A unique way to illustrate quantum mechanics from Physics Reimagined.
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Lecture by Leo Susskind...
Nathaniel David Lewis asks about Black representation in the cartoon industry. When I was in college I explored the same thing concerning Industrial Design, Interior Design and Architecture. Sure there are notables and maybe even a principle (owner of a firm). Even MIT university ask how many black architects can you name. Names escape me as I think of the brother who designed a spacey looking airport building around the 50's and the Madison brothers here in the Cleveland Ohio area. I have lost touch with the different fields and gone into art. But ask who are the black artist from whom I draw inspiration, I'm at a loss again.
If one of us (black persons) is trained in any of the design professions and have the good fortune of being known in the industry as a cultural innovator or a so called household name, that is a thing of wonder. To have a body of work that capsulizes the cultural flavor and fuels the market with products that black people could embrace as out from us, that is again a wonder. The problem seems to be coming up through the ranks of companies owned and directed by other cultural bents and not getting the opportunity or idea that a different expression will survive the market place.
When I was in high school, I did renderings of homes, mostly I copied, but some of my own design. I tried to imagine what it would be like to design silverware, quilts, t shirts, furniture and home interiors. Do you think there was any support to push in that direction? Not for me, I did assume others might have those aspirations and needed support. I look at the fields today, there are many black designers, none of note I can name. You see working in the field as a player doesn't mean you are managing the game, doesn't get your name associated with the product, the movement. What does it take, I don't know. Today I am more about the flavor. What is the Black Aesthetic, the Black Style, the Black Look. I do see it kind of in fashion, mainstream black art, but it hasn't reached Interior Design products on the store shelves or a Black owned and operated culturally bent towards us store. I think we are spread, dispersed too thinly across America to have impact on ourselves.
Another thought, society presses to make us individuals, independent in thought and action. We balance that push with a natural inclination toward the collective. We have had our history burned and were retaught history as a warped paraphrase of unrelated events. Then we are taught trust, faith and to hope with no bases in reality. In the end our collective realm was trashed and our individual person mugged to the max.
We spend the rest of our lives with snippets of truth. As strong individuals we often display what we know, exalting that part as the whole, the fire of rhetoric, the rhythmic bantering, the jive of justice. Of course our discourse is timely but as momentary as fads, fantasy and trends, WHY? Because new info interrupts our mini siege on the world, causes us to reconsider our display until further notice. One of the big problems of Black folk is having to reconstruct our past so that we know how to act today. The other problem is projecting into the future with what we know or think we know now.
If you step back far enough, we are who we are, in our time, the result of all before us. In that sense we don't need to do anything except survive. But there is, at least in me, a pain in the bones, wanting to know what other Blacks are thinking, feeling, how they are dealing, what pieces of the puzzle they realize and do they know that it is just a piece. What happens when the pieces come together from different persons, schools of thought and the misalignments, extraneous thoughts and events are exposed, shaken off? What happens when we the strong individuals connect in a natural collective realm? What happens when we realize our powers are not defined or depended on the system that domesticated us? What happens when we step back and look at us as a collective, regardless of the physical and mental distance constructed between us? Can we come out of our domestication, probably not completely. We might dare to risk a thought life behind the scenes while holding a compliant public face. Soon that too becomes a way of life. Hypocrites are the saints of survival. Don't we live that way? I do!
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| Not a brick wall. Electron microscope image of a cross section of the newly characterized tunable microwave dielectric clearly shows the thick layers of strontium titanate "bricks" separated by thin "mortar lines" of strontium oxide that help promote the largely defect-free growth of the bricks. Credit: TEM image courtesy David Mueller. Color added for clarity by Nathan Orloff. |
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have joined with an international team to engineer and measure a potentially important new class of nanostructured materials for microwave and advanced communication devices. Based on NIST's measurements, the new materials—a family of multilayered crystalline sandwiches—might enable a whole new class of compact, high-performance, high-efficiency components for devices such as cellular phones.*
"These materials are an excellent example of what the Materials Genome Initiative refers to as 'materials-by-design'," says NIST physicist James Booth, one of the lead researchers. "Materials science is getting better and better at engineering complex structures at an atomic scale to create materials with previously unheard-of properties."
The new multilayer crystals are so-called "tunable dielectrics," the heart of electronic devices that, for example, enable cell phones to tune to a precise frequency, picking a unique signal out of the welter of possible ones.
Tunable dielectrics that work well in the microwave range and beyond—modern communications applications typically use frequencies around a few gigahertz—have been hard to make, according to NIST materials scientist Nathan Orloff. "People have created tunable microwave dielectrics for decades, but they've always used up way too much power." These new materials work well up to 100 GHz, opening the door for the next generation of devices for advanced communications.
What this means to you: as you'll read in the article, it could mean an end to dropped cell phone calls (or, at least minimizing it significantly)...
*C-H Lee, N.D. Orloff, T. Birol, Y. Zhu, V. Goian, E. Rocas, R. Haislmaier, E. Vlahos, J.A. Mundy, L.F. Kourkoutis, Y. Nie, M.D. Biegalski, J. Zhang, M. Bernhagen, N.A. Benedek, Y. Kim, J.D. Brock, R.Uecker, X.X. Xi, V. Gopalan, D. Nuzhnyy, S. Kamba, D.A. Muller, I. Takeuchi, J.C. Booth, C.J. Fennie and D.G. Schlom. Exploiting dimensionality and defect mitigation to create tunable microwave dielectrics. Nature, 502, 532–536, Oct. 24, 2013. doi:10.1038/nature12582.
National Institute of Standards and Technology:
Perfect Faults: A Self-Correcting Crystal May Unleash the Next Generation of Advanced Communications
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| Source: Science in Seconds |
"God must be an Aggie," my classmate said as the weather was beautiful: average temperature felt about 70 degrees Fahrenheit...in November. We won in a 59-12 blowout. I left after the halftime show: 31-6 then.
So, out of curiosity, I went to the archives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Weather Forecast Service for Raleigh/Durham. I'd last attended #GHOE in 1999 right after my father's passing; the archives only went to 2000 (all admitted "eyeball" approximations of November average temperatures). I recall it being cold enough for a coat and ski cap in that November:
2000: 50 degrees
2001: 52 degrees
2002: 50 degrees
2003: 58 degrees
2004: 70 degrees
2005: 50 degrees
2006: 52 degrees
2007: 50 degrees
2008: 50 degrees
2009: 60 degrees
2010: 52 degrees
2011: ~50 degrees or less
2012: 50 degrees
2013: ~68 degrees
Greensboro and Durham, NC are both 36 and 40 degrees respectively for the moment. Climate change is murky because people either want a clear demonstration that it IS happening - Louisiana may be gone in 10 years. Once we've reached that stage, only star ships or biblical rapture could save the human species.
Ironically, the NOAA posts a disclaimer: "Climate data on this page is PRELIMINARY (unofficial). CERTIFIED (official) climate data is available from the National Climate Data Center (NDCC)."
Except, when you click on the link you get this message:
404 Not Found
The requested URL /rah/cliplot/www.ncdc.noaa.gov was not found on this server.
The actual URL I did find, and it has some useful information, but sadly seems as well-designed as the health care exchange site. I'm not saying the information is NOT there: it's just going to take some patience on your and my part since neither of us are environmental engineers.
I'm posting not just due to a week from Hurricane Sandy's anniversary: the "quick fix" solution promoted (and I've reported on this blog) has been geoengineering, i.e. seeding the clouds with sulfate aerosols deliberately to cool the temperature of the planet. I had a strong reaction to this: One of my process engineering projects had been eliminating chlorofluorocarbons from [then] our Polysilicon Etch processes. The problem with the whole aerosol spray thing is there could possibly be less rain, and since the planet and our bodies are made of ~70% melted comet snow balls, that presents problems only Bedouins so far have successfully adapted to. Of course, the Bedouins kind of "know" where the water is for their survival. Quick fixes seem to be the norm in the post-Google world of downloading information versus studying to master it; we've lost an appreciation for the process of discovery and problem solving: both take time, and soon that luxury will not be afforded us.
In Caveat Emptor, I pointed out a large percentage of the elements/rare earths for so-called green technology are found in the country of our banker, China.
We appear to be painting ourselves into a very narrowing corner, our options are few and sadly due to the elevation of the politics of deliberate science ignorance at the highest level: self-constricting...
PSA: It's election day, and every one counts. Go out and vote for the representatives that can answer these questions: ScienceDebate.org. Money becomes free speech only when free people stay home.
Technology Review: One Potential Problem With Geoengineering: Less Rain
Small Fish, Big City - Chapter 1
Matthew discovers the laundromat in his new home of Big City to be just a little bit stranger than he initially thought: http://wp.me/p1UgIB-HR
Small Fish, Big City - Chapter 2
After recovering from the unusual nature of the laundromat, Matthew discovers the phenomenon he has discovered has a name. They are called kami! - http://wp.me/p1UgIB-Ib
Small Fish, Big City - Chapter 3
Big City has one more lesson before the day is over for Matthew. Gangs rule the night...: http://wp.me/p1UgIB-Il
Your Nightmares. All Grown Up
Where the Monsters Are
Gerald Dean Rice
Gerald Parsons is on his way up. He's a talented executive in line for a major promotion and married to a beautiful woman. But a chance encounter that may not be coincidence with a stranger who claims to know him begins to unravel his happy life. After a co-worker is killed and another has his career sabotaged, the stranger shows up at his home, ready to party with his own special news, leaving Gerald to ponder if he is next.
Just because Halloween is over doesn’t mean the scares have to stop. If you didn’t get your fill of horror in October, download the tale that answers what happens to the monsters under our beds and in our closets when we’re not little children anymore.
Gerald Dean Rice is the author of numerous short stories, novellas, and his first novel, The Ghost Toucher. He’s currently working on his first vampire novel and doing workshops on publishing in Michigan.
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Where the Monsters Are is available for download right now on Kindle, Nook, and everywhere eBooks are sold.
You can follow him on Twitter @GeraldRice or join the Gerald Rice fan page. To book him for speaking engagements, please visit http://razorlinepress.com/i-speak/.
Looking to do something more interesting than the standard ad for my new novel, I put together an animated web banner for the latest novel in the Tales from the Long Road series, 'Book of Dragon's Teeth.'
© 2012 H. Wolfgang Porter. All Rights Reserved. Published by Dreaded Enterprises Unlimited, Inc.
To see the animation, click on the image below
I’ll let this one speak for itself. Download a copy if you’re looking for a good #Halloween read.
I stumbled onto Gerald Dean Rice on Facebook and saw the new cover for this book and thought I’d give it a shot. Three stories just 37 pages and it’s less than a dollar.
This is a very short collection but it does make for a good introduction to Rice’s work. Each story is solid and while they aren’t gory they are in a style that reminds me of The Twilight Zone, or even Night Gallery. This is classic horror and done well.
I’m glad I stumbled onto Rice and plan on reading as much as I can from this guy. He knows how to craft a story and after I read the last one in this collection I was upset because it was over. If you love classic horror that relies more on story telling than violence and gore pick this up. You won’t be dissapointed
I keep forgetting that I have a blog page on here!
I just joined the board of the Carl Brandon Society, so I'm excited about working with the organization that gave me so much in 2012.
Recently I was told that my short story "Throb" will be included in the new groundbreaking speculative fiction anthology "Longhidden". It comes out in 2014.
Also, my short story "Throwback" is in the new Genesis 2 Anthology. (Support!)
One of the things I really want to do with the BSFS family is to encourage the writers here to attend conferences and apply for writing workshops that I am just now discovering. Part of the reason why I love the Carl Brandon Society is their commitment to bringing forth new writers of color in Spec Fic.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from black writers is that traveling to conferences or applying to writing fellowships/workshops is expensive. Yeah, some are, but I'm going to call bullshit on using that as the crutch to not investing in the work. We all know college is expensive, and yet if people want a degree, you have to pay for it. And before people start throwing up "I have kids, a fulltime job, responsibilities..blah blahblah," STOP. If you are not willing to invest in your craft, move on. It's that simple.
Let me tell you, by saving up (a year in advance) and attending conferences like Wiscon & Readercon last summer, I have made wonderful contacts and inroads with my writing career. I've met writers, editors, publishers and genre fans who have connected me to writing opportunities. I mean literally I have spoken to editors for magazines who have said "Send your stuff over." Simply because I was in the room with them talking in person. And check this: The Carl Brandon Society has a Con or Bust program to help cover the costs of PoC attending conferences. Check out the website:http://con-or-bust.org/ via carlbrandon.org
So, I will do my best to be an advocate for BSFS members. I come from a tradition of each one teach one, and payback is reaching back. And access to information is a tremendous help. I had never heard of WisCon or Readercon or a butt load of cons until I went to Clarion, and Ted Chiang, one of my teachers told me to go. So I am telling you. Go. There are many Cons near any city where people live. I will be going to WisCon again next May, and I'm thinking of going to DetCon, a convention in Detroit next July. So I'm saving money now. Next November I am going to the World Fantasy Convention which will be in D.C., so if there are folks in and around the D.C. area, let's chop it up. Do it.
Holla atcha gurrlllll.....
L-Boogie
Kori Miller's Back Porch Writer site interviewed me Tuesday morning about writing, the Darkside Trilogy, hosting the Genesis Radio Show and more.
To listen to me being on the other side of an interview follow this link: Back Porch Writer Radio Show
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expert
1. somebody skilled or knowledgeable: somebody with a great deal of knowledge about, or skill, training, or experience in, a particular field or activity
2. highest rank of marksmanship: in shooting, the highest grade of marksmanship
3. highest-ranked shooter: in shooting, somebody who has achieved the grade of expert
Synonyms: skilled, skillful, practiced, proficient, professional, knowledgeable, adept
It started right before the dawn of the 21st Century, the hand-wringing with regards to the "information superhighway" and access to it by minorities, or the fear of lack of access to what was then essentially emerging as a global database. Knowledge is power, advantage; hope.
Expertise, as the definition above suggests, can be acquired from skilled practice; repetition its mother; skill its patriarch. What is now understood as muscle memory, ancients mystified as "no mind." Expertise suggests a teacher-disciple relationship, tutelage and qualification from some combination of observation and tasks performed. It used to be an earned credential that qualified for a specific line of work endeavor.
C Everett Koop, MD was US Surgeon General under the Reagan Administration - known for infuriating gay and conservative activists alike - targeting the former for AIDS, and advising sex education as early as the 3rd grade with instruction on the proper use of condoms to prevent disease - lent his name to a business and a web site: DrKoop.com. It's headquarters I passed often in Austin, Texas on the MOPAC expressway, also known as Loop 1; also derided as "segment 1," since a true loop around the city has been thus far impossible to achieve. It was not a successful venture according to the Texas Tribune (June 2000): In mid-March the financial newsweekly Barrons gave the company just three months to live based on its rapidly dwindling supply of cash, and a report by drkoop.com’s auditors to the Securities and Exchange Commission similarly called its long-term survival into question, noting that it had “sustained losses and negative cash flows from operation since its inception.” Twice before, the auditors had warned about the company’s financial health, but investors paid no attention. This time, however, they did: The dire news slashed the price of drkoop.com’s already depressed shares another 43 percent to $3.56 on March 31. On April 29 the stock was trading at $2.75.
The site now reflects to Health Central, may Dr. Koop rest in peace. Hopefully, their financial situation is not as dire as reported in 2000. However, one of the causes of the dot com bubble bursting was the notion of assumed expertise and viability because of the existence of a web site. Venture capitalists threw money at start ups with abandon and aplomb, knowing how to make money in the old world; arrogantly not perceiving or researching the viability of their gambits in the cyberspace of the then emerging new one. They fed and inflated the bubble.
I say assumed because pre-Google, one had to study for and pass a test administered by most librarians on the Dewey Decimal System. Knowledge was and is precious, as well as the development of basic research and critical thinking skills. With the diminishing importance of Dewey Decimal and the perceived public lack of Boolean logic in search engine queries, we have collectively lost our curiosity; our ability to separate the biblical "wheat from chaff"; to discern facts from loudly declared opinions. We are thus participant in inflating a bubble of dangerous ignorance.
The democratization of information has meant we have access to a global database: true. Teenagers as a demographic however, tend to use it to keep up with one another, bored with any other application; knowledgeable with regards to the opinions of other peers versus laws of nature, mathematics or critical thinking. Pundits have become entertainers, the lines blurred utterly between Comedy Central and so-called Cable News. Networks have sued for the right at the very least, to not run a story unfavorable to a major sponsor; many hired to disseminate information or disinformation in prime time are not educated nor trained in journalism, nor increasingly do actual journalists feel it is their duty to hold power accountable in a democratic republic.
Conspiracy theories used to be passed around on pamphlets by fringe groups whose meeting places you had to seek out and find on your own. Now: you may join a chat room, and become angry about anything fed you via cookies after a few search engine queries. The fringe are not only mainstream; they are AstroTurf movement, wielding power in principalities and higher offices of gerrymandered localities; temporarily shutting down democratic republics.
It is a power reinforced by uniform resource locator, the digital equivalent of preaching to a choir of the already convinced; similar to teens online - tweeting during the State of the Union; playing poker during senate hearings on Syria - our political leaders seem only interested in the echos within their own bubble chambers, reinforcing unyielding opinions. And like some pundits and most developing teenagers, they do not have to be skilled in governance to win higher office. Thomas Gray said "ignorance is bliss"; George Orwell "ignorance is strength." And when this bubble pops, there will be massive casualties.
Related links:
Successful Workplace: Is social BPM the end of focused expertise?
The Atlantic: The End Of Expertise?
Forbes:
The End of the Expert: Why No One in Marketing Knows What They're Doing
Your memories will truly outlive you by eons...
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Back in 1956, IBM introduced the world’s first commercial computer capable of storing data on a magnetic disk drive. The IBM 305 RAMAC used fifty 24-inch discs to store up to 5 MB, an impressive feat in those days. Today, however, it’s not difficult to find hard drives that can store 1 TB of data on a single 3.5-inch disk.
But despite this huge increase in storage density and a similarly impressive improvement in power efficiency, one thing hasn’t changed. The lifetime over which data can be stored on magnetic discs is still about a decade.
That raises an interesting problem. How are we to preserve information about our civilisation on a timescale that outlasts it? In other words, what technology can reliably store information for 1 million years or more?
Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Jeroen de Vries at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and a few pals. These guys have designed and built a disk capable of storing data over this timescale. And they’ve performed accelerated ageing tests which show it should be able to store data for 1 million years and possibly longer.
These guys start with some theory about ageing. Clearly, it’s impractical to conduct an ageing experiment in real time, particularly when the periods involved are measured in millions of years. But there is a way to accelerate the process of ageing.
This is based on the idea that data must be stored in an energy minimum that is separated from other minima by an energy barrier. So to corrupt data by converting a 0 to a 1, for example, requires enough energy to overcome this barrier.
The probability that the system will jump in this way is governed by an idea known as Arrhenius law. This relates the probability of jumping the barrier to factors such as its temperature, the Boltzmann constant and how often a jump can be attempted, which is related to the level of atomic vibrations.
Some straightforward calculations reveal that to last a million years, the required energy barrier is 63 KBT or 70 KBT to last a billion years. “These values are well within the range of today’s technology,” say de Vries and co.
Physics arXiv:
Towards Gigayear Storage Using a Silicon-Nitride/Tungsten Based Medium
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| Source: link below |
Mesoporous silica (mSiO2) can be used to carry anti-cancer drugs to tumour sites in mice. So say researchers at the University of Wisconsin−Madison in the US who have succeeded in making TRC105-conjugated mSiO2 labelled with radioactive copper for the first time. TRC105 is a chimeric monoclonal antibody that binds to both human and mouse endoglin, or CD105 (a type I membrane glycoprotein found on endothelial cell surfaces).
mSiO2 nanoparticles are a promising new category of drug delivery vehicle because they are biocompatible and non-toxic. Their surfaces can also be easily modified and their mesopores (which are around 2–3 nm across) can hold a significant amount of therapeutic molecules.
Successful anti-cancer drug delivery
In vivo tumour targeting experiments by Cai and colleagues clearly show that the 64Cu-NOTA-mSiO2-PEG-TRC105 accumulates at mouse breast tumour sites (known as "4T1") thanks to TRC105-mediated binding to CD105 in tumour blood vessels. As a proof of concept, they also demonstrated that they could successfully deliver the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) in mice with 4T1 tumours by injecting DOX-loaded 64Cu-NOTA-mSiO2-PEG-TRC105 into the animals.
Nanotech Web: Silica nanoparticles deliver anti-cancer drugs
ABOUT THE COURSE
The discovery of a new fundamental particle at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN is the latest step in a long quest seeking to answer one of physics’ most enduring questions: why do particles have mass? The experiments’ much anticipated success confirms predictions made decades earlier by Peter Higgs and others, and offers a glimpse into a universe of physics beyond the Standard Model.
As Professor Peter Higgs continues his inspiring role at Edinburgh University’s School of Physics & Astronomy, the experiments at the LHC continue.
This MOOC introduces the theoretic tools needed to appreciate the discovery, and presents the elementary particles at the tiniest scales ever explored. Beginning with basic concepts in classical mechanics, the story unfolds through relativity and quantum mechanics, describing forces, matter and the unification of theories with an understanding driven by the tools of mathematics.
Narrating the journey through experimental results which led to the discovery in 2012, the course invites you to learn from a team of world-class physicists at Edinburgh University. Learners participate in discussion of the consequences of the Higgs boson, to physics and cosmology, and towards a stronger understanding and new description of the universe.
REQUIREMENTS
The course requires a basic level of mathematical skills, at the level of a final-year school pupil. A basic knowledge of physics is helpful, but not required.
University of Edinburgh: The Discovery of the Higgs Boson (click "Join this course")
Amazon is running a sale on Conception: Volume 2 of the Darkside Trilogy for less than $20 + shipping!
That, is a load off my mind (you have no idea)!!
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| Credit: Physics arXiv Blog; paper link below |
Physics arXiv Blog: When the new ideas of quantum mechanics spread through science like wildfire in the first half of the 20th century, one of the first things physicists did was to apply them to gravity and general relativity. The result were not pretty.
It immediately became clear that these two foundations of modern physics were entirely incompatible. When physicists attempted to meld the approaches, the resulting equations were bedeviled with infinities making it impossible to make sense of the results.
Then in the mid-1960s, there was a breakthrough. The physicists John Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt successfully combined the previously incompatible ideas in a key result that has since become known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. This is important because it avoids the troublesome infinites—a huge advance.
But it didn't take physicists long to realise that while the Wheeler-DeWitt equation solved one significant problem, it introduced another. The new problem was that time played no role in this equation. In effect, it says that nothing ever happens in the universe, a prediction that is clearly at odds with the observational evidence.
This conundrum, which physicists call ‘the problem of time’, has proved to be thorn in flesh of modern physicists, who have tried to ignore it but with little success.
Then in 1983, the theorists Don Page and William Wooters came up with a novel solution based on the quantum phenomenon of entanglement. This is the exotic property in which two quantum particles share the same existence, even though they are physically separated.
Entanglement is a deep and powerful link and Page and Wooters showed how it can be used to measure time. Their idea was that the way a pair of entangled particles evolve is a kind of clock that can be used to measure change.
But the results depend on how the observation is made. One way to do this is to compare the change in the entangled particles with an external clock that is entirely independent of the universe. This is equivalent to god-like observer outside the universe measuring the evolution of the particles using an external clock.
In this case, Page and Wooters showed that the particles would appear entirely unchanging—that time would not exist in this scenario.
But there is another way to do it that gives a different result. This is for an observer inside the universe to compare the evolution of the particles with the rest of the universe. In this case, the internal observer would see a change and this difference in the evolution of entangled particles compared with everything else is an important a measure of time.
This is an elegant and powerful idea. It suggests that time is an emergent phenomenon that comes about because of the nature of entanglement. And it exists only for observers inside the universe. Any god-like observer outside sees a static, unchanging universe, just as the Wheeler-DeWitt equations predict.
During the discussion of high-quality and low quality fiction, a argument is usually made concerning antagonistic frequency rates. Simplified, this argument goes something like this:
Book proponent: "Sexy Vampires IV is the best Historical Slash-Vamp Dom Fiction out there!"
Book Detractor: "Man! Slash-Vamp fiction is totally played, everyone is doing that these days."
Insert you proposed antagonist into that conversation and you will get someone who will tell you that the Genre is over done, played out, or no longer interesting. Additionally, any conversation of reasonable length with agents, publishers and marketers will eventually result in them telling you which particular genera of fiction they are tired of seeing.
The rise of self-publishing has pushed this situation into overdrive. Where originally, you had maybe a half-dozen entries in a particular genera a year from major and minor publishers, you now have hundreds, if not thousands, of attempts to tell a particular story.
What is lacking is historical perspective. Google's Ngram viewer gives some imperfect, but interesting, historical context to the antagonistic frequency debate.
(the charts here are pngs, check the Moorsgate Media Blog for interactive charts)
As shown above, the frequency of various antagonist (this is current through 2009) in English fiction is charted. Generally, in current fiction debates, Vampires and Zombies are singled out as being over-done in terms of genera. However, Aliens as a concept has held a pretty consistent lead, and it currently, even though there has been some decline,is at a historically above average position. Interestingly, the concept of plagues, which can be related to Zombies, has been on a historical downward slop ever since a peak some time in the 1810's.
Robots, the term being unknown prior to Capek's seminal work, takes off after the publication of R.U.R., and hits a peak in the mid eighties (think original Terminator, transformers, etc.) that surpasses the popularity of vampires today. Sadly, we appear to be living in a world of "Peak Robot", due possibility in part to the rise of non-fictional robots in our everyday lives (e.g murderous drones, vacuum cleaners).
As a point of comparison, the next chart looks at the frequency of some events in fiction (we use aliens as the cross reference to the above chart)
As shown, the concept of the Rapture is down from its historical heights, but has recently made a resurgence, and appears to be on track to overtake Aliens in frequency. However, from a Genera standpoint, no one argues if Rapture based fiction has reached "peak rapture". [ed. This chart only goes to 2009, it is goes to 2012, it might be that there was a serious crash after the Mayan Calendar failed to turn us into orbs of pure something.]
The point here is that Genera antagonist come and go, but without data, it is difficult to determine if present, or short term historical bias is altering peoples' perception of what is or is not a popular genera. Having some data is always a good rule of thumb changing behavior, concepts or positions.
moorsgatemedia.blogspot.com
Twitter: Moorsgate
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| Scientific American, see [2] below |
Stereotype threat refers to being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group (Steele & Aronson, 1995). This term was first used by Steele and Aronson (1995) who showed in several experiments that Black college freshmen and sophomores performed more poorly on standardized tests than White students when their race was emphasized. When race was not emphasized, however, Black students performed better and equivalently with White students. The results showed that performance in academic contexts can be harmed by the awareness that one's behavior might be viewed through the lens of racial stereotypes. [1]
Scott Barry Kaufman seems to refer to this in his Scientific American article "The Need for Belonging in Math and Science" [2]:
From her earliest memories, Catherine Good was good at math. By second grade she was performing at the fourth grade level, sometimes even helping the teacher grade other students’ work. She was praised constantly for her “gift”, often overhearing her mother tell anyone who would listen that she was a “sponge” for anything mathematical.
As time went on:
Achieve she did. Good did so well as an undergraduate, that she decided to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics. Again, she wasn't driven by the sheer joy, but by other forces:
“My counter-stereotypical achievement, coupled with my belief that those successes were rooted in an innate gift, not only fueled my academic pursuits, but also formed the basis for my academic identity.”
For awhile, Good performed as usual in her graduate program. But then something happened that would change the course of her career: her identity became threatened. As Good puts it, “the identity as a mathematician that I thought was so well-entrenched and established came crashing down, leaving me in a professional crisis.”
Despite her good grades, a flood of self-doubt crept in. She suddenly wondered: Was I simply no longer inspired by the level of rigor and originality necessary for graduate level mathematics? Was it the fact that for the first time in my academic life, I had to work, really work, at my studies?
And, finally...
Whatever the cause(s), one thing was certain: she no longer felt a sense of belonging in mathematics. As a result, she left mathematics.
I have had to come to grips with this in myself, having tried masters programs in physics at Texas State and Astrophysics at UT: certain things stick out to you.
1. You're the only "one." The cartoon above pertaining to the difference for women in STEM could also be of the one African American, Hispanic/Latino/Native American; the Asian that HAS to be good at math as a matter of genetics, so any questions for clarification and understanding means you're a defect somehow.
2. Some indication of that in my offspring. He's performing quite well in Civil Engineering, yet he often feels like "the one." I'm sure if he asked around campus, he'd find it not so unique.
Ironically, the strength of my taking a masters online is I am "one" of many "ones" online. We don't see each other; we only interact/question via email. I send homework in PDF. If I experience some form of stereotype threat, it is in my own self-doubt, which are many: am I too old to do this; will I be the only "one" in the room? There is a freedom and a loneliness in online anonymity, the only brief camaraderie I experienced when I inquired last year how they weathered Hurricane Sandy: Stevens University is in Hoboken, NJ.
I recall once that observation being made by someone I worked with at Motorola: "we're the 'only black engineers' in the room," my fellow alumni said. "And, we're the best damn engineers IN the room" I shot back. Despite that bravado, I wish I had Dr. JC Holbrook's paper on survival strategies [3] in many instances I felt the pressure of stereotype threat. Religion and spirituality - as she mentions - are forms of mental survival strategies (go see 12 Years a Slave) and cultural expression that if not abused by charlatans, pundits, lying politicians and political machinations spewing manipulative talking points, propels individuals and groups forward despite near insurmountable obstacles. Think of the Civil Rights movement. Unless society were to make a massive, herculean change towards eliminating inequality, this will remain necessary.
To go further beyond a masters, I'll have to emerge from online anonymity, even with my company behind me (as they enthusiastically are), I'll have to use survival strategies and fight within myself this "stereotype threat" that morphs into self-fulfilling prophecy for many of us. One is a promise I made to my parents. My journey in science started with a chemistry set and my first almost fatal experiment. Instead of discouraging me, they just barred me from repeating THAT particular one. As science lifts countries out of poverty, it has lifted me twice: once post the US Air Force; second eight years after a lay off from that same company where we were the "best damn engineers in the room." And I have obligated myself to finish what they planted in me and seed it forward to their grandchildren, and any other youth I can influence.
It is an important, internal and external struggle we ultimately must win. This country is bereft of a prosperous future without our triumph and our inputs.
1. Reducing Stereotype Threat: What is 'Stereotype Threat'?
2. SciAm Beautiful Minds: The Need for Belonging in Math and Science
3. P4TC: Survival Strategies
