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| Travel Channel |
Topics: 9-11, Commentary, Education, History, Politics, STEM
When I was a student at North Forsyth High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina I had the distinct pleasure of taking Air Force JROTC under Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Moody and Senior Master Sergeant Roland S. Wilkins. Surprisingly, I didn't come out of the class a warmonger - both gentlemen were veterans of the Vietnam conflict (and, had no stomach to repeat it), most of the lessons were a combination of Social Studies and Civics. What impressed me was that our democratic republic was special and unique; that in order for it to exist, "We The People" have to be a part of it. How we participate in it is not merely by voting alone, it's informing ourselves on the processes and procedures of divided government. That is commensurate with an informed citizenry, hence the importance of education to make the modern state function.
It is now fourteen years since the attack on these shores, this generations' "Pearl Harbor moment." I remember where I was: in a Motorola cafeteria in Austin, Texas, seeing the first then second plane hit the twin towers; terrified a third hit the Pentagon and Flight 93 was bound for either Capital Hill or the Executive Mansion. I now film a memorial, after a day with friends at NBC Universal/SNL studios, walking around this surreal site. I thought at the time of wanting to talk to my father, who had sadly been deceased for two years then. There were some that wanted our collective nightmare to steel the resolve of a public so diverse in perspectives and experiences that we would be unified; a truly "United States." That didn't last very long. We quickly sequestered ourselves into comfortable tribal groups - the non-religious and religious; the STEM and science phobic; the skeptic and conspiracy provocateurs; the lucid and irrational - all of the negative clusters led by narcissists addicted to sycophantic devotion. Some of them lead talk shows, reality shows or run for president.
"Democracy is not easy, and not everyone can do it right," Sergeant Wilkins said. Realize, the world wasn't so politically correct, as the statement could have some negative connotations today. [He explained] you have to be involved in your government; that you ARE the government. The assumption of public education, for example, is not just to prepare you to work in a job or profession: its primary mission is to prepare the body politic - "US" - to function as involved citizens; to hold power accountable. Public education is not merely reading blogs and reacting to soundbites formulated for manipulation and effect: it's in the reading of books - electronic, comic and papyrus - for pleasure as well as information, pondering deeply what they mean; what the authors of fiction and non-fiction were trying to say. Knowledge, books, access to them and literacy are the hallmarks of democracies and republics.
I will never be a proponent of charter schools or corporate education beyond merely investment in the Common Good. Education should not be just job preparation or an investment for dividends; it should be citizenship and critical thinking training. If the return on investment is a mindset that is so departed from logic and reason; if there is an insistence on pseudo-controversies that have been confirmed false or true by science over and over; when volume and trolling replaces debate - which in its purest sense, presupposes you have a point and feel confident you can make it in a civil manner; you don't have a state: you have a mob. To have more than this, to maintain this fragile construct called a democratic republic: we all need the resilience to accept the responsibility of being educated citizens, not entertained, bewildered sheep. We will quite naturally, demand more of our media; our current and future leaders when we start demanding more of ourselves.
“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
"But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
Amazon.com:
"Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,"
"How to Watch TV News: Revised Edition"
Neil Postman
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| Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein |
Topics: Einstein, Special Relativity, General Relativity, Nobel Prize, Spacetime, Steven Weinberg, World Science Festival
A discussion at the World Science Festival with Brian Green, Gabriela González, Samir Mathur, Andrew Strominger, Cumrun Vafa, and fellow Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's general theory of relativity, leaders from multiple fields of physics discuss its essential insights, its lingering questions, the latest work it has sparked, and the allied fields of research that have resulted. If not for the modern age of electronics with the Internet, television, smart phones and quantum mechanics, you can at least be thankful to him for your GPS not getting you lost.
These are no mere knights, these are the Elite of their respective Orders, and their quarrel is certainly not against mortal men. Journey into and across the eighth infinite realm at the side of its most powerful inherent. Into a world of incontestable majesty that is being bombarded on all sides.
« Come then Gendesh, you called Harvester of Souls, accursed Necromagians, vile conjurers in tow. »
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| Image Source: MIT Technology Review |
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Space Flight, SETI, Solar Sail
Please note the emoji: \\//_. That Trekkie cred set: It's probably going to be a lot easier to detect civilizations closer, but slightly past our stage of admitted technological adolescence, currently beset and hindered by fear of all things science and willful ignorance. With the noted exception of Star Trek, most of the science fiction I'm reading recently stay in the Einstein-relativistic-speeds range, along with the effects of time dilation to their plot twists. If an intelligence has begun to at least explore their own outer planets, maybe...just maybe there's hope that we'll survive our own hubris.
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Light sails are a promising way of exploring star systems. If other civilizations use them, these sails should be visible from Earth, say astrophysicists.
Abstract
The primary challenge of rocket propulsion is the burden of needing to accelerate the spacecraft's own fuel, resulting in only a logarithmic gain in maximum speed as propellant is added to the spacecraft. Light sails offer an attractive alternative in which fuel is not carried by the spacecraft, with acceleration being provided by an external source of light. By artificially illuminating the spacecraft with beamed radiation, speeds are only limited by the area of the sail, heat resistance of its material, and power use of the accelerating apparatus. In this paper, we show that leakage from a light sail propulsion apparatus in operation around a solar system analogue would be detectable. To demonstrate this, we model the launch and arrival of a microwave beam-driven light sail constructed for transit between planets in orbit around a single star, and find an optimal beam frequency on the order of tens of GHz. Leakage from these beams yields transients with flux densities of Jy and durations of tens of seconds at 100 pc. Because most travel within a planetary system would be conducted between the habitable worlds within that system, multiply-transiting exoplanetary systems offer the greatest chance of detection, especially when the planets are in projected conjunction as viewed from Earth. If interplanetary travel via beam-driven light sails is commonly employed in our galaxy, this activity could be revealed by radio follow-up of nearby transiting exoplanetary systems. The expected signal properties define a new strategy in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
Physics arXiv: SETI via Leakage from Light Sails in Exoplanetary Systems
James Guillochon (1), Abraham Loeb (1) ((1) Harvard ITC)
(Into the first string of Bounded Ages)
When the Dragons of the Sainted Mounts came to dwell in the eighth infinite realm some seven millennia ago, lured by its incontestable majesty, the land was already ancient, already ages old, already teeming with a vast array of Elemental kind. Yet, the leave given those repentant beasts, those Dragons, by the governing godheads—to walk the mortal demesne and know life, to roam its set skies and find freedom in flight—came with a price. The tribes of the realm’s center most Divide, unlike their primarily fey southern neighbors, were without hereditary Right, and the nurture and defense of those incapable societies became the Dragons’ cost.
Stymied, those monstrous converts instead conferred a wide range of magics unto five of the thirty or so tribes in existence. In due course, the Lŷʈīr of the sea brushed plains, the Hĕʈädĕlră of the low lying woodlands, the El’sŭūr of the arid western cape, the Hĕmĕt of the bountiful east, and the Aɽmūr of the lush center lands were accorded the ability to transform themselves into the various beasts of the realm. Too, came psychical abilities, such as the prized art of divination—along with an essential wisdom that would eventually allow them to subvert destiny—and the uncanny power to speak into the minds of their fellow men, influence and control them. Yet further, they were granted the secrets to alchemy and necromancy.
The last of the critical Dragon Epochs was brought to a stuttering close by the Reign of the Un-Righted—a minor period that marked the Icarian horde’s first occupation of the Central Divide. That swift and irreverent Reign spanned but a paltry seventy years, yet its effects were far reaching. Elemental kind and the natural mystics descended of them became nearly as lore in the two millennia that followed those transforming seventy, and far less commonplace were those born Righted. Moreover, the Magian tribes, as they eventually became styled, chiefly the El’sŭūr and the Hĕmĕt, became as a scourge to the Central Divide and very nearly to the entire realm. What a stunning travesty of the human spirit were those millenniums, those seven hundred twelve thousand Days of Roving Dissension, for they saw the Sourced Magians become dissolute in regard to their magics, saw them gorge themselves upon that which had been conferred them—and it was that singularly minded greed that brought about the end of the Dragons, with but a lone beast escaping their treacherous thirst for power.
Principally, as the Historicists say, the Days of Roving Dissension began as an almost post-traumatic response to the Icarian occupation. Unsurpassed as their magics became, Magians were not without vulnerability. The brand of power bestowed them was dark, and bore the capacity to injure or kill a Magian in expenditure. In counter, Magians began to channel their magics into tangible articles—scepters, amulets, and less often rings and other forms of metallic jewelry, objects which gained in power as they were handed down from conceder to heritor—and devised a vernacular, A’shvelsūrin, for use in summoning their strengths. Therein, however, lay their debility, for Magians could no longer access their magics once whatever bespelled article that was imbued with their power had been destroyed.
The ruthlessness of the Icarian saw that vulnerability exploited and Magian numbers, long among the smallest tribes, dwindled. In desperation, the Magians turned to the Dragons, but over the long centuries the creatures had grown complacent, disavowing all responsibility to the tribes and retreating into their cavernous dens. Angered, the Magians slew one of the Dragons—Helspeth the Halcyon, a slovenly, solitary thing that had slept for decades in the base of Mount Sale. By way of their contrived spellcraft, the Magians infused the glowing core of Helspeth’s power into a scepter, and with that receptacle’s aid, drove the Icarian from their lands.
Fearing an eventual discovery of their deed and the retribution to be faced, the Magians began to slay the Dragons, waging a war that lasted nigh on a millennium—a war that waxed and waned as the scepter, that much coveted Harvester’s Wrath, changed hands. When but a single Dragon remained—he, Eldevel of the Forbidding Star—the Lord Dragon, truly one of the Earthbound Gods of that larger, illustrious Era, descended from the highest point of the Mountains of Fire, where that fettered godhead had for nigh on six millennia taken his repose. His immense figure eclipsing even that of Eldevel, largest and most fearsome of all the beasts, the Lord Dragon spoke unto the Magians, offering pact and prophecy.
“Gendesh, Goddess of the August Abode, the one called Harvester of Souls, brought forth unto this realm the Dragons—for heretofore the first Dragon Epoch, they were among the many creatures who guard the Depths of Death. It was I, the Lord Dragon, God of the Burning Mount, Crafter of the Temporal Form, who gave unto them their finite structures and consigned them act as protector and pedagogue to man.
“As I slept, the Dragons became self-content, shirking and delegating their duties.
“The time will come, however, when once more you find yourselves at your most desolate and you will face the Sainted Mounts and cry out towards them, beseeching aid. None will be forthcoming, you will have rid the realm of Dragons. Too, the Era of the Earthbound Gods nears its end, we who are fettered must retake our place amongst the divine. Spare this Dragon, Eldevel, so that when the time of chaos descends again, you shall through him your salvation find.”
“We fear his vengeance,” one among the Magians thinly returned.
“Then he shall be bound by obsidian and cast in the Enduring Stone. There, Eldevel will remain until summoned.”
“We possess not the power to influence him”—this from that same Magian. “How will he then be swayed?”
“Bring forth five maidens born of those Un-Sourced. They will bear unto you the means of Eldevel’s summoning and command.”
The Magians presented the Lord Dragon his behest— maidens taken from the Qĕss and the Nălẏr, the Arĕspús and the Dîrînîkă, and lastly the Nǽÿmīr—and he transformed himself into the semblance of a man. He lay with the young women, and upon that very eventide, they bore him each a babe—three sons and two daughters.
“I give unto this realm Thérün, Ánina, Xáel, Ithéana, and Arŏmil—the Dragon Righted who are Dæmonīækĕl, who are possessed of Rights comparable to your own magics, of the Right to call forth the Dragon of the Forbidding Star from his prison of glass, his casing of stone, and of the Right to speak into his mind, to influence and sway him.”
The Magians fell to their knees in obeisance, crying out.
“Harken to me!” the godhead necessitated. “Punishment for your misdeeds has not escaped you and the destinies that were once writ for the tribes have now accordingly changed. There are those of you who will repent, and in so doing, will find pardon and favor when the time of chaos descends again.
“Too, there are those among you who will forever seek to procure that which was never intended for you—and when you cannot procure it, you will then seek to bind it to you, and when you cannot bind it, you will then seek to destroy it, and when you cannot destroy it, you will then seek to make it obsolete. Age into age, the truth of your natures will be revealed and there will be further division and dissension among you as your magics become congruently defined.” Reverting to his imperial dæmonic form, the Lord Dragon then gave edict in a grating and infernal parlance—« HEED ME! »— before speaking yet other words which no tongue but that a blooded god’s can form.
Words that caused the Magians to bend their bodies over the ground, quaking and screaming as they covered ears that had suddenly become blistered and bled. Words that caused lightning to flash across the darkening sky—lightning which then raced down to strike the Dragon’s blood that soaked and stained the sand, turning it to salt. Words that bound Eldevel in obsidian and preserved him in the Enduring Stone. Words that opened the eyes of the newly birthed babes—eyes that brought frightened tears to their mothers and instantly entranced them. Words that returned the five young women and their godkind progeny into the protective folds of their respective tribes.
The Lord Dragon then ascended to the highest peak of the Sainted Mounts and spreading his massive wings, took flight, vanishing into the cosmos.
Click here to read more and follow along or pre-order your copy of the THE NORTHERN DIVIDE today!
Image: Durian - Sintel (black and white / blur adjustments)
Greetings, BSFS!
Just want to pass along some great news! For a limited time, my e-books, "Lifemates" and "From Slate to Crimson" will be available on Amazon for only $0.99, starting Thursday, September 10 at 12AM and ending Saturday, September 12 at 11PM!
Just click on the books below to get to their Amazon pages!
Wild Space Saga is a massive, sprawling webcomic trilogy by Brandon Hill, author of From Slate to Crimson and The World of Five Nations series, and co-writer and artist Terence “Pegasus” Elliot, weaving 3 epic tales of mankind’s struggle to survive in a far-flung sector of space in the distant future, against impossible odds.
"The Hunter and the Tiger"
"Combat Pay Blues"
"Her Hand in Mine"
Talante, for 10,000 years has governed his clan like a father in the endless war with their hated enemy over the fate of humankind. One winter’s night, he chances to meet Amelia Grayson, a human whose blood arouses his desire, and whose presence arouses his compassion in a way no mortal ever has before. Distracted and terrified by all but alien emotions and instincts by this burgeoning bond in a prelude to what may be his clan’s most desperate hour, Talante is caught between duty and desire, until he is forced by choice and circumstance to decide whether to hold to the one he has grown to love more than his immortal life, or in spite of the cost, let go for the sake of his people and Amelia’s safety, in spite of twofold danger: one from a ravenous enemy that has hunted her kind for millennia … and the other from the seductive bond that would make her forever his, body and soul.
I hope you all will all take the time to visit my worlds, and enjoy my work! I have several other works as well that you can check out. And please be sure to leave a review, even if you didn't like it. It would really mean a lot. So until next time, happy reading!
-Brandon
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| The cells in this microscope image were arranged in three dimensions using a new DNA-based technique. The cells stained green were meant to mimic cells that lead outgrowth during natural organ formation. |
Topics: 3D Objects, Additive Manufacturing, Biology, Biophysics, Biomedicine, Computer Science, Mathematical Models
Before scientists can build human organs in the lab, they need to figure out how to build tissues that work like those in the body. A new method, in which DNA acts like Velcro that makes cells stick to each other, could help pave the way toward building functional tissues that might one day comprise organs.
The new method employs DNA strands, attached to the outside of individual cells, to cause them to stick to surfaces—or other cells—that feature complementary strands, and assemble into prescribed arrangements. The researchers use it to programmatically build tissues, layer by layer.
Other groups are taking a range of approaches toward building functional tissues (see “A Manufacturing Tool Builds 3-D Heart Tissue”). But compared to existing 3-D culture methods, the new one provides a greater level of control over “the ultimate tissue architecture,” argue its creators in a recent paper describing the research.
MIT Technology Review: Sticky DNA Could be the Key to Making Organs in a Lab, Mike Orcutt
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| Image Source: Symmetry Magazine (link below) |
Topics: CERN, Higgs Boson, High Energy Physics, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics
It bugs me when someone says "that's how it works 'in theory'" or "it's just a theory, not 'fact'."
"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation." Wikipedia is about as succinct as you can get. I underlined the keys, and a more adroit point is the Pythagorean Theorem: for right triangles - 45-45-90 and 30-60-90 - it works every time. That's how something works in theory: it is substantiated in experiment, repeated, verified results within a reasonable margin of error; legitimate journal publication after passing an editorial board and ruthless peer review. Conspiracy/Provocateur and other such "theories" are neither: they are merely loudmouthed opinions.
The ATLAS and CMS experiments on the Large Hadron Collider were designed to be partners in discovery.
In 2012, both experiments reported evidence of a Higgs-like boson, the fundamental particle that gives mass to the other fundamental particles.
ATLAS reported the mass of this new boson to be in the mass region of 126 billion electronvolts, and CMS found it to be in the region of 125. In May 2015, the two experiments combined their measurements, refining the Higgs mass closer to 125.09 GeV.
This particular analysis focused on the interaction of the Higgs boson with other particles, known as coupling strength. The combined measurements are more precise than each experiment could accomplish alone, and results establish that the Higgs mechanism grants mass to both the matter and force-carrying particles as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.
Symmetry Magazine: Combined results find Higgs still standard, Katie Elyce Jones
It was suggested that the ambient music that I chose for the second book trailer which introduces the feminine set of my main cast of characters was perhaps a little too relaxing. So, I went browsing for more rousing audio and reworked the trailer.
I had a lot of fun remaking it. Pacing comes across much better.
- Fealty
A man who finds nothing but prevarication
in the sing-speak of the faithful,
not strained certainty in the fervent love of the ascetic,
nor doubt in the guileful adoration of the falsely contrite,
not well-disposed visions, the illumination,
the Spirit of the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
nor the propensity for the enactment of the adiamorphic—
devoid of power, such a man came before my sight.
Blessed was this apostate, in earthly circumstance,
but for all the opulence that surrounded him,
he felt chilled to his very inner marrow,
and his eyes, once a lovely shade of wonder,
were dull and gaunt for witnessing malevolence,
abhorrent atrocities committed in the name of whim
by men comparable in fame and legacy to the Pharaohs;
them like the ancient kings had cast out this wanderer.
Chased by the semblance of a bird of ill-omen,
his dreary eyes, so full of confusion and regret,
took in my countenance and the humble cloth
in which I was attired, coverings which could scarcely hide
the awakened intensity within me—his senses stole when
provoked into utter observance (they sought to abet
the revival of his floundered belief), a path,
and spent he installed himself at my side.
Drawn, he reached in daring to touch
the dark mark of subjugation centered upon my forehead,
an abrasion wrought of meticulous prostration
to the fairly universal concept of an Absolute Being.
“I would steal your fealty,” the traveler said, with so much
zeal that I momentarily feared him still black lead,
a failed repossession of probity, a complete negation
of the principles first impressed, urged into diffuse keeping.
Evenly, I beseeched him rest, and together we sat
facing east, feet turned away from that sacred object
before us, the rolling sands unwound, as a hot wind
buffeted our shoulders, a comfort against the cold terrain
stretched for eons in every direction—a prayer mat
placed at the verge of the crossroads to protect
supplicants such as ourselves, those who have sinned,
from balking at the prospect of kneeling before the arcane.
“Forgive me,” the nomad said imploringly,
then placed his hand upon mine instead, and I joined them,
touching together the palms, despite the sanctions,
the deterrents long decreed against such fond intimacies.
“What called you here, Traveler?” I inquired kindly,
although I suspected, and professed in future to condemn
his tears, which coursed slow and sullen in fashion
down the length of his hope laden posturing like emissaries
Granted leave to inflict their own brand of misery.
“I followed,” he stammered, “I followed,” he professed
again, “I followed the sound.”
And nodding, I acknowledged, “The steadfast truth—”
it sometimes seemed that they wrested Him from mythology,
and in my failing to accept his divinity, thrice I have stepped
away, refusing the audacity that they compound
which—“wrought my conviction in my pagan youth.
“Infancy, more like, for their voices rang
with strength and knowing, through the empty channels
of my mercurial heart, filling it to bursting,
filling it to brim, with every resounding verse
and intoned hymn, their songs and chants began
to quench an unknown thirst, though I sought to dismantle
once, the very foundation of all existence, yearning
for the capacity that lies in oblivion without remorse.”
To read more, download Dues for the Repose: From Words Much Like Poetry Kindle Edition at Amazon.
Image
"GIVE US BARABBAS"
Illustrations from volume 9 of The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons
Edited by Charles F. Horne and Julius A. Bewer, published 1910.
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| (a) SEM image of the e-beam patterned nanoelectrodes (scale bar 20 μm); inset: nanoelectrode structure with 12 nm gap. (b) Room temperature I-V measurements with drain voltage sweeping from 0.1 V to 0.7 V at gate voltage of -12.2V. |
Topics: Nanotechnology, Photonics, Semiconductor Technology, Quantum Mechanics
As complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices shrink to sub 5 nm, interference due to quantum size effects becomes unavoidable. Single-electron tunnelling (SET) devices provide a promising alternative for low-power integrated circuits due to their operation at the single electron level. Reporting in Nanotechnology, researchers aim to address this need by fabricating monodisperse ultra-small gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) deposited by a CMOS-compatible tilted-target sputtering technique.
Fabrication and integration of monodisperse ~1 nm metal nanoparticles as charge transport islands in a device configuration remains a major challenge in the progress of SET device technology. Here, the researchers deposit AuNPs into 12 nm nanogaps between electrodes, fabricated using high-resolution e-beam lithography. The ~1 nm AuNP functions as a charge transport island within a transistor configuration and the resultant device can explore the AuNP’s quantum coulomb blockade and quantized energy level spacings at room temperature (300 K).
Nanotechweb:
Haisheng Zheng is a PhD candidate supervised by Shubhra Gangopadhyay at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Greetings, all!
Come down to my new blog site for my new book reviews! The Worlds of Brandon Hill
And for all my video reviews, remember to come to my YouTube page here: DecKrash's YouTube Page!
For my first book review, I present to you, A Confusion of Princes, by reknowned author, Garth Nix. Like interstellar action and intrigue? You're in for a treat.
Happy reading!
I wrote a book. I started it six years ago and just self-published it. Not a big deal, it happens all the time, I know. I wrote it because at the time i started, I wasn't seeing much diversity in the realm of sci-fi/speculative/fantasy etc outside of Butler (whose work I find fantastic).
I decided to try and write something, ostensibly for my daughter so she would know there were books out there for people who look like her. The book is not a kids book - not at all - there's sex and violence and some doom and gloom. Over the past few years, I've found a lot more, but I'd already started the project and wanted to see it through, even though it was so far outside of my own perspective. I am a huge proponent of diversity, and like infusing it in every aspect of my life and work.
I'm glad that I came across this site, it gives me a lot more resources.
Here's a link to the book - I probably got a helluva lot wrong.
Jasmine Cowl and the Salagi Talking Stick
Fig. 1. One of the first annihilations of an antiproton observed at the Bevatron with a photographic emulsion. The antiproton enters from the left. The fat tracks are from slow protons or nuclear fragments, the faint tracks from fast pions.
Image credit: O Chamberlain et al. 1956 Nuo. Cim. 3 447.
Topics: High Energy Physics, History, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics
You may be familiar with the term "antimatter," especially if you've followed any fiction on star ships that latched on to the phrase. The discovery of the antiproton is coming up to its 60th birthday, and the authors from CERN, Claude Amsler and Christine Sutton - where the Higgs Boson was discovered - do a good job recounting the history and characters that discovered what is now common in our lexicon.
Sixty years after the discovery of the antiproton at Berkeley, a look at some of the ways that studies with antiprotons at CERN have cast light on basic physics and, in particular, on fundamental symmetries.
On 21 September 1955, Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segrè, Clyde Wiegand and Tom Ypsilantis found their first evidence of the antiproton, gathered through measurements of its momentum and its velocity. Working at what was known as the "Rad Lab" at Berkeley, they had set up their experiment at a new accelerator, the Bevatron – a proton synchrotron designed to reach an energy of 6.5 GeV, sufficient to produce an antiproton in a fixed-target experiment (CERN Courier November 2005 p27). Soon after, a related experiment led by Gerson Goldhaber and Edoardo Amaldi found the expected annihilation "stars", recorded in stacks of nuclear emulsions (figure 1). Forty years later, by combing antiprotons and positrons, an experiment at the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) at CERN gathered evidence in September 1995 for the production of the first few atoms of antihydrogen.
Over the decades, antiprotons have become a standard tool for studies in particle physics; the word "antimatter" has entered into mainstream language; and antihydrogen is fast becoming a laboratory for investigations in fundamental physics. At CERN, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) is now an important facility for studies in fundamental physics at low energies, which complement the investigations at the LHC’s high-energy frontier. This article looks back at some of the highlights in the studies of the antiworld at CERN, and takes a glimpse at what lies in store at the AD.
CERN Courier: In the steps of the antiproton
Claude Amsler, Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, University of Bern, and Christine Sutton, CERN.
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| Image Source: Argonne National Laboratory |
Topics: Alternative Energy, Green Energy, Green Tech, Photosynthesis, Solar Power
Refined by nature over a billion years, photosynthesis has given life to the planet, providing an environment suitable for the smallest, most primitive organism all the way to our own species.
While scientists have been studying and mimicking the natural phenomenon in the laboratory for years, understanding how to replicate the chemical process behind it has largely remained a mystery — until now.
Recent experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have afforded researchers a greater understanding of how to manipulate photosynthesis, putting humankind one step closer to harvesting “solar fuel,” a clean energy source that could one day help replace coal and natural gas.
Lisa M. Utschig, a bioinorganic chemist at Argonne for 20 years, said storing solar energy in chemical bonds such as those found in hydrogen can provide a robust and renewable energy source. Burning hydrogen as fuel creates no pollutants, making it much less harmful to the environment than common fossil fuel sources.
Argonne National Laboratory:
Making fuel from light: Argonne research sheds light on photosynthesis and creation of solar fuel, Jo Napolitano
Figure 1. To squeeze liquid deuterium into its metallic phase, researchers discharged the 2160 capacitors of Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine and sent a precisely shaped 1-μs current pulse that delivered 2 MJ of energy to a target at the machine’s center. The power transmission cables, as big around as small cars, are submerged in oil or deionized water, which serves as an insulator. Electrical arcs that play over the device during discharge, shown here, make for a dazzling display. (Photo by Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories.)
Citation: Phys. Today 68, 9, 12 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.2899
Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Solid State Physics
The world’s strongest pulsed-power source takes a shot at an 80-year-old condensed-matter-physics problem.
Hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe. But that simplicity belies its often unpredictable nature. A case in point: Unlike the alkali metals that sit below it on the periodic table, hydrogen, even in its solid phase, remains a molecular insulator down to the lowest temperatures.
In 1935 Eugene Wigner and Hillard Huntington predicted that squeezing solid hydrogen to a sufficiently high pressure could cause it to shed its molecular bonds and transform into an atomic metal. The race to find the insulator-to-metal transition in hydrogen was on, but it’s turned out to be a marathon rather than a sprint.
High-pressure experiments are notoriously difficult, and ones on hydrogen even more so. Diamond-anvil cells, the go-to equipment for static-compression experiments, are hampered by hydrogen’s tendency to penetrate into the diamond and cause cracks. Dynamic experiments using shock compression reach higher pressures, but they heat the sample to high temperatures and only access specific values of pressure and temperature that depend on the system’s initial state. Still, experimentalists have subjected hydrogen to pressures of 320 GPa using static techniques and 500 GPa using dynamic methods but have not found the metallic phase.
Physics Today: Liquid deuterium pressured into becoming metallic, Sung Chang
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| Graphene turns into a superconductor when decorated with lithium atoms. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Inozemtsev Konstantin) |
Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Graphene, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Phonons, Semiconductor Technology, Superconductors, Solid State Physics, Quantum Mechanics
THIS changes the game! The application to longer life batteries is the first thought that comes to mind. Within semiconductors, we could supplement the physical limitations we're butting up to at the Moore's Law limit with a neat change in the material chemistry used to build the circuitry. A step before and enhancement of carbon nanotubes when they eventually replace them. Exciting times!
The "wonder material" graphene has another significant quality to add to its impressive list of electrical and mechanical properties: superconductivity. Physicists in Canada and Germany have shown that graphene turns into a superconductor when doped with lithium atoms – a result that could lead to a new generation of superconducting nanoscale devices.
Graphene exhibits a range of remarkable properties, thanks to its special structure – a one-atom-thick hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. It is far stronger than steel while also flexible, and is an excellent conductor of both electricity and heat. In its pristine form, however, it is not a superconductor.
Neither is pure graphite, but in 2005 physicists showed that graphite could be made to superconduct when chemically treated, so as to create bulk materials consisting of graphene alternated with one-atom-thick layers of another element. The best performing material thus created, calcium graphite (CaC6), has a superconducting transition temperature of 11.5 K. Theorists identified the underlying mechanism for that superconductivity as electron–phonon coupling. Phonons are vibrations in a material's crystal lattice that bind electrons together into "Cooper pairs" that can travel through the lattice without resistance – one of the hallmarks of superconductivity. It was then realized that such electron–phonon coupling might occur not just in bulk graphite compounds but also by depositing atoms of a suitable element on to single layers of graphene.
Physics World: 'Decorated' graphene is a superconductor, Edwin Cartlidge
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| Architecture About.com: What is a Levee? |
Topics: #BlackLivesMatter, African Americans, Architectural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Global Warming, History, Politics
© 21 September 2005, The Griot Poet
Inspired by the article from Dr. Cornel West: “Exiles from a city and from a nation,” 11 September 2005.
Note: I corrected the spelling of levee in the title and text (it was originally "levy" as a double entendre). On reflection of the carnival barking political times we're in and to avoid the appearance of xenophobia, a preposition and country name were both exchanged from their original versions. The piece still hits powerfully, and clarifies instead of stereotypes, origin of the demand for drugs in this country is this country in total, and no one group in particular.
Dedicated to my cousin from New Orleans, John (Gus) Holmes, Jr., his beautiful family, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina (note: they're all fine, and relocated to another state).
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“When you live so close to death”
You create songs in the French Quarter on Slave Sundays that follow no pattern.
Rhythm set by clap and tambourine; washboard and kettle drum,
Old people hum in accompaniment to a Constantine Christian jubilee celebration of no cotton bailed; no backbreaking labor toiled.
The one suit you own is spoiled from overuse, and your children’s children carry on the tradition of “dress up” to anesthetize their pain.
“When you live so close to death”
The Mississippi delta builds a sediment foundation for your tragicomic pain:
“Laughing to keep from crying” births the blues!
“When you live so close to death”
People of your hue fought and escaped the French back in the day, and each day are turned away each year as they try to escape the death-hole now known as… Haiti.
“When you live so close to death, you live (life a little) more intensely,”
You create order out of chaos, from Massa raping your sisters and mothers to slaves tipping with another man’s lover: “hey baby, can we JAZZ around a little bit”?
Fighting fiercely in mock duels modeled after “southern gentlemen,” feeling disrespected, passing it down from Jazz procreation to your Hip Hop great-grandchildren’s generation as being “dissed”: with the same deadly consequences.
“When you live so close to death”
What are scraps from Massa’s table become culinary creations:
- Craw dads;
- Jambalaya;
- Gumbo;
- Shrimp Creole
- And Etoufée!
“When you live so close to death”
Lead and pollutants they allowed for your kind to warp your minds & drive the I.Q.s of your babies down scarred your psychology
BEFORE the levees broke;
BEFORE the drug flights to America!
“When you live so close to death”
You are not counted; clouded – an invisible majority under the all-mighty shadow of insignificance: exiles in your own country, resembling from years of neglect more “third world” than ninth ward or US citizenry
Hence, their news media in their quest for a ratings spree mislabeled you “refugees.”
Now, suddenly they are on our side, “shocked and awed” back to the reality of their sacred duty to inform the citizenry of a democracy… neglected for five years.
Shocked by the sight of dead bodies marred by dogs and crocodiles, piled in stairwells like logs… floating downstream! It seems perceptions change once you’re beyond a sheltered, suburban political haze, and find YOURSELF for many days
Breathing the stench,
Your own eyes seeing,
Your own ears hearing the gunshots and screams… in this country,
You cannot believe you could stay reasonably SANE…
Living so close to death!
