Archive for January, 2009
The Flat Earth Society
January 29th, 2009
I’m not sure if this site can justifiably be called crankery, since I’m almost certain that everyone in the forum is only there to practice their debating skills.* But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some of its supposed adherents actually believe it, so I’m including it here.
At least some humans have known with a fair degree of certainly that the Earth was mostly spherical since the 4th century B.C., and it’s probably safe to say that most of us are pretty well convinced. This is not true of the Flat Earth Society, and they have an impressive array of unintuitive arguments to back up their position in the FAQ.
Here ends crank week! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these delightful nutjobs. If you’d like to learn about more cranks, I recommend the always-entertaining crank.net. I especially endorse their “Crank of the Day” feature. If you’re more interested in the process of identifying and rating cranks, you may find John Baez’s Crackpot Index to be a useful tool. Simply sum up the relevant points to gauge your crank!
* I’m also not entirely convinced that “crankery” is a word.
Reptoids
January 27th, 2009
Beneath our cities there dwells a reptilian menace. In the caverns under the surface of the Earth, the descendants of the dinosaurs lurk in the shadows, awaiting humanity’s moment of weakness.
To learn about the danger facing the Overworld, check out the Reptoid Research Center. The Reptilian Watch can provide you with some images of the threat.
But fear not! We can struggle against the Lizard Men by organizing on the Reptilian Resistance Forum.
Time Cube
January 25th, 2009
This week we’ll be doing a special series on cranks. If you, like myself, have spent a bit too much time on the Internets, you may immediately think of Time Cube. The site is basically full of incoherent ranting; I really don’t know what this guy’s trying to say, but it’s pretty funny.
An excellent parody of his site can be found here.
Armand Dufaux
January 22nd, 2009
Armand Dufaux (1883-1941) was one of the first Swiss aviators. Trained as an engineer, he designed a number of flying machines, including the Dufaux 4, one of the first biplanes. In 1910, he flew this plane across the length of Lake Geneva, winning a prize of 5000 Swiss francs.
He wasn’t always so successful, however. Dufaux’s first attempt at an aircraft was the helicopter pictured above. It worked about as well as you might imagine.
art+design, history, old dead white guys, science | No Comments »
The Felicific Calculus
January 20th, 2009
In the 18th and 19th centuries, English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill developed a handy moral system called utilitarianism. It states that the goal of an action should be to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This is an extremely practical rule; the only thing required is a method for quantifying happiness.
The felicific calculus deals with a number of factors (called vectors, to my delight). For each person affected by an action, sum up the first six values below, then sum the respective values of each person. If this final summation is positive, then the action is good! Wikipedia lists the vectors:
- Intensity
- How strong is the pleasure?
- Duration
- How long will the pleasure last?
- Certainty or uncertainty
- How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?
- Propinquity or remoteness
- How soon will the pleasure occur?
- Fecundity
- The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.
- Purity
- The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind.
- Extent
- How many people will be affected?
This really only pushes the quantification problem back a step, but these categories are a little easier to score.
Bentham also did a bunch of other neat things: he came up with the Panopticon, a hypothetical prison in which all inmates are constantly under (possible) surveillance; developed some of the first ideas about animal rights; and through his friendship with Adam Smith tried to apply some of his ideas about utility to economics. He also had his body preserved in a small glass closet – I’ll let Wikipedia explain this…
“As requested in his will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his “Auto-icon.” Originally kept by his disciple Dr. Southwood Smith, it was acquired by University College London in 1850. The Auto-icon is kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the College. For the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the college, the Auto-icon was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where he was listed as “present but not voting.” Tradition holds that if the council’s vote on any motion is tied, the auto-icon always breaks the tie by voting in favour of the motion.”
The head is made of wax, and was regularly stolen by students as a prank. So I guess what I’m saying here is that utilitarianism is pretty exciting stuff.
Fityk
January 18th, 2009
Dear Scientists,
Gee whiz, you guys have to deal with a lot of experimental data. It sure would be nice if you could easily find curves that fit, huh? I am full of solutions.
Fityk is a program that fits functions to data. To quote from the website:
“It is reportedly used in crystallography, chromatography, photoluminescence and photoelectron spectroscopy, infrared and Raman spectroscopy, to name but a few.
“Fityk knows about common peak-shaped functions (Gaussian, Lorentzian, Voigt, Pearson VII, bifurcated Gaussian, EMG, Doniach-Sunjic, etc.) and polynomials. It also supports user-defined functions.
“Fityk offers intuitive graphical interface (and also command line interface), various optimization methods (standard Marquardt least-square algorithm, Genetic Algorithms, Nelder-Mead simplex), equality constraints, modeling error of x coordinate of points (eg. zero-shift of instrument), handling series of datasets, automation of common tasks with scripts, and more.”
Pretty neat, yes? And it’s GPL’d, of course.
Curve-fitting is neat stuff. I know it’s just some linear algebra, but I feel like the software is thinking inductively, and inductive thinking is my favorite thinking.
An Aeolipile
January 15th, 2009
Hero of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician, engineer, and scientist in the first century AD. He developed a whole bunch of nifty inventions, including the first vending machine, the syringe, the force pump, and a windmill-operated organ. He also built the aeolipile, a device which consisted of a small tank of water with directed nozzles. This was essentially the first jet engine, as this video demonstrates:
As soon as I get a functional kiln installed out in the shop I’m making one of these things.
Federico Jordán
January 13th, 2009
Federico Jordán is a Mexican illustrator. His portfolio is full of things that make me smile.
A Flying Car
January 11th, 2009
Sometimes when I use a piece of especially nifty technology (a GPS, wireless internet, the Wii) I’ll experience a moment of perspective. “People,” I’ll gleefully exclaim, “We’re living in the future.”
“No, no,” they invariably reply, “Everyone knows it’s not the future until we have flying cars.”
Well, guess what, folks? A British expedition is traveling from London to Timbuktu in a flying car. Let it be forever remembered that 2009 was the year the future started.
Some stats from the BBC:
- Weight: 1,000lb (480kg)
- Engine: Four cylinders, 1,000cc
- Flight range: 185 miles (300km)
- Cruising altitude: 2,000-3,000ft (600m-900m)
- Top speed: 70mph (110km/h) airborne; 110mph (180km/h) road
- Cost: £50,000 ($76,000)
Elbowed Squid
January 8th, 2009
All cephalopods are pretty terrifying, but some are more terrifying than others. This footage from an underwater Shell drilling site really needs to be seen.