In The End of Science (1996) John Horgan relates a conversation he overheard in the course of a meeting of scientists that he was covering as a journalist.
He heard a young British physicist, Neil Turok, talking to David Schramm, of Fermilab and the University of Chicago.
"Turok confided to Schramm that he was so concerned about the intractibility of questions related to dark matter and the distribution of galaxies that he was thinking of quitting cosmology and entering another field. 'Who says we have any right to understand the universe, anyway?' Turok asked plaintively."
Twelve years after Horgan told the world about his question, last year, Turok was one of three winners of the annual TED Prize.
TED stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design," (though the range has broadened even beyond those three fields since) and the award appears to be given in recognition of one's ability to "emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole."
A TED Prize winner gets to make a wish at the awards ceremony, and the TED Prize website tells me that the "wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact."
All of which is preface to this: Turok seems to have found a way to resolve his ennui about dark matter and related puzzles. He has turned much of his attention to more earthbound and human oriented matters, though he has kept using his distinctive skill set, the one that presumably led to his presence at that conference and his conversation with Schramm in the first place.
Turok's TED wish? He told the awards ceremony attendees, "My wish is that you help us unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein."
31 May 2009
30 May 2009
Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars & Votes
I've been reading a book with the above title and subtitle, by Allen J. Matusow, a professor of history at Rice University.
The book, published by the University Press of Kansas in 1998, makes a number of intriguing points about the period it covers. I'll just quote a bit that fills me with a nothing-ever-changes sort of feeling given recent news from Detroit.
"If the economy really was tottering, the Penn Central Company just might bring it down. In February 1969, the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad had merged with the reluctant New York Central to form the seventh largest corporation in America. It was a bad marriage from the start. By the end of 1969, in a soft economy, the company's railroad operations were losing money, while its real estate subsidiary could not generate nearly enough cash to cover its losses. In 1970, to service its exploding debt, the company intended to roll over $200 million in commercial paper and float a $100 million bond issue. After the company reported big first-quarter losses, the bond issue was doomed. By mid-May, creditors had called in $50 million of the company's commercial paper, with $75 million due on June 30. Because the company did not have the cash, bankruptcy loomed, and the feared chain reaction in the commercial paper market might finally commence."
There's a lot of food for thought there, such as in the quick allusion to the Penn Central's real estate subsidiary. In more recent times, too, there have been many examples of corporations that found that their "operational" lines weren't pulling the load, that their real estate holdings were (and are) the engine of whatever progress they're actually making. (See what I did there? Cute RR metaphor.)
One example of this played out in the lead-up to the K-Mart/Sears merger. It was generally understood both that K-Mart's real estate holdings were the key to its abiluity to drive for such a merger and that Sear's real estate holdings were the main attraction.
But one also has to reflect, in thinking about the Penn Central debacle of 1969-70, on the real problem the railroad (as an operational entity) faced: the post-Eisenhower highway system had made it largely obsolete in the northeast of the country. Railroads in the rest of the country had long-haul commodity delivery as a bread-and-butter business. But the railroads in the northeast were largely a commuter-and-passenger business, and that ceased to be economical with the shift to federally subsidized highways.
I think in this context of Ford Motor Co., which has (commendably IMHO) declined public assistance and which is not facing bankruptcy. That means that it will still bear the sort of burdens that the bankruptcy process will allow a revived Fiat-dominated Chrysler, and a new General Motors, to shed. I hope Ford does well in years to come, but it faces competitors doubly subsidized: directly and indirectly through the bankruptcy process.
The book, published by the University Press of Kansas in 1998, makes a number of intriguing points about the period it covers. I'll just quote a bit that fills me with a nothing-ever-changes sort of feeling given recent news from Detroit.
"If the economy really was tottering, the Penn Central Company just might bring it down. In February 1969, the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad had merged with the reluctant New York Central to form the seventh largest corporation in America. It was a bad marriage from the start. By the end of 1969, in a soft economy, the company's railroad operations were losing money, while its real estate subsidiary could not generate nearly enough cash to cover its losses. In 1970, to service its exploding debt, the company intended to roll over $200 million in commercial paper and float a $100 million bond issue. After the company reported big first-quarter losses, the bond issue was doomed. By mid-May, creditors had called in $50 million of the company's commercial paper, with $75 million due on June 30. Because the company did not have the cash, bankruptcy loomed, and the feared chain reaction in the commercial paper market might finally commence."
There's a lot of food for thought there, such as in the quick allusion to the Penn Central's real estate subsidiary. In more recent times, too, there have been many examples of corporations that found that their "operational" lines weren't pulling the load, that their real estate holdings were (and are) the engine of whatever progress they're actually making. (See what I did there? Cute RR metaphor.)
One example of this played out in the lead-up to the K-Mart/Sears merger. It was generally understood both that K-Mart's real estate holdings were the key to its abiluity to drive for such a merger and that Sear's real estate holdings were the main attraction.
But one also has to reflect, in thinking about the Penn Central debacle of 1969-70, on the real problem the railroad (as an operational entity) faced: the post-Eisenhower highway system had made it largely obsolete in the northeast of the country. Railroads in the rest of the country had long-haul commodity delivery as a bread-and-butter business. But the railroads in the northeast were largely a commuter-and-passenger business, and that ceased to be economical with the shift to federally subsidized highways.
I think in this context of Ford Motor Co., which has (commendably IMHO) declined public assistance and which is not facing bankruptcy. That means that it will still bear the sort of burdens that the bankruptcy process will allow a revived Fiat-dominated Chrysler, and a new General Motors, to shed. I hope Ford does well in years to come, but it faces competitors doubly subsidized: directly and indirectly through the bankruptcy process.
29 May 2009
Spelling Bee
I watched the final rounds of the Scripps National spelling Bee yesterday and, as always, was impressed by the composure as much as the erudition of the young folks in the final round.
The contestant who won second prize -- Tim Ruiter of Centreville, Va. -- was finally eliminated by the word "Maecenas," meaning "a generous patron, especially of literature or art."
Maecenas doesn't have a very helpful etymology. It comes from a proper name -- in this case, from the name of Gaius Maecenas, a Roman statesman of the first century BC. With many words, a speller who knows etymology, definition, etc. (the points spellers are allowed and encouraged to ask about in these contests) can infer the right spelling. But in the case of a proper name, poor Tim would have to have seen it -- or guessed it rightly.
His guess began with My ... and he was done.
Well, not entirely. For the remaining speller in such circumstances is not allowed to win by elimination. She had to get her word right. If Kavya Shivashankar had gotten her next word (Laodicean) wrong, Tim would have been asked back on stage, and the contest would have continued.
Kavya did know Laodicean, and took the title. I confess I not only would not have been able to spell the word, I had no idea what it meant until the ABC commentators on the spelling-bee program explained it to me. The term means indifference or lukewarmth in matters of religion.
And it too is a proper name in origin, though the name of a place rather than a person.
The contestant who won second prize -- Tim Ruiter of Centreville, Va. -- was finally eliminated by the word "Maecenas," meaning "a generous patron, especially of literature or art."
Maecenas doesn't have a very helpful etymology. It comes from a proper name -- in this case, from the name of Gaius Maecenas, a Roman statesman of the first century BC. With many words, a speller who knows etymology, definition, etc. (the points spellers are allowed and encouraged to ask about in these contests) can infer the right spelling. But in the case of a proper name, poor Tim would have to have seen it -- or guessed it rightly.
His guess began with My ... and he was done.
Well, not entirely. For the remaining speller in such circumstances is not allowed to win by elimination. She had to get her word right. If Kavya Shivashankar had gotten her next word (Laodicean) wrong, Tim would have been asked back on stage, and the contest would have continued.
Kavya did know Laodicean, and took the title. I confess I not only would not have been able to spell the word, I had no idea what it meant until the ABC commentators on the spelling-bee program explained it to me. The term means indifference or lukewarmth in matters of religion.
And it too is a proper name in origin, though the name of a place rather than a person.
28 May 2009
Conjunction Junction
What's your function?
You never know what is going on behind the scenes of 'educational' television.
Here's to love, wherever it may bloom. Or, in this case, Blossom.
You never know what is going on behind the scenes of 'educational' television.
Here's to love, wherever it may bloom. Or, in this case, Blossom.
24 May 2009
History and different chains of causation
I'd like to share with you this passage from a William James essay, "Great Men and their Environment."
James has just said that there are different cycles in nature and in the human world that operate in relative independence, even if cheek-by-jowl. It is a point that requires specific illustration. So he writes"
"The mould on the biscuit in the store-room of a man-of-war vegetates in absolute indifference to the nationality of the flag, the direction of the voyage, the weather, and the human dramas that may go on on board; and a mycologist may study it in complete abstraction from all these larger details. Only by so studying it, in fact, is there any chance of the mental concentration by which alone he may hope to learn something of its natre. On the other hand, the captain who in maneuvering his vessel through a naval fight should think it necessary to bring the mouldy biscuit into his calculations would very likely lose the battle by reason of the excessive 'thoroughness' of his mind."
I love that analogy. It helps me understand the appearance of randomness in history, and to abstract from the issue of whether there really is 'randomness' in any deep metaphysical sense. Once in awhile, after all, the mouldy biscuit does somehow intervene in the sea-fight. A gunner, having grabbed the biscuit and bitten into it without thinking, may become ill and miss a target. When this happens, it introduces a note of randomness into the action of the battle and the "human dramas" in general.
Yesterday I wrote of the Mossad operation that captured Eichmann and brought him to Israel for trial. The team was deligtyed to realize that their operation was to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the independence of Argentina, a fact that made their planning of a cover story for getting Eichmann out of the country easier.
Obviously, there is nothing indeterminate in any metaphysical sense about the calender. The 150th anniversary of an event always happens one year after the 149th anniversary. But in this case it looked like a stroke of luck, because the other elements with which these captains and gunners had been operating -- their leads on this suspicious 'Ricardo Clement,' the accumulation of evidence that he was in fact Eichmann, the tracking of his movements -- all that had taken place in absolute indifference to the issue of when Argentina won it independence from Spain.
The mouldy biscuit sometimes does affect the battle after all.
James has just said that there are different cycles in nature and in the human world that operate in relative independence, even if cheek-by-jowl. It is a point that requires specific illustration. So he writes"
"The mould on the biscuit in the store-room of a man-of-war vegetates in absolute indifference to the nationality of the flag, the direction of the voyage, the weather, and the human dramas that may go on on board; and a mycologist may study it in complete abstraction from all these larger details. Only by so studying it, in fact, is there any chance of the mental concentration by which alone he may hope to learn something of its natre. On the other hand, the captain who in maneuvering his vessel through a naval fight should think it necessary to bring the mouldy biscuit into his calculations would very likely lose the battle by reason of the excessive 'thoroughness' of his mind."
I love that analogy. It helps me understand the appearance of randomness in history, and to abstract from the issue of whether there really is 'randomness' in any deep metaphysical sense. Once in awhile, after all, the mouldy biscuit does somehow intervene in the sea-fight. A gunner, having grabbed the biscuit and bitten into it without thinking, may become ill and miss a target. When this happens, it introduces a note of randomness into the action of the battle and the "human dramas" in general.
Yesterday I wrote of the Mossad operation that captured Eichmann and brought him to Israel for trial. The team was deligtyed to realize that their operation was to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the independence of Argentina, a fact that made their planning of a cover story for getting Eichmann out of the country easier.
Obviously, there is nothing indeterminate in any metaphysical sense about the calender. The 150th anniversary of an event always happens one year after the 149th anniversary. But in this case it looked like a stroke of luck, because the other elements with which these captains and gunners had been operating -- their leads on this suspicious 'Ricardo Clement,' the accumulation of evidence that he was in fact Eichmann, the tracking of his movements -- all that had taken place in absolute indifference to the issue of when Argentina won it independence from Spain.
The mouldy biscuit sometimes does affect the battle after all.
23 May 2009
Ben-Gurion announcement
On this day, May 23, in 1960, the then prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, announced to the Knesset that Adolf Eichmann had been captured and was in Israel. Perhaps I should have waited to make this the subject of an entry one year from now -- the 50th anniversary of the event.
But I'm doing so now because I happen to be reading a newly published book on the subject, HUNTING EICHMANN, by Neal Bascomb.
One intriguing fact emphasized in this book involves the mechanics of flying Eichmann out of the country. The national airline, El Al, had no regular flights to and from Argentina at that time. (It didn't even have its own maps of South America yet.) And the Mossad could hardly grab Eichmann off the street and hustle him onto, say, some airliner belonging to a US based company. There was consideration of telling the Argentine authorities that El Al would like to make a "test run" of one of its planes into and out of Buenos Aires. But that seemed like a very thin cover for a highly secret operation.
Fortunately, the calender came to the aid of the Mossad. May 1960 was the 150th anniversary of Argentina's independence from Spain. The country had invited many other countries around the world to send official delegations to attend the festivities. It seemed unremarkable, them, that Israel asked for permission to bring its delegation into Buenos Aires on May 19th on a special El Al flight. (Eichmann had already been captured days before that plane left Israel -- he had been held in a safe house since May 11.)
Even the members of the official anniversary-celebrating delegation, officials of Israel's foreign ministry, were unaware of the fact that another purpose was to be served by that airplane. They were told, though, that El Al needed the plane back quickly to keep up its regularly scheduled flights, so they would have to fly home later in the month through other commercial airlines.
As a result, on the trip back to Israel on May 21, that plane carried only Eichmann, the operatives who had captured him, and the flight crew.
Even through meticulously planned operations, though, it is very difficult to keep a secret. The flight crew knew something was going on, and since Argentina's significance as a refuge for leaders of the 3d Reich was hardly a secret, some of them had a pretty good idea what it was. Bascomb has interviewed members of that flight crew and tells the story of that flight from the inside.
When the plane cleared Argentine airspace, there was a spontaneous outburst of delight. The leader of the Mossad operation decided that further efforts at in-cabin secrecy were pointless and gave the El Al security chief, Adi Peleg, the honor of making the announcement. "You've been accorded a great privilege," Peleg told the El Al crew, "You are taking part in an operation of supreme importance to the Jewish people. The man with us on the plane is Adolf Eichmann."
It was soon after touchdown on the morning of Sunday May 22, Israel time, that Ben Gurion learned of the success of the operation and of Eichmann's presence in the country. He asked his Mossad chief how many people knew. Isser Harel replied that already more than fifty knew. Thus, Ben-Gurion decided that an announcement was necessary -- news like this has to be framed by a head of state in a manner other than nodding "yes" when a reporter eventually hears about it and asks a question.
This is where we came in, the statement in the Knesset, May 23: "Adolf Eichmann is already under arrest in Israel and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel under the terms of the law for the trial of Nazis and their helpers."
But I'm doing so now because I happen to be reading a newly published book on the subject, HUNTING EICHMANN, by Neal Bascomb.
One intriguing fact emphasized in this book involves the mechanics of flying Eichmann out of the country. The national airline, El Al, had no regular flights to and from Argentina at that time. (It didn't even have its own maps of South America yet.) And the Mossad could hardly grab Eichmann off the street and hustle him onto, say, some airliner belonging to a US based company. There was consideration of telling the Argentine authorities that El Al would like to make a "test run" of one of its planes into and out of Buenos Aires. But that seemed like a very thin cover for a highly secret operation.
Fortunately, the calender came to the aid of the Mossad. May 1960 was the 150th anniversary of Argentina's independence from Spain. The country had invited many other countries around the world to send official delegations to attend the festivities. It seemed unremarkable, them, that Israel asked for permission to bring its delegation into Buenos Aires on May 19th on a special El Al flight. (Eichmann had already been captured days before that plane left Israel -- he had been held in a safe house since May 11.)
Even the members of the official anniversary-celebrating delegation, officials of Israel's foreign ministry, were unaware of the fact that another purpose was to be served by that airplane. They were told, though, that El Al needed the plane back quickly to keep up its regularly scheduled flights, so they would have to fly home later in the month through other commercial airlines.
As a result, on the trip back to Israel on May 21, that plane carried only Eichmann, the operatives who had captured him, and the flight crew.
Even through meticulously planned operations, though, it is very difficult to keep a secret. The flight crew knew something was going on, and since Argentina's significance as a refuge for leaders of the 3d Reich was hardly a secret, some of them had a pretty good idea what it was. Bascomb has interviewed members of that flight crew and tells the story of that flight from the inside.
When the plane cleared Argentine airspace, there was a spontaneous outburst of delight. The leader of the Mossad operation decided that further efforts at in-cabin secrecy were pointless and gave the El Al security chief, Adi Peleg, the honor of making the announcement. "You've been accorded a great privilege," Peleg told the El Al crew, "You are taking part in an operation of supreme importance to the Jewish people. The man with us on the plane is Adolf Eichmann."
It was soon after touchdown on the morning of Sunday May 22, Israel time, that Ben Gurion learned of the success of the operation and of Eichmann's presence in the country. He asked his Mossad chief how many people knew. Isser Harel replied that already more than fifty knew. Thus, Ben-Gurion decided that an announcement was necessary -- news like this has to be framed by a head of state in a manner other than nodding "yes" when a reporter eventually hears about it and asks a question.
This is where we came in, the statement in the Knesset, May 23: "Adolf Eichmann is already under arrest in Israel and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel under the terms of the law for the trial of Nazis and their helpers."
22 May 2009
Serial bankruptcies, six figures
Edmund Andrews, who has been an economics reporter with The New York Times for several years, has written a book entitled BUSTED: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown.
Here is the amazon entry for the book.
From what I understand -- and I admit upfront I haven't read the book, so of course I stand open to correction -- Andrews treats his and his wife's experiences as a homeowning couple as a microcosm of the broader meltdown, and although he acknowledges that they were imprudent in some financial decisions, the general premise of the book is that this is anyone's story -- it could have been you, etc.
Commendable research by Megan McArdle at The Atlantic indicates that they aren't a very good microcosm for everyone. She could have done a routine review, but chose instead to do some digging. Nothing dramatic -- no meetings in a dark garage -- just some study of publicly available records of bankruptcy filings and the like. But very revealing.
The serial bankruptcies of an individual making six-figure incomes -- with the second bankruptcy coming almost as soon as lawfully possible -- is hardly an "everyman" type of situation. And treating it as a microcosm of our broader economic difficulties is not the path to clarity on the subject of the latter.
Here is the amazon entry for the book.
From what I understand -- and I admit upfront I haven't read the book, so of course I stand open to correction -- Andrews treats his and his wife's experiences as a homeowning couple as a microcosm of the broader meltdown, and although he acknowledges that they were imprudent in some financial decisions, the general premise of the book is that this is anyone's story -- it could have been you, etc.
Commendable research by Megan McArdle at The Atlantic indicates that they aren't a very good microcosm for everyone. She could have done a routine review, but chose instead to do some digging. Nothing dramatic -- no meetings in a dark garage -- just some study of publicly available records of bankruptcy filings and the like. But very revealing.
The serial bankruptcies of an individual making six-figure incomes -- with the second bankruptcy coming almost as soon as lawfully possible -- is hardly an "everyman" type of situation. And treating it as a microcosm of our broader economic difficulties is not the path to clarity on the subject of the latter.
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