| Tuesday,
May 8, 2007 Subject:
Cosmic Ray Imaging
Hello Dr. Pournelle,
We are used to using X-rays to see inside objects.
But, cosmic rays? This is just plain cool.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/20070504TDY02002.htm
---------- A research team has succeeded in taking
images of the inside of a volcano using cosmic rays, the first time
visual images of the structure inside of a volcano have been obtained
using this method.
The x-ray-like images of Mt. Asama, which
straddles Gunma and Nagano prefectures, were made by researchers from
Tokyo University and Nagoya University. It is the first time scientists
have been able to produce an image of the structure of the inside of a
volcano. Previously, such information had only been estimated through
analysis of seismic waves.
The images were made using muons, microscopic
particles that react with the earth's atmosphere when they fall from
space.
The team produced the image by observing muons
that fall from space at a rate of one per second onto a palm-sized area.
The thicker the object they fall on, the more they are absorbed.
The results of the analysis completed in April
showed cavities that magma passes through, hollows in the crater, and
hardened high-density lava layers that formed at the bottom of the
crater after the volcano's 2004 eruption.
Repeated volcanic activity can be seen moving
rocks and stones at the bottom of Mt. Asama's crater, as well as
increased atmospheric pressure in the path of the magma rising up from
deep in the ground. ----------
Best regards, Clyde Wisham
**** "Journalism is a job with no prerequisite, no
responsibility and no accountability." -- Jeff Cooper
At one time it was a great secret, alas
betrayed by the
Falcon and the Snowman, that we could use cosmic ray backscattering
to locate deeply submerged submarines; sensors in both aircraft and
satellites are employed for this. At one time the very words "cosmic ray
backscattering" were classified, for obvious reasons, since you only
have to think about the technique to come up with ideas for using it.
Of course that technique didn't look
inside objects; it depended on submarines (and whales; we located whales
that way, too) are more opaque to backscatter than water...
==========
French elections
Hello Dr. Pournelle:
Does the Sarkozy election men that we can no longer
make fun of France? He has already come out with a pretty strong platform,
according to the article at Fox: "One bill would make overtime pay tax-free
to encourage people to work more. Another would put in place tougher
sentencing for repeat offenders, and still another would toughen up the
criteria for immigrants trying to bring their families to France."
My question is, would he consider stepping down, and
running for office here?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270398,00.html
Neal Pritchett
=========
Astronomers Report Biggest
Stellar Explosion:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/science/space/08novacnd.html
They think this big boom may be typical of the death
of the first stars to form - supermassive ones that, when they died, blew up
without any residues:
"It is very convenient, as Dr. Smith and his
colleagues pointed out, that the pair mechanism produces an explosion that
scatters all the star's ashes enriched by thermonuclear processing, outward
into space instead to down into a black hole."
Convenient, or clever design of the parameters of a
universe?
Ed
Another of those coincidences without
which we would not be here to observe the coincidence. Jastrow's
God and the Astronomers looks at a number of those. Jastrow remains more
or less an atheist but the cosmos keeps undermining his faith... It is
certainly the case that a universe in which we exist is exceedingly
improbable. Exceedingly.
=========
Subj: Did you know Kettering was once a
one-room-school teacher?
http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2007/05/
understanding-vs-nonthought-why-left.html
Reminded me of Herman Kahn's "educated incapacity".
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/
geo/pastanalysis/2004/0826.html
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
=========
You might find this amusing
http://www.hogonice.com/2007/05/
the_real_greenhouse_gas_sheryl.html
The part that really puzzles me is why so many people
consider professional pretenders to be somehow experts in matters political
and scientific.
It's a puzzle.
Timoid of Angle
========
"Jerry Was A Man" -- in Austria?
Well...it's happening again. Heinlein's science
fiction precedes fact, Dr. Pournelle.
His short story "Jerry Was A Man" looks like it may
come true in Austria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Was_a_Man
And
http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/
normal.php?StoryID=20070504-103155-9435r
"In some ways, Hiasl is like any other Viennese.
He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to paint and enjoys relaxing by
watching TV.
"But he doesn't care for coffee, and he isn't
actually a person -- at least not yet.
"In a case that could set a global legal precedent
for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking
to get the 26-year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person."
Charles Brumbelow
Shades of Crichton's NEXT
========
Subject: Carbon offsets
Dr. Pournelle:
A lot of political hay has been made of Mr. Gore's
efforts to counteract a profligate level of household energy consumption
with the purchase of carbon offsets, but what if such offsets are valid and
cost effective?
I have read that the current price to offset one ton
of carbon is $2, that cost could rise to as much as $35/ton if Kyoto were
seriously enforced, but seeding iron into the ocean would turn a profit at
$5/ton. The upper range of $35/ton corresponds to adding 1.6 cents per kWHr
(I am paying about 12 cents per kWHr, you may be paying more) --
iron-in-the-ocean would run about a quarter of a cent per kWHr, vastly
cheaper than "clean coal" plants that trap and sequester CO2, cheaper than
Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel. Even the 1.6 cents per kWHr for
land-based carbon offsets is cheaper than coal-plant CO2 sequestration,
perhaps cheaper than handling spend nuclear fuel, most certainly cheaper
than land-based solar, wind power, as well as the cost differential of
substituting natural gas for coal these days.
We could plant a plot of trees, wait for them to grow,
and then burn them in a power plant -- carbon neutral. We could plant that
plot of trees and just leave them there but continue to burn coal -- also
carbon neutral. Or we could plant plankton in the ocean by that iron
enrichment scheme to do the same thing? I mean, why are we even talking
about oxy-fuel coal combustion and ammonia CO2 adsorbant when for vastly
less money we could sprinkle iron in the ocean and burn coal guilt-free?
So why the objection to iron-in-the-ocean? It is
branded as a "quick fix", "geo engineering", and "tampering with the
environment to unknown effect", but isn't the planting of trees the same
thing? Suppose you could seed the ocean and grow an energy crop of plankton
-- wouldn't that be a biofuels project? What if you just left the plankton
in place and burned coal on land -- what is the problem? If there is
something forbidden about exploiting the ocean to grow biofuels, is it OK to
exploit the ocean with ocean-thermal, ocean-tide, or ocean-wave power
plants?
Maybe the iron-in-the-ocean scheme is wishful
thinking. By the same reasoning, is the effect of land-based offsets known,
or could there be some carbon-accounting sleight-of-hand?
Paul Milenkovic Madison, Wisconsin
I fail to understand why there is not more
"Green" enthusiasm for genuine carbon removal methodologies. Maybe the iron
in the ocean scheme doesn't work -- although there is considerable evidence
that it will -- but the reluctance to experiment baffles me.
=========
Subject: Please keep posting "not so new news" like
the synfuel for B-52s
Jerry,
Regarding Mark E. Horning's email, please continue to
post those bits of news you think your readers might find interesting and
informative. As you note, it's not so much we need to be taught as we need
to be reminded.
It's true that fuels other than petrol have been out
there (were not some of the first cars run on a variant of today's biodiesel?).
Certainly that's not news as it is not news that Germany during WWII
launched alternate fuel programs when their fuel supply lines were cut
short. Maybe there's nothing new under the sun after all but perhaps ideas
that can help us gain energy independence bear repeating.
As an aside, I look forward to the day we in the USA
have several nuclear power plants like the French. I'll take that even if a
large scale nuclear program is not news.
Best Regards,
Bill Fleming
This seems to be a consensus. It was
actually Samuel Johnson who said "Men seldom need educating, but they often
need reminding." Dr. Johnson was a genuine sage...
==========
"No one dared to complain for fear of being beaten."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/
world/la-fg-athlete6may06,0,4253367,
full.story?coll=la-headlines-worldf
- Roland Dobbins
The joys of Chinese Olympics.
=========
Subject: If only they'd hold a spacesuit competition .
. .
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/
2007/05/maine_maker_wins_nasas_gl.html?
CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890
-- Roland Dobbins
Indeed. I tried to get Dan Golden to do
that back in 1990. Alas, Hamilton Standard is too powerful with Congress.
The lack of decent space suits has been
one of the main hampers to real space exploration, and it is all due to
lobbying and politics; the technologies are known. It drives me crazy.
==========
Subject: Civil War research
Dear Jerry:
As part of the research for my second Civil War novel,
the one about the Rose Greenhow spy ring, I am reading "The Road to
Disunion" by William W. Freehling. This is a blow by blow account of all the
rather pathetic political maneuvers taken by the pro-slavery side in the
1850s to stave off the inevitable. It is fairly obvious that you are correct
that slavery would have gone away within a few decades. Most people didn't
want it. The real surprise here is how many slaves had already gained
freedom. In some states free blacks outnumbered slaves. The South was hardly
unified on the matter and it took a lot of rabble rousing to get a war
started. "The War of Northern Aggression" was no such thing, unless you
consider that slave owners political power should have been perpetuated
simply to save their hurt feelings. What is that thing you say about "When a
stupid man knows he is doing something wrong, he will insist that it is his
duty"? Seems to be the case here.
If I may put in a plug, May 9th is Belle Boyd's
birthday and May 23rd the Anniversary of the Battle of Front Royal where
Belle carried intelligence dispatches under fire to Stonewall Jackson. That
episode is the central event of my serialized novel "The Shenandoah Spy"
available in 14 parts on Amazon Shorts at Amazon.com. Amazon Shorts can be
printed out as well as read on the screen. There are more than 1,200 titles
now, by over 400 authors, all at 49 cents each.
Regards,
Francis Hamit
==========
Subject: Leaving the Iraq party
If you want to leave a party, but really shouldn't
leave quite yet - move toward the door.
Bush should order an immediate pull out - but only
from Baghdad. Or rather, order that US troops cease entering Baghdad, for
any reason. Turn over to the Iraqi government complete responsibility for
that city. US troops would concentrate on stopping the entry of foreign
terrorists into Iraq, and on controlling access to Baghdad to prevent
troublemakers from entering and making things worse.
There'll likely be an initial surge of chaos inside
Baghdad, as various elements try to grab a bit of power from the vacuum.
That will mirror on a smaller scale the chaos that would follow a full
pull-out, perhaps temporarily quieting calls in the US for a fast withdrawal
- at least among thinking critics of the war.
The Iraqi government would have a chance to prove --
to itself and its citizens -- that it can deal with that chaos. Without
American soldiers daily pointing guns at them, citizens of Baghdad might
feel less justified in sheltering terrorists, making the Iraqi government's
job a little easier. Citizens would also know that any chaos is of their own
making, not something that can be blamed on a US military presence. Who
knows - perhaps even some terrorists will be less motivated to blow up
innocents, once we're out of there.
US casualties should fall, further reducing political
pressure to leave quickly. If the Iraqi government proves itself even
marginally competent in Baghdad, they may gain the respect and time needed
to pull the rest of the country into an uneasy unity. If not, the US will be
well positioned to attempt a different exit strategy.
If Bush cares at all about his party or his place in
history, he needs to move on this soon. Otherwise, he can expect to either
see his party go down in utter defeat in 2008, or -- more likely -- see his
party barely hang on only due to candidates of his own party running on a
platform of opposition to his bungling. We heard the start of that Thursday
night, from several of the GOP presidential hopefuls.
On the fusion topic - I beg to differ. Fusion has been
"30 to 50" years away, seemingly forever - 20 years away is a HUGE
improvement!
Tom Craver Chandler, AZ
==============
RE: Petronius on nuclear fusion, May 03
I have a few points to make here.
First of all, fusion apparently does no have to
involve reactors the size of a ten-story building to work; a different
approach, electrostatic confinement, appears to lead to fusion plants
approximately the size of a large barrel – check out Dr. Bussard’s writings
on the subject.
Second, of course we already have available a fusion
plant; one that has been running for 4.5 billion years without maintenance,
will run for five billion more, and has an output power of four hundred
trillion terawatts. All we have to do is collect it.
Further to that last point, reading my (severely
dog-eared) copy of The High Frontier tells me that the human race could have
had working SPS by about 1985 if we’d wanted it enough. It may well be that
Apollo was a necessary part of the Cold War, but in my opinion Apollo 11
should have been the last as well as the first; it was a technological dead
end and everyone knew it. And then we should have started on really getting
to space for practical purposes, including but not limited to SPS.
Think of it; if Gerard O’Neill’s vision had become
reality there would have been people living in space by now in millions, and
perhaps a few thousand humans would be living who were not native to Earth.
And as well as that, 9/11, and the Iraq wars, and 7/7 in the UK, and various
other evils would never have happened, for lack of oil money to pay for it
all on the part of the terrorists. And maybe many of the problems of
society, which have largely to do with the lack of a frontier for young men
to risk getting themselves killed in, would never have happened either. And
the human race would have a few more baskets to keep its eggs in.
Why didn’t it happen? In my opinion, an evil alliance
of entrenched commercial interests, a NASA bureaucracy that cares only for
its own jobs, pork-barrel politics and an American government that fears the
end of the Imperium. Justified fears, all; once not all humans live on
Earth, what price American power? And with a torrent of cheap power coming
down from the sky, what does that do the share price of Exxon?
I’d like to write a book with this as a theme, an
alternate history, but I have neither the time nor the skill to do it
justice. Jerry?
Think of it folks; politicians and bureaucrats have
stolen from you the Solar System and perhaps the stars, and humanity has
wasted half a human lifetime, 35 years. Time, and well past time, to push
the CYA merchants out of the way and GET ON WITH IT. There is not much time
left to spare.
Regards
Ian Campbell
We don't have L5 Colonies in large part
because we do not have on-orbit assembly, and we don't have that because we
don't have decent space suits, and we don't have decent space suits because
we insist that astronauts be old geezers with PhD degrees, and that's
because of politics, and I get weary...
==
Subject: Subscription
I signed up via PayPal for a subscription. Your mail section is
definitely worth the price of admission, even though you otherwise give it
away for free.
Regarding solar power satellites, the Department of Energy published a
report on the utilization of solar power.
http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/SEU_rpt.pdf The DOE report
completely neglected to mention solar power satellites, but the mere
abundance of solar radiation should make the idea attractive, especially
since placing photovoltaic cells in space would increase their efficiency.
That alone makes SPS more competitive.
Steve Hsu extracted the estimated abundances of power available on the
Earth from the introduction of the report:
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/05/energetics.html
Sources of Electricity
• Currently - around 13 TW of Annualized Average Power Consumption on the
Earth.
• Fossil Fuel → Annual Production of 25 billion Metric tons of CO2 ⇒
Requires Massive & Efficient Underground Storage.
• 10 TW ≡ 10^4 One GW Nuclear Power Plants – Will exhaust Terrestrial
Uranium Resources in 10 years if constructed.
• Maximum Practical Hydroelectric Resources 0.5 TW.
• Cumulative Energy of Tides and Ocean Currents < 2 TW.
• Total Geothermal Energy on Earth 12 TW.
• Maximum Amount of Extractable Wind Power 2 - 4 TW.
• 120,000 TW of Solar Radiation Strikes the Earth Surface in the form of
sunlight.
-- Benjamin I. Espen
Thanks for the kind words. There seems to
be less interest in Solar Power Satellites than formerly, probably because
General Graham is no longer with us: he was the sanest man inside the
Beltway. Alas.
=========
Too Close For Comfort ?
Analysis of the spectacular ,but thankfully distant,
Supernova 2006cy suggests we may have an very hot-headed galactic neighbor.
Eta Carinae may pop its cork at any time - including soon enough for us to
live to see it. If it does , LA can expect expect a brief respite from high
municipal electrical bills.
<http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/05/last_light.html>
Russell Seitz
=========
Retired!
http://reddevnews.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=715
Retired! From Visual FoxPro to VB6 (and Visual J#),
developers are coping with the demise of key programming languages.
by Michael Desmond
David Lambert is one of the millions of
Visual Basic programmers around the world facing a stark choice. An
independent consultant and former on-staff developer at Random Lengths
Publications in Eugene, Ore., Lambert relied on Visual Basic 6 (VB6) to
build the company's subscription system and other services.
But when Microsoft ended mainstream support
for VB6 in March of last year, Lambert knew he was in trouble. Microsoft
will continue to offer fee-based extended support for VB6 through 2008
and it promises working Windows run-times through at least 2016, but
none of that matters to Lambert. Unable to rely on updates to the
tooling, and facing a dwindling stock of active developers to work with
the legacy code, he opted to move his projects to C#.
"That was really a tough decision, because
I had long-term skills in Visual Basic," Lambert says. "It's helpful
knowing [Microsoft is] going to continue to support the VB6 runtime, but
at the same time they're not going to assuage my fears that I'm going to
have to eventually rebuild this project."
<snip>
Respectfully, J.
This deserves a longer reply than I have
time for. It's important
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