Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal

1. Entanglement describes the liminal relationship between two quantum particles that exist in “superposition,” a mix of states that can only be resolved when a physical property is measured. Think of the transporter in Star Trek: When someone is transported to another location they are technically in two places — and two quantum states — at once until their pattern is completed. Scientists have actually transported data using entanglement over 89 miles. Another way to phrase it is: “measuring a property of one particle instantly determines the property of another,” and before that measurement is taken the particle exists in all states at once.

2. Superposition refers to the state in which two quantum objects are comprised of some combination of all the possible states of a system or as Wikipedia explains: “. . . if the world can be in any configuration, any possible arrangement of particles or fields, and if the world could also be in another configuration, then the world can also be in a state which is a superposition of the two, where the amount of each configuration that is in the superposition…” In the blast from the past commercial above, there is a quantum moment where the peanut butter and chocolate are neither peanut butter nor chocolate, but in a superposition of being both at once. Until you eat it. Then it’s just yummy.

3. Spin is what makes subatomic particles like electrons act like tiny bar magnets. Quantum mechanics allow subatomic particles to be in both an up and down position simultaneously.

4. Coherence refers to atomic particles acting in sync with one another, sort of like “a gathering of consummate musicians playing jazz together (‘quantum jazz’) where every single player is freely improvising from moment to moment and yet keeping in tune and in rhythm with the spontaneity of the whole. It is a special kind of wholeness that maximizes both local freedom and global cohesion.”

5. Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment devised by Erwin Schrödinger, who also came up with the term “entanglement,” in 1935 to illustrate the conflict between how matter behaves on a micro as opposed to a macro level. In the experiment the cat is put in a box with hydrocyanic acid that may or may not be released, killing the cat. At this point the cat is in a state of superposition — both dead and alive — and the act of observing it dissolves that state and forces the cat into one state or the other.

6. SPIN STATE is a Science Fiction novel by Chris Moriarty about quantum entanglement, Bose-Einstein condensates, and coherence. I profiled the main character of the book, Lt. Catherine Li, as a Danger Gal Friday.

7. Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is created when elementary particles called bosons are cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero. In this state quantum effects become observable on a macro level.

8. A spin bath is “a clutch of subatomic particles interacting cleanly enough to reveal quantum fluctuations spreading like ripples on a still pond.”

9. Entangled particles could travel as fast as 10,000 times the speed of light. Which kind of violates all the rules about space and time. Yay!

10. A bit has two possible states: 0 or 1. Picture it as an arrow on a sphere pointing to the north pole (1) or the south pole (0). A qubit is a quantum bit that can exist in any state in between 0 and 1 — and does exist in all of those states simultaneously until its state is measured.

11.Scientists have transmitted “a pair of entangled states of light into separate corners of an ultracold atomic cloud, stored them there briefly, and then sent them back on their separate ways without completely destroying the quantum link in the process.”

12. What’s an atomic cloud look like, you ask? You get one (an image of one) on your iPod with software called Atom in a Box. WANT.

13. An upcoming International Space Station experiment will test the transmission of photons from the Space Station to Earth using quantum entanglement. What do you want to bet the first message transmission will be “The cat is alive?”

(#46)

We may have lost Pluto, but there are plenty of other planets in the universe worthy of holding our attention. Granted, these new kids on the block are outside of our solar system.

Left, the sunlit side of 51 Pegasi b, the first planet ever detected around a sun-like star. Image source: Extrasolar Visions.

(1) Gliese 581 d: About 20 light years from Earth, this is the third planet of the red dwarf star Gliese 581. Gliese 581 d is the only terrestrial exoplanet discovered that orbits close to the habitable zone of its star. This zone is sometimes called the “Goldilocks Zone” because it is neither too hot or too cold on the planet’s surface. Technically, Gliese 581 d resides outside this “Goldilocks Zone”, but the greenhouse effect may offset the tendency toward being too cold and create enough heat to support liquid water.

(2) 16 Cygni B b: This water cloud Jovian planet has a very eccentric orbit, which means the surface of the planet experiences extreme differences in temperature throughout its year. Just over every two years, the planet’s orbit swings from a Venus-like distance of 0.6 AUs to a distance of 2.7 AUs, further than Mars.

(3) Epsilon Eridani b: At 10 light years away, Epsilon Eridani b is the closest confirmed planet to our solar system. Because of its close proximity, Eridanus shows up in Science Fiction often, such as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation’s Edge and Robots and Empires; Greg Bear’s Eon; and C. J. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union Universe.

(4) Lalande 21185 b: This unconfirmed planet is thought to orbit a red dwarf star approximately eight light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The fourth closest star to our solar system, Lalande is a variable flare star that periodically increases in brightness. Lalande 21185 b may lie just over 2 times the Earth-Sun distance (AU) to its star, may be about nine tenths of Jupiter’s mass, and likely has an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium.

(5) 51 Pegasi b: This was the first planet discovered orbiting another sun-like star. 51 Pegasi b is a massive Jupiter-like planet orbiting at a distance far closer than Mercury, a distance thought to be impossible for its size at the time of discovery. Its sun-like star is large enough to be visible from Earth by the naked eye under dark sky conditions. Unofficially named Bellerophon, this gas giant’s atmosphere is thick enough not to be blown away by solar wind despite its close proximity.

(6) PSR 1257+12 A: One of the first exoplanets ever discovered, this planet is over 908 light years away in the constellation Virgo. PSR 1257+12 A has a mass similar to that of the moon, and long ago its volcanism and tectonics subsided. Probably heavily cratered, it likely is comprised mostly of heavy elements, like iron.

(7) Tau Boötis b: About 50 light years away, this planet is the hottest known exoplanet. It is so hot that it may have silicate clouds and it may be visibly red. Tau Boötis b orbits its star in a “torch orbit,” that is at a distance from less than one seventh that of Mercury’s from the Sun.

(8) 55 Cancri b: This planet orbits its start every 14.65 days and was the fourth known extrasolar planet. 55 Cancri b was discovered by detecting variations in its star’s radial velocity caused by the planet’s gravity.

(9) Upsilon Andromedae b: This planet is a “hot Jupiter” type, meaning that it is extremely hot due to proximity to its star, so hot that it may glow red and its heat prevents water clouds from forming. Occasionally referred to as Upsilon Andromedae Ab to distinguish it from the red dwarf star Upsilon Andromedae B, it is about 44 light-years away in the constellation of Andromeda.

(10) Iota Draconis b: This planet is the “first object of planetary size detected around a red giant star.” Located about 100 light years from Earth, Iota Draconis b is over 8 times the mass of Jupiter, but may in fact be a brown dwarf star.

(11) 79 Ceti b: This planet was one of the first planets of sub-Saturn mass to be discovered around sun-like stars. Over 100 light years from Earth, 79 Ceti b orbits its star every 75 days. At potentially 111 times the mass of Jupiter, the planet may in fact be a very dim brown dwarf star.

(12) HD 209458 b: Unofficially also known as Osiris, this planet orbits the Solar twin star HD 209458 in the constellation Pegasus, 150 light-years from Earth. With the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have detected sodium in the planet’s atmosphere.

(13) Rho Indi b: This planet is a water cloud Jovian type whose axis places Rho Indi b just outside the habitable zone. At over twice the mass of Jupiter, this planet orbits its star every 3.7 years.

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For more on exoplanets:
Space Topics: Extrasolar Planets
Physics World Extrasolar planets
The Planetary Society

(#44)

Left, from Wikipedia, this photo is an “[I]nternal view of the JET tokamak superimposed with an image of a plasma taken with a visible spectrum video camera.”

(1) Stars are hot stuff. Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars and happens when like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nuclei.

(2) He’s not heavy, he’s my lower mass nuclei. Nuclear fusion can release or absorb energy relative to whether the nuclei have a mass lower than iron. If the nuclei have a mass lower than iron, the process releases energy, but if heavier than iron the process will absorb energy.

(3) The cycle of nuclear fusion in stars was worked out by Hans Bethe in the 1930s. In 1932 Mark Oliphant observed the fusion of hydrogen isotopes (light nuclei).

(4) As part of the Manhattan Project that created the nuclear bomb (which uses fission not fusion), Hungarian physicist Edward Teller pushed to create the “Super,” a bomb designed to use the force of a fission bomb detonation to ignite a fusion reaction in deuterium and tritium. “Super” seems kind of an understatement, ya think?

(5) The Joint European Torus (JET) is the largest nuclear fusion reactor ever built. It is located in the UK and experiments first began there in 1983. That’s more than a decade before the Large Hadron Collider was built. Neener neener.

(6) A tokamak is “a machine producing a toroidal magnetic field for confining a plasma” and is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices, such as that used for the JET. There must be naughty uber-nerd jokes about “magnetic confinement.” It’s not just my warped mind or anything, right?

(7) The Bussard Interstellar Ramjet is a theoretical spacecraft using fusion for propulsion and proposed in 1960 by physicist Robert W. Bussard. Science fiction writer Larry Niven popularized this method of space travel in his Known Space series of books. Carl Sagan also referenced this method in his Cosmos television series. Can’t…resist…must..say it… BILLIONS and BILLIONS. (Yes, I went there. After #6, this surprises you?)

(8) The Bussard Ramjet uses enormous electromagnetic fields as a scoop to collect and compress hydrogen from the gas and dust that fill the space between stars. “High speed forces the reactive mass into a progressively constricted magnetic field, compressing it until thermonuclear fusion occurs. The magnetic field then directs the energy as rocket exhaust opposite to the intended direction of travel, thereby accelerating the vessel.” (quote via Wikipedia)

(9) Inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) uses an electrostatic field to contain fusion plasma. This type of reactor is cheap to build, costing a few thousand dollars. While popular with hobbyists, the process has yet to produce power. A promising new concept called Periodically Oscillating Plasma Sphere (POPS) has been proposed that would mitigate power loss and might produce cheap fusion power. I’m all of out of naughty plasma containment jokes (but I welcome them in the comments).

(10) Bigger is better? Larger than JET, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a magnetic confinement fusion reactor to be built in France and expected to produce its first plasma operation in 2018.

(11) Scientists are currently trying to build a rocket that utilizes the “charged debris from a proton/anti-proton annihilation” for propulsion. Essentially, fling a proton and an anti-proton at one another, capture the pions expelled from the reaction, and use the energy of these charged particles for thrust. I suspect this is something Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory attempted for his 6th grade science fair project. (This isn’t fusion, but bear with me, keep reading.)

(12) A antimatter-catalyzed fusion reaction could be used to power propulsion. A small amount of anti-protons are fired at a “fusion target” or nuclear fuel. The reaction heats the nuclear fuel enough to cause thermonuclear fusion. Evidently, this method could never produce enough power to be used as alternative energy source here on Earth, but it could theoretically power rockets and ships in space without the need to transport massive amounts of raw fuel. Is that sort of like when I eat chocolate and it catalyzes fat into some kind of thermonuclear fusion evidenced by the number on my bathroom scale?

(13) Time in a magnetic bottle. A Penning Trap collects anti-protons in a magnetic bottle, where the particles are kept cold by liquid nitrogen, helium and a stable magnetic field. (Also see this article for more information on how a Penning Trap might be used in an antimatter-catalyzed fusion reaction.)

Amazon Listmania for Science Fiction novels dealing with nuclear fusion.

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For Eric

(#43)

Scientific research uncovers new facets of our world every day. Scientists have to name these discoveries and some of the ideas they come up with I find to be very amusing (especially physics). Below are thirteen of my favorite funny science terms. Any of these would make excellent geek band names.

1. Nanoputians or Nanoputian Molecules: These organic molecules form a structure that appears human. These molecules are named after the residents of Lilliput in the book Gulliver’s Travels. There’s even a whole Nanoputian family. See Ballet Dancer, left, which sort of reminds me of an XKCD strip.

2. Space Invader Tranposons: Transposons are “sequences of DNA that can move around to different positions within the genome of a single cell.” Space invader transposons are bits of DNA that infiltrate DNA via a horizontal transmission (passed from one unrelated individual to another) instead of other kinds of transposons that are transmitted vertically (from your parents) because they’ve infiltrated sex chromosomes or RNA. Kind of reminds me of the premises of X-Men or Heroes. Also, one such “jumping gene” is called Sleeping Beauty.

3. Sonic Hedgehog: No, it’s not the Sega Genesis game character, but this signaling molecule is named after that character due to a mutation connected to it that causes fly embryos to have spiky appendages. This molecule is fundamental not only to vertebrate development, but also triggers an undifferentiated brain cell to turn into a dopamine neuron.

4. Dark Strangelet: These “sub-stellar agglomerations of strange matter” are formed when neutronium — which is created inside super-dense neutron stars when “the protons and electrons in atomic nuclei fuse to become neutrons” — collapses into quarks. Think of it as huge amounts of pressure squashing elemental particles into even itty-bittier particles. This is called “quark matter” or “strange matter.” Dark strangelets are thought to possibly occur when isolated pockets of strange matter exist, maintain their deep gravity well properties, and overwhelm all matter around it.

5. Naked singularity: There might be a naked singularity at the center of Sagittarius A. A naked singularity is theorized to be just like other singularities except that it doesn’t have an event horizon, so light (and conceivably other objects, I imagine) can escape and events inside of it can be observed from the outside. A naked singularity is a black hole going commando.

6. Spaghettification: This refers to the distortion an object experiences as it nears the event horizon of a black hole. First an object splits in half, then those halves into four, then into eight pieces. This decomposition process continues until an object is split into atoms and becomes a string of elemental particles.

7. Sparticles: Theoretically, when elemental particles such as leptons, photons, and quarks were produced in the Big Bang, each was accompanied by a matching sparticle: sleptons, photinos and squarks. I still want to hear Gerry Butler yell “This is sparticle!”

8. Big Bang Theory: “Our whole universe was in a hot dense state; Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait…The Earth began to cool; The autotrophs began to drool, Neanderthals developed tools; We built a wall (we built the pyramids); Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries; That all started with the big bang!”

9. ACHOO: Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome happens when you walk outside into bright sunlight and start sneezing your head off. Gesundheit.

10. Nibble: Eight bits make a byte. Four bits make a nibble. So, that means two nibbles make a byte.

11. Gluon: These elementary particles keep quarks stuck together.

12. Flavor: In particle physics, flavor is “the property that distinguishes different members in the two groups of basic building blocks of matter, the quarks and the leptons.” Please tell me someone has already done an LOLCat about a lepton that “haz flavor.”

13. Harry Potter gene: This is a gene that triggers the hormonal cascade initiating puberty. Harvard researchers discovered the gene while studying a family in Saudi Arabia where several members never experienced puberty.

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(#34)

Since I flubbed yesterday, here’s my list for this week: Thirteen of my favorite Quantum Mechanics questions answered at Physlink.com.

1. What are quantum numbers? And how many are there?
2. If Big Bang theory suggests that the universe started out as a homogeneous mass that spread uniformly in all directions, how did we get ‘lumps’ [stars, galaxies, etc] in the universe?
3. What is the significance of uncertainty principle in the real world?
4. What is a quantum dot?
5. If the Sun is supposed to be producing white light, why does the sun appear yellow to the eye instead of white?
6. If nothing can come out of the black hole, how come the x-rays can be emitted?
7. How did the Atom obtain it’s name?
8. What is the quantum theory of gravity?
9. What is the smallest amount of time?
10. What is the basic difference between the Pauli Exclusion Principle and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?
11. Which is larger, the proton or the neutron?
12. What is a Bose-Einstein condensate?
13. What does the term ’strangeness’ refer to?

See all of the questions and answers in the Physlink Ask the Experts section.

Hat tip: Paperback Writer

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Wired has just published an article about The Year’s 10 Craziest Ways to Hack the Earth, and #8 is a concept I use in my book AVATAR.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991 (left), it sent 10 million tons of sunlight-blocking, planet-cooling sulfur into the atmosphere. Many scientists, among them Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, think we could duplicate nature’s feat. Using rockets, airplanes, giant guns and even man-made volcanoes to spew fine particles into the atmosphere could drop Earth’s temperatures to early-20th century levels within a decade.

(Photo taken from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the UCAR Office of Programs web site. Photographer: T. J. Casadevall, U.S. Geological Survey.)

In AVATAR the planet Ico exists in a binary star system, the larger sun being similar to Sol, while the smaller one is a long-period variable star that flares about every 20 years. That flare cycle is long compared to the year most are known to cycle, but I should be entitled to a little journalistic license, yes? The twist on this in AVATAR is that the particulates are made up of buckminster fullerene particles, which are hollow carbon spheres filled with good things for the environment. Supposedly. I guess you’ll have to read to find out.

The planet’s indigenous people, the Iconnu, aren’t particularly thrilled with this high-tech solution when their own low-tech one has been working for generations: take refuge in the multitude of caves that exist in the mountains. Plus, blocking all that radiation will actually upset the lifecycle of an important protective plant called bloodstar, a substance that has worked its way into almost every human, animal and plant on the planet.

Just when I think I never want to write another complicated story like this again, science reminds me how cool it is.

Salon has a great editorial by Shawn Lawrence Otto on the recent Science Debate 2008 initiative, of which I have joined in promoting.

This initiative calls for the U.S. Presidential candidates to “share their views on the issues of The Environment, Health and Medicine, and Science and Technology Policy.”

Read the whole article, but this boils it down nicely for me:

Nearly all of America’s major policy issues, ranging from global warming to stem cell research, energy policy to pandemic-disease control, data privacy to healthcare, national defense to ocean management — or a manned mission to Mars — have science and technology at their heart, providing considerable dangers and immense opportunities. Successfully grappling with these issues, and more like them, will require policymakers to have vision and a more thorough understanding of science than ever before.

So, while you’re reading that, I’m going to get back to learning about polymer-laced scaffolds that mimic key neurotransmitters for nerves. Science research rocks.

By way of Pharyngula

A Call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we, the undersigned, call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Medicine and Health, and Science and Technology Policy.

I’m not big on jumping on bandwagons, but I’ll rattle that cage since I agree with Pharyngula that it would be great “to see a debate on any subject where the candidates had to deal with issues of some substance.”

Gee that’s a fun couple words to say if you have the right mindset. But why am I saying it? New Scientist Tech is reporting on some extroverted buckyballs caught on film:

Blink and you might miss it. Researchers have captured the rapid formation of buckyballs – carbon spheres just 1 nanometre in diameter – on film for the first time.

The footage shows how buckyballs, or C60 fullerenes, form in a new process where a thin sheet of graphite exposed to high temperatures shrinks and loses carbon atoms, says Boris Yakobson at Rice University in Houston, Texas, US.

Why am I so worked up over buckyballs? A while back I talked about how science inspires my stories and how buckyballs play a fundamental role in my novel AVATAR (previously titled RIVER OF STARS), where they’re used in a particulate radiation shield when a companion star is in flare.

I’ve been revising AVATAR lately, hence the new title and I even have a new blurb for it:

AVATAR blends post-cyberpunk espionage with the ecological and mystic themes akin to Frank Herbert’s Dune.

When dispatched to distant Ico, Kinship spy Jana Rajam is captured and forced to share her mind with the memories of a long-dead warrior queen. Once escaped, Rajam finds herself thrown between a far-reaching conspiracy to reclaim a lost golden age and a bid to control a narcotic that could enslave or liberate the Iconnu.

A queen must have a consort, and religious leader Brannon Bayne has spent a lifetime living up to the memories he carries of the ancient monarch’s renowned general. A half-breed caught between two cultures, Bayne must convince Jana to help him forge a peace before solar flares ravage the planet.

AVATAR tells the story of a spy’s redeeming mission, a revered leader’s desperate journey, and a warring planet’s only hope.

Read an excerpt of AVATAR.

So I was tooling around my favorite blogs and I started reading No Smoking in the Skull Cave’s Music Meme, where you go check what was a hit the year you graduated from high school and then wax on about it. I had no intention of actually doing this, but for a few minutes I was curiously nostalgic and checked my own year.

And then my brain shut down. Why?

I just freaking got that horrid Beach Boys “Kokomo” song out of my head — and now it’s back again after just reading the song title. (You do the math. I’m not telling you what year this was.) Make it stop! You do not know the lengths I’ve gone to in an effort to stop humming this song for years. I even listened to Wilson Phillips, whose whining excuse for singing at least made my brain stop saying “Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take ya/Bermuda, bahama come on pretty mama.”

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Evidently this is called a “brain itch.” Some songs have an uncanny:

…ability to create a “cognitive itch,” according to Professor James Kellaris, of the University of Cincinnati College of Business Administration.

“A cognitive itch is a kind of metaphor that explains how these songs get stuck in our head,” Professor Kellaris told BBC World Service’s Outlook programme.

“Certain songs have properties that are analogous to histamines that make our brain itch.

“The only way to scratch a cognitive itch is to repeat the offending melody in our minds.”

Maybe this list will clean out my brain. If not, I’m just going to keep singing “It’s a Small World” to try to counteract it.