Roughly eight years ago, some colleagues and I had the good fortune to spend an extraordinary afternoon with Donald Knuth, the primary author of TeX, at his home on the Stanford University campus. Among many things, Donald showed us how he uses TeX to typeset his computer-science papers and books exactly the way he wants them to look. In particular, he applies special tweaks to achieve perfection, such as “smashing the descender” on one radicand to make a sum of square roots line up in a pleasing way, and such as shimming characters to place them more beautifully in a formula.

The present post illustrates a couple typographical niceties that Knuth might add to his documents. At the outset I need to warn the reader that such “tweaking” is a fine art. Knuth mentioned that he could recognize some authors by the way they tweak their TeX documents. Furthermore many TeXies don’t understand the technique that well. Barbara Beeton of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and a key person in having the AMS adopt TeX told me that the AMS has to delete most user tweaking before publication because it doesn’t meet AMS standards. With that caveat emptor, here are two examples.

A favorite equation of mine is the mode locking equation

 

I wrote several papers and two book sections showing how this equation describes mode locking phenomena in coupled clocks, coupled oscillators in general, and lasers in particular. Looking at it, you can see that there’s a little too much room between the 2π and the integrand. You can pull the integrand to the left under the π by “smashing” its width. Inside the upper limit, you type \hsmash \pi , and the  displays, but has no horizontal width as in

Doesn’t that look better? We thought about automating such refinements, but if we had, we wouldn’t have had enough time to ship Word 2007, so we left it to the user (as did Knuth).

The example Knuth showed us is adding the square root of x to the square root of y. If you just use the default layout in TeX (or Microsoft Office), you get

As you see, the square root of the y is a bigger than that of the x, since the y has a descender. But it would look better if we “smashed” the y’s descender (type \sqrt\dsmash y ) so that both square roots have the same size We also thought about automating such smashing, but the general case doesn’t appear to be described by a simple algorithm. Tweaking is an art! Hopefully you don’t need to tweak that often.

(As you see here, I still haven't been able to make technical documents display in this blog the elegant way they display in Word. Some day, hopefully!)

Professor William "Bill" Lipscomb, a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and long-time Harvard professor, passed away on April 14, 2011, at age 91.

I had heard a lot about Professor Lipscomb since my husband had been in the same class at Lafayette College as his son, James, and he had met him several times. Later, I even met Professor Lipscomb at a chamber music event at Brown University organized by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) (all performers had to be members of the AMS so since his particular instrument, the clarinet, was needed, he was quickly made an honorary member).

It was clear that not only did Professor Lipscomb love music and performing, and wearing a string tie, even to the Nobel ceremony, but he also loved science and he was so successful at it. The Nobel laureate, Dr. Linus Pauling, was his mentor and Lipscomb switched from physics (my husband's major) to chemistry under his influence.

Not only did Dr. Lipscomb receive a Nobel prize, but two of his graduate students did, as well, plus another student who had spent time in his lab! And it all started with a chemistry set that he received at age 11.

His sense of humor was legendary, and he was an avid participant in the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremonies at Harvard (which I have blogged about).

The Boston Globe, in a touching obituary, has the following quote from Professor Lipscomb, which is so true:

Apparently, however, the 2006 article did not suffice to remove the scales from everyone's eyes. So in 2010, this stalwart band of clear-eyed thinkers saw fit to address their ideas directly to the American Mathematical Society, one of the two organizations of professional mathematicians in the United States. While their previous piece was twelve pages long, "Teaching General Problem-Solving Skills Is Not a Substitute for, or a Viable Addition to,Teaching Mathematics," last year's opus took but two.

Again, the authors make no pretense of intellectual modesty: not only is teaching problem-solving methods not a replacement for teaching mathematics (who would disagree?), but there's no benefit from teaching problem-solving methods at all! Polya be damned, it turns out that these ed psych guys know WAY more about how mathematicians do mathematics than did the world-class mathematician known for having dedicated a sizable amount of work to how to solve mathematical problems and develop heuristic methods for improving students' problem solving.

Recent “reform” curricula both ignore the absence
of supporting data and completely misunderstand
the role of problem solving in cognition.
If, the argument goes, we are not really teaching
people mathematics but rather are teaching them
some form of general problem solving, then mathematical
content can be reduced in importance.
According to this argument, we can teach students
how to solve problems in general, and that will
make them good mathematicians able to discover
novel solutions irrespective of the content.

That's some heady, alarming stuff indeed. The only problem is that it has no foundation in reality. And that is likely why our heroes are able to offer not a single citation to tell us who, exactly, is making the argument with which they wish to further bash any approach to mathematics teaching that isn't business as usual.

Now, if I were not a veteran of the history of the Math Wars and someone told me that there were folks who believed that we could improve mathematics education by reducing the importance of mathematical content, I'd be alarmed. And I suspect that a majority of readers of AMS Notes are generally ignorant of the specifics of the two-decade-long fight between a small number of educationally conservative mathematicians and the leadership of the mathematics education research community (though, of course, there are more than two sides and there are many more players on the two main sides than those subgroups I've mentioned). Like previous conservative efforts in various mathematics publications to scare the bejeezus out of the community of working mathematicians, this one is intended to convince people that there are some really crazy folks who want to take the mathematics out of mathematics education. It's got all the appeal of the usual efforts to win a political, ideological war through sound-bites rather than facts. And like the vast majority of such efforts, it just ain't so.

Given that fully 1/4th of the 12 pages offered in 2006 were references, it's noteworthy that there isn't a single citation to let us know who it is that's making the "argument" we're supposed to be so contemptuous of: downplay mathematical content because we can teach problem-solving methods absent actual mathematics! Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but were anyone making that argument, I'd be in the forefront of those pointing out its absurdity. The reason I'm not leading the parade, however, is because in more than twenty years of work in mathematics education, I've never seen evidence that anyone believes anything of the kind. To suggest that our ed. psych. friends are using the straw man technique is to underrate the outrageousness chutzpah that goes into writing something founded completely on myth (no little irony in the fact that one of the authors, Professor Kirschner, puts himself forth as a debunker of "intellectual urban legends." Apparently, that gives him license to sign on to promulgating an egregious whopper of his own).

It's not that these academics are supporters of direct instruction uber alles that makes them so dangerous. It's that they appear willing to simply make things up in order to try to rid the world of all competition to their favorite pedagogy. While repeatedly claiming that educators and learning theorists who take issue with direct instruction or, to the dismay of our heroes, dare to advocate for other sorts of instruction have NO evidence to support their views, Sweller, Kirschner, and Clark are hardly above making unsubstantiated claims about ghostly demons who believe things one only reads in the writings of. . . well, people like Sweller, Kirschner, and Clark. Further, they ground their own work in the usual "gold standard" sorts of laboratory research that generally seem to have nothing to do with what goes on in actual classrooms, while complaining that their adversaries aren't doing the same thing.

Without wanting to once again go over all the reasons that educational research in the field differs dramatically from educational  and psychological research in the laboratory, I'll simply point out that the kinds of things these fellows tend to base their arguments upon are either disconnected from what is feasible in schools and classrooms, or are at least as questionable as the ideas and practices of which they are so contemptuous (see, for example, the chess analogy in their 2010 piece).

Why is it that critics of progressive ideas in education (particularly those grounded in respect for students' interests, their need for ownership of their own learning, and their desire to be listened to and taken seriously, as well as those designed to promote democratic values and build skills necessary for actively participating in democratic societies) are so quick to load the dice when they "critique" those ideas? Why, too, do so many of them seem to operate with the same sorts of rhetorical tricks and propensity for utterly dismissing everything connected with educational methods at odds with their own? Is it really necessary, I wonder, to claim that progressive ideas in education are UTTERLY without merit or application in order to question and view them skeptically? 


I am increasingly convinced that absolutism is a common thread amongst anti-progressives whether regarding education or just about anything. The lack of intellectual modesty and humility is to be expected from poltical pundits these days, but academics are supposed to show a little more restraint than Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. The more I read from Messrs Sweller, Kirschner, and Clark, however, the more I expect to see them getting a weekly show on Fox News.

Acclaimed science writer James Gleick talks about data, meaning and knowledge – and his new book, The Information

Here's a paradox: we live in an "information age" and yet information is a maddeningly elusive concept. We habitually confuse it with data, on the one hand, and with knowledge on the other. And yet it's neither. There's an arcane mathematical discipline called "information theory" that underpins all digital communications nowadays and yet resolutely disdains to make any connection between information and meaning. It would take a brave author to pursue such an elusive quarry. Or a foolhardy one.

James Gleick is an accomplished stalker of mysterious ideas. His first book, Chaos (1987), provided a compelling introduction to a new science of disorder, unpredictability and complex systems. His new book, The Information, is in the same tradition. It's a learned, discursive, sometimes wayward exploration of a very complicated subject.

The subtitle, A History, A Theory, A Flood, gives the game away. This is really three books: one is about the history of information from earliest times to the present day. It opens with a memorable, beautifully written chapter about the "talking drums" of the Congo and explains how a drum with just two tones was used to communicate complex information quickly over large distances. After that we embark on a journey through the history of writing, the rise of the dictionary, the growth of English, the origins of programming and the arrival of Samuel Morse and his amazing electric telegraph.

The second part centres on the work of Claude Shannon, the American mathematical genius who in 1948 proposed a general theory of information. Shannon was the guy who coined the term "bit" for the primary unit of information, and provided a secure theoretical underpinning for electronic communications (so in a way he's the godfather of the modern world). The trouble was that Shannon's conceptual clarity depended on divorcing information from meaning, a proposition that to this day baffles everyone who is not an engineer.

But the most startling insights in the book come when Gleick moves to explore the role of information in biology and particle physics. From the moment when James Watson and Francis Crick cracked the structure of DNA, molecular biology effectively became a branch of computer science. For the replication of DNA is the copying of information and the manufacture of proteins is a transfer of information – the sending of a message.

And then there's quantum mechanics, the most incomprehensible part of physics, some of whose most eminent practitioners – such as the late John Archibald Wheeler – have begun to wonder if their field might not be, after all, just about information. "It from bit" was Wheeler's way of putting it. "Every it – every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself – derives its function, its meaning, its very existence… from bits."

Finally, Gleick surveys the "flood" – the torrent of data and information that now engulfs us. In this section Gleick switches from history to speculation, which means that he is now in the same boat as the rest of us. This writer welcomes him aboard.

John Naughton: The book has an astonishing range and I've learned a lot from it. It takes one into dozens of specialised fields – some of which (like quantum mechanics) are very arcane. How did you manage to do it? How many years did it take? And did you realise what you were taking on?

James Gleick: I knew it was going to be a sprawling, amorphous project; I knew it would send shoots and tendrils every which way, and I didn't know exactly how I was going to find a shape. In the end it took seven years, but I'd been thinking about it one way or another for a long time. I first heard about this baffling thing, "information theory", from chaos scientists. In the 1990s I spent some time gathering material for a projected cultural history of the telephone – in other words, looking at the subject the wrong way round. And then, when I was immersed in my last book, about Isaac Newton, I started to feel that I was already writing about information more than, say, physics.

JN: I found your account of the life and achievements of Ada Lovelace very moving. She has a pretty good claim to be recognised as the first computer programmer, and yet her story is a classic case-study in how brilliant women can be airbrushed from history, much as Rosalind Franklin was in the double helix story. It was good to see her being given her due.

JG: I think of all the people who come and go in my book, she is my favourite. Worse than being airbrushed from history, she was never written in. She had a brief flash of celebrity as Byron's daughter, but no one, with the lone exception of Charles Babbage, had a chance to glimpse her formidable mathematical powers. We can see it now in retrospect. She could never publish under her name; never belong to a professional society; never even attend university. Yet, working with Babbage as an anonymous younger sidekick, she surpassed his vision of what his proposed computing machines could do and could be. "First programmer" is apt. She was a genius.

JN: The chapters I found hardest-going were the ones on randomness and particle physics – though I was much cheered up to discover that the great Richard Feynman said that nobody understands quantum mechanics. Were these the chapters that were the most difficult to write?

JG: They were the most fun to write. Finally I had reached the scientific frontier; the point where the people of interest are alive and working and available for conversation. I spent time with Gregory Chaitin [an Argentine-American prodigy in both mathematics and computer science], who has a new idea every hour, and Charles Bennett [an IBM researcher famous for applying quantum physics to the process of information exchange], who showed me "Aunt Martha's coffin" – his quantum teleportation device – buried under a pile of books and papers in a corner of his office.

Hard going is OK. I take the view that we all have permission to be a little baffled by quantum information science and algorithmic information theory.

JN: Claude Shannon plays a central role in the book and your portrayal of him is very vivid. One thing I hadn't known was that Shannon's PhD was on genetics viewed in terms of symbolic logic. Was that a surprise to you?

JG: A complete surprise. I knew he had written an astounding master's thesis applying Boolean logic to electrical circuits, but I had no idea about the genetics work. I was thrilled to learn about it, because I knew the connection between information and genetics was going to be a big topic for me. And then it turned out that Shannon's work had not the slightest influence on modern genetics – he was in a world of his own, and the thesis vanished into academic oblivion.

Yet it's a kind of intellectual story I just love. On its idiosyncratic terms Shannon's genetics work was apparently quite brilliant. This was long before anyone had any notion of DNA. "Genes" were as mysterious and hypothetical as atoms were to the ancient Greeks. Shannon said he would "speak as though the genes actually exist", and invented a bunch of arbitrary symbols and proceeded to work out rules for recombination and cross-breeding that we can see, in hindsight, were right on the money. Yet he never published it.

JN: There's an interesting coincidence in the fact that the two defining breakthroughs in modern communications – the transistor and Shannon's mathematical theory of information – should have emerged from the same lab at the same time.

JG: I think you know I don't consider that a coincidence. The place was right: the research laboratory run by the world's great communications empire [Bell Labs, the formidable R&D; arm of the AT&T; telephone monopoly], where all sorts of oddballs were allowed to pursue loose ends with no obvious application to the bottom line. The time was right. The first lumbering computers were walking the earth, with their big hot vacuum tubes and their Boolean circuits. Shannon had a special genius – he was obsessed with just the right motley collection of ideas needed to spawn information theory – and the transistor guys were surely special in their own ways. But these inventions were due, and willy-nilly they arrived.

JN: Although Shannon's theory was a great breakthrough, his insistence on separating information from meaning must have alienated many people. Was a desire to bridge the two one of the reasons you embarked on the project?

JG: Actually, that hadn't occurred to me at first. My plan from the outset was to look at the origins and the influence of what we now call information theory, believing, as I do, that it underpins so much of our information hardware and our information networks and, yes, our information age.

But as you note, information is not knowledge. We are more painfully aware of that now than ever. In explaining Shannon's work I kept having to emphasise his point about the irrelevance of meaning; yet we know full well that meaning is what we really care about. This loomed larger and larger. There's a hilarious moment in 1950 in a New York hotel meeting room when Shannon tries to explain "information" to anthropologists and psychologists such as Margaret Mead and Lawrence Frank, and they're a little outraged. Where are the humans in this picture? Where are our brains? If it's just wires and transistors, who cares?

And surely this is precisely our problem, now that information is cheap and plentiful and ubiquitous. I was heartened when I came across a comment by philosopher and historian Jean-Pierre Dupuy: "It was inevitable that meaning would force its way back in." I made that the epigraph for my final chapter. This is our challenge, surely.

JN: Is it not the case that every shift in our communications environment has provoked "overload anxiety"? I can imagine folks in Venice in 1560 complaining about the torrent of print. Or is there something different about the present?

JG: I think you're unusually empathic to imagine ancient complaints about information overload, but of course you're right. There was Leibniz bemoaning "that horrible mass of books – which keeps on growing…" When we complain that things have never been like this, it's good to have some perspective. And yet, things have never been like this. Information has never been so cheap; our choices have never been so numerous; the cacophony has never been quite so grand. Everyone knows this, and everyone is right. It's why we're fascinated, if not obsessed, with Google and Twitter and all the rest of their oddly named species. We know that information poses as many challenges as opportunities.

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Dr. Maria Klawe: Distinguished, Celebrated, World-Renowned Computer Scientist, President of HMC, Board Director Microsoft Corp, Nominated to the Broadcom Board, Speaker at the World CIO Forum, Past President ACM, Past Chair Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and much more. Maria shares many valuable insights such as: Why IT Executives should attend the World CIO Forum; on Bill Gates at HMC; as Board Director at Microsoft; on the Education Sector and as President at HMC; Stories with Kelly Gotlieb Father of Computing, …

Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki

Harvey Mudd College is led by Maria Klawe, HMC's fifth president who began her tenure in 2006. A renowned computer scientist and scholar, President Klawe is the first woman to lead the college since its founding in 1955. Prior to joining HMC, she served as Dean of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. During her time at Princeton, Maria led the School of Engineering and Applied Science through a strategic planning exercise that created an exciting and widely embraced vision for the school. At Harvey Mudd College, she led a similarly ambitious strategic planning initiative, "HMC 2020: Envisioning the Future."

Maria joined Princeton from the University of British Columbia where she served as Dean of Science from 1998 to 2002, Vice President of Student and Academic Services from 1995 to 1998, and head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995. Prior to UBC, Maria spent eight years with IBM Research in California, and two years at the University of Toronto. She received her B.Sc. (1973) and Ph.D. (1977) in Mathematics from the University of Alberta. Maria has made significant research contributions in several areas of mathematics and computer science including functional analysis, discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, human-computer interaction, gender issues in information technology, and interactive-multimedia for mathematics education.

Her current research focuses on the development and use of multi-modal applications to assist people with aphasia and other cognitive impairments. Maria is a past President of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) in New York and a trustee of the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics in Los Angeles and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. In the past Maria has held leadership positions with the American Mathematical Society, the Computing Research Association, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Canadian Mathematical Society.

Maria is one of the 10 members of the board of Microsoft Corporation, a board member of the non-profit Math for America, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and past chair of the board for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in Palo Alto, CA. She was elected as a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery in 1996 and as a founding fellow of the Canadian Information Processing Society in 2006. Other awards include Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Science and Technology (1997), Wired Woman Pioneer (2001), Canadian New Media Educator of the Year (2001), BC Science Council Champion of the Year (2001), University of Alberta Distinguished Alumna (2003), Nico Habermann Award (2004), and honorary doctorates from Acadia University (2006), Dalhousie University (2005), Queen's University (2004), the University of Waterloo (2003) and Ryerson University (2001).

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic

:00:54:
Can you profile the World CIO Forum or WCF and your role with the WCF? [Editor's note: For more information go to: www.worldcioforum.com]
"....I'm giving a keynote there and talking about how we attract, retain and advance more women as information technology professionals....I think this is a tremendous opportunity to get the word out to the CIOs around the world...."

:01:32:
In your view, why should CIOs, senior executives, government and industry leaders participate in the World CIO Forum?
"....I think this is an opportunity for leaders from around the world to really get together and share insight. It's also a wonderful opportunity for networking. One of the things that I've learned in my life is there is probably almost nothing more important than getting to know people who can help leverage what you are doing...."

:02:41:
What do hope at accomplish at the WCF?
"....This issue about women in computing and in Information Technology....Raising people's awareness of Harvey Mudd College and what an amazing institution we are....Networking, networking, networking...."

:03:36:
You attend a lot of conferences and there's typically a senior executive or leader who is providing the keynote. If you were to hold a conference, who would be on your shortlist of recommendations as an opening keynote?
"....There are some absolutely not surprising possibilities....We are living through the age of when information technology is truly transforming the world so there are lots of people who have had a vision and who have been able to execute and literally have had a huge change to the human experience...."

:06:08:
On March 28th, noted computing pioneer Kelly Gotlieb gave a special lecture at the University of Toronto in celebration of his 90th birthday which was followed by a reception and dinner in honour of this giant in computing. You have known Kelly many years; can you share two or more stories about this legendary pioneer?
"....For well over a decade Kelly chaired the awards committee for ACM and I ended up going on the Turing Awards selection committee for about five years. One of the things I think about the awards is that there is this wonderful awards committee chaired by Kelly and now co-chaired with Jim Horning – the wisdom of Kelly is really quite amazing in the decisions that have been made over time in terms of elevating the importance of the Turing Award and thinking about how it should be awarded and those kinds of things...."

:08:11:
You are nominated to the Broadcom Board. Can you describe the experience, process, insights, and outcomes from this latest honour?
"....I'm not elected yet....One of the things I love doing in life is to find a group of people who have shared interests in making a difference in the world and Broadcom is certainly one of those companies....I know I'm going to learn an enormous amount if I do join the Board so I'm thrilled with this opportunity...."

:10:54:
The last time we chatted, you were invited to the Microsoft Board of Directors. Can you describe your experiences as a Microsoft Board Director?
"....One of the best learning opportunities of my life – ever....I find the quality of people in the company quite extraordinary and I also find the quality of people on the board extraordinary. I feel like I'm taking a crash course in learning about the IT industry broadly conceived and I'm also taking a crash course in learning about how to be a good director of a corporate board. I've been very lucky and I feel like I've had a lot of people giving me very good advice and I'm enjoying it enormously...."

:12:35:
How will your Board positions impact your many roles into the future? Can you provide specific examples?
"....I am much better informed and it really helps me understand applications of Science and Engineering in industry in ways that I wouldn't normally have been able to do....It opens doors. There's no question that as a member of the board at Microsoft, people are more interesting in talking to me....You become visible as a potential board member for other companies...."

:16:56:
You are well into your college Presidency at Harvey Mudd College. What are the most urgent issues you dealing with?
"....We are just not well enough known....It's expensive to provide the kind of education that Harvey Mudd College does....Focusing on the diversity of our student body...."

:21:08:
Further inroads are being made at Harvey Mudd College. Dr. Klawe spotlights three success stories.
"....The first one is the computer science department....The second one is revision to our core curriculum....The final one is the fact that we've just recruited a new Vice President for Advancement, Dan Macaluso...."

:29:47:
What do you hope to accomplish in the next 5 years at HMC and how will you bring this about?
"....To increase the number of African American students....In terms of visibility, I've already mentioned Dan Macaluso and I'm very excited about this opportunity to work together....Recruiting new members for our Board of Trustees....Building our new Teaching and Learning Building...."

:34:24:
Where do you see the education sector heading?
"....It's all a question of how you weigh the value of somebody who is doing a great job of teaching or creating a learning community for the students that they're working with versus somebody who is a great researcher – there just needs to be a better balance there. One of the things that I continue to stress and one of the reasons I'm proud to be at Harvey Mudd College is I think we are a great example of a place that gets the balance right...."

:35:17:
What needs to be fixed in education and how do you propose this be done?
"....K to 12 education – the biggest issues are giving the teachers the support, recognition and the training that they need, and providing salaries that can attract and retain really good teachers....In terms of undergraduate education I would say the biggest thing is helping our faculties become better teachers. Most faculty who are teaching would like to succeed in that but there's just not enough emphasis on helping faculty to develop in those areas...."

:37:02:
Can you describe three of your board positions, your most difficult challenges and opportunities with each role, and how the strategic goals of the three organizations will be achieved?
"....Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology – the organization that runs the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing....Mathematical Research Institute of Berkeley which is the pre-eminent research center for mathematics around the world....Math for America, which is an organization founded by Jim Simons in New York to attract people who are very talented in mathematics, who have the people and organizational skills to become great high school teachers, and to help them get their Master's degree in Education and mentor and support them and give them an additional stipend in exchange for professional development for the first four years in their profession...."

:42:32:
I think it is pretty clear to the audience that you do so much in terms of societal contributions and a lot of that is volunteer work. Where do you see volunteerism in the future – what are your recommendations for the audience?
"....I tell my students at all ages that it's never too soon to start changing the world and the easiest way to do it initially is at the early stages of your career as a volunteer. It's a wonderful way to connect with other people who care about similar issues and to leverage each other in terms of achieving things you want to have happen...."

:43:57:
Please make predictions for the future, their implications, and how we can best prepare?
"....None of these is going to be surprising in the least....The importance of innovation....The global economy....The extent that information technology is changing the world...."

:45:42:
If you were conducting this interview, what 3 questions would you ask, and then what would be your answers?
"....Why do I love being at Harvey Mudd College?....What makes me excited about being a computer scientist?....What have I learned recently?...."

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Dr. Maria Klawe: Distinguished, Celebrated, World-Renowned Computer Scientist, President of HMC, Board Director Microsoft Corp, Nominated to the Broadcom Board, Speaker at the World CIO Forum, Past President ACM, Past Chair Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and much more. Maria shares many valuable insights such as: Why IT Executives should attend the World CIO Forum; on Bill Gates at HMC; as Board Director at Microsoft; on the Education Sector and as President at HMC, …

Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki

Harvey Mudd College is led by Maria Klawe, HMC's fifth president who began her tenure in 2006. A renowned computer scientist and scholar, President Klawe is the first woman to lead the college since its founding in 1955. Prior to joining HMC, she served as Dean of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. During her time at Princeton, Maria led the School of Engineering and Applied Science through a strategic planning exercise that created an exciting and widely embraced vision for the school. At Harvey Mudd College, she led a similarly ambitious strategic planning initiative, "HMC 2020: Envisioning the Future."

Maria joined Princeton from the University of British Columbia where she served as Dean of Science from 1998 to 2002, Vice President of Student and Academic Services from 1995 to 1998, and head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995. Prior to UBC, Maria spent eight years with IBM Research in California, and two years at the University of Toronto. She received her B.Sc. (1973) and Ph.D. (1977) in Mathematics from the University of Alberta. Maria has made significant research contributions in several areas of mathematics and computer science including functional analysis, discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, human-computer interaction, gender issues in information technology, and interactive-multimedia for mathematics education.

Her current research focuses on the development and use of multi-modal applications to assist people with aphasia and other cognitive impairments. Maria is a past President of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) in New York and a trustee of the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics in Los Angeles and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. In the past Maria has held leadership positions with the American Mathematical Society, the Computing Research Association, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Canadian Mathematical Society.

Maria is one of the 10 members of the board of Microsoft Corporation, a board member of the nonprofit Math for America, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and past chair of the board for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in Palo Alto, CA. She was elected as a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery in 1996 and as a founding fellow of the Canadian Information Processing Society in 2006. Other awards include Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Science and Technology (1997), Wired Woman Pioneer (2001), Canadian New Media Educator of the Year (2001), BC Science Council Champion of the Year (2001), University of Alberta Distinguished Alumna (2003), Nico Habermann Award (2004), and honorary doctorates from Acadia University (2006), Dalhousie University (2005), Queen's University (2004), the University of Waterloo (2003) and Ryerson University (2001).

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic

:00:54:
Can you profile the World CIO Forum or WCF and your role with the WCF? [Editor's note: For more information go to: www.worldcioforum.com]
"....I'm giving a keynote there and talking about how we attract, retain and advance more women as information technology professionals....I think this is a tremendous opportunity to get the word out to the CIOs around the world...."

:01:32:
In your view, why should CIOs, senior executives, government and industry leaders participate in the World CIO Forum?
"....I think this is an opportunity for leaders from around the world to really get together and share insight. It's also a wonderful opportunity for networking. One of the things that I've learned in my life is there is probably almost nothing more important than getting to know people who can help leverage what you are doing...."

:02:41:
What do hope at accomplish at the WCF?
"....This issue about women in computing and in Information Technology....Raising people's awareness of Harvey Mudd College and what an amazing institution we are....Networking, networking, networking...."

:03:36:
You attend a lot of conferences and there's typically a senior executive or leader who is providing the keynote. If you were to hold a conference, who would be on your shortlist of recommendations as an opening keynote?
"....There are some absolutely not surprising possibilities....We are living through the age of when information technology is truly transforming the world so there are lots of people who have had a vision and who have been able to execute and literally have had a huge change to the human experience...."

:06:08:
On March 28th, noted computing pioneer Kelly Gotlieb gave a special lecture at the University of Toronto in celebration of his 90th birthday which was followed by a reception and dinner in honour of this giant in computing. You have known Kelly many years; can you share two or more stories about this legendary pioneer?
"....For well over a decade Kelly chaired the awards committee for ACM and I ended up going on the Turing Awards selection committee for about five years. One of the things I think about the awards is that there is this wonderful awards committee chaired by Kelly and now co-chaired with Jim Horning – the wisdom of Kelly is really quite amazing in the decisions that have been made over time in terms of elevating the importance of the Turing Award and thinking about how it should be awarded and those kinds of things...."

:08:11:
You are nominated to the Broadcom Board. Can you describe the experience, process, insights, and outcomes from this latest honour?
"....I'm not elected yet....One of the things I love doing in life is to find a group of people who have shared interests in making a difference in the world and Broadcom is certainly one of those companies....I know I'm going to learn an enormous amount if I do join the Board so I'm thrilled with this opportunity...."

:10:54:
The last time we chatted, you were invited to the Microsoft Board of Directors. Can you describe your experiences as a Microsoft Board Director?
"....One of the best learning opportunities of my life – ever....I find the quality of people in the company quite extraordinary and I also find the quality of people on the board extraordinary. I feel like I'm taking a crash course in learning about the IT industry broadly conceived and I'm also taking a crash course in learning about how to be a good director of a corporate board. I've been very lucky and I feel like I've had a lot of people giving me very good advice and I'm enjoying it enormously...."

:12:35:
How will your Board positions impact your many roles into the future? Can you provide specific examples?
"....I am much better informed and it really helps me understand applications of Science and Engineering in industry in ways that I wouldn't normally have been able to do....It opens doors. There's no question that as a member of the board at Microsoft, people are more interesting in talking to me....You become visible as a potential board member for other companies...."

:16:56:
You are well into your college Presidency at Harvey Mudd College. What are the most urgent issues you dealing with?
"....We are just not well enough known....It's expensive to provide the kind of education that Harvey Mudd College does....Focusing on the diversity of our student body...."

:21:08:
Further inroads are being made at Harvey Mudd College. Dr. Klawe spotlights three success stories.
"....The first one is the computer science department....The second one is revision to our core curriculum....The final one is the fact that we've just recruited a new Vice President for Advancement, Dan Macaluso...."

:29:47:
What do you hope to accomplish in the next 5 years at HMC and how will you bring this about?
"....To increase the number of African American students....In terms of visibility, I've already mentioned Dan Macaluso and I'm very excited about this opportunity to work together....Recruiting new members for our Board of Trustees....Building our new Teaching and Learning Building...."

:34:24:
Where do you see the education sector heading?
"....It's all a question of how you weigh the value of somebody who is doing a great job of teaching or creating a learning community for the students that they're working with versus somebody who is a great researcher – there just needs to be a better balance there. One of the things that I continue to stress and one of the reasons I'm proud to be at Harvey Mudd College is I think we are a great example of a place that gets the balance right...."

:35:17:
What needs to be fixed in education and how do you propose this be done?
"....K to 12 education – the biggest issues are giving the teachers the support, recognition and the training that they need, and providing salaries that can attract and retain really good teachers....In terms of undergraduate education I would say the biggest thing is helping our faculties become better teachers. Most faculty who are teaching would like to succeed in that but there's just not enough emphasis on helping faculty to develop in those areas...."

:37:02:
Can you describe three of your board positions, your most difficult challenges and opportunities with each role, and how the strategic goals of the three organizations will be achieved?
"....Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology – the organization that runs the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing....Mathematical Research Institute of Berkeley which is the pre-eminent research center for mathematics around the world....Math for America, which is an organization founded by Jim Simons in New York to attract people who are very talented in mathematics, who have the people and organizational skills to become great high school teachers, and to help them get their Master's degree in Education and mentor and support them and give them an additional stipend in exchange for professional development for the first four years in their profession...."

:42:32:
I think it is pretty clear to the audience that you do so much in terms of societal contributions and a lot of that is volunteer work. Where do you see volunteerism in the future – what are your recommendations for the audience?
"....I tell my students at all ages that it's never too soon to start changing the world and the easiest way to do it initially is at the early stages of your career as a volunteer. It's a wonderful way to connect with other people who care about similar issues and to leverage each other in terms of achieving things you want to have happen...."

:43:57:
Please make predictions for the future, their implications, and how we can best prepare?
"....None of these is going to be surprising in the least....The importance of innovation....The global economy....The extent that information technology is changing the world...."

:45:42:
If you were conducting this interview, what 3 questions would you ask, and then what would be your answers?
"....Why do I love being at Harvey Mudd College?....What makes me excited about being a computer scientist?....What have I learned recently?...."

April is Mathematics Awareness Month! The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics announce that the theme of Mathematics Awareness Month 2011 is "Unraveling Complex Systems." Theme essays, posters, and related resources are ...

(Leanan has the day off - but will be back with her regular Saturday Drumbeat.)

Alaskan Senators want more energy specifics

Obama used the speech to lay out a four-part energy security policy with the ambitious goal of cutting U.S. imports of oil by one-third over the next decade. He called for increasing domestic production including the nation's natural gas reserves, developing low carbon-emission technologies such as nuclear energy, and promoting more energy efficiency.

Alaskans were crestfallen the state was mentioned just once as a domestic energy source.

Worlds largest money manager: United States will default on its debt

The PIMCO chief investment officer says the US has a total debt burden of $75 trillion if entitlements such as those for medical care and social security are included. In his latest Investment Outlook, Gross writes that unless large cuts are made to entitlements, the only way the government can afford this amount of debt is to default.

FEMA announces new Emergency Measures dealing with ‘Currency and Energy’ risks

Heywood Jahelppus of FEMA announced a major new initiative for the government emergency management arm yesterday. “We have plans to deal with terrorist attacks, floods, hurricanes and even asteroids. It never occurred to us until we read the tea leaves of QE3 at the same time of seeing supply chain disruptions from the Japanese tsunami that we need economic/trade collapse insurance. FEMA will be helping civic leaders create emergency blueprints for local and regionally sourced basic needs.”

Tainter's Law - Where is the Physics?

Some consequences of the model are obvious. It tells us that as long as we base our existence on non-renewable resources, we must eventually run out of them. But it gives us also some non-obvious hint on the path we are going to follow in this cycle. In particular, the model tells us that we will likely keep increasing the size and complexity of our society even with a diminishing flux of resources into the economy. In this sense, it confirms Tainter's intuition, but it tells us something more; that is it extends Tainter's curve beyond the limit of the plot shown in his 1996 paper. It says that after the phase of increasing complexity and reduced returns, the curve will loop back and, eventually, both complexity and production will go to zero as is the economy completes its cycle based on non-renewable resources.

FED to add gasoline and oil to balance sheet in QE3

In a news conference Friday morning, Janet Yellen, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve stated: "We are pleased with the impact of QE1 and QE2 on the economy. But high oil prices remain a problem. As we transition to QE3 beginning July 3, 2011, the Federal Reserve will begin to add unleaded gasoline, distillate, crude oil, and some propane to its balance sheet. It has become obvious that energy underpins our economy and in order to facilitate growth the Fed has to become more accomodative with energy products. We have staff researching whether future quantitative easing should involve other natural resources such as soil and water, though at this point we think that premature and likely unneccesary".

Peak oil guru Matt Savinar offers an in-depth analysis of Libya situation

In a new report former lawyer-cum-energy activist Matt Savinar outlines what to expect with regards to Libya including timelines and event predictions on the evolving situation.
No wait, that's "Libra". Nevermind.

U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation warns CEO of WalMart

The world's largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors. Still, inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said. Simon declined to comment on the rumours that WalMart would be adding silver and gold eagles to its product list

Corporations fail self-awareness test. Gain status as "special" persons.

As reported in the April 10 issue of Science, a team of ethologists at Purdue University has demonstrated that corporations do not recognize themselves in a mirror, and so do not meet the crucial cognitive benchmark shared by humans, chimps, gorillas, and dolphins. "All we see is social and confrontive behaviors, the figurative presenting of teeth and baring of hindquarters," said Dr. Ian Larkey, co-author of the study. "They don't use the mirror for self-examination; which is to say that their response is more like that of a parakeet than a chimp." Asked whether it is a good thing that the course of our civilization being largely directed by gigantic immortal, belligerent, unsleeping multiheaded tax-avoiding parakeets whose unnatural lusts can never be sated, Dr. Larkey declined to comment, noting that "corporations have the rights of personhood in this country" and that is not my place to criticize the law". In a related study last year, the same researchers did find that nearly 5% of nonprofit corporations tested could distinguish shinola from various other substances, showing "evidence for basic pattern-matching" which was suggestive of some level of rudimentary awareness.

France and Japan united in defense of nuclear power

The leaders of Japan and France strongly defended the use of nuclear power yesterday, despite fresh reports that the crippled Fukushima plant is spewing growing quantities of radiation, with the United Nations suggesting expanding the evacuation zone.

Old Hippy smugness index rises on Japan, Mideast, Debt woes

(FORBES) The smugness of old hippies rose nearly 21% for the month of March as compared to the same month last year, report the managers of Vanguard's signature indexed fund (HIPY). "We speculate that it's some combined effect of delayed confirmation bias and schadenfreude" said Milt K. Weinman, Sr. VP of the fund, "but there's no doubting the effect is real. Old Hippies are measurably more smug than they were a year ago, even factoring in the diabetes numbers". The fund seeks to track the investing decisions of 1000 old hippies, and has been "a real market-mover", in the words of Sam Prechter, one of the few old hippies still in the stock market

Wisconsin manure digester ready to provide electricity

WAUNAKEE - Sure, the cows on the farm run by Chuck Ripp and his brothers near here generate a lot of manure — about 7 million gallons a year. But now they will generate electricity. When it is in full operation, the digester plant with its three huge tanks will process manure from three adjacent farms and a total of 2,500 cows. It will remove about 60 percent of weed-growing phosphorus from the manure. The digester will produce methane and that methane will be used to power generators that will churn out $2 million a year in electricity, enough to allow Alliant Energy to power 2,500 homes.

It was not known how much electricity could be created by throwing both the grass and the cows themselves into the digester directly

Obama initiates "War on entropy"

In a bold initiative in response to polls showing lukewarm support for a "limp-wristed" leadership style (The Gallup Organization), President Obama today declared a "war on entropy". "For too long, Americans have generously supported the intrusive disorganization and inefficiency of an increase in entropy, and that must come to an end." said the President, speaking from the congressional floor. The move is widely seen as a shrewd political move to get in front an expected ruling of the Supreme Court, which is considering the constitutionality of the second law of thermodynamics and widely expected to strike it down later this month. "While Americans can tolerate and even welcome a certain amount of disorder, the long-term trend for the nation and the universe is both clear and sobering. The sooner we start the war on entropy, the sooner we can win" stated Obama.

Koch Brothers/Fox News Joint Venture Buy Out Popular Energy Portal TheOilDrum.com

REUTERS: The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, producer of The Oil Drum energy blog, has been purchased by Koch Industries/FOX for $8.6 million. A spokesman for the Koch brothers said they anticipate some changes to the content mix, and are considering a name change for the popular website. One possibility mentioned is "The Coal Bin", but the spokesman would not confirm this. The new name for the umbrella organization is tentatively "The Institute for the Selling of Energy and Our Future".

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" rel="nofollow">MIT Energy guru plans to bring power to 3 billion people with 1 bottle of human waste water

Tata’s hope is that Nocera’s “personalized energy” can produce a stand-alone, mini-power plant, perhaps a refrigerator-sized box, that could reinvent rural electricity supply and bring power to about three billion people worldwide who don’t have it.

Nocera said MIT’s technique has seen more than a year of preliminary research and hopes to produce enough electricity from a bottle-and-half of water, however dirty, to power a small home.
A Tata spokesperson was unconcerned that 'No cera' means 'it won't be' in spanish.

Primate Scream: Bonobos make most noise when mating with highest ranking partners

The new study by researchers at the University of St Andrews suggests that females produce copulation calls as a way of showing off high powered relationships during sexual interactions. The researcher concluded, “Our results highlight the social significance of sex in this species and suggest that copulation calls in bonobos have undergone an evolutionary transition from a purely reproductive function to a more general social function.

“Like humans, sex among bonobos is not only used for reproduction, but it is also important in friendships and bonding, and keeping close to those in power.”

Creationist Paleontologists Discover Dinosaur Saddle

Mud Flaps, Arizona, March 29, 2011 -- A team of creationist paleontologists from the Discovery Institute's main field research arm announced today that they had discovered the remains of a large manmade object confirmed to be an ancient dinosaur saddle.

"We were going on the assumption that evidence of man's domestication of certain dinosaurs would have called for large fences, supports for the dinosaur corrals, so that's what we started looking for," said Dr. Booble. "We found a number of poles buried in several feet of sand almost immediately with the help of infrared satellite photos of the area. Then we just started digging, and boom, there it was."

Canadian Defense Minister - "We can get energy using technology from aliens

"Hellyer insists he has seen UFOs. In his book, "Light at the End of the Tunnel," he said he also believes that the U.S. has a "shadow government" that has black ops installations that have already created new forms of energy using extra-terrestrial technology.

"I do not have proof of that," he told AOL News. "But I believe that they have developed energy sources, and publicly I'm saying that if they do not exist in commercial form, that extraterrestrials would certainly give us that information if we would ask them for it and stop shooting at them."

Group Warns EPA to massivley increase 'safe' amounts of radiation

Drinking water, for example, would have a huge increase in allowable public exposure to radioactivity, the group says, that would include:

A nearly 1000-fold increase in strontium-90
A 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for iodine-131
An almost 25,000 rise for nickel-63

The new radiation guidance would also allow long-term cleanup standards thousands of times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted, permitting doses to the public that EPA itself estimates would cause a cancer in as much as every fourth person exposed, the group says.

Hominid species found that lacked ambition - didn’t want 'more'

In the latest in a series of new hominid species discoveries, scientists have found remains of what appears to be a new cousin to modern humans. The tentative name for the sub-species was homo-pacificus, due to the fact that there was no evidence of aggression or competition found in the primitive remains. “Its very fascinating - everything we have found showed a total lack of individuality, aggression, violence, and ambition. It was as if the least capable in each generation had offspring. With mutations like that they obviously died out. Duh.”, stated lead study author Homer Nunculuss of UC San Diego.

Obama Cabinet members agree on Value system change for America

Cabinet members agreed Thursday that the USA needs a new value system and that the pursuit of paper profits as a 'marker' for success had become outdated given the global situation. However, the group of senior politicians was divided on what should replace our current value system and voted to defer the debate until after the quarterly earnings season.

Natural Gas Evangelist Gains convert in Obama

T. Boone Pickens, 82, a Texas hedge fund manager and former corporate raider who made his billions in the U.S. oil patch, is now a leading evangelist for U.S. natural gas.

He claims the Pickens Plan, a lavishly marketed campaign launched in 2008, which earlier failed to gain support in Washington, would cut 2.5 million barrels a day from U.S. oil imports by converting the country's heavy vehicle fleet from diesel to natural gas.

"Clever is as clever does

In a vitriolic debate that has now escalated to the highest courts in the nation, representatives from the renewable energy industry continued to clash Thursday with the fossil/nuclear fuel industry regarding who is cleverer. Spokeswoman Jewel Gainer from the Renewable Energy Alliance said ‘It’s pretty obvious that we are cleverer as we are starting from scratch. How clever do you need to go in and harness 300 million year old plankton”? Representatives from the fossil fuel industry rebutted loudly saying that their seismologists and reservoir engineers were far more clever and probably better at Scrabble as well.

New pro-austerity riots - thousands clamor to sacrifice living standards

In an accelerating trend intended as an antidote to the recent riots against austerity, organizers around the country expect millions to riot for sacrifice this weekend. “We have essentially been spoon fed for a generation and have therefore have completely unrealistic expectations about our future. Whats happening to Americ isn’t anyones fault. So we need to stop complaining about reduced salaries and living standards due to energy limits and credit overshoot and start to actively embrace sacrifice –for the greater good. Stated Melody Harmonie, Chairwoman of Sacrifice Through Future Underconsumption – STFU. “By the way”, she added, “Those people rioting against austerity measures are pussies.”

EROEI advocates "just plain lazy", say economists.

In a rebuke to theorists attempting to popularize a somewhat confusing energy-analysis concept, the National Association of Independent Economists announced today that its proponents are "slackers", that EROEI is "laziness by another name" and "is basically un-American".

This resonated strongly with Montana rancher and home-school science teacher Ferd Hastings, who was interviewed while holding his pig into an apple tree to graze. "Them EE-roy boys are so lazy and introspective they prob'ly don't scratch their hineys without a government grant, peer-reviewed study and clear tenure track", said Hastings. Asked why he was holding a pig into the air for the duration of the interview, Hastings quipped "What's time to a pig?"

New post of "Wisdom czar" created in Washington

In response to growing recognition that government policies are aimlessly and increasingly ineffective at addressing societies complex problems, White House officials are reportedly to create a new Cabinet position of ‘Wisdom’. Press Secretary Gibbs explains ‘ The government of this great nation has enormous intellectual assets. We have of late recognized however, a lack of cohesive strategy amongst the various experts. Towards that end, next week the President will appoint a new ‘Wisdom Czar” in charge of making sense of the bigger picture. The only details I can give you at this point is that the appointee will likely be trained in systems thinking, and have experience in humility. I can say that no one is excluded being appointed other than Lawrence Summers, obviously.”

Majority of Americans believe God is in control of our future

Even more white evangelicals, 59%, believe that natural disasters are a sign from God, while only about one-third of Catholics and white mainline Protestants share that view.
Two thirds of white evangelicals also believe that natural disasters are evidence of the "end times," according to the survey. At the same time, most Americans believe God is responsible for everything that happens in the world, according to the survey, which was released Thursday.

Turning in land, gold, energy and stuff for cash

In a reversal of the trend of the past few years, sources at several banks assert that people are selling land, gold and physical property in return for cash in record amounts. Says Phil Moneytree ‘I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden people want cash. They are selling anything and everything to get as much cash as they can. Obviously they know money doesn’t grow on trees and are trying to save as much as possible in order to get through the tough periods ahead.

Mayan forecast pushed back to 2014-5 due to austerity measures

The Mayan prophecy of ‘end of times’ in 2012 is being pushed back at least until 2014 due to government cutbacks and initiation of austerity measures, stated, Dewey Kallaps, a linguist at the State University of New York. “It seems that due to an unforeseen lack of credit, the Mayan calendar end date will probably be postponed a few years, which is of course good news for most people”.

9.1 Quake hits Alaska. Satan emerges from fissure. Markets rally.

In a continuing string of geopolitical and natural disasters, another major earthquake struck at 11pm local time Thursday just south of Anchorage AK.. Apparently Satan came out of a crack in the earth saying ‘I am here to take over the world”. The Nikkei, initially retreated after the news but ended in positive territory. S&P Futures are up 17.90 to 1,342.60 before the April employment report to be released at 8:30am EDT

US Treasury Secretary admits America needs a new direction – claims not his responsibility.

Geithner, from Thursday speech at Georgetown University: “Look – we hominids follow environmental cues on what to compete for in order to obtain status. Right now the cues are for more money. It’s my job to get people more money, not to choose the cues so get off my back. Also, if the readhead in the 2nd row has a moment to talk with me after this speech, Ill be in my limo.” His comments angered the business school students as well as the top 1% of the assembled audience.

Wall St oil expert predicts new higher global capacity figures

Hugh G. Quornucopean in a new report for Goldman Sachs writes “If you ignore the fact that new oil requires $80-$90 futures strip to be profitable, leave out the external costs of extraction in environmentally sensitive areas, and set aside potential limiters of non-energy inputs – like water, set aside unrest in the middle east, forget about massive OECD insolvency issues, and ignore human behavior, then we believe the oil capacity picture looks outright bullish”

Quaddafis gas stations pose dilemma for europe

An Associated Press investigation has found that several European countries have accepted assurances from Libya's Tamoil petroleum company that none of its profits reach Tripoli. In return, Tamoil has been allowed to continue operating unchecked, despite the fact its parent company is on a United Nations sanctions list.

Hawking: Future doesn't exist. Short-term thinking, selfishness dramatically vindicated.

Speaking from a London press conference with his signature synthesized voice, a smiling Stephen Hawking yesterday stunned the world by publishing a mathematical proof that the future does not, in fact, exist... and never has. The announcement has provocative implications, both economic and existential.

"It is now conclusive," said Hawking "that the hypothetical quantum domain we refer to as 'The Future' does not exist in the traditionally-applied sense. We are trapped in static block time, and the entire temporal extent of the universe is somewhere between 13 hours and two weeks. Indeed, my proof itself was created along with this wheelchair and computer out of a seething quantum froth less than twelve minutes ago along with the rest of the visible universe, and our heads full of memories." Stock markets cheered this revelation with significant rallies both on domestic and international bourses...

Saudi Arabia upgrades proven chutzpah reserves. "More where that came from" says Prince.

Responding to an article in NewScientist calling reported Saudi reserves of chutzpah "inflated", Interior Minister Saud al ibn Farouk today published revised chutzpah reserve numbers showing that proven reserves have increased by 3% over the last-reported estimates 6 months ago. "Oh, we've got it" said Farouk. Speculation has risen recently that the nation cannot maintain the existing chutzpah flow rate which supports both its economy and underpins the economic rationale of allies including the USA.

StatOil Makes Major Discovery in Barents Sea

STOCKHOLM (Dow Jones)--Norwegian oil and gas giant Statoil ASA (STO) said it has made a significant oil discovery on the Skrugard prospect in the Barents Sea, together with partners Eni SpA (E) and Petoro AS.

Statoil, which provided markets with an update on its exploration activities Friday, said the "breakthrough discovery is one of the most important finds on the Norwegian continental shelf in the last decade."

Obama to alter closing address to include other countries being blessed by God

In response to increasing questions about the implications of Obamas usual closing statement of "May God Bless you and may God Bless America", White House Press Secretary today confirmed that starting next week President Obama will make explicit what many have long suspected was implicit - that the American president does not want God to favor other countries unless they are close trading partners. Beginning with speeches on Monday Apr 4, Obama will close his talks with “May God Bless You, and God Bless America, friends of America, and those species we derive benefit from. Also may God give a mini-blessing to France”

German Energy Giant Sues Government

BERLIN — German energy giant RWE filed Friday a legal challenge to the government's order to shut down temporarily the country's seven oldest nuclear reactors in light of the Fukushima crisis in Japan.

"German nuclear power stations fulfill current safety norms. There is no legal basis for shutting them down. This step is to protect the interests of our shareholders," RWE said in a statement.

Qatar Oil deal to help meet basic needs in Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya, April 1 (Reuters) - Qatar will provide fuel, medicine, food and other humanitarian needs to rebels as part of a deal to market oil from rebel-held eastern Libya, a top rebel finance official said on Friday.
"The Qataris agreed they would market crude oil for us, and we would put the money in an escrow account. We will receive what we need in fuel, medicine, food and humanitarian needs from them," Ali Tarhouni told a news conference.

If a team of respected scientific researchers is right, religious belief is headed for extinction in at least nine nations.

This projection got a lot of play during the recent annual meeting in Dallas of the American Physical Society. The findings came in the form of a highly technical account of group dynamics based on a mathematical model.

A fair historian would acknowledge that faith has been on trial since the beginning. The centuries have seen intense, sometimes violent, conflicts among competing creeds. But the most intense conflicts of the 20th century weren't among groups of religious believers, but among political cultures that believed human rights to be of divine origin and others that placed their trust in a state that bowed to no god.

Read more

from the BBC
by JASON PALMER

A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.

The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation. The team's mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one. The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. Their means of analysing the data invokes what is known as nonlinear dynamics - a mathematical approach that has been used to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part.

One of the team, Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages. At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the "utility" of speaking one instead of another. "The idea is pretty simple," said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona. "It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.

"For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there's some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not."

Dr Wiener continued: "In a large number of modern secular democracies, there's been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%."

The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the "non-religious" category. They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them. And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.

However, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a "network structure" more representative of the one at work in the world. "Obviously we don't really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society," he said. However, he told BBC News that he thought it was "a suggestive result". "It's interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going. "Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out."

December saw the passing on Robyn Dawes, without question a scholar who helped define the field of Judgment and Decision Making. The author of the field's pre-eminent course text "Rational Choice in an Uncertain World", Dawes was no doubt responsible for getting and keeping many students interested in the field. Dawes was an excellent writer. In addition to authoring what we think is the best-titled paper in the history of JDM "The Robust Beauty of Improper Linear Models in Decision Making", his books were some of the few we read without skipping a word from start to finish. Dawes is unique: a mathematical clinical psychologist (some say the only one), a past-president of the JDM Society, a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an academic with no fear of controversy, and much more.

ABOUT GEMOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA (GIA):
Established in 1931, GIA is the world’s foremost authority in gemology. Its global headquarters are based in Carlsbad, California. GIA has revenues of $200M and employs 1,500 people across the world (around 1,000 based in the US). It has laboratories that grade diamonds and gems in 7 locations – Carlsbad, New York, India, Thailand, South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong and it also has a take-in facility in Dubai. It provides education in gemology, jewelry design and manufacture, through campuses in Carlsbad, New York, Hong Kong, India, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Thailand and Dubai as well as through licensed schools in other locations. It also provides research in gemology.

We are presently seeking candidates for a Metrologist position in our Research Department. The selected individual will primarily be responsible for improving methods for analysis of gemological measurement equipment to increase the quality of data; and/or developing new measuring instruments; and implementing the change process throughout the GIA laboratories globally, by performing the following duties.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Interacts with external vendors, as well as internal customers in Quality Control, Process Development, Research laboratories and senior management to do the following:

1. Works jointly with R&D; team to improve existing or develop new measuring instruments. Serves as interface between research teams and production teams.

2. Applies advanced mathematical and engineering knowledge (measurement science, mathematics, physics and engineering) to develop methods for analysis, and conducts calibration of devices and instrumentation, as follows:

a. Identifies and utilizes appropriate test and measurement procedures
b. Recommends calibration standards and test equipment
c. Writes or assists in the development of test plans and test procedures
d. Uses statistics to analyze measurement standards and processes
e. Analyzes and solves calibration problems
f. Performs corrective actions to address identified measurement problems
g. Evaluates new calibration methods and procedures based on analysis of data
h. Maintains calibration laboratory and/or quality systems.

3. Maintains responsibility for the following instruments, plus others as needed: microbalances, 3-D non contact measuring devices, color analysis measuring devices, and spectral analysis measuring devices.

4. Maintains responsibility for development of maintenance and calibration schedules and corresponding tests, as well as management of related documentation.

5. Maintains responsibility to ensure that laboratory instrumentation at multiple locations is properly calibrated and on-schedule to comply with established guidelines.

6. Troubleshoots and repairs malfunctioning laboratory equipment as necessary to maintain critical workflows; and performs routine calibration and maintenance on a variety of complex analytical equipment and instrumentation.

7. Completes other assigned test-related tasks.

8. Keeps updated on knowledge of new technologies, processes and methods.

9. Travels domestically and/or globally using commercial transportation resources.

10. Communicates effectively, gets along with coworkers and management, and deals with others effectively and professionally under pressure.

REQUIREMENTS:
1. Bachelor's degree (B. A.) from four-year college or university in Engineering or related field; Master’s degree preferred; and two to three years of related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

2. Strong analytical skills

3. Ability to develop methods for analysis and conduct calibration of devices and instrumentation.

4. Strong written and verbal communications skills complemented with good listening skills.

5. Ability to adhere to project and task schedules.

6. Proficiency in MS Excel, MS Project, MS PowerPoint.

7. Proficiency in LabView and or 3-d design techniques desirable.

8. Able to work well with departments and companies to ensure smooth workflow and proper handling of clients.

9. Self motivated, positive attitude, responsible, accountable, flexible, organized, determined, energetic, service oriented, strong documentation skills, keen attention to detail, “team” oriented, sound judgment, creative thinker and strong problem solving skills, customer service-oriented to ensure customer satisfaction, goodwill and repeat business, dedication to company goals and a willingness to improve and excel.

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS:
American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Quality Engineer or Reliability Engineer

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
GIA offers a competitive benefits package and is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage you to visit our website to learn more about GIA at www.gia.edu.

Resumes that include salary history and/or requirements will be reviewed first. Local candidates encouraged to apply.

There is a wide-ranging and fascinating exhibition currently on show at Savannah's Telfair Museums, at the Jepson Center, entitled Modern Masters. American Abstraction at Midcentury". With works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the explosive diversity of art made during the mid-20th century in America is celebrated with forty-three key paintings and sculptures. The exhibition is travelling the country for four years, and it will remain on display at the Jepson until February 6th, 2011.

It is a show worth visiting several times, because of its diversity and density. Not only are there canvases by stellar artists to contemplate and appreciate, but there are some fascinating sculptures that I found most arresting.

One of them, "Banquet", shown courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, stopped me in my tracks with its multi-layered knobbly forms and metal alloys that evoke stalagmites or primitive corals. It is by an artist with whom I was unfamiliar, Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003). (As an aside, I find that being a permanent newcomer to every place I have lived in Europe and North America since I had to leave my home in East Africa, I am constantly having to "catch up" on art, law, history, society in general... It is a humbling but exhilarating situation!)

But back to Ibram Lassaw. He too was an immigrant, from Egypt, working in New York as an artist from the 1920s; he became an active participant in the avant-garde art world and was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists. He learned to weld while serving in the US Army during World War II, and continued experimenting with ideas and materials for the next two decades. He fused his ideas on art-making with concepts derived from extensive and catholic reading to reach a philosophy about the holistic nature of the universe and all that is contained therein. He suddenly had an artistic breakthrough in the 1950s, and began to create complex structures that evoked nature in many forms, cosmic and microcosmic.

He said that everything is nature, "every atom that makes me up is nature". He wrote, "I am constantly absorbed by things that are going on around me, the motion of people in the streets, the movement of clouds, the patterns of branches. There is no duality, everything is nature."

It was obvious from the work, "Banquet" that he was fusing ideas about many aspects of life and nature in this work, to achieve a delicate complex work that rewards with careful inspection and contemplation. What I found so interesting, however, was one of those delicious coincidences that occurs: soon afterwards, I saw a re-broadcast on PBS of Hunting the Hidden Dimension. The Most Famous Fractal about the late Benoit Mandelbrot's wonderful mathematical way of describing the "roughness" he saw all around him in nature. Before Mandelbrot, artists had indeed seen the "self-similarity" and "roughness" in nature, but mathematicians had considered these jagged, self-repeating shapes unmeasurable. Mandelbrot introduced fractals, the concept of another dimension, a fractal dimension, that lay between two and three dimensions. This dimension allows for mathematical measurements and thus, amongst other things, a deeper understanding of self-similarity - the endless repetition of stalks of broccoli, trunks to branches to twigs on a tree and its leaves.

As an example, the image on the right is that of a high voltage dielectric breakdown within a block of plexiglass - it creates a beautiful fractal pattern called a Lichtenberg figure. The branching discharges ultimately become hair-like but are thought to extend down to the molecular level. (Bert Hickman. http://www.teslamania.com/)

Lassaw's "Banquet", created in 1961, was in many ways an early evocation of the same wonderful complexity that nature offers, everywhere, all the time.

These happy coincidences are what I love about seeing an art exhibition. There is always some work of art that makes one more aware, more able to make connections and add new, rich dimensions to life. What fun!

Here we go once more with the inability to come to the conclusion and reality of how technology and it’s use is impacting our daily lives.  I write about this all the time and how it created unintended consequences and some of them are to the point to where they are the next OMG stories in the news and we have not had a shortage in this department this last year.  Sure such stories grab headlines, but in the case of Arizona, people are dying. 

The other day a friend told me about how her husband was let go from his job via email.  We hear more about this in the news today and it sadly seems to repeat itself over and over as people seem to forget how we need to be able to look each other in the eye and communicate. The person doing the firing was in the same building 2 doors down.  When he received the email that he had been let go, he went down for an eye to eye meeting, only to find the person doing the firing sitting in his office with the door locked and disallowing a conversation of face to face, eye to eye to take place.  The Arizona Governor reminds me a lot of that mentality and the inability to combine technology with ethics and common sense today.  From what I have read in the news, it makes me wonder if she can balance her own check book.  I say this due to the public comments made on the fact that she keeps repeating that the state does not have the money to fund transplants. 

Most today are familiar with accounting functions which is good to know where the money HAS gone, but cannot grasp the idea of projecting with algorithmic or mathematical formulas on how to create solutions, this is the Arizona Governor as we see in the media.  Every time you do get the opportunity to see her make public comments, none of what is said seems to rise anywhere above this and she seems perfectly content to stand by, not call a special session of the legislature to find or shift funds for this cause, which in my opinion is the absolute number one cause here, saving lives.  She has basically said I have no moral ethics and that is that and again I relay that to IT illiteracy and not being open to exploring other solutions. 

These solutions are modeled and created with software today that go beyond where we as humans may go with our own brains, and it has been going on for years as the levels of both consumer and business intelligence rise due to having this capability.

When I watched Senator Boehner cry all over the place this week on 60 minutes the same type of conclusions came to mind when he mentioned the opportunities for his kids and everyone else's to have the ability to “live the American dream” as he knows as well as the rest of us, that chances are becoming slim and none in this area. It makes me cry too, but we need to travel up the next level here and full explore and collaborate on solutions rather than taking on old stands that no longer are relevant. .  In the last elections the folks in technology, and I am one of them, basically lost out as we were discouraged to see this IT digital Illiteracy continue as there was nobody to basically respect and anyone with any real level of intelligence running, so the folks living in the 70s went out and voted for the folks that represented the70s and this is what we are stuck with today.  He might have one other reason to cry too in the fact that his Pledge for American in it’s first release as a pdf document showed all the authors being former lobbyists on his staff but maybe that part is a little more embarrassing?

The Properties of an Adobe pdf Document -Rachel Maddow Rips the GOP on Lack of General Consumer IT Knowledge And Exposes the Input and Authors of the Content–Lobbyists

We have luddites on the Democratic side too that let this happen with the same problem and so many like myself are becoming affiliated with “the party of the internet” as both side have left such huge disappointments out there with again the inability to become participants with IT consumer awareness and the reality of how to use technology to make better laws and make the US a better place to live, and recreate that opportunity for the youth to “live the American dream” so I guess we will seen the Senator cry a lot more for the next 2 years on this reality unless we see some kind of awakening occur.  There are millions of Americans who also cry over the same issue so what’s our choices here, get educated and participate or sit and all cry in our own milk?  I don’t think the latter does much for a solution.

Then we come back to Rootin Tootin Jan Brewer who looks worse in every public appearance and again I think she may reside in that category of the email and the locked door most of the time as when she does appear, well listen to the video below and make your own opinion and further more you might want to ponder how she sleeps at night but perhaps ignorance allows that to occur and maybe she sits and cries?  It doesn’t do much for a strong and educated leader for the rest of us.  In the video they talk about the stimulus money Arizona received and the ability to perhaps shift fund and hold a special election, but again for the algorithmically illiterate that requires additional time and learning on her part so again, it appears she chooses to just let people die rather than raise her level of intelligence here with seeking solutions that could work and save lives.

This week I also listened to Jon Stewart taking to Gordon Brown from the UK, who like everyone else is finding the tour to do the “Shell Answer Man” routine and books as such are becoming a dime a dozen in the fact that there may be some good points made in such books, but filtering and having to read some of the entire rhetoric is something many don’t have the time to do anymore, and I admit myself I would like to find more time to read books, but most of my reading these days is on the internet.  I wished when I grew up that I would have had this wealth of information available to me like we have now and shame on anyone who doesn’t use it. 

With Gordon Brown talking, it was somewhat disturbing to hear his comment that he made saying “he had no idea on how connected the banks had become”, well here we go back to the 70s and lots of folks asleep at the wheel while intelligence and technology continued to work on their side and again the rubble of what we have left to deal with today.  I enjoyed his interview and his personality but he right out front did admit to his extreme lack of IT Literacy and how the data game and algorithmic formulas are used so add him to the Brewer world of Rootin Tootin bliss politicians.  Gordon Brown deserves one big “DUH” for that comment but he has tons of company with others who were asleep at the wheel living in the world of the IT Illiterate.

I think too if we didn’t have so many out dated and non participant politicians, our President would have not been driven to the point of having to create this Council as he is reaching out to the entities that have embraced this technology, used it to make profits, some very ethical and maybe some not, to help educate and bring some of this over to the other side.  Bill Gates has testified almost every year in front of Congress about education to deaf ears or perhaps better called the “non participants” and look where it went, nowhere and now this awareness of education and the strong need for role models is looking us right in the face and there’s nobody to blame except the non participants who were not open enough to educate themselves years ago to see what was occurring.

President Obama Created Council to Advise Federal Government On Ways to Promote Social Community Projects and Philanthropy Via Executive Order

We also have bliss and non participants on the legal side of government too which was brought out yesterday in the fact that judges are ignorant to the fact that they are on public display today and should be aware that every part of their lives is going to be looked at, especially with investments that roll on Wall Street.  One thing by comparison that folks like Bill Gates see is that they knew this ahead of time and a year or so ago removed all their money from investments with drug companies, so he gets it with image being everything in a digital world today and yes he did help create a lot of what we enjoy today, while others, like Wall Street use it for “desired” results instead of “accurate” queries.  Both can generate money and again this is normally above and beyond where the average consumer looks as IT systems run in the background and go 24/7 as we as humans still need 6 to 8 hours sleep at night.

Judge In Health Care Lawsuit, Has Financial Ties To GOP Marketing Firm-Judges Need Some “Algo Men” on Board As Advisers to Sort Out Their Connected Interests

So where do you want to go with the investment ties of the judge?  You can join in with all the other opinions but I think he needs further digital education in order to keep his intelligent stance and be able to make legal decisions that are in fact legally correct.  Denial is not a river in Egypt as someone has said. 

We do have some allies out there with healthcare that are doing their best to try and share with us what is happening on the other side of the coin, like Wendell Potter in healthcare, but are we listening?  What better information and intelligence can you get I ask?  He was on the other side for years and is working diligently to bring this awareness and education around too on the mathematical numbers and how this algorithmic intelligence works.  Those algorithms are so strong that people every day log on to their computers and if the answer shown on the screen is one that perhaps should be questioned, people don’t.  

Wendell Potter Tell All Book–Deadly Spin–One to Put On My List as “He Knows Algorithms and How they Create Profits”

Wake up time here as that algorithm maybe morally wrong, financially created for profits only and again viewed by a non educated user in general consumer digital awareness to believe it is 100% accurate with what is presented.  It’s hard at times to figure out the difference, but with Wall Street activities unraveling it’s becoming more visible these days on how mathematical formulas are shaping our environment.  I think this is where Jan Brewer resides with some of her decision making processes. Folks that write code and do IT work see it, but the average lay person may not.  Furthermore, this is exhibited by folks thinking that the expenses to make systems happen is funded by money that grows on trees.  If you are not embracing this reality then we have a big group of folks too that hang out on trees and in my opinion the Arizona governor is quite clearly represented in this group.  This by the way is a non partisan comment as there are plenty of those in both parties, some just prefer a lower profile and don’t draw attention to themselves if they can avoid it. 

Do Some Think That Health IT Costs and Systems Grow On Trees-Certainly Starting To Give That Impression of Late

We can also explore some of this predictive behavior as I somewhat suggested in a recent post as far as us, you know the other side here, being able to obtain some of this same types of data, in other words with all the algorithms trying to predict our behavior as related to our health, why not have some data on the individuals running hedge funds too <grin>.  What is good for the good is good for the gander, right?  If investors are going to sink in big dollars do you not think they would like to have some real “behavioral due diligence” on how the people they are trusting with their money are going to perform?  I think we like this idea and this open all kinds of new possibilities.  I should probably do a post one day on the aspects of how “BEHAVIORAL DUE DILLIGENCE” would further over all intelligence and at the same time it might just keep some folks rolling those stocks a little more honest, you think?  Just think what Congress could do with this sort of intelligence <grin>.  Just think we could turn Wall Street algorithms to good use with analyzing themselves in this process.

Behavioral Science for Hedge Fund Executives Hints At the Prospect of New Social Environments-Predictive Modeling Algorithms Showing Status of Well Being

In the meantime we are somewhat stuck in limbo with the 70s still being shouted out and a society of trying to figure out out what in the heck are they talking about and how can such lack of intelligence with not being able to explore other forms of business intelligence exist and be allowed to deny people care and lead to their deaths. 

Perhaps we have a growing community of non participants with no regard for educating themselves with better intelligence solutions like we see with Jan Brewer growing?  I hope not as it is scary and all the folks in the “party of the internet” see it, just watch Twitter comments for a day or two and it’s all there.  This is the intellectual community needed to grow better systems and governments with proper ethics that was completely over looked during the last election and ignored but we do have opinions and speak out amongst ourselves if we can’t penetrate getting higher levels of communication through those in places who can make a difference, i.e. those that make and enforce laws. 

People that write code and the algorithmic formulas like to share and increase value and education, it is just a natural but the rest of the world and the Jan Brewer Society for the Digital Illiterate can endeavor to educate themselves up a notch to participate and continue to live with the values of the 70s and I think too are totally bliss to how when appears to others, maybe time for a wake up call here?

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) commented recently on the cuts to her state's Health Care Cost Containment System, which have imperiled the lives of some patients in need of an organ transplant. Brewer said that people branding the cuts as a real-life incarnation of "death panels" should be asking the federal government to send more money -- a perhaps surprising position from someone who continues to oppose the federal health care reform legislation passed earlier this year.

Jan Brewer Medicaid Cuts Have Arizona Governor Under Fire

John Baez

I'd like to take a break from interviews and say a bit about climate physics. It's a complicated subject, and I'm just starting to learn it, and I'm not even sure this is the direction I should be going in my quest to help "save the planet". But it's interesting.

Last week, Tim Palmer mentioned a book he helped edit, on stochastic physics and climate modelling. I've actually been reading it for several months, so now I'd like to talk about some papers in it. I'll start with these:

• Geoffrey K. Vallis, Mechanisms of climate variability from years to decades, in Stochastic Physics and Climate Modelling, eds. Palmer and Williams, Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 1-31.
• Richard Kleeman, Stochastic theories for the irregularity of the ENSO, in Stochastic Physics and Climate Modelling, eds. Tim Palmer and Paul Williams, Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 248-286.
• Leela M. Frankcombe, Henk A. Dijkstra and Anna S. von Der Heyt, The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation: a stochastic dynamical systems view, in Stochastic Physics and Climate Modelling, eds. Tim Palmer and Paul Williams, Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 287-306.

It's easy to understand why there are annual cycles in every aspect about the Earth's weather, but variations at longer time scales are more tricky to understand. That's what Vallis' paper is about. Some of these variations are cyclic, and the other two papers focus on these:

• The El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, which happens in the tropical Pacific Ocean every 3 to 7 years.
• The Atlantic Meridional Oscillation, or AMO, which seems to happen every 70 years — though only two full periods have been observed!

Today I'll describe the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, and next time I'll get into more of the mathematics.

I hadn't originally planned to get into so much detail on the El Niño, but this cycle is a big deal in southern California. Where I live, in the city of Riverside, it's very dry. As I like to say, there's a lot less "river" than "side". It almost never ever rains between March and December. Sometimes, during a "La Niña", it doesn't even rain in the winter! But then sometimes we have an "El Niño" and get huge floods in the winter. At this point, the tiny stream that gives my city its name swells to a huge river. The difference is very dramatic.

So, I've always wanted to understand how the El Niño cycle works — but whenever I tried to read an explanation, I couldn't follow it! For starters, most people are bad at explaining stuff: they skip steps, use jargon they haven't defined, and so on. But climate cycles are even harder to explain than most things. For one thing, there's a lot about them we don't understand. But also, they involve a kind of "cyclic causality" that's tough to mentally process.

At least where I come from, people find it easy to understand linear chains of causality, like "A causes B, which causes C". For example: why is the king's throne made of gold? Because the king told his minister "I want a throne of gold!" And the minister told the servant, "Make the king a throne of gold!" And the servant made the king a throne of gold.

Now that's what I call an explanation! It's incredibly satisfying, at least if you don't wonder why the king wanted a throne of gold in the first place. It's easy to remember, because it sounds like a story. We hear a lot of stories like this when we're children, so we're used to them. And I picked an example involving a king, both because traditional fairy tales often involve royalty, and because a top-down, hierarchical society lends itself to explanations of this sort.

There's something a bit trickier about cyclic causality, like "A causes B, which causes C, which causes A." It may sound like a sneaky trick: we consider "circular reasoning" a bad thing. Sometimes it is a sneaky trick. But sometimes this is how things really work!

Why does big business have such influence in American politics? Because big business hires lots of lobbyists, who talk to the politicians, and even give them money. Why are they allowed to do this? Because big business has such influence in American politics. That's an example of a "vicious circle". You might like to cut it off — but like a snake holding its tail in its mouth, it's hard to know where to start.

Of course, not all circles are "vicious". Many are "virtuous".

But the really tricky thing is how a circle can sometimes reverse direction. In academia we worry about this a lot: we say a university can either "ratchet up" or "ratchet down". A good university attracts good students and good professors, who bring in more grant money, and all this makes it even better... while a bad university tends to get even worse, for all the same reasons. But sometimes a good university goes bad, or vice versa. Explaining that transition can be hard.

It's also hard to explain why a La Niña switches to an El Niño, or vice versa. Indeed, it seems scientists still don't understand this. They have some models that simulate this process, but there are still lots of mysteries. And even if they get models that work perfectly, they still may not be able to tell a good story about it. Wind and water are ultimately described by partial differential equations, not fairy tales.

But anyway, let me tell you a story about how it works. I'm just learning this stuff, so take it with a grain of salt...

The "El Niño/Southern Oscillation" or "ENSO" is the largest form of variability in the Earth's climate on times scales greater than a year and less than a decade. It occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean every 3 to 7 years, and on average every 4 years. It can cause extreme weather such as floods and droughts in many regions of the world. Countries dependent on agriculture and fishing, especially those bordering the Pacific Ocean, are the most affected.

And here's a cute little animation of it:

Let me tell you first about La Niña, and then El Niño. If you keep glancing back at this little animation, I promise you can understand everything I'll say.

Winds called trade winds blow west across the tropical Pacific. During La Niña years, water at the ocean's surface moves west with these winds, warming up in the sunlight as it goes. So, warm water collects at the ocean's surface in the western Pacific. This creates more clouds and rainstorms in Asia. Meanwhile, since surface water is being dragged west by the wind, cold water from below gets pulled up to take its place in the eastern Pacific, off the coast of South America.

I hope this makes sense so far. But there's another aspect to the story. Because the ocean's surface is warmer in the western Pacific, it heats the air and makes it rise. So, wind blows west to fill the "gap" left by rising air. This strengthens the westward-blowing trade winds.

So, it's a kind of feedback loop: the oceans being warmer in the western Pacific helps the trade winds blow west, and that makes the western oceans even warmer.

Get it? This should all make sense so far, except for one thing. There's one big question, and I hope you're asking it. Namely:

Why do the trade winds blow west?

If I don't answer this, my story so far would work just as well if I switched the words "west" and "east". That wouldn't necessarily mean my story was wrong. It might just mean that there were two equally good options: a La Niña phase where the trade winds blow west, and another phase — say, El Niño — where they blow east! From everything I've said so far, the world could be permanently stuck in one of these phases. Or, maybe it could randomly flip between these two phases for some reason.

Something roughly like this last choice is actually true. But it's not so simple: there's not a complete symmetry between west and east.

Why not? Mainly because the Earth is turning to the east.

Air near the equator warms up and rises, so new air from more northern or southern regions moves in to take its place. But because the Earth is fatter at the equator, the equator is moving faster to the east. So, the new air from other places is moving less quickly by comparison... so as seen by someone standing on the equator, it blows west. This is an example of the Coriolis effect:

By the way: in case this stuff wasn't tricky enough already, a wind that blows to the west is called an easterly, because it blows from the east! That's what happens when you put sailors in charge of scientific terminology. So the westward-blowing trade winds are called "northeasterly trades" and "southeasterly trades" in the picture above. But don't let that confuse you.

(I also tend to think of Asia as the "Far East" and California as the "West Coast", so I always need to keep reminding myself that Asia is in the west Pacific, while California is in the east Pacific. But don't let that confuse you either! Just repeat after me until it makes perfect sense: "The easterlies blow west from the West Coast to Far East".)

Okay: silly terminology aside, I hope everything makes perfect sense so far. The trade winds have a good intrinsic reason to blow west, but in the La Niña phase they're also part of a feedback loop where they make the western Pacific warmer... which in turn helps the trade winds blow west.

But then comes an El Niño! Now for some reason the westward winds weaken. This lets the built-up warm water in the western Pacific slosh back east. And with weaker westward winds, less cold water is pulled up to the surface in the east. So, the eastern Pacific warms up. This makes for more clouds and rain in the eastern Pacific — that's when we get floods in Southern California. And with the ocean warmer in the eastern Pacific, hot air rises there, which tends to counteract the westward winds even more!

In other words, all the feedbacks reverse themselves.

But note: the trade winds never mainly blow east. During an El Niño they still blow west, just a bit less. So, the climate is not flip-flopping between two symmetrical alternatives. It's flip-flopping between two asymmetrical alternatives.

I hope all this makes sense... except for one thing. There's another big question, and I hope you're asking it. Namely:

Why do the westward trade winds weaken?

We could also ask the same question about the start of the La Niña phase: why do the westward trade winds get stronger?

The short answer is that nobody knows. Or at least there's no one story that everyone agrees on. There are actually several stories... and perhaps more than one of them is true. But now let me just show you the data:

The top graph shows variations in the water temperature of the tropical Eastern Pacific ocean. When it's hot we have El Niños: those are the red hills in the top graph. The blue valleys are La Niñas.

The bottom graph shows the "Southern Oscillation Index" or "SOI". This is the air pressure in Tahiti minus the air pressure in Darwin, Australia. You can see those locations here:

So, when the SOI is high, the air pressure is higher in the east Pacific than in the west Pacific. This is what we expect in an La Niña: that's why the westward trade winds are strong then! Conversely, the SOI is low in the El Niño phase. This variation in the SOI is called the Southern Oscillation.

If you look at the graphs above, you'll see how one looks almost like an upside-down version of the other. So, El Niño/La Niña cycle is tightly linked to the Southern Oscillation.

Another thing you'll see from is that ENSO cycle is far from perfectly periodic! Here's a graph of the Southern Oscillation Index going back a lot further:

This graph was made by William Kessler, who works at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. His explanations of the ENSO cycle are the first ones I really understood:

• William Kessler, What is El Niño and how does it relate to the usual situation in the tropical Pacific?
• William Kessler, El Niño: How it works, how we observe it.

My own explanation here is a slow-motion, watered-down version of his. Any mistakes are, of course, mine. But now I want to go a bit further and quote his discussion of why an El Niño starts, and why it ends. As you'll see, this part is a bit more technical. It involves three concepts I haven't explained yet:

• The "thermocline" is the border between the warmer surface water in the ocean and the cold deep water, 100 to 200 meters below the surface. During the La Niña phase, warm water is blown to the western Pacific, and cold water is pulled up to the surface of the eastern Pacific. So, the thermocline is deeper in the west than the east:
  
  When an El Niño occurs, the thermocline flattens out:
  
  
  
  
• "Oceanic Rossby waves" are very low-frequency waves in the ocean's surface and thermocline. At the ocean's surface they are only 5 centimeters high, but hundreds of kilometers across. They move at about 10 centimeters/second, requiring months to years to cross the ocean! The surface waves are mirrored by waves in the thermocline, which are much larger, 10-50 meters in height. When the surface goes up, the thermocline goes down.
• The "Madden-Julian Oscillation" or "MJO" is the largest form of variability in the tropical atmosphere on time scales of 30-90 days. It's a pulse that moves east across the Indian Ocean and Pacific ocean at 4-8 meters/second. It manifests itself as patches of anomalously high rainfall and also anomalously low rainfall. Strong Madden-Julian Oscillations are often seen 6-12 months before an El Niño starts.

With this bit of background, let's read what Kessler wrote:

There are two main theories at present. The first is that the event is initiated by the reflection from the western boundary of the Pacific of an oceanic Rossby wave (type of low-frequency planetary wave that moves only west). The reflected wave is supposed to lower the thermocline in the west-central Pacific and thereby warm the SST [sea surface temperature] by reducing the efficiency of upwelling to cool the surface. Then that makes winds blow towards the (slightly) warmer water and really start the event. The nice part about this theory is that the Rossby waves can be observed for months before the reflection, which implies that El Niño is predictable.

The other idea is that the trigger is essentially random. The tropical convection (organized largescale thunderstorm activity) in the rising air tends to occur in bursts that last for about a month, and these bursts propagate out of the Indian Ocean (known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation). Since the storms are geostrophic (rotating according to the turning of the earth, which means they rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the north), storm winds on the equator always blow towards the east. If the storms are strong enough, or last long enough, then those eastward winds may be enought to start the sloshing. But specific Madden-Julian Oscillation events are not predictable much in advance (just as specific weather events are not predictable in advance), and so to the extent that this is the main element, then El Niño will not be predictable.

In my opinion both these two processes can be important in different El Niños. Some models that did not have the MJO storms were successful in predicting the events of 1986-87 and 1991-92. That suggests that the Rossby wave part was a main influence at that time. But those same models have failed to predict the events since then, and the westerlies have appeared to come from nowhere. It is also quite possible that these two general sets of ideas are incomplete, and that there are other causes entirely. The fact that we have very intermittent skill at predicting the major turns of the ENSO cycle (as opposed to the very good forecasts that can be made once an event has begun) suggests that there remain important elements that are await explanation.

In email, Kessler adds:

We understand lots of details but the big picture remains mysterious. And I enjoyed your interview with Tim Palmer because it brought out a lot of the sources of uncertainty in present-generation climate modeling. However, with El Niño, the mystery is beyond Tim's discussion of the difficulties of climate modeling. We do not know whether the tropical climate system on El Niño timescales is stable (in which case El Niño needs an external trigger, of which there are many candidates) or unstable. In the 80s and 90s we developed simple "toy" models that convinced the community that the system was unstable and could be expected to arise naturally within the tropical climate system. Now that is in doubt, and we are faced with a fundamental uncertainty about the very nature of the beast. Since none of us old farts has any new ideas (I just came back from a conference that reviewed this stuff), this is a fruitful field for a smart young person.

So, I hope some smart young people read this and dive into work on the El Niño/Southern Oscillation! Next time I'll talk about some mathematical models of this phenomenon, and related questions.

---

To hate is to study, to study is to understand, to understand is to appreciate, to appreciate is to love. So maybe I'll end up loving your theory. - John Archibald Wheeler

---

© 2010 John Baez
baez@math.removethis.ucr.andthis.edu

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New video analysis and mathematical modeling by engineers at Virginia Tech reveals how certain types of snakes can "fly" by flinging themselves off their perches, flattening their bodies, and sailing from tree to tree -- work presented today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

New video analysis and mathematical modeling by engineers at Virginia Tech reveals how certain types of snakes can "fly" by flinging themselves off their perches, flattening their bodies, and sailing from tree to tree -- work presented today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Long Beach, CA.

• Presidents' institute, Council of Independent Colleges, Jan. 4-7, 2001, Palm Springs, Calif.
• National meeting, American Mathematical Society, Jan. 5-8, 2011, New Orleans, La.
• 126th annual convention, Modern Language Association, Jan. 6-9, 2011, Los Angeles.
• Annual meeting, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Jan. 26-29, 2011, San Francisco.
• NAICU 2011 annual meeting, Jan. 30-Feb. 2, 2011, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Washington.
• Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research, Council on Undergraduate Research, Feb. 6-8, Deland, Fla.

These meetings, conferences, seminars and other events will be held in the coming weeks in and around higher education. They are among the many such that appear in our calendar on The Lists on Inside Higher Ed, which also includes a comprehensive catalog of job changes in higher education. This listing will appear as a regular feature in this space.

To submit a listing, click here.

The Anthrax Mailings Investigation

Monday, November 29, 2010, 1:00 – 5:30 pm

UC Washington Center, 1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW

FBI has closed the 2001 anthrax mailings investigation.  The alleged preparer and mailer of the anthrax, U.S. Army scientist Bruce Ivins, committed suicide, so the case was never tried in court.
A group of experts (see agenda below) assembled by Kenneth Dillon at Scientia Press and UCLA-based researchers Dr. Peter Katona and Prof. Michael Intriligator, will discuss the investigation, the scientific aspects, the lessons learned, and the broader implications of the case.  (Speaker bios are attached.)

Please RSVP, acceptances only, to Joseph R. McGhee at the IGCC Washington office:  Phone (202) 974-6295; Fax (202) 974-6299; email: joseph.mcghee@ucdc.edu .  For more on IGCC, see http://www-igcc.ucsd.edu.

PROGRAM:

1:00 pm:  Registration, coffee and tea
1:30 pm:  Introduction:  Peter Katona, UCLA, Master of Ceremonies
1:50 pm:  Panel I:  The Investigation

• Moderator:  Lewis Weinstein, author, Case Closed
• Ross Getman, author, Anthrax and al Qaeda
• Paul Kemp, attorney of Bruce Ivins
• Meryl Nass, Mount Desert Island Hospital, http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.co

3:30 pm:  Break
3:45 pm:  Panel II:  Lessons Learned and Broader Implications

• Michael Intriligator, UCLA
• Peter Katona, UCLA
• Leonard Cole, Rutgers University, author, The Anthrax Letters

5:00 pm:  End


SPEAKERS …
Leonard A. Cole is an expert on bioterrorism and terror medicine.  He is an adjunct professor in the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ.  Trained in the health sciences and public policy, he holds a Ph.D in political science from Columbia University, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine.  Cole has written numerous articles for professional journals and general publications.  He has lectured widely and made invited presentations to several government agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of Technology Assessment.  He is the author or editor of nine books, including Terror:  How Israel Has Coped and What America Can Learn (2007), Essentials of Terror Medicine (co-editor, 2009), and The Anthrax Letters (revised, 2009).
Kenneth J. Dillon is an historian and science writer.  He has a Ph.D in history from Cornell University and teaches a course in European history as an adjunct at Marymount University.  Dillon served 11 years as a foreign service officer, including as an intelligence analyst.  He has also worked as a medical device entrepreneur and currently has a scientific publishing business.  Dillon has written articles and books on history, science, and medicine; and he has made theoretical contributions in history and science.  His articles on the anthrax mailings case are at www.scientiapress.com.
Ross Getman graduated from Harvard Law School in 1984 where he was a member of the Law Review.  After working for Arnold & Porter, and Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington, D.C., and living in Arlington for 15 years, he returned to his roots in Upstate New York.  In past years, in alliance with public interest groups and class action law firms, he advocated that soda should not be sold in public schools.  Separately, he represented a soda industry whistleblower that forced numerous recalls internationally relating to soft drinks that contained benzene and forced the reformulation of drinks worldwide.  Relying on industry lab testing, he caused recalls of bottled water in the Northeastern U.S. containing the carcinogen bromate.  Getman has closely followed the Amerithrax investigation since December 2001 and has written Anthrax and Al Qaeda:  Infiltration of US Biodefense.  The Washington Post credited Getman with first publicly identifying the Pakistani scientist Rauf Ahmad with helping Ayman Zawahiri in his plan to develop anthrax as a weapon.
Michael D. Intriligator, Ph.D is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Professor of Political Science, Professor of Public Policy, and Co-Director of the Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences at UCLA.  He is also a Senior Fellow of the Milken Institute.  He has taught economic theory, econometrics, mathematical economics, international relations, and health economics; and he has received several distinguished teaching awards.  Intriligator is the author of more than 200 journal articles and other publications in economic theory and mathematical economics, econometrics, health economics, reform of the Russian economy, and strategy and arms control, his principal research fields.  He has authored or edited many books in economics and international relations.  Intriligator is Vice Chair of Economists for Peace & Security and past president of the Peace Science Society (International) and Western Economic Association International.  Intriligator is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, and Who’s Who in Economics.  He co-teaches a terrorism seminar and has co-edited Countering Terrorism and WMD (2006) and Global Biosecurity:  Threats and Responses (2010).
Peter Katona, MD is Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Infectious Diseases.  He has worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and for Apria Healthcare as the corporate medical director.  Katona has been a consultant to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services on the development of an information management system geared toward biological terrorism preparedness (known as the Health Alert Network) and as medical consultant to the county Emergency Medical Services Agency.  He is co-founder of Biological Threat Mitigation, a bio-terror consulting firm and has an active infectious disease practice at UCLA.  Katona is co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD (2006) and  Global Biosecurity:  Threats and Responses (2010).
Paul F. Kemp, JD has practiced law in Maryland since 1974 and in the District of Columbia since 1976.  Kemp is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.  He focuses his practice on litigation in the state and federal courts, primarily in the area of white-collar crime and general criminal practice.  For white collar criminal defense, Kemp has been cited in The Best Lawyers in America; Maryland Super Lawyers “Top 50″ Attorneys lists, and D.C. Super Lawyers “Top 50″ Attorneys lists.   In 2002, Washingtonian named Kemp one of its “Top Seventy Five Lawyers” in the Washington area.  Prior to entering private practice, Kemp served as an Assistant State Public Defender with the Maryland Public Defender’s Office, an Assistant State Attorney with the Office of the Maryland Attorney General and Deputy Federal Public Defender, United States Department of Justice, District of Maryland.  During the “Amerithrax” investigation, Kemp represented Bruce Ivins from May, 2007 until his death on July 29, 2008.
Meryl Nass, MD has a varied career practicing inpatient internal medicine, running an outpatient clinic for complex disorders, investigating epidemics, and blogging.  She identified the world’s largest epidemic of anthrax (affecting over 10,000 Rhodesians in 1980) as a biological warfare event in 1992 based on careful analysis of its different features; diagnosed Cuba’s 1993 neuropathy epidemic as due to a combination of cyanide exposure and nutritional deficiency; investigated the safety and efficacy of anthrax vaccine; and has discussed both the scientific and investigative features of the anthrax letters case.  Nass has testified before 3 Congressional committees and provided requested testimony to 4 additional hearings on bioterrorism, anthrax vaccine, and Gulf War Syndrome.  Nass may be the only person who has consulted both for the Cuban Ministry of Health and the Director of National Intelligence.  Her blog http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com is an important source for discussion of the anthrax case.
Lewis M. Weinstein has had a career that included top management posts in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.  Most recently, he was for 15 years the CEO of the Public Health Research Institute, an organization specializing in sophisticated infectious disease research.  In 1980, he was candidate for U.S. Congress.  Lew received an undergraduate degree in engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.  Since retiring in 2005, Lew has become a fulltime author.  His third novel, CASE CLOSED, is about the 2001 anthrax attacks and the subsequent FBI investigation.  His CASE CLOSED blog (http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/) has become one of the primary sources for information and discussion of the anthrax case.  It is Lew’s view that the FBI has either not solved the case or is withholding crucial aspects of what really happened.

Very much a work in progress, obviously....

Clinical judgement, tacit knowledge and recognition in psychiatric diagnosis


In this chapter, I will...

One reason for doubting, or playing down, a role for tacit knowledge in psychiatric diagnosis is the influence of operationalism in a quest for reliability for the last 50 years or so. There were two main factors which explain this.

Firstly, on its foundation in 1945, the World Health Organisation set about establishing an International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Whilst the chapters of the classification dealing with physical illnesses were well received, the psychiatric section was not widely adopted and so the British psychiatrist Erwin Stengel was asked to propose a basis for a more acceptable classification. Stengel chaired a session at an American Psychological Association conference of 1959 at which the philosopher Carl Hempel spoke. As a result of Hempel’s paper( and an intervention by the UK psychiatrist Sir Aubrey Lewis) Stengel proposed attempts at a classification based on theories of the causes of mental disorder should be given up (because such theories were premature) and to rely instead on what could be directly observed, that is, symptoms.

In fact, Hempel’s paper provided only partial support for the moral that was actually drawn for psychiatry. He argued that:

Broadly speaking, the vocabulary of science has two basic functions: first, to permit an adequate description of the things and events that are the objects of scientific investigation; second, to permit the establishment of general laws or theories by means of which particular events may be explained and predicted and thus scientifically understood; for to understand a phenomenon scientifically is to show that it occurs in accordance with general laws or theoretical principles. [Hempel 1994: 317]

These two requirements – that terms employed in classifications should have clear, public criteria of application and should lend themselves to the formulation of general laws – correspond to the aims of reliability and validity. But it was the former that was adopted by psychiatry as the key aim at the time. With respect to it, Hempel claims that

Science aims at knowledge that is objective in the sense of being intersubjectively certifiable, independently of individual opinion or preference, on the basis of data obtainable by suitable experiments or observations. This requires that the terms used in formulating scientific statements have clearly specified meanings and be understood in the same sense by all those who use them. [ibid: 318]

He commends the use of operational definitions (following Bridgman’s book The Logic of Modern Physics [Bridgman 1927]), although he emphasises that in psychiatry the kind of measurement operations in terms of which concepts would be defined would have to be construed loosely and this view has been influential up to the present WHO psychiatric taxonomy in ICD-10.

The second reason for the emphasis on reliability and hence operationalism was a parallel influence from within American psychiatry that shaped the writing of DSM-III. Whilst DSM-I and DSM-II had drawn heavily on psychoanalytic theoretical terms, the committee charged with drawing up DSM-III drew on the work of a group of psychiatrists from Washington University of St Louis. Responding in part to research that had revealed significant differences in diagnostic practices between different psychiatrists, the ‘St Louis group’, led by John Feighner, published operationalised criteria for psychiatric diagnosis. The DSM-III task force replaced reference to Freudian aetiological theory with more observational criteria. The task force leader, Robert Spitzer, later reported: ‘With its intellectual roots in St. Louis instead of Vienna, and with its intellectual inspiration drawn from Kraepelin, not Freud, the task force was viewed from the outset as unsympathetic to the interests of those whose theory and practice derived from the psychoanalytic tradition.’ [Bayer and Spitzer 1985: 188 quoted in Shorter 1997: 301-2].

This stress on operationalism has had an effect on the way that criteriological diagnosis is codified in DSM and ICD manuals. Syndromes are described and characterised in terms of disjunctions and conjunctions of symptoms. The symptoms are described in ways influenced by operationalism and with as little aetiological theory as possible. (That they are neither strictly operationally defined nor strictly aetiologically theory free is not relevant here.) Thus one can think of such a manual as providing guidance for or a justification of a diagnosis offered by saying that a subject is suffering from a specific syndrome. Thus, presented with an individual, the diagnosis of a specific syndrome is justified because he or she has enough of the relevant symptoms.

This approach to psychiatric diagnosis plays down the role of individual judgement or tacit knowledge amongst clinicians.

Polanyi on tacit knowledge

Whilst the influence of operationalism deployed in the service of reliability aims to remove or reduce the presence of judgement and thus an uncodified tacit element in psychiatric diagnosis, there is a tradition in the history and philosophy of science (dating from about the same time) which stresses an ineliminable role for tacit knowledge in science. In this section, I will examine arguments offered by the chemist turned philosopher of science Michael Polanyi.

But first, what does Polanyi mean by ‘tacit’ knowledge? A clear statement runs thus:

I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. [Polanyi 1967: 4]

The suggestion is that tacit knowledge is tacit because it is ‘more than we can tell’. We cannot tell how we know things that we know tacitly. But what argument does he give for this? What are the limits on what can be said still leaving something that can be known?

In Personal Knowledge, Polanyi’s strategy is to examine how what can be said or, more broadly, articulated both leaves room for and depends on something outside what can be articulated. There are two key arguments of relevance to this chapter. One depends on limits on the kind of representation available to summarise explicit knowledge in science and thus indicating a space for tacit knowledge.

The other depends more an analysis of what is involved in recognition which should impact on diagnostic judgement. This latter discussion connects to Polanyi’s views of how linguistic representation in general is possible. I will suggest that this latter argument is the fundamental argument but start with the former.

To examine the limits of scientific representation, Polanyi considers the understanding a skilled surgeon has of the spatial configuration and orientation of organs in the body. He argues this cannot be captured in a representation.

The major difficulty in the understanding, and hence in the teaching of anatomy, arises in respect to the intricate three-dimensional network of organs closely packed inside the body, of which no diagram can give an adequate representation. Even dissection, which lays bare a region and its organs by removing the parts overlaying it, does not demonstrate more than one aspect of that region. It is left to the imagination to reconstruct from such experience the three-dimensional picture of the exposed area as it existed in the unopened body, and to explore mentally its connections with adjoining unexposed areas around it and below it.

The kind of topographic knowledge which an experienced surgeon possess of the regions on which he operates is therefore ineffable knowledge. [Polanyi 1962: 89]

The claim here is that three-dimensional spatial knowledge is ineffable, or tacit, because it cannot be captured in a representation. Polanyi goes on to argue that even if all human bodies were identical and even if there were a map comprising cross sections based on ‘a thousand thin slices’ of the body, that in itself would not articulate the knowledge of a trained surgeon. Someone knowing merely the former ‘would know a set of data which fully determine the spatial arrangement of the organs in the body; yet he would not know that spatial arrangement itself’ [89]. An additional act of interpretation or imagination is needed. But because that act cannot itself be encoded in a representation, according to Polanyi, it remains tacit.

This argument is a little surprising. Polanyi concedes that that the set of cross sectional representations, presumably alongside some further information about their inter-relations such as their order and distance apart, ‘fully determine[s] the spatial arrangement of the organs’ and yet denies that this amounts to an articulation of the three-dimensional understanding.

Without the further information about the relations between the set of maps then the maps alone would not be an articulation of the skilled surgeon’s knowledge. But then neither would they fully determine the arrangement of bodily organs. With that addition, however, why would this not count as explicit knowledge?

A further possible clue to Polanyi’s thinking runs thus:

The difficulty lies here entirely in the subsequent integration of the particulars and the inadequacy of articulation consists altogether in the fact that the latter process is left without formal guidance. The degree of intelligence required from the student to perform the act of insight which ultimately conveys to him the knowledge of the topography, offers here a measure of the limitations of the articulation representing this topography. [ibid: 90]

But there remains something strange about this line of thought. If the integration of the partial representations, such as the set of cross sections, were left without formal guidance then it would be clear why the partial representations could not articulate the surgeon’s knowledge. But neither would they determine the arrangement of organs as Polanyi has previously asserted.

The difficulty with interpreting this argument is that of balancing the claim that spatial configuration is both determined by what can be represented but remains ineffable and thus tacit rather than explicit.

I think that the clue to its interpretation is to realise that whether a symbol logically determines anything always, according to Polanyi, depends on a tacit element. This is supported by a different argument.

I may ride a bicycle and say nothing, or pick out my macintosh among twenty others and say nothing. Though I cannot say clearly how I ride a bicycle nor how I recognise my macintosh (for I don’t know it clearly), yet this will not prevent me from saying that I know how to ride a bicycle and how to recognise my macintosh. For I know that I know how to do such things, though I know the particulars of what I know only in an instrumental manner and am focally quite ignorant of them. [ibid: 88]

Polanyi suggests that the skill involved in the example of recognising a macintosh is akin to the practical skill of the first. In both cases, the ‘knowledge-how’ depends on something which is not explicit: the details of the act of bike riding or raincoat recognition. Whilst one can recognise one’s own macintosh, in the example, one is ignorant of how. Thus how one does this is tacit.

If this argument were successful it would be of general significance because it would carry over to the recognitional skill which underpins classification such as diagnosis in psychiatry but lingusitic labelling generally. Indeed, Polanyi makes this connection explicilty.

[I]n all applications of a formalism to experience there is an indeterminacy involved, which must be resolved by the observer on the ground of unspecified criteria. Now we may say further that the process of applying language to things is also necessarily unformalized: that it is inarticulate. Denotation, then, is an art, and whatever we say about things assumes our endorsement of our own skill in practising this art. [ibid: 81]

This connection between denotation and tacit recognitional skills appears to be the fundamental argument for the importance of tacit knowledge for explicit scientific accounts. Polanyi summarises the connection thus:

If, as it would seem, the meaning of all our utterances is determined to an important extent by a skilful act of our own – the act of knowing – then the acceptance of any of our own utterances as true involves our approval of our own skill. To affirm anything implies, then, to this extent an appraisal of our own art of knowing, and the establishment of truth becomes decisively dependent on a set of personal criteria of our own which cannot be formally defined.... [E]very where it is the inarticulate which has the last word, unspoken and yet decisive... [ibid: 70-71]

First it seems to involve the assumption that recognition of particulars – such as macintoshes - as instances of types depends on features of them of which one is ignorant. But it is not clear that recognition of Fs, eg, would always have to be explicable in some other way such as a combination of Gs, Hs, Is. That would lead to a vicious regress (unless at least some properties were directly recognisable). And, thus, if that were the only argument for tacitness it would not establish its generality. Some recognitional judgements would depend on tacit elements but not all.

Second, it is not clear that it is right that to even in cases where one recognises an F in virtue of its subsidiary properties G, H, I of which one cannot give an independent account that one is ignorant of those properties. It may be, instead, that the awareness one has of G, H, I is manifested in the recognition of F. One might say, I recognise that it is my macintosh because of how it looks here with the interplay of sleeve, shoulder and colour even if one could not recognise a separated sleeve, shoulder or paint colour sample. So it is not clear that Polanyi’s is a convincing account of the tacit properties of recognition even when it does depend on component aspects.

The tacit element in recognition

I argued in the previous section that Polanyi’s argument for the role of a tacit element in science turns on an argument that it is fundamental in recognition, including the recognition which underpins the ‘art of denotation’. He suggests that tacit knowledge is that which falls outside linguistic articulation or representation. But such representation presupposes recognitional know-how rather than the other way round. So the know-how which constitutes recognition is not itself articulated but rather tacit.

I argued, however, that Polanyi’s argument for the role of tacit knowledge in recognition is not successful as a general account because he assumes that to recognise a feature (F, say) one must a) always recognise it in virtue of something else (subsidiary features G, H and I, eg.) of which b) one is ignorant. But neither point – a) and b) – is compelling. There is, however, another argument framed at about the same time as Polanyi’s which turns on an idea that recognition of something might resist being put into words(which Polanyi takes to indicate tacit-status). This is Ryle’s argument that knowledge-how is a concept logically prior to the concept of knowledge-that.

Ryle’s argument takes the form of a regress.

If a deed, to be intelligent, has to be guided by the consideration of a regulative proposition, the gap between that consideration and the practical application of the regulation has to be bridged by some go-between process which cannot by the pre-supposed definition itself be an exercise of intelligence and cannot, by definition, be the resultant deed. This go-between application- process has somehow to marry observance of a contemplated maxim with the enforcement of behaviour. So it has to unite in itself the allegedly incompatible properties of being kith to theory and kin to practice, else it could not be the applying of the one in the other. For, unlike theory, it must be able to influence action, and, unlike impulses, it must be amenable to regulative propositions. Consistency requires, therefore, that this schizophrenic broker must again be subdivided into one bit which contemplates but does not execute, one which executes but does not contemplate and a third which reconciles these irreconcilables. And so on for ever. [Ryle 1945: 2]

There has been a recent flurry of literature on the precise nature of this argument and thus whether it is a successful refutation of intellectualism. But it seems to involve something like the following regress:

Suppose all know-how can be articulated (put into words) as a piece of knowledge-that: grasping some proposition that p. Grasping the proposition that p is itself something one can do successfully or unsuccessfully, so it is also a piece of know-how. So, on the theory in question, it will involve grasping another proposition, call this q. But grasping the proposition that q is itself something one can do successfully or unsuccessfully, so it is also a piece of know-how... etc

This argument seems to suggest that, if the first step of the argument is designed to ‘articulate’ or represent a piece of otherwise merely tacit knowledge at the heart of recognition, it will lead to a regress. But that may prompt this thought, contra Polanyi. Suppose that one recognises a macintosh as a macintosh and thus denotes it ‘macintosh’. Why is that not what articulating this piece of recognitional knowledge and thus discharging any tacit element? Why is that not putting all the relevant knowledge in play into words?

One gets a clearer sense of the attraction of Polanyi’s position by seeing both what has to be ruled out in successful recognition and on what limited basis it seems to be known by looking to Wittgenstein’s version of a regress argument (also from about the same time). Wittgenstein considers what is grasped by someone who has grasped a mathematical rule or series which he approaches via the idea of teaching the +2 series.

Now we get the pupil to continue a series (say + 2) beyond 1000–and he writes 1000, 1004, 1008, 1012.

We say to him: “Look what you’ve done!”–He doesn’t understand. We say: “You were meant to add two: look how you began the series!”–He answers: “Yes, isn’t it right? I thought that was how I was meant to do it.”–Or suppose he pointed to the series and said: “But I went on in the same way.”–It would now be no use to say: “But can’t you see....?”–and repeat the old examples and explanations.–In such a case we might say, perhaps: It comes natural to this person to understand our order with our explanations as we should understand the order: “Add 2 up to 1000, 4 up to 2000, 6 up to 3000 and so on.” [Wittgenstein 1953: §185]

In passages such as these, Wittgenstein seems to stress the infinite possibilities of divergence and thus the infinite possibilities of a breakdown of communication. Given his concurrent criticisms of physiological mechanisms, mental talismans and platonic structures to explain our grasp of going on in the correct way it can seem the most fragile contingency that communication is possible. Since teaching rules is possible only either by paraphrase, which merely postpones the problem, or by finite examples, which seem to underdetermine the rule accord with, grasp of a rule which governs a potentially unlimited number of cases (whether mathematical or empirical) seems to need some further helping hand.

This line of thought provides a role for tacit knowledge. Since everything that can be said still allows for the kind of misunderstanding exemplified by Wittgenstein’s hypothetical deviant student, the grasp of a rule that a normal student acquires must be based on something unsaid and implicit. It must depend on a tacit element. This seems also to fit Wittgenstein’s own conclusion:

What this shews is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call “obeying the rule” and “going against it” in actual cases. [Wittgenstein 1953: §202]

But whilst I think that there is something right about that line of thought, there is something misleading about it. The risk is that it accepts part of what Wittgenstein criticises: a platonic picture of rules as rails ‘invisibly laid to infinity’ fundamentally distinct from our capacity to articulate them. With that picture of the way rules determine correct moves in place, there is a substantial role for tacit knowledge to bridge the gap between what can be made explicit in the sublunary realm and the ideal platonic standard. Wittgenstein undermines that gap, however, in passages in which he suggests that there is a close connection between what a teacher can express and what a student can grasp in the examples which manifest the teacher’s meaning.

“But do you really explain to the other person what you yourself understand? Don't you get him to guess the essential thing? You give him examples,--but he has to guess their drift, to guess your intention.” – Every explanation which I can give myself I give to him too. – “He guesses what I intend” would mean: various interpretations of my explanation come to his mind, and he lights on one of them. So in this case he could ask; and I could and should answer him. [ibid: §210]

“But this initial segment of a series obviously admitted of various interpretations (e.g. by means of algebraic expressions) and so you must first have chosen one such interpretation.”–Not at all. A doubt was possible in certain circumstances. But that is not to say that I did doubt, or even could doubt…[ibid: §213]

Whilst Wittgenstein rejects explanations of our grasp of rules by pointing out they could not determine what they are supposed to, he does not promote a kind of sceptical gap between what can be manifested and what must be understood for communication, a gap that has thus to be filled by a tacit element. So the role for tacit knowledge in the recognition is not quite that.

The real role for a tacit element in recognition of sameness and difference is nuanced. It is not that it plugs a gap between what can be expressed and a platonic standard, a gap that would downplay the expressive capacities of explanations by example. Recognising that our understanding can be expressed in examples, for those with eyes to see, at least undermines the gap between the sublunary and the platonic. Nevertheless, the failure of the kind of platonic explanation of what it is to follow a rule suggests an important role for human judgement. It is because we are the kind of subjects that we are with our shared routes of interest, perceptions of salience, feelings of naturalness etc. that we are able to use finite explanations, as we do, to communicate unending rules. Against that background, the rules one grasps can be manifested in explanations (and so fail to be tacit in one sense) but any account of one’s interests, saliences and natural continuations would presuppose that background to be intelligible and thus remain , in another sense, tacit.

Tacit knowledge, clinical judgement recognition and psychiatric symptoms

I began by outlining the importance of reliability and thus the stress on operationalism for psychiatric taxonomy and diagnosis. For the last half century, syndromes have been defined in terms of conjunctions and disjunctions of symptoms which have themselves been described in terms as free of aetiology as practical. (For some conditions, such as PTSD, that would be impossible.) Thus the diagnosis of a specific syndrome is justified in the presence of a particular subject if he or she has enough of the relevant symptoms.

The following further thought is tempting. Whilst the overall syndrome is quite general and is characterised in a way that abstracts it away from individuals, the specification of why it applies to someone is more specific in two respects. Firstly, because of the way both ICD and DSM base syndromes on a combination of conjunction and disjunction of symptoms, it is possible that a syndrome so defined may apply to two individuals with little, or even no, overlap of symptoms. The specification of symptoms is thus more tailored to individuals than the overall syndrome. Secondly, and independently of that, the heritage of operationalism suggests that individual symptoms are more closely tied, than syndromes, through a kind of measuring operation to individuals. Symptoms seem to tie more abstract syndromes to particular individuals.

There remains, however, a gap between the description or articulation of a symptom and an individual. The concepts of specific symptoms are, despite their specificity, general concepts that can be instantiated in an unlimited number of actual or potential cases. So how can one judge that a general concept applies to a specific individual case or individual person? One can attempt to bridge this gap. Textbooks of psychiatry can describe, rather than merely list, symptoms. But whatever descriptive account they give of symptoms, there will always be a gap between their general descriptions and concepts (which potentially apply to any number of individuals) and any particular individual. Bridging this gap calls for expertise. It calls for a skilled recognitional clinical judgement. In a nutshell, clinical judgement involves skilled coping with individual cases, both people and their situations, and this requires a kind of non-deductive expertise.

Bibliography

Bayer, R. and Spitzer, R.L. (1985) ‘Neurosis, psychodynamics and DSM-III’ Archives of General Psychiatry 42: 187-96

Hempel, C.G. (1994) ‘Fundamentals of taxonomy’ in Sadler, J.S. Wiggins, O.P. and Schwartz, M.A. (eds) Philosophical Perspectives on Psychiatric Diagnostic Classification, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins: 315-331

Polanyi, M. (1962) Personal Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Polanyi, M. (1967) The Tacit Dimension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson.

Ryle, G (1945) ‘Knowing How and Knowing That’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 46: 1-16

Shorter, E. (1997) A History of Psychiatry, New York: John Wiley and Sons

Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell.

Summary: Responsible for providing all phases of chemotherapy to the practice and patients. Delivers care to patients utilizing the nursing process of assessment, planning, intervention, implementation, and evaluation. Interacts with patients and other health team members while maintaining standards of professional nursing. Collaborates with the health care team to provide direction for maintaining high quality operations of the facilities by performing the following duties.

Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
1. Plans work day according to patient schedules and assists physicians by performing medical office procedures as needed.
2. Responds to nursing telephone calls and references patient charts from medical records in an efficient manner.
3. Mixes chemotherapy chemicals with precision accuracy according to physician orders using chemotherapy hood and necessary precautions.
4. Administers chemotherapy chemicals to patients by injecting, infusion or “push” as well as applying expert knowledge to access veins quickly and to minimize patient discomfort.
5. Assesses all patients conditions and informs physicians of unusual problems or poor conditions as needed.
6. Documents all daily activities in patients’ medical records/charts accurately.
7. Maintains all patient chemotherapy files and records in an organized manner.
8. Provides treatment education to patients regarding therapy side effects, home care and follow up procedures as well as proper administration of their own injections.
9. Informs management of insufficient chemical supply levels as needed.
10. Performs other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications:
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.


Language Ability:
Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public.

Math Ability:
Ability to work with mathematical concepts such as probability and statistical inference, and fundamentals of plane and solid geometry and trigonometry. Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios, and proportions to practical situations.

Reasoning Ability:
Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.

Computer Skills:
To perform this job successfully, an individual should have knowledge of Microsoft Office.

Education/Experience:
Bachelor's degree (B. A.) from four-year college or university preferred; and/or minimum of two years of experience as a clinical nurse; or equivalent combination of education and experience. Registered nurse license required and current on any state and/or federal continuing education requirements.

Certificates and Licenses:
• Nursing license in at least one state in the United States
• Oncology Nurse Society chemotherapy certification
• Current active basic life support certification by the American Heart Association or American Red Cross

Ever wondered how pure mathematicians have fun? The following is from the 1967 paper Modern Research in Mathematics by A. K. Austin, from the Department of Pure Mathematics at the University of Sheffield. It's a send-up, by the way...

A note on piffles by A. B. Smith

A. C. Jones in his paper "A Note on the Theory of Boffles," Proceedings of the National Society, 13, first defined a Biffle to be a non-definite Boffle and asked if every Biffle was reducible.

C. D. Brown in "On a paper by A. C. Jones," Biffle, 24, answered in part this question by defining a Wuffle to be a reducible Biffle and he was then able to show that all Wuffles were reducible.

H. Green, P. Smith, and D. Jones in their review of Brown’s paper, "Wuffle Review, 48", suggested the name Woffle for any Wuffle other than the non-trivial Wuffle and conjectured that the total number of Woffles would be at least as great as the number so far known to exist. They asked if this conjecture was the strongest possible.

T. Brown, "A collection of 250 papers on Woffle Theory dedicated to R. S. Green on his 23rd Birthday" defined a Piffle to be an infinite multi-variable sub-polynormal Woffle which does not satisfy the lower regular Q-property. He stated, but was unable to prove, that there were at least a finite number of Piffles.

T. Smith, L. Jones, R. Brown, and A. Green in their collected works "A short introduction to the classical theory of the Piffle," Piffle Press, 6 gns., showed that all bi-universal Piffles were strictly descending and conjectured that to prove a stronger result would be harder.

It is this conjecture which motivated the present paper.

.................

Not to be outdone, S. J. Farlow from the Department of Mathematics, University of Maine, wrote in the seminal A rebuke of A. B. Smith's paper, 'A Note on Piffles':

In A. B. Smith's recent paper, 'A Note on Piffles', The American Mathematical Monthly, 84, p. 566 he completely fails to mention one of the most significant results yet discovered in Piffle Theory, namely A. K. Puddle's paper, 'Products of Planar Piffles'.

In this short but succinct note Puddle proves that a denumerable product of Pi Piffles is in fact a P-Pi Piffle (assuming of course pairwise permutation of the Piffles). That Puddle's condition was only necessary and not sufficient did of course not detract from this significant work—but did in fact open the door to the well-known Piffle Paradox (of which I'm afraid Professor Smith is completely unaware).

Readers interested in obtaining a complete up-to-date history of the Piffle should consult P.U. Piper's comprehensive review, The Piffle: 1840-1978 (Pauper Press). Here Piper describes some modern approaches taken by American Mathematicians during the last fifteen years. I am sorry to say that the classical treatment of Piffles taken by most English Mathematicians, notably the work of author Smith, is, by American standards, obsolete even before it hits the printing press. In particular the classic theorem of Smith, Jones and Brown on Polynomial Piffles would be only a simple corollary to Puddle's basic result on Homological Piffles. In fact it is fairly safe to say that all the English results so far on Piffle Theory can be subsumed in Piper's short note, 'Spectral Decompositions of Partial Piffles', American Piffle Review, 27, pp. 1-2.

.................

Hat-tip to Let ε < 0 where I first saw this lovely work. I believe the original paper came out of discussions between mathematicians and educators regarding good (and presumably bad and confusing) forms of mathematics education. I dare say that had I seen this treatise in undergraduate maths, or had Homological Piffles been mentioned at least once, I wouldn't have transferred from Metric Spaces to Astronomy....

References:
Austin, A. (1967). 3183. Modern Research in Mathematics The Mathematical Gazette, 51 (376) DOI: 10.2307/3614400

Farlow, S. (1980). Three Mathematical Satires A rebuke of A. B. Smith's paper, 'A Note on Piffles' International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 11 (2), 285-304 DOI: 10.1080/0020739800110222

Elation causes depression. Most people hate depression but love elation. Nearly all depressed people have been obsessed with, or possessed by a burning desire to achieve. Just look at the list below for some idea. Please note however, this author does not agree with the "diagnosis" of Depression... THe cause of depression is elation - depression is the effect.

October 19th, 2010 Copied with Permission From Nursing Schools Blog

1. Douglas Adams: Following a professional split from writing partner Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame, Douglas Adams floundered from odd job to odd job until he went home for Christmas and ended up living with his mother for a year. Therapy proved a fruitless venture, but he managed to smooth his mind out somewhat by the time he started with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

2. Woody Allen: Although his career's edgy heat has cooled somewhat as he grows older, Woody Allen's finest films served as a productive outlet for his depression. Wringing laughter out of the pain worked as a viable supplement to therapy.

3. Hans Christian Andersen: The beloved storyteller grappled with depression for a number of different reasons, most notably genetics, boredom and war. He penned his timeless fairy tales as a means of channeling some of the negative emotions what plagued him, most notably "The Snow Queen."

4. Charles Baudelaire: As with many immensely creative people, Charles Baudelaire found solace in writing his own poetry and translating the works of Edgar Allen Poe. He passed in and out of "spleens," or extended bouts with depression, throughout his adult life.

5. Ingmar Bergman: Legendary film director Ingmar Bergman considered his own works too depressing to repeatedly view and even ended up hospitalized following a complete nervous breakdown. An arrest on charges of tax evasion prompted the serious condition, and though the charges were dropped he spent the rest of his life panicking over its impact on his career.

6. William Blake: William Blake has garnered plenty of respect as a consummate writer and artist, but his brilliant works came at a price. Many came following vivid periods of hallucinations which prompted creativity, though once he spent the energy he would fall into severe melancholia.

7. Robert Burton: In 1621, Robert Burton published "Anatomy of Melancholy" based on his experiences and observations, laying a solid foundation for later psychological inquiry into mood disorders.

8. Raymond Chandler: One of the most iconic detective novelists channeled his cynicism and depression into the legendary fictional character Philip Marlowe. Unfortunately, he also turned to alcohol abuse and grew estranged from his wife as well.

9. Agatha Christie: The influential mystery writer once disappeared for eleven days in 1926 and turned up under an assumed name in an English hotel. Psychiatric professionals and biographers theorize that the incident was brought about during a depressive episode culminating in either a nervous breakdown or a fugue state.

10. Winston Churchill: These days, many people would balk at the idea of a politician with clinical depression or another mental illness, allowing prevailing stigmas to cloud their judgment as to what makes a solid leader. But Winston Churchill walked his "black dog" before, during and after his tenure as Prime Minister and still managed to pull the United Kingdom through World War II. They lost their hegemonic status in the process, but at least it wasn't to the Nazis.

11. Samuel Clemens: Better known by his pseudonym "Mark Twain," the last few years of the quintessential American writer's life were fraught with severe depression. The death of his wife and two daughters precipitated the emotional downfall.

12. Kurt Cobain: Kurt Cobain's grungy music captured the isolation and disillusionment of an outcast demographic looking for a voice, but his depression unfortunately also came saddled with grave substance abuse issues and suicide.

13. Leonard Cohen: Like many other creative types plagued with depression, the legendary Leonard Cohen channeled his pain into both haunting music and reckless behavior. After finding Paxil an inadequate solution, he turned to Buddhism for peace of mind.

14. Joseph Conrad: Throughout his life, the famed author of Heart of Darkness struggled with depression grave enough to cause physical illness. Much of it came from pressing doubts regarding his writing prowess.

15. Calvin Coolidge: Oppressive shyness, a father absent due to political work and the death of his son all contributed to the 30th American President's general quietness, withdrawal and depression.

16. Ian Curtis: The frontman of legendary post-punk outlet suffered from epilepsy and insomnia, and he self-medicated through various substances and suicide attempts. The stresses of a European tour and crumbling marriage eventually led him to hang himself in 1980.

17. Edgar Degas: One of the most influential artists of the 19th Century, Edgar Degas, began losing his eyesight around the 1880s. His depression and isolation grew exponentially with his blindness, as he could no longer perfectly capture the beauty and grace of his subjects.

18. Charles Dickens: Some psychology professionals and biographers believe the beloved writer experienced bipolar disorder, with the depressive periods cutting into his productivity rather than fueling it.

19. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Later in his life, famed existentialist novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky developed a serious and destructive gambling habit in order to cope with his burgeoning depression.

20. Nick Drake: Debates abound over whether or not folk musician Nick Drake battled bipolar disorder or clinical depression, since the two do share overlapping symptoms. A lifelong insomniac, he often isolated himself from collaborators and loved ones and self-medicated with drugs and music. Drake eventually passed from an overdose of antidepressants.

21. T.S. Eliot: Poet and author T.S. Eliot's wife Vivian suffered from depression and migraines, requiring plenty of attention and care from her husband. The stress of it all drove him to drink and smoke more often than he probably should have, and the writer himself eventually developed the condition as a result. It did, however, produce a few poems.

22. William Faulkner: Battles against depression and alcoholism did not prevent the quintessential Southern Gothic, modernist writer from winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. While a tragic figure, William Faulkner's successes dispel the myth that depression equals incompetence.

23. Michel Foucault: The heavily influential French philosopher's depression likely stemmed from his homosexuality at a time when such things were even more stigmatized than they are today. However, it likely led to his intensive studies in the fields of psychology and sociology as well.

24. Stephen Fry: Because society listens to celebrities much, much more than they ever will to psychological professionals, Stephen Fry has been an invaluable asset to the destigmatization mental illness in the world. He uses his position as a beloved writer and performer to encourage others with depressive disorders to seek therapy. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder (formerly manic depression), Fry has experienced suicidal behaviors, fugue states and reckless behavior as a result.

25. Paul Gauguin: Suicide attempts and overall mental and physical malaise plagued this popular painter's adult life, so much so he eventually abandoned his family and fled to French Polynesia when the stresses of poverty and artistic failure grew too overwhelming. Even there, though, he drank too much, contracted syphilis and ran afoul of the law and the church.

26. Vincent van Gogh: Perhaps unsurprisingly, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh formed a tumultuous friendship over their mutual creativity and mental illnesses. Theories abound from epilepsy to schizophrenia to bipolar disorder, but regardless of the source he still grappled with severe depression.

27. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes: Francisco de Goya's artwork reflected his bouts of depression, revolving around themes of absurdity, meaninglessness, physical torment, growing old, death and other common fears and anxieties.

28. Ernest Hemingway: During Ernest Hemingway's famous stint in Cuba, his lifetime of depression and alcoholism began wreaking havoc on his mind, which rendered him paranoid and disoriented until his eventual suicide.

29. Janet Jackson: Pop star Janet Jackson's album "The Velvet Rope" was meant as personal therapy for an extended bout with depression. Anxieties from a high-pressure childhood, a doomed marriage and creative block all filtered into producing the triple-platinum album.

30. Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady scribe began his descent into the very bowels of depression following the disastrous opening to his play Guy Domville. However, he likely worked through these anxieties by writing comparatively more successful serials and novels. Many literary critics and psychologists believe his lifelong bachelorhood stemmed from a crippling fear of sex, which occasionally crops up in his oeuvre.

31. Daniel Johnston: Bipolar disorder and clinical depression are not interchangeable diagnoses, but the former's "low points" share a plethora of symptoms with the latter. Daniel Johnston funnels the delusions and frustrations of bipolar disorder into brilliant artistic and musical works that shed light on his condition.

32. John Keats: Such was John Keats' passion for poetry, depression and self-doubt would overcome him when he felt as if he work could never measure up to that of his contemporaries.

33. Soren Kierkegaard: This iconic, influential existentialist philosopher was no stranger to introspection, painstakingly analyzing his own misery and making connections regarding heredity. His own father also suffered from the condition as well.

34. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: After two months' worth of voluntary service in the First World War, the German military was forced to discharge expressionist visionary Ernst Ludwig Kirchner for psychiatric evaluation. Journals and surviving artworks, however, reveal a life of mental turmoil and anxiety beyond the battlefield. He eventually committed suicide after the Nazi Party destroyed or confiscated most of his paintings and labeled him a "degenerate artist."

35. Beyonce Knowles: Following the dissolution of her R&B band Destiny's Child, the former frontwoman spent two years in a depressive fog. She still experiences down periods wrought with self-doubt and isolation, debating whether or not therapy will prove worthwhile.

36. Akira Kurosawa: In 1971, one of the greatest filmmakers ever to live slit his wrists and throat in an unsuccessful attempt to escape artistic failure, creative block and health problems. His physical scars healed quickly, but he spent time a few years away from the movies in quiet reflection before an inevitable (and triumphant!) return.

37. Abraham Lincoln: Today's general public would (metaphorically) flay Abraham Lincoln alive if they knew he battled clinical depression. Accounts from family and friends as well as the man himself reflect a melancholic figure who frequently talked of suicide and other morbid matters, but many contemporary historians and psychotherapists attribute that introspection to his political success.

38. Gustav Mahler: Composer and conductor Gustav Mahler always exuded a moodiness, but the real torment settled in after getting married — and neither family approved. His demands for wife Alma to give up her music career understandably placed a massive strain on their relationship, and combined with the death of their young daughter and a chronic heart condition it meant some heavy emotional torment.

39. Michelangelo: One of the Renaissance's most prolific and popular artists is almost as infamous for his melancholic misanthropy as he is the masterful frescoes, sculptures, poems and architectural works he created.

40. John Stuart Mill: As a young man, the significant liberal political philosopher suffered a nervous breakdown resulting from too much study and too little emotional expression.

41. Joan Miro: Acclaimed surrealist Joan Miro phased in and out of depression his entire life; a low period coupled with a bout of typhus encouraged him to drop out of business studies and pursue art instead.

42. Isaac Newton: Sir Isaac Newton, without whom many scientific and mathematical advances would not be possible, often suffered from depressive spells that manifested in verbal altercations with contemporaries.

43. Friedrich Nietzsche: The quintessential existentialist philosopher dealt with his frequent dips into depression and suicidal pressures with narcotics and endangering relationships.

44. J. Robert Oppenheimer: Friends and family wrung their hands over J. Robert Oppenheimer's chain smoking and failure to eat when his mind became too occupied with physics and/or depression. On a few occasions, he even admitted a preference for science over people.

45. Sylvia Plath: Psychology professionals still argue over a specific diagnosis for poet Sylvia Plath, but regardless of labels the woman attempted suicide numerous times before eventually succeeding. Throughout her life, she displayed reckless and irrational behaviors and needed antidepressants to make it through day-to-day doings.

46. Edgar Allen Poe: A lifelong struggle with depression resulted in Poe's most haunting writings — as well as academic difficulties and an ultra-strange marriage to his 13-year-old cousin.

47. Jackson Pollock: Jackson Pollock fell victim to a nervous breakdown in 1938 in spite of therapy, eventually turning his attentions towards alcohol abuse and a mistress to distract himself from debilitating self-doubt and a tumultuous marriage.

48. Mark Rothko: Although family describe him as a rather open and gregarious man, artist Mark Rothko harbored some inner demons that eventually drove him to suicide.

49. Kurt Vonnegut: Depression ran in the beloved writer's family — his mother committed suicide when he was 22. He survived his own attempt in 1984, frequently writing about the experience and opening up readers to the harsh reality of mental illness.

50. David Foster Wallace: Fans were shocked when the enormously talented writer took his own life in September of 2008. In reality, though, he had suffered from clinical depression for almost 20 years. Shortly before that tragic day, Wallace and his therapist had decided to change prescriptions — a move that ultimately proved fatal.

Newest Release of MathSciNet The American Mathematical Society is pleased to announce the latest ver

Our Company is looking to recruit an experienced Welder (5-10 years) with working knowledge of machine shop work, grinding work and common welding procedures. This person will be responsible for producing the weldments on a variety of tools, maintaining work equipment and working in cooperation with Quality Assurance, Material Procurement and other departments within the organization to guarantee on-time delivery of customer orders.

This individual will need to possess excellent decision-making and problem-solving skills. He must be able to work independently at times and solve complex mathematical problems unique to individual projects. Other times he may be called upon to work as part of a team and proactively work in a group towards achieving a common goal. This individual must be able to take the initiative as a leader or active contributor. Effective communication skills are a must.

All candidates applying must meet the following requirements:

>Must be proficient at setting up welding equipment as required by WPS and is able to work unsupervised.
>Possesses a knowledge of a variety of materials and metals as well as castings and forgings.
>Comprehension of geometric tolerances with proficiency in reading, understanding, evaluating and working from customer drawings and quality specifications.
>Willing to work required-overtime, understanding that evenings may be required as well.
>Must work independently and have the ability to work in a team environment as a leader and contributor. Communication skills are a must.
>Set-up, clamp, and perform welds (tack, heli-arc, electric arc and gas methods) on diversified materials such as aluminum, hastalloy, stainless steel, etc.
>Ability to accurately inspect and record dimensional data from welded parts using tools such as calipers, gauges, micrometers, etc...
>Can work under pressure in an efficient manner on all welding and grinding jobs to meet scheduled deadlines while maintaining a high level of quality.
>Communicate and work in conjunction with company departments to maintain and achieve common goals.
>Has experience with data input as required on continuity logs and work-flow documentation.
>Must be able to pass both a 2G and 3G flux core weld test (or if a Tig Welder, a Tig Test).
>Weld materials ranging from 8 mils to unlimited thickness, make any type and size weld on ferrous or non ferrous metals as required.
>Work from drawings, weld procedure specifications (WPS) and UST&D; standard operating procedures for welding. Required to understand American Welding Society (AWS) symbols.
Starting pay rate to be determined based on experience.
Schedule: M-F, 7-3:30 (may vary) and scheduled overtime may be required.

Please bring us your resume in person, via fax or e-mail. If you would like to fill-out an employment application feel free to stop by our office before closing-time (Office Closes at 3:30 P.M.) Only relevant applications please.

Please be aware that we may call you in for a hands-on evaluation after-hours or on a Saturday to help us determine whether or not you possess the skills and talent to work with us. We look forward to hearing from you!

Company Information:
Pacific Manufacturing, Inc.
2605 Faivre Street
Chula Vista, Ca 91911
Phone: 619-423-0316
Fax: 619-423-0337
E-Mail: jobs@pacmfginc.com

Eureka (1848) is a lengthy non-fiction work by American author Edgar Allan Poe which he subtitled "A Prose Poem", though it has also been subtitled as "An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe". Adapted from a lecture he had presented, Eureka describes Poe's intuitive conception of the nature of the universe with no scientific work done to reach his conclusions. He also discusses man's relationship with God, whom he compares to an author. It is dedicated to the German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.  Though it is generally considered a literary work, some of Poe's ideas anticipate discoveries of the 20th century.  Indeed a critical analysis of the scientific content of Eureka reveals a non-causal correspondence with modern cosmology due to the assumption of an evolving Universe, but excludes the anachronistic anticipation of relativistic concepts such as black holes.

Eureka was received poorly in Poe's day and generally described as absurd, even by friends. Modern critics continue to debate the significance of Eureka and some doubt its seriousness, in part because of Poe's many incorrect assumptions and his comedic descriptions of well-known historical minds. Presented as a poem, many compare it with his fiction work, especially science fiction stories such as "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". His attempts at discovering the truth also follow his own tradition of "ratiocination", a term used in hisdetective fiction tales. Poe's suggestion that the soul continues to thrive even after death also parallels with works in which characters reappear from beyond the grave such as "Ligeia". The essay is oddly transcendental, considering Poe's disdain for the movement. He considered it his greatest work and claimed it was more important than the discovery of gravity.

Eureka is Poe's last major work and his longest non-fiction work at nearly 40,000 words in length.  The work has its origins in a lecture Poe presented on February 3, 1848, titled "On The Cosmography of the Universe" at the Society Library in New York.  He had expected an audience of hundreds; only 60 attended and were confused by the topic.  Poe had hoped the profits from the lecture would cover expenses for the production of his new journal The Stylus.

Eureka is Poe's attempt at explaining the universe, using his general proposition "Because Nothing was, therefore All Things are". In it, Poe discusses man's relationship to God and the universe or, as he offers at the beginning: "I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical – of the Material and Spiritual Universe: of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny". In keeping with this design, Poe concludes "that space and duration are one" and that matter and spirit are made of the same essence.  Poe suggests that people have a natural tendency to believe in themselves as infinite with nothing greater than their soul—such thoughts stem from man's residual feelings from when each shared an original identity with God.  Ultimately individual consciousnesses will collapse back into a similar single mass, a "final ingathering" where the "myriads of individual Intelligences become blended".  Likewise, Poe saw the universe itself as infinitely expanding and collapsing like a divine heartbeat which constantly rejuvenates itself, also implying a sort of deathlessness.  In fact, because the soul is a part of this constant throbbing, after dying, all people, in essence, become God.

Eureka, A Prose Poem (Wikipedia entry)

Full text from the 1848 edition

 

 

 

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When you stop and think about the popularity of the 3 above individuals, they all have one thing in common, they are great communicators, and I like and watch all 3 of them.  In today’s society I think I have a lot of company in that respect as well.  These folks make sense and are talented enough to break through the walls of deaf ears and at least bring about an awareness in areas that others don’t seem to approach.  All of them not only make us laugh, but they also make us think. 

These are smart folks too and always include technology and in what they speak of too and the public recognizes this and we very rarely get any of that from our leaders but quite the opposite so much of the time.  Anyone in the public eye today is open game for comedy, just goes with the territory, but these folks are not just entertainers, all of them share one commonality with all, they remember they are also citizens and when you watch, that message is clear and alive.  All of them relate to reality today and are very much aware of the changing world we live in today, and this is why we like them.  Jon Stewart even makes the news over at Fox too.

In my opinion politicians should pay attention to what these folks have to say as the American public is tuned in.  All of them are very much to the point on bringing to light the old retired paradigms that live in Congress that need to pack up and go away.  All of them are vey much in tune with how technology is affecting our lives today, a big gray area of what I call “nonparticipants” with so many members of Congress and why public opinion today is so low, people see this, even though they may not understand everything themselves, the view is clear. 

Take a look and see who some of their guests are on the shows, we see Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt and many more from the technology side of the world today, and those folks certainly see the communication avenue here, otherwise they would not be wasting time, they get it and this drives home the point of why “general digital IT literacy” is needed today for all.  You can only have your staff do so much and it’s just like driving a car, sometimes you need to shift for yourself like everyone else does.  On the other hand too, people like Erick Schmidt and Bill Gates know the crowd and the awareness all 3 of them command and spend time with all of them to bring about the need for consumer digital awareness and technology.  In short you have “smarts” working both sides here which is a good thing compared to hearing about mosques in New York and the other non relative distractions that captivate the news and make for the next OMG story. 

Stephen Colbert has coined some new terminology, “proofiness” and it has lead the way for a new book, which I am looking forward to reading as I have been talking about this same item for a couple years with healthcare, those algorithms and what is really going on.  Politicians can make all kinds of promises but if they are not in tune with what runs behind the scenes on what makes their promises happen, aka the algorithms, they look illiterate, and one of these 3 will capitalize on this.  Mr. Colbert this week had the President of Google on the show and what did they talk about:  algorithms.

“Proofiness–The Dark Side of Mathematical Deception”–Created by Those Algorithms–New Book Coming Out Soon

Stephen Colbert Talks to Google CEO Eric Schmidt About Algorithms, Data Mining and the Web

Without first hand knowledge and participation you don’t look too smart out there today, and these folks make a living capitalizing on it, and rightly so.  We love them for that.  If you go back over the 3 years of the Medical Quack you will find embedded videos from all of them as I felt were relative to current day topics and discussions.  I have a couple of my own phrases I used here, like “nonparticipants” so I can speak out and be politically correct and hopefully make a point.  I think we need a “Department of Algorithms”

“Department of Algorithms – Do We Need One of These to Regulate Upcoming Laws?

One other great show was with Stephen Colbert taking on technology from the “common sense” side of the world, talking about Glow Caps, a pill bottle that is wireless and does the communicating for the patient with medications.  What is important about this is the fact that he brings this to light, but also touches on the implementation of how this works, disruptive, or helpful?

The Colbert Report Takes On Vitality GlowCaps (Video) – Check Out the Privacy Issues Here As Medication Data is Created That Can Be Sold To Health Insurance Companies For Use With Underwriting Algorithms

Congress for the most part with being “nonparticipants” is not really aware of how biometric monitoring works, but yet as citizens we are having all of this pushed down our throats without a solid plan sometimes.  The vendors and insurance companies think everyone should be tied in to a device that reminds us and keeps us on track, which may or may not be a bad idea, but what if a consumer is already tied into 2 or 3 other devices too, how many can we have room for? 

Personally to bring this point home on healthcare and how these devices work whether it is exercise, taking medications, etc. I think every member of Congress should be a pilot and experience some of this so they understand where sensors and software are going today.  What if they were in session and received messages saying “your need to move more-get up and walk-you are not meeting your daily exercise goals”.  This could make for one heck of a YouTube video and drive home what “participation” is to show both the good and dark side of all of this at once. 

All we would need to do would be equip every member of Congress with a device, a Fitbit, Muve Gruve or use a program on a smart phone to keep them in check, and gosh knows you can see some big BMIs up there with those folks too who need a diet or some exercise.  These devices even monitor you while you sleep, can you see Congress members looking at their own data? This stands to be a Congressional “don’t tell” issue if used  think <grin>.  After all they are the leaders making laws today and as citizens we want to know if they are making the most out of their sleep efficiency as this is what is being marketed to the American consumer today and some companies have programs that kind of force feed this for employees to get discounts to afford their healthcare insurance premiums which are going up next month all over the country. 

Next time there’s some coverage just look around as fat lives there too and this is something members do have in common with the American public, it lives everywhere so thus the need to kill this paradigm of “its for those guys over there”.  I thought maybe the first lady perhaps with not wanting a lot of attention when her program for children and obesity was announced was embarrassed as she was looking at a crowd of adults (all members of he House and Senate) who needed some information in this area too. 

Why Was Michelle Obama 'embarrassed' by The Standing Ovation As Obesity Program for Children Was Announced

“Stop that filibuster, device says I’m not getting enough exercise so everything goes on hold for a few minutes while we stop and walk around and answer to our electronic wellness coach that is calling and nagging me with text messages.  I make this point as this is what is being sold to the American public marketed via many insurance companies and the users have jobs too, so do they stop and tell the customer on the phone, I can’t talk now my devices says I have to move around right now or my wellness coach won’t give me a passing grade here and if I don’t do this my insurance premiums may go up as my company has a contract that says I have to do this to keep my portion of my health insurance premiums down and I get that discount.

Devices can be helpful but participatory sensing and how they fit into daily life is important for the end users.  Marketing and proof of concept today is like a runaway train and this is not happening but rather the chase for the data to analyze is somewhat shoving this down our throats without adequate planning and realizing the effects it has on just living your life.  Stuff like this too in the news scares me as there are stores like Best Buy that help everyone with technology and it’s even available for members of Congress as they are consumers too, read up and get that general consumer IT digital literacy going, we do.  The word “accelerometer” might scare the daylights out of some of our members and this could be a good lesson on device privacy issues to experience this first hand too!  How would members of Congress react to seeing their nutrition and BMI rolled out and charted like this I wonder?

Members of Congress Not Locking Down Their Home Wireless Networks with Passwords Now Angered At Google For Snooping with Street Views?

When I heard one of the members of Congress ask Mr. Colbert this week ask him to leave before he even spoke, well point well made there with “nonparticipation” and lack of curiosity.  Curiosity is the key to learning and this member of Congress basically said I am not curious and have all the knowledge I need, sad.  He doesn’t get it and in my mind he’s one of those “nonparticipants” as Mr Colbert brought to light in his own way, reality with farm workers.  How in the heck do you crack these head that think they know it all already when you hear comments like that?  This post below might shed some light here, as the 2 are connected, duh?

The Link between intelligence and Curiosity Is Discovered

“Magpie Healthcare” is another one I use frequently too, those who just repeat what someone else says but offer little or no knowledge of their own as they come back around to number one, being a “nonparticipant”. 

The third phrase I include quite frequently is “its for those guys over there” and everyone can relate to that with the feeling we get today with those out of touch with “general consumer digital IT literacy” and we stand back and watch and listen to those who “think” they know what is best for us.  They really don’t know as they are “nonparticipants” and live in values and the rhetoric of what made times in the70s work.  All of these 3 hit on that big time and entertain us in the process, why, because it’s the truth, and whether it is Congress or a CEO, this stuff sticks out like a sore thumb today and can’t be buried under the carpet.

Personal Health Records (PHR), I don’t do technology said the CEO, “it’s for those guys over there”

We have a lot of what I call judgmental garbage in the news today that admonishes the general public and tells us how stupid we are, when in reality that is not the case but yet with numbers and stats we all get rolled in there, but again these 3 entertainers dissect this and bring the “real” reality to the screen and at the same time roll the leaders in there too with pointing out this is the pot calling the kettle black.

This week Rachel Maddow did a talk about the stimulus money and used one of our California representatives as an example.  He put down the stimulus money and now is asking for some.  What really brought this home was the fact that the same representative was recently pulled over for using his cell phone while driving.  We have had several folks to include our governor’s wife get busted with this, but the real difference I feel this case was the arrogance displayed here in being in the process of doing a “live radio show” while driving and using the cellphone, again we come back around to the fact that cell phone safety “its for those guys over there” and it seemed to project not only arrogance, but the idea of “I’m important and I am above what is for the rest of the general public”.  As a side note too, watch the blank expression on Dan Lungren ’s face while Stephen Colbert testifies, he looks very confused and very much resembles a “nonparticipant” as the camera was spanning and caught him on film. 

US Congressional Representative Gets Pulled Over for Using a Cell Phone While Driving And Was Live on the Air Doing Radio Interview

This is a device at the link below that I use for hands free in the car and it works well, it plugs into a cigarette lighter and is portable so for those renting cars, etc. a mobile solution once matched with a blue tooth smartphone, and I might hope that members of Congress have graduated to this point with mobility for the jobs they do require them to move around a lot.  Too bad the Oprah police were not on hand for this one. 

Black Series™ by Shift3® Bluetooth® Hands-Free Auto Speaker – It Works!

I’m just noting this fact as the rest of the country was watching as this was all over the news when it happened and stop and give this some thought, do you get any other alternate views of this situation?  He didn’t get a ticket but if this had occurred back in the home state of California, he would have. You can’t hide anymore as we live in the world of sensors and transparency and occurrences like this I believe just tend to drop one’s popularity down a notch or two and again makes for great entertainment and once again shows the world of the “nonparticipants” at work with the paradigm of “its for those guys over there’ once more kicking in. I guess the “nonparticipants” have not come to the reality of all these sensors surround them too. 

Rachel Maddow had a very revealing story this week about digital literacy and blew it up on the screen for all to see with the lack of knowing how to work with pdf files and how the writer of the information simply took one right click on the document.  When you stop and think of the point made here, are these folks “participants” with general consumer literacy? It sure didn’t look like it, so again it was there for the world to get a look at reality and shows what goes on, this is the day of transparency we live in today.  Those not in the know just slip further down the ladder and digital illiteracy shows once again.

The Properties of an Adobe pdf Document -Rachel Maddow Rips the GOP on Lack of General Consumer IT Knowledge And Exposes the Input and Authors of the Content–Lobbyists

This is the big story of the week to show that former lobbyists are writing some missions that others follow?  You may not always agree with what Rachel has to say but this is just cold hard facts here and the truth so it serves to bring folks out of denial and shows what is happening and how many choose to live in the past and can’t get up to pace with technology and how it is affecting our day to day lives.  It is what it is.  Tech denial affects both Democrats and Republicans although the latter seems to be having even a more difficult time with curiosity and learning today as we seem to see reported in the news.  We have companies like Intel too warning use on this fact, but doesn’t sink in does it much in Congress as they need to get educated too.

Intel CEO States the US Faces Decline in Tech Jobs–Announces Purchase of German Wireless Chip Company Infineon

In summary I hope I have outlined why these 3 individuals play such an important role today with US citizens and Congress, especially in the area of healthcare, they are the voices that help break through the “nonparticipant” barriers with their humor and can one by one break down some of the bricks in the wall.  As consumers we do feel like just one more brick in the wall when it comes governing bodies that are out of touch and have lost the element of curiosity as no learning takes place when this happens and it’s on the news, in the papers every day.  We need a lot of studies due to non participation and the inability of those to contribute with the paradigm of it’s for those guys over there.

HHS To Conduct Study on Patient Perception on Health IT – Got A Better Idea Why Don’t They Become E-patients Role Models, and Participants – Make IT Personal and Believable

Rachel, Jon, and Stephen are more than just broadcasters, they take an interest and use their talents as entertainers to speak for us and they educate us too in the process. 

Nobody is the king of all knowledge today and it’s working together and getting rid of those old stuffy paradigms and and stopping the unnecessary judging of people.

If we didn’t have their voices being heard and bringing this lack of curiosity and knowledge of our leaders to our door everyday, things would be much worse so I applaud and very much appreciate all their efforts.  BD

[Image: Parachute or shelter? Mode of escape or method of dwelling? From Volume 24].

Long-time readers might remember BLDGBLOG's earlier conversation with architect Jeffrey Inaba, posted back in 2007 as part of a suite of interviews with the editors of Volume magazine, including Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman.

This summer, while leaving New York City to return to Los Angeles, and on the occasion of Inaba publishing his recent book World of Giving, with Katharine Meagher, and editing the 24th issue of Volume—to be released next week at an event in New York—I decided to catch up with him about those two publications, about the state of architectural criticism in an age when everyone is being, as Inaba says, "nice," and about the philanthropic potentials of design today.

[Image: From Volume 24].

In World of Giving, Inaba writes that "Giving permeates human activity. It is present always and everywhere." What exactly is giving, though, if it is both economically ubiquitous and socially universal?

"Giving," Inaba suggests, "is any act that improves the capacity of another person. A gift can be as little as a nod of encouragement, or as great as taking a bullet for a friend." And, while the motive to give might involve self-interest—that is, "help is extended to others in order to receive a benefit for oneself"—this is no reason to dismiss a human impulse toward true generosity: "We suggest that to undermine acts of giving with accusations of self-interest is overly simplistic. The potential positive feedback that flows to the giver is just as integral a part of the dynamic of giving as the positive benefit that flows to the receiver."

[Image: From World of Giving].

The complicated laminations of gifts on top of gifts—the worlds of nonprofits, NGOs, philanthropic organizations, and even everyday friends—creates its own social universe, with its own structures, its own unspoken rules, and, as Inaba and Meagher explore, its own architectural implications. Indeed, the latter half of the book specifically explores the spatial effects of the so-called gift economy, looking at the "architecture aid" of groups like Architecture For Humanity, the Gates Foundation, Christopher Alexander, John Turner and the World Bank, Hassan Fathy and the Aga Khan Development Network, and many more.

These examples of "improving the capacity of others," as Inaba phrases it, through better homes, streets, workplaces, and sites of social gathering, is part of the larger overall dynamic of aid capital. What's particularly interesting here—and this is the dilemma of all philanthropic acts—is that gifts bring with them certain functional assumptions: for instance, at the most basic level, that the thing being given is actually of benefit to the recipient. One U.N. official might think, for instance, that all you need to do to rescue a certain city from poverty is establish a strong banking system or a robust highway network, while another presumed expert might think that all you need are active churches, tight-knit families, and access to modern medicine. Yet another might think the whole thing comes down to building stock, or public infrastructure, or women's education, or affordable laptop computers.

But what all of these "gifts" have in common is that they are actually the projection of a political ideology—a vision of how that target society is meant to function. They thus come with contextual requirements that often exceed the bounds of any specific act of philanthropy and depend upon the acts of other organizations to operate at all. So while a gift is often inspired by the generous recognition of a state of need in the future recipient, that same gift is also a projection of how a certain giver thinks the recipient should be living. A "gift" risks becoming the implementation of the giver's own politics.

[Image: From World of Giving].

A few years ago, for instance, I had a brief but interesting conversation with Zach Frechette of GOOD magazine about how differently the idea of "doing good" can be interpreted by different people—that is, what giving can mean for them. Many people, for instance, might think that traveling from village to village to promote abstinence-only sexual education is "good," and that passing out condoms is literally the very definition of moral irresponsibility. Others, of course, might beg to differ. In another context, an urban planner might think that tearing down slums and replacing them with wine bars and luxury condos—even with tower blocks—is a clear-cut urban "good." But at what point does a gift become the strategic imposition of your own politics? When does your idea of good become something more akin to a burden, a setback, a limit given to others?

In any case, Inaba's and Meagher's book presents itself as a glossy—and not inexpensive—research dossier, which I think has limited its reception to the world of architectural academia. But if it had been released as a standard trade paperback by a mass-market publisher like Random House, then I think World of Giving would actually sell remarkably well.

My own interest in the book's ideas finding a larger audience is part of what initially motivated me to record the following conversation.

[Image: The cover from World of Giving].

BLDGBLOG: In the most basic sense, where did the World of Giving project come from? What inspired it? What were you hoping to achieve by focusing on the nature of philanthropy and its architectural manifestations?

Inaba: This came out of research that we first did for the Donor Hall installation at the New Museum in New York. We wanted to think about the larger dynamics of aid, as well as the global system of philanthropy, and to research the role that architecture can play in it.

But, in looking at the topic and thinking it through, we ended up in a very different place than we expected—and we discovered that the topic of giving is much more fundamental than the people who were already covering it seemed to indicate.

Before you can even begin to talk about aid—in the form of philanthropy or in the form of support provided by the government—we had to look at the most basic dynamics of giving, even why people give from one to another in the first place. Once we started to look at that, we found a slightly different story that spanned from the human dynamics of giving all the way down to the delivery of that aid in whatever form.

On the one hand, for example, there's architecture, urbanism, and other forms of physical aid, and, on the other, there is the delivery of what we call aid capital, aid that is given in forms that are less immediately material, such as education or policy support.

[Images: From Donor Hall by INABA Projects, courtesy of the New Museum].

BLDGBLOG: One of the things I found interesting in the Donor Hall project is its inclusion of groups like Hamas—that is, groups listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government—as philanthropists. If Al-Qaeda rebuilds your town after a devastating flood—as in Pakistan—then it, too, in the terms of that specific example, becomes a "philanthropic" organization. Donor Hall hints at this kind of parallel economy of gift-giving—another, darker branch of philanthropy that makes its money from off-radar markets and financial practices. See the work of Loretta Napoleoni, for instance. But this analysis is actually missing from the book. Did you deliberately exclude this shadow-philanthropy, so to speak, or did you perhaps lose interest?

Inaba: What was important to us with the Donor Hall was to present to people the range of organizations that give—which includes militias and informal operations, rather than just governments and official institutions. Even with organizations like Hamas, they realize the importance of providing a social and civil infrastructure for the place where they live. Our point there was simply that many organizations understand the importance of providing support on the local level—but, with the book, rather than it being an inventory of all the different kinds of organizations that exist, we wanted to focus on the intentions and the mechanisms.

In that sense, the book is a more fundamental look at giving itself, and not just an overview of the range of the various organizations that give. Giving is often more of an entering-into-collaboration. From the donor down to the people who administer the gifts or grants—via the people who supply the local capital that permits purchase orders to be filled or subcontracts to be signed, and then further on to the people who actually do construction work—a gift is very often just the kicking-off of a much longer process.

And it’s not only the giving of aid, in whatever material a way that might be. It's also about what we call aid capital—the ability to preserve and increase the capacity of another person. That capacity goes far beyond immediate material benefits, to the knowledge that comes with a gift, to the skills that might be picked up because of it, and to the ability of that recipient to then increase the capacity of others.

[Image: From World of Giving].

BLDGBLOG: In the book, you write that "Aid Capital is our term for the power of giving. It is the sum of other resources like economic capital (money), political capital (governmental and institutional sway) and human capital (people's time and energy) composed together with the specific desire to increase the capacity of others."

Inaba: Yeah, aid capital is something that’s very different from, say, political capital or social capital or monetary capital, in the sense that it’s relatively infinite. With political capital, if one garners favors from certain peers and then cashes in those favors at a certain point, while there is an immediate gain as a result of it, that capital has been spent. Whereas when aid capital is exercised, it goes toward helping a recipient in some way: the aid capital is never exhausted or fully spent.

For instance, a person’s volunteer hours will lead to something that might be built as a result—but that person might also then learn how to build better buildings from the experience, and pass that knowledge on to someone else, or to the entire community, or they might learn the management skills necessary for future projects, thus bringing in more people, and more opportunities for training, and so on. The ability for aid capital to build upon itself is something that, in a sense, means there’s no terminus point for giving.

BLDGBLOG: You specifically cite the case of Habitat for Humanity, an organization that chooses its recipients based not on those people's real needs but on whether or not they are responsible enough to take care of what Habitat For Humanity gives to them. In other words, they are chosen based on their ability to become stewards of the gift.

Inaba: We focused on groups like Habitat For Humanity not because we specifically endorse what they do over other organizations, but because they are very illuminating organizations to describe. We thought it was interesting, for instance, that the recipients of assistance from Habitat For Humanity, as you say, wouldn't necessarily be considered people in the most urgent or dire need, but rather people who have the capacity to support continued payments on a house. In that regard, the recipient of a "gift" from Habitat For Humanity would be someone who could usefully occupy the house, live there, and benefit from it—but also, because they are financially sustainable, offer reassure to the volunteers who actually constructed it that their effort has not been in vain.

The decision of who receives a gift has as much to do with building up a support infrastructure of people who will work on and build these houses, as with considering the social consequences of aid and its ability to build upon itself in the community even after the act of giving itself is over.

BLDGBLOG: This restricted nature of a gift—the conditions a giver might impose on future recipients—seems to deserve more attention, in that regard. This past winter, for instance, after the Haiti earthquake, groups like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders began specifically asking that donors not limit their gifts only to Haiti—that so much had been given already (and we saw this same situation with the Asian tsunami in 2004) that limiting your gift only to Haiti would actually be too generous, in a sense. Those gifts would actually be needed elsewhere. So there is also the category of the unrestricted gift: the act of true generosity, we might say, one without a specified destination.

Inaba: There's actually a phenomenon called aid congestion, where the delivery of aid is not something that happens instantaneously, and it's something that can discourage people from giving at all.

What we try to explain in the book is that the delivery of aid is very complicated. It deals with urban challenges we're not always familiar with—like how to get resources into a city when all the infrastructure of that city has been incapacitated—and the gift itself has to be constantly transformed and processed before it arrives at its target.

Given the complexity of it all, giving is almost bound to be a very frustrating thing for people. They hear, on the one hand, that there are organizations being set up that might be fraudulent, and, on the other, that their gifts might actually be mismanaged—that there might be a large amount of money that then gets siphoned off to other causes elsewhere. Or there are even cases where very effective organizations are simply crowded out by other organizations, all of which are hoping to supply aid.

BLDGBLOG: Giving becomes a kind of competition.

Inaba: One of the more interesting reasons why giving becomes so complicated, though, is that, at every stage in the delivery process, the material nature of the assistance is forced to change. It goes from someone who wants to give dollars to someone who might process or exchange that money for, say, the payment or international transportation of goods—which then becomes the delivery or receiving of goods at a regional center, and then at a local center, which then becomes paying for people to unload the goods, or store them, or assemble them.

Essentially, it's the transformation of an abstract, often monetary gift into something that is more immediately deliverable. For instance, transferring water from a large container into a truck, and then again into a smaller container: there is a constant transfer or transformation of the gift itself.

At each level, there is an exchange—and every exchange has to be negotiated.

BLDGBLOG: I'm reminded again of the earthquake in Haiti: within about 24 hours of the disaster, UPS began offering free shipment to Haiti for any package less than $50. In essence, UPS was donating its infrastructure and expertise —it was donating the logistical expertise of delivery itself In fact, in World of Giving, you actually describe an official relationship between the United Nations and DHL, where a kind of public-private collaboration between those organizations allows the U.N. literally to deliver aid in a way that would have been impossible without the flexible infrastructure and on-site administrative knowledge of DHL. DHL and UPS here could be seen as infrastructures-for-hire—or to be donated, as the case may be. It's private-sector expertise being put to use in the service of public gain.

Inaba: What interested us specifically with DHL was also the knowledge that their individual workers have, in terms of setting up a local delivery center. The logistics of how to operate a warehouse is a very specific kind of knowledge: where things should come in; where they should be stored; how, and in what order, they should go out.

This kind of expertise can also be highly local to the area that has been affected. For instance, after something goes out of the warehouse, the way in which it is delivered in a region—and even the way packages are addressed there—is something that DHL would understand better than, say, an official at the U.N.

So this is not a question of the delivery of economic capital, but of intelligence.

[Image: DHL in action; from World of Giving].

BLDGBLOG: That touches on the spatial nature of giving in a literal sense—here, the spatial layout of a warehouse and the different local geographies in which those warehouses function. But what about the larger architectural interest of the book? Architecture kicks in about halfway through, I might say. How did your interest in architecture-as-gift arise?

Inaba: On one hand, we really wanted to do something that was along the lines of a spatial/formal analysis of giving—on the level of city planning, on the level of housing in the developing world, and on the level of building. But we also wanted to understand this larger, logistical sense of space.

BLDGBLOG: One example that stuck out to me was the idea of the "roof loan society." Charles Abrams, as you write in the book, saw "backyard stockpiles of weathered building materials" as "frozen assets" that could be put to use for the benefit of the larger community. Wood, cinder blocks, electrical wiring—this unused surplus was a kind of Home Depot in waiting: it was sitting around and not doing anything, though it could and should serve as the basis for local employment and future housing initiatives.

Inaba: We never really hear about Abrams—or about many of the figures in the book—within the world of architecture. They've been absorbed into a different context: of nonprofits, international cooperation, and so on.

BLDGBLOG: They've been absorbed by a larger political narrative?

Inaba: Well, it's the scale of development, or the developmental context, that makes it political.

In this sense, the book is a reflection on our earlier work with the Guide to Shopping. The shopping book was an attempt to address a specific political moment, a moment when high affluence—when acquisition and material gain—became central to the collective psyche and shopping essentially became the sole element through which urban development occurred.

The Giving book marks a different era, one also of high affluence, but we wanted to say that giving, too, has an impact on urban development.

The Guide to Shopping was relatively apolitical—it looked at shopping from a relatively neutral standpoint—but that was very much an assessment of the situation. It was a critique that shopping had become the terminal activity of urbanism. The value of the book was that it could explain specific instances of the relationship between the activity of shopping to the way the city developed, including the invention of new building typologies.

But that's just some background to what you've asked. Basically, we didn't want to judge the particular ideologies or political ideas that architects have in terms of making proposals or delivering aid. In the section that describes the different architects—including Abrams—what we wanted to do was make clear the ideological intents of those architects and to be as specific as possible about the differences that exist between them—between each other, but also between what those architects once said or thought and what those architects now believe and practice.

The book is not politically judgmental on the level of the architects' visions; more importantly, though, it is political in its description of the larger system of giving.

[Image: From World of Giving].

BLDGBLOG: One other thing I think is interesting here actually ties back to an interview you did last year with Chris Anderson of Wired magazine. You discuss what Anderson calls the "reputation economy," and how so much now depends upon constructing and maintaining a good reputation. Where this intersects with World of Giving, though, is where the value of your gift rises along with your reputation—and where people who are willing to receive your gift can also rise or fall depending, again, on the reputation that your organization has.

Think, for instance, of someone who accepts a grant from the Department of Defense, as opposed to someone who accepts a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts: those are two very different organizations, and their generosity comes with, in a sense, quite opposite political implications. There are people who will judge you very harshly for accepting a "gift" from one but not the other. So my point is that the philanthropic economy—the gift economy—seems to offer a nice corollary to the reputation economy that you discussed last year with Anderson.

Inaba: Yeah, that's exactly it. One's reputation increases with your ability to increase the capacities of others—but there's always the question of how exactly you operate or what exactly you offer.

[Images: From the index of World of Giving].

BLDGBLOG: Finally, the index for World of Giving is actually one of the most interesting parts of the book. It's a collection of small photographs that document things like plastic tarps, tent structures, water filtration equipment, and so on—the actual objects through which aid programs operate and the ingredients that become recombined into things like refugee camps and emergency housing. It's a material catalog of giving.

Inaba: With the index, we wanted to show the materials, tools, and objects of giving. However, we wanted people to see how these things now exist alongside new and improved aid materials—from blankets to buildings—but also things like dynamite, mine sweepers, packaging, boots, different forms of tents, power generators, etc.

What we wanted to say was that there is already a design language for giving—and that the design of these things has to do with shipability, weatherproofing, compartmentalization, the economic use of materials, and things that are designed for different durations of use.

We wanted people to be aware that there's a high degree of design that already exists within the different institutions of giving. That's something we can add to—but also something we can learn from, when we work within architecture as a larger practice.

[Image: The table of contents from Volume 24].

BLDGBLOG: Let’s talk about Volume 24, the most recent issue of the magazine, which you edited. In your opening essay, you describe the overarching themes of the issue as follows: "At first glance, what appears prescient about the 60s when looking at current American culture is the preoccupation then and now with computer technology, the natural environment and alternative forms of community; but today each is disconnected from the radical political action and oppositional ideologies of the earlier era." Further, "With the help of countercultural figures, historians and architects, this issue of Volume examines the popularized characteristics of the 60s that have influenced our beliefs about technology, the environment and community." First off, where does this issue overlap, if at all, with World of Giving?

Inaba: One of the connections between this issue of Volume and the World of Giving book is where we see countercultural values emerging today.

For example, there’s what we've come to call the Nice Economy. Part of this is the recognition that one form of giving has now become pervasive, and that’s the sharing of things in various formats—whether it’s sharing songs, text, movies, personal thoughts, or what have you. Giving in exchange for something else—bartering and trading—is very much an activity that comes out of ideas of community and sharing—but this has now become so dominant that it's no longer a counterculture. It's more of an expectation than an ideal, and it bears more scrutiny.

[Image: From Volume 24].

BLDGBLOG: And the Nice Economy is what, exactly?

Inaba: What we're calling the Nice Economy emphasizes consensus, polite concurrence, and the idea of positive reinforcement, as well as making sure that people can work well as a group to the extent that one’s own behavior is not overbearing or doesn't diminish the potential of group dynamics.

There are many popular writers today talking about how this, in general, is a good thing: people are typically kind and good, and they do things like sharing. But it’s almost become a necessity now, in terms of one’s professional life. If you’re anything but nice, it becomes a liability. This is true even to the extent that, a few years ago, being critical—even being an asshole, in terms of commenting on a blog—was common, but it now seems to come with the sense that your comments could get back to you.

So the idea is that being nice has transformed from a thing that was more of an ethos into something that is more like a professional expectation—whether it’s in business, economics, politics, or what have you. I mean, clearly this is better than if we lived in a world where everyone’s an asshole! [laughs] But it’s something that requires assessment, because it has consequences.

On the other hand, it also merits assessment in the sense that one wouldn’t now want to see a counter-reaction to this—to the Nice Economy—where it’s thought that being critical or being negative or being objectionable is, in and of itself, constructive. But nor should being nice simply be accepted as the status quo.

BLDGBLOG; [laughs] My wife's former job—for a nonprofit in San Francisco—actually required her to attend weekly meetings where she and the rest of the staff would receive "the gift of criticism." It was actually called that. I don't think those meetings were very popular. But what it means to "be nice"—and, of course, what it means to "be critical"—really needs to be defined more closely here.

Inaba: Yeah. I think this requires an attitude that is neither one that attempts to be enthusiastic or find positive attributes in everything, nor one where immediately being counter to something, or in opposition against something, in disagreement with something, is in and of itself to be rewarded.

BLDGBLOG: Does the Nice Economy, as you phrase it, risk squeezing criticism out altogether? In other words, we should all just get along and be nice to each other. Or do you see a new, potentially more interesting type of critique emerging from this? For instance, you now also have to add to the discussion; you have the tools now to show that you can build or create something, and it's no longer enough just to complain or tear other people's things down.

Inaba: That’s a good question. In some ways, it’s a question of responsibility: for your criticism to be useful now, a greater, more comprehensive, more coherent, and more productive form of critique seems necessary. I think that’s the very thing that we ourselves are trying to grapple with here. In calling this issue Counter Culture?—with a question mark—it’s as much a question mark to ourselves about how to operate. How can you produce something that is not oppositional or contrarian for the sake of it—and how can you respond constructively, not just with a kind of superficial positivity?

I just want to reiterate quickly that if the Giving book is about the importance of generosity, and of understanding forms of giving, from a very basic human level to the way that giving works between governments, then what we want to make clear is that we present those mechanisms in very constructive terms. It's the negative side of this, on the other hand, that we’re calling the Nice Economy. We want to be precise in looking for ways to transform or take advantage of the Nice Economy, as a way to validate ideas of giving, but not to continue the Nice Economy for its own sake and thus diminish the act of a gift.

[Image: From Volume 24].

BLDGBLOG: Something that also seems to come up in the issue is a larger shift from the Whole Earth Catalog-era of do-it-yourself analogue counterculture to the countercultures of today, which are almost invariably equipment-intensive. Today's countercultures—at least the ones most openly celebrated—are usually electrically dependent and quite high-tech. The question here would seem to be: are these really countercultures at all, then, in any real sense, or are they simply the continuing industrial expansion of the west? Are you a member of a counterculture or are you simply an emerging market for high-tech products (no matter how you might use or abuse them)? I think it’s instructive to juxtapose the off-the-grid fantasies of back-to-the-land 1960s hippies with the heavily mediated, high-tech equivalents of that today—it's been a fairly extraordinary shift, yet it’s only been 40 years.

Inaba: Yeah, yeah. The Whole Earth Catalog was something that was deeply influential to the back-to-the-landers, and it certainly can be understood as a prototype for the internet, in the sense that it produced a knowledge network that was accessible and helped share information between interested parties.

But I think we take it for granted nowadays that social and political situations can only be improved by propelling ourselves forward through advances in technology. An interesting counter-example is something that McKenzie Wark brings up in his essay for the issue. He points out that the Romans—and, to a certain degree, the British—actually narrativized an end-game for their own empires, whereas we’re still caught in a post-Sixties idea of social transformation through technology. In other words, we can't visualize our own end because we assume that we will simply change ourselves—and solve our problems—through technology. That narrative assumption—that technology will necessarily resolve all of our current problems—is something Wark wants to polemically question, and he points out that there's a value to thinking about how to wind things down.

In the realm of architecture, I think what’s been really interesting is exploring the assumed connection between psychedelics—like the taking of LSD and the experience of being under the influence of LSD—and the aesthetics of psychedelia. There’s an assumption that the kind of patterns and colors of psychedelic spaces were very much intended as representations of a psychedelic trip. That’s something we take as a given, even today.

However, I think that Jason King makes an interesting point in his piece for the magazine. For him, a more appropriate corollary would be architecture that’s introverted. That is, something that is introspective rather than a thing that’s expansive. As a psychedelic, LSD might be seen as something that’s more internalizing—and, in that sense, in King's view, it might be that the more acidic architecture would actually be something like Peter Eisenman’s House X or, in fact, any of Eisenman’s House projects.

BLDGBLOG: So, in King’s view, the architecture of LSD would be the solipsistic world of mathematical introversion—represented here by Peter Eisenman—and not the technicolor world of hippie tents and pop-up cities found up in the hills of California? That's fascinating.

Inaba: In some ways, even the synthetic quality of Eisenman's architecture—the technological expertise of it—is similar to the synthesized nature of LSD.

[Image: House X].

BLDGBLOG: There's actually a great moment in Daniel Pinchbeck's book Breaking Open The Head where he describes the architecture of a very bad trip; in this particular scene, Pinchbeck takes some sort of bizarre, highly synthetic hallucinogen and he ends up thinking that he's trapped in a room without doors or walls—but what's funny is that his description of it almost sounds like a building designed by Zaha Hadid. It's seamless, alien, and impossible to escape. [laughs]

Inaba: The specific comparison King tries to make is that, if acid was the drug of choice in the 1960s, and if acid was about introspection, then, by extension, it might be more accurately associated with an architecture that explores its own internalized discourse. For his own part, King associates himself with the 80s/90s and with Ecstasy; that drug experience, he thinks, is more conceptually extroverted, and those feelings and sensations of extroversion became a dominant operative term for his generation of architects.

I think what’s important about this is that it’s based on a questioning of the historical truths that we assume between certain kinds of sensibilities and the aesthetics that come out of them. For example, acid trip = psychedelic imagery. King's idea that this equation can be challenged is nice—but it also seems interesting as a method, because what he sees as being important for his generation of designers is not so much concept-based architecture but what he calls an architecture of affect.

In other words, he’s interested in sensation; he’s interested in the synaesthesia of what something looks like and what its materiality might be—what happens if you privilege feeling over concept. I think it’s that methodology that allows King to reassess a previous era of architecture—to say that Eisenman's architecture is acidic—but also that allows us to be informed about the way that contemporary architects are working.

[Images: From Volume 24].

BLDGBLOG: Alistair Gordon's recent book Spaced Out documents a kind of psychedelic vernacular—hippie enclaves, bubble architectures, parachute-pavilions, paisley walls, irregular room layouts, lots of incense, proud displays of body hair, and so on. Does a focus on this by now fairly clichéd design language play any part in the magazine?

Inaba: Alistair actually wrote a contribution for us. He tries to illustrate the extent to which the psychedelic aesthetic—the way he sees it—has penetrated into mainstream culture. In that sense, his piece is a precise restatement of what he says in Spaced Out: that psychedelic architecture was a kind of evolved vernacular. It was consciously working outside the domain of the professional discourse, and that was exactly its virtue.

We also talked with Chip Lord, from Ant Farm. I think, for us, what’s interesting about Ant Farm is the question of how architects can integrate new media into their work. With them, the fact that they'd always been interested in broadcasting their work really came to an apotheosis with the development of videotape technology. Video meant that they could incorporate broadcasting directly into the realization of their work, so everything from their "Clean Air" project in Berkeley onward deals with media to a certain extent—using media as a way to telegraph information.

In fact, with projects like "Media Burn," Ant Farm not only enabled media to participate in their work directly, they also facilitated a critique of that work through new media like video. In that sense, it’s not just an enthusiastic embrace of a new technology; it also allowed Ant Farm's work to act as a collective lens for interrogating the medium and for interrogating the way in which information is broadcast.

As rebellious and as confrontational as the work might be received today, I think there’s a reflective aspect to it that goes unnoticed.

[Image: From Volume 24].

BLDGBLOG: The inversion of that, of course, is that something that would have been considered quite radical thirty-five or forty years ago would actually be a fairly tame example of multimedia today. For instance, today you can be watching a movie on your iPhone while texting somebody—while walking to work, while surrounded by LED screens on the sidewalk, while playing a game by Area/Code or checking in on foursquare, and so on. If, forty years ago, Archigram had proposed exactly that same scenario as a kind of design provocation—a way of deliberately overloading and inhabiting urban and architectural space—then it would have been considered pretty mind-blowing for its time. But today it’s just our everyday streetscape.

It's as if every child alive today with access to an iPod is already more avant-garde than Archigram.

Inaba: That’s something we’ve been trying to think out with this issue: the broader idea that there isn’t a counterculture at all today, because there isn’t anything monolithic enough to oppose. Things are so diversified now, in terms of an overall intensification of interests and experience, and there are so many different media in which one can work, that a multiplicity of platforms of expression are now allowed—or even expected.

In that sense, there is an anxiety among many people today—including architecture critics and writers—that there needs to be something to oppose. There needs to be something to be counter to.

But I guess our point would be that one of the surprise successes of the Nice Economy is that it makes it difficult to be purely oppositional or purely contrarian. The idea is that, well, if you’re against something, then there are so many opportunities and platforms for you to express your opposition—so you should be constructive in terms of proposing new things.

[Images: From Volume 24].

BLDGBLOG: I might even go further and say that you now have the tools to create or produce whatever it is that you wish someone else had done—be it a film, a novel, a building, a design studio, or whatever—and the real value now is in actually seeing those things through to completion. Just go ahead and do it: do cool things; offer an alternative; create something; demonstrate the shortcomings of others not through criticizing and complaining about them but by doing something more interesting than they can do.

Inaba: For us, it’s more that the mindset of the Nice Economy encourages diversion, in terms of platforms and media. We're more distributed now in what we can do, in the technologies that we have available to us, and in the forms that we can choose to use.

It's harder now to see the immediate value of what it means to be oppositional—of what it means to form a counterculture, and in what it would mean to be mainstream. That's one of the overarching themes of this issue: finding new ways to solve and address problems without being nostalgic for a different era.

* * *

Jeffrey Inaba will be presenting Volume 24 at the New Museum in New York City next week, on Thursday, 30 September 2010. You can read more about the event here.

Though I will not be present for the event, I'd love to hear if any of the above questions and topics are addressed in more depth by the evening's panelists; if you attend the launch and have some thoughts about how it went, either good or bad, please feel free to come back and leave comments here.

Also, I should add that I have two essays in this particular issue of Volume: one coauthored with Liam Young and Tim Maly, and one about poet Allen Ginsberg. With any luck, both of those pieces will soon be available online, and I'll put up a quick link to them.

I usually don’t do follow-up pieces to any of my posts. But my recent longish piece, describing how hyperinflation might happen in the United States, clearly struck a nerve. 

It was a long, boring, snowy piece of macro-economic policy speculation, discussing Treasury yields, Federal Reserve Board monetary reaction, and the difference between inflation and hyperinflation—but considering the traffic it generated, I might as well been discussing relative breast size in the porn industry. With pictures.

Essentially, I argued that Treasury bonds are the New and Improved Toxic Assets. I argued that, if there was a run on Treasuries, the Federal Reserve—in its anti-deflationary zeal, and its efforts to prop up bond market prices—would over-react, and set off a run on commodities. This, I argued, would trigger hyperinflation.

The disproportionate attention my post garnered is indicative of people’s current fears. As I’ve said before, people aren’t blind or stupid, even if they often act that way. People are worried—they’re worried about the current state of affairs: Massive quantitative easing, toxic assets replaced by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government in the shape of Treasuries, fiscal debt which cannot possibly be repaid, a second leg down in the Global Depression that seems endless and only getting worse—people are scared. Many readers gave me quite a bit of useful feedback, critiques, suggestions and comments on the piece—clearly, what I was discussing touched on a deeply felt concern.

However, there were two issues that many readers had a hard time wrapping their minds around, with regards to a hyperinflationary event:

The first was, Where does all the money come from, for hyperinflation to happen? The question wasn’t put as baldly as that—it was wrapped up in sophisticated discussions about M1, M2 and M3 money supply, as well as clever talk about the velocity of money—the acceleration of money—the anti-lock brakes on money. There were even equations thrown around, for good measure.

But stripped of all the high-falutin’ language, the question was, “Where’s all the dough gonna come from?” After all, as we know from our history books, hyperinflation involves people hoisting bundles and bundles of high-denomination bills which aren’t worth a damn, and tossing them into the chimney—’cause the bundles of cash are cheaper than firewood. If the dollar were to crash, where would all these bundles of $100 bills come from?

The second question was, Why will commodities rise, while equities, real estate and other assets fall? In other words, if there is an old fashioned run on a currency—in this case, the dollar, the world’s reserve currency—why would people get out of the dollar into commodities only, rather than into equities and real estate and other assets?

In this post, I’m going to address both of these issues.

Apart from what happened with the Weimar Republic in the 1920’s, advanced Western economies have no experience with hyperinflation. (I actually think that the high inflation that struck the dollar in the 1970’s, and which was successfully choked off by Paul Volcker, was in fact an incipient bout of commodity-driven hyperinflation—but that’s for some other time.) Though there were plenty of hyperinflationary events in the XIX century and before, after the Weimar experience, the advanced economies learned their lesson—and learned it so well, in fact, that it’s been forgotten.

However, my personal history gives me a slight edge in this discussion: During the period 1970–’73, Chile experienced hyperinflation, brought about by the failed and corrupt policies of Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity Government. Though I was too young to experience it first hand, my family and some of my older friends have vivid memories of the Allende period—vivid memories that are actually closer to nightmares.

The causes of Chile’s hyperinflation forty years ago were vastly different from what I believe will cause American hyperinflation now. But a slight detour through this history is useful to our current predicament.

To begin: In 1970, Salvador Allende was elected president by roughly a third of the population. The other two-thirds voted for the centrist Christian Democrat candidate, or for the center-right candidate in roughly equal measure. Allende’s election was a fluke.

He wasn’t a centrist, no matter what the current hagiography might claim: Allende was a hard-core Socialist, who headed a Hard Left coalition called the Unidad Popular—the Popular Unity (UP, pronounced “oo-peh”). This coalition—Socialists, Communists, and assorted Left parties—took over the administration of the country, and quickly implemented several “reforms”, which were designed to “put Chile on the road to Socialism”.

Land was expropriated—often by force—and given to the workers. Companies and mines were also nationalized, and also given to the workers. Of course, the farms, companies and mines which were stripped from their owners weren’t inefficient or ineptly run—on the contrary, Allende and his Unidad Popular thugs stole farms, companies and mines from precisely the “blood-thirsty Capitalists” who best treated their workers, and who were the most fair towards them.

Allende’s government also put UP-loyalists in management positions in those nationalized enterprises—a first step towards implementing a Leninist regime, whereby the UP would have “political control” over the means of production and distribution. From speeches and his actions, it’s clear that Allende wanted to implement a Maoist-Leninist regime, with himself as Supreme Leader.

One of the key policy initiative Allende carried out was wage and price controls. In order to appease and co-opt the workers, Allende’s regime simultaneously froze prices of basic goods and services, and augmented wages by decree.

At first, this measure worked like a charm: Workers had more money, but goods and services still had the same old low prices. So workers were happy with Allende: They went on a shopping spree—and rapidly emptied stores and warehouses of consumer goods and basic products. Allende and the UP Government then claimed it was right-wing, anti-Revolutionary “acaparadores”—hoarders—who were keeping consumer goods from the workers. Right.

Meanwhile, private companies—forced to raise worker wages while maintaining their same price structures—quickly went bankrupt: So then, of course, they were taken over by the Allende government, “in the name of the people”. Key industries were put on the State dole, as it were, and made to continue their operations at a loss, so as to satisfy internal demand. If there was a cash shortfall, the Allende government would simply print more escudos and give them to the now State-controlled companies, which would then pay the workers.

This is how hyperinflation started in Chile. Workers had plenty of cash in hand—but it was useless, because there were no goods to buy.

So Allende’s government quickly instituted the Juntas de Abastecimiento y Control de Precios (“Unions of Supply and Price Controls”, known as JAP). These were locally formed boards, composed of loyal Party members, who decided who in a given neighborhood received consumer products, and who did not. Naturally, other UP-loyalists had preference—these Allende backers received ration cards, with which to buy consumer goods and basic staples.

Of course, those people perceived as “unfriendly” to Allende and the UP Government either received insufficient rations for their families, or no rations at all, if they were vocally opposed to the Allende regime and its policies.

Very quickly, a black market in goods and staples arose. At first, these black markets accepted escudos. But with each passing month, more and more escudos were printed into circulation by the Allende government, until by late ’72, black marketeers were no longer accepting escudos. Their mantra became, “Sólo dólares”: Only dollars.

Hyperinflation had arrived in Chile.

(Most Chileans, myself included, find ourselves both amused and irritated, whenever Americans self-righteously claim that Nixon ruined Chile’s economy, and thereby derailed Allende’s “Socialist dream”. Yes, according to Kissinger’s memoirs, Nixon did in fact tell the CIA that he wanted Chile’s economy to “scream”—but Allende did such a bang-up job of fucking up Chile’s economy all on his own that, by the time Richard Helms got around to implementing his pissant little plots against the Chilean economy, there was not much left to ruin.)

One of the effects of Chile’s hyperinflation was the collapse in asset prices.

This would seem counterintuitive. After all, if the prices of consumer goods and basic staples are rising in a hyperinflationary environment, then asset prices should rise as well—right? Equities should rise in price—since more money is chasing after the same number of stock. Real estate prices should rise also—and for the same reason. Right?

Actually, wrong—and for a simple reason: Once basic necessities are unmet, and remain unmet for a sustained period of time, any asset will be willingly and instantly sacrificed, in order to meet that basic need.

To put it in simple terms: If you were dying of thirst in the middle of the desert, would you give up your family heirloom diamonds, in exchange for a gallon of water? The answer is obvious—yes. You would sacrifice anything and everyting—instantly—in order to meet your basic needs, or those of your family.

So as the situation in Chile deteriorated in ’72 and into ’73, the stock market collapsed, the housing market collapsed—everything collapsed, as people either cashed out of their assets in order to buy basic goods and staples on the black market, or cashed out so as to leave the country altogether. No asset class was safe, from this sell-off—it was across-the-board, and total.

Now let’s return to the possibility of hyperinflation in the United States:

If there were a sudden collapse in the Treasury bond market, I argued that sellers would take their cash and put them into commodities. My reasoning was, they would seek a sure store of value. If Treasury bonds ceased to be that store of value, then people would invest in the next best thing, which would be commodities, especially precious and industrial metals, as well as oil—in other words, non-perishable commodities.

Some people argued this point with me. They argued many different approaches to the problem, but essentially, it all boiled down to the argument that commodities and precious metals have no intrinsic value.

Actually, I think they’re right. In a strict sense, only oxygen, food and water have intrinsic value to human beings—everything else is superfluous. Therefore the value of everything else is arbitrary.

Yet both gold and silver have, historically, been considered valuable. Setting aside a theoretical or mathematical construct that would justify the value of gold and silver, look at it from a practical standpoint: If I went to a farmer with five ounces of silver, would he give me a sack of grain? Probably. If I offered him an ounce of gold for two or three pigs, would he give them to me? Again, probably.

Where there is a human society, there is a need to exchange. Where there is a need to exchange, a medium of exchange will soon appear. Gold and silver (and copper and brass and other metals) have served that purpose for literally millennia, but then they were replaced by paper.

Right now, there are two forms of paper currency: Actual dollars, and Treasury bonds. One is a medium of exchange, the other a store of value.

If Treasuries—the store of value—were to collapse in price, and the Fed—as I predict—tried everything in its power to at least initially prop up their prices, would those sellers who managed to get out of Treasuries in time then turn around and invest in even dodgier bits of paper, like stocks? Or REIT’s? Or even precious metal ETF’s?

No they would not: They would get out of Treasuries—supposedly the “safest” investment there is—and get into something even safer—something even more tangible: Actual commodities. Not ETF’s, not even futures (or anything else that entails counterparty risk)—sellers of Treasuries would get into actual, hard commodities. Because if suddenly even the safest of all investment vehicles is now unsafe, do you really want to get behind the wheel of an even more unsafe vehicle, like stocks or corporate bonds or ETF’s? I mean, c’mon: If Treasuries crash, what else might crash?

That’s why people in a Treasury panic would buy commodities. This ballooning of non-perishable commodities would be as a means to store value. Because that’s what people do in a panic—they batten down the hatches, and go into what’s safest. When the stock markets tanked in the Fall of ’08, where did all that sellers’ cash go? To Treasuries—because it was then considered the safest store of value. Commodities suffered in comparison—gold took a bit of a hit, as did the other precious metals—but Treasuries ballooned as the equities markets tanked.

But if Treasuries—the ultimate store of value—now tanked? If the last sure-thing in paper-based stores of value took a hit, where would people go to both store value, and have ready access to that value?

Commodities. And this rush to commodities, I argued, would trigger hyperinflation.

Now, I said I would answer two questions—one was why commodities would outpace all other asset classes in a Treasury panic and subsequent hyperinflation. The other question was, “Where’s all the dough to feed my fireplace gonna come from, in a hyperinflationary event?”

The first wave of dollars in a hyperinflationary event will come from people’s savings accounts.

If Treasuries tank, and the markets all barrel into commodities, then prices will rise for regular consumers—this should not be a controversial inference. What would consumers do, with suddenly much higher gas prices, and soon much higher food prices? Simple: They’ll bust open their piggy banks, whatsoever those piggy banks might happen to be: 401(k)s, whatever equities they might have, etc.

But if the higher consumer prices continue—or become worse—what will happen to the 320 million American consumers? They’ll start buying more gas now, rather than wait around for tomorrow—and the market will react to this. How? Two way: Prices of commodities will rise even further—and asset prices will fall even lower.

Again, the man in the desert, the diamonds, and the water: If American consumers are getting hit at the gas station and the supermarket, they’ll start selling everything so as to buy gas, heating oil (most especially) and foodstuffs. The Treasury panic will thus be transfered to the average consumer—from Wall Street to Main Street by way of $15 a gallon gas prices, and $10 a gallon heating oil prices.

All other consumer prices would soon follow the leads of gas, heating oil and food.

In the above bit of Chilean history, I described how the Allende government printed up escudos to make up for the shortfall in nationalized businesses that was produced by their policy of hiking wages, while at the same time fixing prices.

This is a completely different way to hyperinflation than the way I envision it for the American economy—but once the American economy gets there, the effects of hyperinflation will be exactly the same: People will try to get out of assets in order to get hold of commodities. To get all eccy about it, money velocity would approach infinity, as money supply remains (at first) fixed, yet in the panic over commodities, aggregate demand as measured by aggregate transactions goes vertical.

Would there be Federal government intervention of some sort? Most definitely—people would be screaming for it. Would food rationing be implemented? Probably, and probably by way of the current Food Stamps program. Troops on the streets, protecting gas stations and supermarkets? Curfews to prevent looting? Palliative dollar printing? Yes, yes, and very likely yes.

That last bit—palliative dollar-printing: That’s the key. When palliative dollar-printing happens, it will be the final stages of hyperinflation—it’s when sensible people ought to realize that the crisis is almost over, and that a new normal will soon appear. But this stage will be fucking awful.

Palliative dollar printing will take place when the Federal government simply runs out of options. Smart economists will get on CNBC and argue that, “The velocity of money is destroying the economy—we must expand the currency base!” It’ll sound logical, but palliative money-printing will be a policy option born out of panic. The final policy option. It won’t be done for evil conspiratorial reasons—always remember Aphorism #6 (“Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.”). It’ll be carried out because of fear and panic.

A whole boatload of fools in Washington, on seeing this terrible commodity-driven crisis unfold, with consumer prices shooting the moon, will scream for dollars to be printed—and their rationale will be perfectly reasonable, I can practically hear it now: “We've got to get cash into the hands of the average American citizen, so he or she can buy food and heating oil for their families! We can’t let Americans starve and freeze to death!”

Palliative money-printing will take place—hence the average American family will likely be using bundles of $100 bills to fire up the chimney that hyperinflationary winter.

Hoo-Ah.

Now, this fairly Apocalyptic scenario is simultaneously horrifying, and exciting as all get out. Hell, why do you think disaster movies are so popular? Shit blowing up is way cool! That's why Roland Emmerich gets paid the big bucks, God bless ‘im.

But for sensible people, Apocalypse is a distraction—it’s not the main event. For sensible people who want to be prepared, Apocalypse represents opportunities.

A true story: In ’73, at the height of the Allende-created hyperinflation, an uncle of mine, who was then a college student, was offered an apartment in exchange for his car. That’s right—an apartment. He owned a crappy little Fiat 147—a POS if ever there was such a thing—but cars in Chile in the middle of that hyperinflation were so scarce, and considered so valuable, that he was offered an apartment in exchange. To this day, my uncle still tells the story—with deep regret, because he didn’t follow through on the offer: “That Fiat was in the junkyard by ’78, but that apartment still stands! And today it’s worth nearly a half a million dollars!” Actually, I think it’s worth a bit more than that.

Another true story: A banker friend of mine manages the assets of a fabulously wealthy 70-something gentleman, whom I'll call Alfredo. In 1973, Don Alfredo was a youngish man, just starting out, with a degree in engineering but no money—until he inherited US$3,000 from a deceased aunt. Alfredo realized that the $3,000 were in a sense worthless: He couldn’t buy anything with them, and it wasn’t enough for him to leave the country and start over someplace else. After all, even then, $3,000 was not that much money.

So he took those $3,000, went down to the stock exchange, and spent all of it on Chilean blue-chip companies: Mining companies, chemical companies, paper companies, and so on. The stock were selling for nothing—less than penny stock—because of the disastrous policies of the Allende government. His stock broker at the time told him not to buy stocks, as Allende’s government, it was thought, would soon nationalize these companies as well.

Alfredo ignored his broker, and went ahead with the stock purchases: He spent all of his $3,000 on buckets of near-worthless equities.

On September 11, 1973, the commanders in chief of the four branches of the Chilean military staged a coup d’état. Within a year, Alfredo’s stock had rebounded about ten-fold. Since then, they’ve multiplied several thousand-fold—yes: Several thousand-fold. Don Alfredo has lived off of that $3,000 investment ever since—it’s what made him a multi-millionare today.

He realized, of course, that either those blue-chip companies would be nationalized by Allende—in which case he would lose all his $3,000 inheritance, which really wouldn’t change his fortunes very much—or somehow a new normal would arrive in Chile. Since the $3,000 couldn’t buy him anything, he took a gamble—and won.

What do these two true stories tell us? Simple: Buy when there’s blood on the streets.

That’s Baron de Rothschild’s famous line—but it hides a key insight, one which should be highlighted perhaps even more forcefully than the line itself:

Even in the midst of Apocalypse, things will get better.

That’s something people don’t quite seem to understand. In fact, it’s why teenagers tragically kill themselves over some girl or boy: They don’t realize that, no matter how bad things are now, they will get better later. To repeat:

Even in the midst of Apocalypse, things will get better.

I’m not repeating this insight as an empty comfort to my readers—I’m saying it as a trading strategy. When things are at their crazy worst, when everyone believes the Apocalypse is well nigh here, that’s when thing are about to turn for the better. This applies to every situation—including and most especially in a hyperinflationary situation.

Why? Simple: Because hyperinflation—by definition—cannot last. Because people need a stable medium of exchange. So if the currency goes up in flames in a hyperinflationary fire, of course there will be a period of terrifying instability—but it will pass. Either the currency will be repaired somehow (as Volcker repaired the dollar back in 1980–’82). Or the currency will be completely and irrevocably trashed—and then be replaced by something else. Because—to insist—people need a stable medium of exchange.

If Treasuries tank and commodities shoot up so high that they essentially break the dollar, civilization will not come crashing down into anarchy. At worst, there’ll be a three-four years of hell—economic hell. Financial hell. But then things will settle down into a new normal.

This new normal might well have unsavory characteristics. I tend to be a pessimist, and just glancing through history, I can see that just about every period of hyperinflation has been stabilized by some subsequent form of autocratic or totalitarian government. The United States currently has all the legal decisions and practical devices to quickly transition into an authoritarian or totalitarian regime, should a crisis befall the nation: The so-called PATRIOT Acts, the Department of Homeland Security Agency, the practical suspension of habeas corpus, etc., etc.

But as I said in my previous post, and reiterate here: Speculations about the new normal are pointless at this time. The future will happen soon enough.

What I do know is, One, a hyperinflationary event will happen, following the crash in Treasuries. Two, commodities will be the go-to medium for value storage. Three, all asset classes will collapse in short order. And Four—and most importantly—civil society will not collapse along with the dollar. Civil society will stumble about like a drunken sailor, but eventually right itself and carry on with a new normal.

During that stumble, opportunities will present themselves. I hope I have explained why.

Now check out how hyperinflation will happen here >

Join the conversation about this story »

Anybody that reads this blog knows how I talk on this subject as algorithms giveth and taketh away.  Health insurance companies live and die by the algorithms that create their mathematical formulas for their business decisions.  This book is on my list as I found someone who can speak the same language and acknowledges that this goes on day and night.  We sleep as humans but the algorithms run 24/7, available to you at almost any time you want to consult them. 

I like this as the author, Charles Seife reinstates what I say around here, there are those algorithms created for accurate and analytical purposes and those algorithms that compute and kick out '”desired” results.  Mr. Seife even takes on Quaker Oats and their advertising and recently we had something similar with Cheerios and their advertising in the news, FDA said fine, you claim your cereal can do all of this with your advertising, then Cheerios is a “drug” so start filing your paperwork!

Cheerios Classified as a “Drug” by the FDA

In doing this blog I really have to evaluate what goes up here as with marketing and advertising on steroids today, I want to have good information and not someone just looking for a pitch, I get lots of those.  There’s a few other folks talking about this book too, like Scientific American.  Who coined the word “proofiness”, none other than Stephen Colbert; and and Jon Stewart are some very smart people.  Here’s a short except from the New York Times post/book and this is so very true as if someone shows you a spreadsheet, well I guess we all think it’s the truth-no always.  I wrote code and you can write one for desired results for a dog and pony show just as easy as you can write code for accurate and intelligent information, you just change the query structures and off you go.   Coders do this just for fun sometimes for fun, obviously it is not included in the final product but when writing and focusing intensely once in a while you need a laugh, cheap entertainment I know, but that’s where it ends and it gets dumped away before someone else who codes sees how silly you were. 

“Our society is now awash in proofiness. Using a few powerful techniques, thousands of people are crafting mathematical falsehoods to get you to swallow untruths. Advertisers use these techniques to forge numbers to get you to buy their products. Bureaucrats fiddle with data to try to get you to reelect them. Pundits and prophets use phony math to get you to believe predictions that never seem to pan out. Businessmen use bogus numerical arguments to steal your money. Pollsters, pretending to listen to what you have to say, use proofiness to tell you what they want you to believe. “

Bad math (aka those algorithms) is undermining our democracy he says and he’s right.  Not too long ago I sad data addiction is going to be our next 12 step program and we are not far from that.  Every day some company, especially in healthcare is talking about how they built a better mouse with better algorithms that can save huge chunks of money, bigger than the last program they used.  They all say that and it is getting old.  Where’s some of their “proofiness”? 

Data Addiction and Abuse –The Up and Coming Next 12 Step Program Is On the Horizon–Side Effects Include Lack Of Data Quality, Integrity And Spasmodic Algorithms

For those who don’t understand mathematics and algorithms, we get this side show, scary that folks run out of things to talk about and have to rely on what happened in the 70s. 

Cheap Soap Opera Political Antics Again With Newt Gingrich Suggesting to Force Kathleen Sebelius out of HHS And Other Extra Ordinary Tales of Non Participating Illiterates

If we have folks in office that don’t understand the mathematical processes with running algorithms and the fact that we need to have audit trails on some of these rogue algorithms, we’re in trouble.  In healthcare we have people like Wendell Potter who gets all of this and is trying to share some of his knowledge but not too many are paying much attention, their loss and eventually us to if they are making decisions and laws and can’t see this.  This is another good book to put on your list too.  

Wendell Potter Tell All Book–Deadly Spin–One to Put On My List as “He Knows Algorithms and How they Create Profits”

In closing I’m going back to what I said over 2 years ago, we need a Department of Algorithms to keep finances and people straight to stop all of this. 

“Department of Algorithms – Do We Need One of These to Regulate Upcoming Laws?

As you might tell I’m a bit excited here as I am finding others who understand and are willing to talk about the mathematical over shoot here of taking advantage of the illiterate and that’s not just use, they sit in some key leadership spots too, and eventually foot in mouth comes out to show the bought in, again due to lack of acknowledgement that at least this exists and is going on! These folks created some algorithms that might have your Walgreen pharmacist jumping over the counter to sign you up in some sponsored programs so they can make some extra money, again they are looking for folks they have mined and determined are at “risk” with their parameters set by their algorithms….are they accurate with assessing you being a risk or are they set up to make money?  Where’s the line folks?

UnitedHealthCare To Use Data Mining Algorithms On Claim Data To Look For Those At “Risk” of Developing Diabetes – Walgreens and the YMCA Benefit With Pay for Performance Dollars to Promote and Supply The Tools

As a consumer doesn’t this just really hack you off to think that when you think people are really there to help you that it’s just another marketing scheme to roll in more money, it’s not a sincere effort for someone just wanting to help, it’s the dollars.  Where’s the proofiness?  Once in a while someone gets caught in wanting to know how they worked their mathematics, like Blue Cross. 

Blue Cross in California Reworks The Algorithms and Announces a 20% Rate Increase Effective September 1st

We spend all our time certifying medical records for good algorithms and correct data, but the other side is not audited.  Nothing happens as we all know today practically until there’s some assurance that someone might be paying a bill. 

Back on track here, this book is on my list as he’s kind saying what I have been beating over everyone’s head here at the Medical Quack for the last 2 years so if anyone else gets the book and reads it, add your thoughts here, I would love to hear what you think, as I think it is a huge wake up call for everyone.  Technology is not going away and there will be more coming out way and we need to know the difference between accuracy and desire.    BD 

Falsifying numbers is the crudest form of proofiness. Seife lays out a rogues’ gallery of more subtle deceptions. “Potemkin numbers” are phony statistics based on erroneous or nonexistent calculations. Justice Antonin Scalia’s assertion that only 0.027 percent of convicted felons are wrongly imprisoned was a Potemkin number derived from a prosecutor’s back-of-the-envelope estimate; more careful studies suggest the rate might be between 3 and 5 percent.

Seife emphasizes that numbers impress us. They carry authority. Joe McCarthy, for example, didn’t simply allege that the government was infested with Communists; he held up a sheaf of papers and claimed it contained the names of 205 members of the Communist Party working in the State Department. The specificity of the accusation made it seem more believable. So what if the number soon went up to 207, then shrank to 57 a day later when McCarthy wrote to President Truman? What mattered is that the numbers intimidated McCarthy’s critics. As it turned out, he never had any list and couldn’t identify a single Communist working in the State Department. None of that stopped him from rising to national prominence on the back of his numerical lies.

In one of the book’s lighter moments, Seife even looks askance at the wholesome folks at Quaker Oats, who in addition to selling a “bland and relatively unappetizing product” once presented a graph that gave the visual impression that their “barely digestible oat fiber” was a “medicinal vacuum cleaner” that would reduce your cholesterol far more than it actually does. For the most part, though, he is deadly serious. A few other recent books have explored how easily we can be deceived — or deceive ourselves — with numbers. But “Proofiness” reveals the truly corrosive effects on a society awash in numerical mendacity. This is more than a math book; it’s an eye-opening civics lesson.

Book Review - Proofiness - By Charles Seife - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts:

• Stacia A. Hylton, Director, United States Marshals Service
• Mario Cordero, Commissioner, Federal Maritime Commission
   

How quickly circumstances can change in the world of professional baseball.

Precisely one year ago, the Boston Red Sox, having just completed an impressive three-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays, improved to 85-58 and extended their winning streak to six games with a victory over John Lackey and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Today, the forecast in Boston is noticeably different than it was then.

John Lackey has since left the Angels, signing a lucrative off-season contract with the Red Sox as a free agent following the 2009 season. He is joined by other notable newcomers such as Marco Scutaro, Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre.

Jacoby Ellsbury now wears jersey number two while Clay Buchholz opted to switch to eleven.

The most glaring difference between this season and last, however, is where the team finds themselves in the standings, and more importantly, the race for the postseason.

Last season, Boston had all but eliminated the Rays’ postseason potential with that three-game sweep and increased their wild card lead to relatively comfortable levels – a lead that would ultimately hold up as the Red Sox claimed second place in the East and were awarded a date in the American League Divisional Series with the Angels.

Nowadays, for the first time since 2006, some of Red Sox Nation has reallocated their sports enthusiasm almost entirely; partially caused by the beginning of the NFL season, but mainly due to the fact that, like 2006, their beloved Sox will likely miss the playoffs for the first time in four years.

While that unfortunate fact is perhaps the most distinct difference, it may not be the most interesting. Take, for instance, the cases of both Jacoby Ellsbury and Terry Francona, who have gone from unanimously admired in Boston to the topics of constant scrutiny in a considerably brief period of time.

One year ago today, Ellsbury was amidst the most statistically impressive season of his young career and was establishing himself as an elite major league leadoff hitter. Meanwhile, manager Terry Francona was in the process of leading Boston to the postseason for the fifth time in just his sixth season at the helm. Both were arguably at the peak of their popularity amongst the Fenway faithful. However, 2010 has ushered a swift shift in that regard.

All of the sudden Jacoby Ellsbury – second only to Dustin Pedroia in games played a season ago – is being questioned in regards his durability and defensive abilities. Terry Francona – baselessly nicknamed "Francoma" – is now, according to some, inept and undeserving of the very same managerial duties that he’s performed so successfully during his tenure with the team to this point.

In 2009, nobody seemed to mind Ellsbury’s .301 batting average, team-leading 188 hits and Red Sox record-setting 70 stolen bases at the top of the lineup; there were no mentions of defensive liabilities then. Terry Francona wasn’t being second-guessed in the aftermath of every loss when his team was contending.

So, why now? Did Jacoby suddenly forget how to hit and play center field during his time on the disabled list? Has Francona managed to unlearn the skills that have helped guide two championships to Boston?

Yes, those questions are rhetorical. But, rhetoric aside, the question remains: What has caused such a drastic shift in public opinion of the two, Ellsbury specifically?

Let’s take a look at both situations more in-depth, starting first with Jacoby Ellsbury.

Thanks to a nagging injury to his ribs -- sustained in a collision with Adrian Beltre during the season’s early goings – that resulted in a substantial amount of time on the disabled list, Jacoby Ellsbury has gone from Fenway favorite to the subject of near-universally negative discussion. Whether pertaining to questions surrounding his toughness and defensive abilities, altercations involving the organization’s medical personnel, or the subsequent trade rumors, there’s no denying the contrast in public opinion of Ellsbury now from where it was less than a year ago.

In MLB.com’s 2009 This Year in Baseball Awards -- decided entirely by fan voting -- the Defensive Player of the Year was, ironically enough, Jacoby Ellsbury.

From MLB.com: Defensive Player of the Year – Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox: Ellsbury has built his reputation as a base stealer, but his Gibby victory shows that fans have come to recognize his outstanding defensive ability as well. Boston’s pitching staff certainly enjoyed having the sure-handed speedster in center, as Ellsbury committed just two errors all season for a robust .994 fielding percentage. Thanks to his airtight glove work and highlight-reel ability, Ellsbury earned 34.6 percent of the vote, easily outdistancing the 15.3 percent garnered by Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins.

Since then, however, the emergence of new-age statistics made famous by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) have forced fans to reconsider their stance in regards to Ellsbury’s defensive prowess (or lack thereof). Comprehensive combinations of both mathematical and statistical analysis assigning ratings to players based on a seemingly endless list of elements and situations, Sabermetrics have dethroned traditional barometers of success such as batting average, earned run average, and most notably in Ellsbury’s case, fielding percentage. One in particular, UZR (ultimate zone rating), which is, to some extent, considered an accurate depiction of a fielder’s true value, implies that Ellsbury was actually the worst full-time center fielder in all of baseball in 2009. In other words, Jacoby’s defensive prowess that garnered league-wide recognition on MLB.com was actually a matter of defensive liability, according to SABR.

Whether you’re an advocate of Sabermetrics or not is beside the point; the fact of the matter is that statistics like UZR were relevant well before Ellsbury’s Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2009. Again, MLB.com’s TYIB Awards are entirely subject to fan voting, so if fans were impressed enough with Ellsbury in 2009 to ignore such statistics and reward him for his glove work, why now has it become trendy to dispel his defensive worth?

Defensive skill isn’t the only topic that Jacoby has had to, well, defend in the media. Ellsbury’s toughness has been called into question following the collision with Adrian Beltre’s knee on April 11^th that led to five broken ribs and a season spent on the disabled list.

The questioning of Ellsbury’s toughness is puzzling, to say the least. Prior to this season, the only other time that I can remember Jacoby being hurt was during June of 2008, his rookie year. No, he didn’t pull a muscle in his back while sneezing (Sammy Sosa), miss games due to sleeping awkwardly (J.D. Drew) or severely injure his forearm playing Guitar Hero (Joel Zumaya); instead, Ellsbury selflessly strained his wrist making a miraculous full-extension diving catch in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Puzzling may not be sufficiently descriptive, actually – at least not in Terry Francona’s mind. Amidst constant questioning of Ellsbury’s health and determination to return to the team from reporters and local radio show hosts, Terry decided to take offense in Jacoby’s defense.

"Have you ever had reason to believe that Jacoby Ellsbury was a soft player? No. And I think for anyone to ever say that … is very disrespectful."

He continued by indirectly addressing the conflicting prognosis surrounding Ellsbury’s ribs; "My instincts tell me the kid was probably a little more sore than he was letting on, probably for obvious reasons. He wanted to play. He was catching heat from a lot of you – all of you tough guys." Francona, referencing Ellsbury’s ill-fated decision to attempt a premature return from the disabled list in late May, justifiably placed a portion of the blame on the media’s berating of the young outfielder for applying a cautious approach to his rehabbing.

That cautious approach, in retrospect, was warranted.

Upon his return in May, Ellsbury would play just three games before revisiting the disabled list.

"I didn’t do this myself. I didn’t tweak something and sit out. I got hurt going all-out, one-hundred percent for a ball," Ellsbury explained. "I tried to come back when I knew I wasn’t one-hundred percent. That’s all I can say. Everybody knows how I play. Everyone knows I want to be out there. You can’t control everybody and what they think."

While team physicians initially proclaimed the injury to be nothing more than bruising, reportedly even refusing requests for an MRI, it was only after Ellsbury’s return to the disabled list that the team’s medical staff acknowledged the fifth broken rib suffered by Jacoby – even then taking the stance that it was sustained during yet another diving catch in a May 23^rd game, part of his short-lived return to the lineup, and not as a result of his initial collision with Beltre.

Ellsbury, of course, refuted the claim, leading to an all-too-public altercation with the team’s medical staff and further scrutiny directed at Jacoby.

Despite rushing back to the lineup in an attempt to appease the entirely off-base voice of the media's majority, Jacoby continues to receive negative attention for a season simply marred by unfortunate circumstance – ultimately leading to reported trade rumors revolving around the young outfielder.

On July 14^th, via Over the Monster, I explored the potential that the then pertinent talks with the Kansas City Royals regarding the availability of outfielder David DeJesus suggested the end of the Ellsbury era in Boston. According to sources at FOX Sports, the Red Sox first made contact with the Royals in early July, around the time that the rift between Ellsbury and team physicians was at its peak, and left the meeting with a mutual interest in reigniting conversations – some indications even implied the break in talks was used by the Royals organization to actively sift through the Red Sox’s minor league ranks in search of potential trade candidates.

Although the discussions with Kansas City produced nothing substantial, after all, Ellsbury is still a member of the Red Sox, unanswered speculation lingers as to why -- when it’s so simple to dispel nearly all negativity aimed at Ellsbury this season using simple unbiased rationale and logic – is the frustrated young star still being undermined and undervalued?

For the sake of foreshadowing, it’s worth noting that Jacoby Ellsbury is arbitration eligible for the first time in his career following the 2010 season; more on that later.

But first, we shift focus to manager Terry Francona, who has spent so much time addressing those critical of his aforementioned center fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, that he’s allocated such little time to standing up for himself. Or, perhaps he’s just used to the constant barrage of scrutiny that accompanies being a major league manager, especially one in Boston.

The most reoccurring aspersion associated with the Red Sox manager is the nickname Terry "Francoma," seemingly meant to imply that he is less-than-swift with his in-game decision making. Particularly in regards to managing and monitoring his starting pitchers late in games, which is assuredly the easiest way to get on Red Sox Nation’s bad side since Grady Little’s 2003 travesty against New York in the deciding game of the American League Championship Series.

Unfortunately, the man now only occasionally referred to lovingly as "Tito," has probably heard "Francoma" more times this season than his actual name, much less "Tito." Now, that unremarkably creative nickname [Francoma] was conceived a number of seasons prior to 2010. However, not only has it grown increasingly frequent this year, its done so undeservedly, all things considered.

Aside from the obvious argument that Tito led the Red Sox to their first World Series win in nearly ninety seasons in 2004 -- back when being in contention for a championship was riveting, not a right – there are a number of other aspects routinely overlooked by this year’s Tito-naysayers.

Most notably, in relation to the popular belief most often instigating those "Francoma" remarks, is that Terry cannot seem to grasp the notion that it’s time to abandon his starting pitcher in favor of the bullpen. What’s apparently lost in translation, however, is the stark contrast in effectiveness of this season’s relief corps as opposed to last. It seems almost too simple, theoretically, to offer that as an excuse. But the fact of the matter is, in most instances it’s true.

Entering the season, contrary to popular belief, the Red Sox most glaring weakness was the bullpen and not the offense. Red Sox management did nothing to alleviate those concerns prior to the year, nor did they address them even during the season with problematic ‘pen on full display. Even once reliable relievers like Manny Delcarmen and Hideki Okajima failed to produce in 2010, making it hard to blame Francona for his reluctance in handing the ball, and the game, over to the bullpen.

Also, it goes without saying that injuries in general were the ultimate downfall of this team. Over the Monster even featured a post entitled, "What we lost... what we 'gained'" [submitted by Rogue Nine] that used, you guessed it, new-age statistical measurements to roughly estimate that the Red Sox lost approximately eight games in the standings simply based on the subtraction of offensive players – like Jacoby Ellsbury – to injuries during the course of the season.

Would Francona even be answering questions regarding his "coma-like" behavior on the bench during games had it not been for a disastrous, injury-riddled season? Of course not.

Now, I’m certainly not taking the stance that Francona is always perfect with his in-game decision making. After all, you don’t get a nickname like "Francoma" without dropping the ball at least a few times. However, there isn’t a single manager in all of baseball who hasn’t done the same on occasion.

In fact, in Michael Holley's book, Red Sox Rule: Terry Francona and Boston’s Rise to Dominance, Holley points out that during Boston’s search for Grady Little’s successor post-2003, Theo Epstein and John Henry specifically targeted candidates who were more apt to handle selfish, larger-than-life player personalities with a diminished, yet still prominent, emphasis on the actual in-game aspect of the job requirements.

After a written test and game simulation, Francona was hired.

In other words, starting from the day that Terry Francona accepted the job, the Red Sox were aware of what they were hiring – a guy who had mediocre success in his previous position with the Philadelphia Phillies, but also a guy who they knew could handle the likes of Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez. That’s what Francona does best, and it has worked well to this point. People tend to forget that managing the Boston Red Sox is unlike almost any other managerial job in baseball. There needn’t be an enormous emphasis on in-game management because, quite honestly, Boston’s lineup is typically filled by veterans and All-Stars, not developing talents and rookies like you’d find in Florida, Pittsburgh or even Tampa Bay – the players know what to do, it’s merely a matter of keeping them focused on that.

Daniel Drezner echoed Holley’s sentiments in an article written in 2008. In it, he states that the three most tumultuous tasks required of a Boston Red Sox manager are keeping the players on the same page, handling the media and never panicking during the season; all of which Francona excels at regularly. Drezner even goes as far as saying that Francona is underrated as a manager, pointing out that he’s never won a Manager of the Year Award despite the miracle season of 2004, a playoff birth in 2005 while guiding a team lacking any true top-tier starting pitchers or an established closer, and a 2007 team that finished with the best record in baseball en route to a World Series title. Even more insane is the fact that in all the previously mentioned seasons, Francona never once received a single first-place vote in the Manager of the Year balloting.

And yes, when the Society for American Baseball Research inevitably conceives a mathematical equation depicting success in relation to the timeliness of a manager’s removal of his starting pitchers, Terry Francona may very well be towards the bottom of the league, but that doesn’t mean that he’s to blame every time. More importantly, it wouldn’t justify denying Tito the benefit of the doubt in most cases – I think he’s earned that much.

Yet, here Francona is, two World Series titles later, still being disregarded by not only media-types but his own fans on occasion as well.

Here Jacoby Ellsbury is, similarly, watching the finale of a disappointing season that saw him, ironically enough, be ostracized for fighting so hard to be a part of it.

And finally, here both Francona and Ellsbury are, interestingly enough, sharing a common characteristic: Reason to believe that the 2011 season will be a deciding factor in their futures at Fenway, and one that doesn’t exactly project positively in either case.

As I stated earlier, Jacoby Ellsbury will enter 2011 arbitration eligible for the first time in his young career. Arbitration processes are painstaking enough as it is, but Ellsbury’s potentially projects to be on a whole different level. After a breakthrough season in 2009, Ellsbury contributed very little to the team in 2010, but as he will contest, it is the Red Sox themselves who are at fault for that – something that won’t be agreeable by both parties. Given the nature of Ellsbury’s relationship with certain areas of the team already, one would think that the team would have approached Jacoby will an extension offer at some point early in the season or even before it to avoid a potential arbitration hearing. Now, with a hearing almost inevitable, it’s hard to imagine the two coming out of the process with an improved opinion of one another – which also makes it nearly impossible to imagine the Red Sox coming to terms with Ellsbury on an extension at all.

With trade rumors already beginning as early as this past July, does that set the table for the off-season departure of Ellsbury? If so, how did it get to this point? Who is really to blame?

Francona enters 2011 under the final year of his contract; it remains to be seen where the Red Sox stand in terms of their interest in extending Terry’s deal. One thing is for certain, following an incredibly disappointing season, will there be enough mutual interest from both parties to work out an extension?

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a Red Sox fan who doesn’t love Tito, but after a season in which they cried "Francoma" even more regularly than years past, will they still be adverse to seeing him go? Will he even want to stay?

Like Ellsbury’s situation, it’s almost inconceivable to think that someone so beloved in Boston such a short time ago could be so easily let go; even more so if the fans are truly on board with it.

Then again, maybe the correlation between the change in public opinion and the contractual states of both is more than just coincidental; perhaps there is a method behind the madness, so to speak.

Theo Epstein will tell you first-hand, sometimes there are situations behind the scenes that the general public isn’t necessarily privy to, and often times it’s for the better. After all, it wasn’t long ago that Epstein himself experienced the ugly side of professional sports during contract negotiations with the very same management currently heading the Boston Red Sox.

In fact, Epstein’s situation wasn’t the first to publicly expose the sometimes ugly inner workings of the Red Sox’s front office, and as we’ll explore in part two of this submission, it may not be the last.

 

*Be sure to revisit Over the Monster next week (September 22nd) for Part 2, which will take a deeper look into the possibility that public opinion of Jacoby Ellsbury and Terry Francona is perhaps being directly influenced by a third party. The Boston Globe's Tony Massarotti will even offer some of his opinions on the matter.

 

By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

As part of the the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington DC, October 23-24, I will be leading a mathematical "sculpture barn raising." The sculpture is made from hundreds of laser-cut metal triangles, assembled in a novel manner to form a gyroid surface.

Anyone can come to the booth of the American Mathematical Society and I'll show you how to screw the triangular components together into this novel pattern.

Here you can see how four of the metal triangles come together at each vertex. Small metal brackets align the parts at the correct dihedral angles. More information about this structure and the event are available here.

In addition, the Festival will include Math Tours of the DC Mall area on Oct 22, given by the Museum of Mathematics.

More:
See all of George's Math Monday columns

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In one word: Strand.

Located in 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), this New York's independent landmark bookstore is not only one of most famous bookstores in the world, but also a partner of Eco-Libris. Strand are taking part in our bookstore program and customers at the store can plant a tree for every book they buy there and receive our sticker at the counter!

And they also have a great list of events for the upcoming month, where you can meet some of the authors of the most interesting new books, such as Michele Norris of NPR, author of The Grace of Silence: A Memoir and Prof. Robert E. Reich, secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and author of the new book Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future.

Here's information on more events at Strand this month:

Monday, September 13 7:00pm Frederic Tuten Self Portraits: Fictions Fantasy and reality collide as the book's principal characters-two lovers-meet, part and reunite, time and again, at different stages in life and in landscapes both familiar and exotic. Frederic Tuten, who has received a Guggenheim fellowship and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Writing, is the author of Tintin in the New World and The Green Hour, among other fiction.

Tuesday, September 14 7:00pm James Ellroy The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women James Ellroy returns to the Strand to discuss his new book, The Hilliker Curse-a predator's confession, a treatise on guilt and on the power of malediction, and above all, a cri de coeur. Ellroy unsparingly describes his shattered childhood, his delinquent teens, his writing life, his love affairs and marriages, his nervous breakdown and the beginning of a relationship with an extraordinary woman who may just be the long-sought Her. Ellroy is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, which includes American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's A Rover and the L.A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz.

Thursday, September 16 3:30pm STRAND FAMILY HOUR EVENT For children of all ages and their caregivers... Jennifer Berne and illustrator Keith Bendis will read from their new book Calvin Can't Fly; The Story of a Bookworm Birdie. Jennifer, a long-time contributor to Nick Jr. Magazine and award-winning author, and Keith, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Fortune and Time, as well as in nine books, will tell the story of Calvin, one unusual starling! While his siblings and cousins learn to fly, this rare bird lets his imagination soar while reading about pirates, dinosaurs and other fascinating things. Family Hour Events occur every Thursday at 3:30PM in our 2nd Floor Children's Department. When we are not hosting an author, Strand Staff read from their favorite book and lead the children in a craft based on that day's reading. Email Christina if you would like to join the Family Hour Events email list.

Tuesday, September 21 7:00pm Michele Norris The Grace of Silence: A Memoir Michele Norris, named "Journalist of the Year" by the National Association of Black Journalists for her coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, will discuss her memoir, The Grace of Silence. The Grace of Silence asks the difficult question, "how well do you know the people who raised you?" and answers it in a powerful, honest and deeply moving way that will serve as a model for us all to take up the question with our families, communities and country. Michele Norris has served as a correspondent for ABC News, and has reported for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times on education, poverty and numerous other social issues. She is a frequent guest on NBC's Meet the Press and The Chris Matthews Show. Her voice is heard by millions every weekday as co-host of NPR's All Things Considered.

Wednesday, September 22 7:00pm Joshua Ferris The Unnamed The Unnamed is a dazzling novel about a marriage and a family and the unseen forces of nature and desire that seem to threaten them both. It is the heartbreaking story of a life taken for granted and what happens when that life is abruptly and irrevocably taken away. Ferris' first novel, Then We Came to the End, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a National Book Award finalist.

Thursday, September 23 7:00pm Robert B. Reich Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future In Aftershock, celebrated economic policy maker and political theorist Robert B. Reich argues that the reason the nation's economy foundered in 2008 is structural: it lies in the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top--and a middle class that had to go deeply into debt to maintain a decent standard of living. Robert B. Reich is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, and was an economic advisor to President Obama.

Tuesday, September 28 7:00pm Charles Seife Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception Proofiness is defined as the art of using nonsensical mathematical arguments--Cheerios increases your risk of being hit by a bus?!--to convince us of the veracity of things we know in our hearts to be false. In his new book, Seife argues that bad math is undermining our democracy (not to mention our notion of common sense). Charles Seife, author of Sun in the Bottle and Zero, which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for first non-fiction book, is an associate professor of journalism at New York University.

Wednesday, September 29 7:00pm Thaddeus Russell A Renegade History of the United States Historian and cultural critic Thaddeus Russell argues that the freedoms we cherish today were won not by "good Americans" but by the people who lived outside "respectable" society. Written in the spirit of Howard Zinn's revisionist classic, A People's History of the United States, the new, alternative history revealed in A Renegade History of the United States, shows that drunkards, laggards, prostitutes and immigrants were the real heroes of the American Revolution. Russell upends all the standard assumptions about the United States, from its very beginning to the present day.

Thursday, September 30 7:00pm Steven Kasher Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll is a lasting chronicle of the famed venue where Andy Warhol held court at the infamous round table in the backroom; where Willem de Kooning, John Chamberlain or Chuck Close could be found arguing about art; where Burroughs and Ginsberg discussed literature and where the Velvet Underground was the house band. Edited by Steven Kasher, with photographs by Bob Gruen, Anton Perich, Billy Name and more and contributions by Lou Reed, Lenny Kaye, Danny Fields and Steven Watson, the book captures the exuberance and decadence of one of the coolest pop cultural institutions of all time. The Strand will host author Steven Kasher, writer Steven Watson and featured photographers Anton Perich and Danny Fields. Save the date for these October Events Oct 6: Vanessa Davis MAKE ME A WOMAN Oct 7: Gloria Feldt NO EXCUSES Oct 13: Lisa Birnbach TRUE PREP Oct 14: R. Sikoryak, Neil Swaab & Keith Carter CREATING COMICS! Oct 19: Al Jaffee & Mary-Lou Weisman AL JAFFEE'S MAD LIFE Oct 21: Charles Burns X-ED OUT Oct 26: Rachel Cohn & David Levithan DASH & LILY'S BOOK OF DARES Oct 28: Rick Meyerowitz DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD Visit Strand's Event Calendar for the complete schedule of events. Yours, Raz @ Eco-Libris Plant a tree for every book you read!

'I'm naturally attracted to something I don't understand, because when you try to deal with that, it opens a door into another world'

Like most children, the young Simon McBurney was fascinated by the things he wasn't supposed to do. "Anything that was illegal became immediately interesting to me. I spent the majority of time at school trying to break the rules. I would climb to the top of buildings; I even burned a building down once – not intentionally, just because I was interested in fire. I remember going through the rule book, ticking off the ones I had broken and looking for the ones I hadn't."

He might be stretching the truth – "Most of what we say about ourselves is a wonderful piece of storytelling," he believes – but his youthful rebellion is suggestive of the way this director, actor and writer has set about breaking theatre's rules.

Ever since he started making work with Complicite, the company he co-founded in 1983, McBurney's guiding principle has been to create whatever he feels he is not seeing on Britain's stages. His productions draw on international theatre, dance, music, literature and developing technologies, not to mention his training in movement at the Jacques Lecoq school in Paris, to fulfil one simple rule: that "the text of the different parts of theatre must be as articulate as the spoken word". Though he has been hailed as an innovator, McBurney is suspicious of such evaluations. "There's nothing really original," he says. "There's only the question of whether something is alive, and speaking to you."

This is precisely what he is good at: making things – inanimate objects, abstruse concepts, even a 5,000-year-old corpse – come thrillingly alive. In Complicite's 1992 show A Street of Crocodiles, books fluttered across the stage as a flock of birds; in 1999's Mnemonic, which won an Olivier award for best new play, the story of a man stumbling towards death was represented by a wooden chair. In A Disappearing Number, another Olivier award-winner, which is being revived in London's West End this month, complex mathematical equations become vivid metaphors for personal relationships.

McBurney is sometimes criticised for putting style over substance, most recently in reviews of his Japanese production Shun-kin, which is also being revived this autumn, at London's Barbican. But even the play's vehement detractors concede their astonishment at the magical transformation of a puppet into a flesh-and-blood actor, and have been seduced by the show's crepuscular lighting.

The one thing McBurney doesn't do is present straightforward linear stories. Whether creating a show from scratch or adapting a work of literature – by John Berger, say, or Haruki Murakami – he will overlap narratives, past and present, fact and fiction, so that they communicate with each other. "Very rarely do I find a linear story to be a reflection of life as I see it," he says. "The story of Oedipus, say, is useful to us because we have all had the experience of wanting to kill our father, and we can act out the horror of those thoughts in another context. So the linear story can give you a reduction of life. But if I'm representing life, I want to make connections between things."

Even talking about himself, McBurney delivers almost nothing straight. He doesn't so much answer questions as meander around them. His description of a recent "extraordinary experience", taking A Disappearing Number to India (the show revolves around an Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan), takes approximately 40 minutes and incorporates, among other digressions: a potted history of Indian theatre; a eulogy of director Habib Tanvir and his Naya theatre company, whose Charan the Thief, seen in London in 1982, in which "the way someone expressed joy was to do a double backwards somersault", was a strong influence; the need for baroque excess in Bollywood films; the rootlessness of many modern actors; and, for good measure, the immorality of the free-market economy. Listening to him, you feel as though you are being tugged through the twisting back streets of a foreign city by a skittish guide, with no idea of what you might see or where you might end up.

His circumlocutions make him difficult to pin down. But then, he is deliberately resistant to any such attempt, drawing on Rita Carter's book Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality to explain his evasiveness. "What she articulates is that we are all multiple people, but we have an illusion that we are one single self, and an illusion of continuity in the present . . . it corresponds to my sense of who I am."

His approach to theatre-making was forged in the 1980s, and so was his political activism – his resistance to "the blind, almost fundamentalist adherence to a consumer capitalist society". He travelled widely in his late teens and early 20s, to Canada and the US, to Greece, the USSR, in part to escape Thatcher's Britain, where he felt "constantly in political opposition. Living in France while the Falklands war was going on, I felt a profound sense of shame and betrayal, just as I did by the war in Iraq. People have asked why I don't talk about that directly in my plays. Well, politics needs to be articulated in many different ways."

He tends to choose the subtler options. For instance, he rarely visits countries as a tourist – "tourism is very destructive" – but travels in a focused attempt to learn about other cultures, with a view to making pieces of theatre that speak directly to those cultures. It means a great deal to him that in the ambiguous, shadowy, ironic Shun-kin Japanese audiences recognised themselves and their distinctive worldview.

The capitalist expansion of India, which he has been witnessing first-hand over the past decade while working on A Disappearing Number, raises for him an "urgent question, of who we are as people. We now have access to an extraordinary amount of knowledge, but that knowledge isn't necessarily part of us. I feel that knowledge brings responsibility – but how capable are human beings of a sense of responsibility?" It is a question he endeavours to answer in his theatre, in the same way that his favourite composers – Shostakovich, Schnittke, Edison Denisov – were "incredibly articulate about the nature of moral responsibility in the 20th century. You can hear the darkness and the fear in the music."

McBurney himself is driven by the desire for knowledge. At 53, he says: "I've hardly begun – I'm so curious about this and I need to know about that. I'm naturally attracted to something I don't understand, because when you try to deal with something you don't understand, it opens a door into another world."

A Disappearing Number grew from his increasing interest in mathematics, one of many subjects that had repelled him at school. "Mathematics is an art form that builds on itself. As a mathematician, you are adding to the sum of everything that is already known. You're not saying, 'I'm coming in here with my own individual voice', you're coming in with a collective voice. So you have a tremendous sense of human continuity as well as of mathematical continuity."

Collectivity and an awareness of continuity play a key role in McBurney's theatre. His sensitivity to the latter was instilled in him at birth: his father was an archaeologist who taught at Cambridge. It was his mother who imbued him with a passion for theatre: she had wanted to be an actor and encouraged McBurney and his two siblings to perform plays in their rambling Victorian house. But his parents also, unwittingly, gave him a sense of separation from other people that is partly to do with identity. "I don't know where I belong, to be honest. My father was American, my mother's Irish, I suppose I'm English but I've never felt particularly at home in England." He wonders whether it was the resultant longing for a sense of community that led him to acting, which he began at school.

Although he was a shy child, what McBurney loved about his schooldays was "making connections between people". He still enjoys this, working hard on the introductions to his plays to make explicit the audience's relationship to the actors. Mnemonic opened with each person in the audience holding an ivy leaf, imagining that its veins represented the lines of their ancestry and that everyone in the room was distantly related. At the beginning of A Disappearing Number, one of the actors instructs the audience to think of a number, double it, add 14, halve the result, then subtract their original number. "What I like about the theatre," he says, "is that we are all able to imagine the same thing at the same time, just as now, we are all imagining the number seven." It is a cheeky trick, but an effective one – it reminds the audience that their imaginative contribution to the show is crucial.

Collaboration, with audience, actors, designers, technicians, is central to McBurney's work, and has been since Complicite sprang into being in 1983. He makes the founding quartet – himself, director Annabel Arden, and actors Marcello Magni and Fiona Gordon – sound like outlaws: "Everybody was on the run." He knew Arden from Cambridge (to his parents' relief, the teenage McBurney buckled down long enough to pass the entrance exam), where they performed in Footlights alongside Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry. He met Magni (Italian) and Gordon (Canadian, born in Australia) at the beginning of the 1980s, at the Jacques Lecoq school.

The group was quickly successful, winning the Perrier comedy award at the Edinburgh festival in 1985 for their satire of Thatcherite capitalism, More Bigger Snacks Now. But they also quarrelled constantly. In 1989, just at the point, McBurney says, when they were "totally pissed off with each other and the whole thing was about to explode", they were offered a residency at the Almeida theatre in London for 15 weeks. It proved to be "a moment of metamorphosis": during that time they created 13 shows, one of which was the company's first stab at a classic text, a darkly comic interpretation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit, which transferred two years later to the National Theatre.

Afterwards, the quartet disbanded, but not until McBurney had been persuaded to take responsibility for Complicite as its artistic director. In the two decades since, the company has grown into "a constantly shifting community, like a tribe of people who go away and come back and go away and come back again". One of the things that binds them together is food: McBurney is passionate about cooking, and "we have large communal meals together".

Magni still works frequently with McBurney: he was an associate director on Endgame in London last year, and is performing in A Dog's Heart, McBurney's first opera, which opens at the English National Opera in November.

Every Complicite show is born out of chaos. The Elephant Vanishes – adapted from Murakami's exploration of ultra-modern technology and human disconnection – grew from an attempt at another Japanese show that failed ("I make a lot of things that nobody ever sees"). With opening night looming, rehearsals ground to a halt, and McBurney had to instruct his entire team to take 24 hours off to clear their heads. A Disappearing Number was incomplete when it first went on stage at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth in March 2007; it is only now, as he prepares to remount the show at the Novello theatre, that McBurney feels its problems are starting to be resolved.

He describes working on A Dog's Heart, which had its premiere at the Holland festival in Amsterdam in June, as "another wonderful collaborative process", but confesses that it, too, came perilously close to disaster when he and his designer, Michael Levine, decided to scrap their original set design after seeing it mocked up on stage, sending their producers into a panic. Equally unusual for the opera world, but more positive, was his approach to the score: treating it as he would a written text, he invited the composer, Alexander Raskatov, and a group of performers into a workshop so that they could play around with the music and understand it more fully.

With three productions opening in London over the next 10 weeks, McBurney is frantically busy. But then, he always has been. He is a writer, for the stage, obviously, but also of non-fiction for journals such as the Drawbridge and Brick. He is unexpectedly diffident discussing his writing, a hangover from school, where "I was such a ducker and diver that I never really believed in my own writing, so I always shied away from calling it that". Working on an opera was "a total liberation: you feel so confident that almost every move, every piece of emotion is there in the musical text. It's a sort of blessed relief after writing your own things, where you're constantly doubting what you've written."

Plus he is an actor for film and TV: he was a slippery British diplomat in The Last King of Scotland, and recently appeared as the parchment-dry Archdeacon Robert in the BBC comedy Rev. "Acting on film can be a wonderful release," he says, "because you've got to be very exact within a few words, and bring them to life in a very specific way." He is still smarting from the fact that he had to turn down an acting job, "a particularly unpleasant character" in a new film by Joe Wright, because it clashed with A Dog's Heart.

In A Disappearing Number, one of the characters interprets the mathematician GH Hardy's assertion that "the noblest ambition is that of leaving behind something of permanent value" as proof of the necessity of having children. It was while the show was playing at the Barbican in the autumn of 2007 that McBurney met his partner, Cassie Yukawa, on the street: "Just by chance, completely extraordinary chance. We literally just saw each other. I didn't believe that such things were true." The couple now live together in McBurney's flat in a former piano factory – another coincidence, as Yukawa is a pianist who has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York – and have two children, a girl and a boy. For McBurney, this is his life's "most surprising story" of all.

Ha-Joon Chang offers a masterful debunking of some of the myths of capitalism, writes John Gray

The world is awash with books that claim to explain the global financial meltdown. Not many are written by economists. Ignorant of history, including that of economics itself, most economists not only failed to forecast the crash but, mesmerised by the spurious harmonies of their mathematical models, were blind to the mounting instability of the financial system and failed to grasp that an upheaval of the kind that is currently under way was even possible. After an intellectual failure on this scale, what could economists have to say today that would be of any interest to anyone?

Anxiously defending their turf, many have objected that they never claimed to predict the future. But as Ha-Joon Chang writes: "Economists are not some innocent technicians who did a decent job within the narrow confines of their expertise until they were collectively wrong-footed by a once-in-a-century disaster that no one could have predicted." Far from being an inward-looking, hermetic discipline, economics has been a hugely powerful – and profitable – enterprise, shaping the policies of governments and companies throughout much of the world. The results have been little short of disastrous. As Chang puts it: "Economics, as it has been practised in the last three decades, has been positively harmful for most people."

In his 2008 book, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Chang – an economist himself, a specialist in the political economy of development – mocked one of the central orthodoxies of his profession: the belief that global free trade raises living standards everywhere. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism assaults economic orthodoxy on a much larger front. Dip into this witty, iconoclastic and uncommonly commonsensical guide to the follies of economics, and, among many other things, you will learn that free market policies rarely make poor countries richer; global companies without national roots belong in the realm of myth; the US does not have the highest living standards in the world; the washing machine changed the world more than the internet; more education does not of itself make countries richer; financial markets need to become less, not more efficient; and – perhaps most shocking to Chang's colleagues – good economic policy does not require good economists. Each of Chang's 23 propositions may seem counterintuitive, even contrarian. But every one of them has a basis in fact and logic, and taken together they present a new view of capitalism.

Chang may be our best critic of capitalism, but he is far from being any kind of anti-capitalist. He recognises the failings of centrally planned economies, and rightly describes capitalism as "the worst economic system except for all the others". At the same time he is confident that capitalism can be reformed to prevent crises like the one we have just experienced recurring. Making markets more transparent is not enough. "If we are really serious about preventing another crisis like the 2008 meltdown," Chang writes, "we should simply ban complex financial instruments, unless they can be unambiguously shown to benefit society in the long run." He is aware that he risks sounding extreme, but argues that the ban he proposes is no different from those that have been enforced on other dangerous products. "This is what we do all the time with other products – drugs, cars, electrical products and many others."

It is at this point that Chang's analysis, otherwise refreshingly down to earth, seems to me to become unrealistic. Banning opaque financial products might be a step towards a safer world. Unfortunately it is also politically impossible. In the US, Obama's economic policies are being shaped by the same people – many of them with close links to Wall Street – who dismantled Roosevelt's curbs on the banking system during the Clinton era. American politics has been captured by a financial oligarchy, and there is no prospect of meaningful reform.

Again, Chang urges that we ban financial derivatives, but who are "we"? Reforms of the kind he envisions require a type of global governance that will not exist in any foreseeable future. As he himself recognises, capitalism is not one economic system but many. "There are different ways to organise capitalism. Free-market capitalism is only one of them – and not a very good one at that. There is no one ideal model." This is clearly right, but the types of capitalism that exist today are not just different. They are also competitors, with conflicting needs and goals. Chinese capitalism, Russian capitalism, Indian capitalism and American capitalism are geopolitical rivals as much as they are different ways of organising the marketplace, and they threaten one another in a number of contexts – not least when they are struggling to secure control of scarce natural resources. Many of the world's conflicts are driven by these geopolitical rivalries. Afghanistan will enjoy nothing like peace when western forces are finally compelled to leave. Instead it will become a site of conflict between India, Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran, each aiming to pre-empt the others in exploiting the opportunities offered by the country's geography and resources.

Capitalism is not only about creating wealth, it is also about power – and western power is waning. Economic energy is shifting to the emerging countries, while in the west economies stagnate and politicians continue to worship at the altar of the free market (not least in Britain, where the coalition seems bent on pursuing neo-Thatcherite policies more extreme than those of the 80s). Rather than reforming itself, free-market capitalism looks set simply to decline. But if Chang's reforms are unrealistic, his account of where we find ourselves today is arrestingly accurate. For anyone who wants to understand capitalism not as economists or politicians have pictured it but as it actually operates, this book will be invaluable.

John Gray's latest book, Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings, is published in paperback by Penguin

Kallyn Buschkamp of Cherokee, a senior math and chemistry major at Briar Cliff University, will be presenting the results of his summer research at the Mathematical Association of America and American Mathematical Society National Conference in New Orleans in January 2011.

A book on Soviet utopianism prompts Steven Rose to wonder if the dream of a fair, prosperous society can ever be fulfilled

When I first visited Moscow, in what now seems a far-distant era, a giant red neon sign beamed Lenin's famous phrase "Socialism plus electrification equals communism" across the Moskva river. The slogan encapsulated several central aspects of communist thought. First, optimism for the future. Second, that science and technology were both by definition progressive forces but were impeded by capitalism; only under communism could they enable the building of a society of abundance for the many, not just the few.

The roots of this respect for science lie deep in Marxist thought, not least because Marxism was seen as itself a science. When Friedrich Engels's fragmentary text, The Dialectics of Nature, dating from 1883, was rediscovered in the 1930s, it was regarded as demonstrating that nature itself conformed to the philosophical principles that he and Marx had formulated in their decades of collaboration. Then in 1948 the American mathematician Norbert Wiener published his path-breaking book (and invented the word itself) Cybernetics, a way of thinking about how self-regulating systems interact dynamically with their environment, both changing it and being changed by it. Cybernetics ("circular causation") was a way of understanding how systems could show apparent goal-directed behaviour without consciousness. Soviet philosophers seized on the concept, elevating it to the status of a "fourth law of dialectics".

Following Stalin's death and the slow thaw, initiated by Khrushchev, that lasted from the mid-1950s to the mid-60s, Soviet planners, economists, physicists and mathematicians flourished. They persuaded the Soviet leadership that, using cybernetic principles and the newly developed computers, the centralised, planned Soviet economy could at last be made efficient. By 1980, Khrushchev claimed, the Soviet Union would overtake America; communism would have defeated capitalism. For a while, in the aftermath of Sputnik and Gagarin's space flight, it looked as if he might be just be right.

So what went wrong? It is this question that Francis Spufford explores in Red Plenty. Not as history, nor yet exactly as a novel, but in a series of loosely linked chapters, each a vignette in which fictional characters rub shoulders with real ones. The cast list at the front distinguishes real from invented, although two of the latter, as Spufford makes clear, are "stand-ins" for the real economist Abel Aganbegyan and the molecular geneticist Raissa Berg (the latter still alive at last count and now resident in the US). The key real figures are the mathematical prodigy and later Nobelist Leonid Kantorovich, whose initial calculations on how to improve plywood production blossomed into a comprehensive plan for the economy, and Sergei Lebedev, designer of the first generations of Soviet computers.

Spufford has long had a somewhat eclectic interest in the interactions of science, technology and society, as evidenced by Backroom Boys, his tales of post-1945 British "boffins", and he has certainly done his homework here. It isn't every work of historical faction that is backed up by 70 pages of footnotes, references and sources. He speaks no Russian and has built heavily on the work of English-language historians of the Soviet Union such as Sheila Fitzpatrick, but his learning sits lightly. Admittedly, his fictional characters are two-dimensional types without inner life, appearing often only for a single chapter. They are chosen to illustrate daily details of Soviet life, from the primitive conditions of collective farms and the career moves of young, upwardly mobile party apparatchiks to the semi-criminal underworld of the fixers who helped to circumvent the idiosyncratic inefficiencies of central planning, and the brutally authoritarian medicalised childbirth of 1960s Moscow.

It is through their voices that the impossibilities of Khrushchev's dreams are revealed. The planners were, above all, rationalists, committed to a cognitive view of the world that allows no space for human frailties, greed, corruption, or mere inadequacy. The fictional, but all too realistic, Maksim Maksimovich Mokhov is deputy director for chemical and rubber goods at Gosplan, the USSR's central planning agency. He is faced with a problem at a viscose plant. It shouldn't have happened; the plant is fairly new and the process simple – new machinery, simple inputs of chemicals and woodpulp, and "Trees into sweaters! Brute matter uplifted to serve human purposes". But one machine is unaccountably wrecked. The plant managers request a new machine – but that requires revising the targets for the factory that produces the machine. And that requires replanning the inputs into the machine tool factory. Everything connects in a nightmare combinatorial explosion. Down the line, only the semi-criminal fixer, so characteristic of Soviet life, can sort out the problem.

Human error and human corruption are inevitable features of being human and not a machine, and need to be built into planning assumptions. What cybernetics should have taught the mathematicians and planners, tucked away in the relative comfort of the Siberian science city of Akademgorodok, and the Moscow offices of Gosplan, is that systems work best when self-organised from below, not centrally planned from above in a command economy. Although this is now widely recognised, it has been an expensive learning process in terms of both political and individual human tragedy.

Self-organisation is a fundamental feature of living systems, and was indeed well understood by Soviet biologists of the 1930s (and some in the west), before Stalin's dogmatic destruction of scientific creativity – and of the creators themselves. Spufford is weaker on his biology than on technology. He also pays far too little attention to what fatally weakened the Soviet economy – the escalating arms race with the US. It wasn't just that there was no trickle-down from military innovation into the desperately inadequate production of consumer goods. Even civil science was denied the computers, centrifuges and relative freedom from rigid planning constraints that so privileged the military.

But could it have worked? Can we ever once more believe that we, the people, could create a just, equal and abundant society? Red Plenty ends with the question that must carry all our hopes and fears, as Khrushchev, the deposed pensioner, broods: "Years pass. The Soviet Union falls. The dance of commodities resumes. And the wind in the trees of Akademgorodok says: can it be otherwise? Can it be, can it be, can it ever be otherwise?"

• Steven Rose's The 21st Century Brain is published by Vintage.

Filed under: MPG, Green Daily, USA

Math isn't appreciated enough in our society. As a big fan of the "I'm an English Major, You do the math" shirt, I'll admit I'm part of the problem. We can all agree, though, that it's hugely important to "get" basic mathematical concepts, especially when it comes to understanding energy efficiency (like miles per gallon). Trouble is, too many Americans don't have this knowledge.

This is the finding of a new study called "Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings" published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study's authors say that people underestimate the energy saving potential of big changes - like driving a more efficient car - and overestimate the impact of little things like turning off lights. One slightly surprising finding: respondents with "stronger proenvironmental attitudes" understood energy savings better than others.

From the study's opening summary:

In a national online survey, 505 participants reported their perceptions of energy consumption and savings for a variety of household, transportation, and recycling activities. When asked for the most effective strategy they could implement to conserve energy, most participants mentioned curtailment (e.g., turning off lights, driving less) rather than efficiency improvements (e.g., installing more efficient light bulbs and appliances), in contrast to experts' recommendations. For a sample of 15 activities, participants underestimated energy use and savings by a factor of 2.8 on average, with small overestimates for low-energy activities and large underestimates for high-energy activities. Additional estimation and ranking tasks also yielded relatively flat functions for perceived energy use and savings. Across several tasks, participants with higher numeracy scores and stronger proenvironmental attitudes had more accurate perceptions. The serious deficiencies highlighted by these results suggest that well-designed efforts to improve the public's understanding of energy use and savings could pay large dividends.

Oh, can anyone help us understand the chart above? Our math skill aren't up to it (j/k)

[Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences via Earth Institute and Green Car Congress]

Continue reading American ignorance of efficiency numbers might be the biggest hurdle to cleaner cars

American ignorance of efficiency numbers might be the biggest hurdle to cleaner cars originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Based on information presented at the Global Change and Global Science: Comparative Physiology in a Changing World conference, August 4-7, 2010 in Westminster, Colorado.

Blair Wolf, an associate professor of biology at the University of New Mexico, and Andrew McKechnie at the University of Pretoria in South Africa have been studying how desert bird populations might respond to global warming.

According to a press release from The American Physiological Society (www.the-aps.org),
increases in air temperatures of just two degrees Fahrenheit is sufficient to cause the rate of water loss to double in small birds like the small parakeets called budgerigars shown in the photo, or "budgies" as the locals refer to them. This change in water loss can greatly impact their ability to survive.

When environmental temperatures rise, birds must get rid of the environmental heat through evaporation across the skin and panting. Their ability to cool down is therefore lower with excessive water loss to the environment, resulting in higher body temperatures and heat stroke, causing tissue and organ damage and eventually death.

Wolf and McKechnie have used mathematical models to predict the future water costs of birds living in heat waves in the 2080's compared to the current costs in Yuma, Arizona, USA and Birdsville, Australia. Their research has predicted that smaller birds will have greater water losses compared to larger birds resulting in a reduction of survival rates by 30-40% in the small birds.

This is not good news for budgies and other small birds.

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“Facing History has given me such a drive to help other people. That word "upstander" has been so instilled in me. I am constantly looking for ways I can help somebody out or give my voice to something. I plan to keep that in my future…That's one of the things that this school really gets right. It's really teaching you that once you know you have the choice there's no going back. You can't say I didn't know, I didn't know I could help out; I didn't know I had the options. It gives you a new conscience: I should help.”

- Zanetta K., student, Facing History School

 

Facing History and Ourselves helped found the Facing History School (FHS) in New York City in 2005 with funds from the New Visions New Century High Schools Initiative.  FHS is a small, 425-student, public high school with a rigorous and engaging four-year curriculum. Its mission is to graduate students who are lifelong learners with the skills and knowledge for academic, professional and personal success, and prepared for the responsibilities of being active, thoughtful participants and leaders in a democratic society.

 

By design, the school weaves Facing History and Ourselves into the fabric of the entire school. By the time students reach senior year, they have studied several Facing History case studies in depth and made connections to their own communities and themselves. In a ninth-grade class called “We and They,” students study Facing History and Ourselves:  Holocaust and Human Behavior which chronicles the rise of the Nazis in Germany to explore the fragility of democracy, the creation of scapegoats and “national enemies,” and the role of bystanders in society.  This course also introduces students to the school-wide expectation that they develop the habit of being “upstanders” and be engaged in constructive ways in the world around them. In tenth grade, students attend an English class called “Resistance and Reconciliation” which includes a semester-long look at South African literature, film, and art to explore the creation of apartheid, resistance to apartheid, and issues of justice and reconciliation after the end of apartheid. In eleventh grade, the “Race and Membership" class looks at how American attitudes and policies have been affected by racism on one hand and by the struggle for civil rights on the other hand. This class delves into the struggle over democracy and human rights in the United States, and asks students to think about the issues that resonate with them today. Finally, in grade twelve, students participate in the Senior Institute which invites students to use what they have learned in three years at the Facing History School to do serious academic and field research, sometimes involving internships, on local, national, or international issues that they wish to impact, presented in an interdisciplinary, multimedia “Choosing to Participate” exhibition.

 

Teachers and students use Facing History resources and make connections to Facing History themes through all other subjects as appropriate as well. One student commented, “In my math class right now, we are doing social justice issues, and I’m studying abusive relationships from a numerical point of view. I’m not just learning the mathematical concepts, but how social change shows up in numbers and the trends over time.”[1] Advisory – a small-group program that focuses personalized attention on student’s aspirations and social, intellectual, and emotional needs – is led by FHS staff and supported by Facing History and Ourselves. Students attend four times a week to discuss core Facing History themes such as bullying, ostracism, and participation. Gillian Smith, the principal of the Facing History School, describes advisory as the heart of the school which helps build a caring, responsible and responsive school culture where students can develop their voice, explore relevant ethical and social issues and contribute to the school and larger community.

 

The school community itself is nurtured by a robust “Speakers Series” where activists, filmmakers, politicians, journalists, sociologists and others who have made a significant impact in the world through their courageous actions come to speak with the students and share their stories.  Another key partnership, with Urban Arts Partnership, brings professional artists into the classrooms to team up with teachers and helps integrate arts into Facing History classes. The school’s commitment to day trips and an annual trip to other cities/countries helps broaden the students’ horizons.  As a member of The New York Performance Standards Consortium, an organization that provides an alternative to high stakes testing in New York City, the Facing History School is a leader in the development of portfolio based assessment. 

 

The Facing History School is a showcase for its use of Facing History, modeling how a school can use Facing History themes, resources, and an emphasis on community building and community involvement.  Visitors come from places across the United States and the world, such as California, Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, Westchester, New Jersey, Long Island, South Africa, Poland, Israel, the Republic of Georgia, and the United Kingdom.  They not only learn about its education reform, but they are inspired by the example the Facing History School sets. The 2008-2009 high school report card issued by the New York City Department of Education’s annual report gave the Facing History School an “A” for overall performance. The school received an “A” for school environment and external reviewers commended the school for the positive relationship between students and teachers, staff collaboration, challenging curriculum, and structured support for special needs students and English language learners. The school also shined in the “Closing the Achievement Gap” area which credits schools based on “exemplary performance” among students in high risk/special needs categories.  Students consistently report a positive sense of personal responsibility and a respect for individual differences in addition to recognizing the importance of “choosing to participate”. 

 

FHS held its first graduation ceremony in 2009, and 96% of the graduates were accepted into two- and four-year colleges. Keynote speaker Rosie Perez told graduates, “You are the brightest, you are the best, but more importantly, from the education and the nurturing you have received at Facing History School, you are the most conscientious, you are the most well-prepared, you are the most civic-minded, you are the most empathetic young adults I have ever come across.”[2] The infusion of Facing History themes seem not only to be helping prepare students to go to college, but also to engage students in thinking about how their own daily choices might contribute to a safer and more just future.

 

School Demographics

The Facing History School is a high school with just over 400 students.  The school population is comprised of 64% Hispanic, 30% Black, 2% White, 2% Asian, and 2% multi-racial students.  The student body includes 20% English language learners and 21% special education students.  The average attendance rate for the school year 2007-2008 was 81%.  The school is in receipt of Title 1 funding with 85% eligibility.

 

Through the generosity of the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, Facing History and Ourselves has developed the Small Schools Network. As part of this network, schools deepen their work with Facing History to develop thoughtful, compassionate, and civic-minded school communities.  The schools share best practices, develop professional ties with their peers, and receive ongoing support from Facing History. Facing History School is a founding member of this network, which started in 2008.

 

For more information about Facing History and the Small School Network, please visit: www.facinghistory.org/smallschools

Gillian Smith Speaks at Benefit Dinner

Zanetta King, Facing History School Valedictorian 2009

Jose Flores, Facing History School Salutorian 2009

“Facing History School Gets an ‘A,’”  November 2009

"Candor in the Class: Looking Back to Go Forward," Edutopia, April 2009

"Intriguing Alternative to Rating Schools By Tests,"  Washington Post, July 2010

Facing History School Newsletter, Summer 2009

Facing History School Newsletter, Fall 2009

Facing History School Newsletter, Winter 2009

Slide Show from First Day of School, Fall 2009

 

AMS Completes Journal Digitization Project, Access to More than 34,000 Articles from Over 100 Years of Journals From the Announcement: The American Mathematical Society has established a complete digital archive of its mathematical research journals.

Growing up, I was one of those kids who ordered Scholastic paperbacks by the cartonful. One I remember is The Kid Who Batted 1.000, by Bob Allison. As a frustrated, near-sighted player in Farm and Bronco Leagues, I thrilled to the story of a player who never made an out.

I thought about the book this morning at the New York Sports Club, where I worked out and watched ESPN's SportsCenter report. I watched the amazing feat yesterday of the Toronto Blue Jays' J.P. Arencibia. In his first major league game, he hit the first pitch for a home run. In his first four at-bats, he collected two HRs, a single and a double. If I read the monitor right, he did all that on four pitches. He made an out on his fifth at-bat, but, still, that's starting your career in with a bang. The story on the Blue Jays website recaps:

Arencibia became the first player since 1900 to have a pair of home runs and a quartet of hits in his big league debut. He is only the fifth player in baseball history to launch two home runs in his first Major League game and the 107th player to homer in his first career at-bat in the bigs.

"J.P. had a heck of a day today," Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said. "One that he can go back and tell his grandkids about. I don't know if anyone would believe it, though, unless they really saw it."

I love that quote from Cito Gaston -- "J.P. had a heck of a day today." That's what managers say. That could be the basis of a revised version of "Damn Yankees," maybe called "Darned Blue Jays."

Based on Arencibia's statistics so far in his big-league career, the Blue Jays fan site SBnation.com is already saying "we can at least state with confidence that J.P. Arencibia is the best hitter of the last fifty years."

The performance no doubt has baseball statisticians, Baseball Guru and the slide-rule set at the Society for American Baseball Research pulling out their books to put the one-day rampage in perspective. I always get a kick out of baseball records and statistics discussions, which reach degrees of mathematical sophistication far beyond my ability to comprehend, as this book and website show. And this book, Teaching Statistics Using Baseball, would have helped me a lot more in college than the class I took in econometrics.

For the record, the kind of baseball stats I find the most interesting are the historical ones. This essay rounds up 10. I'll add two season performances that I'm confident will never be repeated on MLB: a pitcher winning 30 games in a seasons, last done by Denny McLain in 1968, and a hitter having a .400 batting average, last done by Ted Williams in 1941.

Let's see what the record books will say about J.P. Arencibia, the real-like kid who almost batted 1.000 in his first game.

Surfing thru the usual dribble, this caught my eye. DAVID BROOKS Published: February 12, 2009 Between 1990 and 2007, the total mortgage debt held by Americans rose from $2.5 trillion to $10.5 trillion. This rise was part of a societal credit bubble that burst in 2008. To cushion the pain of that collapse, federal authorities decided to replace private debt with public debt. In 2008, the Bush administration increased spending by about $1.7 trillion, and guaranteed loans, investments and deposits worth about $8 trillion. In 2009, the Obama administration spent $800 billion on a stimulus package, $1 trillion on a second round of bank bailouts and committed another trillion on health care reform and other bailout plans. Americans generally welcomed the burst of public activism. In “Democracy in America,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about what happens to a people beset by anxiety: “The taste for public tranquility then becomes a blind passion, and the citizens are liable to conceive a most inordinate devotion to order.” In normal times, Americans would have been skeptical of proposals to double or triple the size of federal programs, but amid the economic fear, that skepticism fell away. Wall Street traders hungered for a huge federal bailout replete with strings. Economists produced models that assumed that government could efficiently spend huge amounts of money, and these models were accepted. The Obama administration was staffed with moderates who found that there was no reward for moderation. Liberals attacked them for being tepid. Republicans attacked them because it was enjoyable to see Democrats attacked. Over time, the administration drifted left and created what you might call Split Level Technocratic Liberalism. President Obama defended spending initiatives in broad terms. He had enormous faith in the power of highly trained experts and based his arguments on models and projections. The actual legislation was cobbled together by Democratic committee chairmen, often acting beyond the administration’s control. During 2010, the economic decline abated, but the recovery did not arrive. There were a few false dawns, and stagnation. The problem was this: The policy makers knew how to pull economic levers, but they did not know how to use those levers to affect social psychology. The crisis was labeled an economic crisis, but it was really a psychological crisis. It was caused by a mood of fear and uncertainty, which led consumers to not spend, bankers to not lend and entrepreneurs to not risk. No amount of federal spending could change this psychology because uncertainty about the future remained acute. Essentially, Americans had migrated from one society to another — from a society of high trust to a society of low trust, from a society of optimism to a society of foreboding, from a society in which certain financial habits applied to a society in which they did not. In the new world, investors had no basis from which to calculate risk. Families slowly deleveraged. Bankers had no way to measure the future value of assets. Cognitive scientists distinguish between normal risk-assessment decisions, which activate the reward-prediction regions of the brain, and decisions made amid extreme uncertainty, which generate activity in the amygdala. These are different mental processes using different strategies and producing different results. Americans were suddenly forced to cope with this second category, extreme uncertainty. Economists and policy makers had no way to peer into this darkness. Their methods were largely based on the assumption that people are rational, predictable and pretty much the same. Their models work best in times of equilibrium. But in this moment of disequilibrium, behavior was nonlinear, unpredictable, emergent and stubbornly resistant to Keynesian rationalism. The failure to generate a recovery led to a collapse of public confidence. President Obama’s promises of 3.5 million jobs now seemed a sham and his former certainty a delusion. The political climate grew more polarized. That meant it was impossible to tackle entitlement debt. That and the economic climate meant it was impossible to raise taxes or cut spending or do anything to reduce the yawning deficits. Federal deficits were 15 percent of G.D.P. and growing. Far from easing uncertainty, the exploding deficits led to more fear. The U.S. could not afford to respond to new emergencies, like hurricanes or foreign crises. Other nations sensed American overextension. Foreign debt-holders grew nervous. Interest rates rose. Congress indulged its worst instincts, erecting trade barriers, propping up doomed companies. Scholars began to talk about the American Disease, akin to the British Disease of the 1970s. The nation had essentially bet its future on economic models with primitive views of human behavior. The government had tried to change social psychology using the equivalent of leeches and bleeding. Rather than blame themselves, Americans directed their anger toward policy makers and experts who based estimates of human psychology on mathematical equations.

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.

This essay was originally published in five parts at various sites: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5


The introduction of the telescope in Western Europe in the 1600s revolutionized astronomy, but it did not found it as a discipline. Astronomy had existed in some form for thousands of years prior to this. It is consequently impossible to assign a specific date to its beginning. This is not the case with astrophysics. People in ancient and medieval times might speculate on the material makeup of stars and celestial bodies, but they had no way of verifying their ideas.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae in the fifth century BC was the first Pre-Socratic philosopher to live in Athens. He championed many controversial theories, including his claim that the stars are fiery stones. He allegedly got this idea when a meteorite fell near Aegospotami. He assumed that it came from the Sun, and since it consisted largely of iron he concluded that the Sun was made of red-hot iron. Not a bad guess for his time, yet he had no way of proving his claims. Neither did Asian or Mesoamerican observers. Some sources indicate that Anaxagoras was charged with impiety, as most ancient Greeks still shared the divine associations with the heavenly bodies, but political considerations may have played a part in this process as well.

As late as in 1835 Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the French philosopher often regarded as the founder of sociology, stated that humans would never be able to understand the composition of stars. He was soon proved wrong by two new techniques — spectroscopy and photography.

The English chemist William Hyde Wollaston (1766-1828) in 1800 formed a partnership with his countryman Smithson Tennant (1761-1815), whom he had befriended at Cambridge. Tennant discovered the elements iridium and osmium, extracted from platinum ores, in 1803. The platinum group metals — platinum, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium and iridium — have similar chemical properties. Osmium (Os, atomic number 76) is the heaviest natural element with a density of more than 22.6 kg/dm3, twice as much as lead at 11.3 kg/dm3.

Platinum (Pt, atomic number 78) and its dense sister metals are very rare in the Earth’s crust. It had been introduced to Europe from South American mines in the 1740s by men such as the Spanish explorer Antonio de Ulloa (1716-1795). Wollaston was the first person to produce pure, malleable platinum and became wealthy from supplying Britain with the precious metal. The Wollaston Medal, granted by the Geological Society of London, is named after him.

The German chemist Martin Klaproth (1743-1817) was born in Wernigerode in Prussian Saxony and worked as an apothecary for years before continuing his career as a professor of chemistry at the newly established University of Berlin. He discovered uranium as well as zirconium (Zr, a.n. 40) in 1789. Uranium (symbol U, atomic number 92) was named for the planet Uranus, which had been discovered just prior to this. Wollaston detected the elements palladium in 1803 and rhodium in 1804. He named palladium (Pd, a.n. 46) after the asteroid Pallas, which had been discovered a year earlier by the German astronomer Olbers and was initially believed to be a planet, until the full extent of the asteroid belt had been grasped.

The birth of spectroscopy, the systematic study of the interaction of light with matter, followed shortly after the creation of scientific chemistry in Europe. William Hyde Wollaston in 1802 noted some dark features in the solar spectrum, but he didn’t follow this insight up. In 1814, the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1826) independently discovered these dark features (absorption lines) in the optical spectrum of the Sun, which are now known as Fraunhofer lines. He carefully studied them and noted that they exist in the spectra of Venus and the stars, too, which meant that they had to be a property of the light itself.

In the 1780s a Swiss artisan, Pierre-Louis Guinand (1748-1824), began experimenting with the manufacture of flint glass, and in 1805 managed to produce a nearly flawless material. He passed on this secret to Fraunhofer, who worked in the secularized Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern. Fraunhofer improved upon Guinand’s techniques and began a more systematic study of the mysterious spectral lines. To the stronger ones he assigned the letters A to Z, a system which is also used today. Yet it was left to two other German scholars to prove the full significance of these unique lines, corresponding to specific chemical elements.

Robert Bunsen (1811-1899) is often associated with the Bunsen burner, a device found in many chemistry laboratories around the word, but the truth is that he made a few alterations to it rather than inventing it. He was born in Göttingen, where his father was a professor of languages. He obtained his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Göttingen and spent years traveling through Western Europe. He eventually settled at the scenic university town of Heidelberg in south-west Germany, where he taught from 1852 until his retirement. In the late 1850s, Bunsen began a new and very fruitful collaboration there with the physicist Kirchhoff.
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Gustav Kirchhoff (1824-1887), the son of a lawyer, was born and educated in Königsberg, Prussia, on the Baltic Sea, now the Russian city of Kaliningrad. He graduated from Albertus University there in 1847 and relocated to the rapidly growing city of Berlin. After 1850 he became acquainted with Bunsen, who urged him to follow him to Heidelberg. Kirchhoff in 1859 coined the term blackbody to describe a hypothetical perfect radiator that absorbs all incident light and emits all of that light when maintained at a constant temperature. His findings proved instrumental to Max Planck’s quantum theory of electromagnetic radiation from 1900. He is above all remembered for his collaboration with Bunsen around 1860.

They demonstrated in 1859 that all pure substances display a characteristic spectrum. Together, Bunsen and Kirchhoff assembled the flame, prism, lenses and viewing tubes necessary to produce the world’s first spectrometer. They identified the alkali metals cesium (chemical symbol Cs, atomic number 55) and rubidium (Rb, a.n. 37) in 1860-61, showing in each case that these new elements produced line spectra that were unique for them, a chemical “fingerprint.” The dark lines in the solar spectrum show the selective absorption of light, caused by the transition of an electron between specific energy levels in an atom, in the gases of various elements that exist above the Sun’s surface. In the first qualitative chemical analysis of a celestial body, Kirchoff in the 1860s identified 16 different elements from the Sun’s spectrum and compared these to laboratory spectra from known elements here on Earth.

The great physicist George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) attended school in Dublin, Ireland, but later moved to England and Cambridge University. He theorized a reasonably correct explanation of the Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum, but he did not publish it or develop it further. According to the Molecular Expressions website, “ Throughout his career, George Stokes emphasized the importance of experimentation and problem solving, rather than focusing solely on pure mathematics. His practical approach served him well and he made important advances in several fields, most notably hydrodynamics and optics. Stokes coined the term fluorescence, discovered that fluorescence can be induced in certain substances by stimulation with ultraviolet light, and formulated Stokes Law in 1852. Sometimes referred to as Stokes shift, the law holds that the wavelength of fluorescent light is always greater than the wavelength of the exciting light. An advocate of the wave theory of light, Stokes was one of the prominent nineteenth century scientists that believed in the concept of an ether permeating space, which he supposed was necessary for light waves to travel.”

Fluorescence microscopy has become an important tool in cellular biology. The Polish physicist Alexander Jablonski (1898-1980) at the University of Warsaw was a pioneer in fluorescence spectroscopy. Stokes was a formative influence on subsequent generations of Cambridge men and was one of the great names among nineteenth century mathematical physics, which included Michael Faraday, James Joule, Siméon Poisson, Augustin Cauchy and Joseph Fourier. The English mathematician George Green (1793-1841), known for Green’s Theorem, inspired Lord Kelvin and devised an early theory of electricity and magnetism that formed some of the basis for the work of scientists like James Clerk Maxwell.

Astrophysics as a scientific discipline was born in mid-nineteenth century Europe, and only there; it could not have happened earlier as the crucial combination of chemical and optical knowledge, telescopes and photography did not exist before. In case we forget what a huge step this was, let us recall that as late as the sixteenth century AD in Mesoamerica, the region with the most sophisticated American astronomical traditions, thousands of people had their hearts ripped out every year to please the gods and ensure that the Sun would keep on shining.

Merely three centuries later, European scholars could empirically study the composition of the Sun and verify that it was essentially made of the same stuff as the Earth, only much hotter. Within the next few generations, European and Western scholars would in less than a century proceed to explain how the Sun and the stars generate their energy and why they shine. By any yardstick, this represents one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind in history.

To read the rest of this essay, click here.

The American Mathematical Society produce a monthly digest, Math in the Media, which highlights math

Models of polyhedra by 89 year old Magnus Wenninger, “a pioneer in the mathematical art community, whose models of polyhedra have inspired a new generation of artists” according to the American Math Society. via junkculture