I love pseudo-science

About one week out of every six I answer half of the questions that come into the Ask a High Energy Astronomer web service. I usually end up doing web searches for some of the answers, or to clarify my own understanding to put the answer into words a non-specialist will get. During those web searches, I often come across the weirdest crap on the web.

Today I was just searching for the radial velocity of Alpha Centauri, and came across a page by a guy who has written a thesis (215 pages, he claims), called Logical Physics, on the nature of light. He decided that the physicists have it wrong, based on his studies of light refracted by a 90° prism. Among his conclusions are the re-introduction of the ether, angular momentum doesn’t have any bearing on the position of planets in the solar system, the sun was created from the ether, the moon has nearly 3 times the mass currently accepted by astronomers….the list goes on. Fortunately, the web page informs us that the book is completely sold out. Though, it might be fun to read when I’m depressed — it’s sure to be a laugh-fest.

ASCA results and re-directing my efforts

Last week I met with Kim about the Constellation-X web pages. I also brought her a preview of my ASCA results.

The point of running the ASCA data was to see if we could see the same structure in it’s data as the XTE data. If we could, it would be good confirmation that the structure is real rather than instrumentational. Unfortuantely, the ASCA data do not show the effect. However, after talking with Kim, we decided that it’s entirely possible that ASCA does not have enough response in the higher energeis to actually show the structure. To this end, I’m going to find average count rates for the various energy ranges for each instrument, and perhaps show statistically that ASCA can’t detect the structure.

Kim also suggested picking another type of source and use it as a control source. Ideally a cluster of galaxies would work, but unfortunately there aren’t many repeat observations of clusters in the XTE archive. Instead, I’m going to look at the Crab data spanning the same years as the MCG -6-30-15 data. If the structure is real, i.e. inherent to MCG -6-30-15, then we should not see it in the Crab data. However, if the structure is instrumentational, we will see it in the Crab data. My only concern is that the Crab is a “bright” source; whereas MCG -6-30-15 is a “faint” source. Different background models are used for extracting the background spectra and lightcurves for “bright” versus “faint” sources. Someone might argue that the structure is due to background modelling — not sure if that holds water, but might need to investigate.

Lesson 05/26/2004

A so-so lesson tonight. Both Fred and I were having one of those days. I’m finding that I’m not making much progress, but that’s probably because I’m not practicing as much as I could. Fred was nearly spent by the time I came in, since he’s generally been teaching for at least 5 hours straight before my lesson.

Anyway, we did play a few duets — knocked Tamburin and Minuetto off my list. He also went through and marked some pages in my method book for me to work on. I’ve been kind of lax about playing things out of that book, since the duets are much more fun.

I’ll be gone next week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Denver, so no lesson. Hopefully I’ll have lots of good stuff for the following week, though.

Riding in Cars With Boys

3.5/5 stars

If you watched the trailers for this movie, you might think that it’s a comedy. It’s not. Fortunately, a couple friends had already warned me, so I was prepared for a drama. I rather enjoyed it — it’s a different sort of role for Drew Barrymore, at least from her recent spate of romantic comedy roles like Never Been Kissed and 50 First Dates. This is a story about dealing with what life gives you, even when it’s not what you had planned for your life. Happy ending? Not exactly. Didn’t need one. Life rarely does.

Cicada Update

My count continued over the weekend:

• Saturday, May 22, saw a bunch: 1 flying outside the door as Andrew left in the morning; 8 on my errands into Vienna; another 9 while running errands with Andrew. Total: 18
• Sunday, May 23, the count officially comes to an end. When I went out to get our bikes out of the shed, I saw a dried out cicada outer shell hanging on the door of our fence (not sure what it’s called, but when they crawl out of the ground, they generally attach themselves to a nearby tree and they develop an hard outer shell which they then shed).

  I screamed, and then calmed down a bit, until I looked over and saw two more shells on the fence, and a cicada. Andrew came over to see what was wrong, and then sighed, “This is going to be a long bike ride, isn’t it?”

  We got the bikes out, drove up to the W&OD trail, where more cicadas attached themselves to our bikes and then flew away.

  I stopped counting when I got to a bazillion. At that point, it’s really not useful to count anymore.^*

Here are a couple of the shedded-shells on our fence:
   

The sound of the cicadas is becoming annoying. There are so many of them that in the background it sounds like the hum of phaser fire, but it’s not intermitent — it’s constant during the daytime. I work in a trailer, and I start to hear the cicada drone about 10-15 feet before I get to the outside door. I just imagine that when I get out I’m going to see the horizon glowing red from the alien phasers that are surely razing the city.

^* A bazillion is mathematically like infinity. A bazillion plus one is still a bazillion. In fact, a bazillion plus a bazillion is still a bazillion. So, counting beyond a bazillion is just silly. (And I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Math to prove it.)

Salt: A World History

by Mark Kurlansky

Kurlansky follows the history of salt and salt production from ancient times to modern all around the world. From evaporating brine in clay pots to evaporating brine over wood, then coal, fires to mining vast salt mines, this history was interesting.

The best parts for me were seeing how salt influenced history — like the role it played in the American Revolution or the American Civil War. I think that incorporating even a chapter or two of this kind of history into high school history classes might spark an interest that modern text books can’t. I know I would have been more interested…I always found history to be dry and dull, but this is just the sort of thing to spice it up (pardon the pun).

Biking and Bookcrossing

Andrew and I decided to go out for a bike ride this morning. We haven’t been out since a particularly nice day in February. It seems that the nice weekends of late have been taken up with wedding stuff, so our bikes have languished in the shed for the last two months.

We drove up with the bikes to the Washington & Old Dominion trail (W&OD) in Vienna, and headed off to the south/east (for the first part of the trip, it’s mostly a gradual uphill — the benefit of going this way first is that on the way back, when we’re already getting tired, the way is mostly downhill). My original goal was to go at least 8 miles — that’s how far we went in February. We ended up going a total of 10 miles round-trip! This is a definite improvement over last year.

When we got back to our car, I bookcrossed one of my books at the caboose along the trail.
   

If it’s not a race, why am I so out of breath?

I found this transcript of O’Keefe’s tesitmony before the House Appropriations Committee last month (April 21) while looking for press releases.

Frankly, I found the chairman’s comments before O’Keefe’s testimony more interesting that the testimony itself. He gives a summary of what the proposed budget cuts will to do various NASA projects.

For example, let’s look at the initial fiscal year ’04 operating plan, in which significant changes open the door to more radical changes and follow-on to fiscal year ’04 operating plans.

In the space science enterprise, they include cuts to Project Prometheus, cuts to Space Science Technologies and Advanced Concepts, Constellation X and re-submissions, cuts to the Living With a Star, totally about $150 million.

There are even more specific cuts, delays and cancellations in the fiscal year ’05 budget proposal. For example, in the Space Science Enterprise, Hubble’s fourth servicing mission is canceled. The Jupiter Icy Moon’s orbiter mission is delayed by three years. Explorer Constellation X and re-submissions are delayed. In the Earth science enterprise, global precipitation missions and the Earth systems path-finders are deferred. Research and technology funding is frozen.

In the biological and physical science enterprise, research in International Space Station is cut by $1.2 billion from fiscal year ’05 to fiscal year ’09.

In cross-cutting technologies, next-generation launch technologies are terminated.

I have the feeling that much of the public thinks that all of NASA stands firmly behind the moon/Mars plan. The truth is that the new vision is a boon for a few select divisions at NASA, but that many science programs are going to suffer. Programs that have been under developement for years and that were promised ful funding in FY04. Those programs are now fighting to stay afloat. The plan cuts into much of the “real science” that NASA has been nurturing in favor of a flashy new vision.

I’m not saying that NASA shouldn’t have a unified vision. I’m also not saying that a plan to send humans back to the moon and beyond is not an exciting vision. The problem is the speed and voracity with which the administration is trying to implement the plan.

The chairman also quoted from Bush’s January 14th speech:

The president in his January 14th announcement of this proposal stated, and I quote, The vision I outline today is a journey, not a race, end of quote.

It seems that the speed with which NASA seeks to implement this proposal certainly makes us feel like we’re in a race.

I absolutely agree that NASA needs a unifying vision for the future, and I see that the public has had a hard time grasping the work that NASA has done over the past several years. However, the administration changes and budget cuts (for select programs) have been so swift and unexpected that it smacks of a desparation on the part of the executive branch to leave its mark on NASA and NASA’s future.

Sending men and women to Mars is exciting, but it needs more than a few committee meetings and the presidential stamp of approval before it overturns strong science efforts. Nor does it need to muscle it’s way past missions that promise to unlock some of the long-standing mysteries of the Universe.

Cicada Count

Sitings: 34

• Sunday, May 16, saw my first one on my front stoop (after it bounced off my head); total: 1
• Monday, May 17, saw one on the path behind the house while taking out the trash, and a second flying around out front; total: 3
• Thursday, May20, saw one flying around the officiant’s neighborhood as we made our way to his house; total: 4
• Friday, May 21, saw way too many:

  • One near the shed outside the trailer I work in; total: 5
  • One flying around the parking lot at work; total: 6
  • Three flying around by the ramp from the Goddard campus to the parkway; total: 9
  • 16 while driving on the beltway home (traffic was really slow, or I wouldn’t have seen any (I watched #24 fly into the front passenger-side of a Jeep, bounce off and then bounce into the car behind the Jeep); total: 25
  • 9 driving on I-66 on the last leg home (again, traffic was backed-up or I would have been going to fast to see any)

  total: 34

I stupidly hoped that I could get by without seeing any, but knew that wouldn’t work. Fortunately, only three of them have been non-flying sitings. Somehow they seem fairly harmless when they’re flying (though if one gets stuck in my hair or bra, I may change my tune about the flying ones). But when they’re just sitting there, and I can see their freakish red eyes, I get the creeps.

We have an officiant!

Andrew and I met with a unitarian minister this evening, and we were both very impressed with him. He has a varied background from being ordained a preist in the Catholic order to driving a cab in New York to counselling in-need children. His outlook on the world very much mirrors ours, and he’s more than happy to work with us to make our wedding our day.

Yay! Now we just need a florist…and formal wear for the guys.