my last post

This is my eighth blogpost. I don't know how. I don't remember skipping that many weeks, but here we go.

Rose colored glasses let you see more. That is, people actually notice more when they are in a good mood than when they are in a bad mood. A recent study performed at the University of Toronto enforces these findings. Subjects were shown a series of images which are supposed to entice either a good, bad, or neutral mood. They were then shown an image and asked to remember one specific detail about that image, the gender of some person. People who were supposed to be in a bad mood tended to remember less about the other details of the picture than people who were supposed to be in a good mood.

This may seem good because then people in good moods can take in more of life, but this may not be good. It could actually distract people in good moods from whatever task they should be doing, like driving. So being in a bad mood might actually serve some purpose sometimes.

Reading this article, I thought this is actually kind of true; thinking specifically of when I'm driving. I'm normally pretty annoyed whenever I drive for the wide variety of reasons that I'm sure everyone else gets mad at driving for also. Normally I'm also very focused when driving, not aware of what I'm passing exactly but very aware of the road and drivers immediately ahead, beside, and behind me. I guess that's not a good study though because I don't have a good mood driving experience to compare it to.

article can be found here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090603103807.htm

- Osvaldo Enriquez

A Brief History of Time

nerdy math joke I heard on the internet somewhere:

There was a mathematician and an engineer at a coffee shop when the coffee machine caught on fire. The engineer got a bucket of water and poured it on the machine and everything was fine. The next day the same mathematician and engineer went to the same coffee shop and the coffee machine caught fire again. This time, the mathematician got a bucket of water and handed it to the engineer and exclaimed, "There! It's been reduced to a problem we know how to handle!"

hee hee

my post:

I've been reading "A Brief History of Time," by Stephen Hawking lately and I'm almost done. I have to say it is one damned good read. For the most part Dr. Hawking manages to explain very complicated physics concepts in ways that I could understand. He uses wit, analogies and anecdotes to give a very clear picture of what he is trying to say. Of course this book won't make you an astrophysicist, but it will elaborate some topics enough so you can look smart in front of your friends.

Such topics as blackholes, expansion of the universe, moving galaxies, relativity, and quantum mechanics are covered and explained in ways that anyone with just an interest in physics would be able to understand. Personally, I've taken Physics 40A and 40B and am in 40C right now, and I have to admit that those classes did help understand some of his stuff. But I believe that they aren't necessary to get a general idea of the topics that he tries to elaborate on.

To be fair there were some topics that Dr. Hawking covers which went completely over my head. Stuff like the "spin" of sub-atomic particles makes no sense to me, but that's why I'm not a particle physicist.

I did, however, understand enough to have a fun little conversation with some friends about how blackholes are not a "hole," but rather an actual physical object that looks like a hole. Or how redshift and blueshift of galaxies work, and why there are more redshifted galaxies than blueshifted galaxies. I'm on the chapter about string theory right now, and Dr. Hawking has been able to explain it better than in any other book that I've read covering string theory so far.

I'll end with another nerdy math joke:

black holes are where god divided by zero

hee hee

-Osvaldo Enriquez

Let There Be Light: The First Billion Years

Last Thursday, I went to a scientific colloquium. It was the last of the lecture series, The Science of Evolution: Life, Earth, Universe. The lecture was titled Let There Be Light: The First Billion Years. The speaker was Dr. Bahram Mobasher, a professor of physics and astronomy. He received his doctorate in 1988, from the University of Durham, United Kingdom.

In general, the lecture was a summary of the life of the universe, from the Big Bang to today. He began his lecture with concepts that are well-known to those who are educated; the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the solar system and the Copernican Revolution. From there, he went on to notions that are lesser known, such as the problem physicists have encountered with the time period after the Big Bang. Physicists (and/or astrophysicists) have figured out what exactly happened after the Big Bang to mere slivers of a second. The problem that physicists have with the Big Bang is that they have no idea what happened from time zero to 10^-43 seconds. To size up their problem in simpler terms, these scientists don't know what went on when the Big Bang was only a "little Bang". Ten to the power of negative forty-three seconds is a very short amount of time; it's 0.0000001 seconds with 37 more zeroes in front of the one.

The descriptions of the later time periods became more and more like today as Dr. Mobasher went through his lecture. From the time period of 3 minutes to 300,000 years, the first Hydrogen atom formed and the temperature of the universe was about 3000 Kelvins. In Fahrenheit, that's 4940.33 degrees (or really really really hot).

He also described the size of the universe in terms that made everyone in the lecture hall feel very small and insignificant. He said that we live on a planet that is in a solar system (out of many) that is on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy that is a part of local group of galaxies that is a part of a local supercluster of galaxies. Each galaxy is made up of 10^11 stars and the universe is made up of about 10^11 galaxies.

I found the lecture somewhat boring because of the information that I was already aware of, but it was interesting to learn about dark matter, dark energy and that the forces of nature were all one at a very short moment of time. The doctor spoke with a slightly heavy European accent, but he was understandable. He spoke with confidence and was bit of a comedian.

In conclusion of the lecture, Dr. Mobasher ended with a question that is similar to that of the chicken and the egg. Which came first? The universe or the laws of physics?

-George Wong

Virus vs. Cancer

Viruses. Cancer. Two evils of the world that have been pestering the human race for as long as we can remember. Now, we've advanced to the point where we can manipulate one to destroy the other. Viruses have been used in cancer therapy, but with drawbacks.

The virus that is commonly used for cancer treatment is the adenovirus. The adenovirus is a DNA virus that is effective in treating cancer, but it causes hepatic disease (AKA liver disease) in mice. Scientists from Oxford University have been working with these cancer cell killing viruses, and have figured a way how to prevent the viruses from destroying healthy cells as well. How is this done? Scientists now understand that cellular microRNA molecules regulate the stability of mRNA in different cell types. These cellular microRNA molecules can be used as target markers for the adenoviruses, preventing the viruses from killing healthy cells. This would solve the problem of adenoviruses unintentionally causing liver disease in mice.

This technology is still only being tested on mice, and it may take at least two years to enable the viruses to combat cancer in humans.

I could write further, but do not wish to retype the article. If you're interested in reading the full article, go here.

-George Wong

Cigarette Smoke Can Prevent Allergies

It's common knowledge that cigarette smoke is bad for your health. Smoking is a leading cause in lung cancer, pulmonary disease and can affect one's immune system. Despite the habit's bad reputation for being a trouble maker in health, it does have one point for the positive side. According to researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, cigarette smoke can protect smokers from some types of allergies.

Allergies are the body's natural response to allergens. These responses include the most irritable feelings a person can experience; inflammation, watery eyes, sneezing, headaches, and etc. Mast cells, or mastocytes, are the culprits responsible for allergic reactions. Mast cells play a major part in the human immune system's response to allergens by releasing histamines into the blood stream, which in turn cause the allergic reactions. To prevent allergic reactions, one would take an antihistamine, a medicine which counteracts the effects of histamine.

Likewise, cigarette smoke prevents allergic reactions from some types of allergens. Cigarette smoke differs in its remedy by stopping the source of the histamines, inhibiting the activity of the mast cells.

Although the above mentioned benefit of cigarette smoke can be an effective solution to some allergies, the health risks far outweigh it. If you do experience allergies, continue with your normal mode of prevention and take antihistamines.

If you wish to read the article, click here.

-George Wong

Something Extraordinary

Everyone's heard of it. Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV for short, is one of the most worst viruses a person can contract, and so far, it is impossible to cure. As most people know, it is a sexually transmitted disease, and its only form of transmission, at least so far, is through bodily fluids. Because of this, the virus is unfortunately passed on to a child from its mother and has no control over it. HIV has, at a biological standpoint, an ingenious design that makes it so difficult to develop a counter for it. It works by infecting the immune system, or to be more specific, it attacks the white blood cells and by doing so, it reduces a person's white blood cell count and creates more copies of the virus. Due to this fact, the immune system of humans is not able to overcome this virus, the harder that the white blood cells in a person's body tries to fight it, the weaker it becomes. This leads to another illness known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Usually, AIDS itself is rarely the cause of death of a person, rather, it is other infections and diseases that the immune system would have fought off otherwise that tend to be the cause of death.

Anyways, as to the purpose of this post. A study has been done that provides a glimmer of hope for everyone who either has had HIV, known someone who has HIV, or has the possibility of getting it. In this study, specifically designed artificial antibodies were created to combat the virus. Different strains of these new antibodies were then injected into nine different monkeys. While not all the strains were effective against HIV, only three of the nine monkeys had HIV after the test, none of the monkeys developed AIDS. So while this might be some years away, it proves that HIV can be beaten if enough time were to be put into it.

By the way, in case you were interested, the article is here.

Doing DaVinci

a nerdy math joke:

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are all staying in the same motel. One night there's a fire in the hallway, the engineer wakes up, sees a bucket of water in the hallway and pours it on the fire to put it out. The next night there's another fire in the hallway, the physicist goes out and grabs a fire extinguisher and after a few calculations aims the extinguisher at the optimal position and puts the fire out. The third night there is another fire in the hallway, the mathematician goes out, sees the bucket of water, the fire extinguisher, and the fire and says, "Ah! A solution exists!" then goes back to bed.

my entry:

There's this new show on the discovery channel called Doing DaVinci. It's about a group of craftsmen and engineers who build some machines that Leonardo DaVinci designed, which he may or may not have ever built. The machines they build are all tailored to the design and specifications in DaVinci's drawings'. They are also really, really cool. These machines that they build, that DaVinci designed, are insanely ingenious, especially for what was available in DaVinci's day.

Last week they built a "machine gun" type device. It was three rows of eleven cannons aranged in a triangle and put on wheels, so it can be hauled into battle. One row of cannons would fire then the machine would rotate forward and another row of cannons would be ready to fire again. The simplicity and practicallity of this machine makes it complete genius! I'm sure that it would have been a terrifying sight on any battlefield in the 1400's.

This week they built a self-propelling cart, which was basically a life-sized wind up car. Just thinking that DaVinci wrote the plans for something this engenious 600 years ago, before any type of modern physics, is astounding. Honestly, it's contraptions like this, and the hope that I can someday design and build something this clever, is what makes me want to be a mechanical engineer. Gears and springs and explosions, all that stuff fascinates me to no end. I would love to be on this show, just to get a chance to build some of these fascinating machines. I'm adding DaVinci to my list of engineer heroes, currently containing Archimedes and Howard Hughes (The Aviator).

It's on discovery channel on Mondays at 10 pm. Watch it it's very entertaining.

-Osvaldo Enriquez

A Flying Car!

Typing those three words in the title of this article brings to mind images from two different movies:
1.) The Fifth Element
2.) Star Wars (one of the newer episodes, but I don't remember which).

It's a dream finally come true. The notion of a flying car has been nothing but an aviation enthusiast's fantasy, until March 5th of this year. The winged automobile was a project that was started by M.I.T students four years ago. It was hammered out through the design process and made its first test flight on March 5th, at 7:40 AM. The aircraft/automobile completed a successful take-off and landing maneuver. To be specific, the craft took off and flew for a good 37 seconds before landing further down the runway.

The overall appearance of the vehicle is the product of a marriage between an airplane and an automobile (as expected, right?). It looks somewhat like an elongated Volkswagen Beetle, with a tail and wings. The pilot of the vehicle can switch from flight mode to drive mode from the driver's seat (or cockpit). Switching from flight-mode to drive-mode makes the vehicle fold up the wings and shift engine power from the rear-mounted propeller to the front wheels, simultaneously.

Now, since the notion of a flying car has been established as a reality, the next hurdle it must overcome is identifying its purpose in life. An interesting suggestion was made by the CEO of Terrafugia, the start-up company that is testing the craft. A purpose of the vehicle could be avoiding bad weather, possibly nullifying one of the largest causes of accidents for airplanes. The vehicle could land in one airport, then be driven to another airport. Once the vehicle has passed the storm, it could be taken to the sky again.

This airplane/automobile or "roadable plane" is hoped to begin production in late 2011, just in time for graduation.

To read more about this, click here.

-George Wong

They really suck at flying

The common insect known as the bumble bee has long been a curious specimen in the science of aerodynamics. In fact, using calculations from the 1919 formulas for aerodynamics, it would show that “bumble bees shouldn't be able to fly.” While those calculations would most certainly be not completely accurate, the conclusion that I draw remains pretty much the same. In an article on sciencedaily.com, findings from a study at Oxford University have shown that bumble bees fly not by normal aerodynamics, but in fact the opposite. Bumble bees do not fly because they are shaped a certain way or use their wings in a certain way, rather, bumble bees use sheer force to fly. What is even stranger is that both the left and right wings of bumble bees' flap independently, which would not allow for even air flow to help lift the bumble bee in a helpful manner.

I would say the scientists were quite clever in their methods for this experiment. Using only a wind tunnel, smoke, and cameras able to capture 2000 pictures per second, the researchers were able to visualize the aerodynamics of the bumble bees' wings and bodies. The researchers used cut flowers as a source of pollen for the bees to collect from. Then, while the bees were flying, smoke was blown through the wind tunnel to provide a way to “see” the air and high speed cameras captured this on film.

I guess nature might be trying to say something. Something along the lines of, if you aren't quite built for the task, just use more power.

Invisible? Not quite...

While trying to think of a topic to write about this week, I decided to check out some science news web sites, and sciencedaily.com had an interesting article. The title of it was “'Invisibility Cloak' Successfully Hides Objects Placed Under It” and its name is somewhat misleading. First of all, the only test of the new material used to achieve this effect, composed completely of dielectrics, was too small for the naked eye to actually see. Secondly, in the article it specifically states that this material was only able to mask the height of objects underneath it. For example, if a box was completely covered in the material, and then was set on the floor, the material would bend the light reflecting off of it in a way so as to make it appear that nothing is underneath it, in essence, taking away the third dimension, depth and people's ability to perceive it. Thirdly, this specific material is only able to mask objects in the 1,400 to 1,800 nanometer range, slightly below infrared, but higher than visible light. On the other hand, the article does clarify that while the test was indeed on a rather small scale, that since the material is made completely of dielectrics, it can easily be upscaled to larger objects. The article also states that the team responsible for this research and development is next going to try and create a new material able to achieve this effect in three dimensions, which would render an object completely undetectable by the naked eye. It seems the media has over hyped yet another great discovery.
The article mentioned can be found here.

The Evolution of Evolution

I recently attended the colloquium "The Evolution of Evolution: Darwin Then and Now." It is part of a five part series of discussions on The Science of Evolution: Life, Earth, Universe. The speaker, David Reznick, discussed how the theory of evolution itself has evolved over time, and it was a very interesting discussion to attend.

Reznick began by explaining what the theories of speciation were before Darwin came along. Carolus Linnaeus (originally Carl Linne) first came up with his system for classifying animals in 1735, the system we currently still use today. This of course led many scientists to wonder what was the cause behind all the different types of animals. What makes some so different and some so incredibly similar? Many theories emerged, including divine creation with room to grow (speciation). Our former president Thomas Jefferson even gave his own theories as to why there was such a variety of species' in the world. Before this lecture I did not even know he was a man of science. The concept of extinction however, was a sort of handicap for all the theories to date. None of them could explain why animals would go extinct. There was undeniable proof that this did indeed happen.

Anyway, Darwin came along and published his Origin of Species in 1859 after his famous voyage on the Beagle. Darwin was the first to present an idea of evolution through natural selection, which explained both the diversity of species and the idea behind extinction.

It was a very interesting discussion to attend, and I for one will be attending the next talk in this series, "Life's Rocky Road: The History of Life on Earth." It is on May 14, 7-8pm in the university theatre right across from olmstead hall, if anyone wishes to attend.

-Osvaldo Enriquez

Scientists Make Me Laugh

With all the major advances that science has been fortunate enough to have had this past century, one of the most interesting, at least in my opinion, are particle accelerators., to be more specific, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It works by accelerating two beams of protons to .999999991c, or 99.9999991% of the speed of light through a circle with a circumference of 17 miles. If you do the math the particles velocity turns out to be about 186282.395323458427 miles per second. The beams collide many times during this process and are picked up by six different detectors. Now that a basic background of the LHC has been established, I can move onto my main point. Just nine days after the first use of the LHC, there was mechanical difficulty, and a lethal helium leak occurred. In order to fix it, a month long warming up period must occur so that new parts can then be installed to replace the broken ones. Then another month will be taken to cool it down to the near absolute zero (the temperature at which matter no longer exists as it normally does) temperatures necessary for this machine to function as it should again. This happened back in September of 2008, and presently, the LCH is not scheduled to reopen until September of 2009. As much money as was put into making this, around the six billion dollar mark, not to mention that over ten thousand scientists are involved with it, there should have been more inspections, and safety precautions to prevent something like this from happening. I guess the universe likes to make jokes too, with scientists as one of its victims.
This article was my inspiration for this entry.

-Thomas Pearson

Physics for scientists and engineers

Biologists think they're biochemists.
Biochemists think they're chemists.
Chemists think they're physical chemists.
Physical chemists think they're physicists.
Physicists think they're gods.
God thinks he's a mathematician.

=) funny stuff

Anyway, I just spent the last seven hours studying for a physics midterm on tuesday, wish me luck. This quarter is all about electricity, electric fields, current batteries and well everything of that sort. This is just amazing. After last quarter I didn't think there was much else that I could possibly learn about how the world works. After learning all about gravity and mechanical energy and friction and fluid dynamics and thermodynamics and resonance frequencies and wave patterns... I'm no where near done. It's absolutely amazing how much of our known universe has already been explained.

God bless Newton. Dam near nothing that makes my life easy would be possible without that brilliant SOB. Even if he did steal calculus from Leibniz. Mind you, I hated physics when I first started taking it. Much like any mathematician at heart, I hated all the sciences. The only thing I ever thought worth while was math, considering everything else just an extension of the basic ideas discovered in math. But I must admit, after learning the tiny bit of physics that I have learned, and spending countless hours perfecting my knowledge of what I have learned, I often find myself interpreting the world through physics concepts. I've taken quite a liking to physics, which makes me less impartial towards other sciences like chemistry and biology.

I find myself calculating how many calories I'm burning at the gym using concepts from energy conservation and thermodynamics. I try to explain why I observe certain things through physics, like why rapidly moving my thumb over a straw sucks in liquid. Fun stuff, will never hold a candle to pure math though. =)

-Osvaldo Enriquez

Far Out Goals and Cool Planes

Today, you probably hear a lot of hubbub about "going green", the concerns over the size of one's carbon footprint, or the ridiculous antics one would go through to save some gas. I suppose this could be the result of a "trickle-down theory" from governmental authorities above who are concerned about the environment. Or could there actually be a "trickle-up theory", where the concerns of the general public are influencing the higher-ups? Regardless, NASA is working on the design of a new airplane. There's an article on NASA's website (www.NASA.gov) titled "The Quest: A Silent, Carbonless Airplane". After reading the title, my first thought was that the article was going to be about the goals for the design of a new military plane (most likely a reconaissance spy plane of some sort). I had no idea why they would want it to be carbonless though. I thought carbon fiber was a good thing, as in bicycles and cars.

As I read through the article, it made me realize that the title was somewhat deceiving; it required some terms to be redefined for an accurate understanding. The notion of an airplane to be silent running is defined as "containing the noise of the aircraft to the airport boundaries." This means that a conversation can be held just outside of the boundaries of an airport, without having to raise your voice. The term carbonless means that there are no net carbon emissions from the combustion of fuel. The plants that are used to synthesize the aviation biofuel would take in an equal amount of carbon (when growing) as the fuel releases when combusted. The main goal is that the plane's emissions would have zero effect on the atmosphere.

The achievement of such a lofty goal is quite a ways in the future, and Collier realized that. The author of the article reported that during the interview, Collier outlined an approach to coming close to the goals into three stages. The three were titled "N-plus-1," "N-plus-2" and "N-plus-3." As technology advances, so would our standing in the three stage process. N-plus-1 involves a plane that is very similar to the ones we see today, a "tube-and-wing" aircraft that has technological and structural advancements that cut fuel consumption, drag, and cooling flow. N-plus-2 showed a plane that had design modifications for a shorter fuselage than N-plus-1 and more wing. N-plus-3, according to Collier, is open for ideas. The designers are leaning toward a blended-wing aircraft. An artist's rendition of the future "N-plus-3" can be seen here.

In my honest opinion, this project is an ambitious one. I like it. I want to design and play with cool planes some day. :)

If you're interested and want to read more about this, click here.

-George Wong

Real Genius

It's an 80's film starring Val Kilmer, pretty funny. It's about a couple exceptionally bright young physicists who are tricked, by their greedy physics professor, into making a weapon for the military. Once they discover that what they had created was going to be used as a weapon, the young team comes up with a very clever plan to disable it, and get some revenge on their devious professor as well.

What they actually invented was a laser that didn't lose energy over distance. One specific scene from the movie I remember is when another student comes up to the group and asks what they think it will be used for. To which one of the students replies, "who cares let the engineers find out a use for it." This of course leads to when they discover it will be a weapon and plot to disable it. This however made me think about the ethics in science, and science fiction.

Science fiction is filled with brilliant scientists who spent their lives trying to create something only to regret it once achieving their goal. For example, Dr. Frankenstein discovered the secret to life but spent the rest of his days trying to destroy his only creation (for unjust cause but still he tried). The invisible man at first saw only the benefits of being invisible, and when it was achieved he strived to return to normal.

Oppenheimer even regretted ever being a part of the Manhattan project once it was all said and done with.

Would the world be better without such creations? Does the person who invented gun powder regret it and wish they could take it back? There is still the ongoing debate about the bomb, whether it saved more lives than it took. And gun powder can be used for pretty fire works...

Where is the line? I'm a budding mechanical engineer. If I designed a brand new super powerful gun, but never once fired it myself, how bad should I feel?

-Osvaldo Enriquez

The Clash of Metals: Steel vs. Aluminum

One of my favorite hobbies is the outdoor sport, mountain biking. The feeling of triumph after climbing a long, rocky hilltop trail is like no other. There are also the teeth-chattering, shirt-flapping, winding descents. Hold that thought. Teeth-chattering? The comfort and quality of a ride is a big deal to any cyclist, regardless if they are on or off road. And teeth-chattering is definitely not an adjective that a cyclist would want to use to describe their ride. When a harsh ride is encountered on a bicycle, cyclists often make the common mistake of attributing the harshness of the ride to the material that the bicycle is made of. There is an old wives' tale that says that aluminum frames produce a body-jarring ride, and that steel frames yield a buttery-smooth ride. I have ridden both aluminum and steel frames on the same mountain trails, and never noticed a difference in how smooth or harsh the ride was.
When looking for a topic to post a blog about, the validity of that myth was the most interesting that I had in mind. I Google-searched the query, "bicycles + steel tubing vs. aluminum", and found an article written by Sheldon Brown, a man that I consider as the Internet's Bicycle Guru. (I often find myself reading one of his articles as a DIY guide to fixing my bicycles.) In this article, he says that the material is not to be blamed for discomfort (or praised for comfort). Rather, the troublemakers are things that the rider can choose. The common factors of discomfort that Brown points out are rider position, tire choice, saddle choice and bicycle geometry. He also goes into an argument showing that both materials can achieve the same desired riding qualities but with different tube diameters and wall thicknesses. I would dive further into the details, but I don't want to go overboard on this post and bore the reader about tube thickness, diameter and other bicycle frame what-nots. So there you have it. If you ever claimed that the stiffness (or harshness) of ride was because of the bicycle's material, you're wrong! But don't feel alone, I have made this mistake as well.

If you are interested in finding out more about frame materials and what qualities they produce in a bicycle, go here.


-George Wong

Just rambling

This week, I thought I would change the mood a little bit from last time. I was thinking about a subject I heard about a while ago, and it struck me as odd that someone would put so much thought into the subject. That subject is physics. More specifically, how they apply to a group of fictional characters known as meta-humans. They even have written a book, The Science of Superheroes, about it, going into great detail how superhuman abilities from the comics, cartoons, and movies could or could not work within the confines of the physical world. And the one of the few things I can say about that is that when you try to mix fictional characters and abilities with nonfictional rules, it never turns out well. Take super strength, flight, and super speed, for instance. With super strength, not only would a person be dense enough to literally leave cracks in the floor when just walking, if they tried to lift anything, it would just cave in over them because their hands do not have a big enough surface area to distribute the object over, so it would be like poking a sheet of metal with a pin, while a person could possibly output enough energy to lift it, because of the fact that the area actually in contact with the sheet is so small, only the part touching the pin would be lifted. With flight, a person would need to be able to control, with their mind, either gravity itself, or a force that is stronger than gravity. Since no person is capable of this, this super power is out of the question right here, but for the sake of completeness, let's assume that a person somehow was capable of this. Now, the power of flight does not include the power of invulnerability, so basically anything you fly into, including bugs, would cause major damage to that person's body, thus rendering this power obsolete. Now, for super speed, a person would have to have a huge energy source, and be immune to friction., or at least close to it. Since the human body is only capable of breaking down the substances digested, not enough energy could be used that way, even if the person's metabolism was super fast. The only way to get enough energy required for an endeavor like this would be to have an external power source that is capable of creating energy in the form that a human body uses it, and it would also have to transfer that energy directly to the muscle tissues. DC Comics tried to explain The Flash's powers in a similar manner to this, and called it The Speed Force, except they took it one step further. In the DC universe, The Speed Force is an entire dimension of energy that is the “source of all speed,” and is what allows The Flash the ability to run faster than the speed of light. This contradicts physics, however, because in order to run faster than the speed of light, one must have infinite energy. This fits into the idea of the Speed Force. What does not fit, is the conservation of energy. According to the conservation of energy, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. In order to have an infinite energy supply, energy would have to be created, and this could not possibly work. Not to mention the fact that somehow no one who has taken the name of Flash in the comics has ever had friction or durability to worry about. According to DC, this “infinite” energy source is also able to keep the people using it from being affected by both friction, and all the objects that they run into with every step. Now, to sum up my views on this, I have only this to say: when super powers are involved, the laws of physics are not.

-Thomas Pearson

We are in Serious Trouble

I was browsing cnet.com recently, and I noticed a story that caught my attention, entitled "Just how vulnerable is the electrical grid?" After reading it, it occurred to me that the huge network known as the internet is the culprit of many a crime, as well as the conduit for possible crimes. What struck me as extremely odd though, was that a company in charge of something as important as creating and distributing electricity would leave themselves open to numerous forms of cyberattack. Internet Protocol, or IP for short, has never been known for its safety, and it is surprising that such an important network would be able to be accessed using this protocol. According to the article, Industrial Defender, a computer security company, tested the network about 100 times and found about 34,000 vulnerabilities in the network. That's right, that is thirty-four thousand different ways that someone could break into the network, and according to another article, a group has already done so. Apparently, whoever they were, they were able to implant software onto the compromised systems that could potentially be used to disrupt the systems.
While modernization is usally taken as a good thing, I think it is safe to say that sometimes it is better, and safer, not to, especially when the best reason to do so is for ease of access by employees. In a computer networking class that I took in high school, I learned that when it comes to a network, especially one for a business, the number one priority is network security, all else comes after this. It would seem that these utility companies have either forgotten or forsook this.

The links to the articles mentioned are here and here

-Thomas Pearson

W.L. Putnam competition

Well this is just a coincidence. Last time I wrote about the novel "A Beautiful Mind" (I don't think underline is an option). According to that biography, John Nash was obsessed with the Putnam competition, mostly because he never managed to win and the winner gets a scholarship to Harvard (he was also obsessed with Harvard). Well the Putnam is still around, and weekly training seminars have just started here at UCR. They're Fridays 3:10-4:00 pm in surge 277 in case anyone wants to give it a shot, and yes, I am a nerd, but I love it. =)

The Putnam is basically a super hard math test with very unorthodox questions. Most of the questions require you to present an in depth and original proof. Although the proofs required are no where near as complicated as proving say, L'Hopital's theorem, they are tricky and require quite a bit of clever manipulation from the participant. Just getting the right answer would not guarantee all the points, or even any for that matter. The proof is the important part.

A participant can enter a maximum of three times, and cannot have a college degree. So no super advanced math is required, and to be honest no math at all is required. It's all finding the right pattern or whatever and being able to express it unambiguously.

The actual competition will not be held until December, so there's a nice long amount of time to train.

Why this competition appeals so much to me: Not only because it's famous and it's neat to participate in something famous, but math is wonderful! It's amazing to take a situation that does not directly have anything to do with math or numbers and depict it perfectly through numbers and formulas.

Anyway, visit http://math.scu.edu/putnam/ if you want more information.

-Osvaldo Enriquez

A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind is a very amazing movie depicted the life and struggle of John Nash. He was a very intelligent mathematician who eventually developed schizophrenia but did eventually "recover" from it. After decades of struggling with paranoid delusions and absurd impulsions he eventually was able to control those delusions, and was able to finally live a normal life again. Now the movie depicted John Nash as, although very pompous about his own genius, a genuinely decent person. I recently finished the actual novel "A Beautiful Mind" and he was a jerk! His first kid was with a woman he cared very little about, and although he had a very good job at MIT he refused to support her or the child in any way. He was constantly verbally abusive to her, and actually married his wife while still involved with her. Smashing good read though.
Anyway, math is delicious. Math is wonderful, amazing and beautiful. I am currently a mechanical engineering major and although there are many things about engineering that do appeal to me, like building super cool things, I would love nothing more than to be a mathematician. Why don't I pursue a career in math? Because I am far too materialistic. John Nash was well off but that's mostly because he came from a well off family. Einstein even was pretty strapped for cash up until he won the nobel prize. What I'm trying to say is even the best of the brightest scholars do not make enough to satisfy my materialism. That's why I'm going into engineering. I feel even a mediocre engineer working for a good company can make more than Einstein, pure career wise. I am not known for mediocrity though, I'm going to be one hell of an engineer, Tony Stark status. Or at least Will Smith in Seven Pounds, also a very good movie. I do want to get my doctorate in mathematics someday, but then it will be mostly for fun, and of course the title. I hope this is 250 words.