Some mathematics progress and spooky stuff

Mathematics: I was cleaning up a calculation and ended up trying to do the calculation from a different direction.

I got the same answer; hence I have a bit more confidence that I did it right the first time.

Workout notes I was going to do a run but today’s swim still has me a bit tired, so I’ll do a “run before, walk after” workout tomorrow and sandwich it about a yoga class.

I might skip this evening’s yoga class to watch more Olympics, while doing stretches on my own.

Spooky stuff
Action at a distance? This is supposed to be impossible, according to relativity theory.

Two photons can be connected in a way that seems to defy the very nature of space and time, yet still obeys the laws of quantum mechanics.

Physicists at the University of Geneva achieved the weird result by creating a pair of ‘entangled’ photons, separating them, then sending them down a fibre optic cable to the Swiss villages of Satigny and Jussy, some 18 kilometres apart.

The researchers found that when each photon reached its destination, it could instantly sense its twin’s behaviour without any direct communication. The finding does not violate the laws of quantum mechanics, the theory that physicists use to describe the behaviour of very small systems. Rather, it shows just how quantum mechanics can defy everyday expectation, says Nicolas Gisin, the researcher who led the study. “Our experiment just puts the finger where it hurts,” he says. The study is published in Nature.

[...]

quantum mechanics allows for a third way to coordinate information. When two particles are quantum mechanically ‘entangled’ with each other, measuring the properties of one will instantly tell you something about the other. In other words, quantum theory allows two particles to organize themselves at apparently faster-than-light speeds.

Einstein called such behaviour “spooky action at a distance”, because he found it deeply unsettling. He and other physicists clung to the idea that there might be some other way for the particles to communicate with each other at or near the speed of light.

But the new experiment shows that direct communication between the photons (at least as we know it) is simply impossible. The team simultaneously measured several properties of both photons, such as phase, when they arrived at their villages and found that they did indeed have a spooky awareness of each other’s behaviour. On the basis of their measurements, the team concluded that if the photons had communicated, they must have done so at least 100,000 times faster than the speed of light — something nearly all physicists thought would be impossible. In other words, these photons cannot know about each other through any sort of normal exchange of information.

The team also ruled out other possible reasons for the apparently coordinated behaviour. For example, one could imagine that the photons might have shared information before they left Geneva — but Gisin’s measurements showed that they could not.

A second test ensured that the scientists in the two villages weren’t missing some form of communication thanks to Earth’s motion through space. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, observers moving at high speeds can have different ‘reference frames’, so that they can potentially get different measurements of the same event. The Geneva results could possibly be explained if the two photons were communicating through a frame of reference that wasn’t readily apparent to the scientists.”

But theoretical calculations2 have shown that performing tests over a full spin of the globe would test all possible reference frames. The team did just that, and they got the same result in all cases.

The bottom line, says Gisin is that “there is just no time for these two photons to communicate”.

The experiment shows that in quantum mechanics at least, some things transcend space-time, says Terence Rudolph, a theorist at Imperial College London. It also shows that humans have attached undue importance to the three dimensions of space and one of time we live in, he argues. “We think space and time are important because that’s the kind of monkeys we are.”

If you are baffled by the result, fear not — you’re not alone.

Hat tip to 3-quarks daily.

Here is another, somewhat less spooky, but impressive scientific finding.

Scientists have long known that short-term memories needed to be “consolidated” into long-term storage, but once there, they were assumed to be fairly fixed. In recent years, scientists like McGill’s Karim Nader have called that into question, arguing that “reactivating” memories opens neurochemical space to change or even erases the recollection. Over the last few years, researchers have begun the search for drug therapies that would exploit this second chance at remembering. The new Cambridge research suggests that, at least in rats, administering a drug that blocks the action of a key memory-forming brain chemical can disrupt memory reconsolidation.

Everitt’s team conditioned rats to associate the switching on of a light with cocaine. Then the rats learned behaviors that would get the light switched on and cocaine administered. The light, in that way, became a “drug-associated memory.” Switching on the light allowed the researchers to activate that memory, causing the rats to launch into their cocaine-craving behavior. But when the researchers administered a single dose of the brain chemical blocker and then flipped on the light, the rats’ drug-seeking behaviors were reduced for up to a month. Though the memory alteration appears temporary, if the results can be translated to humans, it could open up a wide variety of new treatments for memory-linked psychological conditions.

Slept in Today

I’ll start my workout a bit later today (say, 7 am) just because I can.

Update Morning workout: 4000 yards of swimming. 5 x 100 free on the 2 (warm up), 5 x 100 (drill/swim alternate) with zoomers, 1000 (no flips) in 16:44 (4:11, 8:21, 12:34), 200 stroke (easy), 10 x 100 on the 2 (no flip turns; mostly 1:37-1:38, one 1:39), 200 stroke, 10 x 50 (alternate paddle, free), 4 x 25 fly with zoomers (cool down).

This was my best swim in a while.

Professional:

I owe myself some progress on my outstanding paper (“outstanding” as in “I still need work on it” rather than “quality” as the latter will be up for others to judge.)

Olympics: Don’t get me wrong; I love it when USA swimmers do well and I am amazed at the exploits of Michael Phelps.

But I get a bit annoyed with the media when I read things like this:

Greatest Olympian of all Time

Yes, he has done well in several events and seemingly wins world record after world record. But think about it: there are events (gymnastics, swimming, and to a lesser extent, the sprints in track and field) where it is possible to do this. One can be a truly great boxer, wrestler, basketball player, or even distance swimmer, but NOT have the opportunity to win gold after gold just because their events aren’t set up that way.

And as far as swimming: there is the 50, 100, 200, relays as well as the back, free, fly, breast etc.

But what about distance? You have the intermediate distance (200, 400), and something resembling distance (1500 for the men, 800 for the women) and finally, this year, a 10K open water swim for both the men and women. But the fact is that the swimming events are set up for the sprinters.

And while I respect sprinting, I can’t say that someone who cleans up at the sprints-intermediate distances is really a better swimmer than someone who dominates at the distance swims.

For a schedule, go here.

World Events
A Daily Kos diary by Grand Moff Texan shows why we should trust our local media to get it right concerning world events:

Up ’till now, every bit of the analysis of the South Ossetian conflict has assumed that Russia entered into the fighting as the result of careful thinking and careful timing. It was timed to coincide with the Olympics. It was a show of power, not just to the former Eastern Bloc, but to the US and NATO.

The Russians were trying to reestablish the Soviet Union. – John Bolton

The Russians are trying to reestablish the Russian Empire. – John McCain

Surely it’s the Russians whose minds we should be reading, because the Russians must have known what Georgia was going to do in South Ossetia, right?

Well, no…here is a timeline what what happened prior to the invasion:

Furthermore, the Georgian provocation seems to have had an Ossetian provocation. Here’s an article from the day before the Russians invaded Georgia:

The latest outbreak of hostilities began on July 31 after two roadside bombs hit a Georgian police Toyota SUV near the Georgian village of Eredvi. Six Georgian policemen were wounded (Interfax, August 1). Russian peacekeepers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, discovered that the bombs were made out of 122 mm artillery shells (www.mil.ru, August 2). The road leading to Eredvi was built by the Georgians to bypass Ossetian roadblocks near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. Last November I traveled that road in a similar Toyota to visit the Georgian-controlled part of South Ossetia. This road has been a thorn in the side of the Ossetian separatists for some time. On July 4 a car with the pro-Georgian leader of South Ossetia Dmitry Sanakoyev, whom the separatists consider a renegade, was hit by a roadside bomb and shot at on the same road in almost the same spot. Three bodyguards were wounded, but Sanakoyev was unhurt. A surge of tension followed the attack (RIA-Novosti, July 4; Kommersant, August 4).

The roadside bomb attack on July 31 was followed the next day by bloody clashes. Both sides accused the other of initiating the fighting. The Ossetians admitted six dead and 15 wounded, many hit by sniper fire. The Georgians admitted nine wounded. Both sides accused the other of using mortar fire. The Ossetians announced that 29 Georgian solders had been killed but did not substantiate the claim (RIA-Novosti, August 4). The Ossetians began an evacuation of women and children to North Ossetia (a Russian autonomous republic), called for volunteers from the North Caucasus to join the fight against Georgia, and threatened to attack Georgian cities and to cleanse the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia. The South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity claimed that Georgians living in South Ossetia were begging to be “liberated” from the forces of the regime in Tbilisi (RIA-Novosti, August 2, 3, and 4).

Kokoity has announced that some 300 volunteers have arrived in South Ossetia to fight the Georgians and that more are coming (www.newsru.com, August 5). Most of the “volunteers” seem to be South Ossetians that were serving in police and other militarized formations in North Ossetia and were sent south as reinforcements. Kokoity has ordered that these “volunteers” be integrated into the South Ossetian Interior Ministry forces (RIA-Novosti, August 6). Yesterday the Ossetians were reporting fierce battles with Georgian forces, while Georgian authorities and Russian peacekeepers reported only shooting incidents in which no one was injured (Interfax, August 6).

The Ossetian authorities have announced the cancellation of a planned meeting with the Georgian side in Tskhinvali on August 7, while the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it believed the meeting had to go ahead (RIA-Novosti, August 6). Russian peacekeepers say that after the initial flare up of fighting on August 1, the situation in South Ossetia has somewhat calmed. The Ossetians insist that it is getting worse (Interfax, August 6). High-ranking Russian officials, including President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have remained silent about the conflict in South Ossetia.

The diarist concludes:

And all of these interpretations require a western perspective, and a paranoid one at that. Once again, dumbing the analysis down to personalities or Cold War narratives is a cheap way to get out of having to know what the hell is going on at ground level.

And the American press, especially, has cut its teeth on tedious celebrity gossip. They are not equipped to analyze a goddamn thing.

Oh come on, our press is plenty capable of finding out if some big name had had an affair.

Humorous Ignorance (from Evolved and Rational)

Why we need to teach evolution in science class
(New York Times)

Evolution should be taught — indeed, it should be central to beginning biology classes — for at least three reasons.

First, it provides a powerful framework for investigating the world we live in. Without evolution, biology is merely a collection of disconnected facts, a set of descriptions. The astonishing variety of nature, from the tree shrew that guzzles vast quantities of alcohol every night to the lichens that grow in the Antarctic wastes, cannot be probed and understood. Add evolution — and it becomes possible to make inferences and predictions and (sometimes) to do experiments to test those predictions. All of a sudden patterns emerge everywhere, and apparently trivial details become interesting.

The second reason for teaching evolution is that the subject is immediately relevant here and now. The impact we are having on the planet is causing other organisms to evolve — and fast. And I’m not talking just about the obvious examples: widespread resistance to pesticides among insects; the evolution of drug resistance in the agents of disease, from malaria to tuberculosis; the possibility that, say, the virus that causes bird flu will evolve into a form that spreads easily from person to person. The impact we are having is much broader.

For instance, we are causing animals to evolve just by hunting them. The North Atlantic cod fishery has caused the evolution of cod that mature smaller and younger than they did 40 years ago. Fishing for grayling in Norwegian lakes has caused a similar pattern in these fish. Human trophy hunting for bighorn rams has caused the population to evolve into one of smaller-horn rams. (All of which, incidentally, is in line with evolutionary predictions.)

[...]

The third reason to teach evolution is more philosophical. It concerns the development of an attitude toward evidence. In his book, “The Republican War on Science,” the journalist Chris Mooney argues persuasively that a contempt for scientific evidence — or indeed, evidence of any kind — has permeated the Bush administration’s policies, from climate change to sex education, from drilling for oil to the war in Iraq. A dismissal of evolution is an integral part of this general attitude.

Moreover, since the science classroom is where a contempt for evidence is often first encountered, it is also arguably where it first begins to be cultivated. A society where ideology is a substitute for evidence can go badly awry. (This is not to suggest that science is never distorted by the ideological left; it sometimes is, and the results are no better.)

But for me, the most important thing about studying evolution is something less tangible. It’s that the endeavor contains a profound optimism. It means that when we encounter something in nature that is complicated or mysterious, such as the flagellum of a bacteria or the light made by a firefly, we don’t have to shrug our shoulders in bewilderment.

Instead, we can ask how it got to be that way. And if at first it seems so complicated that the evolutionary steps are hard to work out, we have an invitation to imagine, to play, to experiment and explore. To my mind, this only enhances the wonder. [...]

Hat tip to Friendly Atheist

Side note: a university system has just received permission from a court to deny applicants science credit for courses in which fake science is taught.

Where I am glad that the judge ruled correctly, I am a bit miffed that we need the courts to uphold academic standards.

Politics: How is Obama doing with the various religious groups?

He is winning them all, mostly by large margins, except for the Evangelical Christians.

Self-Identified Evangelical Christians 37% 39% 23%
Barna-Identified Evangelical Christians 17% 61% 14%

The survey is here, along with explanations.

Oh yes, Obama is winning atheists and agnostics 55-17 percent.

Behind the Scenes at the Olympics

First a quick bit of social commentary:

Yes, the Spanish Olympic basketball team are making the “slant eye” face. I am sure glad this isn’t the American team!

Next a comment on Olympic boxing: I understand why they have the point system; they are trying to take as much of the human element out of scoring of boxing as possible. But frankly, this system stinks. Not only do the punches get counted inconsistently, but it is getting to the point where if one boxer knows that he has a lead, he just dances the rest of the time away.

Also, one can all but knock someone down but still not get a punch scored!

I’d prefer a 10 point must system by rounds. True, you might have a situation like the Roy Jones 1988 situation.

Here is the match itself:

But you know, you really can’t guard against everything that can go wrong.

Ok, on the featured topic

First, note that these tiny bikinis are mandated for women’s beach volleyball.

When it comes to beach volleyball dress code, some say “it,” not the ball, is out of bounds. It’s the itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bikini that has some players wishing they could wrap themselves in net.

Beach volleyball has now joined the go-go girl dancing as perhaps the only two professions where a bikini is the required uniform.

If a woman wants to play under the auspices of the International Volleyball Federation, she better get out her tape measure — women’s uniform bottoms have to be two and a half inches wide on the sides.

The federation, based in Switzerland, decided the uniforms should be standardized. It says beach volleyball is played on the beach, so swimsuits are in keeping with the sun and fun atmosphere.

“I’m kind of bummed — I like my tights,” said the sport’s most famous player, Gabrielle Reece, who is known for wearing black Lycra tights rather than a bikini suit while playing.

“You take one step, that bathing suit goes straight up,” she says. “You’re always yanking and fiddling.”

The new rules could drive a wedge between women and men. While the male volleyball players are now required to wear shorts that fall a bit above the knee as opposed to the oversized basketball kind — at least they don’t have to wear skimpy skintight suits.

I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten several hits for people looking for Misty May photos.

So, the rest of this post will have a Misty May (or Misty May butt) theme, here is one of the photos that you are searching for:

In an admirable show of restraint, The President didn’t swat her butt.

Ok, this is the real reason many of you came to this blog to begin with: (for more, go to my sidebar, check out the blogroll and look under eye-candy 4)

But Misty May isn’t the only one:

This one (from 2004) is probably my favorite

Ok, let us not forget track and field and other sports:

(high jump)

(race walking)

(triathlon)