Invention of the “perfect” invisibility cloak?

Posted on November 12, 2012 by skullsinthestars

In 2006, a number of researchers made international headlines with the announcement that they had laid the theoretical foundations for the construction of an “invisibility cloak,” a device that has been a staple of horror, fantasy and science fiction for over 100 years earlier.  Since then, new developments in optical cloaking have been a regular staple of the science news media, and every new discovery has been reported on with breathless, and often over-hyped, excitement.

It is with this in mind that I mention new results that hit the media over the past few days, with tantalizing headlines like “Invisibility cloaking in ‘perfect’ demonstration,” “Researchers at Duke are perfecting an invisibility cloak,” and “Scientists call their discovery a ‘perfect’ invisibility cloak.”

These are also experimental results!  With this in mind, can we say that “perfect” cloaking has been achieved?  Well, it really depends on your interpretation of the word “perfect!”  In a very real technical sense, to be explained below, the researchers have demonstrated that optical cloaking can in principle work perfectly (with certain strong caveats), and make an object undetectable to an electromagnetic wave of a certain wavelength.  However, it is nowhere near “perfect” cloaking in the sense that most of the public would interpret the word — the object is readily, obviously visible under most circumstances!

Though there are a lot of posts out there explaining the new developments, I thought I’d spare a few words to describe what exactly what was done and what is novel about it.

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Posted in Invisibility, Optics | 5 Comments

Foster kitty Tiny!

Posted on November 11, 2012 by skullsinthestars

I’ve been rather overwhelmed with work, travel, and sick cats lately, so I haven’t had the time or energy to write significant science blog posts — this will change soon!  In the meantime, I thought I’d ask people to spread the word about a foster kitty we’ve taken in that we’re hoping to adopt out to somebody within reasonable distance of Charlotte, NC.  We have named this amazingly sweet cat “Tiny,” as he weighs roughly 19 pounds!

About 2 weeks ago, my wife took our kitty Fluff to the vet for laser treatment of his teeth*.  While she was there, she met Tiny, who had been dumped off in a cat carrier in the middle of the night at the vet’s office.  Tiny was obviously somebody’s housecat — he’d been declawed in the front, and he just *adores* people.  I’ve been able to even scratch his soft belly, which any cat-lover knows is a pretty rare thing.

Our vet’s office doesn’t handle adoptions, and the local humane society shelter was full, so Tiny was scheduled to be send to the city’s “kill” shelter.  Because he is such a friendly and loving cat, we couldn’t let that happen, so we’re fostering him until we can find him a forever home.

For those who love cats that like to cuddle, Tiny would be a perfect fit!  The only concern is that he is very scared of other cats, and would probably fit best in a house as the only cat or maybe one other.

Tiny has had all of his shots, is neutered, and tested negative for FIV.  He has a wonderfully soft coat of fur and loves to be petted and brushed.  He is estimated to be about five years old and will have a long and happy life in the right home! We are managing the adoption through our friends at S.O.S. Feline Rescue (also on Facebook), who will handle the adoption fee and application.  You can contact them directly, or you can contact me and I will put you in touch with S.O.S.

If you’re looking for a wonderful and friendly feline, please consider Tiny!  We really need to find him a home — since he’s afraid of our other cats (and we have 9 at home, so it’s hard to avoid them), he’s spent most of his time locked in a relatively small room, which he is not terribly fond of.

Tiny shows his softer side.

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* Fluff has an autoimmune disorder that results in him getting painful gum swelling.  Laser treatment can more or less remove that pain.  Our cats get anything they want!

Posted in Animals, Personal | 2 Comments

E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros

Posted on November 6, 2012 by skullsinthestars

If you were to ask most people to name the truly classic works of fantasy fiction, you would almost certainly hear J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” (1954-55) and “The Hobbit” (1937), as well as C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” (1950-56).  Many others, very much including myself, would include Robert E. Howard’s “Conan” series of stories (1930s).

All of these books and stories involve elaborately created fantasy worlds, each with its own geography, history and mythology.  Indeed, this has become the standard for good fantasy: immersion of the reader in a world that seems as detailed and vibrant as the real one.

Most people would not be familiar, however, with an even earlier fantasy novel, “The Worm Ouroboros,” written by E.R. Eddison (1882-1945) and published in 1922.  This is one of the earliest works of fantasy* to feature a completely invented and consistent fantasy world and was admired by later authors such as Lewis, Tolkien, and even H.P. Lovecraft!

Drawing of the worm Ouroboros by Theodoros Pelecanos, in the 1478 alchemical tract Synosius. (Via Wikipedia)

The title of the novel refers to the mythical serpent Ouroboros, which is forever eating its own tail.  It is a symbol of the villainous Witchland, which threatens to seize control of the free nations of the world Mercury by force in a time of vulnerability.  Opposing Witchland are the Lords of Demonland: Lord Juss, Goldry Bluszco, Lord Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha.  Their quest to defeat the Witches will involve clashes of armies, battles with fierce monsters, journeys to dangerous and mystical lands, encounters with ghosts and gods, narrow escapes from death, and horrifying conjurations.

“The Worm Ouroboros” is undeniably a classic, but a challenging one: it is written in sixteenth century English, and requires effort to understand.  I read the book at an exceedingly leisurely pace, usually only a single chapter every night.  Let’s take a quick look at “Ouroboros” and its influence on fantasy literature.

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Posted in Fantasy fiction | 5 Comments

“Are beech-trees ever struck by lightning?” (1889)

Posted on November 3, 2012 by skullsinthestars

Short answer: yes!

It’s easy to forget how relatively little we knew about the natural world even only a hundred years ago.  I came across a rather amusing and macabre example in the July 19, 1889 issue of Science magazine some time ago, a letter with the odd title, “Are beech-trees ever struck by lightning?”  This was written in response to a short bit in the “Notes and News” section of the July 5th issue of Science, which read as follows:

ACCORDING to an ancient superstition, says Garden and Forest, the beech is never struck by lightning; and so general has been this belief, that a gentleman recently thought it worth while to write to an English journal that he had been told of a lightning-shattered beech in Ireland. Beliefs of this sort are rarely without some degree of justification in fact, and it would be interesting to know whether in this country the beech has been observed to possess any greater immunity from electrical dangers than trees of other sorts.

Keep in mind that this note, which appeared in Science, suggests that beech trees might be lightning-proof in some way!

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Posted in ... the Hell?, History of science | 7 Comments

Weird Fiction Monday: The Worm

Posted on October 29, 2012 by skullsinthestars

It’s time for Weird Fiction Monday, when I post stories that I’ve written — both new and old — for the entertainment (hopefully) of my readers!  As always, I note that I haven’t done extensive editing of the tales here, so don’t be surprised to find the writing a little rough.  

This particular story is much darker than many that I write, and is oddly personal, as I note in an afterword.  It was written almost exactly fifteen years ago, in 1997.

The Worm

The dream, again.  He was shoveling, the worm was giggling, and someone was screaming.

He awoke suddenly, staring up at the ceiling, affixed to the bed by feelings of horror.  His throat felt raw; the voice screaming he always heard was, he suspected, his own.  If his neighbors noticed, though, they never commented.

Richard Dewar had needed no alarm clock to wake him for quite some time.  The dreams chased him from sleep every morning, and kept him from true rest every night.  Would they fade in time, as the memories became distant and unfamiliar?  Would the memories ever become unfamiliar?  Richard would not even dare hope.

Images of the people, and their eyes, lifeless, remained with him as he crawled out of bed, and echoes of the worm resonated within his skull.

“Your feelings are perfectly normal,” Richard told himself, rinsing up at the sink, but the words sounded hollow.  Richard’s therapist had spoken those words, many times, but how could his therapist possibly know?  She had not sat in the darkness, with the stench, and the blood, and the worm, shoveling…

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Posted in Fiction | 2 Comments

Halloween treats 2012 (Updated!)

Posted on October 27, 2012 by skullsinthestars

It is time again for my yearly dose of creepy and classic horror stories for some chilling Halloween reading!  You can also read my previous editions: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and my 2010 post on the true story of the “Lady of the Lake“. (Hopefully the older links still work!)

Casting the Runes, M.R. James.  Perhaps the best story about a supernatural curse, written by one of the best authors of the supernatural of all time!  When the Secretary of an academic association, Mr. Dunning, rejects a paper by the notorious warlock Karswell, the latter sets in motion an unnatural revenge of a bizarre and terrifying nature.

Caterpillars, E.F. Benson.  When a man stays in the old Italian home Villa Cascana, he witnesses a shocking and inhuman haunting that has fatal consequences.

The Colour Out of Space, H.P. Lovecraft.  Lovecraft is the father of the genre of “cosmic horror,” in which humanity is insignificant in the face of utterly monstrous and indifferent forces in an cold and deadly universe.  Nowhere does Lovecraft convey a sense of utter alienness than in this story of what happens when a creature beyond human comprehension lands near a New England farm.

The Yellow Sign, Robert W. Chambers.  “Have you found the Yellow Sign?”  A painter finds his work disrupted by the persistent lurking of a puffy, pale, churchyard worker in the area around his home.  As he encounters hints and eerie premonitions of doom, the painter comes across a copy of The King in Yellow, a stage play about the doom that befalls the people of the city of Carcosa, on the shores of Lake Hali — a play that is said to be deadly to those who read it.

Carmilla, J. Sheridan LeFanu.  This is one of the original vampire horror stories, predating Dracula!  Carmilla is a vampire quite unlike any other, and the story reads as both modern and ancient at the same time.

Who Goes There?, J.W. Campbell.  Both science fiction and horror at once, this is the original story that inspired The Thing From Another World (1951) and John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).  The story is much more akin to the latter movie, describing an isolated group of Antarctic researchers who realize that they have been infiltrated by a perfect alien shapeshifter.  Failure to uncover the impostor will result in not only the loss of their own lives and identities, but the whole of humanity.

UPDATE: Had to add one more story that I’ve been looking for online for years, but just found today:

Waxwork, A.M. Burrage.  When a journalist spends the night in the Chamber of Horrors in Marriner’s Waxworks for an article, he gets more than he bargained for.  What better place for a killer to hide than in plain sight as his own wax figure?

(After you’ve read the story, check out this illustration of it that first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghostly Gallery (1962), which is nearly perfect.)

Posted in Horror | Leave a comment

Invaders from Mars! Reports from the 1938 invasion

Posted on October 24, 2012 by skullsinthestars

Note: One of a couple of Halloween-themed posts for the season!

While researching a post for my new Tumblr “Science Chamber of Horrors“*, I ended up reading the October 31st, 1938 edition of The Evening Independent newspaper of St. Petersburg, Florida.  Perusing the article that I had originally sought after, I couldn’t help notice some of the headlines of the evening edition:

THOUSANDS SCARED BY RADIO REPORTS

ONE WOMAN SAW FIRES FROM MARS

It only took a moment to figure out what the hubub was:  Radio reports?  Mars?  Halloween?  I had serendipitously stumbled across newspaper reports about the hysteria surrounding Orson Welles’ radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds!

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Posted in ... the Hell?, Entertainment, History of science | 3 Comments

The Giant’s Shoulders #52 — “Loads more heroes edition” — is out!

Posted on October 19, 2012 by skullsinthestars

I’ve been silent on the blog for the week because I was attending the Frontiers in Optics meeting of the Optical Society of America in Rochester, NY this week.  Hopefully I’ll have more to say about that soon, but…

In the meantime, let me give a belated announcement that 52nd edition of The Giant’s Shoulders history of science blog carnival has been posted at the Friends of Darwin blog!  It is a “heroic” edition of the carnival — once we get past the naive vision of folks like Darwin being solitary geniuses who worked alone, we find that there are a lot more “scientific heroes” who contributed to and led to great discoveries.

In this edition, you can read about:

  • How  Friedrich Miescher discovered what later became known as DNA in decomposing pus,
  • How statistics were used to improve the quality of Guinness,
  • Richard Owen, the “sea-serpent killer”,
  • and much more!

I would like to thank Richard Carter for putting together an excellent themed carnival!

The next edition will be posted on the 16th of November and will be hosted by the ever-awesome Scicurious at The Scicurious Brain.  Entries can be submitted to Thony C or myself via email (or comments), or can be submitted directly to the carnival host.

Posted in General science, Science news | 1 Comment

Introducing the “Science Chamber of Horrors”!

Posted on October 5, 2012 by skullsinthestars

Those who have been following this blog for a while know that I spent two full years posting a daily “weird science fact” on Twitter, which have all been compiled into posts here. I still carry on the weird science fact tradition on occasion, but I’ve been wondering what to do with this huge catalogue of facts that I’ve accumulated. Well, considering many of them involve really horrific animal behaviors, shocking natural phenomena or freaky scientific experiments, I thought I’d start a Tumblr about the creepiest of these: the “Science Chamber of Horrors“!

 

Roughly twice a week, I’ll try and write short posts about the nastier and creepier parts of science, scientists and nature. Let me know what you think!

Posted in General science, Horror | 2 Comments

Best Science Writing Online 2012 is out!

Posted on October 3, 2012 by skullsinthestars

I thought I’d put up a short post letting people know that the 2012 edition of the “Best Science Writing Online” has been published — and I’m in it!  You can see my name in the right-most red column on the cover.

For those who are unfamiliar, this book is a part of a series that collects the “best” science writing of the year that was published on the internet.  I always put “best” in quotes because there is so much good stuff written every year that it is impossible to speak in absolutes — I prefer to say “some of the best”!

This volume is a continuation of a series that used to be called “The Open Laboratory”, and I was fortunate enough to have one of my pieces included in last year’s volume as well.  The 2012 edition is somewhat special, in that it is published by Scientific American and can be found in brick-and-mortar bookstores, as I verified in my local Barnes & Noble:

Even though I’ve written a textbook, this marks the first time that my writing has appeared on a regular bookstore shelf, so I’m rather excited about it!  I’ve already submitted a number of posts as candidates for next year’s volume, though the competition gets tougher every year so we’ll have to see what happens.  In any case, cheers to editors Bora Zivkovic and Jennifer Ouellette for putting together another great edition.

My contribution is based on my blog post on the curious Mpemba effect, officially discovered in 1969.  One of the nice side-effects of this book being published is that I’m actually sending a copy to Erasto Mpemba himself!  I’ll blog more details when I learn what he thinks of my writing…

 

 

Posted in Science news | 5 Comments