Gill Eapen's Blog, page 81

Super (not yet!) Conductivity

Science recently celebrated the 100th birthday of super conductivity – a phenomenon that emerged with much promise and demonstrated staying power but without effect. It has scintillated scientists and engineers alike – the former trying to discover the reasons for its existence and the later trying to apply it to change the game in many domains including computing, atom-smashing and the plain old electron transmission. The constraint has always been temperature that needs to drop to ridiculous levels before the electrons come out to play, without resistance. The theory behind electron-cooperation took many decades to emerge but it did not fundamentally move anything to a higher level of understanding. Although scientific explanations have emerged at a more detailed level more recently – it is important to note that such insights are prisoners to the status quo framework that is tiring and shows many signs of breaking down.



Phenomena, such as super conductivity, are important as they not only challenge status quo frameworks but also provide valuable practical avenues to change the human-energy equation. Scientific research in universities always rewarded incremental improvements of accepted notions and discouraged what the aristocracy calls, peripheral excursions. Today's science, after all, is run by big universities and even bigger companies – who are less interested in a break-through and more interested in grants and next quarter's earnings. This is a shame as it is guaranteed to make science akin to automotive companies trying to improve the efficiency of their internal combustion engines, without ever asking if internal combustion engines are needed.



Incrementalism is growing like cancer on every scientific pursuit and it has only one predictable outcome – mediocrity of the human psyche.

Environmental psychology

A recent article in Science describes an experiment that reveals the impact of environment in the formation of perception, stereotyping and ultimately discrimination. Shabby and disorganized environment in the proximity of an event or individual predisposes the observer to stereotyping and ultimately to discrimination. This is an important finding that reminds us that behavior such as discrimination is a complex phenomenon and needs to be analyzed with great care. Many have bravely attempted to understand the brain with little success – some likening it to massively parallel processed conventional computers and others to yet to be fully defined quantum computer. In either case, the brain has the power to take in many different inputs and process them fast in a descriptive fashion. Thus the conclusions reached by the brain cannot be easily replicated by conventional computers following prescriptive rules. Such non-linear processing powers gave humans creativity – an evolutionary advantage.

However, there is a dark side to this human ability. The massive capacity for descriptive non-linear processing also allows the brain to attach higher meaning to accompanying and unrelated stimuli and use that to reach incorrect conclusions on the focus subject. Although the study was on the effect of highly visible environmental stimuli, the implications are much more far reaching. At a more subtle level – clothing, automobile, house, shoes and other visible attributes do provide significant visual stimuli to the observer. Other attributes such as language, accent and mannerisms provide further data to an aching brain seeking more and more data. Thus the individual is surrounded by visual clues that extend all the way to her neighborhood and this gives the brain ample opportunity to reach incorrect conclusions from descriptive processing of unrelated data.

From a policy perspective, this finding has implications for education. Ultimately, human progress is going to depend on not on humanity's ability to use the brain fully but rather its ability to understand the brain's shortcomings and counteract them. It is not Darwin who will save humanity but the realization that Darwin could be overcome.

Missing Material Scientists

Most scientists are proud of the last couple of decades – in Physics - practical minded particle hunters have acquired massive and interesting toys that can churn out data like water from an open fire hydrant, in Medicine – life style drugs have enhanced certain experiences and life saving drugs have extended the life by a few months for the terminally ill and in Economics – known theories have been proven again and again. Less fancy scientific areas such as material sciences have been lagging in spite of the high flying nano-materials.  What is missing is innovation in materials to solve practical problems such as room temperature superconductivity,  photo-voltaic material effects with productivity on par with conventional fuels and improvements in strength/weight ratios by many orders of magnitude to change construction modes in housing and transportation. These are, in fact, engineering problems, perhaps less interesting to scientists but nevertheless of significant importance to humanity.

Room temperature superconductivity will eliminate the current 30% loss in transmission of energy, substantially improving humanity's ability to clothe, house and feed the population.  Photo-voltaic parity to conventional fuels can stop the idiotic drilling and burning of fossil fuels and the more idiotic storage of radioactive waste with half-life of over fifty thousand years and the elimination of weaker materials such as steel and wood  in the construction of homes and automobiles can save many thousands of lives around the world.  Yes, these may be less interesting problems for the scientific aristocracy – but they can have much more impact on humanity than adding yet another dark attribute to the universe or extending the life of humans by a few hours.

Materials science, delegated to the less royal engineering status, has been lagging – aching the hearts of the practical minded commoners around the world. It is time we attracted top talent into practical endeavors.

Greenback Enterprise

The news that a venerable American company that has been desperately trying to save the world through renewable energy technologies and aircraft engines did not pay any taxes last year came as a surprise to many. This company, after all, was built by a management guru who invented efficiency and innovation as two sides of a juicy hamburger. It has been riding high oversees, where it is hiring. The fact that the company employs nearly one thousand tax professionals who used to work for the government seems to have compounded the surprise of the common man.



Such surprise is misplaced. Only those who believe that the tax code is fair should be surprised by such outcomes. The tax code has become the operating manual for the mafia who control the country. Many decades ago, economists with brain cells proposed simpler systems – consumption based taxes and the elimination of income taxes and tax havens. This simple idea was quickly rejected as nearly 1/3 of the country benefit from the complications of the tax code or is employed by it. Another 1/3 do not care because they do not pay any taxes. The remaining 1/3 is quickly disappearing – as they work hard and pay most of what they make in taxes. The "middle class," is an endangered species and it does not make sense to work for a living any more.



As they save the world by making wind mills, they may want to ask if they can really survive by a singular customer – the government. Strategy, after all, is a long term construct – why care if one can retire in the short term.

Burning out

A recent article in Science focuses on the increased development of wind-power as a possible threat to bats and the related loss in crop yield in the short term and bio-diversity in the long-term. This further reinforces the need to fully internalize the costs of energy production and use. It has become fashionable to like the latest renewable fad. For example, a Texas based oil Tycoon has been moving from one energy source to another, while claiming he has the answer. Lack of a holistic understanding of the system – costs related to equipment, production, environment, storage, use and recycling – have prompted many unwise investments in the past. Governments have also been quick to pull the subsidy trigger as soon as the lobbyists arrive – but little analysis has gone into the best alternatives. The fashionable Ethanol business from a few years ago seems to have gotten intoxicated by subsidies and died prematurely.



It has also become customary to focus on part of the energy problem – as if the other components do not matter. As politicians proudly call for "plug in cars," nobody seems to be whispering in their ears that the electric outlets don't magically spring up the wattage needed. As some politicians believed that internet was a series of pipes, it is possible that some others believe that there is no cost to charging up an electric car. It requires massive investments in infrastructure and battery storage and recycling – and at the end of the day, it just shifts pollution from one place to another. Yet another fad, Hydrogen, has been in the air waves couple of years ago but seems to have died out. The lobbyists appear to have been slow to get the subsidies in place before third graders asked where the Hydrogen will come from.



On the other hand, environmentalists have been quick to reject new ideas based on qualitative arguments. Every turtle, mouse, eagle and algae is protected – and as the sole protectors of this Earth, they will automatically reject any new energy idea. This is just silly.



From a policy perspective, there are two important considerations:



(a) What is the overall economics of a source or technology? This has to consider total costs of production and use – including equipment and storage. It also has to consider the cost of disposition and recycling. Further, environment effects have to be evaluated from an economic perspective.



(b) Subsidies, if needed because of a market failure, need to be designed to provide robust and sufficient incentives to correct the market failure. Such foresight does not mix well with silly talking lobbyists and vote grabbing politicians. Almost all incentives in the energy area are designed to please one or the other and they have not been designed from a macro-economic perspective. Often they are the result of borrowing ideas from abroad with very different systems.



An energy policy that is holistic, considering the benefits and costs to the system and well-designed incentives to correct existing market failures are needed. Without this, we will continue in an energy rut.

Sanity!

Pakistan and India played a fantastic game of cricket in the semi-finals of the world cup. At the end of the day, one team had to win and other lose – but there was no violence, no burning and no-overturning of automobiles. Afridi – the Pakistan captain said it all – "I am sorry to my nation, but I wish good luck to India," – what can be better, coming from the icon of international cricket – he led his nation with pride and brought them from the edge of disaster. Cricket, a game played by rational people around the world is the the only game remaining on the face of the Earth that is sane. Pakistan – should take immense pride in the way they overcame such a negative effect coming into the tournament and the way they played and  they deserve the world cup.  As they shook hands and hug each other, one has to wonder if sport has a role to play in moving humanity to the next level.

Cricket has to be taught to the other 5 Billion people as a game that evolved – winning is important but not exclusively so – playing cricket is more important. It will cure wars and ego, it will ameliorate grief and it will feed the poor and the ambitious. It will flatten the world, it will bring leaders of opposing countries to shake hands and share a drink and it will bring unending joy to billions, left with very little else. It will write history and leave it for the next generation and extra-terrestrials as an advanced form of engagement – with strategy, tactics and  pure joy. It will teach and nourish and it will give reason to live for many. It will leave scraps for the intellectuals to debate over the state of the pitch and statistics – but for most, all of that is irrelevant. A heave over mid-wicket and a sumptuous extra-cover drive – both are treated with equal passion, one requiring guts and the other talent. As they spin and seam the ball, as the many millions rise and fall, as a flash of the blade takes the meat or the edge, as they run and run for the last yard and as they swing the ball in and out – there is only one outcome – they will break or make the hearts of millions. However, they will quietly return to mull over what could have been and what is equitable.

It is all cricket.

Progressing against Physics

Physics – the science that governs everything including biological systems, is prescriptive at human scale. Evolution and the laws of thermodynamics, fundamentally driven by an unambiguous increase in entropy over time, create unassailable constraints on humans. The hold of Physics is so complete that every thought, action, emotion and the motion of electrons are preprogrammed. It leaves absolutely no flexibility for humans to change the course of the future. In this context, current metrics of progress are random observations – illusions of patterns sought out by humans in a desperate attempt to believe they have some control.

At the human scale, time and entropy flow only in one direction – and with it they carry the observable universe and its constituents in a monotonous and constant unwinding of an unforgiving construct. In a quiet and irrelevant corner, humans spend allocated time on treadmills perpetuating the same ideas, executing the same actions and predicting the same future but calling it different names. This is not progress, it is a program.

Progress, then, has to be something that moves against Physics. Glimpses of this is available in the quantum world – where prescriptions cease to exist. A quantum brain may allow humans to break the shackles of human scale Physics. However, evolution – a process grounded on human scale will not favor such an outcome. Thus, the prerequisite for progress is a quantum brain and mind, something that is not possible within human scale systems.

This is paradoxical and programmed.

Insulin resistance

More than any other disease, insulin resistance and its implication for the onset of diabetes has been most costly for humans. Diabetes, after all, affects every system and every organ in the human body – leaving many to wonder why evolution created such fragile structures. But then, such an outcome could be put down to over consumption for the most prevalent type of the disease. Humans, brought up largely on protein, from their inception, succumbed to agriculture just a few thousand years ago resulting in carbohydrate loads with disastrous consequences on their psyche and physique.

Diabetes, the most scary disease for modern humans, is relatively new and may have sufficient power to eradicate the species. Since it is not driven by any extra-human organism and is nourished by the habits of the modern human unaware of her make-up, it is unlikely to be solved by research and development. Nature, after all, is significantly more robust than anything that upstart humans can cook up. One cannot underestimate the influence afforded by the convenience and fast foods on the epidemic – some serving up sugar in water and others starch on the bun.

As the brightest and the talented worry about global warming, nuclear meltdown and meteor hits, a quiet killer is eating into the souls of humans, with predictable results.

Radiation design

Recent events make some wonder if there is a need to build radiation resistance in humans. Bad policies and engineering designs have resulted in ticking radiation time bombs across the world. Nuclear fission producing radioactive spent fuel with thousands of years of half life has always been an inelegant way to produce electricity as long as the spent fuel stayed on earth. Humans have shown no ability to protect such materials for that long periods and it is just a matter of time before "accidents" will happen. They have also not invested in removing the spent fuel from earth through a cheap but reliable space program.

Coffee has been shown to increase radiation resistance in humans, albeit in very large quantities. In certain parts of the world, there are natural materials that show radioactivity such as the white sand beaches in the Southwestern coast of India. This may be an opportunity to study if prolonged exposure to low level radiation over many generations can effect beneficial resistance at the molecular and genetic levels in humans.  It may be possible to design drugs that have such effects. More tactically, it is time to think about designs of homes with an explicit consideration of radiation protection. This may have to be incorporated into design codes just as earthquakes and wind effects currently are.

Trusting humans to optimally produce and use energy is foolish. It is necessary to create robust band aids to put on the wounds that are definite to be inflicted in the future.

The theory of flexibility

Convergence is seen in many areas – telecommunications, language, culture, medicine and many others. This makes sense. Just as entropy always increases and time only points in one direction, convergence is an unavoidable outcome. Given enough time, then, almost everything should converge – any differences should wither away. Time should equalize everything. If this is true, a measurement of convergence, should proxy for the age of the system. The more converged the system is, the older it should be. For example, if there are extraterrestrial societies, one could measure the age of such systems by measuring the convergence. If the system is smooth with everybody looking and acting the same, it should be an old system, affording sufficient time to smooth out any differences that may have existed.



Diversity, thus, is a sign of youth and flexibility. Diversity and flexibility are also correlated with innovation rate. This means that younger, immature systems with high diversity will be more innovative. As they grow older, convergence sets in, uniformity slowly envelopes and the systems become less flexible and innovative. On earth, older cultures and societies take pride in their uniformity. However, it is also a handicap in that they are rigid with less scope for innovation. On the other hand, younger and immature cultures are more innovative but also unstable because of its diversity. Crime, for example, will be higher in immature systems with high diversity – leading to instability and chaos.



It is not that one is better than the other – but just that it is a law of Physics. Younger systems are chaotic, diverse and innovative. They can only grow older, with increasing convergence, decreasing flexibility and innovation. This theory of flexibility is as true as the second law of thermodynamics.



Ref: Flexibility: Flexible companies for the Uncertain World

http://www.tinyurl.com/flexibilitybook