Tuesday, July 31, 2007

How Do We Know a Higgs Boson has Been Found?

I have been inside physicists' groups when searching for new facts on the world of particle physics. The point of the whole exercise is to find something. Nevertheless the attitude of mostly everybody in those groups is to prove that nothing has been found. Real professionalism is exercised to prove that the Higgs is not there.

This apparent contradiction, is the well honed method developed by physicists. On the other hand when the signal is strong and clear the message is out and sometimes Nobel prizes await the principal investigators.

We are all waiting for signals from Batavia, Ill. (Fermilab), or Geneva, Switzerland (LHC).

Keep tuned.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Dr. Richard Carmona

In this blog I expressed my negative opinion on a Hispanic in the White House administration. Today I present a member of the same administration, but I consider him more of an example to Hispanics in this country.

Dr. Carmona, like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, had a hard time succeeding here, but unlike Gonzales, he chose to speak out once out of the administration.

I will change my mind if Attorney General Gonzales likewise chooses to tell us what he found wrong while working for Mr. Bush. In this country everybody can repent.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

More Cubans Leaving By Sea Again, Many to Mexico

HAVANA (Reuters) - After a lull following Fidel Castro's illness last year, Cubans once again are taking to homemade boats or powerful speedboats manned by smugglers on a trip to the United States that often includes a detour through Mexico.

read more | digg story

NY Times calls for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales

Americans have been waiting months for President Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently has proved that he can't tell the truth.

read more | digg story

Why Am I not Popular at Digg?

I think I have a little more to say than diggers that are very popular in digg.com. I am not complaining, I am just trying to understand. Today I heard in the Tavis Smiley Show at npr, about FARK. The man that created this "news" outlet reports that news media outlets, order their news according to the number of visitors they have, just like in digg.com. Guess what? readers seem to want junk.
Maybe that explains why I am not popular.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

The New York Times editorial today calls for a possible impeachment of the US Attorney General.

Mr. Gonzales is a disgrace to Hispanics in this country.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Time Symmetric Quantum Mechanics (TSQM)

When one tries to put together two fundamental constants of nature, with their current interpretation, one gets into trouble.

These constants are Planck's constant and the speed of light.

ħ = 1.054 571 628(53) 10-34 J s

c = 299,792,458 m/s

One conflict is the absence of simultaneity implied by the constant value of the speed of light in vacuum. This absence implies that two measurements taken as simultaneous by two observers, are not simultaneous when considered by other observers. The first constant is understood to mean that every measurement affects the state of the measured object. The question then rises which event affected which?

One solution to this problem is provided by the TSQM.

This new interpretation of QM is based on two axioms:
1)Past and future events affect the present.
2)There is causality.

In order to make these two apparently contradictory statements, the description is uncertain. It seems that God plays dice because he has to, otherwise free-will disappears from the picture.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

University of Colorado fires controversial professor

The Boulder, Colo., school's regents say Ward Churchill was dismissed over fraud and plagiarism, not a post-9/11 essay.By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff WriterJuly 25, 2007

read more | digg story

Drug Lord Caught Near Washington...Buying Immunity?

Zhenli Ye Gon, the naturalized Mexican of Chinese descent, was caught by the DEA at a restaurant near Washington. Why would he go to Washington to flee from Mexican authorities? Do drug dealers think they can pay off corrupt politicians? It worked for the Saudis afterall...

read more | digg story

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

At Fermilab, the Race Is on for the ‘God Particle’

For physicists, this is a summer of rumors, hope and hype as rival collaborations race to capture the legendary particle known as the Higgs boson. Do I understand correctly that this research is looking for a 'God particle.? If so, check out a Dr.William Reich'sfindings on 'Orgonomy.' Perhaps this would make the search a little easier. Good

read more | digg story

Monday, July 23, 2007

Is There a Solution to a Finite Universe?

These ideas are not mine, but I will try to add something some time from now.

"I'd like to talk about what I think is already proven to happen to the
gravity of the universe when we make particles from negative-energy
states, and the effect that this has on the thermodynamic structuring of
our universe.

In quantum field theory, a postiron has the same gravitational
properties as an electron because the negative energy states are really
the postivite energy states of antiparticles. That means that pair
production makes no difference to the gravity of the universe and even
general relativity supports this conclusion if the universe is infinite,
since gravity is essentially curvature that caused by the energy that's
contained in a region of space. In this situation, pair production
changes this energy from photons to the mass of other particle pairs,
but the energy curvature and gravitation of the universe remain the same.

Okay, but what happens to the gravity of the universe if the universe is
finite?

Doesn't this drastically change the effect on the gravity of the
universe when... rho+3P/c^2=0 in a finite universe?

You can't take vaccum energy from a finite universe and then contain the matter energy-density to a finite region of space without increasing negative pressure in proportion to the local increase in positive gravitational curvature, because the graviational acceleraton is zero when the density of the vacuum is -0.5*rho(matter).

You have no choice but to condense this energy in order to attain the
matter density when the negative energy states have negative pressure,
because... P=-u=-rho*c2

So there is no net change on the gravity of the universe, because the
effect is two-fold... an increasing antigravitational *effect* is offset
by increase in positive gravitational curvature.

But that means that tension between the vacuum must increase as particle pair creation drives vacuum expansion if the universe is finite, and the offset increase in both, negative pressure, and positive gavitational curvature necessarily holds the vaccum flat and stable as it expands, so it cannot run-away! Increasing tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter leads to a prediction that the integrity of the forces that bind this finite structure will surely eventually be compromised by this process and we will have another big bang.

So the second law of thermodynamics is never violated when the entropy of the universe always increases via the described perpetually inherent thermodynamic structuring, which enables the universe to continuously "evolve"."

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Putting Time in A (Leaky) Bottle

By Sharon BegleyNewsweekJuly 30, 2007 issue - You can tell a lot about a subject by who its muses and mascots are. Neuroscience has philosophers who wax profound about the mind, geology has intrepid explorers and subatomic physics has ... Alice in Wonderland. "Curiouser and curiouser,"

read more | digg story

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Aurora Illinois and New York City

I am teaching a summer class at Waubonsee Community College in Aurora Il. On Monday there was an explosion near the college early in the morning. They directed traffic to alternate routes. By the time I went to teach, traffic was a nuisance but not a catastrophe. Yesterday at night the same underground cause of the problem produced another explosion. You can read about this in the Digg posts below.

Today there was pandemonium in New York City. Geysers in 41st Street and Lexington Avenue. People running and crying.

It seems that the infrastructure of the US is not being maintained properly.

Homeland Security has to repair New Orleans, New York, and my little town of Aurora, which by the way, is the second largest city in Illinois, after Chicago.

Mr. Bush, please stop dreaming up problems, and solve the real ones we are facing.

Steam Blast Jolts Midtown, Killing One

By JAMES BARRON

New York Times

New York City - A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.

The blast, near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, raised fears of terrorism, but officials were quick to dismiss that possibility. “There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.

The explosion sent up a foul cloud of hot steam mixed with mud, rust-colored gunk and pieces of pavement just before 6 p.m. in one of the busiest parts of the city. The mayor said that some telephone lines had been knocked out, but that electric power had not been.

As people on the sidewalks scrambled to flee and office workers in the buildings above looked down in horror, debris from the geyser pelted nearby skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hailstorm. Some witnesses said the jet of steam roared like Niagara Falls.

Some people ran so fast their shoes came off. Others dropped their briefcases and purses. Men in tailored suits were caught in a lapel-singeing cloud. At a health club high up in the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, people working out on the treadmills said the explosion was so powerful they worried the building would collapse. The steam shot up from a crater that looked like that of a volcano, with orange flames and bubbling mud around the edges. The explosion packed enough force to flip over a tow truck that ended up in the crater, which was about 35 by 40 feet. Several hours after the blast, officials said the crater could grow even larger because pavement at the edges was in danger of collapse.

The cloud of steam — and the hail of debris that followed — lasted more than two hours and raised concerns about asbestos, which was used when the pipe was laid in the 1920s. Officials advised people who had been in the neighborhood to discard their clothes and bathe carefully.

The mayor said the explosion appeared to have been caused by cold water that reached the pipe, which measured more than a foot and half in diameter and dated to 1924. “Cold water apparently causes these to explode,” he said.

Con Edison, which maintains the steam pipes beneath the city’s streets, said the pipe ruptured at 5:56 p.m. Kevin Burke, the chairman of Con Edison, said crews had checked the pipe after the thunderstorm that soaked the city in the morning. He said a heavy rain can cause a “vapor condition” if rainwater seeps onto a steam pipe, causing the steam to condense. He said the inspection earlier in the day had given no indication that anything was amiss.

Michael S. Clendenin, a spokesman for the utility, said tests would be conducted for asbestos. “We always assume there’s asbestos in a steam pipe,” he said, “so we are treating these materials sent up by the rupture, including piping, as if asbestos were in them.”

There have been more than a dozen steam pipe explosions in the city in the last 20 years. One of the largest shook the neighborhood around Gramercy Park in 1989 and did millions of dollars in damage. Three people were killed, two of them Con Edison employees who had been working in the street before the explosion.

Within hours of the blast yesterday, Con Ed and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection began taking air samples to determine whether asbestos had been released. They were also checking the debris that littered the street. Mr. Bloomberg said subway entrances and exits would also be tested.

The mayor urged people who might have come into contact with mud or soot from the blast to wash carefully, and to have their clothes cleaned separately as soon as possible.

Jessica Leighton, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, also cautioned people inside buildings near the blast to close windows and set air-conditioners to recirculate the air inside instead of drawing in air from outside.

Asbestos is a known carcinogen. Most health officials say there is no safe level of exposure. But asbestos-related diseases generally are linked to sustained exposure in industrial settings over many years.

The explosion yesterday began with a deep, rumbling noise. “It was, like, surreal, man, this rumbling, like Old Faithful,” said Randy Rocha, a bus driver who was pulling away from a stop on 42nd Street with about 20 passengers aboard when the pipe ruptured.

He described plunging into the suddenly dark street. His uniform was splattered with mud the way a housepainter’s clothes are splattered with color. Mr. Rocha could not read his wristwatch — it too was covered with mud.

In the skyscrapers that surround Grand Central, office workers realized that what they were hearing were not the usual sounds of the evening rush, of buses hitting manhole covers or dump trucks changing gears.

“It sounded at first like thunder, but it just didn’t end,” said Andrew T. Frankel, a lawyer whose office is at Lexington Avenue and 43rd Street.

Tabi Freedman, an information technology specialist who was walking out of Grand Central, said, “The ground was moving, the windows were rattling, and me and everybody else, we all looked up.” She added, “I’ve been to Yellowstone, and that’s what I thought of — the pitch, the volume, the shrieking, the steam and the vibration.”

Ken Houghton, a consultant who works at 101 Park Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, said he first thought what was coming down was hail. “Then we saw rocks hitting the window on the seventh floor,” he said. Officials said later that six nearby buildings sustained minor damage, mainly to windows on the lower floors.

More than 250 firefighters and 300 police officers were sent to the area. The Fire Department treated the blast as if it were a five-alarm blaze, and firefighters who approached the geyser had breathing tanks on their backs. Before long, ambulances were slicing past the stalled cars and buses, and were taking people who had been caught in the shower from the geyser to hospitals.

A trauma worker at Bellevue Hospital Center estimated that a dozen patients suffering minor injuries were taken there. Most of the injuries appeared to have been caused by falling debris; one person sustained a broken ankle, he said. As a precaution, patients were stripped and showered when they arrived.

The one death reported from the explosion was apparently caused by a heart problem. The victim, a woman, had apparently been close to the explosion, he said.

Mr. Burke of Con Edison said a number of 13,000-volt feeder cables for the utility’s electric system had been damaged in the explosion. He said crews would lay new cables under the streets to bypass the damaged ones. He said that 15 to 20 buildings that tap into the steam pipes had been taken out of service.

Five hours after the explosion, wisps of steam continued to rise from the crater. Lexington Avenue remained closed, with barricades keeping onlookers two to four blocks away and emergency vehicles lining the street — ambulances, fire trucks, tractors and fork lifts. The Lexington Avenue subways were running, but were not stopping at 42nd Street.

Reporting was contributed by Diane Cardwell, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, James Estrin, Cassi Feldman, Thomas J. Lueck, Michael Luo, Dylan Loeb McClain, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, Anthony Ramirez, William K. Rashbaum, John Schwartz, Nicholas W. Skyles, Dalton Walker and Ethan Wilensky-Lanford.

Up in smoke

ComEd's attempt to restore power fizzles, leads to more outages

AURORA -- Smoke again billowed from the manhole covers and parts of a light fixture launched 50 feet into the air Tuesday night just as the last 28 downtown power customers were supposed to come back online in the wake of a Monday morning fire in a ComEd power vault.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

The Witnesses lied, the cops lied and the Prosecutor was crooked...BUT

the defendant was BLACK. GUILTY!!!Oh yeah and there was NO Physical evidence or a weapon found! What the hell? How can anyone stand by and watch this guy die on such little evidence. Man, what have we become, the kill & torture country. God forgive us.

read more | digg story

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Waiting Game

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?

O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.

The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.

Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?

A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: “In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems.”

A cross-national survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that America ranks near the bottom among advanced countries in terms of how hard it is to get medical attention on short notice (although Canada was slightly worse), and that America is the worst place in the advanced world if you need care after hours or on a weekend.

We look better when it comes to seeing a specialist or receiving elective surgery. But Germany outperforms us even on those measures — and I suspect that France, which wasn’t included in the study, matches Germany’s performance.

Besides, not all medical delays are created equal. In Canada and Britain, delays are caused by doctors trying to devote limited medical resources to the most urgent cases. In the United States, they’re often caused by insurance companies trying to save money.

This can lead to ordeals like the one recently described by Mark Kleiman, a professor at U.C.L.A., who nearly died of cancer because his insurer kept delaying approval for a necessary biopsy. “It was only later,” writes Mr. Kleiman on his blog, “that I discovered why the insurance company was stalling; I had an option, which I didn’t know I had, to avoid all the approvals by going to ‘Tier II,’ which would have meant higher co-payments.”

He adds, “I don’t know how many people my insurance company waited to death that year, but I’m certain the number wasn’t zero.”

To be fair, Mr. Kleiman is only surmising that his insurance company risked his life in an attempt to get him to pay more of his treatment costs. But there’s no question that some Americans who seemingly have good insurance nonetheless die because insurers are trying to hold down their “medical losses” — the industry term for actually having to pay for care.

On the other hand, it’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.

The bottom line is that the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments. All they have left are fantasies: horror fiction about health care in other countries, and fairy tales about health care here in America.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Some Ways to Cash my Chips

When we are born we come with a set of gifts. Some of us have logico-mathematical intelligence, others kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and a slew of others classified by the Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) life is not like a casino, where you could just show up at the counter and cash your chips. You actually have to do something with your gifts. Here are some of the ways I am thinking of cashing in:

  • Teach Physics

  • Join Lynk Labs Inc.

  • Start a Company
  • Saudis make up 1/2 of insurgents, suicide bombers in Iraq

    Although Bush officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents, about 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians are from Saudi Arabia. The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally.

    read more | digg story

    Some Thoughts

    When this blog becomes famous, I may have to pay copyrights to the New York Times, along with some other sources I have freely used in my posts. So far nobody seems to be reading these posts anyway.
    Tom Friedman's piece gives me a foothold on the following thoughts. Since I was at school I felt that I had a valuable asset, my intelligence, and I do, I got a Ph.D. in Theoretical High Energy Physics. But I feel that the people with money don't care. After reading that piece on the importance of high end jobs, requiring knowledge and brains, I feel reinvigorated. I hope I can cash my chips and pay my debts.

    The Green Road Less Traveled

    By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

    Whoever knew — I.B.M. is managing traffic congestion in Stockholm. Well it is, and therein lies a story.

    Probably the biggest green initiative coming down the road these days, literally, is congestion pricing — charging people for the right to drive into a downtown area. It is already proving to be the most effective short-term way to clean up polluted city air, promote energy efficiency and create more livable urban centers, while also providing mayors with unexpected new revenue.

    Imagine a day when you will go online and buy a pass to drive into any major urban area and the price of your pass will be set by whether you are driving a hybrid or a Hummer, the time of day you want to drive, the road you want to use and how much carbon your car trip will emit. And if there is an accident on the route you normally take, an alert will be sent to a device in your car warning you to go a different way.

    Well, that day is pretty much here for London, Stockholm and Singapore — and New York City could be next. In a few years, the notion that you will be able to get into your car in the suburbs and drive downtown for free will be as old-fashioned as horses and buggies.

    But what does this have to do with I.B.M.? To make congestion pricing work, you need technology — cameras, software and algorithms that can read auto license plates as they flash by and automatically charge the driver or check whether he or she has paid the fee to enter the city center. (The data is regularly destroyed to protect privacy.) That is what I.B.M. is providing for the city of Stockholm, which, after a successful seven-month trial in which traffic dropped more than 20 percent, will move to full congestion pricing in August.

    “In Stockholm, we built a system where we have a ring of cameras around the city — 18 entry points with multiple lanes,” explained Jamie Houghton, I.B.M.’s global leader for road charging, based in London. “I.B.M. Stockholm runs the whole system.”

    O.K., Friedman, so I.B.M. is now in the traffic biz. Who cares?

    I care, because it underscores a fundamental truth about green technology: you can’t make a product greener, whether it’s a car, a refrigerator or a traffic system, without making it smarter — smarter materials, smarter software or smarter design.

    What can many U.S. companies still manufacture? They can manufacture things that are smart — that have a lot of knowledge content in them, like a congestion pricing network for a whole city. What do many Chinese companies manufacture? They manufacture things that can be made with a lot of cheap labor, like the rubber tires on your car. Which jobs are most easily outsourced? The ones vulnerable to cheap labor. Which jobs are hardest to outsource? Those that require a lot of knowledge.

    So what does all this mean? It means that to the extent that we make “green” standards part of everything we design and manufacture, we create “green collar” jobs that are much more difficult to outsource. I.B.M. and other tech companies are discovering a mother lode of potential new business for their high-wage engineers and programmers thanks to the fact that mayors all over the world are thinking about going green through congestion pricing systems.

    “Congestion pricing of traffic is emerging as a completely new services market for I.B.M.,” said Mr. Houghton. “I.B.M. is in discussion with major cities worldwide, including some in China.”

    Hopefully, if the New York State Legislature acts, New York City will get access to a $500 million Department of Transportation grant for a pilot congestion pricing system. The more U.S. cities adopt congestion pricing, the more U.S. companies will quickly develop the expertise in this field, which is going to be a huge growth industry on a planet where more and more people will be living in cities. Congestion pricing is the only way to make them livable without trillions of dollars of new infrastructure.

    As New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s trying to bring this system to his city, put it to me: “The percentage of your working day spent in a commute will go down and the time you spend being productive and being paid, or simply relaxing, will go up. Also, more people will do business in the city, because they can get to stores, offices or the theater more easily.”

    So if you hear a politician say that we can’t afford to impose green standards because it will cost us jobs, tell them: “Hogwash.” The more we elevate, expand and globalize green, clean-power standards the more we play to the strengths of the American economy, American jobs and American-based companies.

    Saturday, July 14, 2007

    Paul Davies

    The Cosmic Jackpot recently written by Paul Davies presents some new ideas, but also covers basic physics concepts. Today I highlight the probability that any one of us is here right now. Some writing, like me, others reading like you. My father did not die, until I was conceived, his father did not die until my father was conceived, and so on up to the beginning of life. Whatever big number you want to give to any of those probabilities, it is impressive that their product is not more close to zero than it is.
    There is something odd about this. What comes to my mind is that probabilities have a different meaning when talking about the past than when talking about the future.
    Nevertheless when thinking of the anthropic principle, it is hard for me not to feel odd.
    Right now my position is that if I can predict something unknown based on the principle and it works, I shouldn't look a gift horse on the mouth.

    It Had to Be a Computer Company

    When I was working at Lucent, arguably the most successful industrial research laboratory ever existed up to then, I was mystified by the slow progress on the development of IP products in general, and a new telephone paradigm in particular.

    Now I know, it had to be a computer company.

    I expect the iPhone to become the new telephone that Bell Labs couldn't create.

    GED Graduation 1

    "This is not the first time that I attend to the "final" stage of the GED process, the reception of public recognition for the effort involved. When I first meet the students in the classroom, I see them coming a bit disoriented on how to proceed, as time passes they seem more clear on their goals and how to attain them, and finally as they attend the graduation ceremony they are very satisfied and making plans for the future. This then, is the end of the cycle, I would not miss it. I feel happy like the students, even if they did all the work not me.

    One particular part I like is when one student tells us his or her story, my eyes get watery, and I feel reinvigorated.

    When the ceremony is over, sometimes the students want to take pictures with me, and share some desserts and soft drinks. I enjoy these occasions.

    These experiences help me in my work with the students. I know that some of them are going to finish their work and I am there ready to help them. Unfortunately not all the students that come to classes pass their test. Sometimes it is because they stop going to the classes, sometimes because they only work in the classroom, and don't have time to work at home, but in most cases, I believe the ones that pass are the most committed.

    I have learned to help the students, and I make it clear to them, that they have to work convinced that they can do it, and the instructor and I as a volunteer, are happy to help them if they ask us."

    Friday, July 13, 2007

    Late at Night, Listening to C-Span

    Members of the House of Representatives of the US are concerned about the security of this country. They invited experts from the National Intelligence Agency to help them understand security. To me these issues seem unknowable.
    Do I have to listen to them?
    I feel more like going to sleep, and build my own scare scenarios by myself, without giving to my thoughts more validity than to theirs.

    BREAKING: House passes troop withdrawal for April 2008

    The House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to require most U.S. troops to leave Iraq by April 1, 2008.

    read more | digg story

    Wednesday, July 11, 2007

    Iraq on Fire, Pakistan Bubbling, and Mexico Simmering

    Maybe I should add that Sub Saharan Africa is really hot. What did President Bush tell us yesterday about all this? Nothing. His plan is working in Iraq, and we should wait until September to pass judgment on his efforts.

    Not only Bush, but all heads of state should lead us out of the ever increasing instability approaching us. Pakistan's Musharraf, and Mexico's Calderon, did not tell their people that there was trouble until it was impossible to hide the state of their countries' problems.

    What am I supposed to do?

    At least be prepared. I see a storm coming.

    Mexico Increases Pipeline Security After Recent Rebel Bomb Attacks

    MEXICO CITY, July 10 — President Felipe Calderón stepped up security around gas pipelines on Tuesday after a long-dormant rebel group claimed responsibility for several explosions along pipelines in the state of Guanajuato in recent days.

    read more | digg story

    Tuesday, July 10, 2007

    VIDEO: Michael Moore slams CNN, Wolf Blitzer on live TV

    Moore argued that CNN has such a lousy track record of reporting the truth about the war in Iraq and asking tough questions, that Americans should be skeptical of their reporting on health care.

    read more | digg story

    Physicists detect new type of electron wave present on metal surfaces

    July 9, 2007 Scientists have proved the existence of a new type of electron wave present on metal surfaces that could assist in the development of nano-optics and high-temperature superconductors.Known as the “acoustic surface plasmon”, the phenomenon has previously been predicted in theory but has been difficult to prove because of the incredi...

    read more | digg story

    Sunday, July 08, 2007

    Italian Scientists build Atomic Laser - predicted by Einstein back in 1925

    A Florence University research team led by Massimo Inguscio and Giovanni Modugno used potassium isotopes to build an "atomic condensate" squeezed into a harmonious whole by a magnetic field, similar to a theoretical model envisaged by Einstein and fellow physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, ANSA said.

    read more | digg story

    Friends in High Places

    Inside Bush's decision to give Scooter Libby a pass

    By Michael Isikoff

    Newsweek

    read more | digg story

    Thursday, July 05, 2007

    Time-symmetric Quantum Mechanics

    Prof. Aharonov and Dr. Tollaksen recently published an article on Time-symmetric Quantum Mechanics. This is a logical physical theory, that treats past and future on an equal footing.

    This theory can lead us to better descriptions of reality and maybe to unexpected conclusions. Also recently Prof. Paul Davies published a note in the British magazine, The New Scientist, implying that Aharonov et al.'s theory, makes the past dependent on the future, and maybe explaining why the Universe we inhabit is so bio-friendly.

    My interpretation of what these scientists have written is that we wish to stay around, so the Universe is being shaped by us.

    Wednesday, July 04, 2007

    Pierre Auger at Merida Mexico

    The members of the international collaboration, Pierre Auger, present their results this week and the next, at Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.

    The main point, as I see it, is that several groups were wrong, there are not many mysteries in the signal coming from space. It is what is expected. If the cosmic ray has a lot of energy, the microwave background radiation, acts as a shield, and protects us. Another component of the Goldilocks effect discussed in Paul Davies book, Cosmic Jackpot.

    We are just in the right place, protected by ....

    I guess you have to choose who is protecting you, my preferred choice is my Dad that died twenty seven years ago.

    Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

    The Pierre Auger Observatory is now ~80% completed with all of the fluorescence detectors and 1300 tanks in operation. The exposure accumulated since January 2004 is ~ 5000 km^2 sr yr, approximately 3 times that reached by AGASA and about twice the exposure of HiRes. The hybrid nature of the detector and unparalleled attention to systematic uncertainties has allowed an accurate measurement of the energy spectrum above 10^18 eV. The spectra derived from hybrid events, from the surface detectors and from very inclined showers will be discussed. Interpretation of the data on the energy spectrum requires a detailed knowledge of the mass composition and progress towards acquiring this has been made through measurements of the elongation rate. Thus far, the cosmic ray sky has been found to be isotropic with no evidence for clustering on small angular scales or of correlations with BL Lacs, in contrast to what has been seen with other instruments.

    Tuesday, July 03, 2007

    Keith Olberman's Special Comment: You ceased to be the President of

    From C&L: Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence.

    read more | digg story

    Paul Davies

    The New Scientist magazine recently published an article by the physicist Paul Davies. This thinker, now working at Arizona State University in Tempe, has been trying to make sense of our place in the Universe. Some of us are interested in this subject, but unlike some of us, Prof. Davies has been able to make a living out of this.

    His latest work, available at the electronic archive maintained by the Los Alamos National Laboratoy, argues that there is a way to find out why do we have the laws we have and not some others. As I understood the idea, laws depend on matter and matter depend on laws, not so different as how Einstein taught us, that space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve.

    Maybe we are closing to know our place in the Universe and what is the best use of our time while we are alive.

    We Are Meant To Be Here

    People are not the result of a cosmic accident, but of laws of the universe that grant our lives meaning and purpose, says physicist Paul Davies.

    read more | digg story

    Sunday, July 01, 2007

    Al Gore Op-Ed: A Universal Threat, A Generational Challenge

    An op-ed piece by Al-Gore in the International Herald Tribune.

    read more | digg story

    Sicko--

    Strong review of the movie, with additional insights

    read more | digg story

    800 Elephants on the Move [image]

    Striking aerial image of an unusually large herd moving through Chad toward the Tinga.

    read more | digg story

    Twitter Updates

    Search This Blog

    Total Pageviews