I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up a story a week indefinitely, and this week real life finally caught up with me! I ended up having to prepare a talk and a lecture all day Sunday, and today I was essentially traveling all day in order to give a talk in Durham, and just got back less than an hour ago.
Too exhausted to prepare a post today, so I’ll catch up on the weirdness next week!
It is unarguably the most famous scientific equation of all time:
This equation, developed in the early 1900s by Albert Einstein as a consequence of his special theory of relativity, implies that energy 
For another take on the equation, we can turn to Einstein himself (tip o’ the hat to Ptak):
Einstein’s remarkable success and fame has led to a lot of jealousy, and there is a small contingent of doubters — to my knowledge, all non-scientists — who seek to tear down all of his accomplishments, often by attributing them to someone else. Einstein’s most famous equation is not exempt from these criticisms; for many years some of Einstein’s critics accused Einstein of essentially plagarizing the work of German physicist Friedrich Hasenöhrl, who in 1904 suggested that a cavity containing electromagnetic (light) energy should have an inertia (effective mass) given by the formula:
The criticism is unfair, as Hasenöhrl made his derivation regarding a specific problem — the inertia of electromagnetic radiation in a cavity — and did not generalize it, as Einstein did, to all forms of energy (and all masses). Hasenöhrl, and others in his time, essentially failed to see the forest for the trees, and nibbled on the edge of a greater understanding. Recently, Hasenöhrl came back into the public eye due to a new analysis of his work, which treats him kindly but still gives credit to Einstein.
However, if we indulge the critics of Einstein for a moment and call Einstein’s work a ripoff of Hasenöhrl, then we must also call Hasenöhrl’s work a ripoff of the work of A.E. Dolbear! In 1881, Dolbear published a paper* with the title “On matter as a form of energy”: 23 years before Hasenöhrl!
Let’s take a look at Dolbear’s essentially unknown but fascinating speculations, and what they tell us about the significance of the work of Einstein and Hasenöhrl.
Another week of Twitter #weirdscifacts!!!
613. Nov 16: In 1898, August Bier tested effectiveness of spinal anesthesia on assistant by beating crap out of him. I quote: “Bier stabbed, hammered and burned his assistant, pulled out his pubic hairs and – presumably eager to leave no stone unturned in testing the new method’s efficiency – squashed his testicles.”
614. Nov 17: “Scientists create lightest material on Earth“. I think they mean “lowest density”, but still cool! This metal material is apparently even lower density than aerogel, which has been featured before in these facts.
615. Nov 18: Consider Hilbert’s infinite hotel, a mathematical “paradox”. I posted this fact on the day that the hotel for ScienceOnline 2012 was made available for booking. In the panic to get a room in the main hotel (which I, regrettably, shared in), it seemed appropriate to post about a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, all full, but which nevertheless has an infinite amount of space available.
616. Nov 19: Robert Goddard, rocket pioneer, had his theories trashed in New York Times soon after publication! The hilarious part of this editorial is that it accuses Goddard of not knowing basic science, while revealing the writer’s own ignorance at the same time.
617. Nov 20: Male ring-tailed lemurs fight for dominance by trying to “out-stink” one another. Many people on Twitter suggested that this is not so different from the behavior of human males.
618. Nov 21: Barking piranhas? The fact that piranhas bark is almost eclipsed by the bizarre techniques used to provoke them into barking — researchers nearly lost fingers!
619. Nov 22: Fairy wasps shrink to the size of amoeba by sacrificing their neurons. These creatures are really amazing — an entire multi-celled insect the size of an amoeba. (h/t @jenlucpiquant)
This is really neat — a friend and colleague of mine at the University of Toronto worked up the academic pedigree of our (mutual) graduate advisor Emil Wolf, using data from the Mathematics Genealogy Project. In short, Emil is a direct descendant (student of a student of a student of…) of such luminaries as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei! This in turn means that I’m also a direct descendant of these amazing scientists!
What does this mean for me? Well, not much, really! It is rather fascinating, however, to see how much of physics can be traced directly back to some of the oldest practitioners. It emphasizes again that physics, and science in general, is a process which builds upon the knowledge developed by those who have come before.
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.
I was hoping to finish a new story to post here this week, but my stories — like my science blog posts — always take much longer to write than I anticipate. So instead, I present a story that I wrote sometime around 1996. I’m not quite sure what to make of it…
The Invitation
When the van finally pulled up in front of the school at five minutes past six, Dustin Pendleton had just moved outside anxiously to wait for its arrival. The side of the vehicle read ‘Simms Heating’, and a large dirty looking man, probably a union worker, stepped slowly out of it. He glanced back and forth disinterestedly across the length of the elementary school building for a moment while he adjusted his tool belt, and then he focused on Dustin.
Dustin moved towards him eagerly, extended an arm forward in greeting.
“You’re the one who called about the heating problem?” the dirty man asked, glancing at Dustin’s extended hand but not shaking it. His name tag read ‘Porter’, but Pendleton disregarded it at first.
“Yes, I’m Mr. Pendleton, principal of Coleridge Elementary. I’m terribly sorry to bother you on a Saturday. Are you Simms?”
The man shook his head, stepping past Pendleton and looking at the building again. “I’m Porter. Simms owns the company; I just do the work.”
“Well, maybe we should get to it then,” Pendleton piped up, feeling too impatient. “Let’s take care of this before it gets dark outside.”
Porter walked towards the main doors, and Pendleton scurried ahead to unlock them.
“So what’s the problem?” Porter asked, stepping inside.
“Well, it’s a problem with our heating ducts apparently. Its seems like we’re having some heat flow problems, not enough heat getting to certain rooms, and the like. Maybe you can find out what the problem is.”
“In a building this old, usually the original heating systems aren’t designed too well,” Porter commented, glancing at the walls as the pair walked down the hall. Coleridge Elementary certainly was an old building; it had been built in the early twenties, a product of post war prosperity. Now, however, the aged stone walls and worn tiled floors made the corridors look bleak and unfriendly.
“Our duct work is fairly new,” Pendleton corrected quickly. “In the 1970s the city installed new tubing, just before money started to get tight. They just suspended the new ducts from the ceiling, since there’s ample room, as you can see.”
He pointed up to one of the aluminum tunnels as they passed under it, a rectangular tube cutting across the corridor between classrooms. Porter nodded, but didn’t say anything; he looked somewhat bored, actually. The duo marched down the halls in silence for another minute, and then they had arrived at an unmarked door.
“The furnace is in here,” Pendleton waved towards the portal. “I don’t know if you want to look at that, because most of the rooms get heat just fine…”
“Can you show me which rooms are having trouble?” Porter interrupted, adjusting his belt. That was the question Pendleton had been waiting for, and he blurted out, almost too eagerly, “Of course! Let me show you!”
The older scientific journals (pre-1900) are filled with many curious and strange eyewitness accounts. By the late 1800s, science had reached a level at which researchers felt confident enough to investigate a wide variety of unusual phenomena, but did not have quite enough knowledge to explain (or discount) every observation that came to their attention. Recording them in the journals for future reference was a very natural thing to do.
With that in mind, some time ago I read a short letter¹ titled, “Curious electrical phenomenon” in an issue of Science Magazine from 1880. Written by one F.T. Mott of “Bristal Hill, near Leicester”, I present the text of the letter in its entirety:
At about 4.30 P. M. this day a severe thunder storm with a deluge of rain came up from the north-west, and lasted about an hour. At 5.30 my wife waas standing at the window watching the receding storm, which still raged in the south, just over Leicester, when she observed, immediately after a double flash of lightning, what seemed like a falling star, or a fire-ball from a rocket, drop out of the black cloud about 25° above the horizon, and descend perpendicularly until lost behind a belt of trees. The same phenomenon was repeated at least a dozen times in fifteen minutes, the lightning flashes following each other very rapidly, and the thunder consisting of short and sharp reports. After nearly every flash a fire-ball descended. These balls appeared to be about one-fifth or one-sixth the diameter of the full moon, blunt and rounded at the bottom, drawn out into a tail above, and leaving a train of light behind them. Their color was mostly whitish, but one was distinctly pink, and the course of one was sharply zig-zagged. They fell at a rate certainly not greater than that of an ordinary shooting star. I have never witnessed a phenomenon of this kind myself, but my wife is a good observer, and I can vouch for the trustworthiness of her report.
This sounds very much like a description of ball lightning, a very rare atmospheric phenomenon that still isn’t well understood to this day — and has even been hypothesized to be a magnetic-field induced hallucination!
Is this observation a real example of ball lightning? Of course, it is impossible to answer this question with certainty from such a short eyewitness account. I’ve got a lot more to say about ball lightning, and I’ll come back to a more detailed discussion of the curious history of ball lightning in a future post.
I have to say, the final sentence of the letter really makes me smile!
*****************************
¹ F.T. Mott, “Curious electrical phenomenon,” Science 1 (August 7, 1880), 72.
The 41st edition of The Giant’s Shoulders history of science blog carnival has been posted over at Early Modern Experimental Philosophy! It includes discussions of vampires, ghosts, and armies of ape-warriors (yes, this is still a history of science blog carnival!), as well as (very) early ideas of space travel and old descriptions of volcanic eruptions. Many thanks to Alberto for putting together an excellent carnival!
The deadline for the next edition is December 15th, but we desperately still need a host for this edition, as well as upcoming editions in 2012! If you can help, please contact Thony C at Renaissance Mathematicus or Dr. SkySkull at Skulls in the Stars, or leave a comment here.
Another week’s Twitter #weirdscifacts are ready!!! I’ve included a “bonus” fact this week, since it was too weird to not tweet right away…
606. Nov 09: A foot-long cockroach-like creature with 50 legs ruled the sea floor 500 million years ago. Life takes on, and has taken on, many bizarre forms. (Via @mocost)
607. Nov 10: Be afraid: the snakehead fish, an invasive species, can survive out of water for 4 days!
608. Nov 11: In 1818, doctor chemist Andrew Ure performed electrical expts on an executed murderer that terrified the audience…and one gentleman fainted! This isn’t the first “corpse electrifier” we’ve seen in #weirdscifacts — a little over a decade earlier, Giovanni Aldini horrified audiences in a similar way.
609. Nov 12: Another titanic team-up: badgers & coyotes working together, and playing together, to catch prey! It is remarkable to see such cross-species cooperation: coyotes are good at tracking down the prey, while the badgers excel at digging them out!
610. Nov 13: The 65 MYO Chicxulub asteroid impact (thought to have killed the dinosaurs) generated megatsunamis as high as 3 km (1.9 mi).
610a. Bonus #weirdscifacts, via @aetiology: having sex with animals increases risk of penile cancer! The oddest thing about this fact is that the researchers were able to get a significant collection of subjects who had had sex with animals…
611. Nov 14: Not all cockroaches are ugly! Behold Ellipsidion australe! (h/t @bug_girl) Another view!
612. Nov 15: The only piece of artwork on the Moon!
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 was written in 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks. I don’t know if that has any significance.
The Voice of the City
I knew I was fucked when I saw the cream-colored Cadillac coming down the street towards me. I immediately turned and ran the other way. With a roar, though, the car charged forward, swerved across the other lane of traffic, and cut me off, knocking over a newspaper vending machine in the process. Albert Dell’s goons, big, tree trunk looking guys, lurched out of the passenger side of the car and rushed me. I tried to punch and kick my way away from them, but it was like trying to fight a pair of refrigerators. The two goons grabbed me and, with little ceremony or pomp, stuffed me in the back seat of the Cadillac between them. Once the door closed, the car juddered back off the curb, and down the street we went.
There had, of course, been other people on the street that witnessed all of this commotion. It was late in the day, and the sun was setting, but the lanes were still filled with the usual weeknight urban traffic. Nobody bothered to try and help me, though, or to call for help. This was the sort of neighborhood in the city where it was safer to mind your business.
Albert Dell was driving the Cadillac, and he grinned at me through the rearview mirror. He had plenty of cronies who could do the driving for him, but somehow I think he felt he wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t do it himself.
Update: I felt my original explanations were a little lacking in places, so I’ve added to the post…
In recent years, the public has seen remarkable advances in digital imaging technology. In the past few months, for instance, Lytro has introduced its fascinating “light field camera“, a camera which allows one to focus photographs after they’ve been taken! Their gallery of pictures, which one can dynamically adjust the focus of, are quite spectacular.
The light field camera works its magic by recording not only the color and intensity of incoming light arriving at an array of digital sensors, but also the direction of individual light rays. This directional information allows one to virtually adjust the focus of an image, change the perspective of the image, or even construct a fully three-dimensional image.
In simplest terms, the light field camera captures more information than an ordinary digital camera. One might consider this a new stage in a general trend in digital photography: the first prototype digital camera built by Sony in 1981 possessed 720,000 pixels (light sensors), whereas modern digital cameras possess anywhere between 12 million and 16 million pixels. Newer cameras gather more information in a single photograph, and this allows the production of images of increasingly higher resolution.
Another recent discovery, unnoticed by the public, will likely have an even greater influence on optics and imaging than the light field camera. The new technique associated with it, called compressive sensing, could result in newer cameras producing higher-quality images but having less pixels than current models — and could even result in high-resolution cameras with a single pixel!
At the recent Optical Society in America’s Frontiers in Optics meeting in San Jose, compressive sensing made the list of “hot topics in optics” for the second year in a row. It’s too early to determine exactly how much of an impact the technique will have on modern technology, and when it will have that impact, but it is a fascinating discovery that challenges fundamental assumptions in optical imaging. With that in mind, it’s worth describing what compressive sensing is, and why it could revolutionize the way we collect data!
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 