Gleanings
from Periodicals and the Internet

Magazines:

Scientific American—February 2008, March 2008
Astronomy—April 2008
Military History—March/April 2008

Sites:
Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America
The Baroque Music Page
The Greater Evil
The World of John Martin
Fantastic Horror
Celebrate Poe
The Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial


Scientific American, February 2008

This issue carries an editorial suggesting that presidential candidates should publicly debate their views on science policy, and mentions an organization, Science Debate 2008, formed to encourage it.

There is an interesting feature called “50, 100 & 150 Years Ago in Scientific American” which quotes articles of those vintages, one of which can be read in its entirety online.

In “Updates”, we learn that the number of those with HIV or AIDS has dropped due to better counting methods; that flu does in fact spread more easily in the cold, due not to crowding and enclosure during winter months but because of the lower temperature and humidity, and because of the slower working of cilia in the respiratory system; and that a Richard P. Taylor of the University of Oregon believes he has discovered a pervasiveness of fractals unique to the work of Jackson Pollack, an artist perhaps known better for his method of flinging paint at his canvases than for the canvases themselves, while physicists at Case Western Reserve University have expressed some doubt on the subject.

This is followed by “Potent Alternative” an article on the use of skin cells as a replacement for those from embryos in stem cell research.

“Arabian Brainpower” describes the plan of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to build a new university of science and technology, to be endowed by him with a grant of ten billion dollars.

“Disease for Darwinism” speculates that the mutation causing Huntington’s disease may be adaptive, being linked to larger families and less frequent cancer.

“Aerial Stealth” discusses plasma antennas and their possible usefulness in being undetectable to radar.

“From Race to DNA” discusses the relationship between genes and ancestry.

“Remembrance of Things Future” reviews the predictions for the year 2000 by a journalist in the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1900. Among others, we find “There will be no C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary.”

A lengthy feature “The Future of Physics” discusses the Large Hadron Collider at CERN built foremost to discover the Higgs boson, believed to be the carrier of the gravitational force. The articles come with a generous description of the facility and its capabilities. It will, when fully operational, reach energies of 1 trillion electronvolts (TeV) and protons in the collider will attain speeds of 99.9999991% light speed. There are charts depicting and describing the various quarks, leptons, bosons and forces. Another of the feature’s articles explores the sorts of discoveries to be anticipated and the issues at stake.

“The Unquiet Ice” discusses global warming and ice sheets.

“RFID Powder” explains the use of nearly invisible 128-bit Radio Frequency Identification chips that can be used to identify objects, including currency. They are similar to RFID tags used on merchandise (such as the oblong white plastic tag on a compact disk) but so small as to appear by the thousands as no more than a very fine black powder. The article does not say what will happen to the functionality of the chip, and the usefulness of our dollars, if we happen to leave a few bills in our pants pockets and send them through the wash.

“Your Cells are My Cells” discusses the exchange of cells (microchimerism) between mothers and fetuses.

In connection with the Jackson-Pollack-was-a-fractalist article above, there is a review of Proust was a Neuroscientist. The author of the book decided while working as a neuroscience technician that Proust had unique insights into his field. He writes, “One of Proust’s deep insights was that our senses of smell and taste bear a unique burden of memory.” We have no citation at hand but feel morally confident in saying that the insight was not original to Proust, although he may well have made much of it. The author, Jonah Lehrer, goes on to consider the scientific insights of Cezanne, Stravinsky and Woolf.

Scientific American has a site at www.sciam.com
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Scientific American, March 2008

The lead and most interesting story of this issue is “The End of Cosmology”, in which the authors Lawrence Krauss (a cosmologist at Case Western) and Robert Scherrer (a physicist and astronomer at Vanderbilt, and a science fiction writer) discuss the possible implications of the universe’s accelerating expansion.

This acceleration was detected ten years ago, and began six billion years ago. Since then, the expansion has surpassed the speed of light, a fact that lies at the heart of the article: nothing (except, somehow, universal expansion itself) can move faster than the speed of light. Where a news story describes the latest observation of a super-nova, it is routinely pointed out that the super-nova took place X-billion years ago and that it has required just that interval for the light of the event to reach us, and thus be observed. Therefore the observable universe can never be larger than a sphere of a radius equal to the distance light has traveled since the big bang. As the universe ages, light has traveled further, and the observable universe becomes larger. But if the entire universe is expanding at a rate in excess of the speed of light, then the proportion of it that is observable becomes inexorably smaller.

The authors discuss the foundations for our knowledge of the big bang and explain how this evidence will be muted or lost with the loss of this observational proportion. These foundations are: Einstein’s theory of relativity; the red-shift; the microwave background; and elemental composition.

They point out that Einstein’s theory is itself based on the observation of a homogeneous universe. But by their projection of the universal expansion into the far future, the Milky Way will have collapsed with other local galaxies into a super-galaxy, while the rest of the universe will have receded beyond the event horizon—beyond our observable sphere. The universe, then, will not be homogeneous and will not suggest a theory based on the assumption of homogeneity.

The red-shift—the elongation and reddening of light waves emitted from objects moving away from us—will become similarly unhelpful. With the recession of the sources of light, the waves of light penetrating from beyond the event horizon will be so stretched that they will become larger than the horizon itself, and invisible to us.

A same effect will hamper the detection of the microwave background. These waves will be stretched (when the universe is 100 billion years old) to the scale of radio waves and become so diluted as possibly to be undetectable.

Elemental composition is also a clue to the big bang, in the form of big bang nucleosynthesis. The big bang produced in the early universe a certain preponderance of deuterium and helium, and the abundance of the elements is too great be accounted for at present by the production of these elements in stars. But a time will come when the helium produced by local stars will far outstrip the amount created by the big bang. As for the deuterium, we observe it largely in helium clouds backlit by quasars. But when these quasars recede beyond our observation, the relatively small amount left to observe in our super-galaxy might be ascribed to nuclear reactions resulting from high-energy cosmic rays. There will be no necessity of positing a big bang.

The authors close by pointing out that this might not be the first time that important cosmological information has been lost; an acceleration in the early universe would have had caused analogous losses. “Indeed, one of the original motivations for inflationary models was to rid the universe of pesky cosmological objects such as magnetic monopoles that may once have existed in profusion. . . . What have we already lost?”

Other articles of interest: “When Markets Beat the Polls,” discusses the apparently inexplicable efficacy of experimental futures markets in predicting not only the outcome of elections (with an accuracy superior to opinion polls) but also the start, peak and end of a flu season. “White Matter Matters” is about the importance of white matter in the brain; white matter being axons coated with myelin, a crystalline gel. Axons communicate between neurons, and the myelin coating evidently aids in the communication which in turn affects decision making. The myelin is developed in fits and starts throughout one’s 20s, and its absence may be instrumental in affecting the decision-making ability of teenagers as well as schizophrenia and autism. Also, “The Limits of Quantum Computers” and “The Bluefin in Peril”, the latter about the declining numbers of the bluefin tuna and efforts to increase the wild population through domestic breeding.

There are numerous shorter items, including on funding difficulties for Fermilab, the improved efficiency of switchgrass over corn as a source of ethanol, a review of Physics of the Impossible (a book by a theoretical physicist on the possibility of technologies associated with science fiction stories), and the latest installment of “50, 100 & 150 Years Ago in Scientific American”, which includes the following item from 1908:

Mathematics is the most exact and the most thoroughly grounded of the sciences. And yet, in the very field explored by this rigorous and tedious method, have arisen fantastic and fairy-like structures of the imagination, which transcend all our experience. They have arrived at the conception of the fourth and higher dimensions. It would be impossible to confine a person have the secret of this dimension by the six surfaces of his prison cell. His slightest movement in the direction of a fourth dimension would put him at once out of three-dimensional space. It would be well for him to take care just what he did when in four-dimensional space, as upon coming back into space of three dimensions he might be much changed.

Scientific American has a site at www.sciam.com
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Astronomy, April 2008

The lead story “Searching for the Shape of the Universe” may do something to revive recognition of Fitz-James O’Brien’s classic 19th century story “The Diamond Lens”. In it, the reader is introduced to a microscopy enthusiast who is searching for ever-more powerful lenses to satisfy his somewhat hedonist delight in the world of smears, specks and droplets. When he learns of the possibility of making a vastly more powerful lens by means of a large diamond, he kills to get it. And having built the lens, he discovers in a drop of water a world like ours but strangely different, populated with creatures and landscape of its own, and host to an equisitely beautiful and exotic maiden with whom he falls in love. I will not give away the ending but the reader will have some idea, by the strangeness of the story, of the strangeness of the article.

The nominal subject of the article is the overall shape of the universe—whether flat, saddle-shaped, or spherical. But it introduces several other ideas that are perhaps more notable. String (or superstring) theory posits objects called branes. Branes having one dimension are called strings (as small beside atoms as atoms are beside solar systems); those having two dimensions are called membranes; a brane having three dimensions will be mentioned shortly.

The important thing is that string theory postulates the existence of six dimensions beyond the four with which we are familiar. These dimensions are supposed to exist at every point of our four-dimensional space in undetectable nodules called Calabi-Yau manifolds (so-called for Eugenio Calabi and Shing-Tung Yau, mathematicians whose work led to the theory of the manifold).

At this point, I must be forgiven for failing to explain what I cannot understand but that the article asserts. These manifolds are supposed, by some outcome of string theory, to dictate the basic phenomena of the universe—the masses of quarks and electrons, cosmic inflation, dark energy—and to influence gravity. The shape of the Calabi-Yau manifold is also supposed to dictate the number of possible universes. And despite being miniscule (although how small, no one is certain), the manifold is supposed to contain on a three-dimensional brane of one of its armlike extensions the universe itself. The universe is in a drop of water which is nonetheless in the universe.

There are stories bearing the self-explanatory titles “Did Molecules from Space Seed Life in the Cosmos?” and “185 Million Years before the Dinosaurs’ Demise, Did an Asteroid Nearly End Life on Earth?” And a column “Bob Berman’s strange universe” discusses the 1:45,000 chance that an asteroid called Apophis will strike the earth in 2036; Berman says that such an impact might kill 50 million but could not destroy the world or exterminate mankind.

The magazine has numerous columns of interest to the amateur astronomer. But the non-astronomer may be interested in the gallery of readers’ photographs, including pictures of solar flares and prominences (high, wisplike exhalations from the star’s surface).

Astronomy has a site at www.astronomy.com
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Military History, March/April 2008

“Showdown at Chau Doc” describes the actions and experience of Sgt. Drew Dix, current head of Alaska’s homeland security task force, at the start of the Tet Offensive.

There are articles on chain mail armor and the T-34/76 Soviet tank used during WWII.

Among the lengthier pieces is “Churchill Takes Charge”, an evaluation of Churchill influence in determining the course and outcome of the WWII.

There is an article on snipers with an overview of American sniper rifles.

“The Dreyfus Nightmare” relates the controversial trials for treason of a French artillery officer, Alfred Dreyfus, in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War.

“Crushed on the Horns of Hattin” details the defeat of Crusader forces by Saladin’s armies at the Battle of Hattin.

“The Cat in the Helmet” provides an amusing miscellany of the satirical cartoons of Theodore Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) drawn during the war to combat isolationism, appeasement, apathy and indifference.

“Can We Trust the Ancient Texts?” examines the possible shortcomings of ancient histories and what has been done to supplement and correct them.

At the back are several short quizes on basic facts of military history, the most interesting being an identification of the pictures of helmets with their names.

Military History has a site at www.historynet.com
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Antiquarian Booksellers Association of American

I mention this organization’s site not because I am a member but because, aside from the association’s admirable taste in its choice of background color for web pages, it provides a host of articles on such interesting subjects as collecting proofs, the libraries of CEOs, bookmarks, Armed Services Editions (paperbacks first issued to soldiers during WWII; editions of Poe, Machen and Lovecraft among them), fore-edge paintings (paintings done on books athwart the tips of the pages opposite the spine), etc., etc.—many subjects, in short, bound to be of interest to readerly people. www.abaa.org
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The Baroque Music Page

This site provides unusually in-depth, and quite critical articles, on the baroque. It discusses the character and history of the music, its composers, the various instruments appropriate to it and the probable methods of playing them, as well as the pitfalls of recording baroque music—the site’s author being of the opinion that the harpsichord is usually too quiet. There are samples of music for download and numerous other helps for the would-be aficionado. www.baroquemusic.org
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The Greater Evil

For those who have not heard, the great Cthulhu has been running presidential campaigns for several cycles now. And in view of the current crop of candidates, he believes that 2008 is his year. Therefore, he has this blog, in which he exposes and ridicules the Obama, the Clinton and the McCain, and gives his prospective supporters every assurance that he is more unspeakable than all of them—even the Clinton.—http://cthulhu2008.blogspot.com
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The World of John Martin

John Martin may be the most unjustly neglected artist of the 19th c. Much influenced by Philip James de Loutherbourg, his canvases were exceptionally large and pictured vast scenes, often of destruction, which carried titles like “The Great Day of His Wrath” and “The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah”. I am fond of Martin’s work and would be pleased if anyone visited this site devoted to it. http://www.wojm.org.uk/
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Fantastic Horror

This online magazine devoted to weird fiction and art (and of which I am currently assistant editor) was founded by J.J. Burke. First appearing with prototype issue #0 on March 1st of last year, it has since slowly expanded to include a wide variety of contributors and subjects. Issues #0-4 are available online and the fifth issue is due out April 1st (should, in fact, go online almost simultaneous with the present issue of SLM). Fantastic Horror can be visited here: www.fantastichorror.com
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Poe Bicentennial Blogs – Celebrate Poe and The Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial

The bicentennial—Jan. 19, 2009—of Poe’s birth is fast approaching, and two sites have arisen to notify the world of the fact. The first, Celebrate Poe, is a blog and podcast, providing in-depth analysis of Poe’s life and work. The latest, and sixth, installment discusses similarities between the Poe and architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Poe’s tribute to Maria Clemm and provides a reading of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”. The podcast can be conveniently downloaded as an mp3 and listened to offline, which we of the dialup modem did ourselves. celebratepoe.podbean.com

And, as long as I am at the noble work of heralding projects of my own labor, I may as well mention my blog, The Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial, which provides news of Poe-related events and commentaries on his stories.—eapoe200.blogspot.com
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