LAHORE, Pakistan — Three days after the death of Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan People’s Party on Sunday chose her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as co-leaders of the party, the biggest and most potent in Pakistan.
read more | digg story
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Alaska Jet Meeting
Recently about the Extragalactic Jets 2007 Alaska Conference Lawrence Rudnick wrote:
"R. Protheroe deserves kudos for an extremely innovative proposal to use fossil AGN as the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The basic idea is that fossil jets self-organize into a stable reverse-field pinch (RFP) configuration. The slow decay of this field through reconnection induces electric fields of order 10−5 V/m, which can then accelerate seed cosmic rays to high energies. Whether or not this RFP mechanism will ultimately work, it may provide the stimulus for more creative thinking about the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays."
When workers in different fields start to quote each other, you know that something big may be coming.
"R. Protheroe deserves kudos for an extremely innovative proposal to use fossil AGN as the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The basic idea is that fossil jets self-organize into a stable reverse-field pinch (RFP) configuration. The slow decay of this field through reconnection induces electric fields of order 10−5 V/m, which can then accelerate seed cosmic rays to high energies. Whether or not this RFP mechanism will ultimately work, it may provide the stimulus for more creative thinking about the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays."
When workers in different fields start to quote each other, you know that something big may be coming.
Roger Blandford
Here you can find a letter this Astrophysicist wrote in Physics Today in 2005 with a thoughtful opinion on President's Bush Space Science Initiative.
He is an able and successful Physicist whose ideas deserve serious consideration.
He is an able and successful Physicist whose ideas deserve serious consideration.
Immigration and the Candidates
Even by the low standards of presidential campaigns, the issue of immigration has been badly served in the 2008 race. Candidates — and by this we mean the Republicans, mostly — have been striking poses and offering prescriptions that sound tough but will solve nothing. They have distorted or disowned their pasts and attacked one another ...
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Bhutto: They don't blame al-Qa'ida. They blame Musharraf
Robert Fisk: They don't blame al-Qa'ida. They blame MusharrafPublished: 29 December 2007Weird, isn't it, how swiftly the narrative is laid down for us. Benazir Bhutto, the courageous leader of the Pakistan People's Party, is assassinated in Rawalpindi – attached to the very capital of Islamabad wherein ex-General Pervez Musharraf lives –
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, December 28, 2007
Alan Boss
This theoretical physicist calculated the formation of planets and stars out of a cloud of gas and dust. He wrote the book, "Looking for Earths: The Race to Find New Solar Systems".
He found out that if the initial mass of the star is lowered, the region around the gas and dust cools down, but not as much as one would expect if the interactions between these three components are not taken into account.
This sounds familiar to me. James Lovelock found independently, that if one considers a few elements on the surface of the Earth, feedback loops keep the temperature like a thermostat. This he called the Gaia Effect. Earth acts like if alive.
It seems then that this "living" behavior of our environment comes to us at least since the Sun the Earth and the planets were formed out of smaller components.
He found out that if the initial mass of the star is lowered, the region around the gas and dust cools down, but not as much as one would expect if the interactions between these three components are not taken into account.
This sounds familiar to me. James Lovelock found independently, that if one considers a few elements on the surface of the Earth, feedback loops keep the temperature like a thermostat. This he called the Gaia Effect. Earth acts like if alive.
It seems then that this "living" behavior of our environment comes to us at least since the Sun the Earth and the planets were formed out of smaller components.
Rogue Elements and Survival
There is something that confuses me. Can a small group of rogue individuals destroy us all?
My first answer is no. But then it is possible to kill over one hundred people in a few minutes. We are almost seven billion people. Will the rogues keep us all back like sheep?
I do not think so.
What I expect to happen is a lot of suffering like what we are experiencing right now in Darfur, Bangladesh, Mexico City, and many other places of suffering. Even here in Illinois. This can get worse, but somehow I do not feel that is the way we go. Some Apocalypse in 2012 or any such sort, but then again, Who knows the future? Certainly not me.
I believe that leaders as Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton, are good candidates for President of the United States, even John McCain. I reserve my comments about the other candidates.
My first answer is no. But then it is possible to kill over one hundred people in a few minutes. We are almost seven billion people. Will the rogues keep us all back like sheep?
I do not think so.
What I expect to happen is a lot of suffering like what we are experiencing right now in Darfur, Bangladesh, Mexico City, and many other places of suffering. Even here in Illinois. This can get worse, but somehow I do not feel that is the way we go. Some Apocalypse in 2012 or any such sort, but then again, Who knows the future? Certainly not me.
I believe that leaders as Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton, are good candidates for President of the United States, even John McCain. I reserve my comments about the other candidates.
Australian Detainee Is Released
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) -- An Australian who fought with the Taliban and later pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism was freed from prison Saturday, after completing a sentence imposed by a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
"Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no he's outside looking in"
The Moody Blues memorialized Timothy Leary with those words.
Now we are confronted with a dilemma, do we look out, or in?
Particle Physics is been choked to death. Recently the US Congress passed a budget that left Fermilab short of funds. Astroparticle Physics has not fared much better, but maybe both together or one of them has a better chance to improve our fundamental knowledge of the Universe we live in.
The promise of quark bombs is possibly impossible to keep, maybe the promise of finding a home for humanity can be kept.
Now we are confronted with a dilemma, do we look out, or in?
Particle Physics is been choked to death. Recently the US Congress passed a budget that left Fermilab short of funds. Astroparticle Physics has not fared much better, but maybe both together or one of them has a better chance to improve our fundamental knowledge of the Universe we live in.
The promise of quark bombs is possibly impossible to keep, maybe the promise of finding a home for humanity can be kept.
CODEX-ESPRESSO
A group of Astronomers and Astrophysicists, calling themselves The CODEX Team recently proposed an experiment to test fundamental physics. they write:
"Difficult as it may be, such an experiment is no more complex, nor more expensive, nor of less fundamental importance than what our colleagues at CERN regularly do.
Accuracies not far from what we need for detecting the cosmic signal are presently being reached in the observations of radial velocity perturbations induced by extra-solar planets (e.g. HARPS [6]). We want to do the same but with objects that are hundred thousand times fainter than the extra-solar planets targets, and on timescales of decades. An extremely large light bucket is needed and in this respect the E-ELT is going to play for European astronomers the role of LHC for particle physicists."
About the feasibility of the Experiment they write:
"A special issue is represented by the wavelength calibration, because long-term stability is a must and serious doubts have been cast over the possibility to achieve the required accuracy with conventional lamps. This is the reason why a new concept is being developed: the laser frequency comb, an optical or near-IR laser generating a train of femtosecond pulses with the pulse repetition controlled by an atomic clock, producing a reference spectrum of evenly spaced δ functions [8]"
Some of them are in Geneva where CERN is, and were the first to discover planets outside our solar system going around a normal star like our Sun. We should pay attention.
They conclude:
"Is the leap from HARPS on the ESO 3.6m telescope in La Silla to the E-ELT too daring? Maybe. This has prompted the CODEX Team to study the possibility of building a precursor, dubbed ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for PREcision Super Stable Observations) to be placed at the VLT, possibly at the incoherently combined focus of the four UTs. The instrument would look like one CODEX module and would allow the community to get a first glance of a significant part of the CODEX immediate science, of course with the exception of the cosmic dynamics. ESPRESSO would make it possible tests of the stability of the IGM that on the one hand are crucial for the CODEX feasibility and on the other hand would provide fundamental information on the formation of cosmic structures and feedback at high-redshift (see, for example [12])."
Astroparticle Physics to Particle Physics, here we come!
"Difficult as it may be, such an experiment is no more complex, nor more expensive, nor of less fundamental importance than what our colleagues at CERN regularly do.
Accuracies not far from what we need for detecting the cosmic signal are presently being reached in the observations of radial velocity perturbations induced by extra-solar planets (e.g. HARPS [6]). We want to do the same but with objects that are hundred thousand times fainter than the extra-solar planets targets, and on timescales of decades. An extremely large light bucket is needed and in this respect the E-ELT is going to play for European astronomers the role of LHC for particle physicists."
About the feasibility of the Experiment they write:
"A special issue is represented by the wavelength calibration, because long-term stability is a must and serious doubts have been cast over the possibility to achieve the required accuracy with conventional lamps. This is the reason why a new concept is being developed: the laser frequency comb, an optical or near-IR laser generating a train of femtosecond pulses with the pulse repetition controlled by an atomic clock, producing a reference spectrum of evenly spaced δ functions [8]"
Some of them are in Geneva where CERN is, and were the first to discover planets outside our solar system going around a normal star like our Sun. We should pay attention.
They conclude:
"Is the leap from HARPS on the ESO 3.6m telescope in La Silla to the E-ELT too daring? Maybe. This has prompted the CODEX Team to study the possibility of building a precursor, dubbed ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for PREcision Super Stable Observations) to be placed at the VLT, possibly at the incoherently combined focus of the four UTs. The instrument would look like one CODEX module and would allow the community to get a first glance of a significant part of the CODEX immediate science, of course with the exception of the cosmic dynamics. ESPRESSO would make it possible tests of the stability of the IGM that on the one hand are crucial for the CODEX feasibility and on the other hand would provide fundamental information on the formation of cosmic structures and feedback at high-redshift (see, for example [12])."
Astroparticle Physics to Particle Physics, here we come!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Five Planets Orbiting 55 Cancri
Fischer et al. recently posted an article about the existence of the first quintuple-planet system, they write:
"Thus, 55 Cnc is the first quintuple-planet system known."
The methods to discover exo-planets are improving. Maybe soon Astrobiology practitioners will find the first life signal outside Earth.
They also write:
"Thus, 55 Cnc system has some basic structural attributes found in our solar system: nearly coplanar, circular orbits, with a dominant gas giant between 5-6 AU. This similarity suggests that such solar system architectures are not extremely rare."
SETI seems more prescient with these new data.
Nevertheless as Guillermo Gonzalez, from Iowa State, writes:
"The planets are too massive to be habitable. It is an interesting system, though, given the low eccentricities of the planets' orbits."
"Thus, 55 Cnc is the first quintuple-planet system known."
The methods to discover exo-planets are improving. Maybe soon Astrobiology practitioners will find the first life signal outside Earth.
They also write:
"Thus, 55 Cnc system has some basic structural attributes found in our solar system: nearly coplanar, circular orbits, with a dominant gas giant between 5-6 AU. This similarity suggests that such solar system architectures are not extremely rare."
SETI seems more prescient with these new data.
Nevertheless as Guillermo Gonzalez, from Iowa State, writes:
"The planets are too massive to be habitable. It is an interesting system, though, given the low eccentricities of the planets' orbits."
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Mexico: Trade Deficit Declines
Mexico reported a smaller-than-expected trade deficit for November after oil exports rose sharply. The deficit narrowed to $760 million from $1.65 billion in October, the finance ministry said. Economists expected a gap of $1.39 billion. Mexican oil export revenue rose 69 percent last month to $4.89 billion, the ministry said. Nonoil exports grew..
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
A Question of Blame When Societies Fall
As I pulled out of Tucson listening to an audiobook of Jared Diamond’s “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” the first of a procession of blue-and-yellow billboards pointed the way to Arizona’s strangest roadside attraction, “The Thing?”
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, December 24, 2007
Precalculus Formulas
Here you can find formulas for a Precalculus Course.
1.1 Trigonometric functions
For the trigonometric ratios for a point p on the unit circle holds:
cos(φ) = xp , sin(φ) = yp , tan(φ) = yp/xp
sin2 (x) + cos2 (x) = 1 and cos−2 (x) = 1 + tan2 (x).
cos(a ± b) = cos(a) cos(b) ∓ sin(a) sin(b) ,
sin(a ± b) = sin(a) cos(b) ± cos(a)sin(b)
tan(a ± b) =( tan(a) ± tan(b) )/( 1 ∓ tan(a) tan(b) )
The sum formulas are:
sin(p) + sin(q) = 2 sin( 1 / 2 (p + q)) cos( 1 / 2 (p − q))
sin(p) − sin(q) = 2 cos( 1 / 2 (p + q)) sin( 1 / 2 (p − q))
cos(p) + cos(q) = 2 cos( 1 / 2 (p + q)) cos( 1 / 2 (p − q))
cos(p) − cos(q) = −2 sin( 1 / 2 (p + q)) sin( 1 / 2 (p − q))
From these equations can be derived that
2 cos2 (x) = 1 + cos(2x) , 2 sin2 (x) = 1 − cos(2x)
sin(π − x) = sin(x) , cos(π − x) = − cos(x)
sin( 1 / 2 π − x) = cos(x) , cos( 1 / 2 π − x) = sin(x)
Conclusions from equalities:
sin(x) = sin(a)
⇒ x = a ± 2kπ or x = (π − a) ± 2kπ, k ∈ N
cos(x) = cos(a)
⇒ x = a ± 2kπ or x = −a ± 2kπ
tan(x) = tan(a)
⇒ x = a ± kπ and x =/= π / 2 ± kπ
The following relations exist between the inverse trigonometric functions:
arctan(x) = arcsin(x/ √x2 + 1)= arccos(1/√ x2 + 1)
sin(arccos(x)) = √ 1 − x2
1.1 Trigonometric functions
For the trigonometric ratios for a point p on the unit circle holds:
cos(φ) = xp , sin(φ) = yp , tan(φ) = yp/xp
sin2 (x) + cos2 (x) = 1 and cos−2 (x) = 1 + tan2 (x).
cos(a ± b) = cos(a) cos(b) ∓ sin(a) sin(b) ,
sin(a ± b) = sin(a) cos(b) ± cos(a)sin(b)
tan(a ± b) =( tan(a) ± tan(b) )/( 1 ∓ tan(a) tan(b) )
The sum formulas are:
sin(p) + sin(q) = 2 sin( 1 / 2 (p + q)) cos( 1 / 2 (p − q))
sin(p) − sin(q) = 2 cos( 1 / 2 (p + q)) sin( 1 / 2 (p − q))
cos(p) + cos(q) = 2 cos( 1 / 2 (p + q)) cos( 1 / 2 (p − q))
cos(p) − cos(q) = −2 sin( 1 / 2 (p + q)) sin( 1 / 2 (p − q))
From these equations can be derived that
2 cos2 (x) = 1 + cos(2x) , 2 sin2 (x) = 1 − cos(2x)
sin(π − x) = sin(x) , cos(π − x) = − cos(x)
sin( 1 / 2 π − x) = cos(x) , cos( 1 / 2 π − x) = sin(x)
Conclusions from equalities:
sin(x) = sin(a)
⇒ x = a ± 2kπ or x = (π − a) ± 2kπ, k ∈ N
cos(x) = cos(a)
⇒ x = a ± 2kπ or x = −a ± 2kπ
tan(x) = tan(a)
⇒ x = a ± kπ and x =/= π / 2 ± kπ
The following relations exist between the inverse trigonometric functions:
arctan(x) = arcsin(x/ √x2 + 1)= arccos(1/√ x2 + 1)
sin(arccos(x)) = √ 1 − x2
David Charbonneau
Scientist of the year, David Charbonneau, according to Discover Magazine says:
"As a concluding remark, we note that our results indicate that the sunset over HD189733b is red."
You can read the article here.
"As a concluding remark, we note that our results indicate that the sunset over HD189733b is red."
You can read the article here.
A Quechua Christmas Carol
Good and Evil at the Center of the Earth:A Quechua Christmas Carol by Greg Palast December 24th, 2007
He writes:
"But maybe it’s just that simple. Maybe in this world there really is Good and Evil."
read more | digg story
He writes:
"But maybe it’s just that simple. Maybe in this world there really is Good and Evil."
read more | digg story
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Budget Cuts Will Mean Layoffs at Fermilab
The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the nation’s premier center for plumbing the mysteries of the universe in the tiniest bits of matter, is planning to lay off more than 10 percent of its employees in the coming months, the result of impending budget cuts mandated by the spending bill passed by Congress this week.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Finding challenges popular theory of universe's origins
Although the findings don't rule out traditional inflation theories, they do open the door for other theories about how the universe began, including the idea that the universe began with a splat rather than a bang.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
One Scalar Field Slow-Roll Inflation
Recently Amit P. S. Yadav1 and Benjamin D. Wandelt presented their result that the simplest inflation model is not favored by data.
Working at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where the first Internet browser, MOSAIC, was invented, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). They analyzed, with huge computer power, data from the three years of observation of the WMAP, and they conclude with 99.5% certainty that the simplest model of inflation is wrong.
Working at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where the first Internet browser, MOSAIC, was invented, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). They analyzed, with huge computer power, data from the three years of observation of the WMAP, and they conclude with 99.5% certainty that the simplest model of inflation is wrong.
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