Why I Am a Libertarian: Todd Singer

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I grew up in a household with 2 parents who are strong Democrats. I registered as a Democrat when I reached voting age as a result. I never gave this too much thought until college.  As I sat in my economics classes, I realized that the Democratic view of economics does not match up with [...]

Rethinking Redistricting: Where did it go?

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I noticed yesterday that the website RethinkingRedistricting.com was removed. I do not know what happened to it, and I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to compare the maps released by the Statehouse Republicans couldn’t be compared to the Rokita-drawn maps. Maybe removing the plan was the point, then? Rethinking Redistricting was a plan put [...]

The Ten Principles of a Free Society By Ron Paul

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(By Ron Paul, This is the Appendix to Ron Paul’s new book, Liberty Defined.) Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government. All peaceful, voluntary economic and social associations are permitted; consent is the basis of the social and economic order. Justly [...]

Libertarian Party of Indiana Statement on Indiana Redistricting Maps

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“As of today, both the Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly have released potential redistricting maps for the next decade’s elections,” said Sam Goldstein, State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Indiana. “The previous Secretary of State, Republican Todd Rokita, put forth a common sense approach that would keep communities together. It is unfortunate [...]

Poll Results: If the Constitutional Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage Moves to a Public Vote, what would you choose?

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If the Constitutional Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage Moves to a Public Vote, what would you choose? I would not vote in favor of this amendent because government should have no role in marriage or it is discriminatory. – 80.77% (105 votes) I would vote in favor of putting traditional marriage in the Indiana Constitution. [...]

A Herschel? resolved far-infrared dust ring around HD 207129

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Authors: J. P. Marshall, T. Löhne, B. Montesinos, A. V. Krivov, C. Eiroa, O. Absil, G. Bryden, J. Maldonado, A. Mora, J. Sanz-Forcada, D. Ardila, J.-Ch. Augereau, A. Bayo, C. del Burgo, W. Danchi, S. Ertel, D. Fedele, M. Fridlund, J. Lebreton, B. M. González-García, R. Liseau, G. Meeus, S. Müller, G. L. Pilbratt, A. Roberge, K. Stapelfeldt, P. Thébault, G. J. White and S. Wolf.<br />Astronomy & Astrophysics Vol. 529 , page A117<br />Published online: 14/04/2011<br />
Keywords:
stars: individual: HD 207129 ; circumstellar matter ; infrared: stars.

New R Coronae Borealis stars discovered in OGLE-III Galactic bulge fields from their mid- and near-infrared properties

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Authors: P. Tisserand, L. Wyrzykowski, P. R. Wood, A. Udalski, M. K. Szyma?ski, M. Kubiak, G. Pietrzy?ski, I. Soszy?ski, O. Szewczyk, K. Ulaczyk and R. Poleski.<br />Astronomy & Astrophysics Vol. 529 , page A118<br />Published online: 14/04/2011<br />
Keywords:
stars: carbon ; stars: AGB and post-AGB ; Galaxy: bulge ; supergiants.

Musings of Matter

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When I was going to school, way back in the dark ages, matter was easily defined;  it was something that had mass and occupied space.  It could be quantified.  Weighed.  Measured.  Touched (if there was enough of it, and it wasn’t too hot or cold).  It had volume.  It existed in three states until I got to college the first time, then the schools were talking plasma.  It could be changed, but it existed in the same amounts at all times.  We were pretty sure we had a handle on matter.

That old, familiar image of the atom. This one was hanging out in PhotoBucket.

We didn’t.  By the time I went through college the second time (yeah, yeah… I never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up), I had to re-take all those old undergraduate science classes because it was a whole new world.  Matter is a lot stranger, more dynamic, than originally thought.

The states of matter, the very strangeness of matter itself, works itself into thought proofs dealing with the eventual end (or not) of the universe.  A very (very) simplistic overview of the universe is that space and time exploded into being about 13.75 billion years ago in an event known popularly as “The Big Bang”.  Since the Big Bang the universe has been expanding out in all directions, and while the rate of expansion has varied, the average has shown a fairly constant rate of increase.  Finally, that the universe will eventually end in either a “Big Crunch”, or a dismal “Big Chill”.

I like Douglas Adams’ (author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) hypothesis; the universe will eventually end in an event known as “The Gnab Gib”.  A “gnab gib” event is the opposite of a “big bang” event.  Of course.

Diagram of the ergosphere around a rotating black hole, where the influence on nearby matter is expressed. Image by Messer Woland, some rights reserved.

Anyway; matter.  A good example of how our perceptions of the universe have changed would be antimatter.  The ideal of “negative” matter has been kicked around since at least the 1880′s as a staple of the vortex theory of gravity.  This particular model needed a fourth dimension from which originated the negative matter.  Now we know that antimatter doesn’t originate in another dimension, but is a state of ordinary matter.

As we learn more about the universe around us, we realize that very little is “ordinary” or commonplace.  It seems as though the unusual is the “ordinary”.  We know that as the universe expands outward, the inflation is accelerating instead of slowing down, as we expected…

…you know what?  Very little is quite what we expected, when you get right down to it.  It seems we have set our expectations very low.  There is more to consider in the commonplace than first imagined.  One facet of the action of the universe, i.e. its accelerating expansion, presents us with enough mystery to keep us here for a week.  Consider that not only is the universe expanding along its “borders” (if it could be said to have such a thing), it is also expanding within itself.  Faster and faster.

Given another decade or so, what is currently science fiction may very well be commonplace.  The ideal is both frightening and exhilarating, just like everything else in the universe.

GRB 110328A

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Gamma Ray Burst 110328A as seen from the Chandra X-ray telescope from 3.8 BILLION light years. Click for the Hubble version. Chandra credit: NASA/CXC/Warwick/A.Levan et al.Hubble credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Fruchter (STScI)

Click the image for the Hubble version.   I’ve put the Chandra description below.  You can see more at both the Chandra and Hubble sites.

From the Chandra site:

The center of this image contains an extraordinary gamma-ray burst (GRB) called GRB 110328A, observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This Chandra observation confirms the association of GRB 110328A with the core of a distant galaxy and shows that it was an exceptionally long lived and luminous event compared to other GRBs.

The red cross (roll your mouse over the image above) shows the position of a faint galaxy – located about 3.8 billion light years from Earth – observed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini-North telescope on the ground. Allowing for experimental errors, the position of the galaxy is indistinguishable from that of the X-ray source, showing that the source is located close to the middle of the galaxy. This is consistent with the idea, suggested by some astronomers, that a star was torn apart by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. This idea differs from the usual interpretation for a GRB, involving the production of a jet when a black hole or neutron star forms after the collapse of a massive star or a merger between two neutron stars.

Remarkably, this “tidal disruption” event may have been caught in real time, rather than detected later from analyzing archival observations. However, this X-ray source is about a hundred times brighter than previously observed tidal disruptions. One possible explanation for this very bright radiation is that debris from the disrupted star fell towards the black hole in a disk and the swirling, magnetized matter generated intense electromagnetic fields that created a powerful jet of particles. If this jet is pointed toward Earth it would boost the observed brightness of the source. This scenario has already been suggested by observers to explain the bright and variable X-ray emission observed by NASA’s Swift telescope.

This observation was part of a so-called target of opportunity, or TOO, led by Andrew Levan from the University of Warwick in the UK. A TOO allows the telescope to react quickly to unpredictable cosmic events, within 24 hours in some situations. Chandra scientists and engineers can decide to alter the scheduled observations and instead point the telescope to another target if the circumstances warrant it. This process was put into place once the discovery of GRB 110328A with Swift was announced on March 28th, 2011. The Chandra team was able to reset the telescope’s schedule to observe GRB 110328A early in the morning of Monday, April 4th for a period of just over four hours.

New Shuttle Homes?

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Click here to view the embedded video.

The announcement has been made and not everybody is happy.

Personally I am very pleased to see Discovery going to the Smithsonian. I’m not sure I agree with some of the other choices. I can see why Florida gets a shuttle, no problem there, I mean after all.  I do find it pretty hard to believe Houston ends up with nothing.

Seems to me there were better choices than the other the ones that were made.  Apparently I am not alone – not saying I “totally” agree with the headline.  Not saying I totally disagree with it either.

Source

First Contact

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Author Marc Kaufman explores the journey scientists have taken in the search into life elsewhere in the cosmos. From deep inside gold mines in South Africa to the frozen climate of Antarctica and everywhere in between life on Earth exists.

Kaufman asks: “Doesn’t it seem unlikely that none – zero – of the trillions of planets now reasonably presumed to exist beyond our solar system have the ingredients and conditions needed to cobble together life, and the stability needed to allow life to evolve and grow more complex?”

You won’t see a movie made out of this book but it is a good read and will give you a nice overview of where the search for life and a good look at some of the challenges that search brings.  I rather enjoyed the book.

If you click the image you will go to an Amazon page where you can purchase the book if you are a mind to.  But wait, there’s more!  Sorry couldn’t resist, the review copy of the book will be the prize in the next bonus riddle so put those thinking caps on!

First Contact is a hardcover book, 224 pages and published by Simon and Schuster; First Edition April 5, 2011.

About the author Marc Kaufman