A freeze-frame captures a drone exploding, disabling a Russian Tu-95 bomber during Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, a covert drone attack in June. Ukraine's surprise attack unleashed small drones armed with explosives to destroy dozens of unprotected Russian aircraft at air bases across the country. Ukrainian Security Service / Air & Space Forces Magazine

Topics: 3D Printing, Civilization, Education, Existentialism, Fascism

“It was an attack of astonishing ingenuity – unprecedented, broad, and 18 months in the making.

“On 1 June, more than 100 Ukrainian drones struck air bases deep inside Russia, targeting nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

“The scale of the operation dubbed "Spider Web" became clear almost as soon as it began, with explosions reported across several time zones all over Russia - as far north as Murmansk above the Arctic Circle, and as far east as Irkutsk, over 4,000km from Ukraine.

“The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks had occurred in five regions of Russia - Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur - but stated planes had been damaged only in Murmansk and Irkutsk, while in other locations the attacks had been repelled.”

How Ukraine carried out daring 'Spider Web' attack on Russian bombers, Laura Gozzi & BBC Verify, 2 June 2025, BBC News

“On June 1, Russia’s Military Transport Aviation Day, a significant holiday for the Russian armed forces, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) carried out a bold and unprecedented coordinated drone strike deep inside Russian territory. The operation targeted four strategic air bases and delivered a major blow to Moscow’s long-range bomber fleet. Codenamed “Spider’s Web”—or simply “Web”—the operation was named for its wide geographic coverage across remote Russian locations previously thought to be beyond the reach of Ukraine’s long-range drone capabilities.

“Using small striking drones covertly smuggled into Russia and launched from hidden compartments inside cargo trucks, the operation struck more than 40 high-value aircraft—including strategic bombers Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3, and A-50 planes used for launching and coordinating missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. The meticulously planned operation marks a significant milestone in Ukraine’s evolving asymmetric warfare capabilities and signals a major vulnerability in Russia’s rear defenses.”

How Ukraine’s Operation “Spider’s Web” Redefines Asymmetric Warfare, Kateryna Bondar, June 2, 2025, Center for Strategic & International Studies

“On 1 June 2025, Ukraine pulled off what many now see as the boldest and most technologically advanced operation of the war: Operation Spiderweb. In a display of ingenuity and precision, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) deployed 117 first-person view (FPV) drones in a sweeping, coordinated strike against five major Russian air bases—stretching from Irkutsk and Murmansk to Ryazan, Ivanovo, and Amur. The damage was staggering. According to reports, 41 aircraft were destroyed or disabled, including some of Russia’s most prized strategic bombers and surveillance planes, amounting to an estimated $7 billion in losses.”

Significance and Implications of Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, Strategic Studies Department, Trends Group/Trend Research, June 3, 2025

2025 – 1945 = 80 years that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) has convinced 15 presidential administrations to continue to fund fighting a potential ground war with Russia by authorizing the increase of funding to new weapons systems – some functional, some not-so-much – cutting domestic programs that would help the citizens of the country.

June 1, 2025, Ukraine through being cut off from resources typically supplied by the MIC, became resourceful: the “bombs” dropped on Russian aircraft were 3D printed.

The Defense Budget for FY26 was nearly a trillion dollars (as much as Elon Musk will eventually be worth). The Defense Secretary is asking for $200 billion so that the bloated defense budget can “kill bad guys.”

The “Moore's Law Exemption”

Dr. Gordon Moore, emeritus founder of Intel, and former of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1965, said: “The number of transistors and other components on integrated circuits will double every year for the next 10 years.”

Well past 1975, the transistors kept doubling and shrinking. The “Moore’s Law Limit” was supposed to be 7 nanometers (nano = 10^-9, or 10^-9 meters). Current production is 3 and 2-nanometers (nm) modes this year, with plans to go to 1.4 and 1 nm (marketing terms vs physical measurement). Quantum computing is also making an impact.

Related links:

It costs between $1.1 million and over $ 13 million to train fighter pilots, depending on the size of the aircraft; fighter pilots are the most expensive. One of two crew members from a fighter jet shot down over Iran has been rescued, the other is alive in Iran, and will likely be used for propaganda purposes.

All this advanced technology in our hip pockets, and we’re funding MIC to fight the Russians in a land war in Europe.

On June 1, 2025, we all should have become aware of an eight-decade-long scam that only enriches defense contractors.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a science fiction novel about Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a brilliant child recruited by the International Fleet to train at Battle School for a future war against an alien race called "buggers." Through intense simulations and isolation, Ender becomes a master strategist but is manipulated into unknowingly committing genocide, ultimately seeking redemption.

We could reduce the defense budget by having pimply teenagers with frightening hand-eye coordination, like Ender, complete our missions remotely, no pilots down behind "enemy" lines, no prisoners for propaganda purposes. 1945 is now 81 years ago. We’ve transistorized via Moore's Law since then, and been simultaneously gaslit by the MIC/Congressional Industrial Complex. That's not the "deep state": it's marketing

The four Artemis II astronauts did a dress rehearsal in December for what will happen on launch day. Clockwise from front left are pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist Christina Koch and commander Reid Wiseman. Credit: Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty

Topics: Applied Physics, Civics, Culture, NASA, Spaceflight

“Artemis is the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, and chastity. As the daughter of Zeus and Leto and twin sister to Apollo, she is also recognized as a goddess of childbirth, fertility, and the protector of young girls. She is commonly depicted as a young huntress with a bow and quiver.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Artemis-Greek-goddess

https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Artemis.html

April 1^st, 2011, was my last day at Manor High School. I had accepted a job at Applied Materials in a place called Fishkill in upstate New York. I was to leave the next day on a flight with (then) a black Labrador Retriever named Raven, and a Texas Box Turtle named Speedy. I would be alone except their company for about two months.

The reaction, and surprising responses from the students were a surprise to me. My hats off to anyone in the teaching profession, K-12 and college, that has to navigate the expectations of school districts, and the disappointment when their product matriculates to college campuses having fulfilled the graduation requirements of their schools and districts, but without the study skills requisite a generation ago.

“This (had) better not be an ‘April Fools’ joke, you bastard!” That was a young Hispanic female, (I'll call her Mary) who I didn’t think my presence in the classroom had much meaning to her.

For a young African American male, I’ll call him Mike, I was the only positive black male role model in his life. Both of his parents were in prison for various offenses, and he was in a foster home that for his foster parent, Mike was just a paycheck.

I also find it ironic that the pilot for the Artemis is Navy Captain Victor Glover, an African American that I guess didn’t get purged in all the Project 2025 “anti-woke” focus. He his competently commanding, and piloting Artemis in orbital flights around the Moon as he and his crew conduct experiments. It must be a daunting disappointment to the conspiracy theorists that were confident we never visited (and Francis Ford Copula filmed it all on a Hollywood set).

“As the daughter of Zeus and Leto and twin sister to Apollo, she is also recognized as a goddess of childbirth, fertility, and the protector of young girls.”

It is ironic that childbirth, fertility, and bodily autonomy were legislated away by this Supreme Court in 2022 after 50 years of sacred precedent, that the majority who ripped this away lied about respecting under Oath.

It is ironic that his first two major firings from DHS and DOJ are women, who were not remotely qualified for their government positions, but the majority of massive firings of primarily African American women, were more than qualified for theirs, and mediocre white males are allowed to keep their power and authority because of the obvious formula: pale skin and penises.

It is ironic that Artemis was the protector of young girls. The victims of Jeffrey Epstein could have used her on his “Island of Dr. Moreau,” the young women not being turned into mutants or monsters, but “othered,” thingified, objectified, discarded once passed through the smoldering arms of Moloch.

“Moloch (or Molech) is an ancient Canaanite deity associated in the Hebrew Bible with child sacrifice. Often depicted as a calf-headed, human-bodied bronze idol, sacrifices involved burning children in a fire within or before the statue, specifically in the Valley of Hinnom.”

Perhaps we’ve always had an “Epstein class,” the first island named Monticello, the author of the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, a 44-year-old married (then widowed) enslaver forcing himself on a 14-year-old, enslaved soul, Sally Hemming, herself the daughter of Jefferson’s father-in-law, making him both a pedophile and practitioner of incest. The Library of Congress is based on the library of this “founding psychopath,” Sally’s half-brother.

“The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival by John Bagot Glubb is a 1978 book that analyzes the rise and fall of empires, arguing they follow a predictable cycle of about 250 years, moving from military expansion to wealth, intellectualism, and eventual moral decay and collapse. Glubb, a British soldier and historian, uses the examples of Rome and Britain to illustrate this pattern, suggesting that modern civilizations face similar challenges and that understanding this historical cycle is key to survival, warning against over-reliance on intellect without self-sacrifice and service.”

https://archive.org/details/the-fate-of-empires-sir-john-glubb

Though I honor and salute the achievements of Captain Victor Glover (he visited the 50^th National Society of Black Engineers virtually from the International Space Station in 2024, prior to what we see now was a consequential; existential  election), I’m sure the Captain can recall the sage words of Marvin Gaye, who’s birthday was April 2^nd, words that still hit powerfully today in this moment, months before our nation’s 250^th birthday:

“Rockets, moon shots.

“Spend it all on the have-nots.

“Money, we make it.

“Before we see it, you take it.

Chorus

“Oh, make me wanna holler,

“The way they do my life.

“(Yeah) Make me wanna holler,

“The way they do my life.

“This ain’t living, this ain’t living.

“No, no, baby, this ain’t living.

“No, no, no, no.”

Marvin Gaye, "Inner City Blues" (Make Me Wanna Holler), Genius Lyrics

Artemis II mission is about to fly humans to the Moon — here’s the science they’ll do, Alexandra Witze, Nature

John Medland/Paramount+

‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ to End With Season 2 (EXCLUSIVE), Joe Otterson, Variety

Topics: Civilization, Einstein, Literature, Space Exploration, Special Relativity, Star Trek

Magic Carpet Physics

In the TNG Movie, “Star Trek: First Contact,” Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi, Dr. Beverly Crusher, Lieutenant Commander Joardi Laforge, Lieutenant Commander Worf and Lieutenant Commander Data defied Causality and Relativity once again to do the “slingshot” thing their predecessors, James T. Kirk, Spock, et al, were all so famous for doing on TOS (The Original Star Trek for the non-Trekkies out there). Zephram Cochrane (the fictional creator of warp drive) almost scrubbed the mission because of a missing CD playing the appropriate tune, “Magic Carpet Ride,” (by the rock band, Steppenwolf) on the maiden voyage of the Phoenix, which everyone in my theater cheered, unbeknownst to them that it was (to me) a tongue-in-cheek to the absurdity of breaking the universe’s speed limit, and thereby allowing the audacity of time travelers to affect past events.

As an undergraduate physics major, I took “Classical Mechanics,” which did a lot of Newtonian mechanics, but went deep into Lorentz Transformation, pivotal to understanding the Special Theory of Relativity as it relates to time, mass, and length contraction as an object, or a person, approaches the speed of light.

Colloquially, "Warp Factor One" is supposed to be light speed, 186,232 miles/second, or 300,000 kilometers/second. The formulas in Einstein's Special Relativity, tables, and their implications follow.

There are websites you can do these calculations, but I thought it better to talk through these one by one, then discuss the reason for the creative ways screenwriters avoided the conundrum of time dilation, massive astronauts compressed into gelatinous goo, and the hilarious technobabble (Sir Patrick Steward’s term, not mine) of “Inertia Dampeners” and “Heisenberg Compensators.”

The Demise of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, and Maybe, Sci-Fi

As I read the screeds of “old heads” (some I agree with, and some points I don’t) that “Star Fleet Academy’s” demise did not start this season, and end next season: the downfall of Star Trek as a franchise began with the premiere of Star Trek: Enterprise, September 26, 2001, fifteen days AFTER September 11, 2001, when the nominal equivalent of Khan Noonian Singh convinced his cult followers to plunge planes into buildings. In contrast, “24” premiered on November 6, 2001, and revenge porn against “evil doers” and “bad hombres” became the zeitgeist of America. We're more armed to the hilt than any other Western nation, kill each other with such regularity that gun massacres are not "front page news," ever ready for "jackbooted thugs," Armageddon, and the Rapture with Jesus parting the clouds with an AR15. Paramount gave us an optimistic Captain Jonathan Archer for five seasons. On the heels of 9/11, it was probably not the best time for a show about humanity living beyond its adolescence.

Fox Entertainment gave us vengeance and Jack Bauer for nine. Vengeance, in all its forms, from military deployments to Sci-Fi to superhero genres, stuck.

Starfleet and military protocol

Captain Nahla Ake, played by the actress Holly Hunter, as Commandant of Starfleet Academy, walked around the Academy and the Starship Athena in her stocking feet, and curled up in the Captain's chair with a good book. I'm an Air Force veteran and an avid Trekkie. I have no memory of James T. Kirk, Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, Kathryn Janeway, Jonathan Archer, Carol Freeman (voiced by Dawnn Lewis), Michael Burnham, or Christopher Pike, curling up in the Captain's chair like it's their living room! Starfleet was patterned after the US Navy; creator Gene Roddenberry and James Doohan ("Scotty") were both WWII veterans in the Army Air Force and Canadian Air Force, respectively. "Starfleet Academy and Oxford both serve as elite, historic, and demanding institutions aimed at cultivating elite, knowledgeable leaders. While Oxford focuses on academic tradition, humanity, and scientific research, Starfleet Academy trains students for space exploration and military service, often compared in structure and discipline to institutions like the U.S. Air Force Academy." Google AI

A space opera working every modern trope, and patterned after "90210" in the current mood of the country, probably doesn't have a long shelf life either. As an "old head," the tropes felt recycled: Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz made history on Star Trek: Discovery as the first openly LGBT married couple in the franchise's history. There were a lot of crass comments online from "old heads," the same, I assume, who have issues with Starfleet Academy in its current iteration. I'm sure that even in Worf's time, there were LGBT Klingons, just as their analog here on Earth were LGBT Samurai. In Picard, Season 3, Episode 3, Worf gave his resume of badassery and offered Chamomile Tea. Riker fell in love with a nonbinary alien in Next Generation. Jadzia Dax, in several of her Trill lives, had been both sexes, often referred to by Benjamin Sisko as "old man" (because, when a younger Benjamin Sisko, before he knew he was a religious icon to the Bajoran people, met the Dax symbiont, their expression was as an elderly man).

Thus, Jay-Den Kraag, as an openly gay Klingon, seemed like a retread of a trope that had been successful in previous iterations of Trek but did not fit the framework of a warrior-class Klingon. Like the Samurai, I'm sure that the Klingon had same-sex relationships, and like wolves, as long as you protect the young in the pack, or Qo'Nos, you're good! A "pacifist healer rather than a warrior," who did not perform the first ritual kill with his father, didn't seem Klingon. I'm as sure as the fictional Klingons having LGBT as having doctors, except, instead of the Hippocratic Oath ("do no harm"), they grant you an honorable death that will land you in Sto'Vo'Kor. I was surprised that his father didn't try to ritually kill him, rather than scream and abandon him. So "un-Klingon."

Despite impossible physics, Star Trek, unbeknownst to its detractors, was "woke" from the beginning. Like all good fiction, it's supposed to be a mirror of the human condition, not a science seminar. "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" was a stark warning on the ultimate result of racial or social class hatred: annihilation on both sides, the haters and the hated. The Original Star Trek was born in the crucible of the Civil Rights movement, beloved by Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, to the point that he convinced Nichelle Nichols not to quit the show after its first season, so that our people could "see themselves in the future" (it was the only show the Kings let their children stay up late to see). Trope pasting is lazy writing and a disservice to an otherwise talented cast.

I wish all the actors well. We will be more likely than starships to build more relationships on the only planet suited uniquely for human life. There are no Vulcans on the horizon. If humanity is to survive, it will do so with cooperation and less hoarding of resources by the rich. No beneficent aliens or superluminal starships: ALL of us.

In January, 2025, a highly destructive wildfire in Pacific Palisades, California, damaged thousands of houses and buildings. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty

Topics: Climate Change, Economics, Entropy, Environment, Existentialism, Global Warming, Thermodynamics

Note: My apologies. My posting is sporadic due to my commute to and from work (1 hour, 6 minutes in GOOD traffic on IH-40). I have sent myself stories to post, but time and exhaustion take over my evenings. I've decided that if this venue is to exist at all, I'll post on the least impactful evenings of my week: Thursday for this Friday, and Friday for Saturday. Thank you to everyone who has ever "checked in" on this blog. Dr. RLG

Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics: “If two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.” https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/zeroth-law-thermal-equilibrium/

First Law of Thermodynamics: “Energy cannot be created, or destroyed, only transferred or converted from one form to another.” The internal energy change ∆U is the difference between heat added (Q) and work done by the system (W), or ∆U = Q – W, The Law of Conservation of Energy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/first-law-of-thermodynamics

Second Law of Thermodynamics: “The total Entropy (disorder) of an isolated system can never decrease over time and is constant only for reversible processes.” Heat flows from hotter to colder objects, not colder to hotter objects. 100% energy conversion is impossible. “Time’s Arrow” is derived from the Second Law. https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/second-law-entropy/

Third Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy (disorder) of a perfect crystal approaches zero as the temperature approaches absolute zero (0 degrees Kelvin, or -273.15 °C). Time, a measure of increased Entropy, stops in all practicality. Molecular motion slows to a minimum, and a substance cannot be cooled to absolute zero in a finite number of steps. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14538

*****

The past 11 years (2015-2025) have been the hottest on record, with last year being the second or third warmest year since observations began, according to a report released today by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

“We seem to be entering this new era where temperatures will be significantly higher than what they were ten years ago,” says climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, who is from the Australian National University in Canberra. The past three years have seen large changes in temperature that could only be a result of climate change, she adds.

Energy imbalance

For the first time, the report includes a measure of the accumulation of heat on Earth and in the atmosphere. The indicator, called the Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI), has been used by climate scientists for at least a decade, and is the difference between the amount of energy that the Earth receives from the Sun and the amount radiated back into space. It allows scientists to monitor the rate of global warming. A positive EEI value means that the total amount of heat stored on Earth is increasing. https://wmo.int/media/news/new-study-shows-earth-energy-imbalance

Last year, the EEI reached its highest level since observations started in 1960, the report states. The increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere traps heat on Earth, reducing the amount of warmth that is radiated back into space.

Thomas Mortlock, a climate analyst at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, says that the inclusion of EEI in the WMO report is notable. Typically, the rise in surface temperatures is what makes headlines, but the atmosphere absorbs just 1% of the planet’s excess heat so using it to gauge the severity of global warming is “quite misleading”, he says. More than “91% of all of the excess heat that has been received by the Earth since the 1970s has been absorbed in the oceans”, he adds.

Mortlock suggests that the planet’s energy imbalance is a much better descriptor to understand the true impact of global warming.

Freund adds that EEI is also a clearer measure of long-term changes than comparing average temperatures, which can fluctuate year to year owing to events with short-term impacts, such as volcanic eruptions or the La Niña weather pattern.

The world just lived through the 11 hottest years on record — what now?

Rachel Fieldhouse, Mohana Basu, Nature

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Credit: ACS Nano (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c12759

Topics: Applied Physics, Battery, Chemistry, Graphene, History, Materials Science, Nanomaterials

What do Thomas Edison and 2010 Nobel Prize in physics winners Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim have in common? According to a recent publication from the lab of Rice University's James Tour in ACS Nano, it could be graphene—an answer that might have confused Edison, who died almost 20 years before physicist P.R. Wallace proposed such a substance could exist, and nearly 80 years before Novoselov and Geim were awarded a Nobel Prize for isolating and characterizing it.

Graphene is a transparent, remarkably strong substance, as thin as a single atom, and useful in several modern applications, like semiconductors. One type of graphene, called turbostratic graphene, can be produced by applying a voltage across a resistant carbon-based material and rapidly heating it to 2,000–3,000 degrees Celsius.

In modern terms, that method is called flash Joule heating. But in 1879, Edison's method was simply turning on one of his newly patented, stable light bulbs. Unlike modern incandescent light bulbs that rely on tungsten filaments, early versions often used resistive carbon-based filaments, such as Japanese bamboo. Flipping a switch applied a voltage that rapidly heated the filaments, producing light. Or, perhaps, graphene. It depends on the century.

Edison's 1879 bulb experiments may have unintentionally produced graphene, Rachel Leeson, edited by Andrew Zinin, Phys.org

A link to my Substack that may interest you.

More to come.

https://open.substack.com/pub/afrofuturism/p/exploring-sci-fis-untapped-potential?r=3srwl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Schematic of annulus-conical water jet-assisted laser machining. Fig 1

Topics: Applied Physics, Composite Materials, Fluid Mechanics, Lasers, Materials Science, Nanoengineering

Abstract

When processing SiC/SiC composites using nanosecond-pulsed lasers, thermal effects such as molten deposition and heat-affected zones (HAZs) will occur. In this study, an annulus-conical water jet (ACWJ) was introduced to assist nanosecond laser machining of SiC/SiC composites, aiming to suppress thermal damage. A comparative investigation between laser processing in air and under ACWJ assistance was conducted. The results demonstrated that ACWJ assistance effectively eliminated molten material deposition and HAZs, significantly improving surface quality. However, despite a short beam path in the water (approximately 2.5–3 mm), turbulence in the water stream during ACWJ processing caused beam divergence and focus drift, leading to a substantial reduction in laser energy density on the target surface, and thus a lower material removal efficiency compared to laser machining in air. Moreover, the beam focal position drifted within the turbulent water stream, resulting in broader and shallower machined features. The material removal rate during ACWJ-assisted laser processing was only approximately 3%–10% of that achieved in air. In groove ablation, achieving the same depth as that in air-based processing required a significantly larger number of scan passes under ACWJ conditions. In hole machining, the resulting hole diameters were approximately 240% greater than those achieved in air.

Processing of SiC/SiC composite using an annulus-conical water jet-assisted nanosecond-pulsed laser, Zhuang Liu, Weicheng Xu, Chenhao Li, Tianrui Liu, Changshui Gao, Journal of Applied Physics

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Astronomers just measured the mass of a free-floating planet without a star for the first time

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, NASA

When we imagine a planet, we think of one like ours, orbiting a star. But some have a far lonelier existence, drifting through interstellar space without a sun to call their own. Known as “rogue” or “free-floating” planets, these worlds are often challenging to study. With no known star and no orbit from which to estimate their size, they’ve generally flown under the radar—until now.

In a new study published in Science on Thursday, scientists show how they measured the mass of one such rogue planet for the first time—a breakthrough that could enable further studies of these strange, lonely worlds.

Instead of looking at the planet’s orbit, the research team, led by Subo Dong of Peking University, instead analyzed how the planet’s gravity bent the light from a distant star, in a so-called microlensing event, from two separate vantage points: Earth and the now-retired Gaia space observatory.

Scientists Just Clocked a ‘Rogue’ Planet the Size of Saturn, By Jackie Flynn Mogensen, edited by Claire Cameron, Scientific American

Topics: Computer Modeling, Mathematics, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Theoretical Physics

The concept of a fourth dimension is so elusive and mysterious that many of us find it almost impossible to comprehend. But could an additional layer of spatial reality truly exist, hidden beyond our three-dimensional worldview? Tantalizingly, scientists now claim to have built a fourth dimension of space.

Scientists build a window into the fourth dimension, David Stock, New Scientist

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are those of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone.

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone."

Rod Serling

Topics: Astronautics, Astrophysics, Moonbase, NASA

One of the key challenges in building and sustaining a permanent settlement on the moon, as in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is finding a reliable and economical means of transporting essential resources, such as water and energy.

The good news is that while the moon may look like a barren wasteland — and, according to NASA, be a hundred times drier than the Sahara — it is not quite as desolate as it first appears. This is because for billions of years, particles have travelled from our atmosphere to its surface via the Earth’s geomagnetic field, scientists at the University of Rochester reported in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

"By combining data from particles preserved in lunar soil with computational modeling of how solar wind interacts with Earth's atmosphere, we can trace the history of Earth's atmosphere and its magnetic field," Eric Blackman, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a distinguished scientist at University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), said in a statement.

A previous analysis of these soil samples found light volatile elements, such as hydrogen, helium, neon, argon, and nitrogen. Crucially, these substances have been found in lunar soil but not in lunar rock, meaning they must have come from elsewhere. While their presence can, in part, be attributed to the steady stream of particles that emanates from the sun (solar wind), the volume of nitrogen in the soil suggests there is at least one additional source.

A few theories have been put forward, including those that suggest the light volatile elements arrived on interplanetary dust, through asteroid collisions, or from the gas of lunar volcanoes. However, one leading theory is that the particles have a terrestrial origin.

If this is indeed the case, the question is: when and how did they travel from Earth to the moon? In 2005, a separate team of researchers made the case that the particles made the journey before the formation of Earth’s magnetic field. Twenty years later, Blackman and co put that theory to the test.

Terrestrial Particles Travel to the Moon by Hitchhiking Along Earth’s Magnetic Field Lines, Rosie McCall, Discover Magazine

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Science, Modern Physics, Superconductors

It’s one of the most stubborn open questions of modern physics: What’s the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity? All superconductors need some way of binding their electrons, which are fermions, into quasiparticles called Cooper pairs, which act as bosons. The low-temperature superconductivity in metals is well described by the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory, which states that the pairs are held together by phonons. But in 1986, cuprate ceramics were discovered to superconduct at a much higher temperature via a different, unknown mechanism. Despite four decades of research and the discovery of many other unconventional superconducting materials, their mechanism remains a mystery.

So the condensed-matter physics community took note when, in 2018, superconductivity was found in magic-angle graphene: two or more layers of the atomically thin carbon material stacked with a relative twist of 1.1°. Its allure is in its tunability: With a single graphene device, researchers can explore regions of the superconducting phase diagram that otherwise would require the synthesis of several new materials. But despite that advantage, magic-angle graphene has until now resisted a basic measurement: the size of the hole in the density of states called the superconducting gap, a measure of how much energy is needed to break apart a Cooper pair.

It’s not that the density of states couldn’t be measured. That could be done using tunneling spectroscopy, a technique related to scanning tunneling microscopy. The trouble lay in confirming that the gap being measured was really a superconducting gap. Other phases of matter—for example, insulators—also have gaps in their densities of states, and magic-angle graphene hosts a rich array of phases that all lie close to one another in parameter space and thus could be easily confused. (For details, see the 2024 PT feature article “Twisted bilayer graphene’s gallery of phases,” by B. Andrei Bernevig and Dmitri K. Efetov.)

Energy scales of superconducting graphene come into focus, Johanna L. Miller, Physics Today

Breakthrough discovery in plants’ DNA may lead to slowing the aging process in humans, Sandee LaMotte, CNN, November 18, 2019

Topics: Biology, Civics, Civil Rights, Entropy, History, Philosophy

My last post on this site was on my birthday this summer.

I have been commuting to and from work in Durham during the government shutdown (a little over two hours round trip in good traffic), which surpassed the previous shutdown during his last administration as the longest on record.

I know of government employees who took the DRP (Deferred Resignation Program), especially those who had over 35 years of employment. I saw some that were furloughed (despite the theatrical bluster and rhetoric, everyone who came back received all the money they were owed the day they returned to work). I know three female colleagues, young, bright scientists, PhDs, who quit the Agency. Over 90% of the Agency, BEFORE the shutdown, was over the age of 35, and I don't think other government agencies are too far off that demographic. It will take us a generation, or more, to recover from this.

Maybe that was the point of it, insane as that sounds. DOGE, by future historians (if we're not in the throes of a new Dark Ages), will be a byword and a curse.

Since Newt Gingrich introduced this blood sport into the political lexicon, every shutdown has been since him, Dennis Hastert (who turned out to be a pedophile - who knew?), John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and the current useless Capitol furniture, Mike Johnson, EVERY last one has been when Republicans held the Speaker's gavel. But I digress.

I haven't been posting because of my travels. I get up at 4:00 am, and leave for Durham at a quarter till 5:00. I work out and get on with my day. I feel weathered.

I heard that said in an interview by Nicole Hannah-Jones, author of "The 1619 Project," in interviews I've seen her in on YouTube. She described that as affecting African Americans in health disparities, especially during the COVID pandemic.

There is some precedence for this observation.

Two medical professionals, Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Dr. Carol W. Greider, shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Dr. Jack W. Szostak in 2009 "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres being the caps on their ends. Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.

If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed.

Source: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/

The National Institute of Health found telomeres profoundly shortened in African Americans, corresponding to shorter life expectancies.

"Weathering" and cellular Entropy by another name.

Safe travels.

Just started the AMG® Kickstarter campaign for a digital project titled

THE CONQUERING LION.

Hope you are able to sponsor and most of all

please spread/forward the word.... Thank you sincerely!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amg-the-conquer-lion/amgs-the-conquering-lion

ABYSSINIA MEDIA GROUP®
AFRICANS OF ANTIQUITY

The Coloring of MAKEDA parts One, Two & Three

The above Black and White poster may be purchased

HERE

FULL COLOR poster may be purchased

HERE

GIF Image Source: Nathan Rabin's Happy Place Blog

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Democracy, Environment, Existentialism

"It's a Good Life" is the eighth episode of the third season of the American television series The Twilight Zone, and the 73rd overall. It was written by series creator/showrunner Rod Serling, based on the 1953 short story "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby. The episode was directed by James Sheldon and is considered by some, such as Time and TV Guide, to be one of the best episodes of the series. It originally aired on November 3, 1961. The episode was one of four from the original 1959 series that formed the basis of the 1983 film Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Opening Narration:

Tonight's story on the Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States, and there's a little town there called Peaksville. On a given morning not too long ago, the rest of the world disappeared, and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world had been destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched, or whether the village had somehow been taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing. The cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines, because they displeased him. And he moved an entire community back into the dark ages, just by using his mind. Now I'd like to introduce you to some of the people of Peaksville, Ohio. This is Mr. Fremont. It's in his farmhouse that the monster resides. This is Mrs. Fremont. And this is Aunt Amy, who probably had more control over the monster in the beginning than almost anyone. But one day she forgot. She began to sing aloud. Now, the monster doesn't like singing so his mind snapped at her, and turned her into this smiling, vacant thing you're looking at now. She sings no more. And you'll note that the people in Peaksville, Ohio, have to smile. They have to think happy thoughts and say happy things because once displeased, the monster can wish them into a cornfield or change them into a grotesque walking horror. This particular monster can read minds, you see. He knows every thought; he can feel every emotion. Oh, yes, I did forget something, didn't I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster. This is the monster. His name is Anthony Fremont. He's six years old with a cute little boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you'd better start thinking happy thoughts. Because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge. This is the Twilight Zone.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)

I was speaking to a classmate from North Carolina A&T, and we were struck by how much this episode encapsulates where this country finds itself.

"Peaksville" is a metaphor for "Anytown, USA," but wasn't the USA itself a created fiction (at least from the perspective of its authoritarian patron, King George of England)? They were, after all, a colony and the property of the British Crown. The colonists, however, had higher aspirations, political dreams of grandeur that they codified in the facade of poetic myth that was before the Creel Commission, the first collective effort in national gaslighting:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These wealthy men were writing for themselves, not posterity. Rich white men who committed genocide against Native Americans, and worked kidnapped Africans for the upcoming centuries of uncompensated labor, human trafficking, and rape, signed this property document. Thomas Paine wrote pamphlets to spur the 13 colonies to collective action. He is now forgotten, no busts in government Rotundas, as was the case for Nathan Bedford Forrest (founding a domestic terrorist group should not warrant such a distinction), because Paine was about abolishing what made them wealthy: slavery.

Rod Serling was a WWII veteran, as was my father, and the unpredictability of combat, the uncertainty of life and death, inspired the weird world of the Twilight Zone. It always started out pleasant, often peaceful, and like combat, it became unpredictable in nanoseconds, and held its audience's attention until the denouement and the closing credits. "It's a Good Life" hits you differently because children should not have godlike powers to affect reality, the laws of nature, and chemistry. The fictional citizens of Peaksville were reduced to subservience, to humoring Anthony Freemont: devoid of empathy, impatient for anything other than obedience to his infantile will, the good citizens of Freemont, like many Germans who probably saw that Hitler was insane, and acquiesced for a measure of peace, "go along to get along," praying that his powerful, near-omnipotent gaze of disapproval did not fall on him.

I have taken several courses now in Generative AI, particularly using the format P.R.O.M.P.T., which stands for: P - Purpose (what do you want the AI to do?), R - Role, as in "act as a policy analyst," or "act as a historian," O - Outcome, what are you looking for. M - Mechanics, how should the output be formatted? P - Parameters, here I specify the length of the document, and finally, T - Tone, depending on the audience, it can be academic, technical, or nontechnical. The previous is a form of Prompt Engineering (naturally).

Claude.ai question: "Act as a constitutional historian and behavioral psychoanalyst. Postulate the behavior of an individual who was never disciplined as a child, never diagnosed with learning disabilities, and never truly loved by his parents. Make him aggressive, bullying, wealthy, and privileged. Despite obvious criminal behavior, he’s never been held accountable legally, then by luck of latching onto birtherism, homophobia, immigrant demonization, misogyny, and racism, he becomes president with absolute immunity. What is the likely outcome for the nation, and the world?"

This hypothetical profile describes someone with a particularly concerning psychological makeup in a position of ultimate power. Let me analyze the likely behavioral patterns and systemic outcomes:
Individual Behavior Patterns:

Someone with this background would likely exhibit severe narcissistic traits, viewing relationships as purely transactional. The lack of early attachment and consistent boundaries would create someone who sees others as either useful tools or threats to be eliminated. The combination of wealth insulating them from consequences while feeding grandiose self-perception would create an individual who genuinely believes rules don’t apply to them.

The aggressive, bullying tendencies would likely escalate in a position of unchecked power. Without having developed empathy through loving relationships or impulse control through discipline, such a person would probably respond to any perceived slight or challenge with disproportionate retaliation.

Domestic Consequences:
A nation under such leadership would likely see rapid erosion of democratic institutions. The individual would probably use their position to:
        •       Purge government agencies of anyone not personally loyal
        •       Weaponize law enforcement against perceived enemies
        •       Systematically dismantle checks and balances
        •       Create a patronage system rewarding loyalty over competence
        •       Use divisive rhetoric to maintain power by keeping the population fragmented
The scapegoating patterns (immigrants, minorities, etc.) would likely intensify into actual persecution, as someone with this profile would need ever-escalating targets to maintain their base’s attention and justify their failures.

International Impact:
Other nations would face a highly unpredictable actor who views diplomacy as weakness and relationships as zero-sum competitions. This could destabilize:
        •       Long-standing alliances
        •       International law and treaty systems
        •       Global economic cooperation
        •       Climate and humanitarian efforts

Systemic Breakdown:
Perhaps most dangerously, the combination of absolute immunity with this psychological profile could create a feedback loop where increasingly extreme actions face no consequences, encouraging even more extreme behavior. The wealthy and privileged background suggests they might view the nation itself as their personal property to exploit.

This scenario essentially describes how democratic systems can collapse when institutions prove inadequate to constrain pathological leadership - a pattern historians have documented in various contexts throughout history.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

President Anthony Freemont. "It's a Good Life." We are Peaksville.