Junkier Science

Cosmic Silence

2011-12-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

Shine On ...

2011-03-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

Our Earth recently experienced a "Super Moon," the closest approach of our orbiting satellite in 18 years. (See Super Moon.) Now, given that the moon does cause tides in our oceans, why would we not expect this event to cause tides in our terrestial lands also ... or earthquakes? Such recent catastrophic events in New Zealand and Japan, it would seem to me, are therefore quite scientifically understandable and should have been predicted. No?

Peanuts

2011-03-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

It seems that peanut allergies are growing both in the populations affected and severity of the reactions. Now, as I seem to recall, they used to treat bee sting allergies by giving such people increasingly large doses of bee venom until they could tolerate a bee sting without an emergency room trip. (Bee-keepers are stung so much that many are not bothered at all by even multiple stings.) Now parents of such hyper-allergic children are creating peanut-free environments for their children. One even has required students in his child's classroom to wash their hands and rinse out their mouths three times a day to thwart any peanut-allergy reaction by his daughter (see Peanut Dad.)

This leads me to the following hypothesis -- I wonder if such serious peanut sensitivities are caused by such hysterical parental behavior rather than in spite of it?

One Man’s Poison

2010-12-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

Years ago I wrote this poem:

       Ode to a Toad
       by George Potts
       ca. 1967

       Oh hail to thee amphibia!
       Gourmets marvel at thy tibia.
       In witches’ caustic cauldrons are thy feet.
       What is one man’s poison ... is another man’s meat.

Now life is once again imitating art. Scientists at NASA have strayed from their quest to justify anthropomorphic carbon dioxide as the bane of our future life here on Earth to discover a form of bacteria that utilizes arsenic as though it were phosphorus. In fact this element, a deadly poison to man, is a fundamental building block in its DNA. See: NASA Discovers

It has long been thought that the six essential elements to living are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. And these are the elements that have been exclusively focused on in our exploration of other planets (and the moon) for the possibility of the existence of life-forms. Now it appears that at least one more element needs to be added to this list … maybe even iron and copper too as they are the transporters of oxygen within higher life forms.

Why is phosphorous a building block of life? After all it was used in many wars as a deadly bomb adjunct … burning through almost anything, Well, for one thing, it forms a weak acid -- phosphoric acid, H(PO4)2, which can interact with weak bases to form many neutral salts. It is also relative plentiful in nature and a phosphate (PO4) is part of the backbone of the DNA strand. See: DNA Thus, since arsenic is chemically similar to phosphorous in that it has the same number of valence electrons … but with 18 more protons and 26 more neutrons in its nucleus, it might well somehow substitute. See Periodic Table This chemical similarity may also account for its deadly poisonous nature to man since it might easily masquerade as phosphorous in many life-vital chemical reactions.

Now how did arsenic take phosphorous’ place in the DNA construction of this bacterium? I expect it will be discovered that the biosphere in which this bacteria evolved is deplete in phosphorous and abundant with arsenic. And so, after probably millions of false starts, this particular bacterium has found a way of using arsenic as a proxy for phosphorous in it DNA construction. Can life forms find other chemically similar proxies for the six essential elements list in this above paragraph – silicon for carbon, selenium for sulfur, and lithium for hydrogen? Possibly, but I suspect that if any or all of these six basic element to life are totally missing, the hurdles for life-form evolution are so insurmountable as to be effectively impossible.

Magnetic Attraction

2010-11-27T07:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve been musing about magnets recently and I have a number of questions about them … particularly magnetic flux lines. I've read the Wikipedia entry (magnetic field) and, if anything, it needs an application of Occam's razor. Now if anyone has any more understandable answers to these queries please respond (to muser@tiac.net) or comment:

- What exactly are flux lines (a force field, potential energy, streams of electrons or some subparticles, etc)?
- If it is a force field, why don't other force fields, like gravity, exhibit such flux lines?
- What geometric shape do flux lines take? A catenary?
- Are the flux lines of a strong magnet closer together than those of a weak magnet?
- If this is the case, can a magnet be made so strong that its flux lines become a flux plasma?
- Are the flux lines (pure) force or is there any matter therein however minute (even in theory)?
- How far out do flux lines extend from the magnet and is this a function of the magnet’s strength?
- Must flux lines always connect north-to-south or can they extend out to infinity?
- If there is a limit to flux line extension, does this mean that no flux lines can come out of a magnet absolutely and directly along the line of its orientation?
- Are all the flux lines of a single magnet of equal attractive strength?
- If the Earth’s magnetic flux lines lie along its surface, why don’t they disrupt things (other than to point a compass)? One would think that, if they can deflect cosmic rays out in space, they would create more mischief here on terra firma?
- Do flux lines extend into the magnet itself (in other words would a compass point north if one went down into a deep mine)?
- If flux lines do extend inside a magnet, what happens at the exact center point of the magnet?
- Does magnetism exist, as I suspect, at the atomic level?
- If so, what atomic structural characteristic makes an atom or molecule magnetic?
- Are all metallic elements magnetic even minutely?
- Can gases be magnetic?
- What was the strongest magnet ever made? Why?
- Why does moving a conductor across the flux lines of a magnet produce electricity? Does such movement need to be exactly orthogonal … or at what angle does this effect disappear?
- If the Earth’s molten core were eventually to solidify, would it still be magnetic?

Enough?

A [Not-So] Bright Idea

2010-10-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Incandescent light bulbs have been around since 1879 (thank you Thomas Edison). Now our overreaching federal government has decreed that we, U.S. citizens, cannot use incandescent bulbs in the range between 40 and 150 watts after 2014 (see here). One result of this loony legislation is that the last incandescent bulb manufacturer in this country, a General Electric plant in Winchester, VA, recently shut its doors, laying off 200 workers. We will soon enough be required to use expensive compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs – mostly made in China) or the very much more expensive LED-arrays. Now there are a number of problems associated with CFLs that were (possibly) not known when our environ-nazis passed this legislation. A few of them are:

- CFL bulbs contain mercury vapor and are dangerous if broken around the house … and are required to be thrown away using complicated hazard-disposal methodologies.
- CFLs do not operate well below 20 degrees F. This means that all outdoor lighting applications in the northern climes will be required to use expensive LED arrays. However, another complication arises here. LED arrays generate almost no heat … as opposed to incandescent lights. This means that, in snow and sleet storms, LED arrays freeze up and don’t defrost of their own accord.
- Have you ever tried to place a lampshade with a self-contained bulb-clip over a CFL bulb? It is all but impossible.
- Most CFL bulbs do not work with dimmer switches … so much for mood lighting.
- CFL bulbs do not come with three brightness levels like many of us now use in large decorative lamps.
- Some CFL bulbs do not work well when upside down.
- CFl bulbs don't look and work well as spot lights
- CFL bulbs do not come in colors. So much for bug repellent and holiday lighting. There is some provisions in the ban on incandescent light to circumvent this flaw but due to decreased manufacturing volumes of regular incandescent lights, such specialty lights will likely be much more expensive.
- Some people suffer from nerve problems when around the electromagnetic emissions from CFLs.
- There are many other problems with CFL bulbs … see “Design and application issues” at the bottom of this Wikipedia`reference

Soooo … next time you see incandescent light bulbs on sale, stock up for forever. Many others already are.

Proof of the Pudding

2010-09-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

Some have expressed scepticism over some of my thoughts about the relationship between infinity and zero in my previous blog post here. In order to bolster my case let me offer the following supporting evidence:

A well known mathemaical lemma is that one can find the perpendicular to the equation of the line Y = aX + b (a and b are any numbers, including zero) by taking the negative reciprocal of the coefficient of X. Thus the previous equation's perpendicular line's equation would be Y = -1/aX + c (c is any number and c may or may not = b).

So, by definition we know that the Y-axis (equation X = 0) is perpendicular to the X-axis (equation Y = 0). How then can one use the previous lemma to prove this?

Start by applying this lemma to the equation of the X-axis yielding: Y = -1/0 X. Since, as I have stated previously 1/0 = ∞, then this equation becomes Y = -∞ X. Dividing both sides by -∞, yields -Y/∞ = X. And since we also were taught in the previous blog post that 1/∞ = 0, then this equation becomes -0 = X or (-0 and 0 being the same), X = 0, which is the equation for the perpendicular Y-axis. Q.E.D.

The Sky’s the Limit

2010-09-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Most mathematicians agree that 1/0 = ∞ (infinity) and that 1/∞ = 0. However, this consensus breaks down when confronted with what 0/0 is … or what ∞/∞ is. I think that most mathematicians today would say that 0/0 = 0 and ∞/∞ = ∞. I disagree … and assert that both 0/0 = 1 and ∞/∞ = 1. Here are my rationales for this … derived from the use of limit theory (the basis for the Calculus):

1/1 = 1
0.1/0.1 = 1
0.01/0.01 = 1
0.001/0.001 =1
0.0001/0.0001 = 1
0.00001/0.00001 = 1
0.000001/0.000001 = 1
And so forth
Ergo:
0/0 =1

and

1/1 = 1
10/10 = 1
100/100 = 1
1,000/1,000 =1
10,000/10,000 = 1
100,000/100,000 = 1
1,000,000/1,000,000 = 1
And so forth
Ergo:
∞/∞ = 1

All I ask is that I (George W. Potts) be so acknowledged for these assertions in mathematics anthologies.

Ignoring the Obvious

2010-08-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

There is little doubt that we have had a hotter than normal summer here in the United States. (Whereas the Earth’s southern hemisphere is experiencing a deep freeze.) And global warming enthusiasts are relishing the opportunity to regroup after the East Anglia e-mail-exposure debacle and again are trumpeting their crusade against carbon dioxide. However, there is another, less publicized event taking place: Our one and only sun has exited its solar flare minimum period (labeled a Maunder Minimum) that had been on the decline since 2000 and is now pushing out solar flares with a vengeance. See: Solar Flare. Even our increasingly politicized NASA has recognized that sunspots (solar flares) are again on the wax … and can affect our Earth. See Sunspot Cycle. (Interestingly enough, as the chart in this link shows, until earlier this year, the last decline in sunspot activity tracks to the year 2000 when global warming is thought by many to have last peaked.)

Which brings me to my main point … when our global climate goes through its myriad cycles … causing charlatans then to preach that the Earth’s is about to burn up or, once again, freeze over … why do we dance to their pipings? Clearly many things cause our orb’s climate to “change”-- altered ocean currents, the sun’s cycles, the Earth’s shifting orbital mechanics, the changing chemistry of our atmosphere (including among many things, carbon dioxide levels) and maybe even the Earth’s position in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Now, there is nothing that we mere mortals can do about most of these events. We are powerless to change sunspot activity … or alter the Earth’s tilt or its path around the sun … or change the flow of our mighty oceans. So what do we then do to assuage our angst about our human feebleness in dealing with such climate exigencies? We seize on carbon dioxide as the bete noire of the Earth’s climate’s fickleness. We see our society’s growing use of fossil fuels as an environmental evil and convince our fellow planet-mates that this is the one and only reason that our climate is getting warmer.

And, if the climate is not really getting warmer, what do we do? We falsify (fudge) data to prove that it is. We browbeat scientists into this orthodoxy about climate change through the use of giving or withholding of government grants … or the publishing or trashing of “scientific” papers in “scientific” journals. We brainwash left-leaning and scientifically-naive “journalist” into continuously echoing this orthodoxy and suppressing any dissent. We give Nobel prizes and Oscars and Pulitzer prizes and other awards and rewards to those willing to suspend their skepticism and don the emblazoned mantle of this new religion. We bury science and laud pseudo-science. All because we need to believe that man can control the climate in which we are forever captured … when it is abundantly clear that we are at the mercy of forces far greater than what we can ever dominate. But, like so many foolish times before, we once again strive to be our own God.

One Picture Is Worth 2.5 Billion Dollars

2010-04-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

"Mystic Mountain" in the Carina Nebula as viewed by the Hubble Telescope. (We got our money's worth.)

Tao

2010-04-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

I recently read the following anonymous quote in an SAT reading comprehension passage:

There are those who believe that science consists entirely of disproving alternative hypotheses, as if when you eliminate the alternative views, the one you have left is right. The problem is that there is no way to think of all the possible hypotheses that nature can devise. More than that, you have to prove which is the most reasonable. But any hypothesis can, with a limited data set, be reasonable. There is at least a touch of truth in the idea that any variable affects another. If you look long and determinedly enough, you will find that almost any variable element you chose to examine apparently affects the behavior you are studying.

Now, other than helping to explain a lot of the current mania surrounding carbon dioxide's effect on global warming, this passage exhibits a few inadequacies which I believe are reflective of our Western culture:

1) It still allows that one hypothesis (independent variable) alone is most often sufficient to explain the behavior of a dependent variable. In my experience "most reasonable" may mean that this hypothesis explains say only 50% of dependent variable behavior. Another independent variable may explain 45%. Ignoring this second one might be catastrophic.

2) Multivariate analysis seems to be eschewed in Western culture possibly because of its complexity. Witness how we tend to gravitate to a single "silver bullet" approach to many of our conundrums. Whereas we desire taking a single pill to cure a health problem, Chinese herbalists will compound a time-tested mixture of many herbs, minerals, and even animal parts to cure even a simple headache. They seem to understand that variables do indeed interact. Independent variables "A" and "B" might explain 90% of a dependent variables behavior. But "A", "B", and "C" might explain only 40% due to "C"'s deleterious effect on "B". Alternatively, "B"'s effect might be magnified by "C". This is comparable to the effect that a catalyst has on a chemical reaction.

3) There is a poorly understood concept in statistics called "homoscedasticity". This means that some independent variables are equivalent in explaining the behavior of the dependent variable. Think about both cake and ice cream being blamed for the increase in diabetes.

So we see that Western cultures have the unfortunate tendency to propound phantom truths often with devastating consequences ... witness the banning of DDT (sacrificing million of human lives so to protect the population of peregrine falcons), the false belief that thimerosal causes autism (and probably setting back investigations into its real cause), and, of course, the pejorative rhetoric surrounding carbon dioxide (a life-form essential gas). This may be why the Chinese seem to be laughing up their sleeves over the U.N.'s attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

I know that it seems treasonous, but perhaps we do have something else to learn from Eastern cultures ("the way").

Whale Poop

2010-01-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

What does happen to whale fecal matter? I would imagine that, after untold millennia of millions of whales, porpoises, seals, walruses, etc. relieving themselves with abandon in our planet's oceans, the Mariana Trench would be chock-a-block full and we would be up to our surfboards in whale poop.

And the EPA lets them do it! A sea-kayaker can't sh*t in his hat and dump it overboard without being fined hundreds of dollars by our coral-reef huggers. Yet a freed Willy can defecate to his heart's content without so much as a Sierra Club reprimand.

Yes, this is meant as a scientific spoof ... but also to demonstrate that we are getting sillier and sillier with our environmental angst.

Signed,
Jacques Cousteau

Francis N. Stein

2010-01-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

Mary Shelley was writing fantasy when she wrote the thriller, "Frankenstein". But now such a monumental medical event is well within sight. Let me explain. Medical researchers can take organs and other body parts from cadavers and re-engineer them into working organs and body parts for living patients. It is done thusly: first the organs are decellurized. That is, a variety of solutions (dependent on the body part) are used to dissolve all the cellular matter from these body parts, see: NIH publication. What is left is the extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold. Then these ECM structures will be placed in a nutrient bath along with stem cells extracted from the bone marrow of the target patient. In a matter of days, these stem cells re-arrange themselves into the muscles, nerves, blood vessels, etc. of what once was these body parts ... only they are, in effect, brand spanking new body parts (hearts, kidneys, eyes, stomachs, etc.) for the target patient. And these parts are a genetic match for this target patient ... with no chance of rejection. Truly remarkable!

Now I know this sounds like science fiction, but it is not a hoax. Yes, such remarkable developments are just getting started, but so far a new bioengineered bronchus was grown and installed in a woman in Guatemala (without rejection) and new skeletal muscle segments have also been bioengineered (see: all things stem cell). Clearly, this process is now very complex and fraught with setbacks, but it is, nevertheless, possible ... and it is probably only a matter of years before people can order new body parts from bioengineering factories. And, if this be the case, why shouldn't Francis N. Stein be able, at some future point, to order his twin to be created out of an assemblage of body parts or, even, as a whole? This is the Mary Shelley connection. I am intrigued by how life might be breathed into such a construct (a bolt of lightning?) and what might be the thought contents of a bioengineered brain (tabula rasa?). But (bio)science marches on ... trampling over such seeming monstrous obstacles. And yes, such a possibility raises a myriad of ethical and spiritual issues, but it now seems quite likely to this observer that our grandchildren will need to deal with such matters -- hopefully not with torches and pitchforks.

A Star in the East

2009-12-10T05:43:00.000-08:00

Here is a celestial phenomenon that appeared over Norway yesterday. Was is a strange manifestation of the northern lights? Or the test firing of a Russian missile? Or even a sign that the Messiah was coming to Oslo to accept some sort of prize? You decide.

The Newest Huckster

2009-12-07T07:43:00.001-08:00

P.T. Barnum would be so proud.

Hide the Decline

2009-12-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

Climategate has opened a can of worms insofar as the shenanigans that the "scientists" at East Anglia University went through to push their self-serving conclusions about global warming. Now Steve McIntyre has pulled back the Wizard-of-Oz curtain on the "trick" that these charlatans used to "hide the decline" in global warming after 1960.

Instead of the actual measured global temperature decline (please reference the above chart), this data was thereafter "adjusted" to show a dramatic increase in "Global Warming" (the "hockey stick"). This hoax was then adopted by Al Gore and the UN's IPCC to push their new-world-order agenda. This may well be the biggest scientific scandal since Galileo was crushed by the Catholic Church for his heliocentric view of our solar system. To get the complete story, please reference Steve McIntyre's blog post: Hide the Decline (And I give a tip of the hat to Michelle Malkin for this reference.)

Can we please have vigorous congressional hearings to get to the bottom of this Climategate hoax? And, as I have suggested in previous e-mails to any Kool-Aid drinkers, I think that East Anglia University, Penn State University, the UN's IPCC, Al Gore, The Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Barbara Boxer ("Ma'am"), and Henry Waxmax should be class-action sued for one trillion dollars ... with the proceeds distributed to all those scientists who were squashed for being Global-Warming doubters (sneeringly called "Deniers") and even a few million to the hacker(s) who brought this scientific scandal to light.

Balloon Bubble Head

2009-10-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

From the Associated Press: "[The balloon boy's father], Richard Heene was 'obsessed' with trying to land a TV show and become famous. 'Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012.' [attorney, Linda Lee] said. 'Because of that, he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground where he can be safe from the sun exploding."

I kind of doubt that any bunker, however deep, will protect this (un)reality-show bubble head from an exploding sun. No wonder his apparently-put-upon son seems to suffer from ongoing dyspepsia.

What if They Are Wrong?

2009-08-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

This is an artist's conception of a ship that will travel the Earth spewing water-vapor clouds that would then cool off our planet. This would be just one more (expensive) attempt to counter what is thought by many to be man-made global warming. Add to this, new proposed cap-and-trade legislation and huge government programs (battery technology, solar power, wind power ... but not nuclear power ) to reduce our use of fossil fuels and it is clear that man is pulling out all stops to cool down his planet.

But what if they are wrong? What if man is misreading the science (wouldn't be the first time) and is hastening the advent of our world's next ice age? What then ... would we have any redress against those chicken-littles who did us in? I think not.

Beam Me up Scotty

2009-06-20T13:31:00.001-07:00

Having just spent some time in New Mexico, it does not surprise me to read that this state is allocating $198 million to build a spaceport. See: New Mexico Spaceport. I say that it doesn’t surprise me because New Mexico is mostly quite elevated terrain (Santa Fe is at 7,000 feet above sea level) and therefore it is much cheaper to launch and retrieve spacecraft from such higher elevations. Why the United States chose sea-level Cape Canaveral as its primary launch point for manned space flight might have made some sense in the 1960’s (when emergency recovery of aborted flights from other locales was more problematic) but it is clearly very uneconomic today when the same logic does not apply. The second head-scratching reason is that New Mexico has become a more liberal state with Bill Richardson as its governor. And liberals, for reasons that escape me, often have romantic and unrealistic notions about the intersection of science and economics (witness their current global-warming mania).

Thus, that New Mexico is spending any level of public funds, let alone almost $200 million, to support the starry-eyed commercial endeavor of that tow-headed limey megalomaniac, Richard Branson, seems to me as loopy and wasteful. Even if the technology of this Star-Trek-light private-sector pie-in-the-sky effort succeeds, the revenue generated from the few flights a year it would attract cannot possible justify this kind of public-sector outlay. And, (God-forbid) after the first unsuccessful paying-passenger space launch, this facility will, I predict, likely become a ramshackled tumble-weed racetrack.

I Believe …

2008-12-12T05:55:00.001-08:00

- Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
- There are many other greenhouse gasses – methane, water vapor, etc.
- Man creates but a small percentage of the Earth’s greenhouse gasses. See this.
- Nature has many mechanism that cleanse the Earth of greenhouse gasses
- Greenhouse gasses do cause the Earth’s temperature to rise.
- The amount of this global increase for each gas is only a scientific approximation
- Many, many other things cause the Earth’s temperature to increase and decrease
- These things include: solar activity, Earth’s orbital mechanics, ocean current changes, etc.
- The degree of warming and cooling for each of these things is generally poorly understood
- There are other unknown unknowns that also affect the Earth’s climate
- “Scientific” modeling of future climate change on Earth without a complete knowledge and understanding of all these parameters and their effects is a fool’s game
- The Earth’s politicians are currently letting this foolish and imprecise “science” dictate policy
- The economic consequences of these proposed policy decisions will be staggering
- This all makes no sense whatsoever

The Concensus on Global Warming ...

2008-12-11T00:07:00.000-08:00

is beginning to crumble. See:

Al Gore's worst nightmare

Solving Forever Our Energy Needs

2008-08-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Lightning, they say, is produced by static electricity. However, I thought that static electricity requires a very dry environment … which doesn’t exist in rain storms. Also, lightning is also produced during violent volcanic eruptions which involve lots of water vapor as well as other conducting gases and particulates. In thinking about magnetism and how it can produce electricity (mechanically moving a electrical conductor perpendicular to the flux lines of a magnetic field), I have been struck by how lightning might be produced by this very same process. Think about it … rain storms involve the rapid uprising of thunderheads high into the Earth’s atmosphere (many above 50,000 feet) and volcanoes, the rapid rise of the volcanic plumes to equal or higher elevations. Both these uprisings involve an electrical conductor (mostly water vapor) traveling rapidly through the lower-level flux lines of the Earth’s magnetic field. Why wouldn’t this process mimic a generator? Once this electricity is produced it seeks to ground itself … thus lightning.

If this does more accurately describe the process of lightning generation, then why could mankind not also mimic this process to generate forever all of our Earth’s electricity needs? All we would need is to drag large electrical conductors across the Earth’s magnetic flux lines. Since the Earth itself provides enormous mechanical movement with its spinning, large conductors suspended from geo-synchronous orbiting satellites might well supply unlimited amounts of electrical power to the termini of these conductors down on terra firma. And this electrical power generation process would be greener than green … no carbon emissions, no nuclear waste, no acid-rain producing sulfur emissions, no more Al Gore pontificating. Yes, I expect that there would be enormous engineering difficulties to be overcome to build such a geo-generator, but surely it would be worth it. Tell me if and where I am off the mark.

Global Warming Solutions

2008-07-02T05:31:00.000-07:00

Some innovative solutions to our global warming “problem”:

- Pour concrete caps on all volcanoes to stop them from spewing noxious gasses
- Have everyone open their refrigerator doors and leave them open
- Set off multiple nuclear explosions in space to push the Earth further from the sun
- Fizz all soda pop with nitrous oxide instead of carbon dioxide
- Require that all cars only go down hill (with their engines off)
- Turn around all our air conditioners to point them outwards
- Outlaw all executive jets (including Obama’s, McCain’s and Schwarzenegger’s)
- Kindly ask China and India to regress back into third world countries
- Have all Southern hemisphere peoples move north in their summer and visa versa
- Stop humans from eating any plants (which, as we know, soak up carbon dioxide)
- Build all our house with mud and wattles, not wood
- Reduce the allowable respiration tempo in humans by one-half
- Stop all cows from farting by giving them Gas-X
- Make everyone get their news on the Internet by outlawing newsprint
- Change the calibrations on all thermometers by minus ten degrees
- Make Al Gore "Imperial World Emperor"

The Madness of Crowds

2008-06-06T01:27:00.000-07:00

From: Watts up with that?

"But even more impressive is the change since the last big peak in global temperature in January 2007 at 0.594°C, giving a 16 month ∆T of -0.774°C which is equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon “global warming signal” of the last 100 years."

Eagles Don't Flock

2008-03-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

H. Ross Perot (nee Pearow) has used the shibboleth “Eagles don’t flock, you must find them one at a time” at his various companies. Well, like many other "scientific" assumptions, this one also falls to the facts:

The Pope Knows

2007-12-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

Pope Benedict XVI has publicly urged caution on the part of ecomaniacs when it comes to their crusades against “man-made” global warming … see: The Pope Knows Galileo must be spinning in his grave to see the Catholic Church coming down on the side of reason instead of superstition. (Source: The Drudge Report.)

A Scientist on Global Warming

2007-11-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

The following was written by Joe Bastardi, a noted Climatologist and a contributor to Accuweather, a very well respected web site that gives weather forecasts tailored to your specific area. See for yourself: http://www.accuweather.com/

Our knowledge of the past should serve as a foundation for actions in the present. While not dismissing those who are concerned about global warming, I am disturbed that they often base their conclusions on data that, in the context of time, are only a grain of sand on the beach. They cite temperature changes from the last 10, 50, or 100 years, ignoring the fact that climate history and cycles didn't start 10 years or even 10 centuries ago.

Nothing that is happening today is new or different. I have yet to have a global warming "true believer" tell me why over the past hundreds and thousands of years, before any significant or even detectable human influence, there were periods where carbon dioxide and temperature levels were well above those of recent experience. There are also places in our northern plains that have been covered with glaciers at one time and tropical rain forest at others, all without man's influence. There is no reason to think that this can't happen again no matter what we do. Anyone with a true understanding of climate history knows that the relatively small changes experienced over the last 100 years could easily be "natural."

After ignoring the past, some analysts then use computer projections to predict temperatures for the next 100 years or more. It is astounding to see people put so much faith in these man-made computer models, yet ignore the actual facts of the past. As someone who has made a living at pointing out the folly of worshipping the false idol of atmospheric models, I find these projections to be a classic case of being blinded by the lure of the latest technological fad. Perhaps this is the most telling difference between those who are accepting of the "global warming hypothesis" and those of us who are skeptical. The former tend to base their conclusions on the guesses of computer models. We skeptics focus on actual climate history and conclude that nothing out of the ordinary is occurring.

I consider myself an environmentalist. Steps should be taken to make sure we use God's blessings with a sound sense of stewardship. This is the role of science, to provide us with the information necessary to make intelligent decisions. The advancement of science in all areas necessitates open dialogue.

Unfortunately, I fear that the policies being promoted in the name of global warming are not being driven by a search for scientific truth, but by a political agenda. Many great scientists, more gifted than I, have had their voices muffled when they dissent from what might be considered the "politically correct" version of the global warming story. For example, there are many climate scientists whose work uses actual climate data from satellite and weather balloons and shows little to no warming.

Global-warming alarmists and most of the media, despite the fact that these are the most reliable data sets available, routinely ignore their work. This is just one of many examples that could be cited. As a scientist, I find it discomforting to see people trying to shut down debate on this matter by ignoring research that doesn't fit preconceived conclusions.

Furthermore, I fear that this political agenda may be at odds with the ideas that have led to the establishment of our nation as a beacon of freedom and prosperity. A policy aimed at reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a gas that is essential for life as we know it, would necessarily restrict human freedom and economic growth. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption must be reduced, with restrictions on the choices we can make about how we live, travel, and produce goods and services.

The state of North Carolina may soon consider implementing policies geared toward reducing CO2 emissions. People need to take the time to look at all sides of the issue. Unfortunately much of the rhetoric in this area is meant to appeal to a generation reared on "Fern Gully," with no sense of sound science or history. I ask people of good will to at least consider the arguments here. I sincerely hope that the fight is for the betterment of the gift God gave us, Earth - not a hasty effort based on self-guilt that could derail America's train of freedom.

And by the way, enjoy the weather; it's the only weather you got.

AUTISM

2007-09-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

There has recently been lots of hysterical commentary linking thimerosal, a mercury-based ingredient in childhood vaccines, with the increase in incidents of childhood autism. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Imus (in the Morning) have been two of the more vocal of these maniacal accusers. But, working against this frenzy have been numerous scientific studies pooh-poohing such a relationship. (See the NY Times Article published today.) To me, there are two possible explanations for this autism phenomenon: 1) The increased incidents of childhood autism are a function of our increased sensitivity to the symptoms of this malady (and the increased services offered to autism sufferers) and/or 2) some environmental substance that seems to be disturbing the genetic construction of these autistic children … possibly through their parents. Now, if this substance is not thimerosal, what chemicals are now so rife that they might be candidates for such genetic disturbance? Two candidates come immediately to mind – alcohol and designer drugs. However, alcohol has been around for eons whereas the increased popularity of designer drugs seems to coincide much more closely with the perceived growth of childhood autism.

How should we go about proving or debunking such a relationship? First, we must get around the political incorrectness of such a theory. Second, we need to probe the incidents of childhood autism in developed countries where designer drug use is much lower than in the United States (if there are any) to see if such a relationship might exist. And finally, if the previous results suggest, we need to investigate the history of designer drug use by the parents of autistic children and then perform statistical relationships between each of these drug-use patterns and the possible autism among their issue.

I think that such a study is very much worth the social disruption that it might cause. After all, our children are our future.

Hole in One

2007-09-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

Astronomers Find Huge Hole in Universe
By SETH BORENSTEIN,
AP (Aug. 24) - Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's a giant expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday. Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody's home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years away. But what the Minnesota team discovered, using two different types of astronomical observations, is a void that's far bigger than scientists ever imagined.
"This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void," said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. "It's not clear that we have the right word yet ... This is too much of a surprise."

Never daunted by the lack of scientific credentials, I offer these possible explanations for this hole in our universe:

1) I know that the accepted astronomical paradigm for the universe is likening it to the edge of an expanding balloon with no real “center.” But isn’t it possible that this hole is, in fact, the locus of the big bang? In others words, the big bang obviously threw enormous amounts of fundamental matter out from some point in space. Could it not be that this hole is due to such a vacating of the universe’s “Garden of Eden”?

2) We generally know and somewhat understand black holes … spots of enormous gravity that suck everything back down into their centers … even light. Could it not be that black holes have an antithesis, or white holes? And that such white holes in space are filled with anti-gravity (anti-gravitons?) that push all matter away?

3) We have all read in science fiction about worm holes – connections to other universes or other time-space continuums. Could not this (these?) vacuum of space be a portal to such a worm hole?

4) Is it possible that there was a spot (or spots) in our nursery universe where matter and antimatter existed in roughly equal quantities … and that these dipoles, early-on, annulated one another to leave a great nothingness?

God’s Gifts

2007-08-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe." - Albert Einstein

I am not a religious person but I do find it remarkable that man inhabits an ecosystem that enjoys a plethora of possibly providential coincidences … any of which, if missing, would likely doom us to annihilation. And there are other, often man-evolved extras (primarily, I think, stemming from man’s obsession toward species survival), which make our lives on Earth much more livable and tolerable. I have listed below many of these gifts, generally in order of importance, with a line separating those which seem essential versus those that are just palliative (the latter, collectively may be called civilization):

-Gravity/Celestial Dynamics – Otherwise the Earth and all of its creatures would go flying off into space
-Electricity/Magnetism – Otherwise the Sun’s cosmic rays would strip away our atmosphere and cook us all like so many shish-ka-bobs
-Atomic Fusion/Fission – Otherwise our Sun would be provide us no warmth, light, or sustenance … with predictable results
-Photons/Electromagnetic Spectrum – Otherwise we would be without light and all the benefit that light and other radiations provide us
-The Limit of Speed (Speed of Light) – Otherwise all the radiation from all the universe’s sources would be instantaneous and very likely lethal
-Number and Variety of Elements (Periodic Table) – Life could not exist without this wide array of elemental building blocks
-Earth’s Self-Regulating Atmosphere – Without these feedback mechanisms (including the ozone layer), our planet would be as devoid of life as Mars or our moon
-Photosynthesis – Otherwise the source of all nourishment on Earth would not exist and carbon dioxide might smother our atmosphere
-Light Ice – Ice, strangely, being lighter than water, floats and insulates the water beneath it … otherwise, life might only exist within our tropics
-Combustion (Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide Cycle) – Otherwise energy and what it brings to life (locomotion, warmth, etc.) would be very scarce
-DNA/Evolution/Organic Chemistry – Otherwise life, if it existed at all, would be extremely primitive and short-lived
-Vast Variety of Molecules/Inorganic Chemistry – Otherwise, most of our planet’s basics (water, carbon dioxide, ozone, etc.) would not exist
- Water's Capillary Action -- Otherwise water and its solutes could not travel against the pull of gravity and most plants would not exist
- Carbon-Based Life Forms – Other-element-based life forms are problematic and, if sustainable, would be quite inefficient
___________________________________________________________
-The Concept of Time – Keeps man grounded relative to his limited lifespan
-Human Procreation/Sex -- Enables man to ensure the continuation of his species
-Crop Cultivation – Enables man to manage his carbohydrate food supply and thus to multiply and prosper
-Animal Husbandry -- Enables man to manage his protein food supply and thus to flourish
-Language/Writing/Information Technology -- Enables man to pass on useful information efficiently and thus maintain a knowledge base
-Man’s Creativity/Tool-building Genius -- Enables man to multiply his muscle and brain power and thus to thrive
-Man’s Work Ethic -- Enables man to better utilize his time and thus be more productive
-The Scientific Method/Mathematics -- Enables man to better understand his condition and thus control life’s randomness
-Doctoring/Medicine -- Enables man to survive longer and therefore magnify his productivity with experience
-Money/Accounting/Economics -- Enables man to understand and organize his endeavors better and thus to prosper
-Social Organization/Government (occasionally benign) – Enables better cooperation and efficiency within man’s societal groups
-Man’s Emotions (Humor/Love/Fear/Hate/etc.) – Inspires man to higher levels of achievement
-Religion/Ethics – Meant to provide the society of man with more benevolent motivations and, thus, less self-destructive strife ... and religion helps mankind deal with the vagaries and randomness of life

-Beauty/Aesthetics – Provides man with a more satisfying life experience and an avenue to celebrate his uniqueness
-Taste Buds/Odor Receptors – Motivates man to eat a wider variety of foods and therefore achieve better nourishment
-Music/Harmonic Scales – Provides man with a more relaxing life experience and, therefore, less anxiety
-Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches – On toasted rustic white bread with fresh ground pepper and lots of mayonnaise

Ecomania

2007-07-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

The only certain thing in life is change. The earth has, over the course of its 4 ½ billion years life, gone through many dramatic shifts in its ecology. Today, there are roughly one million animal species on earth. But throughout history it is estimated there have been at least one hundred times this many … the rest having disappeared. During the days of the dinosaurs, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were as much as ten times what they are currently. During the world’s ice ages, glaciers were thousands of feet thick over most of what we now know as New England. Around 250 million years ago, all the world’s continents were part of one massive land mass called Pangaea … which then broke into pieces and drifted around the world to their current locales. Even what we now know as India broke off much later from Africa and, after about 40 million years, slammed into Asia, creating the Himalayan Mountains in the process. (And this, I assume, is why we have elephants and tigers in both locations.) About 700,000 years ago the massive caldera that sits under Yellowstone Park blew its top and darkened our entire world for years, dramatically changing our world’s ecology. And it is expected to duplicate this climatic act sometime during the next few thousand years (perhaps even tomorrow).

And yet today, many of the human species believe that the way things are now are inviolate and should never change even the slightest bit … else it is man who is at fault. If the ecology of the snail darter changes and this fish is not able to adapt to these changes, then man must reverse these ecology changes so that the snail darter can survive throughout eternity. This syndrome I like to think of as “ecomania” … that is, the belief that man owns (and can control) nature and ecology and not the reverse. This, of course, is as silly as watching an egomaniac prancing and preening on the world’s stage as though he/she will live forever. (Remember Bette Davis in her latter years, face sagging from a stroke and not realizing she was a crone, behaving as though she were still 30 and vivacious). I’m afraid that nature will teach us all in the end that we are but a trivial adjunct to our earth’s ecology. (If the billions of humans in the world were all stacked like cordwood in the Grand Canyon, they would only fill a few miles of this river gorge.) To think that we can control and remedy nature’s ways, I think, comes from man’s harnessing of atomic energy. This has inflated our collective ecomania far beyond logic and may, in the end, contribute more to our undoing than atomic weaponry.

Nature will eventually teach us all that the current mass hysteria about how we are despoiling our environment is but a flip of a butterfly’s wing in the hurricane that is nature’s true way.

Higgely Piggely

2007-07-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

Physicists in the U.S. and Europe are each spending billions of research dollars in a competitive search for the Higgs boson (named after the physicist, Peter Higgs who first postulated it), the last elementary particle (yet to be discovered) to complete the Standard Model theory of elementary particle physics. The U.S. is using the Fermilab in Batavia, IL and Europe will be using the new Large Hadron Collider at CERN on the border between France and Switzerland (due to be opened in 2008). Now the Higgs boson is particularly intriguing because it is the elusive elementary particle that is supposed to lend mass to all atomic structures (or matter) – a very meaningful attribute. I have, in the past, speculated on the possibility of gravity existing separately from matter (see this) and this Higgs boson would seem to support this premise … since gravity is proportional to the mass of any two entities. And, without mass, where is the gravity?

But what intrigues me more is why this mass-producing particle is so fleeting (thought to last only a few microseconds in the cloud chambers of these very high energy particle accelerators before it decays into other known subatomic particles)? After all, mass is far from being an elusive physical characteristic … and the converting matter into energy is a fairly complicated process (just ask Mahmoud Ahmabdinejad of Iran.) So why would the Higgs boson be so shy? Perhaps it is because it can only persist in the presence of a specific menu of other subatomic particles (such as those that make up a proton). If this be the case, then it would seem that most if not all Higgs bosons must have been created shortly (within a few hundred million years) after the Big Bang and so bonded to other subatomic particles to create the mass of the universe. And, to expand on my other blog’s speculation, gravity might also have been simultaneously acquired by the universe’s matter that had thusly acquired mass. The excess matter that never acquired the Higgs boson during this period of creation might then have become anti-matter (admittedly, a somewhat loopy speculation but it would explain why there is so much more matter than anti-matter). And the residual gravity that had not been acquired by matter (via something like a graviton) could be, as previously speculated, now represented by what we now call “dark matter.”

Those subatomic particles that are thought not to have any mass, such as photons and neutrinos, may then also be bereft of Higgs bosons (thought to be a relatively large subatomic particle). However, if on the other hand, photons and neutrinos do indeed have a tiny, tiny, miniscule mass (as I have speculated about in past blogs), then this suggests that there might be a spectrum of Higgs boson types (and therefore sizes.) Remember, you read it here first and, I would ask that, this being the case, the smallest of the Higgs bosons be then christened the “Higgs-Potts boson.”

Screaming Memes

2007-06-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Talk radio recently had a discussion about children misbehaving in restaurants. There were some truly hair-raising incidents related by callers. (One complainer was thrown out of a Starbucks instead of an arrogant mother and her screaming brat.) A long time ago I was on a subway in New York City where a young child was bawling its head off. I was somewhat agitated and, as I looked around the car, a number of others also seemed to be suffering similar angst. This got me to wondering why we humans generally get so uncomfortable when we hear a crying child. I concluded that the probable reason goes way back to human prehistory when a clan's children were its future security. So a crying child could be a threat to a tribe's future. We may be consequently genetically programmed to resolve, as a group, the reason for any child's crying … otherwise we might lose this precious community asset.

So our current discomfort in such situations seems likely to be vestigial of our days in bearskins.

FRANKENFOODS

2007-04-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Those ever-present nihilistic radicals who love to and perhaps live to whip up social controversy have found another cause celebre to frighten consumers around the developed world. And they have tagged it with a very clever, angst-producing word – “frankenfood,” that is, consumables that contain genetically altered plants and/or animals. The idea that is conveyed by this moniker is that one who eats any such food will be ingesting nutrients that are taboo (e.g., human genes in meat) or that have never before existed in nature (e.g., constructed, insect-resisting genes in wheat) … and therefore, may poison such consumers with unimagined and draconian consequences, ala Frankenstein.

I suppose that it is conceivable that the addition of certain genes might cause plants or animals to produce proteins that are toxic or even carcinogenic. However, it seems that such dangers would be easily caught in animal testing long before such products enter the human food-chain. Certainly, toxicity would be quickly and easily recognized. Carcinogenic characteristics might be more problematic. But I take a certain solace from the fact that digestive juices are quite powerful and, except for well-known toxic chemicals, would quickly break down most foreign organic agents until they would behave very much like that which would emerge from digesting known benign organic agents.

Besides, don’t we put heart valves from pigs in humans, vaccinate ourselves with sera that have been incubated in chicken eggs or even Rhesus monkeys, and ingest a wide variety of exotic holistic herbs proscribed by the equivalent of witch doctors? (Watch some of those voodoo health claims made on late night cable TV.) I, myself, would prefer eating corn flakes that had been made from grain that had been genetically altered to resist rodents or insect infestations … rather than have microscopic parts of these vermin mixed in with my milk and bananas.

CARBON DIOXIDE

2007-02-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Acolytes to the First Church of Global Warming should be reminded that the primary sources of the “greenhouse gas,” carbon dioxide, (after the burning of fossil fuels) are animal respiration (breathing) and the outgassing of the world’s vast variety of carbonated beverages. Therefore, I propose that, in order to keep all the Greenland glaciers from melting and flooding out all the beach houses in Malibu, Easthampton, South Beach, St. Barths, and St. Tropez … that the UN encourage, nay initiate genocide anywhere in the world that it might pop up; the PETA people reverse course and ban the killing of plants (that use up carbon dioxide) while encourage the slaughter of carbon dioxide producing livestock; and that the eco-terrorists force all the Coca Cola, PepsiCola, Budweiser, Kirin, Fosters, etc. bottling plants around the world to cease production.

Dino's Demise

2007-01-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

No, I’m not talking about Dean Martin. I’m referring to the extinction of dinosaurs and what we can infer from this event about our climate, past and present. As I have previously posted in this blog, Robert Rohde of the University of California at Berkeley offers the following chart of carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

I believe that this seems a thoroughly researched attempt to track carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere over the last 600 million years. In viewing this chart (you may want to print it out to better follow the following discussion), I got to thinking about how this might correspond to the waxing and waning of the Earth’s flora and fauna. So back to Google I went and came up with the following rough biota chronology which I would like here to relate to Rohde’s chart:

4.5 billion years ago -- The Earth was thought to be formed.

3.5-3.9 billion years ago -- First primitive life forms inhabited the Earth’s seas.

450 million years ago -- First land plants appeared on Earth. These plants, through their acquired ability to carry on photosynthesis, could absorb carbon dioxide and water and produce hydrocarbons and emit oxygen. Please note that the Rohde chart has carbon dioxide volume levels at this point at about 6,000 parts per million (about 0.6%)

230 million years ago (during the Triassic period) – Dinosaurs first appeared. Please note that the Rohde chart has carbon dioxide volume levels at this point at about 1,000 parts per million (about 0.1%). This says then that, over the previous 220 million years, plants, through photosynthesis, had seemingly reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide to one-sixth the level that it was when land plants first appeared. This can begin to explain the surfeit of hydrocarbons buried in the earth in form of oil, gas, coal, etc. The chart also shows a dip in carbon dioxide levels to a nadir of around 500 parts per million (0.05%) at around 320 million years ago which suggests to me that this is when the Earth’s salad bar was most plentiful. It was also during this period that Pangaea had started to separate itself into our present continents.

150 million years ago (Jurassic period) – Many species of dinosaur had already gone extinct and many others had taken their place. There were two primary types of dinosaurs: plant-eaters (rhoetosaurus, acrocanthosaurus, brachiosaurus, etc.) which were often gigantic (often weighing more than 80 tons) slow-moving creatures … and plant-eater eaters (often fast-moving raptors). Back at about 320 million years ago a plant-eating population probably began to appear (possibly including proto dinosaurs) which reduced the flora cover and allowed carbon dioxide levels to resurge and peak at around 2,500 parts per million (0.25%) during the Jurassic period.

70 million years ago (Cretaceous period) – Dinosaurs were thought to have gone extinct during this period. Note that carbon dioxide levels started to drop precipitously at about 100 million years ago to about 700 parts per million (0.07%) which suggests that plant life was resurging and plant-eaters diminishing most likely due to raptors holding sway. And as the plant-eating dinosaurs food supply of these raptors was reduced, the raptors began to go hungry (since they were unable to munch on plants.) Many scientists believe that it took almost 10 million years for this extinction event to occur. However, a stressed population of dinosaurs might have been dealt a coup de grace with an event like a comet strike or a massive caldera explosion. With these plant-eating machines of dinosaurs gone, plants once again had an open field and continued to reduce carbon dioxide.

5 million years ago – proto man first appeared on earth. Obviously man has, over the millennia, nurtured plants with his agriculture and exploited them for shelter and fuel. But carbon dioxide levels have not fluctuated that much during man’s sway on earth … not nearly to the magnitude as before he arrived. Obviously, because of drastically reduced carbon dioxide levels, our Earth seems to have become more susceptible to periodic ice ages (probably caused by other exogenous factors). These ice ages, in turn, have caused short-term increases in carbon dioxide levels as much of the world’s flora was buried under huge glaciers. These increases in carbon dioxide levels may have been the feedback that eventually raised the Earth’s temperature and melted much of the ice. Today carbon dioxide levels hover around 370 parts per million (0.037%) after possible recent lows of 310 parts per million (0.031%) about 40 years ago.

The Dark Side

2007-01-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

Astrophysicists recently have been mapping the presence of “dark matter” in the universe. Dark matter had been postulated to exist because all the gravitational effects demonstrated in the universe cannot be explained by all the observable matter. Thus, it was concluded that there is matter, composed perhaps of exotic fundamental particles, that is invisibly affecting things. Scientists speculate that dark matter might comprise 2/3rds of the entire universe’s mass. This mapping of this dark matter has been recently accomplished by measuring, with the Hubble telescope, the gravitational deflection that dark matter is causing the light from distant galaxies (ala Einstein’s theory that gravity can bend light). This is called a “gravitational lens” and the amount of dark matter (with its gravity) is measured by the size of these deflections. The more dark matter in a particular section of the sky, the more bending has been observed to occur. Also this dark matter apparently can also be located three-dimensionally by how the various light wave lengths are affected – the redder the deflected light, the further away the dark matter is (ala the “red shift”). The interesting new result of this exhaustive work is that dark matter seems to be mainly co-located with visible matter.

Also “dark energy” has be scientifically surmised because, given all the universe’s matter and dark matter, its expansion should be slowing down. In fact, the edge of the universe is speeding up. Therefore, scientists feel there must be some unknown energy source that is pushing against all this gravity to cause this unexplained universe’s expansion acceleration. They are currently devising experiments to try to measure this dark energy and it location.

Now gravity is a force … and force is defined by “mass x acceleration”. Obviously gravity has more to it than just being a force and saying that gravity as we know it (canonic gravity) exists for dark matter (whose mass is undefined) is somewhat suspect. I would like to speculate there might be something called “virtual gravity”. That would be a form of gravity that exists without any discernable mass. This could exist if, during the Big Bang, gravity was created (gravitons?) along with other fundamental particles (matter), energy, etc. Quickly thereafter virtual gravity attached itself to matter (mass) and became canonic gravity … but there was still a surfeit of virtual gravity after the entire universe’s mass had been so sated. And since it seems relatively rare to create new matter out of energy, there still should exist a large excess of virtual gravity in the universe. (I have speculated in the past about how any new matter, when created, acquires gravity.) This extra virtual gravity could, in fact, be what we know as dark matter.

A more interesting speculation is that, since virtual gravity has no discernable mass, astrophysicists’ calculations requiring the existence of “dark energy” may well be greatly overstated. In fact, if one removes “mass” from the equation for virtual gravity’s force, one is left with only “acceleration” … which is exactly what the edge of the universe is supposedly doing.

Hell Explained

2006-12-12T05:44:00.001-08:00

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

“First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct ... leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’"

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A".

Anon.

Global Warming Redux

2006-11-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

Today’s (11/7/06) NY Times (in the Science Section) has a very interesting article on global warming. It mentions virtually all the possible reasons for global warming that I have previously documented. And it adds one more – the movement of our solar system within the Milky Way may change the amount of cosmic rays bombarding our earth which, in turn, changes the level of cloud cover and therefore our climate. However, one of the more interesting discussions centers on the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Robert Rohde of the University of California at Berkeley offers the following chart of carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere over the last 600 million years --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

-- showing the dramatic drop in levels of this gas. He also was quoted here as saying that “carbon dioxide is just one of the many influences” on our climate. Q.E.D.

Acceleration of Light

2006-10-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

In a previous Junk Science blog, I posited that things that might travel at the limit of speed (light rays in a perfect vacuum for instance) appear to have infinite acceleration at time zero (at the instant of creation) and zero acceleration thereafter. I will try here to rationalize this conclusion.

The formula for acceleration is d/(t**2) or distance divided by time squared. This can be also expressed as (d/t)*(1/t). Now, at time zero plus the minutest amount, light will be traveling at 186,000 miles per second. Also substituting in the second part of this formula, 1/0.1 = 10, 1/0.001 =1000, 1/0.000001=1,000,000, etc. Therefore, as the time interval decreases to nothing (gets infinitely small), the second part of this formula gets infinitely large. And, anything times infinity is infinity. Ergo, the acceleration of light at time zero is infinite.

Of course, one may then use the same logic to argue that the acceleration of anything is infinite at time zero. However, most other entities have virtually zero speed at time zero (plus the minutest amount). Therefore, zero times infinity is not infinity.

Haiku Q.

2006-09-30T01:55:00.000-07:00

Enigmatic hair
How does one strand tell the next
Where, how much to curl?

Darwin Schmarvin

2006-09-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

Recently the NY Times ran a squib in its Science Section about crickets in Hawaii that were being decimated by a parasitic fly whose larva burrow into the cricket and kill it. This fly is attracted to the cricket by its distinctive chirp and lays its eggs to the fatal detriment of the cricket. On the island of Kauai, since 1991, these crickets have been in sharp decline as a consequence. However, more recently the population of these crickets has risen dramatically as they have fortuitously lost their ability to chirp by a genetic mutation that eliminated a protuberance on their forewings that, when rubbed together, produces this clarion call. And this genetic change has all occurred in less than 20 generations according to researchers.

There is a branch of evolutionary science (not based in “intelligent design” or God-directed genetic mutation) called the “eonic effect” which proposes a non-random or environmentally-directed pattern of evolution. This somewhat contradicts Darwin’s basic claim of “natural selection,” a totally random process of genetic mutation which then preserves the more beneficial of these mutations through the better survival and reproduction of various effected species. It seems to me that pure Darwinian evolution could not have produced this cricket’s almost-complete genetic mutation in just 20 generations. The reason for my skepticism derives from the fact that such a random mutation should take many generations to first occur. Then, because both forewing protuberance and non-protuberance crickets would successfully breed (the parasitic fly still to kill the former), many, many more generations would be needed for this mutation to become rife.

I have sensed for a long time that the eonic effect has been at least a partial contributor to biota evolution (including for our own species) … mainly because of the immense diversity of plants and animals that has occurred in the relatively short period (even if tens of millions of years). Clearly, non-agenda-driven statisticians could contribute mightily to our better understanding of the push and pull between these two seeming contributors to evolution.

(You may ask: How then do the female crickets find the non-chirping male ones to mate? The answer is there are still a few chirpers left ... soooo ... all the non-chirping males congregate near the male chirpers and, when the females come acallin', they are usurped by the non-chirpers. I wonder how the Darwinians would explain this one? Survival of the non-fittest? What happens when all the chirpers die off? Perhaps the females will start using escort services?)

Gravity's Rainbow

2006-09-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some thoughts about gravity that have been keeping me awake for lo these many nights:

- We were somewhat led astray in Physics 101. A bowling ball and a golf ball do NOT fall to Earth from the same height at the same rate. Gravity is a function of the density of opposing masses and the distance between them. Since the bowling ball is more massive than the golf ball, it falls slightly faster, but because the mass of the Earth so overwhelms the mass of these two balls, the difference is so slight as to be almost immeasurable.

- In the U.S., force is measured in poundals (a function of the existing gravitational pull of the Earth). Mass is measured in pounds, ounces, etc. I find it a little strange that the weight of things on Earth (a force) is given in pounds, etc. when they really should be given in poundals (or newtons … or dynes).

- We know a lot about gravity except what it really is? Clearly gravity exists at the celestial level. It even seems to exist at the molecular level. (Isn’t this how dust bunnies come to be?) And I even believe that it exists at the sub-atomic level. Otherwise, how can black holes have such massive gravity when all their atoms have been crushed down to their most elementary particles? Beyond this I cannot speculate except that gravity may, in the very end, be another dimension. (Einstein said that gravity was a “warp in the space-time continuum”. I suspect that, if he were alive today and given the speculation on a 10-dimensional world, he might also label it another “dimension".)

- Speaking of black holes, their massive gravity keeps even light from escaping their grasp. Doesn’t this suggest that photons have at least some mass however minute? Also, Einstein’s “gravity lens” bends light around large stars. This too supports the idea that photons have some minimal mass since their “mass” is clearly influenced by the gravity of these large stars.

- Matter, by its mass, has gravity; energy doesn’t (at least in many scientists’ opinion). Is this the major difference between them? When matter is converted to energy (say through fission), it seems to lose its gravity. And if energy can be converted back into mass (a controversial postulate*), must it re-acquire gravity first?

- Gravity can seem to emanate from empty space. Consider the donut. Its center of gravity, when horizontal is at the center of its whole … so one cannot balance it on a pencil in this orientation. If one had a donut the size of the earth and someone fell from outer space toward its center of gravity, would the faller keep on going through the whole and back into space? If one was walking on the surface of this weird planet toward the hole, at what point would one’s adhesion to the surface become unstable enough to jeopardize one’s safety?

- Gravity seems to act instantaneously across the vastness of space (consider Pluto obediently staying in its orbit), whereas a gravitational wave (a fluctuation in the curvature of space-time which propagates as a wave) is said to travel at the speed of light. If the Sun were to suddenly disappear, how long would it take for the planets in our Solar System to fly off into space? At the same time someone on Pluto saw, after a 4.1 hour delay, the Sun's light go out … or instantly? I propose that, if it would be instantly, then there is more evidence that gravity is indeed another dimension.

- Gravity, it seems, has organized the matter in our universe into planets, planetary systems, solar systems, and galaxies. However, once converted to energy, this same universe tends to dissipate due to entropy. Therefore, entropy’s antithesis (in two different ways) is gravity.

* In 1998 researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center successfully converted energy into matter. This feat was accomplished by using lasers and incredibly strong electromagnetic fields to change ordinary light into matter.

Junk Science

2006-04-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Junk Science

I once heard a creationist elaborate on his reasons why the theory of evolution was hokum. His incredulous interrogator asked how he could deny all the fossil discoveries that supported Darwin’s theory. He replied with the assertion: “Almost every scientific theory I’ve ever heard has later been proven incorrect.” This, unfortunately, is not that far from the truth. Certainly Freud’s theories have been largely debunked and Darwin’s teachings on evolution are coming under increased scrutiny … particularly those concerning the randomness of genetic change being evolution’s driving force. And even Einstein has had some of his postulates enfeebled by more recent experimental discoveries (as of yet however, remarkably few). This assertion about flawed scientific theories is a disturbing fact (even though it does not support the derived assertion of the loopy creationists who voiced it.)

Most of these “failings” of science occur on the theoretical side. Applied science seems to be much more reliable. Certainly, our ability to send a space probe to Mars and run a rover around the Martian landscape for over a year is a remarkable applied scientific achievement. But when theoretical “scientists” take a small number of observations and then extrapolate consequences to a much larger universe (e.g.s, cholesterol-reduced diets, global warming, magnetic cures, damaging silicone implants, etc.) things become problematic. The problem seems to be either these scientists don’t sufficiently emphasize their caveats … or our ratings-hungry media ignore them. So we, the public, are jerked around. First we must eschew butter in favor of margarine. Then we discover that the hydrogenised unsaturated fats in oleo are very, very unhealthy. We are even becoming more subjected to “scientific” papers that use phoneyed-up data to justify their conclusions.

This is all very dangerous. Imagine if the scientists on the Manhattan Project, used today’s standards for scientific proof when building the atomic bomb. We might well have easily annulated ourselves. Even this author, while exposing my ideas under the title “Junk Science,” probably needs to include more warnings in my feeble fantasizing.

Global Dimming

2006-04-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

PBS is at it again. The other night they ran another breathless science documentary called “Global Dimming.” The premise of this program was that particulates migrating to our upper atmosphere were reflecting more and more sunlight back out into space (global dimming) … therefore causing global cooling. These particulates, of course, are mostly man-made … from car and plane combustion emissions, power plant exhausts, and other hydrocarbon burnings. (They conveniently ignore massive dust storms, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, intrusions of space dust, and other natural causes.)

The drama of this premise was that this global cooling is partially canceling out the global warming caused by mankind’s creation of greenhouse gasses (mostly carbon dioxide). Therefore, it was stated (gasp) that our attempts to remove particulate pollution from our environment would, in effect, speed up the process of global warming! The estimate was that global dimming has more than halved what would have been the effect of greenhouse gases on our global temperature rise (about one degree Fahrenheit over the last 40 years.) It was also estimated (by a starry-eyed scientist) that, by the end of this century, global warming would increase by as much as twenty degrees and that this would melt the Greenland ice cap and that this, in turn, would flood out all of Florida (talk about dramatic graphics!) Oh, yes … and polar bears would have disappeared. They would swim and swim looking for sea ice … and eventually drown.

It was then stated that the last time global temperatures rose dramatically was about three million years ago when a “natural” increase in carbon dioxide caused an episode of global warming of this magnitude. My question is “Why is an increase in carbon dioxide of this magnitude in prehistory 'natural' whereas what is happening now 'unnatural'”? Have all the justifications for this prehistoric episode disappeared?

Global Warming

2006-04-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have not read Michael Creighton’s new book, “State of Fear” (nor do I intend to), but I hear it debunks some of the myths surrounding global warming. There is little doubt that some atmospheric warming is taking place currently … but it is unclear to me that this is primarily due to man’s carbon dioxide creating activities.

If developed nations are responsible for global warming, then we are in for an interesting future … since the developing world (with its multi-billions of people) will all too soon also be in the “developed” world category. However, we do know from the history captured in geological formations that the world has gone through many natural warming and cooling cycles. These cycles have apparently been caused by one or more of the following events (roughly in order of potential effect):

1) Changes (wiggles) in the amount of the orthogonal offset in the Earth’s rotational axis relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun. (This offset is what causes our world’s seasons.)

2) The periodic cycle of sunspot activity (and other solar dynamics) causing a change in the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth.

3) Enormous emissions of Earth’s gasses and particulates naturally and during cataclysmic geological events like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

4) The Earth’s on-going global chemistry which creates and destroys massive amounts of inorganic compounds.

5) The periodic small perturbations of the Earth in its orbit … closer to and further from the sun

6) The evolving structure of the Earth’s upper atmosphere (magnetic, chemical, and electrical) which filter out or permit in the ethers of space.

7) Shifts in the Earth’s ocean currents caused by intercontinental plate tectonic movements and other poorly-understood factors.

8) The effect of the Earth’s biomass and mankind on the composition and proportions of our atmospheric gasses (carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, etc. -- e.g., early plants converted enormous amount of naturally occurring carbon dioxide into oxygen … which then enabled the evolution of animals … who then reciprocated by converting oxygen back into carbon dioxide). By the by, methane has 20 times the atmospheric warming effect as carbon dioxide … and is mainly produced by nature, not by man.

The notion of a change (caused by the burning of fossil fuels) in the relatively small proportion of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (from 310 to 370 parts per million during the last 40 years) is responsible for our current warming cycle seems to me to be the essence of human species egocentricity. If one truly comprehends the scope of the above-outlined possible reasons for global warming, then one has to conclude that politics must the driving force behind our current environmental hysteria. I think that any “scientist’ who lays global warming totally at the feet of the increase in carbon dioxide must first quantify the effects (positive and/or negative) of all the above possible causes.

Besides, global warming might not be all that bad. Imagine the huge wheat fields that could be planted in Siberia and Canada’s Northwest Territories. Imagine the opening of a passage through the sea ice north of Canada and Russia. Imagine the home heating fuel cost savings throughout the world. If, in fact, we are in a long-term warming cycle then, instead of moving to Florida for my retirement, I can just wait for Florida to move to me.

Neutrinos

2006-03-03T06:44:00.000-08:00

Recently I watched a PBS program on neutrinos. This was a fascinating saga of the search for the Fermi-posited neutrino by first locating huge vats of carbon tetrachloride deep inside mountains to count the number of neutrinos coming from the decay of electrons deep inside the sun. As these measurement technologies became more and more sophisticated (which I will not relate here) it became clear that, not only were there neutrinos, but they were indeed as numerous as predicted -- billions fly through every one square inch of our bodies every second. But since they carry no electric charge, they pass through the most solid of solids with little or no interaction -- thus their measurement difficulties. (Also, enormous one-way transfers of charged matter into inert subatomic particles would suggest that entropy is much more onerous than I have until now believed.)

One website (grandunification.com) suggests that the recombination of a photon and a high-energy neutrino can produce an electron. This theory fascinates me since it would provide a way for electrons to travel from the sun to the Earth by first splitting apart and later recombining. (Very few electrons travel through the vacuum of space and into the Earth’s atmosphere.) Why is this important? May I suggest two reasons:

1) If photovoltaic (solar cell) production of electricity (continuous electron streams) is, in fact, caused by (at least in small part) the combination of photons and neutrinos to produce electrons then this might lead to much more efficient solar energy capture research. (It has never made any intuitive sense to me that silicon or gallium arsenide wafers could, by themselves, forever produce electrons from only interactions with photons without some sort of external replenishment. This would require some everlasting source of electrons in the solar cell since there clearly can be electron sinks in the circuit … such as a charging battery.) It is also curious to note that gallium is used in newer neutrino measuring devices.

2) If photosynthesis is also triggered by such electron recreation from sunlight, then this would be part of the hydrocarbon manufacturing process. (If photosynthesis causes electrons to be produced from photons and neutrinos, then these electrons could be the first step in the electrolysis of water and/or carbon dioxide into their components … which then could chemically combine into various hydrocarbons.) If we were to fully understand this process, we might be able to replicate it more efficiently (from the quintillions of neutrinos and photons coming from the sun) to reduce one posited cause of atmospheric warming (carbon dioxide excess) and, at the same time, produce enormous hydrocarbon energy reservoirs.

And, if the above two hypotheses are true, then it would seem that the counting of neutrinos coming from the sun might have been or can be done a lot more simply.

Afterthought: If electrons can split into neutrinos and photons and then recombine (even in extremely small numbers) then isn’t it possible that this process could be the justification for “tunneling electrons”? Clearly, neutrinos can tunnel through resistors … and certain photons also (egs., x-ray, infrared, or gamma ray photons.)

Entropy

2006-01-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Many scientists predict that the universe will eventually wind down into a permanent state of entropy. That is, all forms of energy (or activity) will have decentralized themselves and all semblance of cosmic (and maybe even atomic) order will have disappeared. A scientific internet website’s definition of entropy is: “Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so.” (Remember, energy doesn’t really disappear. There is still the thermodynamic law that states that all energy is preserved either in its kinetic form, its potential form, or as electromagnetic radiation.)

Therefore entropy is a complete state of chaos where electromagnetic radiation and energy still exist but are so dispersed as to be effectively non-existent at a singular point. Eventually (billions and billions of years hence), all suns will have burned out … all planetary motion will have ceased … and all knowledge will have been lost. Thus, the antonym for entropy could be (and often is) stated as “organized information”. But, I have a somewhat different take on entropy’s antonym -- I think it is “evolution”. If entropy is the ultimate winding down of information … then evolution is the spontaneous winding up of order … encoded into the billions of DNA chemical pairs of millions of species on this earth (and perhaps on millions of other earth-like planets.) This is complimented by the quadrillions of bytes of information that is stored in our printed and electronic libraries – all enabled by the information encoded in the DNA of humans.

This makes evolution even more unique and, yes, precious – it is a guppy swimming upstream against the tsunami of ever-growing entropy. Thus, there is a race to the death, albeit a multi-billion year race, between physical entropy and biological evolution. I have no idea which one will win this race, but I suspect that our eventual fate is not as predetermined as many today predict.

3 Questions

2006-01-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

If entropy is the ultimate fate of our universe, how is it that information and structure (anti-entropy) seems to be ever-growing?

Why does not the progression in the number of electrons at each valence level in an atom behave in a regular and predictable way?

Why is the temperature of absolute zero so absolute? (Can't atoms have negative movement?)

Photosynthesis

2006-01-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

To the NY Times Editor,
Your "Observatory" article in the June 21st, 2005 Science Times section talks about photosynthesis taking place near deep-ocean hydrothermal vents using the meager light that eminates from the lava deep inside these vents. The implication from the scientists' quotes in this article is that photons are only present in the visible light spectrum. In fact, photons are indeed produced in the infrared section of the electromagnetic spectrum (produced by the heat eminating from these vents) ... and for that matter across the entire electromagnetic spectrum ... even for radio waves and gamma rays. Therefore, who is to say that photosynthesis may not be able to convert photons at these different energy levels into biological building blocks?
Sincerely,
George W. Potts

Speed Limit

2005-12-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

In a previous blog, I posited that the “speed of light” should really be called the “limit of speed” (speed limit). This is partly because light’s speed is extremely variable … scientists have recently been able to slow light down significantly … and because all other electromagnetic waves in a vacuum (and even the edge of the expanding universe) travel at close to this same maximal speed. Einstein has postulated that, at the absolute limit of speed (speed of light in a total vacuum), three rather strange things occur:

1) Time slows down to zero
2) Distance (along the speed vector) contracts to zero
3) Mass increases to infinity

Fortunately, the curve of approach to these events is very, very, very asymptotic to the limit of speed. For instance, at 10% of the limit of speed, there is almost no measurable time-slowing effect whereas at 99.99999999% the limit of speed, the length of second there is 19.6 hours on Earth (not infinity). It also seems to me, that the true limit of speed may never be fully achieved … because the above events can be also quite onerous. (Even the ether of space is not an absolute vacuum.) For example, if photons have even miniscule mass, then light achieving its absolute upper limit would have its photons more massive than a black hole. Also, if light from galaxies at the edge of space were traveling at the full limit of speed, then leaving there 13 billion years ago (in our time), it would have traveled no distance in no time (in its frame of reference … see my previous blog, “Perpetual Motion”). Thus, it would suffer no attenuation of its brightness, nor any attenuation from the trillions of other galaxies populating our universe, suggesting that our resulting night sky might be as bright as our day sky.

The following observations spring from what Einstein has postulated:

- Why is the limit of speed 186,000 miles per second? This is the real question of our age. I currently have no idea why this is so but I do believe that it might spring from the relationship between zero and infinity (notice the occurrence of these numbers in Einstein’s postulates). And this in turn depends on the mathematics of these numbers. For instance math currently recognizes that any positive number divided by infinity is zero … and any positive number divided by zero is infinity. However, math currently also says that zero divided by zero is zero. I disagree. I think it is one. And math currently also says that infinity divided by infinity is infinity. I also disagree. I think it is also one. (The reasons for these two conclusions of mine spring from limit theory.) Note that, at the limit of speed, speed is defined by zero distance divided by zero time, which, according to my mathematics, is unity. (Also, note that atomic physicists normalize all their cyclotron and linear accelerator calculations so that the speed of light becomes unity.)

- The edge of the universe is said to be expanding at the limit of speed. If one looks at one edge of the universe relative to its opposite then its total speed would far exceeds the limit of speed. Therefore speed must be relative to its point of origin.

- If speed is relative to its point of origin … not to the speed of other objects. So is speed really a vector not a scalar?

- I also wonder what effect do things traveling at or near the limit of speed not in a straight line but in a (tight) circle have on time slowing down?

- Time slows down with increasing speed. This implies that time itself has a rate of forward progress … or speed. And, since speed is a distance divided by time calculation, we have on our hands a profound paradox.

- If, at near the limit of speed, distance contracts, then why do elemental particles, when accelerated to a very high percentage of the limit of speed, get longer?

- (Somewhat related observation) Can photons in the electromagnetic spectrum outside of the visible light spectrum (such as infrared) cause photosynthesis in plants or other primitive life forms?

- Things that might travel at the limit of speed (light rays in a perfect vacuum for instance) appear to have infinite acceleration at time zero (at the instant of creation) and zero acceleration thereafter.

- Another approach to enumerating the speculated ten dimensions (see initial blog) of our existence might be:

1st dimension = distance (d)
2nd dimension = plane (d^2)
3 dimension = space (d^3)
4th dimension = time (t)
5th dimension = speed (d/t)
6th dimension = acceleration (d/t^2) (Is this then a proxy for gravity? – which on Earth is 32 feet per second per second).
7th dimension = dispersion (d^2/t)
8th dimension = dosage (d^3/t)
9th dimension = planar time (t^2)
10th dimension = spatial time (t^3)

Perpetual Motion

2005-12-09T06:29:00.000-08:00

Hey Einstein here's a poser: How can a photon traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) … for almost 14 billion years … and oscillating about 10^15 times a second ... not represent perpetual motion? All this is done with the total photon energy of only about 1/10^42 ergs (an erg is 23.9 billionths of a calorie)? (This analysis is taken from the fact that the Hubble telescope has picked up light from a far distant galaxy ... formed about the time of the big bang.)

The Speed of Light

2005-11-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

I recently saw a PBS documentary on Albert Einstein in which much of the history of his “relativity” postulating was revealed. In particular, Einstein had been perplexed by the notion, previously proven by Maxwell, that light travels at 186,000 miles per second (about 670 million miles per hour) independent of the speed of its source or that of the observer. Einstein would imagine himself riding on a beam of light and shining another light which would then also travel off at the speed of light – an obvious logical conundrum. Einstein solved this problem when he realized that, as objects speed up, time slows down. Thus, as he sat on a beam of light, an eternity at the original light source would be zero time to Einstein. (This is the basis of much science fiction that has austronauts, after traveling through space at a very fast rate for a few of their years, return to earth to meet their great-great-great grandchildren. Also, please note that Einstein's postulate has indeed been proven by comparing atomic clocks sent into space and returned to be compared with their calabration twins kept here on earth.)

Now this notion of relative time creates its own conundrums. We are traveling at various speeds through the cosmos. At the equator, we are rotating around the earth’s circumfrence (about 28,000 miles) every 24 hours … or at about 1,150 miles per hour. We on Earth are also traveling in our orbit around the sun ever year, which works out to be about 67,000 miles per hour. The sun is also traveling around the black hole at the galatic center of the Milky Way at about 250 kilometers per second (559,000 miles per hour). And the Milky Way itself is traveling on its own track throgh the fabric of the cosmos at a speed combining both absolute displacements from other galaxies and the speed it inherits from the big bang expansion (being relative to its distance from the edge of the universe). I have been unable to quantify this speed … but it is certainly in the millions of miles per hour. (The edge of the universe itself is thought to be expanding at the speed of light.) The result of all this is that “time” through the universe progresses relative to other locations at rates different from one another by factors from nanoseconds up to eons. (However, these discrepencies can probably never be fully reconciled because time appears to be consistant at individual observation points.) To me, this suggests that the notion of multiple parallel universes may not be that far-fetched after all ... they are here with us in ours.

(Note: “speed of light” is an unfortunate term because all electromagnetic radiations (X-rays, gamma rays, microwaves, etc.) travel at this same rate in a vacuum … as well as does the edge of our expanding universe. Thus 186,000 miles per second might be better named the “limit of speed”.)

Electromagnetic Spectrum

2005-11-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

I have a number of questions concerning the electromagnetic spectrum (ES -- see table in previous blog posting):
1) Why is it called the "electromagnetic spectrum"? How do electrons or, particularly, magnetism relate to the physics of this process?
2) What are the limits of the ES wavelengths? Can they be very large (infinite)? Can they be infinitely short?
3) Is it possible that the electromagnetic "waves" are merely the paths that their photons traverse as they oscillate (at their given frequency) orthogonal to the path of their forward motion whilst traveling at the speed of light?
4) The brightness of a light wave (or other ES wavelengths) is representative by its amplitude. Does the amplitude of ES waves change with the amount of energy injected into the photons? Can amplitudes be infinitely (or very, very) large?
5) If so, why doesn't more energy shorten the wavelength and not increase the amplitude? (Or, for that matter, why doesn't more energy produce more photons (candelas)?
6) Concerning the famous "double slit" experiment (where an interference pattern on a screen at the other side show that light exhibits wave-like behavior when passing through two slits in a shirt cardboard):
a) If one rotates the shirt cardboard 90 degrees relative to the light source will the interference pattern persist?
b) If one increases the thickness of the shirt cardboard two times, five times, a thousand times;
will the interference patterns persist?
c) Will the interference patterns persist if one uses laser (coherent) light?
d) If the slits in this cardboard are further apart than twice the amplitude of the light waves being passed through them, will interference patterns still persist?
e) How far away from the shirt cardboard can the screen be and still show the interference pattern?
7) What is the relationship between ES wavelength (or photon equivalent mass) and the (electron) characteristic of various atoms and/or molecules that cause such wavelengths to be absorbed, reflected, refracted, partially passed through (translucent), or fully passed through (transparent)? Does it relate to the ES wavelength (photon oscillation rate?) versus the oscillation rate of the electrons (quantum effect?)?
8) Assuming that the intensity (candelas for light and other ES waves too) of any ES source is representative of the number of emitted photons (per square area), at what level of intensity do photons start interfering with each other when they are emitted from a discrete point … if at all? (Could this be the corona or flash effect one sees during a total eclipse of the sun?) Is there a theoretical limit to ES intensity?
9) The "red shift" is used to calculate the speed at which stars are receding in the universe. (The speed of the receding star is said to cause its emitted light's wavelength to shift toward the longer or red side.) However, we know from Einstein, that the speed of light is absolute and does not depend on one's observation point. How do we resolve this seeming conflict? Is this supporting of the notion of ES frequency being a new dimension?
10) From the above table and the formula E=M*C**2 it is clear that photons have a different equivalent mass (the mass that would be equivalent to the indicated energy) depending on their ES frequency (larger for shorter frequencies, eg, a gamma ray photon has an equivalent mass of about 1/4 of the mass of an electron at rest, whereas a visible light photon, about 6 millionths of the mass of an electron at rest), but do the equivalent size of these photons also change with their ES frequency?

Brought to You by the Number 10

2005-11-17T12:28:00.000-08:00

Science has numerous unanswered and perplexing questions: How do electrons "tunnel" through resistors and suddenly appear where they shouldn't be? Why does the universe have much less measured matter (and energy) than it should given the astrophysical calculus (and thus, "dark matter" and "dark energy")? Are there such things as gravitons (minute particles that transmit the force of gravity)? Why does light behave as waves sometimes and, other times, as particles (photons)? If the speed of light is absolute and as fast as things can go, how can gravity have a seeming instantaneous effect over huge interstellar space? Why don't matter and antimatter annihilate one another.1 Why is time unidirectional? What causes magnetism to behave only over very short distances whereas gravity, a much weaker force than magnetism, can reach out over the vast distances of space? Why does magnitism manifest itself with flux lines … why not flux plasmas?

Mathematicians and physicists, who have been trying to answer these and many more perplexing questions and also run to ground Einstein's elusive snark, the Unified Field Theory (also known as the "theory of everything" -- the linkage of astrophysics with sub-atomic physics), have concluded that there must exist many more than four dimensions … and as many as ten or even twenty-six (where, according to the scientific literati, most UFT mathematic equations resolve themselves in sublime elegance). That is, most of us currently grasp the notion that our world is bounded by height, width, length and a time dimension (or X, Y, Z, and T)2. However, adding more dimensions to this set stretches our minds beyond normal comprehension.

Mathematicians have tried to help us visualize this hyperspace by proposing "string theory" where additional dimensions are teensy tiny3 vibrating strings that are curled up throughout the universe and manifest themselves only where they intersect our visible world … possibly as subatomic particles. Even though I don't understand the mathematics of string theory, this seems to me to be a silly explanation (like the Platonic notion of a crystal sphere surrounding the earth). For instance, how can all six additional dimensions be represented by a single physical entity, a tiny string? And why do we continue to think within the box (the space-time continuum). Can't additional dimensions be outside this paradigm? Certainly Einstein reached beyond space to include time. I don't believe string theory moves our universal understanding forward one iota. If anything, it seems to be a regressive rationalization. The number of space-time dimensions associated with various string theories varies from 10 to 24. But the preponderance of string theories requires 10 dimensions, so this is the number toward which my arguments are directed.

I often lie awake nights, trying to understand these conundrums with laic naiveté, particularly what might be the 5th through 10th dimensions of our existence. Fortuitously, part of my career has been spent creating software to manipulate and display multidimensional databases (also known as hypercubes). And so, I have thought quite a bit about how to visualize such multidimensional data constructs. One software product I was involved with was able to store, retrieve, and manipulate eight data dimensions and display graphically four dimensions (X, Y, and Z axes, as well as animation -- used to represent the fourth dimension, time). I also have followed what other graphics thinkers and developers (including Tufte) have proffered along these same lines. I also think that the basic units of measurement of physics (SSI) can offer useful insights. And, finally, animals' sensory apparati seem also to offer a notion of how our world is constructed. These three approaches have been useful for me in trying to understand what might be the further dimensions of our physical world. Let me explain:

1) A fifth dimension can be easily displayed graphically using colors. That is, if one uses animated planar surfaces to display the first four dimensions. (If one must visualize more than one value surface in four dimensions with say, a bar chart, then color must be used to differentiate these value surfaces and this option is negated.) Following this logic to the real world may suggest that the visual spectrum, or to generalize, the different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, might indeed be the fifth dimension.4 The following table (also from the Internet) represents the electromagnetic spectrum as we now know it. The Energy column represents the photon energy at each wavelength in joules (107 dynes*centimeter -- dynes are grams*centimeters/second). Wavelengths are in meters and Frequency is in hertz (cycles per second):

................Wavelength (m).............Frequency (Hz).............Energy (J)
Radio..........> 1 x 10^-1..................<3.x.10^11................> 2 x 10^-24
Microwave.1 x 10^-3 - 1 x 10^-1....3 x 10^9 - 3 x 10^11...2 x 10^-24 - 2 x 10^-22
Infrared......7 x 10^-7 - 1 x 10^-3....3 x 10^11 - 4 x 10^1..2 x 10^-22 - 3 x 10^-19
Optical....4 x 10^-7 - 7 x 10^-7...4 x 10^14 - 7.5 x 10..14.3 x 10^-17 - 5 x 10^-19
UV..........1 x 10^-8 - 4 x 10^-7.....7.5 x 10^14 - 3 x 1016..5 x 10^-19 - 2 x 10^-17
X-ray........1 x 10^-11 - 1 x 10^-8...3 x 10^16 - 3 x 1019..2 x 10^-17 - 2 x 10^-14
Gamma-ray.....<1.x.10^-11................> 3 x 10^19.................> 2 x 10^-14
2) A sixth dimension can be graphically displayed with color brightness. Brightness (or color intensity) is measured by the amplitude of an electronic spectrum wave.

3) A seventh dimension can be graphically displayed with color saturation. Following this logic to the real world suggests that luminous intensity (candelas) might be the seventh dimension. (Note: candelas are also used to represent the luminious intensity of radiation all along the electromagnetic spectrum.)

4) So far, graphical dimensions are differentiated by we humans with our eyesight. Why can't they be differentiated also by our touch? One could imagine a futuristic graphical image with a tactical component so that changing temperature would represent a spectrum of values along a dimension. Therefore temperature (Kelvin’s) might indeed be the eighth physical dimension. (note: temperature might be the measure of brightness and/or luminious intensity at the infrared spot in the electromagnetic spectrum … in which case this would NOT be another dimension.)

5) Another tactile (or rather kinesthetic) representation of dimensionality might be the weight of the object represented. Since weight is really the mass of an object within a particular gravitational field, then mass may be the ninth physical dimension … and gravity the tenth (if gravity isn't part of the electromagnetic spectrum). Gravity was described by Einstein as a warp in the space-time continuum. Why can't gravity's formula -- feet per second per second (or distance/time**2) be an addition to distance**3 as representing the first three dimensions. (Note: Gravity waves have recently been argued to travel at or close to the speed of light … just like all the waves of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is also believed that the force of magnetism also travels at nearly the speed of light.)

6) As suggested in the footnote below, a matter-antimatter dipole (or continuum) might be the tenth dimension if it is not gravity. (The tenth dimension might also be magnetism.)The preceding are my guesses for the makeup of ten dimensions. It is interesting to note that all the base SI units of measure have been included in this treatise … except for amperes that, it is claimed by some, is really derivative … and moles that are really a measure of molecular count. It is also interesting that all of our senses have been covered except for hearing, texture feeling, taste and smell. Why can't hearing also suggest a dimension? To me, this animal sense represents the lateral movement of molecules and not a true physical degree of freedom. Texture is primarily molecular arrangements, and smell and taste really discern the chemical character of molecules and not the nature of atomic or subatomic dimensionality. However, it must also be noted with interest that some animals have a sense of magnetic polarity, which leaves us with another tantalizing clue as noted above.

FOOTNOTES
1 Questions: Are matter and antimatter a dipole? Or is there a continuum of multiple states between matter and antimatter? Is this continuum, if it exists, another dimension?
2 This suggests the UFT is resolved with an equation in as many as 8 variables with one variable (distance) being cubed. However, there is nothing that prohibits other dimensions of the ten being represented by powers of any of the above (or other) dimension surmises (see the comment above about gravity).
3 University of Washington scientists using gravity measurements to hunt for evidence of dimensions in addition to those already known have found that those dimensions would have to occupy a space smaller than an electron. Note that photons are believed to be extremely small, if they have any mass at all.
4 It seems logical to generalize the visual spectrum into the whole electromagnetic spectrum the purpose of this exercise. However, this raises many other questions: Are there electromagnetic waves whose periods are infinitely small and/or infinitely large? Could electromagnetic waves that are infinitely large be gravity? Could electromagnetic waves that are infinitely small be magnetism? Or the weak atomic force? Or the strong atomic force? The fact that the electromagnetic spectrum can be represented both by waves and particles (photons) is another tantalizing clue to it being a dimension of our existence. If subatomic particles are theorized as the four-dimensional representations of the string dimensions in string theory, why can't photons be the equivalent four-dimensional representations of five or six dimensional electromagnetic waves?