1/3/23: TALL Content: 2022: A Year in Review posted
A few brief notes about this past year in science, technology, education, and society.
1/4/23: Links: Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo
"When fully realized, SSPP will deploy a constellation of modular spacecraft that collect sunlight, transform it into electricity, then wirelessly transmit that electricity over long distances wherever it is needed—including to places that currently have no access to reliable power. ... It consists of three main experiments, each tasked with testing a different key technology of the project:
- DOLCE (Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment): A structure measuring 6 feet by 6 feet that demonstrates the architecture, packaging scheme and deployment mechanisms of the modular spacecraft that would eventually make up a kilometer-scale constellation forming a power station;
- ALBA: A collection of 32 different types of photovoltaic (PV) cells, to enable an assessment of the types of cells that are the most effective in the punishing environment of space;
- MAPLE (Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment): An array of flexible lightweight microwave power transmitters with precise timing control focusing the power selectively on two different receivers to demonstrate wireless power transmission at distance in space."
In general, in any place the grid already exists, it's really hard to beat. So the biggest benefit in my opinion: "transmit that electricity over long distances wherever it is needed—including to places that currently have no access to reliable power."
See also: https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2023/01/caltech-launches-solar-power-prototype-into-space/
https://www.spacesolar.caltech.edu/
1/5/23: News Link: Skimming stones? Try a heavier, curvier rock, scientists say
"Want to make an impression the next time you're trying to skim a stone off water? Ignore the usual thin, flat candidates and try a fatter, curvier rock to get the biggest possible bounce, scientists said Wednesday."
...
"While thin, flat stones still give the greatest chance of a maximum number of skips... Fatter, curvier stones offer something 'that's completely different, but just as spectacular: huge leaps out of the water,'"
...
"The scientists had initially been looking into the more serious subject of aircraft icing, analyzing how ice crystals bounce off a layer of liquid formed on the wings of planes. It turned out this had the 'same sort of interactions that you get with you or I standing at the corner of a lake trying to skim a stone across it,'" ...
1/5/23: News Link: James Webb telescope reveals Milky Way–like galaxies in young universe
"New images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars—elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks—at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution."
Much of what the JWST is finding from the early universe is forcing cosmologists to re-think models of how the universe started and how it grew and changed. We're still a very long way from understanding a lot of fundamental truths about the universe.
1/6/23: News Link: Why the "Science Is Fun" Approach Isn't Working
Originally published 8/18/22, but linking now.
"Many people had bad experiences with high school and college science. It was dry. It was boring. It was hard. As a result, I've seen many science programs watered down to make them more fun. The thinking seems to have been that if we can get kids interested in science early on—make it cool, make it hip, make it fun—they'll be more likely to pursue it as a career."
...
"Instead of the 'fun' approach, maybe educators need to help students feel more confident about their abilities to understand and master science concepts. I believe the key to success is not being entertained, but instead developing skills and accumulating knowledge step-by-step to make complicated topics easier to comprehend."
Rather than the prescription outlined in this article, in my opinion the key issue is:
All too often, those tasked with teaching math and science don't understand and don't like math and science. (Almost as bad: often it seems those writing the science textbooks and curricula have the same outlook.)
Could you learn to love poetry from someone who doesn't understand and doesn't like poetry? Literature? Painting? Cooking? Anything, really?
I see it all too often: elementary school students who have had few science classes are filled with wonder and joy when they see something surprising about how the world works (such as fun demonstrations about static electricity). And then they're primed to understand why it works. But show the same thing to college students, and too many are tuned out, looking at their phones - they've been trained that it's confusing, with weird rules to be memorized rather than building an understanding that allows a coherent understanding of the world.
Those who love things should be enlisted to teach those things. As Jaime Escalante and many others have shown, it can have a powerful effect.
Are you aware of any mechanism for people who love things to help teach homeschooled children? If so, please let me know. If not, perhaps that's something we can build together.
1/9/23: News Link: Riddle solved: Why was Roman concrete so durable?
"... Rome’s famed Pantheon, which has the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome and was dedicated in A.D. 128, is still intact, and some ancient Roman aqueducts still deliver water to Rome today. Meanwhile, many modern concrete structures have crumbled after a few decades."
...
"Previously disregarded as merely evidence of sloppy mixing practices, or poor-quality raw materials, the new study suggests that these tiny lime clasts gave the concrete a previously unrecognized self-healing capability. 'The idea that the presence of these lime clasts was simply attributed to low quality control always bothered me,' says Masic. 'If the Romans put so much effort into making an outstanding construction material, following all of the detailed recipes that had been optimized over the course of many centuries, why would they put so little effort into ensuring the production of a well-mixed final product? There has to be more to this story.'"
"... Hot mixing, the team has now concluded, was actually the key to the super-durable nature."
"'The benefits of hot mixing are twofold,' Masic says. 'First, when the overall concrete is heated to high temperatures, it allows chemistries that are not possible if you only used slaked lime, producing high-temperature-associated compounds that would not otherwise form. Second, this increased temperature significantly reduces curing and setting times since all the reactions are accelerated, allowing for much faster construction.'"
"During the hot mixing process, the lime clasts develop a characteristically brittle nanoparticulate architecture, creating an easily fractured and reactive calcium source, which, as the team proposed, could provide a critical self-healing functionality. As soon as tiny cracks start to form within the concrete, they can preferentially travel through the high-surface-area lime clasts. This material can then react with water, creating a calcium-saturated solution, which can recrystallize as calcium carbonate and quickly fill the crack, or react with pozzolanic materials to further strengthen the composite material. These reactions take place spontaneously and therefore automatically heal the cracks before they spread."
My thoughts: The Romans were probably looking for ways for concrete to cure faster, and got the durability by accident. It seems that modern use of this method might produce concrete that may seem slightly weaker and less attractive initially, but is far more durable. When considering the true costs and benefits of any manufactured object, equipment life cycles are often overlooked or undervalued. Since most concrete is intended for decades to centuries of use, it makes sense to design for durability.
1/9/23: News Links: MIT’s top research stories of 2022: A few items I found especially interesting
• Making scientific publishing easier around the world
MIT alumnus-founded PoolText offers a platform for researchers and journal editors to improve the efficiency of submitting and publishing scientific papers.
• A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine
The heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity. The team’s design can generate electricity from a heat source of between 1,900 to 2,400 degrees Celsius, or up to about 4,300 degrees Fahrenheit.
• New lightweight material is stronger than steel
The new substance is the result of a feat thought to be impossible: polymerizing a material in two dimensions.
"Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions," Strano says. "This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong."
• A new concept for low-cost batteries
Made from inexpensive, abundant materials, an aluminum-sulfur battery could provide low-cost backup storage for renewable energy sources.
The three ingredients they ended up with are cheap and readily available — aluminum, no different from the foil at the supermarket; sulfur, which is often a waste product from processes such as petroleum refining; and widely available salts. “The ingredients are cheap, and the thing is safe — it cannot burn,” Sadoway says.
“It’s funny,” he says, because the whole focus was on finding a salt with the lowest melting point, but the catenated chloro-aluminates they ended up with turned out to be resistant to the shorting problem. “If we had started off with trying to prevent dendritic shorting, I’m not sure I would’ve known how to pursue that,” Sadoway says. “I guess it was serendipity for us.”
This new battery formulation, he says, would be ideal for installations of about the size needed to power a single home or small to medium business, producing on the order of a few tens of kilowatt-hours of storage capacity.
1/10/23: Links: Rocketry, Fusion prospects
Can a Seattle Startup Launch a Fusion Reactor Into Space?
"Avalanche Energy Design’s compact power and propulsion tech raises funds—and eyebrows"
...
"Avalanche's Orbitron, on the other hand, could theoretically fit on a tabletop. It relies on the Ph.D. thesis of Tom McGuire, a student working on inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion at MIT in 2007. IEC was first imagined by television pioneer Philo Farnsworth. An IEC device confines fuel ions in electric fields that are supported by spherical electrodes. The ions recirculate inside the IEC device, giving them repeated opportunities to fuse."
The thesis mentioned in the article above: Improved lifetimes and synchronization behavior in multi-grid inertial electrostatic confinement fusion devices
"...the plasma self-organizes from an initially uniform state into a synchronized, pulsing collection of ion bunches. In simulations, these bunches are observed to be long-lived with lifetimes on the order of at least a tenth of a second, exceeding 20,000 passes. This represents a 3 order of magnitude improvement in confinement time and device efficiency."
Nuclear fusion firm Pulsar fires up a UK-built hybrid rocket engine A win in the rocketry world: 'Flames came out of the right end'
...
"'What I've learned,' Dinan told The Reg, 'is that everybody knows how rocket engines work. Lots and lots of people are rocket engine experts. But none of these people can build rocket engines. The people that can build rocket engines are the people that have taken apart 20 engines that have failed...'
"Following repeated redesigns 'the first test was positive!' said Dinan, 'It didn't explode and the flames came out of the right end.'"
[From 2020:]
Fusion boffins apply plasma know-how to building thrusters 'For a fusion company, it's quite nice to have a product that works'
"The UK-based Pulsar Fusion team showed off the thruster last month, a slightly alarming ring of plasma burning at millions of degrees in a vacuum chamber, confined by an electromagnetic field and spewing out particles at speeds of over 20km/s."
...
"With traditional chemical rockets still needed for launches, Dinan also has an eye on further tweaks for Pulsar's technology: 'One of the projects we're building,' he said, 'is to put a sort of more conventional thruster inside our Hall-effect thruster so that you can start launching in the atmosphere.'"
"There remains the bigger picture. While Pulsar's krypton thrusters will do for pootling about in orbit or around the solar system – SpaceX famously uses krypton Hall-effect thrusters on its Starlink satellites – Dinan said he plans to scale things up as soon as 2022 with a much larger, next-generation bit of hardware."
NASA: Lunar Helium-3 Fusion Resource Distribution
"The Moon's regolith contains vast resources of helium-3, an ideal fuel for terrestrial fusion power systems. Development of plans for private sector investment in obtaining helium-3 and its by-products requires detailed definition of that isotope's selenographic distribution."
After delays, Rocket Lab is set for launch from NASA’s Wallops spaceport
"While other small rocket companies have struggled to get off the ground, Rocket Lab has launched 32 missions since 2017 from its facility in New Zealand. And a few years ago, the Long Beach, Calif.-based company started looking for a launch site in the United States. It considered the Kennedy Space Center but chose Wallops because room was available to build a manufacturing and processing site."
...
"With its small size, just under 60 feet tall, Electron is designed to carry small satellites on short notice. That is a capability that is of particular interest to the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community. It is another reason that Rocket Lab chose Wallops; it’s only a little over a three-hour drive from Washington."
...
"In addition to launching Electron, a relatively small rocket, the company plans to fly its much larger Neutron rocket from Wallops. That rocket is intended to be reusable — after launching to space it would turn around and fly back to its launchpad. Beck said the company would attempt to land Neutron on its first flight, now scheduled for sometime in 2024."
"'At this point, we will attempt to both ascend and descend, given that’s what the whole stage is designed to do,' he said. 'It’d be kind of like taking off an airplane and not attempting to land it.'"
1/11/23: News Link: Quasicrystal formed during accidental electrical discharge
"Quasicrystals, as their name suggests, are crystal-like substances. They possess characteristics not found in ordinary crystals, such as a non-repeating arrangement of atoms. To date, quasicrystals have been found embedded in meteorites and in the debris from nuclear blasts. In this new effort, the researchers found one embedded in a sand dune in Sand Hills, Nebraska."
"... Curious as to how it might have formed and how it ended up in the sand dune, the researchers did some investigating. They discovered that a power line had fallen on the dune, likely the result of a lightning strike. They suggest the electrical surge from either the power line or the lightning could have produced the quasicrystal."
"The researchers note that the quasicrystal was found inside of a tubular piece of fulgurite, which they suggest was also formed during the electrical surge due to fusing of melted sand and metal from the power line."
...
"The researchers conclude that finding a quasicrystal in such a place suggests that others are likely out there, as well, having formed due to lightning strikes or downed power lines. They also suggest their work could lead to techniques to create quasicrystals in the lab."
A new realm of materials to fabricate and explore. Often, this leads to a lot of new science and industry.
1/11/23: Links: Nasa Innovative Concepts
NASA provides funding to develop technologies useful for space.
• 2023: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-experimental-space-technology-concepts-for-initial-study
• 2022: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2022/
Both lists are wonderful. Let's make progress.
1/12/23: Link: Did You Know? Ohm’s Law Almost Destroyed Georg Ohm’s Life
"Georg Ohm was a 28-year–old high school physics teacher in 1825 when he first decided to study the effect of the metal in a circuit on the current produced...."
...
"Then Ohm made a profound deduction from these experiments, what he called a 'pure law of nature.' He decided that the 'tension' was from the battery or thermocouple and that it dissipated over the length of the circuit as the current flowed over the circuit, like a pump for an artificial waterfall raising water to a certain height and then the water falls down. No matter the path, the change in height is the same as it returns to the bottom of the waterfall."
"Ohm was quite happy with his conclusions and published his theories and results in 1827 in a little book, 'The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically,' which was hated and then ignored."
...
"Third, and possibly most damaging, Ohm’s theories were opposed by a rival named Georg Fredrich Pohl, who had just published his own work on the science of circuits. Pohl called Ohm’s results 'an unmistakable failure' and convinced the German Minister of Education that 'a physicist who professed such heresies was unworthy to teach science.' Ohm was devastated by the feeling that his superiors at the Gymnasium were offended by his work. He declared that it was impossible for him to retain his position there and quit, full of 'mortification and grief,' as one biographer put it."
...
"Then in 1836, William Sturgeon, a shoemaker who invented the electromagnet, got into a fight with the people at the Royal Society of London. Frustrated and basically ostracized, Sturgeon started his own magazine...."
"Soon, English tinkerers were trying to make their own powerful electric motors, including a young beer brewer named James Joule (for whom the units of energy are named), and everyone scoured Sturgeon’s magazine for tricks and tips."
...
"By 1841, Ohm’s Law was popular enough that the British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to translate Ohm’s entire 1827 book in the second volume of 'Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science and Learned Societies, and from Foreign Journals,' and Ohm was awarded England’s Royal Society’s highest honor, the Copley Medal, for his 'researches into the laws of electric currents.'"
This reminds me of the quote: "The arrogance of some of those who are so damned sure they are right is just astounding. Scientific witch hunts are often the worst kind, and have been since the secular authorities stopped enforcing the local bishop's decrees of anathema." -- Jerry Pournelle
1/12/23: Link: One Shot to do the Impossible: The Intense Testing of the James Webb Space Telescope
"To say it’s a complex operation understates the matter: there were more than 344 possible single points of failure in the system, meaning if anything went wrong it could jeopardize the entire mission."
...
"It's incredibly hard to simulate those conditions on the ground - the temperature, the vacuum, the lack of gravity."
...
"'We did smaller, unit-level tests. We did subsystem tests,' said James Flynn, who held multiple roles throughout the duration of the project. ... With each iteration, each subcomponent proven, he noted, 'We were building up the knowledge base, anchoring the analytical models.'"
...
"Testing wasn't just about proving that the design worked. Because nothing like Webb had been built before, at every stage, testing actually helped to drive the design process and generate a better end product."
1/12/23: Links: Open Source Technology
• RepRapable Recyclebot: Open source 3-D printable extruder for converting plastic to 3-D printing filament
"The device costs less than $700 in materials and can be fabricated in about 24 h. Filament is produced at 0.4 kg/h using 0.24 kWh/kg with a diameter ±4.6%. Thus, filament can be manufactured from commercial pellets for <22% of commercial filament costs. In addition, it can fabricate recycled waste plastic into filament for 2.5 cents/kg, which is <1000X commercial filament costs. The system can fabricate filament from polymers with extrusion temperatures <250°C and is thus capable of manufacturing custom filament over a wide range of thermopolymers and composites for material science studies of new materials and recyclability studies, as well as research on novel applications of fused filament based 3-D printing."
• Rocket Stove
"A rocket stove is a variety of wood-burning cooking stove with a higher efficiency than other types of traditional ovens due to a better insulation and a better combustion process. They function under a similar principle as rocket stove mass heaters. Most rocket stoves are easy to build, and can be made with low-cost materials (the CCAT rocket stove for instance, costs only USD$84.02)."
• Open-Source Lab, 1st Edition: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs
• Instructional Tabletop MRI Scanner
"This Wiki is a resource for people who are assembling, programming, or using the instructional tabletop MRI scanner developed by a multi-institutional collaboration led by Larry Wald's group at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital."
"The scanner design is a low-cost resource for demonstrating concepts like magnetic resonance, spatial encoding, and the Fourier transform in an educational setting. The system was first used in MIT's undergraduate course 6.S02 - Intro to EECS II from a Medical Technology Perspective. Most of the components are open source designs."
1/12/23: News Link: Extreme 'Rogue Wave' in The North Pacific Confirmed as Most Extreme on Record
"In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet)."
"The four-story wall of water was finally confirmed in February 2022 as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded."
...
"For centuries, rogue waves were considered nothing but nautical folklore. It wasn't until 1995 that myth became fact. On the first day of the new year, a nearly 26-meter-high wave (85 feet) suddenly struck an oil-drilling platform roughly 160 kilometers (100 miles) off the coast of Norway."
"At the time, the so-called Draupner wave defied all previous models scientists had put together."
"Since then, dozens more rogue waves have been recorded (some even in lakes), and while the one that surfaced near Ucluelet, Vancouver Island was not the tallest, its relative size compared to the waves around it was unprecedented."
For centuries, those who thought they knew better discounted eyewitness accounts - thinking they were exaggerations. Wave behavior can be very surprising - and dangerous. If you only account for steady-state behavior, your design may be OK for a while. But if you want something that truly endures, it must withstand extremes that seem almost mythical.
1/12/23: News Link: 7 Ways Electronics Manufacturers Can Combat Industrial Inflation
...
"Electronics manufacturers may be unable to implement 'shrinkflation' — reducing product sizes to sustain profit margins without raising prices — but you can adopt a similar approach. Instead of adjusting end prices directly, you can offer different quality levels at the same price."
...
"The as-a-service model may not work for all electronic products, but it’s not the only way to change pricing models. You can also bundle previously separate items or separate previously bundled ones. Think of new ways to approach pricing and consider how it may benefit you and your customers."
...
"Just because a company has a close relationship with one supplier doesn’t mean that source offers the best prices amid inflationary pressures. Experts recommend getting at least three price quotes from material vendors to find the optimal supplier."
1/14/23: News Link: Life Hack: Paint Zebra Stripes on Your Cows to Keep Flies Away: You'll reduce bug bites by 50 percent!
[Originally published 2019]
"Some scientists think zebras' stripes significantly reduce the amount of insect bites they receive.
To put that theory to the test, Japanese researchers painted cows with different patterns. Some cows got zebra stripes, some received black stripes only, and others were left in their natural coat with no paint at all."
"The zebra trick worked. And it could potentially save the cattle industry billions."
See also:
Scientists Dressed Horses as Zebras to Learn What Stripes Are For
"The researchers dressed both horses and zebras in black coats, white coats, and striped zebra coats. The idea was to test how flies reacted to each type of coat, and the researchers used both horses and zebras to make sure it really was the coat that was making the difference."
...
"From a distance, flies seemed to be equally attracted to both horses and zebras regardless of what kind of costume each was wearing. But when flies got close to a striped coat—real or synthetic—they got confused, bumping into the coat or just flying off in a random direction. The end result is a lot fewer bites for the zebra or the coat-wearing horse."
"It’s possible that the stripes act as a kind of optical illusion, messing with the flies’ navigation and disorienting them. Another possibility is that the stripes prevent the flies from seeing the animal as a solid object, so the flies don’t realize they’re about to hit something until it’s too late."
1/14/23: Link: The Mind-Boggling Ames Window Illusion Still Works After You Figure It Out
"For many optical illusions, there’s a life cycle on a person-to-person basis, and it’s often pretty short... First, the observer sees the illusion and is fooled by it. Then, they discover why it provides the effect it does, and once they know that, they can revisit the illusion from a new perspective, one that lets them see behind the curtain and no longer be affected by it in the same way. Then there’s the Ames Window, which remains weird as heck all the time, even after you’ve seen it debunked in multiple ways."
I first saw an example of it here:
https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1611804675686154240
Also of interest from the same twitter user:
Watch this demonstration of relative motion
1/14/23: Link: Small Asteroid Is Earth's Constant Companion
Originally from 2016, but I just learned about it recently.
"A small asteroid has been discovered in an orbit around the sun that keeps it as a constant companion of Earth, and it will remain so for centuries to come."
...
"'Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth,' said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 'One other asteroid -- 2003 YN107 -- followed a similar orbital pattern for a while over 10 years ago, but it has since departed our vicinity. This new asteroid is much more locked onto us. Our calculations indicate 2016 HO3 has been a stable quasi-satellite of Earth for almost a century, and it will continue to follow this pattern as Earth's companion for centuries to come.'"
1/17/23: News Link: Cuprate superconductivity mechanism may be coming into focus
Originally published Nov 18, 2022, this is a good, but technical article - as is fitting for Physics Today. Possible progress in understanding an important topic.
I found this via superconductors.org who also posts the results of his own experiments and theories: Reconciling SuperExchange with Planar Weight Disparity (22 December 2022)
Many see him as a crank, but E. Joe Eck of Superconductors.ORG has assembled a pretty exciting array of measurements. They should be tested independently by other groups, but I have not seen any taking it up.
If we become fully self-funded, I'd like to make those sorts of independent measurements. Collaborators welcome.
1/18/23: News Link:Hubble Finds Hungry Black Hole Twisting Captured Star Into Donut Shape
"Black holes are gatherers, not hunters. They lie in wait until a hapless star wanders by. When the star gets close enough, the black hole's gravitational grasp violently rips it apart and sloppily devours its gasses while belching out intense radiation."
...
"Hubble can't photograph the AT2022dsb tidal event's mayhem up close, since the munched-up star is nearly 300 million light-years away at the core of the galaxy ESO 583-G004. But astronomers used Hubble's powerful ultraviolet sensitivity to study the light from the shredded star, which include hydrogen, carbon, and more. The spectroscopy provides forensic clues to the black hole homicide."
1/19/23: Links: Old books from e-rara, the platform for digitized rare books from Swiss institutions Search for rare books from the 15th to 20th century. Currently 98514 titles are available.
I first found the Rosa Ursina book there (see What's New 3/23/22 - It's a text from 1630 showing views of the Sun, including detailed sketches of sunspots over time). I finally started perusing some other titles. Many of interest are in 115 Titles in History of technology and science (Iron Library) and 21300 Titles in Historical scientific literature (ETH Library). In that latter category are 1633 listed in English; most (13781) are from 1801-1900. There are just too many very nice things there...
For example:
Natural magick in twenty books: wherein are set forth all the riches and delights of the natural sciences; 1658 which includes:
Chap. LIII.
"It is false, That the Diamond doth hinder the Loadstones vertue."
"We showed that it was a false report, that the Loadstone anoynted with Garlick, loseth its vertues. But it is more false, that it loseth its vertue by the presence of the Diamond. For, say some, there is so much discord between the qualities of the Loadstone and the Diamond, and they are so hateful to one against the other, and secret enemies, that if the Diamond be put to the Loadstone, it presently faints and loseth all its forces...."
"I tried this often, and found it false; and that there is no Truth in it. But there are many Smatterers and ignorant Fellows, that would fain reconcile the ancient Writers, and excuse these lyes; not seeing what damage they bring to the Commonwealth of Learning. For the new Writers, building on their ground, thinking them true, add to them, and invent, and draw other Experiments from them, that are falser than the Principles they insisted on. The blinde leads the blinde, and both fall into the pit. Truth must be searched, loved and professed by all men; nor must any mens authority, old or new, hold us from it. ..."
Other titles include:
- Beautiful earth and celestial maps
- The beauty of the heavens : a pictorial display of the astronomical phenomena of the universe : one hundred and four coloured scenes illustrating a familiar lecture on astronomy. Includes the planets and their orbits; tides, eclipses; atmospheric optics; etc.
- The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs: or, The Art of Drawing and Working the Ornamental Parts of Architecture : illustrated, by upwards of Four Hundred Grand Designs, for Peirs, Gates, Doors, Windows, Niches, Buffets, Cisterns, Chimney Pieces, Tabernacle Frames, ... Monuments, Fonts, Obelisques ... If you want architectural designs, look here.
- Catalogue of electrical test instruments manufactured by Elliott Brothers: mathematical, optical and physical instrument makers... A nice source for images of great for apparatus, and perhaps stuff that's much easier to build now.
- Coal flora of the carboniferous formation in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States. Great for identifying fossils from coal mines.
- A 1687 imprint of Newton's Principia
- A view of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy. Includes some nice figures at the chapter headings, and apparatus that helps prove some of the propositions.
- Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles, and made easy to those who have not studied mathematics. To which are added, a plain method of finding the distances of all the planets from the sun, by the transit of venus over the sun's disc, in the year 1761 ...
- Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes : including letters of other eminent men, now first published from the originals in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge : together with an appendix, containing other unpublished letters and papers by Newton ; with notes, synoptical view of the philosopher's life, and a variety of details illustrative of his history [1850]
- The circle of the sciences : a cyclopaedia of experimental, chemical, mathematical, & mechanical philosophy, and natural history... ; with an introductory discourse of the objects, pleasures, and advantages of science...
- A complete treatise on electricity, in theory and practice : with original experiments [1795]
- The comparative danger to life of the alternating and continuous electrical currents [1889]
- Zugabe zur Praxi geometriae... (1739) Includes some nice images of conic sections, etc.
- Tables of antient coins, weights, and measures... (1754) (Useful for coming up with problems about odd unit conversions.)
- Novo teatro di machine et edificii per varie et sicure opeationi... (1656) Machines from the late 1500's
- Novvelle invention de lever l'eau plus haut que sa source avec qvelqves machines... (1657) Machines, building from the simple to the complex
1/21/23: Public Domain Roundup
A collection of resources about things in the public domain.
If you want to track down copyright status of something, perhaps the most useful link I've come across while perusing the following is
The Online Books Page: Copyright Registration And Renewal Records
"The Catalog of Copyright Entries, published by the US Copyright Office, contains a list of all copyright registrations received."
Includes links to summaries and indexes that help for searching, but none are complete.
Most of the following were found by following links from the blog Open Culture: The best free cultural & educational media on the web
Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke (University) Law
Useful links from there include:
• January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all!
"On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain.... These include ... the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the German science-fiction film Metropolis..."
• January 1, 2022, is Public Domain Day: Works from 1926 are open to all, as is a cornucopia of recorded music: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923!
"On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the US public domain.... The line-up this year is stunning. It includes books such as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten’s Bambi.... But that’s not all. In 2022 we get a bonus: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923 will be entering the public domain too!
• Open Intellectual Property Casebook "This free textbook is an introduction to intellectual property law... It focuses on the four forms of US federal intellectual property—trademark, copyright, patent and trade secrecy..."
Text is free, we make our money on volume(s)
"The internet makes copying cheap. Businesses that see their livelihood as dependent on the restriction of copying – concentrated in the recording, film, publishing and software industries – are understandably upset. ... It is not so much a case of wanting to have their cake and eat it, as to have their cake and make your cake illegal."
"Yet there are hints in each of these industries of a different business model, one that aims to encourage, rather than to forbid copying. ... In my next few columns, that is what I will do – study 'copy-friendly' businesses, beginning today with publishing."
Which includes links to:
• Baen Free Library (mostly science fiction)
• O'Reilly Open Books "O'Reilly has published a number of Open Books--books with various forms of 'open' copyright--over the years."
Open Science
"For years, Creative Commons has been involved in with projects and policy to enable and support the open sharing of scientific information. The CC licenses and public domain tools are widely used to share scientific research and data. We’ve also created software and developed policy recommendations that make it easier for scholars and policymakers to advocate for open solutions to collaboration and information exchange."
The Association for Recorded Sound Collections: Ten Notable Pre-1923 Recordings
THE COMPLETE METROPOLIS: the classic science fiction movie, now in the public domain. The direct link to the movie itself is here.
The Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery: All the public domain images from all the works.
1/21/23: Science, Engineering conceptual maps
The Map of Engineering (YouTube video) With posters available for purchase here, or good resolution images available on Flicker.
See alsoThe Map of Physics (YouTube video). I would break things up a little differently, but it's pretty good. Digital download of the image available here.
There are others, such as the map of quantum physics. See the full collection on flickr here.
1/21/23: ChatGPT: "I'm sorry, I simply cannot be cynical about a technology that can accomplish this."
Directly quoting from the tweet:
Prompt: write a biblical verse in the style of the king james bible explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR
ChatGPT response:
And it came to pass that a man was troubled by a peanut butter sandwich, for it had been placed within his VCR, and he knew not how to remove it.
And he cried out to the Lord, saying, "Oh, Lord, how can I remove this sandwich from my VCR, for it is stuck fast and will not budge?"
And the Lord spoke unto him, saying, "Fear not, my child, for I shall guide thy hand and show thee the way. Take thy butter knife, and carefully insert it between the sandwich and the VCR, and gently pry them apart. And with patience and perseverance, the sandwich shall be removed, and thy VCR shall be saved."
And the man did as the Lord commanded, and lo and behold, the sandwich was removed from the VCR, and the man was saved.
And the Lord said, "Verily I say unto thee, seek not to put thy peanut butter sandwiches in thy VCR, for it is not a suitable place for such things. Rather, keep thy sandwiches in thy refrigerator or on thy plate, where they belong."
And the man heeded the Lord's words, and from that day forth, he kept his sandwiches in their proper place, and was saved from trouble and woe. Amen.
1/21/23: More from Open Culture
Directly on their site are:
200 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection, and Physics Free Courses, among many other things. For both categories, I knew of some; others are new to me and look pretty good.
Software Used by Hayao Miyazaki’s Animation Studio Becomes Open Source & Free to Download
"'Included in the OpenToonz are many of Ghibli’s custom tools, specially designed to capture trees waving in the breeze, food that looks too delicious to eat, and the constant running Miyazaki’s films are known for,' ... 'We needed a software enabling us to create a certain section of the animation digitally. Our requirement was that in order to continue producing theatre-quality animation without additional stress, the software must have the ability to combine the hand-drawn animation with the digitally painted ones seamlessly.' Toonz, evidently, could pull it off."
Not directly on Open Culture, but linked from there:
The USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona recently released a series of geologic Martian maps that could all be impactful to future missions to the Red Planet.
"Olympus Mons is the tallest volcano in the solar system, but a new map of the caldera by Dr. Peter Mouginis-Mark (University of Hawai’i Manoa) revealed a surprise - the highest point isn’t where you would expect. This new detailed map highlights the complex volcanologic history of the caldera and builds on Dr. Mouginis-Mark's past work which found multiple caldera collapses had occurred in Olympus Mons' past. Dr. Mouginis-Mark thinks this could explain the curiosity of Olympus Mons' highest point."
"'Probably the most interesting thing about the map is the addition of the contours (Mars maps almost never have this) and these contours have allowed the identification of the late-stage inflation of the summit (in other words, the contours show that some young lava flows appear to flow uphill),' remarks Dr. Mouginis-Mark."
1/21/23: SpaceX mini news roundup
SpaceX could launch 1st Starship orbital flight in February, Elon Musk says "We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely."
SpaceX flexes might with simultaneous Starship, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon operations
"On January 9th, SpaceX demonstrated the breadth of its capabilities by simultaneously operating two orbital Dragons, four rockets, and four launch pads."
"In the afternoon, SpaceX stacked Ship 24 and Super Heavy B7 at Starship’s lone South Texas orbital launch pad. In California, a Falcon 9 rocket was vertical at Vandenberg Space Force Base for SpaceX’s upcoming Starlink 2-4 launch, which will carry the company's own internet satellites. In Florida, both of SpaceX's orbital Falcon launch pads were occupied."
"A Falcon Heavy rocket had just gone vertical at Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A, which SpaceX leases from NASA. A few miles to the south, a second Falcon 9 rocket was vertical at SpaceX's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station LC-40 pad for a OneWeb satellite launch. While weather delayed Starlink 2-4, SpaceX was briefly prepared to launch both Falcon 9 rockets just 35 minutes apart."
"In low Earth orbit, around 400 kilometers (250 mi) up, a Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft was freely flying in space shortly after undocking from the International Space Station (ISS). Simultaneously, a Crew Dragon spacecraft was docked to the ISS, where it will remain until it returns four astronauts to Earth in February 2023."
SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket kicks off fifth mission with most spectacular launch yet
1/24/23: News Links: Earth's Core
Earth's inner core may have started spinning other way: Study (January 24, 2023)
"Earth's inner core, a hot iron ball the size of Pluto, has stopped spinning in the same direction as the rest of the planet and might even be rotating the other way, research suggested on Monday."
...
"The study's authors, Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China's Peking University, said they found that the inner core's rotation 'came to near halt around 2009 and then turned in an opposite direction'."
"'We believe the inner core rotates, relative to the Earth's surface, back and forth, like a swing,' they told AFP."
...
"Experts not involved in the study expressed caution about its findings, pointing to several other theories and warning that many mysteries remain about the center of the Earth. "
...
"Relative to the Earth's surface" is a really important distinction that seems contradicted by the headline and several sentences in the article. That is: the researchers seem to agree that the core of the earth is spinning in the same direction as the surface of the earth; but sometimes it spins faster than the surface (making it go "forward" relative to the surface), and other times slower than the surface (making it go "backward" relative to the surface). It would be nice if the reporters described this better. In fact, this article links to an article from June 2022 that describes a similar effect more clearly:
The Earth moves far under our feet: A new study shows that the inner core oscillates (June 10, 2022)
"USC scientists have found evidence that the Earth's inner core oscillates, contradicting previously accepted models that suggested it consistently rotates at a faster rate than the planet's surface...."
Also of interest:
Earth’s core may have hardened just in time to save its magnetic field (January 28, 2019) "This shift both prevented the protective magnetic field from collapsing and recharged it"
"Earth’s inner core solidified sometime after 565 million years ago — just in time to not only save the planet’s protective magnetic field from imminent collapse, but also to kick-start it into its current, powerful phase, a new study suggests."
...
"Heat driving convection within Earth’s hot, molten core ... powered the planet’s magnetic field for billions of years. New evidence suggests that by about 565 million years ago, that field was weak and increasingly unstable .... Sometime after that, the inner core began to solidify ..., which stabilized and strengthened the field, giving it relatively consistent magnetic north and south poles ...."
So if this study is correct, it seems convection in an all-fluid core was enough to drive the "geodynamo" powering the earth's magnetic field for billions of years. But when that started running down, the phase transition from liquid to solid was the main driver.
Phase transitions are powerful things. Water evaporating from your skin is enough to keep you cool in most circumstances. Farmers in Florida spray their oranges with liquid water during cold spells, because the freezing of the water releases enough energy to keep the temperature close enough to 32° F to avoid damage (usually). Water vapor condensing into liquid droplets warms the surrounding air enough to drive convection far up into the atmosphere - leading to thunderheads. Explore just a little, and you'll find many equally dramatic effects. This study provides one.
1/26/23: Link: Armadillos roll out treatments for leprosy
"Research on leprosy was held back for many years by the lack of an animal model. This prevented the search for vaccines and effective antibiotic treatments."
"The bacterium multiplies very slowly - about once every two weeks - which has made it impossible to grow in useful quantities in the lab for experiments and most of the animals usually used as disease models such as rats, guinea pigs and rabbits , are immune to the disease...
...
"But the real breakthrough came from Eleonor E. Storrs’ discovery in the late 1960s that nine-banded armadillos were susceptible to leprosy. The bacterium thrives in lower body temperatures, in humans, it grows in the extremities such as ears and fingers, but armadillos have a low body temperature around 33°C - lower than in humans and other mammals - which means that the disease penetrates deeper and affects the organs. The armadillo became the perfect natural incubator to grow large quantities of M. leprae to study the disease, test drugs and look for a vaccine. ... Armadillos are also specifically useful in research because of their peculiar reproduction pattern – they give birth to four genetically identical offspring – allowing for an identical control for each experiment."
"'Without armadillos, there would not be much research on leprosy' explains Meyers from the Armed Forces Institute. And thanks to them, over the last 20 years, 14 million people were cured of the disease."
1/26/23: Links: ChatGPT helping with programming
I tried ChatGPT for Arduino - It’s Surprising
"Learn how to use AI’s help to learn Arduino programming faster, find bugs, and understand programs line-by-line!"
- With very sold examples, showing the prompts and responses. Impressive output, and a very well-written article.
Raspberry Pi Pico Project with ChatGPT
"When creating a new project, it is quite normal to seek help and advice from a more experienced and knowledgeable person.... We will now see how AI responds to a query on how to design a project for the Raspberry Pi. In this post, a chatbot is used to develop and simulate a Raspberry Pi Pico project."
...
"For our project, we enter the following string in the ChatGPT box: 'Please create listing for Raspberry Pi Pico in Micropython regarding a traffic light, with green, yellow and red lights. The sequence to be played is green, green with yellow, red.'"
"After a few moments of waiting, also dependent on the enormous network traffic currently involved on the platform, the bot responds with a very human response worthy of an electronics and programming expert, as can be seen in the screenshot in Figure 3. The listing is extremely correct from a logical, algorithmic and syntactic point of view. The functions, indentations and syntaxes of any programming language—in this case, Micropython—are upheld."
The code even includes explanations in comments - something too many human programmers fail to do.
1/26/23: Links: wokwi.com Simulated Arduino, and more
I'd used tinkercad before to simulate arduino-based circuits (and a few other simple things - far less than it's capable of). But I've just found wokwi.com, which can also do those simulations (with code), without requiring an account.
It would be nice if there were a search function, or a way to browse projects by category. All of the projects can be found by navigating through their makers (31 so far). Still, here are a couple I found interesting:
• Simon game: https://wokwi.com/projects/328451800839488084
• Servo + Knob: https://wokwi.com/projects/340367397829476948
Also very interesting are items on their blog. This includes the post about using ChatGPT for Arduino referenced earlier today, and also: https://blog.wokwi.com/hardware-crowdfunding-behind-the-scenes/, an excellent detailed description of working with Crowd Supply on launching a pretty interesting electronic game.
1/26/23: News Link: Slashing Power Consumption with More Informative Energy Bills
"Over the last few years, wholesale gas prices have increased by a factor of 14 and electricity prices by a factor of 8. Increasing demand, limited supplies, a shortage of storage space and the conflict in Ukraine mean energy prices are still skyrocketing and bills are causing real angst for households and businesses alike. Moreover, Centrica (owners of British Gas) has warned that energy price volatility in the U.K. is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and there is serious concern that many commercial organizations will soon be reaching the end of their existing fixed-price contracts. Some have already seen their energy costs rise by more than 100%. With energy inflation set to continue, never has there been a more compelling need for business owners to better understand their energy usage to retain the bottom line."
1/26/23: Links: Thermal Paste
Is Thermal Paste Necessary? (September 9, 2022)
Shows some nice images - results of simulations - showing different idealized situations for a CPU and heatsink. It's important to keep in mind, though: the purpose is to fill in air gaps between the two surfaces, not as a complete layer. In fact, sloppy application can make even bigger air gaps, which would be worse than not using thermal paste at all.
This links to some other rather amusing articles:
(DIY) Homemade Alternatives For CPU Thermal Paste (July 10, 2020)
Household Substitutes for CPU Thermal Paste (May 2, 2016)
Tips from the comments are about as useful as the articles themselves. Here are some things from these articles and their comments:
Possibly decent alternatives to thermal paste (at least short-term):
- Diaper rash cream (since it usually contains a decent amount of zinc oxide)
- Toothpaste mixed with vaseline (make sure it's a very smooth consistency), possibly mixed with very fine-grained aluminum powder
- PFTE grease
- Any of the above very well mixed with the remaining old thermal paste
And another tip from the comments: To make rubbery things stickier (e.g. a belt for a DVD drive), rub fresh garlic on it.
