Category: Stranger than fiction

It’s odd how many people this time of year succumb to the prosletyzation urge – about how everyone else is wrong. One person insists that Kwanzaa is a fraud, another says that Christmas has pagan roots, another says that the SeaTac/Rabbi incident was latent anti-semitism. Is Santa usurping the Three Kings? And what’s with Hajj this year?

But I just don’t see why having an inclusive holiday neccessarily requires a dilution of meaning. Is there some conservation of good cheer principle at work? Why does it matter to someone what someone else’s interpretation is?

I say, Merry Christmas, Hag Sameach, Happy Kwanzaa, hajj mubarak, Blessed festivus, and every other greeting and salutation that is relevant, with pride. It’s not out of rote political correctness. It’s because this is the time of year, in which we all look to our pillars of identity and reafirm them. This is a holiday for all mankind.

Happy holidays to all of you. May the year ahead be full of blessing and joy.

Maybe the Universe is just a giant dodecahedron?

In the standard model of cosmology, space has been flat and infinite ever since the universe underwent a short period of extremely rapid expansion called inflation shortly after the Big Bang. Moreover, we now know that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating due to a mysterious repulsive force caused by “dark” energy (see “Dark energy” Physics World May 2004 pp37-42).
[…]
Cosmologists usually assume that the universe is simply connected like a plane, which means there is only one direct path for light to travel from a source to an observer. A simply connected Euclidean or hyperbolic universe would indeed be infinite, but if the universe is multiply connected, like a torus, there would be many different possible paths. This means that an observer would see multiple images of each galaxy and could easily misinterpret them as distinct galaxies in an endless space, much as a visitor to a mirrored room has the illusion of seeing a crowd. Could we, in fact, be living in such a cosmic hall of mirrors?

The article goes into extensive detail the anomalies in cosmic microwave background radiation that suggest we are not in a simply-connected space. Fluctuations in the temperature of that background radiation can be expressed as combinations of the vibrational modes of space itself. However, vibrational modes corresponding to very long wavelengths (ie, large scales) are very weakly represented, implying that space simply isn’t as big as we thought it was. However, by adopting a different geometrical model, the anomalies can be explained:

…[T]he best candidate to fit the observed power spectrum is a well-proportioned space called the Poincaré dodecahedral space.

This space may be represented by a polyhedron with 12 pentagonal faces, with opposite faces being “glued” together after a twist of 36° (figure 3). This is the only consistent way to obtain a spherical (i.e. positively curved) space from a dodecahedron: if the twist was 108°, for example, we would end up with a radically different hyperbolic space. The Poincaré dodecahedral space is essentially a multiply connected variant of a simply connected hypersphere, although its volume is 120 times smaller.

A rocket leaving the dodecahedron through a given face immediately re-enters through the opposite face, and light propagates such that any observer whose line-of-sight intercepts one face has the illusion of seeing a slightly rotated copy of their own dodecahedron. This means that some photons from the cosmic microwave background, for example, would appear twice in the sky.

What is fascinating about this is that the size of the dodecahedral universe can be estimated, using data from astronomical observations about the expansion rate of the universe and mass-energy densities in space. The authors found that the Poincaré dodecahedron space is 43 billion light-years wide, compared to 53 billion light-years for the standard model. That’s a 20% smaller universe – and also implies that we should be able to see repetition in the sky across very large scales. The rest of the article goes on to discuss the search for such repetitions.

Is the universe a dodacahedron? We still are not sure, but it is certainly possible, and even plausible. Which opens up a whole new door for science fiction…

UPDATE: Shamus models the universe.

Thus went the opening narration to the original Battlestar Galactica TV series. Those words always sent a thrill down my spine – even though Star Trek was way cooler, Galactica was simply more epic, based on those simple words above. Later, in college I added an Astronomy major to my Physics and Math degrees (like shopping at K-Mart – buy two get one free – due to the coursework overlap) and learned in a nutshell that the entire Solar System was nothing more than “scum” waste product of supernova explosions, and that all the elements of which we and our planet were made were birthed in the cosmos. It turns out that the biosphere on earth is also “scum” from the formation of the earth, but that’s another story.

At any rate, it’s precisely the intrusion of the cosmically macroscopic into the mundane fact that we exist that has long fascinated me and captivated my imagination. Which is why this story really resonates with me – how the galactic baby boom influenced the origins of life on earth:

Some 2.4 billion years ago when the Milky Way started upping its star production, cosmic rays—high-speed atomic particles—started pouring onto our planet, causing instability within the living. Populations of bacteria and algae repeatedly soared and crashed in the oceans.

The researchers counted the amount of carbon-13 within sedimentary rocks, the most common rocks exposed on the Earth’s surface. When algae and bacteria were growing in the oceans, they took in carbon-12, so the ocean had an abundance of carbon-13.

Many sea creatures use carbon-13 to make their shells. If there is a lot of carbon-13 stored in rocks, it means life, the origin of which is still unknown, was booming. Therefore, variations in carbon-13 are a good indicator of the productivity of life on Earth.

The researchers found that the biggest fluctuation in productivity coincided with star formation, which had an affect on Earth’s climate and therefore on the productivity of life on our planet.

This sort of stuff really serves to cement my faith and underline how awesome, literally, is Creation.

There’s a new entry at SuperRational blog by new contributor (and genius brother-in-law) Sourat. He does the math.

uh oh. More mucking about with quantum mechanics.

In that final phase, one of the entangled photons will be sent through a slit screen to a detector that will register it as either a particle or a wave — because, again, the photon can be either. The other photon will be sent toward two 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) spools of fiber optic cables before emerging to hit a movable detector, he said.

Adjusting the position of the detector that captures the second photon (the one sent through the cables) determines whether it is detected as a particle or a wave.
…
Because these two photons are entangled, the act of detecting the second as either a wave or a particle should simultaneously force the other photon to also change into either a wave or a particle. But that would have to happen to the first photon before it hits its detector — which it will hit 50 microseconds before the second photon is detected.

What is wrong with these mad scientists? Are they trying to destroy the world?

My initial reaction to this story was that it had to be a hoax:

Alton Verm filed a “Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials” Thursday with the district regarding “Fahrenheit 451,” written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum.

“It’s just all kinds of filth,” said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read “Fahrenheit 451.” “The words don’t need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class.”

He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, “dirty talk,” references to the Bible and using God’s name in vain. He said the book’s material goes against their religions beliefs. The Verms go to Grand Parkway Church in Porter.

“We went them to go after God,” said Glen Jalowy Jr., Grand Parkway Church youth minister. “We encourage them that what you put in your mind and heart is what comes out.”
Alton Verm said he doesn’t understand how the district can punish students for using bad language, yet require them to read a book with bad language as part of a class.
Diana Verm and another classmate decided to read an alternative book. They leave the classroom when the class reads or discusses “Fahrenheit 451,” she said. The two students were given “Ella Minnow Pea” by Mark Dunn because it shares common themes with “Fahrenheit 451,” said Chris Hines, CISD assistant superintendent for secondary education.

“Fahrenheit 451” is a science fiction piece that poses a warning to society about the preservation and passing on of knowledge as well as asks the question about whether the government should do the thinking for the people, Hines stated in an e-mail to The Courier. Other themes include conformity vs. individuality, freedom of speech and the consequences of losing it, the importance of remembering and understanding history and technology as help to humans and as hindrances to humans, Hines stated in the e-mail.

Let’s review. A man in Conroe, Texas wants to ban the book Farenheit 451, the singular work of literature about censorship, because he objects to its content. Incidentally, this comes during the 25th annual Banned Books Week, promoted by the American Library Association every year. Both Verm and Hines insist the timing is coincidental. I think I just went into irony overload.

I must say, the substitution of Ella Minnnow Pea for F451 by the CISD assistant superintendent is subversively clever. Assuming the story is true, Chris Hines is my hero. But if it truly is a hoax, then Hines has nothing on Verm himself for sheer genius. I live in Houston, so it wasn’t hard to track down Verm’s phone number, but I am hesitant to call and possibly infuriate the poor man – whose place in history is already assured – by asking if he’s serious.

At any rate, hoax or not, the ALA is probably going to send Verm a fruit basket for the PR gift he’s handed them. I mean, who normally cares about Banned Books Week? Students at Caney Creek high school are already mobilized to sign a petition and wear t-shirts today in support of F451, and as this story filters out to other outlets it’s going to refresh the debate that the book itself sought to provoke. The whole affair, whether contrived or genuine, seres to emphasize the universality and timelessness of Farenheit 451’s message. Guy Montag is freakin’ immortal. Ray Bradbury should be pleased.

That’s the term for light emitted by collapsing bubbles of ideal gas (ie, argon) in water.The light pulses are on the order of ~50 picoseconds. Lots of energy is produced, primarily driven by bremsstrahlung and also some errant chemistry from water molecules stuck inside the bubble. The good news is that physicists finally kind of understand it well enough to build simple models of it. The bad news is that it isn’t going to help us achieve cold fusion.

We all know the meme meme. Even if you are not familiar with memetics, you have probably been infected by it. I find that to be part of its elegance, as memetics is a system subject to its own rules, not above them. Therefore, just as the meme meme itself has longevity, frequency, and fecundity, it also mutates and plays piggyback to other memes. Since meme and memetics are successful memes–part of the same memeplex–abuse of them as memetic devices should be expected.

Here are a few ways in which I’ve found them to be abused*:

1. Expanding memetics into standard models of learning and memory. Classical conditioning (drooling when you hear a bell) and operand conditioning (acting based on reward and punishment) have nothing to do with imitation/memetics.
2. Taking analogies with genes too far. The concept of memomes comes to mind.
3. Taking analogies with viruses too far. You can’t infect me with a meme by speaking magic words or injecting me with a serum (though each could soften my memetic defenses).
4. Hijacking memetics to support hare-brained, new age, cosmic theories willy-nilly.

However, instead of finding this disagreement and distortion of memetics as evidence against it, I find it satisfying, if tautological. Any successful meme will accumulate freeloaders; the meme meme is no exception.

Is the meme meme dying? Can it survive its own selection? If it dies, does memetics go with it?

If these questions are of concern to you, there is something you can do to help! Yes, the meme meme has conjured within me the following message: mind your meme meme.

* Even–no, especially–if you disagree, my point is made.

Rest in peace. AICN has a fantastic eulogy. I think that Irwin lived a life on the edge because he genuinely loved these animals, and because he wanted to share that love with children. This is the answer to anyone who says that zoos are evil; only by education can we instill the feeling of love and respect for nature that is a prerequisite for us to be good stewards and appreciate the fragility of nature’s bounty.

Was he a bit of a nut? Well, yes. So what? Steve paid the ultimate price but in doing so he did a lot of good and taught a lot of children about nature, and that will be his legacy.