred.

I experienced some of this personally and recently. This was without a doubt the sickest my wife and I have ever been. I've seen it affect coworkers and neighbors, spikes in temperature with chills and respiratory symptoms. All because of a change in temperature and our insistence on continuing fossil fuels to enrich a few that know no other way to make a living without collateral damage. The above photo is the imagined exaggeration of Earth as the Sahara Desert. When it gets that bad, there's nothing we can do, Paris or Kyoto. It's then over for us as a species...curtains...finis...kaput.

As I've said, we're in an election cycle and our instincts tend us towards tribalism, teaming, "us-versus-them"; cheers and trolling when our Avatars win or lose a primary or caucus; someone who we've falsely "friended," as if we'll be invited over to their homes for tea for an online $10 donation and a "promise."

In "Branches," I made my point quite clear: it's about the Supreme Court any candidate, then president will nominate and that it could affect us generations after her/his tenure. It's about the midterms that elects the legislatures that will forward your president's agenda, or in our most recent example, callously block it.

I am sick of the soundbites, the name-calling; one accusing another of lying (when that seems from the most observable evidence part of their training and job description); the well-rehearsed litany of talking points. It is well past time our candidates showed us their own science chops, and stop sending in their answers vetted by STEM Post Docs on staff. The willful ignorance encouraged by pseudoscience, pseudo-religion; science denial to ensure the reelection of a Congress we obviously DON'T like will not only weaken us as a republic, it may be our Chicxulub meteor as a species, and like the dinosaurs we still have no star ships to escape our own sizable hubris.

Lastly, to Mr. Nick Cannon and the rights your ancestors died for: your net worth has increased after your split with Maria Carey, far beyond mine in STEM as I'm not "Wilding Out" or hosting the revamped "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" (which includes you). You're not "too broke to vote," methinks you're just a narcissist that loves attention, and like Susan Sarandon - both of you at a net worth of $50 million - too rich to care who's president! The REST of us are voting, and demanding more from our representatives... as citizens of a republic; as humans while we still can. You nor "Louise" will be able to hide your wealth offshore on a crumbling, dysfunctional planet.

Octavia E. Butler:
Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Talents

Wendelstein 7-X...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 7, 2016 at 6:05am

Image Source: Science Mag

Topics: Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

The sooner we get away from fossil fuels, the sooner we get away from energy needs demanding a toll on the globe in terms of wars for those resources, and climate impact that will eventually be paid by us all. No amount of money will ever be worth that.

“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Cree Indian Prophecy, GoodReads

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) produced the first helium plasma in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator last December. Since then, they have cleaned the plasma vessel with many more helium discharges. On 3 February they produced a hydrogen plasma in the world's biggest and most advanced stellarator-type nuclear fusion device for the first time. Thomas Klinger, Director at the IPP, talks about the special features of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator and its structure, and the prospects for the construction of a fusion power plant.

Professor Klinger, will Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel launch the world's first fusion power plant on Wednesday?

No, the Wendelstein 7-X will not supply any energy yet. What we are aiming to demonstrate is that a stellarator is just as suitable a device for a power plant as a tokamak, and that it can bring its two advantages into play here: first, its plasma is fundamentally more stable and, second, it can operate in continuous mode without further intervention. In contrast, a tokamak requires pulsed operation, which is a considerable disadvantage for a power plant.

If the stellarator has such advantages to offer, why is the ITER, the world's biggest fusion device, being built as a tokamak?

A crash course in plasma physics is needed to understand this: for the plasma in a fusion device to reach the temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius required for nuclear fusion, it must make as little contact as possible with the walls of the plasma vessel. For this reason, its charged particles are captured in a ring-shaped magnetic field. And this magnetic field must be twisted into a spiral.

Phys.org: Plasma physicist discusses the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, Peter Hergersberg

Postage Stamp Gravimeter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 6, 2016 at 6:29am

Image Source: Link Below

Topics: Electrical Engineering, Geophysics, Gravitational Waves, Gravity, MEMS

UK researchers have built a small device that measures tiny fluctuations in gravity, and could be used to monitor volcanoes or search for oil.

Such gravimeters already exist but compared to this postage stamp-sized gadget, they are bulky and pricey.

The new design is based on the little accelerometers found in smartphones.

To begin with, the team - from the University of Glasgow - tested it by measuring the Earth's tides over a period of several days.

Tidal forces, caused by the interacting pull of the Sun and Moon, not only drag the oceans up and down but slightly squash the Earth's diameter.

"It's not a very big squeeze, but it means that essentially Glasgow - or anywhere else on the Earth's crust - goes up and down by about 40cm over the course of 12-13 hours," said Richard Middlemiss, the PhD student who made the new instrument.

"That means that we get a change in gravitational acceleration - so that's what we've been able to measure."

Like most gravimeters, the heart of the new instrument is a weight hanging from a spring. Unlike all other gravimeters thus far, this one is a MEMS: a "microelectromechanical system".

The whole sensor is carved from a sheet of silicon 0.2mm thick; the "weight" is a small slab of that silicon and the "spring" consists of several thin shafts that hold it in place.

BBC Science and Environment: Small, cheap gravity gadget to peer underground
Jonathan Webb

2116...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 5, 2016 at 6:04am

Figure 1. The space elevator, supported against gravity by centrifugal force, could forge a versatile link between the surface of Earth and the reaches of outer space. To realize the concept, we will need to manufacture new, strong materials, almost certainly designed with the help of computers. (Rendition by Pat Rawlings, courtesy of NASA.)

Citation: Phys. Today 69, 4, 32 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3137

Topics: Futurism, Materials Science, Physics, Science Fiction, Space Exploration

Arthur C. Clarke proposed the concept in "The Fountains of Paradise" when I was a senior in high school. He also gave us the geosynchronous orbit, also known by the name: Clarke Orbit. I titled this one hundred years into the future following the premise of "Fountains," though we may master the technology sooner. Either would be fine with me: one I might just get to see. The other humanity might survive themselves, and colonize first Mars to engineer habitats in a clearly hostile environment; the Asteroid Belt for building materials; several choice moons for water beneath their icy crusts, eventually to the stars, the "stuff" we're all made of, compelled by its call to return.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos

The fundamental questions of the future will be profound, sophisticated, and difficult to answer. And the great projects of the future will be grand indeed.

What will the next 100 years in physics bring? I don’t know, of course, but it is a mind-expanding question to contemplate. The considered guesses recorded here naturally reflect my own interests, knowledge, limitations, and prejudices. And to keep this article within acceptable size, I’ve had to be crazily selective in choosing what to include. Its conjectures will have served their purpose if they provoke you to think about the question yourself, even if in the end you answer it quite differently (see the announcement on page 36).

To gain perspective, let us look back before looking ahead.

A century ago physics was in turmoil. Albert Einstein had only just published his revolutionary new theory of gravity. Ernest Rutherford’s recently discovered atomic nuclei, at the heart of matter, were mysterious, almost bizarre objects—terribly small, terribly dense, and subject to a bewildering variety of causeless transformations. Quantum theory, which featured Niels Bohr’s atomic model, was a tissue of guesswork. Superconductivity was an empirical fact, but a theoretical enigma. The nature of the chemical bond and the energy source of stars—supremely important aspects of the natural world—embarrassed contemporary physics.

Fifty years ago the picture had become quite different. General relativity was an established subject with a vast literature and a handful of experimental applications. Together with Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the expanding universe, it had opened new possibilities for scientific cosmology. The recently discovered microwave background radiation, together with a successful semiquantitative theory of cosmic nucleogenesis, pointed clearly to the Big Bang. Quantum mechanics was a mathematically precise, consistent, and wildly successful theory, though it seemed strange and troubling to many. It had become, as it remains, the language through which we speak with nature.

Physics Today: Physics in 100 years, Frank Wilczek

Hacking Living Cells...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 4, 2016 at 4:33am

Coding for life
Zoonar GmbH/Alamy Stock

Topics: Biology, Bioengineering, Computer Science

I'm only going to comment with one Caveat Emptor: anything that can be hacked, can be weaponized with the right (i.e. "wrong") motivation and twisted imagination.

Tinkering with life just got easier. A tool that lets you design DNA circuits using a simple symbolic language makes programming living cells as straightforward as writing code for computers.

The tool uses an existing language called Verilog, which is used by chip designers to design electronic circuits. The idea is to make programming cells more like programming a computer. “We take the same approach as for designing an electronic chip,” says Chris Voigt of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Every step in the process is the same – it’s just that instead of mapping the circuit to silicon, it’s mapped to DNA.”

Synthetic biology aims to make it possible to treat cells as machines that can be engineered and programmed. By altering a microbe’s native DNA, it can be made to perform a specific task, such as producing a drug or changing colour to detect a virus in blood. Off-the-shelf genetic parts that can be swapped in and out make this easier, but it is still a painstaking process.

That’s where Verilog comes in. Verilog is a symbolic language that lets you specify the function of an electronic circuit in shorthand – without having to worry about the underlying hardware – and then convert it into a detailed design automatically. Voigt’s team realised they could do the same with DNA circuits.

Their system, called Cello, takes a Verilog design and converts it into a DNA wiring diagram. This is fed to a machine that generates a strand of DNA that encodes the specified function. The DNA can then be inserted into a microbe.

New Scientist: Bio coding language makes it easier to hack living cells, Andy Coghlan

April 1st...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 1, 2016 at 6:35am

Image Source: Vanderbuilt School of Leadership Development

Topics: Commentary, Education, Physics, Research, Science, STEM

I touched down last Saturday, 2 April 2011 @ JFK at 2:40 PM EST. That was the easy part...

My turtle was shipped as Priority Parcel Post; my 92 lb lab as part of my luggage. I payed as much for the turtle as I did for my luggage: $200 each.

I had to first go get my luggage to the rental car place via the Air Train, then go get my turtle and lab: two neurotic pets that did not like the plane ride or the monorail at all...trust, me: the turtle (as turtles go) wasn't herself; the dog got car sick -- probably an extension of the plane trip -- on the way upstate.

Map Quest or Google Maps cannot tell me it's 1.5 - 2 hours from JFK...given traffic, juggling luggage, pets and my own naivete, I got where I was going by 10:15 PM.

Thank God for the GPS on my phone -- brought to us all courtesy of "The Photoelectric Effect" and a bit of quantum mechanics (of course, I had to say that...). #P4TC: New York...

* * * * *

My dog Raven passed away, but Speedy the turtle is going strong. She's managed to outlive every pet I've had since 1990.

This day five years ago was officially my last day as a high school physics and math teacher at Manor High School. Despite being a floater - no assigned classroom - I was allowed to tutor math and physics; teach martial arts one day after school and do performance poetry at school talent functions, many things that in five years I've found I really miss. I have found on reflection, all that free expression wasn't random chaos: it was me, the layers peeled of my own onion.

"This better NOT be an 'April Fool's joke, you bastard!" That was one of my students, a petite Hispanic young woman. Many students let me know I was the stability in their lives; for many the one person they could count on in their day.

"It wasn't," I said trying to choke back a lump. "Mr. Goodwin won't be here Monday."

When I called back on Monday, there seemed to be a lot of students in the office upset. I'd like to think other than my departure, I had a positive effect on them. They would be adults now, moving through life; loving, living and earning their way. I hope at least one of them found their way to a STEM field.

I've been in New York five years. I reentered an industry I'd departed August 26, 2003, a date I can't and won't forget.

I've seen changes in the industry, some by its own limitations; some by the limitations of intertwined economies that makes one think of butterflies.

I've seen changes in our climate, our country and our culture, as some petition our lesser angels to express themselves and the darkness within.

Through all of this, my students have become adults, millennials still but adults: fully functional and capable of expressing their desire as the governed by voting.

This world will be inherited by the meek, or the winds of Entropy.

Teaching is like saving one soul at a time. Despite number or technology's used or subject, it boils down to one-on-one. There is a rush when you can see the light go on in eyes that realize they've "got it." I revisited that briefly teaching at the Membership Training Academy for Kappa Alpha Psi. One of my fraternity brothers, a community college teacher complimented me. Another frat thought I had a PhD already.

Part of me is still that teacher, as my father and my grandfather before me.

I ponder the next five years. I have a graduate certificate in Microelectronics and Photonics. I am striving for more. I will let you know what shape that takes and soon.