Category Archives: Science

Solar Transit of Jet

Leave a reply

Check out this great shot of a jet transiting the sun. It happens ca 8 seconds in the sequence.  What surprised me was the extent of the forward motion of the contrail vapors.  I always imagined that they had closer to a zero ground speed. This is a good visualization of the extent to which the aircraft does work on the atmosphere by accelerating some of it along the direction of motion.

This video was captured by a member of the Radio Jove community. He was shooting a solar prominence with a Coronado PST and a webcam when the jet passed through the field of view. (Obviously, he was not doing radio astronomy at the time.)

There Be Dragons!

2 Replies

There is a theory brewing that the ignorant wielding of statistics-based risk management is deep at the heart of the current financial panic. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is quite outspoken in this matter. He goes on at length about the inadequacies of statistical methods for financial risk management.

NY Times writer Joe Nocera [link may require free subscription] echoes this sentiment- but in greater breadth- in a recent article in the NYT. Nocera focuses on Value at Risk- VaR.  Since my statistics training is limited, the reader will have to draw their own conclusions on the merits of this methodology.

Taleb warned about “Black Swans” a while back in a book by that title.  A man not overly burdened with modesty, Taleb has transcended to the status of an Illuminati due to his prescience on the blindness of statistics-based financial risk management in predicting low frequency catastrophic events, or Black Swans.

Perhaps the old cartographic flourish “There Be Dragons!” should be updated to “There Be Black Swans!”

Flux-O-Links

Leave a reply

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission website offers a downloadable set of documents pertaining to Fire Dynamics along with a few spreadsheets and loads of worked problems. The set of documents is quite well done in my estimation and is entirely suitable for we industrial chemists. My operating principle is that it never hurts to keep learning about fire phenomena when you work around flammable materials.

Gotten a little rusty in your welding theory?

An affordable spectrum analyzer is just what a fellow needs for the radio observatory.

Need pure Astatine, see p 19.  Light up the accelerator and dial up the proton current.

Empty Seat on the Carbon Bandwagon

Leave a reply

Sometimes it is best to simply shut up and link to a superior post. This is such a time. In a recent posting, one writer, Harold Ambler, comes out against Al Gore in the global warming debate. While I am skeptical about his assertions on the effect of the solar flux on the earths geomagnetic dynamo, I think Ambler otherwise brings together quite a few good points I have seen elsewhere.

The ticket to my seat on the carbon bandwagon will soon post on Ebay.

Nernstian Sunrise in the Cryosphere

6 Replies

WAWAwawa ..wawa..wawawa..waawaa..waaawaaa..wa..wa……wa……….wa.

The thermometer read -20 F this morning. It hasn’t been that cold for a few years.  As I sat in the Jeep listening to my battery die hard, my mind wandered fondly to the green meadows of P-Chem and the Nernst equation. This equation sets forth the relationship between temperature and cell potential.  The University of Arizona has this fantastic Nernst simulator (web version) that lets you dial in temperature and immediately see the effect on the voltage of the electrochemical cell.  It is plain to see that as the temperature drops, the EMF drops as well.

Knowing that nature wouldn’t let me summon sufficient wattage from my battery, I went back inside and switched on CNN.  After seeing multiple replays of an indignant journalist hurling a pair of shoes at our president, I was treated to an ad by the Central Intelligence Agency- the CIA. Yeah, the CIA is advertising on CNN!  Take a minute to get your arms around that.

Strangely, uncharacteristically perhaps, I experienced a synergistic swelling of sympathy after seeing the shots of Bush II being assaulted by Iraqi footwear followed by the patriotic CIA ad. For a moment- just a sparkle in time- a quorum of voices in my head agreed that somebody should kick that journalist’s ass. Bush II may be a buffoon, but he is OUR buffoon and nobody should treat him like that. There- I said it.

Aqueous Enceladus

1 Reply

With the revelation that streams of water ejected from the Saturnian moon Enceladus may arise from subsurface liquid water, the space science crowd is abuzz with excitement about the possibility of life on this frosted novelty moon. It seems to me that if there is aqueous life under the surface of Enceladus, then some of it should have been blown ejected above the surface by these geysers. In fact, a few of the hapless critters may be lying about on the surface this very moment wearing an expression of shock and dismay on their frozen xenomorphic faces. How embarrassing for them.

The three cosmic damp spots- Earth, Europa, and Enceladus. I wonder how long it will take for a lander proposal to get serious evaluation? Life on Enceladus is as likely to resemble a microbial mat as anything.  A lander would have to consider microscopic examination of samples.

Upslope

10 Replies

We had an upslope storm come and go here in Colorado. It left solid phase hydroxylic acid all over the place. Fortunately, my Jeep has a special traction setting for that situation.

State officials have attempted to deal with it by using Group 1 and Group 2 metal halides as well as diaminocarbonyl to affect the colligative properties of the hydroxylic acid crystals.  This leads to an increase in the friction coefficient of the asphaltene and hydrated calcium oxide conglomerates used by motorists.

Weighty Cogitations on Borohydride

10 Replies

I have been making a conscious effort to find ways to use borohydride compounds rather than just default to the mighty gray sledge hammer- LAH. There are numerous reports of diverse and wonderful means of activating borohydride to reduce the more refractory functional groups. Recently I prepared and used Zn(BH4)2 on a new substrate. Initially, it appears to work poorly. The grey wall cake seems to contain metallic zinc. If preferences mattered, I’d prefer see electrons reducing my substrate rather than Zn (II) to Zn.

You can’t always get what you want.     M. Jagger

Failing to Ask Better Questions

11 Replies

We may be entering a time of greater economic hardship than many have known in their lives. The great age of mass consumption, non-returnables, and disposable goods may have peaked.  Boarding the Hummer or the Escalade to drive 5 miles to buy cigarettes and a Big Gulp may be a thing of the past for a greater number of citizens. Americans will have to adopt a lifestyle much more akin to Europe or Japan- reduced living space and reduced (kg of crap)/(person year), reduced portion sizes, more walking, local shopping, and increased use of rail transportation.

The Oil Shock of Summer 2008 snagged the suspenders of this nation of hydrocarbon addicts, sending us reeling into the election/market crash machinery like a drunken farmer pulled into the thresher. Out the back end of this nightmare comes the bloody oat chaff to hint that something horrific happened. Reality strikes, then … silence.

In spite of the plurality of media outlet channels into our collective consciousness, few infotainers are drilling into the core of the problem. The pace and timing of commercial media sets the rhythm of infotainment metered to the masses. Photogenic talking heads selected for their appeal read predigested content for broadcast to attention deficit channel surfers. People dulled by the sheer magnitude of content-dilute information streams and dazzled by the production value of infotainment are compelled to switch on HBO and hide from the world.

Here is what we must do. We must see to it that better questions are being investigated. Instead of asking about the replacement for gasoline, we must ask for a frank disclosure on the sustainability of high consumption. Instead of asking for better or hybrid automobiles, we must frame questions around the concept of a mass transportation network. How can we get intercity rail up and running? How can the Detroit automobile manufactures be cajoled into entering the rail infrastructure business? Where is the hydrogen going to come from to fuel the hydrogen economy? Does it make sense to consume energy to generate hydrogen and then turn around and burn it for propulsion?

The best answers come from the best questions.