Robin has a blog

Gamma rays from thunderclouds :

A report is made on a comprehensive observation of a burst-like $\gamma$-ray emission from thunderclouds on the Sea of Japan, during strong thunderstorms on 2007 January 6. The detected emission, lasting for $\sim$40 seconds, preceded cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. The burst spectrum, extending to 10 MeV, can be interpreted as consisting of bremsstrahlung photons originating from relativistic electrons. This ground-based observation provides first clear evidence that strong electric fields in thunderclouds can continuously accelerate electrons beyond 10 MeV prior to lightning discharges.

It has come to our attention that the famous farmer Mr. Bingo Singh, who had the dog named Jason, now has a blog. On occasion of this event, we present the BINGO blog song :

There was a farmer who had a blog, and Bingo was his name-O,
B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O,
And Bingo was his name-o.

There was a farmer who had a blog, and Bingo was his name-O,
Clap-I-N-G-O, clap-I-N-G-O, clap-I-N-G-O,
And Bingo was his name-o.

There was a farmer who had a blog, and Bingo was his name-O,
Clap-clap-N-G-O, clap-clap-N-G-O, clap-clap-N-G-O,
And Bingo was his name-o.

There was a farmer who had a blog, and Bingo was his name-O,
Clap-clap-clap-G-O, clap-clap-clap-G-O, clap-clap-clap-G-O,
And Bingo was his name-o.

There was a farmer who had a blog, and Bingo was his name-O,
Clap-clap-clap-clap-O, clap-clap-clap-clap-O, clap-clap-clap-clap-O,
And Bingo was his name-o.

There was a farmer who had a blog, and Bingo was his name-O
Clap-clap-clap-clap-clap, clap-clap-clap-clap-clap, clap-clap-clap-clap-clap,
And Bingo was his name-o.

A neat article on infinities.

Infinity offers many results that are at first counter-intuitive. A classic example is Hilbert's Hotel, which has infinitely many rooms, each one labeled by a natural number printed on the door: Room 1, Room 2, Room 3, etc., all the way through the natural numbers. One night, a traveler arrives at the front desk only to be told be the clerk that the hotel is full. "But don't worry, sir," says the clerk, "I just took a mathematics course at my local college, and so I know how to find you a room. Just give me a minute to make some phone calls." And a short while later, the traveler has his room for the night. What the clerk did was ask every guest to move to the room with the room number the next integer. Thus, the occupant of Room 1 moved into Room 2, the occupant of Room 2 into Room 3, etc. Everyone moved room, no one was ejected from the hotel, and Room 1 became vacant for the newly arrived guest.

If you thought Rubik's cubes were complex, here are the four- and five- dimensional versions of the same.

• Four dimensions: http://www.superliminal.com/cube/applet.html

• Five dimensions: http://www.gravitation3d.com/magiccube5d/

Dan Drezner wrote an oft-cited article in the Chronicle of Higher Education after being denied tenure at the University of Chicago. The article is worth keeping in mind as we charge into the brave new world of Web 2.0. As he explained in the article entitled "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?"., there are potential problems associated with blogging for those who are academics or wish to go into academia.

When I was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, a senior colleague once told me his secret to academic success: One bad article equals five great ones. His point was that the worst thing a scholar can do is to publish too much, as opposed to too little. Any substandard publication creates a black mark that is difficult to erase.

That point came back to me as I read about Yale's decision to reject Juan Cole for a senior position in Middle East studies — despite the recommendation of two departments to hire him. The combination of little to no comment from either Yale or Cole and the "star chamber" politics of hiring at elite institutions has led to speculation that Cole's prominent, left-wing, take-no-prisoners blog played a role in his nonhiring. That seemed to be the hope of Michael Rubin, of the American Enterprise crowd, when he wrote in the Yale Daily News that Cole has paid a price because he has "abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary." That was also the fear of Cole supporters like Philip Weiss, who noted in The Nation that "it is hard to separate Cole's scholarly reputation from his Internet fame." After I was denied tenure at Chicago last year, there was news-media conjecture that my blog was partly to blame, so Cole's story evokes an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

Anyone know more about this, let me know.

Scientists funded by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity.

Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. According to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. However, Martin Tajmar, ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria; Clovis de Matos, ESA-HQ, Paris; and colleagues have measured the effect in a laboratory. [ Link ]

And now we have, a guest post from Bill Scadlock ;)

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Eight Planets? I don't think so

By William Scadlock

August 15, Houston

It is August 15, and that can only mean one thing! In exactly nine days, it will be one year since Pluto was deleted from the list of planets. Why post nine days before, you ask? The reason is, obviously, to protest this decision to delete Pluto. Nine is a great number, an excellent number. I see no reason to move away from nine planets. Don't get me wrong : I love the number eight. But, without naming any names, I will just say that some people have gotten tired of these unpredictable shifts in the number of planets.

Nine has worked for us in the past. And - mind you - it was not always nine. First, it was six. Then, with Uranus, it was seven. Less than seventy years after that, in 1847 to be exact (you will notice that we astrologers like to keep our figures straight), it was eight. Then one black day in February in 1930, it went all the way up to nine. Do we have to have keep changing our charts every eighty years or so? I don't think so. "This is one horrible decision as it has caused many astrologers to reconsider their science. Many an astrologist's chart, based until last year on the now disreputable physics of nine planets, has had to be revised," said Ra's al Ghul, known to his friends as Algol.

Algol plans to stage a demonstration next week headed towards the NASA offices in Houston accompanied by his daughers Nyssa and Talia. The march will start exactly nine hours, nine minutes and nine seconds before the midnight of August 24. Nyssa said she ultimately expected this to grow into a global movement. "People around the world are watching this. This is an important event for people who care about science and the future of the world," said the star of "Death and the Maidens" speaking yesterday from her headquarters in Northern Africa. "I care about the world. I even gave the computer technician at our headquarters the day off because I think it is some sort of thing in India tomorrow." A critical response to this has come from the scientific community. Barbara Gordon will stage a counter-demonstration also headed towards the NASA offices. Barbara Gordon has composed an anthem for the march, which I reproduce here with her permission :

Imagine there's no Pluto
It's easy if you try
No Hades below us
Above us only sky

Alright, folks, so we have heard what Barbara has to say. But look closely at what she says right here : "It is easy if you try". Easy? What's easy? Imagining there are only eight planets? I don't think so. And easy for who? Nobody, that is who. Nobody except some millionaires up in Gotham City. We common folk want our Pluto back. Not 13430 Pluto. Just plain Pluto. The millionaires can do what they want. According to Algol, last year's decision is part of a disturbing trend away from Ptolemaic astrology of the second century, when "astrology was the common man's science". "Astronomy and astrology have become play-things of the rich.", said Algol. "We must restore them to their rightful place as the means of predicting the next day in daily newspapers for the common man." Ptolemy looked up at the sky - mind you, none of this million-dollar telescope stuff - and saw seven objects. And seven objects only. That is why we have nine planets in our system. Algol said he imagined that the decision to remove Pluto from the list of planets was ultimately the work of "some millionaire superhero somewhere".

[link updated]