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Tribalism...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 9, 2017 at 5:30am

Topics: Existentialism, History, Politics

George Washington only served one term. In his farewell address, he warned the new country of breaking up into "factions."

We obviously didn't listen.

We've been factions since the founding of the republic. "All men are created equal" is quite poetic sophistry, since that did not extend to my ancestors of African descent, nor women until the 19th Amendment. Homosexuals were acknowledged only in the early Uniform Code of Military Justice as "bungholery." The only persons that could vote at the founding were property (typically slave) owners.

Now we are here: post the first African American to hold the position in 232 years of the republic, post poll taxes, lynching, KKK terrorism and Jim Crow - apparently, the "good old days." He was followed by a candidate now president that put dog whistle politics through a meat grinder of 140 characters and turned it into a Foghorn; lying brazenly has become performance art; "truthiness" is quaint and nostalgic in comparison to the breathtaking obfuscations we're exposed to on a regular basis from corners we need to trust for the republic to properly function. "Breaking news" is almost oxymoron now.

Now, we're supposed to be calm that the man with the nuclear codes is "new" to the job. At last, my insomnia has a cause to its effect.

The Administrative State

Then we had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.

Shocked, I asked him what he meant.

“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.

I emailed Bannon last week recalling our conversation, telling him that I planned to write about it and asking him if he wanted to comment on or correct my account of it. He responded:

“I don’t remember meeting you and don’t remember the conversation. And as u can tell from the past few days I am not doing media.” [1]

Of course that's a convenient dodge and Snopes says it's unproven. Yet we currently have a few dozen candidates announced for a total of 554 positions. [2] What happens if we have a terrorist attack, or a hurricane, flooding, tornado, earthquake here or abroad? Who indeed is running the joint? [3]
Whether myth or mission: Mission accomplished!

The Administrative State are the norms we've established for ourselves, covered by laws, customs and expectations of common sense. Social media has entered the political arena where every representative from senators, house members and the president are expected to send out something into the Zeitgeist. We are in new territory with this ongoing, morose experiment of government-by-tweet of 140 characters or less.

The sad part is our civics knowledge and civility are both at all-time lows, lost in a translation of atomizing electronics that parrots back to us our tastes in music, customized news feeds; decimating what used to be the "The Common Good." The Republican Party removed any mention of their traditional opposition to Russia in the Ukraine at the designing of their platform before the GOP convention, influenced by the candidate that had been a registered democrat for 65 of his 70 years on the planet, he and his surrogates with more ties to the Kremlin than Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. The "party of patriotism" post the apotheosis of Joe McCarthy is now soft on Commies. Who knew? We live in interesting times.

Missing in the conversation: the Orwellian-named "Crosscheck," AKA Kris Kobach that was designed not to fight the statistically non-existent incidence of voter fraud, but to eliminate voters - especially African and Hispanic/Latino Americans - from the rolls. This was an inside and an outside job.

While we investigate for collusion, we're allowing both games to go on unchecked before the 2018 and 2020 elections. The choice of our own representation is the feature of our imperfect republic. A foreign nation picking our leaders pushes our national self-definition from a federal republic to banana. Nothing about Director Comey's testimony changed any minds, depending what tribe/faction you find yourself in.

"The Russians are [not] coming," Director Comey: they are already, and still here.
"There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party." Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding Union General in the Civil War, 18th president of the United States of America.

1. Steve Bannon, Trump’s Top Guy, Told Me He Was ‘a Leninist’, Ronald Radosh, The Daily Beast
2. Help wanted: Trump administration still has hundreds of jobs to fill, John W. Schoen, CNBC
3. WHO'S RUNNING THE GOVERNMENT? Trump has yet to fill 85% of key executive branch positions, Sonam Sheth, Business Insider

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A new beginning First word Loyalty lesson number one...

Posted by KENNETH E JAMES on June 8, 2017 at 4:59pm

Loyalty is something we all strive for and want from others. Its a big word that carries a lot of weight with it. This place this website this society is where it will begin. Jarvis challenged me so i am answering that call and let see what happens when you are all challenged as well. You see we need each others help not later now! Lets put something to the test lets see what would happen if we all supported each other in our endeavors. Share the knowledge we have with each other to make the whole successful I dare you. We have to build trust in each other and not burn each other that would be too easy. Everyone brings something different to the table that's for sure. I see many groups and forums on here let it be the base to helping each other with coming up together. Just imagine the great writers on here teaming up with the great artists on here to make an awesome book come to life. Now go a step further and team up with the awesome animators and make a great new show together? Share the recognition share the fame You know who you are in each place lets help each out now, not halfway but give it your all alliances could bring out great things in each of us.....I DARE YOU TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS! 

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Confirmed Again...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 8, 2017 at 8:29am
FILE PHOTO: This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the bright star-forming ring that surrounds the heart of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097, a Seyfert galaxy. NASA/ESA/Hubble/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Topics: Astrophysics, Einstein, General Relativity, Gravitational Lensing

The first observation of gravitational microlensing by a star other than the Sun has been reported by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope. Predicted by Albert Einstein as a consequence of his general theory of relativity, gravitational microlensing involves the gravitational field of a star bending light coming from a more distant star. It was first observed during a total eclipse in 1919 by looking for deflections in the positions of stars in parts of the sky next to the Sun. Now, Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in the US and an international team have measured the gravitational lensing of a background star by a white dwarf star called Stein 2051 B. Because the background star is not lined-up perfectly with Earth and Stein 2051 B, a combination of gravitational lensing and Earth's motion around the Sun causes the background star to appear to trace out a loop around Stein 2051 B. Sahu and colleagues mapped its position at five different times in 2013-14 and used this information to calculate the mass of Stein 2051 B. It turns out that astronomers have puzzled over the mass of the white dwarf for over 100 years. It is part of a binary system and the motion of its distant companion suggests that Stein 2051 B has a smaller mass than most white dwarfs, implying that it might have an exotic composition. This recent work, however, suggests that the star has a mass expected for a white dwarf of its radius. The observations will be described in and upcoming paper in Science. [1]

* * * * * * * * * *

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronomers have found a new application for Albert Einstein's century-old theory of relativity - using it to directly measure the size of a star beyond the sun.

In research published on Wednesday, scientists said they used the Hubble Space Telescope to plot minute changes in the path of light coming from a distant background star as it passed by a relatively close target star, known as Stein 2051B.

Researchers applied Einstein's findings to measure how Stein 2051B's gravity warped the background star's light, a phenomenon the physicist predicted more than 100 years ago and a direct means to assess its mass. The technique could be applied to other stars.

"It was like measuring the motion of a little firefly in front of a light bulb from 1,500 miles away," astronomer Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said at a news conference.

The research was presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday and also published in this week's issue of the journal Science. [2]

1. Flash Physics: Bent light reveals stellar mass, amorphous topological insulators, Tibetan Plateau rose rapidly, Sarah Tesh, Physics World2. Einstein's theory provides new technique to size up stars, Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Letitia Stein and Bill Trott, Reuters Science
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Smart Fools...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 7, 2017 at 7:35am
Credit: michaelquirk Getty Images

Topics: Commentary, Education, Politics

BOSTON—At last weekend’s annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) in Boston, Cornell University psychologist Robert Sternberg sounded an alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society. Sternberg, who has studied intelligence and intelligence testing for decades, is well known for his “triarchic theory of intelligence,” which identifies three kinds of smarts: the analytic type reflected in IQ scores; practical intelligence, which is more relevant for real-life problem solving; and creativity. Sternberg offered his views in a lecture associated with receiving a William James Fellow Award from the APS for his lifetime contributions to psychology. He explained his concerns to Scientific American.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

In your talk, you said that IQ tests and college entrance exams like the SAT and ACT are essentially selecting and rewarding “smart fools”—people who have a certain kind of intelligence but not the kind that can help our society make progress against our biggest challenges. What are these tests getting wrong?

Tests like the SAT, ACT, the GRE—what I call the alphabet tests—are reasonably good measures of academic kinds of knowledge, plus general intelligence and related skills. They are highly correlated with IQ tests and they predict a lot of things in life: academic performance to some extent, salary, level of job you will reach to a minor extent—but they are very limited. What I suggested in my talk today is that they may actually be hurting us. Our overemphasis on narrow academic skills—the kinds that get you high grades in school—can be a bad thing for several reasons. You end up with people who are good at taking tests and fiddling with phones and computers, and those are good skills but they are not tantamount to the skills we need to make the world a better place.

What evidence do you see of this harm?

IQ rose 30 points in the 20th century around the world, and in the U.S. that increase is continuing. That’s huge; that’s two standard deviations, which is like the difference between an average IQ of 100 and a gifted IQ of 130. We should be happy about this but the question I ask is: If you look at the problems we have in the world today—climate change, income disparities in this country that probably rival or exceed those of the gilded age, pollution, violence, a political situation that many of us never could have imaged—one wonders, what about all those IQ points? Why aren't they helping?

What I argue is that intelligence that’s not modulated and moderated by creativity, common sense and wisdom is not such a positive thing to have. What it leads to is people who are very good at advancing themselves, often at other people’s expense. We may not just be selecting the wrong people, we may be developing an incomplete set of skills—and we need to look at things that will make the world a better place.

Do we know how to cultivate wisdom?

Yes we do. A whole bunch of my colleagues and I study wisdom. Wisdom is about using your abilities and knowledge not just for your own selfish ends and for people like you. It’s about using them to help achieve a common good by balancing your own interests with other people’s and with high-order interests through the infusion of positive ethical values.

You know, it’s easy to think of smart people but it’s really hard to think of wise people. I think a reason is that we don’t try to develop wisdom in our schools. And we don’t test for it, so there’s no incentive for schools to pay attention.

Is the U.S. Education System Producing a Society of “Smart Fools”? Claudia Wallis, Scientific American

Related links:

Alfred Binet, New World Encyclopedia

The Silicon Valley Billionaires Remaking America’s Schools, Natasha Singer, New York Times

#P4TC related link: TIC...February 17, 2013
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Pushing the Quantum Limit...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 6, 2017 at 7:23am
A zoom in on the Josephson junctions. Two layers of niobium are visible in the image, with the upper film colored blue and the lower film colored red. Josephson junctions are formed in the circular pits (they look a bit like an element of a muffin tin) where the two layers overlap (green). Credit: K. Lehnert/NIST/JILA

Topics: Black Holes, Dark Matter, General Relativity

Here’s a surprising fact: We don’t know what makes up 80 percent of the matter in the universe. I don’t mean that the matter is made of atoms, and we just don’t know which kind of atoms. What I mean is that four-fifths of the universe appears to be made of something that isn’t atoms at all, or more to the point, it’s not made from any of the fundamental particles that we know of.

Why do we think that this mystery matter exists? The short answer is that Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, general relativity, has painted us into a corner. When we look through telescopes at stars and galaxies moving through the universe, something we can’t see is causing their motion to bend in a particular way. Einstein’s theory of gravity tells how much of this invisible mass—physicists call it “dark matter”—there must be to bend the trajectory of things we can see.

Faced with a situation like this, we make guesses (hypotheses) that we hope explain our strange observations. A good hypothesis should both be consistent with every known fact and have other detectable consequences. If we look for these other consequences and don’t find them, we discard or revise our hypothesis.

Somewhat to my surprise, I find myself working on an experiment designed to look for the consequences of a hypothetical dark matter particle known as the axion. This was surprising because physicists, like those in all professions, divide themselves up into distinct sub-fields. Predictably there are rivalries between, and stereotypes associated with, different cultures that build up around the subfields—the rough equivalent of engineering versus sales in the corporate world.

NIST: Pushing the Quantum Limit in the Search for Dark Matter, Konrad Lehnert
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Our Closest Star...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 5, 2017 at 7:34am
An artist's rendering of the newly named Parker Solar Probe spacecraft approaching the sun. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Topics: Astrophysics, Heliophysics, NASA, Research, Solar Flares

It's a mission that's been in the works for nearly 60 years. NASA says it will launch a spacecraft in 2018 to "touch the sun," sending it closer to the star's surface than ever before.

The spacecraft is small – its instruments would fit into a refrigerator — but it's built to withstand temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, all the while maintaining room temperature inside the probe.

"Even though the sun is so close to us, there's actually a lot about it we don't understand," says heat shield lead engineer Betsy Congdon from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Scientists are hoping the data gathered might solve some of the big mysteries about the sun.

NPR: NASA Plans To Launch A Probe Next Year To 'Touch The Sun'Rae Allen Bichell, Merrit Kennedy
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On Stupid...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 2, 2017 at 7:46am
Intellectual Takeout - Bonhoeffer on the ‘Stupidity’ That Led to Hitler’s Rise, Annie Holmquist

Topics: Existentialism, Stochastic Modeling, Politics

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, The Gap, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, National, Grid, Apple, Adobe, Danfoss, Levi Strauss & Co., Mars Incorporated, Hewlett Packard, Enterprise, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Morgan Stanley, Unilever, Tiffany & Co Dignity, Health Ingersoll, Rand, Intel Corporation, PG&E Corporation, Johnson Controls, Royal DSM, The Hartford, Salesforce, Schneider Electric, VF Corporation

“A lot of US businesses are concerned about the potential trade ramifications of a US withdrawal,” Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, the organization that sponsored the full-page ads, told Business Insider. “They think it’s important that the US remain in Paris to ensure them access to the growing clean energy markets around the world, and they see that a US withdrawal could hurt their access to those markets.”

During his time as CEO of Exxon Mobil, Trump’s now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the company supported the agreement.

“At Exxon Mobil, we share the view that the risks of climate change are serious and warrant thoughtful action,” Tillerson said at a speech in 2016. “Addressing these risks requires broad-based, practical solutions around the world.” [1]

We have joined Nicaragua - a country we decimated in the "war on drugs" to arm the Contras and Syria - currently in a meltdown of civil war and refugees - and Russia as now one of four nations opting out of the Paris Climate Accords, hat tip to Pittsburgh.

I have an appreciation that when you talk about the age of the universe and the younger in comparison age of the Earth, humans have a perspective of "I'm from Missouri: I'll believe it when I see it." So, sense we've never SEEN a billion years its hard even with radiometric dating to prove to fellow humans that such an age is...provable.

2050 is 33 years, or a little over a traditional generation away. Non-scientists question actual scientists' stochastic models. President Bannon has reasserted himself by damning generations yet born. [2] Thirty-three years is enough time for incremental changes in the climate to take place and be seen by human eyes either living or born in 2017.

The non-sensational name of the phenomenon is "anthropogenic climate disruption." Despite the list of companies covering two fossil fuel companies and many that use them in either manufacture, power generation or transportation of goods and services, our chief "executive" wants to renegotiate ala his ghostwriter's inaugural tome, obviously to put his stamp on it as his ego won't allow him to follow the policies of his predecessor.

The irony is it will be China that will lead the way in green tech and alternative energy generation because they HAVE to: the very air is the number 1 way of dying in their vast country. [3] They will employ their billions of citizens and leave us in the global dust. [4] This will diversify their economy from electronics to that market, making solar and wind cheaper in comparison. In response to rising seas, they will likely move their populations over that landscape inland as other parts of the planet ponder other options. Lobbyists for the fossil industry (my guess) will make laws to combat the "free market" in this regard, similar to solar being so prohibitive to own in Koch-ruled Oklahoma. [5] Germany, China et al will step forward as well, time's arrow in Entropy points always inexorably to the future...it is only the Neanderthals denying science howling at the moon that revel in the nation's dark past as "ideal."

1. 28 major US companies that don’t want Trump to abandon the Paris agreementVeronika Bondarenko, Business Insider2. Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement, Michael D. Shear, NY Times3. China's Smog Is as Deadly as Smoking, New Research Claims, Feliz Solomon, TIME4. China cementing global dominance of renewable energy and technology, Michael Slezak, The Guardian5. The Koch Brothers' Dirty War on Solar Power, Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone

Related links:

Are You Proud to be an American Today? Charlie Pierce, Esquire MagazineGiant iceberg poised to snap off from Antarctica: scientists, Mariëtte Le Roux, Yahoo! News
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Fifth at the Center...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 1, 2017 at 5:40am

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Cosmology, Einstein, General Relativity

General relativity has stood the test of time. But researchers are still exploring alternatives to the theory, attempting to unify gravity with other forces or to explain observations attributed to dark matter and dark energy. Many of these theories involve an additional force beyond the four known fundamental forces. Now, Andrea Ghez and Aurélien Hees at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-workers, have analyzed the orbits of stars around the Milky Way’s center to derive limits on such a fifth force. While similar constraints had been obtained in weak gravitational fields, this is the first time fifth-force scenarios have been tested in a strong field, such as that created by the supermassive black hole at the center of our Galaxy. [1]

* * * * * * * * * *
Our current understanding of the Universe states that it's governed by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetic, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

But there are hints of a fifth force of nature, and if it exists, we'd not only be able to fill the remaining holes in Einstein's general relativity - we'd have to rethink our understanding of how the Universe actually works. And now physicists have figured out how to put this mysterious force to the ultimate test.

Gravity and the electromagnetic force are on the larger end of the scale - electromagnetic force is needed to keep our molecules together, while gravity is responsible for ensuring that entire galaxies and planets aren't ripped apart.

It's all very neat and sensible, but there's a problem - in a lot of ways, gravity is the 'odd one out' in this very important group.

For one thing, gravity is the last of the four fundamental forces that humans haven't figured out how to produce and control.

It also doesn't appear to explain everything that it should - studies have shown that there's more gravity in our Universe than can be produced by all the visible matter out there. [2]

1. Synopsis: Restricting the Fifth Force, Matteo Rini2. Physicists Are Probing The Centre of Our Galaxy to Find The Missing Fifth Force of Nature,BEC CREW #P4TC related link Fifth Force...May 31, 2016
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Face Huggers to Covenant...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 31, 2017 at 7:01am
The Alien, or xenomorph. Credit: TM & © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Topics: Commentary, Science Fiction, Space Exploration

I was sixteen when my best friend and I saw the first "Alien" movie in Winston-Salem, NC. We jumped, guffawed and were amazed at the special effects and the "Amityville Horror in space" motif. And just like any Earthbound horror flick, we both asked the same question each scene: "what the HELL are you still doing there?" I'm not sure we knew the alien as a xenomorph, just something big, menacing, acid-breathing and ugly.

From the review, they do make a nod to neutrinos and solar sails. Everything is apparently at relativistic speeds that are one day attainable. Prevalent in the movies was the mechanized nature of the spacecraft and the reference to corporations that in a Star Trek universe, gave way to warp drive, world brotherhood, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle-defying replicators, money becoming obsolete; peace, love and phasers.

I was equally surprised to find a review on Physics Today. The quintessential question science fiction repeatedly asks "what does it mean to be human" has in this review the spotlight has been turned in reverse:

"Should we improve on our design?"

"What if our improvement no longer needs us?"

*****Spoiler Alert*****

In 1979 Ridley Scott shocked and delighted filmgoers with Alien, a tense tale of the crew of the spacecraft Nostromo. Despite the movie’s science-fiction theme, the subtext was pretty basic: “It was seven people locked in the old, dark house,” Scott says. “Who’s going to die first, and who’s going to survive?” Buried within the tale were questions about the role of humanity, the human condition, and the hubris of greedy corporations. Those themes were explored more thoroughly by other directors in the action-packed sequels Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien: Resurrection.

When Scott returned to the Alien universe by directing the 2012 prequel, Prometheus, what had been side notes to the horror and action became significant plot points. Prometheus looked more closely at the relationship between humans and our progeny, whether carbon or silicon based, and at how we influence and adapt to our environment. The film pondered the nature of the legacy that humans—or, for the purposes of the movie, a superintelligent alien species—hope to leave when they pass on.

The movie is beautifully filmed by Scott. It is nice to see old-school techniques such as building giant sets instead of using green screens to create a new world. The Covenant’s bridge has 1500 working lights and displays, and the astronaut suits were inspired by modern deep-sea diving suits. The acting, as you would expect from a Scott movie, is top notch; Fassbender (the androids David and Walter) stands out because he has the best lines.

Physics Today: Review: Alien: Covenant is more than an origin storyPaul K. Guinnessy
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Puff N Stuff Planet...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 30, 2017 at 7:33am
An artist’s rendering of KELT-11b, a “Styrofoam-density” planet recently discovered by Lehigh astronomers that orbits a bright star in the Southern Hemisphere. (Image by Walter Robinson/Lehigh University)
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, Space Exploration

Fifth-graders making Styrofoam models of the solar system may have the right idea. Lehigh researchers have discovered a new planet orbiting a star 320 light years from Earth that has the density of Styrofoam. This “puffy planet” outside our solar system may help solve the long-standing mystery of the existence of a population of highly inflated giant planets.

“It is highly inflated, so that while it’s only a fifth as massive as Jupiter, it is nearly 40 percent larger, making it about as dense as Styrofoam, with an extraordinarily thick atmosphere,” said Joshua Pepper, astronomer and assistant professor of physics at Lehigh, who led the study with researchers from Vanderbilt University and Ohio State University, along with researchers at universities and observatories and amateur astronomers around the world.

The research, “KELT-11b: A Highly Inflated Sub-Saturn Exoplanet Transiting the V+8 Subgiant HD 93396,” is published in The Astronomical Journal.

The planet, called KELT-11b, is an extreme version of a gas planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, but is orbiting very close to its host star in an orbit that lasts less than five days. The star, KELT-11, has started using up its nuclear fuel and is evolving into a red giant, so the planet will be engulfed by its star and will not survive the next hundred million years.

Lehigh University: ‘Styrofoam’ Planet May Help Solve Mystery of Giant PlanetsAmy White, Kurt Pfitzer
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Dawn's First Light...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 29, 2017 at 6:43am
Image Source: Link below

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Big Bang, Black Holes, Cosmology, Theoretical Physics

Not long after the Big Bang, all went dark. The hydrogen gas that pervaded the early universe would have snuffed out the light of the universe’s first stars and galaxies. For hundreds of millions of years, even a galaxy’s worth of stars — or unthinkably bright beacons such as those created by supermassive black holes — would have been rendered all but invisible.

Eventually this fog burned off as high-energy ultraviolet light broke the atoms apart in a process called reionization. But the questions of exactly how this happened — which celestial objects powered the process and how many of them were needed — have consumed astronomers for decades.

Now, in a series of studies, researchers have looked further into the early universe than ever before. They’ve used galaxies and dark matter as a giant cosmic lens to see some of the earliest galaxies known, illuminating how these galaxies could have dissipated the cosmic fog. In addition, an international team of astronomers has found dozens of supermassive black holes — each with the mass of millions of suns — lighting up the early universe. Another team has found evidence that supermassive black holes existed hundreds of millions of years before anyone thought possible. The new discoveries should make clear just how much black holes contributed to the reionization of the universe, even as they’ve opened up questions as to how such supermassive black holes were able to form so early in the universe’s history.

In the first years after the Big Bang, the universe was too hot to allow atoms to form. Protons and electrons flew about, scattering any light. Then after about 380,000 years, these protons and electrons cooled enough to form hydrogen atoms, which coalesced into stars and galaxies over the next few hundreds of millions of years.

Starlight from these galaxies would have been bright and energetic, with lots of it falling in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. As this light flew out into the universe, it ran into more hydrogen gas. These photons of light would break apart the hydrogen gas, contributing to reionization, but as they did so, the gas snuffed out the light.
Quanta Magazine: Discoveries Fuel Fight Over Universe’s First LightAshley Yeager
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Ultra Cold and Fermi-Hubbard...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 26, 2017 at 6:24am
Raw fermionic microscope image (left) and processed image showing that spin-up atoms occupy alternating lattice sites as expected in an antiferromagnet. The spin-down atoms have been removed from the image. (Courtesy: A Mazurenko et al. / Nature)

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Optical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Solid State Physics, Superconductors

New insights into a popular and potentially useful model of how electrons behave in solids have been provided by an experiment involving ultracold atoms. Markus Greiner and colleagues at Harvard University in the US studied the behaviour of lithium-6 atoms that are held in an optical lattice and interact according to rules set out by the Fermi-Hubbard model.

They found that the system becomes magnetic at low temperatures – and that the magnetism disappears when the density of atoms is reduced. The team can now use its atomic simulator to explore regimes of the Fermi-Hubbard model that could harbour very interesting physics including high-temperature superconductivity.

The electronic properties of solid materials arise from quantum-mechanical interactions between large numbers of electrons. It is notoriously difficult to calculate these properties, so physicists rely on simple models to simplify the mathematics – but even models have significant computational challenges. One such scheme is the Fermi-Hubbard model, which represents electrons as Fermi–Dirac particles (fermions) that hop between fixed sites on a lattice and only interact with each other when they occupy the same lattice site.

Physics World: Ultracold atoms shed light on the Fermi-Hubbard modelHamish Johnston
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Tabby's Star...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 25, 2017 at 6:32am
Another explanation for the dimming is that KIC 8462852 is surrounded by a swarm of dusty comets.
Topics: Astrophysics, Dyson Sphere, Exoplanets, Kardashev Scale, Kepler Telescope, SETI

Astronomers and alien life enthusiasts alike are buzzing over the sudden dimming of an otherwise unremarkable star 1300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. KIC 8462852 or “Tabby’s star” has dimmed like this several times before, prompting some researchers to suggest that the megastructures of an advanced alien civilization might be blocking its light. And now—based on new data from numerous telescopes—it’s doing it again.

“This is the first clear dip we have seen since [2013], and the first we have ever caught in real time,” says Jason Wright, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University in State College. If they can rope in more telescopes, astronomers hope to gather enough data to finally figure out what’s going on. “This could be the first of several dips about to come,” says astronomer David Kipping of Columbia University. “Many observers will be closely watching.”

KIC 8462852 was first noticed to be dipping in brightness at seemingly random intervals between 2011 and 2013 by NASA’s Kepler telescope. Kepler, launched to observe the stellar dimmings caused when an exoplanet passes in front of its star, revealed that the dimming of Tabby’s star was much more erratic than a typical planetary transit. It was also more extreme, with its brightness sometimes dropping by as much as 20%. This was not the passage of a small circular planet, but of something much larger and more irregular.

Science Mag: Star that spurred alien megastructure theories dims againDaniel Clery

#P4TC related links

Needle In A Haystack...October 19, 2015Occam's Razor...February 8, 2016
Read more…

Sleuthing Antimatter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 24, 2017 at 7:31am
Two white dwarfs head toward a collision in this artist’s illustration. New research suggests that the Milky Way's preponderance of positrons could come from a specialized type of supernova from colliding low-mass white dwarfs — an explosion that is difficult to detect, but rich in an isotope that generates this kind of antimatter.

Credit: NASA/Tod Strohmayer (GSFC)/Dana Berry (Chandra X-Ray Observatory)
Topics: Antimatter, Astrophysics, High Energy Physics

The majority of antimatter that pervades the Milky Way may come from clashing remnants of dead stars, a new study finds.

The work may solve a 40-year-old astrophysics mystery, the study's researchers said.

For every particle of normal matter, there is an antimatter counterpart with the opposite electrical charge but the same mass. The antiparticle of the negatively charged electron, for instance, is the positively charged positron. [Will Antimatter Power the First Starships?]

When a particle meets its antiparticle, they annihilate each other, giving off a burst of energy. A gram of antimatter annihilating a gram of matter would release about twice the amount of energy as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

More than 40 years ago, scientists first detected that the kind of gamma-rays that are given off when positrons are annihilated were being emitted from all around the galaxy. Their findings suggested that 10^43 positrons — that's a 1 with 43 zeroes behind it — were being annihilated in the Milky Way every second. Oddly, most of these positrons were detected in the galaxy's central bulge rather than its outer disk, even though the bulge hosts less than half of the Milky Way's mass.

Charles Q. Choi
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Aluna's Encounter: The Fissure

Posted by Lauren on May 23, 2017 at 1:13pm

I planted my feet firmly on the ground. I never felt more connected to the planet where I stood than where I was right then in that moment. I took in a large, deep breath. It felt like I was breathing in the essence of crisp fresh snow.

And then I released.

This part of the plateau no one was allowed near. Off to the distance, I could see our city, Sheba, the buildings were made of gold and the streets were littered with diamonds and gems.

I zipped my jacket up and hid behind a large rock and waited.

The reason why people weren't allowed out this far from Sheba was because of the instability of the terrain. The scientists said that our world sometimes would converge with another world; a more dangerous world.

But this terrain was also where the agents came in and out of around this time of the evening. I wanted to see who they were bringing back this time.

A crackling of lightning and static happened and immediately two agents appeared with a boy in their arms, not much older than me 15 or maybe 16?

"Aluna! Call for help!" my older cousin Ndulu commanded me.

I guess my hiding spot wasn't so great at all, I was scared to call for help because I knew I would get into trouble but as I dialed the number on my cell phone the boy began to speak.

He struggled to speak, Ndulu's girlfriend Kissa placed her hand on the boy's chest and sung to him.

The blood pouring out of his body stopped but he was still dying. Kissa had harnessed the power of her voice to heal but it was a minor fix.

The doctors arrived quickly and performed emergency surgery on the young boy right there on the plateau. They made me help, I thought for certain I would be yelled at or chastised but I wasn't.

We were there for hours. Finally, when he was stable and the doctor's felt like he was in the clear to be moved. He lifted his hand, he was pointing behind me. Another crackle, another distortion in the air, I could only hear the wind and I was gone.

Read the Rest of Part One

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Myth of Perfection...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 23, 2017 at 10:00am
Researchers are trying to extract DNA from skeletons buried in the ancient Philistine cemetery of Ashkelon, in what is now Israel.

Topics: Biology, Diversity, Existentialism, Politics

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.” ― Stephen Hawking

- The first Miss Japan of color, Ariana Miyamoto (her father an African American serviceman) reluctantly wears the racist assigned pejorative "Hafu" (half).

- A 60-ish year old black man - Timothy Caughman - killed by a white supremacist who drove up from Maryland to kill any random black man he could find in New York City (judging from the picture, it could have been me easily on any given day).

- A young man - Richard Collins III - commissioned a second lieutenant in the US Army was stabbed to death two days before his graduation from Bowie State University at the University of Maryland by the same, demented twisted ideology (alt-Reich).

- Dylaan Roof (whose name it disgusts me mentioning) has been sentenced to death for killing 9 African American church members...during a traditional Wednesday night prayer meeting, their "sin" - merely existing on the planet.

From jihadists to white supremacists, each demented group is motivated by a bizarre "utopia" that they either want to "get back to" or establish a divine kingdom on Earth that will somehow magically spring forth after the Ragnarok their sick minds project online and in dark printed media. It will somehow thereafter "lasts forever," the carnage replaced by rose petals, rainbows and butterflies; built on the bones of the dead they've damned for skin color, religion, sexual orientation or miscegenation.

NEVER MIND that no one else the DSM-V Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines as SANE share their ideology, or by the sin of breathing and existing somehow screws up their entire self-concept of superiority to all other humanoid life forms not by any superior effort, but some "divine" light pigmentation; twisted interpretation of particular scriptures or farting without a whiff of methane.

The fact that we are HERE...sentient, THINKING and creating; moving, loving and living out our lives should be enough specialness without applying "other"; "them"; "outsiders"; "infidels" and other demeaning epithets that makes murder so easy for other humans to accomplish on one another. It is a goosestep march of psychopaths.

I am currently disgusted with my species. The wrong animals are in the zoo.

When the first busloads of migrants from Syria and Iraq rolled into Germany 2 years ago, some small towns were overwhelmed. The village of Sumte, population 102, had to take in 750 asylum seekers. Most villagers swung into action, in keeping with Germany’s strong Willkommenskultur, or “welcome culture.” But one self-described neo-Nazi on the district council told The New York Times that by allowing the influx, the German people faced “the destruction of our genetic heritage” and risked becoming “a gray mishmash.”

In fact, the German people have no unique genetic heritage to protect. They—and all other Europeans—are already a mishmash, the children of repeated ancient migrations, according to scientists who study ancient human origins. New studies show that almost all indigenous Europeans descend from at least three major migrations in the past 15,000 years, including two from the Middle East. Those migrants swept across Europe, mingled with previous immigrants, and then remixed to create the peoples of today.

Using revolutionary new methods to analyze DNA and the isotopes found in bones and teeth, scientists are exposing the tangled roots of peoples around the world, as varied as Germans, ancient Philistines, and Kashmiris. Few of us are actually the direct descendants of the ancient skeletons found in our backyards or historic homelands. Only a handful of groups today, such as Australian Aborigines, have deep bloodlines untainted by mixing with immigrants.

“We can falsify this notion that anyone is pure,” says population geneticist Lynn Jorde of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Instead, almost all modern humans “have this incredibly complex history of mixing and mating and migration.”

Science Mag: There's no such thing as a 'pure' European—or anyone else
Ann Gibbons

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MG Hardie's THEM Takes Humanity to That Sunken Place

Posted by MG Hardie on May 23, 2017 at 9:00am
THEM by MG Hardie opens with the protagonist running for his life through a murky swamp. His clothes burned and his pursuer closing in on him. The novel takes the reader through a collapsing cave to South American sights and sounds to ocean depths to African castles to Middle Eastern villages.
 
“THEM starts deep and hard and continues in this vane, it’s thoughtful and fast. The insights into the human condition and the system had me asking myself questions and staying up late to finish reading. This is no normal superhero novel, Devon is more like Captain America, with a masters in law. The final scene is as in depth and thought provoking as any book I’ve ever read.”- http://www.jeremypoole.net/blog/-book-review-them-by-mg-hardie
"The way MG Hardie achieved that balance between story moving forward and philosophy reminds me of Richard Bach and Michael Crichton books...this one had me hooked." - Corey at Carbor Reviews
 
 
Alongside world travel are supernatural battles and explorations of social and political issues. In THEM, Hardie takes unflinching looks at complex issues such as the moral ramifications of violence, along with the nature of history, with themes of redemption, and belief. 
 
MG Hardie's THEM poses the question: Does talent, hard work, or fate determine who gets the contract, the promotion, the gig, or the role? Or it's THEM...
 
 
In Paperback and Ebook on May 23
 
Listen to chapter 1 of THEM by MG Hardie for free.
 
THEM review video
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Free Everywhere including Amazon

Posted by Larry Johnson on May 22, 2017 at 7:30pm

Excerpt from Terror on Telderan


"Walls of the great chamber where alliance meetings were held were covered with fine priceless art gathered from various galaxies through the years. Soft blue lighting emanating from the oval table lit the room.
Lazon’s Apex was the first to arrive, his long tan robe fluttered behind him as he briskly approached his seat at the head of the oval glass table. Shortly after his arrival the Emperor of Natropi entered the chamber, he was followed by King Ashnar of Deltor, Elder Manook from the planet Tygalon, King Zerlious of Xanar, and the Supreme Ruler of the water planet Nep’o. One by one the members entered the room, greeted each other and sat down on one of the gray high back chairs. Each chair was equipped with a panel concealing buttons and switches allowing members to vote or view images on the glass table in front of them. When the sixteenth member took his seat the Apex glanced over at the empty chair once occupied by the ruler of Otar and began the meeting."
 

          Smashwords

          http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9290

          Barnes and Knoble

          http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/terror-on-telderan-lawrence-johnson-sr/1020987242?type=eBook

          Amazon Kindle

           Terror on Telderan: Prequel to Escape 2 Earth (Escape 2 Earth Short Story Series)

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The mystery of Black people and futuristic movies

Posted by KENNETH E JAMES on May 22, 2017 at 6:28pm

Have you ever wondered about the mystery of the human race and the so called evolution of people in according to movies? I have seen many movies and love the science fiction genre but i always tend to wonder how i don't know how many times where in the blazes black people went. Did we all die off first? Were we like the game show the Weakest link? Did we all die off first like in every movie if so the animal kingdom is prejudiced and seriously love them some dark meat. Did white people turn into cannibals and eat us all like chicken? Exactly what happens to us in all of the movies and shows television shows alike. Did we all turn on each other and tear each other apart? Somebody has got to have an answer out there or am i just tripping. And lets talk superheroes.....Really??? Does everyone have to have Black in front of their name?? Black Lightning!Black Goliath! The Black Panther!!!! Dun dun dun!!!!! Hello where are the Latino heroes? No where in every movie they are either dirt poor in the hood or drug dealers for some cartel with a cliche background of drugs or gang raised. And not a father figure to be found Really???? Why are all of the portrayals negative? So what did they catch that disease too and die off with us in the future? Last week i saw a post on FB of a 14 year old black student graduating from college the youngest ever! Where are all of these bright stars now like him. Did somebody just tuck them away somewhere and experiment on them in a lab or something? Why haven't we changed things yet? Why are we the most of the homeless in america? Why are we the most unemployed in America? Why are we not more successful in business and life then we are. And why is it that when we think we have arrived we shut the door on where we came from and pretend we don't belong to our past by not helping anyone else to get there? It's not really that difficult to see when you step away and think about it. I thought about this for a long time as i traveled the world in the military. Being away makes you think about home a lot and reflect on your experiences and life while away. Things like why someone like Terry Crews hasn't even been considered for a superhero role i mean seriously everyone in Hollywood has to go through hell in training to look like that and he is that way everyday of the year. What about Michael Jai White? Have you seen Blood and Bone turn that man loose and give him a suit! He could actually kick everybody else's butt without breaking a sweat! So tell me why hasn't anyone written something that he could take on and own? Its simple because the people who own Hollywood don't want it so what do we do? Why hasn't anyone done anything about it yet? Producers? Black producers and heavyweights in Hollywood?? Why do we mistrust each other so much that we cant pull this off? Its laughably easy to do so why haven't we? Is everyone that jaded that they wont work as a team for not even one thing to work? Is our pride that bad that we cant support each other? Did we forget where we came from like our moms used to say? My mom died a couple of years ago and her words of wisdom are like gold to me now. Things haven't changed a bit if they only knew and understood that the money they spent on those new shoes would buy stock in the same companies and the long term would get them the credit and cash they need to live by. There is a way.... to be continued tomorrow.

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Xenophobia...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 22, 2017 at 6:00am
Image Source: CBS News - Collateral Damage, Bill Whitaker
Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Women in Science

Realizing espionage is the focus of our current national angst in the last election, this is more than a bit over-the-top and would have occurred in the last administration. Vetting as well as protecting our intellectual property is important, but the motivation for this comes from an ethnic nationalism birthed in bigotry, an ugliness that has always existed, but we've never fully admitted about our national selves.

A nation of immigrants is becoming what almost doomed us in WWII: isolationists. The "good old days" many want to magically return to they forget is when the US became a part of and major driver of the world order. That also entailed the embrace of immigrants like Professor Einstein et al.

Going forward for our continued success, it still does.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

*         *         *         *         *

Last August a headline in this media-analysis venue charged, “Journalists scant scientists’ ethnic-profiling accusation against the federal government.” With exceptions, reporters and editors were generally overlooking injustices perpetrated against scientists, including National Weather Service hydrologist Xiafen “Sherry” Chen and Xiaoxing Xi, who is a fellow of the American Physical Society and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Physics at Temple University. The piece criticized media inattention to unfounded, abortive criminal prosecutions that devastated the US citizens’ lives.

As of 12 May 2017, that media criticism from August still stands. Xi and Chen are still struggling, and although new information has arisen in their cases, most journalists continue scanting it. Again, with a few exceptions, there’s been little coverage of the March administrative hearing in which Chen sought to get her job back or of Xi’s May lawsuit against an FBI agent.

Among the silent so far in 2017 has been CBS. But in May 2016, the network introduced a 60 Minutes segment by recalling an earlier report that illuminated the source of the harmful federal zeal. The Justice Department, CBS reported, saw a “national security emergency” costing hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese espionage intended to “rip off American trade secrets and intellectual property.” CBS described a government effort to fight back aggressively with a dragnet strategy that wasn’t “just catching Chinese spies” but was “ensnaring a growing number of Americans who aren’t spies at all.”

Steven T. Corneliussen
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