omenti

music of the universe

Neils Bohr was a great fan of complementarity - the idea that you can have different models of a physical phenomena and each can be correct in its intended domain.  Newtonian physics is just fine for studying how cars, volleyballs and even orbiting satellites move, but you need something else if you're looking at the extremely small or fast.  As quantum mechanics was developed he spoke about particle-wave duality.  Light could be thought of as have the properties of a wave and a particle.  While complementarity is powerful and still useful, the idea that particle-wave duality is somehow fundamental is wrong.   A more fundamental view started to emerge shortly after WWII ultimately becoming the Standard Model by the mid 1970s.  It has a few warts, but is far and away the model predictive model in science.  As it was being developed a mechanism was developed by Peter Higgs and a few others that would explain how some fundamental particle like the electron get their mass.  A verification of that prediction is one of the most important discoveries in all of science.

 

On the 4th of July in 2012 the discovery of the Higgs particle was announced by two experimental groups at CERN.  The press was full of embarrassingly misleading sound bites about this 'god particle'.   The problem what's really going on is very technical and  analogies are difficult and definitions are extremely important in specialized fields like physics.  I'm going to attempt a description without math, but first we need to establish a few concepts and definitions.  And remember - this isn't a robust description. The aim is to be accurate enough without getting lost in the weeds. 

Fields

Fields turn out to be centrally important.   Consider the atmosphere.  It has properties you can measure: wind velocity (speed and direction), temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.  All of these have values for every location and these values can change with time.  Each of these properties is a field of the atmosphere.  Air is a substance, but temperature is a field of the air.   An example of a  field in the universe that is all around us is the magnetic field.  You can check its direction with a compass. It doesn't have substance, but it can produce a force that holds a magnet to your refrigerator.   

Waves and particles

Music may seem like a diversion, but it's a way to understand something very fundamental  - waves.  A normal piano has 88 keys and can produce 88 different notes. A vibration is set up in a tight string that is fixed at both ends that vibrates that sends a sound through the air.  With the strings tied down, it's a fixed wave.  There are traveling waves.  Slinkies are a great example as are bodies of water.  (Note the volume of water that raises up isn't a wave - it's just the water reacting to part of the wave the is moving in.  The wave is a long group of oscillations with a series of crests and troughs that moves through the water.)

 

Usually people think of particles as tiny little specks of something.  An electron or a photon as a tiny bit of electron-ness or photon-ness that you generally can treat as a point.  In quantum field theory the electron and photon aren't particles at all.  Rather they're excitations - ripples if you like - in the electron and photon fields respectively.    

 

The Standard Model identifies 17 fundamental fields. Twelve are associated with matter (like quarks, electrons, and neutrinos), and the remaining five (photon, gluons and the Higgs) are associated with interactions.  Each of these field has a frequency it likes to vibrate at.  One of your atoms as a group of ripples in the electron field - one ripple for each electron - and ripples in the up and down quark fields in each neutron and proton being held together by ripples in the gluon field.  An amazing chorus of ripples in the fundamental fields.  

 

But what about the Higgs and mass?

Important thing here is the Higgs field rather than the particle.  The Higgs particle is just a ripple in the field.  Physicists were able to shake the field hard enough by colliding protons at a very high energy to make the Higgs particle show up.  What they really did was detect the presence of the field.    The Higgs field, like the other fundamental fields, extends throughout the Universe.   It interacts with the other fields (except for the photon field) and  changes their properties - effectively stiffening them a bit.  Without it excitations in the other fields would just be flopping around (bad analogy, but I don't have anything better).  This stiffening allows them to take on their characteristic frequency.  Without going into it there a relationship between the frequency of these vibrations and the energy of the vibrations (if you've had any quantum mechanics, you first look at this with light.  Red light has a lower frequency than blue light so its photons are less energetic).

 

From special relativity there's a the famous relationship between mass and energy: E = mc².  The Higgs field interactions with the electron field and allows the electron field to vibrate at its special frequency if there's enough energy at that point in the field.  We call that ripple an electron and, through Einstein's famous relationship, it now has a mass.  If it didn't have mass it would fly off at the speed of light like a photon.  Without electrons it would be impossible to make atoms so you wouldn't exist.  

 

It's a mystery that there's only one Higgs field and it is as weak as it is.  If it didn't interact with the electron field (and other fields other than the photon field) we wouldn't have our Universe.  If it was stronger the masses might be so great that our Universe wouldn't form. (perhaps all of the ripples would collapse into little black holes).  

 

It's curious to think about musica universalis - the concept first stated by Pythagoras when he noticed the pitch of a note is proportional to the inverse of the length of the string that produced it. It was used to build a model of the Sun and Moon.  The philosophical idea built until Kepler used it in Harmonices Mundi  to describe a harmonious relationship between the orbits of the planets - an intelligent designer argument. And now we have a different sort of music - not the music of the spheres, but the music spread through the universe and we're nothing if not music.  Different notes in the ripples of the fundamental fields of the universe that give us the underpinning of matter and mass.   

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end note - sort of

The matter we're familiar with - everything listed above..  the stars, planets, us..  .. all of that comprises about 16% of the total matter in the Universe  The rest is dark matter - something very little is known about other that it interacts with regular matter gravitationally. Dark, by the way, is a very poor name as it's completely transparent to us.   But it gets even more interesting  If you look at the total mass energy in the universe, our kind of matter is only about 5% of the total. About 69% is called (another poor term) dark energy and basically nothing is known other than its scale and that it's causing the universe to expand more rapidly as time goes on,

There's a lot to learn.

 

rings that rule

Mt Etna has formed a very circular crater (it has several craters) that is currently blowing out vortex rings.  It's very rare and quite a beautiful sight. (from Nature)

 

Vortex rings are wonderful..  I suspect an early warning sign that a teenager will wander into physics is constructing vortex cannons or playing with vortices in water (I did both).  Dianna posted a wonderful exploration about ten years ago. 

working to improve women's sports

Being around elite female athletes you recognize female specific sports science, equipment and training is far below that enjoyed by males.  People are surprised that women-specific soccer (football outside of the US) shoes only appeared in 2022 and many coaches of young women have never heard of RED-S, which can impact health for the rest of their lives.  ACL injuries may well be preventable with better training when girls are young. If you're interested in sports as an athlete or a fan - and especially if you know a girl who does sport, this interview of Christine Yu about her book Up to Speed is a good starting point.  I've read the book and recommend it if you're interested in more depth.  

 

 

 

the polkadot giraffe is waiting for the light to go green

a minipost

Our minds are impressive at constructing imagery from words.  Some of us like audio or printed books better than films because 'our minds are more visual than someone else's interpretation.  So it came as a shock last year when my wife discovered she has a condition called aphantasia - the inability to construct a visual mental image.   She thought references to any product of the minds eye was a figure of speech.  

 

Sukie, being Sukie, dove in and started talking to researchers to learn about the condition.  She's been part of a study that's determined about one to one and a half percent of the population has the condition (she clocks in with extreme aphantasia).   She was particularly interested in positive benefits.  Work so far suggests that a larger than expected population of scientists and engineers has the condition and work is underway looking at specific subfields.  Sukie's very smart and creative - just in a way my mind can't imagine.  Live living with an alien intelligence:-)

 

On the other side of the coin is hyperphantasia..  people who have intense visual theaters.  Think about an apple in your hand and you see one there.  Here's a nice piece on the subject.  It's still very early work, but it raises some interesting questions.  It may be that it's common in children, but most outgrow it.  Children may have incredibly rich visual experiences... perhaps some make believe friends and things like ghosts are very real to some. And what about visions?  There's a type that can represent positions -- is this part of court sense among elite soccer and basketball players?

 

I'm fairly visual - a book or audiobook almost always beats video or film for me.   I took the admittedly blunt screen test and scored a bit below hyperphantasia on the continuum.  Much of my thinking is abstract and visual, but I also have synesthesia which is less rare among mathematicians and physicists and often used, at least my flavor, for visual thinking.  As with most things there's a bit of a downside.  Having synesthesia means a couple of primary senses aren't orthogonal and I'm clumsy with sports that require a crisp separation.  (you won't see a soccer player with synesthesia, but it's possible to have a weight lifter or rowing athlete - and trust me - I'm neither). 

 

A bottom line is there's an enormous amount of neurodiversity in humanity.   Every one of us is  neuroatypical and it's our differences that make us special.

 

 

science vs policy and a wedge issue

Something a few of you have heard from me privately and something that may raise some eyebrows.  Namely  gender in lieu of biological sex in athletic events.

 

It's generally agreed there are three important issues in sport:  safety, fairness and inclusivity.  Many sports have categories to promote fairness and even safety -- age and weight categories for example.  Some areas of sport - parasports are a good example - have dozens of categories.  And females (I'll try and avoid the term women as it's more closely associated with gender these days) have their own protected category as, for most sports, males have a serious advantage.

 

Currently the  IOC and many pro-LGBT groups have come down on inclusivity trumping fairness and safety.   When males go through puberty a number of athletic advantages are bestowed.  Testosterone is the primary trigger, but most of these changes are permanent and chemically lowering testosterone levels after the fact only has a marginal impact on athletic performance.  There are a few pieces of work that the science in "unsettled" and there are areas that need more study, as in all science, but the basics are well-established. 

 

I tend to be very liberal and pro-LGBT, but the violation of fairness in sport for biological females is a bridge too far for me.¹  Female events exist to give women a fair chance to compete.  I'm biased as a good friend who happens to be a World Champion, two time Olympian, four time first team All American and Honda Award winner.. she also happens to be female.  Additionally I know a few other world class athletes who are women. They're afraid to speak openly on the subject, but anonymous polls are usually at the 90% level for keeping female events open only to XX competitors.  This does not mean to exclude trans-women from sport.  They can compete with men in an open category where they're more fairly matched.  If need be the open category can have trans and non-trans divisions, but there's a strong belief among female athletes that their category needs protection.  Unfortunately they're not being listened to.

 

Recently 20 of the top sports scientists published a paper in fairly clear language on the subject in one of the most recognized sport science journals.  

from the paper (I encourage that anyone with an interest in the subject to read the full paper)

The International Olympic Committee framework on fairness, inclusion and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations does not protect fairness for female athletes

Abstract
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently published a framework on fairness, inclusion, and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations. Although we appreciate the IOC's recognition of the role of sports science and medicine in policy development, we disagree with the assertion that the IOC framework is consistent with existing scientific and medical evidence and question its recommendations for implementation. Testosterone exposure during male development results in physical differences between male and female bodies; this process underpins male athletic advantage in muscle mass, strength and power, and endurance and aerobic capacity. The IOC's “no presumption of advantage” principle disregards this reality. Studies show that transgender women (male-born individuals who identify as women) with suppressed testosterone retain muscle mass, strength, and other physical advantages compared to females; male performance advantage cannot be eliminated with testosterone suppression. The IOC's concept of “meaningful competition” is flawed because fairness of category does not hinge on closely matched performances. The female category ensures fair competition for female athletes by excluding male advantages. Case-by-case testing for transgender women may lead to stigmatization and cannot be robustly managed in practice. We argue that eligibility criteria for female competition must consider male development rather than relying on current testosterone levels. Female athletes should be recognized as the key stakeholders in the consultation and decision-making processes. We urge the IOC to reevaluate the recommendations of their Framework to include a comprehensive understanding of the biological advantages of male development to ensure fairness and safety in female sports.

 

It's unfortunately that people who are coming down on the side of fair competition are being lumped with heavily politicized anti LGBT hysteria.  It's something of a wedge issue and I hate seeing it being used as part of the hammer to come down on the LGBT community. 

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¹ There are real genetic edge cases that happen to be quite rare and mechanisms exist to deal with some of these issues - but that's looking at less than 0.1% of the population rather than 99.9+%

 

 

higher order terms of good

A few days ago Om pointed to a fascinating video

Scott Yu-Jan designed and then 3d printed a nifty and, from a cool design point of view, iPad dock for his Mac Studio.  Chatting with Om I mentioned 3d printing (albeit metal printing) is used in ultra-low volume production of bikes - a track bike an Olympian would use in Paris in a few months starts around $30k with wheels going for several thousand each.  Om replied Everything good isn’t cheap. So there is that. I mean that is how everything works now sadly. 

 

I think he's right to first order.. thinking about it afterwards there rarer higher order terms where "good" can be inexpensive within bounds.  Before the 70s there was a rich DIY tradition supported by dozens of magazines aimed at everything from homemade boats to clothing and everything between. If you wanted something of quality you needed time and had to develop your own crafting and sometimes even design skill.  Now we tend to buy finished goods. Quality design and craft tends to come at a price.  

 

There are exceptions - the higher order terms.  Often skill and tools are involved: woodworking, car restoration (I'm looking at you Bryan), dress design and making (now looking at you Jheri).  I do a bit of DIY work myself, but wouldn't call it 'good' as it lacks craftsmanship and good design.  Not having the skill is probably true for most of us,  but there are options.  If you learn how to use and have access to a good 3d printer, you can support Scott Yu-Jan.  He makes his living with popular YouTube video as well as support from patrons who get access to the digital files to his designs you can copy them yourself.  And there are many others.  

 

It's the tip of an iceberg most of us ignore. Kickstarter has hosted developing labor of love projects. Here's one I funded today as a gift:  a deep dive into how comicstrips are made. Over the years I've sponsored about ten Kickstarters.  A few have been amazing delights.   Etsy is another path to inexpensive low volume good if you look around.  And you can support artists and musicians.  Ask around art and music schools to see if there are students looking for work.  It's a calculated risk, but I've done this since grad school with projects ranging from homemade paper to the composition and performance of a piece of music. (way more satisfying than going the GAI route).

 

Om is absolutely right for the vast majority - the first order - of things and experiences we pay for - good comes at price.  But hunting the tail for the higher order terms of good is not only fun, but can lead to surprises. 

 

a bit of wilding in manhattan and brooklyn

A great feature of Bell Labs and later AT&T Research was the mentoring program.  For years I was a Summer student and graduate student mentor.   I was lucky enough to have been around some really outstanding people.  A few years were particularly great - one of them had two remarkable people: Jessica and Wayzen.  So many stories and a theme of too early invention and being a bit in front of the reach of your headlights. 

 

Jessica was from a largish family.  For several years I had meetings in lower Manhattan and would have lunch in Washington Square Park on nice days (NY Dosas on the South end of the Park is the best food cart I've ever come across).  I  kept running into Jessica's horticulturist sister Rebecca who was kind enough to join me for lunch and teach me things about the how and the why of urban parks.  

 

Last Fall she gave a talk that's worth sharing.  With all of the bad news and feelings, something positive.

 

hard rockers and soft rockers

The Roadside Geology series has been around and growing  for over 50 years.  I have over a dozen and they're wonderful.  Each focuses on the geology you'll see as you travel along roads in regions the US.  They vary a bit in style given the variety authors and the publication dates.  They're very accessible to the beginner and useful for the amateur. They're also small for easy storage when you travel.

 

The trigger for the post was the most recent eruption in Iceland.  Iceland may well be going into a period of great volcanic activity - the sort of thing that comes around every millennia or so.  Yesterday's eruption was the sixth in a few months.  There are usually webcams covering these events, but Shawn Willsey posts videos with expert discussions.  He's a hard rocker (soft rockers study fossils or formations associated with organics like oil and natural gas) and co-author of the Idaho edition of Roadside Geology.    Hard rockers are among the most gonzo scientists - the types who are willing to take what seem like unreasonable risks.¹  Shawn does most of his work in the West, but interviews geologists from around the world.   His videos are unpolished, but often fascinating.  Check out his live section for recent eruptions. 

 

Any vulcanology discussion usually involves rheology - the study of how materials deform under pressure.  It's one of those areas that describes what goes on in the eye under pressure, much of geology, toothpaste, why cake batter goes up the beater in an electric mixer, and non-Newtonian fluids.  Studying it requires differential equations, but if you're curious here's an easy to read discussion that gets into the science most people never see as undergrads.

snip

...

Two of the key concepts in rheology were developed by scientists who also made significant contributions to optics: Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke. (Hooke and Newton lived in England in the 17th century. Newton (a Cambridge man) poked things in his eye as he developed theory of optics. Hooke (an Oxford man) discovered cells and published the first book on microscopy. They did not get on.)

...

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¹ A good friend who did his PhD in geophysics at Caltech likes to freeclimb frozen waterfalls for fun.  You don't want to go hiking with him (speaking from experience). A storied geophysics professor at Stony Brook was known for being the first person set foot on Surtsey shortly after it emerged from the North Atlantic. He left in his Zodiac a few hours before it exploded and vanished from view for a month or so. 

Shaun, in an interview of a vulcanologist from North Carolina State University, noted they met a few years ago in Iceland. A large number of Icelanders and tourists had hiked to a safe distance.  He noticed the only other person dressed in protective gear and taking samples of the flow and decided to introduce himself.

Sukie (my wife) would counter that some wildlife field work is as crazy.  She's been stung by hundreds of wasps, has growled down a jaguar and still suffers from something unknown she caught in the Amazon.  Her people, when they get together,  tell stories and show wounds (like missing fingers)

 

theia's last dance

a minipost

We're less than a month away from the last North American total solar eclipse for a long time.  The Earth-Moon system is odd for a number of reasons.  How the Moon formed is still a puzzle, but evidence is getting much stronger and an odd fact about the inside of the Earth is partial evidence.

 

Here's the leading hypothesis:   About 4.5 billion years ago a Mars-sized planet struck the Earth resulting in the Earth-Moon system. There's been a lot of debate where Theia (one of the Titans and the mother of Selene, the goddess of the Moon) came from and how it hit the Earth, but one of the leading collision contenders has the event taking place in a few hours.   It can be argued we owe life as we know it to this event. 

More recent work links two huge structures inside the Earth to this event.

the correct tools for the job

Every now and again I'm asked to be an outside member on a thesis committee.  Every school I know of requires a member from outside the department and often outside the university.  They're a lot of work, but they can be a lot of fun.  At first you run into the imposter syndrome, but you can ask questions to clarity from the candidate as well as their advisor and even other people in their department.  It's a neat window into an area you didn't know much about.

 

But you're there to bring your expertise and offer constructive criticism

 

About 20 years ago I was on doing this at a nearby Ivy.  The candidate was excited by the work and very articulate, but as I came up to speed it was clear their statistical interpretation was just wrong.  A few questions revealed they didn't know the basics and they should have had at least a year of statistics and a good probability course.  Not knowing how to drive, they used a commercial statistics package.  (the graphs were very pretty) I told them they'd have to do it right or not have it in the thesis.  This turned out to be a problem.  The defense was in three weeks.  Their advisor agreed and the candidate spent the next four or five months learning statistics and reworking the thesis. The final defense was flawless, but I could tell they weren't happy having lost all that time,    Then, a few years ago, I got a call out of the blue.  It was the candidate, now a professor at UCSD.  He thanked me for holding his nose to the grindstone - "it was one of the best lessons I had in college.."  You don't get calls like that often.

 

In the last few weeks I've spent time with some other folks interviewing professors and students to get a sense of modifying the school's honor code as well as general instructions to students and faculty.  It's clear this is an on-going effort as people learn and technology changes, but the experience reminds me of being an outside examiner. It's also clear the purpose of education at this school is to inspire students to follow a path of mastery rather than achievement.  It's pretty clear that a lot of  AI (I use the term loosely as it's mostly a marketing term at this point) is being used without much thought of costs vs rewards.  Sometimes these tools are appropriate and sometimes they're wrong.  Here's an analogy I proposed:

Almost everyone has a microwave oven now. Most of us use them to cook frozen meals, reheat leftovers, boil water, pop popcorn etc and some interest uses like cooking corn on the cob have emerged. They’re extremely useful in these domains. When they were less common - the  period from the 60s through the mid 80s - manufacturers pitched them as general cooking tools that save time. Cook pot roasts, chickens, pies, etc.. there were special tools like temperature probes and browning trays, but the physics just doesn’t work and people generally gave up after a few attempts. Currently AI, in particular GAI, is like the early microwave ovens. It will take time for people to discover the best tasks for it. We’re still at the cooks your whole Thanksgiving dinner - or at least it will next year stage.

Without going into my personal experiences I offer an example of a serendipitous learning when a wrong tool turns out to work.  At least it was serendipitous to me.. the person who pulled it off knew exactly what she was doing.  First find a recording of the Preludio of Bach's E Major Partita for Violin.  It's very famous so there are any number of good recordings - I like Isabelle Faust's interpretation, but your mileage may vary.     After you've listened, try this version by Tobie Miller.   She takes some liberties, but you can tell who wrote it and her playing is lovely.