The Perfect Eye

Well, just for fun we followed Ben along as he entered and competed in the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship with his project The Perfect Eye and created a little video on the science fair experience (he took second prize in his catagory at the awards ceremony at Great America).

Since the project had the interest of some people in the San Jose Astronomy Association, a little notice on a local astronomy list mentioned the vid - and then the traffic started. Within one minute of posting, people were clicking and watching - thousands of views in less than a week, many repeat complete views. I had to allocate more bandwidth.

I guess everyone loves a science fair.

California, Missions, and Astronomy...

One of the nice things about Silicon Valley is the plethera of colleges and universities who offer all kinds of unusual lectures. Where else but here would we get to hear a talk combining, for example, astronomy, ancient cultures, and the California Missions?

My 4th grade daughter, an amateur astronomer, also did a California missions project this year as mandated for all California elementary students. She did a movie on Mission San Jose, a walking tour through the recently renovated mission describing all of it's interesting history and features. One viewer said she was the "next Sister Wendy".

I recall studying some of this from a physics perspective via Heilbron at Cal, so it was interesting to see the young ernest professor struggle with discussing Heilbron - in fact, he admitted he found him very hard to read. I don't think that would have excused us at Berkeley, though, since Heilbron is a legend in the physics and history community.

An attorney with the state of California who saw my daughter's video (she used a digital camera, mission template, and the ExecProducer service - I guess it helps when mom is the CTO) mentioned there were problems with mission funding right now. In a tight state budget, missions and lots of other stuff tend to get put aside (as well as the church-state issue, which complicates matters further).

So this eager professor who had a few interesting ideas on how the mission designs were influenced by astronomical effects also admitted he couldn't seem to get a grant. I wouldn't be surprised if others are in the same boat, given what I heard. I told him to not take it so hard, and keep working on his project, try to interest schools and astronomy groups in his work, and reposition it slightly to open it up to a broader interest group.

But it's a reminder that for a professor at a small college, the academic life can be quite hard.

Let's Arm Wrestle for Sniffing that Rock

Went over the PARC yesterday to hear Kanna Rajan of the Computational Sciences Division of the NASA Ames Research Center discuss "From Interplanetary Cruise to the Surface of Mars - The Challenges of infusing AI in Space".

Integrating AI into anything has always been a tough proposition, because the generalized systems solutions are always in search of a problem that can't be solved by breaking down the problem into simpler components or by the use of sheer massive computational grit. So it was interesting to hear it used - not for complicated analysis of navigation in spaceflight, for example, as intended but instead to resolve scheduling disputes between teams sharing time on an interplanetary robot by using a "mission-critical AI application on a NASA science mission".

Through the use of a "temporal constraint network" (in other words, time-based schedule online that won't let you do conflicting things), the "Mixed-initiative Activity Plan GENerator (MAPGEN)" found a home by gluing on the standard interface used by ops at JPL for mission planning.

What does it do. In Mr. Rajan's words, it "provides a ground-based decision-support system in the critical part of the uplink command cycle for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers." With a limited set of commands preloaded and sent to the Rover and no operations at night allowed (power-constraints), schedules can't be reworked. Also, if there were a set of commands that turned out to be contradictory in nature, time could be lost as the Rover spins its wheels (metaphorically or actually).

So mission ops use this AI mechanism to successfully integrate all the conflicting science groups and agendas with the physical realities of working a robot at a planetary distance.

Girls Just Want to Have Astro Fun

I was out of the office teaching what's hot in astrophysics much of this week to a wonderful audience - the best and brightest middle school girls in science in California. The American Association of University Women of California (AAUW) sponsored a one week summer program for young women at Stanford University called "Tech Trek Science, Math, & Computer Camp" on July 11-17 2004. There were 125 seventh graders attending from all over California this year - all vital and curious.

I put together a presentation on current topics in astronomy and astrophysics. It's a great time for a girl to consider this area as a career, with the Rutan's SpaceShip One and the robotics successes of Spirit and Opportunity. Plus, as I mentioned in my presentation, there is very little gender discrimination in the field - in other words, equal pay and equal work is the norm in physics and astronomy, plus many mixed teams and interesting projects.

My daughter Rebecca (she's 9) demonstrated how to use a Schmidt-Cassagrain (SCT) telescope, while I meshed theory and practice in a one-hour powerpoint presentation loaded with cool video of NASA launches and space exploration, plus a bit of the physics of magnitude and distance.

Rebecca used her own Celestron C-5 as an example of how to handle an instrument. Most girls are pretty good on theory, but don't have a lot of experience with handling a scope. Perhaps seeing that a girl younger then them works with such may alleviate "instrument anxiety" in the future.

I had a great time last week. The girls were smart and saavy, and I enjoyed every question (even ones I had to look up later). Kudos to a great camp experience and the AAUW volunteers like Director Marie Wolbach who make it such a meaningful experience. I'm thankful to them for allowing me and Rebecca to share a bit of the magic of astronomy and astrophysics.

Attention WalMart Shoppers - You Can Find Linux Computers Next to the Ironing Boards

David Einstein's review pans the WalMart Linux PC, and deservedly so. With a slow processor, small disk drive, miserly memory, and no monitor, for $300 you could get a lot more system building it yourself. Admittedly, the kind of shopper WalMart is selling a Linux PC to is probably not "top drawer" when it comes to computers, so it may seem a good enough "bargain" to them. But it is a bad bargain nonetheless.

David is correct in noting that Linux / Unix systems don't support as much software as Windows, especially for certain apps like Quicken, and support for printers like Epson has always been difficult. This is why the stats say 80% of the aftermarket Linux PCs have bootleg windows copies placed on them over Linux in Asia. This is to be expected as legacy apps are converted. In the meantime, it's hard to compensate with open source without expert assistance, as in a company.

But it can be done. And here's how to do it.

I switched my kids three years ago from Windows to Berkeley Unix. I just got sick and tired of removing spyware and viruses from the kids PC *every* week. And it wasn't as bad three years ago as now. If you judge by time spent in annoying maintenance removing junk that shouldn't be there in the first place, is it any wonder people have contempt for computers and technologists today, and are even contemplating using open source to avoid this pain?

There were far fewer apps supported then, and they had to give up Windows games, which wasn't easy. But over time, things improved. They learned to play the many open source games on the web - which they find superior now. We got early versions of openoffice working, and over time they were able to do reports and graphics just fine. Support for doing things like pdfs is quite adaquate now. They've got digital cameras and video edit software in open source - they don't need the package Windows versions anymore - and it all works just fine. It's finally starting to be comfortable working with the open source browsers, players, windows emulators - you name it.

The hardest part earlier on was dealing with teachers who "required" certain windows apps (not even Mac). But we got around it and made it work.

So David's actually a bit out of date here regarding what is needed in software apps and what's not. He's speaking as if we are at the state of things of three years ago, when we began our kids Berkeley Unix experiment, and the state of the world has changed very rapidly in that time. Listen to what the kids are doing - they have more incentive to change than adults, and aren't as afraid of "breaking things". :-)

And good things happened. My kids program more. They understand systems and their limits much better. They understand support issues more comprehensively. Ben's learning C and loves python *on his own*, so he's more technically astute, and has learned a great deal about maintaining all types of systems, including Windows, and has been paid for fixing Windows systems, and he's 14. Rebecca does video processing work that UCLA film students would envy *on her own*, and she's only 9!

In other words, instead of spending time removing viruses and spyware and updating service packs and patches for broken software, they learned about disk drive installations, updates and maintenance, utilities, networking, and even applications programming. Would you say the time has been better spent these last three years?

They even got those darned Epson printers working - and that's not easy! It can be done.

What's the cost? They spent $200 and with parts from Frys built their "dream machine". They didn't need to buy a WalMart piece of junk. They didn't waste their money on the latest version of office, or the latest video game on cdrom, or a windows license for a system they won't use. They bought and built their new PCs themselves. How many kids understand what to buy, and what not to buy for their OS?

So with the Walmart Linux systems, we are seeing a definite trend away from Windows. It will be slow, and Windows will hang around a while (although my son is finding his latest installation of wine to be pretty darned good), because of the legacy software issue. But progress towards usability is definitely accelerating.

And you can't beat the price. It's the new low price leader.

And like WalMart, isn't that what wins?

Fun Friday: Kuiper Airborn Observatory and SOFIA, Sun Fun, and Intel Bails Out Again

Wow, such a busy Friday. On the humorous side, Sun president Jonathan Schwartz is free to call Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX a "dying operating system" because HP-UX really is a dying operating system. At least, that's what Sun said back to HP when they whined about Sun picking on them. Maybe I'd be sympathetic if HP was the size of a one-man op, but last I heard they're a big fat corporation. Talk about not being able to take a taunt...

On the pleasant side, this "candy dish" mirror was unveiled as the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" today. Does anybody remember NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO)? It was a 1m IR telescope mounted on a C-141 that flew out of NASA Ames for about 20 years, ending in the late 1990s. Well, its successor is this telescope mirror destined to fly on the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). Turns out William Jolitz has a lot of memories of the Kuiper mirror, as he worked on it when he worked at NASA as part of the NASA-Ames work-study program while he was a student at Lynbrook High School (before he went on to Berkeley). For some good inside stories, check out Memory - Mirror for Kuiper Airborn Observatory as a homage to all those great people who worked on this earlier project.

Finally, looks like Intel has cancelled a major chip for flat screen TVs that was their flagship consumer electronics semiconductor project. This after killing the 4 GHz pentium 4 last week. Looks like Intel President Paul Otellini is reevaluating some of his predecessor's projects.

I Think I Forgot to Duck

This little item just in from Space Daily. Seems a little 5 meter wide asteroid called 2004 YD5 zoomed "just under the orbits of geostationary satellites, which at 22,300 miles (36,000 kilometers) altitude are the highest manmade objects circling Earth" and no one noticed until after it had passed by. Turns out it approached sunward (right in our blind spot), flew over Antarctica, and continued merrily on its way. Astronomers spotted it after it had passed us by.

Did anyone remember to duck?

The Forces of Nature - "Paradise and Hell".

As the casualties continue to mount after the great Indian Ocean tsunami, with entire families and villages swept away, I found the words of Lars Collmar, a Lutheran pastor at Stockholm's Adolf Fredriks Church on Wednesday night instructive. "Slowly it is coming to us that we have been hit by a tremendous catastrophe. We live in a world which is at the same time paradise and hell."

And nature, which gives us so much, also shows us how easily things can be taken away. I wish everyone saddened by this tragedy peace of mind, comfort and closure in the coming year.

Spotlight on Hidden Physicists

One of the pleasures of keeping up with your alumni obligations is that you can find out what other people are doing. Sigma Pi Sigma, the National Physics Honor Society, publishes Radiations Magazine, a bi-yearly discussion of issue relevent to the physics community. And one of their nicest features is their Spotlight on "Hidden Physicsts". You see, not everyone who has a physics degree goes into research, so it's nice to make a connection. For example, I didn't know that Sun's Assistant General Council Marilyn Glaubensklee had a physics degree, but there she is right next to a writeup on me. Small world, isn't it.

Fun Friday - Huygens Probe Has Landed Successfully!

The Huygens probe has landed successfully on Saturn's moon Titan. Congratulations are in order to the European Space Agency (ESA) who built Huygens and to NASA who launched, and delivered Huygens via the Cassini orbiter. Huygens is now in communication with Cassini orbiter for later transmission to Earth.

Huygens landed and is transmitting telemetry! So it didn't land hard, fortunately. But what do you think it landed on? Mud? Liquid? Rock? Or an unfortunate Titanian?

When Unbridled Competition Breeds Contempt for the Team

The computer biz is a very ruthlessly competitive profession, so it's no surprise that our kids in Silicon Valley are also very competitive and individualistic. But there's also the concept of the team working towards a goal. And when that basic underpinning is lost, so is respect. Contempt for members follows - whether we're working on a new storage device or operating system, or on a robot.

So where are we heading? Julie Patel wrote a balanced article on why the very successful Gunn High School robotics team imploded, resulting in their disbanding. It contained enough to read between the lines as to what really happened. It's a good Silicon Valley morality tale on how contempt can replace respect, suck in even "responsible adults", and ultimately take out everyone on the team.

A few observations. I hope Coach Dunbar takes a good long medical leave and doesn't "hurry back". He's clearly burned out, overstressed, and making very bad personnel (team) decisions. He needs the time off.

I hope the parents and students get back to what a school is all about - training for the real world and planning for their future life and career. Robotics should be fun and competitive, not obsessive and competitive.

I wonder if the principal (Likins) will also go on leave or transfer. According to the article, she's the one who's actions were most questionable - through her own coach's own claims: "Dunbar said it was Likins who threw the boy off the team." It's either one or the other. I wonder what a judge would say. But perhaps administrators aren't as vulnerable as teachers. Who can say?

Unfortunately, the serious seniors are the ones who will suffer the most. But they also had three good years on the team. So I hope they go to the robotics competitions anyway and cheer on the other local schools, from Woodside to Los Gatos High School to Bellermine, and learn the value of respect and cooperation.

Because in the end run, it's really about love of the sport - not love of yourself.

Branding Constellations

Is it any surprise that in an age of "branding" some folks would think it's a perfect time to rename all the Constellations? No, I didn't think you'd be surprised. Of course, the complaints are usually something of the order of that the sky is full of "pagan" symbols, or that no one cares about some woman chained to the rocks (Andromeda) unless she's Xena. But somehow those good old names live on.

In fact, co-opting the stars into new constellations for an agenda is an old trick (from Hinckley, "Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning (1899,1963) pp16-17):
"It has been the fashion with astronomers to decry this multiplicity of sky figures, and with good reason; for, as Miss Clerke writes in her monograph on 'The Hershels and Modern Astronomy': Celestial maps had become "a system of derangement and confusion," of confusion "worse confounded." New asterisms, carved out of old, existed precariously, recognized by some, ignored by others; waste places in the sky had been annexed by encrouching astronomers as standing-ground for their glorified telescopes, quadrants, sextants, clocks; a chemical apparatus had been set up by the shore of the river Eridanus, itself a meandering and uncomfortable figure; while serpents and dragons trailed their perplexing convolutions through hour after hour of right ascension; with more to the same effect. This condition of things led the Royal Astronomical Society, in 1841, to depute to Sir John Herschel and Mr. Francis Baily the task of attempting a reform. But although improvement was made by the discarding of several figures and the subdivision of others, their changes were too sweeping and were not successful, so that as the constellations stood then, in the main do they stand today, and so will they probably remain, at least with the people. "

So don't be surprised if someone tries to rename Andromeda "Xena" to sell a video game. But if the Royal Astronomers couldn't get away with it, I wouldn't lie awake at night worrying about Nintendo. Now, I suppose we should discuss Pluto and planetary designations, right?

"Well, We Can Save the Foot, but We Need to Cut Off Your Hand First"

One of the most cynical of scurrilous management tricks is to cut a major project that works so you can have their budget, be caught with your hand in the cookie jar by the public or journalists or favored customers such that you "have to give it back", but then turn around and make them pay for your well-deserved embarrassment by knifing some other favorite project. Politicians know this one cold - the old "we've got to cut [Name of worthy project that everyone loves] to save [Name of another worthy project that everyone loves]" - conveniently forgetting there are a lot of "Stupid projects no one loves except my patron/master/boss" that could and should be cut. As noted political commentator Daffy Duck says "That's despicable"!

Latest in the "Cut off your hand to save your foot because you didn't let me cut off your foot in the first place" prize goes to NASA for targeting other missions to pay for Hubble, which they should have had budgeted to begin with. According to Tony Reichhardt in Nature, "Last week, NASA turned in a revised budget plan to Congress that includes cuts and delays to several programmes, including the roving Mars Science Laboratory and searches for planets like Earth. The proposed cuts would also lead to belt-tightening in the Hubble project itself, where grants for guest observers would be reduced by an average of 13%."

So what do you do - throw out the Hubble after all or throw out the new missions? I suppose it depends on whether you get anything out of Hubble. "David Black, chairman of the American Astronomical Society's public-policy committee, says the balance of opinion has shifted towards the idea that Hubble isn't worth the sacrifice of future missions." Of course, it doesn't matter to him what the taxpayers or Hubble guest observers think, so perhaps the quote would be more accurate to say "the balance of my group's opinion has shifted", but then he'd be in the minority, wouldn't he?

Personally I'm tired of how easily academics shift their ethics around budgets. What ever happened to standing by your colleagues projects that you yourself supported? When everyone else refused to take John Glenn's place for the next mission for refusing to order his (then stuttering and shy) wife to appear with the VP, that absurd order ceased and Glenn still flew.

Maybe scientists, academics, and NASA management ought to look at a few virtues from the fly-boys - namely, courage and loyalty. Unity, ladies and gentlemen, and demands for real budgets to accomplish real goals is the only solution.

Berkeley Physics Bids Farewell to Nobel Prize Winner and Colleague

Last Sunday in the Great Room of the University of California at Berkeley Faculty club, the physics department held a memorial for Dr. Owen Chamberlain, physicist, activist and Nobel prize winner. Owen, who died on February 28th, 2006 after a long bout with Parkenson's disease, was a protege and colleague of the late Dr. Emilio Segre, with whom he shared the 1959 Nobel prize in physics for their discovery of the antiproton.

Dr. Segre died in 1989 (the same year Owen retired) and the Berkeley physics department held a very nice memorial service for him as well. I suppose one reaches a "certain age" and memorial services start to appear on the calendar (don't get me started with the ever-aging computer side of the business - one could end up going to funerals every month at this rate). My Berkeley physics advisor, Professor Frank Crawford, retired in 1991 and died in 2003 after also suffering from Parkinson's for about a decade. While Dr. Crawford was known for his love of music, he had a bit of a rebellous streak, best exemplified by his "corrugohorn" - a length of flexible corrugated brass pipe that he turned into three basic horns: a bugle, a neck horn and a slide corrugohorn. He used to boast that he was the only member of the Berkeley physics faculty with a peddler's license, and I think that is probably still true today.

Owen was a complicated man in a department known for strong personalities and beliefs. He was an activist involved in causes ranging from nuclear disarmament (he was one of the Manhattan Project boys and knew what it could really do) to free speech. He was one of the few people who dared to engage Dr. Teller in debate, because as Dr. Charles Morehouse recalled "Teller would drag everyone else around the stage".

Owen was also a dedicated physicist who, Dr. Morehouse continued "when asked to explain how a laser worked would begin with Einstein's equations and in ten minutes with diagrams explained everything simply and clearly". It is no surprise that he always enjoyed teaching lower-division physics (my husband had him for Physics 5B) when he could have easily avoided that assignment as a Nobel Laureate. He was a charming and disarming man who's easy Swedish manner and impossibly messy office was a familiar sight to students at office hours. As Dr. Eugene Commins, professor emeritus, said "you could fit in his office, if you were very thin". However, if you needed a particular paper, he could find it in the mass of paper with "unerring accuracy", if of course "the soft and silent wings of a butterfly" failed to "precipitate an avalanche" first.

His secretary Jeanne Miller recalled how he once spent an entire afternoon writing a three page response to a letter from an Australian student assigned to write a biography of him and requesting his personal slant on his scientific discoveries, and would rather peruse a physics letter or champion a cause than spend time with red tape. Fortunately, his brother-in-law Dr. Robert Birge also happened to be the head of LBL's physics division, which served Owen in good stead when he hired Ms. Miller without ever noting whether she knew how to type - he just liked her, felt her of good character and that was enough (if only character mattered as much today, we'd have a lot fewer problems in the world). Photos, anecdotes, remininiscences, and tributes to Dr. Owen Chamberlain are available to read online at the Owen Chamberlain Memorial website.

Global Warming, Prop 87 and Investments in Silicon Valley

A few weeks ago, Stanford held their Global Climate and Energy Project workshop - three days of presentations on how we can innovate on global energy technologies to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The talks ranged from solar energy technologies to bioenergy storage to carbon mitigation / capture / separation / storage, plus a plethera of poster presentations. The key issue is a simple one - we've got to replace our energy needs - particularly coal - with carbon-free technologies to keep atmospheric CO2 under 550ppm. And that means changing our way of doing business and our way of selling lifestyles.

The solar question is simple - can we economically create a solar cell that is efficient enough (e.g. 15-20%) and dense enough to capture solar radiation? Professor Alan Heeger of UC Santa Barbara recently did a talk at PARC on the use of simple printing technologies to produce "plastic" electronics like sheets of solar cells through the use of "insulator-to-metal transition in conjugated polymers including the emergence of gate-induced metallic state in field effect transistors" ("Plastic Electronics and Optoelectronics, PARC, 9/1/06). Martin Green and Gavin Conibeer of the University of New South Wales (Australia) proposed using polycrystalline silicon thin films using silicon quantum dots to "stack" the cells, increasing efficiency up to 50%+, which is pretty amazing given most of the expensive solar cell processes produce cells that have about 20%+ overall efficiency at best (and yes, I know you can claim higher efficiencies for single wavelength conversion but let's be pragmatic). There are lots of solar advocates, and we really should be using our daylight hours to feed into the grid instead of taking from the grid. However, the solar guys are intensely disliked by the petroleum, coal, and other traditional energy supplies - after all, the solar guys want to displace their market with solar power and not make the fossil fuels market more efficient. It's a wonder I didn't see fistfights ensue.

The physics of radiative energy capture is pretty simple, but the practice given weather, sun angle, season and so forth tends to bring down the numbers. But if everyone could charge up their hybrid or electric car from solar power captured every day with a specialized device instead of add to their electric bill, I think we'd see a lot of consumer sales. I think solar is beginning to close the gap, and the market will be on reducing our dependence at the gas station and not necessarily "getting off the grid". Think what a difference in CO2 emissions that single shift would make.

There's a current big push towards biomass and ethanol conversion - Tom Friedman made a case for us sending our petrodollars to small third world countries to create ethanol out of their waste sugar cane instead of paying OPEC. He thinks we might as well use our dollars to alleviate real poverty in the world to maintain our love for SUVs instead of arming terrorist dedicated to our destruction, and cites Brazil's use of ethanol as an example we should emulate (40% of all fuel used by cars in Brazil use ethanol - for an interesting analysis of how Brazil is successful and the USA has a ways to go to meet this number due to our incredibly consumptive lifestyle, see Milton Maciel's article Ethanol from Brazil and the USA).

Right now, ethanol from corn (which would benefit the conservative lightly populated mid-American states at the expense of liberal heavily populated coast states) is the happy pill sold to alleviate all our fuel ills, thus keeping the petro companies, refiners, and distributors of fuel all in the loop (God forbid people start making their own energy - it will be the end of the oil companies). They don't want alternatives - they want to control your addiction. Friedman doesn't seem to think this is bad if we buy our ethanol from cheap third world sources and consider that money global poverty alleviation grants, but most politicians want us to buy very expensive ethanol from their backers and controlled through their distribution - which means it's too expensive even for SUV lovers.

Ethanol is what we call a migration strategy - we all know the old fossil fuels gambit we've used for a century will peeter out within the next 50 years (Dubai runs out of oil in 2012, and is hoping to become an entertainment and business mecca, which given the turbulence of that neck of the desert means they are very optimistic). Vinod Khosla sees it as a necessary migration strategy for a population that won't take responsibility for its own energy needs (go solar, get a hybrid) and will just have to have their fuel fix. Like the earlier stem cell research proposition, his Prop 87 initative wants Californians to take the lead in this area (without the feds) and pump $4B into alternative energy technologies (his investments are in alternative energy startups, so he isn't an unbiased observer or do-gooder). Richard Newton, Dean of Engineering at UC Berkeley, recently invited Vinod and Professor Ted Padzek, Civil Engineering, to a debate over the merits of ethanol, and according to Matt Marshall of VentureBeat "he came down in favor of Khosla". Why? Well, because Vinod invests in innovation - not the status quo - and he believes that ethanol is just the first step in getting ourselves out of petroaddiction. "While ethanol is critically important for the first step of the process of displacing oil, even Khosla doesn’t believe that ethanol is the final answer. Ethanol will, though, help break the back of the traditional distribution model of petro-chemicals. And then, if you can produce a higher order hydrocarbon, like butanol, you can solve the rest of the problems".

Unfortunately, Stanford didn't have much on this very topical issue, although there were a few interesting discussions of biological catalysts (yeasts, cyanobacteria). I would have liked to see more, simply because we've got a huge $4B bet on the ballot that will influence California's and the US direction for the next 20 years.

But when all is said and done, ethanol and solar probably wouldn't be enough - the third world is heavily dependent on coal (China is covered in coal dust, with major health problems growing daily) to power their economies. They don't want to invest in new technologies (neither do first world countries BTW - we have to make them do it with regulatory demands which are currently out of vogue among the "get rich at any cost" set). So we also have to create CO2 mitigation and storage strategies for coal production that are economic and feasible and we have to do them soon.

One of the most fascinating talks of the workshop was from Dan Shrag of Harvard University on "Carbon Sequestration in Deep Sea Sediments". He observes that ocean uptake is the earth's slow (limited by the mixing rate based on the earth's rotation, tides, winds, and so forth - it is the earth after all) but predictable mechanism for absorption of CO2 (80-90%). We can't increase the rate, but can we store it safely in the meantime? Many other proposals suggest we store in aquifers and mines, but cannot ensure it will not leak (monitoring is expensive as well, as anyone in IT knows). Geochemical processes are expensive, require lots of water, and produce waste products for disposal. Direct injection in the ocean is precluded by the slow rate of ocean absorption (more than 50% comes right back out, and local acid pockets are created dangerous to marine life). Finally, compensating with biological uptake mechanisms like forests (trees like CO2, remember) is just too small to handle all the stuff we're dumping into the atmosphere.

Dr. Schrag proposes a different approach - store CO2 in deep sea sediments. At high pressure and low temperature, CO2 is denser than sea water - optimally around 3000 ft (lower and you get geothermal heating effects). At around 4000 ft, CO2 hydrates impede permeability. So if we inject it into the ocean sediment below this limit, CO2 will float upwards, combine with hydrates, then condense for dissolution (it can't rise any higher). Of course, this means we place it along the coast (and not near active faults please).

The remarkable thing about Silicon Valley is how various disciplines combine together to create new and innovative solutions to our growing problems. For too long these groups have contended among themselves as the "best" solution to our theoretical energy deficit and global warming. But it is clear that, as we face actual temperature increases, changing (and damaging) weather patterns, political and cultural turmoil and war over diminishing fossil fuel resources, and a growing population demanding ever more energy, these groups need to band together. We need all of these solutions, and we need them now.

When Security Means Silence

My daughter is studying the play "Judgment at Nuremberg" by Abby Mann for English Lit, so for fun we decided to rent the wonderful 1961 movie version and watch it together as a family. The play depicts the trial of four judges who committed crimes under the guise of executing the law under Nazism, the responses of victims, and the interplay between state mandate and personal responsibility. Intercut with actual footage of Nuremberg during that time as well as actual footage of atrocities committed by the regime, and filled with wonderful actors (Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Werner Klemperer, and William Shatner), the play underscores the series of step-by-step legal decisions which ultimately denied justice, steps beginning with loyalty oaths and mandates against associating with inappropriate (labeled by the government) people and leading to the subversion of the entire judicial system in the name of maintaining the fiction of law during a genocidal war. And even though each judge was deemed responsible and "guilty" by the presiding trial judges (2-1, not unanimous), the lead defense attorney indicates that within a short time all those convicted will be released - which they eventually are.

I am struck with how much the lessons in this play, learned at such great cost in WWII, are still relevant today. Bruce Schneier in his latest CryptoGram security bulletin notes that non-classified NASA researchers working at JPL are now suing NASA and CalTech over invasive background checks. According to the Associated Press account of the lawsuit filed, "the Commerce Department and NASA instituted requirements that employees and contractors permit sweeping background checks to qualify for credentials and refusal would mean the loss of their jobs. NASA calls on employees to permit investigators to delve into medical, financial and past employment records, and to question friends and acquaintances about everything from their finances to sex lives, according to the suit. The requirements apply to everyone from janitors to visiting professors."

I know there are people who will loudly proclaim that those who refuse to sign probably have something to hide. But this isn't a standard background check - this is a blank check for the government to look at your mammogram results, bug your neighbors, examine your tax returns, follow you on vacation, and generally treat you as a criminal when you have committed no crime and there is no threat of a crime. Would anyone really sign a form that let's their employer talk to your ex-wife or follow you into the PTA meeting or bar after work? Would you like your doctor asked questions about what you told him in confidence? I sincerely doubt it. It would be really stupid.

One thing about the leading researchers on the Mars rovers, the Galileo probe to Jupiter and the Cassini mission to Saturn -- they are not stupid. They are well-known world-class scientists being told they must sign away their Constitutional rights (the 4th and 14th Amendment) or lose their jobs. It's scary. And it's absolutely suicidal for America's space program.

Finally, for those pundits who say we don't need a space program, I suggest they look at the progress China and Russia are making. America has dominated the space exploration biz for over 40 years, and we have reaped the rewards in scientific achievement (which translates into big bucks in the commercial sector over the long run) and prestige (which means we get things our way most of the time). In fact, we're so used to getting what we want from the world that we actually think we don't have to work for it. To use a common phrase, there's no such thing as a free lunch. We can't afford to kick out our best and brightest because some government bureaucrat wants to break out of the GS-12 dead-end pay level by inventing threats. Because at the end of the day, somebody has to pay for that lunch one way or another. Let's hope that our lead in space exploration isn't the price.

The Archetype Physicist Entrepreneur Speaks on Exploration and Success

Berkeley Professor Emeritus and Nobelist Charles H. Townes spoke at a small lunchtime gathering today at the SETI Institute, and as a Berkeley physics alumna I just had to see him again. Some might have expected less given his advanced years, but I must say he is amazing - his mind keen, his wit gentle and his wisdom deep. Listening to the good professor once again is a real honor and privilege.

Dr. Townes is also what I would characterize as the archetype of the Berkeley "Physicist Entrepreneur" - not because Dr. Townes has led start-ups or became another Bill Gates, since this would be a far too limited and reductionist use of the term entrepreneur. Dr. Townes is rather an entrepreneurial thinker, someone who is not afraid to look outside the bounds of convention. As he illustrates himself, much of Dr. Townes success was a result of desiring to explore an unknown question and persuading others to just let him try. "Exploration pays off big" said Dr. Townes, but you can't guarantee what the pay-off will be, so a businessman or government representative fixated on short-term gain may be uninterested. The narrower the focus, the smaller the gain.

Dr. Townes provides a few simple maxims for the successful physicist entrepreneur:

1. Just because you know the answer doesn't mean you're right.
Dr. Townes recalled how Dr. Welch, head of the astronomy department at Berkeley attempted to dissuade him from working on detection of ammonia in nebula, because Dr. Welch believed this compound would be unstable. Dr. Townes proceeded with his plans, and to everyone's surprise they found ammonia, the first of many molecular compounds found in the cosmos.

2. Don't let everyone else tell you what is impossible when they don't know why.
When Dr. Townes presented his application for a patent for Bell Labs legal to process, he was told that no one would ever communicate using light and that it was a waste of time. He did eventually persuade them to process it. Can anyone say "optical communications"?

3. Even the smartest of experts shoot from the lip sometimes...
Dr. von Neumann at a function with Dr. Townes at Princeton dismissed the notion of the maser. Dr. Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with N. G. Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov for contributions to fundamental work in quantum electronics leading to the development of the maser and laser.

4. ...But really good people recognize when they're wrong and admit it.
After thinking about it for 15 minutes, Dr. von Neumann changed his mind and said that it could be done. He didn't let ego blind him to the truth. People who tell you they "never change their mind" should be avoided, since they value their ego over character. If someone persists, just tell him "You're just like von Neumann at 14 minutes and counting but aren't at 15 yet" and let them puzzle out the rest.

5. We get set in our ways, culturally as well as personally, and find it too easy to say no.
Dr. Townes found his experiences on the Board of General Motors to have been fraught with difficulty. He found they just didn't want to re-examine any of their assumptions, because things were fine. That is, until they weren't fine. They were too comfortable with living off of past success, and found it easy to stick with what worked. Until it didn't.

6. We must try very hard to make good things happen.
Dr. Townes is a cautious optimist. In his long life, he has seen us develop weapons which could wipe out most of our world, and he has seen us walk on the moon. "We have big difficulties we have to struggle with, but the potentialities are enormous".

Dr. Townes still sees scientific worlds waiting to be explored. The two fields he specifically cited as exciting are biophysics and astrophysics. When he was entering into physics, Dr. Townes found biology limited to the "descriptive". Now he believes it is exploring "fundamentals". "If I were starting out now, I would probably go into biophysics", he said. Given my son is attending UCLA in biophysics and my daughter is preparing to enter Berkeley in a year in astrophysics, Dr. Townes' thoughts on this matter are personally gratifying, because like every parent I worry about the choices my children are making, and science right now is not held in esteem. But Dr. Townes words reassured me. Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time to hear what you need to hear.

Dr. Townes final piece of advice for aspiring physicist entrepreneurs. "Do challenging things", he exhorted! "Don't get into a rut and just specialize in one thing". "Be willing to take chances". And most importantly, "failure in a project is not failure in life". Bold words to live by from a great physicist entrepreneur and a great man.