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Peer Review...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 21, 2014 at 5:00am
Timberwood Park, San Antonio, TX: Caveat emptor

Yesterday (17 March), researchers from the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP2) telescope at the South Pole revealed that they have detected the first evidence for the primordial B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The astronomers claimed that the primordial B-mode polarization signal – which is related to primordial gravitational waves that flowed through the early universe – is the first direct evidence for cosmic inflation and has been measured to a statistical certainty of 3σ. Now, cosmologist and Perimeter Institute director Neil Turok, who worked on an inflationary model of his own with Stephen Hawking in the 1990s, urges caution and says that extensive experimental confirmation is necessary before BICEP2's results can be considered as evidence for inflation.



"If...and it's a big if...this is true, it would be spectacular evidence for what happened at the Big Bang," Turok told physicsworld.com. While he agreed that at first glance, the BICEP2 observations are in keeping with inflation "as suggested over 30 years ago, wherein space–time would resonate with the aftershocks of inflation and would ring like a bell", a closer look at the discrepancy between the new results and previous data from the Planck and WMAP telescopes is what worries Turok. Indeed, the tensor-to-scalar ratio of 0.20 that BICEP2 measured is considered to be significantly larger than that expected from previous analyses of data. But the BICEP2 researchers said in their press conference yesterday that they believe certain tweaks could be made to an extension of the ΛCDM cosmological model that could make the two results agree.



"But these tweaks would be tremendously ugly....and in fact, I believe that if both Planck and the new results agree, then together they would give substantial evidence against inflation!" exclaims Turok, further explaining that "[we] must be careful before we treat them as true".



"Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence." Carl Sagan.

 Even though Tuesday's announcement was exciting news, and I really want it to be true, it might not be. After the Scientific Method, this is the rigor of peer review and the necessity of it. Without it, we march down the primrose path of pseudoscience and created entities like the Discovery Institute ("intelligent design") and World Science Database (which purports that the Special and General Theory of Relativity have been "disproved"  despite yesterday, I was discussing superconducting quantum interference devices - SQUID's). Both organizations are of "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal" to quote Corinthians. The Science Channel - when it's not suggesting UFO close encounters - promotes the tagline "question everything." We really should.



 Physics World: Neil Turok urges caution on BICEP2 results

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MISSED THE LAST "DISCUSSIONS FROM THE OTHERHOOD" SHOW? THAT'S OK - CATCH US ON iTUNES!

Posted by Penelope on March 20, 2014 at 1:09am

That's Right! The OTHER SCI FI Talkshoe Live Podcast "Discussions from the Otherhood which we record just about every Saturday at 4pm EST is now a free Podcast on iTunes!

To find us go to:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?fcld=529293810

And initiate a Search for "Other Sci Fi" in the Podcasts section of the menu.

Listen in and maybe... just maybe you'll decide to join us one of these Saturday afternoons!

If you have any problems locating us at iTunes, contact me here or at p.flynn@otherscifi.com for additional information!

~P.Flynn

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SQUID...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 19, 2014 at 2:58pm
Micrograph of a SQUID amplifier, made at NIST in 2012, that is part of a circuit used to read signals from arrays of superconducting sensors. Small currents generated by the sensors are carried and amplified in the coils, which create magnetic fields detected by the SQUID (two small squares in the center of the image).
Credit: NIST

From humble beginnings in a series of accidental discoveries, SQUIDs have invaded and enhanced many areas of science and medicine, thanks, in part, to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).



SQUIDs—short for superconducting quantum interference devices—are the world's most sensitive magnetometers and powerful signal amplifiers, with broad applications ranging from medicine and mining to cosmology and materials analysis.



Physicists from around the world celebrated last week* to mark the 50th anniversary of the first journal paper introducing the SQUID, published in February 1964.

Celebrants heard about the use of SQUIDS to measure brain activity in Finland, discover mineral deposits leading to a large silver mine in Australia, and detect faint light from the early moments of the universe from telescopes all over the world.



SQUIDs measure magnetic fields based on quantum properties created when a superconducting circuit loop, in which electricity flows without resistance, is interrupted with one or two short sections of resistive material. The current across the resistive section varies predictably, based on the strength of the external magnetic field, making the device an exquisitely sensitive detector of magnetic fields. Typically, SQUIDs need to be cooled to cryogenic temperatures below 4 kelvins (-269 degrees Celsius) with liquid helium.



The SQUID was invented at Ford Scientific Laboratories in the 1960s but was further developed at NIST (then called the National Bureau of Standards). James Zimmerman co-invented one type of SQUID (the RF-SQUID) and coined the term while at Ford, before joining NIST where he worked in the 1970s and 1980s.



 NIST: Magnetic Attraction: Physicists Pay Homage to the SQUID at 50

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Five Sigma...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 18, 2014 at 4:30am
The 10-meter South Pole Telescope and the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) Telescope against the Milky Way. BICEP2 recently detected gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background, a discovery that supports the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe began. (Photo: Keith Vanderlinde, National Science Foundation)

The detection of gravitational waves by the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole supports the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe came to be. The discovery, made in part by Assistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo, supports the theoretical work of Stanford's Andrei Linde.



Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today's best telescopes. All this, of course, has just been theory.



Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration today announced the first direct evidence supporting this theory, known as "cosmic inflation." Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.



 Stanford News:
New evidence from space supports Stanford physicist's theory of how universe began
Harvard Center for Astrophysics: First Direct Evidence of Cosmic Inflation

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Dark Matter and Dino...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 17, 2014 at 3:55pm
Artist's impression of a comet striking the Earth. (Courtesy: iStock/PaulPaladin)

Two theoretical physicists in the US have made a surprising connection between dinosaur extinction and dark matter. Lisa Randall and Matthew Reece of Harvard University believe that some of this mysterious invisible matter – which makes up 85% of all matter in the universe – could exist in a special form that affects the rate at which comets strike our planet. A comet crashing into Earth about 66 million years ago is one possible reason why these giant creatures died off.



Comets have smashed into Earth throughout its history, creating huge craters and possibly causing mass extinctions, such as that which befell the dinosaurs. Many of these comets come from the Oort cloud, which is a huge halo of small icy objects that surrounds the Sun, out to a distance of about one light year. But rather than being entirely random, there is some evidence that the frequency of comet impacts oscillates on a timescale of about 35 million years.



Although this oscillation is not certain, if it is true, there could be something on that timescale that affects the rate at which comets from the Oort cloud are sent towards Earth. Two possible explanations have been proposed so far. One – dubbed the "nemesis hypothesis" – involves the gravitational pull of an as-yet-undiscovered distant companion star to the Sun. The other involves the oscillating pull of the dense galactic disc as the solar system crosses and re-crosses the plane of the Milky Way.


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Living Well...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 16, 2014 at 10:43am


When I was in elementary school in the public schools of New York City, I distinctly remember that it was important for me to be athletic — in particular, to be able to run fast. I was encouraged by all around me. My reward was the respect and admiration of classmates and especially my streetmates.



In junior high school it was important for me, now that I was certified the “fastest on the block,” to slam-dunk a basketball. To do this you have to jump high and palm the basketball. On April 17, 1973, I was the first in my grade to slam-dunk a basketball. I then asked myself, “Is this all there is to it?” The answer is basically yes, yet one can imagine creative variations such as a 360-degree pirouette in midair preceding the dunk, but you still score only two points.



About the same time, I learned that light, traveling at 186,282 miles per second, moves too slowly to escape from the event horizon of a black hole. This was more astonishing to me than a 360-degree slam-dunk. I soon became scientifically curious and read everything I could find about the universe. I began to see myself as a future scientist — in particular, an astrophysicist. It became a deeply seated dream.



I shortly came to the shattering awareness that few parts of society were prepared to accept my dreams. I wanted to do with my life what people of my skin color were not supposed to do. As an athlete, I did not violate society’s expectations since there was adequate precedent for dark-skinned competitors in the Olympics and in professional sports. To be an astrophysicist, however, became a “path of most resistance.” I began to wonder whether I originally wanted to be an athlete more from society’s interest rather than my own. My brother, Stephen, today a professional artist, could run faster and jump higher than I could. He, too, felt these forces of society.



In high school, nobody probed further about how I became captain of the wrestling team. But when I became editor-in-chief of my school’s annual Physical Science Journal, my qualifications were constantly queried. And when I was accepted to the college of my choice, I was continually asked for my SAT scores and grade point average. Indeed, one fellow student, who worked in the office of the guidance counselor, threatened to find the file in the school records to read my scores himself, if I didn’t tell.



When I first entered graduate school, before transferring to Columbia, I was eager to pursue my dreams of research astrophysics. But the first comment directed to me in the first minute of the first day, by a faculty member whom I had just met was, “You must join our department basketball team.” As the months and years passed, faculty and fellow students, thinking that they were doing me a favor, would suggest alternative careers for me.



“Why don’t you become a computer salesman?”



“Why don’t you teach at a community college?”



“Why don’t you leave astrophysics and academia? You can make much money in industry.”



At no time was I perceived as a future colleague, although this privilege was enjoyed by others in graduate school.



When combined with the dozens of times I have been stopped and questioned by the police for going to and from my office after hours, and the hundreds of times I am followed by security guards in department stores, and the countless times people cross the street upon seeing me approach them on the sidewalk, I can summarize my life’s path by noting the following: in the perception of society, my athletic talents are genetic; I am a likely mugger-rapist; my academic failures are expected; and my academic successes are attributed to others.



 Book Excerpt: The Sky is Not the Limit, by Neil deGrasse Tyson on BillMoyers.com
Site: COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey
Mother Jones: Neil deGrasse Tyson on "Cosmos" (source of podcast below)

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SEEKING FREELANCE ARTIST FOR GRAPHIC NOVEL

Posted by Antwan Floyd Sr. on March 14, 2014 at 4:21pm

Hello,

My name is Antwan Floyd Sr. I am a publisher and author of several titles. I am venturing into the graphic novel genre. This will be my first title in this genre. I am currently seeking an artist to illustrate for the novel. The novel will typically be written in 15-20 pages. Not sure as to rather the book will be in black and white, color, or both. Anyone interested please leave a message in my inbox with a link to where I can see your previous work or leave a sample in in my inbox with your rates and turnaround time. 

Thank you,

Antwan Floyd Sr.

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Hypatia...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 15, 2014 at 5:01pm
Source: http://wizewomon.blogspot.com/2011/12/hypatia-womon-of-note.html

This is Women's History Month. As a blog that promotes diversity in the sciences, I'm well aware of it. However, I received my midterm exam from Stevens University on the 28th of February. Solid State Electronics II is no less the challenge than Part I was admittedly. I had two weeks to solve, thus my time was fairly focused. I turned in my test at the deadline. I can for a moment breath on this Ides of March.



Hypatia (pronounced "hi-pay-see-a"): I read her name in the book Cosmos that I downloaded to my Kindle. I looked at the "old school" Cosmos show where Carl Sagan mentions her (starts at 3:25), and her sad fate. She's described as mathematician, astronomer, physicist, philosopher, quite lovely apparently and driver of her own chariot! She was a beloved teacher and by social practice a celibate, no doubt frustrating potential suitors of her day.

Interestingly as I predicted to some casually offline, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey has already had its detractors of the "young Earth"/humans with dinosaurs/faux debate between Evolution and so-called Intelligent Design variety. The odd and breathtaking display of hypocrisy in most of the trolls taking to the Internet - notably in 140 misspelled characters or less - created by the very science and modern physics they rail against; supporting pseudoscience in their destructive wake.



A certain part of the reptilian portion of our minds attacks instinctively that which we think challenges our belief systems - and thus us. Time and again, we've seen the razing of cities, the flaying of martyrs, the murder of not only the person, but new ideas that would take the species forward. This of course, all for adherence to a dogma. Supposedly through evangelism, it is meant as a "sell," and thus adherence is voluntary - zealotry and fanaticism turns it involuntary; totalitarian. Authoritarianism becomes our governance and its dogmatic ruling class the thought police. Sadly, I can't help but think if part of the mob that set upon Hypatia and ended her life so tragically were peopled by members of her own gender, suffering from what would in the 20th century gain the name "Stockholm Syndrome."



I often fear intolerance will rear its ugly head again and plunge us all over the abyss with it, as it did Alexandria, Egypt. They executed Hypatia...for the "crime" of thinking critically and independently of the lordship of patriarchal society. The saying goes "teach a woman  and you teach a generation." The library, like Hypatia, soon expired after her forced passing.

 For these and other reasons, I will support Dr. Tyson and the relaunch of Cosmos. As Dr. Sagan states above, we "must not let it happen again."

 "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana



Related Links:
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the Nubian arch

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on March 12, 2014 at 5:30pm

Went to a place on the continent we all know and love. The host told me eons ago some visitors built a large box with a glass top and buried it in the sand. We put the market on top of it, been that way ever since. It was a shanty town. Women sitting on door stoops making things to sell and kids running in the street. Ragged shantys as far as one could see. They all were similar, corrugated top, sides and an Nubian arched doorway. I thought it was an unusual feature. To spend so much effort to have such an elegant door when the rest of the house was so shabby, there must be a reason.

I stayed in the visitors sector, a hotel with views overlooking the whole town, had everything to make a guest happy only not so big. Hey you wouldn't want to out shine the locals too much now would you? I asked the clerk, why the people were so content in such obvious poverty. He chuckled and under his breath he said practice. He said out loud talk to my host which I did.

My host Carl was a fine man with the most mischievous children, I still think he was running game on me. His youngest picked my pocket, was off down the street with my wallet. Carl laughed, I was not amused and dashed after him. He ran into a twisted rusted old shack, I was dead on his heels. Through the arch of the doorway he went and just as he was a few feet on the other side I let out a gasp that would startle a herd of camels. Opulence, colors, bright colors, flowing curtains, a sweet breeze instead of rusted iron air and birds singing. I felt the tiny hand push my wallet into my hand and the small voice apologized. Carl came in he couldn't contain himself, doubled over in laughter. This is our space via the arch. It folds space so that we each can have as much space as we want. I asked, is it virtual, or something he put in my food? He showed me many rooms all laid out and a spacious court yard and a deck over the sea. We came back through the arch, same old dusty street. I tore away, ran back into the shack to see if I was dreaming. Crashed into a table not far from the door in the middle of the shack. A stack of pots I knocked over made a terrible racket. When I came out Carl was in fits. His neighbor smiled and said the arch teaches great wisdom too. Permission to enter is by it's owner only.

I never told a soul, till today.

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Optical Cavity...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 12, 2014 at 2:58pm
A rendering shows a beam of light interacting with an optical nanocavity. The nanocavity boosts light absorption in ultrathin semiconductors. Credit: Advanced Materials

By Cory Nealon



Release Date: March 5, 2014



BUFFALO, N.Y. – Associated with unhappy visits to the dentist, “cavity” means something else in the branch of physics known as optics.



Put simply, an optical cavity is an arrangement of mirrors that allows beams of light to circulate in closed paths. These cavities help us build things like lasers and optical fibers used for communications.



Now, an international research team pushed the concept further by developing an optical “nanocavity” that boosts the amount of light that ultrathin semiconductors absorb. The advancement could lead to, among other things, more powerful photovoltaic cells and faster video cameras; it also could be useful for splitting water using energy from light, which could aid in the development of hydrogen fuel.



The team, comprised of faculty and students from the University at Buffalo and two Chinese universities, presented its findings Feb. 24 in the journal Advanced Materials. The paper, called “Nanocavity enhancement for ultra-thin film optical absorber,” is available here: http://bit.ly/1bGGIbO.



 University of Buffalo: An (optical) cavity that you want

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Why Black People Need Science Fiction

Posted by Anthony L. Carter on March 10, 2014 at 12:54pm

"As soon as a character of color is introduced in a story, imagination stops". Toni Morrison

As a young boy, I loved The Twilight Zone, The Planet of the Apes and anything that provided insight into other worlds and possibilities.

It is only as we age, that we learn dreaming and committing to difference, exploration and comfortability with difference can and often does make you an outsider.

A young black child who loves Science Fiction is asking for a heap of trouble and ridicule.

Collectively, we (black folks) have been tortured and brutalized as a result of "difference" and should look to new worlds as places that not only allow dreaming but adamantly encourage it.

Black folks need all the thinking and devotion to self defining that Sci Fi will allow.

As a teacher to young Black and Hispanic teenagers in an alternative high school, I discovered what prevented several of my students from expecting and striving for excellence. None of them had ever seen anyone who looked like them leading a revolution, being self defining or self creating.

It is difficult to design a life of forward movement if there is no tangible example of what is possible.

My baby sister is a lawyer.

She has watched her mother and several family friends attend law school and obtain jobs in their chosen field.

Dreaming of and then becoming an attorney was not an impossibility for her.

We all need vivid and tangible examples of accomplishments and what the price is for achieving our life's objectives.

Science Fiction lets our imaginations soar. We need creativity that reinvents us and what we can achieve.

At 27, I finally got around to reading Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.

In this wonderful book, the protagonist, a young black girl of fifteen invents a religion, leads a sojourn and makes herself the center of a movement based in love, communion with others, a sharing of resources and the questioning of God.

Many black folks I know associate the Sci Fi world with whiteness, green little men, silver suits and the questioning of the definition of God given to us by the Judeo Christian ethic we were all reared in.

I once had a very intense debate with my sister about the demons, witches , etc in the Harry Potter series. Apparently, magic, sorcery and all the rest of that "mess" was something that our young people shouldn't read. My argument was that as long as a child is reading does it matter what the material is if it opens his mind and leads to more reading and knowledge hunger.

When the adults around me lied, were irrational or flat out denied reality, it was this genre and all reading that provided solace and sanity.

It was clear that there were other ways of living and being.

The Twilight Zone forced me to consider other worlds where the rules were different. This brilliant show also let me know about the human condition and that I could hope for and demand more in my life.

This is Sci Fi's greatest strength.

Like Shakespeare's work, it illuminates humanity and all its complicated and endlessly annoying traits and foibles. It allows us to examine our lives and our choices through the lenses of another time and space. We are encouraged to move beyond voyeuristic consumption of other worlds.

It forces us to imagine our lives and whether we harm or help others when certain situations arise.

As a young kid unable to hide his homosexuality, I was bullied from childhood through college. I learned to thrive amidst a world and people bent on destroying me.

As I began my teaching career, I noticed that this part of the educational experience had not vanished or been dealt with constructively.

To combat this horrid fact, I began to introduce my favorite Science Fiction Short Stories.

My personal favorite: Those Who Walk Away From Omelas, provided my young students with a case of the "willies" and always sparked a great deal of conversation regarding domination, bullying and fair treatment for all.

So many of the themes and struggles are recognizable no matter the time period.

We must take our place in worlds wherein animals and inanimate objects speak, reason and wage war.

Is it impossible to consider worlds where we matter ? Is it impossible to imagine a world where diversity works and oppression is nonexistent ?

Visiting and dabbling in different worlds with different intelligences could provide a great deal of insight into modern day problems.

We often are able to invent solutions when the results are not life threatening.

Pick up some Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le guin and Daryl Sturgis' Solstice.

These wonderful authors are effortlessly and poignantly(brilliantly) offering us characters and worlds that could be implemented in current society and beyond.

Be fearless in your explorations and expectations.

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when I sleep with my face to the wall

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on March 11, 2014 at 4:23pm

It creeps into the background of my thoughts. After months of watching uTube vids, scholarly works, reading scripture and Facebook Afrocentric friendly posts. Like the biblical children of Israel (not saying we are them), a people carried off into captivity, made slaves. The ones remaining beat down and neutralized, colonized. One day the children of them all wake up to remember. Only whispers of the past remain but that knowledge spreads via the Internet and the hunger to know. Several ones had the nerve to return, but who is today's Daniel, Nehemiah. Who finds and reads the book into all our ears to cause us to choose to stay or return. The book is a metaphor that fits sometimes, bends sometimes and misleads sometimes. Who stirs the hearts to return in mass to rebuild a people.

Now what will they face in their return, a colonized land for sure. But the cry has been made, both the returning and the ones on the land need a restoration, nobody knows what that looks like. The spirit is there, the minds are confused, all requires experience to work it out. And that's the enigma, we have always worked it out, it's recorded in stone.

There are cities, modern cities to move to. The question with us are we brave enough to go and blend with the sons of Africans, are they brave enough to receive us. Can we accommodate each other long enough to have a new generation that binds us? Not just business, but family? Can we bare the same stake in the land and in each other? I'm an old man, it's my job to ask these questions and dream like this. I am so ill-equipped to convey this to the young ones as I have only discovered the weight of this in my old age. I lost contact with my contemporaries of the discovered mind. Been of that god cult, professing god, not having god in reality. There is no unity of mind, heart and matter. You must have your people and your land for that.

So consider that equation in your stories, what will it look like, construct possibilities, then step into them.

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Holographic Memory...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 10, 2014 at 5:57am
Prototype holographic memory that uses spin waves. (Courtesy: UC Riverside)

A new type of memory device based on the interference of spin waves has been unveiled by scientists in the US and Russia. Data are stored in the form of magnetic bits and read out simultaneously as holographic images. Because the wavelengths of the spin waves are much shorter than those of light, the storage density of the memory has the potential to be much greater than systems based on optical holograms, and could someday be used to store very large amounts of information.

Conventional holography involves splitting a beam of laser light into an illumination beam and a reference beam. The illumination beam is fired at the object of interest and the deflected light is sent to a detector (or photographic film), where it is reunited with the reference beam. The detector records the interference between the two beams and this information is then used to create a 3D image of the object. As well as being used as a security feature on credit cards and banknotes, holograms also have the potential to store and retrieve large amounts of information in a very efficient way.

However, the storage densities that can be achieved using optical holograms are limited by the relatively long wavelengths of visible light – about 500 nm. Now, Alexander Khitun and colleagues at the University of California, Riverside and the Kotel'nikov Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics in Saratov, Russia, have created a holographic memory that uses spin waves, which have much shorter wavelengths.

Physics World: Data stored in magnetic holograms

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The Matter of Matter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 11, 2014 at 5:28am
A faux historical account of Earth "pre-warp"

Warp drive, as enthusiastically a Trekkie I am, was a plot device created by Gene Roddenberry to get his astronauts from "here-to-there" in a reasonable amount of time to tell a story in an hour or less. NASA on the other hand, needs something other than chemical rockets that once the fuels expended to get the rocket into orbit - Newton's Laws dominate. Which is why currently a manned trip to Mars would take ~ 7 months to 300 days, and have astronauts with muscles of mush and bone mass of jello. VASIMR may get us there one day, thanks to the diligent research of people like Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz, PhD.



Abstract



The Alcubierre warp drive allows a spaceship to travel at an arbitrarily large global velocity by deforming the spacetime in a bubble around the spaceship. Little is known about the interactions between massive particles and the Alcubierre warp drive, or the effects of an accelerating or decelerating warp bubble. We examine geodesics representative of the paths of null and massive particles with a range of initial velocities from -c to c interacting with an Alcubierre warp bubble travelling at a range of globally subluminal and superluminal velocities on both constant and variable velocity paths. The key results for null particles match what would be expected of massive test particles as they approach +/- c. The increase in energy for massive and null particles is calculated in terms of v_s, the global ship velocity, and v_p, the initial velocity of the particle with respect to the rest frame of the origin/destination of the ship. Particles with positive v_p obtain extremely high energy and velocity and become "time locked" for the duration of their time in the bubble, experiencing very little proper time between entering and eventually leaving the bubble. When interacting with an accelerating bubble, any particles within the bubble at the time receive a velocity boost that increases or decreases the magnitude of their velocity if the particle is moving towards the front or rear of the bubble respectively. If the bubble is decelerating, the opposite effect is observed. Thus Eulerian matter is unaffected by bubble accelerations/decelerations. The magnitude of the velocity boosts scales with the magnitude of the bubble acceleration/deceleration.



As you read through the paper, please note the possibility of incinerating the star system/planet/people we'd be trying to hurry up and visit ("we come in peace" \\//_?).



I think - as even Star Trek alludes to - our first interstellar space faring will likely be at sub light speed in sleeper ships. Better to crawl first before running: 1/3 c to begin.



Someone will just have to invent inertial dampers since the Higgs Boson has been discovered so we don't kill ourselves or anyone else out there (another convenient plot device to avoid describing space faring humans as "street pizza" due to rapid acceleration).

 In light of crawling, colonizing the moon, mining the asteroid belt and establishing a permanent base on Mars would be a good 1st start. Sagan mentioned terraforming the Red Planet or Venus in his book "The Cosmic Connection," which would be a practical solution on a global economy based on consumption. On the Kardashev scale, we are primitive.

 Eventually, our toy/sandbox will be empty on the sandlot we're accustomed to playing in. Staying earthbound as a species will soon be the equivalent of not accepting potty training at the age and maturity one ought to be. Kind of gross, too.



 Physics arXiv: The Alcubierre Warp Drive: On the Matter of Matter

Brendan McMonigal,∗ Geraint F. Lewis,† and Philip O’Byrne‡
Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics
A28, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

 Related:
Amazon: The Physics of Star Trek, Beyond Star Trek; Lawrence Krauss

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Why Inkscape is WAY ahead of Adobe Illustrator

Posted by Haneef B on February 27, 2012 at 3:18am

http://www.unixmen.com/why-inkscape-is-way-ahead-of-adobe-illustrator/

Well this is most definitely not a troll. But a genuine appreciation of software that gives you the scope to develop top-quality vector graphics that allows designers to explore the limits of software and render graphics to perfection.


Of course, one cannot take away Adobe Illustrator’s great features, but there is only so much you can do with all the ‘power-packed features’. Inkscape, offers you limitless scope that allows you to learn and build as you go and this definitely is what keeps it way ahead of all other similar vector software.

Light on the pocket plus optimized design experience

First point in favor of Inkscape is of course its open source origins. That it does not cause a big hole in your pocket even as it delivers superior quality features, on par with paid Adobe Illustrator, is a worthy point that works in Inkscape’s favor.

Additionally, it is not just children working on school projects who are using Inkscape with ease. Professionals, designers prefer the hands-on experience that Inkscape offers to ensure maximum work scope over-and-above Adobe Illustrators’ power features. Add to its small footprint, typically in small sizes that makes working on Inkscape easier and faster.

Additional features such as RGB color, very sophisticated path effects; and by far, the best open and save function feature for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Now, SVG is the format for rendering 2D graphics and application in XML. This helps in using these graphics on websites as well as print media.

Inkscape is as professional as Adobe Illustrator

Though, Adobe Illustrator has a better text feature pack, Inkscape makes up with some of the best multiple or general illustration features. Whether for coloring, illustrating or building icons, Inkscape is easy to use. Add to it the following features native to Inkscape only – direct editing on SVG source, editing clones on canvas, screen pixels manipulation – move, rotate or scale; shapes can be converted into objects; using handles for editing gradients on the canvas; use of keys to edit nodes’ fill paint bucket with a single click and color wash over objects.

Better User Interface

Another feature of Inkscape is its better and more useful interface. It is not the typical ‘oversimplified’ open source software, but has the perfect user interface for beginners to professionals. Additionally, Inkscape scores well users because it automatically converts Bitmap to Vector format.

Packaged Software does not translate into full support

A key feature for Inkscape users is that, when in need of support one can directly get to chat with developers and ink out doubts, use cases and optimize their scope, which is most definitely not the case with the beautifully packaged Adobe Illustrator software. You can get a host of tutorials, support pages to wade through and after an exhaustive search, get relief only after a paid conversation with the help desk. Your nearest help for Adobe Illustrator will remain support forum.

Over and above any of the above, Inkscape rules over Adobe Illustrator because of the free spirit with which it can be used. No limiting or strict licensing with Inkscape, you and the entire team can work simultaneously without having to run up budget over-runs.

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Sagan Memoir Online...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 9, 2014 at 9:30am
Carl Sagan (left) and Frank Drake (right), one of the founders of the SETI Institute and former director of the Carl Sagan Center. Photo by David Morrison.

David Morrison, director of the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute, has written a biographical memoir of Carl Sagan (1934-1996), founder of the modern disciplines of planetary science and exobiology.

Morrison’s piece has been published in Biographical Memoirs, an online collection of the National Academy of Sciences that includes more than 1,500 biographies of deceased academy members.

Carl Sagan, you of course know.

Frank Drake: astrophysicist; author of the "Drake Equation" used to estimate the likelihood of extraterrestrial life.

 We start the adventure again tonight...COSMOS premieres!

"The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."

The U.S. Library of Congress has recently designated Cosmos one of the eighty-eight books "that shaped America." It's a roster that includes such earth-shaking works as Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Jack Kerouac's On the Road. They're listed in chronological order and the very first one, published in 1751 (decades before the concept of a constitutional government by, for and of the people, crystallized), is also a science book...The list begins with Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity. That book and this one are passionate acts of citizenship by two scientists who wanted science to belong to all of us.

Ann Druyan, creative director of NASA's Voyager Interstellar Message, co-writer of Cosmos, co-creator of the motion picture Contact; executive producer and writer of Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, 2014 (Fox and National Geographic). She was married to Dr. Sagan until his death. The asteroids named after them are in perpetual wedding-ring orbit around the Sun. (From the Foreword)



SETI Institute:
The SETI Institute's David Morrison Publishes Carl Sagan Memoir
National Academy of Sciences Online: Carl Sagan Memoir

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Pushing back against First Person Narratives

Posted by Moorsgate Media on March 7, 2014 at 1:05pm


An increasingly common style in fiction in general, and self published fiction in particular,  is the use of the first person voice. Stylistically, there is nothing wrong with the first person voice. Well executed, it has been used to great effect in critically acclaimed novels from Jane Eyre to The Hunger Games.


However encountering  a narrative that begins and ends with a single view point tends to telegraph that there is a limit to the scope of the world that has been crafted. Crafting a story in a rich, detailed world is possible in the first person narrative (See Hunger Games). However, the scope of that world will always be limited to places that the character has personally experienced.  Everything else, exposition, news, conversations with travelers, all of it is unreliable. Third Person narratives overcomes this limitation by usually establishing a number of view points that breathe life into various facets of the their world.

Compare the universe of The Culture Novels or Game of Thrones to the world of Twilight or Hunger games. The former layers the individual stories and thoughts of multiple characters into the narrative tapestry. The latter, while telling compelling stories in their own right, rest on a foundation that the primary character is the most important person in this world. In the latter, the narrator (and your) view is given prominence over all others. We are left with second hand dialogue, with possible unreliable news or information, to gain insight into the motivations of others and the contours of their world. Events that occur outside your view are never as important as things you see.  For example, do we know the true motivations of the other characters in Twilight.  Do we know the true motivations of the residents of the Capital in Hunger Games? Do we care? 

More important than simply wishing to hear a different voice; the first person set up an uncomfortable divorce from a diversity of view points. The author of first person stories typically have a significant overlap with their characters. That makes them easier and interesting to write for the author, but does't explore how others experience the same world. What results is a lot of majority race, comfortable income, individuals encountering a world that is an escape from the bland monotony of comfort. Of course, most readers are reading from a position of comfort so the match is a fair one.

But in matching the audience to primary point of view, it becomes easy for an author to wipe away the lack of diverse characters in their books. By focusing squarely on a character that the author relates physically, emotionally and economically they are tacitly arguing that the story can be told without anyone else's thoughts.  When you only have one voice, it is easy to argue that it should reflect you the author. Diversity then becomes a simple matter if sprinkling your world with some different characters who your character interacts with.

The core problem is that you avoid is putting yourself in the role of the character that is different. Fiction at its highest skill involves transporting us to other worlds, but also to other people. The readers lose something if you close the world down to only one view point, one that is a slight variation of their own. Good fiction allows the reader to find themselves in the characters, not only temperamentally, but also physically, emotionally, sexually. If you are truly crafting a new world, then it should be big enough for more than one person's thoughts.

Republished from www.moorsgatemedia.blogspot.com
(c)Moorsgate Media 2014

    
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Mulogo and His Quintipule of Trouble

Posted by Martin Reese on March 4, 2014 at 12:00pm

Hi All -

My name is Martin Reese and I have just launched an exciting Kickstarter project. It is for a live-action short film called Mulogo and His Quintuple of Trouble. It is about a wizard's apprentice who reads a forbidden book of magic and accidentally conjures a five-headed dragon that he not only has to survive against, but also get rid of before the wizard returns. Mulogo is a unique character in the fantasy genre in that he is from ancient African kingdom of Kush. Please check out my Kickstarter. There is more info about the story and the project team. Currently the screenplay I wrote for this short film has made the quarterfinals of the 2014 Bluecat Screenplay Competition. It is in the top 80 of the 1,602 short screenplays submitted. Thanks.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1549181393/mulogo-and-his-quintuple-of-trouble

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A Little Positive News Goes A LONG Way!

Posted by Don Perry on March 3, 2014 at 6:43pm

It's been awhile since we've been on the BSFS site. You know how it is...the day job seemingly takes over your life and doesn't leave much left over for much of anything. My day job is writing and producing films and our latest award-winning effort just launched at the Sundance, Berlin, Pan African, Santa Barbara and (NY) Museum of Modern Art within six weeks of each other. To say it's been a little busy is an understatement!

But then Life has a way of reminding you that 'Hey, buddy, you're a damn good writer of speculative fiction!' just when you most need the encouragement. I had started the third book in what now seems like a really fun series (I'm calling it The Soul Eater Chronicles) several months ago...well before the pressures of film festivals and premieres derailed any hope of fulfilling my goal of a novella every four months! It's been way on the back shelf...well, at least at the bottom of my start page...ever since. A nagging reminder of unfinished business.

Then the other night I was rummaging through all the unopened emails in my various accounts only to discover a message from a contest that I had entered many moons ago, too. To my surprise, I found out that my first novella, MEMOIR OR A TIME YET TO COME, was just named a Top 10 Finalist for the B. Envelope 2014 Writing Fellowship!

Wow! I never saw it coming! But what a validation that maybe, just maybe, I've got a little bit of talent after all! For a writer, having a group other than your closest family and friends tell you something like that is priceless! It's enough to make you clear away the thousand other important items weighing down your In Box, lock the door to your hovel, put on some chill music and ....write.  Write like your life really does depend on it. Write because somewhere out there...somebody thinks you might be good enough.

Thank you @TheBEnvelope! Thank YOU for the kick in the seat of the pants that I needed to get me back to doing the very thing that I have always wanted to do...to be a Writer. And a damn good one!

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