The Physics of Sandcastles

Lots of stuff on granular physics in here. This short article gives you a brief intro on the physics of sandcastles, or more specifically, the ratio of sand to water to give you the most stable sand structure.

Of course, the practical application of this goes beyond just building castles in the sand at the beach.

The results provide understanding of the complex physics of more than just sandcastles: they could shed light on landslides, which have killed hundreds of thousands over the past century.

This again is another example where many people do not realize of the practical application of physics, and that there's a lot of physics involved here.

Zz.

Where Science, Religion Meet?

This news article reports on a noble effort of trying to present the middle ground between science and religion as part of what they call the Evolution weekend. I'm sure they had good intentions here in doing this, and certainly, having such dialog could possibly help. However, and maybe this is simply the skeptic in me talking, I think they're missing a lot of important aspect here, which is understandable if they only think of "religion" as being "christianity".

For example:

"Neither science nor faith can fully prove how the world came to be, so they are complimentary to each other," said Bennet Brabson, a professor of physics at Indiana University in Bloomington.

"(Religion and science) have a shared inquiry, not necessarily a shared certitude," said Mark Engle, a retired rector from a Marquette church. "The journey of truth in scriptures is never done without science."

Whenever someone says something like this, he/she is forgetting one important thing. In science, when something is accepted to be valid, there is usually ONE set of formulation or description that we all agreed on. It doesn't matter if you are an American, a European, a Russian, a Chinese, a christian, a buddhist, a muslim, an athiest, etc... It is the SAME scientific theory and description. The theory of conventional superconductivity, for example, isn't different for a Canadian than it is for a Japanese, no matter what their social and cultural differences are. Even something that is still being highly studied, such as the Big Bang Theory, has a rather large and uniform consensus, even though there are small groups of cosmologist that may disagree with it. What may differ, for instance, among those who do accept the Big Bang, is the details. They may disagree on the "exact" age of the universe, let's say, but it's a matter of it being 4 billion, 6, billion, of 12 billion years old. The difference certainly not between 10 billion and 10,000 years old. If better evidence come along, accepted science evolves to match the evidence.

The same can't be said about religion and its view of the universe. The Judeo-Christian-Islam view of the universe varies WIDELY from the Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist/etc. view of the universe. One can also say that even within the Judeo-Christian-Islam religion, there are also significant differences in the description of the universe. Don't believe me? Read Maurice Bucaille's "The Bible, The Quran, and Science". They do not agree on the fundamental formation of the universe and its age. Even among the Christians themselves, you get one that accepts the age of the universe from Cosmology as being in the billions of years, while there are these "Young Earth" followers who still think the earth is only of the order of 10,000 years old! That's a major, major discrepancy in my book.

So I find it strange that whenever people say that both science and religion can meet, and that one compliments the other in our understanding of the universe, this major disagreement between various religious views are never mentioned, as if "religion" is only one version of Christianity, and as if "religion" means "Christianity" only. There is NO ONE ACCEPTED VERSION of the universe in religion. That's a fallacy.

Not only that, the other reason why I think events like this may not be that effective is because you get someone like this who can't see the fault in what they believe in:

Fred Betz, 63, of Galesburg told the panelists he took the words of the Bible at face value, and his understanding of scripture disproved evolution.

"What's wrong with my simplistic view of reading the Bible?" Betz asked.

Panelists said nothing was wrong and pointed to the central themes of Evolution Weekend: open-mindedness and discussion.

"The way we deal with each other is more important than any of our individual theories," Brabson answered.

Betz wasn't convinced.

"It's sad we're having (this discussion) in a church," he said after the event. "The Bible is the inherent word of God. It's sad I had to explain the same things to them I had to explain to my atheist friend."

How come no one points out that what this guy accepts "at face value" is nothing more than a product of SEVERAL TRANSLATIONS of human memorization over hundreds of years? Did he think that the bible was written in English outright? How secure are you at accepting "at face value" something that had been translated from several ancient languages across several different cultures? How many languages does this guy know? Has he ever done any kind of translation and see how a lot of meanings get lost when one does that? I mean, c'mon! Why are we missing something this obvious here?

When all the religions of the world get their act together and come up with a coherent picture, when maybe this "science meet religion" affair might produce something worthwhile. Till then, all this is doing is trying to merge science with something that is ill-defined. I see this as a futile effort.

Zz.

Physicist Discovers How Sax Players Hit High Notes

Many physicists either study, or try to investigate things that may not be strictly in the traditional area of physics. I mentioned one earlier on the study of the most optimal way to load passengers onto an airline. Now comes a study by a physicist to investigate how a professional saxophone player can hit the high notes that many people cannot. They somehow are able to adjust their vocal tracts to resonate at the same frequency as the sound they're trying to make with the saxophone.

But for the highest notes, the vocal tracts of professional saxophonists did something special.

"In those higher frequencies up there, the saxophone's own resonances are relatively weak, so that's why it's hard to sound those notes," Mr Chen said.

"By adjusting your vocal tract resonances to match those in the saxophone, they add up. That allows them to play the notes."

Interesting!

Zz.

Layoffs At Cornell

I've mentioned of the effects of the disastrous Omnibus budget that was passed recently, and have highlighted how it has severely affected operations and staff at several US Nat'l Labs. But the casualty isn't just restricted to these places. Cornell University has had to lay off about 10% of its workforce at its Laboratory of Elementary-Particle Physics.

The 11 job cuts represent 10 percent of the lab's 110 employees. The laboratory, which studies the laws that govern atoms and molecules, has lost 30 percent of its funding in the last 2 1/2 years, said lab director Maury Tigner.

“The support of physical science throughout the United States has been falling victim to the latest congressional action in which the American competitiveness has not been supported,” he said.

So not only is there a real impact beyond just the high energy/nuclear physics programs, there are also impacts beyond just the Nat'l Labs. I wouldn't be surprised that there are more of these stories around in the months to come, because I don't see the president's FY09 budget proposal being passed, certainly not this year.

Zz.

The LHC As A Time Machine?

Report on this has been circulating the news wire for a few days ever since the silly editors at New Scientists proclaimed that it can happen (shall I mention for the gazillion'th time why I consider New Scientist as the science's supermarket tabloid?). I suppose when colliders like RHIC didn't actually produce blackholes, some people need to come up with other more creative ways to get them free publicity. So why not a wormhole?

We finally have a sensible article that discusses this. Still, the crackpots of the world are already rejoicing and jumping all over this.

Zz.

UK Confirms Withdrawal From ILC

The funding council for the UK has refused to reconsider the withdrawal from the International Linear Collider (ILC) consortium (link requires free registration for full access).

But despite strong protests from physicists, the STFC says in a statement released today that it has “reaffirmed its decision to stop funding the ILC”, which is seen as the next big experiment in particle physics after the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The statement was released following a meeting of the STFC’s council last week.

Of course, this doesn't sit well with many people.

Brian Foster from Oxford University in the UK, who is European director of the ILC’s global design effort, says he regrets — but is not surprised by — the STFC council’s decision to withdraw from the ILC.

“At no time has council or any of its subsidiary bodies, or the chief executive, seen fit to discuss this ill-informed decision with me or our international partners, but has instead presented it as a fait accompli,” Foster told physicsworld.com. “While I am grateful that various STFC officials are working constructively with me to try to rescue some of the world-leading work in the UK, I can never accept the legitimacy of the deeply flawed process that has led to the STFC’s withdrawal from the ILC. I will continue to make the case for this vital world project in the hope that STFC will rejoin in the future.”

There's a prevailing "doom" around many places that were involved in the ILC. It is quite conceivable that the ILC is dead, and that even with some restored funding, the momentum for it is lost forever, at least for the US and UK. The possible hope for the resurrection of the ILC would be to site it in either Japan or China. It certainly would signify the complete and final end to particle collider experiment in the US.

Zz.

The Physics of Sailing

Ah, to sail out in the open waters with the warm breeze in my face .... right before I throw up due to motion sickness... :)

Anyhow, this is an article on the physics of sailing in the Feb. 2008 issue of Physics Today. There's a lot of physics involved here, obviously. But one would think that such things are only being considered when designing a vessel, rather than when one is actually sailing it.

Zz.

Optimal Boarding Method For Airline Passengers

Kids, there is an example on where, your training as a physicist or a scientist, can prepare you to tackle a problem analytically and systematically, even when it isn't about physics or science. Your physics education prepares you for a whole lot more than just doing physics.

I don't try to highlight something when it isn't even published yet, or when it isn't by a well-known figure, but this preprint is way too much fun to ignore. So I thought I'd bring it up. It is by Jason Steffen, a postdoc at Fermilab. I'm guessing from the comment he wrote that, while boarding a plane on his way to attend a conference, he somehow observed how the airline boarded the passengers and decided to study the most optimum way for this process to occur to minimize the boarding time. Thus, he came up with this study.

Like I said, it is a very entertaining reading. I hope someone can alert the airlines on this, but we should wait till it gets published in the submitted journal first.

Zz.

Addendum: He has a newer version of this paper that can be found here.

Rate Of Speed

Have you ever heard of people using the phrase "rate of speed" before? I have, mainly on TV during one of our local news. Usually it is during a description of some vehicular traffic incident, and some vehicle was described as moving at a "high rate of speed". What they really want to say is simply that the vehicle was moving very fast, but somehow, they think saying "high rate of speed" sounds "sexier".

This, of course, is rather inaccurate. Typically, when say say "rate of something", we usually mean the time rate of change. In calculus, it is d/dt of something, i.e. the time derivative. So when one say "rate of speed", one is actually saying ds/dt, where s is speed. This is ACCELERATION!

Now there's nothing wrong with this if the newscasters actually did intended to say acceleration (which begs the question on why they don't just say "acceleration"?). But more likely, they wanted to say "speed". So really, transposing "speed" into "rate of speed" is not only non-economical in terms of words to say, it is also no longer correct.

So, if you write for some news broadcast, and you want to say that a vehicle moves very fast, just say "high speed" and NOT "high rate of speed". If your producer or proof reader disagree, ask him/her to open a physics textbook.

Zz.

Physicists Hope U.S. Budget Will Mean an End to Research Cuts

This is a NY Times article on the Science funding aspect of the president's FY09 budget. Again, while there are generous increase in physics funding, it appears that, as Shirley Bassey likes to say, it's just history repeating itself.

This year, the president’s proposal provides no increase at all for the National Institutes of Health. That may set up a replay of last year, with the large percentage increases for physical sciences offering an inviting target for budget cutters.

“It’s the same scenario going forward for the third year in a row,” said Kei Koizumi, director of the R&D Budget and Policy Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “With not enough money, there really is no way to make everyone happy.”

Further complicating the process is the presidential election. There is widespread speculation that the Democratic-controlled Congress will delay passage of the budget bills in hopes that the next president will be a Democrat and more amenable to its priorities.

If that happens, the government would again run on continuing resolutions, continuing financing of operations at the current 2008 levels, and not the hoped-for higher levels of 2009.

If you notice, this is EXACTLY the scenario that I think will likely to occur.

I'm depressed.....

Zz.

What's Ahead for Early-Career Scientists?

This is a rather good and useful article from Science career section. It discusses the job market and possibilities from someone just starting out in a science career. There are a lot of relevant and important statistics that are included in the article.

So if you're about to graduate and jump into the job market, don't miss it.

Zz.

Physical Sciences Win Out Over Biomedicine in 2009 Budget Proposal

More analysis of President Bush's FY2009 Budget proposal. This is reported on the Science daily news. It appears that the NIH will have a flat funding for 2009, while physical sciences get a substantial increase, as has been noted already.

Predictably, that view doesn't sit well with biomedical scientists. "We reject the premise that funding science in one area or at one agency must come at the expense of another," says Bob Palazzo, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Bethesda, Maryland. "There is no doubt that NSF and DOE merit the significant increases the president has proposed. But neglecting NIH at the same time is failing to grasp the interconnectedness of science."

I agree, but did the very same people argued vehemently about this when THEY were getting a doubling of funding while physical sciences suffered with flat or dwindling fundings? With Nuclear and High Energy Physics in major trouble right now, and with the unbelievable disparity in funding currently between biomedicine and physical sciences, I don't think the biomedical scientists will get that much of a sympathy from many physicists right now.

Zz.

President Bush's FY2009 Budget Proposal

So here it is, the President's budget proposal for FY09 for the Department of Energy.

There is a substantial increase in funding for basic physics research, but the same was proposed for FY08, and look what happened.

Again, considering the size of the budget and the size of the projected budget deficit, and the fact that a new president will take over in Jan 2009, do you have any confidence that Congress will pass this by end of Sept. 2008? I don't! This means that the miserable condition that science is operating under right now will drag on at least till the end of the year.

Zz.

More Problems With MOND

There are more challenges to the Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theory.

[Note: a few of the links may require free registration to gain full access to the article]

First of course was the observation from the collision in the Bullet cluster from a year ago. The result from this strongly favors the presence of Dark Matter. In fact, many astrophysicists even proclaimed that MOND is dead after this observation. Of course, things don't die off that easily (and that fast) in physics. The MOND advocates came back with a scenario that could be consistent with the Bullet cluster observation without any need for Dark Matter. This was met with major skepticism by others in the field, as can be read at the end of that article in the link.

Now comes another publication that might seriously challenge MOND's analysis of the Bullet cluster.

I. Ferreras et al., "Necessity of Dark Matter in Modified Newtonian Dynamics within Galactic Scales", Phys. Rev. Lett. v.100, p.031302 (2008).

Abstract: To test modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) on galactic scales, we study six strong gravitational lensing early-type galaxies from the CASTLES sample. Comparing the total mass (from lensing) with the stellar mass content (from a comparison of photometry and stellar population synthesis), we conclude that strong gravitational lensing on galactic scales requires a significant amount of dark matter, even within MOND. On such scales a 2 eV neutrino cannot explain the excess of matter in contrast with recent claims to explain the lensing data of the bullet cluster. The presence of dark matter is detected in regions with a higher acceleration than the characteristic MOND scale of ~10^-10 m/s^2. This is a serious challenge to MOND unless lensing is qualitatively different [possibly to be developed within a covariant, such as Tensor-Vector-Scalar (TeVeS), theory].

This lensing issue was brought up in one of the article that I linked above, so obviously, this is a serious issue with MOND. Let's see if they can dig out of this one.

Zz.

Disappointing Budget Hits DOE's BES Division

If people think that the outrageous Omnibus spending budget only hits High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics, think again. This this week's issue of Science (Feb. 1, 2008), Adrian Cho lays out the effects on the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) part of the Dept. of Energy (DOE) budget.

As the largest of the Office of Science's six divisions, BES funds research in materials sciences, chemistry, condensed matter physics, and related fields. Its $1.28 billion budget also pays for synchrotron x-ray sources, neutron sources, and other "user facilities" at the Office of Science's 10 national labs. The 2008 budget will not lead to major layoffs at those labs, as have cuts to DOE's particle physics budget (Science, 11 January, p. 142). But it will mean an array of smaller cost-saving measures that will have an impact on science. For example, user time will be cut by up to 20% at BES's already-oversubscribed user facilities, which support thousands of university researchers. "Nationwide, it is a very significant impact," says Thom Mason, director of Oak Ridge. "But it's not manifest in a dramatic way at one lab."
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The cuts in the BES budget are also hampering plans to build some user facilities. Researchers at Brookhaven received only $30 million of the $45 million requested to design and procure parts for the $912 million National Synchrotron Light Source II, which is scheduled to start up in 2015. And researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California received only $5 million of $17.4 million requested to begin construction of a 28,000-square-meter building that would provide lab space to users of the adjoining Advanced Light Source (ALS)

So this is a devastating budget, no matter from which angle you look at it, for all of science. And frankly, I do not see a relief in sight. The president's budget for FY09, scheduled to appear today, promises to be HUGE, and is predicted to cause record US budget deficit. I can already see that the US Congress is not going to allow such spending, which means that they can easily delay this beyond the start of FY09 in Oct 1st. This means that we will continue to be saddled with the catastrophic FY08 budget as part of the continuing resolution. I am not optimistic at all....

Please prove me wrong.

Zz.

Maybe 'They' Should Study Some Science Instead?

I got a good chuckle and almost yell "You Go, Bill!" after reading this commentary. He is responding to the call that science and engineering students take more "liberal arts" courses as part of their education.

I am tired of the presumption that it's the engineers who need to become "well rounded." The typical engineer has broader knowledge and interests than the average non-engineer, in my experience. Then look at the abysmal understanding the public has about basic science and engineering topics; it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. These are the same people who call upon the technical community to solve every problem quickly, painlessly, and without tradeoffs. Tell me: Who needs to learn more about the other side of life?

That actually is a very strong point. Science and engineering students today have to learn a lot more than what they need to know several years ago. Our accumulation of knowledge causes students to have to know a lot more before they can graduate.

Now don't get me wrong. I think all engineering and science students should learn about other things to be effective scientists and engineers. The art of communication, be it verbally and in writing, is crucial, especially in dealing with the general public. We have already seen what can happen to science funding when the general public and our politicians are not clearly informed on why funding basic science is important.

However, I think that the liberal arts electives that these students should be exposed to should be relevant to their profession. Learning about the social, philosophical, and human aspect of science and technology, and how they are perceived by the public, would be something highly useful to them when they do become scientists and engineers. But as the commentary has mentioned, this "understanding" needs to go both ways. Many liberal arts programs do not require their students to have any working knowledge of science and engineering. So in that sense, I can fully understand the frustration of the author in this paragraph:

There are many reasons for this decline, including the sheer complexity of today's technologies, a lazy and jaded public, and the dumbing down of education (have you seen today's high-school chemistry labs?), to name a few. But the basic principles of science and engineering are still vital and unchanged (force, power, gravity, the list could go on and on). Why should our community accept the premise that it is we who need to learn more about that non-technical side, rather than the other way around?

Zz.

Einstein’s Taxing Time at Oxford

It's amazing that after all these years after this man's death, there are still plenty of new discoveries about his life that keep popping up. Case in point is this newly published account of his encounter with the British tax law.

You would have needed to be Einstein to understand the Inland Revenue’s thinking when one of its more zealous inspectors wanted to tax the great German physicist on a fellowship granted by an Oxford college.

It was not until a personal intervention by the chairman of the board of the Revenue that a £400 ($787) annual stipend awarded to Albert Einstein by Christ Church in 1932 was ruled exempt from British taxation.

I have a feeling that for a very long time, there will be new discovery like this about Einstein's life.

Zz.

Jefferson Lab Imager Can Detect Beginnings Of Breast Tumors

This is just another clear example where the advances in the techniques used in physics produce a direct benefit in other areas, such as medical imaging. In this case, knowledge of detector physics can produce an early detection of breast cancer tumor that a mammogram could have missed.

The pre-clinical results will be published in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology on Feb. 7.

"We are physicists," Majewski said. "The medical people decide when this device is ready."

The work of Majewski's team has already been developed for the market by Newport News-based Dilon Technologies. This new research builds on Dilon's model and expands its capability because it has been designed to guide a biopsy, Majewski said.

This is also another example of the practical application of physics, in case you encounter people who think that there's nothing directly beneficial from physics.

It is imperative to point out why investment in basic research is so important. It isn't just for the knowledge, but also the "side effects". Many advances in the medical field and computing would not have occurred if it weren't for work done in nuclear and high energy physics. So when people pour money into the biological and health fields but sacrificing funding in basic physics, they are ignoring this fundamental fact that many of the advances made in the medical/biological fields came about thanks to the fruits of the labor done in basic physics. The public, and especially our politicians, need to be fully aware of that! Whoever is responsible for this story should point out clearly where the technology came from.

Zz.

What Is Physics?

It's strange that almost 900 posts into this physics blog, I would have a post that would ask that question. :)

Well, I wasn't the one asking it, but this article did. It is a piece written by Ian Cuthbert of the Institute of Physics in UK. I think this is a simplified answer to that question. The article deals mainly on the typical educational path that a student in the UK would take to become a physicist. So it is more of a description on how to be a physicist, rather than "what is physics".

Still, it is useful for those considering this career, if you're in the United Kingdom.

Zz.

Another Reason Not To Use Yahoo Search

So Yahoo is laying off more people as it loses even more grounds to Google. I guess in my case, I very seldom use Yahoo search anymore. But once in a while, I do. However, this latest "incident" simply reinforced the reason why I don't use it that often.

We all know that all these search engines try to make money off advertisements. They all use some "contextual" advertisement that is relevant to what you were searching for. So of course, if you do a search for "physics", websites that have relevance to that topic will come up as in the advertisement area of your search page. That's nothing new. However, when you do a search for "physics" on Yahoo, you tend to get not only physics-related websites, but also psychic-related websites!

Now I know fully well that (i) this also some time occurs when you do a Google search and (ii) the "intelligent" software is trying to make account for possible misspelling of the word. Since "physics" and "psychic" is close enough, I can see why they would both come up together (I won't go into the advertisement for crackpot websites, which both Yahoo and Google are guilty of). Still, Yahoo is notorious for putting up a lot of these psychic websites after such search, way more than what you would find using Google. And heaven forbid if you go to one of the physics-related Yahoo groups. There's plenty of psychic website advertisement.

This is a screen snapshot that I got after one of my recent excursion to do a Yahoo search on "physics".



As you can see, the whole list of web advertisement is for psychic websites! I mean, c'mon!

It is sad that while their spelling may be similar, these two can't be more further apart. It is a night-and-day difference in what they do, how they go about their business, etc. In other words, these advertisement for psychic websites are highly annoying, at least to me. But then again, I've been know to not have a lot of patience for such nonsense.

I wrote earlier on how we some time we get people who can't spell very well coming into the IRC physics chat channel. They were looking for some "reading" in the physics channel, when, of course, they were looking for the "psychic" channel. We had a lot of fun at their expense, I'm sorry to say. :) Maybe Yahoo is trying to cater for these people who can't spell very well. Now, it would only be fair that they also get physics websites when they do a search on "psychics". But then again, how are they to know that they're reading a legitimate webpage and not some crackpottery? Maybe they'll like the crackpottery more! Oy vey!

Zz.