omenti

probing your "failures" a bit more deeply

It is wonderful watching a little kid play with a magnet for the first time.  They have become so used to pushing or pulling something directly to get it to move that this motion at a distance breaks the model they have of the world and brings delight.

 

When people started to ask questions about what was happening, the answers brought fundamental changes to society.

 

You've probably done the experiment in grade school where you can change the direction a compass indicates by placing a current carrying wire next to it.  The other part of the experiment is equally beautiful.  You move a magnet next to a wire and cause a current to flow in the wire.  What is going on?

 

Before going a bit into that, take a look at Richard Feynman's high level comments on electricity.  He has a beautiful and delightful way of expressing himself

 

 

He mentioned Maxwell's equations as one of the most impactful discoveries anyone has made.  About the time the American Civil War started, Scottsman James Clerk Maxwell published a four part work called On Physical Lines of Force.¹ A few additional works were published and the summary of the work did not arrive right away, but we are left with four beautiful equations that are part of the foundation of our society....   If you did any technical work in college you are intimately familiar with them, but even if you didn't you may have seen them on a T-shirt.²

 

For those who aren't familiar with what they're saying, here is a summary in English²

 

° a magnet always has north and south poles

° the strength of an electric field depends on how much charge is in the vicinity

° an electric field is created by a changing magnetic field

° a magnetic field is created by either a current or a changing electric field

 

These are terrifically powerful and much of modern technology rests on electricity and magnetism.  The calculations for real world problems can be non-trivial, but it is all there - all that is required is a bit of curiosity and tenacity.

 

Consider the last two equations.  If you remove any charge you get an electric field is created by a changing magnetic field and a magnetic field is created by a changing electric field.  You can solve these together with a bit of math and the result is astonishing - you get a mutually sustaining electromagnetic field.  The changing electric field gives rise to an electric field which, in turn creates an electric field.  The energy oscillates between these two forms, which turn out to be at right angles to each other, as the wave merrily propagates through space perpendicular to both the electric and magnetic fields.  What is special is the speed of this wave is constant and just happens to be the speed of light.

About 25 years after the papers were published Heinrich Hertz showed that a spark could create such a wave.  Hertz didn't realize it at the time, but others showed that what he created was really a form of electromagnetic radiation - a certain frequency band of which we sense as visible light.  A major revolution in physics was underway, but none of the original people thought it would have practical value - little things like electric generators, motors, radio, television, computing and so on...

 

With this fundamental change came a major problem.  How was this electromagnetic wave propagating?  Waves traditionally required some medium to propagate though.  A material called the luminiferous aether was proposed.  A bizarre substance that filled the universe and had the property of being hugely stiffer than any known substance and very ephemeral - any normal substance could easily pass through it unimpeded.³

 

The whole notion of the aether seems silly today, but a fundamental change in how we thought about physics was required.  Somehow this bizarre substance was not as bizarre as what followed.  It turns out one of the puzzles it seemed to solve was how could light always travel at a fixed velocity.  It allowed the light to travel at a fixed velocity in it rather than worrying about the relative velocities of bodies that were moving at different rates.

 

One of Feynman's better observations was

First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.

 

Albert Michelson and Edward Morley did the experiment with something called an interferometer - a device that is very sensitive to movement as well as changes in the speed of light in different directions.   They showed that the speed of light was constant in any direction relative to the moving Earth.⁴  

 

This was such a startling result they spent years working on improvements to the experiment to find any error on their part.  The results got better and better and with it the case for the luminiferous aether vanished and it became clear that electromagnetic waves could propagate though a vacuum^.5  It also gave a certain Swiss patent clerk who was doing amazing physics on the side reason for coming up with something he coined Special Relativity.

 

The Michelson-Morley experiment is one of the fundamental experiments in all of physics.  Its results were so unexpected that it was assumed to have been a failure, but careful probing of it by them and others as well as careful thought about what it really meant changed our concept of the universe on the scale that Galileo or Copernicus did.

 

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.

 

This is the time of the year when I think of a few things I've done - some of them are predictions.  In retrospect our memory tends to paint a pretty picture of how we predicted the future.  I have been very lucky and have been in on some discoveries as well as inventions.  We had what appears to be a good track record, but a more careful examination reveals more than a few failures.

 

In the past decade I try to spend some serious time thinking about failed - or what appear to be failed - predictions mean.  I've come to place a huge value on my "failures" -what is really going on and what additional information did I need to discover there was a flaw.  

 

This process of learning has given me tools and methods to work on unexpected areas.  This generates serendipity and it exposes ignorance in a way that I can learn from many people and results including the failures of myself and others.

 

Aa observation - this process is similar to weather and climate.  Weather is a short term projection and is extremely difficult to get right.  The particulars are incurably difficult to understand.  Climate is a longer term feature  It is often much easier to predict the climate a decade out than the weather in two weeks.  The same is true for projecting technologies.  Rough directions are much easier than exact particulars.

 

Over the years I've been learning huge amounts from my failures.  The amount seems to increase with time, which seems like the proper direction.  

 

My New Year's wish to you is may you be as lucky with failure!

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¹ It is interesting to note that Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published in late 1859.  It is difficult to think of any other discoveries in the last few hundred years that have brought more profound change to civilization than these two...

² Not as precise as it should be, but close enough.  It also turns out there are several equivalent ways to write down Maxwell's equations, so the T-shirts may look a bit different.

³ Upper limits to its mass were calculated - the density was smaller than a hundred trillion times lower than that of air.

⁴ More precisely they sent a limit - the Earth's velocity relative to the aether had to be less than a sixth the Earth's measured orbital velocity.

⁵ luminiferous aether would make a great song title or band name

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before the recipe, an image to fire your imagination

Allegory of Winter

Ambrogio Lorenzetti  c.1338-1340

 

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Recipe Corner 

 

A lassi as delicious as it is inauthentic

 

A Rich Seasonal Mango "Lassi"

 

Ingredients 

 

° a drinking cup 70% filled with a high quality eggnog at just above freezing (I like Ronnybrook Farms eggnog)

° a canned mango pulp at just a bit above freezing (I like Rellure Kesar Mango Pulp)

 

Technique

 

° lightly stir the mango pulp into the eggnog. Finally add a blob and artistically swirl it.

° top with toasted pistachios or sliced almonds (optional)

 

 

epigenetics, story telling as input for a serendipity engine, and dogs and relativity

December 30^th is looming.  An important day for me as it marks the birthday of a close friend and an annual deadline.  I probably need to explain the deadline.

 

When I joined Bell Labs years and years ago my director took me aside and told me I should find a way to think about something different from what I was doing and hopefully different from what anyone else in the labs was doing at least once a year.  Work scheduling was very flexible in those days, but he said he would cover for me if necessary.  He didn't want a report, but felt the exercise of devoting my working hours to something that interested me was extremely important.  The practice was not uncommon, although approaches varied widely.  

 

I spent a fortnight learning about how mother bats located their offspring in caves as millions returned from their nightly feedings. The question had been posed during a lunch table discussion just before Christmas and was something none of us (all physicists) knew about.  

 

My tools were a pad and pencil, the then wonderful Bell Labs Murray Hill library, access to Princeton's libraries, a telephone and a bit of curiosity.  

 

It is silly to think you can learn very much in two weeks, even if you are going seven days a week at twelve hours a day (it was a really interesting problem!).  But I was able to track down a few researchers and get a lot of information on signal encoding in bat calls including some very raw information that I was able to preform a bit of signal analysis on.  

 

It was completely delightful and much better and rejuvenating than a vacation.  Two weeks was long enough to get a sense of the problem and perhaps a bit of direction and no more.  But I was refreshed and sharp for my regular work at the end of the period.  It has become an important element in my education over time.

 

My mini introduction to bat signal processing came in very handy a few years later when some of us were asking some questions about signal encoding.  It is always nice to see a system that just works.  It provided a bit of insight that may have seemed out of the blue to anyone who didn't know about bats, but was obvious when pointed out.  It allowed me to connect a few important dots that would normally be outside the scope of what you might think Bell Labs did.  But it turned out a lot of people were spending some time thinking about very different areas.  I believe it was one of the "secret" core strengths of the old Bell Laboratories.

 

I've been doing it since.  Sometimes I take real vacation time, other times I've been able to manage my work.  Finding a seed question to think about is sometimes difficult and sometimes completely obvious. Some have proven to lead to rich topics and others don't - I don't make the selection on the likelihood of success as the important byproduct of this activity is serendipity over the long term. I don't make the decision until December 30^th and start my mini sabbatical on January 2^nd.

 

Some of you know I do this and have been asking questions about this year's seed.  The simple answer is I don't know yet.  There are a few candidates.  One that I've thought about before that came up again when I was rowing in the pre-dawn darkness today is how to explain important bits of science to non-scientists.  A problem that has been bothering me for a long time and one that is very important to crack.  Most scientists are very bad at it, but a few are excellent.  I've spend some time talking to a few who know what they are doing, but that only leads to more questions.

 

Without going into the different techniques I know about, I'll give some examples.  

 

Anyone who follows science at the Scientific American or even the Science section of the NY Times level, is familiar with epigenetics.  It is fundamentally important, but most people seem to be ignorant of it and most explanations assume more background than the average person has.   WNYC's RadioLab does a most good job of communicating some of these ideas at a very high level.  They do it only using the spoken word - something that is very important to their technique.  Their story telling requires an enormous among of time, but is effective.

 

Listen to these two pieces from a recent show that focused on epigenetics.  The stories are familiar to any science type, but would be mostly ignored in favor of a technical description.

 

I'm lucky enough to have access to some amazing storytellers, so it is an accessible area for me.  I have to think about how I might get started down the path.  

 

There are a half dozen other candidates and I'm sure I won't know until Monday. It almost always comes down to the last moment.

 

Feel free to propose interesting questions - I'm used to a bit of lobbying.   

 

In return I have a suggestion for a bit of mini dive that may be delightful for you if you have never had (or have forgotten) your high school physics,  It is also something any 14 year old who has a bit of trig and algebra under her belt can handle - learning special relativity^.1

 

Somehow "relativity" is labeled as being difficult.  I'll concede that general relativity requires a fair amount of mathematical sophistication if you want to learn and understand it, but special relativity is really just high school level.  It does require some careful thinking and logic in addition to a few hours of study and is an great learning experience.  It may not be important in your field, but working out some of the more interesting apparently paradoxes is great mental exercise and, as such, maybe an important dot or set of dots to add to your arsenal.

 

special relativity is not difficult!

 

I'll recommend two books:

 

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog by Chad Orzel.  A very gentle introduction that gets at the basics and requires only a bit of algebra and trigonometry - nothing a 9^th grader can't handle.  I do recommend working though it with a pad and pencil and to make drawings and thing about things as you go.  It has a serious impact on our lives even though it is generally regarded as something that only is observable with very fast moving objects.

 Spacetime Physics by Ed Taylor and Archibald Wheeler is a classic for those who are a bit more secure with math (although only high school level math is required) and are used to sorting things out logically.  It is more demanding than the first book and gives you more tools to explore a bit more deeply.  I'd recommend it to someone intending to major in the physical sciences or as a text for a college student in a first year course for science, math and engineering students.  Spendy, but probably good for at least 60 to 100 hours of serious learning, so cheap on a dollar per hour basis.

 

And as a bonus why not treat yourself to learning how to use a slide rule?  Basic rules are available online and regular use will give you and intuitive sense for logarithms as well as sharpen your ability to do mental math.  I was asked by my management not to take my rule to the corporate headquarters for brainstorming sessions (I'm not a fan of brainstorming unless it is carefully constructed) as "it gave too much of an unfair advantage" (his words)...

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¹ I note that there must be a desire to learn this.  Not everyone has the motivation and that is just fine as there are so many things worthy of learning. It will take a bit of effort, but there is a real elegance and beauty in its simplicity.  It also runs counter to most people's notion of how the world works, but turns out to be a better description than Newtonian physics.  And the most important point is that we know it is "better" from experiment - the real world really does behave in this strange way.  It is an excellent example of how our senses and experience fail us.  Realizing this is important to many fields.

 

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Recipe Corner

 

Some time ago I put in some comments on making a good mango lassi.  In the past few days I've made a few variations and have a better version. Most Indian restaurants use canned mango pulp for seasonal consistency.  I've had good luck with Rellure Kesar Mango Pulp.  You can find this sort of thing online or in most Indian groceries.

It is important to chill the ingredients to near freezing - you may even want to slightly freeze the milk.  Also chill the serving glasses in your freezer.

This makes a very rich and thick lassi.  If you prefer lassis that move through a straw easily and are perhaps a bit less rich use non-fat milk and regular (not Greek) non-fat plain yogurt.  Many prefer something even less thick and one approach is to go with the thin regular yogurt and add some crushed ice to achieve the chill.

 

Mango Lassi 2

 

Ingredients

 

° 200g  Fage 2% plain greek yogurt ( I tried whole Fage and it was almost overkill)

° 150g whole milk (near freezing)

° 150g mango pulp (near freezing)

° 25g  white cane sugar (or to taste)

° some ground cardamom to taste - I probably used a tsp.  I tried a holiday variation that was ok - nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, but prefer cardamom

° slice almonds or chopped toasted pisachios to top (optional)

 

Technique

 

° add incredients (except for the topping) into a blender and blend until smooth

° serve in a chilled glass and top with the nuts.

 

 

play and learning

At a holiday party I noted I had just installed something over 34 billion transistors in Sukie's Macbook giving her a bit more working space and how this amazes me when I think about it a bit - after all, when I was a kid I used to count the number of transistors we had in our house and remember when the number was in the single digits.  Someone asked

 

How big are transistors these days?

 

Then, a day later another question

 

What are the special skills of incredible programmers?

 

The  first question came up at a holiday meal.  You can quickly work that out in terms of feature sizes on an integrated circuit, but I wonder how many people know what a transistor is?  The same for diodes, resistors, capacitors, inductors and so on...  Things that were important building bricks to me as I tried to understand radio as a kid.

 

These days the building block is often module like - integrated circuits or groups of integrated circuits that can perform fairly high level functions.  These modules are composed of more basic components - the capacitors, transistors and other things that could turn into a simple radio.

 

Building a simple radio and understanding what each component is and how they interoperated in an electrical circuit can provide great insight for a 12 year old - or for anyone.

 

What prompted this was thinking about science kits that show up as gifts during this time of the year.  There was a grand age of these things when I was young - the atomic age, rise of physics and chemistry and the space race were all drivers and radios were everywhere and understanding them was straightforward.

 

Some of these kits were poorly designed with little effort made to instruct.  Some were age inappropriate, some (particularly chemistry sets) were dangerous and many were based on low quality apparatus (particularly terrible microscopes and telescopes).  As a result a lot of kids were either discouraged and ended up just mucking around for awhile and not learning very much.

 

There were wonderful exceptions. At the high end motivated high school level kids could work with kits produced by Bell Labs.  I remember hearing about them in high school, but had no idea how to get one.   They were far from step by step and kids who managed with them were probably prime recruiting material for the best science schools in the country. The photo is from the solar energy kit which had kids making their own solar cells from raw materials and basic principles.   Nothing like having to make your own furnace...   

 

Scientific American had a great resource in the form of a column called The Amateur Scientist.¹   The best ones were conduced by C.L. Strong and probably made an impact on American science as great as the space race.

 

I was into telescope and radio building and both "hobbies" were supported through magazines like Sky and Telescope and QST as well as specialty companies.  These days richer resources are available on the web, but you have to know where to look and sort out what is good and bad.

 

A few of us were asked to review science kits a year ago.  Most were not very good, but there were standouts.  The best general kits - like chemistry sets - were from Thames and Kosmos, but as with all of this the kids should be motivated if they're going to learn anything.

 

I learned a lot building a simple crystal radio and then progressing by adding elements to the circuit to make it more selective and sensitive.  Finally I migrated to vacuum tubes (which were conceptually easy to understand, but a bit dangerous with the high voltage on my homemade "breadboard") - that quickly moves you into understanding forms of modulation (AM vs FM) and you get a low level practical view on how to use radio waves.

 

A deeper appreciation of electromagnetic waves can, and perhaps should, be built on this foundation.  The rules and regulations that drive our radios today are artifacts of ancient policy that came about 80 years ago during an era when radio receivers were very primitive.  Our struggles with spectrum allocation and the resulting business models that leverage those rules and have produced oligopolies in the US trace back to policy based on ancient design.  You can and should expect major disruptions here, but it will take awhile (a decade?) as policy change is glacial.²  This is an excellent technology and society issue that is only beginning to be addressed outside the laboratory.  One wonders if the entrenched companies will defend their current very profitable business model, or adapt and change?

 

Finding the bits and pieces for a simple learning experience like a simple crystal radio can be a bit difficult these days as no one does it anymore, but I still recommend it if you have an interest in learning a bit about radio.  Here is an excellent resource and the explanations are accurate enough at this level - and deeper than most people with a college degree know.  Maybe that is motivation enough for a teenager.

 

Kids can develop any number of interests.  The trick is to find an appropriate entry - one that will fascinate them and still be possible.  In many of these areas things can get too complicated for a beginner. Some schools are well equipped to handle this type of curiosity and play, but many (most?) aren't.

 

About ten years ago a tenth grader approached me and wanted to build a cosmic ray telescope.³   This turns out to be a reasonable project for a teenager who knows his or her (it was a her in this case) way around high voltages and some basic electronics.  Kids like this really should have mentors.  Many universities can match kids with professors.  My experience has been that many welcome this kind of interaction and will even provide apparatus and material to do the work.  It is possible to even become part of real exploration.  My thesis experiment benefitted from a young hacker who only had a high school education and a real talent for particle physics trigger design.

 

Learning a bit about radio can take you in many directions branching off into science and into engineering.  The basic education is good as it gives a better sense of how these things we carry around with us work - moving past the idiot savant stage that mature technologies leave most of us in is a nice education.  

 

I'm particularly excited by the make movement and the inclusion of kids into the fun.  It largely works with the building blocks of today - things like sensors and microprocessors and a bit of programming are common - and is probably the modern equivalent of amateur radio.  The kid-friendly part is even developing structure - NPR recently had a segment on hacker scouting.

 

I'm not longing for the times of my youth when amateur radio, telescope making and The Amateur Scientist column were the primary introduction and motivation for many of us.  The introductory levels have shifted a bit, computers greatly amplify what can be done and the Internet is a fantastic way to find information.  But there are a few basics that are still relevant and more kids and adults probably need to be exposed to the new toolsets and opportunities for learning.  

 

I haven't touched on the important thread of linking this kind of study with the arts.  Passion requires a driver.  You'd be amazed how many people learned how to do something technically demanding to support a passion, only to find the new subject was beautiful and rich enough that a new passion often develops.

 

All of this beats passive entertainment.

 

Oh - transistor size...  It turns out a more meaningful question is what is the cell size?  For something really simple - like the basic element of a NAND memory chip - the cell is just a transistor and a capacitor.  They are about 0.29 square microns for a 0.22 micron feature size process.

 

The second question is one I'm still thinking about.  I'm not a programmer, but know a few amazing ones and have asked them to comment.  One thing seems certain to me - play must be involved.

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¹ Check out Scientific American issues from the 50s through the 70s for examples.  They should be in most libraries.  There was a CDROM compilation, but it is awkward to use and difficult to find.  C.L. Strong's columns were collected into a book that is now out of print, but available through used booksellers.

² There is no reason that there should be a shortage of "spectrum" for cellphones.  The underlying physics, assuming you use proper design and take advantage of computers, should allow for potentially hundreds of times as much usage and it could be very cheap.

³ I wrote a high level introduction to making a simple cosmic ray telescope  in three parts.  Additionally there is a bit on building a cloud chamber, which is something a curious 14 year old could do without too much worry or expense. I would probably worry a bit about younger teens, not because a cloud chamber is difficult, but because you are handling some dangerous materials.

 

 

 

 

 

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Recipe Corner

 

I love roasted vegetables - sweet potatoes are particularly wonderful.  Normally cutting them to french fry shape, coating with a bit of oil and perhaps some other seasonings and then roasting just plain works.

This one is different and I can't remember where is came from . We coat them with some ground nuts.  Pecans are wonderful.  No oil is used...

 

Nutty Roasted Sweet Potatoes

 

Ingredients

 

° 1 very large or 2 medium sized sweet potatoes

° 1 cup pecans, ground

° 1/4 tsp cinnamon

° 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

° 1/4 tsp paprika

° 1/4 tsp non-iodized sea salt

° a bit of black pepper

° 1/4 cup almond milk

° 1 tsp cornstarch

 

Technique

 

° Oven to 425° F and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper

° cut the sweet potato(s) into french fryish strips

° Parboil the strips for 5 minutes in a pot of boiling water.  Immediate put the strips into a large colander and and immerse it in a larger bowl (tub) of very cold water (use lots of ice cubes).  Set aside 

° mix the ground pecans in a bowl with the cinnamon, cayenne, paprika, salt and pepper.

° in a bowl large enough for the sweet potato strips, mix the almond milk and cornstarch until the cornstarch is completely dissolved.

° pull the colander out of the icy water and dry off the strips with a paper towel 

° one by one dunk the strips into the milk mixture and then place on the baking tray keeping them closely together (touching even)

° sprinkle about half of the pecan mix onto the array of strips

° one by one turn them over

° sprinkle the rest of the pecans on the array

° now spread them out so they aren't touching

° roast for about 10 minutes, rotate the travel to deal with oven cold sports and continue for 10 to 15 minutes.  Don't allow the pecans to burn

° remove from the oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the tray.

 

books and challenges

With this time of year there is a bit of reflection.  A few readers asked for my current book list and I sent out a note to several regular readers who tend to be interested in such things.  Now that many of the holidays have come some of you may be in a position where you are looking for a gift for yourself...

 

A few readers asked what I've been reading.  I read a lot, but my preference is to work on projects with friends.  Sadly this has been mostly a readying year.  But some of the books have been good.  And as the year winds down a jewel emerged that - at least for me - was above the rest.

A few weeks ago I was sent a preprint of The Lost Carving by David Esterly  - a really fine piece of work on making and doing it well.  He is a gifted writer - a real pleasure to read prose like this.  Up until then I would have recommended Sean Carroll's The Particle at the End of the Universe to non-physicists as a nice current view of the standard model. There are richer books on the subject, but this one is up to date and, with the discoveries at CERN this past year, being up to date makes all the difference.  

It isn't new, but for those who are trying to get a better handle on energy and how humanity relates to it I think the best non-technical book on the subject is David MacKay's Sustainable Energy.  An area that is extremely difficult to summarize at a good enough popular level, he comes closest.  It also may be our most pressing fundamental problem, so a deeper background for the general public is useful.

My favorite book that aids creativity isn't a book, but rather an iPad program - the application Paper.  Completely delightful, but i recommend getting all of the brushes.  The caveat is you have to like - or at least be open to sketching.  This may have one of the best computational user experiences I've seen - but these still are lacking compared to a good set of pencils and a high quality pad of paper. There has been some excellent progress on an iPad program that helps inspire musical thinking.  I'm poorly grounded here, but am spending some time with those who are deeply immersed thinking about, and experimenting with, what it takes to help people think in this space by routing around the conventional education path.

And on education I keep getting asked what computer language should my kid be learning.  Usually - "what book or online course should they use" ...  I have to note that although I've spent a good deal of my life programming, it is a tool rather than a passion and I prefer not to do it.  I have worked with some people who are amazing at the art. Like the fine art and writing there are individuals who are simply so much better at it than anyone else that their work can bring change.  I was lucky enough to have worked with four people at this level and count one as a very close friend.  With that in mind, the "wisdom" I offer is the language isn't important.  Logic and clear thinking is.  I would recommend kids at the high school level study some formal logic first and ideally pick up a bit of a human language that has a similar, but different structure than English - Latin would be ideal. Alternatively play a musical instrument - musicians seem to take to programming naturally.    I see people entering college with backgrounds in Java, Ruby, Basic (yikes!) and so on … but they also picked up a large number of bad habits that need to be unlearned.  When the time comes to learn a language I recommend something that gets you into what programming is rather than the language.  One of the best books on the subject is by a friend (I have to note this as it is a source of bias) - Bjarne Stroustrup's Programming Principles and Practice Using C++.  I've seen 10th graders who *really* want to learn use this successfully and note that people coming at the subject freshly, end up as better programmers than those who come at it with a lot of middle and high school programming experience.  This book does demand serious study - anything less will lead to failure.

Over the holidays I plan to make a tiny dent in some papers I've been meaning to read that are outside my field(s).  Then, on the 29^th, I make the decision on what I'll spend a couple of weeks of study on to get a better sense of the problem space.  That fortnight of study is my gift to myself every year - one that my first director at Bell Labs suggested as a way to become a bit more open to creative thought.  It doesn't generate the serendipity that crazy projects with friends does, but helps with a better grounding on what is happening.

happy holidays to you!

 

There is this issue of why should we be doing something - what is important to us at some deeper level?  What should we be doing as individuals?  Here is a nice piece by Neil deGrasse Tyson 

 

I have an enormous respect for Neil and the work he does as the best cheerleader for science.  I do have some issues with bits of his message, but understand were he is coming from.  It is great to have an environment, unlike the current state of American politics, where you can have great admiration for someone and simultaneously agree and disagree with them.

 

We agree on the need for grand challenges and much better science education.  Exploration has been a huge driver, but so are other challenges.  We need to better understand our relationship with Nature as well as our use of resources.  It is easy to draft a list of a dozen worthy grand challenges, but there is little will.  

 

Neil believes the best challenge is manned spaceflight and, although I think that is an interesting area, I have to disagree.  There are any number of deep challenges facing society that not only need to be attacked, but are large enough that serendipity is likely.  Neil believes that manned spaceflight - something like a mission to Mars - would ignite the imaginations of kids in America and inspire them into STEM career tracks.  I'd be delighted if he is right, but I just don't see it and there would be real problems mustering the political will.

 

I'm frustrated to see so much human energy and creativity go into making it easier for people to consume and to be entertained.  There is much larger game that isn't receiving enough attention.  And it is also frustrating to look at the state of education in America - a country with an enormous gap between those who are numerate and have a basic literacy in science and those who don't.¹  Not to mention there are some extremely serious problems facing us including some that may lead to change that is almost certainly terrible for our children and grandchildren (and us if we are under 40 or so)...

 

I certainly don't have any answers ...  a lot of untested speculation, but nothing concrete

 

Consider this a challenge for you to ponder during your spare time this holiday season.  What are the challenges that can inspire society enough to change everything and are possible and achievable?  What are the challenges that would fundamentally change education?  What would make people welcome such a challenge?

__________

¹ American STEM focused education is far too narrow.  To get at creativity we need to add the arts and change the approach.  Way to much to talk about.  Currently I think Finland has the best model, but I don't see an easy path to make real improvements here.  Some of you are experts in the area and are doing great work.  Such an important area for focus...

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Recipe Corner

 

Since many of us are in a sugar induced stupor from the holidays, here is a delicious and simple soup that takes advantage of produce that is seasonal.  As with most soups the amounts shown are just a starting point.

 

Apple Soup

 

Ingredients

 

° 25g butter

° 1 tablespoon olive oil

° 2 medium onions, peeled and diced

° 600g parsnips, cut into inchish pieces

° 2 garlic cloves, crushed

° 600g tart cooking apples peeled, cored, and cut into chunks (I like Bramleys if I can find them)

° 450g vegetable stock

° 150g milk  (it works ok with fat free, but is *really* good with whole milk)

° sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

Technique

 

° Melt the butter and oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onions and parsnips on low heat for about 15 minutes, until the onions are softened.

° Add the garlic and apples and cook for 3 minutes more, stirring constantly

° Add the stock and bring to the boil. Now reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the parsnips are very soft.

° Remove from the heat and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

° Blend the mixture until smooth.  I like to use an immersion blending stick, but regular blenders work too

 

 

Stir in the milk, adding a little extra if required. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

 

_____

I'm a vegetarian and generally don't miss meat - I'm not attracted to the "fake" meats as too many vegetarian and vegan dishes are wonderful by themselves.  But there are a few flavors I do miss.  Here is one with fake bacon strips.  The amounts aren't critical, so I just used measuring cups rather than weighing

 

Maple Roasted Sweet Potatoes

 

Ingredients

 

° 4 average sized sweet potatoes peeled and diced

° 1/4 c olive oil

° 1/4 tsp non-iodized sea salt 

° a box of Morningstar Farms "bacon" strips

° 1 medium onion, chopped

° 2 large Gayla apples, diced

° 1/4 c Grade B Maple Syrup (you'll want something robust)

 

Technique

 

° Preheat oven to 425 ºF

° Toss sweet potatoes with olive oil and salt, put in a roasting pan and bake for 20 minutes.

° Sauté bacon over medium heat and add onions once the bacon has begun to render its fat.  Continue cooking until bacon begins to become crisp and onions are translucent.

° Throw in the apples and continue to cook for a couple of minutes.

° Add roasted sweet potatoes cook away until potatoes begin to become soft - about five minutes for me.

° Almost there! - toss with maple syrup and serve.

 

trying to make a leap - a really big leap

There are a several loaded words where people often can't agree on precise definitions.  I was in a group where we flagged such words and carefully looked over our publications to make sure we weren't abusing them.  Words like community, data and innovation.  

 

One of the radioactive red flag words was breakthrough...

 

On any given day press releases from Universities and companies speak of "breakthrough" research and products, but if you re-visit them a few years (sometimes months) later, they seem to have vanished.  DARPA has an effective definition - they generally avoid the term (at least internally), but speak of improvements to current technologies that are at least a factor of ten better in at least one important parameter. A technology that cut the cost of an electric car battery from $20,000 to $2,000 would be a breakthrough.  Something that cut it in half, while desirable, would not.

 

Real breakthroughs tend to come out of surprising areas - there is a lot of connecting the dots going on that is often under the radar of large scale focused work.  This can be, but rarely is, cultivated in business and the process leads to a lot of failures.

 

Rather than dwelling on examples and postmortems it is more fun to think about ideas that didn't make it.  They often fail because someone wasn't connecting enough dots - they had missed some crucial bit of information.

 

Negligible Tales, by Ambrose Bierce

The Failure of Hope & Wandel

From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, December 2, 1877.

I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a narrative of my journey from New Orleans to this polar region. It is cold in Chicago, believe me, and the Southron who comes here, as I did, without a relay of noses and ears will have reason to regret his mistaken economy in arranging his outfit.

To business. Lake Michigan is frozen stiff. Fancy, O child of a torrid clime, a sheet of anybody’s ice, three hundred miles long, forty broad, and six feet thick! It sounds like a lie, Pikey dear, but your partner in the firm of Hope & Wandel, Wholesale Boots and Shoes, New Orleans, is never known to fib. My plan is to collar that ice. Wind up the present business and send on the money at once. I’ll put up a warehouse as big as the Capitol at Washington, store it full and ship to your orders as the Southern market may require. I can send it in planks for skating floors, in statuettes for the mantel, in shavings for juleps, or in solution for ice cream and general purposes. It is a big thing!

I inclose a thin slip as a sample. Did you ever see such charming ice?

From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, December 24, 1877.

Your letter was so abominably defaced by blotting and blurring that it was entirely illegible. It must have come all the way by water. By the aid of chemicals and photography, however, I have made it out. But you forgot to inclose the sample of ice.

I have sold off everything (at an alarming sacrifice, I am sorry to say) and inclose draft for net amount. Shall begin to spar for orders at once. I trust everything to you — but, I say, has anybody tried to grow ice in this vicinity? There is Lake Ponchartrain, you know.

From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, February 27, 1878.

Wannie dear, it would do you good to see our new warehouse for the ice. Though made of boards, and run up rather hastily, it is as pretty as a picture, and cost a deal of money, though I pay no ground rent. It is about as big as the Capitol at Washington. Do you think it ought to have a steeple? I have it nearly filled — fifty men cutting and storing, day and night — awful cold work! By the way, the ice, which when I wrote you last was ten feet thick, is now thinner. But don’t you worry; there is plenty.

Our warehouse is eight or ten miles out of town, so I am not much bothered by visitors, which is a relief. Such a giggling, sniggering lot you never saw!

It seems almost too absurdly incredible, Wannie, but do you know I believe this ice of ours gains in coldness as the warm weather comes on! I do, indeed, and you may mention the fact in the advertisements.

From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, March 7, 1878.

All goes well. I get hundreds of orders. We shall do a roaring trade as “The New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company.” But you have not told me whether the ice is fresh or salt. If it is fresh it won’t do for cooking, and if it is salt it will spoil the mint juleps.

Is it as cold in the middle as the outside cuts are?

From Mr. Jebez Hope, from Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, April 3, 1878.

Navigation on the Lakes is now open, and ships are thick as ducks. I’m afloat, en route for Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket. We are busted out, my poor Pikey — we are to fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meeting of the creditors and don’t attend.

Last night a schooner from Milwaukee was smashed into match-wood on an enormous mass of floating ice — the first berg ever seen in these waters. It is described by the survivors as being about as big as the Capital at Washington. One-half of that iceberg belongs to you, Pikey.

The melancholy fact is, I built our warehouse on an unfavorable site, about a mile out from the shore (on the ice, you understand), and when the thaw came — O my God, Wannie, it was the saddest thing you ever saw in all your life! You will be so glad to know I was not in it at the time.

What a ridiculous question you ask me. My poor partner, you don’t seem to know very much about the ice business.

 

 

In 1942 Lord Mountbatten convinced Winston Churchill of the merits of pykrete - a mixture of ice and wood pulp created by the eccentric English boffin Geoffrey Pyke.  The notion was to build an enormous aircraft carrier at least 2,000 feet long and 300 feet wide that could provide an airbase in the North Atlantic  The problem was that it required an enormous amount of wood and, of course, it would eventually melt.

 

...  but the Habakkuk project was given a nod ...

 

£5000 was provided for a small test which took place on Patricia Lake in Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.  I first encountered it listening to an old timer in a tea house near the lake when I was hiking there years ago...

 

When your back is against the wall you are willing to try almost anything..

 

The name is from a book in the old testament and something that puzzles me.  I was told that it is from a verse in the book - something this source agrees with.

 

“Behold ye among the heathen, and regard and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told to you.” Hab. 1:5

 

But I like something a biblical scholar told me when I asked him for a bit of background ...  Habakkuk was the only prophet who questions god's wisdom when he saw a great injustice and asked why god wasn't doing anything about it.  Somehow I can imagine that squaring with the English sense of humor a bit better.

 

There are real breakthroughs out there - but those who find them are frequently not those who complete the innovation - finally taking them to a point where they are realized and successfully used.  So many pitfalls, but it is often how progress is made.

 

Before moving on to the recipe section I'll just note that I find much of the focus of current technology and computation a bit boring.  There is some very clever work going on, but mostly it isn't focused on the major challenges we have as a people.  It would be refreshing to see more serious attacks on the (many) real challenges that face us.  

 

__________

Recipe Corner

 

Rather than starting with a recipe I'll give a few recommendations for cooking essentials as a few people have asked for comments.  I like to cook and bake and tend towards gadgets, but I've learned that most of the items go unused.   It is possible to do quite a bit with very little.  So with that here are a few...

 

° Proper oven and refrigerator thermometers. 

Our current oven is much colder than its temperature setting.  It is good practice to get an oven thermometer and calibrate your oven.  For me that means a calibration chart I have next to the oven.   A good oven thermometer costs less than $10 - get one with a big dial so you can easily read it.  I also test mine in boiling water and by noting the melting point of sugar.

Ideally you might have an oven that, in addition to temperature, regulates humidity. These are common in professional kitchens, but are way too spendy for me.  I wish I had one though - they can make a big difference. 

The refrigerator has very different temperatures throughout and I baffle the air flow to create zones I trust.  I also know the regions that get a bit too cold for many items.  I have three - two in the 'fridge and one in the freezer.  They were under $10 each and make a difference.

° A nice chef's knife and a good paring knife

I wish I would have started with a good knife and had known you don't need speciality knives. You don't have to spend a huge amount of money (but you can).  I buy mine at Korin in NYC - they have an incredible selection of Japanese knives and related kit and give excellent advice.  Get a good sharpening stone or two and learn how to use them unless you can have a professional regularly sharpen yours.  I like Minsono knives with a Western edge, but there are many excellent brands.  Minsonos are a nice compromise in quality and price and have a nice feel in my hand - I'm sure I'll be using the same knives ten years from now.   Western edges are much easier to sharpen than Japanese edges - so go that way if you sharpen your own.  

Two two chef's knifes - one with a 240mm blade, the other 170mm - and a little 120mm pairing knife are all I need. 

° Cooking thermometers.  

I have a fast reacting probe thermometer as well as an infrared thermometer.  

I can't tell you how useful the IR thermometer is in and out of the kitchen.  I've been using a RayTech for nearly a decade and have given several of them as gifts. 

° A good kitchen scale

These are fundamentally important and every kitchen needs one as volume measurements don't make sense for many ingredients (flour for example).  The $25 Eat Smart is great for general use.  Mine reads to one gram and is reasonably accurate and repeatable.  A gram accuracy is all you need unless you are doing speciality work with spices or food additives.  For spice work I bought a scale that reads to 0.01 grams, but I rarely use it.  

The $25 Eat Smart is great for general use.  

Also if you are counting calories you need a kitchen scale.

° proper height working surfaces

If you do a lot of work with food you might find yourself with a sore back.  It turns out the 36" counter height in most kitchens is a by-product of post WWII standardization that came with the mass production of cabinets.  It reflects the 5'4 height of the average woman at the time (which, it turns out, hasn't changed in the US since).  If you are a bit taller, try going for a 1" or 2" thick cutting board.  If you are more than about 5'10 you might consider an even more raised surface.

I'm 6'1 - not terribly tall, but enough to cause serious back pain when I'm working at my cutting board for more than about 30 minutes at a time.  My friend Colleen is about 6'7 and has a larger problem.

The solution for both of us was a custom raised cutting board.  Mine adds about six inches and her's a towering thirteen inches. You don't lose a lot of counter space as you can store things under them.  I had AWP make both of them in hard maple and strongly recommend the company.

If you are much shorter than about 5'1 it makes sense to stand on something or AWP will make a custom height roll around work surface.  I know a serious cook who is about 5'1 who wears Dansko professional shoes which add a couple of inches - they are comfortable and work perfectly.  In either case the tight grained hardwoods are quite hygienic and studies show probably cleaned hardwood is as safe as other cutting surfaces.  Plus the are very beautiful.

Of course if you are building or remodeling a kitchen, the countertop can be anything you like.  And with remodeling you can also consider kitchen work-flow ... something I've never been able to do.

° a high quality blender

I don't have one as I can't justify the high price, but I've used them in other kitchens - Vitamix blenders are wonderful if you need to blend anything.  If you make soups you probably want an immersion blender (also called stick blenders).  Unless you do it every day something like this model will be just fine. 

° a good pressure cooker

They are completely underrated and I recommend one to save time and cut energy use.  You have to learn how to use them, but once you get the hang of one, you won't turn back.  There seems to be wide agreement that the Kuhn Rikon models are superior.  Stay away from the electrics.

° specialized kit

As you specialize you'll probably find a few really great tools that are great helps and that also make no sense to the normal cook or baker.  I like to make ice cream and have instrumented my ice cream maker - if you are handy with electronics, instrumentation is a nice way to combine hobbies and perhaps get a bit more insight into cooking. One of these days I would like to get into low temperature cooking - often, but improperly, called sous vide.  Something I can't justify due to space and money, but "one of these days"...

But this is getting out there.  Pay attention to the first four items on the list (possibly five) and you can be very happy.

 

 

 

a little christmas story

For the past few days I've been doing some work probing the notion that the fundamental structure and design of Facebook has a higher to people who tend to live through a remembrance of the past, while Twitter is much more focused on the present and the near-term future.¹

 

While doing this I thought a bit about my own real world graph.  I have a very small number of extremely close friends.  Those people I consider family and dedicate my tithing of time to.  Then there are varying levels of friends and acquaintances, correspondents, people you nod to on the street and so on .. you probably have much the same, although how these assemble is fascinating and probably unique to each of us.  The weights of the edges of these graphs depend on the intensity of the relationship and that varies with time, place, situation and many other factors.  I found myself thinking about those who are close.

 

One, who I won't identify, has been in an email conversation for a few days explaining something she does that strikes me as the core of what the holiday season is about.  For background she left her family and moved to the big city of Toronto immediately after high school with no contacts or prospects.  She has told me that she felt she had to leave even if she had no idea if she would be able to survive.  Her first year was very rough, but she limped through and then moved on to another city.  Since then she has been growing and learning and I count myself enormously lucky to have established a brilliant friendship with her - a friendship that has been enormously important to me and my wife.

 

She landed in Toronto the other day to spend the holiday with her brother's family.  But she had something just as important as family to tend to.  Rather than write about it, I asked for and received permission to quote a few parts of the emails.  

 

 

I will see a priest who works with kids who don't have much of a chance.  The come to Toronto on the bus and he finds them a cheap place to stay and work though people he knows.  He found me my first work at a tiny pizzeria.  I cleaned the kitchen, tables and floors and was a waitress.  I quit on my own because I wasn't very good at what I was asked to do, but it got me started and off the street.

I then find a restaurant with a kid who is struggling and leave a really big tip.  It happened to me when I was working.  A stranger who probably had asked what I will ask, had a piece of pizza and a coke and left an envelope with a new $100 bill in it.  The envelope just said "Merry Christmas to the tall blonde girl".  I do the same thing every time I'm back in Toronto and seek out the priest for guidance.  For me it is payback for the kindness and remembering how important it was to me.  For me money was completely unexpected and a gift of goodness that still makes me cry and feel special.

I don't see myself as being good.  It gives the message that even a stranger can offer just enough help when you really need it and it is good to look out for other people.  As an anonymous giver it makes me wonderful and is now a huge part of my Christmas.  I don't mean it to be charity as much a hope and a wish.  I try to write a note asking them to do the same for someone else when they can afford it.  I also put a good chocolate bar in the envelope because I know the money will for for food or rent or even some basic piece of clothing and they deserve a good treat. 

 

(from the next email about a day later.  I note that she is fairly deaf and can't listen to music so she reads lyrics - the song she quotes also happens to be a favorite of mine)

I now have the bills and chocolate and will seek out the priest.  This is the holiest piece of my holiday:-)  Whoever did it for me must have had it done for them and I do sit up sometimes wondering where and how it started.  I'm so proud to be part of it and someone who tries to keep it moving on.  

The priest must know a lot, but he and I have different beliefs.  His is his God and mine is in humanity.  But maybe that is more similar that it seems.

I read a lot of song lyrics and remember one by Dar Williams.  I can't remember it word for word, so I cheated and looked it up.  There is some truth here (although I'm not a pagan. I'm excited and waiting for her next communication)

The Christians and the Pagans

Amber called her uncle, said "We're up here for the holiday, 
Jane and I were having Solstice, now we need a place to stay." 
And her Christ-loving uncle watched his wife hang Mary on a tree, 
He watched his son hang candy canes all made with red dye number three. 
He told his niece, "It's Christmas Eve, I know our life is not your style," 
She said, "Christmas is like Solstice, and we miss you and its been awhile," 

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table, 
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able, 
And just before the meal was served, hands were held and prayers were said, 
Sending hope for peace on earth to all their gods and goddesses. 

The food was great, the tree plugged in, the meal had gone without a hitch, 
Till Timmy turned to Amber and said, "Is it true that you're a witch?" 
His mom jumped up and said, "The pies are burning," and she hit the kitchen, 
And it was Jane who spoke, she said, "It's true, your cousin's not a Christian," 
"But we love trees, we love the snow, the friends we have, the world we share, 
And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere." 

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table, 
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able, 
And where does magic come from? I think magic's in the learning, 
'Cause now when Christians sit with Pagans only pumpkin pies are burning. 

When Amber tried to do the dishes, her aunt said, "Really, no, don't bother." 
Amber's uncle saw how Amber looked like Tim and like her father. 
He thought about his brother, how they hadn't spoken in a year, 
He thought he'd call him up and say, "It's Christmas and your daughter's here." 
He thought of fathers, sons and brothers, saw his own son tug his sleeve, saying, 
"Can I be a Pagan?" Dad said, "We'll discuss it when they leave." 

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table, 
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able, 
Lighting trees in darkness, learning new ways from the old, and 
Making sense of history and drawing warmth out of the cold.

 

First you need an excellent holiday treat and then you need to be listening to Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams.²  If you don't have it, here is the link to the iTunes Store or find it somewhere else.  The next best thing is to listen to a youtube performance.  

 note: the ending to this little story appears in the comments:-)

__________

¹ From the selection of follows and friends, the weightings of the edges of the graphs and so on...  There are some interesting models that can be built to try these ideas to see if they make sense.  This may be fundamentally tied to how mobile these services are - or not.  There is rich room for experimental design and measurement and perhaps a bit of insight.

Fun stuff to think about - particularly when one considers these services both map poorly onto real human connections (although both can be useful).  But this is for something other than the blog.

² I'm not a pagan either, but this song turns out to be very personal to me too ... I've been lucky enough to have been at a concert where nearly everyone was singing along with Dar as she performed it

__________

Recipe Corner

 

This one is wonderful.  Last year I posted a holiday desert that someone in Italy tried and loved.  He sent a nice letter with his grandmother's prized biscotti recipe.  This is exceptional if you like biscotti.  I've done a few things to make it work with American ingredients.  

 

Christmas Biscotti

 

Ingredients

 

° 55g  of a very mild extra virgin olive oil

° 170g white cane sugar

° 2 tsp vanilla extract

° 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

° 2 large eggs

° 220g all purpose flour

° 1/4 teaspoon salt

° 1 tsp baking powder

° 60g dried cranberries

° 180g unsalted shelled pistachios

 

Technique

° Preheat oven to 350º F  and Pam or grease a cookie sheet

° In a mixer bowl beat the olive oil and sugar together. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and eggs, beating until the mixture is blended.

° In a small bowl, whisk by hand the flour, salt and baking powder.

° On low speed gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and slowly beat in the cranberries and pistachios. (you can do this by hand too)

° Form the dough  into two logs about a foot long and two inches in diameter. (if it is too sticky use the trick of forming it with cold water on your hands)

° Bake for 30 minutes or until logs are light brown. Remove from oven, cool for at least 20 minutes and cut slices diagonally about an inch thick.  

° While cutting reduce the oven temperature to 275° F

° Put cookies on a cooling racking placed on the cookie sheet for 15 minutes flipping cookies once midway.

° Line a cooking sheet with parchment.  Put the slices on their sides and bake at 275° F until the cookies are dry, which varies a lot with humidity.  Usually about 10 to 15 minutes for me.  I flip them at the 5 minute mark.

 

 

warming up the crystal ball

Regular flight in heavier than air machine, much of medical science and making use of the strong interaction; but certainly not the Internet, television or the car...

 

A few of us were sitting around a lunch table at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey in the early 1990s playing the game where you can transport someone 100 years ahead in time and asking what would surprise them.  For fun we were trying to come up with notions that would really surprise the anyone.

 

We came to the conclusion that communications networks wouldn't be a complete surprise as telephone networks were expanding rapidly.  Science fiction in the early 1890s was full of references to forms of communication that look like radio and communication. Novel as the Internet might seem, it wouldn't be a complete surprise.

 

We debated computers.  The ways computers are used would come as a shock - in fact modern use would come as a shock to most as late as the 1940s before people like Vannevar Bush began to connect the dots of what was happening in research facilities.¹  But the work of Charles Babbage on the difference engine and Ada Lovelace on programming came a full century before Bush's insight.  Digital computation and its use may have well been a shock, but computational engines not.

 

We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate what ever aroused curiosity. - Orville Wright

 

Today marks the 109th anniversary of controlled heavier than air flight.  By the late 1800s people were beginning to advance past semi-controlled flight in gliders, but with no real success. A real stagnation in design combined with desire and over-funding to kill several would-be innovators and strengthen the notion that even with the advances of the Industrial Revolution, flight was only for the birds and lighter than air machines.

 

An airplane, or a bird for that matter, has to properly balance four forces to fly - lift, drag, gravity and thrust.2  It must also have a viable control system.  

 

The early aircraft designs were ok on gravity, but lift, thrust and drag were all problematic and viable control systems were nonexistent.  

 

A huge problem that required advances on multiple fronts.

 

The best way to approach such problems is to address each issue empirically scientifically.  The Wright brothers spent years learning how to build and fly kites, understand aerodynamics and simple fluid mechanics to built good-enough airfoils, to lower the drag on their machines,  to use a good-enough engine, and to build a control system and learn to fly with it. 

 

The investigations took several years and a careful methodical approach.  They built their own airfoils and had the revelation that a propeller could be made much more efficient using a proper airfoil.  Air-cooled gasoline engines could have a very high power to weight ratio for the day. Wing warping could control roll and elevators and rudders, pitch and yaw.

 

By early December 1903 they had enough of the pieces to make the first real flight.  The pieces were far from optimal and several of them had been discovered before by others - but no one else had put together all of the pieces.³ What makes this interesting was their funding was modest.  Some competitors had enormous funding, but were using designs that were simple extrapolations of earlier non-functioning designs.  

 

One can go on and on about the brilliance of the approach used by the Wrights, but it also needs to be underscored that their design, while good enough, was very primitive.  They patented it and proceeded to prove they were as bad at business as they were at fundamental revolution.  A problem was their patents and business model were very restrictive and others, once the fundamental problem had been cracked, made new discoveries that made dramatic improvements.⁴

 

Last year I was part of a panel charged with making projections for technologies five, ten and twenty years out.  While such events are fun (even more fun when someone is paying and the others in the group are smart), they rarely are useful as predicting the future is a hazard at best.  But at the same time it is possible to get a lot of useful information from a well run process.

 

When I look back on some of the things I have done it is possible to say I saw and even invented bits and pieces of the future.  But saying that turns out to be a combination of selective filtering and hubris.  In reality many of us saw and created many pathways to potential futures.  That was the job of pure research at Bell Labs where the rubber met the sky.  Of course innovation is the useful application of these ideas and making the rubber meet the road is much more difficult.⁵

 

I think it is fair to say almost all of the technologies we'll be using in 2022 are up and running in pure and applied research labs around the world.  The combinatorics of factors that come to bear on which will survive are an extremely difficult problem to solve and there is truth to Alan Kay's famous quote - "Look, the best way to predict the future is to invent it..."

 

Many of the discoveries are impacted by something outside of what is considered to be their normal domain.  Television was originally seen as a point to point communication, portable atomic clocks combining with several technologies to create a new class of navigation - the list goes on and on.  Ideally you can gather a group of people with an understanding of the technology being studied, wide ranging interests, delight in connecting the dots and an inquisitive nature.  From that a variety of useful scenarios can be invented that can form a guide for those who must plan for the future.

 

Some are expert at understanding the human side of technology along with the rate of sophistication of component technologies and can create new products and even product categories - Steve Jobs and his team being an example on several occasions. 

 

Rarely something is created where its basic design survives for a long time.  The invention of the safety bicycle is a great example.   In the early and mid 1880s many inventors tried to come up with a light, easy to ride and safe bicycle.  There were multiple failures until John Kemp Starley of Coventry, England put the dots together and came up with the Rover in about 1888.  He had come up with a design and geometry that is basically unchanged to this day... a design that happens to be the most efficient way for a single human to move around on the ground ...  a design that is nearly four times as efficient as walking.

 

On this day it is sweet to note the connection between bicycles and early flight.  The skills required to build reliable safety bikes proved to be one of the dots the Wrights used in their arsenal of ideas.

 

I should probably quit now as I'm nearly out of time, but it is also very important to note the adoption rates of new technologies.  This the percentage of the population using a technology from in years from the first product - a very different number from the first invention!

 

The first chart is from a now defunct visualization site.  The point that is problem important is the ten percent mark as well as the slope from there through fifty percent adoption.  Some technologies compete with seriously mature technologies and require enough further evolution so as to have very gentle slopes, even though they eventually come to become important.  Some forms of alternate energy power production and electric cars are good examples.6

 

The second chart involves consumer "gadget" technologies compiled by Alexis Madrigal - areas that are generally expected to explode rapidly and quickly generate enormous competition. Note the leading examples are all for media consumption rather than communication or creation. There are a variety of interesting reasons why this is so, but there is not enough time to probe that here.  Gadget spaces where first moves often are not those making money as the technologies mature.  Ideally companies in this space have a deep understanding of how and why people use these things.  If they can add this information to the other dots they're connecting they can create more serious contenders.  Apple is a prime example as were Polaroid and Sony back in the day.

 

So while an accurate prediction of winners a decade out is nearly impossible, it is easier to eliminate losers and the process, properly done, can offer a good deal of illumination into just how you think about the future.  On the other hand surrounding yourself with narrow subject matter experts frequently leads to noisy blindsidings. ⁷

 

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¹ Vannevar Bush was an amazing mind - inventor, scientist, engineer and brilliant administrator.  A real renaissance person.  He was one of the people who started the Manhattan Project, ran NACA, CMU, the MIT school of engineering, the NDRC, the OSRD and was a core force behind the creation of the National Science Foundation. His article As We May Think article that appeared in The Atlantic on information indexing and processing was a brilliant piece you should read if you are unfamiliar with it.

² Gliding only requires three - thrust isn't used.

³ This is a critical point. Some of the tricks had been uncovered at places like MIT and Stevens, but were only known to ship designers.  Very little of this was known in the aviation community.  Orville and Wilbur, with their experiments, created a problem relevant body of information that was revolutionary in their field.  

⁴ Ailerons are a prime example.  There was considerable prior art, but the other pieces of powered flight had not come together.  They proved to be superior to wing warping, but accomplished the same basic task - roll control.  The Wrights fought this tooth and nail in the courts.  They won in the US and demanded very heavy fees fundamentally crippling aircraft development in the US for about a decade as the Europeans quickly caught up and moved forward.

⁵ Bell Labs had a good mechanism for that -  linkages between pure and applied research and applied research and manufacturing.  The problem was the last link became weak through a series of consent decrees and the value of the place was diluted.

⁶ These are rich connect-the-dot regions and I spend some time worrying about them.  Get in touch if you have an interest

⁷ There are a few individual subject matter experts who have enough outside areas of interest and their own forest of dots to connect that they can not only be useful in these investigations, but often central.

 

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Recipe Corner

 

With the holidays nearly on us I've been experimenting with gingerbreads.  The one I offer here is a recipe in progress - I'm on the third version, but this one appears to be a keeper.  Unlike many gingerbreads it isn't great warm, but shines after chilled in the refrigerator for at least eight hours.  Sukie thinks it is even better with eggnog poured over it or with peppermint ice cream on the side (yes - I've made a batch of peppermint ice cream).

 

There is an issue of what to do with the holiday experiments as we can't eat all of them ourselves.  The trick is a group of always happy-to-try-it-out neighbors. 

 

This one makes a lot.  A nine inch round pan is marginal, a nine or ten inch square pan probably works and making it in a two piece angel food cake pan may be best.  Be sure and put a sheet pan under the cake pan!

 

I've begun to measure cake temperature with a thermocouple.  The cake is done went the core temperature is about 88° C - don't let it get as high as 90° for any prolonged period.

 

Ginger-Ginger Refrigerator Cake

 

Ingredients

 

Cake 

° 85g (3 oz) peeled an sliced fresh ginger

° 200g (1 cup) white cane sugar

° 3/4 tsp fine un-iodized sea salt

° 1/2 tsp ground ginger

° 1 tsp ground cinnamon

° 1/4 tsp ground mace

° 225g (1 cup) water

° 2 tsp baking soda

° 340g (1 cup) dark molasses

° 2 large eggs

° 225g (2 sticks) melted unsalted butter

° 275g (about 2-1/2 cups) all purpose flour

Glaze:

° 125g (1 cup) powered sugar

° a pinch of fine salt

° a splash of milk

° a bit of vanilla extract

 

Technique

 

Cake

° Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter or pam a cake pan

° Put the fresh ginger, sugar, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon and mace into a food processor and pulse until the ginger is ground into the sugar

° Microwave the water for about a minute, stir in the basking soda until dissolved and then the molasses until well blended. Set it aside

° Add the eggs to the food processor one at a time pulsing it a bit to blend them in.  

° Turn on the food processor and stream in the melted butter.

° Stop the food processor, add the flour and then pulse until just blended - don't overdo it!

° Turn on the food processor and stream in the water and molasses stopping when it is just absorbed.  Again don't overdo it.  

° Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake until a toothpick comes clean - about 50 minutes to an hour for me depending on the pan.

Glaze

° Pour the sugar into a big enough bowl, add the salt and whisk in some milk until it is on the verge of being a liquid.  Add a bit of vanilla and whisk to blend.

° Drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake and put it in a refrigerator for at least a few hours.

 

 

it isn't peeling onions...

Looking up at the sky is one of those pleasures that leads to the sort of questions kids ask.  What are clouds and why do they float?  Why are rain clouds so dark?  Why are the edges of clouds so well defined? What makes a sunrise or sunset red?  When did people start noticing the sky is blue?  Why is the sky blue?

 

The wonderful online comic strip xkcd reminded me of this the other day.  Kids pepper their parents with questions and this one is likely to come up.  The simple answer is given in the strip, but that doesn't get at what scattering is and why Rayleigh scattering works with air molecules.  Why it does and why it scatters as wavelength^-1/4 is something that usually happens in the first or second year of a college level physics course, but the follow-on question can stump the adult who hasn't considered a few more things.  It turns out our distorted perception of the world is centrally involved which leads to another herd of questions.¹

 

If perception is involved one begins to question if there are any cultural components to color perception.  It turns out there are.  Now one begins to question the nature of what color is.  Is it fundamental or is there a mapping between wavelength and what we perceive as - say - blue, red or yellow?²

 

childlike questions frequently aren't!

 

Some people use the analogy that science is like pealing an onion - you describe something but find, upon closer inspection, that there is a deeper explanation and beneath that yet another.    I'm afraid it doesn't work for me.  A better analogy is throwing a stone into a pond.  There is a splash and then a circular wave that expands outwards.  The wave laps up against things that you didn't know existed.  The edge of it can be thought of as the boundary between what we know and what we can know if we work at what has been uncovered.  We are newly ignorant and that is a wonderful thing.  The beauty is that our ignorance is expanding much more rapidly than what we know.  It is like diamond filled beaches that no one has seen are being constantly discovered.  Mining the old beaches can lead to questions that will lead you to entirely new shores.  That is why people do science - it isn't the discovery of an answer, but rather the discovery of a question.

 

Michael Faraday, in addition to being a brilliant physicist, was the Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson of his day.  He had the habit of delivering public science lectures on subjects like candles.  Alan Alda (yes - that Alan Alda) is passionate about the communication of science and is an associate professor and one of the founders of the Center for Communicating Science at SUNY Stony Brook.  He felt there is a huge problem communicating science to the public and wanted to do something about it invoking Faraday as an inspiration.

 

Alda proposed a competition to simply describe how a flame works - a question that drove him when he was young.  There were hundreds of serious entries and they were judged for clarity by an army of volunteer 11 year olds.  

This year the challenge will be to explain time.  This may turn out to be interesting,  Science is pretty good at explaining how a flame works at a fundamental level and, for a gifted explainer, the gist of it can be communicated to an 11 year old. Time is deeper - it is fundamental at the level where we really don't know what it is.  That doesn't stop people from trying to learn about it by observation and experiment.  Physics is beginning to take cautious baby steps - time once was only for philosophers, but now some science is being done. Somehow the process of discovery needs to be communicated.  Figuring out how to communicate this to an 11 year old seems like an impossible task.  I'm very curious to see if there are some clever ways to communicate something basic about science.   At least it gets away from the fallacy that science is about assembling "facts"...

 

These things are fine and good, but there is still much to be discovered just staring at the sky.

 

If you are in a spectacularly dark area - the sort of place you sometimes get in places where large telescopes tend to get built - the Milky Way becomes impossibly bright and rich on moonless nights.  As your eyes adjust to the dark, you begin to notice a faint glow far from the times when you have remaining hints of sunrise or sunset.  The glow is strongest at the horizon and so faint it is colorless.  If you have some tools available you discover it is mostly green, but there are some other even fainter colors - far too weak for your cones to let your brain in on the show. This is the airglow.

 

Recently I came across this wonderful image taken from the International Space Station. It happens to be the airglow from space.  If you look very closely you'll see a faint bluish band that hugs the Earth.³  That happens to be the dense part of the atmosphere - the piece up to about four miles up that sustains life.  Most of our weather takes place here and we call it home and tend to think of it as large and expansive.  

 

It isn't and we need to take care of it...

 

But that aside the atmosphere continues for some distance.  The brightest region - the outer green band- is about 100 km above the surface.  This is where a bit of physics begins to unravel what is going on.   If you break light from this area into its spectral components, you get a few pronounced lines that were mostly described by atomic (not nuclear!) physics more than 100 years ago.  The bright green line has a wavelength of 558nm and is given off when atomic oxygen is struck by ultraviolet light.  It also has a fainter red line from a region at a higher altitude.  The yellow light is from sodium atoms and there is red light from excited OH radicals at somewhat lower altitudes.  But without getting deeply into spectroscopy and worrying about each line there are a few other questions that come up.

 

Why is it so bright?  Of course you have to consider the camera, but it turns out the airglow is about 1000 times bright on the side of the Earth facing the Sun (duh), but it is washed out during the day (duh again).  From orbit we can see a slice of the atmosphere that is still illuminated by the Sun while we are on Earth's dark side.  Nothing like an ideal location!

 

Why are the colors confined to such narrow bands?  This gets really interesting.  It turns out that bright green band comes from the atomic Oxygen excited state - it takes a very long time (by the standards of atomic physics) for this to happen - about a second.  At lower altitudes there are so many other air molecules that most of the just excited Oxygens get whacked by some other molecule that collides with them.  This process changes their energy and they usually don't give off that particular light.  As you go up in altitude the air becomes less dense and there is a point where the average collisions are rare enough - over a second between them - that the process can occur.  There are similar arguments for the other layers, but it is all about putting different bits of information together from fields that, on the surface, seem different.

 

It is common in science to find a new bit of ignorance in the ordinary world.  With the wonderful work going on at CERN it is easy to forget that quite a bit of real ignorance lurks on tabletops with very simple apparatus and, in some fields, there are wonders in a local pond (8 minute mp3). 

 

The whole trick is to be curious like an 11 year old and learn to ask questions and be open to something you don't expect.  I've had surprising and sometimes excellent results being curious and linking to outlying fields while doing work in fields far from my training and I suspect the same is true for of many of you.

 

Science has a formal method for doing this, but the same principles apply in many other fields.  Drilling in and asking questions, being open to answers you don't expect and even finding there are richer new questions, and connecting the dots with other fields that are very different from your own.

 

Oh - and if you have never seen a very dark sky you owe it to yourself to do so!  You can find some fairly dark areas in the lower 48 states - mostly in the desert Southwest, but there are a few good areas in other regions.  I'm about 250 miles from a pretty good area in Pennsylvania and have been known to drive for watching a meteor shower (not tonight though) or just getting a fix and remembering what a dark sky is like.

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¹ It turns out the answer has a couple of pieces.  The intensity of shortwave length visible light from the Sun decreases rapidly as wavelength decreases, but more important is perceptual.  We have three cones that register what we call color.  The cone associated with blue (the S cone) is very insensitive to shorter wavelengths.  We simple don't perceive most of the violet that is in the sky.

It turns out many birds and insects are sensitive into the ultraviolet.  They would see a much more violet sky - even a somewhat ultraviolet sky - than we do. 

It is wonderful when kids ask great followup questions.  This one is deep, but obvious in retrospect - if you see an eight year old do that you may want to encourage them to keep asking.

² It turns out color is very artificial - you can convince yourself of this easily by overlapping a very pure "red" light with a very pure "green" light.  Where they add we register something we call "yellow."  Neither of the original lights had any yellow wavelength in them.  It turns out to be a construction of your mind.

The wonderful NPR show Radio lab had a great segment on color perception that will leave you with some wonderful shores to explore from.

highly recommended!

³ Also look closely and you'll see the constellation Orion.

 

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Recipe Corner

 

Echoing the theme we end with peeling apples rather than onions.

 

This one is simple and good - maple roasted apples that almost give the flavor of an apple pie without the crust.  Great as a dessert by themselves - perhaps with a little topping like crushed walnuts.  I've tried it with a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg mixed in, but prefer them straight.  You'll want to use a rich grade B maple syrup (the grade has nothing to do with quality - grade B is darker and richer than A ..  which has its own delights).  

 

Feel free to scale the recipe - there won't be any problems as long as your tray is large enough.  It is terrific served over slightly softened vanilla ice cream or (better yet) a vanilla gelato (try Talenti)

 

Mapled Apples

 

Ingredients

 

° 4 large baking apples peeled and cored

° 100g high quality grade B maple syrup

° 55g butter (a half stick)

° pinch of salt

° 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

° 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (optional)

 

Technique

 

° preheat the oven to 375° F

° cut the apples into about a dozen equally sized wedges each

° melt the butter in a microwave oven in a bowl big enough to hold the apple slices

° mix the maple syrup, salt and optional spices in with the butter and toss in the apples and make sure they get coated with the mixture on both sides

° spread the pieces out on a greased cooking sheet and bake until soft and just caramelizing at the edges - about 40 minutes in my oven.  Turn them over about 20 minutes into the bake.

 

listening to the fun and passion of exploration

Sometimes it is wonderful to sit back and listen to someone describe the cool things they're working on.  CBC's Quirks and Quarks is a wonderful weekly science news program that asks researchers to talk for eight to ten minutes on their current work. Bob McDonald is an excellent host and many of these are just fun, so sit back and enjoy a few (you can subscribe to the podcast feed on iTunes)

 

with that a few recent shows (all in mp3):

 

The big gulp - Jeremy Goldbogen on the dynamics of blue whale feeding techniques  ... the paper in Royal Society Biology Letters.

 

Steam before boiling - Naomi Halas on using nano particles to generate steam using solar power - even at low temperatures.  They claim 80% efficiency!  The paper in ACS Nano...

 

Long ago in a galaxy far away ...  Ray Carlberg on a new class of very violent stellar explosions.  The paper in Nature.

 

Fearing Math ... Ian Lyons on Math Phobia and what might be done to deal with it. (it starts around 1:45)  The paper in PLoS One.

 

The global positioning system of the Loggerhead Turtle ... Ken Lohmannon how these turtles find their way back to the beach where they were born.  The paper in Current Biology.

 

 

That should use enough of your time - so no verbiage from me on this post.

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Recipe corner

 

The first two are Christmas recipes from my childhood.  I still make them.  The rest are more current, but worth passing along - even the last one.

 

Christmas Treasure Bars

 

Ingredients

 

° 2 cups AP flour

° 1-1/2 cup baking powder

° 1/2 tsp salt

° 1/2 cup brown sugar

° 1/2 cup cane sugar

° 1/2 cup butter (softened)

° 2 large eggs

° 1 tsp vanilla extract

° 3/4 cup whole milk

° 1 cup walnuts

° 1 cup cherry halves 

° 6 oz milk chocolate chips (these days I use a mixture of milk and dark chocolate cut into chip sized bits)

 

Technique

 

° Preheat oven to 325°F

° Grease or pam a 10x15" pan

° Sift the flour, baking powder and salt

° in a separate bowl create the sugars and butter and mix in the eggs and vanilla

° add the dry mixture and milk to the sugar mixture alternating as you go.

° add the nuts, cherries and chips

° bake for 25 to 30 minutes

° when cool frost with a butter cream or cream cheese frosting

 

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The next one is wonderful if you chill a couple of the cookies and put ice cream between them...

 

Grandma King's Ginger Cookies

 

Ingredients 

 

° 3/4 cup vegetable shortening

° 1/2 tsp salt

° 1 cup cane sugar

° 1 large egg

° 4 tbl molasses

° 2 cups AP flour

° 2-1/2 tsp baking soda

° 1 tsp ground ginger

* 1 tsp cinnamon

° 1/2 tsp cloves

 

Technique

 

° preheat oven to 300° F

° mix the ingredients in the order given

° roll dough into walnut sized ball and then roll in some white sugar

° lay the balls out on a sheet with 2" between cookies, flatten with a glass bottom  and bake for 12 to 15 minutes

 

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Cranberry Christmas Bars

 

Ingredients

(bars)

° 113 g (1 stick) unsalted melted butter

° 1 large egg

° 200g (1 cup) light brown sugar

° 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

° 125 g (1 cup) AP flour

° 1/4 teaspoon salt, optional and to taste

° 130g (3/4 cup) white chocolate chips

° 50g (1/2 cup) dried cranberries or tart cherries

(frosting)

° 175g (1 cup) white chocolate chips melted

° 125g (4 oz) softened cream cheese

° 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

° 250g+ (2+ cups) confectioners' sugar)

° 30g (1/4 cup) dried cranberries or sour cherries

 

Technique

 

° preheat oven to 350° F

° line an 8-by-8-inch pan with aluminum foil, spray with pam

° melt the butter in a microwave - allow to cool to near room temperature

° add the egg, brown sugar, and vanilla to the butter and combine

° add the flour, salt, and stir until just combined - over mixing will ruin the bars

° fold in white chocolate chips and cranberries. Pour batter into the pan

° bake for 18 to 20 minutes, and center is set and golden, or a toothpick comes out clean. do not overbake!!!

° allow bars to cool before frosting

(frosting)

° melt the white chocolate in a small microwave-safe bowl  in short bursts until it can be stirred smooth (or just use a double boiler)

° using an electric mixer  combine cream cheese, about 3/4 of the melted white chocolate, 250g sugar, vanilla, and beat until smooth and fluffy. Start by mixing on low speed, then on medium-high for about 3 minutes.

° add additional confectioners' sugar to get whatever taste and consistency you want and frost the bars

° sprinkle on the cranberries and evenly drizzle with the remaining 1/4 of the white chocolate reheating in the microwave if necessary (it probably will be)

° allow bars to set up for at least an hour before slicing and serving

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And a seasonal soup - I love celeriac and used a cream soup recipe in Mike Ruhlman's excellent book Ratio.

 

Celeriac Cream soup

Ingredients

°28g (2 tbl) unsalted  butter 

° 80g chopped onion

° 725g (3 cups) whole milk

° 450g celery root, 1/4 of it nicely diced and roasted till tender, cooled and reserved for garnish; the rest is roughly chopped

° 85g heavy cream

° salt to taste

° fresh lemon juice or white wine vinegar to taste

 

Technique

 

° cook the flour and butter in a pot over medium heat

° add the onions and cook for another minute or so - add the milk and simmer until it thickens.  Salt to taste.

° add the chopped celeriac and gently cook until its tender - maybe 15 minutes.

° puree the soup (I use an immersion blender), run through a strainer and add the cream

° season with the lemon juice or white wine vinegar (I prefer lemon)

° reheat the garnish in a microwave 

° garnish and serve

 

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This one is a bit strange, but you can get away with such things this time of the year.

 

Gingerbread Hot Chocolate

 

Ingredients 

 

° 1 cup hot milk (I use whole milk for this in total disregard for my health)

° 28g (1 oz) finely chopped white chocolate (I use Lindt)

° 28g (1 oz) finely chopped dark chocolate (a Lindt again)

° 18g  (2-1/2 tsp) molasses

° pinch ground cloves

° pinch ground cinnamon

° pinch ground ginger

° pinch ground nutmeg

° pinch salt

° brown sugar (optional)

° whipped cream (optional)

 

Technique

 

° add all ingredients but the whipped cream to the hot milk and stir until combined and smooth

° adjust sweetness with brown sugar if needed - some molasses and chocolates may force the issue

° top with whipped cream if you want to tempt fate

 

science education - how much is essential?

It was cloudy and I was unable to watch, but the 7^th marked the earliest sunset in this part of New Jersey at 4:29pm.  There is still the hope of witnessing the latest sunrise on January 5^th at 7:21am.  It turns out these dates depend strongly on where you live.

 

Neither of these occur on the Winter Solstice, which will take place at 6:12am on December 21^st this year.  The Winter Solstice marks the point in the our orbit at which the Sun appears at the lowest altitude in the sky - in the Northern Hemisphere.  Everyone is aware of the solstices and many cultures have celebrations to mark the event, but few seem to be aware that, for most locations on the planet, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise don't occur on the Winter Solstice.

 

You can sort this out yourself with a bit a spherical trigonometry - I remember being fascinated when I discovered this as a 13 year old and pretty much learning the trig so I could sort it out for myself.  There are two components that are critical - the Earth's tilt and our elliptical orbit.   In December we are rushing towards the Sun and will be at perihelion - our closest approach - on January 1^st close to midnight (about 5am universal time).   Our aphelion will take place on July 5^th this year.  People are very surprised that we are at our closest approach in early January and furthest out near the 4th of July - you can easily measure this with a camera with a bit of care and I did that when I was 14 pretty much on my own.¹

 

I won't go into detail on exactly why these dates vary as it is a lot of fun to sort it out for yourself and not very difficult - just a bit of spherical trigonometry and some raw information on the Earth's orbit.  A very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon I should think.

 

The world is filled with interesting little "puzzles" and a boatload of clues if you just observe Nature.  The whole notion of science is just that - observe and question Nature in an orderly fashion for a deeper understanding of what is going on.  It has nothing to do with "facts" that are printed in books and are memorized for a test.  It has nothing to do with being able to calculate problems (although that is an essential skill) - it is just the art of the question and being open to surprise in the answer.

 

What surprises is most people seem to view science as unapproachable and many reject its findings out of hand.  It isn't in search of answers to give us new approaches for reasoning with the materials we have at our disposal, but a wonderful byproduct - and a major drive for doing science - has been the application of these discoveries.  It has fundamentally driven civilization and I would claim the scientific method to be one of a handful of discoveries by people that have done the most to bring change to all of us.²

 

A puzzle I can't understand or deal with is why so many people reject science and/or claim it and math are somehow "difficult" - after all, children are born with a natural curiosity and are filled with questions.  Why is it that so many become a-curious?  Why is it that this seems to vary somewhat by culture?  

 

 

Is this something that needs to be addressed - the fact that only a small percentage of the population is scientifically literate in a sea of those who almost seem proud of having problems with math and science?   With many fundamental questions about what we should do as a society having deep connections with science and math is it essential for our people to be better educated?   People with a science background tend to excel at math, critical thinking and logic and, I believe, can be a potent force in the corporate world.  For example, with all the talk of "big data" (ouch - what an awful phrase) these days it would be more than a bit useful to be able to know when and how to ask questions as there are an enormous number of poorly conceived projects.  

 

And this applies to many other areas of "change" we face.

 

I'm convinced that one problem is science and math education.  There are many wonderful teachers out there, but probably more bad ones and poorly conceived programs with terrible curricula.  There have been more than a few great proposals for change, but little traction.³  I'm fascinated by the subject and have probably too many opinions, so ping me if you want to enter into a discussion - I'd welcome the chance to learn your ideas as well as test mine.⁴

 

I'll stop here (other than the recipe section), but take a look at these two short videos. They say in a few minutes what would take me tens of pages to write.  I have some differences with the specifics of the videos, but not the general direction...

 

 

 

 

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¹ The apparent diameters of the Sun at perihelion and aphelion differ by about three percent - our planet receives about seven percent more solar energy in early January than it does in early July.  This seems to surprise people, but thinking about climate and weather involves the oceans, atmosphere and land - each with their own fascinating properties.

² A great topic if you are with a group of interesting people is to ask what others believe are the most important agents of change throughout human history.

³ Some great things have been done.  CL Strong's Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American had a fundamental impact on science education in the US in the 50s and 60s, Carl Sagan's popularization of astronomy inspired many, and we now have several excellent popularizers.  But integration of these into k16 education assumes a "professional" track and excludes almost everyone else.

⁴ Writing and then abandoning a layperson's book on energy was a fantastic learning experience.  A bit painful, but it has improved my speaking and I think I have a much better sense of better communication and learning channels - certainly not good enough, but greatly improved!

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Recipe corner

 

Ginger is the spice of the season for me.  Here are a couple of recipes I've made recently.  The first is a very basic, but excellent gingerbread (with an interesting variation shown) and the second has a bit more punch.

 

Basic Gingerbread

 

Note that a variation for a gingerbread upside down cake is also given.  For regular gingerbread, just ignore anything that is between the < bras and kets >

 

Ingredients

° 280g (2 1/4) cups all-purpose flour

° 2 teaspoons baking soda

° 2 teaspoons ground ginger

° 1 teaspoon cinnamon

° 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

° 1/8 teaspoon ground mace

° 1/4 teaspoon salt

° 113g (1/2 cup) butter 

° 100g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

° 1 large egg

° 170g (1/2 cup) dark molasses

° 245g (1 cup) buttermilk (the regular fat works better than low fat)

 

<Ingredients Pineapple Layer

° 100g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

° 76g (1/3 cup) butter

° 75g (2/3 cup) pecan halves or pieces (optional)

° 1 20-ounce can of pineapple rings (you will use about half of the can)

° maraschino cherries for the center of each pineapple ring >

Technique

° Preheat the oven to 350° F

° Butter or pam a 10-inch springform pan or a 9 x 9-inch square pan.

<° If you are making this in a skillet, heat and stir the brown sugar and butter together over medium heat until the butter is melted, the sugar is dissolved, and a slurry is formed.  Set aside.  If you are going to bake the dessert in a baking pan, make the slurry in a small saucepan and transfer the slurry to a baking pan.

°Sprinkle pecans in the slurry.  Place six or seven pineapple rings in the slurry.  Add maraschino cherries in the center of each ring.>

° Mix the flour, soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside. 

° Cream the butter with the brown sugar. Add the egg and beat until light and airy. Add the molasses. 

° Starting with the flour mixture, add the flour and buttermilk to the creamed mixture in three or four additions beating just until combined with the mixer on lowest speed. Do not over mix.

° Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until done. The top should spring back when lightly touched and toothpick or skewer should come out clean when inserted in the center of the cake.

° Let cool for 20 minutes in the pan on a rack. Serve with sweetened whipped cream if you like (adding a pinch of salt to the heavy cream as you whip it makes a *huge* difference in taste)