http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110509113254.htm
Calculation of the "Hoyle nucleus" of Carbon
The Hoyle nucleus is that state of the carbon nucleus with very similar energy to three helium nuclei. The similarity allows fusion in stars to create carbon readily, and from there, the rest of the larger atomic nuclei up to iron. (Nuclei bigger than iron only get formed when stars explode.)
Sir Fred Hoyle considered the similarity to be an example of cosmic fine tuning when he first predicted it in 1954, without which we would not exist. As this article points out, this was pretty much an assertion for the last 50 years, but now we are in a position to actually calculate whether it does depend sensitively on other physical constants, and if so, what they are and over what range.
Several years ago, I asked an astrophysicist if the resonance was necessary or just helpful. In our normal model of stellar evolution, as the star ages and uses up hydrogen in the core, it starts fusing helium nuclei. Two He-4 nuclei form an unstable Beryllium-8, but if another He-4 comes along they can form a stable C-12. Everyone agrees the process proceeds faster because of the resonance. My question was - if the resonance didn't exist, would a similar amount of carbon be formed, just later, when the core had reached a higher temperature?
If you do have to wait, that by itself would knock down the total amount of carbon in the universe, since some smaller stars would never reach that temperature without the help of fusing larger and larger nuclei. Their fusion process would stall, and they would evolve towards red dwarfdom, as small stars do in the real physics of our universe. But we are the result of large stars blowing up, so I discount this effect in deciding whether there would be enough carbon for life.
On the other hand, you can't just tinker with the resonance without explaining why it would be different than it is. Changing whatever underlies the resonance of C-12 and 3 He-4 would necessarily change other things as well, perhaps in the direction of producing Carbon by a different route through a new or strengthened alernative resonance. This is of course never considered by fine tuning enthusiasts. Now we are starting to put the tools together to test these ideas
http://physics.aps.org/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.192501.pdf
The main article is available for free at the above address.
The money quote, at least for Hoyle worshipers:
We note the 17 MeV reduction in the ground state binding energy and 12 MeV reduction for the Hoyle state while less than half as much binding correction for the spin-2 state. This degree of freedom in the energy spectrum suggests that at least some fine-tuning of parameters is needed to set the Hoyle state energy near the 8Be-alpha threshold. It would be very interesting to understand which fundamental parameters in nature control this fine-tuning. At the most fundamental level there are only a few such parameters, one of the most interesting being the masses of the up and down quarks.
Emboldenation by mois.
OK, I hope you don't think I'm being a dick about this for going on for so long, but I think this is important.
Why? Because of Hoyle's approach and use of anthropic reasoning, and the subsequent uptake by fine tuning anti-science folk, that's why. Besides, this is damn hard for me to understand, and I'd like to make sure I do understand it.
So, Hoyle says this resonance _must_ exist because we exist, and further, this shows that the universe has been mightily fine tuned.
So what is this amazing fine tuning?
Look at table 1 in the paper.
Be-8 + He-4 = -84.8 MeV
C-12 = -92.16 MeV
Difference? 8%
As a result of which, 4 out of 10,000 Be-8 and He-4 collisions go on to become C-12.
I gotta say, I'm way disappointed. I thought I was going to hear that the difference was only 0.000000...8%, not 8%, and that C-12 production was 9,000 out of 10,000, not 4.
What is Hoyle saying? If it was 8.00001%, then the successful collision rate would crash to 4 in a billion? If it was 7.9999999% the rate would shoot up to 4 out of 10? That in one case no star could synthesize carbon, and in the other the universe would be awash in carbon? I've never heard a numerical guess like that attributed to him, just that the existence of the resonance convinced him a deity exists.
The paper does speculate that the resonance depends on the ratio of the mass of the up and down quarks. Cool, that is a step towards understanding it. But if we imagine the fine tuning in these terms, changing this ratio will also change the energy levels of Be-8 and He-4. A resonance at one energy level might disappear, while one at another level will be created. Hoyle didn't work all that out, did he? No, he just asserted that changing some unknown parameter by any amount would wreck the known resonance, and nothing would replace it.
That is not science.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Thor, movie review by David vun Kannon
Thor is an entertaining film. There, that is all that really needs to be said.
OK, in a little more detail, Thor is an origin film that re-imagines the Marvel superhero The Mighty Thor. Thor's enmity and continuing battle with Loki, his brother, is established, as is his love for Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). Anthony Hopkins is more believable as Odin than he was as an aging werewolf. Stan Lee got his cameo, but only about half the audience knew who he was. Stellan Skarsgard pitches in, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki looks way to much like Commander Data. Loki is the only interesting character, everyone else is too flat. Even Thor stops being arrogant too quickly. What hapened to that Marvel specialty, the flawed hero?
Asgard is nicely imagined, though dominated by a golden pyramid closely resembling that huge garish hotel in Pyongyang. Why does all pseudo-triumphalist architecture come out looking the same, and boring?
I saw it in Imax 3D, which was probably overkill for this movie. Certainly the noise level was too high.
Some funny 'fish out of water' moments for Thor when first arrives on Earth had the audience laughing out loud.
Trailers:
Transformers: Dark of the Moon looks loud and confusingly shot, continuing the poor tradition of the first two films.
Cowboys & Aliens (extended trailer) looks like a lot of fun. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and some nasty aliens kidnapping people.
Pirates of the Carribean - Can the series continue without Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom? Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Penelope Cruz will help us find out. Looking for the Fountain of Youth, mermaids, etc... only tracking 50% likelihood of going on my personal buzzmeter (still better than Transformers...)
Super 8 - a new film by JJ Abrams. Trailer has some very Spielbergian elements, looks interesting.
OK, in a little more detail, Thor is an origin film that re-imagines the Marvel superhero The Mighty Thor. Thor's enmity and continuing battle with Loki, his brother, is established, as is his love for Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). Anthony Hopkins is more believable as Odin than he was as an aging werewolf. Stan Lee got his cameo, but only about half the audience knew who he was. Stellan Skarsgard pitches in, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki looks way to much like Commander Data. Loki is the only interesting character, everyone else is too flat. Even Thor stops being arrogant too quickly. What hapened to that Marvel specialty, the flawed hero?
Asgard is nicely imagined, though dominated by a golden pyramid closely resembling that huge garish hotel in Pyongyang. Why does all pseudo-triumphalist architecture come out looking the same, and boring?
I saw it in Imax 3D, which was probably overkill for this movie. Certainly the noise level was too high.
Some funny 'fish out of water' moments for Thor when first arrives on Earth had the audience laughing out loud.
Trailers:
Transformers: Dark of the Moon looks loud and confusingly shot, continuing the poor tradition of the first two films.
Cowboys & Aliens (extended trailer) looks like a lot of fun. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and some nasty aliens kidnapping people.
Pirates of the Carribean - Can the series continue without Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom? Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Penelope Cruz will help us find out. Looking for the Fountain of Youth, mermaids, etc... only tracking 50% likelihood of going on my personal buzzmeter (still better than Transformers...)
Super 8 - a new film by JJ Abrams. Trailer has some very Spielbergian elements, looks interesting.
The Unfinished Clue, By Georgette Heyer reviewed by David vun Kannon
Georgette Heyer wrote almost 50 genre novels - Regency romance, historical, and detective fiction. The Unfinished Clue is a classic English country house murder detective story. First published in 1934, the story features contemporary characters packed into the country home of General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith, a right hard bastard that no-one is sad to find dead, except for those trying to get his money. With lots of motive, and no clear alibis, the guests are stuck hanging about the Grange, as the mansion is called, while a Scotland Yard detective is put on the case to interview them one-by-one.
The characterizations and dialog are sparkling. Heyer includes a sub-plot of romance for the one known innocent, Miss Dinah Fawcett, a 'spinster' (in her own words) at twenty five. The game of guess the murderer is kept going up to the last few pages, befitting any good mystery. Any devoted reader of mysteries knows to throw out the obvious choices, including the butler, right away. Choosing an unlikely character with no clear motive at the start of the novel pays off in the end, when the author reveals that you were correct in your guess.
Of course, the combination of unlikable bastard victim, unlikable minor character responsible and brought to justice, and successful love affair for main character makes this a novel that is not going to challenge the reader significantly. This is not hardboiled detective noir. You are here to get entertained in an enjoyable way, not forced to think deeper than 'whodunit?' And I did enjoy reading The Unfinished Clue. Heyer sends up English manners, skewers affectations, and pops the bubble of the pretentious with relish. Her strong central female could use a little more witty repartee and smoldering glances before falling into the arms of Inspector Harding (and she doesn't solve the case before he does), but on balance this is a minor issue.
If you are interested in genre writing, I would recommend reading more of Georgette Heyer. Certainly I plan to populate my Nook with more of her stories. As Isaac Asimov's R Daneel Olivaw detective stories show, it is possible to transplant some of the conventions of country house mystery to fantasy and science fiction settings. Heyer is also lauded for her historical research and detail, and credited by some with inventing the Regency romance category in the 20th century.
Fun, and recommended.
The characterizations and dialog are sparkling. Heyer includes a sub-plot of romance for the one known innocent, Miss Dinah Fawcett, a 'spinster' (in her own words) at twenty five. The game of guess the murderer is kept going up to the last few pages, befitting any good mystery. Any devoted reader of mysteries knows to throw out the obvious choices, including the butler, right away. Choosing an unlikely character with no clear motive at the start of the novel pays off in the end, when the author reveals that you were correct in your guess.
Of course, the combination of unlikable bastard victim, unlikable minor character responsible and brought to justice, and successful love affair for main character makes this a novel that is not going to challenge the reader significantly. This is not hardboiled detective noir. You are here to get entertained in an enjoyable way, not forced to think deeper than 'whodunit?' And I did enjoy reading The Unfinished Clue. Heyer sends up English manners, skewers affectations, and pops the bubble of the pretentious with relish. Her strong central female could use a little more witty repartee and smoldering glances before falling into the arms of Inspector Harding (and she doesn't solve the case before he does), but on balance this is a minor issue.
If you are interested in genre writing, I would recommend reading more of Georgette Heyer. Certainly I plan to populate my Nook with more of her stories. As Isaac Asimov's R Daneel Olivaw detective stories show, it is possible to transplant some of the conventions of country house mystery to fantasy and science fiction settings. Heyer is also lauded for her historical research and detail, and credited by some with inventing the Regency romance category in the 20th century.
Fun, and recommended.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
New York Botanical Garden - Beautiful!
We went to the NY Botanical Garden yesterday. It was gorgeous, except the wind chill. It was a first time experience for me, 50 years of living around NYC and had never been there before. Highly recommended, I'll probably go there again for the blossoming of the cherry trees. And again, and agian! It was easy to get to, becoming members felt like the right thing to do, to help green the city.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Retraction of Granville Sewell
Followers of Uncommon Descent and other Intelligent Design websites may be aware that recently there was a triumphalist announcement by Dr. Dr. William Dembski of the acceptance for publication of a paper by Dr Granville Sewell, a math professor at University of Texas, El Paso. It was exactly the kind of premature "Waterloo" announcement that has backfired on Dembski in the past, and it did this time as well.
Applied Mathematics Letters had accepted the paper, but not yet published it. Dr. Sewell had a prepublication version up on his own site, to which Dembski's UD post was linked.
The paper itself was a repetition of Sewell's argument that SLOT disproves TOE. Sewell's argument is more like FOOT in MOUTH, though that hasn't prevented him from repeating it nearly word-for-word over the years, as Wesley Elsberry showed in a posting on Panda's Thumb.
Looking up the editor of AML, I took it upon myself to apprise him of the error of his ways.
Applied Mathematics Letters had accepted the paper, but not yet published it. Dr. Sewell had a prepublication version up on his own site, to which Dembski's UD post was linked.
The paper itself was a repetition of Sewell's argument that SLOT disproves TOE. Sewell's argument is more like FOOT in MOUTH, though that hasn't prevented him from repeating it nearly word-for-word over the years, as Wesley Elsberry showed in a posting on Panda's Thumb.
Looking up the editor of AML, I took it upon myself to apprise him of the error of his ways.
Dr Rodin,
I am appalled to see a preprint, apparently from Applied Mathematical Letters, of the often repeated and often refuted nonsense of Granville Sewell on an anti-science web site.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/elsevier-publishes-granville-sewells-latest-on-the-second-law/
Dr Sewell, whose expertise lies in partial differential equations, has writen several times on the relevance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the topic of evolution. Each time he makes poor arguments that do not show any understanding of the physics or chemistry involved, clearly contradicting the philosophy of your journal.
A concise refutation is
http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v76/i11/p1031_s1
The reputation of AML will be harmed by publishing this article by Sewell.
Yours,
David vun Kannon
Dr. Rodin's response was swift and has been published elsewhere. AML retracted publication. Science wins!
A big shoutout of thanks to Dr. William Dembski, whose premature ejaculations helped avoid even more severe embarrassment for AML.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Battle Royale (manga), reviewed by David vun Kannon
This is an extremely graphic manga, containing frequent scenes of violence, murder, and death. There is also a lot of nudity, 'fanservice' and explicit sex, supposedly of 9th grade students.
The plot is easy to summarize. In a dystopian near-future Japan, a fascist government has created a gladatorial comabt in which a 9th grade class is abducted each year and forced to kill each other until there is only one survvivor. The students are given different weapons, ranging from Uzis to forks and boomerangs. The manga follows the 42 students of one class as they battle each other. The flavor is of a teen slasher horror movie where Freddie and Jason are your classmates.
Chapter arcs alternate between scenes of combat of the students trapped on the island arena and flashbacks to the normal life they led before "the Program". Several protagonist groups develop of students trying to avoid "playing the game", in some cases trying to actively destroy the Program itself. Several other major characters are students that embrace the amorality of the Program, and seek to win by killing off weaker classmates.
Still, even with three major good groups, two major antagonists, oodles of supporting characters, and flashbacks of everyone, the manga is padded with very repetitive philosophical conversations. The major group of protagonists does basically nothing but sit and talk until practically everyone else is killed. As in operas where characters take fifteen minutes to sing a final aria while mortally wounded, characters continue to ponder their existence and reminisce for pages and pages after their brains have been blown out.
And blown out they have been, in lyrical, explicit detail. The art is exceptionally graphic, going to pornographic at times, in the level of detail lavished on violence and harm to the body. At the same time, the sex scenes continue to dance around the idiosyncratic rules of Japan on the display of the genitals. (You'll also see a strong resemblance between one of the main characters and the style of the great Osamu Tezuka.) But the art is really focused on a fetish for bullets leaving gun barrels, brains, blood, and eyeballs not right in their sockets. Most characters display an excess of bodily fluids in the form of tears, mucus, blood, semen, and the ubiquitous "sweat drop".
Most characters are one dimensional, and wind up as cannon fodder to the two most evil and sociopathic of the students. The fate of some other students is study in paranoia. The male Big Bad has a pile of unfair advantages (genius, can learn any physical skill if he sees it once, etc.) on top of being a sociopath and drawing an Uzi. He is, of course, supernaturally hard to kill, and is drawn with a cape that hovers around his body no matter what fantastic martial arts moves he is pulling.
After lavishing over 100 chapters of attention to violence, the manga ends on a note of "love and hope and faith in human nature can conquer all" which even the characters realize is unrealistic. I am reminded of the moral ending tacked onto "Golden Lotus", the great erotic novel of China.
In the language of tvtropes.com (a great site), Battle Royale is high octane nightmare fuel from beginning to end. If you liked 1984, Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange, you'll find the descent into paranoia, animalism, and ultraviolence familiar. It is up to each reader to decide if the author and illustrator are indulging themselves or using a legitimate device to explore the human condition. I vote for indulgence.
The plot is easy to summarize. In a dystopian near-future Japan, a fascist government has created a gladatorial comabt in which a 9th grade class is abducted each year and forced to kill each other until there is only one survvivor. The students are given different weapons, ranging from Uzis to forks and boomerangs. The manga follows the 42 students of one class as they battle each other. The flavor is of a teen slasher horror movie where Freddie and Jason are your classmates.
Chapter arcs alternate between scenes of combat of the students trapped on the island arena and flashbacks to the normal life they led before "the Program". Several protagonist groups develop of students trying to avoid "playing the game", in some cases trying to actively destroy the Program itself. Several other major characters are students that embrace the amorality of the Program, and seek to win by killing off weaker classmates.
Still, even with three major good groups, two major antagonists, oodles of supporting characters, and flashbacks of everyone, the manga is padded with very repetitive philosophical conversations. The major group of protagonists does basically nothing but sit and talk until practically everyone else is killed. As in operas where characters take fifteen minutes to sing a final aria while mortally wounded, characters continue to ponder their existence and reminisce for pages and pages after their brains have been blown out.
And blown out they have been, in lyrical, explicit detail. The art is exceptionally graphic, going to pornographic at times, in the level of detail lavished on violence and harm to the body. At the same time, the sex scenes continue to dance around the idiosyncratic rules of Japan on the display of the genitals. (You'll also see a strong resemblance between one of the main characters and the style of the great Osamu Tezuka.) But the art is really focused on a fetish for bullets leaving gun barrels, brains, blood, and eyeballs not right in their sockets. Most characters display an excess of bodily fluids in the form of tears, mucus, blood, semen, and the ubiquitous "sweat drop".
Most characters are one dimensional, and wind up as cannon fodder to the two most evil and sociopathic of the students. The fate of some other students is study in paranoia. The male Big Bad has a pile of unfair advantages (genius, can learn any physical skill if he sees it once, etc.) on top of being a sociopath and drawing an Uzi. He is, of course, supernaturally hard to kill, and is drawn with a cape that hovers around his body no matter what fantastic martial arts moves he is pulling.
After lavishing over 100 chapters of attention to violence, the manga ends on a note of "love and hope and faith in human nature can conquer all" which even the characters realize is unrealistic. I am reminded of the moral ending tacked onto "Golden Lotus", the great erotic novel of China.
In the language of tvtropes.com (a great site), Battle Royale is high octane nightmare fuel from beginning to end. If you liked 1984, Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange, you'll find the descent into paranoia, animalism, and ultraviolence familiar. It is up to each reader to decide if the author and illustrator are indulging themselves or using a legitimate device to explore the human condition. I vote for indulgence.
Monday, January 17, 2011
TRON: Legacy, reviewed by David vun Kannon
I saw the original TRON in 1982, motivated mostly by a desire to see computer graphics on the big screen. The story was secondary, and the plot device that actually transported the action from the real world to the virtual world was less believable than the twister from the Wizard of Oz. I didn't care, I still wanted to see computer graphics on the big screen. This was because I was a computer science grad with an interest in computer graphics.
I went to see TRON: Legacy motivated by pretty much the same thing.
TRON: Legacy chose to cast many of the same stars as the original TRON into reprises of their roles. Jeff Bridges is Kevin FLynn and Clu, a program that has taken over The Grid, the virtual world of TRON. Bruce Boxleitner is Allen Bradley, Flynn's friend, and the voice of Tron. Other characters are new. Michael Sheen is fun as flamboyant bar owner, Zuse. (The name is homage to Konrad Zuse, creator of one of the earliest electrical computers.)
Since I mentioned the Wizard of Oz, I should say that the plot of TRON: Legacy uses the same trope - how to get back home from an alternate world? But that plot is subsidiary to a series of set piece scenes the display the wonders of CG. I did not see the movie in 3D, though you can. Here, the movie is caught on the horns of a dilemma. It really really wants to go back and show light cycles and solar sailers, the state-of-the-art of 1982 computer graphics that fanboys demand. It also wants to show of its own cutting edge chops, so the clean room perfection of The Grid is rendered in 3D, blurred with smoke and the haze of digital memory.
This doesn't evoke the "sense of wonder" that the producers were aiming at. In the post-Avatar world, computer graphics has crossed over the 'uncanny valley' that caught Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (the first full CG feature film). The original TRON did not aspire to having its digital world be mistaken for the real. It couldn't, with that technology, so it didn't try. TRON: Legacy does try, and comes up short as a result. The homages are so close that the modern CG of smoke, explosions, and flame seems inappropriate. Only the work on Jeff Bridges, letting him play a much younger face as Clu, is so good you don't know how they did it.
TRON: Legacy ends happily, and set up for a sequel. Nobody important dies on-screen. That's too bad, since it is just another way life is sapped from the plot.
Bottom line - limited appeal to anyone outside its core audience.
PS - the trailers!
Cowboys and Aliens - this looks fun. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford together, woot. From the trailer, it would seem that Craig is a bad guy, was abducted by aliens, escaped or was released, and now must join forces with Sherriff Ford who wants to hang him, in order to save a western town from flying saucers. Or something.
Green Lanten - nice visuals, but might suffer as do all superhero origin stories.
Born to be Wild - baby orangutans and baby elephants! OMG can you get any cuter! Based on the First Looks segment shown in the theater before the movie, the 'making of' feature on the DVD for this film will be awesomely funny.
Real Steel - giant robo fight movie. Very "Transformers" feel to the robots. I'm hoping for a Rock-em-Sock-em Robots tie in, becuase that is all this movie is.
I went to see TRON: Legacy motivated by pretty much the same thing.
TRON: Legacy chose to cast many of the same stars as the original TRON into reprises of their roles. Jeff Bridges is Kevin FLynn and Clu, a program that has taken over The Grid, the virtual world of TRON. Bruce Boxleitner is Allen Bradley, Flynn's friend, and the voice of Tron. Other characters are new. Michael Sheen is fun as flamboyant bar owner, Zuse. (The name is homage to Konrad Zuse, creator of one of the earliest electrical computers.)
Since I mentioned the Wizard of Oz, I should say that the plot of TRON: Legacy uses the same trope - how to get back home from an alternate world? But that plot is subsidiary to a series of set piece scenes the display the wonders of CG. I did not see the movie in 3D, though you can. Here, the movie is caught on the horns of a dilemma. It really really wants to go back and show light cycles and solar sailers, the state-of-the-art of 1982 computer graphics that fanboys demand. It also wants to show of its own cutting edge chops, so the clean room perfection of The Grid is rendered in 3D, blurred with smoke and the haze of digital memory.
This doesn't evoke the "sense of wonder" that the producers were aiming at. In the post-Avatar world, computer graphics has crossed over the 'uncanny valley' that caught Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (the first full CG feature film). The original TRON did not aspire to having its digital world be mistaken for the real. It couldn't, with that technology, so it didn't try. TRON: Legacy does try, and comes up short as a result. The homages are so close that the modern CG of smoke, explosions, and flame seems inappropriate. Only the work on Jeff Bridges, letting him play a much younger face as Clu, is so good you don't know how they did it.
TRON: Legacy ends happily, and set up for a sequel. Nobody important dies on-screen. That's too bad, since it is just another way life is sapped from the plot.
Bottom line - limited appeal to anyone outside its core audience.
PS - the trailers!
Cowboys and Aliens - this looks fun. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford together, woot. From the trailer, it would seem that Craig is a bad guy, was abducted by aliens, escaped or was released, and now must join forces with Sherriff Ford who wants to hang him, in order to save a western town from flying saucers. Or something.
Green Lanten - nice visuals, but might suffer as do all superhero origin stories.
Born to be Wild - baby orangutans and baby elephants! OMG can you get any cuter! Based on the First Looks segment shown in the theater before the movie, the 'making of' feature on the DVD for this film will be awesomely funny.
Real Steel - giant robo fight movie. Very "Transformers" feel to the robots. I'm hoping for a Rock-em-Sock-em Robots tie in, becuase that is all this movie is.
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