Michael Crichton's Speeches

Michael Crichton passed away this past week at the age of 66. While I've enjoyed many of his novels and movies, what I didn't know is that he had deep and thoughtful opinions about how science is conducted.

If you go to his site, click on speeches and take a look at any of them. You'll find them insightful, thought provoking, and I think, spot on as to one area that wrong with scientific research today.

A Letter to President Bush

As the second and last term of President Bush comes to a close, I'd like to share with you a letter I sent him. Here it is:

November 9, 2009

Dear President Bush,

I wanted to write you a short note to tell you that I'll miss you at the end of your second term. I voted for you twice and I have been proud to support you. You've kept our country safe after a terrible attack, you've been true to your values (and to values I share with you), and you've let me rest easy these past eight years.

An article by Jim Towey in this weekend's Wall Street Journal struck me and encouraged me to write you to say thank you. (It's entitled "Why I'll Miss President Bush.")

Thank you for being my President. Thank you for your leadership these past eight years. Thank you for protecting our country. Thank you for making difficult decisions. And thank you for devoting yourself to our nation.

I hope that the rest of your life will be filled success and joy. May G-d give you continued strength and guidance.

Sincerely yours,
David S. Mazel

The Large Hadron Collider: Rap Video

This video is not only fun, it's descriptive of the collider program.
Enjoy.

Periodic element videos

Videos for each element of the Periodic Table.

Cool.

Snag Films

Here's a new website for documentary films that you can watch and easily link to in your own site.

I found out about it from Walt Mossberg's Wall Street Journal column.

Enjoy!

Intelligence takes a holidy

Is "black hole" a racially insensitive term?

Apparently to some. From the City Hall Blog at the Dallas Morning News:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.

Judge Jones should be very glad that the central collections office has not become a white hole, a theoretical object that ejects matter from beyond its event horizon, rather than sucking it in. It wouldn't be fun for Dallas to find itself so near a quasar.

The deep level of ignorance is overwhelming.

Global Warming: Yellow Science

This is one the best essays I've read on why we should all worry about global warming. But it's not the idea of global warming, rather it is the "science" such as it is, of the so-called experts.

[O]ver the past several decades an increasing number of scientists have shed the restraints imposed by the scientific method and begun to proclaim the truth of man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings. No equations have been shown to explain the relationship between fossil-fuel emission and global temperature. The only predictions that have been made are apocalyptic, so the hypothesis has to be accepted before it can be tested.

The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of "an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure." Global warming may or may not be "the greatest scam in history," as it was recently called by John Coleman, a prominent meteorologist and the founder of the Weather Channel. Certainly, however, under the scientific method it does not rise to the level of an "item of physical knowledge."

Read the whole thing.

The Matrix: Brain Probe

A team at Caltech is working on a MEMS-based robot probe that will be able to slowly creep electrodes into your brain to connect up to specific neurons. Creepy indeed, but with potential uses for advanced control of prosthetic limbs, Luke Skywalker-style. But the idea has greater potential for "state-of-the-art experimental techniques for electrophysiology." according to team-leader Michael Wolf. And that's just got me picturing the neural probes of The Matrix.

The device would sense its way in, using MEMS motors to carefully push in multiple electrodes into the brain and detecting electrical activity at their tips. When the system senses an activity spike, the robotic probe would adjust microscopically, and then either stay put or move on to find a better signal. The micro-mechanical part is still in development, but the team says the software side of the device (that would enable it to find the right neurons and adjust the probes locations if signals faded) is all but complete. It uses an algorithm inspired by one the US military uses to track aircraft.

Seeing Magnetic

Click at the link above for a movie showing magnetic fields. It's worth a look, enjoy.

(Hat tip: Ilachina and thanks very much!)

Quants on Wall Street: Silly Science

“Maybe we need to build a computer simulation that has 50 million people, with complicated rules for each,” Fludzinski says. “It’s very difficult to explain why people behave irrationally.”

Quants, mathematical experts (some are physicists), try to model the stock market and that entails modeling humans. Human are complex systems that defy prediction. Complexity (or, say, cellular automata) are great for explanatory studies but do little for predictive behavior.

Read the article with a smile.

High School Robots Battle it Out!

Cool video of what high school students can do with robotics.

A great idea for students to gain interest in engineering and science.

Human Growth Hormone or Human guinea pigs?

Eliene Augenbraun discusses the trade-offs of being short compared to taking human growth hormones.

When I was a toddler in the early 1960s, my parents were very concerned when I suddenly stopped growing. I seemed healthy enough – my doctor tested everything he knew to test, but he was puzzled. He got me into a study of short stature at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore.

I spent days there being poked and prodded. Using what was cutting edge technology at the time, they found me to be: very short; very anxious (wouldn't you be if you were 4 or 5 years old, caged in a hospital far from your family, and stuck with needles every hour all day and all night for 3 days!?); and making normal amounts of growth hormone. They enrolled me in a long-term study of the effects of growth hormone (hGH) injection. I was in the control group – I got nothin'.

The subjects that got hGH got a little more: Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD).

Read the rest.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

The link is to Prof. Randy Pausch's "Last lecture." It's the whole lecture in one file; I watched it in pieces months ago so having a single link is a convenience.

Wednesday, April 9, 20/20 will have an update on Prof. Pausch, here's the link for a preview:

http://abcnews.go.com/gma/lastlecture

I spent 10-1/2 years in undergraduate and graduate school and I never had, nor met, anyone who comes close this professor.

My speech for a colleague

Last Friday was the last day for a friend of mine at my company. I said a few words about her at a gathering.

-------------------

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Today reminds me of a time not long ago. It was May 14, 1998, and after nine highly successful seasons, one of the greatest television comedy shows of our time came to an end. (The good news is that May 14 is John’s birthday!) When the show finally ended, its star was asked "Why stop now? You're at the top?" His reply: "When would you like me to go? The right time is when you're on top."

So, this week our friend Ann is calling her time at TSC to an end. She's at the top of her game. And unlike the television show, she's had a run of 21-years, or in TV-terms, 12-seasons longer than the show.

I know many of you have worked with her before, and many of you have spent more time with her than I. I envy you for what you must have shared. For me, it was almost 3-seasons ago that I joined the ASDP cast of characters and what a series it's been with Ann.

The ASDP, in my short time, has gone from an installation at Seattle-Tacoma airport, to an in-depth development of SPAN, two installations at JFK International airport, to our current projects at La Guardia and San Francisco, and even to new and evolving improvements at JFK.

Like a good television program, we've had some actors work with us and move on to other shows like Steve Romine and Mark Bond. Still, they never completely left us. Mark has helped us with our current work and Steve makes an occasional cameo appearance. We even had the pleasure of a special guest appearance with Sean Muldoon, who did wonderful work with us on an IRAD project at JFK. I think that's the first time I've ever walked so close to passenger airplanes taking off and landing. It was definitely the first time I've had direct communications between me and the air traffic control tower, that's where John and Sean were stationed!

Speaking of the IRAD, we had a guest director in the person of Lee Moyer. Lee has been a special guest: part engineer, part mentor, and part sage. He’s exceptional and we were fortunate and blessed to have him.

A time of travel we've had, and you may notice that our "home-base" has pretty much been New York. Like the comedy show, we even have a favorite restaurant; only it's not Monk's Cafe, it's a kosher steakhouse in Queens.

Like a good show, we've had our share of writing and ad-libbing, too. With Ann as director, we have presented papers at the past two International Carnahan conferences and we have another one at the IEEE Homeland security conference in May. Each paper has borne the mark of Annie with her crisp use of language, explanatory graphics, and remarkable descriptions of why there is no other system like ASDP available outside of TSC. And if you find something like it, best to keep that to yourself.

Let me introduce you to some of the cast, all of whom I know will miss Ann:

First, our newest actor is Shaudi. For those that missed it, Shaudi was featured in the last TSC newsletter, or you might say "Playbill." I urge everyone to read about her. If you know Shaudi, you won't learn anything you don't already know, but if you don't know her, well, she's a remarkable engineer and you owe it to yourself to find out why.

Our next cast member is John O'Neil. Ann auditioned John before I came to the show and it's easy to see how well Ann works at casting calls. John is everything one could want in an engineer, programmer, systems developer, tester, writer, hardware guy, software guy, camera controller, cabling, and the list goes on and on. If we could give an Oscar for best engineer, John would win it every year.

Let me say a few words about our star, Annie.

Annie has been gracious yet driven, funny yet serious, gentle yet forceful. She is helpful when asked, polite at all times, and caring in her manners and dealings with others.

When I was worried she sought to soothe me. When others were edgy, she calmed them. She has a gift for nurture and it comes through everyday.

Over our shared seasons, I've often started my days with Annie, vicariously (and only vicariously) climbed mountains with her, and oftentimes, I ended my days with her as well. There have been few people I've spent so much time with for so many days at a time. My wife even calls her my "work spouse." I guess there's something to that, in a sense anyway. And in that time, no matter what, she's rarely been upset or, shall we say, changed channels on me.

Ann, thank you for all your work, for your time and for the fun and good times, too. Best of luck to you as you change networks and seek audiences on other stations.

And the comedy show, what was this top rated comedy? Well, it had characters such as George Castanza and Cosmo Kramer. I would have to say that Annie is our Elaine. Elaine gave the show flair and fun, she was interesting, funny, and as we say about Annie, the eye candy.

It's been a great run; thanks for all you've done. Good luck and may God bless you.

The risk of nuclear war

How risky are nuclear weapons?
Amazingly, no one seems to know.

My name is Martin Hellman and I'm a professor at Stanford University. When I started this project, I looked for studies which estimated that risk. I also asked prominent authorities on nuclear weapons, national security, and risk analysis if they knew of any such studies. I found nothing.

Next I did a preliminary analysis of the risk we face and found that it was equivalent to having your home surrounded by thousands of nuclear power plants. So I published a paper which urgently calls for more detailed studies to either confirm or correct that startling conclusion.

Informed, subjective estimates support the need for in-depth studies. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry puts the odds of a nuclear terrorist attack in the next ten years at 50-50. Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar's survey of 85 national security experts reached a similarly alarming conclusion.

Check out the site, it's worth reviewing.

I don't know how you measure the risk of nuclear war given that the U.S. is the only nation to ever employ these weapons but the thinking will open your mind.

Tetris on an Oscilloscope: See it to believe it

Engineer Lars Pontoppidan created Scopetris using an AtMega32 micro-controller to drive the beam of an oscilloscope to mimic the game play of the classic Soviet puzzle game.

Using his significant programming prowess, Pontoppidan programmed the circuit to manage each individual as an independent object, allowing it to behave very similarly to the original arcade classic.

There's a video link on the site, you can see the game in action. It's worth it to marvel at the technical prowess of this engineer.

MCell: Found It!

Ah, here's the site for cellular automata. I found it but it took a trick or two with yahoo.com. Yes, this is it.

MCell program

I ran across this site while looking for code on cellular automata and I thought it was worth a post. I hope to visit the site more later.

World Clock

Mathematics with my son and daughter

For the past few years, I've had the pleasure of helping my children with homework. I think the best times are when we study mathematics. It's not just that I like math but I find that in helping each of them I learn more about math that I didn't learn in high school.

For example, not long ago my son, who's in the eighth grade, was learning about functions. So, in his homework there was a function, say, g(x) = x+5. Pretty simple.

One problem asked him to evaluate g(3). Now, most of us would say g(3) = 8. Simple. He didn't.

He said, well, g is a function, the parentheses without any operator imply multiplication. So, g(3) is not, as we might say "g of 3" but is simply "g times 3." "It's 3g, Dad, that's it."

I had to think about that because on the one hand one response is "No, that's wrong." On the other hand, we do write terms like g(3) to mean "g times 3." It came to me that here is an example of ambiguity within mathematics and how one has to know what the statement means at a level above the statement itself.

Here's another observation. Two nights ago I was helping one of daughters with math; she's in the 11th grade. She had to solve quadratics and one problem involved a term such as sqrt(x-3). So she manipulated the equation, put the square root on one side, with other terms on the other side of the equation. She squared both sides and solved for x. Simple. Not really.

After she determined the answer, I told her, "Let's try these answers in the original problem." As quadratics we found two solutions. So, she substituted her solutions, and lo and behold, with each answer she had two possible paths. For x=12, one of the solutions, the term sqrt(12-3) is 3 but it's also -3. As she explored each possibility, only the solution of 3 worked. Another solution was, I believe, 7. So the term sqrt(7-3) is 4 or -4. Well, x = 4 did not work but when she selected x = -4 this worked!

I told her, you're on to something deep here. You found two solutions but when you substitute them back in the original problem you then have to make choices as to how to use them to get the solution to work.

I asked her to talk with her teacher about this and I haven't heard if she did.

My takeaway message is this: When you have a chance to go back to elementary levels of work, you may find new insights worth your time. I know I have.