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Supercurrent @ Room...

Burkard Hillebrands of the University of Kaiserslautern and colleagues say they have detected the first ever supercurrent at room temperature, but certain peers are sceptical of the results and say the claims are premature.
(Courtesy: iStock/Johan Swanepoel)


Topics: Bose-Einstein Condensate, Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics


A room-temperature "supercurrent" has been identified in a Bose–Einstein condensate of quasiparticles called magnons. That's the finding of an international team of researchers, which says the work opens the door to using magnons in information processing. Other researchers, however, believe the claim is premature, arguing that less-novel explanations have not been ruled out.

The term "supercurrent" describes the resistance-free current of charged particles in superconductors. It also describes the viscosity-free current of particles in superfluid helium. The common denominator of these systems is that they can be described as Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) – collections of bosons, such as Cooper pairs or Helium-4, that can be described by a single wavefunction.

Physics World: First ever supercurrent observed at room temperature, Tim Wogan

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"Humanity in Color"

We are usually joking when we ask how long the Black character is going to survive in a movie/TV show, but that is a real question that comes from years upon years of characters of color being killed off in or erased from books, comics, TV, and movies. Many creators of color see this and try to fix the problem, but many are pressured to remove their characters' humanity. By not allowing characters of color to learn, grow, mess up, and be wrong from time to time we may keep these characters alive, but are we really allowing them to live? Find out here‪#‎TheRatchedemic‬ 

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Quantum Gaming...

Artistic rendition of atoms in an optical lattice.
Image Credit: Public Domain


Topics: Computer Science, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics


Quantum computing has been envisioned for decades, but is a difficult task to accomplish. Now, one research group is crowdsourcing human ingenuity to solve the problem—by turning it into a game.

Any computer system requires operations that result in a change in a physical system that leaves that system in a certain physical state. Two important requirements of a physical computing system are the ability to reproduce a physical state, and how long the created state lasts. These two quantities are known as fidelity and lifetime, respectively.

For a quantum computer, the degree of fidelity (how well the physical state can be reproduced) usually must be greater than 99.9%, depending on the physical system. The requirement is based on the ability to correct any errors that occur in the physical system so a build up of error does not occur. The requirement that executing an operation must occur faster than the lifetime of the quantum state, or what is typically called the quantum decoherence time, is difficult—if you try to execute an operation too quickly, you lose fidelity. Optimizing these two conditions has led scientists to rely on computer programs—algorithms—to try out many initial states and conditions. The algorithms are good, but there are an extremely large number of possibilities to try.

Physics Central: Quantum Computing, Human Processing, H.M. Doss

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https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1239120460?profile=original Once more The Priestess Second Saga continues as Aesir Chief Svengald's tribe find themselves lost at sea after the Chief ignores the warnings of the gods and brings disaster onto his people. Now lost at sea, they now begin an epic struggle which will determine their survival as a people! Can Svengald find his people far out on the 'Seas of Time' before they vanish forever? This and other answers will be revealed in 'The Priestess: Stone, Sea and Serpent, Part II!

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Whisper to Shout...

MPI FOR GRAVITATIONAL PHYSICS/SIMULATING EXTREME SPACETIMES/AIRBORNE HYDRO MAPPING
Citation: Phys. Today 69, 8, 10 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3249

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, General Relativity, Gravitational Waves, Spacetime


On 11 February 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its sister collaboration, Virgo, announced their earthshaking observation of Albert Einstein’s ripples in spacetime. LIGO had seen the death dance of a pair of massive black holes. As the behemoths circled each other faster and faster, the frequency and amplitude of the spacetime waves they produced grew into a crescendo as the black holes became one. Then the new doubly massive black hole began to ring softer and softer like a quieting bell. The escalating chirp and ringdown is also a metaphor for public information flow about the discovery. It could have unfolded differently.

When scientists make a discovery, they must choose how to disseminate it. A big decision they must make is whether to reveal the results before or after peer review. Reveal before peer review—sometimes even before the paper is written—and the community can use the results right away, but there is an increased risk that problems will be found in a very public way. Reveal after peer review, and the chance of such problems decreases, but there is more time for a competitor to announce first or for rumors to leak. At Physical Review Letters (PRL), where I am an editor, we allow authors to choose when they want to reveal their results. The LIGO collaborators chose to wait.



Just before LIGO’s experimental run began in September 2015, the team held a vote on which journal they would pick if they made a discovery. They picked PRL. Five days after the vote, LIGO’s detectors seemed to hear the universe sing out for the first time.

American Institute of Physics:
Commentary: How gravitational waves went from a whisper to a shout, Robert Garisto

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1st Blog Post

The following is an excerpt from a story I'm writing called Obasi's Honor. Hope you enjoy it.

The artist is Gauntlet.

    

    Behind him lay the bodies he’d killed; it had been, at best, serendipity, and not skill.

    He would rather that it had been skill.

    The town was in the distance, indistinct in color from the sand everywhere, save that it had shape, and he could see the shapes of the buildings through the haze and the heat shimmer that felt like it would boil his eyes in their sockets.

    I did not avoid being a sacrifice only to have my bones bleach in this merciless sun.

    He stopped, and taking the knife he pilfered from the body of the man that had sought to tie the rope around his neck, he put his hand on the camel’s neck and said a silent prayer of thanks to its spirit for providing him life.

    And he cut its throat, cupping his hands around the fount that spurted as the animal bellowed a final curse, and toppled. The taste of its blood was rancid and bitter in his mouth, but he was going to die if he didn’t drink, and water was not to be found anywhere nearby.

    And as he had no water, he made no urine, or he would have used that instead.

    He was tempted to skin the camel and make a tent, but the sun had already crested its zenith, and would be down soon; if he skinned it now, night would catch him crossing the dunes, and the chill wind would ice the blood that was now boiling.

    Breathing heavy against the urge to vomit, which would dehydrate him further, the burning sand licking at the sides of his feet in the leather sandals that adorned them, he pushed on.

    Distance was a tricky thing in the desert, and if the town wasn’t as close as it looked, the relentlessly flowing sand would cover him, burying him in an unmarked grave so deep and remote his ancestors would never see him.

    “You will not die, Obasi. Your ancestors will strike you in the afterlife if you do.”

    He didn’t know if the part about his ancestors was true, and anyway, it was a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep; he only knew that if he didn’t hear himself make it, he wouldn’t survive.

 

                                                ********************

 

    Two horsemen came out to retrieve him from the sand, where he’d vomited and lay in a pool of rancid blood.

    “Fool boy, drank the blood of his camel.”

    “How do you know?”

    “The hairs on his robe, his skin. He was unskilled, and favored by the gods that he made it here.

    The other guard that noticed the camel hair when they threw the boy across the saddle, and he walked his horse back to the city gates.

    The watchman called. “Is he alive?”

    “Barely, but yes.”

    “Take him to see –“

    “I know, I know. He needs water though, and now.”

    The watchman threw his canteen down, and they dribbled water into the boy’s mouth, held him as he sputtered and coughed, gave him some more, and he spat.

    The water was a bright red, and both men made the sign against evil.

     “Get him out of here,” the watchman said.

    The other guard proffered him to take his canteen back, but the watchman smiled and shook his head.

    “I’ll get another; he can keep that one. I should’ve let the vultures have him. If it hadn’t been for their circling, I wouldn’t have seen him.”

    “You did well to save his life; these things come back to you.”

    “As I well know. Take him quickly.”

    They proceeded to the town sick house, as they called it, and the boy began to stir.

    They were carrying him on a horse, sideways across the saddle, as if he was a sack of something heavy and unpleasant, but he didn’t know who ‘they’ were or where ‘they’ were taking him, but their robes were dark, in stark contrast to the sand, and against the normal dress of white and tan, which kept the heat of the sun away.

    He noticed they were on a road of stone.

    “Where am I?” His voice came out like a croak, and he coughed.

   The horse nickered in warning, not liking the smell of stale camel blood in its nostrils.

    “In the land of Fatinah, south of your lands. We are taking you to the sick house; our doctor is an elder, and will see to your needs. Rest now, boy. There is time enough for introductions and conversation; this is not that time.”

    Not willing to trust his voice again, or have the horse bite him, he closed his eyes and mouth again, and swayed to the animal’s rhythm, his insides rolling, as unconsciousness reclaimed him from the waking world again.

  

    

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Sunny Days

Sesame Street announces its get rid of Bob McGrath(Bob), Emilio Delgado (Luis), and Roscoe Orman (Gordon). What the heck!!??!!Oh well at least Roscoe's free for Willie Dynamite 2: Big Willie's Back in Action. But seriously, Willie Dynamite is one of the few movies about pimping with a heart and a strong message.
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https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1239120395?profile=original The Second Saga continues as the Aesir Chief sent out onto the Seas of Time for the rescue of his people. Even if he can come to the aid of his countrymen, his next task will be to find Little Fish somewhere in time or he won't be able to return to the Valley Realm! But a great and all too familiar danger looms before his people and the Chief must face it alone in order save his own life and secure the future of his people. May the Priestess watch over him! Monday August 1st, the Chief begins his trial in 'The Priestess: Stone, Serpent and Sea!'

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For me, the most difficult parts of the body to draw are the face and the hands, which is why I generally do them last, and on separate sheets of paper. There is nothing worse than drawing a great body, and then ruining it with the face that does not come out right, or the hands, which might look funny. So I learned to make my light table my best friend in drawing, and to use models, models and more models. Not like, Victoria Secret models, of course, but any reference that has the pose (or something close to it) that I need.

For me, the most important and difficult part of the face is the eyes - getting them to be the right shape, getting them to be the same shape and size, and in the three-quarter face, the right size relative to each other, though they are different shapes.

 

 

Let's look at the eyes first.

Eyes are difficult because of many things, and when drawing, then painting eyes, many things have to be taken into account:

Shape - eyes are not flat. The eyeball is approximately spherical, with a little hemispherical cap (the cornea) on the front. You can see the corneal cap from the side view. The spherical shape, and the corneal cap affect the shape of the eyelid. The eye lids are curved in three dimensions, because they not only meet at the corners, but they follow the bulge of the eyeball, and the additional shape of the cornea.

 

Color - We think of the color in the eye as being just the iris, but there are more complexities to keep in mind.

-  - The sclera (the white of the eye) very weakly reflects the colors of everything around it.

- - There are blood vessels that can be seen, sometimes, on the surface of the sclera, and hinted at under the surface.

- - The iris is not one flat color, because it is not flat. It is made up of striations (ribbons) of muscle, formed into a ring, with texture that gives different shades and shadow variants of the primary color.

Reflections - the cornea is a clear window, which you can see through. but like all windows, it is partially transparent and partially reflective.

 

 

Shadow - I don't mean eyeshadow. I mean shadows cast by parts of the eye. The eyelids are not paper-thin, they have thickness, and they cast shadows. The upper lid, especially, is important, because it partially covers the top of the iris, and casts a shadow over the top of the visible part of the eyeball. This shadow kills the transparency of the cornea and makes it more reflective - when we look at it, the shadow is generally where the strongest highlight is.

Highlights - Since the eyes are wet, and the cornea is clear, the eye reflects any light sources around.

Tear duct - We must not forget the tear duct in the inner corners of the eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other notes...

The outer edge of the upper lid extends farther than the lower lid.

The lashes sweep to the outer corner.

The eyebrow is not flat, either, but follows the orbital bone opening in the facial bones.

I always try to put full detail in the eyes of my characters, enlarging the image to the pixel level, because it is the eyes that bring a character to life. Even when the image is going to be very small, I take the time to put full detail in the eyes.

 

 

 

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The Brittle Riders

My first, full length, novel is being released by Azoth Khem Publishing. So is my second and my third. This makes sense since all three work together to form a linear trilogy. Get your credit cards ready.

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Juno to Juice Et Al...

An artist’s rendition of the JUICE spacecraft. (Credit: ESA)


Topics: Astrophysics, Planetary Science, Space Exploration, Spaceflight


Juno (JUpiter Near-polar Orbiter) is the sixth spacecraft to study Jupiter (give or take a few gravity assists), but will be the second to fall into orbit around the gas giant following the Galileo probe in 1995.

It is part of NASA’s New Frontiers space exploration program that specializes in researching the celestial bodies of the solar system. Juno was launched on August 5th, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and intended to be placed in a polar orbit around Jupiter to study the planet’s composition, magnetic and gravity fields, and the polar magnetosphere. Even though Juno’s scientific mission only lasts for a year, many more spacecraft are headed Jupiter’s way.

The next upcoming Jupiter mission following Juno is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) first large-class mission in its Cosmic Vision program, the JUICE (JUpiter ICy moon Explorer). It is planned for launch in 2022 from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana and will arrive at Jupiter in 2030. JUICE will then monitor Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto, three of the four Galilean moons, as well as Jupiter for three and a half years. As all three of these worlds are believed to possess significant bodies of water beneath their surfaces, and the JUICE Mission will explore their habitability in depth.

On December 9th, 2015, ESA and Airbus Defence & Space signed a contract signifying that Airbus would be building the spacecraft at their base in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The scientific instruments on JUICE will be built by scientific and engineering teams from all over Europe, with some participation from the United States and Japan.



Discovery: These Spacecraft Will Visit Jupiter After Juno, Jordan Rice

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Day Two of the Urban Axis IndyCon 2 was very informative. I got a chance to speak with a few more of the vendors. I also had the opportunity to talk to some of the people who organized the IndyCon. In addition being passionate about bringing artists together, all of the organizers are artists in their own right. We ended up discussing everything from graphic novels to video games to music.

To read more, please visit this link: http://knipj.com/69sg

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I recently attended the Urban Axis IndyCon 2 in Decatur, GA, over the weekend of July 23-24, 2016. Jarvis Sheffield, founder of the Black Science Fiction Society, presented me with this opportunity. I served as the moderator for the Black Science Fiction panel. (That panel was the first time I got to meet a Jedi – live in the flesh.)

To read more, go to this link: http://knipj.com/tv2f

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Makemake Moon...

Dwarf planet Makemake and its newly discovered moon.
The newly discovered moon, MK 2, found in Hubble data orbiting Makemake.
NASA, ESA, A. Parke


Topics: Astronomy, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration, Spaceflight


Once a lonely ice block, now it seems the dwarf planet may have a close-in companion.

In 2005, Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Chad Trujillo discovered dwarf planet Makemake, currently believed to be the third largest object in the Kuiper Belt after Pluto and Eris. But at the time, astronomers believed it was alone out there on its long path around the Sun. But new data from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal a moon around the tiny world, and offer a little explanation as to where it was hiding.

“The satellite that we found was not that faint and not that close to Makemake,” says Alex Parker, principal investigator of the research and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. “It popped right out of the data when we looked.”

It turns out it was always there. But the newly found object, provisionally called MK 2, orbits Makemake nearly edge-on from our point of view, meaning most of the time it’s obscured by the comparatively bright dwarf planet. Makemake is 886 miles (1,434 km) in diameter, while the new object appears to be only 100 miles (161 Km). Current scenarios also paint it as a dark companion compared to bright Makemake.

Astronomy:
Astronomers Find a Moon Hiding Around Makemake in Hubble Data, John Wenz

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So let's talk about "Building". We see the images and things that are portrayed about people of color in the mainstream media and the truth is we will have very little power to change them. But what we CAN do is build our own media outlets and tell our OWN stories. But that takes funding. Now JBN - Jericho Broadcast Networks were started with the idea of building the network by advertising Black Owned and Operated businesses so that we could stay focused on providing an unfiltered view of our culture. Anyone who knows anything about advertising will tell you that it takes at least 6 months for an advertising program to take hold and be effective. Anything shorter than that and you are just reaching a small amount of people because you haven't been embedded into most people's minds. Broadcast companies are at the mercy of their advertisers because they pay the bills. So whatever is important to them is displayed on the network.

So are you interested in seeing things that are important to you and the black community? Do you have a business? Do you want to reach progressive black consumers? Well if you answered yes we can help and you advertising with us will help us build our network faster!!! If we had 300 black business owners commit to spending $50 per month* in advertising with us for one year, we can open up network offices/studios in 7 different cities across the country and employ at least 15 black people for 1 year! Our network has a long term growth plan and national format and will include: 3 online radio stations (Gospel & Urban music and Talk covering sports, news, politics and social) and an online TV network that will eventually provide 24 hour original programming from all of the areas listed in the radio area.

We are committed to a global movement of the African Diaspora that functions on a local level as well as continuing the economic growth and development of urban communities around the world! So here is your chance to get involved and help grow your business at the same time. We are asking 300 B.O.B.'s to commit to this 1 year advertising campagian. There is a $50 nonrefundable deposit to secure your space in the program and the remaining $250 of your first payment is due on Friday August 26th by 9:00pm PST. Your second payment of $300 is due by Friday November 11th 2016 by 9:00pm PST. If you change your mind prior to that date you will still receive 1 month of advertising for your payment. If you opt out or don't pay the second $300 you will receive a total of 6 months of advertising. If you have any questions email me at info@myjbn.com or call 678-383-7623

http://www.MyJBN.com/up/300.html

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The Silicon Wall...

Image Source: MIT Technology Review

Topics: Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Moore's Law, Semiconductor Technology

It was inevitable. I joined the industry after the US Air Force in 1989. The epitome of the industry was the nineties. As gate feature sizes shrank, we looked forward to the future, spurred on by two Star Trek series: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. This was when the Internet became commercial; flip phones looked an awful lot like Star Trek communicators. I went to my oldest son's school with scrapped wafers, bunny suits at his teachers' requests, eager to clone myself in their enthusiastic eyes and lives.

We'll still manufacture semiconductors in some form, like Gate-All-Around FETs. The transition from the old to the new is (for me) pausing and poignant. 

In the next five years, it will be too expensive to further miniaturize—but chip makers will innovate in different ways.

Moore’s Law has been slowing for a while. But the U.S. industry that exploits it has finally recognized that it is about to die.

The Semiconductor Industry Association—made up of the likes of Intel, AMD, and Global Foundries—has published the 2015 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. It suggests that, after decades of miniaturization, transistors look set to stop shrinking in size altogether by 2021. After that date, the report claims, it will not be economically efficient to reduce the size of silicon transistors any further.

The prediction is an acknowledgment that Moore’s Law—which states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years—isn't simply slowing. It’s grinding to a halt.

MIT Technology Review:
Chip Makers Admit Transistors Are About to Stop Shrinking, Jamie Condliffe

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I have left one project but picked up a new one that has me really excited. So here you go.

14 Frogs - currently out on Bewildering Stories
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue…/fourteen_frogs.html

Legends Parallel - currently out on Hadithi Sambamba Comix
http://www.LegendsParallel.com

Janet Callahan: Rocket Queen - coming soon in Genesis Magazine
http://www.genesissciencefictionmagazine.com/

Clarity Girl - coming August 18 on Gente Entertainment
https://www.facebook.com/claritygirlcomic/

KORZAC: NÖRDICON OF DERN - coming out in September on Bewildering Stories

The Loving Children - coming in November in the anthology The Dogs of War

The Brittle Riders - coming out on Azoth Khem Publishing. Currently being edited

Pestilent (graphic novel) - coming February 1, 2017 (tentative), on GEE Comics

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To the 22nd Century...

Image Source: YouTube embed below


Topics: Mars, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration, Spaceflight


(July 15, 2016) - The Boeing Co marked its centennial on Friday with plans to sharpen its focus on innovation, including ambitious projects for supersonic commercial flight and a rocket that could carry humans to other planets.

But innovation at Boeing will be "disciplined" and not endanger the future of the world's biggest plane maker, Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg told reporters at an event marking the company's founding on July 15, 1916.

The enterprise established by William Boeing in a Seattle boathouse has faced numerous "bet the company" moments over its 10 decades to bring out new planes such as the 707 and 747.

"We have won for 100 years because of innovation," Muilenburg said. "The key is disciplined innovation. We'll take risks. We'll invest smartly."

Chicago-based Boeing has managed to stay ahead of European rival Airbus in plane production and is a major defense and space contractor, producing fighter jets, aerial refueling tankers, communications satellites and rockets.

The company is exploring the possibilities of commercial supersonic and hypersonic planes, Muilenburg said. It also is at work on a manned mission to Mars. Though those are perhaps many decades away, "I'm anticipating that person will be riding on a Boeing rocket," Muilenburg said.

Reuters: Boeing aims for supersonics and Mars at outset of second century, Alwyn Scott

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I have what I call throw-away stories. These are stories that I never write down. They are sometimes complex or simple. I run through them in different ways, living in one character or another. But they are not full and complete stories, like the ones I share. They are not crystallized, like the ones I write down, but remain fluid, mutable. Sometimes I come up with the greatest ideas through them - and I might adapt it and write it down for another story. But these stay in my head, and I live and breath them and forget the great scenes I come up with and start them over again when the story can't advance any further. They don't have to make sense or be plausible in any way.

 

What's the point?

 

Well, for me, there are several points to this. The first is getting to sleep. Without these stories, I would not be able to quiet my brain enough for somnolence. The problems and worries of my life would just run over and over in my head, looking for a solution. When I've worn such mental tracks across my neurons for the millionth time and still come up with nothing, I can force them aside with a throw-away story that does not have the pressure of plot development or character consistency.

 

Another is to keep the image-generator in my head going. I live these scenes. I can feel, hear, taste, smell, and see everything each character experiences, and it runs through my head like a movie that I am a part of. It is more like an experience generator - I can be the powerful magic user or the downtrodden waif, the lonely hermit or the hunted fugitive, the victim or the terrorizer. I can be man or woman or beast. I can taste the fear or feel it, inspire feelings of helplessness or be lost in them.

 

Another is kind of taking a vacation. Sometimes I don't want to think about a story that I am writing - there might be a knotty plot problem that I have not  worked out yet, and again, my brain would latch onto that and not let go. There is no such pressure with these stories.

 

Another is to try out the flavor of a situation. Sometimes I see a great scene in a movie, or read one in a book, and I don't care for the way it ends there, so I build my own very improbable scene and try it my way. This is how I got started writing in the first place, by changing the endings to stories or movies that I like, but thought the ending should go another way. They let me use other people's characters that I can change to my liking, take a piece here, add a dash of something I saw or read long ago, and - Action!

 

I love my throw-aways as much as the ones I share with the world. And if they have enough potential, I do write them down and share them with everyone.

 

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Physics and History...

Galileo Galilei shows the doge of Venice how to use a telescope in this 1858 fresco by Giuseppe Bertini.
Citation: Phys. Today 69, 7, 38 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3235

Topics: Civil Engineering, Economy, Education, History, Physics, Science, STEM

Spoiler alert: I'll sound parental, but hopefully not too pedantic.

A Skype conversation with my youngest son revealed two things: 1) he liked working at his now third Civil Engineering summer internship (he's completing a project for an airbase in Japan); 2) he wished he could just do THAT and not return to school for his last year in the fall. My wife and I of course, encouraged him to do just that and the goal would be to get a job after graduation so presumably he would enjoy that too.

He gave an observation I think I had at his age: "why do they have you take all these classes that are unnecessary?" As you'd guess right, the unnecessary classes are those that didn't apply to Civil Engineering.

I told him I appreciated the classes that weren't engineering or physics classes; that sometimes you need "a mental break" from having to do designs and differential equations. It was a respite for me at least.

Plus, part of the entire matriculation experience isn't what you'll GET at the end: it's what you're becoming, and the process of that journey changes you from how you started to how you complete at least the undergraduate leg opening you up to other possibilities. For example, as a Freshman I only had ear for one type of music: Parliament Funkadelic. As a junior studying Thermodynamics and after a "rude" awakening by Al Jarreau singing "Roof Garden," I suddenly developed an appetite and appreciation for Jazz music. Personal research revealed its origins in my own culture and the root art of many popular music forms we take for granted today. If not for art, literature and music we would be stiff and joyless automatons, fulfilling the whims of an employer only; creativity - the fuel of innovation and invention would be significantly lessened. For nothing else, the trifecta is the stuff of "Star Trek" and "Star Wars." I hope I influenced him to think further on his viewpoint.

This article in Physics Today is kind of related to our video conference, which up to being a young adult wasn't only impossible without sophisticated video equipment, it was the stuff of science fiction and "The Jetsons" Saturday cartoon show.

But of course, that in and of itself is an appreciation...of history.

Just as physics is not a list of facts about the world, history is not a list of names and dates. It is a way of thinking that can be powerful and illuminating.

Some things about physics aren’t well covered in a physics education. Those are the messy, rough edges that make everything difficult: dealing with people, singly or in groups; misunderstandings; rivals and even allies who won’t fall in line. Physicists often do not see such issues as contributing to science itself. But social interactions really do influence what scientists produce. Often physicists learn that lesson the hard way. Instead, they could equip themselves for the actual collaborative world, not the idealized solitary one that has never existed.

History can help. An entire academic discipline—history of science—studies the rough edges. We historians of science see ourselves as illustrating the power of stories. How a community tells its history changes the way it thinks about itself. A historical perspective on science can help physicists understand what is going on when they practice their craft, and it provides numerous tools that are useful for physicists themselves.

Physics is a social endeavor

Research is done by people. And people have likes and dislikes, egos and prejudices. Physicists, like everyone else, get attached to their favorite ideas and hang on to them perhaps long after they should let them go. A classic case is the electromagnetic ether, an immensely fruitful concept that dominated physics for most of the 19th century. Even as it became clear that ether theory was causing more problems than it solved, physicists continued to use it as a central explanatory tool—even for many years after Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity declared it superfluous. The history of physics is littered with beautiful theories that commanded great loyalty.

People come from places too, and physicists want to protect their homes as much as anyone else. It is easy to forget that 100 years ago during World War I, British scientists refused to talk to their German colleagues on the other side of the trenches. Even after the end of the fighting, Germans and their wartime allies were officially forbidden from joining international scientific organizations. During World War II, the specter of an atomic bomb in the hands of Adolf Hitler terrified Allied physicists into opening the Pandora’s box of nuclear weapons. Many of the scientists involved bemoaned their actions afterward, but war and nationalism make for a potent impetus.

Those incidents are not exceptions. Physicists are not disinterested figures without political views, philosophical preferences, and personal feelings. The history of science can help dismantle the myth of the purely rational genius living outside the everyday world. It makes physics more human.

Physics Today: Why should physicists study history? Matthew Stanley

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