Thomas Hockey's Weblog

June 26, 2009

The Day the 1970s Died

The 1970s are dead. They had been on life support for some time. The end came in June 2009, with the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Less publicized was the demise, on 6 June, of Bernard Leon Barker, one of the Watergate burglars. If you did not have a picture of at least one of these people on your wall, you were not part of the 1970s.

Posted by hockey at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2009

Mayan Mischief

There is a rumor going around that the Mayan calendar will end in December 2012 and with it so will the world! While it is unclear to me why the ancient Mayan calendar should govern the fate of the whole world, it is true that that calendar consists of nested cycles. The last combination in one of these arrives in 2012.

But let’s think about this for a moment: Our calendar consists of nested cycles. We count through the days of the month, only to repeat the count again the next month, and the next, until we have gone through twelve months. And then . . . the world ends? No! We start the pattern over again.

There is no good evidence that the Mayans intended anything to happen at the end of their Cycle 13 other than starting over again with, say, Cycle 14. I can imagine a nineth-century Mayan patiently explaining this to one of our twenty-first-century doom criers who “doesn’t quite get it.”

The End of the World sells books. We saw this at the turn of the Millennium. So it is perhaps no surprise that they are at it again so soon.

The world likely will not end on 21 December 2012. Or any other particular day. I can say this with the same confidence with which I know that the ball likely will not fall at number seven on a roulette wheel.

How comfortable it must be to “know” the future! Alas, apocalyptic forecasters will have to soldier on with the rest of us: taking each new day as it comes.

Posted by hockey at 1:01 PM | Comments (0)

June 5, 2009

Our Ancestors and the Sky

It is not unreasonable to think of things that move as having intent, that is, intelligence. We move, and we have will. When we stop moving, we’re dead! Animals, wind, rain, fire, the stars—all were mobile and were assumed to be self conscious in animistic belief systems.

Indeed, the stars have more claim than most: Their motion is steadfast, unwavering. They possess a certainty of action we can only wish for down here on the Earth, where life is contingent on a thousand things. Stars populate the heavens, a place to which humans could not ascend (without supernatural means). And the stars constantly give off precious light (at night), while all earthly fires eventually are extinguished. What power!

Especially worthy of deification were the planets. These “stars” were bright, and they were rare: Only five are visible to the naked eye, compared to thousands of (regular) stars. The planets were “stars” that possessed an even greater quality of motion because they did not stay fixed in constellation patterns, but rather wandered through the other stars.

I have not even addressed the unique Sun and Moon, which have tangible effect on us below. (The Sun provides life-giving warmth; the Moon regulates the tides.) Not only do these luminaries chase away the dark, but anybody easily can see that all of life on the Earth responds to the Sun’s rays. The Sun might be the most powerful god. The logic of it all is inescapable.

Posted by hockey at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

June 4, 2009

A Question for the Department of Homeland Security

One of the questions asked of newcomers to the United States is, “Have you ever been a prostitute?” Why is this odd query still on the form? Once it might have been thought of as a matter of public health; yet there is nothing along the lines of “Have you ever been an intravenous drug user?”

I am not moralizing. I just want to understand the logic. Neither does the form ask, say, “Have you ever raised opium poppies?” This is an act acceptable in many places, but most illegal in the USA. For that matter, prostitution is lawful in some places within the borders of our great country. So the prostitution question does not seem to be legally based. (Unless we only want domestic prostitutes.) Hey, what if no money is exchanged?

Does the question address character? The “ever been” is problematic. A former call girl, now an eighty-year-old nun living in a convent, may wish to visit the United States. An honest answer to the question does not tell us much about that person at all.

I wonder whether anyone has responded thusly: “No. However, I hope to become one after I immigrate.” The form only asks for further explanation if the answer is “yes” . . .

Posted by hockey at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

June 2, 2009

Polynesian Astronomy

[A journalist recently asked me to respond to a series of questions. - TH]

1. Before the ancients started traveling far distances across the ocean, what was the world-view of Polynesians? Did they think the Earth ended at a certain location? Were the islands and the stars above the whole universe?

A: The Polynesians imagined a layered Universe, concentric domes of sky over the Earth. With a beckoning ocean all around them, the Polynesians likely thought of the Universe as boundless. Unencumbered by the Pre-Socratic Greek models we were, they may not have shared our “worry” about falling off the edge of the world.

2. How did ancient people travel from island to island before using the stars? (only along the coast)

A: They may always have used the stars! But certainly, within sight of land, landmarks are helpful. For instance, you can see the clouds that often form over a mountainous island, still far out at sea—even when you cannot yet see the island itself. Ancient navigators also may have used changing wave patterns as an indicator that they were approaching shallower ocean and, hence, land.

Birds are fascinating: Our navigators probably knew that certain species travel certain distances from shore. Therefore, the first appearance of a bird, of a given species, indicates distance from land.

3. What were the dangers of traveling on the ocean before people studied the stars and used them to navigate? What would happen if a traveler were to get so far out in the ocean that no landmarks were visible? Any legends/stories of how many of the first explorers were lost at sea?

A: Dangers were many. Storms. Capsizing. Yet also starvation. Those who were lost--alas, how would we know what happened to them? No legends that I know of speak about this . . . I think that we humans try not to dwell on such things.

4. When did people in the Polynesian area first start navigating by using the stars? (500 years ago or more?)

A: Long distance voyages had ceased by the time Captain Cook et al. encountered the Polynesians. The exact methods used are lost to time. We have partial knowledge: stories passed down generation to generation and cultural analogy with other Pacific peoples who still sail between islands (though not as far).

With the possible exception of prevailing winds, the sky is the only reference in the middle of the ocean. And it is more trustworthy. I believe that celestial navigation is very, very old.

5. What are the basic steps of wayfinding? What do you need to know?

A: You need to know your destination, and you need to know the direction in which you are traveling. The Polynesians may have used different techniques to accomplish these two tasks.

6. Did the ancients use constellations or patterns? What stories were associated with the patterns/constellations?

A: Yes. The stories often were rather risqué by our standards! An important one, though, is straightforward: The demigod Maui pulled up the Hawaiian Islands from the sea using a fish hook that now resides in our modern constellation of Scorpius. (It’s the tail of the scorpion, and does look a lot like a fishhook.)

7. What is a star chart? Are their artifacts of original star charts or did people memorize the stars and was the information passed down through storytelling?

A: Some island peoples use star charts, but we don’t have artifacts of such for the Polynesians. Even these star charts were not necessarily dots on paper. We still see “stone canoes,” on land, sitting in which a student of navigation could watch rising and setting stars behind foresight markers.

There are intriguing reports of Polynesians creating a navigational instrument out of a gourd. (A gourd is roughly spherical, like a celestial sphere.) The gourd had sighting holes bored through it. Level was maintained by partly filling the gourd with water and watching the water’s surface. However, nobody has been able to come up with a practical application of this “instrument.”

8. How are the cardinal directions and wind connected to the star chart and/or wayfinding?

A: The Sun is always useful for finding direction. However, what about at night?

In temperate latitudes, the paths of rising and setting stars appear to intersect the horizon at a diagonal. Thus, the azimuth of the stars is time dependent. In the Tropics, though, the paths of rising and setting stars are more-or-less perpendicular to the horizon. If such a star sets in, say, the southwest, it will unambiguously mark the direction of southwest for a savvy navigator. Enough such stars scattered around the horizon will form a compass.

But a given star may not be rising or setting when you need it! It may be high in the sky, below the horizon, or (at certain times of year) obscured by the Sun. So if you want to make, for example, eight compass points, you need many more stars than that—a number such that you are guaranteed that a compass star will be near your nighttime horizon when you require it. I’m thinking at least thirty!

Now the other part of wayfinding: knowing your destination. Here the Polynesians got lucky. During the Polynesian diaspora, it happened that some bright stars passed through the zenith over the islands which the sailors travel to and from. This means that these stars could be used to establish when a vessel had reached the latitude for its port of call. Once this was accomplished, the sailors need only have ridden the prevailing winds—outrigger canoes were well suited to sailing into the wind—due East or West toward their destination.

9. What happens if it’s cloudy and you can’t see the sun or stars? Did the ancients know single stars from color variation or location during the time of year?

A: Yes, being able to see just a single star (through a hole in the clouds?) is tricky. However, the navigator might have tried it. It no doubt would have made the Polynesians more comfortable to be able to see at least two navigational stars, one in their direction of travel and another confirmatory one in the direction whence they came.

10. Before weather prediction, what are the dangers of setting sail when it’s clear and then clouds roll in?

A: Great. Some climatologists say that the weather in the Pacific was better during the age of Polynesian expansion. Of course, being becalmed in clear weather can be just as dangerous.

11. How did traveling the oceans change the Polynesian’s worldview? What were their religious/spiritual beliefs before and after? What did Polynesians believe the stars were? (gods, places?)

A: The Polynesian religion was animistic, and the objects in the sky played a role. Humans originally came from the sky, not an unfamiliar idea to our western ears. Stars were intelligent beings. Particularly important to the Polynesians was the cluster of stars we know as the Pleiades.

As for change before and after colonization, I suppose we’ll never know. Even if you compare the cultures of the Polynesians and the Asian people with whom they share a common ancestor, doing so is problematic. The motives of the first western visitors to Polynesia and elsewhere were far from those of today’s anthropologists. Contemporary Polynesians (and other indigenous peoples) have been so affected by invading cultures, that using modern informants has failed to answer many questions about pre-contact Polynesian culture. Except for some enigmatic script on Easter Island, the Polynesians appear to have been pre-literate.

12. Did ancient Polynesians use the stars for anything other than wayfinding? (Planting crops, spiritual astrology?)

A: Oh yes. The sky was used as an agricultural and ceremonial calendar. As in most tropical climates, the year was not all that important. (There were just two seasons: wet and dry.) The month was, though. No only did the Polynesians have names for the individual months, but they had names for the days of the month, distinguished by the phase (shape) of the illuminated Moon and its rising and setting times. Apparently, certain days of the month were auspicious for planting.

13. What do you think about GPS and people’s dependence on computers? How are GPS still connected to the stars?

A: GPS is nothing more than the creation of artificial stars. We “see” these stars via radio waves, not light, but the idea is much the same.

14. Why is it still important to know how to navigate without instruments today?

A: Instruments malfunction. Radio communication can break down due to solar interference. GPS might be shut off! I hope that every ship’s navigator knows that, if worst comes to worst, he or she can hold an outstretched hand up to the North Star and come up with a crude latitude . . .

Posted by hockey at 1:51 PM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2009

Git Along L'l Reptile

Iowa is well known for its cattle. Most people associate hogs and Iowa. However, did you know that Iowa is second in the nation for its number of turtle farms?

No, milking turtles doesn't work out very well. The eggs don't fry sunny-side-up nicely, either. These snapping turtles are raised for their meat. The major market is Asia. Can't you just picture Iowa hatchling-boys driving a bale of turtles across the prairie . . . er, pond? And, yes, a bunch of turtles is called a "bale"--I looked it up.

Unfortunately, further research has failed to answer several key questions: Do you brand turtles? Or do you just spray paint them? Are there ranch hands on a turtle farm? If so, why? Do turtles ever stampede? How would you know? Is barbed wire of any particular use on a turtle farm? Has anybody ever been charged by a raging turtle? Who won? My attempt to find a turtle farm that offers tours did not succeed.

Turtle farming? Don't knock it. Nobody ever came down with the Turtle Flu.

Posted by hockey at 9:20 AM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2009

Obama's War, et al.

It is well known that I am a Barack Obama supporter. Yet it seems only fair that I keep the Obama administration under the same scrutiny I applied to its predecessor.

And this has been a bad month in Obama foreign policy: As I see it, there have been four major screw ups, and the month’s only half-way completed.

First, Obama decided to try the Somali pirate captured by the US Navy in the USA. This will result in a circus. The ship on which the attack was made was headed to Kenya, a reasonably stable country capable of trying the man—even fairly. This should have started and ended in Africa.

Second, Obama waffled on release of the remaining Abu Ghraib photographs. Nobody ever said they all had to be made public. Or that they could not be edited (to make individuals unrecognizable) or captioned. (Context demands that it be made clear where and when these photographs were taken, and what happened to the—albeit few—abuse perpetrators who were punished.) However, the ACLU won access to the pictures in court. Handing them over will be a painful expose, but one necessary for the healing process. If we renege now, after so much publicity about the images, it will send to the world this message about us: Business as Usual—Deny and Cover Up.

Third, Obama will not prohibit the Bush-esque tools of extraordinary rendition, military tribunals, and indefinite detention. If these procedures were illegal then, they are illegal now.

Fourth, the latest American troops for Afghanistan have shipped out. This officially becomes Obama’s War. Bush never gave a damn about Afghanistan. That administration’s gaze always was on Iraq. When every other NATO country declined to pursue greater military operations in Afghanistan, it should have been Obama’s cue. It wasn’t.

As I write this, the President is meeting with the new Israeli Prime Minister. Matters of State in May can only look up. Where’s Hilary, anyway?

Posted by hockey at 4:54 PM | Comments (0)

May 13, 2009

Computer Dinner Etiquette

I have coined a new term:

"laptop table dancing"

Laptop table dancing occurs during casual dinnertime conversation, when somebody whips out a laptop to extract obscure information. Laptop table dancing is considered rude in some parts.

Remember, you heard it here first.

Posted by hockey at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2009

Memos Never Sent

Dear Program Assessment Task Force,

. . . . The implication is that your recommendations for us might be stronger had you had at your disposal data organized by program. We regret this error. Our confusion was due to the fact that there is, to our knowledge, no standardized definition of the word “program” in use at UNI. Sometimes it means creative activity and scholarly research (e. g., the Office of Sponsored Programs). Sometimes it means a template describing which class a student is to take in a given semester (e. g., Program of Study). Sometimes it refers to a non-departmental entity (e. g., Cultural and Intensive English Program). Sometimes it signifies the level of academic work as opposed to discipline (e. g., the phrase “graduate programs and majors.”) Sometimes it refers to a service provided (e. g., diploma replacement program). And sometimes it is a document handed out at the Performing Arts Center.

With many definitions to choose from, we believed that context and limited text space required the broadest possible use of the term: a self-assessment of the program of activities within the Earth Science Department. It is clear now that we should have taken the word “program” as a synonym for “major.”

Posted by hockey at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)

May 5, 2009

The Big Sleep

Headline at my university today:

"On April 30 the Board of Regents approved UNI's Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP)."

Yep. That's really what they're calling it--E RIP. How can I compete with comedy like this?

Posted by hockey at 8:47 AM | Comments (0)

May 4, 2009

Squarepants in Mid-America

Folk we know invited us over last night to watch their volcano.

Imagine that Spongebob and Patrick had emerged onto dry land and become successful businessmen in Cedar Falls, Iowa. That’s my wife’s friend’s husband and his neighbor. Squidworth, a college professor like me, lives next door to them.

Spongbob and Patrick had a problem. There was a large tree stump so close to the private road they share that somebody could easily drive into it. This was no minor stump: We’re talking about a 100-plus-year-old tree, a couple of meters wide and hollow. It still was taller than me.

When my wife and I arrived, it was dusk. Spongebob and Patrick were weaving around in a small, yellow, electric cart, the kind used to dash about faculty floors. They were using this vehicle, dubbed the “Chevy Volt,” to shuttle beer and diesel fuel to the stump site. (Heretofore, I had thought that these two liquids should be kept separate.) They proceeded to dump a bucket of diesel onto the already burning stump. The resulting fireball and column of black smoke likely was visible from Wisconsin. Nevertheless, indeed, what was now left of the tree erupted with flames and ash not unlike a pyroclastic event. Says Patrick to Spongebob: “But now how do we carry more diesel fuel?”

I understand that the raccoon previously living in the tree stump is suing, charging that certain municipal, state, and ATF regulations were violated last night. However, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

And I realized: These two middle-aged men had succeeded where others had failed. They have turned their neighborhood into their own amusement park. I was jealous.

Posted by hockey at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2009

Famous Astronomers

Since I write about famous astronomers from the past, people ask me: Do you know any famous astronomers? Fame is fleeting, but these, I think, will stand the test of time. They are all gone now.

I met Dorrit Hoffleit a long time ago. She was old then! She even sent me a copy of her autobiography, written shortly before her death at age 100. Hoffleit was responsible for the important Yale Bright Star Catalog.

I got a telephone call once from Fred Whipple. I sat in my office chair at attention as we chatted. More than anybody else, he is responsible for our current model of how comets work. He also was originally from Iowa.

James Van Allen was synonymous with astronomy in Iowa. I served on a committee with this University of Iowa professor who is immortalized in the name of the Van Allen Radiation Belts, which he and his team discovered surrounding the Earth.

Visiting the South African Astronomical Observatory, an elderly astronomer offered to show me around. He did. Only later did it sink in that he was Alan Cousins, the esteemed photometrist.

And, of course, there was my friend and teacher, Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of (what will be forever in my mind) the planet Pluto.

Posted by hockey at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2009

They did it for the Money

There is great hoopla in the media about the Navy’s rescue of kidnapping victim Richard Phillips at sea. Yet could there not be one, brief moment of reflection in the press on the three teenagers who were killed in the process?

Four stupid and callous kids bungled an act of piracy on Phillips’s ship. Phillips, the hero of the story, offered himself up as a hostage in exchange for his crew. The object of the attack was the ship. The kidnapping was made up as they went along. Nowhere was idiology involved; they did it for the money.

Why weren’t these young fishermen out fishing? That is the easy one to answer: Their fishing grounds were destroyed by industrialized pollution in the shipping lanes. Who turned these boys into pirates instead? Still easy: Needless to say, it was someone safely on land today. Pirates of the Caribbean are fun, because they’re long since dead. Real pirates are cynical organized crime figures, ones who could not care less if their minions come back dead or alive. What did they promise their employees? Harder. Probably not all that much. The bar is set low in lawless and impoverished Somalia. (The West chased out their last government, admittedly a radical Islamic one.) Was it a better life for their families? Is there any other way? That last one is the most difficult question to answer.

The Navy SEALs were tremendous marksmen—three true shots to the head. A necessary act perhaps. But not one of which to be all that proud. I suspect that the SEALs would agree. They are professional soldiers trained to fight professional soldiers, not the flotsam and jetsam of gang bangers.

Young men think that they will live forever. Piracy will continue off the coast of Somalia until it is no longer lucrative. I am happy for Captain Phillips safe return. I am sad for three grieving mothers. I am mad at the adults who made this all happen.

Posted by hockey at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2009

Photo and Various Scriblings By Me

http://www.aas.org/had/hadnews/.

Posted by hockey at 2:49 PM | Comments (0)

April 6, 2009

Spring Quiz Answers

1. "Mamma Mia" by ABBA and "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

2. Trick Question: If you interpret "winds" as something somebody does to a clock, then there are plenty of answers. However, if you interpret it as something that blows across the plains, I have yet to find an answer!

3. Nancy Price, author of Sleeping with the Enemy (1987)

Posted by hockey at 9:45 AM | Comments (0)

April 2, 2009

This Spring's Quiz

1. Name two popular songs form the 1970s, the lyrics of which both feature the phrase "Momma Mia!" Hint: The words appear more than once during the song. Both were recorded by European bands, but neither band was Italian!

2. Which English word rhymes with "winds"?

3. What famous novelist used to live in the house next door to me?

Answers to follow--but not right away!

Posted by hockey at 2:12 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2009

AIG Cheap!

I was shopping at Goodwill the other day. It was busy! Goodwill is one store I am bound to discover that one thing you cannot buy any place else. This time it was a brand new AIG bag, complete with inscribed slogans about how trustworthy the company is. Cool! Owning a bag advertising what is, right now, the most hated corporation in America. (And there is a lot of competition for that title.)

I passed, though. I realized that the AIG bonus furor is just a fad. Now that the Economic Stimulus is upon us, I predict that there will be I story in the news, of waist and mismanagement ala AIG, every other week. That is just the price of "doing business" when such large sums are handed over to the private sector.

I am not weighing in pro or con on the great experiment that is the Stimulus. I am just saying that the AIG bonuses are a minor side issue: The question remains the Big One: Should we be bailing out corporations deamed "too big to fail"--at all?

Or, if we answer in the affirmative, should we at the same time be asking for seats on the Board, renegotiating contracts, and taking on all the other tasks neccessary to manage where the money goes? Surely the average taxpayer can do as good a job as the highly paid yoy-yos who already have these responsibilities. For what ever fraction of of my tax contribution that goes to AIG, I simply want stock with my name on it. Then we will see who gets a bonus!

As for the immediate uproar, the existing board agreed to guaranteed bonuses. It was in the contract. Get over it. The finger pointing should not be at those AIG employees who got bonuses, it should be at those who commited fraud.

Posted by hockey at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2009

Egg on their Faces

Can you balance an egg on the equinox? I do not even know where to start with this one. Sometimes I can come up with a piece of history or culture that explains the origin of such strange bromides. Here, though, I am at a loss! It is usually a broadcast weather reporter, with air time to kill, who propagates the myth of balancing eggs upright on the equinox. Nonsense. Of course, it is true: With a steady hand, you can balance an egg on its end—on this date or any other date. (Eggs are not perfectly smooth; I find that secretly crushing the shell a bit at the base “helps.”) There is no physics—no force--that applies at, or differently on, equinox dates that does not also apply on every other day of the year

Posted by hockey at 1:59 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2009

Kate Hepburn Would be Proud

Here is a list of popular actresses today.

Kate Bosworth
Kate Beckinsdale
Katie Holmes
Kate Hudson
Cate Blanchette
Kate Winslet

See any pattern?

Posted by hockey at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2009

I Know: The First 100 Days Aren't Over Yet . . . But Still

After sixty years of the House of Bush (and precious little to show for it), the Republican Party is left without a bench. With three years to go before the primaries, it is hard to see who they might stand against Barrack Obama. When faced with the impossible task of campaigning against Ronald Reagan, the Democrats at least came up with a former Vice President in the person of Walter Mondale. Who is the GOP going to put forward? Dan Quayle? Dick Cheney? I do not think so.

I believe that this scenerio is largely independent of how well Obama does in his first term. The 2008 Republican candidates self-destructed. I think Sarah Palin, like the glaciers before her, will retreat into Alaska and melt. The supposed up-and-comng conservative answer to Obama, Gov. Bobby Jindal, imploded on national TV last week. So we are left with either a semi-familiar-looking figurehead in 2012, or, more interestingly, somebody who, in 2009, we have never heard of.

Does all this seem remarkably premature? I live in Iowa. You can be sure that folk will be here, testing the Presidential waters, as soon as next year!

Posted by hockey at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2009

Homonyms are Important

Consider the difference between:

"Your toast."

and

"You're toast!"

Poetry would be poorer without homonyms.

"Son, light a fire."

is prosaic:

"sunlight afire."

is literary.

And then there is word order:

"Who hears lies?"

versus

"Who lies here?"

Or, for that matter,

"Here lies Hu."

If the reader cannot tell already, I am sick at home and stuck at this keyboard with little else to do!

Posted by hockey at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

March 4, 2009

Favorite Student Quote of the Week

Overheard in the Student Lounge:

"How do you abbreviate 'P. O. Box'?"

Posted by hockey at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)

February 25, 2009

Should Have Cleared Speech with Gov. Palin First

REPUBLICAN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA'S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
24 February 2009

Gov. Bobby Jindal:

"[The Democrat's] legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes . . . $140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.' Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC."

BUT . . .

“Mt. Redoubt volcano, like a ticking bomb, keeps Alaskans on high alert”

- Los Angeles Times headline 2 February 2009

Louisiana Governor Jindal went on to say that hurricane monitoring would be just fine. :)

Posted by hockey at 9:10 AM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2009

The Slivery Moon

Especially because of its significance to the Moslem calendar, it is useful to be able to predict on which evening the first sighting of a waxing crescent Moon will occur. For instance, the ninth Islamic month, Ramadan, is a month of fasting. Without a means of predicting ahead of time, the faithful do not know when to commence or break the fast until the waxing crescent Moon is spotted (by two “trustworthy” individuals, tradition states) only the night before. Different people at different places easily can end up observing the holiday on a different set of days.

However, prediction is harder than it sounds. Lunar visibility is a function of how much light the Moon reflects our way, but whether we can make out that light also is governed by things that control contrast, such as twilight and extinction.

Simply waiting a number of hours past New Moon--twenty-four is a traditional value—does not work. A ten-hour-old Moon on the ecliptic will have nearly the same brightness as a (nearly) zero-hour-old Moon five-degrees away from the ecliptic. The angle between the Sun and Moon is the important variable, but even at a fixed Sun-Moon angle, the width of the lunar crescent varies, depending upon how close the Moon is to the Earth. The interval between sunset and moonset is equally undependable. In fact, there does not appear to be one single parameter that allows prediction of crescent-moon visibility: Some combination of age, lag time between sunset and moonset (or sunrise and moonrise), lunar altitude, Sun-Moon angle, difference in altitude between the Sun and the Moon, difference in azimuth between the Moon and the Sun, and crescent width is required!

Continue reading "The Slivery Moon"

Posted by hockey at 7:37 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2009

Cheese Making

[Here is the caption for the photo Yuliana entered in the University Museum's photography contest. She won second place. - TH]

Mongolia, August, 2008

People show great diversity in their approaches to satisfying the universal needs of food and shelter. For nomads on the Mongolian steppe, these become intertwined.

While younger children mind the livestock nearby, a father and daughter dry cheese, called aaruul, on the roof of the family home: a ger (or “yurt”). The cheese, really a curd, is made from (usually) yak milk and set in the Sun for several days. The result is a chalky, acidic product that is a staple of their diet during the hot season.

The ger itself is a lattice of wood, which anchors roof-support poles tied to a central post. This frame is covered by felt and then by an outer layer of canvass. Ropes hold the whole thing together. Weights made of local stones keep the assembly from blowing away in the relentless Mongolian wind. An aperture in the roof allows smoke from the single heating and cooking stove to escape. It also vents warm air in the summer. Cooler air can be admitted by raising the skirt around the base. A ger may be packed up in as little as an hour, and transported to fresh pasture by truck, yak, or camel.

Posted by hockey at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)

February 9, 2009

Who Is the Man in the Moon?

The Man in the Moon is a product of the Christian era. To the Greeks and Romans, the Moon was a female deity. He shows up in one of the most popular (and reprinted) astronomy textbooks of all time, De Sphaera (a fifteenth century edition), by John of Holywood (thirteenth century; also known as Sacrobosco). He is likely still older than that. European folk tales tell us that the Man in the Moon was once an Earthling. However, after committing some petty theft, he was caught and exiled to the Moon. No wonder he is often pictured as looking rather unhappy with his state.

Selenologist Ewen Whitaker has catalogued other figures people have seen in the Moon over the ages: an elderly man carry a bundle of sticks, an elderly lady at a spinning wheel, two children carrying a bucket, and, of course, the rabbit. The Chinese rabbit sat pounding rice—an incongruous image to many of us! More recently, German schoolman Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus; circa 1200 – 1280) saw a complicated scene: a dragon, under a tree, with a man leaning against the tree.

From Scandinavia we have the story of Jack and Jill who, according to the rhyme, “. . . went up the hill / To fetch a pail of water”. If Jack (from the Swedish word for “increase”?) is seen in the First Quarter Moon, Jill (from the Swedish word for “decrease”?) is seen in the Third Quarter Moon, and Full Moon is Jack and Jill together, then the order of waxing and waning phases makes it true that “Jack fell down and broke his crown, / And Jill came tumbling after.”

For over two millennia, one supposedly more naturalistic hypothesis concerning the features seen on the Moon was that they were reflections of Earthly features. In other words, the Moon was a big mirror in the sky! The idea goes back to at least Clearchos of Soli, a Greek philosopher of around 320 BC. It popped up again in the Middle Ages and appeared in a popular textbook, Robert Anglicus’s 1271 commentary on De Spaera. The argument against it, then as now, was that the Moon rising in the East should reflect different terrestrial land masses than a Moon setting in the West, a difference that is not seen. Yet as late as 1570, an Arab cartographer drew a map of the Earth, part of which looks a lot like a mirror-reversed image of the Moon

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February 3, 2009

What is Wrong with February?

Except for February, the calendar month is always longer than the synodic month (the time from New Moon to New Moon, or Full Moon to Full Moon). This difference, called the epact, is half a day in thirty-day calendar months and one and a half days in thirty-one-day calendar months. But February is shorter than a synodic month.

You might wonder what calendar makers have against February! That is the month that “gets the short end of the stick” so as to make the number of months fit (to the nearest day, at any rate) into a 365-day year. It need not be February. However, even though the Earth’s trip along its orbit is continuous, we have to start our calendar year somewhere. In the western calendar many of us use, the year originally began with March. March is the month during which the Sun travels from south to north across the Celestial Equator across the First point of Aries, so this is a sensible time at which to begin the year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). February was “short changed” without prejudice—it was just the month that happened to occur when the number of days in the year ran out! No offense, February. Personally, I think a truncated February makes us northerners believe that the winter is somehow shorter than it really is, an added psychological benefit.

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February 2, 2009

My January

At the American Astronomical Society meeting earlier this month, I dropped my business card into a drawing at one of the exhibit booths. I do this from time to time, but have never won anything. This time, though, I was one of only four people (at a meeting attended by thousands) who got the free T-shirt.

Back home, I went bowling with friends. Some of these folk have bowled regularly since childhood. I haven’t—in fact, I hadn’t tried the sport in almost ten years. I tossed three strikes in a game and won!

Then at the twenty-year recognition luncheon at my university, the President sat down at my table. I also won the door prize. (I couldn’t stay to claim it; I hope the Prez understood that I had a class to teach.)

I was offered free tickets to the 31 January Bobby McFerrin concert. The seats turned out to be second row, center.

I’m on a role this month. Sadly, January is now over!

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January 26, 2009

History Loves a Good Eclipse

[This piece is in honor of the annular eclipse that will be visible today from some locations on the Earth. - TH]

Modern historians appreciate records of eclipses. These help to pin down dates. For example, Haco IV, king of Norway, is supposed to have attempted an invasion of Scotland in 1263. In the annals of that military expedition, we read that “a great darkness drew over the Sun, so that only a little ring was bright around his orb.” This is about as clear a description of an annular eclipse as we get! Now the astronomers weigh in: They compute that an annular eclipse did take place, visible from that part of the world, but in the year 1262. The history books are corrected.

Incidentally, Haco was defeated. That is why the Scots do not today speak Norwegian.

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January 22, 2009

Did the Moon Blink?

With no geologic currently processes at work there, the face of the Moon now is essentially changeless. Or so we think.

June 1178: A group of monks in Canterbury, England, witnessed something extraordinary. In the words of Gervase (circa 1141 – circa 1210), their chronicler, the "upper horn of a new moon split and from the division point fire, hot coals, and sparks spewed out."

Geologist Jack Hartung interpreted this story as evidence for a huge, explosive impact on the Moon. He used the timing of the event plus data on the Moon's orbit to estimate its geographical location on the lunar globe, and to link it with the presence today of a fresh twenty-kilome¬ter-diameter crater at that spot.

Others have pointed out that, statistically, the formation of a large impact crater, “caught in the act” anywhere on the Moon within the last millennium or so, would be a fantastic coincidence. (What may be common over spans of geologist time can be extremely rare over historical times.) We might best look at other explanations for the Canterbury report, some metaphorical, in order to interpret what happened there.

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January 16, 2009

Radio Script #8

[A version of this script was broadcast on Public Radio's StarDate and appears on WWW.StarDate.org. - TH]

Nineteen-thirty-three was a bountiful year for astronomy in America. Immigrants to our shores that year included several world-renown astrophysicists.

Most people are aware that Albert Einstein, on whose work our modern theory of space itself is based, left Germany in 1933 for Princeton, New Jersey. Another Nobel Laureate, Hans Bethe, fled Germany in 1933 as well, though did not settle in Ithaca, New York, until 1935. To Bethe we owe understanding of the nuclear reactions that power most stars.

Hungarian Edward Teller departed Germany in 1933, too. Eventually he came to the United States. Teller is best known in astronomy for his work with Ukrainian George Gamow on the physics of the early “Big Bang” Universe. Gamow himself left the city that was then Leningrad, for the USA, that same year.

While a lesser known figure, fellow Ukrainian Sergei Gaposchkin’s 1933 journey was more convoluted: After being fired from his position at an observatory near Berlin, Gaposchkin feared that he was about to be sent to a concentration camp. Politics prevented a return to the Soviet Union. So he bicycled 260 kilometers to an astronomy meeting in Göttingen, where he was able to find sponsorship for his emigration to the United States. Gaposchkin ended up at the Harvard College Observatory studying variable stars, and married his sponsor, the famous astronomer Cecilia Payne.

None of these prominent scientists who survived the excesses of Fascism and Stalinism ever moved back to Europe. Seventy-five years ago, European astronomy’s loss was American astronomy’s gain.

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January 15, 2009

Our Gregorian Calendar

To five decimal places, the year is 365.24 days long. That difference of one hundredth of a day added up enough by the Renaissance so that the seasons were no longer matching their appropriate dates. The Gregorian calendar reset the count so that the vernal equinox occurs on 21 March, and fiddled with the leap year rule slightly so that the slippage would not occur again.

For example, the year 2000 was not noteworthy only for being the end of a millennium. It was a leap year! That is not by itself surprising. We learned in school that leap years (29 Februarys) are to be inserted every year divisible by four. Yes, but according to the Gregorian calendar of 1582, based on the correct 365.24-day year we must skip a leap year every hundred years—except in years divisible by 400. 2000 was special: It was a leap year. So was 1600. Even Pope Gregory’s calendar eventually will get “off.” We will likely have to drop a leap year in 4000. (That is, if this Gregorian thing really “catches on”: England, not wishing to rush into anything, did not even adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.)

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January 14, 2009

Springer Booth at 213th AAS Meeting

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December 31, 2008

And Finally, for 2008

The year is at an end. Does it seem as if the days have flown by? It might be different if we lived on the Moon. The “day” on our satellite is one month long: two weeks of daylight and two weeks of darkness, on average.

In the iconic motion picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a lunar excavation exposes an artificial-looking monolith. This dig takes place just after lunar nightfall, thereby allowing a full two weeks for an Earth scientist to be selected to investigate, his voyage to the Moon, and his excursion to the remote excavation site, all before lunar night is over. At sunrise, its first in ages, the now uncovered monolith emits a piercing radio signal in the direction of the planet Jupiter—the beginning of a strange adventure there. However, I think much of all of this was lost on the movie-going audience. I read the book.

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December 30, 2008

Why Dusk and Dawn Seem So Long These Days

If a winter Sun achieves a lower altitude at culmination than a summer Sun, then it is following a daily path across our sky more parallel to the horizon than its counterpart six months hence. This also is true before sunrise and after sunset. Yet the length of twilight is governed by the altitude of the Sun below the horizon, not its azimuth. In the summer, more of the Sun’s diurnal motion is in the component perpendicular to the horizon. So it will leave (or arrive at) the vicinity of the horizon more quickly than in winter. The result is a longer dusk or dawn in winter than in summer.

This rule applies at mid-lattitudes, such as those of the continental United States. Long twilights are absent near the Earth’s Equator, but standard fare close to the Poles.

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December 29, 2008

Lost Shot at Fame

It was the 1990s. While on sabbatical in Arizona, I took a film class, for fun. There, I learned that a big studio movie was coming to town to shoot location scenes. They were casting for extras. On a lark, I went to the "call" with classmates. One of the roles turned out to be for sidelines photographers at a football game. As an astronomer, I'm used to handling long-focal-length optics, right? So I put myself down as "experienced."

You know the expression, "Don't call us. We'll call you"? It's true. I did get a call back! My one chance at Holywood fame. But I was out when the call arrived. (Cell phones were not ubiquitous back then.) And there was no return number. In fact, it was impossible to phone the casting agent directly. No doubt, when they could not get me on the first try, they simple called the next name on the list.

So that is how I mised co-staring with Tom Cruse in Jerry Maguirre.

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December 24, 2008

AAS/Historical Astronomy Meeting 2008

[The 2009 HAD meeting is almost upon us. My article about last year's meeting was edited for length in the HAD News. Here it is in full. - TH]

4:00 PM, last day of the Austin AAS Meeting: Those of us still gathered at the inaugural HAD Booth toasted its success with sips of Jarita Holbrook’s wine. (Yes, we “carded.”) We were located conspicuously between the Springer booth and food. The HAD Booth definitely helped to publicize our division. I knew this for certain when I saw people carrying HAD News onto the airplane as I left the city.

Moreover, the booth also had the unintended consequence of serving as a networking hub for HAD members, normally spread diffusely through the conference center (and, for that matter, across the country). Often the booth saw standing room only! I now know of at least one other AAS subgroup thinking of following our example.

Thank you to all HAD members who joined me in staffing the booth—some returning again for extra shifts! They were: Jim Lattis, Don Yeomans, Ken Rumstay, Jay Pasachoff, Brad Schaefer, Kevin Krisciunas, Joe Tenn, Arnold Heiser, Jay Holberg, Patrick Seitzer, Patrick Motl, Rosanne Di Stefano, Jarita Holbrook, Jennifer Bartlett, Mark Kay Hemenway, Kate Bracher, Peter Abrahams, Marcel Agueros, and André Heck. It was fun seeing those of you who previously I only had met via e-mail.

Passersby often commented positively on our booth banner, designed and assembled in situ by Sara Schechner. It cleverly folded into a case so compact that the airlines thought I was trying to carry a rifle on board. (Well, this was Texas, after all.)

P. S.: An extra “thank you” to Tom Williams, who, with zero lead time, covered for me as paper-session chair, on the afternoon I missed due to weather groundings.

Thomas Hockey
Vice Chair

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December 10, 2008

The Year in Government: A Review

Let's review the last year or so in the American criminal justice system:

2 state governors indicted
1 state lieutenant governor indicted
4 United States congressmen indicted (including four percent of the US Senate)
1 big-city mayor indicted (Detroit)
The Vice President of the United States indicted (This idictment was later withdrawn.)
Impeachment charges read against the President of the United States (No action was taken.)

But, hey, at least Martha Stewart stayed clean in 2008 . . .

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December 5, 2008

My Celestial Christmas List

My very first “grown up” astronomy book was A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, then edited by astronomer Donald H. Menzel. (I still have that worn copy.) It was and is part of Houghton Mifflin’s time-honored Peterson Field Guide series. Amazingly, this book remains in print, and still is incredibly useful. It is now edited by my colleague Jay Pasachoff (1999).

My single favorite almanac (information for a given year), pertaining to the night sky, is the Observer’s Handbook, published annually by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (Toronto). It is presently edited by Patrick Kelly. Of particular interest to us is the section, “The Sky Month By Month.”

No product endorsement is intended, but I also enjoy hanging Celestial Product’s MoonLight on my wall each January. This chart is really a graph depicting the phase of the Moon for each day of the current calendar year.

It is an ironic fact of meteorology that, especially in the winter, the clear nights are the coldest. What works in the way of apparel for running from heated home to heated car to heated building will not do for standing still outside, looking up. A professional observer named Scott Murrell, a veteran of decades in an unheated telescope dome, once told me that his most important piece of “equipment” was his Duo Fold-brand thermal underwear! A warm hat and boots (at the least) are important astronomical accessories, too.

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November 28, 2008

Star Clusters You Can See

The Pleiades (in the “hindquarters” of the constellation Taurus) is an example of a star cluster. An experienced eye under optimum conditions can see many more stars than the six or seven traditionally ascribed to the Pleiades. The telescope reveals many more, less luminous ones.

A cluster of stars is distinguished from a constellation because the stars in a cluster really are physically close to each other in space. They are not a coincidental arrangement of stars, at different distances, near the same line of sight.

Other star clusters you can spot with the naked eye include the stars that make up the “fuzzy part” in the constellation Coma Berenices. The “V” in Taurus (the bull’s head) is part of a cluster named the Hyades. The Praesepe, also called the Beehive cluster, can be made out in the constellation Cancer.

Pleiades trivia: The Japanese name for the Pleiades is Subaru. We see this star cluster frequently on the street. It is stylized in the hood ornament used by the automobile manufacturer of the same name.

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November 24, 2008

Headline in the University's Newspaper

"President Interested in Pruning Programs"

I agree. In these uncertain economic times, we definitely should offer a major in shrubbery . . .

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November 17, 2008

Beginnings of Conversations I'd Like to Have Heard

My office and classrooms are in the same buidling, so the halls often are filled with students. As they walk by, I hear snippets of their conversations. Today's favorite was, ". . . but I know the judge, and I just hope that he doesn't remember that he knows me . . ."

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November 10, 2008

Stars in the Church

The concept of the celestial meridian may seem arcane today. If so, it may surprise you that it was honored in many great Catholic buildings of the Renaissance and later. Specifically, the meridian as it would be projected onto the ground was physically recreated for, aligned upon, and set into, the church floor. Historian John Heilbron has visited these meridian churches all over Europe. A few famous examples are: the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore, and Duomo di Milano (each a cathedral). The meridian appeared in the Belvedere a Torre dei Venti (Tower of the Winds) within the Vatican. Some meridians even had named stars symbolically laid along the meridian line, at their relative positions of culmination, North-South.

Remember that the cathedral was once not merely a seat of ecclesiastical authority, but the center of community life. Just as the church served many purposes, so did the cathedral meridian lines: They were used calendrically to establish feast dates. They were used civilly to fix the hour. And they were used as scientific instruments by astronomers studying the orientation of the Earth and sky.

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November 6, 2008

The Presidential Campaign is Now Over

The Presidential campaign is now over. During that campaign, we heard discussion of more important issues than usually enlighten such discourse: We talked of ending the war in Iraq and restoring the USA’s reputation in the world, adjusting our taxation system, reregulating the financial markets, energy independence, health insurance, and rebuilding infrastructure. Sometimes the subject of education even rose above the noise. All good topics. However, there were significant issues almost totally missing from the conversation.

1. Nuclear proliferation. This actually was addressed more in 2004 than in 2008. It is a complex issue because it involves, not only limiting the number of nuclear states (and other entities), but reexamining the capabilities of existing nuclear states.

2. Homeland security. This is a perennial issue—so far, all talk and little action. It is not a trivial problem. How do we keep ourselves safe while at the same time not endangering civil liberties, the new global economy, and the influx of immigrants who, historically, have made this nation great?

3. Research. The current administration was no fan of science. We need to refund scientific and (in particular) medical research. As a country, we are getting older!

4. The “war” against drugs. We lost a long time ago. Now drugs must be addressed properly, as a medical and education issue, as part of our overall concern for mental health.

5. Crime. We hold a record number of our citizens in prison. Do we feel safer now than we used to? Something is out of whack.

6. Fighting communicable disease. The present government did not live up to its promises to do so. This fight must be waged overseas as well as at home. There are no borders for viruses. Pandemic is a villain waiting to strike.

7. Poverty. We have heard nothing of late but crickets chirping on this core, moral issue.

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November 4, 2008

The Darkness of Night

Look down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force
the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as
we sweep slowly through them thus—and thus—and thus!
Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all points
arrested by the continuous golden walls of the
universe?—the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies
that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?

Edgar Alan Poe (1845)

The question, “Why is the sky dark at night?” is often called Olbers’s Paradox, after the eighteenth-century astronomer Heinrich Olbers. In recent times it was popularized by oft-read cosmologist Hermann Bondi (1919-2005). Astrophysicist Edward Harrison traced its history in his book, Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe. It is an oddity of science that ideas and phenomena often are named after the wrong person. The darkness-of-night question was stated correctly, in print, by the French gentry, Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux (1718-1751). (It predates him, though.) Chéseaux answered his own question by saying that a not-quite transparent medium (gas?) between the stars absorbs the light from the most distant stars before it reaches us. Modern physics points out that this is, in fact, no solution: All the energy from the myriad of stars cannot be lost at absorption—the absorbing medium must eventually heat up such that it begins to glow itself!

Heinrich Olbers (1758-1840) was a famous German astronomer who discovered two of the largest asteroids. He proposed the paradox in 1823, in much the same way (and with the same incorrect deduction as the solution) as had Chéseaux in his 1744 book.

Olbers owned Chéseaux’s nearly eight-year-old book. Presumably he read it. Let us be charitable and assume that Olbers forgot about Chéseaux work and actually thought that the paradox was original with him. Regardless, the name of Heinrich Olbers is better known in astronomy than that of Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux. (Chéseaux’s early death did not help his fame.) The question in its current form was credited to Olbers by the great textbook author of the time, John Herschel (1792-1871). And once it made it into the textbooks, I think it was assured that “Chéseaux’s Paradox” would always be Olbers Paradox.

The unambiguous, correct solution to Olbers’s Paradox was posited by popular-writer Edward d’Albe in his of 1907 book: The light of really, really distant stars has not had time to reach us in the lifetime of the Universe. However, in that Edwardian Age, when nobody had ever so much as heard of a “Big Bang Theory,” the idea of the Universe’s finite age was dismissed for what it was, d’Albe’s speculation.

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October 28, 2008

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc?

In science we refer to a logical falacy called "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." It refers to the fact that, just because event B takes place after event A, one cannot conclude that B was caused by A.

A topical example of PHEPH can be seen in the decreased violence within Iraq. What is the explanation? The following events occured beforehand:

1. The surge: American troop strengths were bolstered.
2. Iraqi police and military forces came "on line" as they completed requisit training.
3. Iraqi communities decided to take responsibility for their own security and disowned foreign groups such as al Qaeda. (They were paid for doing so.)
4. Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls a private army, declared a ceasefire.
5. Ethnic clensing was virtually completed in Iraq. Waring factions were effectively separated from each other.
6. Something else.

While #1 usually gets credit in the United States, there is, in fact, no way to know which factor (or combination of factors) resulted in the desired outcome. It is my hope that the causal agent was not something as superficial as the surge. This is not because I do not wish to give credit where credit is due. It is because it would mean that no idiological change has necessarily taken place in Iraq. In other words, a grim status quo could just as easily return.

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October 21, 2008

Hockeys with Friends in Spain

At the Alhambra, in Grenada, last month. Thanks to Ari Belenkiy for sending us the photo.

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October 20, 2008

Who Should Get My Vote?

John McCain is certifiably a hero. And I try to use the word "hero" in a very limited sense: No sports stars or pop musicians. He is a hero, not for being a prisoner of war--you can be captured, yet not heroic--but for his behavior while imprisoned.

His war service was an excellent way for the McCain campaign to introduce its candidate to the electorate. However, I am surprised to still hear it featured with two weeks to go before the election. The trials that McCain experienced in Vietnam were great. Still, those he will face as President almost surely will be dissimilar. History does not demonstrate that character exhibited in one circumstance neccessarily carries over into a very different circumstance.

John McCain is, and always will be, an American hero. It does not logically follow from this fact (by itself) that he deserves my vote.

Posted by hockey at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2008

Afghanistan 2008

As the American casualties there now exceed those in Iraq, is it time to take a new look at the war in Afghanistan? I think that any new strategy there must take into account the following realities:

1. The original intent of the Afghan incursion--to eliminate Al Qaeda--failed. Osama bin Laden is not there anymore. Our mission in that country today, if there is a mission, can only be to stop a reactionary and violent government-in-exile from returning.

2. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is a NATO operation. We must be a team player. This includes when the "team" decides to use tactics that our government may not second, such as negotiation. Moreover, the US cannot maintain a high profile. Fair or not, it is our face that is associated with invasion, an unpopular act regardless of your politics.

3. We can no longer do it on the cheap. We cannot afford to place all our best resources (troops, intelligence, materiel) a thousand kilometers to the East and expect good results in Afghanistan.

4. There is no easy route to "success" in Afghanistan. Lobbing bombs at suspected targets does not work. The Taliban always seems to be able to reinforce, by bringing in zealots from Pakistan or farther afield. The hearts and minds of the Afghan people are in finite supply, however. The civilian casualties our airborne assaults routinely yield poison far more of those than any number of terrorists we "take out."

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October 8, 2008

Lutheran Astronomy: A Quotation

"Let superior minds, originating from the heavens, think about where they come from; from time to time let them study this theme and realize that this most beautiful spectacle of celestial bodies and movements has not been set forth to humankind in vain, and let them enquire into the order of these most admirable things, because it is most appropriate to human nature and because it carries great usefulness for life . . ."

Philip Melanchthon
Corpus Reformatorium

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September 29, 2008

How Astronomers Die

[Written for the 211th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, January, 2008. - TH]

How do astronomers (and cosmologists) die?

I deal in death. Most of the entries in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, which I edited, fit the definition. Moreover, as vice-chair of the American Astronomical Society’s Historical Astronomy Division, I edit all the obituaries that appear in the B. A. A. S.

I have learned, not unexpectedly, that most astronomers die of natural causes--like everyone else. But this is unfortunate for the history of astronomy, because an unexpected death leaves behind a documentary snapshot of the deceased’s undertakings in life at the time of mortality.

The classic case is Giordano Bruno, who was famously burnt at the stake. Yet Bruno is a bad example of martyrdom to science: His crime was heresy, not astronomy, and he almost invited execution by returning from Protestant Europe to Rome. While it may be true that “nobody expects the Spanish inquisition,” any sane person must surely expect the Italian inquisition!

For me, a more poignant example is Boris Vasilevich Numerov, one of the principal organizers of Soviet astronomy after the Bolshevik revolution. He was “rewarded” by a firing squad during a Stalin purge, sadly, not before implicating (implausibly) nearly the entire staff of the Pulkovo Observatory as fascist spies. This led to their arrests and Pulkovo’s demise as one of the world’s great observatories. It is an episode further reminding us that torture is an unreliable source of truth.

Less well known is the fact that asteroid-hunter Auguste Charlois was murdered in cold blood--as he stood poised to discover his one-hundredth minor planet. Was it the work of a jealous competitor? Did Charlois play Mozart to another astronomer’s Salieri? It might be the makings of a profitable screen play were that the case. However, the reality of the matter is that Charlois’s killer was his own sister’s husband, during an argument over a matter unrelated to astronomy. (And you and I thought that our brothers-in-law were a little “off”!)

The French Revolution was hard on astronomers: Celestial mechanists Jean-Sylvain Bailly and Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard Bochart de Saron were guillotined. Moreover, there were several near misses. (By “near miss” I mean other French astronomers who narrowly avoided the death penalty; As far as I know, the guillotine itself did not miss.)

The list of astronomers killed in battle begins with Archimedes’s fall to a roman sword. (Archimedes deserves to be called an astronomer, I think, because the “sand reckoner” was one of the first to attempt calculation of the distance to the Sun.) The man who first accessorized his telescope for astrometry, William Gascoigne, was lost fighting on the Royalist side during the Battle of Marston Moor. Peter Ramus rejected Scholasticism, and embraced Protestantism--bad timing: He died in the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

Sultan Ulugh Beg founded the Samarqand Observatory. He was assassinated during a palace insurrection--by his own son. This is the only instance of astronomical patricide that I have discovered. Still, if you know others, be sure to let me know.)

Travel is a grim reaper of astronomers: Margaritta Palmer, Howard Percy Robertson, Carl Keenan Seyfert, and Andrew David Thackeray all died in automobile accidents,the latter on his way back from an observing “run.”

In the nineteenth century, it was the train that wrecked and killed sunspot-modeler Balfour Stewart. Several astronomers have expired at sea. However, Charles-Eugene Delaunay, one-time director of the Paris Observatory, actually passed away in the line of duty, when his ship wrecked. Ironically, it was a surveying expedition . . . My favorite astronomical transportation disaster--if “favorite” is the right word for it--is the end of Arthur Bambridge Wyse, who perished in a freak blimp accident.

Here is my top-three list of truly horrible astronomical demises:

#3. Qattan al-Mazari, who wrote an influential astronomical treatise in Persian, was tortured to death by filling his mouth with soil. I intend to consult an Islamicist about whether an astronomer being choked by earth was considered to be symbolic, or whether that was just how people did business back then.

#2. The leader of the Alexandrine Neo-platonic school was Hypatia. She was pulled from her chariot, stripped, and skinned alive using sharp oyster shells. The murderous mob was made up of my fellow Christians: Thank goodness; “otherwise” the event might have been quite nasty! Did I mention that Hypatia was the last leader of the pagan Alexandrine Neo-platonic school?

And #1. After the west lost touch with Byzantium, one of our few links to the Hellenistic past was Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Böthius. Böthius’s written work bridged the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Regrettably, his execution was more on the medieval side: A cord was tied around Böthius’s forehead and: (I now quote.) “So tightly that his eyes cracked in their sockets, and finally, while under torture, he was beaten to death with a cudgel.” I appreciate the paper sorters not positioning me immediately before lunch . . .

I began today with skepticism over Bruno’s status as a martyr to astronomy. I close with a man i consider to be a much better example: John James Waterston was one of the many fine British scientists who tried to solve the solar energy problem. While attempting to measure the solar radiant energy, Waterston suffered heat stroke. Thereafter he was subject to unpredictable fits of dizziness. The story is sketchy, but apparently such a spell hit him while strolling along the bank of the Edinburgh River. Waterston is supposed to have fallen in and drowned. Oddly, his body was never found.

I believe that how astronomers died is an important part of astronomical biography. It is second only to how they lived. I move on now to my latest task, as managing editor of the journal Archaeoastronomy, where the subjects are even “deader.”

Thank you.

Posted by hockey at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2008

Catching Up on the News

I'm just back from two weeks in Europe, and catching up on American headlines. It's been a busy two weeks!

Bank bailouts. The way I read it, the government will end up holding lots of mortgages. In effect, it will own the homes of millions of Americans. Doesn't this sound feudal?

The President’s tutorial the other evening was amusing: "How We Got Into This Situation." You could tell he didn't understand what he was reading. But that's alright. Most of us listening didn't, either.

Candidates rush to support Georgia. Fine. But entry into NATO? Newsflash. By using its military on Georgians, Georgia demonstrated that it's not yet ready for Prime Time. If you lower the bar to admit Georgia to NATO, you might as well let in Russia. Come to think of it, that would kind of make the confrontation moot, wouldn't it?

Cuba is devastated by a hurricane. This is the opportunity we've been waiting for. The American economic blockade of Cuba doesn't work. In fact, it hasn’t done any good, and it hasn't done any good for an awfully long time. Nobody wants to admit that trying to isolate Cuba was a mistake, by lifting the trade ban. Now it can be done by citing humanitarian relief. Convenient face-saving.

Senator McCain wants to postpone the first presidential candidates' debate. Why? It's not like either of these guys is a particularly gifted debater. There's no risk of not meeting expectations. The voters don't have any.

Posted by hockey at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2008

Night in the Museum

Yuliana and I are just back from my conferences in Spain and Portugal. Every once in a while there is That Trip on which everything that can go wrong does in fact go wrong. This was That Trip.

Among the standard items was the fact that the airline lost our luggage. Meanwhile, I lost myself multiple times on the streets of Grenada. (Those street signs? They’re just made up!) Oh, and our parked car back in Chicago almost got towed.

Our bad luck extended to the trivial: for example, setting up a photograph at a fountain only to have the water shut off the moment before clicking the camera.

My “favorite” disaster, though, was at the museum where the Lisbon conference was held. Yuliana and I were attending a cocktail party and decided to use the free internet to write home. Just before I hit the send button, all the power went off. Our carefully composed message disappeared, and we were alone in the dark. We felt our way to the corridor, where there was some light, only to find the doors to our wing locked! It was childhood nightmare of being trapped in the museum come true. There we were, stuck behind glass doors, much like one of the dinosaurs on display. Thankfully, a museum employee came by. He looked at us straight faced, as if we were on exhibit, and asked, “Who put you in there?”

Posted by hockey at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

September 3, 2008

Mongolia is the Original Big Sky Country

[Commissioned by the webzine Totality! - TH]

1 August 2008

Mongolia is the original Big Sky Country. There the sky’s deep blue expanse and unlimited horizon alone make it a dominant player in every story of the steppe. Decorated with massive cloud formations, vivid sunrises, rainbows, or simply a nighttime abundance of stars (including a Milky Way right down to the horizon), the Mongolian sky simply cannot be ignored. It was the perfect place to observe the ultimate overhead performance, a total eclipse of the Sun.

To arrive on the 1 August 2008 eclipse path, twelve of us flew from the Mongolian capitol of Ulaan Baatar to the far western city of Oglii. Here we ger (yurt) camped before completing our journey by land. The path of totality ran NW to SE through Mongolia; the southwestern-pointing road terminated at the village of Sangsai, our destination. Keep in mind that, in this country, the main transnational road has yet to be completely paved. We traversed “secondary roads” that were not graded, leveled, nor marked. Still, our Russian-manufactured vans made the best of it. Only one flat tire.

Sangsai is in a small river valley—we forded the stream—just before the Altai Mountains begin a precipitous climb. We did not want peaks encroaching on our western horizon for this late, low-altitude eclipse. There was not much to the village, but it provided an emergency oasis should the need have arisen. In Mongolia, when you ask to drive to a place fifty kilometers away, the driver takes along enough petrol to travel exactly one-hundred kilometers!

We set up in a pasture west of town. The site meant that there were few hills about that might generate PM clouds and that, if cumulous did pop up, we had several kilometers with which to dodge it, north or south. We were just in sight of the Sangsai mosque. (Western Mongolia is populated by Islamic Kazaks, famed for hunting with eagles.) I wondered: How would the Friday muezzin deal with a total solar eclipse occurring between afternoon and evening prayer?

In Mongolian pastures, there are no fences. We were pleased to be joined by local shepherds (some on horseback; first the children, then the men, then the women) with whom we shared the great event. We were pleased only slightly less by the more abundant goats, sheep, and yaks. Conversation--with people!--was easy because we brought along a Russian interpreter, and nearly all the native adults spoke Russian.

While it was not a featureless sky, clouds blocked only a few seconds of the partial eclipse and did not come near to jeopardizing the time between second and third contact. It was light duty for our state-side meteorologist, who kept in touch via satellite telephone.

This was my first sunspot-less eclipse. We witnessed the Bailey’s Beads, Diamond Rings, and totality prominences that everybody else no doubt saw. Regulus and the Sun sat within the field of view of my telescope. However, I was most struck with the atmospheric effects: The three-hundred-sixty-degree sunset colors were as deep as on any desert night. It definitely got cooler, too.

Most spectacular were the shadow bands. In my previous five TSEs, shadow bands were an iffy proposition, a subtle phenomenon at most, best seen at one’s feet on a smooth, white surface such as a sheet or beach. Not in Mongolia! They ran past us in waves so pronounced that it was impossible not to see them—even over variegated, rocky ground—and at great distance from where one stood.

I had taken along a “backpack” 60mm refractor with which to study the solar corona. (I fitted it with an aluminized aperture filter for the partial phases.) A computerized drive and paddle allowed me to circumnavigate the Sun during totality without TSE jitters endangering my pointing. I was interest in how close the magnetohydrodynamicists had succeeded in predicting the eclipse-time shape of the corona. As it turned out, they did so very closely: an asymmetric butterfly pattern.

At fourth contact, we celebrated with Mongolian vodka (not the finest product in the land, I have to say). Two nights later we spotted the newest, waning crescent. And, of course, we began planning for 22 July 2009!

Thomas Hockey
Professor of Astronomy
University of Northern Iowa

Posted by hockey at 3:21 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2008

How I Did As a Political Prognosticator

OK. I failed to guess Barack Obama's VP nomination. I had Joe Biden at the State Department. In hindsight, the Demos could not of continued to make fun of John McCain's age if they had nominated Sam Nunn.

The GOP already has begun to gleen recorded material from Biden's own Presidential bid, in search for clips that disagree with Obama. If they are smart, the Obama campaign should turn this around by pointing out that their candiate is brave enough to pick someone who has a different point of view and who can provide the President with alternative advice. In reality, the primaries are designed to accentuate differences; Obama and Biden do not disagree substantively on the issues. Meanwhile, for his VP choice, McCain now has to go with a total sycophant.

All that said, the Biden nomination is problemmatic. Senators have histories--voting records--that can be attacked. Running a pair of Senators has not worked out since Kennedy/Johnson, and they won just barely. The only more recent example is Kerry/Edwards, and that's not a good model!

Posted by hockey at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2008

Radio Scripts #6 & #7

[Versions of these scripts were broadcast on Public Radio's StarDate and appear on WWW.StarDate.org. - TH]

Carl Zenger

It is no disgrace to be proven wrong in science. Still, some scientists are so wrong that they become famous. One is Czech astronomer Carl Venceslas Zenger. He achieved fame for a single observation.

The Sun can shine on just one half of a round planet at a time. The planet Venus sometimes appears to us as a bright crescent. This is because it revolves about the Sun within the Earth’s orbit: During Venus’s “crescent phase,” the Sun mostly illuminates the side facing away from us. The same thing happens with the Moon. But Venus looks so tiny in our sky that its shape only is seen through a telescope.

Carl Zenger observed Venus as a crescent in 1876; that is no surprise. The surprise (to Zenger) was that the inner curve of the crescent seemed irregular. In the case of the Moon, this effect is due to lunar mountains projecting above the shadowed hemisphere, and into sunlight. So Zenger concluded that Venus, too, must have mountains—spectacularly high ones (so as to be seen from the Earth). To Zenger, tall, bright mountains equaled cold mountaintops. In other words, they were snowcapped!

Modern space-probe cameras reveal modest mountains on Venus. However, Zenger’s amazingly lofty peaks were an illusion. Moreover, we now know that Venus is the hottest planet in our Solar System. It is far from icy. Zenger was as wrong as he could be. He was famously wrong.

Professor Carl Zenger died one-hundred years ago, on 22 January 1908.

Henry Parkhurst

Where would one least expect to find an astronomer? We might guess a cloudy coastline. Yet even places where inclement weather is common have occasional clear nights. A better candidate might be the heart of a big metropolis, where artificial illumination drowns out starlight.

Henry M. Parkhurst lived in the biggest American city, New York. In the late nineteenth century, he was a Superior Court reporter by day, and an astronomer by night. He observed variable stars—stars that slightly dim and brighten. Parkhurst’s stellar brightness measurements were regarded highly and sought out by Harvard College Observatory, the great repository of astronomical data at the time. In 1882 Parkhurst proposed a decade-long project for himself: He would systematically measure long-period variables, which change in brightness regularly over intervals lasting months or years. Observations were made from Parkhurst’s Manhattan yard.

But unknown to Parkhurst and other New Yorkers, 1882 would be a year that would change the appearance of their city forever. In 1882 Thomas Edison and his electric bulb came to town. The next year, while Parkhurst began his project, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed—and illuminated by electric arcs. That was less than ten blocks from his telescope!

This was to be the last major astronomical contribution made from that famous American island. Parkhurst became the first victim of “light pollution.” Modern astronomers continue his flight; most astronomical research now is conducted at remote observatories, far from the nearest town.

Henry Parkhurst died an octogenarian one-hundred years ago today.

21 January 2008

Posted by hockey at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2008

It Is Time to Repeal the 22nd Amendment

It's time to repeal the 22nd Amendment. It is the most undemocratic thing in the United States Constitution. The 22nd Amendment? That's the one that says, for our highest office, the Presidency, we can't vote for the person we want--if that person already has served two terms. If a Vice President has taken over for a President, we may only be able to vote for that individual as President once.

The 22nd Amendment was a knee-jerk reaction to Franklin Roosevelt's four terms. Should he have run for four terms? It's hard to say; the circumstances were unique. But who serves and for how long should remain the decision of the electorate.

The 22nd Amendment probably has not altered history much so far. Eisenhower and Reagan would have been eligible for a third term without it. It appears to me, though, that both men, aged at the end of their second term, would have had the wisdom to decline renomination.

But think of Barack Obama. Now I don't know that he will be the next President. The polls are ambiguous right now. It might be John McCain. However, McCain already has signalled that he's not going for any record in Presidential longevity. However, Obama, if elected twice, would only be 54 at the end of his second term. He would be at the peak of his political ife. Is it not up to the voters whether or not to sentence him to a (maybe) thirty-year retirement?

This is the time to change the Constitution because there is no incumbency at stake. We are "between Presidents." I propose it now, knowing that I cannot be accused of "sour grapes" as a motive: I am on record as favoring neither an extension of the Clinton nor Bush administration!

Constitution Day is 17 September.

Posted by hockey at 9:13 AM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2008

I'll Take a Stab at Forecasting an Obama Administration

I list the five jobs that are often the most powerful (and most political).

Vice President = Sam Nunn (safe, foreign-affairs expertise, different regional base, a little time "out of the beltway")

Secreatry of State = Joe Biden (mentioned for VP, too, but "just another Senator.")

Secretary of Treasury = Chris Dodd (A gift. Dodd did a lot of work for an Obama agenda back in the Senate--while BO was out campaigning.)

Attorney General = Bill Richardson (long resume, Hispanic base)

Secretary of Defense = Hillary Clinton (Didn't think I'd forget her, did you? She'd be the first female in this position.)

Posted by hockey at 2:56 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2008

John McCain Says, "In the Twenty-first, Century, Nations Don't Invade Other Nations"

Big Country ______________ United States _________ Russia

Little Country _____________ Iraq _________________ Georgia

Newly Elected leader _______ George W. Bush ______ Dmitrii Medvedev
of Big Country
(in questionable election)

Major voice _______________ Dick Cheney _________ Vladmir Putin
in the ear of above

Breakaway province in _____ Kurdistan ____________ South Ossetia
Little Country

Result __________________ dead Kurds __________ dead ethnic Russians

Big Country's reaction _____ invasion _____________ invasion

Exaggerated excuse ______ "weapons of mass ____ "ethnic cleansing"
________________________ destruction"

Motivating geopolitics ______ oil __________________ oil

Tried to arbitrate __________ Kofi Annan ___________ Nicolas Sarkozy

Supposed finish __________ "end of military ________ "ceasefire"
________________________ operations"

Real result _______________ occupation ___________ occupation

Consequence ____________ lots of dead Iraqis ______ lots of dead Georgians

Meanwhile, Big __________ silent _________________silent
Country legislature is

Effect on world __________ loss of respect for ______ loss of respect for
_______________________ Big Country ___________ Big Country

Future ________________ long-term terrorism _____ long-term terrorism?

Posted by hockey at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2008

The Four Great Heads

Our country has been blessed with few truly great Presidents. The idea was to enshrine the the few on Mount Rushmore. Four were found to qualify by the time of the landmark's completion. (Franklin Roosevelt was as yet unavailable for the judgement of history.) Washington and Lincoln are up there, of course: We once celebrated their birthdays as national holidays! And two others.

Interesting aside: None of these Presidents-in-stone are Democrats. In its nearly two-hundred year run, the Democratic Party arguably has produced only one Great President (FDR?)--and not everybody would agree on that one.

But back to Mount Rushmore. It's a pretty good list. However, I would make one change. I would delete Thomas Jefferson.

People who know me as a Jefferson fan will be shocked. Jefferson was a great polymath, a true American philosopher. Yet his Presidency was not an outstanding example of Jeffersonia. Recall that it was won, dubiously, over the back of TJ's erstwhile friend, John Adams. The Jefferson Adminstration is chiefly known for the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent Lewis and Clark Expedition. This is ironic because these acts were in the face of Jefferson's political theory of limited Federal powers.

Who would I replace Jefferson with? Maybe James Monroe. Monroe is an often overlooked President. Perhaps this is because he was at the back of thirty-two (out of thirty-six) years of Virginian Presidents. That's four of the first five. In other words, we may blurr our Presidents together by the time we get to JM (Monroe, not James Madison).

Monroe's administration was so successful it was practically devoid of party politics. It boasted a strong, bipartisan cabinet. Indeed, Monroe's Presidency was dubbed the Era of Good Feeling. Several new states were added to the Union (including the tricky Missouri Compromise) during these eight years. We acquired Florida. The Monroe Doctrine still guides American foreign policy today. What is more, Monore was popular with the electorate and cheered on frequent tours of the young country. Said Monroe, "The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil."

Another reason for Monroe over Jefferson: They were contemporaries and wore similar styles. Just a little mortar and jack hammering, and you've turned a Jefferson into a Monroe. Kidding!

Posted by hockey at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2008

What is it Good For?

Now its Russia and Georgia. Sigh. Aren't we suppose to suspend wars during the Olympics? They didn't even have the decency to trump up a UN resolution before going in . . .

In 1945, War became an untenable means of resolving conflict. The means overshadowed the outcome. Think about it: No war (little "w") since 1945 has had a definitive outcome. But for sixty years, the world has been in denial. Millenia of warfare is a hard habit to break.

When will the great realization occur? I hope it's in my lifetime, or that of my children. It's already too late for a lot of Georgians.

Posted by hockey at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2008

If I were a Phisherman

Dear Child of Adam,

Lucifer has hacked into the Great Roll Up Yonder. Your immortal soul is in danger. Please provide the following information, and we'll verify the security of your predestination:

full name
aliases
birthdate
deathdate (if applicable)
childrens' first names
parents' middle names
wife's maiden name
name they called you in school when your back was turned
passport number
SSN
bank account number(s)
credit card numbers
usual lottery ticket number
number of the beast
favorite color
favorite comic character
first pet
street on which you were born
street on which your first pet was born
all the PINs you remember
all the PINs you've forgotten
every password you've ever used
every pasword you're going to use

E-mail your responses to saintpeter@Gmail.com. (Optional items are marked with an asterisk.) We already know all this stuff of course . . . we're just checking.

Sincerely,

God

Posted by hockey at 1:41 PM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2008

Spam of the Month

Like everybody, I get a lot of spam. Here is my favorite from July. It's a direct lift--except for the annotations I've made in brackets.

"Hi! I'm a single girl and I'm 26 years old. [I'm really a 16-year-old boy at an internet cafe in Turkey.] Please take a look at my pictures and let me know if you like them! [I scanned them out of a magazine I found at the barbers.] I live in Russia and I'm going to come to your country and work over there very soon! [Or--depending upon the availability of a visa--never.] I don't know anybody over there and I thought it would be great to meet someone who is open to anything (as I am!). [Funny. Absolutely nobody has ever characterized TH as "open to anything."] I would be happy to be friends, lovers or create a serious relationship! [Multiple answers appear to be allowed.] We will see what happens! [And whether it involves PayPal!] I hope you will write me back and I will write more info about myself and send more photos!!!!!!!!!!! [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]"

Posted by hockey at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2008

History: Nobody Could Make This Stuff Up

Iowa has been a pretty peaceful place in United States history. None of our major wars were fought on its soil. Yet the white settlement of Iowa was due to the outcome of one of our lesser, drearer wars: the Black Hawk War.

Blackhawk was a native leader upset with the american invasion of his lands. He attacked white settlers and was eventually tracked down and chased by the US Army's Colonel Taylor. The war ended in the infamous Bad Axe Massacre: Taylor had Blackhawk's people pinned at the Mississippi River. At the same time, his troop-transport steamer was coming up the river. Blackhawk waved the traditional white flag of surrender at the steamboat. The boat responded by raking the native americans with cannon fire. At a minimum, 150 men, women, and children were killed.

Blackhawk ultimately was captured and imprisoned. What happened to the Colonel Taylor who seemed a little shaky on the etiquette of warfare?

We elected him President of the United States.

No kidding.

Posted by hockey at 1:32 PM | Comments (0)

July 5, 2008

Script of a YouTube-style Question for the Presidential Candidate

[We see the narrator and the "hind quarters" of a sow and cow, side by side.]

CAPTION: The View From Iowa

Narrator [indicates sow]: "Pretend that this sow is a conventional coal-buring power plant. Like the sow, the power plant produces an unwanted gas. In the case of the power plant, that gas is carbon dioxide."

Narrator [moves to cow]: "Pretend that this cow is a nuclear power plant. It does not present as much of a problem with greenhouse gases, but it does produce a solid waste that is unacceptable for those who step in it. In the case of the power plant, that waste is dangerous radioactive fuel rods."

Narrator [close]: "John McCain proposes commissioning 40 new nuclear power plants. Is he willing to, at the same time, decommission 40 conventional coal-fired plants? Yes or no. No but[t]s allowed . . ."

Posted by hockey at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

July 4, 2008

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty

I continue to convolesce from surgery, at home. I'm a lucky man to be able to say that my most serious operation in half a lifetime was elective.

With sutures on my pallate, the diet is a bit dull. I've been feasting on jello, pudding, oatmeal, and macaroni-and-cheese, a consistency in consistency. The pharmacy gave me a numbing lollipop to use in case of extreme pain. I yet haven't had to unwrap that sucker. There is also a salve to relieve nausea (that I haven't had). You rub it on your wrists. What's next? Coning and acupuncture?

My dog has been attentive. She keeps walking into the bedroom to check up on me--several times a day. She's never exhibited this behavior before, say when I've been bedridden with a chest cold. I figure she smells the blood. I like to think she's concerned that I'm injured. On the other hand, she *is* a carnovoir.

I no longer have a uvula. I can't say that I miss it very much. I never did master those German umlauts, anyway. I am told, though, that some languages are dependent upon the uvula for pronouncing words. For instance, I may now never master Hmong. A future opera career is also out of the question: The ulula is used for vibratto. I think I can handle all of these disappointments.

Posted by hockey at 1:20 PM | Comments (2)

July 3, 2008

Three Disasters in One Month for NE Iowa

You might be surprised that I list the first event as a disaster. However, the people who live there would not be.

POSTVILLE

On 12 May, ICE officers detained 400 people at a Postville meat processing plant. It was the biggest single-site immigration raid in US history. Unusually, they actually arrested the illegals--one sixth of the town's populatiion. Obviously, the feds wanted to make a statement.

The problem is that Postville is one of those midwestern towns on the edge of failure. The illegals are the only ones who would work at the plant, Postville's major source of income. They were also the ones paying up front for their rent, groceries, and gas. The "hit" the legal business peope of Postville will take is easily comparable to that of a natural disaster.

PARKERSBURG

On 25 May, a rare EF5 tornado wiped out half of Parkersburg (population = 1300). Seven were killed; many more were injured. New Hartford also suffered a fatality, and two other small Iowa towns were damaged. (This disaster is not to be confused with the western Iowa tornado that later killed the Boy Scouts.) Today you can follow the path of the Parkersburg tornado along the county road--just look for the toppled trees. The tornado diverged from its eastward trek finally, turning slightly north. This caused it to cross Cedar Falls just at the city line. If the tornado had curved south, it would have barrelled through mid Cedar Falls and, likely, even-more-populated Waterloo. My house would have become a victim, but more significantly, the death and destruction easily could have been ten times greater because of the population density in Cedar Falls/Waterloo.

CEDAR FALLS

The floods of mid-June affected towns up and down the eastern Iowa rivers. For instance, Cedar Rapids was submerged. My experience was with Cedar Falls. Volunteers were called out to reinforce the levy protecting the downtown business district and water plant. A thousand of us arrived, and, without any real instruction, managed to hold off the waters in a style of labor reminiscent of swarming ants.

Regrettably, AP picked up on this idea of citizens saving their own town. They neglected the fact that there is no levy protecting the northern part of town, and there was no hope of saving it. Hundreds were flooded out. Some grumbled that Cedar Falls had succeeded in banding together to save the rich, white people's part of town. The truth lies somewhere inbetween.

Posted by hockey at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

July 1, 2008

George Carlin

George Carlin died last week. He was seventy-one. But, hey, he was seventy-one! George Carlin was not always known for taking good care of his body. Congratulations on that one, George.

One of my memories from Freshman Orientation Week at college was some kid blaring Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" routine out a second-storey window. It was 1977, when comedy came on LPs. Little did Carlin know when he recorded this that he'd be the subject of a Supreme Court case on the perogatives of the FCC. Today, my failing memory cannot recall all seven words. However, I suspect that the list of words has decreased with time.

Carlin was famous for profanity. Yet it was in the larger context of his pasion for free speech. The words he used he used for a purpose--not just to fill time, as I suspect is the motivation of some of our newer stand ups.

I admired Carlin for another reason: his love for all words and ability to put them together in such a way as to resemble truth. George could detect--and skewer--what in the 2000s we call "spin," from a mile a away. It is my belief that he single-handedly forced change on the script used by all airlines: We no longer hear euphemistic phrases like, "In the event of a water landing . . ." Who you kidding? That's a crash, baby! Meanwhile, I use bits of "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman" in own class even now.

Bye, George. Thanks. And also "Monte, Monte, Monte!"

Posted by hockey at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2008

Mongols and Missiles

The Mongolian army of Ghengis Khan had a neat trick: Their horsemen would feign a retreat and then, using specially designed saddles, would turn on the pursuing opposing calvary and fire an arrow from behind. This unexpected counter offensive could decimate the now-too-close-for-cover enemy. It was what we call the “Parthian Shot.”

To my knowledge, the United States military is longer prepared to execute the Parthian Shot. Why has an army abandoned a weapons system (horse/saddles/bow)? Because, it is hard to imagine a modern scenario in which it would be useful. Not impossible. Just hard to imagine.

Yet we maintain a Cold War arsenal of hair-trigger missiles with high-yield nuclear bombs atop them. We do this even though these weapons have no use against current threats (e. g., suicide bombers). Strange.

The world is a dangerous place. The future is unknown. Might there not be a scenario in which nuclear-tipped ICBMs may be of future use? It is not impossible. It is just hard to imagine. Failure to adapt a weapons strategy to changing times is one of the reasons the Mongols are no longer a factor in world security. We may be safe from the “Mongol Hord,” but whether we are or not, our expensive (and, on occasion, misplaced) nuclear forces are irrelevant to the question and to many others regarding our national security.

Posted by hockey at 2:31 PM | Comments (0)

June 2, 2008

Vote for the Alliteration Ticket

Posted by hockey at 9:05 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2008

Somebody Somewhere will be Interested

[I wrote this by mistake. Rats. Still, I hate to waste anything! - TH]

Metochites, Theodorus [Theodore]

Born: Constantinople, 1270

Died: Constantinople, 13 March 1332

Grand Logothete Theodorus Metochites was a minister to Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II. Circa 1313 he studied astronomy with Manuel Bryennius. His Stoicheiosis Astronomike was the first astronomical work of the Palaiologic Renaissance (after the Fourth Crusade). It followed heavily in the footsteps of Theon of Alexandria and Ptolemy. Nicephoros Gregoras was a student of Metochites.

Posted by hockey at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2008

A Dialog in the Kitchen

(Dog is staring at Tom.)

Dog: Give me a bone, please.

Tom: You just had a bone!

Dog: I want another one.

Tom: You can’t have a bone every day.

Dog: But I want a bone today.

Tom: We will run out of bones!

Dog: I still will have a bone—today.

Tom: Let me put this another way: What if every dog wants a bone every day?

Dog: I don’t want a bone for every dog. I want a bone for me.

Tom: That’s my point: There wouldn’t be enough for everyone.

Dog: But there’s enough for me.

Tom: Is that fair to the other dogs?

Dog: I’m sorry that this is so complicated for you. We are not talking about other dogs. We are talking about this dog. Does that make it simpler?

Tom: (Pause.) Have a bone. (Gives her one.)

Dog: Thank you.

Posted by hockey at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 6, 2008

Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming

From a Student:

"During the Big Bang theory/creation of the universe discussion in class on Monday, I did have a question, but I decided not to ask, as it is a personal question. While talking about the beginning of the universe, you mentioned several times that there were no answers to most of our questions, and at one point you even said "maybe it's just the way God willed it". So my question is: Do you believe in God? and if so, Do you have a faith base, in Christianity or anything? Or just in a higher being?"

Answer:

Sure. I'm a Christian and choose to believe in God. That's a choice I make. I try to to keep matters I take on faith to a minimum, to keep things simple, but feel that ours would be an awfully dull reality in the absence of God.

I can't prove that God created the Universe. That's OK with me. If I could prove it, or even provide empirical evidence for God, the god I would be proving would somehow be smaller than the transcendental God I can imagine!

TH

Posted by hockey at 10:53 AM | Comments (1)

May 5, 2008

Road Bed

My family and I were driving along the highway when we ran over a mattress. Yes, that's right: a mattress. Apparently it had fallen off a truck. As far as I know, nobody was sleeping on it at the time.

But we didn't just run over it. My car straddled the mattress, which fit perfectly between the wheels. The result was that the mattress dragged beneath the chasis for many meters before we realized what had happened, stopped on the shoulder, and reversed off.

By now, though, road friction had ignited the mattress! Old mattresses burn pretty well. I acknowledged this as I saw the dry grass nearby and the housing development in the not-so-far distance. I pictured a newpaper headline about a devastating wildfire, and I was in it!

Luckily, I had some "survival" water in my car that doused the flames. Everybody was OK, though the mattress was much worse for wear.

Posted by hockey at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

May 2, 2008

A Letter from a Former Student

Thanks for the add! I didn't know if you would know me--I took your gen ed Astronomy class way back in. . . 2000 or so.

Am I an astronomer now? No, but I am a poet as I was then and as Walt Whitman once observed about the relationship between poets and astronomers:

"how soon. . .I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."

While Whitman seems in his poem to have a distaste for some of the mathematical elements of your science, I am like him in that, after having had the earth put into its solar and universal perspective day in day out for one semester, I feel like a smaller member of a smaller species after having taken your class--a feeling that has given me much perspective and insight. All of known matter has become much larger and more awesome to me since.

So here's a nod to you for giving insightful and enjoyable lectures to non-scholars. Your words are not received without gratitude.

[name]

Posted by hockey at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

What We Pay for at the Pump

I grumble at the gas station as much as the next guy. However, the rationale side of my brain concedes that we probably ought to raise the gas tax a dollar per gallon. Normally I am loathe to propose any flat tax. However, Americans do not pay the true cost of fuel: Not included in the price are the envirnomental/climate-change effects (which we ignore) or the cost we apparently must pay to defend the unsustainable supply (which we borrow).

Anything we pour into the tank would be taxed; biofuels consume petroleum in their production. In total the tax would raise $150,000,000,000. (I am basing that number on present consumption, which hopefully would decline.) This starts to sound like real money. If the funds raised are not used by our lawmakers to remit the hidden price of fossil fuel--tax our President and Congress a million bucks a head!

We likely cannot sell this idea as a "gas tax" to the consumer. Call it a "national-security tax." Put pictures of battleships (or windpower generators) up on the pumps. I believe that citizens are smart enough to pick up on the cause and effect.

Meanwhile, I think I will go out to the garage and put some air in my bicycle tires.

Posted by hockey at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2008

Amazing Nobody Else Has Thought of It

Here is my idea for painless energy: Let’s burn down our houses for fuel. Dubious, you say? It’s OK. Trust me. Houses are re-new-a-ble. And we have a LOT of houses here in the US—we won’t miss some of them. Burning down our houses will allow us to continue expending energy without self-sacrifice. We’ll call them “arche-fuels.” A whole new industry! Tax credits. Government investment. The whole bit. I mean, it’s not as silly as, oh, say, burning our food and turning it into energy . . .

No wait. Never mind.

Posted by hockey at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Riddles

What do you drink after reading a famous, mid-twentieth-century American novel?

Tequlia Mockingbird

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Where does a rich astronomer live?

in a star-spangled manor

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I said riddles. I didn't say that they were good riddles!

Posted by hockey at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2008

Write of Spring

Finally, after a so-far dreary Spring, it is a nice, bright,
cheerful Sunday afternoon. Time to check how the rest of the
world is faring this weekend:

Well,