Monthly Archives: August 2021

A bad fire year predicted in Brazil’s Acre state. What’s to be done? – Mongabay.com

Posted: August 18, 2021 at 7:40 am

The Brazilian state of Acre, nestled along the border with Peru and Bolivia in the Amazon, has been called the place where the wind makes the curve, a saying that, in Portuguese, means somewhere very far away.

Theres [even] an ongoing joke in Brazil about Acre not really existing, Foster Brown, senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and adjunct professor at the Federal University of Acre, told Mongabay.

But Acre, which is about the size of the U.S state of Florida and 80% covered in old-growth Amazon rainforest, does exist. And, ironically, it is the place where the winds do curve, carrying the Amazons flying rivers, the large masses of moisture that move above the rainforest, from the east to the southeast.

The state has a long history of environmental leadership, punctuated by Acres own Chico Mendes, the famed trade union leader who organized a peaceful resistance movement to prevent forest destruction before his murder in 1988. And Acre, says Brown, is one of the Brazilian states historically considered to be a green state.

But even Acre is not too green to burn. As of Aug. 15, 29 major fires have been set this year in Acre since May, burning more than 1,000 hectares (about 2,500 acres), according to the Amazon Conservation AssociationsMonitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP). Only one major fire was reported by the same date last year, burning 20 hectares (50 acres). In 2020, 91 major fires burned 3,067 hectares (7,579 acres) total in Acre between May and November.

In Acre, as in the rest of the Amazon, fire is used as a tool to clear land for agriculture, mainly cattle ranching and soy farming. Typically, forests are cut during the wet season and then set ablaze during the dry months (May through October) of the same or following year. Because of this pattern, deforestation can be used as a predictor of the coming fire season.

As of this week, there are 20% more deforestation alerts than the same week last year, Sonaira Souza da Silva, a fire expert, and professor at the Federal University of Acre, told Mongabay.

And, according to her most recent July 31 bulletin, less than 1% of land deforested in 2021 has already burned. Thats bad news for the future, she says, because thats all going to burn either this year or next.

This years historic drought in the Amazon, coupled with high levels of deforestation, has experts worried that this will be a bad year for fires.

We have about 20% less rainfall in this region [Acre] from August to October than in the 1980s, Liana Anderson, a scientist at Brazils National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) told Mongabay. We have all these factors that enhance the probability of wildfires and on top of that, because of the major drought, we have more dead trees in the forest. So, everything is more vulnerable to fires.

Acre has been the epicenter of mega droughts in 2005, 2010 and 2016. It was in 2005 that fires began, notably, to leave deforested agricultural lands and burn in standing Amazon rainforest, where fires have not historically occurred.

The dogma up to then was that its too wet in the western Amazon for that to occur, Brown told Mongabay. And then 2005 happened The fires were so far out of control and going into the forest So that is when we lost our innocence.

That age of innocence has been lost all across the Amazon. Last year, anunprecedented number of major fires(41% of total fires between May and November) burned in standing rainforest, covering an area roughly the size of the country of Wales in the U.K.

Whether the percentage [of fires in 2021] is going to be more than what it was last year, I dont know, Philip M. Fearnside, an ecologistat the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) in Brazil, told Mongabay. But the fact that theres likely to be more burning means that theres probably going to be more forest fires as well.

A recent study by Silva, Fearnside and others examined burned areas in Acre between 2016 and 2019 and found that unprecedented levels of fires burned in standing rainforest in 2019, which was neither a drought nor an El Nio year (when warming of Pacific Ocean currents influence global weather). This means the risk of forest fires is rising, even when rainfall is normal.

This shows that climate was not behind the record fires in 2019, the paper says, suggesting these fires were intentional and were not unintended accidental fires.

The authors say this adds to mounting evidence that the discourse and policies of President Jair Bolsonaros administration, which began in January 2019, has emboldened land grabbers and led deforesters to believe that violations of environmental laws will be forgiven and that regulations will be further relaxed.

Nearly half of all the forest area in Acre is protected by conservation units. Of those, the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve is under most social, political and economic pressure, representing 4366% of the total burned area across all protected areas, according to the study. Burning in the reserve increased by 340% between 2018 and 2019, according to the study. Livestock grazing, and the devaluation of forest products such as Brazil nut and rubber, are to blame, it says.

We are trying our best to generate scientific information and translate it into tools and knowledge for society [so] we can control this problem and avoid future fires, Anderson said.

To this end, Anderson and colleagues have worked on several ways to monitor and predict fires, such as the Forest Fires and Forest Fires Risk and Impact Management Platform (MAP-Fire Platform), which allows Brazilian, Peruvian and Bolivian researchers to monitor fires in the triple border region in the southwestern Amazon and provide information to society and decision-makers. Also in the works is a platform to forecast seasonal fires across all South American protected areas.

Another way to stop fires is to raise awareness among communities and farmers engaged in burning. According to Anderson, many of the farmers they speak to feel there is a lack of material or knowledge for them to bring to their communities about alternatives to burning.

When we say that they cannot use fire or they should avoid using fire because of the problems, Anderson said, many times what people will say is we know and we dont want to use it, but its the only tool we have.

There are other ways to clear the land for agriculture that do not involve setting fires such as using a tractor-driven chopper to transform fallow vegetation into mulch, enriching the soil.

In Acre, they have already the policy that subsidized tractors for farmers, Anderson said. This is one example that is easy to understand, if you have a tractor you dont need to use fire. But this cannot be [the only] solution, because there are many places that you simply cannot get to with a tractor.

Greater economic subsidies from the government, especially for small farmers, are needed to support fire-free farming, she says, because owning and maintaining a tractor, for instance, is not affordable for many.

Anderson and her colleagues are also working to educate the next generation. Last year, CEMADEN worked in three public schools in Acre, where more than 500 students were involved in creating activities related to fire to increase societal awareness.

Im fairly optimistic because even facing all the difficulties for the pandemic, we managed to really engage with these three schools, Anderson said. And you can imagine that now we have more than 500 families [with] kids are inside the home, talking about fires, the impact of fires, fires are real, fires are occurring the Amazon and where to find reliable information because, of course, fake news is a big setback, in all this discussion.

Anderson and partners are also working on a book for teachers to discuss the science and risk of fires in the Amazon with students, complete with suggested activities. And because the internet and schools are not available to everyone, they have developed a weekly radio show thats broadcast far and wide across Acre and features young scientists speaking about their research on fire.

By working with the school communities I think we increase the possibility to make [this] relevant for this generation. And hopefully, this information and this way of thinking can change the behavior of a generation, Anderson says. This is highly ambitious, I know. But I think its one strategy that we can use.

But to gain scale and create change, all of these tools and strategies, Anderson says, need more investment and recognition from the government.

Unfortunately, our government is not interested in science, Carlos Joly, a professor of plant ecology at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in So Paulo state, said in a panel discussion hosted by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research earlier this year. It doesnt matter how much more data we produce showing the destruction of the forest is harmful.

Bringing the government on board may require directing attention to public health and the economy. Smoke from fires can have serious consequences for human health and, according to data from Acres air quality monitoring network, the amount of particulate matter in the air during both the 2019 and 2020 burning seasons reached levels recognized by the World Health Organization known to cause negative health effects.

On the economic side, a 2019 study estimates that direct losses from fires in 2010, such as fences, agricultural production, and CO2 emissions, as well as indirect losses such as respiratory illness, represented economic losses of around 5-9% of the GDP of Acre. As fires increase, the costs will also rise.

Fires are expensive, Anderson said.

The record fires in Acre, and elsewhere, are expected to continue if environmental enforcement continues to be loosened in Brazil. Acre and other Amazonian states must act quickly to avoid an upsurge of social and economic losses in the coming years, Silva and co-authors say.

We know that we know what to do, and we know how to do it, Anderson said. And there is time to act to avoid this imminent disaster.

Citations:

Da Silva,S.S., Oliveira,I., Anderson,L.O., Karlokoski,A., Brando,P.M., de Melo,A.W., Fearnside,P.M. (2021). Burning in southwestern Brazilian Amazonia, 20162019.Journal of Environmental Management,286, 112189. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112189

Denich,M., Vlek,P.L., de Abreu S,T., Vielhauer,K., & Lcke,W. (2005). A concept for the development of fire-free fallow management in the Eastern Amazon, Brazil.Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment,110(1-2), 43-58. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2005.05.005

Campanharo,W.A., Lopes,A.P., Anderson,L.O., Da Silva,T.F., & Arago,L.E. (2019). Translating fire impacts in southwestern Amazonia into economic costs.Remote Sensing,11(7), 764. doi:10.3390/rs11070764

De Oliveira,G., Chen,J.M., Stark,S.C., Berenguer,E., Moutinho,P., Artaxo,P., Arago,L.E. (2020). Smoke pollutions impacts in Amazonia.Science,369(6504), 634.2-635. doi:10.1126/science.abd5942

Banner image: A firefighter holds a small rodent killed in the fire. Photo by Auricelio Dantas de Souza and Antnio Maycon Almeida dos Santo.

Liz Kimbroughis a staff writer for Mongabay. Find her on Twitter:@lizkimbrough_

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A bad fire year predicted in Brazil's Acre state. What's to be done? - Mongabay.com

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‘Back to Life’ Program Seeds Regenerative Tourism Framework in New Zealand – Sustainable Brands

Posted: at 7:40 am

Taking advantage of the forced pandemic pause and building off the momentum of a less extractive tourism model already taking shape in the countrys Bay ofPlenty, the online program provided a foundation for shaping thriving host communities rooted in local context and culture.

New Zealands popularity among travelers has steadily increased over theyears. In 2019, nearly 3.9 million internationalvisitorsarrived on the island (Aotearoa, the countrys Mori name); andinternational visitor arrivals were forecasted to reach 5.1 million in2024,according to the countrys Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. And,like most destinations, increased tourism in New Zealand has ledtonatural resource degradation, increased greenhouse gas emissions, loss ofbiodiversity,and overcrowding on beaches and in natural landscapes.

Like many industries coming out of the Industrial Revolution, traditionaltourism models relied on extraction and exploitation.

Places are packaged up and sold as destinations and places you must see beforeyoudie.And the landscapes, culture and people, in a sense, are packaged up as part ofthat sales proposition, said AnnaPollock, founder of ConsciousTravel and a change agent in regenerative-focused tourism.

Yet, long before COVID-19 swept around the globe, tourism professionals in NewZealands Bay of Plenty, in particular, were already exploring regenerativeapproachesleaning heavily on Mori values and wisdom to address tourisms problems whilereimagining the scope and purpose of the industry.

Learn more from South Pole, the Arbor Day Foundation, Justdiggit and Sustainable Surf about the exploding voluntary carbon market and the wide variety of nature-based carbon-offset schemes available at SB'21 San Diego, October 18-21.

In many ways,regeneration hasbecome a buzzword companies are tacking on to their products in an effort torepackage sustainable offerings as having a positive impact on the planet andpeople. But no single product, company or even industry is singularlyregenerative; nor is regeneration new. Rather, regeneration is an ideology andprocess that embraces the interconnectedness of Earths ecosystems andcollective wisdom so that people and the planet can flourish. Its as old as theplanet itself and it may be the answer the world needs as it stands on theprecipice of catastrophic biodiversity loss and climate disaster.

What were being asked to do as human beings, let alone as tourismprofessionals, is seriously rethink how we have related to the natural world,Pollock said.

Taking advantage of the forced pandemic pause and building off the momentum of aless extractive tourism model already taking shape in the Bay of Plenty,approximately 80 tourism stakeholders across New Zealand participated in aprogram called Back to Life in early2021. Led by Pollock, who has worked closely with New Zealand tourism partnersfor more than a decade; and Michelle Holiday a consultant and author of the book, The Age of Thrivability: Vital Perspectives and Practices for a Better World, the 10-week online program provided a foundationfor shaping thriving host communities rooted in local context and culture.

It was a combination of content, conversation and practice as much as possiblealong the way, Holliday said noting that while she and Pollock providedcontent, they were very intentional in honoring and centering local Moriwisdom.

The programs five modules centered on the core principles of regenerativetourism:

perspective and principles (what does regeneration mean and how cannatures proven design principles be applied in a tourism framework?);

purpose (what does flourishing look like within a visitor economy?);

people (how do roles and relationships help create the conditions forhealthy, resilient and productive communities?);

place (how does the uniqueness of place shape us?); and

practice (how do we broaden the understanding of and deepen care fornature and its people?).

Extensive offline reading prepared participants for facilitated discussions andsmall breakout groups where participants ideated and reflected on content.Everyone was invited to contribute to a continuing harvest document where theyshared questions and thoughts on how to apply regenerative principles in theirwork and specific context. The first session, in particular, was so powerful.People were so eager to be together in this exploration, and feel hope for a newway of imagining and doing tourism, Holliday said.

My understanding of regeneration, initially, was very shallow. It was theunderstanding that, like sustainability was do less harm, regeneration was domore good, said Josie Major, New Zealand programs manager for GOODTravel. Similarly, Debbie Clarke, founder of New Zealand Awaits, said she hadan awareness but not a thorough understanding of regeneration prior to Back toLife. Going through the learning process as a group was particularly powerfulfor her: It was a deeply personal and very emotional experience, especiallyaround understanding our place and our belonging to our place, Clarke said.

For people working in an industry centered on doing, taking time to reflectupon and learn from the larger ecosystem in which tourism exists was a jarringdeparture. Initially, Pollock said, everyone wanted practical tools for dealingwith COVID, so you had that dynamic of how are we going to survive this enormouscrisis and an inherent internal desire by many to go back tonormalas soon as possible. The biggest challenge was getting people to understand thatthis is a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of seeing the world andthat takes time.

As New Zealand prepares to reopen its borders to vaccinated internationalvisitors in early2022,the question is whether the countrys tourism industry will fall back into itsold habits or embrace an entirely new, regenerative approach that honors placeand people far more than extractive profit.

Since the course, its been a fundamental shift in thinking for me. Inparticular, the living systems principles and starting to see the visitoreconomy in our communities as living systems has been a profound shift, Majorsaid. Im taking the time to have conversations that dont necessarily have aspecific output. Im building relationships and still deepening myunderstanding.

For their part, Major and Clarke are committed to continuing the conversationabout regenerative tourism in New Zealand through a new podcast called GOODAwaits which they launched after completingthe Back to Life program.

This is a practice. This is a journey, Clarke said. I think all of us in thecourse really realized, ok, were in this together, were starting thistogether. And there is so much hope.

Published Aug 16, 2021 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST

JoAnna Haugen is a writer, speaker and solutions advocate who has worked in the travel and tourism industry for her entire career. She is also the founder of Rooted a solutions platform at the intersection of sustainable tourism, social impact and storytelling. A returned US Peace Corps volunteer, international election observer and intrepid traveler, JoAnna helps tourism professionals decolonize travel and support sustainability using strategic communication skills.

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'Back to Life' Program Seeds Regenerative Tourism Framework in New Zealand - Sustainable Brands

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Critical Race Theory and the New ‘Massive Resistance’ – The 74

Posted: at 7:40 am

Why some are comparing the national backlash against anti-racist teaching to Virginias strident campaign to resist school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education

Arnold Ambers was still a teenager when he woke up at 4 a.m., jumped behind the wheel of a rickety bus and shuttled dozens of children to a nearby segregated elementary school. Much of the fleet lacked heat and, on the coldest mornings of those Virginia winters, hed pull over on the side of the road to brush ice off the windshield with a worn towel.

After finishing the route, Ambers arrived late to his all-Black high school, named in honor of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, which remained racially segregated despite the Supreme Courts decision in Brown v. Board of Education years earlier. As Ambers bused children to racially isolated schools even after the court found such segregation unconstitutional in 1954, officials fought tooth and nail to keep it that way. As one of the nations last holdouts, Loudoun County schools remained racially isolated until desegregation began in 1968. Such discrimination was so pervasive that it became baked into Ambers perception of normality.

That was the sign of the times, the 79-year-old Ambers said, recalling how his family was barred from many public spaces outside the balcony of a Leesburg theater. But by the time he enrolled at Shaw University, a historically Black institution in North Carolina, hed had enough and joined civil rights protests, marching and singing songs like We Shall Overcome. But white folks didnt take kindly to Black people demonstrating, and hell never forget the occasion an irate man spit on him. Its one of the most degrading things that you could ever do.

These days, Ambers is on edge. The racial strife thats engulfed the county in the last several years, he said, brings back memories of Jim Crow.

This year, Loudoun County has become ground zero for a national uproar over schools use of critical race theory, a legal concept thats seemingly been bastardized to encompass any instruction about systemic racism and Black Americans enduring struggle for racial equity. That strife came to a head at a school board meeting in June, when one man was arrested and another injured after the gathering descended into chaos as parents protested critical race theory with signs that read education not indoctrination.

Its painful to realize that weve come a long way, but in the last five years weve really gone backwards quite a bit, Ambers said. And I guess the painful reality is that racism has always been there.

For some observers, the backlash is part of the complex, centuries-long history of racism and oppression that some educators have sought to confront, particularly after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. Specifically, theyve likened the blustering rhetoric of critical race theorys staunchest critics and legislative efforts across the state to prohibit teachers from discussing systemic racism to massive resistance, an effort by white segregationists in Virginia to thwart school desegregation for years after the Brown decision.

Among them is Juli Briskman, a Democratic member of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, who referred to the current upheaval as the massive resistance of our generation. Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which litigated Brown, quipped that segregationists and the current dissidents mobilized around a singular force: The unifying power of whiteness.

In this 1960 photograph, opponents to school desegregation in Louisiana yell at police officers during a protest. One sign reads All I Want For Christmas is a Clean White School. (Getty Images)

While white segregationists employed legal, and sometimes violent, tactics to evade school desegregation, critics said that similar strategies are now being leveraged to block educators from teaching about that very historic reality.

As the rancor reaches a fever pitch nationally, some parents have pulled their kids from public schools and others have touted private school choice as an option to shield children from curricula permeated with ideas we find toxic. In July, a teacher in Tennessee was fired for teaching students about racism and white privilege.

Meanwhile on Fox News, which has warned against the dangers of critical race theory thousands of times this year, pundit Tucker Carlson suggested next to a graphic of the Democratic Party logo and the words ANTI-WHITE MANIA that classrooms be equipped with cameras to ensure teachers arent filling impressionable young minds with civilization-ending poison.

People protest against critical race theory in June outside the Loudoun County Government Center in Leesburg, Virginia. (Getty Images)

In nearly half of states, Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation this year that seeks to limit how educators discuss racism and other divisive issues, and in 10 states such bans have become law. Under a new Tennessee law, for example, public schools could lose funding. In Arizona, teachers could have their licenses revoked.

Jin Hee Lee, the senior deputy director at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, finds the current efforts similar to resistance to desegregation in that both operate on nostalgia that fails to recognize how educational inequities upheld by the status quo marginalize Black children and could be detrimental by further destabilizing public education.

The idea that any efforts to engage and remedy that problem is somehow in itself harmful to other children is beyond ironic, its really quite tragic, she said. An accurate accounting of history and the requirement that all children should be treated equally, and to be included, is beneficial for everyone.

Jamel Donnor, a critical race theory expert and associate professor of education at Virginias College of William & Mary, also sees similar parallels between the backlash to critical race theory, which he called a boogeyman, and Southern resistance to school desegregation. Even to this day, K-12 schools are starkly divided by race and integration efforts remain divisive even in northern enclaves like New York City. In both instances, he said the uproar centers on resistance to inclusion.

First it was the inclusion of black bodies, he said. Now, its the inclusion of ideas [and] materials that purport to provide a more holistic picture, a more holistic understanding of the experiences of people of color in the United States.

Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian at the University of Pennsylvania, acknowledged similarities between massive resistance and the current backlash with outright racism as a key motivator, but several differences muddle the analogy. Massive resistance after Brown was a battle over the Constitution and its interpretation, he said, while the current feud is largely about American identity.

Many white Americans in particular are deeply invested in a narrative of America thats being challenged, and while he doesnt endorse their perspective, he said they come from a correct perception that these stories represent a radical difference from the stories they were invested in. Meanwhile, he said that in some cases the most ardent proponents of anti-racist teaching have imposed their opinions about history on students. Laws that bar teachers from discussing divisive topics have the same effect.

All truths are subject to interpretation and there is no singular, unvarnished truth, he said. Never has been, never will be.

The very existence of the segregated Douglass School, where Ambers graduated in 1960, was a feat in itself.

To the backdrop of white resistance, members of Loudoun Countys Black community, including Amberss father, held chicken dinners and other fundraisers to buy a plot of land on the outskirts of Leesburg for the countys first high school for Black children. The school was built in 1941, after organizers sold the land to the county for $1, and the countys Black community raised money to fill the building with desks and books.

Ambers and other students at Douglass werent offered the same opportunities as the countys white children and almost immediately after the Brown decision was released, white officials in Virginia and across the South vowed to keep it that way. A prominent force was Virginia Sen. Harry Byrd, who blasted Brown as the most serious blow that has yet been struck against states rights an argument that echoed the Lost Cause, in which Confederate officials sought to inaccurately portray the Civil War as a feud over local control rather than an effort to uphold slavery.

Virginia officials created the Gray Commission, which recommended officials amend the state compulsory attendance law so white children didnt have to attend integrated schools and the creation of taxpayer-funded tuition grants so parents could send their children to private institutions known today as segregation academies. Two years later, Byrd launched a campaign that became known as massive resistance that included a collection of laws aimed at preventing integration, including a policy to pull funding from schools that allowed Black and white children to sit in the same classroom. Through newly created tuition grants, money from closed public schools was funneled to private schools that werent bound by Browns mandates. After the school-closure law was found unconstitutional in 1959, state lawmakers repealed school attendance rules and created a local option that gave cities and counties authority to close schools.

In Loudoun County, educational inequities upheld by racial segregation were felt in teacher salaries, transportation and facilities. At the Bull Run school, Black children brought lumps of coal each morning to provide the building with heat and others hauled in water from a nearby stream.

Shortly after Brown, county officials voted to let students use public education funds for private schools, in effect allowing white families to cover tuition costs while sidestepping integration. In a resolution, officials voted to stop public funding if the federal government forced integration, a reality that came to fruition only after years of legal battles. But the animosity lingered long after and white resistance extended beyond public education. In the mid-1960s, Black youth wanted to swim in Leesburgs public pool but the volunteer fire department filled it with rocks and cement rather than see that happen. The town didnt get another public pool until 1990.

Perhaps the most significant effort to resist desegregation unfolded in Prince Edward County, a rural Virginia enclave with deep ties to the Brown decision. It was here, in 1951, where Black high school students from Farmville went on strike over poor school conditions and sued for equity. Their legal struggle was ultimately one of five cases consolidated into the Supreme Courts Brown decision. Years later, however, segregationists retained the upper hand. Under pressure from two court desegregation orders in May 1959, officials chose to close the countys entire public school system for five years rather than comply. White children were allowed to enroll in the private Prince Edward Academy, which became a model segregation academy for communities across the South, and many Black children, who were excluded from enrollment and unable to use tuition grants elsewhere, were effectively locked out of a formal education altogether.

Such efforts expanded beyond Virginia. By 1969, more than 200 private segregation academies were formed across the South and in seven states Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana families were allowed to use tuition grants, often called private school vouchers today, to avoid desegregated schools.

Rather than focusing on race, white residents in Loudoun County often spoke fondly of their Black neighbors and much of their rhetoric justifying the school closures centered on school privatization, local control and taxpayers rights. The Farmville Heralds publisher at the time, a staunch segregationist, asserted in an editorial that if Virginia, the mother of constitutional government allowed school integration, it would have permitted the rape of ideals and principles for which great men have given their minds and blood, suffering almost unbearable hardships.

Christopher Bonastia, a Lehman College professor and author of Southern Stalemate: Five Years without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia, described the massive resistance strategy through a simple quote: If we can legislate, we can segregate. Now, he said, some critical race theory critics have adopted a similar gameplan. It seems to me that the theory is if we can legislate, we can obfuscate, meaning that if we dont allow this teaching of how racism is sort of baked into U.S. law and policy and practices, then we can maintain this racial innocence.

He also sees similarities between the two camps overall rhetoric.

This claim to colorblindness, which happened in Prince Edward, that is the kind of claim of the anti-CRT folks who question why children should learn to be race-conscious instead of viewing everybody as equals. Hee Lee of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund made a similar connection, noting that claims of colorblindness have been used to entrench existing racial disparities for generations.

It ignores inequalities that exist and it ignores important conversations to try to remedy those racial inequalities, she said. Claiming colorblindness doesnt make inequality just magically disappear. In fact, its very important for us to identify and examine inequalities that do exist.

In this 1956 photograph, two children watch a Ku Klux Klan cross burning from a car affixed with a sign protesting racial integration. (Getty Images)

As Black students in Prince Edward County and elsewhere fought for educational equity, their struggle was about far more than access to white schools. The transformative vision of school integration also included desegregating curriculum, in which African-American experiences and voices were included in classroom instruction, said Jarvis Givens, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

In his Book Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching, Givens traces the life of the father of Black history, and highlights how anti-racist teaching practices have long been a staple of Black educators approach to instruction and doing so has always faced resistance.

To define fugitive pedagogy, Givens turns to the actions of Tessie McGee, a Black history teacher from Louisiana who, in the 1930s, kept a copy of Woodsons book on the Negro on her lap, reading passages to students in defiance of state and district rules. Through her actions, Givens wrote, McGee explicitly critiqued and negated white supremacy and anti-Black protocols of domination, but they often did so in discreet or partially concealed fashion, as part of a larger vision to dismantle Jim Crow segregation while celebrating African Americans contributions to society. She and others did this at grave risk of getting caught.

For many Black educators, that was a real threat as they faced relentless suspicion and surveillance. Such surveillance, similar to Tucker Carlsons call for cameras in classrooms, has been endemic to the experiences of Black teachers historically. Now, contemporary calls to police classroom instruction is worrisome, he said.

Now were seeing it out in the open because a lot of folks are being given permission to kind of surveil what teachers are teaching, he said, and whether or not it adds up to their vision of what it means to be patriotic and American, and whether or not its consistent with the stories that weve been told that we need to tell about the past, of Americas history, for so long.

In this photograph from 1957, a Black mother and her first-grade child walk past segregationist protesters as they enter a public school on the first day of classes in Nashville, Tennessee. As the city underwent desegregation, white parents began a boycott and withdrew their children from public schools. (Getty Images)

Despite Black educators long history offering anti-racist instruction and being subjected to surveillance to prevent it, Givens said the issue has taken on a new form in the last year. Parents are so up in arms this year, he argued, because the instruction is being offered to white kids who are being asked to confront issues of racial inequality.

I think the falling out has to do with the fact that theres a lot of white people who dont want their children learning these sorts of narratives because of what it implicates about their own identities in certain ways and the ways it names whiteness in explicit ways that causes discomfort for people, he said. Thats whats really whats at hand here: What happens when we decide to include Black history in ways that go beyond the terms of whats comfortable for white Americans?

Zimmerman, the University of Pennsylvania historian, said the current moment creates an opportunity for educators to present American history from multiple perspectives and allow students to grapple with the lessons rather than prescribing their own views. Yet partisans on both sides, he worried, are disinterested in an honest debate.

I want more nuance, he said, but, to be as direct as possible, who the [heck] am I? How many people actually do want that and how do we make the case for it?

For 45 years, Virginias efforts to defy Brown were placed on a pedestal outside the state capitol in Richmond. That era came to an end in July, when a 10-foot bronze statue of segregationist Sen. Byrd, the massive resistance architect, was removed from its perch and hauled off to storage.

Yet much of his legacy carries on unabated as schools across the country remain starkly segregated by race and some communities continue to leverage tactics, such as school district secessions, to resist integration.

Some of the very groups leading the charge against critical race theory are also engaged in efforts to block ongoing desegregation efforts today. In New York City, where public schools are among the most racially segregated, students filed a lawsuit this year arguing that the citys use of selective admissions screens at its sought-after high schools, long seen by some as a hurdle keeping Black and Hispanic children from the lauded campuses, violate the state constitution. The lawsuit calls on the city to scrap its competitive admissions practices.

A new group called Parents Defending Education, which offers an IndoctriNation Map to fight indoctrination in the classroom by exposing educators promoting harmful agendas, sought to intervene in the New York City case. The student groups efforts to strike down race-neutral admissions screens, the group wrote in a court filing, is intentional racial discrimination, plain and simple.

Plaintiffs believe the best way to achieve equity is to focus on race and to break the parts of the citys school system that are working, the group, which didnt respond to requests for comment, noted in court papers. Parents Defending Education believes the best way to achieve equality is to treat children equally, regardless of skin color, and to fix the parts of the citys schools that are broken.

Despite the persistence of racial segregation in schools, some school leaders have sought in recent years to grapple with the past and how it still affects the education system today. After Floyds murder in Minneapolis, for example, the head of a private school in Montgomery, Alabama, wrote an open letter about the role his school played in resisting desegregation. The Montgomery Academy opened in 1959 as an all-white school and was seen by many as one of the early catalysts for the white flight from Montgomerys public schools.

We must be willing to confront the uncomfortable fact that The Montgomery Academy, like many other independent schools founded in the South during the late 1950s, was not immune to the divisive forces of racism that shaped this city and community over the course of its history, John McWilliams, who didnt respond to requests for comment, wrote in the letter. In his view, he wrote, Black Lives Matter protests that engulfed the country had clear ties to a centuries-long struggle. I believe that we are witnessing the cumulative impact of over 400 years of white supremacy, racial division and discrimination play out in our streets and cities across the country.

Ambers, who ironically finished his professional career as a school bus driver in Virginias Fairfax County, retiring in 2015, has been forced to face how racism in Leesburg schools persisted long after he left. Just recently, his three children, now adults, detailed to him for the first time how they experienced racial discrimination in the system long after the district was formally desegregated.

They were called the N word and during Black history they were asked to explain things like they were considered slaves, he said. They were treated like Well, youre supposed to know about this so tell us about it.

Arnold Ambers, who graduated from Loudoun Countys racially segregated Douglass School in 1960, was a member of the varsity basketball team (Photo courtesy Arnold Ambers)

Several years ago, the school district began to address issues of racial equity after high-profile reports found inequities negatively affected the academic progress among students of color, prompting school leaders to create a Plan to Combat Systemic Racism, including teacher trainings that focused on helping educators foster racial consciousness.

Then, in September 2020, county officials issued a long-overdue apology to the Black community for joining the campaign of massive resistance decades ago. While noting that much work must be done to fully correct or eradicate matters of racial inequality in the county, the officials wrote that county educators must continually assess the status of racial equity in the school system and correct its past transgressions as it pertains to race.

Even in the face of backlash and intimidation, Briskman, the county Board of Supervisors member who gained notoriety in 2017 when she gave former President Donald Trumps motorcade the middle finger, vowed to carry on.

The work is not going to stop, she said, and were not going to be threatened.

Lead Image: In this photograph from 1961, teacher Althea Jones offers instruction to Black children in a one-room shack in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Beginning in 1959, the county lacked public school facilities for an estimated 1,700 Black children while some 1,400 white students attended private schools financed by state, county and private contributions made in lieu of tax payments. (Getty Images)

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What God, Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Have in Common – Scientific American

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In my 20s, I had a friend who was brilliant, charming, Ivy-educated and rich, heir to a family fortune. Ill call him Gallagher. He could do anything he wanted. He experimented, dabbling in neuroscience, law, philosophy and other fields. But he was so critical, so picky, that he never settled on a career. Nothing was good enough for him. He never found love for the same reason. He also disparaged his friends choices, so much so that he alienated us. He ended up bitter and alone. At least thats my guess. I havent spoken to Gallagher in decades.

There is such a thing as being too picky, especially when it comes to things like work, love and nourishment (even the pickiest eater has to eat something). Thats the lesson I gleaned from Gallagher. But when it comes to answers to big mysteries, most of us arent picky enough. We settle on answers for bad reasons, for example, because our parents, priests or professors believe it. We think we need to believe something, but actually we dont. We can, and should, decide that no answers are good enough. We should be agnostics.

Some people confuse agnosticism (not knowing) with apathy (not caring). Take Francis Collins, a geneticist who directs the National Institutes of Health. He is a devout Christian, who believes that Jesus performed miracles, died for our sins and rose from the dead. In his 2006 bestseller The Language of God, Collins calls agnosticism a cop-out. When I interviewed him, I told him I am an agnostic and objected to cop-out.

Collins apologized. That was a put-down that should not apply to earnest agnostics who have considered the evidence and still dont find an answer, he said. I was reacting to the agnosticism I see in the scientific community, which has not been arrived at by a careful examination of the evidence. I have examined the evidence for Christianity, and I find it unconvincing. Im not convinced by any scientific creation stories, either, such as those that depict our cosmos as a bubble in an oceanic multiverse.

People I admire fault me for being too skeptical. One is the late religious philosopher Huston Smith, who called me convictionally impaired. Another is megapundit Robert Wright, an old friend, with whom Ive often argued about evolutionary psychology and Buddhism. Wright once asked me in exasperation, Dont you believe anything? Actually, I believe lots of things, for example, that war is bad and should be abolished.

But when it comes to theories about ultimate reality, Im with Voltaire. Doubt is not a pleasant condition, Voltaire said, but certainty is an absurd one. Doubt protects us from dogmatism, which can easily morph into fanaticism and what William James calls a premature closing of our accounts with reality. Below I defend agnosticism as a stance toward the existence of God, interpretations of quantum mechanics and theories of consciousness. When considering alleged answers to these three riddles, we should be as picky as my old friend Gallagher.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Why do we exist? The answer, according to the major monotheistic religions, including the Catholic faith in which I was raised, is that an all-powerful, supernatural entity created us. This deity loves us, as a human father loves his children, and wants us to behave in a certain way. If were good, Hell reward us. If were bad, Hell punish us. (I use the pronoun He because most scriptures describe God as male.)

My main objection to this explanation of reality is the problem of evil. A casual glance at human history, and at the world today, reveals enormous suffering and injustice. If God loves us and is omnipotent, why is life so horrific for so many people? A standard response to this question is that God gave us free will; we can choose to be bad as well as good.

The late, great physicist Steven Weinberg, an atheist, who died in July, slaps down the free will argument in his book Dreams of a Final Theory. Noting that Nazis killed many of his relatives in the Holocaust, Weinberg asks: Did millions of Jews have to die so the Nazis could exercise their free will? That doesnt seem fair. And what about kids who get cancer? Are we supposed to think that cancer cells have free will?

On the other hand, life isnt always hellish. We experience love, friendship, adventure and heartbreaking beauty. Could all this really come from random collisions of particles? Even Weinberg concedes that life sometimes seems more beautiful than strictly necessary. If the problem of evil prevents me from believing in a loving God, then the problem of beauty keeps me from being an atheist like Weinberg. Hence, agnosticism.

THE PROBLEM OF INFORMATION

Quantum mechanics is sciences most precise, powerful theory of reality. It has predicted countless experiments, spawned countless applications. The trouble is, physicists and philosophers disagree over what it means, that is, what it says about how the world works. Many physicistsmost, probablyadhere to the Copenhagen interpretation, advanced by Danish physicist Niels Bohr. But that is a kind of anti-interpretation, which says physicists should not try to make sense of quantum mechanics; they should shut up and calculate, as physicist David Mermin once put it.

Philosopher Tim Maudlin deplores this situation. In his 2019 book Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory, he points out that several interpretations of quantum mechanics describe in detail how the world works. These include the GRW model proposed by Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber; the pilot-wave theory of David Bohm; and the many-worlds hypothesis of Hugh Everett. But heres the irony: Maudlin is so scrupulous in pointing out the flaws of these interpretations that he reinforces my skepticism. They all seem hopelessly kludgy and preposterous.

Maudlin does not examine interpretations that recast quantum mechanics as a theory about information. For positive perspectives on information-based interpretations, check out Beyond Weird by journalist Philip Ball and The Ascent of Information by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf. But to my mind, information-based takes on quantum mechanics are even less plausible than the interpretations that Maudlin scrutinizes. The concept of information makes no sense without conscious beings to send, receive and act upon the information.

Introducing consciousness into physics undermines its claim to objectivity. Moreover, as far as we know, consciousness arises only in certain organisms that have existed for a brief period here on Earth. So how can quantum mechanics, if its a theory of information rather than matter and energy, apply to the entire cosmos since the big bang? Information-based theories of physics seem like a throwback to geocentrism, which assumed the universe revolves around us. Given the problems with all interpretations of quantum mechanics, agnosticism, again, strikes me as a sensible stance.

MIND-BODY PROBLEMS

The debate over consciousness is even more fractious than the debate over quantum mechanics. How does matter make a mind? A few decades ago, a consensus seemed to be emerging. Philosopher Daniel Dennett, in his cockily titled Consciousness Explained, asserted that consciousness clearly emerges from neural processes, such as electrochemical pulses in the brain. Francis Crick and Christof Koch proposed that consciousness is generated by networks of neurons oscillating in synchrony.

Gradually, this consensus collapsed, as empirical evidence for neural theories of consciousness failed to materialize. As I point out in my recent book Mind-Body Problems, there are now a dizzying variety of theories of consciousness. Christof Koch has thrown his weight behind integrated information theory, which holds that consciousness might be a property of all matter, not just brains. This theory suffers from the same problems as information-based theories of quantum mechanics. Theorists such as Roger Penrose, who won last years Nobel Prize in Physics, have conjectured that quantum effects underpin consciousness, but this theory is even more lacking in evidence than integrated information theory.

Researchers cannot even agree on what form a theory of consciousness should take. Should it be a philosophical treatise? A purely mathematical model? A gigantic algorithm, perhaps based on Bayesian computation? Should it borrow concepts from Buddhism, such as anatta, the doctrine of no self? All of the above? None of the above? Consensus seems farther away than ever. And thats a good thing. We should be open-minded about our minds.

So, whats the difference, if any, between me and Gallagher, my former friend? I like to think its a matter of style. Gallagher scorned the choices of others. He resembled one of those mean-spirited atheists who revile the faithful for their beliefs. I try not to be dogmatic in my disbelief, and to be sympathetic toward those who, like Francis Collins, have found answers that work for them. Also, I get a kick out of inventive theories of everything, such as John Wheelers it from bit and Freeman Dysons principle of maximum diversity, even if I cant embrace them.

Im definitely a skeptic. I doubt well ever know whether God exists, what quantum mechanics means, how matter makes mind. These three puzzles, I suspect, are different aspects of a single, impenetrable mystery at the heart of things. But one of the pleasures of agnosticismperhaps the greatest pleasureis that I can keep looking for answers and hoping that a revelation awaits just over the horizon.

This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by theauthor or authorsare not necessarily those of Scientific American.

A Day in the Life of a Quantum Engineer: Scientist Explains Perspective on Weirdest Field of Science, Quantum Mechanics – Science Times

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National Physical Laboratory expert and University of Strathclyde UKRI Future Leaders member Alessandro Rossi shares his experiences in the quantum physics industry to Natureand how mystifying yet scientific his works are under the pressure of pure precision and physical disciplines.

(Photo: Alecsandra Dragoi for Nature)

Rossi has two ongoing commitments in the field of quantum mechanics. Currently, the expert is working at London's National Physical Laboratory or NPL, where he focuses on the studies revolving around one of the most delicate regions in quantum-physics principles, quantum meteorology.

The work Rossi does under quantum meteorology heavily involves measurement, and one partner he could rely on during working hours is the dilution refrigerator. The massive cooling device has many applications, including cooling a specific semiconductor down to a temperature at -273.5 degrees Celsius past absolute zero. The dilution refrigerator's application is an example of its capability to produce a unique temperature that is nowhere near any temperature present in other portions of the universe.

NPL experiments allowed Rossi to do astonishing quantum physics applications. For example, Rossi's team can observe and examine the transfer of single electrons in a given space and time, meaning that he can precisely know how many single electrons are moving in a unit of time.

By fusing single electron counting and the dilution refrigerator, more stunning outcomes can be produced. Rossi said that by controlling the said electrons each and separately under the conditions exhibited by the refrigerator, he would be able to generate and control electric current in the most accurate manner.

ALSO READ: Jumping from Hundreds to Millions: Spin-Based Silicon Key to Million-Qubit Quantum Computing, Another Step Towards Supercomputers

The NPL results gathered are mutually essential to Rossi's other job at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. His team at the institute is currently developing one of the innovative trends in our age, which is quantum computers.

Moving electrons one by one is the trick to allow information in a semiconductor-based quantum computer to move around without restrictions, making the data and computation available faster than the typical supercomputers.

Quantum computing, which is the technology that specifically uses the principles of quantum physics, has a speed-based performance measured in quantum bits or qubits. The qubits can exist in various states simultaneously, meaning that information relay is much faster in quantum computers compared to classic computers.

Moreover, quantum computers are not only specialized in information processing but also have the ability to simulate complex examinations, including chemical reactions due to the computer itself that was built using a collection of atoms and molecules.

The scientific expertise of Rossi presents the idea of having a single material in two separate states at the same time. The quantum physics community is indeed a puzzling and mysterious field of science, and Rossi correlates it to his own corresponding roles indistinct specialization under quantum physics and meteorology.

Rossi said that combining the complex and almost invisible factors in quantum physics with the steadiness and repeatable disciplines of meteorology works together in a mind-boggling way.

RELATED ARTICLE: First Simulation of Quantum Devices in Classical Computer Hardware a Success; New Algorithm Could Setup Defining Benchmarks

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Albert Einstein. Physicist. Theory of Relativity – Martin Cid Magazine – Martin Cid Magazine

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Albert Einstein is the most renowned scientist in the XX Century. Author of the Theory of Relativity.

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest physicists of all time. Einstein is known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are together the two pillars of modern physics. His massenergy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed the worlds most famous equation.[7] His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in Einstein becoming synonymous with genius. Read More on Wikipedia

Albert Einstein is the most renowned scientist in the XX Century. Author of the Theory of Relativity.

Job Title: Theoretical physicist

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a Division Chief of its Quantum Electromagnetics Division (QED) in Boulder, CO for National Institute of Standards and Technology – Physics

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The Physical Measurement Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) anticipates the need for a Division Chief of its Quantum Electromagnetics Division (QED) (https://www.nist.gov/pml/quantum-electromagnetics). The QED has more than 45 permanent scientific and engineering staff and over 60 students, postdoctoral researchers, and contractors. Its permanent scientific and engineering staff consist primarily of physicists and electrical engineers with PhDs. The Divisions multidisciplinary activities include advanced materials analysis using X-ray spectrometer arrays, superconducting electronics and nanomagnetics fabrication and metrology for neuromorphic computing and signal processing, development of superconducting sensor arrays for microwave, X-ray, and gamma ray instruments, and cryogenics science and engineering for photon detector arrays and quantum measurements, all of which support industry, government, and academic stakeholders. The principal duties for the Division are carried out on the Boulder campus of NIST.

Interested candidates should have research and management experience and a degree in physics or electrical engineering in accordance with the

OPM qualification standards. Interested candidates must be a U.S. Citizen and should submit a Curriculum Vitae or a Resume and a list of potential references by September 24, 2021 to Zulma Lainez, 100 Bureau Drive MS 8400, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8420 or by email to zulma.lainez@nist.gov. If you have technical questions concerning this position please contact James Kushmerick, Director Physical Measurement Laboratory (james.kushmerick@nist.gov).

Whether submitting a Curriculum Vitae or a resume, the candidate must provide sufficient information to clearly articulate their leadership and management capabilities and experience, including both personnel and financial management. This may be provided in a separate cover letter. Individuals should also include a list of publications and a list of talks and presentations covering at least the past 5 years showing research experience. The identified candidate will be hired as a ZP-V (GS-15) equivalent.

Depending on the identified candidates professional background they will be hired as a Supervisory Physicist, ZP-1310, Grade V or as a Supervisory Electrical Engineer, ZP-0855, Grade-V. Applicants Curriculum Vitae or Resume must provide positive evidence that they have performed highly creative or outstanding research that has led or can lead to major advances in a specific area of research, to a major advance in the discipline or field of science involved, or to major advances in science in general, can be rated under this provision for highly demanding research positions requiring similar abilities or show at least 1 year equivalent at the GS-14 level. The position when available will be posted at (http://www.usajobs.gov). The salary range for the position is $140,428-$172,500 per annum. The National Institute of Standards and Technology of the Department of Commerce is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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Matter From Light. Physicists Create Matter and Antimatter by Colliding Just Photons. – Universe Today

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In 1905 Albert Einstein wrote four groundbreaking papers on quantum theory and relativity. It became known as Einsteins annus mirabilis or wonderous year. One was on brownian motion, one earned him the Nobel prize in 1921, and one outlined the foundations of special relativity. But its Einsteins last 1905 paper that is the most unexpected.

The paper is just two pages long, and it outlines how special relativity might explain a strange aspect of radioactive decay. As Marie Curie most famously demonstrated, some materials such as radium salts can emit particles with much more energy than is possible from simple chemistry. Einsteins little paper speculated about the excess energy might be balanced by a loss of mass of the nuclear particles. This idea eventually led to Einsteins most famous equation, E = mc2.

This equation is often taken to mean that matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. It actually means that the apparent mass and energy of an object depend upon the relative motion of an observer, and because of this, the two are intertwined, similar to the connection between space and time. But one consequence of this relation is that under the right circumstances objects should be able to produce energy via a loss of mass.

We now know this is exactly what happens in radioactive decay. The effect is also how stars create energy in their cores via nuclear fusion. Of course, if matter can become energy, then it should also be possible for energy to become matter. That tricks a bit more difficult, and it took particle accelerators to pull it off. These days we do this all the time. Accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light and slam them together. The large apparent mass of the particles releases tremendous energy, and some of that energy changes back into particles. All of modern particle physics can trace its history to Einsteins two-page paper.

But the laws of physics dont just say you can create energy from matter and vice versa, it places specific constraints on the nature of the created matter and energy. One of the simplest examples of this is electron-positron annihilation. This happens when an electron collides with its antimatter twin. The two particles have the same mass, but opposite charge, so when they collide they produce two high-energy photons. The mass of the electron and positron are transformed entirely into energy. This experiment was first proposed in the 1930s, but it wasnt done until 1970.

If you can convert matter entirely into energy, you should be able to do the reverse. Its known as the BreitWheeler process and involves colliding two photons to create an electron-positron pair. While we have used light to create matter several times, converting two photons directly into matter is very difficult. But a recent experiment shows it can be done.

The team used data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and looked at more than 6,000 events that created electron-positron pairs. They didnt simply beam two lasers at each other but instead used high-energy particle collisions to create intense bursts of photons. In some cases, these photons collided to create an electron-positron pair. From the data, they could show when a pair was created directly from light.

Since these pair productions occurred in the intense magnetic field the team also demonstrated another interesting effect known as vacuum birefringence. Normal birefringence occurs when light is split into two beams of different polarization. This effect occurs naturally in materials such as Iceland spar. With vacuum birefringence, light passing through an intense magnetic field is split into two polarizations, with each polarization taking a slightly different path. Its an amazing effect if you think about it because it means you can change the path of light in a vacuum, using only a magnetic field. Vacuum birefringence has been observed in the light coming from a neutron star, but this is the first time its been observed in the lab.

Reference: Einstein, Albert. Ist die Trgheit eines Krpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhngig? Annalen der Physik 323.13 (1905): 639-641.

Reference: Sodickson, L., et al. Single-quantum annihilation of positrons. Physical Review 124.6 (1961): 1851.

Reference: Breit, Gregory, and John A. Wheeler. Collision of two light quanta. Physical Review 46.12 (1934): 1087.

Reference: Adam, Jaroslav, et al. Measurement of e+ e? Momentum and Angular Distributions from Linearly Polarized Photon Collisions. Physical Review Letters 127.5 (2021): 052302.

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Dont Let String Theory Ruin The Perfectly Good Science Of Physical Cosmology – Forbes

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A detailed look at the Universe reveals that it's made of matter and not antimatter, that dark ... [+] matter and dark energy are required, and that we don't know the origin of any of these mysteries. However, the fluctuations in the CMB, the formation and correlations between large-scale structure, and modern observations of gravitational lensing all point towards the same picture.

Whenever you hear the phrase, its just a theory, it should trigger alarm bells in the scientific portion of your brain. While most of us, colloquially, use the term theory synonymously with a word like idea, hypothesis, or guess, you have a much higher bar to clear when it comes to science. At the very least, your theory needs to be formulated within a self-consistent framework that doesnt violate its own rules. Next, your theory needs to not (obviously) conflict with whats already been observed and established: it must be a non-falsified theory.

And then, even at that, your theory can only be considered speculative until the critical and decisive tests arrive, allowing you to discern whether your theory matches the data in a way that alternatives including the prior consensus theory do not. Only if your theory passes a series of tests will it be accepted by the mainstream. Quite famously, string theory does not meet the necessary criteria for this, and can be considered, at best, a speculative theory. But many astrophysical theories, including inflation, dark matter, and dark energy, are far more sound than almost everyone realizes. Heres the science behind why were so certain that all of them exist.

Quantum gravity tries to combine Einsteins general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. ... [+] Quantum corrections to classical gravity are visualized as loop diagrams, as the one shown here in white. In reality, we know that general relativity works where Newton's gravity does not and where special relativity does not, but even general relativity should have a limit to its range of validity.

The history of science is filled with ideas, some of which have been shown to accurately describe reality over some particular range which we can probe it, and others of which turned out not to describe reality, although they could have if nature had answered our questions differently. We have a Universe that obeys Newtons laws of motion and his theory of universal gravitation, so long as speeds are low compared to the speed of light. At higher speeds, Newtons laws of motion no longer apply, and must be superseded by Special Relativity. In strong gravitational fields, even Special Relativity and universal gravitation arent enough, and General Relativity is required.

Although General Relativity holds up as our theory of gravity everywhere weve probed it, we fully expect that when we dive deep into the quantum Universe to small enough distance scales or at high-enough energy scales even General Relativity is known to give nonsense answers: answers that indicate an end to its range of validity. Despite all of its predictive power, and its status as arguably the most successful physical theory of all time, its powerless to describe the region around a black holes singularity, physics near the Planck scale, or the emergence of space and time themselves. For those phenomena, a quantum description of gravity will be necessary.

The particle tracks emanating from a high energy collision at the LHC in 2014. These types of ... [+] collisions test conservation of momentum and energy far more robustly than any other experiment. While there may be new physics out there, and in fact there almost certainly is, the LHC only reaches collision energies of ~10^4 GeV, or 1-part-in-10^15 of the Planck scale.

Of course, weve never gotten anywhere near that far in practice. Directly, we can produce collisions in particle colliders up to a little more than 104 GeV: enough to unify the electromagnetic and weak forces and to create all the particles (and antiparticles) of the Standard Model, but still a factor of a quadrillion (1015) beneath the Planck scale. Whatever the physics of:

we dont have any direct evidence supporting it.

But that hasnt stopped us from, well, theorizing. We can concoct scenarios where new physics physics that, if we added it in, wouldnt conflict with the low-energy, late-time Universe thats already been observed comes into play. Many of these scenarios are quite famous within the physics community, and include such novelties as extra dimensions, supersymmetry, grand unification theories, compositeness to certain particles presently thought to be fundamental, and string theory.

The Standard Model particles and their supersymmetric counterparts. Slightly under 50% of these ... [+] particles have been discovered, and just over 50% have never showed a trace that they exist. Supersymmetry is an idea that hopes to improve on the Standard Model, but it has yet to make successful predictions about the Universe in attempting to supplant the prevailing theory. If there is no supersymmetry at all energies, string theory must be wrong.

However, there exists no direct experimental evidence to support any of these scenarios. You cant exactly rule them out by not finding evidence for them; you can only place constraints on them, saying that if they exist, they exist below a certain experimental threshold. In other words, their couplings to the observed particles must be below a certain value; their cross sections must be below a certain value with normal matter; the masses of new particles must be above a certain threshold; their effects on the decays of the known particles must be below the measured limits.

Many scientists who work in these fields on the frontiers of high-energy and particle physics have begun to openly express frustrations about the lack of promising new directions to explore. At the Large Hadron Collider, theres no indication of any particles beyond the Standard Model, or even of any non-standard decay channels for the Higgs boson. Proton decay experiments have extended the lifetime of the proton to ~1034 years, ruling out many grand unified theories. Experiments probing for extra dimensions have come up empty.

On every front, the search for new fundamental particle physics that takes us beyond the Standard Model has thus far come up empty. Even the Muon g-2 experiment, vaunted for its precision in measuring a particular fundamental constant of the Universe, is arguably more likely to point to a problem in how we calculate quantities using different methods than it is to point to new physics.

While there is a mismatch between the theoretical and experimental results in the muon's magnetic ... [+] moment (right graph), we can be certain (left graph) it isn't due to the Hadronic light-by-light (HLbL) contributions. However, lattice QCD calculations (blue, right graph) suggest that hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) contributions might account for the entirety of the mismatch.

Although a few alternative ideas have emerged in theoretical high-energy physics and in quantum gravity circles in recent years, its proven very difficult to introduce new physical ideas or concepts that arent already ruled out by the vast suite of data we already possess. The combined measurements of subtle effects like quark mixing, neutrino oscillations, decay rates, and branching ratios severely limit what sorts of new physics can be introduced. And yet, as long as youre willing to push whatever new physics you want to invoke to higher energies and smaller cross-sections or couplings, you can keep ideas like supersymmetry, extra dimensions, grand unification, and string theory alive.

It poses a conundrum for theoretical physicists who work on these problems, though: what should they work on? Its one thing to engage in fanciful ideation and to calculate the consequences of whatever scenario youve envisioned; its quite another to continue to plow ahead, undaunted, into further exploring a scenario with no evidence behind it. You can, of course, but you must worry that youre deluding yourself in doing so, just like perhaps the previous ~40 years of high-energy theorists have done. You can always attempt to explore alternative scenarios as well, although that has arguably not been fruitful, either.

But theres a third option. You can take your ideas and try to bring them into a place where there is lots of compelling evidence for physics beyond whats well-established: the field of cosmology.

During the earliest stages of the Universe, an inflationary period set up and gave rise to the hot ... [+] Big Bang. Today, billions of years later, dark energy is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. These two phenomena have many things in common, and may even be connected, possibly related through black hole dynamics.

A lot of high-energy theorists and string theorists have begun working on cosmological problems in recent years, and in some ways thats a good thing. Particle physics plays a tremendously important role in astrophysical systems across the Universe, and in particular in high-energy environments, including:

Processes such as matter-antimatter annihilation, pair creation, neutrino emission and capture, nuclear reactions, and the decay of unstable particles all occur in copious amounts in these extreme environments. The fusion of cosmology with high-energy physics has led to the emergence of a new field at their intersection: astroparticle physics.

Whats most exciting, however, is that some of the astrophysical observations weve made indicate theres more to the Universe than the Standard Model alone can account for. In many ways, its our measurements of the cosmos itself the Universe on the largest scales that offers us the most compelling clues to what might be out there in the Universe beyond the limits of currently known and well-understood physics.

Four colliding galaxy clusters, showing the separation between X-rays (pink) and gravitation (blue), ... [+] indicative of dark matter. On large scales, cold dark matter is necessary, and no alternative or substitute will do. However, mapping out the X-ray light (pink) is not necessarily a very good indication of the dark matter distribution (blue).

In particular, there are four arenas where simply starting off from an extremely hot, dense, uniform, matter-and-radiation-filled, expanding Universe, and evolving the clock forward in time, simply wont reproduce the cosmos that we see today. If we did that with the laws we know of General Relativity plus the Standard Model of particle physics we would get something that looked very different from our Universe.

These four sets of observations are vital to our Universes history, pointing towards baryogenesis and the creation of a matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter, dark energy, and cosmic inflation, respectively.

The observation of even more distant supernovae allowed us to discern the difference between 'grey ... [+] dust' and dark energy, ruling the former out. But the modification of 'replenishing grey dust' is still indistinguishable from dark energy, although that is an ad hoc, unphysical explanation. Dark energy's existence is robust and quite certain.

There isnt just one line of evidence for any of these phenomena, but its very clear that if you want to reproduce the Universe we have, as we observe it to be, these ingredients and components are required. The combination of multiple sets of observations, including:

all indicate that these four things exist or occurred: baryogenesis and inflation occurred, and dark matter and dark energy exist. The only alternatives we have are to finely-tune the initial conditions that the Universe was born with and to add in some sort of new particles or fields that mimic dark matter and dark energy in every way measured so far, but differ in some subtle way that has yet to be identified.

An equally-symmetric collection of matter and antimatter (of X and Y, and anti-X and anti-Y) bosons ... [+] could, with the right GUT properties, give rise to the matter/antimatter asymmetry we find in our Universe today. However, we assume that there is a physical, rather than a divine, explanation for the matter-antimatter asymmetry we observe today, but we do not yet know for certain.

It is true that many of the details of these scenarios particularly when you combine all four pieces of the cosmic puzzle together lead to consequences that may or may not be observable.

Using speculative theoretical ideas from high-energy physics to motivate the exploration of various scenarios may be popular, but it is neither the only approach nor is there any reason to believe its a compelling approach. When you add speculation to solid science, you get speculation. It doesnt detract from the soundness of the sound science, however. Baryogenesis, inflation, dark matter, and dark energy are as real as ever, and dont depend in the least on any of the speculative ideas from high-energy physics, like supersymmetry or string theory, being true or correct in any way.

The quantum fluctuations that occur during inflation get stretched across the Universe, and when ... [+] inflation ends, they become density fluctuations. This leads, over time, to the large-scale structure in the Universe today, as well as the fluctuations in temperature observed in the CMB. New predictions like these are essential for demonstrating the validity of a proposed fine-tuning mechanism.

There are an unreasonable set of moving goalposts that some scientists particularly contrarians to the mainstream set up to add a false legitimacy to their claims, as well as a disingenuous uncertainty to the (well-justified) consensus positions. We do not need to identify the exact mechanism of baryogenesis to know that a matter-antimatter imbalance came about in our Universe. We do not need to directly detect whatever particle is responsible for dark matter, assuming dark matter even is a particle with a non-zero scattering cross-section, to know it exists. We do not need to detect gravitational waves from inflation to confirm inflation; the four discriminatory tests weve already performed are decisive.

And yet, there are still unknowns that we must be honest about. We do not know the cause of baryogenesis, or the nature of dark matter. We do not know whether inflation really must go on for an eternity, whether it really began from some non-inflationary predecessor state, and we cannot test whether the multiverse is real or not. We do not know, to put it bluntly, how far the range of validity for these theories extends.

But the fact that there are limits to what we know and to what we can know does not make our actual knowledge of the cosmos any less certain. Sympathy for contrarian positions and excitement about speculative ideas should only extend so far: to the extent that theyre supported by the full suite of available evidence. Especially when youre attempting to push the frontiers of science forward, its important to not lose sight of what is actually, solidly known and established along the way. After all, as Richard Feynman put it, when it comes to science, if you don't make mistakes, you're doing it wrong. If you don't correct those mistakes, you're doing it really wrong. If you can't accept that you're mistaken, you're not doing it at all.

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The conference that brought together Marie Curie and Albert Einstein Borneo Bulletin Online – Borneo Bulletin Online

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Jen Malia

The rarefied world of high-level physics conferences is usually inaccessible to scientific laypeople. Meetings are by invitation and conducted in jargon that few nonexperts understand. We learn in Jeffrey Orens book The Soul of Genius: Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and the Meeting That Changed the Course of Science that such gatherings can be disappointing, no matter how brilliant the invitees are. The First Solvay Conference in Physics, in Brussels in October 1911, accomplished far less than its organisers envisioned, making Orenss subtitle something of a mystery.

The conference was called in the hope of making significant progress toward settling an argument that was raging in the physics world: the debate between the classic Newtonian physics and the new quantum physics, a view of the subatomic world in which light could be thought of as travelling either in waves or as particles called quanta. At many scientific meetings, paper presentations follow one another with only brief intervals between for comments and questions. This conference, by contrast, provided ample time for discussion. It was a remarkable opportunity for the most influential people in physics and chemistry to meet in person, but they made little headway in resolving the debate. According to one attendee, Albert Einstein, Nothing positive has come out of it.

But on a personal level for Einstein, the occasion was not without consequence, for the First Solvay Conference allowed the elite of physics and chemistry to make his acquaintance. Orens called it Einsteins debutante ball. A second positive outcome was the friendship that began there for Einstein and Marie Curie. Sadly, near the close of the meeting, the press in France published reports of Curies affair with a younger married physicist, Paul Langevin, her late husbands assistant. The news caused an onslaught of condemnation, severely damaged her personal and professional reputation, and threatened her second Nobel Prize. The issue is familiar today: Should a failure to live up to current standards of morality diminish appreciation for professional achievements?

Orens is not an academic scientist, but a former chemical engineer and business executive with the chemical company Solvay. Curious about wall-size photographs of Solvay conferences in the reception areas and hallways of many Solvay offices, Orens became particularly interested in the first of these meetings. The names of some who gathered in 1911 in the Grand Hotel Metropole in Brussels are familiar for their groundbreaking work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not only Einstein and Curie, but also Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford, JH Jeans and Henri Poincar were there. Nine participants had won or would win Nobel Prizes. Orens approach to the lives and work of the attendees, through the story of this conference, is unusual and well conceived. His account revisits what is certainly one of the most exciting, turbulent periods in the history of science and better acquaints us with people who played significant roles in this drama.

Curie was the only woman among the participants. Her story, beginning in Poland in a century when scientific education for women there could be had only clandestinely, is a harsh reminder of the obstacles facing women in science in her era. Her husband, Pierre Curie, refused the 1903 Nobel Prize for research on radiation until his wife was included in the honour. It was assumed that a woman could have assisted a man but surely not worked as an equal or leader. In America, Curie would become more famous for overcoming such prejudices than for her science. Touring the States in 1921, she was disappointed that only one of the planned celebratory events included meeting another scientist.

In his treatment of Einstein, Orens discusses a claim that science historians have almost unanimously dismissed that it was Einsteins first wife, Mileva, who developed the theory of special relativity. In a book much concerned with lack of recognition for women, Orens careful assessment of her minor contribution is appropriate. The cold correspondence that ended Einsteins marriage to Mileva reveals a less-attractive person than we prefer to think him. Otherwise, Orens describes a kind man who defended Curie when few did, an astonishing mind and a fervent advocate for internationalism in science.

Less known than the attendees at the First Solvay Conference is Ernest Solvay himself, the Belgian businessman and self-taught scientist who paid for the meeting. Solvay had been thinking since 1858 about matter and energy, speculating that one of these elements is only a transformation of the other. Lacking formal training in theoretical physics, Solvay was not equipped to argue decisively, as Einstein would, that this idea is correct. Instead, he devoted his scientific acumen to developing an improved method of producing industrial soda. He amassed a fortune.

It was German physicist Walther Nernst who in 1910 suggested that Solvay fund a gathering where the worlds top physicists could discuss Solvays ideas. Nernst knew that they would discuss much more than what Solvay would offer in his opening talk and material sent out ahead of time. He anticipated a productive albeit argumentative discussion of the classic physics vs quantum physics problem. Argumentative it was. Conclusive it was not.

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