First, I saw Man of Steel Friday night with my wife and I liked it pretty well within the decisions it made. It’s a colder, more science fiction story than previous Superman movies with a lot of huge disaster-type violence. If you’re looking for a smiling Superman saving kittens from trees and moments of comic relief, stay at home. I wanted to point at this article discussing some Superman science — to the extent it exists — and a spoiler-filled review by a DC Superman writer that raises interesting points.

Next, some articles about climate change. We’ve had it easy the last few years, but that’s unlikely to continue. Moreover, the hockey stick is still very real no matter what deniers think.

Top Five Underrated Science Fiction Masterpieces. It’s a video. If you want the list, it’s here: 5. Silent Running. 4. Gattaca. 3. Serenity. 2. Dark City. 1. Primer. Honorable mention: The Fountain.

Some fundamental astrophysics. A relatively simple theory for dark matter, probably going to falsified soon, and not that simple.  And, does the Big Bang necessarily mean there’s a multiverse?  Short answer: no.

Weird and kind of stupid (IMHO) speculation about the future of human evolution.

Why geniuses don’t have jobs.  Because writers make things up and make assumptions that make their story true.

On METI.  Should we be broadcasting?

Human scale invisibility cloak unveiled.  Weakness: one-direction only.

Space Math: Resource for science fiction writers.  Handy.  Not quite everything I’d like, but a lot I do like.

The illustrated guide to a PhD.  Some truth at that link.

Chladni Figures resonance experiment (Brian Malow at SciAm Blogs).

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Starship Century is a symposium coordinated by the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination in collaboration with Gregory and James Benford, presenting ideas from their anthology of science and science fiction of a 100 year project to create a starship.

The symposium was held at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California San Diego on May 21st and 22nd, 2013.  Below are some of the videos of this two day event.

Limited edition paperback copies of Starship Century can be purchased here. Profits from the sale of the book will go toward interstellar research.

I’m going to copy the videos here, not to steal their content, but to help spread the word and, honestly, for my own convenience.  I have not watched them yet, but will do so as time permits.  I’m also going to order a copy of the anthology.  I would encourage you to follow the link to their blog as there’s more entries there than just the video post.

Opening Remarks

Peter Schwartz – Starships and Fates of Humankind

Freeman Dyson – Noah’s Ark Eggs and Warm Blooded Plants

Patti Grace Smith – Developing Near Space

Geoffrey Landis – The Nuclear Rocket Workhorse of the Solar System

Neal Stephenson – Thinking Big

Robert Zubrin – On the Way to Starflight Economics of Interstellar Breakout

Chris Lewicki The Coming Interplenatery Economy

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We have secured part of our funding via a sponsorship from Uwingu, which we are grateful to have received.  This only satisfies a portion of our expenses, however, and so we have launched a crowdsourcing effort via Rocket Hub.  Past attendees have contributed ebooks and signed books for donations at particular levels.  Please consider helping us out, and help our participants put a little more astronomy in their work and get it right.  Thanks!

Much thanks to Christian Ready and Jim Verley for their work putting together the video!

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Cosmography and a 3-D view of the local universe.  This is even harder to do than I bet you think it is.

Provide input on human spaceflight.

Justin Bieber heading to space along with Ashton Kutchner and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Scientists: do your outreach or your science dies.

David Brin asks if our world is improving despite our grouchy dogmas.

Barns are red because of the physics of dying stars.  Really!

Just click on this!  A statue in the woods.

Marriage continues to drop and the future may be very different sociologically.

Wyoming student disqualified for entering too many science fairs.  Too many?  He should be rewarded!  (Bonus: he built a nuclear reactor.)

This article suggests that being a professor is one of the most laid-back, low stress jobs you can have.  They’re full of shit!  Either that, or I would die an early death if I had any other job…

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is unfortunately anti-science and anti-vaccine.  There are those on the left with blinders on, too.

101 Best Written TV series of all Time.  Some good ones there for sure.

There’s a new edition of Orson Scott Card’s Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction that now includes a chapter on steampunk my my friend Jay Lake and other updates.

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Instructors:
Mike Brotherton
Jim Verley
Christian Ready
Andria Schwortz

Plus our usual assortment of special guests from the University on topics of their specialty

Participants in no particular order that I can recall:
E. Jay O’Connell
Shanee Edwards
Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
Claudine Griggs
Douglas Dechow
Anna Leahy
Chaz Brenchley
Jenn Brissett
Liz Argall
Caren Gussoff
Jamie Todd Rubin
Brenda Clough
Jeri Smith-Ready
Doug Farren
Donna Glee Williams
Andrew Romine

A talented, diverse group again that should be great fun to work with!

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Here are some choice quotes:

“I choose to believe it. … I mean, there’s no downside to that. If you say, ‘Well, OK, I don’t believe in God, there’s no evidence of God,’ then you’re missing the stars in the sky and you’re missing the sunrises and sunsets and you’re missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together,” he said.

“Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design,” King added.

The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology do end up looking like that, I suppose, but no more is needed. Where’d they come from? I don’t know. King doesn’t either. Calling them “God” doesn’t mean anything, in my opinion, and there’s no need for anything that derives from their application to be called intelligent design either.

Moving on:

“And the thing is — I may have told you last time that I believe in God — what I’m saying now is I choose to believe in God, but I have serious doubts and I refuse to be pinned down to something that I said 10 or 12 years ago,” he said. “I’m totally inconsistent.”

So he’s not consistent. He has serious doubts. At least he has more intellectual integrity than the people who know with absolutely certainty when they don’t (e.g. Michelle Bachman, whose god recently told her to quit congress and make some money while she still can).

Normally I’d have left this for starlinks. I mean, an author believes in god? Says the universe “sort of” suggests intelligent design. Eh, so what? But then I found this gem in the comments and it made me laugh out loud:

There is nothing random about the universe, anyone with half a brain can see that. The computer you read this article on was created by someone, how much more complex is the human body and people claim it happened by chance? I have no patients for that kind of stupidity.

Emphasis added. The usual ignorance about randomness, the watchmaker analogy, etc., that is not a serious argument, but the use of “patients” used with “that kind of stupidity” for some reason struck me as the height of stupid grammar comedy today, stones and glasshouses after all. Spellcheckers haven’t stolen everything from us yet, but I have no patients for it either! LOL!

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An article about the Kepler’s Dozen anthology I’m in. More than just last week’s press release.

Is the world improving despite our grouchy dogmas? David Brin is on the right track here, and I concur. Also an interesting bit about METI.

On budget-conscious aliens…

An article about Wyoming’s astronomy REU program.

A pretty tough way to do SETI, out of range for the foreseeable future pending a super duper big giant telescope.

Interesting article with stupid bits (“higher IQ than Einstein” sensationalism) about a prodigy interested in physics and astronomy.

Direct imaging of molecular transitions. Really cool science stuff.

“‘It’s anti-science’ to not believe ‘men should dominate women.’” Sometimes science does lead to politically incorrect positions. This is not one of those cases. This is another ignorant conservative politician trying to use science to justify his positions, and doing it badly.

I’m interested in seeing Buzz Aldrin’s science fiction tv show based on a novel he wrote with John Barnes in the 1990s.

Why don’t we have space elevators yet? Well, the same old reason mostly — materials aren’t strong enough yet. Yeah, nanotubes are promising and we’ve made progress, but not enough.

A Star Trek and fraud mashup.

Some trashing of the new Mermaid “documentary.” People believe this? I regard it as mediocre science fiction. Another article from Slate on the topic.

The moment I knew I needed to de-stress. Not so much science or science fiction here, but it struck a chord with me.

Really interesting article about survivor bias. This is an example of some of the reasoning I have to use in my job sometimes.

Interesting thread about the best undergrad astronomy programs. Some inspiration for our program, I think.

Woolly mammoth. Blood. Two things I like put together! And a real chance for cloning a mammoth in the near future. This is a science fiction reality we’re living in!

Earth threatened by potential gamma ray burst? Probably not, but a possibility here discussed.

On “curing” people of dangerous beliefs like fundamentalism. Mixed feelings on this. Not that people don’t hold ridiculous and dangerous beliefs but that they’re necessarily a mental illness or that they should be cured like a disease as the main approach.

A Nature editorial criticizing Lamar Smith’s proposal to add “accountability” to federal science grants. Conservatives don’t understand science and sure aren’t helping it.

Heath Ledger’s Joker diary.

The 25 coolest sci-fi movie weapons. Don’t know if it’s the 25 I would pick, but many good ones on the list.

The above link is missing a silence gun.

And let’s finish with an article discussing how recent physics discoveries may point to multiverses. Not sure I agree yet, but interesting and possible.

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While the internet does seem to be behaving well at the moment, I wanted to share some good news.

Back in early March, I submitted a proposal to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to analyze archival ultraviolet spectra in order to better determine black hole masses in quasars. There’s no new observations associated with the proposal, but there is funding that will cover some summer salary for me and maybe a grad student or two. The obvious good news at this stage, given this background, is that the proposal was successful!

It’s long odds on almost all government funding these days, and I’ve been striking out with other venues for a while and have run out of funding. Landing this grant is really great news for me and a great pick-me-up after a string of unsuccessful proposals. The National Science Foundation is only funding about 10-12% of astronomy proposals these days, and that’s a hard level to achieve when you’re competing against astronomers throughout the country. The odds at HST for archival proposals aren’t nearly so bad, and I’m happy with that.

One of the ways Universities measure the performance of their faculty is by grant success. This will help me get my next promotion. Moreover, the University only pays 9 month salaries and without grants, I take a big pay cut compared to past years. Also graduate students are usually only supported those same 9 months, and need grant support to get paid in the summer, too. I’ve had a big team of students, but most have finished or are finishing, although I’ll certainly have more in the future. I get paid well enough I can manage without the summer salary, grad students cannot, and worrying about covering them is usually the strongest driving force for me to apply for grants.

This money will be well used. The project is a good one and we’ll do a good job with it. Then it will be time for new proposals and new projects again. Scientists, like those in most fields, unless you’re an Einstein or Nobel Prize Winner, are judged by the standard of “what have you done lately.”

For the moment I can say, “My last grant proposal was successful.”

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This kind of invalidates the entire point of Starfleet. Want to go to a distant planet? You don’t need a starship. You just teleport there, instantly. Even if you want to explore an uncharted region of space, all you have to do is teleport there in a spacesuit. This isn’t simply a plot contrivance; it’s the end of Star Trek as we know it. The entire formula of Star Trek doesn’t make any more sense.

Another major problem he identifies is the annoying and unnecessary issue of adding gratuitous problems at every possible opportunity.

Abrams has made no secret about his preference for Star Wars; he didn’t grow up liking Star Trek. And he made a Star Trek that was filled with action and drama, barely giving the viewer a moment to pause. Along the way, there were plot twists that strained credibility, recalling the spectacular faux drama of the Millennium Falcon fleeing a completely unnecessary and nonsensical space worm in The Empire Strikes Back. Such “twists” make no sense, but they add drama, making every moment seem exciting. So when Kirk and Scotty beam back onto the Enterprise, in the 2009 film, Scotty materializes inside a fluid-filled conduit. If you can think of a complication that would provide a little extra drama, the movie probably takes it.

I could go on, or Julian Darius could (it’s not a short article). It’s worth the time and the read if you care about Star Trek or an excellent analysis of what makes good science fiction vs. what the movie actually gives us.

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The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has issued a statement addressing the potential elimination of the education and public outreach (EPO) activities in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, as called for in President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2014 budget proposal. The AAS enthusiastically supports the Administration’s goals to increase the impact of federal education investments and to increase the numbers of teachers and graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM. But, according to the AAS, the proposed cuts “would dismantle some of the nation’s most inspiring and successful STEM education assets.”

The Administration’s FY 2014 budget proposal consolidates many federal education programs within the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. “These agencies are perfectly capable of managing current programs that suit their expertise,” says AAS Education Officer Edward E. Prather (Center for Astronomy Education/University of Arizona), “but they are unprepared and ill-equipped to take on the job of duplicating the many existing NASA science EPO efforts that already address the Administration’s goals through evidence-based, innovative, and cost-effective education models.”

“In classrooms and public spaces all over the country I see NASA images and logos highlighting our achievements in space science and planetary exploration,” says AAS President David J. Helfand. “No other federal agency has been as successful at inspiring and mentoring our nation’s youth through its science education and outreach efforts. To keep the U.S. competitive in the 21st century, we should be asking NASA to do more, not less.”

The full text of the AAS statement, approved by the CAPP and the AAS Executive Committee on 21 May 2013, follows:

American Astronomical Society Statement on the President’s FY 2014 Budget Proposal to
Eliminate the Education & Public Outreach Programs in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is encouraged by the goal in the President’s 2014 budget proposal to increase the impact of the federal education investment. The AAS has contributed significantly to advancing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) literacy in all four areas called out in the proposal — K-12 instruction, undergraduate education, graduate education and career mentoring, and education activities that take place outside the classroom — as well as to programs aligned with the President’s desire to increase opportunities for, and participation by, individuals from groups historically underrepresented in STEM fields. Furthermore, we agree that our nation’s students must improve their STEM knowledge and critical-thinking abilities if they are to become the innovators our country needs to ensure the future competitiveness of the United States. We also strongly support the President’s ambitious goals of generating 100,000 new and effective STEM teachers and 1,000,000 more STEM graduates in order to achieve the outcomes called for in the 2014 budget proposal.

While it is certainly appropriate and reasonable to assess critically how taxpayer investments are being used to create federal education programs in order to decrease duplication and increase programmatic effectiveness, it is not at all clear that the proposed reorganization of federal education efforts would produce more efficient and productive education programs than those that currently exist through the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) programs of the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The proposed budget reorganization would dismantle some of the nation’s most inspiring and successful STEM education assets. Over the past 15 years NASA SMD EPO efforts have developed a network of national partnership among mission scientists, formal and informal STEM education professionals, faculty from university STEM departments and colleges of education, K-12 educators, and school-district policy makers. Many of the resulting educational programs have matured into national models that have produced tremendous broader impacts, serving as an incredible source of inspiration for our society and providing a robust pathway into STEM careers over the widest possible range of STEM disciplines.

NASA SMD EPO programs provide some of the nation’s best examples of how federal funding is used effectively to achieve the broad impacts and evidence-based strategic outcomes that are the goal of the 2014 budget reorganization. Many of the most successful NASA SMD EPO programs are funded through a rigorous peer review process that requires the clear identification of both a target audience and strategic impacts, accompanied by an evidence-based evaluation plan. This process results in EPO programs that are uniquely capable of translating cutting-edge science, technology, and engineering into one of the nation’s most powerful vehicles for educating learners at all levels (K-PhD) and increasing participation and opportunities in STEM fields for individuals from historically underrepresented groups.

The AAS strongly recommends that those NASA SMD EPO programs that have demonstrated success with implementing evidence-based educational methods and have robust assessment outcomes that document significant achievement of the STEM objectives of the 2014 budget proposal be exempted from the proposed consolidation and streamlining efforts.

I’m in agreement. I’ve benefited directly and indirectly from existing NASA programs and used NASA resources to educate and inspire my students as well as the public more generally. I’m on the advisory board for our local Wyoming NASA Spacegrant program that does a great, conscientious job reaching out and promoting STEM and EPO programs.

I don’t see a problem in need of fixing here. I see some kind of political redistribution wasting time and energy, with loss of efficiency in the short term at least, for the sake of I don’t know what.

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First, however, I’ve heard from several applicants who never received a response from me. It seems that there was a glitch in the application process, and I did not receive all the applications (even if there was an immediate official “thank you we have received your application” response). I thought applications were down this year due to the need to charge tuition, and that may be the case, but they weren’t apparently down as much as I had though. If feel kind of sick about this, as it’s not fair at all.

Right now I’m trying to ascertain how many folks applied and have not heard back. If you applied, please send me an email (mbrother@uwyo.edu) and let me know. Please include a copy of your application if you have one. There are different possible solutions or mitigations depending on how many were affected. In any event, you have my apologies, and steps are being taken to make sure this problem does not recur.

Thanks for your attention.

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