Not enough humiliation for Sheldon Cooper

Well, the anticipated meeting between Sheldon Cooper and Stephen Hawking on The Big Bang Theory was a dismal failure. The episode provided humiliation [not enough] via Howard and finally by Hawking. Only the last few minutes provided the meeting between the two and it was a split screen encounter. Sheldon was done in by a simple arithmetic statement.


Hawking vs Cooper...April 5th

"Hunting the Elements"...lots of flash and a glowing error

A two-hour special was aired yesterday on NOVA hosted by David Pogue.

Program Description

Where do nature’s building blocks, called the elements, come from? They’re the hidden ingredients of everything in our world, from the carbon in our bodies to the metals in our smartphones. To unlock their secrets, David Pogue, the lively host of NOVA’s popular "Making Stuff" series and technology correspondent of The New York Times, spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry: the strongest acids, the deadliest poisons, the universe’s most abundant elements, and the rarest of the rare—substances cooked up in atom smashers that flicker into existence for only fractions of a second.

Why are some elements like platinum or gold inert while others like phosphorus or potassium violently explosive? Why are some vital to every breath we take while others are lethal toxins that killed off their discoverers such as Marie Curie? As he digs for answers, Pogue reveals the story of the elements to be a rich stew simmering with passion, madness, and obsessive scientific rivalry. Punctuated by surprising and often alarming experiments, this program takes NOVA on a roller-coaster ride through nature’s hidden lab and the compelling stories of discovery that revealed its secrets.

Frankly, this program was all flash [literally] and worthless drama with an over abundance of one liner comedic[?] jokes. Lots of big trucks hauling dirt, industrial refining machinery, salted popcorn, and one glowing error. It was claimed that the noble elements are non-reactive. Not true for one. As far back as 1963 a chemical, xenon tetraflouride, was formed. [I also noticed that sodium metal was not stored properly. And there was a political slam towards China in regards to rare earth elements.]

See the website

Bosko and his labor-saving creation

Bosko in this animated short tires of humdrum chores and creates a mechanical man to relieve him of the tasks.

Bosko [Wikipedia]

Bosko's Mechanical Man

1933

Pi rounded to 3...April Fools?

Question...

In Science magazine a while back an article about the latest attempts to calculate pi to the umpteen zillionth decimal place made a passing reference to a curious Oklahoma law. It said Oklahoma legislators had passed a law making pi equal to 3.0. I also remember Robert Heinlein in one of his novels mentioning that Tennessee had passed a similar law. Did either of these states ever pass such a law? Are they still on the books? What are the penalties if I proclaim that pi equals 3.14159...?

Answer...

...the state in question was Kansas, leading him to believe the whole thing was made up by big-city sharpies having a little fun at the expense of the rustics. However, with the help of Joseph Madachy, editor of the Journal of Recreational Mathematics, I've learned the story does have a germ of truth to it.

It happened in Indiana. Although the attempt to legislate pi was ultimately unsuccessful, it did come pretty close. In 1897 Representative T.I. Record of Posen county introduced House Bill #246 in the Indiana House of Representatives. The bill, based on the work of a physician and amateur mathematician named Edward J. Goodwin (Edwin in some accounts), suggests not one but three numbers for pi, among them 3.2, as we shall see. The punishment for unbelievers I have not been able to learn, but I place no credence in the rumor that you had to spend the rest of your natural life in Indiana.

Just as people today have a hard time accepting the idea that the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe, Goodwin and Record apparently couldn't handle the fact that pi was not a rational number. "Since the rule in present use [presumably pi equals 3.14159...] fails to work ..., it should be discarded as wholly wanting and misleading in the practical applications," the bill declared. Instead, mathematically inclined Hoosiers could take their pick among the following formulae:

(1) The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is 5/4 to 4. In other words, pi equals 16/5 or 3.2

(2) The area of a circle equals the area of a square whose side is 1/4 the circumference of the circle. Working this out algebraically, we see that pi must be equal to 4.

(3) The ratio of the length of a 90 degree arc to the length of a segment connecting the arc's two endpoints is 8 to 7. This gives us pi equal to the square root of 2 x 16/7, or about 3.23.

There may have been other values for pi as well; the bill was so confusingly written that it's impossible to tell exactly what Goodwin was getting at. Mathematician David Singmaster says he found six different values in the bill, plus three more in Goodwin's other writings and comments, for a total of nine.

Lord knows how all this was supposedly to clarify pi or anything else, but as we shall see, they do things a little differently in Indiana. Bill #246 was initially sent to the Committee on Swamp Lands. The committee deliberated gravely on the question, decided it was not the appropriate body to consider such a measure and turned it over to the Committee on Education. The latter committee gave the bill a "pass" recommendation and sent it on to the full House, which approved it unanimously, 67 to 0.

In the state Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance. (One begins to suspect it was silly season in the Indiana legislature at the time.) It passed first reading, but that's as far as it got. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, the bill "was held up before a second reading due to the intervention of C.A. Waldo, a professor of mathematics [at Purdue] who happened to be passing through." Waldo, describing the experience later, wrote, "A member [of the legislature] then showed the writer [i.e., Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know."

The bill was postponed indefinitely and died a quiet death. According to a local newspaper, however, "Although the bill was not acted on favorably no one who spoke against it intimated that there was anything wrong with the theories it advances. All of the Senators who spoke on the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits of the proposition. It was simply regarded as not being a subject for legislation."

Deceased--Roger C. Molander

Roger C. Molander
November 20th, 1940 to March 25th, 2012

"Roger C. Molander, Nuclear Protest Leader, Dies at 71"

by

Douglas Martin

March 31st, 2012

The New York Times

Roger C. Molander, who abandoned what he called the “priesthood” of cold warriors in the White House and the Pentagon to organize one of the nation’s largest and most colorful protests against nuclear arms, died on March 25 in Washington. He was 71.

The cause was complications from liver cancer, his daughter Egan Molander Cammack said.

Mr. Molander drew from his expertise as a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering to become an influential arms control analyst in the Defense Department and on National Security Council in the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. He became frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations with the Russians on nuclear weapons issues, and even more upset with the matter-of-fact approach some colleagues took toward atomic war.

In April 1982, he told The New York Times about a meeting at the Pentagon that helped change his life.

“A Navy captain was saying that people here and in Europe were getting too upset about the consequences of nuclear war,” Mr. Molander recalled. “The captain added that people were talking as if nuclear war would be the end of the world when, in fact, only 500 million people would be killed.”

“Only 500 million people!” Mr. Molander exclaimed. “I remember sitting there and repeating that phrase to myself: ‘Only 500 million people!’ Only one-eighth of the world’s population!”

After the Senate did not ratify the strategic arms limitation treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, progress in arms negotiations stalled. The administration of President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union were building up armaments.

Mr. Molander doubted that the experts, whom he termed a “technical priesthood,” could alone bridge the gap between the two nations. He concluded that Americans and Russians needed to speak on a human plane as well as a technical one.

“I hope they spend most of their time talking about their kids, their grandchildren, and their friends, and their responsibilities to future generations, instead of all this missile stuff,” he told The Times in May 1982.

Mr. Molander left the government in 1981 to start the grass-roots organization Ground Zero, taking its name from the point immediately below a nuclear explosion. His twin brother, Earl, was deputy director. In the third week of April 1982, Ground Zero organized a vast protest against nuclear war in which as many as a million people participated in about 800 cities and towns.

Events included a “Run for Your Life” race in Winston-Salem, N.C., in which runners started at a “ground zero” marker in the center of town. Signs along the way depicted concentric circles of destruction from a nuclear explosion.

At Columbia University in Manhattan, students staged a “die-in.” Their faces painted white, they lay on the ground as if struck by a bomb while a band played funeral music. Around the country, there were fasts, prayers and bicycle races.

Mr. Molander wrote a small book to stimulate discussion, “Nuclear War: What’s in It for You?” It sold about 350,000 copies.

The movement attracted wide support, from conservatives as well as liberals. Reagan said he was “heart and soul in sympathy” with the goal of educating people about nuclear issues. Others were ambivalent: the Washington Post columnist David S. Broder said the demonstrations might help prod the administration to the bargaining table, but he described them as verging on “liberal sentimentalism run amok.”

Roger Carl Molander was born on Nov. 20, 1940, in Perham, Minn., and grew up in Marinette, Wis. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a degree in mechanical engineering and earned a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1973 as a Defense Department official, he was an aide to Paul Nitze, the chief American negotiator with the Soviets. Mr. Molander moved to the National Security Council as a senior staff member in 1974.

Ground Zero dissolved into local initiatives and other peace organizations after the big 1982 demonstration, as Mr. Molander moved on to the Roosevelt Center for Policy Studies, a research group, as president and chief executive. He continued to work on arms control, as well as economic policy and other issues. He developed role-playing educational games to educate the public.

Under the auspices of the Roosevelt Center, in 1988 Mr. Molander tried to elevate the discussion of arms issues among presidential candidates in the two earliest states to vote, Iowa and New Hampshire. He set up “crash courses” to bring candidates “up to speed” on these questions.

Mr. Molander then became a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation. He developed many of the research organization’s “The Day After ...” projects, in which a hypothetical crisis is examined to determine what could have been done differently.

In addition to his daughter Egan and his twin brother, Earl, Mr. Molander is survived by his wife of 37 years, Mary Moore; another daughter, Ingrid Molander; and two granddaughters.

Earl and Roger Molander wrote an article for The Los Angeles Times in April 1982, pushing the idea that Russian-American conviviality might help peace.

“So bring on the Russians,” they wrote. “Try their vodka, listen to their music, read their novels, watch them dance. Maybe take one to lunch and start a conversation on a topic of mutual interest. Try ‘the fate of the earth,’ for starters.”

"Visions of Ecstasy"...not blasphemy

"Film banned for blasphemy to be released after two decades"

The only film ever banned in Britain for being blasphemous is to be released in its original, uncut form after more than two decades.

by

Jasper Copping

March 31st, 2012

The Telegraph

The 1989 production Visions of Ecstasy was considered so shocking that the Government even fought a successful battle at the European Court of Human Rights to uphold the ban.

But the film is now to be released in its original, uncut form after the British Board of Film Classification overturned its original decision. DVDs of the film will go on sale tomorrow, at the start of Holy Week.

It comes at a time when many British Christians believe their faith is being increasingly undermined, over issues such as the wearing of crosses at work and gay marriage.

The low-budget, arthouse production is about St Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth century Spanish nun and mystic who had visions of Christ, which lasted almost uninterrupted for two years. The 18-minute film is an interpretation of these visions and includes sexual scenes involving St Teresa and another woman, who represents her psyche. These are intercut with shots of the nun lying on Christ, who is still nailed to the Cross, and caressing him. The film was inspired by St Teresa in Ecstasy, the statue by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the seventeenth century baroque sculptor, which is located in Rome.

James Ferman, the then BBFC director, ruled that the film's sexual nature would inflame Christians and make it liable to prosecution under the blasphemous libel law.

The board considered allowing the film to be shown with the offending sequence removed – but as that would have halved the running time, it said the only option was to refuse a certificate.

The furore at the time was such that one Conservative MP, Sir Graham Bright, called for the film negatives to be destroyed as part of the banning order.

However, the film, which featured three little known actors and music by Steve Severin of 1980s band Siouxsie And The Banshees, became a cause célèbre among anticensorship campaigners, among them Salman Rushdie and Fay Weldon, the authors, and Derek Jarman, the late filmmaker.

In, 1996, Nigel Wingrove, the director, took the case to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that the ban violated his freedom of expression. But in a rare victory for the British government, he lost.

Although the court did not consider whether the video itself was blasphemous, it ruled that the UK's blasphemy laws were consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights.

However, in 2008, the laws were abolished by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act which meant they could no longer be considered in the board's deliberations.

Last December, Mr Wingrove resubmitted the film for approval, after clips started to appear on the internet. It will go on sale in high street shops from tomorrow, on DVDs which will also feature two other films by Mr Wingrove, as well as a gallery of national and international press cuttings from the time of the ban and a booklet on the subject. It will have an 18 certificate.

Mr Wingrove, who went on to set up a company which specialised in horror films, said the release was a "victory for freedom of expression" but that he has "mixed feelings" about the film itself.

"Although there are bits I like about it, there are bits I don't," he added. "I did not make it to hurt or mock and I wasn't trying to be over the top.

"At the time, blasphemy was a very big issue and I think the film was caught up in it. But looked at now, it is very tame and of its time. The imagery is no different from what you see in many films and pop videos today."

He said the film was intended to have been launched last month and was only being released in Holy Week because of a delay in preparing the accompanying booklet.

However, David Burrowes, the Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate and member of the Christians in Parliament group, said: "The law may have changed in the last 20 years, but the potential for this film to offend has not and it is a shame that a film like this is being released at such a time. The timing seems particularly provocative."

The Rev Sally Hitchiner, curate of St John's, Ealing, said: "I think it's interesting that religion continues to fascinate artists and film makers.

"The arts have always be used to express controversial ideas about a whole range of topics that may be taken as anti-religious but this has never stopped people using the arts to worship God as they will be in thousands of special Easter services and events this week."

The BBFC said that without any possible breach of the law, it had no grounds on which to refuse classification.

It said it "recognised the content of the film may be deeply offensive to some viewers", but that the decision to pass it "reflected the clear view of the public that adults should have the right to choose their own viewing, provided that the material in question is neither illegal nor harmful".

The BBFC, which is in its centenary year, has refused classification to nearly 1,000 films.

Derek Jarman [Wikipedia]

Just the beginning...British surveillance of communication

"Email and web use 'to be monitored' under new laws"

April 1st, 2012

BBC NEWS

The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon.

Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time.

The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it.

Attempts by the last Labour government to take similar steps failed after huge opposition, including from the Tories.

A new law - which may be announced in the forthcoming Queen's Speech in May - would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant.

But it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long.

'Unprecedented step'

In a statement, the Home Office said action was needed to "maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes".

"It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public," a spokesman said.

"As set out in the Strategic Defence and Security Review we will legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows to ensure that the use of communications data is compatible with the government's approach to civil liberties."

But Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, called the move "an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance seen in China and Iran".

"This is an absolute attack on privacy online and it is far from clear this will actually improve public safety, while adding significant costs to internet businesses," he said.

"If this was such a serious security issue why has the Home Office not ensured these powers were in place before the Olympics?"

Even if it is announced in the Queen's Speech, any new law would still have to make it through Parliament, potentially in the face of opposition in both the Commons and the Lords.

'Surveillance culture'

The previous Labour government attempted to introduce a central, government-run database of everyone's phone calls and emails, but eventually dropped the bid after widespread anger.

The then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith did pursue efforts similar to those being revisited now, but the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continued to voice their concerns.

The shadow home secretary at the time, Chris Grayling, said the government had "built a culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime".

Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said any legislation requiring communications providers to keep records of contact would need "strong safeguards on access", and "a careful balance" would have to be struck "between investigative powers and the right to privacy".