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You know Space is the Place

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on June 11, 2016 at 10:31am

Saturday morning, decided to do the laundry and dishes. Set up my tablet to listen to a video short on jazz. It was about Sun Ra, John Coltrane and Anthony Braxton and the times of their music. Then I listened to Kevin Spears (electronic Kilimba), Emmett Chapman (inventor of Chapman Stick), Kevin Keith (Chapmen Stick artist), Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Rollins and Eddie Harris (Jazz saxophonists). Sun Ra's theme was playing in the back of my mind, "Space is the Place, yeah yeah Space is the Place. 

Funny how we are so programmed to think Sun Ra was talking about outer space. Why would anybody think dwelling in an environment that is meant to kill you with every force, element and substance? Sun Ra was talking about freeing your mind. Your imagination is the space. The scene in the movie Matrix where Neo says, "this is the construct", then he asked the computer to bring weapons and for as far as the eye can see there were guns of all sorts, even though you could only shoot one or two at a time. This showed our limitations against the limitless imagination.

We live in a chaos world of distractions, yet when one of us gets focused amazing things happen. A Nigerian kid's favorite places are a junkyard and a library. With only the basic education and concepts he turns scrap parts into a windmill to power a pump for his family home, then the village. I saw him in a TED video. Here in the USA we are inundated with so many isms, schools of thought, commercials, media, social guides and misguides and Pavlov response psychology.

Sun Ra said Space is the Place, harnessing our mind power of imagination is something we all know but down play as not important. All the philosophers say how a man thinks so he is. We turn around and say that person is full of himself (ego overload) or in a cult (culture) if he espouses an social ideology be it religious, political or social. Heck we have gods who are outside of us and or inside of us and are other than us. We are separated from god by galaxies and yet are immersed in god like a fish in water. All the knowledge we have about things are true and are also a lie, we work stuff up in our mind standing on a tiny mountain. It's really an iceberg the mass hidden under distracting waves.

The place of space is not the limited physical worlds but worlds within. The ancients talked of meditation, the waking dream, the space between being fully awake and fully asleep. Sleeping on it consist of going to bed with something on your mind perchance your unconscious mind will spit out a solution, an inspiration in the morning into your awakened state.

Speaking of states many of the states (mindsets, dress, physical display) are prescribed by us some are assigned to us. Being a Negro, Black, African-American, a kid from the Bronx, from Philly, from Cleveland, we say pop, you say soda. Each state has it's baggage, it's expectations, it's consequences. I've met shapeshifters who change states to accommodate the people they are with (beware of shapeshifters). They can appear in one state while totally espousing another. On the campus you become aware of all the states we can assume. Some shift, some are consumed, some guileless, true blue, the genuine article (god I love those people!).  

We did Black Power, African heritage and now are exploring our "indigenousness". A concerted effort is afoot to disengage us from every culture, history and heritage on the planet. They are driving us into Space. If we are crazy we will end up reaching up into the sky trying to get there. Space is the place but which space. There is a space I hear and see every time I put on some jazz. The instrument meant to go "oomp pa pa" goes "be boop da da pop boomp de bap da da". The family so distracted by being neighborhood immersed produces a kid focused enough to sail through school at the top, first in family to college, gets PhD and or starts a business. How do some break the mind chain to excel yet ridiculed by the rest of us because they are in a different state of mind than us, duh!? Eh Bro, you too good for us now? No, man, I'm just with different people now cause I am a different person now, a different state (Space) now. 

How to get the programmed media out of your space is an on going topic. How to get the our people generated negative talk out of your space. How to get the self generated crap out of your space. How to recognize yourself while handling yourself in your own space. How to dwell comfortably in our own space and your own skin. How to make room for yourself to create what you will in your own space.

Space is the Place, that space and that place IS in your head, is your imagination and you own it. What you imagine (I believe in degrees) you become or can create, make, produce and market. We have no need to hear what others think of us or describe us (our on going concern). We are a pretty advanced people spanning from poor and stupid to multi-faceted and multi-talented geniuses depending on how our minds are loaded and our minds are focused. The next step is to recast what opportunity is. Opportunity has been based on the needs of other peoples. We need to look at our own needs again, our own mediums of exchange, conversion of that medium for external exchanges. I'm sliding off topic but the state we are in comes with it's own considerations. We have to be willing change our states to positive collaboration no matter the appearance.

Anyway, Sun Ra was talking about mental space, imagination, states of being. Imagination is powerful, not just a playground for musing thoughts and terrifying fears. Imagination is our mind Space, the Place in the Space of our mind. We fight to get a bunch of us to embrace one ideology or another to take over the world, religious, political, social, history. We think if we do the world would be at peace because we all think the same thing. The answers I don't know but the field of battle has always been the minds of men. Sun Ra said Space is the Place you can create a world that suits you, benefits you and in it you can be. 

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For Eleanor...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 10, 2016 at 5:20am


OSA sponsors multiple programs to promote optics and photonics among K-12 students.

Legacy programs include the Optics Discovery Kit and the Optics Suitcase. Online, OSA sponsors the Optics4Kids site which provides information and educational resources. (iStock.com$#92;VYCHEGZHANINA)

(Courtesy of iStock.com\VYCHEGZHANINA)*

Topics: Diversity in Science, Einstein, Electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell, Laser, Modern Physics, Optics, Quantum Mechanics, Women in Science


"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." Eleanor Roosevelt

In June 1916, exactly one century ago, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of ripples, known as gravitational waves, in the fabric of spacetime. Earlier this year we celebrated the stunning observation of the phenomenon by a worldwide collaboration of more than 1000 scientists using incredibly sensitive antennas built of mirrors and lasers. (See Physics Today, April 2016, page 14.) As with many scientific achievements, this recent milestone draws on innumerable theoretical, observational, and technological innovations and iterations made along the way. It’s worth reflecting on the vast body of knowledge the scientific community has generated, the breakthrough technologies that have allowed us to observe our world with ever-greater depth and precision, and the people who have dedicated their lives and careers to expanding knowledge and applications in diverse branches of science.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of The Optical Society, a worldwide community for optics and photonics professionals and students. Over the past century, the research world and consumers alike enjoyed a dramatic expansion of light-based science and applied technology. In many ways, the growth of optics and photonics has mirrored the birth and expansion of modern physics from the early 20th century through today. Applied optics and spectroscopy have long played a central role in enabling new discoveries in physics; that new physics has fueled advances in optics and photonics that, in turn, have created powerful tools for the study of space, time, and matter. The laser, for instance, has become an indispensable tool of scientific inquiry. Solid-state detectors of incredible density and sensitivity are used for scientific imaging from telescopes on Earth to cameras on Mars. Innovations in laser cooling have given us unprecedented access to the quantum world, and laser frequency comb technology has greatly expanded precision measurements for both fundamental and applied sciences.

But that list is far from complete. This article permits only a sparse survey of the noteworthy advances and trailblazers from the past century of optics and of the innumerable benefits we derive from them. Further highlights are available on the OSA Centennial webpage at www.osa.org/en-us/100/osa100*.

Physics Today: A century of light, Anne Frances Johnson and Nancy D. Lamontagne

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Compact Radiocarbon Detector...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 9, 2016 at 5:15am
Physics Today: Optical detection of radiocarbon dioxide (partial view)


Topics: Modern Physics, Radiation, Spectrograph


A compact spectroscopic system can measure radioactive carbon dioxide concentrations as low as five parts per quadrillion.

Carbon’s only naturally occurring radioactive isotope, 14C, is exceedingly rare. Produced when neutrons from cosmic rays interact with nitrogen, the radioisotope makes up just one part per trillion of the carbon in Earth’s atmosphere. Yet because of its continual production, its diffusion through the planet’s carbon cycle, and its long half-life of 5700 years, 14C is routinely used to date organic matter as old as 50 000 years. Archaeologists, forensic scientists, and environmental researchers, among others, essentially measure the concentration of radiocarbon in a sample to determine its age.

Since the late 1970s, accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) has served as the benchmark method for the job. In that approach, samples are burned, chemically converted to graphite, and bombarded with cesium ions. The negative carbon ions ejected from the solid samples are then accelerated to a few percent of the speed of light and their mass-to-charge ratios deduced from their trajectories through electric and magnetic fields. Fortuitously, the most common isotope of nitrogen in the atmosphere, 14N, forms no stable negative ion; and its absence eliminates its otherwise large interference with the 14C signal. Likewise, 12CH2 and 13CH molecules are broken apart during a later, electron-stripping stage and don’t survive to interfere with the signal.

Both effects help free 14C signals from background noise. But although the technique is powerful—and applicable to other trace elements—the spectrometers can cost millions of dollars and often require a dedicated facility to maintain their electrodes at hundreds of thousands to millions of volts in a vacuum.

A technically simpler approach also begins with burning a sample, but only to transform its carbon atoms into carbon dioxide molecules. With their strong vibrational absorptions in the mid-IR, the many isotopic combinations of CO2 can be distinguished optically. The challenge is to measure the intensities of their spectral lines to determine the concentration ratios. The task is not easy if the goal is to count trace isotopes in a sea of abundant ones. The CO2 molecule has hundreds of vibrational and rotational lines, many of them closely spaced in frequency. And even the most stable lasers suffer from intensity fluctuations.



 Physics Today: Smaller, faster, cheaper detection of radiocarbon, R Mark Wilson

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Particle X...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 8, 2016 at 5:00am
A new type of particle could have interacted with protons and neutrons shortly after the Big Bang, so as to break up lithium-7. (Courtesy: iStockphoto/Insomnela)


Topics: Astrophysics, Big Bang, Early universe, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics


I remember Racer X as a child, but this is just another reason to blame for our laptop batteries not holding a charge as long as we'd like.

For a little more than a decade, scientists have been struggling to explain why the amount of lithium predicted to have been formed in the early universe is about three times the value actually observed. Now, an international team of researchers believes it may have the answer: a new type of particle, outside of the Standard Model, that would have interacted with protons and neutrons shortly after the Big Bang so as to break up lithium-7.

According to a theory known as "Big Bang nucleosynthesis", protons and neutrons fused to form nuclei in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. This process generated deuterium, large amounts of helium-4 and smaller amounts of helium-3 – the latter two combined to create beryllium-7, which eventually decayed to lithium-7. The theory makes very precise predictions of the relative proportions of these nuclei, based on a quantity – known as the photon–baryon ratio – taken from observations of the cosmic microwave background.

For helium and deuterium, these predictions agree very well with observations of physical systems thought to contain material dating back to the time of the Big Bang. However, the theoretical value for lithium – just five per billion of hydrogen – is between two and five times too high.

Now, Maxim Pospelov of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada, together with colleagues at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, says that this mismatch is not a "full-blown crisis for cosmology" because the observed lithium-7 levels, which are obtained from atmospheric spectra of very old stars, might not match primordial values. The researchers say that obscure astrophysical processes might have depleted lithium within the stellar atmospheres, but add that astrophysicists have yet to pinpoint such a process.

Physics World: Particle 'X' may have snuffed out cosmic lithium, Edwin Cartlidge

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Slingshot...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 7, 2016 at 6:30am
Image Source: Physics Today


Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Cosmology, Dark Matter, General Relativity


Shooting out of the galaxy at speeds greater than the escape velocity, hypervelocity stars provide a window on black holes and the distribution of dark matter surrounding the glowing Milky Way.

Because gravity keeps stars on their orbits, astronomers can use the motions of stars to infer the mass distribution of the visible and invisible constituents of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is the only galaxy whose visible mass distribution we can see in three dimensions and in which we can accurately measure the velocities of millions of individual stars. Gravitational accelerations in the galaxy are usually small, however. Our sun, for instance, experiences a gravitational acceleration of just 2 Å/s2 as it orbits the Milky Way. That’s 10−11 of what we experience on Earth’s surface. It’s also the gravitational- acceleration regime of dark matter—the unseen material inferred to exist in and around galaxies.

Some of the initial evidence for dark matter came in 1932 after Dutch astronomer Jan Oort developed the first modern theory of stellar motions.1 Oort compared the velocity dispersion of stars near the Sun with their number density and inferred the existence of more mass than could be accounted for by the visible stars. In more recent times, radio astronomers have measured the rotation speeds of gas—specifically neutral hydrogen—in the outer parts of the Milky Way and other disk galaxies with much higher accuracy than could be done in Oort’s era. Intriguingly, they found that rotation speeds do not decline with increasing distance outward but stay constant. To keep galaxies like the Milky Way bound together requires the gravitational pull of dark matter, if not a modified theory of gravity.

The focus of this article is a new class of astronomical objects, known as hypervelocity stars, that uniquely connect the center of the galaxy to its outer halo. A decade ago I and my colleagues Margaret Geller, Scott Kenyon, and Michael Kurtz at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, unexpectedly discovered a star moving away from Earth at 850 km/s, roughly 2 million miles per hour.3 The speed is astonishing: The star is racing outward with at least twice the galactic escape velocity at its distance of 300 000 light-years from the galactic center.



 Physics Today: Hypervelocity stars in the Milky Way, Warren R Brown

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30 Years of AFM...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 6, 2016 at 5:00am
Source: Artificial Oxide Nanostructures: Physics of Multiscale Phenomena

Topics: Atomic Force Microscopy, Biology, Cancer, Consumer Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Nanotechnology, Semiconductor Technology

Thirty years since its first inception, the atomic force microscope has proved a hugely versatile tool. Applications range from quantifying dopant distributions in electronics and the analysis of dust particles in space, to characterizing biopsies for cancer diagnostics. More than simply bringing atomic-scale resolution to non-conducting surfaces, modifications of the technology have provided important tools for sensing chemical entities and mechanical properties, with force sensitivities so great they can be used to study and control mitosis in the proliferation of life itself. nanotechweb.org visited Basel in Switzerland, home to some of the pioneers in AFM technologies, to find out how far the field has come in the past three decades.

The development of scanning probe technologies began with the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), and was driven by the semiconductor industry in the late 1970s. Christoph Gerber, co-inventor of the atomic force microscope, points out that although electronics feature sizes were coming close to the nanometre scale in the 1970s, there was no way of obtaining spectroscopic information of such small features. “We thought that if we established a tip very close – so that due to the proximity there would be tunnelling - we would have an instrument that could do this kind of spectroscopic work.” From there came the idea of scanning the tip and keeping the quantum tunnelling current constant. This would effectively trace a topography of the surface with a lateral resolution that could image atoms. “The big breakthrough for STM came when we were able to image the 7 × 7 reconstruction of silicon (1,1,1),” explains Gerber. As the arrangement of atoms at the surface differs from the bulk, glimpsing this reconstruction in a real image was a powerful demonstration of the instrument’s potential.

Francois Huber, who shares a lab with Hans Peter Lang, highlights how the cantilever arrays have also become useful for identifying single gene mutations from biopsies. Recently introduced cancer drugs have particularly high efficacy for specific cancer genes, such as the HER2 gene for aggressive breast cancer and the BRAF mutation found in 50% of malignant melanoma incidents. “Before we treated cancers with general chemistry or radiation – everybody got the same treatment and either you were lucky or unlucky,” says Huber. “Here we can actually target the cancer directly – it goes towards personalized medicine so that you treat patients according to their genetic predisposition.”

Nanotechweb: Atomic force microscopy – 30 years on

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American Specter FREE Download

Posted by Rasheedah Prioleau on June 5, 2016 at 11:09am

FBI Agent Audra Wheeler has been haunted for the last thirteen years by a paranormal attack that left her sister, Kendra, in a coma. Mentored by FBI Assistant Director Jonathan Cordero to investigate crimes committed by specters, Audra believes she is on the trail of a ‘serial killer’ specter with a MO very similar to her sister’s attacker. The investigation takes her to a small town of Specter, Georgia; a haven for ghosts who exist among the living.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GILL3OG/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_T8dvxbJE2T3WT

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Feedback Loop...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 3, 2016 at 6:01am
State-Space Equation of a Feedback Loop, Source: Wikibooks


Topics: Commentary, Education, Politics


Spoiler alert: This post has nothing to do with Control Systems Theory.

I recall reading a story in the Winston-Salem Sentinel (when we had morning and evening newspapers): about a young man, my age at the time (11-years-old). His parents motivated him by paying $10 for every “A” he made. One semester, he made a “B.” To teach him a lesson – the article reported – his parents paid him nothing on any of the other A grades. He promptly – or, sometime during that day – went out to their barn and tragically used his family's shotgun. I would get older...he would not.

When I first attended NC A&T State University, like most freshmen, I was in love with someone who wasn’t on campus (she was a high school senior). Looking back, our difference in age and maturity should have made me immediately end the relationship on my getting to campus. I initially majored in Engineering Mathematics, knowing I wanted to be in a STEM field, but not quite committing to Electrical, Mechanical or Industrial Engineering (as I look back, I’m not quite sure why).

My first semester ended with average grades, but my relationship back in Winston-Salem got harder to manage. I thought more frequent visits would heal our divide that kept getting wider. To make a long story short: I achieved four “Fs” for my trouble, and got placed on academic probation. My father – after our breakup – gave me a stark choice: get it together, or go in the military. (I did eventually on graduation, but as an officer in the Air Force.)

I met Dr. Tom Sandin purely by chance in front of Marteena Hall as I pondered my father’s ultimatum. Dr. Sandin was funny and affable, and suggested I not quit, but instead “try physics.” Physics, I thought? What evidence do I have now that I’m even good enough to complete a degree, let alone increase the complexity of my matriculation? Tom Sandin insisted, and I changed my major from Engineering Mathematics to Engineering Physics. It was encouragement, but that was enough. That's not to say Tom Sandin was an easy teacher! I got many a low grade with the note "see the answer" that he posted after every homework or quiz in the Library Mezzanine. I worked hard, sacrificing Fridays, weekends and summers my peers used to work internships for summer school courses; every summer until I graduated. I gradually pushed my GPA to a 3.0 (the four Fs prior dragging down my overall). I made the dean’s list a few times. I found out later to my delight, that Dr. Sandin also taught a personal hero of mine, Dr. Ron McNair, the first black astronaut from a HBCU; I met him in Greensboro when my Air Force ROTC detachment honored his maiden voyage into space. I was emotionally saddened by the Challenger Disaster.

Failure is feedback. Sometimes the thought of failure - earned or unfair - in life can be a great motivator and filter of what you will and will not do.

I called Ron McNair before his final mission, December of 1985. He revealed to me that someone at MIT sabotaged his research five weeks before his PhD dissertation, considering the times, likely due to jealousy and racism. He didn't let that stop him. He re-accomplished five years of research in three weeks time. He did not sleep until he had completed his oral defense. After that, Dr. McNair (officially) slept for a week.

I can’t help but thinking what happened at UCLA is a reflection on the society we’ve created. Millennials are joked about, parodied, etc. I recall, and know most martial arts organization, soccer, T-ball and extracurricular activities give participation medals (see the parody). Charlie Brown would strive every summer to win a baseball game; he would strive mightily to kick the football before Lucy pulled it away: he never did it. We understood it was Charles Schultz's camp humor that made the gag work every time, but it was an object lesson: it showed perseverance, that you don't have to start out "perfect" and always be perfect to be successful. Unlike Charlie Brown, we can learn and grow from our mistakes.

What happened at UCLA could be any campus USA. It’s similar to what happened in Aurora, Colorado when James Holmes killed twelve people and wounded several others: he’d failed his qualifier in graduate school for Neurosciences. Holmes - as someone who’d likely never received a failing grade in his life, freaked. He never fell in love and failed four subjects; no one sabotaged his research due to his cultural ancestry. I’m sure this man who killed his engineering professor in California (and apparently had a "kill list" of additional offenders) had a similar, privileged pedigree. Unlike Holmes, he apparently achieved a PhD. Also unlike Holmes: because of his name, cultural background, ethnicity and the volatile election cycle, he didn't do us any favors in a clearly fractured nation, split by crassly manipulated bigotry for political gain.

Life will be challenging and disappointing, academically, personally and professionally. What distinguishes achievers from others is being willing to learn from mistakes and grow better from them. Violent tantrums – especially the lethal kind – serve no purpose, other than brief sensationalism... and oblivion. A personal Armageddon is not a reward, nor a victory. It is as this essay began and always will be: tragic.
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Reading, Writing, Magnetism...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 1, 2016 at 5:16am


A depiction of magnetic charge ice. Nanoscale magnets are arranged in a two-dimensional lattice. Each nanomagnet produces a pair of magnetic charges, one positive (red ball on the north pole) and one negative (blue ball on the south pole). The magnetic flux lines (white) point from positive charges to negative charges. (Image credit: Yong-Lei Wang/Zhili Xiao)

Topics: Computer Science, Condensed Matter Physics, Electromagnetism, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Solid State Physics


Note: Title is derived from the home page (third frame in CSS - cascading style sheet format) on ANL.gov.

A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has created a new material, called "rewritable magnetic charge ice," that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies.

The scientists' research report on development of magnetic charge ice is published in the May 20 issue of the journal Science. "With potential applications involving data storage, memory and logic devices, magnetic charge ice could someday lead to smaller and more powerful computers or even play a role in quantum computing." said Zhili Xiao who holds a joint appointment between Argonne and Northern Illinois University.

Current magnetic storage and recording devices, such as computer hard disks, contain nanomagnets with two polarities, each of which is used to represent either 0 or 1 — the binary digits, or bits, used in computers. A magnetic charge ice system could have eight possible configurations instead of two, resulting in denser storage capabilities or added functionality unavailable in current technologies.

Argonne National Laboratories:
Scientists create 'magnetic charge ice', Jared Sagoff, Tom Parisi

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Pluto's Polygons...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 2, 2016 at 4:52am
Sputnik Planum on the surface of Pluto, as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. Several polygons are visible in the image. (Courtesy: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)


Topics: NASA, Planetary Science, Pluto, Space Exploration


The patchwork of polygons on the surface of a vast plain of ice on Pluto is created by heat upwelling from the interior of the dwarf planet. That is the conclusion of two independent teams of scientists that have combined data from NASA's New Horizons mission with computer simulations to gain a better understanding of Sputnik Planum – the flat region where the mysterious polygons exist. One important consequence of the convection process is that the surface of Sputnik Planum could be less than one million years old, making it one of the newest known surfaces in the solar system.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reached Pluto in July 2015, making it the first mission to explore the dwarf planet. The spacecraft has since provided scientists with a wealth of information about Pluto and its moons as well as the first images of Pluto's icy surface, which captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike.

Sputnik Planum, which is an ice-filled basin that occupies an area of about 900,000 km2, makes for a particularly interesting feature. The surface of the ice – which is believed to be mainly nitrogen – appears to be broken up into a collection of polygon-shaped tiles, each of which measure anywhere from 10–40 km across. The polygons are not flat – rather their centres rise up tens of metres above their edges to create a gently rolling icescape.

Physics World:
New Horizons lifts the lid on Pluto's peculiar polygons, Hamish Johnston

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Your Very Own R2-D2 Is Right Around The Corner!

Posted by William Hayashi on June 1, 2016 at 8:22pm

The Taiwanese electronics manufacture Asus has unveiled a home robot called Zenbo that can talk, control your home and provide assistance when needed – all for the cost of a top-end smartphone.

The $599 (£410) robot rolls around on two wheels in the shape of a vacuum cleaner ball with cameras an oblong head extruding from the top with a colour touchscreen displaying a face with emotions. It is capable of independent movement, can respond to voice commands and has both entertainment protocols for keeping kids amused and home care systems to help look after older people.

Click here for the rest of the story

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INDYCON 2

Posted by Slim Jim Longfoot on June 1, 2016 at 3:00pm

IndyCon 2 is coming!!!! The second convention formed by Urban Axis (a combined effort of Urbangod Ink Studios and Infinite Axis Comix) will be held July 23-24 2016. Scheduled to appear at this time are Kevin Chapman (creator of Afro Avenger), Terminus Media (Route 3; The Gilded Age), Vincent Allen (Fore Runner Comics), Raymond Sanders (Fantasy Art Comics) and more!! Vendors get your submission form on the website urbanaxisindycon.com.

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Fifth Force...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 31, 2016 at 5:15am
Credit: Avariel Falcon/Flickr, CC BY 2.0


Topics: Experimental Physics, Particle Physics, Radiation, Theoretical Physics


The Four (currently well-known) Forces: The Strong Force, the Electromagnetic Force, the Weak Force and Gravity. See: this link, which includes a brief primer on each and Feynman Diagrams on the strong and weak forces. Debate is going on now whether the new Force is evidence of Dark Energy, Dark Matter; a "Dark Photon" at 17 MeV, or what they refer to in the article as a "protophobic X (Greek letter Chi) boson." As with all reporting of scientific investigations, this is in its preliminary stages.

A laboratory experiment in Hungary has spotted an anomaly in radioactive decay that could be the signature of a previously unknown fifth fundamental force of nature, physicists say—if the finding holds up.

Attila Krasznahorkay at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’s Institute for Nuclear Research in Debrecen, Hungary, and his colleagues reported their surprising result in 2015 on the arXiv preprint server, and this January in the journal Physical Review Letters. But the report – which posited the existence of a new, light boson only 34 times heavier than the electron—was largely overlooked.

Then, on April 25, a group of US theoretical physicists brought the finding to wider attention by publishing its own analysis of the result on arXiv. The theorists showed that the data didn’t conflict with any previous experiments—and concluded that it could be evidence for a fifth fundamental force. “We brought it out from relative obscurity,” says Jonathan Feng, at the University of California, Irvine, the lead author of the arXiv report.

Four days later, two of Feng's colleagues discussed the finding at a workshop at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. Researchers there were sceptical but excited about the idea, says Bogdan Wojtsekhowski, a physicist at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia. “Many participants in the workshop are thinking about different ways to check it,” he says. Groups in Europe and the United States say that they should be able to confirm or rebut the Hungarian experimental results within about a year.

Scientific American:
Some theorists say a radioactive decay anomaly could imply a fundamental new force
Edwin Cartlidge

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Two For The Price Of One...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 30, 2016 at 12:18pm
Researchers have created a two-mode "Schrödinger's cat state" for the first time. (Courtesy: Michael S Helfenbein/Yale University)

Topics: Experimental Physics, Modern Physics, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics, Schrödinger’s cat (s)

Schrödinger's cat now has a second box to play in, thanks to an international team of physicists that has created a two-mode "Schrödinger's cat state" for the first time. The experiment brings together two purely quantum properties, in that the "cat" (i.e. the photons) is simultaneously "alive and dead" (in a superposition of states) while also in two locations at once (the two boxes are entangled with one another).

The experiment is a step towards creating the larger and more sophisticated quantum states that are necessary to make quantum computing a reality. The team says that the work also demonstrates a two-logical-qubit system with in-built quantum error correction, making it a great resource for quantum metrology and quantum-communication networks.

Physics World: Schrödinger's cat lives and dies in two boxes at once
Tushna Commissariat

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Black Holes and Dark Matter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 27, 2016 at 5:55am
After masking out all known stars, galaxies and artifacts and enhancing what's left, an irregular background glow appears. This is the cosmic infrared background (CIB); lighter colors indicate brighter areas. The CIB glow is more irregular than can be explained by distant unresolved galaxies, and this excess structure is thought to be light emitted when the universe was less than a billion years old. Scientists say it likely originated from the first luminous objects to form in the universe, which includes both the first stars and black holes.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (Goddard)


Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Dark Matter, Physics Humor


I'll admit to being a fan of The Flash, but an informed one. For instance, speed in physics - along with mass (that's "us") is associated with momentum; acceleration and mass is associated with force. Every time I hear "speed force," I cringe. There was the memorable episode where Barry "talked" to the speed force (who looked like Joe, Iris, his mom and dad; a wraith that looked like him), which the writers obligatorily associated with Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Big Bang. Barry had one memorable line that sounded kinda "science-y" when conversing with said speed deities: "this is like talking to gravity, or light," which as a part of nature, are not typically conversant. This of course is the fanciful departure of Hollywood cartoon physics, and as I allude at the link provided: don't take me to your Sci-Fi movie night!

The following is rather exciting, a hypothesis that will have to stand up to relentless peer review. Even though I'm a fan of superhero comic shows, I look forward to the coming published scientific conversations that will eventually (hopefully) hash this out.

Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes. Now a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, suggests that this interpretation aligns with our knowledge of cosmic infrared and X-ray background glows and may explain the unexpectedly high masses of merging black holes detected last year.

"This study is an effort to bring together a broad set of ideas and observations to test how well they fit, and the fit is surprisingly good," said Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard. "If this is correct, then all galaxies, including our own, are embedded within a vast sphere of black holes each about 30 times the sun's mass."

In 2005, Kashlinsky led a team of astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to explore the background glow of infrared light in one part of the sky. The researchers reported excessive patchiness in the glow and concluded it was likely caused by the aggregate light of the first sources to illuminate the universe more than 13 billion years ago. Follow-up studies confirmed that this cosmic infrared background (CIB) showed similar unexpected structure in other parts of the sky.

NASA Scientist Suggests Possible Link Between Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter
Francis Reddy

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Finitistic, Infinitistic...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 26, 2016 at 5:37am
Image Credit: Wylie Beckert for Quanta Magazine


Topics: Computer Science, Logic, Mathematical Models, Mathematical Physics


With a surprising new proof, two young mathematicians have found a bridge across the finite-infinite divide, helping at the same time to map this strange boundary.

The boundary does not pass between some huge finite number and the next, infinitely large one. Rather, it separates two kinds of mathematical statements: “finitistic” ones, which can be proved without invoking the concept of infinity, and “infinitistic” ones, which rest on the assumption — not evident in nature — that infinite objects exist.

Mapping and understanding this division is “at the heart of mathematical logic,” said Theodore Slaman, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. This endeavor leads directly to questions of mathematical objectivity, the meaning of infinity and the relationship between mathematics and physical reality.

Quanta Magazine: Mathematicians Bridge Finite-Infinite Divide, Natalie Wolchover

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Directed Evolution...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 25, 2016 at 5:56am
© AP The prize was awarded on Tuesday in Helsinki


Topics: Biology, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Engineering, Research, Women in Science


US engineer Frances Arnold has won the Millennium Technology Prize for pioneering "directed evolution".

By driving a sped-up version of natural selection in the lab, the method has created new enzymes for industrial catalysts, household detergents, and even to make rocket fuel from sugar.

The €1m (£0.8m) prize is awarded biennially and Prof Arnold is the first female winner in its 12-year history.

It recognises developments that "change people's lives for the better".

The Technology Academy Finland, which presents the prize, said the deliberations began in November 2015 but that "there was only one outstanding candidate".

Prof Arnold, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), spoke to the BBC before travelling to Helsinki for Tuesday's ceremony.

She said the "basic concept" of using evolution to create better enzymes emerged from her laboratory more than 20 years ago.

BBC News: Evolutionary engineer wins tech prize, Jonathan Webb

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Physics Identities...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 23, 2016 at 4:46am
Image Source: Physics Today home page


Topics: Commentary, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Mark G. Raizen, Women in Science


This was an article that gave me a slight chuckle (the obvious double entendre of superhero secret identities and by inference of the topic trigonometric identities we all used to have to memorize). I can personally attest there are four major epochs (my reference) one goes through in the field:

"I major in physics";

"I 'majored' in physics";

"I work in a 'physics-related' field" also "my physics background helps me in my current field";

"I am a physicist."

Mark G. Raizen, one of the smartest physicist I know doing cutting edge research in atomic physics and quantum optics, was once a theoretical physics grad student under Steven Weinberg before he changed focus to being an experimental physicist. (Trivia: he even has a Wiki page on WOW.com). Mark once wished me a happy birthday on Facebook, referring to me as a "fellow physicist." I was at the time pursuing my Graduate Certificate in Microelectronics and Photonics from Stevens University I've since completed. I start again with the graduate physics department in the fall, as I only have 18 hours to a full Masters degree. With this background and my current industry focus on Implant, I hope to go as far as my preparation takes me.

I admit, I was flattered and honored, thinking my diversions - the military, industry, selling home security systems (long story) and high school physics teacher wasn't a "pure" path, and thus I bounced quite liberally between #2 and #3. Though he said it quite casually, it did knock me for a loop and change my own self-perceptions. Mark and Alicia Raizen's friendship has been inspirational (I met Alicia on an appointment with the aforementioned security company; then Mark who took me on a tour of his laboratory with his graduate students at UT Austin). I admit some evolution had to take place for me to get to and accept the fourth epoch. From that point and ever since, I have been referring to myself publicly, and proudly... as a physicist.

A series of interviews with undergraduates yields some surprising insights into how the students come to think of themselves as physicists.

Are you a physicist? How did you become a physicist? The answers to those questions are not as straightforward as one might think. The routes into physics are as diverse as physicists themselves. The sources of our early affinities for physics range from childhood fascinations with the universe to that introductory physics class that made you ask more questions than you could answer.

Acquiring a professional identity is a fundamental part of any student’s development.1 Students are significantly more likely to persist with a program in physics—or any other discipline—when they identify themselves as students of that discipline.2 However, developing an identity as a professional physicist and member of the physics community is a complicated process that can take a long time and involve overcoming multiple barriers.

To examine how identities change over time, we studied the experiences of 20 undergraduate physics students (3 women and 17 men) at Kansas State University over six semesters beginning with their modern physics class. Seven of the students remained in the study until the end. We interviewed each student several times, focusing on their developing experiences with physics and their perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. Our methods are described in the box on page 48.

We tracked changes in their perceptions over time as they engaged in more physics practices, such as upper-division coursework and undergraduate research. Students’ experiences with different authentic physics practices changed their perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. We used those changing perceptions as a starting point to investigate the students’ evolving physics identities.

Physics Today: Developing Physics Identities, Paul W. Irving and Eleanor C. Sayre

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