A Brief History of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers

March 7th, 2008

I’m the founder of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers, which I run annually each summer in Laramie, Wyoming.   This year the workshop will run from July 30 to August 5th, the week immediately prior to Denver Worldcon.   Denver is only a two-hour drive from Laramie, and this will allow interested participants to attend both events in the course of one trip (and the workshop will be picking up airfare).

A few years back, I was thinking about ways to make my astronomy career and my science fiction writing more synergistic.   It’s hard enough to do either thing well on its own, and trying to do both is taxing.   Why not make them help each other out as much as possible?   I already lean a lot on my science expertise in my fiction writing, but how could I use my novel writing to help me in my faculty position?   Moreover, I’m always traveling to be with my kind of people given the relative remoteness of Wyoming, so I’m similarly always looking for ways to bring cool people to me.   And besides, Wyoming is awesome in the summer and the skies are dark and brilliant and a pretty cool place to visit.

I’d just received a large five-year long-term grant from NASA to study quasars.   In association with NASA grants, there is usually an opportunity to apply for supplemental funding to engage in “E/PO” activities (Education and Public Outreach).   I applied for this funding, and got turned down flat, but with strong encouragement to reapply, perhaps with some assistance from an educational expert.   (The comments in the rejection used a lot of educational jargon that I couldn’t even follow).   I did two things then before reapplying: I did a survey showing significant community interest (thanks if you filled it out!), and enlisted the help of a friend of mine, Jim Verley, who was finishing up his Doctorate in Education and had run astronomy labs and Planetarium shows for me in the past.

We got funded.

The basic pitch was that we could effectively reach the public, teaching more and better astronomy, by educating writers in astronomy.   They, in turn, would use more accurate astronomy in their work and reach their audiences.   I originally envisioned science fiction writers as the primary membership of the workshop, but we’re very open to any sort of writer who has an audience and has a need to get a crash course in how modern astronomy works.   I’d love to see more interest from screenwriters and non-fiction writers, for instance, but with my roots in the science fiction community that’s where I’ve been most successful drawing applications.

NASA funds the whole deal, since we keep it small (about a dozen).   I’m able to pay for textbooks, airfare, local transportation, and airfare for nearly everyone who attends (there are a few well-off folks who pass on the assistance, which helps me fund things a little more easily).   I also bring in a guest instructor.   These first two years it’s been Jerry Oltion, who is an award winning science fiction novelist and avid amateur astronomer.   I’m likely to have some different names the next couple of years.

Summer of 2007 was our first workshop.   It ran amazingly smooth and well for our first time, and we had a great group.   Here are some responses and links to workshop reports:

A semester of astronomy in a week — with bells and whistles
and telescopes. The workshop expanded and consolidated my
knowledge, and helped me wrap my mind around the enormous
distances and times of space and the universe.   –Vonda N. McIntyre, Seattle

Launch Pad gave me the tools I needed to write better science fiction.
We talked about everything from near-future space exploration to distant
star systems.   The workshop was an amazing experience and I highly
recommend it. — Vylar Kaftan

“Simply put, Launch Pad is an extraordinary experience for writers of
all genres, unparalleled in efficiently revealing the means and
methods of modern science.

“To say that Launch Pad is the superior workshop for writers
interested in modern science would be both accurate and precise.”

— Michael Livingston (link to more detailed comments)

“I attended Launch Pad in 2007, and I highly recommend it.“ — Eugie Foster

Jeffrey Carver blogged about his experience last summer (including photos) and wrote a SFWA press release.

So what goes on?   It’s a busy week of lectures, hands-on activities, discussion, observing (through a variety of telescopes), and more, all designed at conveying the state of the field of astronomy and how to communicate it effectively to different audiences.   I’ve got funding for several more years, but might not work too hard to find alternative funding after 2010 when the current grant ends — I love it, but running the workshop is pretty intense and not necessarily something I’m going to commit to doing forever.   In the meantime though, it’s great, combining two of my passions in one fantastic event.   Star Trek inspired me to go into science, and being able to ignite that inspiration is what inspires me today.

We’re open for applications until the end of the month, and already have a number of quality applicants for this year that includes several Hugo winners.   I’m really looking forward to it.

Permalink | Tags: Education, Personal, Popular Events, Science, Science Fiction | No Comments »

A Cheat Sheet for Space Travel

February 29th, 2008

The students in my Science and Science Fiction course are getting into the concept of alien worlds and building star systems, but if you want humans involved, you have to have some idea about how to get off the Earth, around the solar system, and across interstellar space. My favorite single resource for this is The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer’s Guide to Interstellar Travel by Mallove and Matloff. The book has a nice summary of the basics of rocketry up through some pretty way-out ideas, along with the real equations you need to calculate the details of your story (e.g., for continuous acceleration and relativistic rockets). I’ve already got them reading a bunch of books and stories this semester, and beyond some basic gravity, laws of motion, and relativity, I don’t expect them to read this entire text, too. So I promised them I’d write them a brief guide, a “cheat sheet” if you will, summarizing some basic ideas about space travel technology in one place.

Disclaimers: this is supposed to be a handy guide and won’t necessarily be comprehensive.   I will try to supply some easy to follow online links when I can find them (and sorry for the high fraction of wikipedia links, but they’ve gotten pretty good).

Rockets:

In Earth’s atmosphere planes can fly by using the flow of air around a wing to generate lift.   The “air” in space, AKA the interstellar medium, is akin to vacuum (not quite, but close enough for most applications).   A rocket is the most straightforward way of moving in space, exploiting the conservation of momentum: throw something one way, move the other.   You want to throw out the something — propellant — as fast as possible for maximum effect.   Rockets are effective, but limited as you have to carry a lot of fuel to generate the thrust to get anywhere fast.   One benefit of rockets, and most spacecraft, is that you only need to apply thrust once in a while, coasting in between, to get places.   And don’t forget that you have to worry about slowing down at the destination, too.

Conventional (Chemical Rockets). These are what you see used in launches today, and they come in two types: liquid and solid.   Solid rockets are ignited and burn through everything in one fell swoop.   Liquid rockets use substances like kerosene or liquid oxygen (LOx).   These aren’t close to being the best propellants theoretically, but they represent a technology we’ve mastered and can get us off the surface and generate enough thrust to give large payloads escape velocity.   With the help of some gravity assists, velocities can be achieved to provide interplanetary travel via Hohmann transfer orbits or with the use of gravity assists.

Electrical (Ion Rockets and Rail Guns).   Instead of using chemical reactions or controlled explosions (violent chemical reactions) to expel propellant, electricity is used.   Electromagnetism can be used to give larger exhaust velocities, thus making (ion) engines more efficient, although they tend to be low thrust.   NASA has already developed and tested an ion engine.   A rail gun represents a related technology that can be used for thrust or as a weapon (check out wicked video of total DESTRUCTION).

Nuclear.   Nuclear reactions can also be used to heat propellant and provide high exhaust velocities and thrust.   This technology would not be hard to develop and would be good for a lot of applications, but political considerations make implementation difficult.   Even putting up RTGs for deep space missions caused concern and protests (see Carl Sagan’s take back in 1989).

Nuclear Pulse.   I’m going to lump in nuclear pulse rockets in with rockets in general, even though they aren’t the same sort of critter.   The idea here is to blow up a nuclear bomb and be pushed ahead by the explosion.   Sounds crazy and dangerous, but it can be damn effective and represents the best and easiest way to reach high velocities not only for interplanetary travel, but also interstellar travel.   Check out the Orion and Daedalus projects.

Anti-Matter.   Anti-matter represents the ultimate in rocket efficiency, but it’s expensive, and not necessarily as efficient as one might hope.   Matter and anti-matter destroy each other, releasing tremendous energy according to Einstein’s most famous equation.   Getting all that energy focused in one direction to provide thrust isn’t all that easy.   But, potentially, anti-matter is the most concentrated portable fuel you can imagine.   Potentially anti-matter rockets also let you go interstellar.

Gravity Assists:

I’ve already mentioned gravity assists above, but wanted to say a few more things about them.   Basically what you do is use a moving planet’s gravity to accelerate your spacecraft.   You have to be something of a watchmaker, getting your timing right, for this to work, but it’s cheaper than carrying fuel.   For interplanetary travel you’d be foolish not to try to use gravity assists when available.

Sails:

I’m going to lump a few things together under “sails,” including both traditional sails that are solar powered as well as spacecraft that exploit lasers or particle beams aimed at them.   Radiation — light — carries momentum.   When light reflects off a surface, it transfers momentum.   It isn’t a lot normally, but over long time periods or near intense sources of radiation (e.g., stars like our sun), it can provide enough thrust to get around a solar system.   The source of the photons doesn’t have to be a star.   It can be artificial, with man-made lasers.   It’s also possible to use particle beams rather than beams of light.

Solar.   The original solar sail can be used to move from the inner solar system to the outer.   It can also be used to slow down when approaching a bright star.   The key to a good solar sail spacecraft is to have a large, reflective sail and a small payload.

Laser-boosted.   Robert Forward developed this idea with his Starwisp, and it has been used in sf stories like Niven and Pournelle’s The Mote In God’s Eye.

Particle Beam Riders.   Particles of matter can be used instead of photons, and will likely provide greater thrust which will help with interstellar voyages.

Ramjets and Ion Scoops:

Bussard Ramjet and variations.   This is a long-time staple of science fiction.   The idea here is that fuel for thrust is available in space, just in low quantities.   If you go fast enough, and have a large collecting area, you can scoop up fuel on the fly like a jet.   This will work for interstellar travel, but there are potentially serious engineering obstacles.

Ion Scoop.   This is a little different from the ramjet and discussed in the link above.   Interstellar ions are attracted and collected by an electrostatic scoop.

Faster than Light (FTL) and other exotic ideas:

These may be possible and have certainly been used extensively in science fiction.   I shy away from FTL because there’s no clear way to do it (aside from perhaps wormholes, which are very theoretical at this stage), and there are also other issues as well.   G. David Nordley has an article explaining the philosophical issues involving FTL, since time travel is the result, an effect that is unfairly ignored in most FTL stories, and he also has another providing advice about how to write strong stories without FTL.

Well, that’s a start.   There are more ideas out there, and there’s certainly room for some well-informed creativity.

Permalink | Tags: Education, Science, Science Fiction | 12 Comments »

Earth’s Final Sunset

February 27th, 2008

The Earth is toast.

New and improved calculations make a strong case that when the sun expands into a red giant several billion years from now our planet will spiral into the sun’s photosphere and disintegrate.

The space.com article also suggests that there is a way to save the Earth, at least for a while. It involves using asteroids to change Earth’s orbit, moving it out over time. This is a very similar idea to what I used in Spider Star for aliens to move their homeworld Argo away from the expanding and evolving star Pollux.

To quote Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Permalink | Tags: General, Science, Science Fiction | 4 Comments »

A Hint about Communicating Scientific Results

February 26th, 2008

The public isn’t as well educated about science as they should be.   That’s pretty much always been true, and will likely remain true given the quick pace of science and its effect on our lives, but we can do a lot better than we are now.   But there’s also been growth in the spread of false or misleading information (internet, anyone?) on a whole range of topics, ranging from global warming to immunization, that have potentially several personal consequences for each of us.

I came across this article today about “Getting the Public to Pay Attention to Good Science.”

Apparently people will take experts at face value if they don’t have a personal stake in the matter.   If they do, the way the information is delivered is critical.   According to the conclusion of the article:

“…Simply speaking from a position of authority isn’t enough, Schuchat argued. She cited surveys indicating that, for credibility assessments in areas of “low concern” (she suggested Tsunami risk in foreign countries as one example), US citizens are happy to defer to expertise, rating it as accounting for 85 percent of their assessment. When the topic shifts to areas of personal concern like family medicine, the importance of expertise vanishes. Schuchat said that it drops to where it accounts for only 15 percent of the decision, equal to a sense of honesty and openness, and far below the value of empathy, which accounts for roughly half of the decision. The message was pretty clear; for the public, how decent medical information is conveyed counts for more than the quality of the information itself.

The clear message of the session was that a command of facts is never going to be good enough to convince most segments of the public, whether they’re parents or Congress. How the information is conveyed can matter more than its content, and different forms of communication may be necessary for different audiences. As became clear in the ensuing discussion, most of the public act as consumers of information, with journalists acting as middlemen.   To connect with the public, scientists have to work with the press to ensure that two things happen. Reporters have to overcome their ingrained aversion to the uncertainties of science, and have to avoid presenting uncertainties as a matter of balance that’s addressed via material from crackpots with credentials.”

This is very interesting to me, and suggests some additional training both scientists and journalists should have.   I’m going to give it more thought when I’m involved and try to keep these lessons in mind.     I have a tendency to be more than a little authoritarian on some topics, which results from having the same discussions over and over again with different poorly informed people, but I should trust my honesty and knowledge without pushing it and focus on being more ephathetic.   That’s probably good advice for any of us trying to convince anyone of anything.

Permalink | Tags: Education, Science | 1 Comment »

Would You Blow Up If Tossed into Space?

February 25th, 2008

There are a lot of myths, many perpetuated by movies with directors looking for more explosions, about what happens when someone is tossed out the airlock by Vogons or whatever nasty aliens are crewing the spaceship of doom.   I did a little research about this last year for my science and science fiction class, but never wrote up the results as a coherent article.

Anna Gosline did, and the results are over at Scientific American.   The short answer to the question I pose in the post title is “no,” but there are some gruesome effects that we understand from experiments and accidents.

There are some movies and TV shows that get it right.   I’ll say this was one of the few events in EVENT HORIZON that made any sense.

Permalink | Tags: Education, Science, Science Fiction | 3 Comments »

The Ten Worst Science Fiction Movie Endings

February 21st, 2008

I’ve been invited to participate in another sfsignal.com Mind-Meld event. I like these. They’re fun, and the spectrum of answers to the interesting science fiction questions make for fascinating reading. The question for next week is:

Which SciFi movie ending do you wish you could change?

Well, there are a lot. I decided I’d take my short list and discuss them here before writing my final response for sfsignal.

First, what makes for a good ending? The hallmark of a great movie ending is that it’s impossible to anticipate while watching it, but seems like the only ending possible in hindsight. It shouldn’t fall prey to sentimentality, at least not overly so, and should follow through with the power of the premise. Surprising, inevitable, memorable…some examples that come to mind include: A Boy and His Dog, 12 Monkeys, The Thing, Planet of the Apes (1968). I found a couple of lists here and here of great sf movie endings. A lot of sf movies have conventional endings, a little too pat and expected, but not weird or ugly.

My list of candidates have a number of problems, from being unintelligible to stupid to just wrong. I have some movies on this list I like a lot, most of them in fact, even though I have some issues with the endings. Warning. Spoilers likely ahead.

2001: The ending just doesn’t make sense unless you’ve read the book. I have, so it’s cool. But that’s not how to make a movie. Kubrik could have given more clues.

Contact: Was it really necessary to have the big government cover-up? That’s my real problem with the ending. Watching the academy awards that year when they showed the clip at the end with Ellie’s father, and the crowd laughing weirdly, I realized that the mainstream audience just didn’t quite get it.

Alien: A science point here. I don’t believe the alien should have blown up.

Blade Runner: This otherwise fine movie suffers from having too many endings, ranging from happy happy joy joy, to chilling. Which one is the real final cut? Stop pulling a George Lucas, Ridley Scott!

The Cold Equations: I’m talking about the 1996 sci-fi channel version here, where they changed the story from the original to explicitly make the tragedy the fault of the uncaring giant company. It’s not a terrible movie on it’s own, but the perversion of the originally intended ending gets it on this list.

Armageddon: This movie just sucked over all in my opinion, and changing the ending couldn’t hurt! Maybe the asteroid smacks into the Earth. That would be cool! Or Bruce Willis lets AJ die and goes back to tell Liv Tyler about it to an Aerosmith soundtrack. That would be cool, too! Space madness ho!

The Hulk: I’ll throw in a comic book movie here as sci fi since the ending sucked so badly. Next time, Ang Lee, have the fight in the day time so we can see what’s going on, okay?

Johnny Mnemonic: Having Keanu Reeves turn into another actor at the end might have helped, but too little too late. As cool as the original Gibson story was, the psychic dolphin just didn’t play well on the big screen.

Signs: SPOILIER, SPOILER. WTF? WTF? Goddamn farking WATER disintegrates alien flesh? No farking way. This is just so many brands of stupid I couldn’t believe it. Make it the song “Puberty Love” or anything else, would make more sense. How about a peanut allergy, M. Night?

Return of the Jedi: Ewoks, god damn it! Darth Vader happy good time. Too much…do not want!

What do you think?

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Permalink | Tags: Science, Science Fiction | 8 Comments »

Science and English

February 19th, 2008

Recently a friend of mine pointed me at this story.

The issue of contention is that English has become the de facto language of science. In most fields, almost every paper is published in English, and all conferences use English. This didn’t use to be the case (and most graduate programs in the sciences had a foreign language requirement), but every year English becomes more and more dominant.

The advantages of a single language are self-evident. In the past papers published in other languages often went unnoticed and uncited, resulting in people reinventing the wheel. Furthermore, at most people must learn a second language, not 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever to read journals in multiple languages.

The disadvantages are perhaps clearer to non-English speakers, who cannot easily get access to original peer-reviewed journals, or understand them easily when they can. Those with the best potential to be scientists are perhaps not the ones with the best language capability, and working in English may limit their effectiveness.

A continuing problem is mentioned in the article, how a foreign-speaking scientist even with some English knowledge must often continue to struggle to write clear, polished papers without getting dismissed out of hand. For entire careers. I’ve seen this first hand refereeing papers. I try to focus on the science and only comment in passing about the English (e.g., “The authors needs to work on the language as it is not yet ready for publication, and would benefit from a native-speaker providing feedback on a revised draft prior to resubmission” or words to that effect). I’ve worked closely with foreign collaborators, and I’m often the “native speaker” providing the feedback.

(To to tell the truth though, there are a lot of scientists who struggle to write good English in their papers whether or not it is their first language. This is something that I understand better being involved with students a professor. And while this is a related issue, it’s a digression.)

And it isn’t just foreign scientists with the problem: journalists, politicians, and teachers must also deal with a slow process and inaccurate process of translating. This has to significantly affect the dissemination of knowledge. Even though science journalism is far from what it should be in this country, in theory everyone’s speaking the same language. Superstition and misunderstanding persist because scientific knowledge is more difficult to spread, and few enough people are well informed that there’s no local consensus about such matters. It’s much more easy for anti-science groups to get a foothold, and it seems too easy in the U.S. sometimes from my perspective.

The original article I posted the link to above sees this as an issue of basic human fairness. That non-English speaking peoples are facing discrimination from science, a higher hurdle toward participation and more difficulty taking advantage of the knowledge science generates.

The suggestions in the article are to call for science to become multilingual and interlingual (with perhaps Esperanto as a second-language for scientists to level the playing field).

I disagree with this, both from the perspective of practicality and for the efficacy of science. Science should not be primarily concerned about fairness in my opinion — that’s a political issue — but in achieving the best and fastest results for the least cost. So what if some people have it a little easier? You don’t make it more difficult for them to solve a perceived problem. You have to bring the disenfranchised up and make sure they have assistance and opportunity. More on that in a second.

From the practical standpoint, the best and most PhD-granting institutions in science are in English-speaking countries. That’s a major reason English has emerged as the dominant language.

I think the best thing we can do to level the playing field, if you will, without compromising science and helping it and ourselves in the long run, is to increase funding for science translation. Across the board, from peer-reviewed journals to pop science books to financial assistance for language lessons for would-be scientists and those in related fields. And science might just help solve this problem itself, with voice recognition, scanning, and translation technology making on-the-fly translating much more viable. See Ray Kurzweil on this. The technology is coming, and given time should be cheap and ubiquitous, associated with cell phones.

I’m not above proposing what is essentially a science fiction solution: the universal translator.

It’s not like there are laws that science must be done in English, and I don’t see how any rules or laws about changing the language to Esperanto could really work. This is cultural evolution and while minor regulation is often needed to prevent problems and keep things running smoothly, wholesale imposition of major changes is almost always a terrible idea that destroys the institution it’s meant to improve. We’re going to have to live with English as the language of science, and find ways to let everyone operate within that standard.

Is it entirely fair? No. But that’s not the point of science. Can we do better and eliminate or reduce some inequities? Surely. There are some bright young kids out there who would likely make great scientists if they had the chance, and we should make every effort to find them and make it as easy as possible. We’d all be the better off for it. And that goes for any international endeavor where one language or culture dominates (e.g., the world has probably lost some great African basketball players that never had the opportunity to play for an NBA scout, but that’s another post).

Science is one of the few truly international human endeavors and it benefits from open and regular communication. Let’s think about improving that capability.

Permalink | Tags: Education, General, Science | 11 Comments »

Einstein’s “Religion”

February 18th, 2008

Yesterday I blogged about the evolution vs. intelligent design “controversy” in the guise of bashing Ben Stein for falling prey to sloppy thinking and misdirection. There is no scientific controversy about evolution in general, although we continue to study the process and learn more about it. Most creationists don’t actually understand it, or many other things, well enough to have a real discussion on the topic. I’ll keep with the theme for this post since it intersects with research I’ve been doing for a new novel.

One place where those discussions often go, even though it is a red herring, is about how so many scientists are religious, Einstein in particular, presumably because he was arguably the greatest scientist of the 20th Century, if not ever.

The reason I believe this issue comes up so much is because creationists reason poorly and don’t know too much science or history. They think that science is like religion, and believe that an appeal to authority is a convincing argument, while at the same time getting their authority wrong because they only look far enough to support what they already think to be true. It gets me steamed not because the points have any merit, but because the points are just so totally wrong.

Here are some facts about scientists in general and Einstein specifically. I’m not going to try to get into the “whys” but just want to put the facts out there.

From Wikipedia, concerning scientists in general, with good citations: In total, about 60% of scientists in the United States expressed disbelief or doubt in such a god.^[19] This compared with 58% in 1914 and 67% in 1933. Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, 72.2% expressed disbelief and 93% – disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in 1998.^[20]

A survey conducted between 2005 and 2007 by Elaine Ecklund of University at Buffalo, The State University of New YorkTempleton Foundation found that over 60% of natural and social science professors are atheist or agnostic. When asked whether they believed in God, nearly 34% answered “I do not believe in God” and about 30% answering “I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out,”^[21] According to the same survey, “[m]any scientists see themselves as having a spirituality not attached to a particular religious tradition.”^[22] In further analysis, published in 2007, Ecklund and Christopher Scheitle conclude that “the assumption that becoming a scientist necessarily leads to loss of religion is untenable” and that “[i]t appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions. This may reflect the fact that there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and methods of particular sciences and it contributes to the large number of non-religious scientists.”^[23]

And as for Einstein? He fits right in there.

Einstein was ethnically Jewish and a supporter of Israel (even being offered, and turning down, the position of the first President). He was only religiously Jewish as a child and after a brief time rejected that faith. So what did he believe?

The casual observer, particularly shallow creationists I’ve come across on internet forums, know about his many quotes referring to “god” such as, “God does not play dice.” They conclude, incorrectly, that Einstein believed in a personal god and was religious in the conventional sense. It’s unfortunate about Einstein’s word choice, and he had to explain himself many times.

There’s a nice webpage about Einstein and Religion, and I suggest you check it out if you’re interested. I’ll just provide a few choice quotes that outline some key ideas about his views. By the standards of traditional religion, Einstein was an atheist, although he’s better described as a spiritual man, a deist/agnostic who believed in the god of Spinoza, who was considered in his own time an atheist. Einstein used the term “god” to refer to a universe that made sense, the order of a world following natural laws.

In Einstein’s own words:

“From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist…. I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being.”

and

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.”

Still, creationists persist and make the error of believing that Einstein’s views on religion will sway those of other scientists to their point of view, and compile lists of scientists who believed in god (with some likely errors given the threats to the non-religious in certain places and times).

And for the record, if anyone has ever been a real hero to me, it is Einstein.    He thought outside the box, simply and directly, following his own reasoning to profound truths about the nature of our world.   He   spoke out with strong moral positions even when they were unpopular.     He was accessible to the common person, displaying both wisdom and humor.   He wasn’t perfect, but he did shine as brilliant as a star.

Believe what you want, but get your facts straight.   Better yet, keep focused on real arguments and don’t get distracted by   red herrings.   Do your own thinking, secure your own education, and do it right and deeply.   Too many do take things on faith from authorities — good ones and false.   Science ultimately does not depend on authority, but on the results of experiments that “god” gives us and we can verify.   It’s up to us to interpret them in the end.

Permalink | Tags: Education, Science | 3 Comments »

Science and Science Fiction: Jumper

February 17th, 2008

I blogged about an article a few weeks ago I considered somewhat bogus, misrepresenting a tenuous connection to real science. Interestingly, a publicist for the movie, involved in setting up a promotional event for the movie at MIT with some physicists, did a drive by post that was pretty funny. He assumed I wasn’t a physicist and his experiences listening to some seminars on science made him better qualified than me on the topic. I wonder what his Physics GRE was? But I digress…he also amusingly quoted Einstein about how imagination was more important than knowledge, apparently unaware that Einstein didn’t believe in quantum teleportation and wrote an oft-cited paper outlining his objections (incorrect in the end, as experiments show).

Here, for future reference, is a much more scientifically accurate pop-sci article about the movie and quantum teleportation (which isn’t the same thing as teleportation at all, but that’s a nuanced position, apparently, in opposition to the simple interpretation of the popular misnomer).

I intended to go see Jumper this weekend, but caught a cold and didn’t make it.   Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, that gave me time to check out the reviews.   Even though Jumper   was the number one movie this weekend with something like $33 million at the box office, it’s only getting about about a 15% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an average 4 out of 10 from reviewers there.   That really sucks.

I’m flying down to New Orleans this coming weekend to run a marathon, and chances are I won’t see this stinker before it vanishes from theaters (a 2 week run is typically here in Laramie for a film).

If you saw it and care to comment on it or the science, please be encouraged.   From what I’ve gathered, the connection to science is very tenuous if it even exists at all.   It could still be a fun film, but that’s not the scoop.

Permalink | Tags: Popular Events, Science, Science Fiction | 2 Comments »

More Super-Powered Vision: “Laser Eyes”

February 15th, 2008

Science just keeps marching on, this time with the military in lock step. Soldiers are being given “laser eyes.” No, it isn’t Superman’s heat vision, but it’s still interesting. Basically, binocular set-ups with GPS, thermal imaging, and laser ranging allowing for precise location of enemies or other objectives, up to miles away. The technology is pretty cool, but the best reason to click the link is a side-bar photo for an unrelated story. I don’t know if the juxtaposition was unintended or not (perhaps as a web developer’s private joke), but it is funny.

I recently blogged about Terminator vs. Predator (vision) and had the post earlier this week about superpowers that included seeing in the dark.     I feel like the same way we have a convergence of hand-held technologies combining telephones, MP3 players, GPS, and computing, we’re seeing a convergence of hand-held sensory technology.   Throw in a night vision mode to the laser eye units, and you’d be close to full coverage there.   Link them to contact lens displays with head-mounted sensors, and perhaps the mind-reading device I discussed in the superpowers post, and military units are indeed getting substantially powered up.

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Ten Superpowers You Can Have Now

February 13th, 2008

I was thinking today about the “Reals” of the Heroes Network and what superpowers are now within the reach of our science and technology. Most superpowers are ridiculously unphysical, as described in the really fun book, Physics of Superheroes, which the author James Kakalios fashioned after a class he teaches at the University of Minnesota. There are some superpowers that we’re just never going to be able to have in the real world (virtual realities are a different story). Some of these include growing or shrinking, as they violate conservation of mass, or the ability to walk through walls, teleportation, or superspeed that would enable someone to run over water without sinking or be effectively invisible because they move too fast to be seen. And people transforming into animals like Beast Boy? Oh, come on!

Wikipedia actually keeps a long list of comic book superhero powers for the anal power counter.

There are some powers that do not violate the laws of physics as we know them. I’ll start with the more straightforward powers and get more esoteric as we go along.

Bullet Proofness: This is pretty mundane as powers go, but a basic one I think every superhero needs. It can be implemented a number of ways: super tough skin ala Superman, bullet-deflecting bracelets as with Wonder Woman, Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton plus fast healing, or the bullet-proof armor of Michael Keaton’s movie Batman. I suggest simple is good and fine here, and recommend commercially available bullet-proof clothing. Such technology is impressive in action. This isn’t the sexiest superpower, but it will give Mr. or Mrs. Real who is staying at home with the kids a little peace of mind.

Super strength: Again, a basic power that’s necessary to knock down doors or lift up cars to save trapped people. Superman and the Hulk have this naturally, in abundance, but Krypton isn’t real and gamma rays will just kill you. Iron Man and about a million characters with exoskeleton armor show a technologically feasible implementation, which we can manage already. Not exactly commercially available, but if you’re a military contractor high up in the research labs, you can make your own I suppose, and charge the government for it. I don’t recommend cyborg action here, as with the Six Million Dollar Man — he should have ripped his arm off several times every episode.

Flight: Superman’s got this one down, but I don’t know how. When he first appeared, he just made giant leaps like the Hulk, which made some sense, but he and a gazillion others, including the entire Legion of Superheroes via their flight rings, all get to float through the sky with the greatest of ease. While we’ve made some progress with various forms of gliders as seen in the Tomb Raider sequel and elsewhere, similar to what the Falcon has and Batman uses in Batman Begins, these aren’t true flight. What can we do? Jet packs are now being manufactured for sale to duplicate some things the Rocketeer can do, and perhaps Nighthawk of the Defenders (who somehow hid a superpowerful jet pack under his cape). I don’t know that they can lift an exoskeleton though, and the propellant is used up in about a minute so check your altitude. But for $100k, I don’t know what else you’d buy. And flight would be handy if you don’t want to stick around and explain yourself to the police who might not like a vigilante around.

Invisibility: This is one superpower I think everyone really craves to have, and is tremendously underrated in a fight. I guess in the case of the Invisible Woman, when you’re fighting Dr. Doom or the Super Skrull, it doesn’t help much, but against street thugs it would be killer. We’re not going to have true invisibility any time soon, but we will have active camouflage as in Predator. Here’s a nice article from science-fiction writer Wil McCarthy explaining the video and what will likely come soon, or is already in existence and classified. Apparently there are plans for invisible vehicles, so Wonder Woman’s invisible jet isn’t so far fetched as it might seem (and it always seemed that way to me!).

Wall-crawling: Science has managed to duplicate the incredibly powerful, residue-free stickiness of geckos as described here. Gloves and boots coated with this material in principle will allow people to climb walls like Spider-Man, although I suspect few save real climbers will have the appropriate strength-to-weight ratios to do this well.

Mental Telepathy: Want to project your thoughts like Professor X? And receive the thoughts of others? This is possible, but it’s sort of a cheat cobbling together several elements for a basic implementation. We have the technology to control computers with our minds, the simplest case being moving a computer cursor by thinking. We also have technology coming along to project displays onto our retinas with contact lenses. Combining these with cell phone technology and simple text messaging would let you send messages to other people wearing similar systems just by thinking them.
Electrical Blasts: How about some offense, like the Shocker or Electro? Well tasers are a simple version of this, delivering an incapacitating shock. Hey, that’s fun to watch! High-power capacitors can work, too, and can hold killing charges. Good superheroes will stick with non-lethal weapons, like Wolverine’s claws or the Human Torch’s fireballs. Wait…

Heroic Leaps: Want to make out like The Tick, Bouncing Boy, or match the moves of the Toad or Batroc the Leaper? No problem! If I were a criminal and saw a bunch of guys in bright costumes coming at at me like this, I’d freaking run like mad.

Seeing in the Dark: There’s a nearly direct match available to the blind like Daredevil’s radar sense. Kids today are actually being taught to echolocate. To see in the dark like Dr. Mid-Nite, you’re probably better off with a set of generation 3 night vision goggles with response out to infrared wavelenths (about a micron) and an infrared illuminator. I have a set of goggles like this, and they’re not only fun to play with at night, they’re a fantastic addition to the equipment of amateur astronomers. You can literally see the Andromeda Galaxy with a casual glance at the sky, and many, many more stars that you’ve ever seen in your life.

Fear Projection: Okay, this one is more for villains like Mr. Fear or the Scarecrow, but didn’t Batman justify his costume with the notion that criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot? An infrasound gun is your tool! Infrasound is low frequency acoustic waves below the hearing threshold that have disturbing psychological effects. And I’m waiting for a horror movie to come out with an infrasoundtrack.

Web-Spraying/Paste Pots: The military developed a sticky foam gun that sounds a lot like what good old supervillain Paste Pot Pete (AKA The Trapster) uses. It’s a reasonable facsimile of what Spider-man does when he corrals the bad guys for police pick up.

I imagine I’ve missed some other obscure powers, especially offensive heat rays or dazzling lights (i.e., the Dazzler who should have died with disco), that we could duplicate effectively today if so determined. Any suggestions?

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The Worst Science Fiction Movie Ever?

February 8th, 2008

Last month I wrote about the ten best science-based science fiction movies, which was fun and made me think a lot about all the average to decent movies that still fail to make the science grade in one or more ways. It’s too easy to make a list of dozens of movies with the worst science (only including the ones making some effort to making the science plausible), and overwhelming to make it a list of only ten.

The Star Wars movies are fantasy, so we won’t even consider them, even the ones with Jar Jar. Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space is so bad it isn’t really trying. Ditto for Ice Pirates. Something like The Fifth Element has an amazing vision and isn’t trying to be scientifically accurate. Galaxy Quest is a fun farce, and again, not trying. Star Trek movies sort of try, but only fail in conventional ways, exploiting time travel and technobabble (although Star Trek V should be a contender for any “worst of” list). Serenity has a bunch of science problems but has heart. There’s a whole slew of science fiction movies to be excluded because they are really horror movies in disguise: Aliens 3+, Event Horizon, Pitch Black, Hardware, Aliens vs. Predator, The Thing, etc. Superhero movies are their own genre, too, and don’t try to make scientific sense. It’s the movies that are pretending to have a clue I’m here to take issue with.

That leaves a bunch of crappy crap, like Supernova, Johnny Mnemonic, Mission to Mars, The Core, Battlefield Earth, The One, Ultraviolet, Total Recall, Lawnmower Man, Starship Troopers, Independence Day, etc., ad nauseum. The average to bad science fiction movie falls into this category.

Surprisingly, however, I have absolutely no problem picking the absolute worst: Armageddon.

Where do I start? The answer is anywhere. There’s not a minute of this movie that isn’t affront to science or common sense.

According to Wikipedia:

The physics and scientific approach of Armageddon was criticized for its poor adherence to the laws of physics. This has led NASA to show the film as part of its management training program. Prospective managers are asked to find as many inaccuracies in the movie as they can. At least 168 impossible things have been found during these screenings of the film.

Ouch. The movie is only 150 minutes long. That’s more than one impossible thing per minute on average. I’m not the only one to target this movie a the biggest steaming pile of anti-scientific crap. Check out Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy, intuitor.com, and here and here and here. And I could go on. I love Phil Plait’s comment, “Here’s the short version: “Armageddon” got some astronomy right. For example, there is an asteroid in the movie, and asteroids do indeed exist. And then there was… um… well, you know… um. Okay, so that was about all they got right.”

What are my favorite (or most cringe-worthy) moments? When they talk about how only a few telescopes could even see the asteroid (no, even small telescopes could as in Deep Impact), and that you would use Hubble to study this. Hubble is slow to point and not a good choice for initial observations.

The one example I use over and over again in physics and astronomy classes is the “Russian space station” gravity scene, usually back to back with the excellent 2001 scene. The Armageddon scene makes many errors, the most fundamental being that they get the direction of gravity wrong. Every kid who has played on a merry-go-round knows which way they get pulled when spun, but not so the screenwriters or director of Armageddon. They have the understanding of pre-schoolers at best, and I’m being generous. They show many scenes, including very clear computer graphics, and it makes the whole thing seem like a bad dream where the laws of physics have vanished inside Michael Bay’s butt.

I’m being especially harsh because this is a movie that hundreds of millions of people have seen, that made hundreds of millions of dollars, and more likely billions in total gross to date. They try in this movie to be science based. They spin the space station for gravity. They use telescopes to get information about the asteroid. They pretend it’s based on science. And Bruce Willis may as well be drilling in my ass for black gold. Here in Wyoming we’re close to the oil industry (Dick Cheney has had dinner in my neighborhood at the University President’s house), and I know some guys who have worked on rigs. They tell me the drilling stuff is every bit as ludicrous as the physics/astronomy stuff.

I won’t even go into the “space madness.”

Armageddon is just a piece of crap. It isn’t okay that it’s “just a movie.” It pretends that it knows what it is doing, and shovels ignorance down people’s throats with the help of Liv Tyler’s child-bearing hips and Aerosmith’s whiny soundtrack. Sure, Steve Buschemi is a hoot as an insane sex-addicted genius, but he just plays one in the movies. And while Bruce Willis is one in real life, he plays the hero who couldn’t drill a hole with a viagra pill the size of a killer asteroid.

Sorry, I’m afraid discussing this movie makes me get like this. That is what makes it so bad. It drives scientists like myself insane. It’s “movie madness.”

Okay, I’m sure someone thinks some other movie is worse. Let’s hear it. I feel confident I can beat your Core with my Armageddon. If you have to go back to Cat Women of the Moon, you’ll just distract me. Mmm. Cat women…

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