Category Archives: science

On Other Modes of Learning

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I was contacted by a researcher at NPR the other day. They wanted me to take part in a live conversation on the program News & Notes (hosted by Farai Chideya). The topic was about kids, technology, and science. In particular the focus was described as follows:

We want to explore the ways kid handle technology. How is technology affecting them in terms of their learning capacity and social skills? The second part of that discussion is this—with all the gadgets that are available to kids, are more of them becoming interested in science in general? We especially want to look at the subject from perspective of urban education.

Yes, all topics that intersect with many of my own interests and passions (which might be why they found me through the blog!), but I did not feel qualified to really answer some of the specific questions pertaining to how things are going currently. There are people who study this full time. I’m not one of them. So I declined to contribute. However, I had a few names in mind, and passed them along, together with two more […] Click to continue reading this post →

Pluto’s Journey Continues…

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poor pluto mathias pedersen I don’t need to remind you about the Pluto reclassification episode of a while back, I’m sure. See posts here, here, and here otherwise.

(Right: Mathias Pedersen‘s “Poor Pluto” poster, used with permission. Discussed here previously.)

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) felt the need to reclassify Pluto in the light of ongoing scientific discovery – it’s just one of probably thousands of small objects out there beyond the orbit of Neptune. This area of science is very much alive- we’re learning a lot about the solar system and other planetary systems. (See my post entitled “Clues in the Blood Splatter Patterns”.) The “demotion” led to lots of angry opinion, you may recall.

Well, the IAU’s Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (I love that!) has now decided […] Click to continue reading this post →

At Last – GLAST!

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GLAST launch in progressGood news everyone! GLAST has been launched successfully. GLAST stands for Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, and it does exactly what it says on the packet. It is an instrument designed to look more closely at gamma rays from outer space. More here. It will help (alongside other instruments such as SWIFT) get better understanding of a wide range of gamma-ray emitting objects, that pertain to a wide range of issues, astrophysical to cosmological.

“Gamma ray bursters” are obvious super-powerful sources of gamma rays out there, largely due to macroscopic astrophysical objects (collapsed stars or stars in the process of doing so, or merging with each other – see earlier posts) doing violent things, or interacting violently with their surroundings. So are active galactic nuclei, powered by black holes. We’d like to better understand all of the processes that allow these objects to generate gamma rays.

Other sources could include particles and antiparticles annihilating each other and (by […] Click to continue reading this post →

Unambiguously Good

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Libby Lavella, performing at at Categorically Not! 8th June 2008

Libby Lavella, performing at Categorically Not! 8th June 2008

Tonight’s Categorically Not! event was rather good fun, and interesting too. There were three excellent presentations under the theme “Ambiguity”. (See here.) K. C. Cole did a great job in bringing these people together (and of course in acting as M. C. on the night).

Bart Kosko did a great job talking principally about “fuzzy” mathematics, contrasting it with more binary (if you like) systems of logic. I think that his overview was great, and he talked about all the grey areas in logic and questions of epistemology where a “fuzzy” system is needed. (The question of whether a door is […] Click to continue reading this post →

Categorically Not! – Ambiguity

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The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday June 8th. The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series – started and run by science writer K. C. Cole – of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area. Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events.

The theme this month is Ambiguity. Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Nature loves ambiguity, even if human nature doesn’t. What exactly is a species? Where exactly is that subatomic particle? When did life begin? How do genes influence behavior? Why does music move us? What does that poem mean? What color is white? Is that guy flirting with me, or not? The answers are often far more indeterminate than we’d like to think. Heck, we still don’t know why the chicken crossed the road. Or what the meaning of is is.

Speakers at Categorically Not! - June 8th 2008

Bart Kosko, USC Professor of Engineering, attorney and author of best-selling books Fuzzy Thinking, Noise, and Heaven in a Chip will tell us how fuzzy math

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Where Many Paths and Errands Meet

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[Typed in a cafe on Tuesday at about 3:45pm. It’s just a rough collection of thoughts about various recent meetings and activities:]

Interesting day so far. One of those “my office is everywhere” days. I’m on the West side, in Santa Monica, where I’ve a number of errands to do. Also I get to work and have some meetings in between. I try very much to corral everything to one part of town so that I am not driving around too much, adding to the general junk that we all pour into the air without thinking. So I brought my bike with me to connect the dots that I intend to go between while in the area (a couple of cafes (coffee and work), the beach/boardwalk (lunch and work), a mechanic (they’re changing brakes on my car and diagnosing a Noise), one of the English shops (for tea supplies), an electronics store (to shop for memory), a grocery store, possibly a bookstore, possibly the public library (to work and ‘cos it’s just really nice)…).

While reading some notes by one of my students on a project we’re working on, and eating lunch down on the boardwalk/beach wall near the chess-players, I reached for my phone to send him a text with a question. As I did this I looked up at the passers-by and one of them was familiar! It was someone who used to be a postdoc in one of the other groups in the department, who used to share an office with the very student whose notes I was reading! Funny when that happens… We chatted for a while about things (such as career stuff concerning the interesting research life that can often found in various commercial settings), and he seemed interested in my […] Click to continue reading this post →

Distractions in the Dark

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Well, you’ve probably guessed that I’ve been somewhat distracted for several days. In fact, my main focus for the past week has really been on computer issues, frustratingly. I’ll give you the blow by blow later, I hope, but the last couple of days have been the most frustrating of all, and so I’ve not been dealing with much else, including blogging. Part of that is actual logistics – some of the things I wanted to post are on the afflicted computer – and some just the sheer annoyance of not having solved the issues driving me to do something totally non-computer related like going for a hike or seeing a movie.

So tonight i think I have a new theory – well, hypothesis- of what’s wrong, after a good deal of the day spent on detective work. It is a conjecture that is supported only by […] Click to continue reading this post →

Bowled Over

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One of the Phoenix images that has most captivated has been the one that shows the rest of the background of that startling image of the parachute part of the landing phase that was taken by the Reconnaissance orbiter’s HiRiSE camera. I showed it a few days ago here, and it is amazing, for all the reasons I said back then and more. I’m still buzzed by the idea that we have cameras from another craft photographing the landing of a new craft. Well, a while later, the mission released the photo showing the larger backdrop to that image. There’s the (giant 10 km) Heimdall crater in the background! (See the little inset bottom left showing where the previous image focussed; credit: NASA/JPL).

Phoenix landing on Mars with Heimdall crater in background

Rather dramatic, wouldn’t you agree? It’s not really as close to the crater as it […] Click to continue reading this post →

Colbert Report: Science – What’s the Big Deal?

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brian greene on colbert brian greene on colbert brian greene on colbert brian greene on colbert

Brian Greene, theoretical physicist and one of the founders of the World Science Festival in New York (May 28th – June 1st), talked to Stephen Colbert about the excitement of science, and how the festival will give people a chance to see lots of fun exhibits and chat with scientists to find out about the wonderful “adventure story” (nicely put) that is science. He manages to do this pretty well, between giggles generated by sharp fun-poking from Colbert.

There’s the festival, large-breasted alien robots (their words), some fun quips about […]

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It Might as Well be String

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title banner from a Goodies spoof documentary about string

A reader asked for more string. You can see my reply here. Not being one to deny the punters entirely, title banner from a Goodies spoof documentary about stringI’ll pass on some clips from a 70s British TV comedy show, about string. It was a popular show called “The Goodies”. Some of you might remember them. Well, they did an entire episode with the title “It might as well be string”, and although the clips (below) are out of context and even with not knowing the characters and so forth (I don’t) there are some amusing bits here and there, if you turn it around to poke harmless fun at those of us who work on string theory decades later – It’s all about a PR/Advertising campaign for string!

There’s the string song, the “documentary” about string (best to gloss over the oh-so-funny “smelly Arab” remarks and accompanying laughter), the excellent samples from the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Photo Finish

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Marvellous. It is good to get the chance to use the word in its most basic sense, and fully mean it. You know how there’s a lot of reliance on artist’s impressions to depict aspects of space missions (such as landing) that we can’t get photos of because, well, there’s nothing else there to take the photo (unlike the movies and TV)? Well look at this:

Phoenix lander in the act of landing, using its parachute to slow down during the \"seven minutes of terror\". Photo by High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA\'s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
It may not look like much to some, but I’m really impressed with this. It is a first. It is the Phoenix lander during the act of landing during the “Seven Minutes of Terror” yesterday! NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was in the right position to take a […] Click to continue reading this post →

She Stuck The Landing!!!

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16:56 or so: Yep. That was a tense seven minutes. But it is over and they are getting signals. I watched the live feed from the JPL control room. Wow. Who knew this could be so exciting from so far away?! Anybody else watch it?

  phoenix_control_room_celebrations   phoenix_control_room_celebrations  phoenix_control_room_celebrations

-cvj

P.S. Yes, with my choice of title, I’m clearly practicing for the commentary on the Olympic gymnastics… Click to continue reading this post →

Seven Minutes of Terror

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Phoenix Lander making a soft landing on Mars - depiction by JPL artist Corby Waste

The phoenix lander making (we all hope) a soft landing on Mars – Artist’s depiction by JPL Mars program artist Corby Waste

Remember the launch of the Phoenix spacecraft last summer? I mentioned it in earlier posts (including talking about the mural for it – see here and here) and Phil did a lovely post on the launch here. Have a look at the mission website. Here is a space.com article that gives an update on the mission so far.

Well, today’s the day it approaches and (it is hoped) lands on Mars!! So, the landing. The landing, the landing the landing. It’s all about the landing. The craft has to slow down from 12500 miles per hour to make a soft landing on the surface. In a matter of […] Click to continue reading this post →

Catch a Falling Star

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Ok… A dying star. Here’s the before and after shot (images from the NASA Swift team):

supernovae 2007uy and 2008d

An the amazing thing is that they were able to watch and record the events in real time! The galaxy hosting the explosion was already under study because of an earlier supernova. This is wonderful, of course, and a big deal is made in various news articles about how great it is that this is the first time that a supernovae event was caught in real time from an earlier hint from an X-ray emission signature… Except that it seems that it isn’t!!! I do find it a tad annoying/puzzling that in a few seconds I was able to find pretty much the same sort of news announcement from two years ago. Does the press think that the members of general public are stupid, or have no memory? (I don’t yet have time to re-read both articles carefully, so I imagine this is maybe much better (it is rather closer), and there were more telescopes recording, and maybe from earlier, in a wider spectrum, and so forth, but not to mention the earlier event at all, as though a big news story was not made of it back then, is strange. (Perhaps the finding was discredited?) I did a blog post mentioning it entitled “When Stars Go Bang”, and you can link from there to a BBC news article for example of the coverage.)

Anyway, back to the excitement. We must not take away from the joy of discovery: From […] Click to continue reading this post →