The scale of things

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[Ben D]

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/518416/black-hole-analogue-discovered-in-south-atlantic-ocean/

Black Hole Analogue Discovered in South Atlantic Ocean

August 19, 2013

Vortices in the South Atlantic are mathematically equivalent to black holes, say physicists, an idea that could lead to new ways of understanding how currents transport oil and garbage across oceans.

Today, George Haller at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and Francisco Beron-Vera at the University of Miami in Florida have found another analogue of a black hole, this time in the world of turbulence.

The vortices that can form in turbulent water are a familiar sight. Edgar Allan Poe described just such a whirlpool in his short story “A Descent into a Maelstrom” which he published in 1841:

“The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel… “

In this passage, Poe describes one of the crucial feature of these rotating bodies of fluid: that they can be thought of as coherent islands in an incoherent flow. As such, they are essentially independent of their environment, surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable boundary and with little, if any, of the fluid inside them leaking out.

If you’re thinking that this description has a passing resemblance to a black hole, you’d be right. Haller and Beron-Vera put this similarity on a formal footing by describing the behaviour of vortices in turbulent fluids using the same mathematics that describe black holes.

In this picture, Poe’s “broad belt of gleaming spray” is exactly analogous to a photon sphere around a black hole. This is a surface of light which encircles a black hole without entering it.

Haller and Beron-Vera go on to show that each vortex boundary in a turbulent fluid contains a singularity, just like an astrophysical black hole.

That has important implications for the study of fluids and the identification of vortices, which are otherwise tricky to define and spot. In this case, it is simply question of looking for the singularity and the boundary that surrounds it.

And that’s exactly what Haller and Beron-Vera have done in the pattern of currents in the south west Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic. A well-known phenomenon in this part of the world is called the Agulhas leakage which comes from the Agulhas current in the Indian Ocean. “At the end of its southward flow, this boundary current turns back on itself, creating a loop that occasionally pinches off and releases eddies (Agulhas rings) into the South Atlantic,” they say.

These guys used satellite images of the South Atlantic Ocean from between November 2006 and February 2007 to look for vortices using a set of simple computational steps that spots black hole analogues.

In this three-month period they found eight candidates, two of which turned out to be black hole analogues containing photon spheres. “We have found exceptionally coherent material belts in the South Atlantic, filled with analogs of photon spheres around black holes,” they conclude.

That’s an interesting result that could have significant implications for our understanding of the way ocean currents transport material. Since anything that gets into these black holes cannot get out, this should trap any garbage, oil or indeed water itself, moving it coherently over vast distances. “Beyond the mathematical equivalence, there are also observational reasons for viewing coherent…eddies as black holes,” say Haller and Beron-Vera.

The work also raises the possibility that black hole analogues will occur in other situations, such as in hurricanes and not just on Earth. By this way of thinking, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter might well be the most famous black hole in the Solar System.

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Upthread is a post that includes an edited version of Richard Feynman’s poem, but I would think the following is the original, which Feynman included in his address to the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

The Value of Science

“From time to time people suggest to me that scientists ought to give more consideration to social problems, especially that they should be more responsible in considering the impact of science on society. It seems to be generally believed that if the scientists would only look at these very difficult social problems and not spend so much time fooling with less vital scientific ones, great success would come of it.

“It seems to me that we do think about these problems from time to time, but we don’t put a full-time effort into them—the reasons being that we know we don’t have any magic formula for solving social problems, that social problems are very much harder than scientific ones, and that we usually don’t get anywhere when we do think about them.

“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy—and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he sounds as naive as anyone untrained in the matter. Since the question of the value of science is not a scientific subject, this talk is dedicated to proving my point—by example.

“The first way in which science is of value is familiar to everyone. It is that scientific knowledge enables us to do all kinds of things and to make all kinds of things. Of course if we make good things, it is not only to the credit of science; it is also to the credit of the moral choice which led us to good work. Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad—but it does not carry instructions on how to use it. Such power has evident value—even though the power may be negated by what one does with it.

“I learned a way of expressing this common human problem on a trip to Honolulu. In a Buddhist temple there, the man in charge explained a little bit about the Buddhist religion for tourists, and then ended his talk by telling them he had something to say to them that they would never forget—and I have never forgotten it. It was a proverb of the Buddhist religion:

“To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.

“What then, is the value of the key to heaven? It is true that if we lack clear instructions that enable us to determine which is the gate to heaven and which the gate to hell, the key may be a dangerous object to use.

“But the key obviously has value: how can we enter heaven without it?

“Instructions would be of no value without the key. So it is evident that, in spite of the fact that it could produce enormous horror in the world, science is of value because it can produce something.

“Another value of science is the fun called intellectual enjoyment which some people get from reading and learning and thinking about it, and which others get from working in it. This is an important point, one which is not considered enough by those who tell us it is our social responsibility to reflect on the impact of science on society.

“Is this mere personal enjoyment of value to society as a whole? No! But it is also a responsibility to consider the aim of society itself. Is it to arrange matters so that people can enjoy things? If so, then the enjoyment of science is as important as anything else.

“But I would like not to underestimate the value of the world view which is the results of scientific effort. We have been led to imagine all sorts of things infinitely more marvelous than the imaginings of poets and dreamers of the past. It shows that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man. For instance, how much more remarkable it is for us all to be stuck—half of us upside down—by a mysterious attraction to a spinning ball that has been swinging in space for billions of years than to be carried on the back of an elephant supported on a tortoise swimming in a bottomless sea.

“I have thought about these things so many times alone that I hope you will excuse me if I remind you of this type of thought that I am sure many of you have had, which no one could ever have had in the past because people then didn’t have the information we have about the world today.

There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.

Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space
A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.

“The same thrill, the same awe and mystery, comes again and again when we look at any question deeply enough. With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries—certainly a grand adventure!

“It is true that few unscientific people have this particular type of religious experience. Our poets do not write about it; our artists do not try to portray this remarkable thing. I don’t know why. Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers: you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.

“Perhaps one of the reasons for this silence is that you have to know how to read the music. For instance, the scientific article may say, “The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one-half in a period of two weeks.” Now what does that mean?

“It means that phosphorous that is in the brain of a rat—and also in mine, and yours—is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.

“So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced.

“To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday.

“When we read about this in the newspaper, it says “Scientists say this discovery may have importance in the search for a cure for cancer.” The paper is only interested in the use of the idea, not the idea itself. Hardly anyone can understand the importance of an idea, it is so remarkable. Except that, possibly, some children catch on. And when a child catches on to an idea like that, we have a scientist. It is too late for them to get the spirit when they are in our universities, so we must attempt to explain these ideas to children.

“I would now like to turn to a third value that science has. It is a little less direct, but not much. The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty—some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

“Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question—to doubt—to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. Herein lies a responsibility to society.

“We are all sad when we think of the wondrous potentialities human beings seem to have, as contrasted with their small accomplishments. Again and again people have thought that we could do much better. Those of the past saw in the nightmare of their times a dream for the future. We, of their future, see that their dreams, in certain ways surpassed, have in many ways remained dreams. The hopes for the future today are, in good share, those of yesterday.

“It was once thought that the possibilities people had were not developed because most of the people were ignorant. With universal education, could all men be Voltaires? Bad can be taught at least as efficiently as good. Education is a strong force, but for either good or evil.

“Communications between nations must promote understanding—so went another dream. But the machines of communication can be manipulated. What is communicated can be truth or lie. Communication is a strong force, but also for either good or evil.

“The applied sciences should free men of material problems at least. Medicine controls diseases. And the record here seems all to the good. Yet there are some patiently working today to create great plagues and poisons for use in warfare tomorrow.

“Nearly everyone dislikes war. Our dream today is peace. In peace, man can develop best the enormous possibilities he seems to have. But maybe future men will find that peace, too, can be good and bad. Perhaps peaceful men will drink out of boredom. Then perhaps drink will become the great problem which seems to keep man from getting all he thinks he should out of his abilities.

“Clearly, peace is a great force—as are sobriety, material power, communication, education, honesty, and the ideals of many dreamers. We have more of these forces to control than did the ancients. And maybe we are doing a little better than most of them could do. But what we ought to be able to do seems gigantic compared with our confused accomplishments.

“Why is this? Why can’t we conquer ourselves?

“Because we find that even great forces and abilities do not seem to carry with them clear instructions on how to use them. As an example, the great accumulation of understanding as to how the physical world behaves only convinces one that this behavior seems to have a kind of meaninglessness. The sciences do not directly teach good and bad.

“Through all ages of our past, people have tried to fathom the meaning of life. They have realized that if some direction or meaning could be given to our actions, great human forces would be unleashed. So very many answers have been given to the question of the meaning of it all. But the answers have been of all different sorts, and the proponents of one answer have looked with horror at the actions of the believers in another—horror, because from a disagreeing point of view all the great potentialities of the race are channeled into a false and confining blind alley. In fact, it is from the history of the enormous monstrosities created by false belief that philosophers have realized the apparently infinite and wondrous capacities of human beings. The dream is to find the open channel.

“What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say to dispel the mystery of existence?

“If we take everything into account—not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn’t know—then I think we must frankly admit that we do not know.

“But, in admitting this, we have probably found the open channel.

“This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in a trial-and-error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.

“We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are. If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming “This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!” we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.

“It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.”

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^ Take the world from another point of view 1/4


^ Take the world from another point of view 2/4


^ Take the world from another point of view 3/4


^ Take the world from another point of view 4/4

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The iconic 20th century physicist Richard Feynman invented a method for calculating probabilities of particle interactions using depictions of all the different ways an interaction could occur. Examples of “Feynman diagrams” were included on a 2005 postage stamp honoring Feynman.

From this thread A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics.

[MacCruiskeen]

"A journey into the microscopic world of Gordon Ramsay."

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http://youtu.be/LqJxyuTMMog

^ Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman
duet at 2011 Tony Awards

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^ People In Order: 1. Age

From VIMEO NOTES. This is first in a series of four films – People In Order – commissioned by the UK’s Channel 4 in 2006. The concept behind our films was simple: we asked ourselves if you can reveal something about life by simply arranging people according to scales. Three minutes is a very short time to communicate something—perhaps too short to tell a story, or to get to know a character—so we wanted to make this series by setting ourselves some very straightforward rules, and then following them through over a long trip. The rules had to be simple so it would take the audience virtually no time to understand them. We established what scales we’d look at, and then chose how each film would be framed. Then it was a case of getting in a campervan and driving round Britain, filming as many people as we could over 4 weeks in February, coping with microphones crackling and our camera refusing to work.

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^ Springtime - A Journey into Macro Space

From VIMEO NOTES. When spring had arrived in Vienna, I thought about showing the beauty of nature, landscapes, ... But then I realized that on a macro scale, it's incredible what is going on which you normally never realize!

I started initially to just reverse mount my 50mm f1.4 lens (taping it to the adapter on my Lumix GH1), but then for quality reasons I bought a used 50mm f3.5 FD macro lens with a 25mm extender.

Almost everything was filmed in my garden, apart from the first sequence which was on a small hill very close to my house - I realized that the flowers there became extremely rare and are under severe protection! Just in the middle of Vienna ...

Fascinating - hope you enjoy my take on that!

Music by Thomas Newman

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http://youtu.be/sWDi-Xk3rgw

^ Foucault’s Pendulum

The above video explains what’s happening in the video, below. I knew you’d want to know .

http://youtu.be/iqpV1236_Q0

^ Foucault Pendulum at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry
YOUTUBE NOTES.

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^ Matron of Morbidity

See Narratively | See Narrative dot ly.

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To be sure, wonder isn’t always in measurements of astronomical objects.

Highlights mine. Links in original.

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The Beautiful and Frightening Experience of How Science Is Done: Richard Feynman’s Letter to James Watson about The Double Helix
Brain Pickings, Maria Popova

A manifesto for messiness and the value of the subjective in the advancement of knowledge.

In February of 1967, Richard Feynman — champion of scientific culture, graphic novel hero, crusader for integrity, existential sage, secret artist — visited the University of Chicago and ran into DNA godfather James Watson, also visiting at the time. Watson, who had met Feynman while guest-lecturing on the structure of DNA at Caltech, gave him the manuscript to what would become The Double Helix — one of the most influential books in the history of modern science. A couple of weeks later, Feynman sent Watson a poignant letter, included in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman (public library) — the fantastic anthology that also gave us The Great Explainer’s irreverent Nobel wager — addressing Watson’s fears about the book and the controversy he knew it would generate by virtue of its subjective point of view.

Feynman’s letter doesn’t just address the specific subject directly — like all of his meditations, it touches on timeless, timelier than ever points about the value of the subjective, the caveats of criticism, and above all that science is often intuitive, messy, and full of ego-transcendence. He begins by reminding us of what should be a cardinal rule of the internet:


“Don’t let anybody criticize that book who hasn’t read it thru to the end. Its apparent minor faults and petty gossipy incidents fall into place as deeply meaningful and vitally necessary to your work (the book — the literary work I mean) as one comes to the end. From the irregular trivia of ordinary life mixed with a bit of scientific doodling and failure, to the intense dramatic concentration as one closes in on the truth and the final elation (plus with gradually decreasing frequency, the sudden sharp pangs of doubt) — that is how science is done. I recognize my own experiences with discovery beautifully (and perhaps for the first time!) described as the book nears its close. There it is utterly accurate.

“And the entire ‘novel’ has a master plot and a deep unanswered human question at the end: Is the sudden transformation of all the relevant scientific characters from petty people to great and selfless men because they see together a beautiful corner of nature unveiled and forget themselves in the presence of the wonder? Or is it because our writer suddenly sees all his characters in a new and generous light because he has achieved success and confidence in his work, and himself? Don’t try to resolve it. Leave it that way. Publish with as little change as possible. The people who say “that is not how science is done” are wrong. In the early parts you describe the impression by one nervous young man imputing motives (possibly entirely erroneous) on how the science is done by the men around him. (I myself have not had the kind of experiences with my colleagues to lead me to think their motives were often like those you describe — I think you may be wrong — but I don’t know the individuals you knew — but no matter, you describe your impressions as a young man.) But when you describe what went on in your head as the truth haltingly staggers upon you and passes on, finally fully recognized, you are describing how science is done. I know, for I have had the same beautiful and frightening experience.

“If you were really serious about wanting something on the flyleaf, tell me and we can work something out.”

Feynman made good on his word: When the first hardcover edition of The Double Helix was published, it featured the following blurb from Feynman on the dust jacket: “He has described admirably how it feels to have that frightening and beautiful experience of making a great scientific discovery.”

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There are four or five drafts on sonification that I’ve held back from posting for several months due to researching and posting on other topics, all of which are apparent during the recent five months.

If you were to take a look at what I’ve not posted, compared to the research and sonifications of Peter Gregson, you’d see we’ve lept a light year or two from where we left off with regard to sonifications in this thread. Mr. Gregson's TEDx talk and examples of his music are presented in the next comment space.

Highlights mine, in the following; links in original.

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The future of music: technology is amazing, but ‘music’s a human thing’
Cellist and Twitter composer Peter Gregson on the meeting ground between music and technology
The Observer, by Tom Lamont | Saturday 15 June 2013

Edinburgh-born Peter Gregson is a cellist, composer and founder of the Electric Creative Colab, a body that aims to foster collaborations between the arts and technology. Last year, working with composer and “sonic artist” Daniel Jones and the Britten Sinfonia, Gregson produced the Listening Machine, a piece of software that absorbed the tweets of 500 people around the country and turned it into a continuous stream of music. A debut album of acoustic and electric cello music, Terminal, was released in 2010. Later this year Gregson will start work on a new album and a film score.

You can compose music and you can code. Are the skills similar?


There is a similarity. You start with something you want to see exist, to enable. And there are many ways to achieve that, all sorts of nuances to consider, lots of aesthetic choices to make in order to keep the process going. It’s not simple problem-solving. There are all sorts of rabbit holes down which you can get lost for days and days...

You’ve worked to tighten the links between technology and the arts. What are the difficulties you’ve encountered?


Coding is an amazing, elaborate art form in itself. Funding mechanisms don’t reflect that. They don’t value the coder as an integral part of the creative output. It’s assumed that coding is a pre-production, first-stage hurdle that’s got to be dealt with – then the art can happen. I don’t see that as the case. We value our artists’ time and pretentiousness – let them disappear into the woods to create – but don’t do the same for coders.

Why is that?


With drag-and-drop website creation, or adverts saying “Turn any website into a mobile app – ta da!”, people assume everything is that simple and easy and quick and then get surprised when it takes three months. When we were making the Listening Machine last year it took us six full weeks of writing algorithms before we could start writing the music. There was no instant jazz-hands moment. You can’t shoehorn the arts into the technology world, and you can’t shoehorn the technology world into the arts sector. They need to be acknowledged as equal partners.

What were you trying to demonstrate with the Listening Machine?


I wanted to hear what a day sounded like. Dan and I took it from there. Twitter is dynamic, it’s evolutionary, conversations evolve, they’ve got a pulse to them. You can visualise that – but what if you could listen to that dynamism evolve? We thought music had the capacity to do that.

Is technology making music easier to learn?


There’s so much nuance and physicality to music – it’s a human thing. I’m fortunate to work with some of the top people in these fields [of music-teaching technology] and I’m yet to see anything that does anything. Cello bows with accelerometers and gyrometers attached... The idea being that you make a piece of kit that for a couple of thousand dollars will teach someone how to hold a bow, play a bow, learn how to do good bow changing. I’m sitting there, and nobody else seemed to have seen the elephant in the room – that this cello bow, with all this stuff fitted on it, bore no relation to a real cello bow. As a professional cellist I was able to accommodate it. But the point that tool would be useful would be when you’re four or five. And this thing was heavy. There’s software that listens to what you play [and judges it] by looking for pitch tracking, but you can trick these things very easily. You can play with horrifically bad technique and make it think that you’re doing it really well because it can only look out for a certain number of things. It’s nowhere near as sophisticated as a person sitting looking at a pupil playing the violin. It’s entirely possible – I’ve tried it – to make this technology think you’re playing a beautiful scale but by using a piece of fruit to play your cello instead of a finger. I used an orange.

Isn’t it democratising?


I see the geographic benefits, if you happen to live in remote Saskatchewan. You shouldn’t be disadvantaged. But I’m yet to see something that makes me think technology is a replacement. I don’t think [an equivalent to] a computer game has the ability to inspire a child in the same way an enthusiastic, patient teacher can. If a computer game gets too difficult, you put it down. But in music that’s the point when the real learning starts. The notion of software democratising musical education leaves me cold. I get cold feelings when I see: “Log on to our website and learn to play the violin.”

There’s a rush to teach kids to code. Do we risk musical training being ignored as technology education comes to the fore?


It will be interesting in 10 or 15 years when a digitally native generation is devising the curriculum. I’d be fascinated to see if something is taken out of the curriculum to replace it with coding skills. But if you ask me the hypothetical: if you were to teach coding or music, which would it be, I would absolutely say music.

Why?


It’s a holistic thing. It’s team-building. It’s about sharing. The best thing about music education is simply that it teaches you to think and listen in a sensitive way, and not jump to conclusions in exchange for instant gratification. Real life doesn’t give you 10 points when you cross a bridge. And that is a super-important thing. If we game-ify an art form, we risk losing its most valuable facets.

Peter Gregson will talk about the future of musicianship at the Saturday morning session of FutureFest

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^ The Listening Machine | Peter Gregson at TEDxUHasselt

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FLOW, a digital album, by Peter Gregson


^ From FLOW, Frozen (Duet) | Peter Gregson