waagnfnp

By Bill Benzon

All’s not well in the world of cycling. The century-old Championship of Zurich was canceled in April for lack of sponsors. The Tour of Flanders saw a 77 percent drop in live attendance. The reason is obvious; doping scandals have all but ruined the credibility of the sport. Will baseball suffer the same fate? It’s anyone’s guess. It’s clear that there’s been a whole lot of juicin’ going on. Congress has held hearings, and drug testing was started two years ago, but no current big names have been caught. So it is still easy for fans to hide their heads in the same sand that’s been covering all those WMD’s in Iraq.

And then we have track and field and pro football, where testing programs have battered “plausible deniability” pretty badly.

But that’s not my game, bewailing the parlous moral state of athletic play. Not quite.

Why do so many of us find it so easy to think of juicing as cheating? It’s not as though chemical performance enhancement is confined to a small club that forbids it to others, thereby creating an unfair advantage for themselves. Any athlete can do it, and the pros have reasonable expectations that they’ll get good drugs and competent advice on how to use them. As far as I can tell, such judgments tend to be based on an intuitive sense of what is right and proper, what is natural. And juicing isn’t natural.

Consider a rather different example of unnatural sports preparation, vision enhancement through LASIK, laser surgery on the corneas. Back in 1999 Tiger Woods underwent LASIK surgery so that he had 20/15 vision, which is better than the 20/20 that is considered normal. Once Woods’ success validated the procedure many other golfers had it done as well. Athletes in other sports, such as baseball, have also had LASIK-enhanced vision. But no one has complained about this.

Why not?
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As I explained in my MOJ-mandated wrap-up on the previous Open Thread, I am somewhat “sported” out. But since this is an “Open” Thread have it at it; sports or whatever. … oh yes, Go Cavs! … just not expecting much there.

This D-Day week, I was recalling the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. I found the overall movie uneven, but the initial sequence literally knocked me back in my seat and made me quickly reset my expectations for what was to follow. YouTube here. Was trying to think of other movies that accomplished that. Though it feels like you have always known it, the Kansas->Oz, color ->b/w cut in Wizard of Oz does this, as does the bone throw in 2001. The Stunt Man to some extent revolved around this effect. (Does it have a name?) Movies with “multiple” switches include David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Time Bandits and Sleuth. The double hit of “Time Warp” and “Sweet Transvestite” in Rocky Horror work for me as well (I know there are a lot of “shocks” in horror films in general, but 1.) I am not a fan of the genre and 2.) Most do not recontextualize the whole film viewing experience for you.) Last I will mention is Marathon Man, where a seemingly comic car chase turns deadly, setting the stage for the more serious tone of the movie. (YouTube here, and actually I found this one quite unsettling in a negative way, but that may just have been because I saw it on a failing first date.)

Open away.

By Jame Killus

Fred Hoyle was born in Yorkshire in 1914 to decidedly middle-class parents (a wool merchant and a teacher). He was probably the most prominent scientist to ever have a significant career as a science fiction writer, having written such books as The Black Cloud and A for Andromeda. In the latter novel, some scientists genetically engineer an alien woman based on DNA coding sequences they receive from a stellar transmission. The book was made into a 7 episode series for the BBC, then the idea was pinched for the movie Species.

Hoyle is popularly known for his coinage of the term “Big Bang” and for his opposition to the Big Bang Hypothesis; he believed in “Continuous Creation” and held to it long after the discovery of cosmic background radiation and the more-or-less complete adoption of the BBH by the entire astronomical community. Not content to be something of a crank on the Big Bang, he also put forth the theory of panspermia as an alternative to terrestrial evolution. Panspermia essentially holds that life first occurred in space, and then came to planets; its strong form holds that evolutionary changes rain down from space as viruses or something similar. It is held in high regard in some Creationist circles, though I have no idea why genetic changes from space viruses are more in keeping with Creationist logic (or lack of it) than terrestrial mutations.

It’s possible that Hoyle’s anti-establishmentarian mind-set cost him the Nobel Prize. Hoyle’s co-worker, William Fowler, won the Nobel in 1963, essentially for confirming Hoyle’s prediction of a resonance level in the carbon nucleus, a prediction that Hoyle made as a result of a problem in nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in stars. (It may be noted that Hoyle made the prediction as part of his program to explain heavy elements as being a natural result of stellar nucleosynthesis, something that was absolutely essential if continuous creation was to be viable).

The problem that Hoyle was working on involved the nuclear fusion of elements past helium. The difficulty is that, if you try to fuse helium, you get beryllium-8, which almost immediately fissions back into two helium nuclei. So helium looks like a dead end. The only way out seemed to be if another helium nucleus hit the Be-8 during its very short lifetime. Unfortunately, calculations showed that the resultant highly energetic carbon-12 nucleus would also break apart. Indeed, the nuclear formation of Be-8 (from a Li-7 plus a proton, say), or C-12 (boron-11 plus a proton) form the basis of proposals for “light fission” nuclear power, because the created nuclei fly apart to He-4, liberating considerable energy.

Hoyle decided that there had to be a “nuclear resonance” in carbon-12 nuclei, that sometimes allowed the stable formation of C-12 from the Be-8 + He-4 reaction. Fowler later measured that resonance and found it to be only a few percent off Hoyle’s calculations.

It was about as daring a prediction as has ever been made in science, combining nuclear physics, astronomy, and the anthropic principle (Hoyle reasoned that he was made of carbon, therefore there must be a way for carbon to be formed), along with the simple bloody-mindedness of trying to support a doomed theory, continuous creation.

Hoyle was eventually knighted, and is doubtless much more famous than his co-workers, or, for that matter, Alpher, Bethe, and Gamov, who formulated the Big Bang hypothesis, but didn’t name it as such. Hoyle also championed Jocelyn Bell, as the real discoverer of pulsars (her Ph.D. advisor was awarded the Nobel), again showing perhaps the effects of not being from quite the right social class for British science.

Of Hoyle’s novels, only The Black Cloud seems to be in print, but many of his others can be found used; I was always fond of October the First Is Too Late. I’d also recommend Element 79, a collection of short stories, for often providing just loopy good fun.

By Seattle

I spent Memorial Day weekend at the International Space Development Conference in the Dallas area held by the National Space Society. I’ve never been to one of these space exploration advocate conferences before, but I get notifications of them - a hold over I think from subscribing to something or other in the dim past. I’ve contemplated attending before, but that’s spendy. So why did I go this year? Why clean out the savings account, accost the parents for funds and go to the flattest spot on the continent? My 15 year old son wants to be a space rocket/vehicle engineer, and recent events dictated that it was time to ease him into the realities of conferences and dressing up for dinner and all that grown up stuff. Not to mention opening his eyes to all the options out there in the field so that if he doesn’t end up as an engineer in the end, he won’t feel he’s failed so much as changed directions.

But never mind about him for now. Here’s what I learned:

1. The demographics of the National Space Society as represented at this conference was rather eye opening and could be summed up in the statement, “It’s been a rough 30 years for the hard space enthusiasts.” I counted 4 African Americans - one of whom, Edward McCullough, actually did a presentation I attended which was probably the most impressive of those I witnessed. Otherwise, looking around the huge main presentation room, I eyeballed the crowd as 99.9 percent Caucasian, with men outnumbering women by about 20 to 1. Grey and white hair by far predominated, and one younger member that I’d put in his 20’s actually came up to the mic and put the whole demographics issue on the table - in terms of ethnicity if not concerning the age issue. He said he’d been coming to the conferences for several years and they were always attended by a bunch of middle class white people and what was the NSS doing to attract a wider demographic? The answer was interesting in it’s phrasing. “We’ve seen when we do outreach that a certain demographic grabs their kids and drags them over to our table/display while members of other demographic groups walk by without a glance. We’re working on that.” He didn’t sound too convincing. It might be appropriate at this point to mention that the convention was in a large hotel in the rich suburb of Addison, TX north of Dallas….

2. There are a lot of people in the National Space Society irritated by NASA policy.

3. One of the best ways to get NASA’s attention is to get one of their very expensive Mars rovers stuck in a sand dune…on Mars.
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By Dr. Free Ride

On Memorial Day, because I really needed to do something beside grade papers for awhile, I decided to go to the nursery to buy some plants. First, though, because the kids (who had the day off from school) were actually entertaining themselves pretty well, I poured myself another coffee and decided to actually read some of the articles in The Nation issue on climate change.

Confronted with the news that jets are evil and carbon offsets probably don’t work as well as one might hope, I decided that there was no way in hell I should be driving (my hybrid) to the nursery. I consulted Google Maps and discovered that the nursery was precisely one mile from my house — a reasonable walk so long as I didn’t get a big bag of manure — and, surprisingly, that the “driving route” Google recommended (not the obvious driving route) would make a really nice walking route, as it skirted a park and followed streets lined with shade trees.

As I readied my wheeled urban grocery cart (sometimes referred to as “the old lady cart”), my six-year-old asked if she could walk with me, even though a mile sounded like a long distance to her. It was a beautiful day, and there was no particular place we had to be later, so I agreed.
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Update: Wednesday 6/6/07  - Will be on about 8 for some Stanley Cup Game 5 coverage - not looking so good for the Senators though

Join us in the comments for Liveblogging Cavs/Pistons Game 6 (seamlessly intertwined with Ducks/Senators Game 3) starting at 8:00 PM Saturday, June 2nd. (Update: game coverage starts at comment #9)
Sports fans, non sports fans, knitters, left-handers. malcontents, those that belong to the emperor, sockpuppets and and anyone else are welcome.
Seamlessly intertwined, I tell you … seamlessly.

I know that many think that he is a jerk per Open Thread (#9), but if you didn’t see LeBron score the last 25 points in a row for the Cavs in their victory Thursday night (including all of Cleveland’s points in both overtimes) to go up 3-2 in the series, well, then I guess you didn’t see it. I had Detroit in 6, so I’m happily wrong in my prognosticoratoring.

Next game: (i.e. next NE Ohio Post-Traumatic Sports Loss opportunity)
Cavs v Pistons: Game 6 Sat., June 2 at Cleveland, 8:30 p.m. ET, TNT

Which pretty well overlaps with another mega-important sports event:
Senators v Ducks Game 3 Sat., June 2 at Ottawa 8 p.m. ET, NBC, CBC, RDS
At least it is on fracking NBC and not the VS. Channel like the first two games. I know that many of you enjoyed that horse race thingie last Saturday (and yes, I watched the race itself and it was good), but, Michael Michael motorcycle!! What in the hell was NBC doing cutting away from an overtime game over an hour before the frigging Preakness even started? Like are ratings and ad revenue really that important? … not quite the Heidi game, but Jesus. (and I’m afraid that if this one goes to OT, they will cut to a rerun of Law and Order). Official waagnfnp team to cheer for is Ottawa - one of those “Hey! We only lost to the champs” kind of deals for the Pens.

Oh, and Northwestern is still alive in Women’s softball.
Game 5 Friday, Jun 1– Washington vs. Northwestern, 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

And as much as I’d love to go on at length about the LPGA, I will defer to the We Are All LPGA Bloggers Now stylings of TC.