BEARSCARE

NASA has announced that they plan to release new findings about their search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) on 2 December 2010. Although NASA official are remaining tight lipped on the matter, it is highly likely they will announce that we have been contacted by an otherworldly civilization.

Extraterrestrial life is nothing new; Bearscare.org has reported two separate events concerning astrobiological discoveries (http://www.bearscare.org/2010/01/09/new-alien-discovered-on-mars/ and http://www.bearscare.org/2009/08/16/life-discovered-on-mars/). So, considering little worm-like aliens are old news, my guess is this new discovery is either of a civilization, or, at least, alien dinosaurs.

Check back tomorrow for all the details.

Prime spirals are a way to visualize the distribution of prime numbers within the set of natural numbers. Accidentally discoverd by Stanislaw Ulam in 1963, the prime spirals show that there is order in the distribution of prime numbers, where one would expect randomness.

Prime numbers are those which are not composed of other numbers. For instance, 3, 5, 7, and 41 cannot be described as the product of two or more smaller numbers. Considering the set of natural numbers, one would expect that, counting up from 1, the frequency of encountering prime numbers would decrease, since the subset being considered, the set of candidate numbers to form a larger, composite number, is increasing. Surprisingly, though, prime numbers can be shown to be prominent among large composite numbers. A program I wrote is calculating that approximately 8% of large (>1,000,000) numbers are primes.

Prime spirals show that, not only do primes appear much more frequently than we would expect, but that they have structure in their positions in the list of natural numbers. During a “boring” presentation, Ulam was doodling on paper. He began writing out natural numbers with 1 in the center of the page, and circling outward. See Figure 1 [1].

Figure 1: Natural Numbers Spiral

Removing composite numbers from the picture shows the beginning of the pattern (Figure 2 [2]):

Figure 2: Prime Spiral

Look at the following sets of numbers: {37, 17, 5}, {41, 19, 5}, {19, 7, 23, 47} and {3, 13, 31}. Each set is arranged as a diagonal line traversing the spiral space. Now consider a grid that is 200×200 numbers (Figure 3 [3]):

200x200 Prime Spiral

Figure 3 obviously shows order in the position of prime numbers (each pixel is a prime number). The image shows the space which the first 400,000 natural numbers occupy. It is clear that many of these numbers are primes and they exhibit the same behavior as those in the set of the first 50 prime numbers.

So, why does this matter? No one really knows. Intuitively, we would expect far fewer prime numbers than there are. And we certainly wouldn’t expect any pattern to their occurrence. The fact that an arbitrary visualization of a expectedly random process yields order is very profound. A simple conclusion is that the very fabric of nature is ordered, that looking even at the most primal systems, i.e., the set of natural numbers, we cannot escape order. Further, we would expect that our universe, the structure of mater, everything we know is a derivation of order from disorder, but prime spirals take us back one more level of abstraction indicating that, in nature, there is no fundamental disorder. The act of counting on your fingers, the number of fish in the seas, the number of cells in your body and the number of particles in the universe all exist in a framework which is fundamentally non-random. There is invisible order within the concept of numbers itself.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ulam_spiral_howto_all_numbers.svg

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ulam_spiral_howto_primes_only.svg

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ulam_1.png

In 1640, Isaac Newton discovered that the force associated with an object not in a state of equilibrium is composed of its mass and the rate at which its velocity is changing. That is, the famous, iconic declaration of F = ma. Physics purists claim that all physical laws can be derived from this one relationship. I believe them.

Let’s start with acceleration, a. Acceleration is the time derivative of velocity, which, itself, is the time derivative of position (displacement). Given, a constant a, we can calculate velocity by integrating from minus infinity to some time t in the future. This calculation yields v = at, assuming a is constant. We can further calculate any arbitrary position occupied by some object traveling at v by integrating again (assuming the object began its motion at the origin of its reference frame). This calculation shows that s = 0.5at^2, where s is displacement.

Integrating acceleration to find position, we see that force is proportional to mass divided by time squared ( F = 2m/t^2 ). This is fine, but what we really want is energy. Consider a very small particle. Einstein’s discover of mass-energy equivalence states that this particle’s energy is equal to it’s mass multiplied by a constant, the speed of light squared. We now have two relationships for this particle: F = 2m/t^2 and E = mc^2. Now, we all know that force is the time derivative of energy, so, 2m/t^2 = d/dt  (mc^2). The right side of this relationship has no dependence on time, so its time derivative is zero. Therefore, 2m/t^2 = 0. It follows that mass, as a physical quantity, actually has no non-zero magnitude and is completely irrelevant.

How can nothing have mass? It’s simple. Isaac Newton missed one very important point when he was writing his laws of physics. Energy is actually a vector, not a scalar. That is, energy occurs only in certain directions, such as moving forward in time. When direction information is ignored, the mass of small objects is always zero. Interestingly, however, Newton’s flawed equations are valid for massless objects, like photons. It’s problems like this that tortured Max Planck into researching the physics of very small things.

(Bearscare) — A new species of snake has been discovered in South America. Unlike others, these snakes can contort their bodies’ aerodynamic properties to provide lift. That is, they can fly.

The species was accidentally discovered by a group of graduate students from the Humphrey College of Life Sciences at Christopher Columbus University who had traveled to Ecuador to study insects. Instead, they found themselves bombarded by a hailstorm of snakes.

“We had set up camp just that afternoon,” Ph.D candiate Ulam Vindesh explains, “and we were about to cook dinner. It felt exactly like what it was,” he continued, “a snake falling on my head.” Chrysopelea are most active at dusk. Locals confirmed that it is very dangerous to roam the jungle without proper headgear.

The non-poisonous Chrysopelea is very timid, and this shyness is responsible for the 40% death rate of its victims. “When they land on your head,” explains Vindesh, “they quickly slither down over your ears and wrap around your neck. We learned that, when scared, the flying snakes coil around any cylindrical object available. This behavior is analogous to pill bugs or armadillos huddling in their shells. Those snakes are surprisingly strong.”

Though their intentions are pure, Chrysopelea are very dangerous to tourists. Please, if you’re visiting Ecuador or any other nearby communities, make liberal use of snake repellant and wear a spiked helmet. No one knows the yearly death rate from Chrysopelea attacks, but estimates range between 10-100 thousand.

For years physicists have tried to reconcile Einstein’s theories of Special and General Relativity, his discovery of mass-energy equivalence, and Max Planck’s discovery of Quantum Mechanics. These old brains couldn’t figure out how really, really big things and really, really small things could be governed by the same physical laws. Today, I figured it out.

Let’s start with the small stuff. Max Planck discovered that energy itself could not be found in a continuum of magnitudes; that there must be some small quantity of energy by which every other quantity could be described. He named this small quantity quantum. One day, back in the early 20th Century, Planck and Einstein were arguing and Planck started working math problems to cool off. He noticed that his equations all reduced to a single number, whose units were energy-time. Although he knew this was big, he still shoved it Einstein’s face.

The number has come to be called the Planck Constant; its value is 6.626068e-34 J·s and is denoted h. This discovery spawned the largest rivalry the discipline of physics has ever seen: Einstein’s law of General Relativity governs the behavior of very massive objects whereas Planck’s theories of quantum mechanics accurately describe very tiny particles; and these two classes of objects act very, very differently. How can there be two discrete physical frameworks operating simultaneously and independently in one Universe?

The answer (this is where Einstein and Planck left off and I took over) lies in the Planck Length. I concede that I neither discovered, derived nor invented the Planck Length. It is a physical constant realized by combining Einstein’s Gravitational Constant, G, the Planck Constant, h, and the speed of light in a vacuum, c. The Planck Length is 16.163e-36 meters. This length is, literally, the smallest meaningful distance in the universe; that is, a particle traveling at an arbitrary velocity cannot traverse a distance smaller than 1 Plank Length. If 1 Planck Length is defined as the distance between two infinitesimally close points, A and B, a particle reaching point A will instantaneously be present at point B. That’s a Planck Length.

A trivial, though profound, corollary to the Planck Length is the notion of a Planck Volume. This is simply the Planck Length cubed, which equals 4.222e-105 cubic meters. Though evidence suggests that there are more than 3 physical dimensions (plus 1 or 2 time dimensions), considering observable, 3-dimensional space, the Planck Volume is the smallest “slot” any quantum of mass or energy can occupy. Though any conventional measure of volume can be described by any arbitrary solid shape, the Planck Volume is unique. Consider a vector of magnitude 1 Planck Length arbitrarily oriented in space. Now consider another vector of equal magnitude oriented in any direction not equal to that of the first. For a particle to legally traverse along a composite vector made from these first two, they must be orthogonal to each other. If the two are not, the particle would travel a distance which is not an integral number of Planck Lengths. Applying the same logic to a third vector, it is obvious that this vector must be orthogonal to the first two. Therefore, the fundamental quantum of 3-dimensional space is a perfect, x-y-z axis defining a cube. This unequivocally demonstrates that the observable universe is composed of very tiny cubes, though it offers no absolute structure or frame of reference.

Now consider Einstein’s theories. Combining the central tenant of Special Relativity, that no object can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, that this velocity is a fundamental parameter of the universe, and the Planck Length, we can derive the Planck Time. That is, dividing the smallest quantum of distance by the largest possible velocity yields the smallest meaningful quantum of time. This value, (16.1636e-36 m)/(2.99792458e8 m/s) = 5.3915e-44 s, represents the smallest amount of time during which any event in our Universe can occur.  An equivalent calculation is the Planck Frequency, found by dividing the speed of light by the Planck Length, the smallest possible wavelength. The Planck Frequency is 1.85481e43 Hz (this frequency is 29 orders of magnitude greater than the highest frequency of visible light). Considering a discrete wave-particle at the Planck Frequency and using the Planck Constant, we can calculate this particle’s energy with the relationship E = hf. This energy, the Planck Energy is 1.2290e9 J. This represents the maximum energy a particle, oscillating at the Planck Frequency and occupying a single Planck Volume can have. But that’s not even the impressive part.

A little less than 14 billion years ago, during the infinitesimally small moments before the Big Bang, scientists believe that all the energy (mass) of the Universe was concentrated in a single point of zero-dimension, also known as a singularity. Such a point is obviously unobservable, as is a Planck Volume quantum. However, the latter represents a meaningful measure of space. So, consider a fundamental quantum of space, described earlier as a set of three orthogonal dimensions forming a cube with sides of 1 Planck Length, inside which is this singularity containing the entire energy of the Universe. At the exact moment at which the Big Bang occurred, energy would have been released from the singularity to expand outward. At some point, this energy would occupy the interior of the cubic Planck Volume and instantaneously be visible to an observer (the notion of an observer is obviously absurd, but reasonable for purposes of discussion). At this point, the energy would begin radiating out at the most fundamental frequency, the Planck Frequency, which corresponds to the Planck Energy. As an absolute value, this energy itself is unimpressive; however, the story changes when one considers the instantaneous Energy-time derivative, i.e., the power, produced by our young universe, the fundamental value of energy radiated during the fundamental quantum of time: (Planck Energy) / (Planck Time) = 2.2794e53 W.

Once inhabiting a single Planck Volume, the energy would propagate isotropically until it occupied 8 Planck Volumes, then 81, 256 and so forth. Within a tiny fraction of a second, this expansion would appear continuous, though the actual geometry of the young Universe would still, and will indefinitely, remain a cube with dimension of integral multiples of the original dimension, the Planck Length. This intensity is 26 orders of magnitude greater than the power radiated by our Sun. If that isn’t shocking enough, consider that the sun occupies approximately 3e122 Planck Volumes. That’s 1 Googol followed by 22 more 0s.

So, we have now characterized the initial, observable state of the Universe. We have also demonstrated that the Universe, if considered in the three physical, observable dimensions, is fundamentally described by a perfect cube expanding. Approximating the universe to be 14 billion years old, or 2.5966e53 Planck Times, the length of each side of the Universe is 7.7845e61 Planck Lengths, or 1.2582e27 meters. This distance is 8,410,930,211,398,689 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Bảo Lộc, Vietnam — A scientist vacationing in southern Vietnam has discovered a new lizard in one of the most unlikely places. “I was on a quest to find the best Phở in southern Vietnam,” begins Dr. Frederick Garfield, professor emeritus at Christopher Columbus University’s Benson College of Herpetology, “and I had no intention of eating lizard; I gave that up years ago!” It turns out that, as Garfield was browsing the menu at Nam Dinh Diner, he was quite taken with a grilled lizard dish. “They seasoned it with lime, basil and a hint of honey. And no, it didn’t taste like chicken at all. It was so delicious that I asked the chef to show me where the meat had come from.” And the rest is history unfolding in front of our eyes: the first new lizard species in over 120 years.

There are approximately 650 species of reptiles, of which only 22 are lizards. “You wouldn’t think it,” Garfield continued, “but lizards, as a subgroup, are extraordinarily homogenous. The only taxonomoligcal family with fewer distinct species is Hominidae.  But this one, it was the tastiest.”

The interesting thing about Leiolepis ngovantrii, known locally as ngon vật, is that all members of the species are female, just like in Jurassic Park. Unlike Jurassic Park, however, these lizards reproduce through cloning. “The locals explained to me that, upon maturity, an individual is allowed to burrow several feet into a nutrient rich topsoil-compost slurry. After two weeks, a visibly weakened lizard emerges followed, a month later, by an exact, though younger, copy.

“I have already assembled a team of graduate students here at CCU and am raising funds for a trip back to Bảo Lộc. This is the first big herpetological breakthrough of the new millennium and the finest moment of my career,” remarked Dr. Garfield, reclining behind his desk, a snifter of cognac in hand. “I wasted 35 years on snakes. I’m a lizard guy now.”

The Hybrid Death Snake (HDS) is not actually a snake. It certainly contains DNA from the deadliest snakes on the planet, but it’s much more.

In 1994, NATO officials approved a program to create a weapon unlike any other in history: a living weapon. Henri deFluche, an unofficial spokesman for the NATO Exotic Weapons Directorate, states, “we knew bombs were not enough. Bombs kill instantly rather than systematically. If you survive the blast, that’s it. The Hybrid Death Snake is different.”

Derived from DNA of the — sit down for this one — Cobra, Rattlesnake, Komodo Dragon, Great White Shark, Brown Bear, Hippopotamus, Rat, Human, Tortoise, Pit Viper and Lion, the HDS is the most dangerous animal in the world. It is believed that a computer chip embedded at birth in each individual’s brain allows NATO control, but there have been no published studies establishing the efficacy of such a device.

There are no photographs of the HDS publicly available, but an artist’s impression shows a scaly creature with six burly legs, cats’ eyes and a jaw, fitted with appropriate fangs, sufficient to eat even larger-than-average men. Keep an eye out.

On Tuesday, August 24, 2010, Colonel Harland Sanders emerged from a smoking space capsule which crashed into the Florida Everglades. Not knowing his true identity, emergency responders were baffled by his repeated, successful evasion of their attempts to bring him to a hospital for evaluation. After several hours, some of the paramedics apparently gave up; the rest went missing and their whereabouts are still uncertain.

The public became aware of the arrival of the fabled chicken entrepreneur when he appeared behind a podium later that afternoon in the Florida House of Delegates. Camera crews were already filming in anticipation for a debate concerning the future welfare of crocodiles. Sanders, who now stands over 11 feet (3.4 meters), was greeted with silence by the delegates who had already arrived; everyone was too scared to question how he had made it past security. One of the House staffers took the following picture with her Blackberry:

After breathing heavily for several minutes, he closed his eyes and relaxed his gigantic frame. Instantly, the image of a starving crocodile disappeared from the large projection screen on the wall behind the podium (above Sanders) and he apparently willed the following statement to appear:

HUMAN MEN AND WOMEN OF PLANET EARTH 1: I HAVE RETURNED AFTER INTERCEPTING RADIO TRANSMISSIONS ORIGINATING FROM YOUR FINE PLANET. I COME IN PEACE.

I HAVE SPENT THE LAST 30 YEARS TRAVELING THE UNIVERSE TO BRING MY FINGER LICKIN’ GOOD ORIGINAL RECIPE TO OTHER CIVILIZATIONS. I HAVE MET MANY POWERFUL LEADERS FROM OTHER EARTHS AND I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I TOLD THEM ALL ABOUT EARTH 1 AND THEY ARE OK WITH EVERYONE COEXISTING IN PEACE.

IN 1970, I USED MY FORTUNE TO INVEST IN A HYPER-WARP PROTON ENGINE TO FACILITATE INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL. UPON ITS COMPLETION IN 1978, I BEGAN PLANNING TO FABRICATE MY OWN DEATH; THE WORLD WAS NOT READY TO KNOW MY DREAM OF SPREADING PEACE AND FRIED CHICKEN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.

THE TRANSMISSIONS I INTERCEPTED, AN APPARENT ADVERTISEMENT FOR MODERN KFC PRODUCTS, DESCRIBED MY CHICKEN AS “SO S-O-G-DOUBLE O-D GOOD”. WHILE I APPRECIATE THIS PRAISE, THE SAME TRANSMISSIONS CONFUSED SOME OTHER-WORDLY CULTURES WHOM I HAD TAUGHT ENGLISH. THE EMPEROR OF EARTH 7 THOUGHT THE LANGUAGE MEANT “SO-SO GOOD”, AS IF THE CHICKEN WAS JUST BARELY GOOD. I WAS IMMEDIATELY ASKED TO LEAVE AND PAINTED AS A HOAX. MY ADVICE TO ALL EARTH 1 LEADERS IS TO KEEP AN EYE ON EARTH 7. PLEASE, IN THE FUTURE, CHECK ALL BROADCASTS FOR AMBIGUITIES.

I WILL NOW CONTINUE MY MISSION. I PLAN TO RETURN IN 2052 TO COMMEMORATE THE OPENING OF THE FIRST KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN. UNTIL THEN, I WISH YOU PEACE, PROSPERITY AND HARMONY. THANK YOU.

Sanders then, as described by one onlooker, “glided out the door” and then ran, stopping only at a Pet Smart where he collected all the fish, small mammals, birds, but not reptiles, back to his capsule, which hovered briefly over the swamp and then accelerated in a direct path towards Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter.

Until today, below is the last know photograph of Colonel Sanders, taken several weeks before his faked death in 1980:

His survivors have not answered calls concerning a possible exhumation, but activists have dug in on both sides of the debate. Harland Sanders III issued the following press statement: “What would we even find? I know my grandfather, and that was him. Whoever or whatever is in that tomb is inconsequential.” An opposing opinion, however, offered by KFC fan Billy Marcus countered, “We’re visited by an 11 foot being from outer space who claims to be The Colonel. We need to investigate.” Both sides are assembling teams of lawyers and it will likely be months before any Earthly action is taken.

One question remains, however, and that is Sanders’ size. We contacted Fritz Leeuwenhoek, an associate director at the Large Hadron Collider, an underground particle accelerator located at the French-Swiss border. After considering our description of the events, he responded, through a translator, “My theory is that this was indeed Colonel Sanders. His increased stature could be easily explained as a relativistic side effect of traveling at speeds very close to, and sometimes faster, than the speed of light for an extended period of time. 30 years would be sufficient for a 40-90% elongation.”

This is all we have so far. There will no doubt be more on this in the near future.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/24/colonel.sanders.returns.from.space/index.html?hpt=T2

Recently it has been brought to my attention that there’s a cat who can’t “meow” or hiss properly. This is disturbing for several reasons:

1. Cats meow constantly and it can be very annoying; a cat who doesn’t meow is probably plotting a far worse fate for its owner.
2. Cats hiss as a natural expression of disgust. A cat who does not hiss when it feels revulsion clearly has deceitful intentions.
3. Cats are generally unable to repress emotions consciously and so this specimen may present a unique opportunity to felinologists for the advancement of cat theory and felinology in general.

The cat, pictured below, is only able to make strange gurgling sounds, sometimes followed by high-pitched squeals, in situations during which other cats would certainly meow. Recently, confronting an estranged sibling, the individual, rather than exhibiting ordinary hissing behavior, reacted with sternutation followed by rapid inhalation.

Derek Jensen, a spokesman for the Coalition for the Advancement of Feline Research and Societal Integration (CAFRSI) , issued the following statement: “Occasionally, yes, we do encounter specimens deficient in meow and meow-related abilities. We have been studying this phenomenon since our institution’s inception in 2006. As of today, we have been unable to locate the missing gene, but we are confident that modern science and medicine will pave the way to future understanding of this disorder, and God willing, a cure for all those affected.”

I would like to personally offer my sympathy to all affected cats and wish the best of luck to those seeking a cure.

OK, I just got this great idea for a new car; I don’t know what its name will be yet, but this is a winner for sure. No windows. None. Only cameras. “Why?”, you may ask. Simple: windows mean that possible assailants can see you, point guns at you, conspire against you, etc. So, this thing is 100% metal. And what if a camera fails? Well, though unlikely, in such an event, explosive bolts under the chassis would fire, launching the vehicle ~200 meters into the air, and a multiply redundant camera system would determine a safe place to land, thus allowing the “driver” to exit unharmed. This vertical escape method could also be used in the few instants after a collision given an alternate software/firing configuration.