the 1830s, computer science has been trying very hard to race ahead of its time. Particularly over the last 75 years, there have been many astounding developments – the first electronic programmable computer, the first integrated circuit computer, the first microprocessor. But the next anticipated step may be the most revolutionary of all.
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Sinead O'Connor found safe after going missing. Turns out she was with friends. A happy ending save that there was no sad beginning. Unless you count the number of adults concerning themselves with the whereabouts of a celebrity, which we probably should.
NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS for the first annual Gullah Geechee Heritage Film Festival. CLICK BANNER for more details.
"What was the inspiration for the staple fantasy beings such as Elves and Dwarves?" That is a question that has been burning in my mind for about a year. I have just gotten around to researching it recently. Here is the reflection on that research.
http://kimaniali.com/my-writings/black-origin-elves-dwarves/
Saturday delivered a great win for diversity in entertainment as women swept every category at the 2015 Nebula Awards. The annual event celebrates the year's best literary contributions to science fiction and fantasy.
I wrote a short essay today briefly discussing my thoughts on the paradigm of Black Sci Fi, specifically dealing with technology and future speculation. Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?
http://kimaniali.com/my-writings/destruction-brilliance-paradigm-black-sci-fi/
DESTRUCTION AND BRILLIANCE: THE PARADIGM OF BLACK SCI-FI
Disclaimer
My statements will often be in conflict with popular scientific opinions (which is not the same as the latest scientific research). Because this essay is not geared toward the academia crowd, I will make several claims without providing sources. This is because I have already done my research and I believe in your ability to do yours. It would also make this essay very long. However, please feel free to ask me for sources or debate points.
I also do not believe that Western physical science is the pinnacle of what has or can be achieved and I have no reason to, according to official peer-reviewed research. I believe that ancient science surpassed Western physical science. More specifically, I believe that Westernscience has not surpassed Melanoid (people with significant melanocytes [darker skin colors] and neuromelanin) science. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s talk about Science Fiction.
Two Types of Sci-Fi
Devastation
Western science is aggressive toward life.
I do not feel the need for in-depth discussion of the definition of Sci-Fi. Let us focus on the element of futuristic speculation. What is the future as depicted by the paradigm of Western science? Devastation. There are only a handfull of scenarios foreseen for Western White civilization: dystopia, the end of humans on Earth, or the former plus planetary colonization. And the fourth option is the perpetual recycle of the first and third scenarios.
If I really wanted to talk about the causes for the eventual end of humans on a particular planet, this essay would be several pages long. However everyone should be familiar with at least four: belligerent A.I., mutually assured nuclear destruction, ecosystem annihilation, and plague.
These scenarios all are caused by the progression of Western science. It aims to control and subvert–even destroy–nature. The air quality continuously drops. The world’s waters become increasingly inhabitable and unconsumable. The ecosystems’ balance is imbalanced. Humans’ suffer unnatural sickness directly because of it. Western science is aggressive toward life. And the Western world has no intention of changing its course, as this Yale University “Atmosphere, Ocean & Environmental Change” course snapshot clearly shows. Reduce human populations and slow 3rd World Economic Growth?! Obviously, they feel that some people are gonna have to stop polluting and it’s not going to be the Western world.
My question is this: why does the future necessitate bleakness? The answer is that it doesn’t.
Brilliance
I went to college to be a historian. I did not complete that degree path, but I never lost the love for history or the knowledge of how to research. In my three-and-a-half semesters in college, and even more years of independent research, I have never seen evidence of the fear or reality of a dystopian Melanoid (remember that word from the disclaimer?) civilization.Melanoid science has never been found to be aggressive toward life.
If you look at the records, Melanoid architecture was not rife with rife toxic materials. It used the natural materials in the surrounding area. Large-scale cities did not produce air pollution, ecological imbalance or chemical-related sicknesses. What Melanoid science did do was explore the workings of the universe and successfully ensure healthy futures for the next generations.
Feats of Melanoid Science
Megalithic Structures
I would like to begin winding down this essay, so I will briefly showcase some examples of Melanoid science. The most commonly known is that of megalithic structures (which Western science cannot currently reproduce). Take the Giza Pyramid complex. These massive structures were built without mortar–very important. They contained several standard, yet complex, mathematical measurements such as the Meter and Pi. They harnessed energy. How these structures were built is not known in the popular narrative of Western science. However, many including myself believe a gravity-manipulating sound technology was used. As the pictures below show, megalithic structures are global.
http://i1.wp.com/kimaniali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/TeotiHuacan.jpg?resize=1024%2C589 1024w, http://i1.wp.com/kimaniali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/TeotiHuacan.jpg?resize=469%2C270 469w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" width="294" height="170" />Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Sun
Angkor WatThe Cosmos
Melanoid Science has long had expansive knowledge of the cosmos. Many people are familiar with the fact that the Dogon people were aware of the Sirius Star System (invisible star in there) for ages before Western science could even conceptualize its existence. We also did things like build cities and spiritual building complexes in line with the stars. I do not know why at the time.
http://i1.wp.com/kimaniali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Dogon-Ritual-Dance.jpg?w=1024 1024w, http://i1.wp.com/kimaniali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Dogon-Ritual-Dance.jpg?resize=360%2C270 360w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" width="294" height="221" />Dogon Ritual DancerUnified Perspective On Science
One of the most crucial features of Melanoid science is the successful realization that the physical realm is not the only realm. Melanoid science took a unified approach: the physical and metaphyical/spiritual realms were intertwined and not mutually exclusive. That is why in Melanoid civilizations the priests would be the scientists, would be the doctors, would be the physicists, would be the astronomers.
Walking On Water
In India an 30-mile long bridge accross 
http://i0.wp.com/kimaniali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/250px-Adams_Bridge_aerial.jpg?resize=203%2C270 203w, http://i0.wp.com/kimaniali.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/250px-Adams_Bridge_aerial.jpg?w=250 250w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" width="225" height="300" />ïthe water to Sri Lanka was built about 1.7 million years ago. It was crossable until a hurricane destroyed it in the 1400s.
Tying Into Sci-Fi Afrofuturism
In conclusion, I believe that Black Sci-Fi creators should be aware of an alternate to Western futuristic speculation and science and accordingly create worlds with these alternate elements. For one, it is directly relevant to our Melanoid lineage. Second, if nothing else, it would provide interesting new-ish narratives and could become a defining mark of Black Sci-Fi.
Please share your thoughts in the comments. If you want sources or more information and examples, feel free to ask. I apologize if this seemed long-winded. That is the historian in me coming out.
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| Image Source: CarloAlberto.org |
Topics: Calculus, Differential Equations, Diversity, Politics
I think someone created a meme on Facebook from this incident. A little poking around the Internet revealed this WaPo article:
On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse.
Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought.
The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” – but something about him didn’t seem right to her.
She decided to try out some small talk.
Is Syracuse home? She asked.
No, he replied curtly.
He similarly deflected further questions. He appeared laser-focused — perhaps too laser-focused — on the task at hand, those strange scribblings.
Skipping further into the article:
And then the big reveal: The woman wasn’t really sick at all! Instead this quick-thinking traveler had Seen Something, and so she had Said Something.
That Something she’d seen had been her seatmate’s cryptic notes, scrawled in a script she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was code, or some foreign lettering, possibly the details of a plot to destroy the dozens of innocent lives aboard American Airlines Flight 3950. She may have felt it her duty to alert the authorities just to be safe. The curly-haired man was, the agent informed him politely, suspected of terrorism.
The curly-haired man laughed.
He laughed because those scribbles weren’t Arabic, or another foreign language, or even some special secret terrorist code. They were math.
Yes, math. A differential equation, to be exact.
Had the crew or security members perhaps quickly googled this good-natured, bespectacled passenger before waylaying everyone for several hours, they might have learned that he — Guido Menzio — is a young but decorated Ivy League economist. And that he’s best known for his relatively technical work on search theory, which helped earn him a tenured associate professorship at the University of Pennsylvania as well as stints at Princeton and Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
Guido Menzio is a recipient of the prestigious Carlo Alberto medal, given to the best Italian economist under 40.
Did I mention he's Italian (not Arab/Near Eastern)? There are myriad other ethnic groups with "swarthy" complexions on the planet. Besides, here in the US, the threat of terrorism statistically may be of the homegrown and non-swarthy variety.
Majoring in a STEM field yields more than its own stereotypes: dorky, nerdy, socially awkward (I'm talking to you, "Big Bang Theory"), unattractive, but TERRORIST? I admit, the course we all affectionately called "DIFFY Qs" was daunting, but it didn't rewire any of us for violence. Have we gotten this addled in the brain?
So, in the era of not wanting actual experts in government or well, ANYTHING; in the era of racism, xenophobia, bombast, blatant lying, homophobia and misogyny as crass, carnival-barking political tactics (applicable when you've subordinated the processes a republic uses selecting its leaders into "reality TV," from a public caricature having more in common with "A Pimp Named Slickback") appealing to our lesser angels, we are SHOCKED that mathematics has literally become "Thoughtcrime"? Instead of a "shining city on a hill," we've become a dung heap infested with maggots in a junkyard - a joke! "Idiocracy" as a comedy was placed 500 years hence. That Apocalypse is now. All the hand-wringing about this being a strange election cycle is now solved. After telling Gorbachev to "tear down that wall," we're apparently intent on building another more lasting monument in the thick mortar paste of breathtaking stupidity. Sadly, the minions of this effort are PROUD of who and what they DON'T know. For them, ignorance is not just bliss: it's a belief system. And, you cannot explain science, mathematics, history, the economy or climate change... to a cult.
Rising xenophobia stoked by the presidential campaign, he (Guido) suggested, may soon make things worse for people who happen to look a little other-ish.
Washington Post:
Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight
Catherine Rampell
Today is the last day of beta testing for the video game "Overwatch". If you're a gamer, you've probably seen the ads. It's a first person shooter, like Call of Duty, but this one is set in a different, more colorful world, without the cookie-cutter military characters. The idea is that you're on a six-man team and you have to choose a character from 4 different types: offensive, defensive, support, and tank heroes. Offensive characters are quick with strong close-combat abilities. Defense characters are better at longer ranges. Support characters offer healing, shields, armor, and status effects. Think white mages from the Final Fantasy franchise. The tank heroes are built like, well, tanks. They can absorb lots of damage and deal out the hurt. They're also slow for the most part.
After playing the Beta for the past 2 weeks, I can tell you that the gameplay is phenomenally smooth. Even for a game that's purely multiplayer. That's right. It's nothing but multiplayer, and Blizzard (the company behind it) does its level best to cater to the player. If somebody drops out while you're in the lobby, the game will let you fool around and wander the map until the server finds another player. You can even shoot at your opponents and feel each other out. As you level up, you don't get new abilities, but you do get to customize your favorite characters' colors, style, quips, victory poses, highlight intros and graffiti tags. Yes, you can spray graffiti in this game. You can only tag one spot though. I usually do it in the homebase. Every character has they're own feel and strategy behind using them, from sneaking around to full frontal assaults.
Overall, the game is HIGHLY addictive and I do not recommend getting this game if you have a full schedule of work, school, and family. You will end up eschewing those three things. They encourage a team play dynamic and even incorporate signals you can give to your teammates without having to put in a microphone and deal with all the racism and obnoxious comments. Oh, and as far as diversity goes, they have a Black character, an Indian character, an Egyptian, a Brit, a fat guy, a dwarf, a gunslinger, a ninja, a samurai, several cyborgs, and two robots. Yes, it's that kind of game. You'll love it. It launches May 24th on XBox One, PS4, and PC
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| ExoMars 2016 liftoff - ESA |
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, ESA, Mars, Planetary Science
This was obviously in March, but we're five months from the actual encounter with the red planet. I'll keep up with any updates and note progress and hopefully, a successful planetary landing.
The first of two joint European Space Agency (ESA)-Roscosmos missions to Mars has begun a seven-month journey to the Red Planet, where it will address unsolved mysteries of the planet’s atmosphere that could indicate present-day geological — or even biological — activity.
The Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli entry, descent, and landing demonstrator lifted off on a Proton-M rocket operated by Russia’s Roscosmos at 05:31 a.m. EDT (09:31 GMT) March 14 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
The payload fairing was released following separation of Proton’s first and second stages. The third stage separated nearly 10 minutes after liftoff.
The Breeze-M upper stage, with ExoMars attached, then completed a series of four burns before the spacecraft was released at 4:13 p.m. EDT (20:13 GMT).
Signals from the spacecraft, received at ESA’s control center in Darmstadt, Germany via the Malindi ground tracking station in Africa at 5:29 p.m. EDT (21:29 GMT), confirmed that the launch was fully successful and the spacecraft is in good health.
The orbiter’s solar wings have also now unfolded and the craft is on its way to Mars.
Astronomy: ExoMars sets off to solve the Red Planet’s mysteries
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| Alexis Vallée-Bélisle and his research team have developed DNA-based thermometers that allow the measurement of temperature at the nanoscale. Design: Kotkoa. |
Topics: Biology, DNA, Nanotechnology
Researchers have known for more than 60 years now that DNA molecules unfold when heated and refold when cooleddown again. More recently they also discovered that living organisms employ biomolecules such as proteins or RNA (a molecule similar to DNA) as nanothermometers thanks to this unfolding and folding. “Inspired by these natural nanothermometers, we have now created various DNA structures that can fold and unfold at specifically defined temperatures,” explains team leader Alexis Vallée-Bélisle.
The team used the simple Watson–Crick base pair code of DNA and the so-called Hoogsteen interactions to create their DNA structures. The good thing about DNA is that its chemistry is relatively simple and programmable, says team member David Garreau. “DNA is made from four different nucleotide molecules, A, C, G and T. Nucleotide A binds weakly to nucleotide T, whereas nucleotide C binds strongly to nucleotide G. Using these simple rules, we were able to create DNA structures that can be programmed to fold and unfold at specific temperatures.”
Nanotech Web: DNA makes tiny thermometer, Belle Dumé
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| Image Source: Pics About Space |
Topics: Einstein, FTL, General Relativity, Star Trek
For the record: \\//_. Now that my "Trek creds" have been established...
Gedanken is a German word for "thought." It is often colloquially defined along with the word experiment, which is where a lot of the notions of Special and General Relativity took place in Einstein's mind; his innate ability to conceptualize a tough idea.
It is also by definition, an experiment that is impractical to carry out. Part of it being impractical is the incredible energies that would be needed to propel a star ship to even 0.10 c, or in Trek parlance: "impulse." An aircraft carrier is ~64,000 metric tons (I'm using it as my "Enterprise," which is supposed to be pretty big). That's 64,000,000 kilograms. Simply multiply it by 0.10 x 3.0 x 108 m/s2 this will give you the energy output in Joules: 1.92 x 1015. The PLANET in 2013 generated 5.67 x 1020 Joules.
Part of the constant research is that sometimes what you're looking for may not be found, but the techniques you use in any analysis may have an application in areas you may not have imagined. As such, it becomes a part of the research one can reference and build on, thereby increasing the overall knowledge of a subject area.
Abstract
Warp drives are very interesting configurations in general relativity: At least theoretically, they provide a way to travel at superluminal speeds, albeit at the cost of requiring exotic matter to exist as solutions of Einstein’s equations. However, even if one succeeded in providing the necessary exotic matter to build them, it would still be necessary to check whether they would survive to the switching on of quantum effects. Semiclassical corrections to warp-drive geometries have been analyzed only for eternal warp-drive bubbles traveling at fixed superluminal speeds. Here, we investigate the more realistic case in which a superluminal warp drive is created out of an initially flat spacetime. First of all we analyze the causal structure of eternal and dynamical warp-drive spacetimes. Then we pass to the analysis of the renormalized stress-energy tensor (RSET) of a quantum field in these geometries. While the behavior of the RSET in these geometries has close similarities to that in the geometries associated with gravitational collapse, it shows dramatic differences too. On one side, an observer located at the center of a superluminal warp-drive bubble would generically experience a thermal flux of Hawking particles. On the other side, such Hawking flux will be generically extremely high if the exotic matter supporting the warp drive has its origin in a quantum field satisfying some form of quantum inequalities. Most of all, we find that the RSET will exponentially grow in time close to, and on, the front wall of the superluminal bubble. Consequently, one is led to conclude that the warp-drive geometries are unstable against semiclassical backreaction.
Physics arXiv: Semiclassical instability of dynamical warp drives
Stefano Finazzi,1,∗ Stefano Liberati,1,† and Carlos Barcelo2
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| Image courtesy of Ilsa van Meerbeek The material is capable o both withstanding heavy loads or deforming under them as needed. |
Topics: Materials Science, Metamaterials, Robotics
For all the discussion surrounding artificial intelligence and robots recently, the stiff, dull metal exterior of robots has only recently begun to evolve. While human-like robots, with silicon skin, can simulate emotions but robots with the shape-shifting ability of the Transformers have yet to hit the market. However, Prof. Robert Shepherd, mechanical and aerospace engineering, is developing a material that could soon bring that to reality.
Shepherd and his team at Organic Robotics Lab is working on a metal-rubber composite by harnessing the strength of a metallic alloy and the flexibility of a soft silicone foam. The material can withstanding heavy loads or deform under them upon command. The only requirement for switching between these properties is a change in temperature.
Cornell Daily Sun:
Cornell Researchers Create New Material Capable of Shifting States, Arnav Ghosh
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| Illustration of receptor–mediated endocytosis.3 Image Credit: Illustration courtesy of Professor Emeritus Danton H. O’Day, Department of Biology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada |
Topics: Biology, Cancer, Nanotechnology
Cancer is an inherently difficult illness to treat. Sometimes residual cancer cells remain even after removing tumors; sometimes parts of a tumor cannot be removed because of the way the cancer cells attach to a vital organ. A way to detect and kill cancer cells in vivo has been sought after for a long time, and some lines of research are finally showing great promise. The latest? Having cancer cells envelop dozens of nanoparticles that then are used to obliterate the cancer cell from the inside, leaving healthy cells untouched!1
The Gist of It
Essentially, nanoparticle therapy works by getting about a hundred gold nanoparticles clustered into a cancer cell, then blasting the area with an infrared laser pulse. Energy imparted by the laser causes the fluid around the cluster to reach temperatures high enough to vaporize the fluid, which causes a rapid expansion and collapse. This results in the obliteration of the cancer cell, but healthy cells are not affected because they don’t incorporate enough gold particles to cause damage. As the high temperatures remain confined within the nanobubble formed around the cluster, nearby cells are unharmed by the process.
How Do You Get Something Inside a Cell?
Cells can incorporate foreign objects in a number of ways, but the method that this research utilizes is called receptor-mediated endocytosis. In this process, the foreign object attaches itself to a point on the outside of the cell called a receptor, which is embedded in the cell’s outer membrane. Receptors have active ends on either side of the cell membrane, each of which attaches to certain molecules; the exterior side is selective for certain particles that the cell needs, while the interior end attaches to the proteins and signaling molecules that regulate cellular processes based on what’s happening outside the cell. The cell uses this method, for example, when it ingests a cholesterol molecule; the molecule binds to a receptor at the cell membrane, leading proteins to attach to the interior end of the receptor, thickening the cell membrane. A pit forms that then envelops the bound molecules into the cell.
Physics Central: Using Gold Nanoparticles to Kill Cancer,H. M. Doss
When people ask me for advice on writing I tell them to go buy Stephen King's book "On Writing" and leave me alone. When that doesn't work, I tell them this; Writing is a craft. As with any craft you need to know, and understand, all the nuances. So go write a press release, a technical paper, a sample legal brief, a newspaper article, a short film script, something out of your genre. Do the last one more than once in different genres. Make sure you format your work to the specifications of each industry (there are free sample templates all over the internet) and, no matter what, write every day.
Believe it or not, I take my own advice. This has led to me having a political horror story coming out in a couple of months and working on comic books. As a writer I would strongly suggest any writer interested in fantasy or sci-fi write for a comic book. The skill set is wildly different from anything else. In a film, or play, script you can leave settings to the director's imagination. The same applies to fiction in general, just substitute "reader" for "director." You can not do that in a comic. The artist needs to know exactly what the hell you want. You'll also learn why comics are done in pencil first. Things that seemed like great ideas when written can, easily, look like you suffer from brain damage.
Trust me on this one. I damaged my brain a lot when I first tried to do it.
Anyway, this year, for you comic fans, watch for the mature rated Legends Parallel and His 7 Valkeries and then watch for the kids' books Clarity Girl and Jax & Claus.
Yes, I wrote a Christmas story.
No, really. It's cute too.
Still, buy King's book. It's the most useful guide I've ever read.
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| Battle of Puebla - Wikipedia |
Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Politics, Women in Science
The presumptive nominee of one of our major political parties used a xenophobic attack against Hispanics/Latinos - he called them drug dealers and rapists; he'll build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it; Muslims are barred at the border; African Americans have been injured and denigrated at his rallies; Women and LGBT have been insulted; Native Americans were burned by him in a bad casino deal. He's stirred the melting pot and bigots have bubbled out of the cauldron, the 2012 autopsy all but ignored. Someone commented to me that their father "didn't leave the Democratic Party in 1967; it left him." I bit my own tongue at the political dodge: the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act may have had something to do with his father's exodus, as it did many others. The hashtag movement to oppose the rise of the presumptive nominee has fallen to dust.
It is befitting today I repost this reminder of our diversity. I make no predictions and take nothing for granted. 538 and a lot of pundits predicted demises that didn't materialize. All the models were based on typical political science rules in elective politics. He is not following the rules: he's wrestling, WWE style.
I was 18 in 1980. I could at that time, drink as well as vote; the drinking age was raised to 21 when I turned 21 three years later, so it didn't impact me as much as generations afterwards. I voted along the party lines of my parents, affected by a party that championed the '64 and '65 acts my sister put her life on the line in demonstration lines for. The "Gipper" posed at his first rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi near the site of three murdered Civil Rights workers. It was an understood "wink and nod" at a group of disgruntled, disappointed and bigoted voters soon known as "Reagan Democrats." Using the dark machinations of the "Southern Strategy," so clearly elucidated by Lee Atwater, you will eventually get what you want: take from "them" because "they" didn't earn anything, despite a holocaust born of a mass continental kidnapping, rape, hangings, cross burning, domestic terrorism in the form of poll taxes and other voter suppression, castrations and reparations deferred forever. You did it with subtle, verbal Jujitsu; not openly as now: Moochers...Welfare Queens...Takers...Thugs...Rapists...all with a distinct hue in the gradient of Melanin. This has been one long backlash to the "established order" since January 20, 2009, when things got so terrible for many that bought into the myth of their inherit superiority. The president's main sin is the destruction of a narrative as long as the republic.
I make no predictions, but I give a sharp warning: Reagan was joked about in "Back To The Future" (Doc Brown: Who's president in 1985? Marty: Ronald Reagan. Doc Brown: The actor?), because as a B-Movie star, his only notable film was "Bedtime for Bonzo." Biff Tannen, the antagonist to Marty McFly's father - is based off the same real estate mogul, the Birther-in-Chief and reality TV star that is his party's presumptive nominee.
B-Movie actor...reality TV star... "What's past is prologue." William Shakespeare.
Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla (English: The Day of the Battle of Puebla). The date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride, and to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War. In the state of Puebla, the date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Contrary to widespread popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day—the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico—which is actually celebrated on September 16. (Wikipedia)
The National Society of Hispanic Physicists has a recognition page of Hispanic Americans in Physics - Past, Present and Future. Similar to what I posted during the month of February, my intention is to give the same attention to Hispanic Scientists and Engineers during the celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.
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| Teaching for Change: Book link here |
Almost 10 years before "Brown vs. Board of Education," Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites only" school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.
Praise for "Separate is Never Equal" by Duncan Tonatiuh
STARRED REVIEWS
"Tonatiuh masterfully combines text and folk-inspired art to add an important piece to the mosaic of U.S. civil rights history."
--"Kirkus Reviews," starred review
"Younger children will be outraged by the injustice of the Mendez family story but pleased by its successful resolution. Older children will understand the importance of the 1947 ruling that desegregated California schools, paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education seven years later."
--"School Library Journal," starred review
"Tonatiuh ("Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote") offers an illuminating account of a family's hard-fought legal battle to desegregate California schools in the years before "Brown" v. "Board of Education.""
--"Publishers Weekly"
"Pura Belpre Award-winning Tonatiuh makes excellent use of picture-book storytelling to bring attention to the 1947 California ruling against public-school segregation."
--"Booklist"
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
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| Image Source: NobelPrize.org |
Topics: Chemistry, Computational Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Density Function Theory*, Nobel Prize, Quantum Mechanics
“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
LOS ANGELES (JTA) –Nobel Prize winner Walter Kohn, who fled Nazi-ruled Austria one month before the start of World War II, has died.
Kohn died on April 19 at his home in Santa Barbara. He was 93.
Kohn received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with British-born scientist John Pople. His research, which spanned the fields of physics and chemistry, applied quantum mechanics and advanced mathematics to explain complex chemical reactions.
His studies also formed the basis for the creation of innovative materials custom designed for medicines and for advances in electronics.
In the fall of 1939, Kohn left his native Vienna on one of the last transports of children to England, where he was interned as an “enemy alien.” The following year he was shipped to Canada, where he subsequently joined the Canadian army as an infantryman.
His parents, Salomon and Gittel Kohn, died in Auschwitz.
* Density functional theory (DFT) is a computational quantum mechanical modelling method used in physics, chemistry and materials science to investigate the electronic structure (principally the ground state) of many-body systems, in particular atoms, molecules, and the condensed phases. Using this theory, the properties of a many-electron system can be determined by using functionals, i.e. functions of another function, which in this case is the spatially dependent electron density. Hence the name density functional theory comes from the use of functionals of the electron density. DFT is among the most popular and versatile methods available in condensed-matter physics, computational physics, and computational chemistry. Wikipedia
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Walter Kohn, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, dies at 93
"Walter Kohn - Facts". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 4 May 2016. < http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1998/kohn-facts.html >
"Walter Kohn - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 4 May 2016. < http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1998/kohn-bio.html >
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| This graphic illustrates an engineered nitrogen vacancy in aluminum nitride. |
Topics: Computer Science, Entanglement, Materials Science, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics, Schrödinger’s cat, Solid State Physics
I included a short primer on Aluminum Nitride if you're interested (which, I'm guessing if you're reading something this nerdy, you kinda are). If you're viewing this on a laptop, pad or a mobile phone, I'm 99.99999999% sure your devices chips were manufactured with AlN. If you go to the link below, the article gives a succinct description of quantum entanglement (when atoms due to their proximity to each other cannot be described as a single unit), and superposition - famously illustrated by the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, which is the whole POINT of a quantum computer: it could be "1"; "0" or both at the same time, called a superposition of states. Thankfully, a lot of smart brains are tasked with what shape our tech lives post-Silicon will take, with which we will promptly share more cute cat videos in a kind of weird, digital Freudian slip.
Quantum computers have the potential to break common cryptography techniques, search huge datasets and simulate quantum systems in a fraction of the time it would take today’s computers. But before this can happen, engineers need to be able to harness the properties of quantum bits or qubits.
Currently, one of the leading methods for creating qubits in materials involves exploiting the structural atomic defects in diamond. But several researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory believe that if an analogue defect could be engineered into a less expensive material, the cost of manufacturing quantum technologies could be significantly reduced. Using supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), these researchers have identified a possible candidate in aluminum nitride. Their findings were published in Nature Scientific Reports.
NERSC: Could Aluminum Nitride Produce Quantum Bits? Linda Vu
Seo, H. et al. Design of defect spins in piezoelectric aluminum nitride for solid-state hybrid quantum technologies. Sci. Rep. 6, 20803; doi: 10.1038/srep20803 (2016).
