The tenth edition of The Giant’s Shoulders is up at Stochastic Scribbles! Thanks to Yoo for assembling it!
The next edition will appear on May 16th at Curving Normality.
In one of my regular explorations of StumbleUpon I happened across a nice homemade demonstration of magnetic levitation on a page called spark, bang, buzz. The demonstration is adapted from a description at scitoys.com. The setup is illustrated schematically below:
A strong collection of permanent magnets are supported by a wooden frame above the ‘levitation’ area, and provide the ‘lift’ for the levitating magnet. The levitating magnet itself is supported between a pair of plates made of bismuth which — and this is in fact the key point — is a strongly diamagnetic material.
It is a nice demonstration, but what really caught my eye was the following passage of the post:
It is always annoying to me when someone flashes a bunch of mathematical mumbojumbo in our faces and says something is impossible. Many times the impossibility may be true in the true sense of the mathematical definition, but mathematical definitions often fall way short when evaluating our real and practical world. Someone named Earnshaw, using mathematical mumbojumbo, said that a permenant magnet can not be levitated without using some energy input for stabilization. In the practical sense, one would be a fool to take the Earnshaw therom seriously. The picture shows that permenant magnet levitation can easily be done at home… Diamagnetism probably does not fall within the definition of the Earnshaw therom but who cares.
It’s hard to tell if the author is being snarky or really looks upon mathematical physics as a “mumbojumbo” that impedes progress. Taking the statement at face value, it highlights an important and semi-common misunderstanding of many physics theorems, and so I thought I’d take a qualitative stab at explaining Earnshaw’s theorem and its relationship to diamagnetic materials and magnetic levitation.
Just a short note: I’ve been rather preoccupied with classes and other academic responsibilities and haven’t had much time to work on detailed physics blog posts. This will hopefully change this week, as I’ve got a few ideas in the works. (Part of the problem: I’m getting really ambitious with my posts, and they end up requiring much more research than I first think.)
In the meantime, I had to just comment that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse were both really good, and compelling, tonight.
It was the season finale of Terminator, and it didn’t disappoint: the writers “doubled down” in a sense and introduced a number of really unexpected twists to the story. The show, though somewhat slow moving at times, has introduced a depth of character and a complexity to the plot far, far beyond what ever appeared in the movies.
Sadly, it still isn’t clear if there will be a season 3, as nothing has been announced! It is thought that the upcoming theatrical release of Terminator 4 might convince FOX executives that TSCC is worth keeping around to capitalize on “Terminator mania”. I’m definitely hoping…
Dollhouse gave more of a hint how the show can sustain its premise over an extended run. As I noted in my previous post on the show, though the “dolls” in principle are different people in each episode, they serve as “mirrors” through which the hopes and desires of the other characters are reflected. We saw a bit more of that tonight, as well as another aspect: a somewhat Frankenstein-ian twist to the tale. The character of Echo, like Frankenstein’s monster, is turning out to be more than her creators expected or can handle.
My new camera came through for me big time! We’ve been pretty convinced that our avian houseguests (wreathguests?) are house finches, but I hadn’t been able to get a picture to confirm it until this afternoon. The papa bird was hanging out on the tree in front of our house when I went outside, and I snapped the following picture:
Now, compare with the image of the male house finch from Whatbird.com:
Birdwatch win! The daddy bird headed back to the nest right after I took the picture, so I know I’ve got the right bird this time. I’m quite exhilarated at finally having a positive ID; the fiancée and I are thinking of taking up birdwatching now.
In the wake of the truly horrific Italian earthquake on Monday come reports that an Italian seismologist predicted an impending major event but his warnings were ignored. From the NYT Blog,
A local news Web site in the region where the earthquake struck on Monday, Il Capoluogo d’Abruzzo, reports that Giampaolo Giuliani, who claims to have predicted the earthquake by measuring radon gas, wants a public apology from the authorities for ignoring his warning.
…
According to Reuters, Mr. Giuliani “was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population” because “vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses” after he first warned that a major earthquake would strike L’Aquila soon.
The evidence which Mr. Giuliani based his prediction on is an increase in radon gas, presumably released from subterranean sources in the seismically active region. This is a relatively old idea, but a generally discredited one: though it seems that radon gas emissions are occasionally connected with earthquakes, the correlation is very weak. In other words, plenty of earthquakes happen with no radon emission, and plenty of radon emission happens with no accompanying earthquake.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Giuliani’s prediction — and his demands for an apology — gain traction over the next few weeks. Human nature, and the phenomenon of selective perception, will drive people’s belief in a novel earthquake-predicting technique which is being supressed by “the man.”
Bertram Mitford (1855-1914) could be said to have been the darker cousin to H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925). Both authors wrote adventure novels set in the perilous wilds of Africa, but Mitford seems to have used that setting, and his own experiences, to explore the darker side of human nature much more than Haggard.
To me, Mitford’s magnificent work The Sign of the Spider is a study of human desperation: the main character is an anti-hero whose attempts to earn his fortune lead him — both figuratively and literally — down an increasingly dark path. Mitford’s compact ghost story The Weird of Deadly Hollow looks at the motivations and consequences of revenge.
Mitford’s novel Renshaw Fanning’s Quest (1894), his eighth, is an African treasure hunt story reminiscent of King Solomon’s Mines, but more significantly is a story of human greed and betrayal. Valancourt Books still leads the charge on this fascinating author, and has reprinted ‘Quest with a facsimile of its original cover:
Tick tock, tick tock… There are 10 days left until the deadline for The Giant’s Shoulders #10, to be held on April 16th at Stochastic Scribbles. Entries can be submitted through blogcarnival.com or directly to the host blog, as usual!
Well, we’ve got a bird family! A couple of weeks ago, the fiancée noticed that birds had started building a nest in the wreath on the front door of the house. We started to take it down before they settled in, but quickly put it back up when I spotted the eggs that had already been laid inside!
Fortunately, we haven’t scared off the parents, who are still buzzing in and out to take care of their nestlings, now hatched. This afternoon, we put a stepladder off to the side of the nest and took a quick peek inside. The fiancée saw the little hatchlings breathing:
It was a really bad angle, and we didn’t want to get too close to the nest, but you can see what looks to be a little head and a beak!
What we don’t know is what kind of bird family we’ve got. I managed to get a couple of long distance pictures of one of the culprits:
Any birders out there got an idea of what we’ve got? The birds are relatively small, and I swear I saw a flash of red on the male. Also, we live in the western Carolinas…
Ornithology update: The fiancée caught a glimpse of the momma bird leaving the nest and now thinks that the bird pictured above isn’t the nest-owner. She now thinks that we’ve got house finches, which is consistent with the red color I spotted on the male…
Just announced earlier today on Olbermann’s show:
Philosopher, political economist, historian, sociologist, humanist, political theorist, and revolutionary Karl Marx joins MSNBC as host of “Karl’s Komments,” premiering on Monday, April 6. “Karl’s Komments” will air weekdays, 6-7 p.m. ET. The announcement was made today by Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC.
“I am thrilled to have Karl kicking-off our primetime lineup,” said Griffin. “He’s proven that he can connect with Americans and will be a perfect compliment to Chris, Keith, and Rachel. He’s already made his mark on political thought and I’m excited to see what he’ll do with the 6 p.m. hour. It hardly matters that he’s dead.”
“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” said Karl, who was contacted via séance through Jenny McCarthy, who turns out to be able to channel all sorts of crazy shit. “The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.”
He added, “I’m excited to have this opportunity with MSNBC.”
MSNBC has addressed concerns that the appointment of Marx demonstrates a liberal bias by planning regular guest appearances by Vladimir Lenin for counterbalance.
In related news, Glenn Beck had a really rough time on his FOX News show today:
(And, in completely unrelated news, congratulations and sincere well-wishes to Ed Schultz!)
The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. 
Skulls in the Stars 