QuantumMechanicsDemystified

Calculus e-Book

2010-02-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

Video about new calculus book

Learn about a new book called “calculus without limits” that’s going to revolutionize your understanding of calculus. This book uses a plain-English writing style combined with detailed step-by-step problem solutions to show you how to do calculus problems. It might be the only study guide you’ll ever need, ending frustration saving time and helping you pass calculus. It’s great as a textbook supplement, for college or AP courses, or for self-study.

Let’s face it-calculus sucks for a lot of people. Its hard and confusing, and its frustrating. But what if someone would just show you the exact steps required to solve any problem?

Calculus without limits teaches in plain-English. Its an easy to understand problem solving based review of all topics in first year calculus.

Covers limits
Derivatives
Integration
Infinite series and differential equations

Each section features complete step by step solutions of the same problems you’ll see on homework and exams. Here’s a chapter by chapter breakdown. Each chapter is written in plain-English, with a get-in, get-out approach to explanations, and a focus on showing you solved problems.

Chapter 1 reviews functions and graphing
chapter 2 covers computing limits
The next two chapters cover differentiation
The next chapters are packed with solved integration problems
covers definite and indefinite integration
integration by u-substitution
integration by parts
integration using partial fractions
trig substitution
integration of trig function and powers of trig functions
integrating exponentials, natural log, and inverse trig functions
then its on to sequences and series
learn the basics about sequences and series
see how to do convergence tests
learn about power and taylor series
the final chapter covers ordinary differential equations

So whats it cost? Calculus without limits is $27.Compared to your average calculus book-that can cost more than a hundred dollars, that’s dirt cheap.And calculus without limits is available for instant download-you can have it in 30 seconds, read it online or print it out.

calculus without limits

Calculus Book Now Available on Amazon

2009-09-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

Calculus without Limits is now available as a hard copy on Amazon.com.

Click this link for more info:

Calculus without Limits

Calculus App for iPhone

2009-08-31T17:40:00.001-07:00

Calculus Test is a new app for the iphone that drills you on calculus problem. Test your knowledge of limits, derivatives, indefinite integrals, definite integrals, the chain rule, integration by parts, u-substitution, and more using this handy iphone app.

Tap limit, derivative, or integral and a problem is randomly selected and displayed for you to solve. Solve it, then tap "Answer" and in flash card format, the screen view flips to reveal the answer.

This simple drill program is great to help you get ready for your calculus exams, whether its college calculus or the dreaded AP Calculus exam. Also great for those who want to learn calculus through self-study.

Calculus Test Drill app for iPhone

New Calculus e-Book

2009-08-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

I am putting together a calculus book for instant download. This book covers first-year college calculus including

Computing Limits
The Derivative
Derivatives of polynomials, exponential, and log functions
Derivatives of trig functions
Product, quotient, and chain rules
Definite and indefinite integrals, Riemmann sums
Integration by u-substitution
Trig substitution, partial fractions, and integration of rational functions
Integration of trig functions, hyperbolic functions, exponentials, and logarithmic functions
Integration by parts
Indeterminate forms and L'Hopitals Rule
Sequences and infinite series

The approach used is to provide a large number of solved examples. The complete package is $27. To learn more visit:

Calculus Without Limits

Also, keep your eye out for Calculus Test, an iphone Calculus flash card iphone App that acts as a companion to the e-Book.

Math Art T-Shirts and More on Zazzle.com

2009-08-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

Math and Science related items on zazzle.com.

Alert: Large Earth Collider May Destroy Earth

2008-12-19T13:07:00.001-08:00

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/scientists_warn_large_earth

New Energy Revolution-NOT

2008-12-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

Randy Mills with his company "Blacklight Power" has been claiming for years he can generate power by putting hydrogen atoms in a "state below the ground state". As anyone who has studied quantum physics knows, you can't put a hydrogen atom in any energy state lower than the ground state. Its not physically possible and would violate the laws of quantum physics as we know it. Those laws have been repeatedly tested and verified to higher and higher precision over the past hundred+ years, and the theory of quantum mechanics is completely solid, so why should anyone believe this nonsense?

Apparently the goons at CNN don't care about the details of quantum theory. They'd rather get happy about Blacklight power's claim to no CO2 emissions, cheap power, 200 times more powerful than burning gasoline or coal. All based on a pseudo-scientific claim. CNN is supposed to be a news organization so they should have consulted some leading scientists in this report.

Blacklight Power

Hubble Photographs Extra Solar Planets

2008-11-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

The Hubble Space Telescope was used to take a photograph of a planet orbiting another star, the first such photograph made. Its just a white dot in the picture, but its an astounding achievement.

Read About it on the NY Times

Michael Crichton Dies

2008-11-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

Bad news from the NY Times: Science fiction author Michael Chrichton has died.

Michael Crichton, the author of the blockbuster science-fiction novels “Jurassic Park,” “The Andromeda Strain” and “State of Fear,” has died. He was 66. An obituary will follow on nytimes.com.
UPDATE: Mr. Crichton’s family has issued the following statement:
“Best-selling author Michael Crichton died unexpectedly in Los Angeles Tuesday, November 4th after a courageous and private battle against cancer.
While the world knew him as a great story teller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us — and entertained us all while doing so — his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes. He did this with a wry sense of humor that those who were privileged to know him personally will never forget.
Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand.
He will be profoundly missed by those whose lives he touched, but he leaves behind the greatest gifts of a thirst for knowledge, the desire to understand, and the wisdom to use our minds to better our world.
Michael’s family respectfully asks for privacy during this difficult time.
A private funeral service is expected, but no further details will be released to the public.”

Advances in Neuroscience

2008-11-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

I have to say one of the worst things that could happen to a person is paralysis. Even worse than that, how about ALS ("Lou Gherig's Disease"). Physics buffs are probably familiar with this disease from Stephen Hawking-and Kudos to him for having made a very productive life that took him well above his circumstances. But that disease totally sucks.

A cure has always seemed far off, but some recent advances in neuroscience that might be more akin to bioengineering have given some hope that might at least make the disease not so devastating. Scientists have been working on letting patients use the mind to manipulate objects-computers, wheel chairs and the like. This is a huge development, while it certainly isn't what an ALS sufferer would like-to have their body functional again, at least it gives them a window to the world and some level of control they could never have had before. These exciting developments are profiled in the 60 minutes video you can watch by clicking below.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Are humans still evolving?

2008-11-04T08:08:00.001-08:00

The other day I stumbled on a post about the question of whether or not humans are still evolving. To put this question on the table, you are talking about the Darwinian type natural selection where offspring are put out there and some are more fit to reproduce than others. Over time this leads to changes in the species.

An alternative or perhaps complimentary view is "punctuated equilibrium". The basic idea is that a species reaches an equilibrium state where it basically remains unchanged for a long period of time. Then some dramatic or catastrophic event happens separating members of the species into isolated populations, and from there new species evolve. This makes a lot of sense to me, I have no doubt this is at least part of the way that species evolve.

In modern humans I have a hard time believing traditional Darwinian evolution has much if any influence. Here is a basic fact: in the modern world, just about anyone can reproduce. The picture put forward by Darwin of more offspring than can possibly survive leading to changes in the species simply does not exist in humans anymore.

Medical advances have ensured that infant survival is much higher than it was in the past. Moreover, medical advances have also ensured that survival of mothers during and after birth is much higher than it was in the past. Infant mortality can certainly be improved (in particular in the United States among industrialized nations) but the plain fact is a baby in modern society has a very good chance of surviving to adulthood. The days of a mom having 7 kids where only 2 made it to adulthood are long gone.

Getting to my other point, like I said the bottom line is anyone can reproduce. Sure maybe some people have trouble "getting laid" in high school but this is a problem that goes away in adulthood. Its almost like a cliche-there is somebody out there for everyone. It doesn't matter if you're fat, skinny, tall, short, dark, light, blonde, brunette, bald or have all your teeth-if you want to you can find someone to have kids with-despite the difficulties a committed relationship might entail. You might have to hit your local trailer park if you're lacking in teeth-but the reality is even then you're going to get lucky sometime.

This brings me to another point. If Darwinian evolution is at work, then what traits are being selected for in human populations? Is it intelligence? I think we can agree that intelligence is certainly a quality that contributes (but does not guarantee) to success. A person with high intelligence is likely to attain higher education, leading to a higher paying job which in Darwinian terms contributes to the acquisition of more resources. But does this lead to more reproduction? The answer in modern humans is probably not. In fact its actually the people in the slums and trailer parks who are actually reproducing more. This may be partly due to choice-an upscale lawyer can choose to have sex while using birth control while a teenager living in low class circumstances may not bother with it. So the teenager might end up having 5 kids while the lawyer has 1, 2, or maybe none.

Medical intervention has made a lot of physical characteristics that might have contributed to Darwinian evolution in the past has now become irrelevant. Suppose that a person has a tendency to succumb to bacterial infections (say ear infections) more so than the general population. Two hundred years ago, that person might have died in childhood from a runaway bacterial infection. Now, in the vast majority of cases a quick trip to the doctor and you're cured. The person who would not have passed on their genes in previous generations now makes it to adulthood where they can reproduce. Eyeglasses are another example that is commonly given. If you could not see ten thousand years ago, well that could be a real problem. Not today where anyone in a modern society can get their eyesight corrected and survive quite well into old age. So near blindness is not a selection factor for reproduction anymore.

I think the bottom line is most of us born in a modern society can be assured of making it to adulthood if not to old age. Reproductive access is also reasonable for the vast majority of people, these days if people don't reproduce its usually by choice. So has the human species stopped evolving? I would say definitely yes.

I love Global Warming

2008-11-03T20:50:00.001-08:00

When it comes to global warming, its time to face up to the fact that we're going to enjoy warmer temperatures.

I Love Global Warming

Practical Physics News

2008-10-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

These days physics often seems far removed from reality-black holes, worm holes, particles being in two places at once, 10 spatial dimensions. So its a pleasant surprise that physicists at UCLA have found a new dramatic application for the scotch tape in your kitchen drawer: generating x-rays.

When the tape is peeled removing the adhesive-electrons are released generating electric currents. In the photo to the left you're seeing visible light emission from these electrons. It turns out they also emit x-rays, so many that its possible to x-ray a human finger. I was about to try an experiment and x-ray my painful tooth but that's on hold because apparently you have to do this in a vacuum.

OK here is the kicker-physicist Seth Putterman says the process could be used for nuclear fusion. I'm a bit skeptical about that given the history of table top fusion attempts so far. You can read the details here:

From a Strip of Scotch Tape, X-rays

Models or Reality?

2008-10-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

When I was a naive student first getting interested in physics, I was awed by its predictive power and took the theories themselves to be reality. On the blog Cosmic Variance Sean Carroll promotes this viewpoint when he writes:

"Right and wrong aren’t parts of the fundamental description of reality. That description has to do with wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics, not with ethical principles. That is what the world is made of, at a deep level."

This is exactly how I used to think about things. Lately though, I have become more of a positivist. This is the viewpoint that scientific theories are just models. A good model makes predictions that agree with experiment. The fact that the models often change with time as better data or ideas come to the fore shows that its naive to take the models as absolute descriptions of reality. For a simple example you might consider the Bohr atom. If you recall, Bohr thought of the atom as a little solar system, with the nucleus playing the role of the sun and electrons occupying fixed orbits at different distances from the nucleus. As they jumped from one orbit to another, they emitted or absorbed photons of light.

We now know an atom isn't quite like that, and that instead the wave function of the electron allows us to make probabilistic predictions as to where the electron will be found. Each orbit is described by a different wave function, giving the "electron cloud" picture of the atom. The Bohr model of the atom, even though it agrees with a lot of experimental data, isn't real.

The positivist would say that the electron cloud is no more reality than Bohr's atom was. It simply makes better predictions. At our current level of technology and predictive capability, it seems to work perfectly. But that doesn't mean that in the future a better model of the atom won't come about. And-despite its drawbacks-the Bohr model of the atom actually works quite well in many circumstances. In nuclear engineering its often if not always adequate enough to think of the atom in terms of Bohr's picture. On the other hand, if you're doing quantum chemistry then you need to think in terms of the electron cloud model.

This goes to show that taking "wave functions" and "Hilbert space" to be reality itself is a naive viewpoint. Wave functions and Hilbert space are just tools that allow scientists to make predictions. They are good tools to be sure, but confusing a good tool that exists on paper and only in the minds of arrogant physics professors to be fundamentally real is an extremely naive approach to life.

The positivist viewpoint makes a lot more sense. Stephen Hawking summed it up well in his best seller A Brief History of Time when he wrote:

"Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes."

At the time I read this back in 1990, I was disappointed Hawking felt this way. Now with some maturity under my belt I realize that this is a far better description of what science does than taking some equations on a blackboard-which are good, useful tool to be sure-to really be reality itself.

Progress in ALS Research

2008-10-20T21:58:00.001-07:00

Lou Gherig's disease is a horrible illness. The best science fiction writer couldn't come up with something as bad as losing your ability to move everything except maybe your eyeballs, while you stay locked-up, fully conscious in your prison of a body. Offering any kind of treatment for this debilitating disease would be a big breakthrough in medical science that would help people who really suffer-so this story caught my attention.

Swamping Bad Cells With Good In ALS Animal Models Helps Sustain Breathing

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2008) — In a disease like ALS - one that's always fatal and that has a long history of research-resistant biology - finding a proof of principle in animal models is significant.

This week, Johns Hopkins researchers report that transplanting a new line of stem cell-like cells into rat models of the disease clearly shifts key signs of neurodegenerative disease in general and ALS in particular - slowing the animals' neuron loss and extending life.

The new work supports the hypothesis that artificially outnumbering unhealthy cells with healthy ones in targeted parts of the spinal cord preserves limb strength and breathing and can increase survival.

Read the rest on Science Daily

Opera about the making of the Atomic Bomb

2008-10-20T20:09:00.001-07:00

The Terror and Attraction of Science, Put to Song
By DENNIS OVERBYE

Is it the horror or the beauty that makes science cool?

Sometimes it seems as if horror is the only story that science has to tell, or the only one we want to hear. Somebody has a gadget they have to build, an experiment too sweet to resist, forces they need to probe, regardless of the consequences. Think of Eve with her apple, Frankenstein with his monster, a stock trader with a foolproof get-rich-quick scheme.

I shouldn’t have to tell you that it usually ends badly.

The tug of war between beauty and horror is the theme of “Doctor Atomic,” the opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars about the building of the atomic bomb, which opened last week at the Metropolitan Opera. It stars Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant philosopher-king of the secret society of scientists and engineers who were plucked from academia and assembled on a New Mexico mesa during World War II and told to make a bomb before the Germans did — a man as sung by Mr. Finley equally in love with the Bomb and his own inscrutability.

The opera follows events on two nights — one in June and then on the eve of July 16 during the countdown to the first test explosion at Alamogordo amid lightning and rain — as the scientists wrestle with doubts about whether “the Gadget,” as they refer to the bomb, will work, or work too well, setting the atmosphere on fire, and whether it should be dropped on humans.

As a love-starved Kitty Oppenheimer, sung by Sasha Cooke, sings, “Those who most long for peace now pour their lives on war.”

“Doctor Atomic” was surely born on the dark side of science mythology. Pam Rosenberg, then director of the San Francisco Opera, wanted to do an opera about an American Faust, namely Oppenheimer, whose life certainly seemed to follow a tragic trajectory. Wealthy, articulate and effortlessly fluent in far-flung domains of learning and culture, he was the young American prince of the new science of quantum mechanics as well as a bohemian and a pal of communists (his brother Frank and his ex-lover Jean Tatlock). Less than a decade after he was hailed as the deliverer of Promethean fire and the symbol of American science, Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance and banished from government circles.

Read the rest on the NY Times

It from Bit Speculations

2008-10-19T11:39:00.001-07:00

Last night after watching some B. Allan Wallace lectures, I was wondering about the nature of consciousness. I am wondering if in some sense our consciousness (or the consciousness of anything) simply fundamentally exists in some sense, at least as information. Let's imagine a thought experiment. Suppose for the sake of argument that the technology existed where you could scan the atoms that make up a person, and any other information that might be relevant like say their energy states. Who knows how this could be done, lets say quantum computers turn out to be workable and that someday they have this capability. Furthermore lets say for the sake of argument that a memory device (maybe a quantum memory) is capable of storing all of this information for retrieval later.

So in the year 2050 a woman (we'll call her Betty) is scanned and her data saved. Now suppose that technology has also advanced enough so that we could read the information and assemble the atoms together into the same state as Betty in 2050. Suppose this is done in the year 2150 long after Betty has died.

It would seem to me that for all intensive purposes, if you could do this-arrange the same types of atoms/molecules together in the same state as Betty in 2050, the recreated Betty 100 years later would be completely indistinguishable from the original. I can't think of any scientific test that could be done even in principle that would tell you it wasn't really Betty, just a copy. So why not just say it is the original Betty? This would be a scientifically implemented resurrection.

What this says is that consciousness is more of an informational phenomenon, and in some sense it already exists in the universe and always exists provided the energy is there to do these sorts of things (i.e. arrange atoms together in the right way). In other words, the woman I've named Betty in the particular state she is in at some moment in 2050 including her conscious awareness is a packet of information. Rearrange the right atoms into the same state at any time in the history of the universe where it is plausible (not in the distant future when everything has decayed away though), that state is recreated and so is the consciousness that goes along with it.

You could ask what if we recreate Betty on the spot. Of course you couldn't do it instantly, no matter how advanced technology got there would be some finite time required to scan an organism and then construct the duplicate. So what would happen to Betty's consciousness then? Would it somehow split? Or is consciousness distinct and evolving, in other words you aren't really the same consciousness you were 2 seconds ago.

Maybe in the distant future it would be possible to even recreate previous states of the universe in some kind of quantum simulation. Then it might be possible for an infinitely advanced civilization to resurrect the past including its living inhabitants. Where would all this information be stored? In Hilbert space of course.

B. Allan Wallace on Consciousness

2008-10-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

SPEAKING OF CONSCIOUSNESS one of my favorite scholars in the area is B. Allan Wallace. The guy simply blows me away with his genius. He has a degree in physics and has studied neurosciences and is also a Buddist monk. A brilliant man with a lot of thoughts regarding the ultimate problem in science: consciousness.

John Hagelin on Consciousness

2008-10-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite subjects is consciousness. I think it is the ultimate question in science. I actually spent some time in neuropsychology and worked in a research lab-and came away thinking that neuroscientists have no idea whatsoever what consciousness is about. Saying its "emergent" from "complexity" is a big non-explanation.

Anyway so the debate over John Hagelin (TM Fame) over on Not Even Wrong led me to these YouTube videos which include interviews with Hagelin. Honestly I don't think Hagelin is all that wacky. Some of his thoughts actually make more sense than reductionist biology which has completely failed to explain how consciousness has arisen from the brain (hint: explaining what brain cells are responsible for vision does not explain why there is an entity inside my head WATCHING the show).

More on the Creation Museum

2008-10-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

Here the wacko Ken Ham debates physicist/cosmologist Lawrence Krauss on Fox "News" about the creationist museum and some more Ken Ham related videos.

The Quantum-Classical Connection

2008-10-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest conundrums in modern physics is how does the classical world arise from the random and bizarre quantum world of superpositions and entanglement? Some light may have been shed on the issue by two mathematicians:

Mathematicians Illuminate Deep Connection Between Classical And Quantum Physics

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2008) — In a seminar co-organized by Stanford University and the American Institute of Mathematics, Soundararajan announced that he and Roman Holowinsky have proven a significant version of the quantum unique ergodicity (QUE) conjecture.

Read the full story on Science Daily

Creationist Museum Draws Big Crowds

2008-10-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

Apparently a museum touting the literal truth of the Bible is becoming very popular. Located in Louisville, KY the museum includes exhibits showing humans and dinosaurs co-existing. The museum is discussed in this recent msnbc article. Here is a favorite quote:

"One display shows humans coexisting with dinosaurs — despite the two species being separated by 65 million years in most science texts."

What? What science texts have humans coexisting with dinosaurs? The worst thing about this quote is its from the reporter who wrote the story-not from some nut that works at the creation museum. Visitor Bill Michaletz says:

"I do believe in creation, that God created it all," said Michaletz, who has five children. "I'm appreciative that there is a place to go for ourselves and our kids, to look at that view."

Can't we be sensible here? I think you have to be really deluding yourself to believe literally in Genesis and a 6,000 year old earth. A reasonable compromise is in order, you can believe in Christianity and accept the findings of modern science as Kenneth Miller shows. The museum was founded by wack-job Ken Ham, whom I believe is Australian.

Too much publishing?

2008-10-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine who has two PhD's (one in math, one in electrical engineering). He says way too many papers are published these days. Looking at the archive (xxx.lanl.gov) I would tend to agree. The idea of publish or perish combined with post-doc absurdity is putting too much pressure on people to write papers. The result is that too many papers are being published, and physics is by far the leading offender. In the old days a result had to be pretty significant to warrant a research paper. These days that isn't the case. As fast as a geek can type a new paper appears on the archive. It would be an interesting exercise to find out not only how many papers are really frivolous, but how many dupilicate other crap on some level that has already been published. String theory and "quantum information/quantum computing" probably lead the way for over production of papers.

I was also thinking about the Nobel prize. Maybe we shouldn't give one every single year. After all the Fields medal is only given out every 4 years. The Nobel prize has such an air about it, yet we have to give one year in and year out regardless of whether Nobel quality work is really being done. How many of the Nobel prize winners in the last ten years are really equivalent to say, Albert Einstein or Marie Curie? Probably none. Yet by giving a Nobel prize every year, we give many people an automatic stamp of genius that many don't quite deserve. It will never happen, but I think the scientific world would be better off if Nobel prizes were cut back to one every four years.

And stop publishing so many papers! Every calculation you do isn't worth writing up.

Physics Quote of the Day

2008-10-13T22:07:00.001-07:00

"Although life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."- Erwin Schrodinger

Poll on Nuclear Power Plants

2008-10-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

An interesting poll described here asked if people were in favor of building new nuclear power plants. They wanted to find out if remembering the three-mile-island accident would influence your view. Apparently not. Older people were more likely to favor nuclear. In fact the only group with more opposition to building nuclear power plants were those 18-31. That is, of course, due to "green" brain washing.

Wake up people. Building new nuclear power plants is going to be a necessity, not an option in the future. Coal and oil are limited resources. You can build "clean burning" coal plants, but nuclear is still going to be a far better option on that front since it releases no greenhouse gases. Of course uranium is a limited resource too, to help deal with that there will have to be reprocessing.

The great hope long term is really nuclear fusion.

Ecstasy May Damage Brain in Single Dose

2008-10-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

One day while home sick about ten years ago I stumbled across and episode of Oprah. They were talking about use of the drug ecstasy and did something quite dramatic-they took MRI scans of several heavy users. One young woman who had cleaned up her act so to speak and was dressed really nice turned out to be shock. When they scanned her brain there were literally large holes in it. Where brain cells used to be. Brain cells apparently killed by ecstasy.

I think many young people view the drug as harmless. Well here is something even more damning-recent research indicates that a single dose can cause permanent memory loss. The study indicates that not only does a single session with ecstasy damage your memory but that the amount of drug consumed is irrelevant. Sounds like a substance you want to stay away from, especially if you're interested in physics. You're going to need those brain cells to learn quantum mechanics.

Read about it here.

Does God Exist? Sean Carroll Knows the answer is No

2008-10-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

A recent conference on origins generated a lot of discussion over on Cosmic Variance. Something Sean Carroll said really caught my eye:

"I look forward to a day when discussions of deep questions concerning the origin of the universe and of life can take place without the concept of God ever arising."

Why would you look forward to that? This comment brings to mind something I've always thought-that atheism is actually a religion in itself. Strict atheism is actually a fanatical religion. Let's admit one fact. Its impossible to know whether or not God exists. Just because a causal chain for physical events can be taken back to the big bang, nobody knows with certainty that the universe wasn't made by a supernatural being. You may believe that the universe "just happened", and that's fine, but a more agnostic point of view is far more defensible.

Wanting a discussion of "deep questions" concerning the origin of the universe without the concept of God ever coming up is intellectually vacuous. The deep questions are not mechanical details, such as is the universe expanding, what is dark energy, is there a cosmic landscape. The fact is none of that matters to most people in a deep sense. What matters to people is meaning. Science will never give people meaning and that's why religious thought is still going strong.

The fact is there are lots of intelligent people, many of whom that are educated in science, that disagree with Sean Carroll. One of them is John Polkinghorne, a man with a PhD in physics that became an Anglican priest. John Polkinghorne is not some wacko, he is a very intelligent and thoughtful man who believes in everything modern science tells us about the universe but also believes that God created it. Polkinghorne has several books out that are thoughtful, interesting reads-not rants by a creationist fanatic.

As mentioned in this post Kenneth Miller attended the origins conference. I don't find Millers arguments very compelling, but he is another example of a scientist that accepts science just fine but he is also a very religious man. Interestingly, in that post Sean Carroll, who is supposed to be an intellectual leader, shows a bit of immaturity by stating that people that don't share his view are "crazy". In fact he uses the exact phrase:

"sheer unadulterated looniness of the remaining speaker, Hugh Ross. "

Describing someone participating in a conference this way is pretty much a "straw man" attack. It would be far more professional to say Hugh Ross is misguided, and I disagree with his views because of .....instead of simply stating he is loony. Ross has views that can be described as more extreme, and his views are not very defensible, but attack his positions instead of just labeling him a crackpot.

Many other professional scientists are believers in God. Francis Collins, who headed the DNA decoding project for NIH, is one of them. So while Richard Dawkins may be especially vocal, there are biologists that disagree with his viewpoint. The nuclear physicist Gerard Schroeder is also a die-hard believer who has been compelled to write several books on the topic.

The arguments of these people may or may not be persuasive, but saying they should be shut out of a debate on something that frankly can't be resolved scientifically is not productive. If you are really interested in the deep questions of the universe then the issue should at least be discussed. It was interesting that in "A Brief History of Time", while Stephen Hawking concluded (at the time anyway) that the universe was self-contained without much role for a creator, the book talks about God on almost every page. The issue can't be discussed without bringing God into the mix, and a mature, thoughtful debate will have views from all perspectives. The kind of discussion Carroll envisions-a bunch of athiestic scientists sitting around discussing what dark energy is, isn't all that deep at all.

Saying you look forward to a day when discussions about the universe will take place without God ever being mentioned is arrogant, immature, and out of touch with 99% of humanity.

Good Professors are Hard to Find

2008-10-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

Whether it was hard to understand non-English speaking TA's or boring-ass physics lecturers in freshman physics, good professors in math, physics, chemistry, and engineering are really hard to come by. For some reason, despite the mastery it takes to obtain a PhD in one of these subjects, professors in these fields seem to suffer from one or more maladies. They are often boring, uninteresting, pretentious and arrogant, unorganized, or just too hard to understand. Or maybe they just lecture on one thing but test on another leaving their students heads spinning. The bottom line is a lot of professors in science and technical fields just suck. Physics professors in particular. I've had some good physics professors to be sure, but many of them are pretentious jack-asses, or they were just downright dull.

Well today I would like to acknowledge a good, no make that great professor. The guy pictured here is Pedro Embid. Pedro emigrated to the United States at the age of 17 and obtained his PhD in applied mathematics at UC Berkeley. Somehow he ended up at the University of New Mexico. I was lucky enough to be attending UNM (often called the University of Nothing Much) and took one of his courses. I was completely BLOWN AWAY.

Pedro is a model professor. I ended up taking several classes from him over the course of ten years. All that time, I never saw him use lecture notes once. He was like a PhD in a subject field should be-a complete master of his topic. Whether it was a graduate level discussion of distributions and hilbert spaces or partial differential equations-Pedro just knows his shit.

Not only that he delivers clear, perfectly organized lectures. He knows exactly where each and every lecture is going and doesn't miss a beat. He talks with enthusiasm, writes clearly, and makes his expectations crystal clear.

I once had a graduate level differential equations class from Pedro. It was very tough-run like a boot camp. Every week we had a homework assignment due-each assignment was exactly 10 problems. This was graduate level math so they were all proofs/rigorous type problems. It was very tough-but you knew what was going on and what was expected, and if you studied your notes you could get through it. You learned a lot and came out of there feeling like you could conquer anything intellectually.

Pedro lectures off the top of his head, but if you brought a camera in you could just photograph the black boards and publish them as textbooks. He has had at least two visiting professorships at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. Despite this, he is great with students. His office hours are packed with students clamoring to get every ounce of Pedro's mathematical wisdom they can get. I nominate Pedro as my first great professor of the month. Here are a summary of Pedro's skills:

He really KNOWS what he is talking about.
He delivers dynamic, interesting lectures.
He challenges the students.
His expectations are clear. He is tough but there are no left-field surprises physics professors love to dish out to make themselves look better.
He knows the history of physics and mathematics, and peppers his lectures with historical antecdotes.

Unfortunately a guy like Pedro is hard to come by. When you get into engineering, you end up with mostly boring drones. The field of physics is full of arrogant and pretentious types that think they're really special for figuring out the universe. Surprisingly, a lot of math professors are disorganized. I am thinking of starting a series called Pretentious Professor of the Week and posting websites of professors I couldn't stand in college. Care to nominate anyone?

I would like to hear people recommend good professors like Pedro.

Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded

2008-10-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

Fitting that symmetry in elementary particle physics was chosen as the topic given the timing of the Large Hadron Collider. Also note that although the prize wasn't for string theory, Nambu has been a big contributor to string theory. From the New York Times:

1 American, 2 Japanese Share Nobel Physics Prize

By DENNIS OVERBYE

An American and two Japanese physicists on Tuesday won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work exploring the hidden symmetries between elementary particles that are the deepest constituents of nature.

Yoichiro Nambu, of the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute, will receive half of the 10 million kroner prize (about $1.3 million) awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Makoto Kobayashi, of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Tsukuba, Japan, and Toshihide Maskawa, of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University, will each receive a quarter of the prize.

Ever since Galileo, physicists have been guided in their quest for the ultimate laws of nature by the search for symmetries, or properties of nature that appear the same under different circumstances.

However, in the 1960s, Dr. Nambu, who was born in Tokyo in 1921, suggested that some symmetries in the laws of nature might be hidden or “broken” in actual practice.

A pencil standing on its end, for example, is symmetrical but unstable and will wind up on the table pointing in only one direction or the other. The principle is now embedded in all of modern particle physics.

“You have to look for symmetries even when you can’t see them,” explained Michael Turner of the University of Chicago, who described his colleague as “the most humble man of all time.”

In 1972, Dr. Kobayashi and Dr. Maskawa, extending earlier work by the Italian physicist Nicola Cabibbo, showed that if there were three generations of the elementary particles called quarks, the constituents of protons and neutrons, this principle of symmetry breaking would explain a puzzling asymmetry known as CP violation. This was discovered in 1964 by the American physicists James Cronin and Val Fitch - a discovery that also won a Nobel prize.

C and P stand respectively for charge and parity, or “handedness.” Until then, physicists had naively assumed that if you exchanged positive for negative and left-handed and right-handed in the equations of elementary particles, you would get the same answer.

The fact that nature operates otherwise, physicists hope, is a step on the way to explaining why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter, one of the questions that the Large Hadron Collider, the new particle accelerator now preparing for operation, is designed to explore.

China Launches First Willing Manned Mission Into Space

2008-10-03T18:52:00.001-07:00

This is hilarious. China now includes food and helmets for their astronauts! What a crack up!

China Launches First Willing Manned Mission Into Space

Large Hadron Collider Dismissed

2008-10-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

Looks like catastrophic destruction of the earth this coming spring is back on, the legal challenge to stop the Large Hadron Collider from operating has been dismissed. In a surprise move, Judge Helen Gillmore concluded the court, which was located in Hawaii, U.S., had no jurisdiction over the collider, which is in Europe. The lawsuit was brought by a Walter Wagner, who is reported to be a "radiation safety officer" and Louis Sancho, a science writer and professor. Mr. Sancho was pleased that even though the lawsuit was dismissed it brought attention to the safety of the large hadron collider. He also credits their actions with the execution of the safety report conducted by scientists. One has to wonder why the suit wasn't brought forward in Europe. I am not a legal expert but maybe its a lot harder to file suit in Europe.

Global Warming Doomsday: Meat Rationing?

2008-09-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

If you don't think global warming and climate change has political overtones, think again. Often people focus on those like Sarah Palin who don't "believe" in global warming, but attention also needs to be turned on scientists who are promoting doomsday views on global warming because they have an extreme leftist agenda. A recent example of this is a study by the "Food Climate Research Network which states that meat and milk will have to be rationed because of climate change. WOW. I'm sorry, but this is leftist nonsense. The study was led by left-leaning liberal wacko Tara Garnett, who says that since people won't voluntarily cut back on items like meat (and apparently alcohol and chocolate) the government should force them to do so. Sorry Tara, I think you're a lot more dangerous than global warming.

I'm not a right wing wacko at all. I accept that global warming is happening-I just don't think its the catastropic doomsday that some scientists are saying it is. In fact global warming might actually be a positive. First lets consider that in the past, many times in the earth's history, the planet has been warmer than it is now. Despite this life continued, even thrived during those times. Global warming will probably allow food production to increase and help reduce the need for things like home heating oil in northern lattitudes. It might actually make life a little easier. So what if sea levels rise? People can move inland if that happens. Ask yourself this. When has life on earth been hardest? One answer might be during ice ages. Global cooling is probably a much worse alternative to global warming. The little ice age that occurred circa 1400's or so in Europe was not good for agriculture.

With that in mind, I plan to eat a steak with 2 glasses of wine tonight, with cheers for Tara Garnett, left-leaning wacko that gives scientists a bad name.

Susskind lecture on Quantum Entanglements

2008-09-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

First Order Differential Equations Math DVD/Video Tutor

2008-09-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

Notice: This video is temporarily unavailable

Differential equations is the foundation of engineering, physics, and the other sciences. It allows us to solve problems involving rates of change, from population growth to radioactive decay to heat transfer. Despite its fundamental importance, differential equations can be intimidating when encountering it the first time (scroll down for sample video).

The Differential Equations Video Series
Solving Differential Equations on Video aims to change that. Available now on DVD, the first set is comprised of four one hour lectures that will increase your understanding of differential equations and show you how to solve problems. Each DVD is packed with multiple solved examples that will help you do your homework and take the fear out of differential equations.

Now Available DVD Set 1: First Order Differential Equations
This four hour video series includes:

Section 1: Introduction to linear differential equations
Section 2: Inhomogenous differential equations
Section 3: The integrating factor method
Section 4: The method of undetermined coefficients
Section 5: Solving separable ordinary differential equations
Section 6: Implicit solutions of differential equations
Section 7: Elementary Numerical Techniques
Section 8: Applications: Population growth, electrical circuits, and radioactive decay

All topics on these DVD's are approached using a teach by example method, developed for the Demystified series of books published by McGraw Hill. Homework and exam style problems are solved for the viewer in explicit detail, making the videos perfect for self-study, for exam preparation, as a tutorial aid, or to prepare for math qualifying exams.

The four hour DVD program on First Order Differential Equations is now available for just $34.95 plus $5 for shipping and handling (please allow 7-10 days for delivery). You can order now using Pay Pal, all major credit cards or eCheck accepted (international orders outside the U.S., please add $10).

Large Hadron Collider on 60 Minutes

2008-09-28T20:23:00.001-07:00

I'm always afraid I'll miss something interesting on 60 minutes and this week I was right. They talked about the Large Hardon Collider. In case you missed it too, I've posted it right here.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Chinese Astronauts Space Walk

2008-09-28T08:31:00.001-07:00

The New York Times reports that Chinese astronauts space walked for 18 minutes on Saturday afternoon. This bold step, somewhat reminiscent of NASA's early days with the Gemini program, carried China closer to their ambitions to build a space station and visit the moon.

I've been impressed with China's rapid progress. According to the article, they're first long-term goal is to build a space station by 2020 and then land on the moon, although no specific date has been given for that apparently. With the missions they've done so far, they've shown rapid progress and some boldness that seems to be lacking in America's space program. Who knows, maybe they'll beat us back to the moon.

Chinese Fake Space Mission

2008-09-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

OK that's just a joke-a play on the people who think the moon landings were faked. Today China launched three former fighter pilots on a first ever space mission for the country that will involve a space walk. The Chinese space program seems to be retracing the steps of NASA during the 1960's. I wonder if they will beat us back to the moon.

Read the story here

Oldest Rocks Known Discovered

2008-09-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

In a bit of news sure to leave creationists scratching their heads scientists have discovered what may be the oldest rocks on earth. As reported in Science and distilled into laymens terms in the NY Times, Richard W. Carlson and his colleagues have found bedrock which dates to 4.28 billion years old. If the discovery holds up, these rocks would be about 250 million years older than the previous find, in northwestern Canada. What is really significant about these rocks is not necessarily their age, but the fact that they indicate the earth had pretty much taken its present day form even way back then. The commonly held view is that at that time, the earth was a mess of molten lava. But this discovery puts that view in doubt, the form of the rocks indicates that the earth was pretty much like it is today, even 4.28 billion years ago. Regardless of whether that holds up, I find it amazing some idiots hold to the view the earth is just 6,000 years old.

Large Hadron Collider Operation Delayed Until Next Year

2008-09-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

This morning the NY Times reported that the Large Hadron Collider will remain shut down until next year. In fact scientists say the collider won't begin operation until April, because of the need to repair electrical and other problems. One reason this takes so long is that the huge magnets, which are kept at near absolute zero temperatures, have to be slowly warmed up to make the repairs, and then cooled back down again. So I guess we'll have to wait to find out if there is a Higgs particle.

Read the details here

Leonard Susskinds Modern (Quantum) Physics Lectures

2008-09-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

Leonard Susskind (famous string theory advocate at Stanford) teaches an interesting set of courses in physics in continuing education. I will be posting some of his lectures here. I will be posting his quantum mechanics lectures. The first lecture posted here is about 2 hours long. Susskind is a great communicator, so well worth watching-especially for those interested in self-study of quantum mechanics, relativity and string theory.

New Extra-Solar Planets Discovered?

2008-09-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

In a publication put up as a pre-print today, astronomers announced they had discovered two Jupiter like planets around an F-type star which as at least two planets in its solar system, one at 1 Jupiter mass and one at 2.5 Jupiter masses. An F-type star is a bit larger and more energetic than our sun (a "G" type star) that is yellow-white in color and less energetic than the bigger "A" type stars. Astronomers remember the rather arbitrary star classification according to the moniker "Oh Be a Fine Girl and Kiss Me", or OBAFGAKM. So O stars are the biggest (blue) hottest stars, G stars like the sun are in the middle and yellow, and M stars are the smallest and least energetic (and hence red). So an F-type star is slightly larger, more energetic, and whiter than our own sun.

The abstract of this paper reads thus:

Extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs around A-F type stars V. A planetary system found with HARPS around the F6IV-V star HD 60532

Aims: In the frame of the search for extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs around early-type stars, we present the results obtained for the F-type main-sequence star HD 60532 (F6V) with HARPS.
Methods: Using 147 spectra obtained with HARPS at La Silla on a time baseline of two years, we study the radial velocities of this star.
Results: HD 60532 radial velocities are periodically variable, and the variations have a Keplerian origin. This star is surrounded by a planetary system of two planets with minimum masses of 1 and 2.5 Mjup and orbital separations of 0.76 and 1.58 AU respectively. We also detect high-frequency, low-amplitude (10 m/s peak-to-peak) pulsations. Dynamical studies of the system point toward a possible 3:1 mean-motion resonance which should be confirmed within the next decade.

You can download the original paper here:

Extra-Solar Planets

Neandertal Extinction

2008-09-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most fascinating topics in science is the extinction of the neandertals. After a pretty successful run in Europe during the ice age, they disappeared soon after modern humans arrived on the scene. In the greatest who done it in history, scientists have been trying to figure out for more than a hundred years what happened. Did neandertals get bred into humans? Did humans kill off neandertals? Or did they simply out-compete them gradually?

The interbreeding idea is currently in vogue among lots of anthropologists. But I think they're naive. Looking at some facial reconstructions of neandertals, I'm thinking you'd need some serious beer goggles to go down that road. Personally, I'm not seeing the mating argument as very persuasive.

The outright kill hypothesis doesn't seem that persuasive either, but my feeling is a combination of hostility and simple out-competition is probably what happened. In any case, some exciting DNA research is underway which might reveal whether or not we carry any neandertal genetics in our blood.

Molecule Important for Life found in Interstellar Space

2008-09-21T07:33:00.001-07:00

Something that blows me away is scientists have found several complicated molecules necessary for life in interstellar space. The most recent of these is napthalene, a chemical composed of two benzene rings. Isn't that amazing that something that complicated would be formed in interstellar gas clouds? It was found by Susana Iglesias Groth and others in a region of star formation in the constellation Persius. Finding chemicals like this in interstellar space is good circumstantial evidence that life can probably be found in other solar systems.

Read the details here.

Collider down for Two Months

2008-09-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

CNN is reporting this morning that the Large Hadron Collider will be out of commission for at least two months. Engineers at CERN say that the damage from the two incidents described in the previous post is worse than they thought, and the device will have to be warmed up from its cold operating temperatures to repair it.

Hopefully they will wait until after Christmas to operate the machine again. It would be sad if an earth destroying black hole were to eat the earth on December 23d as we did our last minute shopping.

Sarah Palin says Teach Creationism

2008-09-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

If there is one idea among all the pseudo-scientific and silly beliefs that permeate American Society that I hate the most-its creationism and in particular the notion that the earth is only 6,000 years old or 10,000 years old or whatever it is. People want to say that God directed evolution-fine. People want to say there is no God and evolution just happens-fine. But people who want to say evolution didn't happen, the fossil record is a trick of satan or that the earth is only a few thousand years old-well quite frankly you've got your head right up your ass.

Well one of those people with their head right up their ass is possibly our future Vice President-Governor Sarah Palin. Palin says he wants creationism taught in science class. That my friends, is reason enough for me to vote for Obama. All other issues aside, having a scientific education I can't put the nation and the world in a position where our President might be some young earth wacko who completely dismisses the past 500 years of scientific progress. Well, wait, we've already done that with George W. Bush. Funny how W is making his dad look like a great President the way the past 8 years has gone.

Apparently the Alaskan Repulican Platform goes so far as to explicitly support creationism and intelligent design. Are you kidding me? What would people say if the Democratic platform supported witchcraft? Is there a difference? I'm not seeing it.

Intelligent design, as a general idea, isn't really one I can argue with. Sure lets say a creator being ("God") directed the show and for some reason took 4. 5 billion years to grace the earth with its true purpose-mankind. But you have to wonder why there are so many fits and starts in the fossil record-a pattern that's really more of the rule than the exception. Honestly I don't think the fossil record supports intelligent design all that much. You could say that a God fired up the universe without any specific goal in mind other than intelligent life developing-that I can agree with. But postulating that God created the universe for the creation of us but took 5 billion years of earth history with myriads of now extinct life forms to do it, and calling this intelligent design, well that only rings true among the mentally ill if you ask me. That sounds like the creation of someone with manic-depressive disorder and OCD, than it does intelligent.

Palin, along with others of her ilk, say "don't be afraid of information". But Sarah, its you creationist wackos that are afraid of information. Something people don't understand about science is that scientists really don't care so much about a theory in particular so much as the evidence in support of it. In other words if some persuasive evidence that evolution was completely bull shit came out tomorrow morning, biologists would for the most part accept it and build a new theoretical framework that better explained the data. Adherence to evolution, relativity, or the big bang is not a religious adherence for most scientists (though there are some that do hold quasi-religious views about this stuff). No Sarah, its the creationists and religious wackos that are afraid of information.

Evolution in no way precludes the idea of God or a spiritual existence. What it does is put some constraints on the matter. The earth is not a few thousand years old, and species to change and develop with time. This is more characteristic of a God with an indirect temperament, one that set the universe off and running and is letting it run its course.

Is that such a bad idea? I tend to think of it like raising a child. You tend very closely to a child while the kid is young, but as they get older you let them go and find their own way in the world (in a healthy relationship that is). What if God created the universe this way? God gave the universe everything it needed for intelligent life to develop, but now its up to us to make something of it, and our ultimate fate isn't up to our parent, but up to ourselves. I think that is a more satisfying outlook than the neat and tidy and controlled fake 6,000 year old universe of Sarah Palin.

Quantum Doomsday Delayed

2008-09-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

Problems at the Large Hadron Collider have delayed the first test actually involving the collision of particles until mid-October. It seems that a little transformer (30 ton) failed and in an unrelated incident, a bit of helium was spilled. Actual experiments are even further off, these initial tests will be low energy compared to what the collider will use when actually doing experiments. So please ignore any doomsday predictions for the month of October.

Scientific Illiteracy

2008-09-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

The level of scientific illiteracy in this country is holding steady at stupendous levels. From the Republican Vice Presidential candidate all the way down to the man on the street, we've got people worrying that the world is going to end in 2012, whether we landed on the moon, or thinking that the earth is 5,000 years old. What kind of ass hat would think the earth is 5,000 years old? Sarah Palin?

A recent sampling of postings on Yahoo Answers brings to light the level of ignorance in our society. This dumb ass is one among millions who thinks the world is going to end in 2012. According to him, its a prediction of "Nostradamus":

Scientist say the earths magnetic field is starting to switch Could this be the 2012 doomsday fortold many years ago by Nostradamus Merlin, and many others. The earth is going to reverse it's polarity supposedly it has happened 1000s of times before it's an event that happens every 750000 years.

Of course most people get the 2012 date from the vaunted Mayan calendar:

The mayan calender ends on the winter soltice on dec 2012.There is evidence to support a grand alighnment of the sun,earth,and the center of the galaxy.Has this happened before?If so what were the effects?What are the predictions for this event?

And of course there is endless speculation we really didn't land on the moon. Some of the best evidence is that the flag on the moon was blowing in the wind.

It goes without saying that millions of people were afraid of death by the Large Hadron Collider. So where do all these ignorant, moronic views come from? I see two causes:

The Media/entertainment culture
Bad science education

OK I'm not a genius, but the media fills peoples heads full of crap day in and day out. There are a few bright spots, PBS, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel. But they're lost in a haze surrounded by Brittney Spears, Tom Cruise, and endless entertainment drivel. And even the good cable channels promote pure bullshit all the time, presenting UFO shows and Ghost shows on the History Channel as if they had a basis in fact. Ratings rule because money rules.

Even good scientific programs suffer from some major problems. NOVA aired a good three part series on string theory. But the problem is, you have this magical thinking populace watching a show about extra dimensions when they don't even know basic astronomy and physics. So in a way a show featuring Brian Greene on string theory plays into their magical outlook.

When it comes to education, we've got some serious problems. Frankly I don't think some physics professors even give a shit. Many of them are so wrapped up in themselves and their imagined special, elite status as great thinkers they would rather get on with their research and don't care what the general public thinks. Others can't teach worth a damn. How often have you heard about boring, boring, boring, introductory physics classes? If you can't get the freshmen or high school students excited about physics, how are you going to create a scientifically literate population?

In any case, we've got a serious problem. We've got a major energy crisis on our hands thats only going to get worse. We live in a world with nuclear weapons and religious fanaticism. We have to make choices about space exploration and tools like the Large Hadron Collider. How can the population and their elected representatives make informed choices when they are completely scientifically illiterate? Most people are just along for the ride. They have a cell phone, a TV and a laser pointer and don't know or even care how they work or where they came from. And the scientists and engineers that made them don't care that the population doesn't know or care, they think non-scientific people are stupid and ignorant. This is a bad mix that's going to lead to trouble down the road.

String Theory Physics Lecture

2008-09-19T12:57:00.001-07:00

This video is 20 minutes long, but is worth watching. Physicist Brian Greene talks about extra spatial dimensions, physics, and string theory.

Picture of Planet Orbiting Star

2008-09-19T07:47:00.001-07:00

Astronomers at the University of Toronto believe they have the first ever picture of a planet in another solar system orbiting a star. The star, located about 500 light years away in the constellation Scorpius, goes by the obscure designation 1RXS J160929.1-210524. Some uncertainty still exists as to whether the object actually orbits the star in question and whether or not its really a planet and not a brown dwarf. More research will be needed to answer these questions in the coming months.

Dr. Kaku on Big Thinkers Talks about String Theory

2008-09-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Michio Kaku is a rarity in physics, a man who not only mastered theoretical physics but who can communicate with the general public. This guy is not your typical physics professor, I mean he is like, normal?

A few years back Kaku appeared on a show on Tech TV called Big Thinkers. I'm not sure if it still airs, I got Tech TV several years back when I had Dish Network, but alas I switched to Comcast and don't get it anymore. Kaku talks about string theory in this 20 minute presentation broken up into four parts. Great viewing for those interested in physics!

Part 1: Michio Kaku lives for one goal: to find a single equation maybe one inch long which will summarize everything in the physical universe. This is the goal of a unified theory of physics: to "Read the Mind of God" as Kaku puts it. Kaku says physicists are the only scientists who can say the word "God" without blushing.

Part 2: Kaku describes how he feels the power of Newton's laws of motion while ice skating, and its relation to symmetry-a key idea in modern physics. Then he describes the problem in modern physics in that relativity and quantum theory are so different. The beauty of string theory is that unifies them into a single theoretical framework.

Part 3: Kaku describes the harmony of strings.

Part 4: Kaku says to test string theory rigorously, we have to recreate the big-bang, which is not possible. He also says nobody on earth is smart enough to solve the equations of string theory. But when someone finally comes along smart enough to solve the equations, our universe would appear as one of the solutions if string theory is correct.

Kaku artile on Large Hadron Collider on Forbes

2008-09-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

Michio Kaku has also posted an article about the large hadron collider on Forbes.com. Amazing that the hype about the large hadron collider reached a level where Forbes would include commentary on it.

Survived Large Hadron Collider T-Shirts

2008-09-17T07:53:00.001-07:00

A reader sent me a link to these LHC themed t-shirts:

MadSciStuff.com

Brian Greene and Michio Kaku on the Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

In Yesterdays New York Times Brian Greene wrote a nice editorial outlining some of the more exciting things the Large Hadron Collider might discover. The list includes:

The Higgs Boson
Supersymmetry
Transdimensional particles-that is particles that carry energy away into "extra" spatial dimensions
and last but not least-Micro-Black holes

Read the details here.

My favorite physics writer, Michio Kaku has also chimed in, with a short post about the Large Hadron Collider on the Wall Street Journal.

Physics Lecture for poets (or future Presidents) on Relativity

2008-09-16T11:04:00.001-07:00

The following video is of a lecture by Richard Muller from UC Berkeley on relativity I found on You Tube. It lasts about an hour and is focused on basic concepts.

Quantum Entanglement for Detection

2008-09-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

Science Daily reports that engineer Seth Lloyd has proposed using quantum mechanically entangled photons to develop detection systems that would be a million times more efficient than anything currently in existence. The quantum based photodection system would have widespread applications, from more efficient night-vision equipment to CT scanners that used lower levels of radiation.

For the more technically inclined, here is a paper by Lloyd and his colleagues on enhanced imaging utilizing quantum theory:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0804.2875

Just to note, this area of research was pioneered by Jonathan K. Dowling and others, who are not mentioned in the Science Daily article:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0805.0296

As an aside, here is a video of Seth Lloyd, talking about quantum computers, and interestingly their capacity (if one could be built) to surpass the capacity of a human brain. I am really interested in this point because I don't believe classical computers or current artificial intelligence (AI) can do this, no matter how advanced they become.

Something Lloyd says is "You don't have to understand the nature of things to build cool devices". OK, spoken like a true Geek. "Cool" devices are one thing, but personally, I am more interested in how the universe works and why it works the way it does rather than some engineering marvel. I want to understand the nature of reality like David Deutsch does.

How Do Black Holes Form?

2008-09-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

The universe is full of mysterious objects called black holes-objects that distort spacetime so much that not even light can escape from their gravitational grip. Many people want to know:where do these mysterious objects come from? Can the sun become a black hole?

There are basically two known types of black holes. The essential difference between them is their size. At the centers of most if not all galaxies we find the supermassive black holes, black holes so big that they contain the mass of literally millions of suns. These black holes play a significant role in the evolution and behavior of galaxies, but we aren't going to talk about them in this post. We're going to talk about how most black holes form. These are smaller mass black holes, on the order of a few solar masses (8-10 solar masses). These small mass black holes are the remnants of stars, formed by complete gravitational collapse at the end of a supernova.

To understand how this happens we need to take a step back and learn a little about what a star is and how it operates. A star is basically just a big ball of gas. The center of the star is so hot and the pressures are so high that nuclear fusion, a reaction that combines two light atoms into a single heavier atom-takes place at the center of the star. Nuclear fusion has a couple of byproducts that are beneficial for things like life on earth: it gives off heat and light. Nuclear fusion is the power source of the star and is what makes stars shine.

Nuclear fusion is also the support structure of the star. Gravity wants to pull those outer layers of gas down towards the center of the star, and would do so if it were not for nuclear fusion. The heat and pressure produced by fusion basically prop up the outer layers of the star. A star lives its life in a delicate balancing act: gravity pulling inward and nuclear fusion pushing outward. When nuclear fusion stops, there is nothing to prevent gravity from taking over.

Just like your car runs out of gas, a star runs out of fuel. Its got a finite amount of hydrogen in its core. The first fusion reaction that takes place, which is the one happening in our sun, is hydrogen atoms are fused together to make helium nuclei. Eventually, there will be no more hydrogen to fuse. When this happens, fusion stops and there is no more heat and pressure propping up the star. The outer layers begin to collapse inward. Basic thermodynamics takes over, and the heat and pressure in the center of the star increases. This is good because to fuse heavier atoms, you need more heat and pressure. The star will collapse and gravity will squeeze the atoms of the core together until it becomes hot enough for a new round of fusion to begin: helium begins to fuse together to make carbon and oxygen.

Large stars run through their fuel much faster than smaller stars. Its kind of like the guy in the red sports car driving fast, he runs out of gas first. Hugely massive stars live fast and die young. This is because the higher mass makes conditions in the core hotter and generates higher pressure, so fusion reactions take place more rapidly and they run out of fuel faster. They are also able to fuse heavier elements because higher temperatures and pressures will be reached. The sun will only be able to make carbon and some oxygen, heavier stars will continue the fusion process toward heavier elements.

The sun is a mid-sized star, with an expected lifetime of around 10 billion years. There are smaller stars, so small and dim the sun makes them seem downright puny. They may be small, but they will be long-lived, they can have lifespans of a trillion years or more. In contrast, a large star destined to end its life as a neutron star will probably live a hundred million years. And a super-massive star destined to become a black hole will burn through its fuel in a mere million years.

At each point in the nuclear fusion cycle, a star burns up its fuel until fusion can no longer proceed. So a hydrogen core is fused until its entirely helium, then fusion stops. Gravity takes over and pushes the core closer together raising the temperature and pressure enough so that helium can fuse into carbon and oxygen. This continues until the core is entirely made of carbon and oxygen, then fusion stops again. Gravity takes over, crushing the core even more, raising the temperature enough so that a new round of fusion can begin. Now carbon atoms are fused together to make magnesium. The process keeps repeating itself. Heavier elements continue to be made: sulfur, silicon, and nickel. At each step, the temperature of the core soars to higher values, reachign 3 billion degrees. And the lifetime of the star shortens. When the core is made of magnesium and neon, there may only be a thousand years until the star dies. Eventually fusion proceeds until the core is a ball of iron, and fusion stops once again. But this is the end of the line. A reaction will proceed spontaneously if it liberates energy. Up to the fusion of iron, nuclear fusion liberates energy. But you would need to add energy to fuse two iron atoms together. In fact its something that just doesn't happen. So when the core of the star is iron, the days of nuclear fusion for the star have ended.

Now fusion stops and there is no more heat and pressure available to prop up the outer layers of the star. When the center of the star is a ball of iron, it may last another few days. Then gravity takes over and the outer layers of the star begin to collapse inward. There is one force left that can impact the outer layers of the star: the nuclear force. When the outer layers of gas strike the core the nuclear force leads to a rebound effect and creates a massive shock wave. This is a supernova: a cosmic explosion with so much energy that the neutrons and protons in the star are forged into the heavy elements so familiar on earth: copper, gold, and uranium are among them. The shockwave carries these elements out into the interstellar gases of the galaxy, where they are incorporated into later generations of stars and planets. Every element you're familiar with on earth was made this way, cooked in a supermassive star that lived long ago before our sun.

The fate of the iron core depends on how massive it is, and hence on how massive the original star was. If it wasn't that massive, it will collapse down until nuclear repulsion prevents the protons and neutrons from squeezing together any further, and nuclear reactions will convert the whole mess into a neutron star. But if the star was big enough, the force of gravity will be so strong that not even the nuclear force can stop it. The core will collapse down to a single point in space-time, producing a dimple from which not even light can escape. This is how small black holes are made: from the ashes of giant stars that once lived in the galaxy.

In future posts we'll talk about related topics from this article in more detail: neutron stars, supermassive black holes, and nuclear fusion.

Universe Slide Show

2008-09-13T22:04:00.001-07:00

Some of NASA's best photos of bodies in the solar system and universe.

Moon Landing Hoax

2008-09-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, but if you believe the moon landings were a hoax your head has to be as far up your ass as it can go. I'm not sure if believing something that stupid is worse than worrying about the world ending in 2012 or not, or that black holes produced in the Large Hadron Collider will swallow the earth, but I imagine there is a lot of cross over among the various groups of wackos.

Here is a video I found on You Tube. Supposedly, someones granddaddy worked at NASA and they found this TOP SECRET video among his things after he passed on. The wackos elegantly point out that the official NASA clip has no static and better video quality. WOW what an observation. Now, supposedly there is a mysterious figure in black intruding onto the scene (a stagehand????). NASA apparently tried to crop this guy out but didn't entirely succeed.

Its amazing that NASA would declare a video TOP SECRET and let granddaddy take it home. Oh, I guess he snuck it out at great risk to his own life. Now tell me something, why should anyone believe some wacko who posts a video on You Tube? Wake up people. Only a moron would doubt the moon landings were real.

Space Travel to the Moon Slide Show

2008-09-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

Notice: The World Isn't Going to End

2008-09-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

I hate to say it, but all of this end of the world talk that sprung up around the collider is really starting to get on my nerves. The plain fact is people have been watching too much television without taking the time to learn science and get some idea about how the world really works. Aliens aren't going to come down and enslave us, the sun isn't going to explode, and the collider is not going to produce a super black hole that eats the earth or a goo of strangelets that turns the earth into green mush.

Things got worse this morning when I came across a post by a girl asking if the world was going to end in 2012. The reason? Because some old calendars ended before 2012. HELLO? Are you kidding me??? This has to be the worst example of magical thinking I've ever heard of. Because some old fart that lived in 1300 made a calendar that doesn't extend past 2012, the world is going to end? Are calendar makers that powerful? Maybe I should make a calendar with $ signs on it so I can get rich.

The origin of the 2012 myth comes from the Mayans. Their calendar had these cycles and the latest cycle happens to end in 2012. NEWSFLASH: The stuff the Mayans believed in is nothing more than a load of crap. The world isn't going to end in 2012 because the MAYANS SAID SO. Yes, the Mayans were great at making pyramids, but that doesn't mean they had some private line to the supernatural world the rest of us can't access. And where are the Mayans anyway? They abandoned their cities a long time ago because of drought the last I heard. Doesn't sound like they had everything figured out, does it.

The fact is the world IS going to end someday, but its going to do so way in the future. The end of the world isn't going to affect your life at all. Not one bit. Global warming isn't going to kill us all, the Large Hadron Collider isn't going to swallow the earth, and Mayans aren't going to reappear in 2012 to destroy civilization.

Life on earth will end. It will certainly end when the sun runs out of fuel and the solar system becomes a planetary nebula. That won't happen for another 5-7 billion years, but life on earth might end a lot sooner for other reasons. In a few hundred million years old, the sun might be pumping out more energy making earth really fricking hot. So hot that life won't be sustainable anymore, at least not complicated, multicellular life.

If technology allows advanced life to survive on earth, something that I find doubtful for a lot of reasons, maybe our descendants will pack up and move to another planet or solar system, avoiding death by a sunbake.

Just for good measure, I posted a picture of supernova 1987A with this article. Sure sometimes things do go wrong! But if you know science you know when they're coming. If there were any inhabitants of planets surrounding that star, I hope they studied astrophysics so they had some idea their star was going to explode.

The Death of Stars: Planetary Nebulae

2008-09-12T08:44:00.001-07:00

The death of a star is one of the most fascinating topics in astronomy and astrophysics. Throughout its life, a star fights a battle against the force of gravity, which wants to pull in the outer layers of the star and cause it to collapse. This is prevented by nuclear fusion taking place in the core of the star. That provides an outward force against gravity with pressure produced by light and heat. This works as long as nuclear fusion continues.

In a massive star, there is more pressure in the core and so fusion proceeds rapidly and the star can fuse heavier and heavier elements. But this is the cause of the stars death. Nuclear fusion can only proceed up to Iron-56. When the core of a large star becomes composed of Iron, fusion can no longer continue and the pressure that used to keep the star upright is no longer there. The outerlayers collapse against the iron core and rebound-and the result is a supernova, one of the most violent events in the galaxy. Massive stars go through their fuel rapidly, they live fast and die young.

A star like the sun won't have a violent death, but its dramatic nonetheless. The sun is a smaller star, and paradoxically even though it starts out with less fuel it burns it more slowly so lives alot longer. Nuclear fusion of hydrogen in a star like the sun can go on for about 10 billion years, turning the hydrogen in the core into helium. As the helium builds up in the core, the energy output of the sun will decrease causing the outer layers to collapse in a bit causing a rise in pressure. The increased pressure saves the sun for awhile as fusion of helium begins. During this period, the sun will fuse helium into carbon atoms releasing as much as a thousand times more energy than it did when it was fusing hydrogen. This will cause the outer layers of the star to puff out or swell, and the sun will become a red giant perhaps swallowing the earth into its outer layers.

When the sun runs out of helium and fusion stops again, the outer layers will collapse down just like in a big star. But, there is a lot less material so the collapse isn't all that dramatic. The sun will collapse into a "white dwarf" which maintains its shape due to the laws of quantum mechanics, which basically say you can't force two electrons together into the same point of space (the "Pauli exclusion principle"). Since the sun is a lot smaller than a huge star that supernovas, there is not enough force in the collapsing gas layers to overcome the repulsion of the electrons. So the left over matter in the core forms a dense ball and the outer layers of gas kind of puff out into space. The planetary nebula may not be violent and exciting, but the images are quite dramatic. They are the ghosts of the universe, remnants of once vibrant powerful forces of life, stars like the sun.

This has already happened in dramatic fashion throughout the universe. Here are some pictures. The first one is the "cats eye nebula" pictured at the beginning of this article. The outward traveling gases produce an amazing picture, with the dying star at the center. There is some belief that this is actually a binary system. As a star dies, it blows off gas at different times and at different speeds, giving the amazing and unique patterns that make up these beautiful images. The variation in color is due to the differing elemental composition of the gas, for example Oxygen can lead to green colors.

This amazing picture is the Eskimo nebula, taken by the Hubble space Telescope.

Here is another one called IC418.

There is no doubt about it, someday in the distant future our sun will follow the same fate as the stars in these images. Makes you wonder if there was once life on planets that orbited these now dead stars. I wonder what they were like, if they had advanced civilizations, and what became of them. If life on earth gets very advanced maybe they will move to another younger star system or engineer the sun so this won't happen. But that is such a daunting prospect, and there is no evidence any stars have been "engineered", I doubt that will happen.

Creatures Survive Outerspace

2008-09-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

For those wondering if life can exist in the vacuum of space, the New York Times reports that at least one form of life from earth can. Tardigrades are little segmented animals that live in water. Very small, adults only reach a size of about 1.5 mm in length. They're small but successful, they can be found virtually anywhere on earth-from the ocean to the polar regions. According to the article they are commonly called "water bears" but I've never heard of them until now. The European Space Agency sent some of these things up in a spacecraft. Going into low earth orbit (160 miles up) the creatures were divided into two groups. One group was exposed to the vacuum of space but protected from UV rays, while the other was exposed to the vacuum and the UV rays.

The group that was exposed to the vacuum survived, and even some members of the other group survived as well. This makes me think of panspermia, the idea that bacteria could be transported from one planet to another by natural processes spreading life. This research brings to life the possibility that multicellular organisms could be transported as well. Granted only a few survived the harsh radiation environment, but evolution would take care of that and produce some hardy souls that would survive just fine.

Large Hadron Collider 101: Black Hole Production

2008-09-11T09:22:00.001-07:00

Over the past few days there has been a lot of buzz about black hole production at the Large Hadron Collider. Its been largely debunked. But is it scientifically possible to produce black holes at the Large Hadron Collider? The answer is YES.

A black hole will be formed when enough mass or energy is concentrated into a small enough volume of space. The Large Hadron Collider will be concentrating large amounts of energy into small volumes of space, so in principle it is possible to create a black hole. Any black hole that would be created would be tiny, microscopic-so for a lot of reasons its nothing to worry about. The actual probability of creating a black hole is uncertain at this point. One reason is that to know how likely it is to form a black hole under those conditions, you have to know something about physics beyond the standard model. Right now people aren't all that sure about those sorts of things. In particular, the uncertainty comes about because we don't understand gravity at TeV energy scales, and there is a lot of uncertainty about quantum gravity. To really predict what will happen you have to know a lot about quantum gravity.

One possibility is in the realm of string theory. It may be that if string theory is true, or on another related front large extra dimensions exist, it might be easier to generate black holes. Here are some posted papers that explore this possibility.

Calculations for Black Hole Production at the Large Hadron Collider

Microcanonical Treatment of Black Hole Decay at the Large Hadron Collider

Black hole production at Large Hadron Collider

One thing we do know is that black holes radiate or decay (evaporate). The smaller the black hole, the faster it decays. The microscopic black holes produced at the LHC, if there are any, will decay almost instantly. This is one reason they are not a threat. But make no mistake: It is possible to produce black holes at the LHC.

Large Hadron Collider 101: The Higgs Boson

2008-09-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

The Large Hadron Collider has been in the news a lot lately-mainly because some people are worried its going to destroy us by creating an earth swallowing black hole. Now that the collider has started operating-although it hasn't yet actually collided any particles together-the doomsday scenarios ought to be losing some credibility. In any case, all this publicity has lots of people wondering what the Large Hadron Collider is about. So, without getting bogged down by technical details, lets answer that question. In this post we're going to discuss the first item on the agenda at the LHC: the Higgs boson.

All objects you are familiar with have weight. Including yourself. You might get on the scale and find you weigh 140 pounds. But what does that mean? Your weight is determined by two things: the mass of your body and the force of gravity pulling on that mass.

Weight is not a fundamental quantity, because it depends on the force of gravity you are experiencing. Go to the moon, and your weight will be different. This is because the gravitational field of the moon is not the same as the gravitational field of the earth. But there is one thing that hasn't changed: the mass of your body. In a sense the mass of your body is the amount of "stuff" that makes it up. So while your weight might change, your mass does not, unless you go on a vigorous exercise program.

While the mass of your body might change, for fundamental particles mass is an intrinsic, fixed property that never changes. The value of the mass depends on the type of particle we are talking about. Scientists usually measure mass using metric units called Kilograms (kg). The electron, which is a fundamental particle, has a mass of 9.31 * 10^-31 kg. On the other hand, the photon has zero rest mass. Every particle has a characteristic mass that doesn't change.

So what is mass? You can think of mass as a type of charge that determines how a given particle will respond to a gravitational field. We saw that earlier, in that a person with more mass is going to have more weight. In addition, mass determines how a particle behaves as a source of gravitational field. More mass means that the object in question produces a larger gravitational field.

So why is it that particles have the masses that they do? Why does an electron have a certain mass, and a photon no mass?

To find the answer to this question, we can turn to the notion of a field. Think of a magnet and how it has a magnetic field around it. That field interacts with other magnets and changes their behavior. Might there be some kind of field that interacts with particles and gives them mass? Is it gravity?

It turns out gravity does not give particles their mass. Even worse, when physicists figured out how particles interacted with each other, their theories acted as if fundamental particles had no mass. Not just photons, but all particles. This was very perplexing. The theory that describes the known fundamental particles and their interactions is called the standard model.

Then Peter Higgs came along and developed a solution. He proposed that a kind of field existed which filled all of space. Particles interact with the field and acquire mass as a result. As an analogy, think of a swimming pool and waving your arm up and down. When you're not in the pool, you can wave your arm up and down very easily. When you get in the pool and go under water, waving your arm up and down is not nearly as easy. Your arm will move more slowly because of the resistance of the water. Imagine being out of the pool as the universe with no Higgs field. In that case all particles would be massless and would move at the speed of light. Getting under water is like "turning on" the Higgs field. The resistance of the water is akin to a particle interacting with the Higgs field and acquiring some mass.

Different particles interact with the Higgs field in different ways. This is because each type of particle has its own unique characteristics, so they all respond to the Higgs field individually. That is why electrons have mass, but photons don't.

Now bring in the quantum theory. To each field, there is a quantum, or particle manifestation of that field. You already know about quanta. The photon is the quantum of the electromagnetic field. The Higgs field also has a quantum, its called the Higgs Boson.

Interestingly, the Higgs boson interacts with the Higgs field too-so it also has mass. It has a rather large mass so large energies are needed to see it. Think of Einstein's famous equation: E=mc^2. This tells us that with energy E we can create a particle of mass m. But, the speed of light, c is a large number, and since m is multiplied by c^2 we need a very large energy to create a particle of mass m. To create the particle you need to concentrate that energy in a small volume of space.

The Higgs Boson actually has a pretty large mass, so lots of energy will be needed to create one. In fact until now the technology has not existed that would be able to see a Higgs boson. The Large Hadron Collider will be able to do it.

Something to keep in mind: the Higgs Boson is nothing more than a hypothesis at this point, even if its a very good one. We will have to wait until the experimental tests are done over the next year to find out whether or not the Higgs really exists. It might not. In that case other ideas are going to have to be explored. This is actually an exciting possiblity! That is one of the things that makes science interesting. While most physicists do expect the Higgs to be found because there is a lot of good theoretical reasoning to believe it, they'll be holding their breaths when the experiments are actually done.

Next time we'll talk about some other things the Large Hadron Collider will be used to investigate in the next decade.

LA Times Report on Large Hadron Collider Startup

2008-09-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a video on the startup of the Large Hadron Collider from the LA Times.

Large Hadron Collider Update: We are still here

2008-09-10T21:33:00.001-07:00

Well the first big day has come and gone. The Large Hadron Collider went into operation, and alas, we are all still alive.
But lets not get too optimistic-remember this was just a test run. The proton beam just went around in circles and there were no collisions. Things haven't gotten hairy yet, but they will soon when the scientists actually start colliding protons together. But my prediction is that we don't disappear into a black hole sink then either.

The phenomenon-if you can call it that-of people thinking the end of the world is around the corner is an old one. It may be old but it has a lot of life, and in our modern world this idea, which had previously been tied up solely with religion, has taken on scientific tones. What I find interesting among some is the notion that we aren't "supposed" to be exploring nature and we are messing around with God's creation by doing so, and we're going to be punished. I've had several friends that held fast to that very belief. So somehow by investigating the nature of matter and physics God is going to get upset and punish us. Interestingly, he is going to punish the entire earth because of the activities of a few scientists, a tiny minority of the population.

These sorts of views are explored in this interesting NY Times article.

The Law of Attraction

2008-09-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

It seems to be evident that people often bring things on themselves-good or bad. If you worry about something too much, like expecting your girlfriend to cheat on you-voila! she does it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some people expect good things to happen, and it seems like they always do. This is the so-called "Law of Attraction".

When I first heard about Manifest a Miracle, I thought to myself, 'oh great, another product rehashing "The Secret"'. It seems like there's way too much redundant information on the "Law of Attraction" out there, and nothing ever seems to work. But my friend urged me to grab a copy, citing his own success. So I bought it, just to humor him.

Man, was I ever wrong!

Manifest a Miracle is easily the best Law of Attraction book I've read to date, and I've read several.

First off, what all other manifestation products lack, this one embodies from beginning to end. Manifest a Miracle has been lovingly crafted and is meant to teach anyone how to immediately change their life for the better. Where other products offer a theoretical background but little helpful practical advice, Manifest a Miracle contains page after page of practical, useful exercises and processes that can actually get the Law of Attraction working!

Nothing dull or dry - it's all fun stuff!

The author's knowledge and warmth pervade this book. It's obvious that Gary is manifesting his desires, because his happiness and excitement radiate from each page. There is no better teacher than one who is a living example, and Gary is definitely living the life he desires!

Most importantly, the processes given within Manifest a Miracle are easy to practice and surprisingly fun! No more dry, repetitive visualizations - here are some exercises that are really easy to get into, and truly do what they are supposed to do. You'll be feeling great in no time!

And best of all, Gary describes how best to work these exercises into your daily routine in order to wake up feeling good, feel good all day, and go to bed feeling good. Within three days of starting my own schedule, I was feeling fantastic! Two days later and I found my first desire had manifested. Since then, there has been no turning back, and I have Manifest a Miracle to thank for this.

Just think. What would have happened if I hadn't grabbed this book? I'd still be creating a reality I wasn't happy with. I had no idea how easy it really is to attract everything I want!

If you're looking for the one Law of Attraction guide that will give you all of the tools you need to truly manifest your desires with ease, grab a copy of Manifest a Miracle today. It's truly the "feel good" book of the year!

Click here to learn the REAL secrets to attract your dream life!

Quantum Mechanics Demystified Follow-Up

2008-09-10T12:31:00.001-07:00

For some time now I've been wanting to put together a follow up book to Quantum Mechanics Demystified which covers the second semester of a quantum mechanics course. The editors are finally interested. I was originally going to call it 'Advanced Quantum Mechanics Demystified' but they are against using the word 'Advanced'. I really don't know what else to call it, maybe 'Quantum Theory Demystified' or 'Quantum Physics Demystified'. However these titles might compete with the existing Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory books. Ideas? Any reader feeback would be helpful.

Hurricanes From Space

2008-09-09T22:07:00.001-07:00

Getting off the Large Hadron Collider for just a bit I wanted to pull your attention to these really cool hurricane photos that are posted on boston.com. Many of these were taken by the International Space Station. The first picture shown to the left is of Hurricane Felix, taken just last year on September 3, 2007. The intensity of the storm is totally evident with the solid white cloud cover, and the eye, which appears as a dimple in the center, makes the entire thing seem kind of surreal.

The next photo is an image of Hurricane Ivan. Taken on about September 15, 2004, Ivan had winds of 135 miles per hour in the eye wall. Talk about holding onto your hat.

Here is another picture of Hurricane Ivan, taken from the International Space Station. This is a great shot, capturing the blackness of space in the background plus giving you an idea of the scope of this huge storm. The picture was taken by astronaut Edward Finke. Great job.

Saving the best image for last, here we have Hurricane Emily with the moon posing for us in the background. Wow what a shot this is-it ought to be sold as a poster if it isn't already. The shot was taken on July 16, 2005 also from the International Space Station, although the photographer is not identified.

Death Threats at the Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-09T16:59:00.001-07:00

I was able to track down the news report about scientists receiving death threats at the Large Hadron Collider operated by CERN. Chances are these threats are nothing but hot air, but the report says many scientists have been getting emails and even phone calls threatening bodily harm over the startup of the collider.

As I understand it, fortunately for the earth the collider will only be operating in a short of test mode for awhile. Beams will be sent around the collider but there won't actually be any high energy collisions, at least for now. So although the collider is set to turn on tonight at 3:30 AM eastern time (U.S.) earth won't be swallowed up by a black hole or strangelets at least for a couple of months.

The head of public relations for the collider, James Gillies, reports that some of the communications from the public have made him "slightly angry". He and other scientists are dismayed at the lack of understanding of science evident among the general public. A professor Brian Cox, notes:

Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University, adding: "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t---."

Hmmm, what is a "t---"?

If the general public is incapable of understanding how the collider works and that the probability that its operation will destroy the earth is nil, whose fault is it? I would put the blame squarely on the physicists themselves. Brian Cox would resort to name calling, but maybe he sucks at teaching and devotes little time to educating the general public about science and that's why people don't understand what's going on here. OK, anyone that would resort to death threats is a little wacky. That being said, I would challenge people like Brian Cox to stop name calling and get out and explain to the public what the LHC/CERN is about, why anyone should care, and why they shouldn't be afraid of it.

Perhaps the final word on the matter should come from cosmic rays which bombard the upper atmosphere of the earth all the time. It has been pointed out that the energies accessed by the collider routinely occur in collisions up there, but the earth is still here. So the doomsday scenarios have already been ruled out by experiments being conducted by nature.

More On the Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph has an interesting article or two about the Large Hadron Collider coming online soon. My favorite is the link that says scientists are receiving death threats over the upcoming "end of world" experiment. Unfortunately the link isn't working or I'd post it here.

Some interesting highlights. In regards to my previous post, physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed from the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton says he would be "a years salary" that the LHC will find the Higgs. He also thinks there is a good chance the collider will find particles of dark matter.

In contrast Nobel prize winning physicist Martin Veltman says he won't be surprised if they don't find the Higgs. Maybe Cahills alternative idea will gain some life after all. Being ever the pessimist, Veltman also says he doubts supersymmetry will be found.

Sir Chris Llewellyn-Smith, Director-General of CERN 1994-1999 says that there is a 95% probability of finding the Higgs and a 60% probability of detecting supersymmetry.

Well no matter what the experts say, experiment will decide everything. You can read the detailed comments over here.

Collider Countown: Two More Days

2008-09-08T21:51:00.000-07:00

September 10, 2008: the day when humanity will end when a black hole eats the earth, is soon approaching. According to the New York Times the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will fire up for operation at 3:30 AM Eastern Time. That's 1:30 AM where I live, so I will be fast asleep, unless the black holes that get produced cause some sort of disturbance before we get swallowed up.

Incidentally, at one time or another I mentioned that a physicist named Kevin Cahill proposed a particle theory which gave masses to particles without the Higgs. If the Higgs isn't found by the Large Hadron Collider Cahill's theory might come to the forefront. It had been looked at many years ago by Lee Smolin, but it never really caught on. Here is a sample paper of a toy model. Want to take up the mantle and apply the method to the standard model?

Soluble Gauge Theory - Upload a Document to Scribd

String Theory and the Size of Fundamental Particles

2008-09-08T02:27:00.001-07:00

A reader of String Theory Demystified recently emailed me a question on the size of fundamental particles. I thought I would state the question here because it may be a point of confusion for other readers:

I'm in Chapter 2 of String Theory and enjoying it very much thus far. But I have a fundamental misunderstanding. Fundamental particles are supposed to be strings according to the text. But strings are of Planck scale length [10**(-35) m], which is twenty orders of magnitude smaller than fundamental particles. So how can strings & particles be one in the same? Does that mean it takes on the order of 10**(20) strings to make a particle?

The answer to this question is no. A fundamental particle, like an electron-is a string. Moreover its a single string. In the standard model, the fundamental particles which include electrons and quarks are point particles-they have zero extension in space. Think of a string as having a tiny bit of extension along one direction.

The scale he is referring to is a composite system. Let's take for example, the Bohr model of the atom. So, the size of an atom is often quoted as about 0.3 nm (nanometers). But what this value quotes is not the size of any fundamental particle, but is rather an average estimate for the radius of the electron orbit about the nucleus.

Now a proton or neutron is not a fundamental particle. Its a bound state of three quarks. The size of a proton or neutron is the boundary within which the quarks are trapped so to speak. It is this size which is compared to the Planck length to give the 20 orders of magnitude.

Woman in love with .... the Berlin wall

2008-09-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Well this is kind of off topic of science/physics, but is interesting from a mental health perspective, and why not include psychology in a discussion about science. Anyway a friend sent me a link about a woman in love with the Berlin wall. Since it was taken down some twenty years ago, she is in despair the way a normal person would be if their lover/spouse died. The woman claims to have married the Berlin wall on June 17, 1979.

As if that weren't strange enough, it appears that this woman is not alone. An entire community of people find themselves sexually attracted to inanimate objects. According to this website, they claim that this bizarre behavior is actually a sexual orientation. People with this condition are "attracted" to objects possessing a certain geometry or function, and they even "fall in love" with inanimate objects.

Wow. This is interesting on several levels. For one, it illustrates the complexity of the human brain and what can go wrong. Taking sexuality and love and directing it towards an inanimate object is obviously not going to help you from a Darwinian perspective. No passing on of the genes there. What is really interesting is that somehow an inability to form attachments with humans translates into forming attachments with inanimate objects. This is pretty dysfunctional. In a way its kind of harmless, if someone is in love with a brick wall I guess that's their problem, but it is pretty sad. Also what if its YOUR wall. I'm not sure I want someone sexually attracted to my wall around my house.

Click on the "Expressions" link and read about the woman who married the Eiffel tower.

Large Hadron Collider as a Time Machine?

2008-09-06T07:51:00.001-07:00

Time travel is one of the most radical ideas of science. What's fascinating about it is that it may be allowed by relativity. Now then, as if worrrying about the Large Hadron Collider destroying the world with an earth-eating black hole or ball of strangelets were not enough. I. V. Volovich and I. Ya. Aref'eva are proposing the device can function as a time machine. In a paper posted last year, the pair proposed that the LHC would be capable of producing wormholes, which can function as time machines-at least in principle. The researchers state:

"Causality is one of fundamental physical principles. We suggest in this note that there is a
possibility to test causality in experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This
is related with a possibility of wormhole production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC.
The wormholes contain small spacetime regions with closed timelike curves (CTC) which
violate the standard causality condition."

Well this is unlikely, but certainly fascinating. This idea was also proposed in another very interesting paper which discusses how to detect the presence of such time machines here.

Paparazzi Physicists?

2008-09-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

As if the bubble fusion controversy was not enough, now there's the "Pamela" controversy. Two papers have been published on the "archives" which basically hijacked data from a presentation given by an Italian-led research team. The data in question involves the recent reported observation of "dark matter". Doing something I find absolutely incredible, Marco Cirelli and Alessandro Strumia published this paper on the archive and Lars Bergstrom, T. Bringmann, and J. Edsjo published this paper. Both papers used data obtained by taking photographs of slides shown at a presentation given by the scientists who compiled the PAMELA data. Un-f&*%king-believable.

These so-called paparazzi physicists took photographs of slides that researchers were displaying at a talk about the PAMELA project, then used the photographs to write the aforementioned papers! Naturally, the project lead for PAMELA, a P. Picozza was extremely upset by the use of their data in other people's papers in this manner.

To his credit, Marco Cirelli acknowledged the source of the data in his paper. But he said "we had our cameras ready". To me, this sounds completely cheesy. Photographing someones data and writing a paper based on it is incredibly self-serving and is nothing more than looking for a shortcut.

Honestly I don't care what justification Cirelli or the others make. This behavior can only be described as childish. When you think about it, the bubble fusion controversy and this one both come down to the same thing. Pressure on scientists to publish, publish, publish, and get grant money.

But that doesn't excuse the scientists. Honesty and ethics need to take priority. Since Cirelli did acknowledge the source of his data, on an unethical scale maybe this is a 3/10, but it still doesn't make Cirelli look all that great in my book. Taking a photograph of someone's data and then writing a paper about is just lame. The authors should demonstrate that they are adults and professionals by taking the papers down now.

These days waaaaaaaay too many papers are published. Probably 2/3 of the papers on the archive are a waste of space, people publishing for the sake of getting papers out. So stop publishing papers for the sake of getting yet another one out.

NASA to extend Space Shuttle life?

2008-09-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

The space shuttle started out as a novel concept-a reusable spacecraft-but ended up being relatively unsafe and basically a waste of money in a dead end space program that lacks any vision.

In recent years, the Bush administration, in one of the few good things its done-put the brakes on the space shuttle with the announcement of the "constellation" program. In addition to setting a goal of returning humans to the moon, constellation aims to replace the space shuttle. I say great idea. The space shuttle is too complicated, its out of date, and its a huge waste of money. I used to hear stupid arguments from people I knew that worked at NASA that we MUST keep the space shuttle going to keep humans in space. I don't think that follows. Being against the shuttle doesn't mean you're against humans flying in space. It means your against wasting huge amounts of money to fly people around and around and around in orbit.

I once heard that each shuttle mission costs in the neighborhood of $600 million. Are you kidding me? What if we had taken all that money starting say 10 years ago and put it into a moon program. If we had, instead of insisting on continuing to develop the "international space station", a tin can in the sky, we would be well along the way to sending humans back to the moon.

Well one thing about government programs is they never go as planned, at least in the United States. It looks like NASA's planned retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 may be put on the shelf. One concern is deteriorating relations with Russia. There seems to be some concern that reliance on the Russians for space flights to the international space station could be risky business. A group of senators, including Presidential hopeful John McCain, urged NASA to hold off on a final decision about retiring the shuttle for at least another year. Further complicating matters, the Orion space ship, which looks quite a bit like Apollo in drawings I've seen, won't be ready until 2015. Well that is the projection. Since the US government is involved, I would say 2018 is a more realistic date. Or maybe they'll wait until say 2014, after billions have been spent on it, and cancel the program. Remember the superconducting super collider? Instead of letting the U.S. hold onto the lead in particle physics congress spent billions shutting down the program after billions had already been spent starting to construct it. Government has already set a precedence in willingness to do stupid stuff like that, so why not cancel Orion at the last minute?

I for one say good riddance to the space shuttle and the space station. I'm not against space exploration, in fact I'm all for it. But lets be real about it. Set real concrete goals that get people and missions out in space instead of doing endless studies on weightlessness in a tin can.

Regardless of your point of view, you can read the article on BBC news here.

Quantum Computer Building Block Created

2008-09-02T22:59:00.000-07:00

The holy grail of computing might be quantum computing. Exploiting the bizarre ability of microscopic systems to be in a superposition of two exclusive possible states at once, a quantum computer relies on a "quantum bit" to do computation. Unlike an ordinary bit, which can be in a state 0 or state 1, a quantum bit can be in a superposition of 0 and 1. Although when you measure it the result is either 0 or 1, the fact it exists in a superposition in between measurements allows you to do lots of things that are impossible using today's computer technology. In fact, a quantum computer, if it could be built, would be able to do things a computer based on today's design principles could never do, even in principle or how advanced technology became.

One of those things a quantum computer could do is create unbreakable codes. A regular computer could create a code that is very hard to break, and that is what banks, the FBI, and the Defense department do today. But while those codes are hard to break, they could be broken, meaning they aren't completely secure. And it turns out quantum computers would be very good at breaking codes too. The ability to put states in superpositions allows quantum computers to factor numbers quite easily-if only a quantum computer could be built. If you could factor numbers easily you could break anyone's secure code very quickly. So a quantum computer would make today's secure codes obsolete but at the same time give people the ability to achieve total data security.

With that in mind its no surprise that the quest for a quantum computer is on the minds of lots of people. Keeping a quantum bit in a superposition of 0 and 1 for any useful length of time has been a challenge, and researchers have also been concerned about scalability, that is the ability to build a useful computing system out of individual quantum building blocks. One hope for scalability is to build a quantum computer out of semiconductors. This would be done using quantum dots and maybe silicon. The good news is that we already know a lot about manufacturing silicon devices on a large scale.

Recently it was revealed that the news is even better, because researchers figured out a way to make a reasonably stable superposition state for a quantum bit in a semiconductor. They do this by putting a trapped electron in the desired superposition state using lasers. The electron is in a so-called "dark state", meaning it doesn't interact with light and hence the state is stable in regards to additional photon interactions. This would allow researchers to put a quantum bit into a superposition state and keep it there, making quantum computing, including "programming", possible.

It remains to be seen whether this development will really lead to stable, useful quantum computers. Also, what will those computers be able to do when actually built. There has been a lot of hype around this area of research, maybe this development will let us gain a glimpse into the reality of quantum computers.

To learn more about quantum computers, read George Johnson's A Shortcut Through Time.

Large Hadron Collider Rap

2008-09-02T07:33:00.001-07:00

As if the lawsuit to prevent the Large Hadron Collider from going into operation was not enough, science writer Kate McAlpine has produced a rap video about the device. Personally I think its pretty corny. The video has been viewed 723,000 times on YouTube.

Moon Video

2008-09-01T15:39:00.001-07:00

The video I mentioned the other day about the Apollo missions to the moon (For All Mankind) is this one:

Going to the Moon and Beyond

2008-08-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

From time to time I've thought about what a waste of money the international space station was. I've always thought the space shuttle and space station were both wastes of money, but the dramatic way that the space station was scaled back made it even more so.

Back in the day when we were actively taking trips to the moon, a lunar base was not out of the question. Maybe the time to revive this idea is now.

Think about it. The moon itself can serve as a "space station". Its only 3 days transit time, and being a ball of solid rock with a surface area about equivalent to the land mass of Africa, it provides a ready-made foundation on which to build space stations, space telescopes, radio telescopes, and other wished for goodies. A space station is a temporary structure, the moon will be up there for a very long time.

Scrub the Hubble telescope and build a telescope on the moon. Hubble is already what, twenty years old? We could build a telescope to replace it on the moon with updated technology that could be accessed readily once it was built, because it would be ground based (albeit on the moon). Radio telescopes could be constructed that would have an unprecedented radio "view" of the universe for general research and also to search for any radio signals of alien life.

I'm sure lots of other uses for the moon could be cooked up, scientific and practical. The main point would be to establish a permanent human presence in space. You might think its expensive, but isn't the war in Iraq expensive? If we can spend $1 billion per week invading another country, why can't we lay out some serious money for space exploration?

Also consider that the Apollo missions, grand as they were, took place during the cold war. Today the world is very different. We could invite Russia, China, India, and Europe on board as direct participants. This would encourage international cooperation, build a sense of shared purpose and enable us to split and share costs.

Carl Sagan once likened the Apollo missions to life coming onto land from the seas for the first time. Going to the moon would be like the first tentative steps of a lung fish leaving the security of the ocean to pursue a life on land. Life ever expanding outward, is now ready to take those first tentative steps off the earth out into the universe beyond.

Its not going to happen unless we start the ball rolling now. Lets go back to the moon, but not the way we did back in the days of Apollo. Instead lets go out there with the purpose of establishing the first permanent presence of life in space that we know of.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics

2008-08-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Its a no-brainer that Richard Feynman was one of the best physicists of the 20th century. Maybe all around, and I mean as an all around guy, he was tops. A lot of physics people are well, lacking in the social aspect but Feynman seems to have had a great personality besides being really smart and scientifically imaginative.

If you want to study physics being good at math is an important goal, but you've got to remember to focus on concepts too. I think Feynmans three volumes are one of the best resources to get you thinking physically, not just wielding equations. I've decided to dust off my copy of Volume One and re-read it. You should do that too.

The Permian Extinction

2008-08-29T23:20:00.001-07:00

If you're like me you have to find the long, painful history of the earth absolutely fascinating. I live in New Mexico and something that is great is an area called Ghost Ranch. Located near a tiny town called Abiquiu (ab-eh-Q), its situated among one of the most bizarre landscapes in the world. Consisting of small mountains, the area has suffered complete erosion to the delight of geologists. The layers of rock from every geological era are completely exposed, giving the landscape a painted layered look, with bands of pink, gold, tan, and dark grayish colored. The banded colors of the rocks and high levels of erosion make the area seem infused with mystery.

The gold rock represents a time when New Mexico was like the Sahara desert. The gray rock, on the other hand, which is on top of the mountains is from an era when New Mexico was actually under water. The state was covered by a large sea. Look at the gray rock up close and its full of fossils of sea creatures. A little museum in Ghost Ranch has a chunk of it you can examine up close.

Once filled with roving bands of dinosaurs, Native Americans called the region home for centuries before the Europeans came. A museum at the ranch tells a little bit of their story with such fascinating objects as a knife that was found embedded in a skeleton, believed to be from someone who lived in the 12th century. Archeologists figured out that the person was killed in a raid over food. The area is high desert and food was often scarce. Drive through there now and you can see why. It must have been kind of magical though, living in an area like that prior to modern civilization and the arrival of the Europeans.

Anyway I digress. The differing geologic eras etched in the rock include the Permian, the era that preceded the arrival of the dinosaurs, which figure so highly at Ghost Ranch. A great extinction occurred that allowed the dinosaurs to come into existence and flourish, its called the Permian extinction.

Unlike the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs, the reason for the Permian extinction is unclear. One theory that had a lot of supporters was that oxygen levels somehow dropped suddenly (volcanoes maybe?) killing off large swaths of life. That sounds kind of hokey to me, but its not like I have any better ideas. But so much for the hypothesis anyway. Recent research seems to discount the idea. So its back to the drawing board. The Permian extinction was so long ago maybe its going to be a lot harder to resolve than the dinosaur extinction. Or maybe they will never figure it out.

Table Top Fusion Bust

2008-08-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

A few years back some scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced an exciting find-they were able to cause fusion using sound waves. Sound too good to be true? It didn't to the journals. The "prestigious" journal Science published the findings which have since turned out to be bogus.

The claims, made by a Dr. Taleyarkhan, involved collapsing bubbles in a liquid using sound waves. There was such force that the collapse of the bubbles cause hydrogen atoms in the liquid to undergo fusion reactions. The original research was conducted at Oak Ridge, but Dr. Taleyarkhan has since moved to Purdue University where he published a follow-up paper which claimed he was able to duplicate the original results, something no other scientists have been able to do. In a recent finding, which didn't dispute the original paper, Purdue punished the professor for research misconduct. Apparently there has been no duplication of the original results.

Hmmm...maybe we shouldn't be so anxious to believe in table top fusion the next time someone announces it. On a positive note, this shows the scientific enterprise works pretty well and roots out false results. Its also a good comment on human nature. Maybe this is less about actual fraud and more about Dr. Teleyarkhan wanting to believe so badly in what he thought he discovered.

The God Delusion

2008-08-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

I came across this review, or maybe what might be more aptly called a description of Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion. Personally I find athiestic scientists amusing. While it is pretty clear from simple observation of the universe that the God of the creationists doesn't exist, at least not within their strict interpretation, the fact is science can't prove God doesn't exist. Even Carl Sagan realized this, when he said in Cosmos (to paraphrase) that the fossil record showed a literal intepretation of the Bible could be ruled out, but that a God with a more indirect temperament could not be.

I find Dawkins and his ilk to be as irritating as the creationists. Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, a philosophy professor who recently joined the God "debate" are zealots as bad as any Chrisitan fanatic. But I want to call their (and your) attention to something. There is no God debate. The vast majority of humanity believes God exists and believes in some form of spirituality. They could care less what Dawkins thinks, even though he might get a lot of attention in intellectual circles.

Dawkins analysis is pretty simplistic. He runs through the same old arguments, like the claim that religion supposedly caused a bunch of wars in the middle ages. Well let me ask you something. If Europe had not been Christian, do you think those wars would not have happened? HELLO. The wars would have still occurred, but under a different banner. European expansion would have still brought them in contact with Native Americans, and if Christianity would not have been a rallying cause something else would have.

The fact is religion gives meaning and comfort to billions of people. I'm not saying because it gives people meaning even if God doesn't exist that we should support it. What I'm pointing out is that Dawkins arguments can't touch the emotional aspect that people get out of religion and spiritual experience.

I have to say I am partial to the religious. The existence of consciousness is enough for me. I think scientists are hard pressed to explain why consciousness should arise in the universe. It doesn't prove anything, I am just saying that for me personally conscious experience tells me there is a spiritual side to the universe. And if you open yourself up-you will experience a spiritual side as well.

OK enough of my soap box. Order the book already and let me know what you think.

String Theory Demystified for International Buyers

2008-08-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

I received a query about international shipments. International shipping is $10. International buyers please use this button to order.

String Theory Demystified

2008-08-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

String Theory Demystified will be available on Amazon.com September 11, 2008. I have 8 copies I need to get rid of so can sell you a direct copy now. I will charge $10 per copy plus $3 for shipping and handling. You can pay via credit card using pay pal. The copies are brand new.

Warning: This is really a string theory book-not a pop book. It was reviewed by a string theory professor to eliminate typos and errors. Get yours early!

Dark Matter

2008-08-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

Astronomers are convinced-there is a type of matter that doesn't interact with electromagnetism but interacts gravitationally. The result? Dark matter-something that we can't see because light is electromagnetic radiation. But we see its effects true enough. If you examine the behavior of galaxies there is clearly mass there that cannot be detected visually (or we don't understand gravitation on large scales).

Personally I find either possibility exciting. But dark matter appears to be more likely. And recently, astronomers are claiming to have detected it. In an analysis of the collision of two galaxy clusters, the matter, which consisted of hot visible gas-cooled and slowed down. Just like you would expect. But the "dark matter" did not. This indicates that aside from gravitation it interacts weakly if at all. This is experimental support for the existence of dark matter, something that has only been inferred so far.

Poll on New Physics/Math Book Topics

2008-08-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

For readers who are interested in reading math/physics books, I am interested in what people are interested in as far as topics. Some things I am considering are:

Partial Differential Equations
Ordinary Differential Equations
Math Methods for Physics

Also I am thinking of bypassing the traditional publishing model, and selling the books as ebooks available directly from this site. Let me know what you think about that.

The Singularity

2008-08-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether to be amused or frightened by predictions by computer scientists that by the year 2030 humans and computers will be fused together in an ever-present world-wide network. Or maybe instead computers will be so intelligent that they merely dispense with humanity all together.

Predictions like these come out of the mouths of people like Vernor Vinge, a computer scientist who envisions a future where computers will be physically hard-wired into your brain. Having used Microsoft Vista, I'm not all that excited about the prospect. Vinge and others speculate that in the next 30 years this computer-to-brain connection will have people seeing text messages and data floating across their eyes with computer screens overlaying the real world. Personally I find that nauseating and think computer scientists with this kind of hope for the future ought to get outside a little more often.

Grandiose predictions of what will happen in the future with technology have often, if not always, fallen far short of what was envisioned. It is hard to say what the future will bring, todays cell phones and text messaging may be a premonition of incredible levels of connection, turning the planet into some kind of supermind. At the same time all this talk reminds me of the 1939 Worlds Fair where among other things predictions were made about robots and clean freeways without traffic jams. That world never materialized.

I think the prediction that computers will become so "smart" and capable that they will dispense with humanity fall into that category. What science and technology is capable of is grossly overestimated by lots of people, including scientists themselves and journalists.

A wacky, but thought provoking topic, the era when computers take over the planet could be near. Or not. Check out the Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil for a lively discussion of this issue.

Six Essential Tools to Learn Physics

2008-08-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

College physics is hard. If you're getting started on the path to an engineering or physics degree, or planning on taking AP physics, these tools can help you stay one step ahead.

1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics
This classic three volume set covers the
concepts of physics better than any other.

2. Unit Conversion Tutor DVD
Handling scientific notation, units, and dimensions are essential to mastering the
physical sciences. Get a leg up with this four hour video set which teaches working
with units via examples.

3. Calculus 1 & 2 Tutor DVD Set
Calculus is the tool of physics. Learn about limits, derivatives, the chain rule,
solving integrals, logarithms, trig substitution and more. Eight hours of video
instruction all taught by example.

4.Ultimate Physics Tutor DVD Teaches by Example
11 Hours of video instruction, covers material offered in college physics course.
Projectile motion, scalars and vectors, Newton's laws, friction, angular momentum,
gravitation and more.

5.Physics for Dummies
Physics for dummies isn't just for dummies. This well written book is a great course
supplement.

6.Physics Workbook for Dummies
To learn physics you need to do physics. Follow up on tip #4 with this workbook that
will improve your problem solving skills.

Quantum Theory Lectures by Hans Bethe

2008-08-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I stumbled on a set of three videos of lectures given by the great 20th century physicist Hans Bethe. In the first lecture, which lasts about 50 minutes, he discusses the old quantum theory. This lecture covers Planck and his black body curve and ends with a discussion of the hydrogen atom as described by Neils Bohr.

In the second lecture, he discusses the development of modern quantum mechanics by Heisenberg and others.

In the third and final lecture, Bethe talks about some of the interesting results that have sprung up from quantum theory that make it so interesting, like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and spooky action at a distance.

The Flow of Time

2008-08-24T21:16:00.001-07:00

Time remains one of the biggest unexplained mysteries in all of science. It plays a central role in our conscious experience, yet only recently has it taken on a serious position in physics. Prior to relativity it remained merely a parameter, marching forward at one second per second without any explanation as to its real meaning or role in the physical world.

In Relativity we confront the notion that time passes at different rates for different observers. This defies common sense. In fact, it challenges the very core of the core of reality as seen by the human mind.

But what is really significant is the link that the passage of time has with the conscious mind. Consciousness is something that seems to elude physics. The first hint that the conscious mind tied in with physics came with the development of QuantumTheory. But that isn't the whole story. Our conscious experience in life is wholly tied up with the passage of time. For me this serves as a clue to what the universe is really about. Time is physical. Its as physical as you can get. It defines the beginning of life. It defines events that have happened and can't be changed, and it defines the end of life. It does all this with a direct relation to the one thing we know to be ultimately real-conscious experience. That inner conscious life that has eluded science for 2,000 years is the most real thing in the universe. Time is its connection to physics.

What time is physically remains a mystery. Even in subjects like string theory, time is just something passing without any real explanation as to what its really about. This should be a red flag for you. String theory and quantum gravity cannot be "ultimate" theories in any real sense. Time and its relation to the human a (and animal m)mind is more real than any electron of Higgs boson. Yet most physicists just view it as a click on their watch, some sideline data to collect while we measure what is "really" happening. Any final theory will have to really explain time and its relation to the conscious mind.

A good book that is a bit more on the rigorous side is The Direction of Time by Hans Reichenbach. Its not going to tell you what time really is, but it puts time under a scientific lens better than any other book I've seen. More on the popular side is About Time by Paul Davies.

Chances are, the true nature of time won't be explained in our lifetimes. But lets get the conversation started.

Earth Special After All?

2008-08-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Starting with Copernicus, science has routinely demoted man and his home planet from a position of central grandeur to just a mote of dust floating in an endless universe. Billions upon billions of other similar worlds exist, we've been told, with millions of civilizations flourishing on them at the very moment I am typing this message.

Fermi once asked a question in the lunch line "where are they". He was getting at a simple observation-if the universe is teeming with aliens, how come we haven't been visited? Surely in the last 13 billion years a civilization has arisen in the Milky way Galaxy that would have explored it and been to earth?

First lets state upfront that a lot of people do think we've been-and are continuously-visited. That being said, I have to say I don't buy that. Even so, given the sheer number of stars and galaxies, it seems entirely plausible that there are multiple civilizations in existence right now throughout the cosmos (not meant as a direct quote of Carl Sagan). But are there really? I think there are some good arguments that technical civilizations are very rare, indeed.

For starters, there are lots of ways a civilization can screw itself over. Look at where earth is right now. We have a serious energy crisis, threat of nuclear war, threat of terrorism, religious zealots, glhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifobal warming and other problems I am not going to bother mentioning. Maybe the plain truth is that when technical civilizations come about, they simply don't last all that long. Not long enough to "make contact" much less to go visiting in person.

Maybe being technically savvy isn't all that advantageous, evolutionarily speaking. Technology has not eexisted all that long on earth, and most organisms aren't smart. Look at beetles. There are 500,000 species of them and they are all over the damn place. But last time I checked they haven't logged on the internet or had a nuclear exchange. Maybe being a beetle, just from an evolutionary standpoint, is superior to being intelligent. Beetles don't have to worry about global warming or terrorists. If Osama bin Laden blows up Los Angeles with a nuclear weapon, there will still be beetles.

Regardless of how you feel about these issues, some fr ecent research as cast the notion of millions of intelligent life forms populating the galaxy in further doubt. While Carl Sagan had us believing that the galaxy had an earth around every corner, it appears that the kind of solar system we live in-a stable quiet kind of place grandmother would like to call homee, is actually pprobably pretty rare. Sounds like lots of solar systems are violent places, the kind where the evolution of complex life, much less intelligence, is pmay be extremely unlikely.

Well check out the article. What do you think?

New York Times Weighs in on Large Hadron Collider

2008-08-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Will the Large Hadron Collider produce an earth swallowing black hole? The debate continues on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times.

Digging Ourselves a Black Hole

Seeing Data the Way we Want

2008-08-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

An interesting phenomenon in scientific research is what I'll call data blindness. This is where a researcher looks at a set of data and confirms what they are looking for, or ignores something that contradicts their hypothesis. This has been a long-standing problem in paranormal research, where researchers hoping to find some effect ignore data that contradicts what they're looking for. Doing this is only human. Its only natural to get emotionally invested in your research and fall victim to this kind of thing. That's why we have peer review in science.

Being that the Olympics are in full swing, its instructive to look at how the medal count is being reported in different countries. First lets check on how the British see things. The BBC has a table with medal counts that has China ranked #1, since the BBC is ranking based on who has the most gold medals.

Interestingly, Sports Illustrated, an American publication, tracks total number of medals putting the United States at the top. Not surprisingly China ranks by gold medals also, putting them in the #1 spot.

This is a simple example, but it shows how looking at the data the way we want changes the results, in this case being the medal rankings.

Major Ed Dames and Remote Viewing

2008-08-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but the term "MAJOR" seems to carry a lot of authority. Strangely this is true even though a major is not all that high rankinga among officers in the military. You would hardly consider a Major to be qualified for Secretary of State, for example, although a General might do.

Despite this Major Ed Dames sounds pretty imposing. If you listen to Art Bell or Coast to Coast, you've probably heard about Major Dames. Using tricks that most modern physicists would call bunk, the Major is able to do remote viewing. In fact it doesn't stop there-he is willing to teach you how to do remote viewing. For a fee.

Now I think remote viewing would be absolutely fantastic. Who wouldn't want to use remote viewing to see what their wife or girlfriend was doing when they weren't around? Well I think most scientists are skeptical. But does Major Dames care?

I for one leave the jury out a little bit on "paranormal" phenomena. I've actually had some strange dreams come true now and then. I think most scientists would try to dismiss it as random events coinciding, but they were so specific I didn't see things that way. And a friend assures me that Dames' program works. I may have to give it a try. Would be nice to see that state trooper hiding around the bend, now wouldn't it?

Running Out of Oil

2008-08-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

The Large Hadron Collider controversy got me thinking about big science projects and government spending in general. It would seem to me that the biggest crisis facing us right now in the science/technology realm isn't curing cancer, global warming, developing artificial intelligence or determining if there is life on Mars-its energy. People take energy for granted but we have a bigger problem that most people realize.

The general public seems to have the idea that if we generate all of our electric power from solar and wind, with maybe a little nuclear thrown in, everything is going to be fine. But that just isn't the case. Consider:

Petroleum isn't used all that much in power generation. In the year 2000 coal was used to generate 51.8% of power in the United States. Natural gas accounted for about 16% of power generation while petroleum only amounted to 3%.
The supply of nuclear fuels is finite. In fact the world supply of uranium is actually running out very rapidly. In fact the only hope for nuclear power over the long term is to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, something that would also solve the waste problem. In the universe at large, including our own solar system, there is probably more than enough uranium, but we're a long way from being advanced enough to make mining uranium on Mars for power generation on earth remotely cost-efficient.
Wind power is not very efficient. To power a large city you would need to cover a huge area of land, some 300 square miles. And although designs are getting better, wind turbines do kill lots of birds.
Solar power also isn't that efficient, and remains cost prohibitive.
A very important point: petroleum products are used across the board in modern society. They're used to make fertilizer, plastics, and what about asphalt? Petroleum products are ubiquitous in the modern world and how to replace all this really hasn't been part of the discussion.

So just getting electric cars and nuclear power with a few wind turbines thrown in isn't going to solve the energy crisis long term. As technology continues to improve, developments in photovoltaic cells will make solar power more attractive, as will the potential to store solar energy.

There is also too much focus on carbon emissions and "going green". Not that these aren't things that need to be addressed but wake up people. Running out of energy is a bigger crisis than global warming. What is needed right now is:

A recognition of how important this threat really is. There needs to be a national drive equivalent to the Manhattan project devoting most of our scientific energy to establishing a long-term energy future.
A stop-gap strategy should be put in place to decrease our use of petroleum while a major research push takes place that investigates alternatives to petroleum uses in products other that gasoline and power generation. Solar, wind, and nuclear will all be a part of this, as will cars powered by ethanol as well as electric cars.
Reprocessing of nuclear fuel needs to be utilized in the United States-its already going on overseas.
Instead of relying on a traditional model where power companies have large generating plants that distribute electricity and sell it to the masses, why not incorporate wind and solar power directly into individual structures. That way you don't have to worry about taking up more land for energy generation. Its already there directly built into human habitats.

A big hope for electricity generation in the future is nuclear fusion. Right now the world is forging ahead with the ITER nuclear fusion reactor. Fusion is largely the best hope for long-term energy generation, however, at present fusion remains totally experimental. More money and effort needs to be devoted to this area of research. A big joke in the nuclear fusion community is that fusion is always 25 years away from being practical. Time to recognize how serious the energy problem is and make nuclear fusion power plants a reality.

Black holes: Size Does Matter

2008-08-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

In our society there's an upper class, middle class, and lower class. These days it seems like the middle class is dwindling, but anyway the point is theres a fairly continuous gradation among incomes and wealth from the very poor to the very rich. Apparently some scientists wondered the same about black holes, reports Science Daily.

Black holes generally come in two varieties. There are gigantic black holes with the mass of millions of suns or more located at the centers of large galaxies, and there are smallish black holes caused by the collapse of an individual star. Those might have masses in the range of a few times that our sun.

Some astronomers have been wondering if there was anything in between. Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion lab says no.

"Some theories say that small black holes in globular clusters should sink down to the center and form a medium-sized one, but our discovery suggests this isn't true,"

But maybe the jury's still out on this one. Astrophysicists at UT-Austin think they've found a medium sized black hole in a star cluster called Omega Centauri. If their results hold up, there could be a black hole at the center of this start cluster with a mass of 40,000 suns.

Well if you ask me it makes sense that medium sized black holes could and would form. After all those hugely massive black holes in the center of large galaxies didn't start off huge, did they?

Book Review: Equations of Eternity

2008-08-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Any aspiring physicist should devote as much time to reading popular books as they do studying math and quantum textbooks. One of the best I've come across in recent memory is Equations of Eternity by astronomy trained David Darling. I love books that tie together science and philosophy and keep you awake at night with deep thoughts-and this book delivers on that in spades. Like many popular books on modern science, it ties together quantum physics, relativity, and consciousness.

The first part of the book is titled "Man". In four very interesting chapters, Darling discusses the emergence of the brain and consciousness and how this fits in with the universe at large. I found these first four chapters completely engrossing. I could hardly put the book down and actually read the first part twice. Its full of memorable passages that kept me awake at night thinking about science, such as:

"Whatever a newborn child does, the universe at large does also, because a human baby--like everything else--is an intrinsic part of the cosmos....A factory in which cars are made is a car-making factory. A planet on which there is life is a living planet because the life-forms are a part and a product of the world's substance. And, on the grandest of all scales, if there is sentience within the cosmos then the cosmos itself is sentient. So we may reasonably view an infant's dawning awareness on two levels: as a consciousness arising in the individual and, simultaneously, in the universe as a whole."

In the second part of the book, Darling enters a very interesting discussion of quantum theory and how mathematics relates to reality. This includes a discussion of the foundations of quantum mechanics and the viewpoints of aritstotle/plato, as well as the debate on how real or fundamental mathematics is as a part of the universe.

The book closes with a four chapter section titled "Mind". The last four chapters were not as satisfying as the early part of the book. That being said, the opening and mid-sections of the book were so powerful I can only give this book 5 stars. Highly recommended for anyone interested in quantum theory, the mind, and how the mind relates to the universe as a whole.