Innumerable as the Starrs of Night,
Or Starrs of Morning, Dew-drops, which the Sun Impearls on every leaf and every flouer Milton |
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Impearls | ||
NGC3132 © |
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,
— that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Keats
E = M
Energy is eternal delight.
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What wailing wight
© Copyright 2002 – 2009
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Impearls: 2002-11-17 Archive Earthdate 2002-11-22
Gulf Wars Episode II: Clone of the Attack
Eugene Volokh links to a hilarious pseudo-movie poster advertising the forthcoming new Gulf Wars extravaganza. I actually think this artifice ought to be be funny no matter what side of the debate over war with Iraq you're on, though I'm sure some (perhaps humorless) people will feel no one should make jokes where death and destruction are concerned. But how could one not make fun of some of the characters involved in this global morality play — e.g., Saddam Hussein, Knight of the Arab World, with his “100% elections,” etc. etc. — so long as one doesn't forget the seriousness that lurks behind Saddam's murderousness on every scale from his individual tortures and killings to the very real threat of mushroom clouds suddenly blossoming above major cities in the land, perhaps not now but someday not extremely far distant?
Antihydrogen makes the big time
Interesting news item (link requires subscription or pay per view) by Charles Seife in the journal Science (organ of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) on the race to be first to make significant quantities of antihydrogen — enough to study and hopefully find the spectrum of that most volatile of substances. (Antihydrogen is the negative subatomic mirror of normal hydrogen, consisting of duos of antiprotons and antielectrons [positrons] electronically united as antiatoms, though apparently not, at least for the moment, as antihydrogen molecules.) Achieving the holy grail of the spectrum of antihydrogen, “could rattle the foundations of physics and will likely net a Nobel Prize for whichever team gets there first,” Seife writes. “Scientists think that antihydrogen's spectrum should be identical to hydrogen's. If it's not, a key principle in physics known as CPT symmetry will have to be discarded, forcing a drastic revision of physicists' understanding of subatomic particles.” Neither of the two teams now closing in on the prize of the spectrum has yet achieved this goal, but that “shouldn't detract from the real story: the production of significant amounts of cold, slow antihydrogen. ‘The fact that both groups have gotten antihydrogen is a major accomplishment,’” Seife quotes MIT physicist Daniel Kleppner. The two teams, known as ATRAP and ATHENA, which are in the running are both using “similar techniques, nearly identical equipment, and the same particle beam, an antiproton factory at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.” Both groups, Seife reports:
Unfortunately, the two teams are now “frozen neck and neck,” as Seife put it, in their race. He writes: “… the teams' source of antiprotons has just dried up. The current run of CERN's beamline just ended, so both teams will have to wait until next year to resume the race. And the budget problems at CERN … will interfere with their scramble to collect antihydrogen. ‘[AD] will be shut down for 1 year, which is a huge disappointment,’” Seife quotes ATRAP leader Harvard physicist Gerald Gabrielse. “‘Without antiprotons, it's hard to make progress.’” Impearls: 2002-11-17 Archive Earthdate 2002-11-21
Phoenix Arise!
by
Tamara Lynn Scott
Phoenix Arise! Out of the Ruins of What has Come Before,
At this Crossing of Time and Place,
Here the Circles Rising,
Breakwaters Beckon,
Light of Create,
Here in All Telling,
Elicit Forth a World of Our Own Create!
Phoenix Arise!
Inscribed on
Bronze Plate
erected on the San Francisco Bay Point in Palo Alto, California.
© Copyright 2001, 2002 Tamara Lynn Scott. Published by permission of author. Impearls: 2002-11-17 Archive Earthdate 2002-11-18
California's economy vis-a-vis France, Britain, India & China
George Huang, economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), responded to Impearls' earlier article with an e-mail dated 2002-11-12 18:02 UT.
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