omenti

what films influenced your direction?

minipost

A friend and I were discussing films that had a major impact on people even influencing our path in life.  She mentioned Contact - the film adaptation of Carl Sagan's book.  I've run into more than a few astronomers and astrophysicists that cite the original television series Cosmos. For me it was mostly books - even comic books and a planetarium.  

She suggested getting your comments.  It can be any kind of inspiration and any media type - including public talks.  What films or books had a big impact on your life?  Comment below or send me an email if you prefer.   I'll add mine, but will keep it short for this mini-post.

Oh ..  a friend was the science advisor for Interstellar.  Here's a very accessible talk he gave on the science behind it.  About an hour, but Kip's a good story teller and you'll find out how Carl Sagan setting him up on a semi-failed blind date turned out to be important. 

ps - One of you makes films for a living.  She probably has something interesting to say. 

 

 

 

prisencolinensinainciusol - and charlie chaplin

minipost

I’ve been meaning to do something on protowords.  Rather than  talking about neurology here are a two short and beautiful video examples..

 

silly nonsense words that your mind tries to turn into English:

Charlie Chaplin doing something similar is nonsense  romance languages.  Of course he communicates anyway.

 

 

syzgny!

minipost

You probably won’t notice the supermoon status of the moon for the upcoming lunar eclipse..  The orbit is elliptical so the Moon’s apparent size changes by about 14%  (the Sun changes by about 3%) .. unless you’re on very familiar terms with the Moon, you’re unlikely to notice the difference.

But the eclipse…  now that’s worth watching!  Syzygy is the wonderful term used to describe an alignment of three or more bodies.    In the case of a lunar eclipse the Earth is between the Sun and the moon.  The eclipses are long due to the size of the Earth compared to the moon and the moonlight reflected back to us has to make it’s way through the ring of atmosphere surrounding the Earth. For the same reason the sky is blue most of the light that makes it to the Moon is on the red end of the spectrum.  Local stuff in the air around the Earth as well as the air over you can  change the nature of the colors.  They’re basically reddish, but can be copper colored, rust, brownish and even brick red.  The colors can shift through the eclipse and sometimes it can even be difficult to see the moon in mid eclipse.

The naked eye is just fine, but if you have a pair of binoculars it’s even better.  If you’re interested in looking at the night sky, binoculars are usually a better bet than a telescope.  I’ll be happy to give recommendations of what to look for.

 

______

 

after posting this a question arrived..   here it is and my answer

 

Q   Why should I get excited about the lunar eclipse?

A   You can’t overstate how exciting the Universe is!  Check this out:  there’s this huge rock orbiting around a point a thousand miles below the Earth’s surface that the Earth orbits around too.  A giant rock!  And we can see it!  And then we get exactly between it and this huge fusion reactor that can burn for ten billion years and gives us life even though it’s power density is about the same as a lizard’s.  How cool is that?

 

 

what if manufactured clothing fit everyone? what could possibly go wrong?

It was the dawn of the jet age the US Air Force had a serious problem.  Early jets were suddenly complex and flying them was more demanding.  There were a lot of crashes - a few days saw a dozen planes go down.  Sorting through crash reports pilot error was the big problem.  The question was what were the root causes?  

 

Attention turned to training, mechanical issues, checklists and cockpit design.  In the later there are issues of control type and layout and also the pilot.  At the time military pilots ranged from about five foot four inches to  six foot two.  To get to the bottom of things Lt. Gilbert Daniels, fresh out of physical anthropology from Harvard, measured nearly 150 dimensions of over 4,000 pilots.  The hope was to find and characterize averages or ranges of averages that could be used by cockpit and control designers. 

 

He picked ten of the most relevant measures..  leg length, reach and so on and narrowed things down to an average range of heights from five-seven to five-eleven.  Then all of the pilots were compared to the averages of the ten relevant measures.  The expected result would be a subset that would be within one standard deviation on all ten. The answer was zero - there was no average pilot out of a sample of 4,000.  

 

People who are looking for clothes that fit well are familiar with the problem average sizes.  They were good enough measures to allow mass produced clothes to take off and prices fall to the point where clothing could become a statement of style for average people.   It produces a lot a waste and lowered expectations of fit quality and access to design that might fit a personal style.  Clothing can be tailored, but most people put up with lower quality in return for very low prices and the opportunity to always buy something new. Some groups are at a built in disadvantage - plus sizes are too difficult to deliver to size using current production and sizing techniques.  And there are some groups who are out of normal size ranges who have to pay dearly for custom clothing if they want to express a personal style.    There are many problems and a good deal of opportunity for change in an industry that does about $1.5 trillion a year.

 

A few years ago I supported a Planet Money Kickstarter that funded reporting on the making of a simple t-shirt from planting the seeds to taking delivery.  The result was a fascinating serious that made two points.  The standardized shipping container has had an enormous impact on the world's economy since about 1980.  I'd put it's impact up there with computerization, although it has certainly used a lot of that technology.  The other point is that apparel manufacture is complex with most of the steps, even in the developing world, being automated.  Most of the steps but one ..  sewing.

 

Sewing has been fiercely difficult to automate.  A variety of approaches have been tried, but fabric stretches and threads move non-linearly and are not simple flat sheets.  A skilled seamstress ( in the developing world over 90% of the sewing is done by women) is performing difficult computations and manipulations.  

 

A few researches took the hammer and tongs approach of taking high resolution very high speed (1000 frames per second and higher) video of the fabric and figuring out where every thread is and how it is moving.  This information goes to small manipulators - fingers if you will - that move the fabric into just the right position as sewing takes place.  Researchers at Georgia Tech made the most progress and a company was spun off - SoftWear Automation.  It was snapped up buy Tianyuan Garments Company - one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.  They've announced a plant in Little Rock, Arkansas with 21 production lines of Sewbots.  The cost goes to about thirty cents a tshirt - about half that of  a woman in Bangladesh sweatshop.  The factory will produce 23 million tshirts a year for Adidas - all made in the US by a Chinese company.  Costs will fall furthers in the future.

 

There are any number of vexing social problems that should be solved.  Very few people will be needed for automated sewing production. Currently about five million women in Bangladesh alone depend on the meager wages they get from the lowest cost apparel makers.  Conditions can be awful and the wages far too low, but for many this is the step above true poverty.  Of course other things need fixing such as education and the place of women in society, but fully automating apparel will put real pressure on millions of people.  One hopes we don't repeat the terrible labor phase problem that plagued the Industrial Revolution, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

Current systems only work for a limited range of clothing like t-shirts, but jeans, dress shirts and uniforms are considered solvable problems that will fall in the next year or two.  Within five years the industry should start feeling an impact.  There are other problems.  A good overview of current ethical and environment issues is Overdressed by Elizabeth Cline.

 

Back to the sizing problem.  Apart from lower costs and domestic assembly, automated sewing offers the potential of clothes for any human size and shape at a reasonable cost and for almost any design.  The technology for body scans is well developed and could be scaled quickly.  Paired with flexible manufacturing lines - probably within overnight delivery range and quite possibly owned by companies like Amazon - your measurements could be matched to designs in a day or two.  About five years ago I predicted this could happen in ten years. I think we're still on track, but it is likely to be a premium for awhile with the major focus being slashing the costs of current fast fashion and mass manufacture and creating an assembled in the US branding.  

 

Other potential changes like the disruption of how design is done and who owns it and perhaps low cost seriously advanced machines for home or fabric store use.  I haven't carefully reviewed the IP, but perhaps there's more of an opening than for 3D printing.

 

refocusing science education

° It was 1956 and the cold war was raging.  Billions of dollars were being poured into the effort, but it was becoming clear that the pipeline for scientists wasn't working very well and strong science was a national priority.  Pre-college science education was in poor shape - particularly in physics.  Textbooks were boring and classes were failing to approach problems like a physicist. A group of university professors and high school teachers came together at MIT to form the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) to come up with solutions. Progress was being made, but education as a system had an enormous inertia,  Then October 4th, 1957 came and a little sphere orbited the Earth.   Suddenly Washington DC was pouring rocket fuel all over the PSSC.¹

 

By 1960 a program was developed that emphasized understanding rather than memorization and created films, inexpensive laboratory kit, experiments and teaching material to provide hands-on experience and thinking.  Topics were organized to underscore overarching conservation principals.  Almost overnight high school physics teaching had been revolutionized.  Spurred by the success of the PSSC similar programs were created and successfully implemented for chemistry and biology.   Mathematicians had their own approach,  They'd focus on the beauty of math and get away from the mindless arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry and algebra that had been taught since the late 19^th century.  While the science programs succeeded, the new math failed - it made too much of a leap.  Parents and teachers alike fought and quickly killed it.

 

Science teaching, if the metric is the supply of Ph.Ds. in science, is too successful.  There simply aren't enough research jobs to match supply and the number of posts in the US is shrinking.  One might argue that a Ph.D. in physics is useful in other areas - I've been told physicists think differently and the same is probably true for all of the physical sciences - but if anything the pipeline is working .  

 

Consider just what that pipeline is.  There were probably one or two nerdy types in your high school obsessed with science or math.  My high school had two in an informal astronomy club.  One of us discovered astronomy had too much math and became a doctor and I went into physics.  It takes five high schools in the US to produce one student who makes it as far as a BS or BA in physics.   At the doctorate level more than thirty high schools come up with one who makes it all the way through. The field just isn't that big.

 

I remember the PSSC courses.   When I took physics as a junior the teacher suggested I already knew too much physics and math and let me read the books and suggested more at the local air bases's library.  To get credit I became a teaching assistant for my junior and senior year.  It was great - I became familiar with the quirks of the experiments and learned developed a profound mistrust of wires that  served me well.  He'd talk to me after class.  I began to think like a physicist.   The fire was lit in me about the time I was eleven, but this oddball  version of high school physics I had kept it burning.  By the time I went off to college I was focused.  I'm fairly convinced the PSSC series would have kept me focused had I not had any background.

 

A curious factoid mentioned in a note from the American Physical Society.  Over 90% of physics Ph.D.s never changed majors in college.  I'd be surprised if other Ph.D.s in the physical sciences were different. Folks who make it through the pipe found their focus early on.

 

Although the pipe works there's a huge problem.  What I think is really needed is to give the much larger group - those who will never major in science - a clearer picture of what science is and perhaps why it is beautiful.  It is possible to teach the tools necessary to think like a scientist.  In a way I'm suggesting something similar to my piece on physical education.  Give people a life long appreciation even though they won't become pros.  I'd never make it in sports, but I love recreational rowing and watching volleyball.  Don't get  rid of the professional track, but keep it alive and perhaps improve it a bit through separation. At the same time  make popular level science fascinating and relevant.  

 

I'll stay away from ideas of how to do this, but offer something simple.   Invert the order of the subjects.  You start out with something simple like physics, then add the complexity of chemistry and then biology branching into extremely complex systems like biochemistry qualitatively.  Memorization should be avoided at all costs.  The Krebs cycle can be cleanly explained at a qualitative level.  I've seen some very nice biophysics and biochemistry at a tenth grade level.  

 

The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.” He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!” But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.” (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.  - Feynman

 

Berkeley used to have a version of first year physics called Physics for Future Presidents taught to non-technical majors usually in their senior year.  Although it would be out of reach for 45, it was one of the most popular courses in the school.  I'm convinced smart people and teachers could do the same for ninth graders. 

 

Education has many more issues - I sometimes get into trouble when I mention I'm not a fan of the current STEM approach.  Not only would a discussion in this post be diverting, but I'm not smart enough to offer much clue.  But huge changes can be brought to science teaching.  

 

For fun take a look at the  physics popularization by the theoretical physicist George Gamow.  He was smart enough to know how to write about real physics for people who had curiosity, but little background.  Equations are rare and he resorted to story telling.,  It was about seventy years ago, so it's a bit corny now, but inspired teaching is possible:  the Mr Tompkins series. (the songs aren't very good, but a world where the speed of light is 10 miles per hour is fun).    Many libraries will have copies too.  There are some excellent books reflecting current physics too.

 

 As always contact me if you want a deeper discussion.  

 

__________

¹ Actually it wasn't Sputnik immediately.  That's a manufactured story courtesy of LBJ.. but a few months after the orbit the new story was good enough to light the fuse.  Another story...

__________

Recipe corner

 

Brussels sprouts are still sort of ok if you roast them.  The apples have been not so great, so roast 'em too..  Here's another variation.

 

Brussels Sprouts and Apples

Ingredients

 

° a pound of brussels sprouts halved

° 2 tbl olive oil

° a bit of kosher salt

° 2 or 3  tbl nuts broken up small ..  I used almonds because that's what I had ..  seeds, like sunflower seeds would be good

° 1-1/2 tbl apple cider vinegar

° 1 tsp whole grain mustard

° 1/2 tsp honey (or something sweet..)

° 1/3 cup apple diced small.. like 1/4 inch pieces

 

 

Technique

 

° oven to 375° F.  put bs on a baking tray, toss with 1 tsp olive oil and a bit of salt . Roast for 30 to 45 min on middle rack 'til brown, crisp outside, soft inside

° put the nuts on a sheet on a lower rack and toast for about 7 or 8 minutes until they start browning.

° whisk the extra olive oil, vinegar, honey and mustard

 ° when bs come out toss with vinaigrette and nuts and apple

education comments - physical education

To encourage folks who might write a bit for the upcoming education post I offer a small piece on physical education.

 

Numerous studies suggest that fitness under the age of twenty is an extremely important predictor for health in later life. Particularly important as one gets above the age of 50.  My pre-college years were a mixed bag.  Kids were generally fit.  Most of us walked or rode bikes to school from the first grade on.  Bicycles were our mobility.  My town was about two by four miles with a handful of major roads with 35 mph limits.  Most streets were posted 20 or 25 mph and lightly traveled.   While Montana has a bit of extreme weather, the number of days when you couldn't ride or walk to school was fairly small.  I even had snow tires on my Winter "beater."

 

Physical education in the schools meant gym class.  It wasn't all that different than math or science class - the focus was on those who were involved in school sponsored sports .. sort of the pre-professional track.  (High school football and basketball were enormous in the day. A visit to the barbershop .. sort of the local bookie .. would see thousands of dollars wagered.)  Those of us who weren't good at the right sports were given Cs for effort.  By the metric of what was deemed important I felt lucky to get a C.  A tall friend was uninterested in basketball so the teacher gave him Ds as punishment.   Classes consisted of  nominal calisthenic and weight training sessions follows by semi-disorganized attempts at sports.  Probably very boring for the stars and borderline torture for someone like me.  

 

The 9^th grade saw an experiment to spend a couple of months doing very different physical activities.. things like tennis, archery and marksmanship (Montana, remember?).  As it happens I'm a good shot ..  a pacifist marksman.  My Dad would take me hunting and fishing, but I had seen Bambi and refused to kill anything.  Still I learned to shoot and have an ability to control my heart rate - a special skill in the sport that I happened to have.  I turned out to be ok at the biathlon.  I'm not that fast on skis, but have endurance and didn't miss my targets so I didn't have to ski penalty laps.  I had a good time in gym until someone stole the teacher's prize bow.   All of the boys had to do "torture cal" for the rest of the year until the perpetrator was turned in (that never happened).

 

These days kids do much less active (muscle powered) transportation.  And, at least around here, you rarely see them out playing.  On the other hand kids who are good at sports often receive serious training outside of school. It isn't uncommon for someone to spend a few thousand bucks sharpening their daughter's volleyball or their son's soccer skills.  I'd hazard a guess that the distribution of fitness levels has become much more bimodal than in the past.  Some kids are doing extremely well, while many are worse off.

 

So what would I do?

 

I'd love to see more active transportation..  visit the Netherlands or Denmark for a taste.  That seems unlikely given parental fears, a lack of infrastructure and perhaps over-scheduling.  But there are other possibilities.

 

I had come to hate gym, so when I went to college I was worried about the PE requirement.  As it turns out I was in for a surprise.  The college had come to the conclusion that it's students should find a physical activity or two they enjoy - perhaps even love - enough to continue on their own.  Hopefully for the rest of their lives.  The first two weeks of class had us meet with someone who would run us through a series of tests.  Sort of what you'd expect from a good personal trainer.

 

I was told something I knew already - that I'm terrible at sprinting and jumping.  But then the surprise.  They told me that I had endurance - a lot of it.  In fact my slow to fast twitch ratio was very high - like a marathon runner's.¹  They have me try a number of  activities.  Running didn't work out, but cycling and rowing were on the mark.  A century (100 miles  Pasadena to the beach near Irvine and back was the standard) bike ride wasn't a terribly big ride and I did more than my share.   Rowing, given the right sheet of water, can be splendid.

 

That's what I'd like to see:    PE instructors finding out what kids can do well and what might motivate them to make physical activity something to look forward to every day.  It can be done.  I know of at least one public high school that does it.  And don't detract from the kids who are outstanding at a sport - that's fine too.  It's how I'd like to see STEM taught..  something enjoyable and interesting for most kids and let those with extreme interest levels specialize.  More on that later.

__________

¹ One niece is a successful ultra marathoner, the other runs half marathons.  Both are terrible jumpers and sprinters.

 

 

fields singing their songs to each other under the swiss countryside

Last night a ten year old asked what particle physics is.  I've given a number of descriptions over the years, but I think this one captures the spirit and maybe even a bit of the physics.

 

Physicists like to figure out what's going on deep inside something.   If you're studying things smaller than atoms it turns out the best technique for looking at the smallest bits of nature is to slam bits of matter together in particle accelerators.  The example that you've probably heard about is the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and France.  It's about seventeen miles around and accelerates protons to nearly the speed of light in bunches that move clockwise and counterclockwise through the machine. At a few spots these "beams" of bunched protons collide.  That's where the fun begins.

 

I've already mislead you a bit..  a proton is one of the building blocks - protons, neutrons and electrons - of the elements  Protons (and neutrons) are really composite particles made up of three quarks and some indeterminate number of gluons.  The inside of a proton is mostly empty.  Think of the quarks and gluons as a gas -- they interaction with each other exerting forces on each other and their surroundings defining  the proton and giving it a size much larger than themselves.    When most people visualize this, they think in terms of what we're used to thinking of - little balls perhaps.   That turns out not to be the case, so hang in there for awhile.

 

We have these bunches of protons whizzing around at nearly the speed of light coming together in places.  but the beams are huge in diameter compared to the protons which, in turn, are huge compared to the quarks and gluons.  The protons don't collide in the way that a bat collides with a ball or anything we're used to.  Instead they sing to each other.¹

 

You see they are really songs themselves - a vibration in something we call a field.  If they're close enough and loud enough the other particle can respond.  Mostly they just talk to each other, but sometimes if their songs are loud and clear enough and at just the right pitch that they pluck a field in the Universe in just that place in space and time.  The field sings it's response and new particles are produced.  These new bits matter have their own songs, masses, charges, momentums and other things physicists care deeply about and mostly rush away from the area,  Some of them don't make it far and pluck other fields,.  For the smallest fraction of a second a bit of the Universe underneath the Swiss countryside erupts into a symphony of new harmonies.

 

The collision regions are surrounded by particle detectors which measure everything that can be measured about these particle and then, using enormous amounts of computation, the physicists reconstruct the fields and their songs at specific notes.

 

We're pretty good at understanding the Universe at low and medium pitches...  but the higher pitches require faster and faster protons -- more and more energy to pluck those fields.

 

The odd thing is, at a very fundamental level, we're really just a massive collection of the plucking of certain fields.  It's music all the way down.

 

_________-

¹  Here I take a bit of license - it's more accurate than the model you probably think of, but going in deeper takes a lot of math.