Bitchin Dave's newsletter - Dec 26

 Dave’s Musings

A quick note that this will be my last newsletter of the year. I'll be back around in mid-January. Wishing you and happy and healthy new year!

In the meantime, I'd like to encourage you to start the new year off with a plan to improve on yourself. Exercise more, engage in more self care, or maybe try something new. 

We can all benefit from things like reading more (and since there are books being banned - why not see what those are about?), watching less tv, or engaging in learning something new. I've got a little science experiment I tried, which I share below.

To paraphrase Hamilton, smile more and talk less.  The smiling can surely help improve your mood. And in talking less, we can listen to other points of view. 

On the surface, the story about the beaming of a cat video from space seems kind of superfluous and maybe a little silly. (Cat videos were so 2010's!) But as I've noted, part of the Psyche mission that was launched back in October was to develop a high powered laser to transmit large amounts of data, quickly and efficiently. The video was a high definition recording that was received on Earth in just over a minute from 19 million miles away. It was the first proof that this technology will work for deep space travel, and will allow us to communicate with spacecraft in real time while transmitting a lot of data. Call it an early success! Nasa’s space laser transmission

Einstein's theory of relativity has been the defacto standard in physics for a few generations. It suggests how gravity bends spacetime. Then along comes quantum theory, which looks at spacetime differently. This bending doesn't work in the quantum model. This problem has led some scientists to disagree about who is right, since these two of these ideas clash and could not coexist, because they account for the universe in different ways. And, hey, arguing about scientific theories is always fun, IMHO. But then two physicists came up with a possible explanation for how they can both be right: essentially, spacetime doesn't follow the same rules, and therefore quantum mechanics wouldn't explain it. They also proposed an experiment to test out this hypothesis. So perhaps the argument can end - or maybe the experiment will lead to new questions. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-theory-einstein-gravity-quantum-mechanics.html

As if they needed to worry about more, the Disney corporation finds itself in another tough spot - this time its in the form of a lawsuit from more than 9,000 women who work (or worked) for Disney and who are claiming gender bias and pay discrimination. They are saying they were paid less than their male counterparts, were asked to fill a bigger role temporarily but were never actually considered for it permanently, were denied a promotion or title, and so on. The suit was given class status, and probably bears some watching. You can read more details here: Hollywood Reporter article

In the movie Blazing Saddles, the townsfolk created a fake town to fool the bad guys. It was used with comic intent. However, the premise has been used in real life. In World War I, France started construction of a fake Paris to fool pilots https://historyfacts.com/world-history/fact/in-wwi-france-started-to-build-a-fake-paris-to-confuse-german-bombers/ In World War II, the British and the Americans pulled off a ruse whereby they made the Germans think they were amassing forces in Southern England. Quicksilver operation Today, with satellites, that sort of thing isn’t possible… or is it?  There have been a few cases where people have been motivated to alter some physical feature so the satellites don't quite see what's going on, and there have been a few others where satellite maps have been altered for "security reasons." And there’s also an oddity that has carried forward since the early days of mapmaking: map makers sought to protect others from copying their work by creating fake towns. If it showed up on someone else's map, then they knew it was copied. And, well, here’s a 21st century example of how that carried forward into Google maps. https://www.treehugger.com/paper-towns-and-other-lies-maps-tell-you-4863749

Latest video

As I noted in the intro, you can try some easy experiments at home. Here's one I tested out: the Mpemba effect - does hot water freeze faster than cold water? https://youtu.be/-bARD0ZMTOc

One Little Spark …

This is a story about a juvenile program that's intended to break the cycle of crime that afflicts youth, particularly those that are "at risk" or which we consider minorities. In short: giving people a purpose, and a little education goes a long way. Students find jobs, avoid jail