Hot Enough?

London at 7:30 AM on April 22. We are always concerned with Earth's climate, even before royal weddings. After another freezing Winter, England and Wales suffered the driest March in more than a century. (Texas is also undergoing drought.) With yesterday's temperature of 26C, London is having its hottest April on record. We all remember stories of biblical plagues. At first the Pharoahs denied there were plagues at all, then they said the plagues were not a result of their actions. Finally the Pharoahs were forced to let the people free. When will the people be free?

Had Enough Yet?

January 7, 2010

We are always concerned with Earth's climate. NASA's Terra satellite made this image of the British Isles completely blanketed in snow. The barely visible grey spots are Manchester, Birmingham and London. Most of the country experienced nighttime temperatures of -10 C and lower. This has led to shortages of fuel oil and salt for roads. These people need better leaders.

Two Into One

The "Number One Plays and Players" began years ago performing for NASA employees in the Gilruth Center at JSC. Houston's latest hit is TWO INTO ONE, by master of British farce RAY COONEY. A civil servant in the Home Office tries to arrange an extramarital affair with the girl in a towel. Being a British civil servant, he messes everything up. The Minister's wife and the girl's husband (right) show up with disastrous consequences!

The real UK government is still more incompetent than any Ray Cooney farce. Friend Nige pointed out this article from the Times:

Britain is appeasing Iran, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi says

Dr. Ebadi is the only Persian to have won a Nobel peace prize. She and her family have endured arrest and persecution for telling the truth about Iran. She believes that Britain's government has ignored the regime's appalling record in order to cut a deal.

Though Scotsman Gordon Brown is UK Prime Minister, he still wields great influence in Scotland. Last month Abdel Megrahi, sentenced to 27 years for the Lockerbie bombing, was released to a hero's welcome in Libya. Moammar Kaddafi publicly thanked his 'friend' Gordon Brown and others for helping to swing the deal. In exchange Libya has promised oil and trade.

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith banned radio personality Michael Savage and others from Britain for their political views. Her husband, who was also on the government payroll, was caught watching dirty movies at home alone and charging them to the taxpayer. Smith has since resigned in disgrace, though documents indicate that Gordon Brown approved her actions. In interviews Smith has admitted to being completely unprepared for the job, having no experience running a major organisation. Dr. Savage has 2 masters degrees, in medical botany and medical anthropology, and a PhD from the University of California Berkeley in epidemiology and nutrition sciences. He and others are still banned from Britain by the bureaucracy.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders was banned from Britain for his views, but flew to Heathrow anyway. He was publicly detained and sent back. Many innocent travellers, celebrated or not, have been detained by Britain's dictatorial Immigration Office. When Heathrow's Terminal 5 was opened last year, thousands of travellers and their baggage were stranded for days due to system malfunctions. Failures like these are systematic in British bureacracy, a fine subject for a Ray Cooney farce.

The theatre program says that the girl in a towel is an experienced actress and a scientist working at NASA. How can someone who looks like that (meaning female) be a scientist? How could she solve the "dark energy" problem that thousands of scientists can't figure out? Why does NASA give her money and a security badge for Johnson Space Center? This can't be right--something must be wrong with a woman's equations! Commenters feel a duty to pepper her blog with silly comments, trying in vain to find some flaw with the math or data. If that doesn't work, perhaps she can be stopped at an airport...

No Sex Pt II: Houston, We Have a Hit

Thanks to all those who made the last post one of the most-viewed ever. Before we return to scientific matters, here is a photo from the theatre poster now appearing all over Johnson Space Center. (I wonder who did that?) Houston, your last chance to see the play is this weekend!

On the meantime, Britain's government has proven that matter can implode into a Black Hole. Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, thinks he can solve the budget problem by raising the top tax rate to 50 percent. This drew protests from artists like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Michael Caine. We greatly admire Caine and would give him a warm welcome in Texas.

Today we learn that Alistair Darling has avoided paying taxes himself. He changed his address 4 times in 4 years to avoid the tax rules. Darling hired an accountant to show him how to avoid taxes, and made the taxpayer pay for the accountant! The Prime Minister claimed two different grace and favour homes to avoid taxes, while enjoying a free home at Downing Street. They have produced a man-made Black Hole, and Britain is spiralling into it.

Speaking of accountants and tax avoidance, the company's next play is THE PRODUCERS!

No Sex Please, We're British!

The unforgettable words of Lubos Motl from 2006:

"This is another contribution to the discussion whether physics PhDs must inevitably understand basics of modern physics. Well, they may have other virtues, of course. ;-)"

The Number One Players began performing for NASA employees at Johnson Space Center in the 1980's. In 1991 the Company moved to the beautiful Harbour Playhouse, largest live theatre in the area. The farce NO SEX PLEASE, WE'RE BRITISH ran for 8 years in London. This photo, from a Galveston paper, features Brian Treybig and Rebecca Bauerlein. In the centre, as Susan the Call Girl, is a familiar face--the programme says she is a scientist at JSC and a member of Screen Actors Guild. Due to overwhelming crowds, NO SEX has been extended to May 31.

Many, many scientists secretly engage in prostitution. This usually involves following fashionable ideas, like strings or dark energies, to get funding and jobs. Because of the rampant prostitution in science, more logical ideas like a changing speed of light are willfully ignored. If an actress is able to play one onstage, she may be unconcerned about becoming a real prostitute.

The real British government is madder than any farce. Previously this blog has sadly noted the Orwellian incompetence of the Home Office, Send In the Clowns and Borders as a Weapon of Censorship. Like a character in our farce, the Home Secretary's husband (who was already on the public payroll as a Parliamentary Aide) was caught watching dirty movies at home alone and charging them as expenses. Since the above posts, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas (appointed by the Home Secretary) was caught charging women's shoes, nail polish and panty liners to the taxpayer. The same week the Prime Minister's makeup notes were left in a taxicab by a bungling aide. (Gordon Brown uses Clinique.) Many other MP's have made the public pay for second homes they did not need. Since these expenses were revealed in the Daily Telegraph, public outrage at Parliament has exploded.

On May 14, Speaker Michael Martin resigned in disgrace, the first Parliament Speaker to resign in 314 years. Martin, like every other parliamentary scofflaw, is still voting and drawing salary. While Martin's expenses were relatively small, he covered up the scandal by making expense reports a State secret. When the story broke, Martin hinted at prosecuting those who leaked the information.

The secret expense reports were leaked to the Daily Telegraph by brave ex-SAS officer John Wick and American expatriate Henry Gewanter. Gewanter now fears arrest, deportation or worse.

‘I am an American. I was brought up there and I believe that a free Press is the most important and the only defence of our personal freedoms, our liberty and democracy.

‘This Government has been systematically cutting back on our freedoms, our liberty and democracy for some years. That is why I have done it and why I have done it for nothing.

‘Your Government seems to think that people like me are about to sell the stuff to criminals and terrorists and are undermining democracy, but I am not. I am exposing these people for what they are.’

He said his involvement would mean ‘a real serious problem. I’ll get deported or I’ll get locked up or they’ll make life miserable for me for ever’.

On June 4 Britain elects representatives to the European Parliament. The Labour Party is polling below 20%, behind even the UK Independence Party! UKIP believes that Britain should stop surrendering her sovereignity before it is too late. Already the Queen has expressed her great displeasure to Gordon Brown. If Labour does even half as badly as expected, Brown will be forced to call an election he will certainly lose.

A sure sign of dictatorship is that mediocre people rise to the top. The Prime Minister, his Home Secretary, Immigration Minister and entire government are going down faster than a cheap hooker. In the meantime, someone is having a wonderful, wonderful time spoofing the British. She has been cheered by hundreds and will be appearing for other audiences worldwide. Who is smiling now?

"Borders as a Weapon of Censorship"

From time to time we defer to brave and wondrous Kea. She is still blogging from her post at Oxford, despite the silliness of Britain's Home Office. Many scientists have missed appointments because of silly immigration rules. 2 months ago, Send in the Clowns, this blog reported than even circus performers are prevented from joining their tours. What a grave terrorist threat that circus clowns pose to Britain! The real clowns, the real threats to freedom are in government.

Speaking of clowns, California radio personality Michael Savage has been banned from Britain solely for his views. Savage had no plans to visit Britain, and has not done so for at least 20 years. As far as is known, he has never advocated violence nor been conviced of violent acts. Michael Savage is just a funnyman who poses no threat. Though his show is not even broadcast in Britain, the Home Office has singled out a private citizen out for defamation.

How does Home Secretary Jacqui Smith justify this laughable ruling? "I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," Smith told a GMTV interviewer, "and what's more we will make public those people we have excluded."

Jacqui Smith's dictatorial rules have turned even Labour allies against her. Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the UK was prepared to "use their borders as a weapon of censorship. It also deprives the citizens of that country of their ability to hear dissenting views."

The Gurkha Rifles are among Britain's proudest defenders. Recruited from their Himalayan homeland, they are known far and wide for their bravery and trademark curved swords. A new ruling by the aforementioned Home Office strips them of the historic right to settle in Britain. Gurkha Justice Campaign. The Gurkhas have found a spokesperson in the Absolutely Fabulous Joanna Lumley:

"Via a single-page document published on the internet, the Government delivered a wicked blow to loyal and brave British Army Gurkha veterans.

"The bond between the British people and the Gurkhas is paid in the blood of 50,000 of them who died for our freedom. The Gurkhas stood by this country through its darkest hours; now, those Gurkhas call on every Briton in their own hour of need.

"The British people are not fair-weather friends. The Government has miscalculated the depth of support from the public. The new policy is deliberately designed to exclude nearly every Gurkha who retired before 1997. Gurkha Riflemen were limited to a maximum of 15 years’ service in the Brigade, yet the new immigration policy requires that a Gurkha must have served for 20 years before he can live here.

"Ministers now say that Gurkhas can live here if they have family in Britain — but Gurkhas’ families were previously excluded from Britain. They also say that they can live here if they have served in Britain (not in war zones) continuously for three years — yet Gurkhas toured Britain for only two years and their stay here was broken by tours of duties in war zones."

On April 9 Britain's Counterrorism Chief Bob Quick resigned. He was photographed by the press entering 10 Downing Street carrying a document marked SECRET in the open. The paper detailed to the world a plan to round up 11-12 terrorism suspects. 10 of the suspects were Pakistani nationals who had entered the UK on "student" visas. The Home Office let them in but keeps Gurkhas and others out. Bob Quick, who will retire to a million-pound pension, was appointed by the Home Secretary. Jacqui Smith's husband, Richard Timney, is also on the government payroll as Smith's parliamentary aide. Recently Timney confessed to watching adult films in their home, then charging them as expenses.

Innocent people have been locked out of Britain for nothing more than their opinions. This is truly a form of censorship. From entertainers to Gurkha veterans, noone is safe. Who voted for these Orwellian regulations? Who desires a government that has bankrupted the UK while making taxpayers pay for minister's second homes? If Britain's science and democratic government are to advance, the Home Secretary and those around her must be shown the door.

Eye in London

(Detainment has ended, though too late for the party at Imperial College. Though this week's events were disappointing, we must keep a stiff upper lip. Yesterday 4 times as many people read my talk online than would have seen it in Blackett Hall. My experience was a nuisance, but not that bad. It was nothing like the 3600 nights Galileo spent under house arrest, or the treatment given to Aung Suu Kyi and political prisoners worldwide. I am still more concerned about Faye Turney and the British servicemembers held in Iran.)

Here are Slides 2-3, with the accompanying text:

We can illustrate Special Relativity if we keep time t vertical and compress dimensions x, y, and zed into this line. An interval outside this cone is spacelike —an event here cannot affect an event there. An interval inside the light cone is timelike, literally a matter of time. Space and Time are related by factor c, called the speed of light. From this principle can be derived the useful equations of the Lorentz transformation.

Just as this is just one capsule of the London Eye, these local conditions are part of the larger Universe of General Relativity. Again x, y and zed are compressed into the screen. There is no centre in space; every bit resembles every other bit. There is a centre in time, what we call a “Big Bang”. Near that initial singularity, mass M of the Universe was occupied a small volume. Though separated from the Big Bang by 13 thousand million years, we are within its cone and that huge mass influences even the propagation of light.

Space/Time can be Unified by a simple principle. Scale R of the Universe is distance from that origin, age t multiplied by c. That is why as t increases, Space expands. It can’t expand at a constant rate, for mass and gravity slow it down. We’ll skip some math here. GM=tc^3. (Gravitational constant, Mass of Universe, 1 dimension of Time and 3 of Space.) Both sides are constant. When t was tiny c was enormous and the Universe expanded like a Bang. As t increased that expansion slowed due to gravitation and continues asymptotically to this day. This equation made the heretical prediction that c slows at a rate too tiny to detect, until now. Today we can compare prediction with experiment.

First we can solve for c and R. This is the metric of Einstein-de Sitter expansion, tracitionally the cosmologists' favourite model. Any cosmology should solve the Einstein-Friedmann equations. These simple expressions form an exact solution of k = 0 and density (Omega = 1) . This so-called critical density of mass is in fact a stable density. Below this density, quantum mechanics predicts that matter will form via pair production.

(More coming soon.)

T Minus 5 Days: 1984 + 23

Here's one way to make an entrance! From the original Apple Computer 1984 ad, directed by Ridley Scott. The audience is numbed into obedience by the image of Big Brother and his dark energy. The woman runs into the auditorium pursued by secret police who would stop her from speaking. She flings her hammer into the screen, and dark energy explodes in the light of knowledge. Recently the ad was revived with a certain American presidential candidate in the place of Big Brother, but we will keep politics out of this.

London was George Orwell's favourite city. Here he lived the life of a penniless writer, penning "Down and Out in London and Paris." His experience in the Spanish Civil War made him a committed socialist, but World War 2 showed him the evil of totalitarianism. Orwell and London survived the Nazi bombing together. Shortly after the War ended he finished "Animal Farm." Orwell's masterwork "1984" was published while he was dying of tuberculosis at University College Hospital, Bloomsbury.

When the year 1984 arrived many nations were in the grip of totalitarianism. Most people believed it was self-perpetuating and would last indefinitely. Within a few years most of the world would throw off communism's yoke. Surviving communists had to scurry into their spider holes, like in Cornell. In their misery, they are reduced to sending nasty e-mails at 12:51.

The threat of totalitarianism will long be with us. In science it is tempting to fall behind a consensus, repeating that planets revolve around the Earth or the speed of light is constant. As we have seen this week, communists love this sort of obedience. Totalitarianism will take many forms and guises, even hiding behind the mask of religion. The events of 7/7 reminded us that London has endured bombs before. They fear us not when we are wrong, but when we are right.

Imperial College Press Release: "The theory that Earth once underwent a prolonged time of extreme global freezing has been dealt a blow by new evidence that periods of warmth occurred during this so-called 'Snowball Earth' era."

Professor Philip Allen of Imperial College London's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, explains: "If the Earth had become fully frozen for a long period of time, these climatic cycles could not exist – the Earth would have changed into a bleak world with almost no weather, since no evaporation from the oceans could take place, and little snowfall would be possible. In fact, once fully frozen, it is difficult to create the right conditions to cause a thaw, since much of the incoming solar radiation would be reflected back by the snow and ice. The evidence of climatic cycles is therefore hostile to the idea of ‘Snowball Earth'."

This also applies to earlier periods in Earth history. These results cast severe doubt upon a "Faint Young Sun." A better theory of cosmology sheds light upon problems of Earth, like our climate. See Thursday's post!

Outstanding Questions

I am honoured to be scheduled to give a closing talk at a conference this month at Imperial College. Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model will overview the evidence for and against the so-called standard model. It will also address alternative competing models. This will be an international conference attracting many important researchers. Forgetting for a moment what I will say, we will hear from some scientists previously mentioned in this blog.

Alain Blanchard of the Midi-Pyrenees Observatory is not well-enough known outside Europe. He has written the authoritative book GALAXIES AND COSMOLOGY. Using ESA's XMM-Newton satellite, he has gathered evidence that Dark Energy Doesn't Exist.

Professor Roger Blandford was once a student of (Astronomer Royal) Martin Rees. He was co-developer of the Blandford-Ivanek process for Black Hole jets. Today he is director of Stanford's Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. Once he reluctantly lectured about "dark energy." In his own closing talks at the AAS HEAD Meeting in October and the GLAST Symposium in February, he did not mention DE. He did comment about "Lorentz Invariance," or a changing speed of light.

Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University is a prolific author and contributor to publications like Scientific American and New Scientist. He has wondered how the cosmic microwave background "proves" inflation when the scale-invariant spectrum, which is predicted by inflation, is ruled out by both COBE and WMAP data. At his AAAS talk last month he called current cosmology "observation-driven" rather than model-driven. He also said that supernova data "naively implied that the universe was accelerating." He also wrote THE PHYSICS OF STAR TREK.

The "standard model" or Concorde cosmology is a hodgepodge of speculations dominated by an invisible "dark energy." It relies on a repulsive "inflaton" driving initial expansion, another repulsive energy causing present acceleration, and our Ptolemaic world in the middle. None of these imagined energies can be observed in a laboratory, just like the Emperor's New Clothes. The Universe of this cosmology is flat, like the Earth.

I hope that other friends from Imperial College, the UK and Europe can make the trip to London. My talk is scheduled just before lunch, 12:30 PM GMT on March 29. (There will be summary talks after lunch.) In case you are not registered for the conference, nobody pays much attention to that on the last day.