Monthly Archives: April 2008

A Fly in the Ointment. A Chemist Among the Astronomers.

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This is a re-post of a 2008 seminar I attended by speaker Dr. Carolyn Porco.

28 April, 2008. University of Colorado at Boulder.  Dr. Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute gave a public lecture at CU Boulder on the highlights of the Cassini Mission to Saturn. Porco gives a lively presentation and- dare I say it- is mildly charismatic. The website of the imaging group, ciclops.org, is quite well done and even includes downloads of many of the papers from the team. The paper on Enceladus is particularly interesting.

As a chemist sitting anonymously in a crowd of space science enthusiasts and professionals, I cannot help but compare the tenor of the experience to my own field of chemistry.

Space science people are funded in proportion to the general public enthusiasm for space.  The universe is big. Really, really big. And it is full of breathtaking scenery and wondrous objects. Space science almost always causes people to experience a deeply emotional sense of awe and wonder. This has not been lost on the space science community. The display of majestic photos with a bit of space music in the background goes a long way to rally public support.

Chemistry on the other hand, rarely induces this kind of raw response from the limbic system.  Whereas chemistry induces shock, astronomy induces awe.

The most common exhortation made on exposure to the chemical sciences is “How in the hell am I going to pass this course?”

Students take intro to astronomy classes as an enjoyable way to get their science credits. Students take chemistry because they have to. We all know this. Science aversion is even more extreme for the poor sots in physics.

The SI unit for humility is the “sagan”.  Public astronomy talks usually have a high sagan factor. I would estimate last nights talk was 8.5 out of 10 sagans.

Of particular interest to Porco was the Saturnian moon Enceladus. This moon has substantial water on it with evidence of “tectonic” activity on the uncratered surface. On closer inspection, it is apparent that this body is spewing water into space with fair vigor. Indeed, a vapor torus of water tracing the orbit can be seen on some of the images. The suggestion is that there may be liquid water under a water ice crust. IR images show hot spots that coincide with surface fissures on Enceladus.  This moon would be a good place to land some drilling equipment.

Porco spoke of the hope of eventually finding life on Enceladus or on Jupiter’s Europa. She suggested that this would finally “break the spell” and allow the assumption that life may be relatively common on worlds with liquid water.

What this kind of planetary exploration affords are insights into the evolution of planets and ultimately, what circumstances are likely and necessary for the ignition of life.  But the circumstances that promote life formation are chemical in nature. The origin of life is not an astronomical problem. It is a chemical network problem and for that we need the involvement of chemists.

Porco talk on Cassini

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I’m off to Boulder-town tonight to hear Carolyn Porco lecture on the Saturn Cassini mission in the fabulous Glenn Miller Ballroom on the CU campus. The last time I was in that room I saw Carl Sagan talk about the Viking mission (ca 1978?). It’s been a while. I think I have some blurry Tri-X negatives somewhere of Sagan lecturing.

I’ll follow this post with a commentary afterwards.  Ciao.

Oligarch Council of the United States

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As if further proof of my true tediousness was really necessary, Th’ Gaussling will disclose to the world that I log a fair amount of odd-hour time watching C-Span 1 & 2.

Saturday morning’s broadcast bonanza was a re-airing of an earlier awards gala put on by the Atlantic Council.  Among the illuminati doling out awards was “Henry the K”. Yes, the venerable Henry Kissinger- Dr. Shuttle Diplomacy.

Arguably, among President Nixon’s gang of operatives, Henry Kissinger was a towering and intimidating intellect. In the management of the Viet Nam “conflict” and the diplomatic opening of China, Kissinger was extremely influential in the Nixon Whitehouse. But unfortunately for Kissinger, he continues to be unpopular in some circles. Chile has invited him to answer some difficult questions. In his characteristic 20 Hz basso profundo voice, Henry has declined to visit.

Not a tall fellow, Kissinger stood on a stool behind the podium and read a glowing and heartfelt introduction for one of the Awardees- Mr. Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch was held out to the world by the Atlantic Council as an example of shining excellence in international business.  I can only guess that the poobahs and grandees on the awards committee, through the refractive lenses of their world view, somehow missed the profound global bastardization of broadcast news under the wing of News Corp. More likely, they do not see it as a perversion but rather a turnabout to right thinking.

As a compulsive channel surfer, I switched to the other C-Span channel just in time for proceedings of the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by the Honorable Representitive Conyers (D-MI).  Conyers was reading the riot act to the Director of the FBI regarding due process for members of the house during FBI raids.

After a few minutes of roasting the Director, the chair yielded to the Honorable Representative Smith (R-TX). Rep. Smith began by figuratively Kowtowing to the Director and then prefaced his comments by referring to a report from Fox News, that fountain of information plumbed by Mr. Rupert Murdoch.

That a senior member of congress would preface his comments by citing Fox News as a primary reference is surely telling of the reach of Rupert Murdoch into the political machinery of the USA. Of course, citing Fox News is not a new rhetorical habit of neo-conservatives. But the simultaneity of the Murdoch pageantry on C-Span 2 and endorsement of Murdoch’s Fox News as the Republican “Van Nostrand’s Encyclopedia” on C-Span 1 was at once fascinating and faintly anticholinergic in effect. Though certainly random, this overlap of Murdoch mania only brings into focus the influence this man.

Murdoch went on to opine on the stability of NATO, stating

“We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies. However strong NATO may be on paper, this fact makes NATO weak in practice. And it means that reform will not come from within.”

Murdoch has turned his attention to the expansion of NATO. A member of the merchant nobility, Murdoch has said aloud what is perhaps already on the minds of policy makers. Expansionism. Western exceptionalism. Democracy through superior firepower. 

The spread of democracy is a good thing. And western culture has much to offer. But a US government with insufficient checks and balances is a dangerous thing. Especially when our petro-president is on a security binge and is driven by an autistic military /petroleum fixation.

 

Rocket Racing League

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It has finally happened. The Aerospace crowd has formed a NASCAR-like racing league to promote an amped-up form of air racing. It is called the Rocket Racing League.  Velocity Aircraft, now a subsidiary of Rocket Racing Composites Corporation, will supply the airframes. The rocket motors are simple, one piece, throttled, stainless steel motors down-rated from 5000 lbs to 1500-2000 lbs of thrust. The motors will burn LOX and ethanol.

The first exhibition race will occur at the upcoming EAA Oshkosh AirVenture show in Wisconsin this summer.

One important result of this is that, if it is successful, it will demonstrate that entities smaller than governments can safely and profitably do rocketry.  If this field is to go anywhere, it must show that rocket propulsion can be conducted with less-than-NASA resources. 

 

Thoughts On Secrecy in Business

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It is unusual to join any company engaged in technology or finance and not have to sign a secrecy agreement. The competitive nature of business is such that information relating to business activity needs to be kept from the prying eyes of the competition. That’s easy to understand. If you refrain from blabbing your activities to the competition, you may have an advantage in the market. It’s a zero sum game- their ignorance is your gain.

But it is possible to stumble across the line from prudent practice to paranoia.  Often is the case that the first draft of a contract or a secrecy agreement is full of grabby, over-reaching terms and conditions that represent a minefield for the inattentive. Negotiation is the act of shaving down unreasonable requirements to an agreeable topography of ups and downs that you can live with.

I have learned that it is best to decline to agree to broad, ill-defined terms, in favor of short, highly focused terms regarding specific actions, information, or outcomes. For instance, agreeing to “hold in confidence all information to relating to the business activity” of a company is a recipe for potential trouble.

It is better to set the expectation that the agreement is for a tightly defined purpose and only a narrowly defined range of information will be disclosed in the first place.  It is important to require that whatever is disclosed is reduced to print, or if disclosed verbally is reduced to a tangible form within a short time period.

If you are going to be subject to a lawsuit due to an alleged breach of secrecy, then it is important to have discoverable evidence that a limited range of information was disclosed. It is also important to set the expectation that Confidential Information is properly marked as such so that the recipient can reasonably prepare to contain it.  You do not want to have hand waving arguments by the other side claiming that “we said (this or that) in a meeting and then the defendant willfully disclosed the information without permission”.  Verbal disclosures are nothing but potential trouble.

Being in possession of another companies secrets is a genuine burden and a risk. You want to minimize it to the greatest extent possible and impose disciplines on the part of both parties to keep the disclosures lean and tight.

Proof

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This week a local community theater group is putting on a production of Proof, by David Auburn. It is a drama about an insane mathematician and his daughter.  Since casting didn’t require an oafish, middle-aged cornfed, my role is strictly behind the scenes. My job will be to supply darkness by turning down the lights on cue.

Spent the weekend putting in a new lighting system based on what is available at Home Depot. Actually, the lighting works pretty well.

Reality Check. Always Certain But Frequently Wrong.

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One of the benefits of being a student is that there is always someone standing over your shoulder, watching the choices you make. In school you choices result in a score of some sort. Out in the world, your choices have bigger consequences than letter grades.

As in school, the Big Big World is always under time pressure. Better, Faster, Cheaper. There isn’t always time to deliberate on the global optimum solution. In industry, sometimes the choice you make is the first one that shows any promise. Experienced business people know that everything takes longer and costs more than you first realize. There is no substitute for an early start.

What results from this need to jumpstart a project is the failure to question your basic assumptions.  In chemistry, a person may slide into the seductive notion that you are an expert in a process and, of course, you know that your process will work on a particular analog. But, do you really?

Non-linear phenomena are particularly troublesome.  Or phenomena that are polynomial in description.  It is hard to intuit outcomes when terms that were previously small become dominant in the equation. There is no substitute for measurement. If you want to truly understand a thing, eventually you are going to have to make measurements and plot a curve.

Like a lot of people fresh from Grad School, I was sometimes an arrogant turd. Just ask around. Today I am much more cautious about my abilities and knowledge. Periodically I am reminded that intuition can fail. Like a 2×4 between the eyes.

While I can’t give details, I have had to drastically recalibrate my intuition about some things that I believed I had a handle on. It involved mass transport concepts. The separation of substances can be subject to constraints that aren’t so obvious to someone who has only been through the ACS-approved chemistry curriculum. An engineer might have looked at my circumstance and solved the problem in a New York minute.

But Th’ Gaussling had to learn the hard way. What else is new?

Panem et circenses

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Why did the Democratic Party stretch the primary season over such a long period? What is the strategic value in this? Why does election season have to last so long? Don’t people ever tire of the relentless microanalysis? What will anyone really learn from the n+1th debate between Clinton and Obama?

The Romans had this figured out centuries ago- Panem et circenses (bread and circuses).  

In Police Custody- 416 CHildren.

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I find myself conflicted about certain aspects of the recent raid on the Fundamentalist Mormon  compound in Texas.  The news reports say that 416 children have been taken into police custody.  Parents and lawyers have been matched up to deal with the gigantic mess that this has caused.

I am not an advocate of polygamy and I am certainly no supporter of Mormonism.  It seems to me that in all of the bizarre theology of Mormonism, the idea of Mormon polygamy isn’t a very large leap of strangeness from its core concepts.  But I digress.

What is outrageous about this event is that 416 children were taken from their home and parents and are being kept by the state of Texas, all on an anonymous phone call.  The accuracy and veracity of the caller may be spot on. But there is such a thing as due process.  The spectacle of a massive police raid resulting in the detention of children, even on clannish wingnuts like this group, should give a chill to all citizens.  The state is exceeding its bounds unreasonably. Strike that. I think that the State officials just do not know what they are doing.

Never attribute to malice what you can first explain by incompetence.

There may very well be a complete absence of resources or protocol for this circumstance. So, the Texas state legislature needs to meet to contrive some sort of consensus and policy in regard to response to the welfare of children in communal living. Some advanced thinking is needed here.  Remember Waco? 

The state turns its head the other way in regard to the plural marriage of old men to minor girls. It needs to look straight at this circumstance and deal with it. This is a conflict between the two magisteria that oversee marriage- religion and the state.  The Texas legislature needs to set clear policy that relieves law inforcement from having to interpret how existing law is to be enforced.