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Seeing Blind

Posted by Author - Jemir Johnson on July 28, 2014 at 11:00am

People are always saying to me: “Hey, Handsome. (My legal name. I let people call me “Jemir” because … well, that “alias” doesn’t owe a metric ton in back taxes {lol}) What’s your book about”? I tell them: “104 pages.” They then reply with a side eye, head shake and cobra swift karate chop to the throat. To avoid these kind of mishaps in the future I’m going to post some info about my female sleuth/”fixer” Jay Nova and the book itself that can enhance your enjoyment if you choose to look into it.

 

Question: “Blind Corners” what’s it about (don’t karate chop me in the throat when I answer it, though {lol})?

 

Answer: What you do in the dark is your business. Keeping it buried is hers. Jay Nova is a private eye with a razor sharp mind, dangerous connections and a ready gun to help the desperate (usually the rich, famous and “influential”) out of time sensitive predicaments they can’t  go to the law with: the right woman to call when things go wrong. “Blind Corners” is an illustrated four-story, crime-noir, collection about her dark alley, back room deal, days and nights at the “office”.

 

Q: Who is Jay Nova?

 

A: Jay is a woman that came up rough and spent a lot of time on the other side of the law … even when she was a cop. Having quit the force and the hard-nosed anti-gang task force she was an integral part of for reasons she won’t discuss she’s now an on-the-books private eye using her business as cover to bend or break laws on a client’s behalf.

 

Jay also has a hidden (known only to her apparently) ability to read minds. But there’s a catch. Jay doesn’t control the ability … when it works, how it works or what it will reveal. Having to look directly into a “target’s” eyes to use it she doesn’t know if she was born with the “gift” or not. For this reason

 

Jay relies on nothing but her cunning and toughness to get the job done.

Then there’s the pain.

 

Hours after her ability is used jay is attacked by a series of painful “headaches”. Headaches  she’s not always sure she’ll live through. She rarely makes an effort to activate “the gift” on her own.

 

 

Q: Does Jay work alone?

 

A: Though she’s self sufficient Jay has a small group of informants, goons and colleagues on different sides of the law she’ll round-up at any given time. Still, there’s only one person she trusts enough to partner with.

Randy Michaels Preston (“Randy Michaels”) is a con man that may or may not be what he claims when he claims it but is – without doubt – an enforcer you want by your side when things get tight.

 

Q: Is this the first Jay Nova collection?

 

A: No. That distinction goes to “5 Shots” which came out some years back. You don’t need to read “5 Shots” to get into ‘Blind Corners” as every book and Jay Nova tale is built to stand on its own. For those that do purchase both there are subtle continuity bits that will add layers to Jay’s journey. That said every collection or long form graphic novel will be designed to be enjoyed with no prior knowledge needed or presumed (but rewarded if there).

 

So if you’ve read ‘Blind Corners” (or “5 Shots”) I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven’t I hope you (or someone you know) will give it a shot. Either way, thanks for sharing a few minutes of your time and happy reading to you no matter what you grab or download.

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Corners-Jemir-Johnson/dp/0981827837/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Corners-Jemir-Johnson-ebook/dp/B00GKUPLHQ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

 

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Room at the Bottom for 25 Years...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 28, 2014 at 6:07am
Life Quote Tumblr page: Richard Feynman

We entered the nanoscale world officially 25 years ago. The distinction is primarily gate feature size: we were in the microelectronics era due to printing gate features 10-6 meters; "nano" is 10-9 meters as far as electronics goes. There are two distinct branches now: "nanoscience," which I'm not as familiar with, but tends to involve medicine and biology, specifically focused delivery systems for medicinal treatments, and "nanoengineering" where I now find my career has evolved. What we now take for granted: flat screens TVs and pads; cell phones with photographic and video capability we take and upload to social media that have now become a part of how we gather news and hold authority accountable. A few things to highlight how far we've come:



Nanotechnology: Highlights From 25 Years (PDF).



One of the most cited and downloaded papers in Nanotechnology is 'Comparison of calibration methods for atomic-force microscopy cantilevers'. Published in 2003, it presented a detailed comparison of the calibration methods of several atomic-force microscopy cantilevers.



Nancy A Burnham, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, talks about some aspects of the paper, highlighting some of the contributions that have now, 10 years later, become commonplace among AFM manufacturers.



Dr. Burnham below:


 We can never forget the character who who contributed greatly to the idea it all (some would say he started it with this lecture). Initially given in 1959, he repeated it in 1984. What he referred to then as "tiny machines," we now call MEMS - microelectromechanical systems, 1st coined by DARPA in 1986. As we get perilously (in a good way) towards the Moore's Law limit, there is indeed "plenty of room at the bottom" (Richard Feynman):



Original Lecture Transcript: Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959)

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The Priestess Season 3 is coming....

Posted by H. Wolfgang Porter on July 27, 2014 at 3:46pm

The Priestess returns in season 3! With the disappearance of her 'Mortal-Son' Little Fish, unrest has been growing in the Valley Realm. A great and powerful army has risen in the desert and the Priestess is in their path to domination. Though the Priestess has sworn not to interfere in the affairs of mortal men, can she allow so great a threat to go unchallenged?

The task of defending the Priestess falls to her mortal protector, the 'Invincible Valley Knight'! But even so mighty a warrior beloved by Death, will need help against a legion vast! See events unfold in the upcoming and exciting season 3 of 'The Priestess!'

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Fromm and Roddenberry...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 27, 2014 at 10:21am
Source

Seeing patterns in my previous posts Trek Musings and Resources and Refugees (and possibly some others), I was led to reexamine the works of Eric Fromm, a sociologist best known for his seminal work after WWII on the Nazi party: "Escape From Freedom," also known as originally "Fear of Freedom" outside of North America.



If you read through the Dystopian "1984," Fromm gives an Afterword, found here in whole at this PDF.



I quote the beginning of the fourth paragraph:



One of the most important ones is a new form of writing which developed since the Renaissance, the first expression of which was Thomas More's Utopia (literally: "Nowhere"), a name which was then generically applied to all other similar works. Thomas More's Utopia combined a most penetrating criticism of his own society, its irrationality and its injustice, with the picture of a society which, though perhaps not perfect, had solved most of the human problems which sounded insoluble to his own contemporaries. He also sites "Italian friar Campanella's 'City of the Sun', and the German humanist Andreae's 'Christianopolis'" as three seminal works in the emergent genre.



Sounds vaguely familiar...almost "Trekkie," which I'm sure it's part of the many sources where Gene got the idea.



Fromm goes on to relate this longing for perfection in the great philosophers of the Enlightenment. Its modern epitome - I submit - was Star Trek.



Dr. Fromm also lists the Trifecta of "negative-Utopian" i.e. Dystopian novels: "We" by the Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin; "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and "1984" by Eric Blair (George Orwell was a pen name). It is from these three, all modern science fiction descends.



Going back to Roddenberry, the societal "hiccup" was as I've mentioned a neo-fascist "Optimum Movement" that was the catalyst for Trek's version of WWIII, which I'm happy to say we have not fought (and don't want to).



The current resistance to change, the mantra cry: "I want my country back," or at one of the border national embarrassments (if the meme is genuine), a woman yelling at fleeing refugee children stands beneath a sign she held up stating: "Make English America's Offical Language" (I think the holder meant "official"). The sad part is whoever authored it, double-underlined the misspelling. That's not what our Constitution says, and it would help if someone invested in a good civics class and a spell checker.



From the Amazon Kindle book description for "Escape From Freedom":

The pursuit of freedom has indelibly marked Western culture since Renaissance humanism and Protestantism began the fight for individualism and self-determination. This freedom, however, can make people feel unmoored, and is often accompanied by feelings of isolation, fear, and the loss of self, all leading to a desire for authoritarianism, conformity, or destructiveness.

It is not only the question of freedom that makes Fromm’s debut book a timeless classic. In this examination of the roots of Nazism and fascism in Europe, Fromm also explains how economic and social constraints can also lead to authoritarianism.

Fromm's definitions:

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. Wikipedia



These all sound frightening and familiar in the modern context. The John Birch Society and inspired modern clones never went away. Like a bad rash or foot fungi, the slightest moisture and warmth rebirths them in familiar, parroted talking-points. It's like watching a slow-motion psychological operation designed by a commercial version of the Creel Commission, made to look like "grass roots" when it's actually financed AstroTurfing.

 It was Roddenberry's "hope" during the turbulence of the 1960's with its Vietnam conflict; struggle for Civil Rights that branched into Women's Rights, Human Rights and modernly LGBT rights that we all "learned to get along," and not quite blow the planet to smithereens! This of course, hinged on matter replicators and the willful, "magical thinking" dismantling of a scarcity economy and pre-Trek fictional social order.



Since this scarcity has made a very small part of humanity - 1% to 0.001% - wildly rich beyond Solomon's dreams, I think that dismantlement, if ever, will be resisted - as is any change beyond the current status quo is being resisted, quite vigorously - until it hurts them (and ultimately, us).
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Terabytes and Smartphones...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 26, 2014 at 9:04am
Slide 4 of 50 on Slide Player, Rainer Waser*

A novel type of computer memory could, in theory, let you to store tens or even hundreds of times as much data on your smartphone. Researchers at Rice University have demonstrated a more practical way to manufacture it.



The type of memory in question, resistive random access memory (RRAM), is being developed by several companies, but fabrication usually requires high-temperatures or voltages, making production difficult and expensive. The Rice researchers have shown a way to make RRAM at room temperature and with far lower voltages.



Like flash memory, RRAM can store data without a constant supply of power. Whereas flash memory stores bits of information in the form of charge in transistors, RRAM stores bits using resistance. Each bit requires less space, increasing the amount of information that can be stored in a given area.



 MIT Technology Review: Super-Dense Computer Memory, Kevin Bullis

* Rainer Waser JARA-FIT @ FZJ Forschungszentrum Jülich & RWTH Aachen University Outline Forschungszentrum Jülich Center of Nanoelectronic Systems for Information Technology Scaling Projections for Resistive Switching Memories



 Tomorrow: Fromm and Roddenberry

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Particle Physics 101...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 25, 2014 at 7:14am
Source: Fermilab link below

The first step: accelerators



The collision of particles at high energy, either with other particles or with a stationary target, allows physicists not only to look at what's inside these particles, but also to use the energy of their collisions to create different, more massive and more exotic particles of matter. To create such high-energy collisions, scientists must use very powerful particle accelerators.



The second step: detectors



Unveiling the tiniest constituents of matter with accelerators is only half the battle. Physicists also need extraordinary particle detectors to observe what happens in high-energy collisions.



Detectors are instruments that count particles, visualize tracks, measure particle energies, record time of flight and identify different particles. Detectors can be as tiny as computer chips or as big as apartment houses, containing thousands of tons of steel and other material.



The third step: data analysis



Detectors are the product of international collaborations of physicists, all contributing their own expertise and the support of their home institutions. In return, each physicist receives access to the data recorded. To simplify the networking and data exchange within these worldwide collaborations, scientists at the European research laboratory CERN invented the World Wide Web. High-energy physics laboratories such as DESY, SLAC and Fermilab were among the first to offer Web pages in their home countries.



To analyze the enormous amount of data, particle physicists have always relied on some of the most powerful computers in the world, quickly adopting new computing technologies. The analysis of particle physics data takes place on powerful and cost-effective PC farms. Comparing simulated collision events with experimental results, sophisticated computer programs can identify the processes that took place in each collision, whether it takes place when two beams collide or at a fixed target. Physicists use the results to test theoretical predictions, improving our knowledge of crucial parameters, contradicting theoretical expectations and discovering new phenomena.



Physics4Kids.com: Modern Physics Introduction
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"THE FANTASY PORTAL" ANNOUNCEMENT

Posted by Brandon Hill on July 24, 2014 at 9:25pm

Greetings, BSFS!  

I'm here to announce the release of "The Fantasy Portal," a collection of four intriguing fantasy stories by myself, BSFS author Rasheedah Prioleau, Colby R. Rice, and DeVaun Saunders.  



From Slate to Crimson, by Brandon Hill (Paranormal Romance)

Talante, for 10,000 years has governed his clan like a father in the endless war with their hated enemy over the fate of humankind. One winter's night, he chances to meet Amelia Grayson, a human whose blood arouses his desire, and whose presence arouses his compassion in a way no mortal ever has before. Distracted and terrified by all but alien emotions and instincts by this burgeoning bond in a prelude to what may be his clan's most desperate hour, Talante is caught between duty and desire, until he is forced by choice and circumstance to decide whether to hold to the one he has grown to love more than his immortal life, or in spite of the cost, let go for the sake of his people and Amelia's safety, in spite of twofold danger: one from a ravenous enemy that has hunted her kind for millennia ... and the other from the seductive bond that would make her forever his, body and soul.



Ghosts of Koa, Volume I of II, by Colby R Rice (Urban Fantasy)

For over one hundred years the Civic Order and the Alchemic Order have held a shaky truce, peppered by violence and mistrust. But when Koa, a Civilian-born insurgency, bombs an Alchemist summit, the truce is shattered. Now, Koa is rising. War is coming. And all sixteen-year-old Zeika Anon can do is keep moving as she watches the lords of alchemy slowly overtake her home. But when clashes between Koa and the Alchemic Order put a final, deadly squeeze on the remaining Civilian territories, Zeika finds herself in the crosshairs of fate. She must walk the line between survival and rebellion against the Alchemists. On one side of the line awaits death. On the other, the betrayal of her civilization, her loyalties, and herself. CONTENT WARNING - Contains coarse language, intense violence, suggestive themes, and aberrant behavior.


The Seedbearing Prince: Part I, by DaVaun Sanders (Epic Fantasy)

Dayn Ro'Halan is a farmer's son sworn to a life of plowing on his homeworld, Shard. After finding a lost artifact called a Seed, he's thrust into an ancient conflict between voidwalkers of the hated world Thar'Kur, and Defenders from a floating fortress called the Ring. Dayn must become a Seedbearer and learn to use the Seed's power to shape worlds before the entire World Belt is lost.


American Specter: The Seven Sisters, by Rasheedah Prioleau (Paranormal Mystery)

Audra Wheeler has been haunted for the last thirteen years by a paranormal attack that left her adopted sister, Kendra, in a coma. Mentored by FBI Assistant Director Jonathan Cordero to investigate specter crimes, Audra believes she's on the trail of a serial killing specter with a mode of operation much like her sister's attacker. The trail leads her to a small town in Georgia called Specter. Specter has become a haven to ghosts who have crossed back over and exist among the living. For better or worse she also finds herself working with the town's Sheriff, Ethan Cole, her ex-partner and old flame. With a chip on her shoulder and a strong dislike of specters, Agent Wheeler has a hard time adjusting to the ever-present state of specters until the latest victim, Gwyneth Miller, comes back as one. When specter Gwyneth Miller is adamant that it was not a specter that killed her, Audra Wheeler finds herself opening up the twenty-five year old cold case of the town's most notorious unsolved homicide, the murder of Abigail Stevens, who just happens to be Gwyneth Miller's biological mother.

It is currently available for Amazon Kindle: 

From Slate to Crimson, by Brandon Hill (Paranormal Romance)

Talante, for 10,000 years has governed his clan like a father in the endless war with their hated enemy over the fate of humankind. One winter's night, he chances to meet Amelia Grayson, a human whose blood arouses his desire, and whose presence arouses his compassion in a way no mortal ever has before. Distracted and terrified by all but alien emotions and instincts by this burgeoning bond in a prelude to what may be his clan's most desperate hour, Talante is caught between duty and desire, until he is forced by choice and circumstance to decide whether to hold to the one he has grown to love more than his immortal life, or in spite of the cost, let go for the sake of his people and Amelia's safety, in spite of twofold danger: one from a ravenous enemy that has hunted her kind for millennia ... and the other from the seductive bond that would make her forever his, body and soul.



Ghosts of Koa, Volume I of II, by Colby R Rice (Urban Fantasy)

For over one hundred years the Civic Order and the Alchemic Order have held a shaky truce, peppered by violence and mistrust. But when Koa, a Civilian-born insurgency, bombs an Alchemist summit, the truce is shattered. Now, Koa is rising. War is coming. And all sixteen-year-old Zeika Anon can do is keep moving as she watches the lords of alchemy slowly overtake her home. But when clashes between Koa and the Alchemic Order put a final, deadly squeeze on the remaining Civilian territories, Zeika finds herself in the crosshairs of fate. She must walk the line between survival and rebellion against the Alchemists. On one side of the line awaits death. On the other, the betrayal of her civilization, her loyalties, and herself. CONTENT WARNING - Contains coarse language, intense violence, suggestive themes, and aberrant behavior.


The Seedbearing Prince: Part I, by DaVaun Sanders (Epic Fantasy)

Dayn Ro'Halan is a farmer's son sworn to a life of plowing on his homeworld, Shard. After finding a lost artifact called a Seed, he's thrust into an ancient conflict between voidwalkers of the hated world Thar'Kur, and Defenders from a floating fortress called the Ring. Dayn must become a Seedbearer and learn to use the Seed's power to shape worlds before the entire World Belt is lost.


American Specter: The Seven Sisters, by Rasheedah Prioleau (Paranormal Mystery)

Audra Wheeler has been haunted for the last thirteen years by a paranormal attack that left her adopted sister, Kendra, in a coma. Mentored by FBI Assistant Director Jonathan Cordero to investigate specter crimes, Audra believes she's on the trail of a serial killing specter with a mode of operation much like her sister's attacker. The trail leads her to a small town in Georgia called Specter. Specter has become a haven to ghosts who have crossed back over and exist among the living. For better or worse she also finds herself working with the town's Sheriff, Ethan Cole, her ex-partner and old flame. With a chip on her shoulder and a strong dislike of specters, Agent Wheeler has a hard time adjusting to the ever-present state of specters until the latest victim, Gwyneth Miller, comes back as one. When specter Gwyneth Miller is adamant that it was not a specter that killed her, Audra Wheeler finds herself opening up the twenty-five year old cold case of the town's most notorious unsolved homicide, the murder of Abigail Stevens, who just happens to be Gwyneth Miller's biological mother.

It is currently available for Amazon Kindle here:  

The Fantasy Poral - Kindle


And for Kobo here: 

The Fantasy Portal - Kobo


I hope you all will show your support for our endeavors and purchase our work.  Currently, the Kindle version is only $1.99, and the Kobo version is only $0.99.  Other versions will soon be available, and I will keep you all posted.  If you enjoy fantasy, I think you will find something to delight you in this bundle.  And be sure to write a review.  Thanks a lot, and I hope you enjoy our work!  Happy reading!  

-Brandon

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Window Sill Children Books...

Posted by Winston Blakely on July 24, 2014 at 1:48pm

    Time to have a good laugh... and time to reflect on the joy of being a parent who truly cares about their children.  Allow me to introduce to you, The WindowSill Children Books Series... a special line of Black Children books that are unique in many ways.

  Written by Donna Matthews and all art chores done by yours truly... me. 

   For now I have two to show... but there are a bunch of other goodies on my author's page that many of you should check out. It won't be a waste of your time.

    Jello Pudding Pops is an awesome story of Mother and Son...

    While, My Father found Bin Laden is a wild ride of innocent humor from a child's perspective. A little girl misses her heroic father and misunderstands the information given her about what is keeping her father overseas.

    

    

         All of this and more at... the link below.

          http://amazon.com/author/winstonblakely

                   Enjoy.

    

     

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Higgs Consolation...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 24, 2014 at 7:02am
Ping! In this event, two W bosons collide and then decay into particles called muons (red) while the quarks that emitted the W’s produce sprays of other particles (yellow).

Ever wonder what particle physicists would have done had the Higgs boson not existed? Even before they fired up the atom smasher that 2 years ago blasted out the Higgs—the $5.5 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics lab, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland—researchers said that if they didn't find that coveted quarry, it wouldn't be a total disaster. If there were no Higgs, they said, then a particular ordinary particle interaction should instead go haywire and hint at whatever nature was doing to get by without the Higgs. Now, physicists at the LHC have spotted the rare interaction in that "no-lose" theorem, which is known as WW scattering.



"I am thrilled," says Barbara Jäger, a theorist at the University of Tübingen in Germany who was not involved in the work. Of course, now that physicists know the Higgs exists, they don't expect WW scattering to go bonkers. But it could still play an important role in the hunt for new physics, as scientists look for deviations from the predictions of the field’s prevailing standard model. That approach would complement studies of the Higgs itself, Jäger says.



The Higgs boson is key to physicists' explanation of how all elementary particles—such as electrons and the quarks that make up protons and neutrons—get their masses. Theorists assume that otherwise massless particles interact with a quantum field a bit like an electric field that consists of Higgs bosons lurking "virtually" in the vacuum. Those interactions give each type of particle a certain amount of energy and, thanks to Einstein's famous equation E = mc2, mass.



 Science Mag:
Had there been no Higgs boson, this observation would have been the bomb, Adrian Cho

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eBook Release

Posted by N.D. Jones on July 23, 2014 at 10:39am

"Of Fear and Faith" is the first book in my Death and Destiny Trilogy (paranormal romance). If interested, check it out at http://www.bookstrand.com/of-fear-and-faith

Of Fear and Faith (MF)

Before trust and love can take hold, grow solid roots, and blossom into a reality larger than self, fear must be conquered and faith embraced. Yet fear of an ancient prophecy, of burning magical power, and a broken heart, Sanura Williams, psychology professor, is unprepared when Special Agent Assefa Berber enters her life, hunting a preternatural serial killer. Assefa’s intelligent, chocolate eyes and intoxicating aura signature stirs her fire spirit but frightens the woman.  

In a world where all is not as it seems, Sanura and Assefa must battle the gods’ first creations – vile predators who threaten the safety of humans. Each confrontation, each bloody clash, will bring Sanura and Assefa closer to fulfilling the prophecy of being the Fire Witch and Cat of Legend - the ones who will save humanity from the Water Witch of Legend.

Death, godly magic, and physical attraction draw Sanura and Assefa to each other, but fear and faith will determine their destiny.

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Proton Spin Mystery...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 22, 2014 at 6:51am
Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Protons have a constant spin that is an intrinsic particle property like mass or charge. Yet where this spin comes from is such a mystery it’s dubbed the “proton spin crisis.” Initially physicists thought a proton’s spin was the sum of the spins of its three constituent quarks. But a 1987 experiment showed that quarks can account for only a small portion of a proton’s spin, raising the question of where the rest arises. The quarks inside a proton are held together by gluons, so scientists suggested perhaps they contribute spin. That idea now has support from a pair of studies analyzing the results of proton collisions inside the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.



Physicists often explain spin as a particle’s rotation, but that description is more metaphorical than literal. In fact, spin is a quantum quantity that cannot be described in classical terms. Just as a proton is not really a tiny marble but rather a jumble of phantom particles appearing and disappearing continuously, its spin is a complex probabilistic property. Yet it is always equal to one half.



 Scientific American: Proton Spin Mystery Gains a New Clue, Clara Moskowitz

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10 Creatives to Watch

Posted by Lady Foxglove on July 21, 2014 at 1:29pm

Recently, I have been AWOL. I apologize. I still have mad love for BSFS. I have been supporting emerging artist over the last couple of month through the printing of my first creative magazine issue. It spotlights 10 amazing creatives from US and Europe. It spotlights specifically artist of color. Here are the listed creatives:

Roshi K

Afua Richardson

Anwar Bey-Taylor

Kenny Kong

Shyama Golden

Lina Alvarez

Talia Taylor

Sam Rodriguez

Christina Coleman

Natalia Rak

Check out digital copy here: http://issuu.com/topeeletu/docs/bgcfinalmay21/1

Print copies are available here: www.badgirlconfidence.com/shop

Preview below:

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Printed, Flexible, Organic...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 21, 2014 at 7:34am
Source: Solid State Electronics link below

In wearable gadgets, flexible electronics may have met its dream application. And that’s no stretch of the imagination.



For example: The 711th Human Performance Wing of the U.S. Air Force is looking at sweat sensors that could be embedded in a printed electronic plaster and attached to the arms of pilots to monitor whether they need to drink more fluids or if taking amphetamines would be advised to maintain optimal alertness in flight.



IDTechEx has forecast that the worldwide market for flexible, printed, and organic electronics will increase from $16.04 billion last year to $76.79 billion in 2023. The overall market will continue to be dominated organic light-emitting diode displays this year and in 2015, the market research firm predicts. Conductive ink and photovoltaics represent large segments of the total market. “On the other hand, stretchable electronics, logic and memory, thin-film sensors are much smaller segments but with huge growth potential as they emerge from R&D,” IDTechEx states.



 Solid State Electronics:
Printed, flexible, and organic electronics: A growing opportunity, Jeff Dorsch

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M.A.D...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 20, 2014 at 6:31am
Image Source: KQED.org

Today is the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Despite what the naysayers and conspiracy theorists insist on with You Tube embed videos ad nauseum, I counter that with the memory of initially disappointed 6-year-old eyes as my Saturday cartoons had been preempted. Those eyes - mine - were soon delighted, sitting on my father's lap filled with wonder and hope. Post Dr. King's assassination, our continued involvement in the Vietnam conflict (of which I had several older friends fighting) and the turbulence of the 1960's, nationally we all needed a lift of our collective spirits.

 2014: We appear to be losing it - spirit, mind, wonder...hope.



Ground forces advance in Gaza...The Malaysian airlines downed in the Ukraine...Fires raging in Washington State and drought in California...The border crisis of Central American refugees fleeing the drug wars and violence we helped foster...



Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.): born when the former Soviet Union achieved parity with the US in nuclear weapons. The research of the weapons of our extinction was birthed during the Second World War, and the fear Nazi scientists would beat the Americans to the atomic bomb punch. Destructiveness became measured in "Hiroshima's": ~ 100,000 souls perished in a flash of nightmare, an instant of atomizing. We comforted, compensated and deluded ourselves with moribund, useless drills of "duck and cover." The follow-on "improvement" - thermonuclear bombs - generated the following gradients:
  • 1 November 1952 ("Mike" - US): 800 Hiroshima's.
  • 12 August 1953 ("Joe-4" - USSR): 30 Hiroshima's.
  • 1 March 1954 ("Bravo" - US): 1,300 Hiroshima's.
  • 23 November 1955 (No code name - USSR): 300 Hiroshima's.
  • No date given ("Behemoth" - USSR): 5,000 Hiroshima's.

Most US and Russian yields are around 30 Hiroshima's currently. (Source: "Black Holes and Time Warps-Einstein's Outrageous Legacy," Kip Thorne, pages 231-232, paperback).



Science and power

 Unfortunately, it would be naive to say science has been strictly harnessed for the benefit of mankind. Part of the reason you have 3% of climate scientists "doubt" the conclusions of 97% of their colleagues on climate change is science costs money. Money comes from benefactors who typically have agendas; those being obviously amassing more power and wealth to themselves. A large part of the tools developed to analyse the density, mass and electric charge of black holes were developed during the Manhattan Project; many things we take for granted were developed initially for the Apollo program. This is called "spin-off": a peaceful commercial application to an otherwise warfare-born idea. The Internet is another example.

 We are at a tinderbox moment of history. Our publicly elected political leaders parrot apocalyptic worldviews from the once extreme, now mainstreamed portions of society. Our motivations as a species must change if we are to solve difficult problems and survive our own hubris. Our current understanding of five previous mass extinction events makes our balance in the Drake Equation not look so favorably for us. The world will keep spinning, and it's instructive to note dinosaurs are "technically" still around us (counter to creationists' envision): as fossil fuels, lower reptiles and consumed chickens. J. Robert Oppenheimer - America's Prometheus - is an example of what happens when genius is employed in the service of sociopaths.

M.A.D. is the acronym of the unthinkable; the "doomsday scenario," the outcome succinctly summed in the 80's classic "War Games" and that life sadly, doesn't always conclude in the neatly-packaged Hollywood ending:
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A Little Bit of Bedlam...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 19, 2014 at 7:41am
Image: Neil Armstrong and Arthur Clarke met for the first time during a NASA conference held on Wallops Island, VA in June 1970, having shared the bus that took them out to Wallops from NASA headquarters.

From Centauri Dreams by Paul Gilster



As we approach the 45th anniversary of the first landing on the Moon, journalist and author Neil McAleer has been looking back at an interview he conducted with Neil Armstrong on March 16, 1989. The author of Visionary: The Odyssey of Sir Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke Project, 2012), McAleer has lived among and written about the space community for many years. We learn little about Clarke from this interview, but Armstrong’s character comes through — he’s terse, focused, always impatient to get back to work. I suspect Centauri Dreams regular Al Jackson, who worked with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in his role as astronaut trainer on the Lunar Module Simulator (see The Magicians of Confidence), will recognize Armstrong’s mode here immediately. His self-imposed distance could never conceal the cool competence he displayed on the most breathtaking descent in history.



An interview conducted by Neil McAleer



I requested this interview with Neil Armstrong 25 years ago, when I was writing and researching the first edition of my Arthur C. Clarke biography. That work was the reason. I wanted to know how they met and what kind of relationship they had during the early years of the Space Age.



The interview’s first question, not on tape, asked Mr. Armstrong if he knew how Arthur C. Clarke’s substantial Epilogue (“Beyond Apollo”) for the book First on the Moon came about.



[Armstrong] “I just don’t have that kind of information.”



This book—subtitled, “A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.”–is considered the official eyewitness account of Apollo 11’s journey to the moon’s surface and return to Earth. It was published in 1970, the year after their historic mission.



[McAleer] “Did you ever actually meet Clarke, by the way?”



[Armstrong] “Yes. We attended a NASA meeting for a couple of days, and I can’t remember where it was. It seems to me it was somewhere in Virginia. [Wallops Island I found out later]. It must have been around 1970.”





Tomorrow: M.A.D.
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Energy of Things...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 17, 2014 at 7:07am
Source: Polywell Nuclear Fusion

"Thermodynamics is a branch of physics which deals with the energy and work of a system. It was born in the 19th century as scientists were first discovering how to build and operate steam engines. Thermodynamics deals only with the large scale response of a system which we can observe and measure in experiments. Small scale gas interactions are described by the kinetic theory of gases. The methods complement each other; some principles are more easily understood in terms of thermodynamics and some principles are more easily explained by kinetic theory." Source: NASA



Essentially, that is what these two articles allude to: the system is not a single engine per se, but now all our interconnected devices (our coming like a freight train Internet of Things) that by themselves are probably benign. Collectively however, they're putting a load on our power grids like no engine before it. Note Susanne Jacobs in Technology Review:

Between computers, smartphones, tablets, wearables, and the Internet of things, the number of networked devices around the world is growing rapidly, and all those devices need energy, even if they’re not doing anything. That could be a problem.

A new report from the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to ensuring reliable and clean energy, says that the electricity demand of networked devices around the world in 2008—420 terawatt-hours—was equal to that of France; in 2013 the demand surpassed that of Canada, reaching 616 terawatt-hours. By 2025, the report projects, networked devices will account for 6 percent of global electricity demand at 1,140 terawatt-hours. As much as 80 percent of that demand will be used just to maintain a network connection, keeping devices ready and waiting.

Let's put this in perspectives:

Your average home or apartment consumed 90 million BTUs (British Thermal Units) in 2009, according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) report. Roughly, that's 10273.972602739726027397260273973 BTU/hr ~ 10,274, or 3011.0121732 Watts. For a year, that comes to 26,376,466.637232 Watts/Year. Divide that into 15 terrawatts and it yields 568688.8 "years" of energy consumption. Mind you, that's just for "ONE" house only on Earth. Apparently, 1.6 billion human souls live in the 21st century without electricity.



A terrawatt = 1012 Watts = 1,000,000,000,000 or a trillion watts. Your average home is quickly becoming minuscule in comparison to the demands of the tech we all crave. Without embracing this need posed by the technology and more efficient, cleaner means to produce and deliver energy to its end-users, I can only envision rolling blackouts for our lack of vision and avarice. I say that for as energy delivery becomes cleaner, cheaper and more efficient, structures used to making their wealth on scarcity will inevitably try to block it out of self-preservation, resulting in the quickest way to devalue the world economy in human history; making their wealth meaningless in the long run.

 "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." Henry Ford

"We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools." Martin Luther King

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Detcon1 starts Tomorrow! Here are some Events of Interest

Posted by Anne Gray on July 16, 2014 at 2:30pm

Detcon1 runs tomorrow through Sunday in the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit.  Stop by the Black Science Fiction Society table in the Dealer's room while you're there! The whole program guide is online (or you can download a .pdf of the pocket program) but I also wanted to call out some particular items of interest to the BSFS community.

Thursday

4 PM Thursday - Welcome to the SF Community: Enjoying the NASFiC - Nicolet A
Joel Zakem (m), John Hertz, Nicki Lynch, Pablo M.A Vazquez III
(Neos) An orientation seminar on what this event is about and what to do this weekend to make the most of it. Have fun!

5 PM Thursday - Kaffeeklatsch: Steven Barnes - KaffeeKlatsch 1
A small group discussion led by Author GoH Steven Barnes. Your opportunity for a more informal discussion
with one of our guests. (Limited seating. Sign up at Info Desk.)

8 PM Thursday - Opening Ceremonies - Ambassador Salon 1
Arthur D. Hlavaty, Bernadette Bosky, Bill Sutton, Brenda Sutton, Fred Prophet, Helen Greiner, Jim C. Hines, John Picacio, Jon Davis, Kevin J. Maroney, Nnedi Okorafor, Roger Sims, Steven Barnes, Tammy Coxen, Tim Miller, Tom Smith
Our Masters of Ceremony officially open Detcon1...in their own, inimitable fashion. (1:30)

Friday

10 AM Friday - Going from Book to Movie: Adaptation - Mackinac West
Al Bouchard, Elektra Hammond, Lisa Padol (m), Steven Barnes
Why does Hollywood have trouble translating books, comics, etc. into movies & TV shows? Is it inherent in the original texts or in the process/constraints of adaptation? Which have succeeded and which have failed? What would we like to see adapted?

11 AM Friday Steven Barnes Reads - Nicolet B
Detcon1 Guest of Honor Steven Barnes reads selections from his work.

11 AM Friday - Teens: Nnedi Okorafor Reading and Q&A - Duluth A
Come hear a short reading by YA Special Guest Nnedi Okorafor, followed by an opportunity to ask questions about her writing, her experiences, and her career.

NOON Friday - Danger Word: Screening and Q&A - Film Festival Room, 1st Floor
A special screening of Danger Word, the short film written by Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due, introduced by the screenwriters and followed by a short Q&A. A 13-year-old girl and her grandfather, hiding out in a wooded cabin after a plague, meet the challenge of their lives when her birthday trip to a trading post goes horribly awry.

NOON Friday - The League of Extraordinary Black People - Mackinac West
Balogun Ojetade, Diana M. Pho, Emmy Jackson (m), Pablo M.A Vazquez III, Salathiel Palland
Multiculturalism has become a hot topic in the XYZ-punk community. How does this impact creators and their work in Steampunk, Dieselpunk and Alternate History? What issues arise in moving toward a more diverse retrofuturistic community?

1 PM Friday - Kaffeeklatsch: Keith D. Young - KaffeeKlatsch 1
A small group discussion led by Detroit designer and educator Keith D. Young. Your opportunity for a more informal discussion with one of our participants. (Limited seating. Sign up at Info Desk.)

2 PM Friday - Nnedi Okorafor Reads - Joliet A
YA Author Special Guest Nnedi Okorafor reads from her work.

2 PM Friday - Minority Characters in Comics - Mackinac West
Doselle Young, Juan Sanmiguel, Keri Bas, Oz Wilson Jr. (m)
An exploration of all the awesome minority characters in comics, both in popular and indie works!

2 PM Friday - Dealing with Bad Apples - Ambassador Salon 2
Diana M. Pho, Jesi Pershing, John Scalzi, Mark Oshiro, Steven H Silver (m)
Trolls, creepers, or just plain jerks. We've all encountered them at cons and online. Panelists discuss tools—like comment moderation and harassment policies—for keeping foul and prejudiced people from chasing others out of our community spaces, events, and organizations. And what to do when "they" are "us."

4-6 PM Friday - Fans of Color Meetup - Suite Rm 6903 (69th floor)
An opportunity for fans of color to get together, meet each other, and socialize in a comfortable environment. Hosted by Pablo M.A Vazquez III

4 PM Friday - Teens Talk to... Comics Creators - Duluth A
Dan Berger, Doselle Young
Our panel of comics creators talks about their work and answers your questions!

5 PM Friday - Reading Octavia Butler - Mackinac West
adrienne maree brown, Ellen Denham, Keith D. Young, Nnedi Okorafor, Steven Shaviro (m), Tananarive Due
If you've never read Octavia Butler, where should you start? Our panelists share their favorites, and discuss her influence on the genre.

8-10 PM Friday - Meet the Pros Mass Autographing and Reception - Ambassador Salon 2
Come to the Ambassador Ballroom to meet authors, artists, musicians, and others, and have them sign their works! The amount of talent in one place will be astounding. The signing will be accompanied by a reception, sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and a cash bar.

9 PM Friday -1 AM Saturday Detroit Dance with DJ Vourteque - Mackinac East
DJ Vorteque spins the history of Detroit motown, rock, disco, and techno via vinyl and his hand-crafted one-of-a-kind steampunk DJ rig. Expect Diana Ross, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Iggy Pop, Parliament Funkadelic, Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, MC5, Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and his own electroswing cover of Magic Dance, to name a few.

Saturday

9 AM Saturday - Tai Chi with Steven Barnes - Ambassador Salon 3
Join Author GoH Steven Barnes for a Tai Chi demonstration/workout. Wear comfortable clothing and be prepared to move!

10 AM Saturday - Octavia's Brood: Spec Fic & Social Justice - Ambassador Salon 1
adrienne maree brown, Nnedi Okorafor, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due
Octavia's Brood is a forthcoming anthology of visionary speculative fiction by organizers and activists and essays about the radical potential of science fiction. Our panelists discuss science fiction as a venue for exploring social justice and social change.

11 AM Saturday - Afrofuturism & Music - Marquette
Elwin Cotman, Pablo M.A Vazquez III, Steven Shaviro
Afrofuturist musicians such as Sun Ra, Janelle Monet, and Deltron 3030 tell stories of detailed future worlds over the course of years of songs. Panelists will play & discuss awesome modern Afrofuturist music and will also discuss how Afrofuturism has developed as a musical expression.

NOON Saturday - Kaffeeklatsch: Tobias S. Buckell - KaffeeKlatsch 1
A small group discussion led by author Tobias S. Buckell. Your opportunity for a more informal discussion with one of our participants. (Limited seating. Sign up at Info Desk.)

NOON Saturday - What's New About Fandom's Diversity? - Ambassador Salon 2
Anne Gray (m), Isabel Schechter, Juan Sanmiguel, Mark Oshiro, Pablo M.A Vazquez III, Richard F Dutcher
The very first SF club met in 1929 at the Harlem home of its president, Warren Fitzgerald. Along with Fitzgerald, who was presumed to be African American, the founding members were five Jewish kids and one white guy. It's no longer exclusively male or heterosexual, but the racial makeup of congoers is still much whiter than the U.S. population. For decades, fans have debated whether fandom poses higher barriers to some minorities than to others; are there any new answers?

1 PM Saturday - Lifewriting and Other Personal Development Tools - Ambassador Salon 1
Steven Barnes
Improving yourself, your life, or your creative work—Steve Barnes shares his thoughts and experiences with Lifewriting and other personal development technologies.

4 PM Saturday - Afrofuturism & Literature - Mackinac West
Balogun Ojetade, Elwin Cotman (m), Keith D. Young, Nnedi Okorafor, Salathiel Palland, Steven Shaviro
First coined by Mark Dery in 1993, the term Afrofuturism is applied to a cultural and literary movement of the black diaspora which uses technology, science, and science fiction to explore the black experience. Our panelists discuss trends and themes in Afrofuturism, and recommend their favorite works.

6 PM Saturday - Crowdfunding: A New Path to Possibility - Nicolet B
Bryan Thomas Schmidt, JF Garrard, Raechel Henderson, Sarah Hans (m) Discussion of crowdfunding and how it opens doors for writers, editors, and small press, as well as other creators.

8-10 PM Saturday Extravaganza—Masquerade & Literary Awards - Ambassador Salon 2
Helen Gbala, Nnedi Okorafor, Sarah Zettel, Tom Smith
The Detcon1 Masquerade will be followed by the presentation of the Golden Ducks and the Detcon1 Awards for Middle Grade and Young Adult Speculative Fiction. The evening wraps up with the announcement of the Masquerade Awards.

Sunday

9 AM Sunday - Tai Chi with Steven Barnes - Ambassador Salon 3
Join Author GoH Steven Barnes for a Tai Chi demonstration/workout. Wear comfortable clothing and be prepared to move!

NOON Sunday - Creators and Brand Identity - Mackinac West
Beverly Bambury (m), John Scalzi, Martin L. Shoemaker, Sean Mead
Neil Gaiman. John Scalzi. Would they be mid-list authors in a world without the Internet? Can you be famous in 2014 only by writing or making art? How does a creator build a brand?

1 PM Sunday - Technological Dependence - Nicolet A
Forest Handford (m), Helen Greiner, Sandy Manning, Steven Shaviro, Tobias S. Buckell
Are we becoming Cybermen with all our technology? From the use of bluetooth ear pieces to online distance relationships, is our society becoming too technology dependent?

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Quantum Criticality...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 16, 2014 at 7:07am
Figure 1: (a) An example of the classical phase transition in a ferromagnet. See more at APS link below.

Theoretically predicted quantum critical behavior in a model magnetic material has been experimentally confirmed at a quantitative level.



Every physicist knows how a ferromagnet like iron behaves as the temperature is increased [Fig. 1(a)]. At low temperatures, the constituent spins are spontaneously aligned as a result of the local magnetic fields from neighboring spins. Thermal fluctuations act against such local fields, inducing random reorientation of the spins. As the temperature increases, thermal fluctuations grow and the net magnetization in the ordered state continuously decreases. The magnetization drops to zero at a critical temperature Tc (1043 kelvin in the case of iron). In a narrow temperature range around Tc, thermal fluctuations of the spins extend over all length scales of the material—scale invariance is a key feature of critical points. This is an example of a continuous classical phase transition driven by thermal fluctuations.



Fluctuations driving quantum phase transitions are of a different nature, however. For example, a continuous quantum phase transition [1, 2, 3] is driven by quantum fluctuations resulting from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The transition takes place when the material is at zero temperature but as a function of a nonthermal control parameter, such as applied pressure, an external magnetic field, or the density of electrons manipulated by the chemical composition. Theory has predicted that, surprisingly, an additional presence of thermal fluctuations at finite temperatures does not eliminate the critical fluctuations present around the quantum critical point [4]. Instead, the region of quantum criticality becomes progressively broader with increasing temperature and extends to temperatures significantly above zero [Fig. 1(b)]. This has now been experimentally demonstrated by Alison Kinross and her colleagues at McMaster University, Canada, in cooperation with theorist Subir Sachdev from Harvard University. In a paper in Physical Review X [5], they report the phase diagram of CoNb2O6, a model magnetic material for quantum criticality [6]. Their results correspond perfectly to the general phase diagram outlined in Fig. 1(b). Furthermore, they provide the first quantitative confirmation of any theory—although there are not many—aiming to predict the temperature evolution of the quantum critical behavior. Although the work by Kinross et al. is concerned with a particular compound, the results are important in a broader sense. Namely, the quantum critical behavior observed in such diverse systems as metals, magnets, superconductors, gases of cold atoms, and black holes, shares many fundamental characteristics—universality is another key feature of critical points.

 Quantum criticality is related to high temperature superconductors, which would make our power-consuming lives a lot easier (and in a geopolitical sense, maybe more peaceful). "Wars and rumors of wars" are essentially serial struggles for scarce resources, usually pilfered by the country with the biggest weapons from those with little or none.

 Related links follow:



 American Physical Society: Viewpoint: A Critical Test of Quantum Criticality
Martin Klanjšek, Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Physics arXiv: Quantum Criticality
Subir Sachdev, Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138
Bernhard Keimer, Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany
Rutgers: Quantum Criticality
Science Daily: Quantum criticality observed in a new class of materials, Rice University

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Within the Event Horizon...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 15, 2014 at 6:28am
At the center of spiral galaxy M81 is a supermassive black hole about 70 million times more massive than our sun.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Wisconsin/D.Pooley & CfA/A.Zezas;NASA/ESA/CfA/A.Zezas; NASA/JPL-Caltech/CfA/J.Huchra et al.; NASA/JPL-Caltech/CfA
Rights information: http://1.usa.gov/Kwf96l

(ISM) -- Our universe may exist inside a black hole. This may sound strange, but it could actually be the best explanation of how the universe began, and what we observe today. It's a theory that has been explored over the past few decades by a small group of physicists including myself.



Successful as it is, there are notable unsolved questions with the standard big bang theory, which suggests that the universe began as a seemingly impossible "singularity," an infinitely small point containing an infinitely high concentration of matter, expanding in size to what we observe today. The theory of inflation, a super-fast expansion of space proposed in recent decades, fills in many important details, such as why slight lumps in the concentration of matter in the early universe coalesced into large celestial bodies such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies.



But these theories leave major questions unresolved. For example: What started the big bang? What caused inflation to end? What is the source of the mysterious dark energy that is apparently causing the universe to speed up its expansion?



The idea that our universe is entirely contained within a black hole provides answers to these problems and many more. It eliminates the notion of physically impossible singularities in our universe. And it draws upon two central theories in physics: General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (my adds, more at the link).



 Inside Science:
A physicist presents a solution to present-day cosmic mysteries.
Nikodem Poplawski, PhD, Indiana University

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