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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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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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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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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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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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Psychology and Thermodynamics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 14, 2014 at 7:06am
The sculpture above is Salvador Dali’s “Dance of Time II” displayed in front of the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. (Inside Science)

(ISNS) -- Almost nothing is more obvious than the fact that time flows from the past, which we remember, toward the future, which we don’t. Scientists and philosophers call this the psychological arrow of time. Hot coffee left on your desk cools down, and never heats up on its own, which reflects the thermodynamic arrow of time.



In a paper scheduled to appear this week in the journal Physical Review E, two physicists make the case that these two long-separate notions of time — one based on psychology and one based on thermodynamics — must always align.



The principles of thermodynamics show that large collections of particles, like the trillions upon trillions of liquid molecules in a coffee cup, always move toward more disorganized arrangements. For instance, hot water molecules clumped together in a cold room need a lot of organization, so warm drinks eventually cool to the surrounding temperature. Physicists say such disorganized arrangements have high entropy, whereas ordered arrangements have low entropy.



Good primer on the subject, and an attempt to bridge the philosophy with the physics. As I've stated to someone that's asked me about why backwards time travel isn't possible, my answer is it hasn't been observed in nature. We would see teacups or chandeliers "un-break" or waterfalls flow backwards. It would be quite visible and noticeable from the norm, I would think. If it were possible, we could have visitors from the future creating paradoxes that would wreck havoc to the timeline - someone would notice that as well.



 Inside Science: Why Does Time Flow Forward? Gabriel Popkin, ISNS Contributor

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Meet the 'black' Tony Stark and Professor X:

Posted by Anthony Hall on July 12, 2014 at 1:39pm
Anthony Hall, Founder of TREOProposing to build an innovation lab and academy in Africa to develop prototypes of a flying surfboard simulation, spoken word programming language and the Iron Roses WING FS [Wave Integrated Null-G Flying Suite].Flying (Silver Surfer style) simulations, systems and suits - you heard it here first.---The Rose of Education Organization [TREO]Where Education is Child's Play and Technology is a Game
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Diversity...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 13, 2014 at 6:40am


From the image source at Nature:

 "Science remains institutionally sexist. Despite some progress, women scientists are still paid less, promoted less frequently, win fewer grants and are more likely to leave research than similarly qualified men. This special issue of Nature takes a hard look at the gender gap — from bench to boardroom — and at what is being done to close it."



Unfortunately, the world is not like Star Trek, populated with fictional Captains like Kathryn Janeway of this inspiring description:



"This subject's penchant for the scientific method and clear-cut choices has given her a healthy dose of skepticism, which usually provides a command asset in dealing with new situations. Her preference for difficult studies is self-traced back to childhood, when she would prefer that to outdoor play. Since then, she has indicated no pleasure in outdoor camping, hiking, or cooking." StarTrek.com



I follow a blog: Female Science Professor. The author describes herself as a full professor, and other than staying anonymous (probably important around review time) she's very frank about the biases encountered both from colleagues and students: her most resent post, a student in class evaluation said "You should improve your teaching methods." The prof made lemons into lemonade and blogged about it. The genders of her students - like her own identity - were left nebulous.



Diversity: an ideal we all agree sounds good on paper, but are reluctant to do the heavy lift to achieve it (see Nature excerpt). Even in politics: our current president as probability represents 2.3% of the general population of Chief Executives from George Washington to himself. However, disrespect of the office and obstruction of his agenda approaches Guinness World Record levels as he's being sued for using Executive Orders - the least of any president according to official archives and math - essentially the pre-pubescent, sidewalk-flailing public tantrum of a desperate orange man being any Executive Order above zero.

 Women and minorities are not only underrepresented in the sciences, they are openly discouraged from pursuing STEM careers at the university level and at early life stages. I was personally insulted by my middle school science teacher - "No, you big dummy!" - after asking a question about calculating the coefficient of linear expansion on a metal wire. I had stifled the immediate urgent need at that moment to deck him, confident of the outcome with the authorities if I had. My parents were not amused, and scheduled a visit with the principal. That was followed by a sweaty, self-preserving "apology" from the science teacher. I passed his class with a descent grade, and moved on from the twerp. The fact both groups are so low means discouragement is remarkably efficient to maintain the status quo of the "usual suspects" in the sciences, and a concentration of wealth and opportunities along gender and cultural lines. Suffice to say, to resist the "haters": you have to want it!

 Albert Einstein was so fond of answering the fan mail of children interested in science, author Alice Calaprice wrote a book on it. In an exchange with a young science fan from South Africa named Tiffany:

September 19, 1946: "I forgot to tell you, in my last letter, that I was a girl. I mean I am a girl. I have always regretted this a great deal, but by now I have become more or less resigned to the fact. Anyway, I hate dresses and dances and all the kind of rot girls usually like. I much prefer horses and riding. Long ago, before I wanted to become a scientist, I wanted to b e a jockey and ride horses in races. But that was ages ago, now. I hope you will not think any the less of me for being a girl!"

To which, Einstein's reply was classic, and classy (circa October 1946):

"I do not mind that you are a girl, but the main thing is that you yourself do not mind. There is no reason for it."


Carl Sagan pointed out there is an excellent correlation between poverty for women and high birthrates, whether the country is defined by religion - Christian, Hindu, Irreligious,  Muslim, etc. That would suggest access to birth control increases the wealth of women and nations, unless you're a Corporation-Person that can presumably give obeisance from bricks to deity. Or, you're five male, activist Catholic Supreme Court Justices intent on cramming their Neanderthal viewpoints down everyone's throats. The caveat emptor is in dismantling the legal fiction and protections forming corporations give. Someone is going to sue a business in the future siting this so-called ruling, coming after the owner or owner's personal wealth also. Slippery slopes forge unintended pathways.

 Minorities (an ironic label for the majority of the Earth's population) at least numerically in this country are hampered by generations of specifically-designed social engineering; castigated for not competing in rigged "rights" of citizenship (like voting); when the value of property plummets at their presence; the neurological harmful effects of leaded plumbing in East Austin and other areas not addressed until gentrification (and now I see climate effects); globalization and technology eliminating previous decent-paying jobs, doubled unemployment rates and the obvious differences dependent on which side of the tracks you were born (still) in education since Brown vs. Board. It's also interesting to see screeds on the Internet against the LGBT community, unbeknownst to the screed producer of the Turing Test for artificial intelligence, or that he's the reason we have in the lexicon "algorithm"; "computation"; "cryptography" (the essence of McAfee, Norton or any antivirus software), or as the father of Computer Science that we're typing on laptops at all. Not to mention the ugly, breathtaking displays of xenophobia at the border of California to children by the great-great-grandchildren of immigrants that have yet to recompense the Native Americans for the sins of Columbus.



We can have myriad months of celebrations that target specific groups and their contributions. It all disappears into the social, attention-deficit ether. Our discourse, our academia, our music, our self-governance; our sense of right-and-wrong (who goes to prison and who goes to rehab) will not change nor will we survive as a species until we see one another...as humans.

 Related link: Go-Girl - Gaining Options-Girls Investigate Real Life
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Keep your head to the skies

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on July 8, 2014 at 10:32am

Keep your head to the skies is what the music said, so that was the message I heard. I don't know if that was right. My daughter said keeping all my long for you. I said love baby not long. We laugh at that now. A lot of messages depend on what you already heard for context and reality.

On the Men in Black, they said ever notice how beautiful the stars are? An obvious sign they were tired of their job and wished they didn't have carnal knowledge of aliens. I don't know I never look up. Where's that flashy thing. You do know a laser across the eyes will wipe out memory, careful watching that media, subliminal flashes will.............

In the Matrix Neal said no one remembers when we scorched the sky. Which brings me to my point, why life is so weird. There be multiple drapes pulled over our eyes. Each institution has a stage and we participate in their production according to their script. It is a mental play in which the words define the reality and the cast members all concur and are in cahoots. How angry we get when the cast members of another play acts as if his play has better reviews than ours. He is a star in his own mind, but then so are you, in your mind. Diversity is how to live peacefully with others on different pages of the same book. Reading or insisting on a different book is an act of war.

The scripts are real, we treat them as holy rituals and dress for the part. Meanwhile chem-trails crosshatch the sky. We should say planes are putting out pollutions in mega proportions but chem-trails are urban legend like spacecraft. It's swamp gas or water vapor. I remember the skies of my youth and airplanes of lower technology that didn't make lingering spreading linear clouds. You mean to tell me with today's efficient technology and clean fuels the sky is a woven blanket of harmless visible water vapor?

I used to walk through the same wall out of habit, I stopped because a residue left behind each time started to show signs of organizing into a new life form. LOL! Now I am concerned, is not my form who I am or is there a part of me that can not slip between space or other forms intact. I was thinking of visiting an hospice for superheros to find out what becomes of the aged.............oops, forgot, the comics are another one of those scripts. Stan still and know I am god, who said that? Another script? The powers that be have been applied in a script that disenfranchises 99.9% of the masses. 

The chaos, the still blackness, the buzzing in my ears like when a 3d sensation is produced in my headphones and I can swear the bass player is over there. Hey, it's a wiggly groove on a plastic disc, bits that mimic what was heard via electronic ears. If this present immersion would stop twerking my senses would my soul experience the real reality? Or is this the purpose of reality to inundate my senses so that my soul can experience while my spirit records, god? knows and experiences thru me/us???????? All men together is god. Oooh dude, god needs an upgrade!

I see a pattern here, wonder turns into science turns into religion. Then the question do you see what I see, you must see what I see, understand what I understand the way I do, government. We write the scripts, threaten treason or hell's damnation if we don't act in the play. In my knee-jerk reaction I cock my head back, looking deep into the depths of the hazy blue and twinkly flickers and sigh, prayer.

We think we need the opinion or perspective of a rational alien who can give an unbiased fix for our dementia. Too late, our scripts have said they are neck bitters, brain eaters, viruses, flesh mangling creatures of every sort, with war and extermination agendas and the only English phrase they know is “stupid humanoid scum.” We write the scripts that makes the whole sing, we write the scripts, we write the.....................ooh, you don't know the power of the dark side. Yeah we do!

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The Whitewashing of Hollywood

Posted by William Hayashi on July 10, 2014 at 7:00pm

Whitewashing Was One Of Hollywood's Worst Habits. So Why Is It Still Happening?

It probably won't surprise you to learn that early Hollywood's mainstream films were far from racially, ethnically or culturally sensitive. When minority characters were represented at all, they were typically characterized as immoral, criminal simpletons, used as comedic contrasts to their white protagonists, as outlined in the book Racism, Sexism, And the Media. Meanwhile, Hollywood's mainstream starring roles have long been monopolized by white actors; even though it's meant whitewashing history. What may surprise you is how frequently this still happens today.

Click here for the full story

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SPS Interns...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 11, 2014 at 6:33am


My youngest has an internship with a Civil Engineering firm in Arlington. That fact fills me with pride, and some financial relief as he pays his own rent this summer.

 However, the following both filled me with parental puff, and gave me pause:

 STEM learning is critical to a 21st century education, but there remains a serious mismatch of skills for entering the workforce.  According to data from the Ray Marshall Center’s Student Futures Project, in 2012 only 21 percent of students in Central Texas graduated with an interest in an Engineering, Computer & Information Services, or Natural Sciences & Mathematics post-secondary program.  Further, research suggests that students indicating a preference for a STEM career by the eighth grade are two to three times more likely to earn STEM degrees than their peers.

 By the ninth grade, he entered and matriculated through something called an "Architectural Passport" program until he graduated. He initially wanted to be an architect or go into architectural engineering. Civil engineering was the closest at UT Arlington, and the firm he works for works in structural engineering, which is essentially what AE's would do. He's having a lot of fun.

 This statistic from the STEM council troubles me as employers are starting to hire Central Texans again in STEM fields. To feed this pipeline, it would behoove them to increase this percentage. If you're in Civil Engineering, the ASCE site probably is your best bet. For all us physics nerds, here's a little help below.

 Note: For SPS - Society of Physics Students - internships, applications due February 14.
(Valentine's Day massacre? Couldn't resist).

 Stipend: $4,500.

Also covers: commuting allowance, coverage of transportation to/from Washington, DC, and support to attend and present at a national physics meeting in the year following the internship.

Meet the 2014 SPS National Interns, who are in the Washington, DC, area for 9.5-week science, policy and outreach internships with organizations including SPS, AIP, AAPT, APS, NASA, NIST, and the U.S. House of Representatives, May 28 - August 1, 2014.


More info:
2014 SPS National Interns
SPS Internships (good luck)

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Quantum Field Theory...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on July 9, 2014 at 7:23am
Source of photo, text and lectures: PhysicsDatabase.com

Ok so it seems like a good time to update the lecture section. Here we have a full course on quantum field theory. Ed Witten, when asked about quantum field theory, described it as the hardest theory in modern physics by far. However my friends, don’t be discouraged, there are plenty of great resources online that can help you out in taming this hard theory. One of the best resources is this course delivered by David Tong. The course contains 14 lectures focusing on the basics of QFT. The only obvious drawback is, as you might have noticed, the quality of these videos. Luckily, the videos can be downloaded in various formats (including the slides showing the blackboard) on the Perimeter Institute website. For more lectures visit the links below.
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