Science explained properly

Just saw this awesome image describing the origin of the Pluto-Charron planet-moon system. Here is what I love about it. It describes the favored theory of the day on how the system originated. It also tells us why the theory is favored. It also tells us what the drawbacks of the theory are. When we present scientific theory to the layman, we should always, ALWAYS be doing it in this way.

It isn't always done this way. In fact, when experts discuss the newest and most exciting cosmological theories - dark matter, dark energy, inflation, string theory, etc., they rarely, if ever, present the pro's and con's. They present these theories as if they're done deals. Case in point, Neil deGrasse-Tyson, in the 5th installment of Seth MacFarlane's awesome Cosmos redux series on the Fox Network, describes dark matter in a way that suggests that it is a certainty - as if it exists as sure as the sands on you fave beach exist. Well, the truth is that we NEED it to exist, to keep current cosmological theory tied together. Now it may very well exist, but our theories could just as likely be flawed, or even ** shudder ** incorrect. It's not like there are beakers of the stuff in chemistry labs at MIT or anything.

Time to be thorough and honest here, kids. Especially you, NDT!

And another book again

Robot City, Isaac Asimov's, Book One: Odyssey

M.P. Kube-McDowell

I bought this book thinking that it was written by renown science fiction author Isaac Asimov. After it lived on my bookshelf for a year, I picked it and paid more attention to it than when I bought it, and was momentarily disappointed. With a more detailed look at the cover, I noticed that it just says Isaac Asimov above the title, with an apostrophe-S appended to the name, and another writer's name in fine print near the bottom... Uh-oh, I thought, I think I've seen this type of thing before... However, I decided to give it a chance, ready to back out at the slightest hint of boringness. So I read the intro by Isaac Asimov, where he was kind to the actual author (as you would expect / hope), and also to an illustrator- one Paul Rivoche, whom, as it turns out, I knew in high school. My interest immediately rekindled, I dove in. (The illustrations are great, by the way--- I bought the book because of Asimov's name, the cool sounding title, and the way cool cover art--- I am often suckered in by cool images like this.) 

The book seems to be written with Asimov's famous (to geeks, anyway) three laws of robotics as a major and ever-present theme element, which worried me, initially. That aside, it is actually a pretty good read- it includes a protagonist marooned astronaut, robots, space raiders, good aliens, bad aliens (including a really bad antagonist alien), a mysterious female, space ships, cool technology, more robots, and of course, a great big robot city. Fairly light reading, but I want to read the second book now!

And still another book

Winds of Change
Asimov, I.

After a serious "history" read, I needed a SciFy escape- how about something from one of the masters- Isaac Asimov...
The Winds of Change: 20 or so short stories by Isaac Asimov; some pretty good, some pretty dull. Here's a summary:
Perfect Fit: A criminal's punishment is being forced to forget how to use computers.
Belief: A man discovers that he can levitate; nobody will believe him, so a friend explains that he must find a way to help others to help him investigate the phenomenon.
A Fair Exchange: A scientist learns how to travel in time and make very slight adjustments; and ruins his life...
For the Birds: A man discovers a way for humans to move within the thin atmosphere of space stations.
Found: Two technicians discover than mankind has been discovered by metal life forms.
Good Taste: Nope, too boring; skipped this one after 2 pages...
How it Happened: Historians Aaron and Moses record history taking place over six days because they don't have enough papyrus on hand...
Ideas Die Hard: The first men to travel to the moon aren't- they're just in a simulation.
It Is Coming: Alien computer approaches Earth; humans scramble to tune their best computer to communicate with it; the computer is accepted into the computer society.
The Last Answer: A man dies, is selected by an immortal and omnipotent being offering immortality- to think of a way to end its existence...
The Last Shuttle: The last space shuttle takes the last humans off Earth for the last time...
Lest We Remember: An average man takes experimental drug to make him extraordinary; his wife ensures that he reaches his potential.
Nothing for Nothing: Visitors from space trade with prehistoric man- technology for art.
One Night of Song: Man grants a wish to another man- his ex-girlfriend is permitted to sing perfectly- for one performance only...
The Smile That Loses: Man grants a with to a woman- a photo of her husband smiling- a husband that never smiles...
To Tell at a Glance: Young woman must identify a spy amongst a group of dignitaries.
The Winds of Change: A scientist learns how to travel in time and makes changes that affect things (yawn).

I like Asimov, but not all of his stories. I'd like to read a novel of his, but how to know if it will be one of his good ones, or another Good Taste or Lest We Remember....

Another book: Winston Churchill: Young Statesman

Here's another one:

Young Statesman- Winston Churchill 1901-1914

R. Churchill

This book covers the life of Winston Churchill after his military experiences in India and Africa. He started as a member of the Conservative party, running in a “safe seat” guaranteeing election, but soon became disenchanted with the protectionist leanings of the party. He then "crossed the floor" and became a member of the Liberal party. Whether he really felt this way, or he saw it as an opportunity as the Conservative party crumbled around him is anyone’s guess. He did however, very effectively champion the concept of free trade. Either way, it was obvious that he had a great talent for both writing speeches and for delivering them. The book contains a plethora of examples of both. He was clearly seen as a very capable and rising star in politics by those who mattered-- members of parliament (both Conservative and Liberal), the press, and the influential, aristocratic and privileged classes. He was also a bit of a visionary; as early as 1904, he recognized the importance, and even the inevitable future involvement of the United States in European affairs.

By 1906 he became Under Secretary for the Colonies,, and was in the Privy Council a year later. In the same year, he first used the phrase “terminological inexactitudes” to indicate inaccurate terminology, but soon the phrase was understood to be a polite term for lying.

In 1906 he went for a “working holiday” - much of it personal time, and used the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Venus as his transportation. In modern times, this would seem an outrageous misuse of Navy resources, but was an accepted perk in the early 1900s, for a colonial official working for the government of a world power, in a time without air travel.

After making it to the Cabinet, he had to face an election- was defeated, then won again in a “safe” Liberal seat. In this election, he differentiated Liberalism and Socialism in this way: “Socialism wants to pull down wealth; Liberalism wants to pull up poverty...” a stance that stands up well more than 100 years later, even as the terms “Liberal” and “Socialist” have changed slightly in that time.

He was described by David Lloyd George, future Prime Minister (and longtime friend of Churchill), as being “as long winded as he is persistent” - this was a fair statement, and defined Churchill well, which is punctuated time and time again throughout his public career.

He was soon made a member of Asquith's cabinet, and ran the Home Office, where he initiated positive advancements for unions and the poor. He was also instrumental in attempts to advance the Irish Home Rule bill, and was not popular with Ulster for his efforts. He then advanced to the top spot in the Admiralty, as "First Lord" - the top political post in control of the Royal Navy, where his energy, intelligence and communication skills got him off to a great start, and did the country well in preparing for the inevitable clash with Germany. 

There’s a lot of information in these books -- a lot. If you have a keen interest in Winston Churchill, the build-up to the Great War, or British politics of this era, this is a very interesting book, and a good source of information. If you’re casually interested, look for a thinner book...

Baseball stats- ya gotta love 'em!

One of the many things I love about baseball is the stats. It starts with a pitcher's number of wins, losses, games started, games completed, shutouts, strikeouts, walks allowed, and ERA (run average per nine innings of pitching not including those runs scored due to defensive errors), and much more. And there's players fielding percentages- the number of errors compared to the total number of times the player fielded the ball. And then there's the batters hitting stats- number of hits, number of doubles, number of triples, number of home runs, number of runs scored, number of walks, batting average, on-base average, slugging percentage, and much more. 
Then there's the story of my poor Montreal Expos, who one year decided to improve their offence at the expense of defense. At the end of the year, they were the top team in their division in pitching (measured by pitcher's ERA, strikeouts, and other stats), and they were the top team in their division in hitting (measured by batter's batting average, runs scored and other stats). That year, they finished third in their division, because they used the better-hitting Wallace Johnson at second base instead of defensively amazing (but anemic hitting) Rodney Scott. Their preference for offensive numbers ahead of the less-measureable defensive capabilities was their downfall.
Then there's the story of the movie MoneyBall, and the real-life exploits of the Oakland A's in the early 1990s and the Boston Redsox on the early 2000s- proving that focusing on some statistics- the more important ones- does deliver results.
I bring all this up because I just read this article: http://www.athleticsnation.com/2013/6/12/4419388/bartolo-colons-historic-season. It's about the A's Bartolo Colon, who is having a good season pitching, while walking very few batters. And to quantify Colon's season, the author has dug deeply into the data (big data) to find the player's walks per nine innings of pitching and to calculate the player's walk percentage of total batters faced. But not just that-- also, the percentage of pitches in the strike zone, as called by the umpires, and of course, the percentage of pitches in the strike zone, as determined by Pitch f/x (which tracks the number of pitches that a pitcher throws both in and out of the strike zone, no matter what the umpires actually call the pitch).
So what does this all mean in the greater scheme of things?
Almost nothing.
But it makes me love baseball even more!

How to catch a football

Just wanted to present the most awesome photo of a football catch I have ever seen. The man's name is JJ Stokes. He was a decent receiver, not a great one; he played on the San Francisco 49ers when Terrell Owens was becoming a huge star...

No, it doesn't look like much, but what it does show is the super-intense concentration it takes to make a catch- even a seemingly simple catch. Hands ready and spread wide, eyes wide open and focused on the ball. Turning the body as much as possible towards the ball. That's what you have to do.
It's true that some players make 100 or more catches in a single year, so how hard can it be? Well, on the NFL broadcasts every Sunday (and Monday and Thursday, and sometimes Saturday), you're watching the best players in the world catch footballs. The truth is, the 3rd and 4th string receivers on most teams drop the ball a lot. Semi-pro receivers drop even more passes. Even the great Terrell Owens dropped tons of balls in his last couple of years.
The most common reason for dropping a passed ball is that the receiver just can't do it well. But those that do it well drop balls, too-- they take their eyes off the ball early. And that's the second most common reason for dropping the ball. A receiver will sometimes think too far ahead of the catch: "now that I'm about to catch this ball for sure, what will be my next move? where will I run? where is the nearest tackler? where are my blockers? where is....oops..."
The problem was right at the start- taking the eye off the ball.
And that's why I love this photo. Stokes shows us what you have to do-- what the best in the world have to do:
KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL !!

The Methuselah Star

The Hubble Space Telescope was used in the discovery of a very interesting star right here in the Milky Way galaxy (see article Astronomers Find Ancient Star Methuselah Which Appears To Be Older Than The Universe). The problem is that it's estimated age, about 14.5 billion years old (maybe as old as 16 billion years), is considerably older than our best estimates for the age of the whole universe, which is about 13.8 billion years old...

I actually love this stuff. The idea of things so old and time so great just excites me and kicks my curiosity and imagination into overdrive.

However, I sometimes think that we're more than a little bit arrogant, throwing around concepts like dark matter, dark energy and inflation like they're signed sealed and delivered, when in fact they're nothing but complicated abstractions that help to explain serious flaws in the mathematics of our best theories. I'd be much happier if, when we talk about this stuff, we describe them as theories- good theories, and the best theories that we have- but still, for now, just theories, and not necessarily real stuff. At least not until someone shows us a beaker of dark matter in their lab, anyway...