Listing in the Open Seas

1. Here's a rundown of what I'm doing at the cyclotron these days.

• Designing clamp things to fit around one inch diameter acrylic light pipes and hold photomultiplier tubes
• Tooling around on the lathe, trying my hardest not to break anything (including myself)
• Making clamps out of rigid, tooling rubber (I got the really strong stuff, baby) for the purpose of holding thin, fragile objects (plastic scintillator with a bundle of optical fibers) that need to be optically cemented (clear glue!) together.
• Searching the planet for germanium microfoils that are appropriate for use as a target in a nuclear beam experiment

2. I have to do a research paper for a class I'm taking. The paper is on experimental evidence for asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). That's a lot to swallow right there. Protons and neutrons and other hadrons are made up of quarks (carrying "color charge") which interact with each other by exchanging a boson called a gluon. In this way, as a theory, QCD is completely analogous with quantum electrodynamics (QED) in the sense that particles with electric charge interact with each other via a field of photons. The difference is in how the strength of the coupling between particles varies with distance. The strength of electric charge dies off as you get further away, it is inversely proportional to the distance. Whereas the strength of the color charge only gets stronger as you try to separate quarks. This leads to confinement, which is the principle that quarks cannot be found to exist unbounded by another quark or group of quarks. In fact, when you pull quarks apart, new quarks appear out of the field of gluons and bind themselves to the pulled apart quarks to form new hadrons, which are seen in particle physics experiments as jets. Asymptotic freedom comes hand in hand with the idea of confinement. In the bound state, the quarks are free to move about as they damn well please because the strength of their interaction is so weak.

3. I really enjoyed watching the World Baseball Classic this year. The US performance was pretty disappointing, but seeing how fans in other cultures make a celebration out of attending each game is very interesting. The Classic is definitely a great teaser for a summer full of MLB action. Too bad the next one won't be until 2013.

Frivolous Chain Letters

Friend of mine posted this as a facebook note. Presumably it had been sent to him like any manner of creepo chain emails, the ones that are written in a melange of wonderful and bright colors, as plentiful as the stars in the night sky. They are often prosaic, in a profoundly distasteful and amateurish way which hearkens you all the way back to a simpler time.

 I have to admit it. The Pseudo-liberals were right.

 They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation's Hope would deteriorate,
 and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence
 Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the
 Bush administration.

 They told me if I voted for McCain, the US would become more deeply
 embroiled in the Middle East, and sure enough tens of thousands of
 additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan.

 They told me if I voted for McCain, that the economy would get worse and
 sure enough unemployment is approaching 8.8% and the new stimulus packages

 implemented recently have sent the stock market lower than at any time
 since 9-11

 They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "crooks" in high
 ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several recent
 cabinet nominees and Senate appointments revealed resumes of bribery and
 tax fraud.

 Well I ignored my Democrat friends in November and voted for McCain. And
 they were right... all of their predictions have come true.

But seriously, who was this written by? Perhaps it was the same guy that wrote the "Footprints" poem. When you get to the end, you half-expect to look back upon your life and realize that John McCain was carrying you all the way through the hard times of economic recession and crooked federal government. Maybe you were on his back, or he was cradling you in his rugged and manly arms. Ah, but what a dramatic and unexpected twist at the end! Truly, the writer of this is a master in the craft of wit, not unlike O. Henry methinks.

Find the Words I Made Up!

It has been over two years since the last time I went to the eye doctor. I went last week, but since I had put off going, the cornea in my right eye is so deformed that presently the doctor can't prescribe a new pair of contacts for me.  Since my vision is so bad, I have to wear hard contacts, and one of the consequences of that is when the contact gets old and degrades a bit and becomes warped and causes the cornea to take that warped shape in kind. Fortunately, the cornea is a tough little piece of tissue and can heal itself pretty fast. So for the time being I'm wearing a soft contact (which doesn't correct my vision maximally but does an alright job) in my warped right eye and my regular hard contact in the left. This makes for a fun adventure of remembering what solution goes with which contact every morning. At any rate, you'd think that I'd be more cognizant and responsible about all things vision related. I have had to wear a pair of some kind of perscripted, vision correcting lenses since the second grade. That just means that I've accumulated more than my fair share of fine pieces of nerd gogglery.

Sports were a big part of growing up, as it is for a lot of people. So, when I got that first pair of glasses, my parents also purchased a pair of fine Rec Specs for me. This conjures up images of such 80's immortals as Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Eric Dickerson, Chris Sabo, Horace Grant, and Kurt Rambis. Without doing any further research, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no one ever gave 6-time Pro Bowl running back, Eric Dickerson any crap for looking so goofy. Unfortunately, no one ever extends that type of respect to a chunky, little half-filipino kid such as myself. Not too many sixth graders get the privilege to play basketball in a uniform seemingly cut from a cheap, maroon leisure suit, but that's precisely what playing CYO basketball for the prestigious Incarnate Word Academy Warriors was like. This uniform and Rec Specs makes for an extraordinarily unfortunate combination. But now I think I finally understand why the coach in junior high would encourage me to cover my man like a "cheap leisure suit." (This is in contrast to his other catchphrase where he'd let me know that I had been "faked out of my lingerie.")  For all that Rec Specs do to improve your vision, I actually must admit that they didn't do anything for my game. I had the CYO game of my life in the fifth grade when I played sans visio correctio (read: blind, like looking at an impressionist painting from way up close). I was having an incredibly bad morning the day of the game. I had lost the Rec Specs and was fresh out of deodorant, so, being the incredibly intelligent young man that I was, I wore a lot of cheap cologne to the game. In fact, upping my noxious effluence factor may have been part of the reason that I was getting good looks at the basket that game, ironically. But shooting blind, I had the highest scoring day of my CYO career. This was when I learned that looking good and smelling good are paramount in the pursuit of playing good. May that be a lesson for all of you in the future.  (As an aside, LeBron James admitted in an SI article recently that up until this past off-season when he had eye surgery to correct his vision problem, everything on the court was kind of a blur to him. Also, while in school, he would have to sit in the front of the class to see the blackboard; always eschewing goofy eyewear in order to look his best at all times, on and off the court.)

Novena of Grace

I received an email the other day from the good people that handle alumni affairs at my high school, St. Ignatius, inviting me to participate in the nine day Novena of Grace, which are prayers for the intercession of St. Francis Xavier. The email contained a link to a site run by Irish Jesuits, whereby one can participate in these daily prayers from the convenience of one's home Internet device. The site exhorts individuals to contemplate on the life of Xavier before beginning the Novena, but I failed to see a link to any history of his life. So I did some investigative work on my own and found this interesting essay on The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier.

The gist is that apparently, the canonization of Xavier is controversial in the eyes of some and is something of a favorite for Protestants making the case against the "spurious miracles of Pagans and Papists." For example, Xavier is credited for having the gift of tongues, but in his own personal journal, Xavier frequently writes of his troubles in learning new languages. Although the Church maintains that his effort to learn new languages should be viewed as a credit, for it would be presumptuous for him to assume that crowds of listeners would be able to understand him in their own native tongue. Also, perhaps the gift of tongues is only gifted on special occasions. His contemporaries do not write or speak of his miracles, but in the Bull of Canonization, Xavier's miracles "make up the bulk of the nineteen pages, in folio, of the papal document." Also, in the biographies written after his death, the amount of miraculous works performed only grow with time. These discrepancies are explained away by the argument that finding witnesses and gathering stories of his great miracles also occurred over a long period of time.

At any rate, the miracles attributed to Xavier are quite fantastic and numerous.

• While celebrating Mass, Xavier was often so rapt in ecstasy that those in attendance could with difficulty rouse him back to normal consciousness. 
  
• At other times during the Holy Sacrifice, he was seen raised from the ground a cubit and more so that “while seeing the greatness of the miracle, the people might acknowledge the sanctity of the servant of God.” 
  
• After his arrival in the Indies, one of the "more outstanding prodigies which he wrought for the edification of the faithful," occurred when a mob of pagan Badages made a surprise attack on a Christian village, intending to kill the inhabitants. But the mob was put to flight when Francis went out to meet them, accompanied by a mysterious figure whose majesty and splendor terrified the assailants. 
  
• At Comorin, when the pagans were not moved by his words, Xavier asked that a tomb which had been sealed the day before should be opened. Then indicating that this would be a sign of God's approval of Christianity, he called to the body to rise. The dead man came to life, with hundreds of natives embracing the faith as a consequence. 
  
• In the same city on another occasion, Francis healed a beggar with ulcerous legs when in a burst of heroism he drank the putrid water in which the running sores had been washed. 
  
• Also in east India, Xavier brought back to life a young man who had died of a pestilential fever, and was being carried to the cemetery. 
  
• In the city of Combutura, a boy had fallen into a deep well and drowned. His body was later brought up to the surface. Francis prayed over the dead child and then, “taking it by the hand, ordered it in the name of Jesus Christ to rise. Immediately the boy returned to life.” 
  
• In Japan, a merchant, blind for years, was given back his sight when Francis recited the Gospels and made the sign of the cross over his head. 
  
• On one occasion, a small crucifix which the missionary had lost in the ocean was restored to him by a sea crab when he reached the shore. 
  
• Again out at sea during a storm, the landing boat of the ship on which he was sailing was torn from its mooring and lost in the waves. Three days later, in answer to Xavier's prayers, the boat floated back to the ship and rested alongside the hulk, ready for landing, as though nothing had happened. 
  
• As examples of his prophetic powers, Francis predicted the fate of two ships sailing out of port-that one would be destroyed in a storm and the other, a smaller and older vessel, would reach its destination in safety. At another time, as he arrived at the altar for Mass, he suddenly turned to the people and asked them to pray for the soul of a wine merchant who had just died, at a distance of twelve days' journey away. He also promised a generous benefactor that God would reward him by telling him the time of his death. Years later, in apparent good health, the man was suddenly forewarned and died in the peace of God. 
  

Money

About two weeks ago, I watched Charlie Rose interview Marc Andreessen on the television. Marc sits on Facebook's board, is an angel investor for Twitter, and was a founder of Netscape; among other things. You can see the full interview here.

He has a wealth of opinions concerning the future of information technologies and ye olde world wide web, but perhaps the most interesting comments shared were his opinions on the financial sector of the american economy.

Good banks, bad banks, doesn’t matter. What we need are new banks. And I actually think what we need — and I think the [Silicon] Valley can play a role in this, I think there should be a new wave of financial institutions that should be created from scratch today. And they should take the role. So instead of trying to unwind some big bank that’s underwater, and hundreds of billion dollars insolvent, let’s create a whole bunch of new ones. And by the way, let’s have them all be new and online. So instead of having all this infrastructure and all these old systems and these ATM’s and all this stuff, let’s do purely online, purely Internet banks. Purely virtual, much lower cost structure.

Maybe this is only interesting to me because for the past several months, ever since someone started working at one of the n-teen banks and processing centers in the somewhere area operated by some so-called "too big to fail" bank, I have ardently maintained that even a stupid piece of programming code written by me could perform that person's job -- which mainly consists of copying and shredding sensitive documents and filing the paperwork for loans which have been paid in full. So at least in a local sense relative to me, the criticism that Andreessen has for oversized, inefficient banking institutions is sound. Furthermore, this model of limiting capital expenditure on infrastructure by relying more upon server-filled data centers has proved successful in retail, as seen in the resiliency of Amazon which is described in this Slate article. At any rate, this is an interesting idea, albeit one that is unlikely to be espoused by anyone in the federal government.

Baseball Season

For Valentine's Day, Beth surprised me with a gift of tickets for the Indians' final spring training games, when the play the Astros in Houston. And now that spring training has officially begun, I'm in a baseball kind of mood, for sure. There is a lot of hope in the air; A&M baseball began their season as the number one ranked team in the nation, the Indians have made some calculated risks on smart bargains bringing in Kerry Wood and Carl Pavano, and a slimmed-down Travis Hafner thinks he can steal a minimum of thirty bases this season.

Presumably to bring me down a couple of notches in terms of baseball spiritedness, ESPN Classic offered up this past week a replay of the memorable Game 7, extra-inning affair from the '97 World Series, pitting the Florida Marlins against my beloved Indians. I remember very well watching that game with my dad on a late October night. It was a very exciting game to watch but had an extremely disappointing ending.

My morbid curiousity got the better of me, so I started watching the replay. I even went so far as to call my dad and let him know that Jose Mesa was about to blow the save when the ninth inning came around. I was especially interested to see if I could identify the same scared, no-confidence look on Mesa's face as he entered the game that Omar Vizquel remebered seeing as described in his biography. When Mesa came in the Tribe had a slim 2-1 lead. I really didn't notice a lack of swagger, but it was immediately apparent that he was in for a rough time as he immediately surrendered a single to Moises Alou. He recovered though and got Bobby Bonilla out on strikes. Next came up the weak-hitting Charles Johnson, but he managed to put a good bat on the ball for a single, which advanced Alou to third. Mesa was now in a very tight spot, but with skinny, rookie infielder Craig Counsell coming to the plate; there was much reason to keep hope. As his long flyball fell into the mitt of Manny Ramirez, my heart sank once again as Alou crossed the plate to score the tying run.

Mesa got out of that inning, but the Indians' offense failed to muster any sort of scoring opportunity. The Indians would go on to lose in the 11th after the Marlins loaded up the bases, due in large part to a costly error by Tony Fernandez on an easily playable ball. Edgar Renteria famously bounced a ball over the pitcher and through a drawn-in infield to drive in the winning run.

Perhaps it would have been better to watch something else.

World's Smallest Radio

This month's Scientific American has a neat article on the recent nano-development out of Berkley. The materials scientists Zettl, et al successfully demonstrated that a single carbon nanotube could perform all the functions of a conventional radio: tuning, receiving a signal, discriminating between signal and carrier wave, and amplification of the signal.

Zettl acknowledges that the ability of a single nanotube to perform as a fully-integrated radio is quite serendipitous, even going so far as to describe work on this project as an example of Murphy's Law in reverse; where everything that can go wrong, magically does not. The article in the link at the top gives a nice overview of how the device works and what novel applications could emerge as a result of this work.

What was the first broadcast received by nanotube radio? The answer to that future barroom trivia question is Eric Clapton's Layla. In the video below, once the nanotube is tuned to the signal's frequency, it becomes an indistinguishable blur. Because of the physical "weirdness" at the nanoscale, the EM wave is sufficient to mechanically vibrate the tube. These vibrations causes a change in the current through the nanotube and causes an avalanche of electrons to be emitted from the tube's end, thereby amplifying the signal. This is the so-called Field Emission current. This current is then passed on to an audio loudspeaker and turned into an audible sound wave.