Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 40

Religion and Social Networking

Over on Facebook, I got myself involved in a debate on religion. I know, I know; I should know better. But it's fun, y'know? Anyhow, what prompted the debate was this article on the BBC about how relgions go extinct. Good stuff.

Anyhow, it got me thinking about my interactions there and over here, and I'm curious about my friends' religious beliefs. Am I just living in an insulated bubble as described in that article, or are those national polls on religion just manipulated? So, a poll!

Here it is, a Google Docs poll so anyone can use it: Are you religious? What social networking tools do you use?

Thanks!
Chris

Octopus squeezes through 1-inch hole.

You've probably heard about octopi being able to fit through tiny spaces. Well, here's an amazing demonstration:



And here's a cool video about an octopus eating a shark - which I accidentally uploaded instead of the other octopus vid:


Chris

Hiratsuka, Lawrence's sister city in Japan

Do you know how Hiratsuka was affected by the earthquake and tsunami? If "sister city" means anything, it should mean we help them out during a disaster. I can't find any news on how they're doing.

Locals: Is Lawrence doing anything to help right now?

Best,
Chris

Japan before and after its 8.9-magnitude earthquake.

The huge earthquake that struck two days ago moved the main island of Japan 13 feet to the east, sped up the Earth's daily rotation by 1.6 microseconds, and shifted the Earth 4 inches on its axis. On a less-global but more horrifying scale, here's what the tsunamis did to Japan. This photo shows the area around the port city of Sendai before and after the quake and its attendant tsunami:

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Click the image to see more and bigger before-and-after photos of Japan.

Here's a collection of raw video footage of the tsunami from several affected areas.



I feel so anxious about the people in those buildings and boats and automobiles; it's impossible to imagine the horror of a six-meter-tall wave thrust across the land with the force of the ocean behind it, crushing everything in its path, erasing everything humans made as if our works are but sketches upon the surface of a chalboard. And then the debris catches fire. A wall of mud and flaming debris. Just holy crap. What a horror. It's a wonderful testament to the power of good engineering that the death toll wasn't astronomical.

Earthquakes contain energy beyond imagining - any destructive force humans have ever unleashed upon one another or can unleash with modern technology is nothing compared to the power of this magnitude quake. And an earthquake is only a small thing by the measure of an entire world, which is again a small thing compared to the power a star tosses around every moment. Once in a while, we are reminded just how small we are.

If you know people affected by the quake, I hope they are well. If you live in Japan, I'm so glad you can read this.

Best,
Chris

History of Science Fiction Map

This image by Ward Shelley has been making the rounds since yesterday. It's the winner of WIRED magazine's Data as Art: 10 Striking Science Maps contest. Check it out:


Click the image to see the story and the other nine maps.


There's so much information in this image that it's a bit tough to read, right? Well, if you'd like to see a MASSIVE, full-size version, click here.

Wonderful!

EDIT: Now for some editorial fun: What important and influential works are missing? What copyediting errors can you find?

Chris

Because politics in Wisconsin was missing something.

Violence:

Rep. Nick Milroy tackled while trying to enter Capitol.

"It's cool, it's cool. I can understand why the cops would tackle me. I'm a Democrat, after all, and those aren't legal residents here anymore." I might have gotten the quote a little off, but that's the gist of it ;-)

I do look forward to what's next in our gloriously unified nation. Maybe we'll start having gladatorial games where lions eat liberals, live and streaming on the Web!

In other political news, John Stewart once again proves he is the nation's seemingly only source of clear-headed news:




He is so on the money (heh heh) that it's just depressing. Wow, how can neocons live with themselves when they speak out of both sides of their mouths like that? Oh, yeah, because they're getting MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to do so.

Chris

Where have you been?

Wow, I'm pretty clearly a Yankee, eh? Methinks it's time to see more of the South, Southwest, and East Coast.


I've visited 27 states (54%). Click to create your own visited map of the United States.

Where have you been?

Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Monster Solar Prominence

On Feb. 24, a gorgeous mass of erupting plasma swirled and twisted above the Sun for 90 minutes. Some of the material blew out into space while some fell back to the surface. This photo is but one image from a movie captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft. See the beauty for yourself by clicking this image (opens an mp4 clip in a new window):


Click the image to see a movie of the massive flare.

To give you some perspective on the size of such solar storms, this flare is hundreds of times larger than the Earth. Here's a visual aid:



That tiny blue speck in the middle of that giant bubble on the upper right? That's the Earth, where every story that every human has ever lived is set. Heck, you could fit the orbit of the Moon within a prominence of such size, so even the full stories of the Moonwalkers would be contained within that eruption.

The Sun never ceases to amaze and delight!

Chris

Happy Pluto Day!

Today is Pluto Day! On February 18, 1930, Clyde Tombaugh (that's him, below) announced his discovery of Pluto.

Everyone knows that many people were disappointed by the decision to demote Pluto from "planet" to "dwarf planet" a few years ago. Especially Americans, because Percival Lowell (the astronomer whose calculations indicated that Pluto existed) and Clyde Tombaugh (who finally discovered it) were both Americans. Did do you know Tombaugh's full story? Here he is with his homemade telescope that he used to search for Pluto:

Click the image to see the KU Department of History story.

And here's Tombaugh's story, courtesy of the KU Department of History:

Not many undergraduates enter the University of Kansas having already achieved worldwide fame. And, to date, only one has enrolled at KU after discovering a planet. His name was Clyde Tombaugh, a 24-year-old amateur astronomer from Burdett, Kansas, who positively identified Pluto as the ninth planet in our solar system on February 18, 1930. The finding was the culmination of many years of scanning the night skies by numerous astronomers searching for what had been known as "Planet X," an effort analogous to looking for a golf ball located 33 miles away.
(Note: This article was originally written in August 2001, five years before the International Astronomical Union's August 2006 decision to demote Pluto to "dwarf planet.")

Percival Lowell, scion of a wealthy and distinguished Massachusetts family, had dedicated himself to finding the mysterious Planet X since the 1890s. Based on a series of complicated mathematical formulations, he became convinced of the existence of a trans-Neptunian planet. He was not alone. Other astronomers suspected that a ninth planet existed beyond Neptune and Uranus, but technological setbacks continually dogged their efforts to find it. Lowell financed the construction of the Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona, and in 1905, a comprehensive photographic search for the missing planet began in earnest. Between 1914 and 1916, nearly 1,000 images were made over a large area of the night sky with a telescope borrowed from Swarthmore College. The astronomers also made use of a blink comparator, a device that detects minute changes in photographs taken of the same region of the sky.

Lowell died suddenly of a stroke in 1916 at the age of 61 and the search was halted for the next decade or so. Much of his estate was lost in litigation over a contested will, but in 1927 Percival's nephew, Roger Lowell Putnam, resumed the search for Planet X. A $10,000 grant was obtained from Harvard University, where Percival's brother, Dr. A. Lawrence Lowell, was president. The funds were used to build a 13-inch telescope. Meanwhile, in 1927, a Kansas high school graduate named Clyde Tombaugh had constructed a nine-inch Newtonian refractor telescope from used tractor and automobile parts and was scanning the night skies of the high plains. He drew sketches of Jupiter and Saturn and sent them off to the Lowell Observatory for critique but instead was offered a job. Tombaugh arrived in Flagstaff in January of 1929 and began work under the supervision of Lowell Director Vesto Melvin Slipher.

Slipher's efforts to find Planet X reached a new low in May of 1929; he was under pressure to locate the planet, and after comparing thousands of photographs from the expected region without finding it, he felt he had failed. Tombaugh took up the search in earnest. Initially, Tombaugh encountered some problems with the Observatory's new 13-inch telescope, and he retrofitted corrective measures into the device, prompting him to paraphrase Socrates' vocative "Know Thyself!" into "Know Your Telescope!" In September 1929, two plates revealed possible candidates for Planet X, but a third plate taken on a third date was needed for corroboration. On the night of January 21, on what Tombaugh called the "worst seeing in my life before or since," an exposure was made that revealed the image of Pluto, albeit swollen due to high winds that night. Corroborating images were made on January 23 and 29. On February 18 at 4:00 PM, Tombaugh detected the three corroborating images; Planet X finally had been located.

Percival Lowell's widow wanted the planet to be named first Zeus, or Lowell, or perhaps Constance – this from the woman who had apparently squandered the original Lowell estate away in litigation. She was ignored, and Planet X became known as "Pluto," after the Roman god of the underworld, the symbol of which is PL, coincidentally the initials of Percival Lowell. A young English girl, Venetia Burney, originally suggested the name.

Since its discovery, some astronomers have questioned whether Pluto really qualifies as a planet, a debate that continues to this date. Indeed, many authorities now take the position that Pluto should be classified as a comet or an asteroid rather than a planet. It is often considered part of the Kuiper Belt, a cluster of asteroids beyond Neptune. But other astronomers continue to classify Pluto as a planet since it possesses a moon, called Charon, discovered in 1978.

Clyde Tombaugh went on to receive a scholarship to KU where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1936 and earned his Master's in astronomy in 1939. He accepted a teaching position at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces in 1955 and created and developed the astronomy program there, regarded as one of the best in the nation. Tombaugh retired as Professor Emeritus in 1973, but remained actively engaged with the program.

He went on the lecture circuit in 1980 to raise money for an astronomy endowment at NMSU. Clyde Tombaugh Elementary School in Las Cruces, the Clyde Tombaugh Astronomy Center in Dodge City, Kansas, the Tombaugh Planetarium at the New Mexico Space Center in Las Cruces, and university observatories named for Tombaugh at both NMSU and KU testify to the resilience of his reputation. Tombaugh possessed physical hardiness as well. He lived until the age of 90, dying on January 17, 1997.

Douglas Harvey
Department of History
University of Kansas
So today let's celebrate Clyde Tombaugh and his discovery of the planet Pluto!

Chris

Borders bankruptcy

I have to admit that, though I've been a good Borders customer, "good" for me meant "bought a lot of books and DVDs and music there but only with 33% off or more coupons." If I'm a typical customer, I can't say Borders going bankrupt is a big surprise.

Sadly, the Lawrence, KS, store is one of the 30% of all Borders stores that's closing. Of course I just paid for a membership upgrade to get the extra 10% discounts. *sigh*

I feel sorry for all the book-loving people who are about to lose their jobs, not just here in Lawrence but everywhere. And I feel sorry for the customers who are losing yet another way to get book recommendations.

Perhaps this will make more room for independent bookstores. Let's hope!

Chris