tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1708839325325676802024-03-06T19:33:51.326-08:00Cool Physics#physics, #coolphysics:
"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching." Aristotlephysics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.comBlogger3100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-35670387149722402692020-08-04T06:12:00.002-07:002020-08-04T06:12:46.482-07:00ACES...<font face="georgia"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwKVBGv_ovi7qpR-4Nfl9sHWIbNtQ-xtwWp63splf-iwDo7xsLdh6j1BmKVM00EdsFX90ntdnbxCRcDCstmi_jl_jfPFdX2jjACCVI9bKdb7win5z4dRw5F9IYElVoGCSNfm41kZf5PDd/s1024/ACES.PNG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="1024" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwKVBGv_ovi7qpR-4Nfl9sHWIbNtQ-xtwWp63splf-iwDo7xsLdh6j1BmKVM00EdsFX90ntdnbxCRcDCstmi_jl_jfPFdX2jjACCVI9bKdb7win5z4dRw5F9IYElVoGCSNfm41kZf5PDd/w512-h192/ACES.PNG" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">FILE PHOTO: Dr. Benjamin Tee, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), demonstrates how his device can detect the texture of a soft stress ball at a lab in NUS, Singapore July 27, 2020. REUTERS/Joseph Campbell</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></font><div><font face="georgia">Topics: Bioengineering, Materials Science, Star Wars, Robotics</font><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><i><font face="georgia">The device, dubbed ACES, or Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, is made up of 100 small sensors and is about 1 sq cm (0.16 square inch) in size.</font></i></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><i><font face="georgia">The researchers at the National University of Singapore say it can process information faster than the human nervous system, is able to recognize 20 to 30 different textures and can read Braille letters with more than 90% accuracy.</font></i></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><i><font face="georgia">“So humans need to slide to feel the texture, but in this case, the skin, with just a single touch, is able to detect textures of different roughness,” said research team leader Benjamin Tee, adding that AI algorithms let the device learn quickly.</font></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313132;"><span style="text-align: start;"><i><font face="georgia">A demonstration showed the device could detect that a squishy stress ball was soft, and determine that a solid plastic ball was hard.</font></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-skin/scientists-inspired-by-star-wars-create-artificial-skin-able-to-feel-idUSKBN24Z13D" target="_blank">Scientists inspired by 'Star Wars' create artificial skin able to feel</a>, Joseph Campbell, Reuters Science</font></p></div>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-6332749924778310452020-07-30T10:53:00.002-07:002020-07-30T17:26:36.465-07:00Good, and Faithful Servant...<span style="font-family: georgia;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO7gITyZw2RNw7yvGcgs2dMVPEg4Xyz4wjMGa4oUPGhv94uSjQ4bjody9Ap6ICy7A6YxLk5O6GEo-TI5LhT5JNzKgR6vKIdn4mohLcCc5l1LtHellLvX6MYyqcv_hQ0qk5frnr_rKBfHJs/s2048/John+Lewis.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1595" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO7gITyZw2RNw7yvGcgs2dMVPEg4Xyz4wjMGa4oUPGhv94uSjQ4bjody9Ap6ICy7A6YxLk5O6GEo-TI5LhT5JNzKgR6vKIdn4mohLcCc5l1LtHellLvX6MYyqcv_hQ0qk5frnr_rKBfHJs/w311-h400/John+Lewis.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Credit: <a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html"}" href="#">New York Times</a></td></tr></tbody></table></span>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Topics: Civil Rights, Human Rights, John Robert Lewis</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world, you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.</span></i></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters, and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up, and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life, I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.</span></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.</span></i></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-85179415139304820112020-07-30T03:34:00.003-07:002020-07-31T05:36:24.484-07:00Perseverance...<center><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G-Y2k-TsYKA" width="420"></iframe></center>
<span style="font-family: georgia;">Topics: Mars, NASA, Space Exploration, Spaceflight
</span><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">After years of anticipation, NASA hopes to launch its latest robotic explorer, <a href="https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2020/03/20200724_nasa-mars-2020-mission-to-search-for-traces-of-past-microbial-life.html" target="_blank">Perseverance</a>, to Mars on Thursday, July 30, at 7:50 A.M. EDT. Set to depart Earth atop an Atlas V-541 rocket from historic Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the ambitious rover is the latest in a long lineage of rolling robotic explorers that NASA has sent to the Red Planet.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">If Mars 2020 is not able to blast off during its two-hour launch window tomorrow morning — due to hazardous weather or unforeseen technical issues — the space agency will have just two more weeks to get it done. That’s because after August 15, Mars and Earth will no longer be aligned in a way that allows for quick interplanetary travel, meaning NASA would have to store the rover for two years until the <a href="https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2018/05/the-road-to-mars" target="_blank">next favorable alignment</a>.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">“We have four objectives,” Ken Williford, Deputy Project Scientist for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, told Astronomy earlier this year. “The first three are really our core science objectives. And the fourth is … preparing for human exploration.”</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Perseverance’s science objects are: seeking out sites that were potentially habitable in the past, looking for signs of ancient microbes within rocks known to preserve life, and collecting and storing promising rock samples for a future return mission.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/mars-2020-launch-nasas-perseverance-rover-ready-for-journey-to-the-red" target="_blank">Mars 2020 Launch: NASA's Perseverance Rover Ready for Journey to the Red Planet</a>, Jake Parks, Discovery Magazine</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia">NASA: <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/" target="_blank">Perseverance</a></font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-70464748519796385222020-07-28T10:22:00.000-07:002020-07-28T10:22:10.766-07:00Quantum Phase Battery...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWKJxXlmgpHedT0DJXh1NGjczJ_-MrOtz3X6Z1CPO9o7ovUo0sIiiWnQtlHmhSnLJhX7SpNba3YAoWHf5TuKg543LleNITkWi3sqMtU4XsvN-KjieSX8tuCZZlV0YC5CJYLTZTPedr3l4/s750/zoom-1-light.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="750" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWKJxXlmgpHedT0DJXh1NGjczJ_-MrOtz3X6Z1CPO9o7ovUo0sIiiWnQtlHmhSnLJhX7SpNba3YAoWHf5TuKg543LleNITkWi3sqMtU4XsvN-KjieSX8tuCZZlV0YC5CJYLTZTPedr3l4/w400-h266/zoom-1-light.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">The first quantum phase battery, consisting of an indium arsenide (InAs) nanowire in contact with aluminium superconducting leads. (Courtesy: Andrea Iorio)</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Battery, Cooper Pairs, Materials Science, Quantum Mechanics, Superconductivity</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Researchers in Spain and Italy have constructed the first-ever quantum phase battery – a device that maintains a phase difference between two points in a superconducting circuit. The battery, which consists of an indium arsenide (InAs) nanowire in contact with aluminium (Al) superconducting leads, could be used in quantum computing circuits. It might also find applications in magnetometry and highly sensitive detectors based on superconductors.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">In a classical battery (also known as the Volta pile), chemical energy is converted into a voltage difference. The resulting current flow can then be used to power electronic circuits. In quantum circuits and devices based on superconducting materials, however, current may flow without an applied external voltage, thus dispensing with the need for a classical battery.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The concept of a quantum phase battery was studied theoretically in 2015 by <a href="https://cfm.ehu.es/mesoscopics/bergeret/Main.html" target="_blank">Sebastián Bergeret</a> of the <a href="https://cfm.ehu.es/" target="_blank">Material Physics Center (CFM-CSIC)</a> and <a href="http://nano-bio.ehu.es/users/ilya" target="_blank">Ilya Tokatly</a> at the <a href="https://www.ehu.eus/en/en-home" target="_blank">University of the Basque Country</a> in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain. Their battery design comprised a combination of superconducting and magnetic materials and was based on a Josephson junction – a non-superconducting region through which the Cooper pairs responsible for superconductivity can tunnel. This semiconducting “weak link” provides a persistent phase difference between the superconductors in the circuit, similar to the way that a classical battery provides a persistent voltage drop in an electronic circuit. Thanks to this phase difference, a superconducting current (that is, a current with zero dissipation) flows when the junction is embedded in the superconducting circuit.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/physicists-create-quantum-phase-battery/" target="_blank">Physicists create quantum phase battery</a>, Isabelle Dumé, Physics World</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-65023093006134889312020-07-27T08:40:00.000-07:002020-07-27T08:40:47.445-07:00Splashdowns and Pandemics...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgITmaM39jKnXBmYJFAD_0kAzupPf9QSrUDScuByl97BxmcdRlUshMraXpfyehN11ViQZZCktQMiWQrtjcTn6mpJgkCdIqERVt7kq6l9bHikur4v-B1IfoagE-Ad71S-2oSv_8iWmGrVkS/s942/John+Lewis.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="628" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgITmaM39jKnXBmYJFAD_0kAzupPf9QSrUDScuByl97BxmcdRlUshMraXpfyehN11ViQZZCktQMiWQrtjcTn6mpJgkCdIqERVt7kq6l9bHikur4v-B1IfoagE-Ad71S-2oSv_8iWmGrVkS/s320/John+Lewis.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://griotpoet.blogspot.com/2020/07/good-trouble.html" target="_blank">"Good Trouble"...</a> The Griot Poet, image source <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/john-lewis-arrest-records-are-finally-uncovered-180961255/" target="_blank">Smithsonian Magazine</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p><font face="georgia">Topics: Civil Rights, International Space Station, John Robert Lewis, NASA, STEM</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">This will be the first splashdown that's occurred in a while, but particularly during a global pandemic and the internment of a legend. It was germane during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. The Space Shuttle brought to mind the CGI and FX ease of take offs and landings in Science Fiction movies, regardless of genre: somehow massive spaceships can magically levitate, and "ease" into orbit without accelerating to escape velocity in a planet's gravity well.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Today, we're laying to rest a civil rights icon, John Robert Lewis. He was <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=0d3246b01b3bb8b7127963c12e452d1fc4d64d73-1595864230-0-AXyBfI4gZSTPz8-H_Dhb6xNRv4aysVr5-VvbT6fm4M03IPl4oln3Wa4B4iavMoo8FhNjHlZbNkDT7YUne_S7t-JGUKbWIU1bnMLPhqRVO20Ksv37nMkq9Yy_LZe0vnfJQ26NmFLlr6TI1L3g8fzBEADJtgp79b_m7GR8igKQNgdpnIfetvRVu6mk_nbX3Xk3H3uAF-1RmYG2eboil7Mfg4Gbw5BA4dFFG2p4p9xUs1gGKTfE2yYAEAcnLZhDUqfqUhegASqDxH61zlUYTeloP8KdjWei143qDhdKvGjvQy2GCgeC7-8FuTxrwby1zRtTU4ETtkYTvqLoMufqESeSDgs" target="_blank">BLM</a> before the Internet and hashtag. He was notorious for getting in "good trouble," <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/civil-rights-icon-rep-john-lewis-no-stranger-sit-ins-n597291" target="_blank">leading a sit-in on the House floor</a> - breaking rules for twenty children and six adults slaughtered at Sandy Hook, for what he and Dr. King called "<a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-beloved-community-repost.html" target="_blank">The Beloved Community</a>." Like moonshots, that was "conspiracy theorized" away, callously, but revelatory of how depraved this republic was before this current moment. Hopefully, the citizens of Alabama will rename the bridge currently carrying the name of a confederate traitor and Klan grand dragon in HIS distinct honor.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">During splashdowns and pandemics: I can dream.</font></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">CNN: <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/john-lewis-dc-memorial-07-27-20/index.html" target="_blank">Civil Rights icon John Lewis honored at US Capital: Live Updates</a></font></div><p>*****</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">NASA will provide live coverage of activities leading up to, during, and following the return of the agency’s SpaceX Demo-2 test flight with the agency’s astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley from the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html" target="_blank">International Space Station</a>.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The duo arrived at the orbiting laboratory on May 31, following a successful launch on May 30 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">NASA and SpaceX are targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT Saturday, Aug. 1, for undocking of the Dragon “Endeavour” spacecraft from the space station and 2:42 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 2, for splashdown, which will be the first return of a commercially built and operated American spacecraft carrying astronauts from the space station.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>Coverage on NASA TV and the agency’s <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/live" target="_blank">website</a> will begin at 9:10 a.m., Aug. 1, with a short farewell ceremony on station and resume at 5:15 p.m., with departure preparations through splashdown and recov</i><i>ery at one of seven targeted water landing zones in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida.</i></font></p><p><i style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">All media participation in news conferences and interviews will be remote; no media will be accommodated at any NASA site due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To participate in the briefings by phone or to request a remote interview with the crew members, reporters must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston at 281-483-5111 no later than two hours prior to each event.</font></i></p>
<p><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-of-astronauts-return-from-space-station-on-spacex-commercial" target="_blank"><font face="georgia">NASA to Provide Coverage of Astronauts’ Return from Space Station on SpaceX Commercial Crew Test Flight</font></a></p>
<p><font face="georgia">#P4TC link: <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/06/dragons-and-dystopias.html" target="_blank">Dragons and Dystopias...</a></font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-48773710160578375442020-07-24T03:10:00.002-07:002020-07-24T04:34:04.635-07:00Betwixt Eddie and Mary...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-EWDhxCzt_Aow5-V9GJUWVkcC7R4WbBXM09BKJLQx6lx0zqt3JiO5JF8V-6E1yi8XXb-fFBtj1ktxCqXVSwe_nBacNKC9qe8XRrcbWkKuuNSmGgoRLITnLeLwRXfIue5OxTAQwv1uIMD/s821/Betwixt+Eddie+and+Mary.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="821" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-EWDhxCzt_Aow5-V9GJUWVkcC7R4WbBXM09BKJLQx6lx0zqt3JiO5JF8V-6E1yi8XXb-fFBtj1ktxCqXVSwe_nBacNKC9qe8XRrcbWkKuuNSmGgoRLITnLeLwRXfIue5OxTAQwv1uIMD/w500-h301/Betwixt+Eddie+and+Mary.PNG" width="500" /></a></div>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Human Rights, LGBT Rights</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.</i> Franklin D. Roosevelt</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">At 1 pm eastern, 12 noon in San Antonio, my wife's family laid her favorite uncle to rest, a U.S. veteran. He died due to health complications, non-COVID. Because of the pandemic, we had to say our tearful goodbyes over Facebook live, the participants' voices muffled by masks singing "It is Well." He lived a good life, into his eighties, longer than my own father, but his sons probably don't take solace in his longevity: their hero is gone for now.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr's book on James Baldwin downloaded on my Kindle about a week before Dr. Mary Trump's book about her uncle. They are my mental comfort food between writing a research proposal: a book written by an African American heterosexual professor about an LGBT Civil Rights icon, and a book about an unstable, reckless sociopath, written by his niece, a Lesbian, a notion now in a world with Ellen DeGeneres and Rachel Maddow is almost cliche. "Jimmy" was out and proud before it was relatively safe, or sane. He literally could have been killed for "the color of his skin, and the content of his character." But that did not stop or stifle his boldness.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”</i> ― James Baldwin</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">We are "betwixt and between" the past and the future: one written and one yet-to-be written, first by John Lewis and now, Black Lives Matter et al. We are betwixt and between love and hate, democracy and fascism; working towards a more perfect union, and barreling towards totalitarianism. The philosophies of Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler are personified in Bannon, Gorka and Miller, fascist whisperers recycling hate in the 21st century: the ovens now microscopic, efficient, utterly malevolent, and unseen. We are seeing the NRA's "jackbooted thugs" deployed in American cities - Portland, Oregon, soon Chicago, Illinois; our nation's birthplace in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and any other blue-governed city, without a <i><b>peep</b></i> from them, as deafening a silence now as for the death-by-police of the licensed gun owner, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/18/some-gun-owners-are-disturbed-by-the-philando-castile-verdict-the-nra-is-silent/" target="_blank">Philando Castile</a>. The second amendment might be outlawed to Melanin in a dictatorship.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.</i> Heinrich Himmler, commander of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo.</font></p>
<p>*****</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. <u>We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now</u>. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”</i> ― Martin Luther King Jr.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">For Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., that fierce urgency is he, I and previously "Jimmy" living in these black bodies, witnessing the country careen from "hope and change" to this dark moment of running over civil rights demonstrators in Charlottesville, Nazis in polo shirts carrying tiki torches; or <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21281604/lafayette-square-white-house-tear-gas-protest" target="_blank">teargassing peaceful George Floyd demonstrators</a> on the Washington Mall. Once we got over the "post-racial America" shtick, it didn't take long to see the new black president hung in effigy, called the n-word almost daily, burned at the stake, bone through the nose as witch doctor for the pejorative: Obamacare. They prayed <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+109%3A8-15&version=NIV" target="_blank">Psalm 109:8-15</a>, for his death and desolation. They are anti-Christians for an Antichrist. Their hatred of immigrants in chat rooms and over the pit of hell summoned eventually a demon, who recycled for them <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/make-germany-great-again/" target="_blank">Hitler</a>, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/donald-trump-kkk/473190/" target="_blank">Klan</a> and <a href="https://www.reagan.com/ronald-reagans-commitment-to-make-america-great-again" target="_blank">Reagan's</a> slogan: make America great again. Exposed in Dr. Glaude's treatise was what Eddie and "Jimmy" referred to as the American lie, broadcast with the hubris of a birther foghorn.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">For Dr. Mary Trump, that fierce urgency was living through a slow train wreck: watching her father, Freddy - Fred Trump's namesake - taken apart by her grandfather brick-by-brick until there was nothing left. She could still live in the comfort of privilege, station and American aristocracy: her bloodline leading directly to the seat of power almost infinite. All she had to do was keep her head low and flatter a narcissist. Her clinical training tells her there is no pleasing such a person. His needs are a bottomless pit next to a black hole. His loyalty is demanded of others and expendable to the same. Just as the senior sociopath dismantled her father, her training said a prolific lying, mentally disturbed, gaslighting and violent man could dismantle a nation.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Mary L. Trump, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Too-Much-and-Never-Enough/Mary-L-Trump/9781982141462" target="_blank">Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man</a></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Perhaps she thought of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists" target="_blank">Martin Niemöller</a>:</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">It is easy to fill in the blank now: African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Women, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Transgenders: if we do not speak for our fellow humans, we follow them into the COVID ovens. A pandemic as eugenics is far more efficient, less visible and more excusable than public crematoriums.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I still have hope. I have to. I have a granddaughter barely a year old, and she DESERVES a future.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Politics in America especially is organized tribalism. The factions George Washington warned about in his farewell address express themselves as republicans and democrats, along with greens and independents.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">We are all between yesterday and tomorrow, living out our hyphens. We are ever all in "the fierce urgency of NOW" for tomorrow. We all have children, or know children, and a world that looks like a dystopian novel is only appealing to sociopaths, mass murderers and death cult members. A world like that has few children, and the human species - Coronavirus, climate change, or nuclear exchange - is then in peril.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">For this election, for humanity, we have to ALL be Americans, and heroes in the spirit of John Lewis: voting by mail, voting early, getting in "good trouble" for this fleeting, precious thing called democracy: made real by the struggles of the downtrodden and "the least of these." For "the fierce urgency of now," for a "better world beyond the horizon"... for tomorrow.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>“never lose sight, as we finger the pain and disillusionment of our after times, of the possibility of a New Jerusalem.”</i>
― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575725/begin-again-by-eddie-s-glaude-jr/" target="_blank">Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own</a></font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-5992844449189558672020-07-23T04:56:00.000-07:002020-07-23T04:56:46.872-07:00Dr. Peter Delfyett, Jr...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5uGgfpapknUYSCZoacLRsOXx_UKvYo-9ysB1nbTrZoEeZhqHQkdXp9WHHpspHx3cpMKvaELugwRrhSmE5L5qLhJhnRl0_XpvjMj_aCoN4T9RR0HWog9OT8XpxbTqGV-o98cIqxucyoXcs/s2048/Delfyett_20161104.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><font size="2"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1463" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5uGgfpapknUYSCZoacLRsOXx_UKvYo-9ysB1nbTrZoEeZhqHQkdXp9WHHpspHx3cpMKvaELugwRrhSmE5L5qLhJhnRl0_XpvjMj_aCoN4T9RR0HWog9OT8XpxbTqGV-o98cIqxucyoXcs/w286-h400/Delfyett_20161104.jpg" width="286" /></font></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">Dr. Peter Delfyett, Jr., <a href="https://www.nsbp.org/nsbp-news/708-peter-delfyett-wins-the-2020-william-streifer-scientific-achievement-award">National Society of Black Physicists</a></font><a href="https://www.nsbp.org/nsbp-news/708-peter-delfyett-wins-the-2020-william-streifer-scientific-achievement-award"><br /></a></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Laser, Physics, Semiconductors</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Dr. Peter Delfyett, former NSBP President and NSBP fellow, is the 2020 winner of the William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award. The William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award was established to recognize an exceptional single scientific contribution which has had a significant impact in the field of lasers and electro-optics in the past ten years. Dr. Delfyett has been selected, "<u>For pioneering contributions to semiconductor diode based ultrafast laser science and technology</u>." The Award is endowed by Xerox Corp and Spectra Diode Labs. The Award consists of an honorarium of $2,500 and a medal. The presentation is made at the IEEE Photonics Conference.</font></i></p>
<p><i><font face="georgia">Learn more about <a href="https://www.photonicssociety.org/awards/william-streifer-scientific-achievement-award">this award</a> and its <a href="https://www.photonicssociety.org/awards/william-streifer-scientific-achievement-award/william-streifer-scientific-achievement-award-winners">previous winners</a>.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.nsbp.org/nsbp-news/708-peter-delfyett-wins-the-2020-william-streifer-scientific-achievement-award">Peter Delfyett wins the 2020 William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award</a>, NSBP</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia">#P4TC links:</font></p>
<p><a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2012/02/diaspora-13-february-2012.html"><font face="georgia">Diaspora, 13 February 2012</font></a></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2010/11/reducing-impact-of-negative-stereotypes.html">Reducing the Impact of Negative Stereotypes on the Careers of Minority and Women Scientists</a>, November 25, 2010</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-14364588219879320662020-07-22T07:17:00.000-07:002020-07-22T07:17:36.642-07:00Twins of a Young Sun...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC90ribPd_7AXq-n6LZOtTEPJh-bTTLGIeyHf3BGJBpVclec6vw_1BMyH90rRTeMCSUu3d5Bsqi3uuhzloZh_0yeToLLzQ5_JoGAr-yWaDQ62Jdqt-et_u-y-l9ivOZEfNfXV_074rHMHi/s600/twoplanetsystem.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC90ribPd_7AXq-n6LZOtTEPJh-bTTLGIeyHf3BGJBpVclec6vw_1BMyH90rRTeMCSUu3d5Bsqi3uuhzloZh_0yeToLLzQ5_JoGAr-yWaDQ62Jdqt-et_u-y-l9ivOZEfNfXV_074rHMHi/s320/twoplanetsystem.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">The first direct image of two exoplanets orbiting a Sun-like star, seen here, was captured by the SPHERE instrument on the ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The system is called TYC 8998-760-1 and is located some 300 light-years from Earth.</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">In another exoplanetary first, the <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/usa/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/">European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope</a> (VLT) in Chile's Atacama Desert has captured an image of two worlds orbiting a younger version of the Sun. The system, called TYC 8998-760-1, is located roughly 300 light-years away in the southern constellation Musca. And although it hides two gas giants orbiting a Sun-like star, we don’t have anything quite like these worlds in our own solar system.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The inner planet lies about 160 astronomical units from its host star (where one astronomical unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance) and is some 14 times the mass of Jupiter. With that amount of heft, the gas giant skirts the border between planet and <a href="https://astronomy.com/news/2018/09/are-brown-dwarfs-stars-planets-or-neither">brown dwarf, which is a type of almost-star</a>. The more distant planet is located about 320 AU from its star and weighs in at about six Jupiter masses.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://astronomy.com/news/2020/07/pair-of-planets-seen-dancing-around-sun-like-star-for-the-first-time">Two exoplanets seen dancing around Sun-like star for the first time</a>, Mark Zastrow, Astronomy.com</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-72061889675072304272020-07-21T20:15:00.000-07:002020-07-21T20:15:57.774-07:00Starspots and Red Giants...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2O1TaHkd-YBics_aj1ILX2K9OMgI_ePsetSo5iPBw13nEM-WjlNPAPrt0fU7LGDh37cERRTy-zJyYHnYFQXN0K3j7rF16p4f_vBrL0V5hL88bur2L8JOHt65Dhg0Ja0FgZY9nkx3CfMD0/s691/Sam-Jarman-21-July-2020-Red-giant-starspots-article.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="691" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2O1TaHkd-YBics_aj1ILX2K9OMgI_ePsetSo5iPBw13nEM-WjlNPAPrt0fU7LGDh37cERRTy-zJyYHnYFQXN0K3j7rF16p4f_vBrL0V5hL88bur2L8JOHt65Dhg0Ja0FgZY9nkx3CfMD0/w400-h244/Sam-Jarman-21-July-2020-Red-giant-starspots-article.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">Red-giant spotter: artist’s impression of the Kepler space telescope in Earth orbit. (Courtesy: NASA)<br /></font></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Solar Physics</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Some red-giant stars are rotating much faster than previously thought, according to a study led by Patrick Gaulme at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. Using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, the astronomers found that about 8% of the red giants they observed are rotating fast enough to display starspots. The team reckons that the elderly stars acquire their rapid rotation by following one of three distinct routes in their evolution.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">In main sequence stars like the Sun, the complex interplay that occurs between stellar rotation and the motions of plasma creates incredibly lively magnetic fields. When this magnetic activity is particularly strong, upwelling plumes of plasma in a star’s convective outer layers can be blocked, producing dark patches on its surface. To an observer on Earth, these starspots cause a periodic variation in the star’s brightness as it rotates, bringing the spots in and out of our field of view.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Until recently, starspots were not thought to be present on red giant surfaces. Since these older stars expand rapidly as they move out of the main sequence, while maintaining their angular momentum, previous theories had predicted that they must rotate more slowly than main sequence stars. Slower rotation should reduce magnetic activity, preventing starspots from forming.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/study-sheds-light-on-why-some-red-giants-spin-faster-than-others/">Starspot study sheds light on why some red giants spin faster than others</a>, Sam Jarman, Physics World</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-26377893636750388702020-07-20T17:23:00.002-07:002020-07-20T17:23:48.317-07:00Comet NEOWISE...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIU7GQNlSaCPkNkNQ54Gbn8bEDPyfVmgI_vkf4qkajrvvkpS-p6fM0Rz5uApntWXA808frxQYLRILNKXQMrc1RRz4WrL_6Q7yYudzD_hmh4Ha-1o3pqpnEeVtEBchd7F4j7aYSvgUk0Lr/s590/Comet+NEOWISE.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="590" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIU7GQNlSaCPkNkNQ54Gbn8bEDPyfVmgI_vkf4qkajrvvkpS-p6fM0Rz5uApntWXA808frxQYLRILNKXQMrc1RRz4WrL_6Q7yYudzD_hmh4Ha-1o3pqpnEeVtEBchd7F4j7aYSvgUk0Lr/w400-h305/Comet+NEOWISE.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Comet NEOWISE over Mount Hood on July 11, 2020. Credit: Kevin Morefield Getty Images<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Comets</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/comet-neowise-could-be-spectacular-heres-how-to-see-it/">Comet NEOWISE</a> has been entertaining space enthusiasts across the Northern Hemisphere. Although its official name is C/2020 F3, the comet has been dubbed NEOWISE after the Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) space telescope that first noticed it earlier this year. This “icy snowball” with a gassy tail made its closest approach to the sun on July 3 and is now heading back from whence it came: the far reaches of the outer solar system. Its long, looping orbit around our star ensures that after passing closest to Earth on July 22, Comet NEOWISE will not return for some 6,800 years.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Even though the comet is now bright enough to observe with unaided eyes, inexperienced stargazers might have trouble knowing when and where to look. Scientific American spoke to Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, for observing tips and a better appreciation of why comets are so special.</font></i></p>
<p><i><b><font face="georgia">How does one prepare to watch Comet NEOWISE with the naked eye?</font></b></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Find the darkest possible swath of sky and make sure your eyes are adjusted so that you give yourself the best possible opportunity to see faint objects. It means: don’t just walk outside after staring at lights or screens and expect to see [the comet] really well. You need 15 minutes or so to adjust your eyes, so that your pupils are adjusted, and they’re used to seeing fainter things. It’s the same as walking into a dark room, and everybody knows that [you] can’t see [things] first—and then, all of a sudden, you start seeing things. You need to do the same thing when you walk outside. And use the <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1523594527">Comet NEOWISE app</a> developed by astrophysicist <a href="https://rein.utsc.utoronto.ca/">Hanno Rein</a> of University of Toronto Scarborough to see exactly where it is, so that you know what direction you need to look. And then the key would be to find yourself a place that is the darkest possible, that [has] no lights.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-best-way-to-watch-comet-neowise-wherever-you-are/">The Best Way to Watch Comet NEOWISE, Wherever You Are</a>, Karen Kwon, Scientific American</font></p>
physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-56769372867688274492020-07-17T03:15:00.001-07:002020-07-22T07:41:34.641-07:00This House of Usher...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjxuusZD2Rshwi0GihN6_lYKIlvUy2JyUn7Wxeplqpa7S9uNsxBXktv5u2l0YXKN5colVX-LVgPv_RqfZ4RrdOBRwMOS8fFnCnRNNP3q7UUWkX4XapSpEwKsIFK66F6aSLNwJVQLpHcBsy/s700/murder_fbiposter_700.jpg__700x617_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="700" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjxuusZD2Rshwi0GihN6_lYKIlvUy2JyUn7Wxeplqpa7S9uNsxBXktv5u2l0YXKN5colVX-LVgPv_RqfZ4RrdOBRwMOS8fFnCnRNNP3q7UUWkX4XapSpEwKsIFK66F6aSLNwJVQLpHcBsy/w400-h353/murder_fbiposter_700.jpg__700x617_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Source: Freedom Summer link below</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">On June 21, 1964, three young men disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael (Mickey) Schwerner and James Chaney worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in nearby Meridian; Andrew Goodman was one of the hundreds of college students from across the country who volunteered to work on voter registration, education, and Civil Rights as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. The three men believed their work was necessary, but also dangerous: Ku Klux Klan membership in Mississippi was soaring in 1964 -- with membership reaching more than 10,000. The Klan was prepared to use violence to fight the Civil Rights movement; on April 24 the group offered a demonstration of its power, staging 61 simultaneous cross burnings throughout the state.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The case was drawing national attention, in part because Schwerner and Goodman were both white Northerners. Mickey Schwerner's wife Rita, who was also a CORE worker, tried to convert that attention to the overlooked victims of racial violence. “The slaying of a Negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm has been sounded,” she told reporters during the search.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Throughout July, investigators combed the woods, fields, swamps, and rivers of Mississippi, ultimately finding the remains of eight African American men. Two were identified as Henry Dee and Charles Moore, college students who had been kidnapped, beaten, and murdered in May 1964. Another corpse was wearing a CORE t-shirt. Even less information was recorded about the five other bodies discovered.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Finally, after six weeks of searching, a tip from an informant -- later identified as Mississippi Highway Patrol officer Maynard King -- sent investigators to an earthen dam on the Old Jolly Farm outside Philadelphia. It was there that the FBI uncovered the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman on August 4.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia">Excerpt from <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/">Freedom Summer: Murder in Mississippi</a>, American Experience, PBS</font></p>
<p>*****</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Russian financial traffic got to the Taliban in Afghanistan: intelligence wouldn't use the word "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-russia-afghanistan-bounty-intelligence/index.html">bounty</a>." The scandal is there was no reaction or retaliation from the Commander-in-Chief*. In schoolyard parlance, Putin knocked the board off Orange Satan's shoulder, and he slunk away to get into a Twitter spat with a pack of mean middle school students. Twitter saw hacks Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Joe Biden (hopefully, the successor of Satan), and a lot of other prominent American accounts for a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53425822">bitcoin scam</a>. I can't imagine this wasn't Putin: he has no push back to any actions in the world he's taking. (Noticeably, Tangerine Nit Twit's account was fine.) Russians are also interested in <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-uk-canada-claim-russia-hack-coronavirus-vaccine/story?id=71818654">our vaccine information</a>, because a recovering America during a pandemic to them, is a threat.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Deafening silence (still) from a law-and-order president* and his politically compromised party complicit with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html">hostile foreign power</a>.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">* Putin's puppet, if you didn't already know.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Realize: This republic's unraveling has been an ongoing project. It was held together by spit, glue and duct tape. Every step forward by the marginalized has always experienced backlash. Corey Robin in "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199959110">The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin</a>" states: <i>Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes,</i> i.e. people get pissed off about getting pissed on, and the ones over them calling it rain. This spawns Civil Rights, Women's Rights, LGBT rights movements, because a few of us actually read The Constitution. Jimmy Carter was our first openly evangelical president, and supported by none other than types like <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/death-cult.html">Michelle Bachmann</a>. However, he ran afoul when he tried to get Bob Jones University to follow the law, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133">not be so racist</a> with miscegenation (a fancy word for no interracial dating). Hopping on the abortion bandwagon was an easy dodge that I don't think they ever meant to win, as Corey Robin noted, the war against an enemy was the most important thing. This led them to their first sale of a piece of their souls to a B-movie actor, Ronald Reagan.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Reagan knowingly started his campaign <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan%27s_Neshoba_County_Fair_"states%27_rights"_speech">within meters</a> of the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi. This was genteel wink-and-nod politics, giving plausible denial to moderate whites and black republicans that could then both deny the subtle racism directly before them. Since Charlottesville and before it when IT descended that escalator in Trump tower, it's been a foghorn, and only a blind/deaf/dumb man could miss his self-admittance the alt-right, Neo Nazis and KKK can recognize. Every tax cut, then and since Reagan, has been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html">a damned lie of trickle down</a>; pissing on us, and still telling us it's rain. Hell, why change the shtick if it's still working after forty years? It's not a huge stretch from a B-movie actor to a reality show nincompoop.</font></p>
<p>*****</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I purchased <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/1982141468/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WBXVHACQFNJN&dchild=1&keywords=mary+trump+too+much+and+never+enough&qid=1594948162&s=books&sprefix=ma%2Cstripbooks%2C168&sr=1-1">Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man</a>, by Dr. Mary L. Trump, feeling better contributing to its rise on the New York Times Bestseller List than John Bolton's (I canceled it when I found out he influenced the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487581-bolton-defends-decision-to-shutter-nsc-pandemic-office">disbanding of the pandemic response team</a>). Not that there wasn't a cottage industry that's used their access to this criminal to like Bolton, cash-in. Dr. Trump is a clinical psychologist specializing in psychopathy and sociopathy. She is also, by her last name: his niece. She is similar (to me) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Munster">Marilyn Munster</a> - "plain" by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Munsters">Munster norms</a> - but normal to everyone else viewing the sitcom. In it, the mansion that Fred Trump met out his sociopathic abuse that produced our current president* was simply referred to as "The House."</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">The "<a href="https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section3/">Fall of the House of Usher</a>" is a classic Gothic short story by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe. In it, the unnamed narrator makes the dysfunction of the Usher family - only one heir per generation - and the house itself one in the same. There is a suggestion this genetic problem might be the result of incest, since they only manage to have one heir per generation.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">The narrator's friend Roderick buries his twin sister, Madeline after suffering catalepsy, defined as the loss of control of one’s limbs. Dictionary.com says <i>"a physical condition usually associated with catatonic schizophrenia, characterized by suspension of sensation, muscular rigidity, fixity of posture, and often by loss of contact with environment."</i> Poe sure could pick the sickness!</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Madeline "dies" (even before comics, there's a loophole), buried; only to emerge bloodied from the grave she escaped and attacks her brother (who wouldn't, buried alive?). She dies from her wounds, Roderick dies from apparent cardiac arrest and the house poetically collapses with the death of both heirs as the narrator sprints.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Brian Kemp is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/politics/georgia-kemp-mask-mandate/index.html">suing the city of Atlanta</a>, its mayor and other municipalities to stop them from wearing masks, so...he can spread Coronavirus more efficiently? It's about as sensible as <a href="https://youtu.be/AXu0OvdZzFU">hocking Goya beans</a> as <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article244267152.html">refrigerator trucks</a> and bodies are piling up.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I voted for the smart woman last time. I'm voting for the sane candidate this time as well: he models wearing a mask. I will crawl over broken glass, swim molten lava; wrestle man-eating crocodiles to end this dystopian nightmare. It's way past if we "love" Joe Biden: we need to overwhelm the cheating, voter suppression, the Russians hacking/disinformation and affect repairs to the framework of a crumbling republic.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">However: <i>If</i> this house disintegrates, this narrator's passport is current.</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-8454856802722719232020-07-16T04:07:00.000-07:002020-07-16T04:07:58.383-07:00ATCG Drive...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAOv2addUkAvbi7NDYOfnMKYGhK1BP0vVEUoD5OENnoTMG3Norgs74jLFZvd3jim7EgcYKm8lDZnm8XG2oznIqMcgj9z6oJf5dvevDFp5hDiJlcVddzZAjyIUMoBJD799ptMiNdMe9Buq/s508/Oz+on+DNA.PNG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="508" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAOv2addUkAvbi7NDYOfnMKYGhK1BP0vVEUoD5OENnoTMG3Norgs74jLFZvd3jim7EgcYKm8lDZnm8XG2oznIqMcgj9z6oJf5dvevDFp5hDiJlcVddzZAjyIUMoBJD799ptMiNdMe9Buq/w400-h210/Oz+on+DNA.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">MGM/VICTOR TANGERMANN</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Biology, Computer Science, DNA</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><i>Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin? </i>Dr. Richard P. Feynman, "<a href="https://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html">There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom</a>," said to be the seminal talk that started the concept of atomic-level engineering, soon known as nanotechnology, (named by Professor Norio Taniguchi, 1974, of the Tokyo Science University).</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The intricate arrangement of base pairs in our DNA encodes just about everything about us. Now, DNA contains the entirety of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as well.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">A team of University of Texas Austin scientists just vastly improved the storage capacity of DNA and managed to encode the entire novel — translated into the geek-friendly language of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto">Esperanto</a> — in a double strand of DNA far more efficiently than has been done before. DNA storage isn’t new, but this work could help finally make it practical.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Big tech companies like Microsoft are already exploring DNA-storage technology, as the biomolecule can encode several orders of magnitude more information per unit volume than a hard drive. But DNA is particularly error-prone. It can easily be damaged and erase whatever’s stored on it.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">“The key breakthrough is an encoding algorithm that allows accurate retrieval of the information even when the DNA strands are partially damaged during storage,” molecular biologist Ilya Finkelstein <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-07-power-dna.html">said in a UT Austin press release</a>.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/stored-wizard-oz-strand-dna?mc_eid=e667f0d07f&mc_cid=ccfe3568c9">Scientists Stored "The Wizard of Oz" on a Strand of DNA</a>, Dan Robitzgi, Futurism</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-54835036211286022242020-07-15T16:18:00.002-07:002020-07-15T16:29:43.048-07:00Armored Surfaces...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNW9qLcaQN-0YFsl6q3n9IqVWIzokevunDXdA7Wg6jh4tYDzNCIpgvg68Ycd2rG0rTYrhwOzzPsFszTkPa3KwIPrqi0oeRpqiTo5X40WX0YPk3dtsyb1SjH2xH04-iOAYQmd7tej-2OY7L/s720/233357_web.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="720" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNW9qLcaQN-0YFsl6q3n9IqVWIzokevunDXdA7Wg6jh4tYDzNCIpgvg68Ycd2rG0rTYrhwOzzPsFszTkPa3KwIPrqi0oeRpqiTo5X40WX0YPk3dtsyb1SjH2xH04-iOAYQmd7tej-2OY7L/w500-h333/233357_web.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">A schematic representation of how the surface looks, and how the structure repels water. Courtesy: Aalto University</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Surface Engineering</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">A micron-scale “armor” that protects highly water-repellent nanostructures from damage has been developed by researchers in China and Finland. The new extra-durable coating could make it possible to employ these “superhydrophobic” surfaces on devices such as solar panels and vehicle windscreens that experience tough environmental conditions.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">As their name suggests, superhydrophobic materials repel water extremely well. They owe this impressive ability to a thin layer of air that develops around nanometre-scale structures on their surface. By ensuring that droplets barely touch the solid part of the surface at all, the air layer effectively acts as a lubricant, allowing water droplets to roll off with near-zero friction.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">These nanostructured surfaces are, however, mechanically fragile and can easily be wiped away. To address this drawback, a research team led by <a href="http://www.iffs.uestc.edu.cn/info/1085/2184.htm">Xu Deng</a> of the <a href="https://en.uestc.edu.cn/">University of Electronic Science and Technology of China</a> in Chengdu and <a href="https://people.aalto.fi/robin.ras">Robin Ras</a> of <a href="https://www.aalto.fi/en/department-of-applied-physics/soft-matter-and-wetting">Finland’s Aalto University</a> created a superhydrophobic surface containing structures at two different length scales: a nanoscale structure that is water repellent and a microscale one that provides durability.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The microstructure consists of an interconnected frame containing “pockets” of tiny inverted pyramids. Within these pyramids are the highly water-repellent and mechanically fragile nanostructures. The frame thus acts as a shield, preventing the nanostructure coating from being removed by abradants larger than the frame. “A finger, screwdriver or even sandpaper glides over these microstructures, leaving the nanostructures untouched, thereby preserving the surface’s attractive water-repellent feature,” Ras says.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/superhydrophobic-surfaces-toughen-up/">Superhydrophobic surfaces toughen up</a>, Isabelle Dumé, Physics World</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-36437613657789639112020-07-14T10:20:00.000-07:002020-07-14T10:20:46.098-07:00Threshold Cryptography...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5peaMXxZImI4B6Q_b1wc2iaYCNhDOP9Q_AdA-p_-deFJtqeo4tRo5r18QXFTEkAVB92peol2IbeyWYlmuQrzERVil0psiDgH3sOsU8Qztu3-poc6HAyxduAbkf16o_8BctTmQkPLg5SqX/s1517/20ITL011_threshold.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1034" data-original-width="1517" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5peaMXxZImI4B6Q_b1wc2iaYCNhDOP9Q_AdA-p_-deFJtqeo4tRo5r18QXFTEkAVB92peol2IbeyWYlmuQrzERVil0psiDgH3sOsU8Qztu3-poc6HAyxduAbkf16o_8BctTmQkPLg5SqX/w400-h273/20ITL011_threshold.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">This artist’s conception of threshold cryptography shows a lock that can only be opened by three people working together. When the threshold cryptosystem receives a request to process information with a secret key, it initially splits the key into shares and sends them to the entire group, each share to a different participant. The three people must agree to work together and also perform their own secret operations on the incoming message. From these actions, each person uses their share key — represented by the three colored circles — to process the message, and then sends the result back to the system. Only the combination of all three partial results can open the lock, reducing the likelihood that a single corrupt party could compromise the system.</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Cryptography, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, NIST</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">A new publication by cryptography experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposes the direction the technical agency will take to develop a more secure approach to encryption. This approach, called threshold cryptography, could overcome some of the limitations of conventional methods for protecting sensitive transactions and data.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The document, released today in a final version as NIST Roadmap Toward Criteria for Threshold Schemes for Cryptographic Primitives (<a href="https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/nistir/8214a/final">NISTIR 8214A</a>), offers an outline for developing a new way to implement the cryptographic tools that developers use to secure their systems. Its authors are inviting the cryptography community to collaborate with them on NIST’s budding <a href="https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/threshold-cryptography">Threshold Cryptography project</a>, which in part seeks to ensure that threshold implementations are interoperable.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">“We are kicking the threshold cryptography development effort into high gear,” said Apostol Vassilev, a NIST computer scientist. “Over the coming months, the Threshold Cryptography project will be engaging with the public to define criteria for this work. We want to get feedback from the community so we can consider a variety of threshold schemes and standardization paths.”</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Threshold cryptography takes its name from the idea that individual keyholders cannot open a lock on their own, as is common in conventional cryptography. Instead, out of a group of keyholders, there must be a minimum number of them — a “threshold” number — working together to open the lock. In practice, this lock is an electronic cryptosystem that protects confidential information, such as a bank account number or an authorization to transfer money from that account. </font></i></p>
<p><a href="https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2020/07/nist-kick-starts-threshold-cryptography-development-effort" target="_blank"><font face="georgia">NIST Kick-Starts ‘Threshold Cryptography’ Development Effort</font></a></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-3800972479220270922020-07-13T09:18:00.003-07:002020-07-13T09:29:23.504-07:00Lingua Astra...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-hwo1BB-5O-ygA9jn8xMYyYeDNIonpr54kgVRVPkBgKthktEYn4vXnvm-kN0PwF5L-OGVAxqGLBlsD3LltHqJaQSv0aZS8PmP-KET0fNKz0eNYm4ZhdR_d_plRC40-IiWlohjSiolIOAS/s1135/Generation+Ship.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="1135" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-hwo1BB-5O-ygA9jn8xMYyYeDNIonpr54kgVRVPkBgKthktEYn4vXnvm-kN0PwF5L-OGVAxqGLBlsD3LltHqJaQSv0aZS8PmP-KET0fNKz0eNYm4ZhdR_d_plRC40-IiWlohjSiolIOAS/w400-h180/Generation+Ship.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">Image Source: <a href="https://www.popsci.com/realistic-generational-spaceship/">What a generational spaceship would actually look like</a>, Rachel Feltman, Popular Science</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Evolution, Interstellar Travel, Science Fiction, Spaceflight</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2014/01/dear-mrs-flynt.html">Mrs. Flynt</a> played "<a href="https://icebreakerideas.com/telephone-game/">telephone</a>" with us, simply lining up the entire fifth grade class in one line, arranged with chairs to accent the exercise. She showed a note to the student at the beginning of the line. She then whispered the contents of the note to the student to her right. I heard it from my neighbor, and whispered it in kind. It followed down line until it got to the last: the note's contents had completely changed from the first student to the twentieth.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I do not recall the original contents of the note, but the exercise has been repeated here on Earth without the need for fusion reactors, rotating habitats to induce artificial gravity, space lasers or Klingons. Culture on a generation starship would change from its origin planet. A society would emerge diametrically different than its original, hopefully far better than our current one, inculcating survival principles that would allow it to finish the journey to its destination, and thrive once there.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">In science fiction, there’s something called a generation ship: a spacecraft that ferries humankind on a multiple-generation-long journey to brand new star systems or even galaxies.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The idea has also been touted here in the real world by those hell-bent on traversing the stars. But there’s a major problem with the concept, and we’re not talking about the countless generations doomed to be born and die for the sake of a mission they never agreed to — that’s a whole other thing. Rather, Universe Today points out that, if past is prelude, the language spoken on the ship would eventually evolve to the point that it seems incoherent back on Earth.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/interstellar-flight-language-would-evolve">On an Interstellar Flight, Language Itself Would Evolve</a>, Dan Robitzski, Futurism</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-56177325976403154972020-07-10T11:51:00.000-07:002020-07-10T11:51:14.553-07:00Death Cult...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaf9W40jCv0f1hkvUHlsE6LUVFolSlHmNptPBHwSAIKKgwNshKbUXzM8cGwUMBH5sTDIrcbb7lstwDT3cBXhpHgSeR0l1GsX2tqZQdrbM5k9EXBtl5X60DdJkePP86P-tU2-ixjqiAZWvx/s799/newsweek-bachmann-cover_vert-4d583458b8ddbeca3c06d7cf049d2c2cc464c98a-s800-c85.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="599" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaf9W40jCv0f1hkvUHlsE6LUVFolSlHmNptPBHwSAIKKgwNshKbUXzM8cGwUMBH5sTDIrcbb7lstwDT3cBXhpHgSeR0l1GsX2tqZQdrbM5k9EXBtl5X60DdJkePP86P-tU2-ixjqiAZWvx/w300-h400/newsweek-bachmann-cover_vert-4d583458b8ddbeca3c06d7cf049d2c2cc464c98a-s800-c85.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image source: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/08/08/139221587/newsweeks-michele-bachmann-cover-the-eyes-have-it" target="_blank">NPR</a></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Barbara Stanwyck: “We're both rotten!”</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Fred MacMurray: “Yeah – only you're a little more rotten.” -“Double Indemnity” (1944)</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten – how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests – no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachmann (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like <u><b>an apocalyptic cult</b></u>, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Excerpt from "<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult/" target="_blank">Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult</a>," Mike Lofgren, Truthout, September 3, 2011</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">September 3, 2011 was a year before the re-election campaign of the first African American president, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election" target="_blank">quixotic attempt</a> to make him a "one-term president" by now <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/mitt-romney-black-lives-matter/612808/" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter Senator Mitt Romney</a>, the goal was clearly stated by Michele Bachmann, Moscow Mitch McConnell and a whole host of characters that might as well have been the compost for the garden variety bullshit metastasized into our current COVID harvest.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Arizona <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/06/22/coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-spiking-in-arizona-where-trump-is-scheduled-to-speak-tuesday/#23c4c788202c" target="_blank">has spiked</a>. Oklahoma <a href="https://apnews.com/245057f1c2211c7ea2fc7b0e9d6e5686" target="_blank">has spiked</a>. Orange Satan's resuming in-person campaigning, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/europe/schools-reopening-europe-coronavirus-wellness-intl/index.html" target="_blank">bullying schools</a> to put their children through the flaming arms of Moloch this fall, so that the remnant of parents, teachers, principals and janitors that SURVIVE limp the hulking carcass of this economy over the finish line November 3, 2020 towards the re-election of <a href="http://www.thehypertexts.com/Donald%20Trump%20parallels%20Damien%20Thorn%20Omen%20movies.htm" target="_blank">Damien Thorn</a>. Whatever the previous Republican Party's "principles" were, they jettisoned when an improbable black man with a funny name actually won the presidency, making history of course, but he wasn't supposed to. Running's aloud; winning's not.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Frederick Douglass was nominally a presidential candidate at the 1888 Republican convention by one vote. George Edwin Taylor became a candidate of the newly-formed (and brief) National Negro Liberty Party in 1904. Channing E. Phillips received 67.5 votes at the 1968 Democratic convention, the same year Nixon won. Shirley Chisholm was a candidate four years later for the DNC, earning 152 delegates. Jesse Jackson (Aggie Alumnus) garnered 3 million votes in 1984 and 7 million votes in 1988. Reverend Al Sharpton and Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and republican Alan Keyes also ran (2000, 2008). Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was a late entrant into the race for this cycle. Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_candidates_for_President_of_the_United_States" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Until President Obama, the "<a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2018/04/systemic.html" target="_blank">hounds tooth</a>" of white supremacy was remarkably efficient in barring people of any color from the nation's highest office. We also stand firmly as the only nation that has NEVER had a female executive, and until 2008, firmly held the line that whether (D) or (R), the reins of ultimate power would be held by white males 43 times from George Washington to George W. Bush. November 4, 2008 rocked their world.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Barack Obama was to them, a living nightmare: the personification of the demographics bomb they themselves caused with free trade policies that all but eliminated the central class in Central America. It was essentially an extension of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/american-immigration-service-slavery/555824/" target="_blank">slavery and indentured servitude</a>. Builders et al., who payed workers in bags of cash so they didn't have to report them to the IRS, are suddenly freaked out those same people had children, who become citizens and most likely: won't understand their nostalgia for white picket fences and red-lined districts. Superbowl commercials celebrating diversity were denigrated if they didn't remind them of Norman Rockwell paintings, i.e., of themselves as the epitome of humanity. The "evil empire" of their patron, Saint Reagan, didn't look so evil and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/" target="_blank">the PR was changed</a> - common sense ignored - to reflect it. Fascism is nothing if not based on fear.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Death cult: A fringe religious group that glorifies or is obsessed with death. <a href="https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/death_cult" target="_blank">Oxford English dictionary</a></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">That Monday night, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick seemed to go full Midsommar—a horror movie about a fictional Swedish death cult that sacrifices their elders—by saying that ”as a senior citizen” he was “all in” on “willing to take a chance on [my] survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves.”</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Right-wing internet commentator Jesse Kelly tweeted on Tuesday morning that, “If given the choice between dying and plunging the country I love into a Great Depression, I’d happily die.”</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Glenn Beck on Wednesday said that he too was ready to risk his life for the stock market, in a stream following a town hall in which Trump floated a return to reopening businesses and public gatherings by April 12, an ambition that Beck conceded could be a death sentence for thousands of Americans—himself included.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">If all that sounds to you like the dangerous, macabre ramblings of a movement willing to sacrifice human life for illusory gains, you’re not alone. “I dealt with suicidal cults before. I encountered people who are willing to die for their faith, ideology, race, etc. But, I never encountered anyone who is willing to die for someone else’s 401k,” tweeted Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who now runs an intelligence and security consultancy. “This is a whole new level of craziness.”</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Formal experts on destructive cults agreed with Soufan’s diagnosis of Trump and his base’s support for letting some die. When I reached him via a Zoom video call, Steve Hassan, a mental health professional and cult expert, started nodding immediately when I asked if he saw parallels between, say, the Jonestown Massacre and Trump’s willingness to put the elderly on a near literal chopping block. Ben Zeller, a professor at Lake Forest University who focuses on new religions and Daniel Shaw, a New York-based psychoanalyst who has helped counsel people who have left cult religions, agreed with almost no hesitation. </font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/trump-death-cult/" target="_blank">Cult Experts Warn That Trumpism Is Starting to Look Awfully Familiar</a>, Ali Breland, Mother Jones</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Mike Logren called it. We are now well past the bug-eyed point with Bachmann.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Fear can motivate irrational behavior. A party with authoritarian tendencies will ignore facts, science and reality, thus, climate change, universal healthcare and COVID mask protocols are immediate non-starters. A party that cannot garner enough votes or convince enough women, LGBT, black or indigenous people of color and youth will simply <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020/" target="_blank">block, or purge them</a>. A party that fears oblivion might sell our national soul to a Russian devil, cavorting with them openly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html" target="_blank">July 4, 2018</a>. What then, are the "in the event of election landslide, break glass" instructions?</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">We're beyond the crazy bug-eyed, chrysalis of madness to fully-emerged, political dementia - the kool-aid moment of the republic, and we're a tweet away from Armageddon.</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-19329534446017177672020-07-09T19:21:00.007-07:002020-07-09T19:31:06.579-07:00Hybrid Quantum Networking...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoNt2_q5OHITpT1zdwY-zxWiCPkx-NbXB-V0rXP7FbxErM1pp6gOLpZpM22GIOrL9MTmTYBZqWD9VMgDZAc4jG5uBIUy9uJlV1vGxkYJ3MfUfkjCMNs6W7hDtJbECvbxqQr6uwpI-EPVG/s590/DFB14820-609D-4B15-828A2C4BC8442539_source.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="590" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoNt2_q5OHITpT1zdwY-zxWiCPkx-NbXB-V0rXP7FbxErM1pp6gOLpZpM22GIOrL9MTmTYBZqWD9VMgDZAc4jG5uBIUy9uJlV1vGxkYJ3MfUfkjCMNs6W7hDtJbECvbxqQr6uwpI-EPVG/w400-h266/DFB14820-609D-4B15-828A2C4BC8442539_source.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: Getty Images</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Computer Science, Modern Physics, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">In a world’s first, researchers in France and the U.S. have performed a pioneering experiment demonstrating “hybrid” quantum networking. The approach, which unites two distinct methods of encoding information in particles of light called photons, could eventually allow for more capable and robust communications and computing.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Similar to how classical electronics can represent information as digital or analog signals, quantum systems can encode information as either discrete variables (DVs) in particles or continuous variables (CVs) in waves. Researchers have historically used one approach or the other—but not both—in any given system.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">“DV and CV encoding have distinct advantages and drawbacks,” says Hugues de Riedmatten of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, who was not a part of the research. CV systems encode information in the varying intensity, or phasing, of light waves. They tend to be more efficient than DV approaches but are also more delicate, exhibiting stronger sensitivity to signal losses. Systems using DVs, which transmit information by the counting of photons, are harder to pair with conventional information technologies than CV techniques. They are also less error-prone and more fault-tolerant, however. Combining the two, de Riedmatten says, could offer “the best of both worlds.”</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hybrid-quantum-networking-demonstrated-for-first-time/" target="_blank">‘Hybrid’ Quantum Networking Demonstrated for First Time</a>, Dhananjay Khadilkar, Scientific American</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-74878655309550648902020-07-08T12:54:00.003-07:002020-07-08T13:09:01.760-07:00Xenophobic Idolatry...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_n74DXaF-BpXPfRi2RheaWH8y97U8pt12u1s5cxG7wqNZ7eNQuqy-h2MgbSDEnBZEa3Ps1z4Epq5rp6ooW40Z8D-XLDWH7dSMbqJ0id11Mlt6TS0NBsVH9kBUZSaXNV99xJ1gAwu1ewj/s1180/quaranteens+against+xenophobia+teen+vogue+op-ed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1180" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_n74DXaF-BpXPfRi2RheaWH8y97U8pt12u1s5cxG7wqNZ7eNQuqy-h2MgbSDEnBZEa3Ps1z4Epq5rp6ooW40Z8D-XLDWH7dSMbqJ0id11Mlt6TS0NBsVH9kBUZSaXNV99xJ1gAwu1ewj/w400-h225/quaranteens+against+xenophobia+teen+vogue+op-ed.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teen Vogue: <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/quaranteens-against-xenophobia-youth-coalition-anti-asian-sentiments-coronavirus" target="_blank">Quaranteens Against Xenophobia</a>, Karma Samtani<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I sent the following article to my advisor and our Dean:</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">NEW YORK (Reuters) - <i>Foreign students in the United States, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, will have to leave the country if their classes are all taught online this fall or if they transfer to another school with in-person instruction, a government agency said.</i></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">It was not immediately clear how many student visa holders would be affected by the move, but foreign students are a key source of revenue for many U.S. universities as they often pay full tuition.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">China ranked first among countries of origin for international students in the United States with nearly 370,000 during the 2018-2019 academic year, according to data published by the Institute of International Education.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said it would not allow holders of student visas to remain in the country if their school was fully online for the fall. Those students must transfer or leave the country, or they potentially face deportation proceedings, according to the announcement.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-visas-students/us-to-force-out-foreign-students-taking-classes-fully-online-idUSKBN2472TT" target="_blank">U.S. to force out foreign students taking classes fully online</a>, Mimi Dwyer, Reuters</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">He has lost his goddamn Nazi, rabbit-ass mind!</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">The only thing "exceptional" about us now is the depths of this nation's racism, stupidity and depravity. We're essentially telling foreign students - many of them my friends and colleagues - they're "canaries in a [COVID] coal mine" before its collapse on the entire enterprise of democratic-republican governance. NO magical thinking is going to get some blond haired, blue-eyed "superior" assholes to design the next innovation, or allow us to compete on a global stage. We're literally NANOMETERS away from the world economy quarantining the (dis) United States as a failed state. I'm sure the NYSE will like Brussels better; "Hamilton" can play Europe and we can go from the dollar as trade currency to the Yuan with the FLIP of a switch!</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia">Short list of things created by immigrants:</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">1. Blue Jeans (Jacob W. Davis, Latvia; Levi Strauss, Germany); 2. Hamburgers (Louis Lassen, Denmark); 3. Doughnuts, (Adolph Levitt, Russia); 4. Budweiser Beer (Adolphus Busch, Bavaria); 5. Apple Computer (Steve Jobs, father-Syria); 6. Google (Sergey Brin, Soviet Union); 7. Sara Lee (Nathan Cummings, Canada; parents-Lithuania); 8. Hot Dogs (Charles Feltman, Germany); 9. Basketball (James Naismith, Canada); 10. "God Bless America" Song (Irving Berlin, Siberia); 11. YouTube - 2 of the 3 founders (Jawed Karim - Germany, Steve Chen - Taiwan, Chad Hurley - U.S.); 12. KISS, rock band (Chaim Witz - Israel, known by his stage name, Gene Simmons); 13. Kraft Cheese (James L. Kraft, Ontario, Canada); 14. Van Halen, rock band (Eddie Van Halen, Netherlands); 15. Ketchup (Henry John Heinz, Bavaria).</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisoncaporimo/inventions-made-by-famous-immigrants-america" target="_blank">15 Iconic American Things That Wouldn't Exist Without Immigrants</a>, Alison Caporimo, BuzzFeed Staff</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Short list of things created by orange dumb ass Satan: _______ (Does chaos count?)</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">But no worries: some racist assholes deathly afraid of circa 2042, waving the flags of traitors and Nazis will "feel better" about themselves and make it all "great again," while all of the previous "melting pot" collapses to dystopian shit!</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-86946651257090441942020-07-07T19:28:00.001-07:002020-07-07T19:28:30.244-07:00Mars by Venus...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfhL8dJlNR8hPDrAyOKswp2umjm4rPcJ4EfPycoZiRPAdO8VS0DXIkQD7dJopu1ETNBWosepWsbmEQuJQ2wgMsLXwvulxJ3NS-rOfYKKKGALS1VGzhJVKYio9XfuuUCDbFcNYoOE41Bxb/s650/Mars+by+Venus.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfhL8dJlNR8hPDrAyOKswp2umjm4rPcJ4EfPycoZiRPAdO8VS0DXIkQD7dJopu1ETNBWosepWsbmEQuJQ2wgMsLXwvulxJ3NS-rOfYKKKGALS1VGzhJVKYio9XfuuUCDbFcNYoOE41Bxb/s320/Mars+by+Venus.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">An artist's depiction of a rocket carrying humans to Mars.
(Image: © NASA/John Frassanito and Associates)</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Mars, NASA, Space Exploration, Spaceflight</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The roads of human spaceflight all seem to lead to Mars. For decades now, it's been the logical next step after the moon.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">But if you're an astronaut or a cosmonaut on your way to or from Mars, you might make a surprising pit stop along the way: Venus.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">A flight to (or from) Mars can happen more quickly and cheaply if it "involves a Venus flyby on the way to or on the way home from Mars," Noam Izenberg, a planetary geologist at Johns Hopkins University, told Space.com.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Izenberg is one of a number of scientists and engineers advocating that a crewed mission to Mars also visit Venus. This group of researchers has <a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2006/2006.04900.pdf" target="_blank">drafted a white paper</a> on the subject, to be submitted for peer review at Acta Astronautica. According to that paper, using Venus as a stepping stone to Mars isn't just one option — it's an essential part of a crewed Mars mission.</font></i></p>
<font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.space.com/mars-astronauts-venus-flyby-idea.html" target="_blank">Astronauts bound for Mars should swing by Venus first, scientists say</a>, Rahul Rao, Space.com</font>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-39473618119802594682020-07-06T07:49:00.005-07:002020-07-06T08:12:39.066-07:00Comb on a Chip...<p><font face="georgia"></font></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9QXD-jNlsWBW9o08MOiILQDXjiGfEkTzKzLgmVRo5iaDHZ7LLs0-bi7N8MVGQkVrjeDe2wFJqL1wKKIcBJojeCrL8eJ3qrl7LngctiMrH-leBOWjwBNYYdIavtFhFE7-zCZrldpbxrTm/s11693/MoilleCover_v2-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="11693" data-original-width="8268" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9QXD-jNlsWBW9o08MOiILQDXjiGfEkTzKzLgmVRo5iaDHZ7LLs0-bi7N8MVGQkVrjeDe2wFJqL1wKKIcBJojeCrL8eJ3qrl7LngctiMrH-leBOWjwBNYYdIavtFhFE7-zCZrldpbxrTm/w283-h400/MoilleCover_v2-1.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">Experimental setup to generate a set of stable frequencies in a cryogenically cooled laser microresonator frequency comb. The ring-shaped microresonator, small enough to fit on a microchip, operates at very low laser power and is made from the semiconductor aluminum gallium arsenide.</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><font face="georgia"><br /></font><div><font face="georgia">Topics: Applied Physics, Instrumentation, NIST, Nanotechnology, Semiconductor Technology</font><p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Just as a meter stick with hundreds of tick marks can be used to measure distances with great precision, a device known as a laser frequency comb, with its hundreds of evenly spaced, sharply defined frequencies, can be used to measure the colors of light waves with great precision.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Small enough to fit on a chip, miniature versions of these combs — so named because their set of uniformly spaced frequencies resembles the teeth of a comb — are making possible a new generation of atomic clocks, a great increase in the number of signals traveling through optical fibers, and the ability to discern tiny frequency shifts in starlight that hint at the presence of unseen planets. The newest version of these chip-based “microcombs,” created by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), is poised to further advance time and frequency measurements by improving and extending the capabilities of these tiny devices.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2020/06/comb-chip-new-design-optical-ruler-could-revolutionize-clocks-telescopes" target="_blank">Comb on a Chip: New Design for ‘Optical Ruler’ Could Revolutionize Clocks, Telescopes, Telecommunications</a>, NIST</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia">Paper: G. Moille, L. Chang, W. Xie, A. Rao, X. Lu, M. Davanco, J.E. Bowers and K. Srinivasan. Dissipative Kerr Solitons in a III-V Microresonator. Laser and Photonics Reviews. June 2020. DOI: 10.1002/lpor.202000022</font></p></div>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-69488259082653659332020-07-03T03:02:00.001-07:002020-07-03T03:11:17.860-07:00The Enlightenment...<center><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CVxAlmAPHec" width="560"></iframe></center>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Civil Rights, Existentialism, History, Politics</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Enlightenment, French siècle des Lumières (literally “century of the Enlightened”), German Aufklärung, a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and politics. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">A brief treatment of the Enlightenment follows. For full treatment, see <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/The-Enlightenment#ref58391" target="_blank">Europe, history of: The Enlightenment</a>.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The powers and uses of reason had first been explored by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greek-philosophy" target="_blank">philosophers</a> of ancient Greece. The Romans adopted and preserved much of Greek <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture" target="_blank">culture</a>, notably including the ideas of a rational natural order and natural law. Amid the turmoil of empire, however, a new concern arose for personal <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/salvation-religion" target="_blank">salvation</a>, and the way was paved for the triumph of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity" target="_blank">Christian religion</a>. Christian thinkers gradually found uses for their Greco-Roman heritage. The system of thought known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scholasticism" target="_blank">Scholasticism</a>, culminating in the work of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas-Aquinas" target="_blank">Thomas Aquinas</a>, resurrected reason as a tool of understanding but subordinated it to spiritual <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/revelation" target="_blank">revelation</a> and the revealed truths of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity" target="_blank">Christianity</a>.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Encyclopedia Britannica: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history" target="_blank">Enlightenment: European history</a></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Caveat: Only if you're not <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/bipoc/" target="_blank">BIPOC</a>: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Caveats remove the romanticism, which if you explore the Britannica link, romanticism was associated with emotion as well as art, and the opposite of rationalism.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">Dr. Danielle Bainbridge has a Ph.D. in African American Studies and varied interests in "big Broadway musicals to the social and political movements of the last 200 years" according to her show's <a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/origin-everything/" target="_blank">website</a>. Dr. Bainbridge removes the romanticism and mythology we tell ourselves: the apotheosis we've promoted our flawed, Founding Fathers to, such that any real history that doesn't place their descendants in a good light is ignored, rewritten and propagandized. See: <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/lost_cause_the" target="_blank">The Lost Cause</a>.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">People are in the streets: because 401 years is the patience of Job on steroids, post reconstruction, lynchings and Jim Crow. We've never had the luxury of PTSD: it's ever-present traumatic stress disorder, over-and-over. Necks were stretched with ropes from trees before esophagi constricted with choke holds <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html" target="_blank">in New York</a> and knees <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html" target="_blank">in Minnesota</a>.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">In my 2016 post, <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2016/07/scientism.html" target="_blank">Scientism</a>, the point was scientists and the scientific community being human have prejudices. Prejudices are learned from "credible others": usually parents, relatives and authority figures respected. As Bainbridge points out in the video above, science masks racism with "reason," such that structural inequality that was once defined by divine law can be redefined by natural law, so that nothing really changes. It rationalizes <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/06/shutdownstem.html" target="_blank">low numbers in STEM fields</a> so that no actions are needed until jogging while black: Ahmaund Aubrey; sleeping while black: Breonna Taylor, with a viral George Floyd snuff video as icing on a blood cake. I'm glad the academy is tackling it, but it's long overdue. Jane Elliott says it best: <i>"You are not born racist. You are born into a racist society. And like anything else, if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. But some people choose not to unlearn it, because they're afraid they'll lose power if they share with other people. We are afraid of sharing power. That's what it's all about."</i></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I don't want a "return to normal." Normal was Winthrop's "city on a hill," that might as well be a pile of feces plated with gold and silver: it's still a dressed-up pile of shit.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">American mythology teaches that the early United States was founded by men of conscience who came to the "new world" in order to practice their religious convictions in peace and freedom. John Winthrop (1588–1649), the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in particular has been quoted as a source of inspiration by U.S. presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Yet Winthrop did not represent a tradition of either democracy or religious tolerance. He hated democracy with a passion. The state he created did not hesitate to execute people like the Quakers and even brought to the "new" world the very popular tradition of medieval Europe, the trial and execution of witches.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">"A Shining City on a Hill": Troubling information about a famous quote. The Puritan tradition of intolerance and John Winthrop, <a href="http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Religion/John%20Winthrop.htm" target="_blank">World Future Fund</a></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">"United States" is oxymoron - a contradiction in terms. We're 50 warring tribes and unrepresented territories: D.C. Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. We were sure adding stars to that flag, complaining about kneeling S.O.B.s protesting police brutality; stealing territory from First Nation peoples and Mexico for the racist "<a href="https://racism.org/articles/basic-needs/povertywelfare/1504-manifest-destiny?start=1" target="_blank">Manifest Destiny</a>." We halted it when the math didn't work for the racists, and the balance of the senate was in play. I count eight more senators for 54 states, that may not vote the way Moscow Mitch might want them to. See Jane Elliott <a href="https://janeelliott.com" target="_blank">here</a>, and above.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">We've moronically made masks a culture war. The European Union consists of 27 nations, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/europe/european-union-travel-us-graphic-intl/index.html" target="_blank">this graph</a> is all you need to know why there is a travel ban to Europe for U.S. citizens. He got his "travel ban," alright: American "exceptionalism" in Bizarro World. Boomerangs work, and karma is a bitch. We're apparently going to see if <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/make-america-rake-again-finland-trump-forest-fire" target="_blank">raking</a> puts out forest fires and COVID spread at <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/weather/mount-rushmore-fireworks-wildfire-risk-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">Mt. Rushmore</a>. If anything bad happens, he'll <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trumps-misplaced-blame-on-obama-for-coronavirus-tests/" target="_blank">blame Obama</a>.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/05/masks.html" target="_blank">Masks</a> might have stymied the spread of Coronavirus, but we're on the <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2013/09/firmly-aboard-pequod.html" target="_blank">Good Ship Pequod</a> abandoned by surprisingly woke Ahab, once he found out about prosthetic limbs and decided pursuing white whales for revenge was bullshit. In a fit of panic, sheer lucidity and rightfully ignoring Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s death cult ramblings, Governor Greg Abbott implemented <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/02/886901666/face-masks-mandatory-in-most-of-texas-starting-friday" target="_blank">a mandatory masks executive order</a> in Texas, likely saving his job for re-election.</font></p>
<p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><i>“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”</i> John Adams</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">The ship-of-state is currently being steered by tweeting, orange Captain dumb ass, performing embarrassing, public political fellatio on a KGB agent that obviously <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-avoids-insulting-vladimir-putin-fear-some-degree-revenge-fiona-hill-russia-1491189" target="_blank">has his number</a> to his bank account. He has YET to retaliate to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/russian-bounties-afghanistan-intelligence.html" target="_blank">$100,000 bounties</a> against our service members in Afghanistan. His <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/11/confederate-statues-some-gop-lawmakers-break-president-trump/5343830002/" target="_blank">bemoaning dead confederates</a> was a culture war dodge: we need the ban for the safety of the rest of the planet, we're a manifest global pandemic of hate, and because we have NO leader that will protect us now! We are defenseless, and our mad emperor is perpetually naked.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">We are isolated from the world. I would like us one day to rejoin it, humanely and sanely. I want us to actually START acting like the mythology we believed ourselves through propaganda (wrongly) to be.</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="georgia">I want us to evolve, mature, finally ...<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enlightened" target="_blank">enlightened</a>.</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-11516292091830452992020-07-02T12:41:00.001-07:002020-07-02T16:06:16.171-07:002D Boost for 5G...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Scjm3EetXnEfd5I0y1KqzOcoL8pb36wqgVvjbnLZtmu8jdJoVMlILS7MGcx81CBWJDxWgGvzGDCvjgiXQcCLTRg57O0JcWTC2eJebreKm7oVup7s7vSSyeL9X7PqTpqKgDhOggu1_ol9/s990/v5_Kim1a_green-724x1024.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Scjm3EetXnEfd5I0y1KqzOcoL8pb36wqgVvjbnLZtmu8jdJoVMlILS7MGcx81CBWJDxWgGvzGDCvjgiXQcCLTRg57O0JcWTC2eJebreKm7oVup7s7vSSyeL9X7PqTpqKgDhOggu1_ol9/w283-h400/v5_Kim1a_green-724x1024.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">A diagram of the UT Austin team's switch showing two gold electrodes with a layer of hBN in between. (Courtesy: UT Austin)</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Boron Nitride, Internet of Things, Materials Science, Nanotechnology</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Two-dimensional sheets of boron nitride can be used to create an analogue switch that gives communication devices more efficient access to radio, 5G and terahertz frequencies while increasing their battery life. The switch, which was developed by a team of researchers at the <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/" target="_blank">University of Texas at Austin in the US</a> and the <a href="https://www.iemn.fr/" target="_blank">University of Lille in France</a>, could be employed in a host of different applications, including smartphones, mobile systems and the “Internet of things”.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Analogue switches are routinely employed in communication systems to switch from one frequency band to another, route signals between transmitting and receiving antennas, and reconfigure wireless networks. Traditionally, these switches are based on solid-state diodes or transistors, but components of this type consume energy even in standby mode, reducing the battery life of the device. With 5G networking set to drive a tenfold increase in data throughput – enabling advances in self-driving cars, delivery drones, remote surgery and fast downloads of high-definition media in the process – addressing this energy drain is more urgent than ever.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/5g-switching-gets-a-2d-boost/" target="_blank">5G switching gets a 2D boost</a>, Isabelle Dumé, Physics World</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-54143442588945985912020-07-01T07:55:00.001-07:002020-07-01T07:55:51.114-07:00Photonic Nanojets...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMlUt9YXPt6qXX44zjlb2zAtLY3hvrX1sAJrTAk4MAI5VqQUy-w7tDCS5P7cPvuDmop0j0L9scECOkb4elGQRByWddJOwU-tuL8IuNfAxs4tLJXCeqWc4hxd5WRsM-Z8BBPtUL2SCesiGW/s1091/5.0007611.figures.online.f1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1091" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMlUt9YXPt6qXX44zjlb2zAtLY3hvrX1sAJrTAk4MAI5VqQUy-w7tDCS5P7cPvuDmop0j0L9scECOkb4elGQRByWddJOwU-tuL8IuNfAxs4tLJXCeqWc4hxd5WRsM-Z8BBPtUL2SCesiGW/w256-h400/5.0007611.figures.online.f1.jpeg" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">FIG. 1. (a) Long-legs cellar spider. (b) Reeling mechanism. (c) Manufacturing process of decorating spider silk. (d) Spider silk with dome lens placed on a dedicated holder. (e) Microphotograph of dome lens. (f) Laser scanning digital microscope system for measuring dome lens. (g) Schematic diagram of the dome lens for generating PNJ.</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Biology, Materials Science, Nanotechnology</font></p>
<p><b><i><font face="georgia">ABSTRACT</font></i></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">In this work, we thoroughly investigate the shape, size, and location of the photonic nanojets (PNJs) generated from the illuminated dome lens. The silk fiber is directly extracted from the cellar spider and used to form the dome lens by its liquid-collecting ability. The solidified dielectric dome lenses with different dimensions are obtained by using ultraviolet curing. Numerical and experimental results show that the long PNJs are strongly modulated by the dimension of the dome lens. The optimal PNJ beam shaping is achieved by using a mesoscale dielectric dome lens. The PNJ with a long focal length and a narrow waist could be used to scan over a target for large-area imaging. The silk fiber with a dome lens is especially useful for bio-photonic applications by combining its biocompatibility and flexibility.</font></i></p>
<p><a href="https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0007611" target="_blank"><font face="georgia">Optimal photonic nanojet beam shaping by mesoscale dielectric dome lens</font></a></p>
<p><font face="georgia">Journal of Applied Physics 127, 243110 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0007611</font></p>
<p><font face="georgia">C.B. Lin, Yi-Ting Lee, and Cheng-Yang Liu</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-7517425392792758402020-06-30T18:24:00.000-07:002020-06-30T18:24:36.634-07:00Greener Solar Cells...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiV9g_mVl9f1awEX12BXRi_tYBfxBnZqHm_pCqPw0RORdSzr_hTbNO6I_RfhSy0w_zPB5SbvWFFqYF7x80t0U8-Wpi5uk-t3j7ESyvhJhzlv4QuqPDdFsPF_U3FYCDOAeCkVlEdoIuJD_u/s700/49909461188_518f97cbf2_o.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="700" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiV9g_mVl9f1awEX12BXRi_tYBfxBnZqHm_pCqPw0RORdSzr_hTbNO6I_RfhSy0w_zPB5SbvWFFqYF7x80t0U8-Wpi5uk-t3j7ESyvhJhzlv4QuqPDdFsPF_U3FYCDOAeCkVlEdoIuJD_u/w400-h269/49909461188_518f97cbf2_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">Scanning electron microscope image of electrodes infiltrated with quantum dots (left) and the corresponding distributions of copper, indium, zinc, and selenium across the film thickness. Courtesy: LANL</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Topics: Green Tech, Nanotechnology, Quantum Mechanics, Solar Cells</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Semiconducting nanocrystals called colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are ideal for applications such as large-panel displays and photovoltaic cells thanks to their high efficiency and colour purity. Their main drawback is their toxicity, since they have traditionally been made from cadmium or other heavy metals, such as lead. Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US have now engineered cadmium-free QD solar cells that reach efficiencies on par with those of their environmentally-unfriendly counterparts. The key to the new devices’ high performance is their tolerance to defects, they say.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">CQDs can be synthesized in solution, which means that films of these nanocrystals can be deposited quickly and easily on a range of flexible or rigid substrates – just like paint or ink. Such semiconducting nanocrystals are ideal for making highly-efficient inorganic solar cells that emit light via a process known as radiative recombination. Here, an electron in the valency energy band in the QD absorbs a photon and moves to the conduction band, leaving behind an electron vacancy, or hole. The excited electron and hole then recombine, releasing a photon.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">The advantage of using CQDs as photovoltaic materials in solar cells is that they absorb light over a broad spectrum of solar radiation wavelengths. This is because the band gap of a CQD can be tuned over a large energy range by simply changing the size of the nanocrystals. Such a size-tuneable property has allowed the efficiencies of these QDs to rapidly approach those of traditional thin-film photovoltaics, such as <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Lead_II_-sulfide" target="_blank">PbS</a>, <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/91501" target="_blank">CdTe</a> and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/9/10/1481/htm" target="_blank">Pb-halide perovskite QDs</a>.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-dot-solar-cells-get-greener/" target="_blank">Quantum dot solar cells get greener</a>, Isabelle Dumé, Physics World</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170883932532567680.post-24951435897905673772020-06-29T07:42:00.001-07:002020-06-29T07:50:06.820-07:00Our Galaxy's Water Worlds...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSTw84gHuNpKm6x0j6aUOLMz5ysuzmT6htqMdkV53UNPV_3cKMF0VxZtzib2S8UkkkpBtf8MfxBnBUxv1Z4UBphkGxK_LceA0wZiVMT-BtlgyzkkKVG9rx8rMSpSwq26gVUFeOYuycijAW/s1600/16x9_CPA-4+Water+Worlds+NASA+imagex.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSTw84gHuNpKm6x0j6aUOLMz5ysuzmT6htqMdkV53UNPV_3cKMF0VxZtzib2S8UkkkpBtf8MfxBnBUxv1Z4UBphkGxK_LceA0wZiVMT-BtlgyzkkKVG9rx8rMSpSwq26gVUFeOYuycijAW/w400-h225/16x9_CPA-4+Water+Worlds+NASA+imagex.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">This artist’s concept shows a hypothetical planet covered in water around the binary star system of Kepler-35A and B. The composition of such water worlds has fascinated astronomers and astrophysicists for years. (Image by NASA/JPL-Caltech.)</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p><font face="georgia">Topics: Astronomy, Astrobiology, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Exoplanets</font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Out beyond our solar system, visible only as the smallest dot in space with even the most powerful telescopes, other worlds exist. Many of these worlds, astronomers have discovered, may be much larger than Earth and completely covered in water — basically ocean planets with no protruding land masses. What kind of life could develop on such a world? Could a habitat like this even support life?</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">A team of researchers led by Arizona State University (ASU) recently set out to investigate those questions. And since they couldn’t travel to distant exoplanets to take samples, they decided to recreate the conditions of those water worlds in the laboratory. In this case, that laboratory was the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">What they found — recently published in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/117/18/9747" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a> — was a new transitional phase between silica and water, indicating that the boundary between water and rock on these exoplanets is not as solid as it is here on Earth. This pivotal discovery could change the way astronomers and astrophysicists have been modeling these exoplanets, and inform the way we think about life evolving on them.</font></i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><font face="georgia">Dan Shim, associate professor at ASU, led this new research. Shim leads ASU’s <a href="http://www.public.asu.edu/~sshim5/group/Dan_Shim_-_Research_Site/Welcome/Welcome.html" target="_blank">Lab for Earth and Planetary Materials</a> and has long been fascinated by the geological and ecological makeup of these distant worlds. That composition, he said, is nothing like any planet in our solar system — these planets may have more than 50% water or ice atop their rock layers, and those rock layers would have to exist at very high temperatures and under crushing pressure.</font></i></p>
<p><font face="georgia"><a href="https://www.anl.gov/article/beneath-the-surface-of-our-galaxys-water-worlds" target="_blank">Beneath the surface of our galaxy’s water worlds</a>, Andre Salles, Argonne National Laboratory</font></p>physics4thecoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137579504346076829noreply@blogger.com0