The Chaotic-Neutron

It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities.

- R. P. Feynman, Character of Physical Law, November 1964 Cornell Lectures, broadcast and published in 1965 by BBC, pp. 57-8.

When I was growing up and had to decide what field to get in to for my college, I was in a dilemma. I really liked computers, after the really simple BASIC and C programs I wrote during my high school. But on the other hand, Physics seemed too fundamental and I wanted to understand what is going on around me and explain it with the Math I so love. But what did catch my interest most of all is the explosive reactions that Chemistry opened up. It was something I did not understand at all and that intrigued me. Of course little did I know that Chemical Engineering had nothing to do with pure Chemistry. But enough of that reminiscence.

It always is interesting to me to find experiments that open up new perspectives on things. And recently, this article “Top 10 Mad Science-Worthy Chemistry Experiments” via Neatorama caught my attention. And I just couldn’t let it pass without writing a rant about it…

Do read the article and watch all videos to get some interesting new ideas and the possibilities that Chemistry opens up.

No, unlike what the title suggests, this ain’t a war or a competition. It is just a comparison that caught my eye. Literally. Here’s one of the comparisons.

Some of the comparisons are quite interesting and mind boggling. But it is unfair in many cases due to the fact that the results are not normalized based on available land area and/or total population. I mean literacy rate, murder rate and beer drinking capita seem way off, just to name a few. No but seriously, the results are informative and if truly factual, gives a nice overview of avenues for India to improve.

Link via India Vs United States: Economy, People, Environment & Military.

I am very proud on how far we have come and maintained the stability and growth with more than a billion people in a land that’s only twice the size of Texas. And all that, without leaving behind much of the cultural heritage and the vagaries of languages and religion omnipresent in every corner. There is so much I want to do for her, but so little time, before I go to sleep…

I just got this in an email. This is useful if you are in front of a computer and want to send a message to somebody without going through the painful process of texting from an antique cell phone (Gaa. I need a new phone).

Anyway, now you can email short messages, reminders, phone numbers and other important stuff to any mobile phone that supports text (SMS) messaging. Note: This might work for only carriers in the US and check with your mobile carrier regarding the charges for text messaging under your plan, of course!

1. Create a new email message.

2. In the “To” text box, enter the cell phone number using the following syntax:
10-digit-number@carrierdomain.com

Here is a list of some major carrier domains:

Alltel @message.alltel.com
Cingular/AT&T @txt.att.net
Nextel @messaging.nextel.com
Sprint @messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile @tmomail.net
VoiceStream @voicestream.net
Verizon @vtext.com
Virgin Mobile @vmobl.com

3. Create a message of 160 characters or less. You can also attach a .jpg file, if the cell phone you are sending to supports images.

4. Send the email.

And voila.

I am a big fan of Mike Rowe, from the “Dirty Jobs” fame and have a fascination to really weird jobs that people have to do, every day, while I sit here in front of my computer, complaining about the compiler spewing out unrecognizable error messages, in a nice air-conditioned room, with a cup of hot coffee by my side. Of course, people do these jobs, not because they entirely like it but most times, these jobs are so specialized that the bang for the buck is usually high. This might particularly true for the weird jobs you encounter in scientific fields.

And yes, all that rant does lead to something sensible. I stumbled on to this video with a description by the assistant editor of Popular Science Magazine. He lists a few of these kooky professions and what it takes in a honest day’s work. Watch it below.

And I remembered, during one of my tours of a nuclear power plant, someone mentioned how they had a problem in one of their spent nuclear pools and a nuclear pool diver came to the rescue to set things straight. I was of course, baffled by this whole idea of a human being submerged in such a hostile environment but later realized, this was another one of those “on a need to do” professional occupations. Here’s are couple of sites that gives more information about the the nuclear divers.

1) Life of a Nuclear Diver.
2) Nuclear Divers, A Definite Breed
3) And to end this post, another great video of a dive walk through inside the Phenix nuclear plant, in France. The audio is in French but the video is worth a thousand words.

Very interesting and that is just way too cool for words !

An enlightening post that revisits some of the mistakes that caused the TMI accident, on the 30th anniversary of the mishap. I have heard some of the details from couple of professors on Nuclear Reactor Safety and they have always claimed it TMI to be an ‘accident gone right’ because there was absolutely minimal radiation exposure to the environment and pales in comparison to Chernobyl where the whole thing was a shitty mess.

I especially like Bob’s extrapolation on the current state of affairs:

The folks at TMI did not really know how to manage the technology of a nuclear power plant, and that led to a huge mess. The same thing has now happened to our economy. Congress changed the banking and mortgage lending rules without regard to their purpose. Many firms bought derivative securities without the slightest thought to the math behind them or the risk they were incurring. Nuclear power plants run on a chain reaction process of atomic decay. Our government and investment community created a chain reaction of economic decay.

Anyway, since it is the 30th anniversary of TMI, I figured that it would be wise to educate the one or two readers following my site. So here, read up.

Three Mile Island Memories.

Also, if you feel like reading more in-depth, check out the TMI fact-sheet at the NRC website TMI Fact sheet

Note to self: Got to watch ‘The China Syndrome’ soon. I keep reading about it over and over to the extent that it is annoying the hell out of me…

Every now and then, you hear how conservative Texas is. But you do not realize the stark reality until something like this comes up.

Read the article about a guy who got cited for Disorderly Conduct, a misdemeanor, for swearing in a Texas restaurant.

Reminder to self: The next time you are in a restaurant, watch what you say !

Wow! There aren’t too many things I see everyday that make me go wow ! This could be next big thing that might have a noticeable impact on how you and I work everyday and the possibilities are quite staggering if you think about it. But of course for now, I’ll be happy to have just quickly charging cell phones, laptops, mp3 players and hybrid cars that do not degrade in performance quickly if it is plugged in too long ! Grrr …

Here’s an excerpt from the article that talks a little about the physics involved:

A number of recent papers suggested that, in at least one lithium battery class (based on LiFePO4), the problem wasn’t the speed at which lithium moved—instead, it could only enter and exit crystals of this salt at specific locations. This, in turn, indicated that figuring a way to speed up this process would increase the overall performance of the battery.

To accomplish this, the authors developed a process that created a disorganized lithium phosphate coating on the surfaces of LiFePO4 crystals. By tweaking the ratio of iron to phosphorous in the starting mix and heating the material to 600°C under argon for ten hours, the authors created a material that has a glass-like coating that’s less than 5nm thick, which covers the surface of pellets that are approximately 50nm across. That outer coating has very high lithium mobility, which allows charge to rapidly move into and out of storage in the LiFePO4 of the core of these pellets. In short, because lithium can move quickly through this outer coating, it can rapidly locate and enter the appropriate space on the LiFePO4 crystals.

The results are pretty astonishing. At low discharge rates, a cell prepared from this material discharges completely to its theoretical limit (~166mAh/g). As the authors put it, “Capacity retention of the material is superior.” Running it through 50 charge/discharge cycles revealed no significant change in the total capacity of the battery.

Here are a few links on the same topic if you are hungry to learn more about it.

1) MIT news.
2) The UK Daily mail.
3) At Technology-Review via Slashdot.
4) BBC.

And here it is again. The celebration of that beautiful number, the mathematical uniqueness that occurs in our life repeatedly, whether you realize it or not. This is PI day: Mar 14 (3.14).

Since I’ve been doing this the past few years, I’m not going to repeat all the fun facts about PI. But I will nevertheless give you some more interesting facts and links I found recently.

1) The Pi day Sudoku puzzle.

2) Things that equal Pi. Btw, the 360 blog has some really interesting posts and you should definitely subscribe to it.

3) Oh and of course, the recent appreciation of the reverent number even by politicians. Check this out.

4) And if you want to buy some swag for your PI day party, I suggest getting these beautiful PI shaped ice maker.

5) Update: Just found out that old Al’ was born on PI day. How fitting ?! Thanks to Neatorama for the piece of trivia.

Hmm.. Another year. Another day. Time is flying I tell you …

If you haven’t heard about this, then take some time to watch `Sita Sings the Blues`. It is an animated feature film, written and directed by Nina Paley. After watching a few scenes, you will notice that it has primarily been done with just 2D CG effects only.

Of course, if you do not understand the background, it is based on an Indian epic `Ramayana`. The epic is the story of Rama, an Avatar to symbolize the perfect human, the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect king and follows his struggles with ethics and societal morals to do everything right. His wife Sita is another symbolism for the perfect wife who abides by her husband’s word and loves him immaterial of the inflictions and abuse she undergoes as a result of Rama’s pledge to uphold virtue. In simpler words, she is the epitome of womanliness emphasized throughout ancient Indian literature.

The movie though is based on this tale, is focused on the jazz music of Annette Hanshaw. And it has also been released under the Creative Commons share-alike license.

For those Indians who take offense to the depictions of Sita as a busty, gloomy woman, please relax and enjoy the animation and retelling of the epic tale with a different twist. Now grab some snacks, go to the site and enjoy.

Watch “Sita Sings the Blues” on Reel 13.

1) Official site
2) Wikipedia article

A cute little puzzle and if your eye-sight is shot, like mine, this might take a while to crack this nut… Check this out.

Via Boing-Boing.

Some more information about such figures: Learn about Tangrams which I guess is a more elaborate version of this puzzle here. (Thanks to a comment in the post!)

Over the past few months, I’ve become a huge fan of the ‘No Reservations’ show by Bourdain on Travel channel and to an extent, Andrew Zimmern’s ‘Bizarre Foods’. So of course, I’ve also started scourging the net for some really weird dishes to cook and absurd delicacies of different cultures.

But every now and then, I do find something that makes me say WTF ?! And here’s a good one: Tasty treat: Sea otter boogers.

Mmmm… Purple.

A very interesting list of Trivia about one of my favorite fruits. The Apple.

Read on and your life will be richer a little . Neatolicious Facts: Apple.

True. If you are buzzed on beer or stoned on weed, and someone pays you to work on a new logo, this would be the exact result of such an effort.

It not only is hilarious, but brings about a sad truth as to why anyone would get paid millions of dollars for such an advertising when the economy is tanking while there are genuinely talented folks getting laid off and struggling to hold on to their jobs.

Well, enough of me ranting. If you got some time to kill, definitely check out the following link and do not forget to read the full document at the end. Enjoy creativity like you have never witnessed before.

Internal Memos: ‘Breathtaking’ Document Reveals Pepsi’s Logo is Pinnacle of Entire Universe.

This is another one of those pun with math comic strips. Something along the lines of my earlier post last month.

Check out this strip from gocomics. Fox Trot.