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Trek Musings...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 21, 2014 at 7:18am
Star Trek official site

Star Trek:

"The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh," Volume 1 and Volume 2, by Greg Cox

Star Trek: "Federation," Judith Reeves-Stevens



Admittedly, there is a suspension of belief for Trekkie fans: Warp Drive (NASA is researching it currently); transporters; phase weapons; Vulcan and Klingon humanoid species, and a heavy dose of Deux ex machina (after all, what would the story have been if the Klingons discovered us first?). Gene Roddenberry, by his own admission, was a hopeless optimist.



The above novels allude to the fictional fact that the ascension of the Federation did not come with a witty techno-babble resolution in less than sixty minutes. Especially this gem in the timeline:



Rising from the ashes of the Eugenics Wars of the mid-1990s, the era of World War III was a period of global conflict on Earth that eventually escalated into a nuclear cataclysm and genocidal war over issues including genetic manipulation and Human genome enhancement. World War III itself ultimately lasted from 2026 through 2053, and resulted in the death of some 600 million Humans. By that time, many of the planet's major cities and governments had been destroyed. The rest of the info at the source link is about as cheery, see: Memory Alpha.



They get some things surprisingly (frighteningly) right: nuclear winter (man made, and the antithesis of similarly global warming - irony); radiation in the atmosphere and sickness; the breakdown of social order giving space to the rise of authoritarian demagogues like the fictional Colonel Green (previous paragraph link). We somehow get over that and the genetic mutations associated with most likely plutonium poisoning and a half-life that would make life on a nuclear-devastated planet tenuous for 480 centuries (~24,000 years to get rid of half of it). Transporters...Vulcans...Deux ex machina...



Greg Cox converted the Eugenics Wars into a clandestine conflict between Khan and his super-intelligent, super-strong, megalomaniac genetic sisters and brothers. I guess Caesars just can't get along. In TOS, the Eugenics Wars was the third world war. Either way, losing a tenth of humanity is a lot of people.



"Federation" blended TOS, TNG and Zephram Cochrane with no mention of ENT or "First Contact" (who would have benefited directly from his genius). They also spoke of an "Optimum Movement," a racist, neo-fascist organization that lit the tender box (and launched the nukes) for the conflagration.



This is where I really hope "life [does not] imitate art."



Tomorrow: Fearing Fundamentalism
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WiTricity...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 20, 2014 at 6:21am
Texas Power and Light

Tesla would be proud...1600th post.

Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla was born in July of 1856, in what is now Croatia. He came to the United States in 1884, and briefly worked with Thomas Edison before the two parted ways. He sold several patent rights, including those to his alternating-current machinery, to George Westinghouse. His 1891 invention, the "Tesla coil," is still used in radio technology today.

Around 1900—nearly a decade later after inventing the "Tesla coil"—Tesla began working on his boldest project yet: Building a global communication system—through a large, electrical tower—for sharing information and providing free electricity throughout the world. The system, however, never came to fruition; it failed due to financial constraints, and Tesla had no choice but to abandon the Long Island, New York laboratory that housed his work on the tower project, Wardenclyffe. In 1917, the Wardenclyffe site was sold, and Tesla's tower was destroyed.





In addition to his AC system, coil and tower project, throughout his career, Tesla discovered, designed and developed ideas for a number of important inventions—most of which were officially patented by other inventors—including dynamos (electrical generators similar to batteries) and the induction motor. He was also a pioneer in the discovery of radar technology, X-ray technology and the rotating magnetic field—the basis of most AC machinery. Biography.com

The WiTricity® technology story begins late one night with MIT Professor Marin Soljačić (pronounced Soul-ya-cheech) standing in his pajamas, staring at his mobile phone on the kitchen counter. It was the sixth time that month that he was awakened by his phone beeping to let him know that he had forgotten to charge it. At that moment, it occurred to him: “There is electricity wired all through this house, all through my office—everywhere. This phone should take care of its own charging!” But to make this possible, one would have to find a way to transfer power from the existing wired infrastructure to the phone—without wires. Soljačić started thinking of physical phenomena that could make this dream a reality.



 Company site: WiTricity.com

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Green Fridges...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 18, 2014 at 6:58am
Using the "magnetocaloric effect" to build a low-temperature magnetic refrigeration device. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Spectral-Design)

A large, rotational magnetocaloric effect – which could be used as the basis for a low-temperature magnetic refrigeration device – has been observed in crystals of the compound HoMn2O5, according to research carried out by scientists in Canada and Bulgaria. This finding expands our knowledge of magnetocaloric materials, adding to our progress towards a practical and environmentally friendly magnetic cooler that might be usable in a domestic setting.



In recent times, the potential of magnetic refrigeration techniques as an alternative to traditional, vapour-compression solutions has been attracting considerable attention. This is mainly thanks to the lower energy demands of the technique, and the fact that it is not reliant on hazardous fluids. Such devices take advantage of the magnetocaloric effect – a phenomenon in which certain materials change temperature in response to an externally applied magnetic field. Such fields cause the magnetic dipoles of the atoms within magnetocaloric compounds to align. To balance out this decrease in entropy – and thereby satisfy the second law of thermodynamics – the motion of the atoms also becomes more disordered, and the material heats up. In contrast, when the applied field is removed, the process reverses and the material cools. In magnetic refrigerators, these temperature changes can be harnessed, using a fluid or gas, to drive a heat pump.

This relates to the ozone layer and how we could use technology to reduce the size of the hole over the Antarctic. UV radiation is filtered by it to make our existence possible. Kind of an important thing, since Monday's post on warp drive technology - though inspiring - is still in the theory stage. The only spaceship we currently have is under our feet.



 Physics World: Using magnetic cooling for 'green' refrigeration
#P4TC: "An Extremely Bold Op-Ed," November 19, 2010

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Speaking of Warp Drive...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 16, 2014 at 6:00am


...whether or not we achieve it, it is fascinating that we're giving science discussions on it! Besides, this KILLS any previous designs of starships (without being too far off as well).



Instead of nacelles, it looks like we'd have two hoops enclosing the vessel. No "pivoting at Warp 2" recommended...see the video presentation below.

 The dilemma can be summed in this humorous meme (not meant to insult anyone, but if you do a Google search, it's likely to come up):

Source: Motenes



The science behind the humor: it took about as much fuel as the shuttle weighed to get it into orbit. Fuel would then be spent (emptied), and Newtonian mechanics - momentum and gravitational pull of planets mostly - would be the predominate force moving a craft forward.

 The only interstellar vehicle that's left our solar system is Voyager 1 on August 25, 2012, launched in 1977 when I was decidedly (blessedly) in high school. With abs...and hair on my head...

 35 years is a long time for a one-way trip. NASA is attempting to reduce such journeys to a human lifetime, and maybe make it a round trip. Even 1/10 c (the speed of light) would be a civilization-changing accomplishment.

 Look at the picture above. Nope, it’s not a snapshot of a Star Wars scene, or any other sci-fi movie. It’s what you get if you combine a NASA physicist working on achieving faster-than-light travel with a 3D artist, and the result is freaking AWESOME. And yes, you heard correctly, there are scientists working on faster-than-light travel, and this is what the ship could look like in the future.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-reveals-latest-warp-drive-ship-designs#EPvMa3eRlv4Ekmb1.99

#P4TC links:
"As Dreams Are Made On," September 21, 2012
"Alcubierre Drive," October 28, 2012
"Warp Fields and Research Efficacy," July 26, 2013

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My Name is Barry Allen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 14, 2014 at 7:41am
The Global Dispatch

Dimensional barrier...unknown energies...antimatter...dark energy...x element (?)...I applaud their near Star Trek level techno-babble. Smiley



Though it mixes comic companies, he reminds me of Toby Maguire in the original Spiderman movies. Similar to Peter Parker's epic lunchroom fight with Flash Thompson, everyone moving in slow-mo; the look of sheer terror and befuddlement is entertaining when Barry Allen realizes he's not quite human anymore (or, as they allude, he's a meta-human).



Anyway, this post is reminiscent is when I encountered comic book characters, other than reading them in the comics. It would be on Saturday mornings, rising early at 6 AM, glued to the set until 3 PM ending with the Lone Ranger and Tonto. It's how I know the Apollo moon landing happened (when Jonny Quest reruns gets interrupted for Neil Armstrong, as a 6-year-old, you can get a little excited). I, of course, wasn't disappointed.



I hope you enjoy it in the fall. Along with Arrow, Gotham, Agents of Shield, the fall line up - minus "reality" television - should be fun (again).
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Computational Anthropology...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 13, 2014 at 7:01am
Location-based social networks are allowing scientists to study the way human patterns of behaviour change in time and space, a technique that should eventually lead to deeper insights into the nature of society.

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: The increasing availability of big data from mobile phones and location-based apps has triggered a revolution in the understanding of human mobility patterns. This data shows the ebb and flow of the daily commute in and out of cities, the pattern of travel around the world and even how disease can spread through cities via their transport systems.



So there is considerable interest in looking more closely at human mobility patterns to see just how well it can be predicted and how these predictions might be used in everything from disease control and city planning to traffic forecasting and location-based advertising.



Today we get an insight into the kind of detailed that is possible thanks to the work of Zimo Yang at Microsoft research in Beijing and a few pals. These guys start with the hypothesis that people who live in a city have a pattern of mobility that is significantly different from those who are merely visiting. By dividing travelers into locals and non-locals, their ability to predict where people are likely to visit dramatically improves.



Zimo and co begin with data from a Chinese location-based social network called Jiepang.com. This is similar to Foursquare in the US. It allows users to record the places they visit and to connect with friends at these locations and to find others with similar interests.



 Physics arXiv: Indigenization of Urban Mobility
Zimo Yang, Nicholas Jing Yuan, Xing Xie, Defu Lian, Yong Rui, Tao Zhou

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NASA's Flying Saucer...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 12, 2014 at 6:00am
Credit: JPL/NASA

They're doing the testing at high altitudes to simulate thin atmospheric conditions on Mars. In a twist, the flying saucer isn't coming from the Red Planet...we're sending our own. Smiley



NASA did not conduct the flight test of the agency's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range in Kauai, Hawaii, during its designated launch period. The project's reserved time at the range will expire Saturday without NASA being able to fly the test because of continuing unfavorable weather conditions.



NASA will hold a media teleconference at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, June 12 to discuss what this delay in the LDSD testing means and possible next steps for the project.



Speakers will be:



--Mark Adler, LDSD Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California



--Ian Clark, LDSD Principal Investigator at JPL



The teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's website at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio


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EXPLORING THE GALAXIES.... AURA- THE ART OF WINSTON BLAKELY

Posted by Winston Blakely on June 11, 2014 at 9:17pm

        Coming Soon in the fall of this year is an artbook that I think most of bsfs members will enjoy.

         From my own personal archives of Blakelyworks Studio I have picked what I think is the best

   

         of my work, with new features and chapters included. Take special note that Jarvis Sheffield,

         creator of this very same site you are chatting on and networking to get your most creative

         projects done, did the introduction to Aura, The Art of Winston Blakely.  And a profound

         tip of the hat to William Hayashi for the suggestion of this idea which is about to be

         available soon.

         Please, stay tune for further announcements about this deluxe coffee table artbook.

               Thank You

                 Winston Blakely

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Hopping To Open Bandgap...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 11, 2014 at 7:17am
(a) Top view of the crystal structure of monolayer phosphorene, and side views of the occupied orbitals, corresponding to (b) bonding orbitals and (c) lone pairs. Courtesy: Phys. Rev. B

Single electrons hopping between individual atomic layers are responsible for opening up a bandgap in multilayer black phosphorus (or phosphorene) – a new technologically important 2D material. This unexpected finding, from researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, is very different to what happens in other 2D materials like graphene and the transition-metal dichalcogenides.



Like other 2D materials, such as graphene and the transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), black phosphorus has dramatically different electronic and mechanical properties from its bulk, 3D, parent and so may find use in a host of novel device applications. And just like graphene (which is a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice), black phosphorus is a layered material containing individual phosphorus atoms that are arranged hexagonally. Each atomic layer is held together by weak van der Waals forces. However, in phosphorene, the surface is puckered, and this seems to make all the difference when it comes to bandgap behaviour.



Bulk phosphorene is a semiconductor with a moderate bandgap of between 0.31 and 0.35 eV, but the monolayer material is predicted to be an insulator with a much larger bandgap that varies with the number of phosphorus layers. Although such predictions have already been confirmed in laboratory experiments, researchers are still unsure as to where this considerable bandgap broadening comes from as the material is scaled down to monolayers.



 Nano Tech Web: Hopping to open up a bandgap in phosphorene, Belle Dumé

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On criticism

Posted by Moorsgate Media on June 10, 2014 at 5:36pm

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli. .
Recently, there has been an uptick in discussions about benefit of diverse characters in fiction. For example, see here .

Sound arguments for a more inclusive universe of fiction are legion.  There exits, beyond the compelling arguments about diversity of subject, arguments to be made about diversity of authorship.

Obviously, a talented writer of any background, can tell a gripping story about a culture different for her own. However, is something lost in experiential translation when the rich and comfortable tells stories of the poor and oppressed?  Should we assume that the meritocracy of talent operates with an invisible hand and just hope that the privileged operate in a world without blinders?

We could debate this topic for years and never get to a satisfactory resolution. Instead, the issue raises an interesting thought experiment about the usefulness of criticism. Specifically, what obligation does a critical consumer of fiction have as its creator? Do consumers of media featuring or authored by POCs have an obligation to view the work with a less critical eye, least they discourage the telling these stories? (This isn't necessarily a question grammar, structure and pacing, but one of reason, weight and intent.)  

Or should those tales featuring the least represented carry the dual weight of being entertaining and profound? If they don't, have they failed in some respect.  Is it not enough to tell a good, fun story? Does it need to shatter preconceptions, subvert tropes, and open minds?  Can POC fiction ever exist outside of itself, telling tales of pulpy mages and wisecracking aliens, without the necessity to parse the hidden meaning, the social commentary of a people's agenda.

It is often true that POC are judged twice as harsh (illumination here) when it comes to critical analysis of their work,  is this the same standard that must be applied to works that feature their likenesses?

Do reviewers have to look at a work and demand it be something that it isn't? Of course, the one argument is that there are so very few works that feature POCs, anyone who undertakes the effort should be given the benefit of the doubt. We shouldn't demand that works be complete realizations of social commentary mixed in with compelling narratives. Sometimes, it is okay to not require sub-text with our text. On the other, literary gatekeepers can and do demand certain shibboleths to be tackled when POCs feature heavily in the plot synopsis or author page. Recognition, even when bounded by expectations, can solve problems of access. Should a reviewer stand in the stead of the literary community and demand that every self-published vampire vs robot novel also speak to the eternal existential struggle for justice and equality?

Our thoughts are mixed. The role of criticism to should be to lift all boats; each review challenging the author to rise and make his colleagues rise.  But criticism also should function as an iceberg to the hull of ego. Shouting that you are tackling hard issues does not give you a waiver to actually tackle them. Voices need to be heard, and be heard well.

Moorsgate Media



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Turing Test...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 10, 2014 at 6:00am
Credit: The Telegraph - UK

A ''super computer'' has duped humans into thinking it is a 13-year-old boy, becoming the first machine to pass the ''iconic'' Turing Test, experts say



Hannah Furness, and agencies

A ''super computer'' has duped humans into thinking it is a 13-year-old boy to become the first machine to pass the ''iconic'' Turing Test, experts have said.

Five machines were tested at the Royal Society in central London to see if they could fool people into thinking they were humans during text-based conversations.

The test was devised in 1950 by computer science pioneer and Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing, who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human, then it was ''thinking''.

No computer had ever previously passed the Turing Test, which requires 30 per cent of human interrogators to be duped during a series of five-minute keyboard conversations, organisers from the University of Reading said.

But ''Eugene Goostman'', a computer programme developed to simulate a 13-year-old boy, managed to convince 33 per cent of the judges that it was human, the university said. 1



A chatterbot named Eugene Goostman has become the first to pass the Turing Test.



“Eugene” and four other contenders participated in the Turing Test 2014 Competition at the Royal Society in London. Each chatterbox was required to engage in a series of five-minute text-based conversations with a panel of judges. A computer passes the test if it is mistaken for a human more than 30% of the time. Eugene convinced 33% of the judges it was human– the only machine in history to do so.

The competition was held on the 60th anniversary of the death of Alan Turing, the great British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst , computer scientist and philosopher.

During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s code breaking center. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, and improved the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.

The great Alan Turing was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation”. Turing is widely considered the “father” of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.

The shameful British government prosecuted Turing for being gay, showing no respect for a man whose contributions to Britain and the world were enormous. He accepted treatment with estrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison, and later committed suicide. 2
Credit: ApplySci blog

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture." Bertrand Russell

1. The Telegraph: Computer passes 'Turing Test' for the first time after convincing users it is human, Hannah Furness, and agencies
2. ApplySci Blog: CHATBOT PASSES TURING TEST, Lisa Weiner

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BSFS, Spreading the word "Furqan's First Flat Top"

Posted by Robert Trujillo on June 9, 2014 at 10:52am

Peace, everybody this is my first self published children's book which I will be promoting majorly over the next 28 days through kickstarter. Please check it out and pass it along when you get a chance. 

You can keep up with the campaign here at http://bit.ly/FurqansFirst and here at http://Robdontstop.com for updates as well.

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Robot Wrestling...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 9, 2014 at 6:49am
Source: Technology Review

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Here’s how mathematicians might define the sport of wrestling. A system composed of two mechanical agents coupled via mechanical actions such as contact and collision. The aim of the contest is for one agent to floor the other while maintaining its own balance. The rest is just show business.



That’s more or less exactly how Katsutoshi Yoshida and pals at Utsunomiya University in Japan describe the sport in developing a mathematical model of wrestling which they go on to test in a numerical simulation.



The end result is a pair of autonomous mechanical wrestlers that compete to topple each other.



 Physics arXiv:
Artificial Wrestling: A Dynamical Formulation of Autonomous Agents Fighting in a Coupled Inverted Pendula Framework
Katsutoshi Yoshida, Shigeki Matsumoto, Yoichi Matsue

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Cognitive Dissonance...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 8, 2014 at 6:00am
okami.buzznet.com

Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors.

This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc.

For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition).

Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance).

The season finale of COSMOS airs tonight.

Dr. Tyson interviewed Steven Soter on his Internet Star Talk Radio show, who along with Anne Druyan (and Carl), was one of the original writers of COSMOS:


I have a naive hope that with the right information, human beings tend to respond to it and make logical decisions. Even in the fictional Star Trek timeline, it took a while before the humans actually "got it," and started behaving in a civilized manner towards one another (it only took several millennium of ignorance and cruelty, after all).

Like Big Bang/climate change/science denial; like mythologized faked-moon-landing-conspiracies; like fraud creation science versus actual, I have been sadly mistaken. Similar to the debate on evolution at the creation museum between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, it did little more than fill the airwaves and social media posts with something novel to view. In Ham's case, he was literally "preaching to the choir" of the sternly-resistant-to-new-information-congregation. From the link heading the first paragraph:

Leon Festinger (1957) proposed cognitive dissonance theory, which states that a powerful motive to maintain cognitive consistency can give rise to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behavior.

According to Festinger, we hold many cognitions about the world and ourselves; when they clash, a discrepancy is evoked, resulting in a state of tension known as cognitive dissonance. As the experience of dissonance is unpleasant, we are motivated to reduce or eliminate it, and achieve consonance (i.e. agreement).


"Boldly going where no one has gone before" sounds like almost a daily/weekly inoculation against dissonance. You must record the new findings in your captain's log, dismiss what you previously believed, and move on.

 Cognitive dissonance inoculates one from taking in new information and forming new modes of thinking from it, the equivalent of placing index fingers in ears to sing-song "la-la" nauseatingly. It's been heartbreaking to see some of the comments on Facebook or Twitter from trolls that have a loud opinion and memorized talking points from bamboozle artists, but no actual experience in science or facts. [Thankfully, to the benefit of my blood pressure] I've learned to read and not engage: dissonance tends toward excited, incoherent, twisted-logic responses. Inevitably when I did engage previously, my goal would be sharing knowledge; their goal is authoritarian compliance to a quite twisted worldview. It's as if the criteria for winning a debate is how loudly one group or another can howl at the moon.

For better or worse (hint: I lean towards better), the 13 disk DVD will go on sale Tuesday. I'll likely buy it to support the show and its advocacy of science.

Just as likely as - despite the evidence before them - some will continue, at self-disillusioned disadvantage, to howl at the moon.

Related link: Logical fallacy poster
National Center for Science Education: "Scientific" Creationism
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Kardashev Scales...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 7, 2014 at 6:10am
Source: see "here" after Type IV and V below

I used a reference to the Kardashev Scale to answer the following question (proposed to me by a friend on Facebook):



"Do you think mankind will ever master time travel?"



Short answer: no, with caveats.



I did qualify my "no" also with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and gave a link on Entropy. I also pointed out that every moment of our existence, we are time travelers - the motion of course, traveling forward.



In the series "Hannibal," the infamous Dr. Lecter discusses his longing for Mischa, his sister (you'll have to read "Hannibal Rising" by Thomas Harris to get the back story). In a nod to "Rising," he spoke of dropping a teacup in one scene of the season finale (most of which as someone who read the book series I did NOT predict coming), and hoped to see it reassemble, presumably witnessing the flow of time going in reverse, thus he would see his beloved sister again. That is a longing for something Entropy doesn't allow - backwards time travel.



I also pointed out as a species, we're not even at Type I on the Kardashev Scale:



Type I: able to marshal energy resources for communications on a planet-wide scale, equivalent to the entire present power consumption of the human race, or about 1016 watts. Here, Carl Sagan begged to differ, due to power gradation, we're more like (on his measure) a 0.7 civilization, or 7 x 1015 watts. We have pockets of deployed resources, but definitely not "planet-wide," else there would be no economic distinctions: east/south side to west side; 1st and 3rd worlds. Perhaps we could edge up our score with renewable alternatives?



Type II: surpasses this by a factor of approximately ten billion, making available 1026 watts, by exploiting the total energy output of its central star, using a Dyson sphere.



Type III: evolved enough to tap the energy resources of an entire galaxy, ~ 1036 watts.



Type IV and V here (along with the source of the shway photo above)



Let's take Chris Pine - the current Captain James T. Kirk. He weighs 175 lbs or 80 kg.



The Trek transporter converts humans into pure energy, ignores Heisenberg Uncertainty (via a Heisenberg compensator, of course...o_9), and somehow miraculously reassembles them perfectly, managing not to create horribly misshapen"Kirk-copies."



Utilizing the famous (Special Relativity) E = mc2:



80 kg x (3 x 108 m/s)2 = 7,200,000,000,000,000,000 N-m = 7.2 x 1018 Joules, or 7.2 x 1018 Joules per second (watts), clearly putting 23rd Century Warp Tech somewhere between a Type I and a II (I'm calling it "1.12"), at least to accomplish "scattering a man's atoms" about the universe (gotta love Bones McCoy's wordplay).



However, Wormholes are theorized to exist, as were once Black Holes (see Kip Thorne's "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy"). I was astonished to find out that Einstein and other physicists of his day did-not-want Black Holes to exist (at that time, they were called Schwarzschild singularities). It was pointed out in Kip's book that the solutions in General Relativity predicting Black Holes were initially themselves astonishing.



Wormholes, if detected, are probably very tiny and would take some kind of "exotic matter" to stabilize it for anything like the Enterprise, Defiant or Voyager to traverse it safely. That would put us squarely in Type II and out of the fossil fuel choke hold, plenty of food, world peace; "tea: Earl Grey - hot." A Wormhole would be a bridge in time as well as space, (Heimdall! Open the Bifrost!), but I think your time travel would be limited to the manufacture date of your Star Gate, i.e., if you made it 7 June 2014, this is as far backwards that one could travel (no reverse-breaking teacups or grandfather paradoxes).



So in essence: like any good Trekkie, or the mourning Dr. Lecter: I'd love to see it, but I don't think I will in my lifetime. We'd have to get smarter as a species than we've currently demonstrated in science.
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Getting your children's/middle school/YA books in school libraries

Posted by Ruth deJauregui on June 7, 2014 at 10:30am

I posted this information on Facebook during a discussion in the Reading in Black group, but I should share it with you all.

My sister is a middle school science teacher, so she filled me in on this and HIGHLY recommended that you authors who are writing children, teen or YA books submit your books, or have the teachers who are using your books in the classroom request that your books have quizzes developed and added to the Accelerated Reading Program AND Scholastic Reading Inventory.

School libraries specifically order books from these lists for the students' Language Arts classes. A student MUST select books from one of these two lists (depending on which one the school uses). Also, just so you know, the schools buy the quizzes from these companies, so they order the books that match the quizzes.

There is a huge push on literacy and language arts, to the point of ridiculousness when they want science teachers to incorporate language arts into the science classroom to the point where it interferes with teaching science and the language of science. (Don't get me started!)

So, let me encourage you to work on getting your books into these two systems so you can (hopefully) start getting some sales into school libraries and classrooms.

AR - http://www.renaissance.com/customer-center/suggest-quizzes or to contact them directly - http://www.renaissance.com/Contact-Us

SRI - http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/independent_reading/scholastic_reading_counts/community/suggest_quiz.asp

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