Cocktail Party Physics

genie in a bottle

One of Val Kilmer's less stellar roles was as Simon Templar in 1997's The Saint. Templar is a master thief and master of disguise who takes on assumed names associated with Catholic Saints. (Simon Templar was, apparently, the patron saint of magic.) Eventually, he's hired by a Russian industrialist (always evil characters) to steal a formula for cold fusion from a pretty young female scientist, thereby having access to the secret of heating millions of homes with a few gallons of water. This being Hollywood, he falls in love with her instead, and together they bring limitless energy to the world at large, using nothing but electrodes in a jar of heavy water. Ain't love grand?

The film's scientific premise is right up there with the presentation of sonoluminescence as a powerful energy source in Chain Reaction. The main difference is that sonoluminescence -- while nowhere near the stage of development depicted onscreen -- is nonetheless a well-respected, well-funded field of study, whereas cold fusion has pretty much languished along the edges of the lunatic fringe since its alleged "discovery" almost 20 years ago. It has a handful of supporters among scientists, but the field boasts a far greater number of crackpots who inevitably undermine the rare occasions when a bona fide result is obtained in such experiments. Prevailing opinion is that the vast majority of cold fusion research falls under the rubric of "pathological science": the results are always on the verge of a stunning validation, and whenever said validation fails (again) to materialize, there is always a handy rationale for why it isn't really a definitive failure.

As recently as 2000, TIME magazine listed cold fusion as one of the "worst ideas" of the 20th century. You' might never know that if your introduction to cold fusion was last week's short article in Wired by Mark Anderson, reporting on a recent small convocation of diehard cold fusion advocates. Chances are, you'd come away feeling that these plucky, anti-establishment rebel scientists are thisclose (as close as Kilmer and his co-star in the still shot at right, generating their own form of heat) to achieving a cheap, plentiful supply of energy based on simple high school chemistry -- if only that stodgy, closed-minded, mean scientific establishment would stop making fun of them and provide sufficient funding resources.

It's admittedly a compelling narrative -- everyone loves seeing an underdog prevail -- it just isn't true. The real story of cold fusion is every bit as fascinating and provocative, even tragic in places, but not nearly as black and white. It's less about scientific villainy, and more about all-too-human foibles. That's why there have been several full-length books written on the subject. Like a great deal of science, cold fusion doesn't lend itself to the broad strokes and sound bite syntax of most popular science reporting. That doesn't mean a reporter shouldn't try to temper the latest claims of cold fusion's stubborn proponents with some context gleaned from its checkered history.

I'm sympathetic to the challenge Anderson faced in writing the article, given his space limitations, but he doesn't seem to have done much due diligence about including any skeptical context, or even the obligatory opposing view. Everything he needed is readily available online, including original video footage of the infamous 1989 press conference that started it all, coverage in both the science trade press and mainstream media, and the full reports from the Department of Energy, which conducted official reviews in both 1989 and 2004. A quick online trip to Amazon would have yielded a couple of popular science books offering both pro (Eugene Mallove's Fire From Ice) and con (Gary Taubes' Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion) viewpoints. I'm not asking Anderson to include all of that, but can't we have just a little skepticism? Pretty please?

It's all the more distressing coming on the heels of a lengthy 2004 feature in Wired by Charles Platt that painted an even more unflattering portrait of the scientific establishment, describing its resistance to the notion of cold fusion as "a colossal conspiracy of denial," rather than professional scientists merely rejecting something due to lack of convincing empirical evidence. Clearly, Wired has picked the more simplistic, underdog "framing" narrative: cold fusion scientists have been deeply wronged by an overly skeptical entrenched "establishment," and any day now they will be vindicated and save the world with their revolutionary new energy source. Hollywood should love it.

(In fairness, the magazine's cold fusion coverage is still better than Popular Mechanics, which ran a despicable piece of fear-mongering cover story in 2004 claiming that terrorists could use cold fusion to build their own hydrogen bombs. For an example of truly stellar reporting on the topic, see Sharon Weinberger's November 21, 2004, feature for The Washington Post, which is the most balanced and nuanced treatment of the cold fusion controversy I've yet read in the mainstream media outlets.)

Here's a bit of background for readers with only a passing familiarity with the controversy. Way back in 1989, two chemists at the University of Utah named Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann believed they had succeeded in producing nuclear fusion in a jar -- without the need to recreate the temperatures and pressures found in the centers of stars which run on "hot" fusion. We can achieve hot nuclear fusion, but it requires more energy than it gives back, so it's pretty much an energy sinkhole for the time being (although the physicists are working the problem, yes they are!). Anyway, their finding was counter to everything known to date about nuclear fusion, both in theory and experiment.

Generally, when there's a significant breakthrough in science, it's written up in a formal paper containing all the information needed for other scientists to replicate the experiment and test the results -- because reproducibility is one of the most fundamental elements of the scientific method. That paper is submitted to a reputable, peer-reviewed journal, and if enough reviewers give it a thumb's up, the paper is published, and other scientists can critique and/or build upon their work. The system is imperfect -- egos and rivalries can get in the way -- but over the long haul, it has served science well. It's an equally accepted maxim that the more potentially revolutionary the result, the greater the burden of proof: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence in order to be accepted by the scientific community. And cold fusion was a truly extraordinary claim.

Pons and Fleischmann, for whatever reason, ignored the established protocol and jumped right into the public domain, announcing their results in a March 23 press conference -- even as they were applying for patents for what they believed would become a hugely lucrative industry. Those pending patent applications were cited as the reason they couldn't reveal all the details of their experiment or provide appropriate documentation of their results -- which meant their results couldn't be tested and verified by other scientists. Basically, they wanted it both ways: they wanted scientific glory for their work, while hoarding the details in hopes of reaping a fortune in proprietary patent rights.

The Utah press release made the situation worse by indulging in unfortunate hyperbole, hailing the breakthrough as something that would provide "an inexhaustible source of energy." (Scientists are all too familiar with this tendency of academic media departments.) Now, anyone who's covered science as a reporter knows to be wary when such a claim is made: we're all for new and improved energy sources, but inexhaustible? Nature just doesn't work that way; it sounded more like that perennial bugbear, perpetual motion, rather than any kind of serious science. The New York Times was suitably cautious, and initially refused to run the story, but the Wall Street Journal's Jerry Bishop and his editors apparently just saw the dollar signs and published a euphoric front-page article on the breakthrough. Soon other major newspapers followed suit, and it was a media feeding frenzy.

Scientists -- especially physicists -- shared the Times' skepticism, in part because of the manner in which Pons and Fleischmann had made their announcement. "Conventional science requires you to play by certain rules," retired Los Alamos scientist turned underground cold fusion researcher Edmund Storms is quoted in the 2004 Wired feature as saying. "First, thou shalt not announce thy results via a press conference. Second, thou shalt not exaggerate the results. Third, thou shalt tell other scientists precisely what thou did. They broke all of those rules." The world may love a rebel, but the unwritten "rules" of scientific culture are in place for very good reasons -- and if you break them, it's best to have a damned good reason of your own for doing so, or at least killer experimental results with all the requisite documentation in hand for independent verification. Is it any wonder Pons and Fleischmann faced a rather cool reception?

Eventually they published a full-length (over 50 pages!) paper with all of the necessary details, but it was rushed, sloppy, and contained at least one egregious error concerning their analysis of the gamma ray spectra. This did not help strengthen their already shaky case. Still, they might have been grudgingly forgiven their poor scientific manners and initial awkward missteps if their work had been verified. Scientists love a good underdog story as much as anybody, and there's numerous examples in history of lone scientists  with poor social skills laboring against the doubts of colleagues and dire financial straits to prove their pet theory. (And they win! Yay for science!)

The problem was, hundreds of researchers all over the world scurried to reproduce the experiments, and invariably failed. Sure, there were a couple of glimmers of hope here and there: teams at Texas A&M and the Georgia Institute of Technology excitedly reported results of excess heat and neutron production, respectively, in April, but withdrew those results almost immediately, citing "lack of evidence." By the end of 1989, a panel of experts had conducted a Department of Energy review of the matter, and concluded there was no basis for the claims. As far as mainstream science was concerned, that was the final nail in cold fusion's coffin.

But like a lot of pseudoscience -- to which it is frequently compared -- cold fusion refuses to die. It's tough not to admire the steely resolve of cold fusion advocates, who have faced derision, suffered in their careers, and labored to build their own scientific enterprise from scratch: their own meetings, their own journals, their own community. (Then again, there's a whiff of, "Fine! If we can't play in the big sandbox, we'll just go make our own!") Alas, those are ideal conditions for crackpots to flourish, so they've got some strange bedfellows, but they've also got a handful of otherwise respectable scientists conducting their own experiments in cold fusion. Pons and Fleischmann reportedly had a bitter falling out and parted ways in 1995. Fleischmann is still collaborating on cold fusion research in the UK, but Pons has become something of a recluse. The new dynamic duo of cold fusion is SRI International chemist Michael McKubre and MIT physicist Peter Hagelstein.

Gradually, the "serious" researchers started presenting papers at meetings other than their own, including those of the American Physical Society. Those researchers chipped away at the tarnished reputation of their chosen field, publishing peer-reviewed papers now and then on purported evidence of "low-energy nuclear reactions." Eventually, the DOE decided, in fairness, to take another look at the accumulated evidence over the last 15 years and re-evaluate the cold fusion controversy. This time, they relented just a little: they still didn't find the evidence sufficiently convincing to launch a federally-funded research program. The panel split on the issue of whether subsequent experiments had validated the occasional production of "excess heat," citing poor experimental design, documentation, background control, etc., as muddying their determinations. (Out of 18 members, 12 found no conclusive evidence, five found the evidence somewhat convincing, and only one was completely convinced.) But they felt that funding agencies should consider funding proposed projects on a case-by-case basis, provided those proposals "meet accepted scientific standards and undergo the rigors of peer review."

See? I told you it was a complicated story. That's why I'd normally be sympathetic to Wired's Anderson, faced with the task of conveying the salient points in a short news article. (There's no excuse for Pratt's fawning 2004 feature; is there anyone more zealous than a former skeptic turned convert?)  Your average reporter doesn't have time to do exhaustive research on such a short news article, and frankly, your average reader doesn't want to wade through all the gory technical details. Nonetheless, Anderson could have tracked down at least one skeptical, yet fair-minded, source, to show he had some rudimentary grasp of the complexity of the situation.  Here's a few specific sentences that are badly in need of context:

"Presenters at the MIT event estimated that 3000 published studies from scientists around the world have contributed to the growing canon of evidence...."

I find Anderson's use of the word "canon" here interesting; it implies that something is established beyond question, which cold fusion most certainly is not. More to the point, this is a misleading statement, since very few of those 3000 papers were published in peer-reviewed journals. Certainly some of them were, but this fact should be noted, even just in passing. And don't just take my word for it. Per WaPo's Weinberger, "[T]he most credible cold fusion advocates concede that the vast majority of those papers are of poor quality." She even cites a supporter who calls the collection of papers "toxic waste." That's hardly a resounding endorsement; it certainly wouldn't qualify as a "canon."

"Verification of these controversial results is not the problem -- many labs around the world have reproduced parts of the results many times."

Again, this is misleading. It's true that over the past two decades, there have been reports of what appear to be excess bursts of energy in various experiments. But even Hagelstein admits to continued experimental inconsistency; some "results" have never been reproduced. Cold fusion's claims of verification are based on a bizarre kind of statistical rationale: sure, most of the results are negative, but they have now amassed such a statistically significant sampling of instances of claimed excess heat that at least some of those results must be valid, and any lack of the effect is due to flawed experiments. The WaPo article cites esteemed nuclear physicist Richard Garwin as a source for its dismissal of that tortured argument: "It's absurd to claim that experiments that seem to support cold fusion are valid, while those that don't are flawed." There are a few more mainstream scientists around these days who are willing to concede there might be something of marginal interest going on, but most remain unconvinced that it's bona fide cold fusion. And hardly anyone holds out any hope of it ever becoming a viable energy source.

"Compared to the warehouses worth of billion-dollar gadgetry needed to run 'hot fusion,' cold fusion research is cheap to fund. And yet cash is the primary limiting factor holding the research back."

It's disingenuous to dismiss cold fusion's difficulties as nothing more than a funding problem. Its biggest problem is the lack of reproducibility, even in the experiments of the most respected members of the cold fusion community. McKubre, for instance, admits to Weinberger that out of 50,000 hours of experiments, only 50 recorded instances have occurred that "unmistakably" produced excess heat. That's just not good enough. Science must maintain its integrity -- if only to counter the inevitable human frailties of its practitioners -- and that means we can't lower the bar of standards for reproducibility just because palladium is a "quixotic" metal, riddled with unpredictable, unevenly distributed impurities. Seriously, that's one of the main excuses given by cold fusion advocates as to why they get such inconsistent results. Materials issues are a bitch, experimentally, it's true, but cold fusion is not the only field faced with overcoming those challenges, so why should its experimental inconsistencies be excused on those grounds? 

As for that "excess heat," it's nothing to get excited about just yet, since it's a very small amount indeed. Anderson quotes cold fusionist Mitchell Swartz as saying the question now is not whether the experiments can generate excess heat, "It's can we can get a kilowatt? Can we get a small car moving on this stuff?" Heck, if they could just boil some water, that would be a tremendous accomplishment. The late Scottish physicist Douglas Morrison was one of the rare skeptical attendees of the annual cold fusion conferences until his death inn 2001. Each year, he would listen to the extravagant claims, then stand and make a simple request: "Please can I have a cup of tea?" It was a bit cheeky of him, but he made his point: cold fusion talks a good game, yet even the simplest applied energy task remains well beyond its reach.

And what of the implied vast scientific conspiracy to squelch further research and kill the field entirely (perhaps to ensure that the major investments in hot fusion research don't become obsolete)? The "evidence" for that is mostly  anecdotal hearsay -- i.e., not true evidence at all. Science undeniably has its politics, its bitter rivalries, petty jealousies, and its turf wars. There's some hefty egos involved, and feelings tend to run a bit high on both sides of the controversy. Scientists aren't always very polite in their disagreements, either. On the whole, though, cooler heads ultimately prevail in the public sphere, however much heated rhetoric is flung around in private.

I've personally heard physicists dismiss Hagelstein as an embarrassment to MIT. (Hagelstein has countered by describing the mainstream scientific community as a closed-minded "mafia," that only publishes the work of the official "family" of scientists.) Caltech physicist Steven Koonin famously denounced Pons and Fleischmann as "delusional" at an APS April meeting, and Princeton physicist Will Happer has described them as "incompetent boobs." Happer also objected strenuously to Robert Jahn's controversial PEAR project in psychic research, solely on scientific grounds. Yet he has repeatedly stated, on the record, that however much he disagreed with Jahn's science, he supported his right to conduct that research. I'll indulge in a bit of conjecture here myself: I suspect that despite Happer's harsh disdain for the scientific caliber of Pons and Fleischmann, and his skepticism of the validity of the field in general, he would still support the right of cold fusion scientists to conduct their research. (He just doesn't think the government needs to pay for it.)

The ever-irascible Bob Park, author of Voodoo Science and editor of the weekly electronic newsletter, What's New, has been one of the fiercest of cold fusion's often-vitriolic critics. Yet he has corresponded with many cold fusion scientists over the years, and welcomed the second DOE review. He still thinks it's most likely a bunch of bad science, but conceded to the WaPo, "Maybe there is... some funny reaction going on.... If there is, it may solve some puzzles, but it won't be important." Also quoted is Hagelstein's MIT colleague, Milly Dresselhaus: "I think scientists should be open-minded. Historically, many things get overturned with time." She stops short of recommending federal funding, however, especially in these cash-strapped times: "When you feel poor, you don't invest in long shots. This is kind of a long shot."

Cold fusion has had its day in court, so to speak, not once, but twice, and some skeptical scientists have been willing to listen to a few of the more reputable claims. Garwin was a member of the 1989 DOE review panel, and subsequently visited McKubre's lab at SRI in 1993. Far from dismissing the work outright, he praised the lab for its "serious and competent work," and found no huge blunder in the experimental setups. (That's something that sets McKubre's work apart from the vast majority of cold fusion experiments, which caused Garwin to gripe to the WaPo, "People who can't do a good sophomore experiment are suddenly free to suggest that the discrepancies in their results come from unexplained, basic, earth-shaking, heat-producing phenomena.") But he did identify any number of possible problems with the setup, as well as some measurement errors, concluding bluntly, "Did not support any finding of 'excess heat.'"

In short, individual scientists might have indulged in harsh derision about cold fusion over the years, and promising young physicists like Hagelstein have indeed paid a professional price for their choice of research. (Note that it was Hagelstein's choice.) That doesn't amount to a cabal-like conspiracy n the part of the scientific establishment -- a notion that provides the linchpin of an emerging "cold fusion mythology" being fostered by -- among other things -- unquestioning articles in popular science magazines, and it has little basis in reality. The scientific community as a whole has not unfairly dismissed the claims: it simply remains unconvinced by the erratic evidence that has been presented to it. Should cold fusion advocates one day beat the odds and provide truly reproducible, compelling evidence for low-energy nuclear reactions, the stodgy old scientific establishment might grumble a bit, but ultimately it will accept those findings and alter its theories accordingly. Because that's what the scientific method is all about.

Perhaps the most telling anecdote comes at the end of the WaPo article, where McKubre cites the multiple pop culture references to cold fusion as evidence that cold fusion is losing its stigma as a suspect pseudoscience. In fictional worlds, he insists, cold fusion is a fact. "It's a fantasy fact. That's nearly as good as reality." Here's a free media-savvy tip for scientists: That's the kind of  inane statement you never want to make on the record to a reporter, particularly when you're being grilled about a controversial subject like cold fusion. In this case, it serves no purpose other than to lend credence to Park's assertion earlier in the article that cold fusion's advocates want to believe the world is a certain way, when there simply isn't sufficient evidence to support what they so dearly want to believe.

I like science fiction and fantasy as much as the next person, and I'll be the first to trumpet the fact that real world science feeds off sci-fi to design new technologies and gain inspiration, before inspiring sci-fi authors with new fundamental breakthroughs that spark their creativity in turn. It's the perfect symbiotic relationship. But that's a far cry from claiming that because something is "real" in a cartoon universe, it's only a matter of time before real-world scientists make similar breakthroughs.  While writing The Physics of the Buffyverse, I concluded that the most basic mechanism in that fictional world was an infinite supply of extra "mystical energy" that allowed for phenomena that would be impossible in our universe. But I didn't extrapolate that observation to conclude that someday we, too, would have access to a similar energy source and scientists just needed to identify it and figure out how to tap into it. Because the Buffyverse is a fantasy world, and we don't live in a fantasy world. Quod erat demonstratum, or, more colloquially: Duh, squared.

every sperm is sacred

Nota Bene: the following blog post might warrant one of those cheesy "parental discretion" advisories favored by squeamish TV networks, although it's really quite tame from a bloggy perspective. Let the reader beware!

We owe so much of our rich array of pop-cultural references to the Monty Python troupe's satirical genius. There's the "Dead Parrot" sketch, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the entire Holy Grail film -- Jen-Luc Piquant is particularly fond of the faux-French insults: "I blow my nose at you, English pig dog!" -- and of course, the musical sketch that forms the centerpiece of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life: "Every Sperm is Sacred." The incomparable Michael Palin plays a poor Catholic man who must sell his 63 children for medical experimentation because he and his wife (played by a cross-dressing Terry Jones) can no longer afford their care and feeding. Asked why they don't, say, practice contraception, he explains this is against Catholic dogma, and breaks into song. C'mon, you all know the chorus:

Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

There's actually some truth to the sacredness of sperm if you look at its history in various global cultures -- or rather, the sacredness of semen, the fluid which contains the sperm. In ancient China, most gemstones were said to be drops of divine semen that had hardened after fertilizing the earth. For instance, jade was believed to be the dried semen of celestial dragons. (Note to self: never wear jade again.) In Chi Kung and other forms of Chinese medicine, "jing" is sexual energy, which can also denote "essence" or "spirit." That's why masturbation isn't advised among Chi Kung practitioners: it's a form of energy suicide. They must be Masters of Their Domain. Wikipedia informs me that there is a Chinese proverb that literally equates a single drop of semen to ten drops of blood. So it's better to bleed than masturbate. In ancient Rome, the orchid was believed to derive from the semen of copulating satyrs, just because its twin bulbs reminded the Romans of testicles. That seems quite rational compared to the Etoro people of Papua New Guinea, who believe that young boys must perform oral acts upon their elders and (ahem) swallow the sperm in order to become sexually mature. (There is an unsurprisingly high rate of homosexuality among the tribe.)

Ah, but today, we are the very model of modern scientific rationalists. Sometimes an orchid is just an pretty flower, and puberty can take its own natural course, thank you very much, with no need for gratuitous rituals involving fellatio. For us, sperm has a predominantly practical purpose of being one-half of the material required for us to reproduce. And sometimes Nature needs a little help from your friendly laboratory petri dish, i.e., in vitro fertilization (IVF). The science of fertility has made great strides over the few decades, but there's still room for improvement, particularly when it comes to techniques for sorting out the most desirable sperm for fertilization.

A team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and the University of San Diego (UCSD) have developed an interesting new sperm sorting technique, which will be presented at the upcoming Frontiers in Optics meeting next month in San Jose, California. It's the annual conference of the Optical Society of America in conjunction with the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science. They used special cone-shaped lenses called "axicons" which, when combined with a standard lens and a laser, form a ring-shaped focal point, forming an annular trap. It's a well-known technique used in laser machining, and to trap atoms in more fundamental physics research. (That's right: physics isn't just for physicists. Some of its best techniques are finding their way into biology, too, among other fields.)

The nice thing about the technique is you can build a version of the trap that is "tunable" by adding a couple of extra axicons. Shifting one of those lenses slightly along the optical axis changes the diameter of the ring, making it suitable for biological organisms across a broad range of sizes: not just sperm, but algae, microbes, etc., as well. And according to team member Bing Shao, "The unique geometrical feature of the annular trap provides a way to confine a sperm in the field of view for an extended period without having to deal with sharp turns or changes in swimming curvature." Because sperm are active, slippery little buggers. It's all about finding the egg with them; they just can't sit back and chill.

You can also adjust the power output of the laser you use to make it ideally suited to sperm sorting. In this application, the trap acts as a kind of "speed bump": slower, weaker sperm moving at energies below the threshold of the laser power will be obstructed, perhaps even redirected, while faster, stronger sperm with energies above the critical power threshold just sail right on by. They proved it by using gorilla sperm as a control in the experiments: gorilla sperm is slower and weaker than human sperm. (Jen-Luc suspects they obtained the sperm from the Henry  Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, which has the distinction of being the largest gorilla sperm bank in the world.)

The next step is to try the technique using sea urchin sperm -- heck, why not? (Actually, sea urchin sperm turns out to be ideal for investigating the correlation between sperm velocity and fertilization ability, simply because it's much easier to observe the fertilization and subsequent embryonic development.) The UCSD/UCI group would also like to repeat the experiments adding a chemoattractant -- the chemical released from eggs to draw the sperm to the target in the first place -- to the center of the ring; the recent results were from experiments using no chemoattractant. It's sufficient to separate faster, stronger sperm from the slower, weaker variety, but adding the chemoattractant would make it possible to also select for a sperm with a higher sensitivity to the chemoattractant -- yet another important variable to what makes a successful sperm.

This could all be good news for couples desiring children (or those engaged in animal husbandry) who are having trouble conceiving, since being able to sort the faster sperm improves chances of conception -- the sperm that gets to the egg first gets to fertilize it. However, there are troubling aspects as well, namely, using the technique to preferentially select for gender, or even specific genetic characteristics. The former is already possible using  a variation of IVF (combining it with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD), but sperm sorting has been less reliable. The UCSD/UCI technique could change that.  X sperm are heavier and swim more slowly compared to the lighter, faster Y sperm, so the technique could easily be used to sort sperm carrying the gene for a female child from those carrying the gene for a male child. Couples could then choose their child's gender with the same, if not better, accuracy as with IVF-PGD. It's all about having the options.

Speed is oh-so-important for a humble sperm, and not just when it comes to human reproduction. In July, New Scientist reported that how fast sperm travel in any given primate species depends on how promiscuous those species tend to be: the more sexual partners, the more competition, and the faster the sperm feel the need to travel in order to be first to fertilize that all-important ovum. (It seems there is also a theory that rates of female promiscuity in primate species may also determine the size of the male's testicles for a given species, according to this excerpt from the Soma Literary Review.) Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, led by Jaclyn Nascimento, studied both the speed and force of sperm samples from humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and rhesus monkeys.

How did they get the sperm? Well, one presumes the human males were simply supplied with the usual plastic cup and lad's mags and given a bit of privacy. The chimps and monkeys were tricked into giving it up via the use of artificial vaginas (apparently they're not too discriminating). But the gorillas required a bit more finesse: they were trained to supply sperm in exchange for candy with -- and I quote -- "the helping hand of a researcher." Yikes! Yanno, you just can't make this stuff up. And inquiring minds want to know: Which unnamed UCSD researcher got stuck with the thankless task of providing a "hand job" to a very large gorilla? Sounds like an assignment for your least favorite grad student... or a member of the Etoro tribe.

But we digress. This is Very Important Science, after all. Once the sperm from the various species were collected, the samples were diluted and their movement captured on film, then analyzed via computer to determine the speed of any given sperm. Human sperm clocked in at around 0.2 kilometers per hour -- and were I not feeling so lazy (it's summer, yo!), I might be inclined to translate that out of the metric for the benefit of US readers, but, um, I'm totally lazy. Suffice to say, that's on a par with findings of prior studies, so no surprises there. Sperm from chimps and monkeys -- who apparently will do the horizontal mambo with just about anything -- were regular little speed demons, rocketing ahead at about 0.7 kilometers per hour. As for those sweet, faithfully monogamous gorillas, they had the slowest sperm motility of all, meandering along at a pathetic 0.1 kilometers per hour.

As we've seen, it's not just swimming speed, but swimming force that is critical to a sperm's ultimate success, and Nascimento's team looked at that aspect, too, using "optical tweezers" to hold the sperm in place with laser light. (There's a nice introduction to optical tweezers, courtesy of Stanford University, here. Stanford, of course, can lay claim to Steven Chu, who used the technique in his research involving laser cooling and trapping of atoms, which in turned snagged him the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics.) The strongest swimmers could break past the barrier and move forward, while the weaker swimmers remained stuck. And once again, chimp and monkey sperm emerged as the clear winners, swimming with a force of about 50 piconewtons, compared to 5 piconewtons in human sperm, and 2 piconewtons in gorilla sperm. One might be tempted to feel bad for the gorillas, with their lazy, under-performing sperm, but  considering the implication -- faster, stronger sperm evolve because a species is promiscuous.  The gorillas in the UCSD study can take comfort in the fact that their mates are far less likely to cheat.

It's rather tough for aspiring fathers to do much about changing the size of their testicles, and it's probably equally unlikely that their sperm will ever be as fast as a chimpanzee's. But the Mayo Clinic helpfully offers a few useful tips for fostering "top-performing sperm" (i.e., with peak quantity, quality, and motility) on its Website, in case anyone's interested. The usual suspects are there -- no smoking, regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, etc. -- but there were a few surprises: did you know that male sperm counts are higher in the winter than in summer? I sure didn't. But I had read somewhere that riding a bicycle could adversely affect sperm production. (It certainly didn't prevent Tour de France multi-champion Lance Armstrong from fathering several children, however, so the jury's probably still out on that.)

Perhaps there are some male readers out there thinking, "Wait a sec -- how come all of the pressure is on us? What are the ladies doing to increase their chances of conception?" I'm so glad you asked! Scientists are laboring on that aspect, too, seeking to build on the progress made in IVF over the last few decades. The technique is practically commonplace by now, with at least 200,000 IVF children born in 2002 alone. But there are still some issues, namely, further improving successful rates of such embryos developing into strong, viable fetuses.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo, for example, are developing a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip on which up to 20 eggs can be fertilized and nurtured through that critical first stage of pregnancy, until they are ready to be implanted in the womb. They grow endometrial cells -- which line a real womb -- on the chip too, for extra protection. Ultimately, the goal is create a fully automated artificial womb that mimics what happens in a human body. The Tokyo researchers have achieved some improvement in success rates: in recent experiments on mice, out of 50 fertilized eggs grown on a chip, 30 developed into embryos, compared to 26 out of 50 using standard IVF.

So that's the memo on the latest reproductive research out there. Nice to know that physics is doing its part to preserve the species. As are the pharmaceutical companies, namely, the manufacturers of Viagra. Since we opened with a song, it seems fitting to end with one: this rousing rendition of "Viva Viagra," a commercial featured prominently on Spike-TV, in which a group of middle-aged men get together for a jam session expressing the joys of overcoming erectile dysfunction. (H/t: Jeff Fecke of Shakesville)

fun with primordial ooze

Spending time with my nieces and nephew recently brought back fond memories of -- among other things -- Dr. Seuss, specifically, a tale called Bartholomew and the Oobleck. It's not one of the best-known works (and it's in prose rather than Seuss' trademark rhyming), but I've always liked it. Anyway, Bartholomew is a royal page in the Kingdom of Didd. King Derwin is a bit of a dunderhead who decides he's bored with plain old water-based rain and show, and orders the casting of a magic spell that causes a green sticky substance to rain down from the sky. The stuff was called "oobleck," and as often happens with magic spells, it turned out to be more troublesome than entertaining, gumming up the entire kingdom until the creatively pragmatic Bartholomew figures out how to save the day.

Very few people would associate Dr. Seuss with science, but if you're, say, me, the tale provides the perfect segue into a discussion of Newtonian versus non-Newtonian fluids -- and who wouldn't want to talk about that first thing on a Monday morning? Of course, I mean "Newtonian" as in Sir Isaac Newton, that 17th century stood-on-the-shoulders-of-giants physicist. Towards the end of his life, Newton delineated the properties of what he deemed an "ideal liquid," of which water is the best example. One of those properties is viscosity, loosely defined as how much friction/resistance there is to flow in a given substance. The friction arises because a flowing liquid is essentially a series of layers sliding past one another. The faster one layer slides over another, the more resistance there is, and the slower one layer slides over another, the less resistance there is. Anyone who's ever stuck their arm out of the window of a moving car can attest that there is more air resistance the faster the car is moving (air is technically a fluid).

That's the basic principle.  But the world is not an ideal place, and not all liquids behave like Newton's ideal liquid. In Newton's ideal fluid, the viscosity is largely dependent on temperature and pressure: water will continue to flow -- i.e., act like water -- regardless of other forces acting upon it, such as being stirred or mixed. In a non-Newtonian fluid, the viscosity changes in response to an applied strain or shearing force, thereby straddling the boundary between liquid and solid behavior. Physicists like to call this a "shearing force": stirring a cup of water produces a shearing force, and the water shears to move out of the way. The viscosity remains unchanged. But non-Newtonian fluids like oobleck? Their viscosity changes when a shearing force is applied.

Ketchup, for instance, is a non-Newtonian fluid, which is one reason smacking the bottom of the bottle doesn't make the ketchup come out any faster; in fact, it slows it down, because the application of force increases the viscosity.  Blood, yogurt, gravy, mud, pudding, and thickened pie fillings are other examples. And so is oobleck. They aren't all exactly alike in terms of their behavior, but none of them adhere to Newton's definition of an ideal liquid.

Perhaps you got to play around with a manmade version of oobleck in middle school science class. I didn't, but some of my pals vividly remember doing so, which doesn't speak well for my early science education, although I do recall making something called glurch in chemistry class -- starch, glue and food coloring -- as an experiment in polymerization.

Oobleck is even simpler to make. You combine 2 cups of corn starch with 3 drops of green food coloring and gradually mix in enough water to create a mixture that resembles pancake batter (usually about equal parts starch and water). Ta-da! Your very own oobleck! And just as the Didd-ians discovered, it's a sticky, messy substance. It's also fascinating in its behavior, as this video by a group of Gonzaga University students (who claim they were just bored during spring break and decided to film their kitchen experiment for posterity) aptly demonstrates.

The substance becomes thicker, or more viscous, in response to agitation, compression or other similar applied forces: punch the oobleck, and it hardens into a solid, softening into a fluid again once the energy dissipates. Compress it into a ball and toss it in the air, and it will quickly lose its shape and flatten before it lands. (Side note: non-drop paint exhibits the opposite effect, brushing on easily but become more viscous once it's on the wall. And under rare circumstances, liquid hydrogen and liquid helium can become superfluids, exhibiting zero viscosity at extremely low temperatures.) As the Gonzaga students correctly (albeit blasphemously) note, you can be like Jesus and literally walk across a cornstarch/water mixture, as these Barcelona folks did, filling a pool with the mixture using a concrete mixer truck. Things get even weirder if you put the mixture into an agitator. No wonder oobleck is such a time-honored favorite on YouTube: you can find even more fun experimental videos here.

Similar shear-thickening fluids are already being used on prototype bullet-proof vests and sporting equipment, because their sensitivity to impact means they can better absorb the energy of a high-velocity projectile or hard impact, while still being flexible enough for wear comfortably. For instance, at the University of Delaware, scientists treated the fabric of Kevlar vests with a shear-thickening fluid (silica particles suspended in polyethylene glycol). Under normal conditions, the molecules of the treated material are weakly bonded and can move around with ease; that's why the material is so flexible. But the shock of any impact -- a hard fall, or incoming bullet -- will cause those chemical bonds to strengthen so the molecules lock into place and the fabric becomes instantly rigid. Once the force from the impact dissipates, the bonds weaken again and the vest becomes flexible again. The US and Canadian skiers in the 2006 Winter Olympics wore a similar form of "smart armor" manufactured by a British company called d3o Labs.

Note that when the Barcelona folks submerge themselves in the oobleck, they wade through it veeerry slooowly. They have to: the faster they move, the more the stuff will resist their movement. It's very similar to how quicksand behaves. If you want to escape quicksand, it's best not to struggle too frenetically, but slowly and patiently work your way to firmer ground. That's because quicksand is also a non-Newtonian fluid, despite being made up of fine grains of sand or silt; when mixed with clay and salt water, it becomes a colloid hydrogel. So quicksand appears solid when it is undisturbed, but even a tiny (like, 1%) change in the stress on it will cause its viscosity to decrease quite suddenly, and the person walking across it will sink into the sand, after which the sand and water mixture will separate to form something akin to a solid. Apparently it's the salt that's the blame for that trapping power

Once you're mired in the stuff, it's very difficult to get out: Wikipedia informs me that the trapped person "must apply sufficient pressure on the compacted sand to re-introduce enough water to liquefy it. The forces required to do this are quite large: to remove a foot from quicksand at a speed of one centimeter per second would require the same amount of force as that needed to lift a medium-sized car." God forbid your entire lower body should be submerged: the necessary force to return the stuff to a more fluid form would be beyond anything you could muster. Maybe a pal could happen by -- hopefully before the tide comes in and drowns you, should you be unfortunate enough to become trapped in Morecambe Bay in England -- and add some water to loosen things up sufficiently for you to break free. In which case, remember to move slowly out of it.

Remember the Lightning Sand in The Princess Bride? That was a form of dry quicksand, which has been been deemed the stuff of legend by scientists for decades, despite reports of people and entire vehicles being swallowed instantly by desert sands-- just like the crashed biplane in The Mummy, which sank into dry quicksand in a matter of minutes, taking the newly deceased Captain Winston Havlock with it. Dry quicksand is basically loose sand whose bulk density has been reduced by blowing air through it, so that it yields more easily to weight or pressure. It might behave like wet quicksand, but there's no water in it; it's purely a granular material. In parts of the Sahara Desert, it's known as fech fech: a very fine powdery sand under a thin crust that acts as a surprise "trap". The ground can collapse quite suddenly beneath a jeep traveling through those areas, making them virtually impassable.

It turns out that those legends of dry quicksand just might be true after all, thanks to work in 2004 by physicist Detlef Lohse and colleagues at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, who managed to create bona fide dry quicksand and reported their findings in Nature. The researchers filled a container with very fine-grained sand. There were holes in the bottom of the container, and the scientists blew air through it, then shut down the stream of air so that the grains rearranged themselves downward to form a loosely packed substance. Then they hung a pingpong ball filled with tiny bronze balls (just so they could vary the weight in repeats of the experiment) from a thin piece of rope, so that the ball was just touching the sandy surface. The rope was burned through, at which point the ball fell into the sand in one sharp movement. And it moved effortlessly through the sand, rather than the sand being able to support its weight via chains of invisible force -- which is how sand normally behaves.

See what a little Dr. Seuss can do when it comes to finding educational yet fun opportunities to talk about science? Science is everywhere. We also had a family brunch at the Space Needle right before I returned to Los Angeles, where my niece Morgan ordered the Lunar Orbiter for dessert. It's pretty much a dish of ice cream, except it's served in a special dish that keeps it chilled over dry ice. When the dessert is brought to the table, the waiter pours hot water onto the dry ice, and voila! Lots of steamy fog spills over the entire table, to the delight of everyone present -- children and adults alike -- resembling a gaseous primordial ooze. (I can remember as a child, our summer neighborhood swim team would sometimes dump a bunch of dry ice in the heated pool at the end of a winning meet to celebrate, causing the water to bubble as well as producing heavy fog effects.)

Should you be at the Space Needle when a youngster orders the Lunar Orbiter in the future, this is your chance to explain the science behind dry ice: namely, the mysterious nature of phase transitions. In this case, dry ice is created in such a way -- by pressurizing carbon dioxide gas and rapidly lowering the temperature -- that the gas freezes directly into a solid, skipping the liquid phase altogether. (Like many serendipitous breakthroughs, it was first observed in 1825 by a French chemist named Charles Thilorier, who was actually investigating something else entirely.) Adding hot water to the very dry ice reverses the process, producing a heavy fog instead of melting into a liquid.

There's tons of online resources for conducting your own experiments with dry ice for those who want to do their own investigating. Just remember to wear gloves when handling the super-cold substance, and if you're creating fog, to do so in a well-ventilated area. The fog is water vapor mixed in with CO2, and the latter is heavy enough to concentrate at toxic levels close to the ground. An entire subplot of C.S.I. rested on this fact: a physics student wants to take revenge on a jock who seduced, then abandoned her, so melts blocks of dry ice, releasing the water vapor and CO2 into his dorm room in hopes that it will make him sick. But she miscalculates: he and the femme-de-la-nuit end up sleeping on the floor, and are killed instead by the toxic vapors. Jen-Luc Piquant urges everyone to use their scientific knowledge for good, but if you're to hell-bent on engaging in a bit of mischief, it's wise to always double check your calculations.

carnival of the damned

Welcome to the 13th installment of Philosophia Naturalis, or, as Jen-Luc Piquant (resplendent in her spiffy vampire costume) prefers to think of it, the Physics Carnival of the Damned. Superstitious sorts might be leery of the number 13 -- a staple of horror movies and urban legends -- but we here at Cocktail Party Physics laugh in the face of danger -- or at least, we snicker and giggle light-heartedly at the concept of letting  numerology rule our lives.

Speaking of superstitious beliefs, there's been a wee bit of a kerfuffle in the physics blogosphere over whether or not "the God particle" is an apt term for the elusive (to date) Higgs boson. Many scientists are uncomfortable with that whiff of theism in their physics. It started with a New York Times article by Dennis Overbye, and Overbye's ensuing essay defending his use of the term. Nobel laureate Leon Lederman, who coined it, would probably side with Overbye. (Mr. Deity has yet to issue an official statement outlining his position.) Also weighing in on the issue were Gordon Watts and Peter Woit, among others. Those who can't see what all the fuss is about can take comfort in the fact that the naysayers are probably going to hell. Either that, or they'll suffer Stephen Hawking's satirical fate at the hands of the Vatican, as reported by The Onion.

Chalk it all up to the age-old tension between science and religion. It arises, in part, because science is still full of dangerous ideas. Some of the latest ones are featured in a new anthology by Edge editor John Brockman, based on the magazine's Big Question of 2006. Bea at Backreaction and Blake Stacey both dissect the various essays.

Here's another dangerous idea: "Framing." It might sound fairly innocuous, but trust me, it's the new "F-word," at least in the science blogosphere. Champion framer Matt Nisbet points to the signing of a major science bill this past week as evidence of the effectiveness of framing a debate -- in this case, involving science policy. There's also an online discussion in progress at The Scientist, for those who want to leap into the fray.

Framing is part of the broader issue of effective scientific communication, of course, and bloggers have been addressing that topic too. Mary at The Accidental Scientist ponders whether scientists can ever be great communicators, while Scientific Curiosity explores science communication using Web 2.0. C-SPAN did its part for the cause by broadcasting the science panel at the YearlyKos blogger's conference held in Chicago two weeks ago, which featured talks on climate change, dark matter/dark energy, and battling the encroachment of Intelligent Design in public schools. Panelist Chris Mooney offers his recap of the session over at The Huffington Post.

Getting the public's sound-bite-sensitized attention in an age of information overload is quite the challenge, which might be why Discover magazine sponsored a contest for the best video explanation of the basics of string theory -- in two minutes or less. Element List points us to the winner -- "String Ducky!" -- announced by none other than Brian Greene.

When it comes to education and outreach, there's no denying the appeal of the "wow" factor in science. The Virtual Curiosity Shop obliges with the latest cool stuff in biomechanics, while Phillip Alvelda offers a nifty video clip of a bionic hand. Taking more of a frat-boy approach, Suicide Bots debuts Chassis, a "fully mobile remote beverage dispensing unit," providing drinks in response to either flirting or bribes.

Even education and outreach can be a bit controversial. Take the recent discussions over actress and math major Danica McKellar's new book for middle-school girls, Math Doesn't Suck. Tara at Aetiology not only obliged with a review and follow-up on some of the issues raised, she also snagged an interview with McKellar herself. I admit, even I gritted my teeth over the bit about what your astrological sign can tell you about your personal "math style," but I recognize what McKellar's trying to do. Effective outreach framework, or needless reinforcement of girly stereotypes? You decide! On the decidedly non-girly front, Sally Ride has a new blog, currently following the adventures of educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan.

The long-standing tension between concrete physics experiment and abstract theory spilled over into a series of posts at Cosmic Variance, in which Sean (a.k.a. Future Spouse) outlined how he goes about writing a theoretical paper in three lengthy posts, giving people like me a much better idea of just what it is that he does all day. His co-blogger, Julianne, countered with a rebuttal of sorts, pointing out that all of theory's Big Ideas would be nowhere without real-world experimental data. Much heated discussion ensued.  Hey, at least the issue isn't as muddled as it is in economics, according to Stein at Dynamics of Cats.

Doug Natelson at Nanoscale Views also got into the act, with a great post on how to write an experimental paper in condensed matter physics. Taken together, all these posts provide a rare, inside peek at how science actually gets done in varying fields. But no science would be done at all without the all-important federal research funding. The Quantum Pontiff ponders a possible solution to the problematic supply chain economics of university physics departments. [UPDATE: Chad just posted an excellent commentary on federal funding of basic science -- right after we posted the carnival. That'll teach me to be an early bird.]

New father Lab Lemming (another experimentalist) demonstrates the broad range of the scientific method by applying it not only to diffusion and melt inclusions, but also to investigate the burning nappy question: cloth or disposable? Bea at Backreaction offers some thoughts on her favorite example of physics-speak -- self-consistency -- a topic that causes Chet at Science Musings to wax poetical, comparing the scientific endeavor to a crossword puzzle. Sample quote: "The very best crosswords have a satisfying consistency, and that is what we look for in science, too."

There's been lots of cool astronomy and astrophysics stuff this month. Clifford at Asymptotia and Astronomy Blog are just two science bloggers keen on the Perseids meteor shower, while Geek Counterpoint is more intrigued by the dust devils on Mars. Amara Graps gives us a crash course on two lesser-known celestial bodies: Ceres and Vesta. Everyone's favorite Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, reports on news that astronomers have spotted the most distant luminous galaxies, while Centauri Dreams offers philosophical thoughts on our cosmos and the Fermi Paradox.

The astro stuff is a perennial public favorite in part because of all the pretty pictures. Systemic gives us a peek at Jonathan Langton's visually arresting climate models for extrasolar planets, showing the wide variety of vorticity patterns on their surfaces. The cosmos has some interesting sounds as well as sights. BLDGBLOG rhapsodizes over the interesting acoustics scientists are uncovering on other planets. Not to be visually outdone by the astro-folks, Karmen at Chaotic Utopia offers a fractal tribute to Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, with references to Botticelli and, um, Monty Python. No, really.

Still cringing in embarrassment over last weekend's happy hour debate on the pros and cons of biofuels? Saifedean Ammous of 3 Quarks Daily comes to the rescue with everything you need to know to conduct an informed barroom discussion on the topic. And here's a more creative energy source: Via Physics Buzz, we learn that South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia are tapping into an unusual energy source for pumping clean water: merry-go-rounds. They're called PlayPumps, and while children spin on the playground equipment, that energy pumps clean water from underground into a tank above the ground.

At Quantum Diaries Survivor, Daniele Bortoluzzi offers a guest post summarizing LISA and its challenges, including a mysterious thing called "stickiness issues." (Wanna know what that means? Read the post!) LISA is the next step -- coming on the heels of LIGO -- in the quest to detect gravitational waves, thereby providing further support for Einstein's general relativity. Of course, even if LIGO/LISA succeed in their respective missions, physicists still need to reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics. Need a review of where we currently stand on the subject?  Chad Orzel reviews Robert Oerter's book, The Theory of Almost Everything, which outlines the Standard Model in physics to date.

So there's still plenty of mysteries left to solve in science, such as this optical illusion, courtesy of Molliska -- exactly how did they make the banana disappear? Jen-Luc Piquant is convinced it's not really a trick; rather, it''s because, per XKCD, the world doesn't really make sense. (This will come as a profound disappointment to Dinosaur Comics' T-Rex, who gets a naughty tingle from the thought of entropy decreasing in a closed system -- the ultimate taboo!) Those pesky laws of physics? We made them up just to mess with people's heads. Sshh! Don't tell anyone else! The more people who are in on the secret, the more it cheapens the experience for the rest of us.

excess babbage

We have been distracted from our blogging duties of late by the smell of a fresh ocean breeze and the sound of waves lapping against the shore -- not to mention the spectacular sunset views from the beach house my folks rented in Ocean Shores (Washington state) for the last few days to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Yeah, you heard me: 50 years! Plus three kids and five grandkids, all of whom crammed into the beach house for four days for fun, relaxation, a veritable gorge-fest of food, and the odd sensation of suddenly realizing from whence one's most annoying personality traits derive. (My habitual use of profanity while putting together Ikea furniture? I totally get that from my dad, except he sometimes swears in French.)

Anyway, congrats to the folks on this impressive marital milestone. I missed quite a bit of news in the meantime, but fortunately, Jen-Luc Piquant gave me a selective rundown of the highlights, based on her peculiar tastes. For instance, we are hugely relieved to learn that pop singer Amy Winehouse has finally landed in rehab (yes, yes, yes). The always entertaining Blogs 4 Brownback hit a humor-home-run (unintentionally, or satirically? you decide!) with a post on why flutes and woodwind instruments are inherently Satanic, tastefully alluding to the infamous scene from American Pie ("This one time, at band camp..."). And The Loom's Carl Zimmer's collection of science-themed tattoos on Flickr has made me long for a sci-tat of my very own; I suspect Jen-Luc has been frequenting a virtual tattoo parlor already, although her preference is for a nose ring or something that would actually show up on her avatar image.

But today's post isn't about any of that. I happened upon an article by the BBC on a new nano-chip device inspired by 19th century English mathematician and engineer Charles Babbage's famed difference engine. Via Brass Goggles, Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are surmounting the heat and power limitations of conventional silicon IC technology by using parts made of diamond or piezoelectric materials -- substances that can change shape when an electric current is applied, like crystals and certain ceramics. Because it will run cooler and use less power, and also be very, very small (on the nanoscale) a whole bunch of them should be able to fit on a single chip -- even more than on today's ultra-small chips, which could finally be approaching the fundamental physical limits of scaling down to increasingly smaller sizes. The new nanochips, in turn, while unable to compete with high-speed silicon chips, could nonetheless prove extremely useful in more mundane applications: automotive electronics, for instance, or toys and domestic appliances -- all of which are becoming more high-tech with each passing year.

Babbage is another of those historical scientists for whom I have a soft spot. (My all-time favorite is Eilmer of Malmesbury, a plucky 11th century monk who built his own set of "wings" and jumped off the roof of the local abbey. He glided several hundred feet before crash-landing and breaking both his legs.) He was one of those kids who felt compelled to take apart his toys just to see how they worked -- and, I'd wager, probably experienced mixed success actually putting them back together again, just like kids with similar inclinations today. Mathematically, he learned quite a bit on his own, so much so that he was quite advanced by the   time he entered Trinity College at Cambridge, even founding an Analytical Society while a Cambridge -- possibly the first math club. He collected jokes into his own series of "jest books" as part of an attempt to scientifically analyze "the causes of wit" -- despite the fact that everyone knows that any attempt to explain a joke invariably sucks the wit right out of it.

But he had a creative, rebellious side, too. Babbage invented an early speedometer and a “cowcatcher,” a device that could be affixed to steam locomotives to clear cattle from the tracks. And he defied his family to marry for love, without his father's permission, thereby finding himself disinherited. Fortunately, he had a tidy income aside from that inheritance, which enabled him to pursue his other great love: the design and construction of elaborate “thinking machines." The passion sprang from frustration at all the errors in the mathematical tables used in the 19th century. Those tables were vital for calculations in astronomy, engineering, and navigation of the nautical variety. But they were riddled with errors: Babbage found over a thousand errors in just one table, causing him to exclaim, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam!" Since God seemed disinclined to grant his wish, Babbage took on the challenge of mechanizing the process himself.

He found further inspiration in a scheme employed by French mathematician Gaspard Riche de Prony: using out-of-work hairdressers to work in calculating "factories,"manufacturing new logarithms for the new metric system of measurement by rote, as if those calculations were the usual mercantile goods. (Why so many idle hairdressers in France during that time? The vast majority of their wealthy clientele had lost their impeccably coiffed heads during the French Revolution.) It was the world's first mathematical assembly line, and it convinced Babbage that similar tasks could easily be performed by a machine.  In fact, a mechanical calculator for adding and subtracting numbers, called the arithmometer, had already been invented.

Babbage's first steam-powered “Difference Engine” created tables of values by finding the common difference between terms in a sequence. The prototype he built and proudly demonstrated in his Dorset Street home was one of the most complex machines ever built in the 19th century. At heart, though, it was pretty much an unwieldy calculator. So he abandoned it after 10 years and designed his Analytical Engine, now recognized as the forerunner to the modern computer. This new, improved machine wouldn't’t just calculate a specific set of tables; it would solve a variety of math problems based on the instructions it was given, and would exhibit a rudimentary decision-making capability.

As is often the case with pioneering visions, Babbage had his skeptics and naysayers. Robert Peel, the head of England’s Tory administration at the time, denounced it as a “worthless device, its only conceivable use being to work out exactly how little benefit it would be to science.” It didn't help that his projects were way over budget and long past their deadline, and, apart from the small prototype, never   actually built. It's hard to find any proof of principle if one never gets past the blueprint stage. A working Difference Engine, based on Babbage's designs, wasn't built until the 1990s,  by a team of scientists at London’s Science Museum. One of their members, Doron Swade, wrote an excellent popular science book about the history of Babbage's calculating machines and their project to bring the long-dead engineer's vision to fruition.  They used only the materials and tools that would have been available in Babbage’s day.  And it worked. The machine is   now prominently displayed in the museum.

Babbage didn't have the advantage of knowing about piezoelectricity. It's related to the pyroelectric effect, in which a material generates an electrical charge in response to a change in temperature. This effect was first noted in 314 BC, in the writings of Theophrastus, who observed that tourmaline (a crystal) attracted bits of straw and ash when it was heated. It remained a curiosity to scientists for centuries, but nobody is recorded as having seriously studied it until the mid-18th century, when Carolus Linnaeus and Franz Aepnius cited it as evidence of a close relationship between mechanical stress and electric charge.

The discovery of piezoelectricity occurred in 1880, thanks to Pierre Curie (prior to his celebrated marriage to Marie) and his brother Jacques. They demonstrated the effect using crystals of tourmaline, quartz, topaz, cane sugar, and a type of salt. Mostly, it was just a pretty cool effect, until the development of sonar during World War I, when scientists realized that it might actually be useful. Quartz crystal has an especially strong piezoelectric effect, making it an idea material for a transducer in sonar systems. There are now piezoceramic filters in most radios, TVs, and buzzers, and some gas grill lights have a piezoelectric igniter to generate sparks.

The UWM scientists who developed the Babbage-style nanomachine have replaced moving mechanical parts and steam with piezoelectric materials and ultra-hard materials like diamond. Modern computers might be based on the movement of electrons around circuits, but the UMW machine would use each tiny part to push and pull in order to perform calculations. At the moment, the machine is mostly proof of principle. The team is now working on building the first transistors based in their new design, before moving on to constructing working circuits.

It's just... so... cool when we rediscover intriguing insights and ideas from the past, that were too far ahead of their time to be of much use. Until now. I mean, in 1902, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a 2000-year-old analog computer known as the Antikythera mechanism. There were those rudimentary calculators in France, and Babbage's ingenious engines, not to mention the very first computers in the 1940s and 1950s, before the silicon revolution succeeded, finally, in revolutionizing not only how we perform complex calculations, but how we live. I think Babbage would be pretty chuffed to learn his Difference Engine inspired scientists 150 years or more in the future to take an innovative approach to their little "scaling problem."

a walk in the park: part II

Gracing the downtown Los Angeles skyline at 111 South Grand Avenue is the Walt Disney Concert Hall, whose structure bears the unmistakable imprint of its designer, Frank Gehry. As we saw in the Part I post on Gehry's design for Chicago's Pritzer Pavilion, he's quite fond of using stainless steel curved surfaces, and the Disney Hall is no exception. But his choice to polish those surfaces to a mirror-like shine for the Los Angeles performance venue had an unexpected consequence when it finally opened in 2003: downtown LA is far more residential these days, and people living in nearby condo and apartment buildings were plagued by chronic, blinding glare as the perennial sunshine was reflected off those shiny surfaces. The effect was similar to that of a parabolic mirror, concentrating the reflected light so effectively that certain "hot spots" were created on nearby sidewalks, reaching temperatures as high as 140 degrees F. Residents experienced their own "hot spots," in the form of rooms directly exposed to the reflections, which in turn caused A/C costs to skyrocket for the affected units. It p