I was having a serious life conversation with a student in crisis. We discussed many things, most of which I can't share. Too personal, too raw. But I did relate one story, one thing that, at the time, seemed relevant. It's not very personal, and was probably the most boring thing I had to say to him that meeting. But it's part of me that I want to write down, because it's a small piece of history that may matter to me more as I grow older.
When I was a junior in college, I took a History of the Soviet Empire class, taught by a German with the surname O'Donoghue. Despite the confusion inherent in that, it was a very enjoyable class.
We got to choose our research topics, and for whatever reason I chose the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. I can't remember much from the paper; I did pull an all-nighter for it, but I definitely put some work into it. The tumultuous years of a Trotskeyite Soviet Empire, the Miracle on the Vistula, the heroic/despotic arc of Pilsudskii -- it was very compelling.
Senior year, I ran into an astronomer from Poland at the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego. I happened to mention that I had had the opportunity to study a bit of Polish history.
He would've been within his rights to dismiss me, politely or not, for presumption. But instead, we chatted a bit. Not surprisingly, the "Miracle on the Vistula", the triumphant defeat of Soviet forces at the gates of Warsaw by the Polish army, was suppressed knowledge under Communism. But he had heard stories and whispers growing up. The story was a source of pride and inspiration to those growing up under Communism.
It was a nice moment, one in which, for a moment, we were separated from the bubble of theoretical considerations. But perhaps it's not surprising, or even uncommon. Astronomers, when they look into the sky, are always looking into the past.
I hope my student knows that these scientists are not gods. They are women and men, flesh and blood, with their own histories and dark chapters. Gods are meant to be feared and worshiped. But people, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, they are meant to be held, and loved, and encouraged.
I hope this young man realizes that he belongs in science, if he chooses a home there... not in spite of his vulnerabilities, but because of them.
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Friday, February 12, 2016
A week to miss astronomy
Tomorrow morning, I will tutor a Science Olympiad student on astronomy. The topics this year are stellar evolution and exoplants.
It hits a bit close to home, as these were two topics I had spent most of my undergraduate and graduate studies contemplating (when I was actually contemplating astronomy). It should be relatively easy to coach the student on the quantitative aspects; she had already taken an intro astronomy class at Fullerton College, but didn't learn some of the equations required of her.
Though much is taken, much abides.
I had forgotten that there is something attractive about being able, with relatively simple models, to characterize in broad strokes the habitability of a world, the warmth of a star, the importance of just the right amount of greenhouse gases.
Time and Death and God
Perhaps not quite. But death, and rebirth. The precious origins of metal. The cutoffs determining the fate of stars -- just numbers, but each painstakingly determined by the collision of theory and data. Lies, partially. Simplifications -- that's a better way of putting it.
In a minute there is time:
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Maybe, maybe, with a bit more math, or even just qualitatively, how to estimate mass limits using the wobble of stars. Maybe direct detection. Maybe gravitational lensing -- GR, which has stormed into the headlines, those waves just a tad late to the 100th anniversary party. And whispers of reflected spectra, and now hushed whispers of an oxygen detection, something that will dwarf even gravitational waves, perhaps not scientifically, but philosophically. Why else look for these other worlds? Why else hunt for a Second Earth?
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring will be
To arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
There will be no time, perhaps, to delve into the social history -- the female "computers" that gave us stellar classification, the racism and colonialism and amateurish arrogance that perhaps led to the dismissal of Chandrasekhar, the resignations and scandals. The funding fights. How so many NASA sites ended up in regions of the country that seem, now, to hate the agency so much.
No time for remorse, to miss the learning, even as I know I do not miss the work, or the life, that in spite it all, I am free to not care.
For thine is
I celebrate you friends who stayed, and thrived. It has been a good week for astronomy. It has even been a good week to miss it.
Again, the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Dinner with Neil
I once had dinner with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Not alone, of course. I'm not that well-connected or important. But I was one of a few astronomy and physics grad students who were lucky enough to be treated to a delicious dinner (Cornish game hen, if I recall) at the Cornell Hotel School. It was a relatively small setting, and, as I was still reasonably brash, I couldn't resist busting his balls a bit about Pluto. (Tyson, as director of the Hayden Planetarium, had recently and conspicuously demoted Pluto in the Hayden's planetary exhibit.) He responded with good humor, and, I believe, some semi-serious discussion about the reasons for it. (I might discuss this in a separate post, if there's interest, including some speculation as to the timing of the IAU decision -- after New Horizons had been launched.)
During his public talk, after the reception, he did make a great joke about Pluto -- "The real reason it got demoted? It was too small for New York! Ha ha!" He has an infectious laugh.
If memory serves, that same talk, he ventured into what then, and probably now, is controversial territory -- that scientific advances stop when an investigator self-limits, often by invoking God.
But what I remember most of all is running into Tyson and Jim Bell (our grad department chair and one of the lead researchers on the Mars Exploration Rovers mission) at the hotel bar afterwards. They were watching a baseball game.
It was interesting seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson "off". He is a presence, and a performer, and an educator. But like many, he has a stage personality and a normal personality. It wasn't a dramatic difference, but he was less jovial, and probably tired after a long day. I don't know if I was with another student, but we joined them and talked for a bit. He discussed some serious things -- about academia, about his wife and her experiences in it, careers in astronomy, etc. I think I must've confessed my unhappiness at some point.
Anyway, at some point, I think we, the grad students, realized we were intruding on their private time. They weren't, at the moment, lofty role models. They were just a couple guys drinking beer and watching a ball game.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is hated by some astronomers. Leading up to his arrival, a couple emails went around by some lower-ranking staff scientists and researchers (not professors), complaining that he wasn't a real astronomer and that he had done a crappy PhD thesis. At that point, I knew enough about the people on the email list to suspect something less than clear-eyed objective analysis in their judgment.
I encountered similar sentiments in a dinner at UCLA with a couple astronomy professors. I had become a lay person by then, but through a sequences of events, I ended up joining them. There was discussion that he hadn't, in fact, done a stellar job on his thesis, which I think had to do with galaxies -- possibly radio or UV observations. I forgot whether or not I weighed in, but given that I was a guest, and no longer an astronomer, I probably was less brash and more passive this time around.
I haven't seen Cosmos yet. I hope to get around to it. But, unlike many people I know, I never saw it growing up. I hadn't read a single Carl Sagan book before I attended Cornell, and didn't even know he had been a professor at Cornell until I showed up as a grad student. So I don't have a lot of emotional attachment to it.
Interestingly, one did get the impression that Carl Sagan himself was not particularly popular in Cornell's Astronomy department. There was a plaque and a photo. But he wasn't referred to often. No doubt some of the professors had worked in the shadow of his popular image, and that it probably was good for the department to not be anchored to the past. Still, it seemed odd, given the amount of effort made to do outreach, how little it was discussed. At this point, his absence was not deafening, but it was a discernable murmur.
(I once talked with an impressive Cornell grad alum who was active in both science policy and astro research, and one of Sagan's students. He said he had come back only once to the department, for Carl's funeral. I think his words were, "there's nothing left for me here." Perhaps an over-harsh indictment, especially given some of the amazing humans there. But that gives you a sense of the degree of alienation some of Sagan's students felt toward the rest of the department.)
There are people who decide and rank scientific research. It's generally done by peers, and is seen to be a decent system for sorting great ideas from good, and good ideas from terrible ones. It doesn't always work, and the pressures inherent may lead to a host of sins, cardinal and venal. But it's good enough, I suppose, for it to keep going. The process by which Pluto was downgraded was generally accepted within the astronomical community, even if it did arouse controversy within and outside of astronomy.
Yet it always irked me that some scientists -- generally not the best, mind you -- felt that this meant there was a clear measure of defining science in general, value in general, and value of people to science. I couldn't shake the notion that some of these critics of Tyson couldn't handle the idea that the value system they possessed, one ingrained into them since the beginning of their careers, one in which they were completely invested, one which, to varying degrees had rewarded them, might not be universally true. Maybe it takes a level of buy-in in order to make it far enough. But it seemed... myopic, and self-defeating.
How did Tyson's success take away from theirs? How was the popularization of astronomy damaging their work? It didn't make sense, but people do tend to react badly when you question their value system, even obliquely.
I left the faith a while ago, and so I don't have anything to say specifically on astronomy. What I do know is that, looking back, I remember the tired, quiet men at that hotel bar table.
And I realize now that I'm jealous of them -- not because they are successful, respected and reknown, each in his own way. I'm jealous because they can sit down and enjoy a ball game with a friend, and put aside all the other things associated with their jobs and lives. They valued their time, and their friends.
They valued baseball.
Once, one summer, Jim Bell gave me a ride to our Astro baseball team practice. (The team name: The Big Bangers.) I was incredibly depressed at that time, and all I could think of was how grateful I would've been for a dad like Jim to take me to baseball practice. But how could someone say that? So this someone never did, until this moment, though I think he noticed a few tears.
I failed to become a scientist, not because I didn't study enough, or try hard enough. I failed because at some point I separated science from being a person, and failed to build those relationships with other human beings that make a person whole. And part of that is putting aside everything else for time with people.
I'm going to see Cosmos. But I'm going to see it because it gives me a chance to spend time with my mom, and maybe, make up a bit of that lost time.
Not alone, of course. I'm not that well-connected or important. But I was one of a few astronomy and physics grad students who were lucky enough to be treated to a delicious dinner (Cornish game hen, if I recall) at the Cornell Hotel School. It was a relatively small setting, and, as I was still reasonably brash, I couldn't resist busting his balls a bit about Pluto. (Tyson, as director of the Hayden Planetarium, had recently and conspicuously demoted Pluto in the Hayden's planetary exhibit.) He responded with good humor, and, I believe, some semi-serious discussion about the reasons for it. (I might discuss this in a separate post, if there's interest, including some speculation as to the timing of the IAU decision -- after New Horizons had been launched.)
During his public talk, after the reception, he did make a great joke about Pluto -- "The real reason it got demoted? It was too small for New York! Ha ha!" He has an infectious laugh.
If memory serves, that same talk, he ventured into what then, and probably now, is controversial territory -- that scientific advances stop when an investigator self-limits, often by invoking God.
But what I remember most of all is running into Tyson and Jim Bell (our grad department chair and one of the lead researchers on the Mars Exploration Rovers mission) at the hotel bar afterwards. They were watching a baseball game.
It was interesting seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson "off". He is a presence, and a performer, and an educator. But like many, he has a stage personality and a normal personality. It wasn't a dramatic difference, but he was less jovial, and probably tired after a long day. I don't know if I was with another student, but we joined them and talked for a bit. He discussed some serious things -- about academia, about his wife and her experiences in it, careers in astronomy, etc. I think I must've confessed my unhappiness at some point.
Anyway, at some point, I think we, the grad students, realized we were intruding on their private time. They weren't, at the moment, lofty role models. They were just a couple guys drinking beer and watching a ball game.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is hated by some astronomers. Leading up to his arrival, a couple emails went around by some lower-ranking staff scientists and researchers (not professors), complaining that he wasn't a real astronomer and that he had done a crappy PhD thesis. At that point, I knew enough about the people on the email list to suspect something less than clear-eyed objective analysis in their judgment.
I encountered similar sentiments in a dinner at UCLA with a couple astronomy professors. I had become a lay person by then, but through a sequences of events, I ended up joining them. There was discussion that he hadn't, in fact, done a stellar job on his thesis, which I think had to do with galaxies -- possibly radio or UV observations. I forgot whether or not I weighed in, but given that I was a guest, and no longer an astronomer, I probably was less brash and more passive this time around.
I haven't seen Cosmos yet. I hope to get around to it. But, unlike many people I know, I never saw it growing up. I hadn't read a single Carl Sagan book before I attended Cornell, and didn't even know he had been a professor at Cornell until I showed up as a grad student. So I don't have a lot of emotional attachment to it.
Interestingly, one did get the impression that Carl Sagan himself was not particularly popular in Cornell's Astronomy department. There was a plaque and a photo. But he wasn't referred to often. No doubt some of the professors had worked in the shadow of his popular image, and that it probably was good for the department to not be anchored to the past. Still, it seemed odd, given the amount of effort made to do outreach, how little it was discussed. At this point, his absence was not deafening, but it was a discernable murmur.
(I once talked with an impressive Cornell grad alum who was active in both science policy and astro research, and one of Sagan's students. He said he had come back only once to the department, for Carl's funeral. I think his words were, "there's nothing left for me here." Perhaps an over-harsh indictment, especially given some of the amazing humans there. But that gives you a sense of the degree of alienation some of Sagan's students felt toward the rest of the department.)
There are people who decide and rank scientific research. It's generally done by peers, and is seen to be a decent system for sorting great ideas from good, and good ideas from terrible ones. It doesn't always work, and the pressures inherent may lead to a host of sins, cardinal and venal. But it's good enough, I suppose, for it to keep going. The process by which Pluto was downgraded was generally accepted within the astronomical community, even if it did arouse controversy within and outside of astronomy.
Yet it always irked me that some scientists -- generally not the best, mind you -- felt that this meant there was a clear measure of defining science in general, value in general, and value of people to science. I couldn't shake the notion that some of these critics of Tyson couldn't handle the idea that the value system they possessed, one ingrained into them since the beginning of their careers, one in which they were completely invested, one which, to varying degrees had rewarded them, might not be universally true. Maybe it takes a level of buy-in in order to make it far enough. But it seemed... myopic, and self-defeating.
How did Tyson's success take away from theirs? How was the popularization of astronomy damaging their work? It didn't make sense, but people do tend to react badly when you question their value system, even obliquely.
I left the faith a while ago, and so I don't have anything to say specifically on astronomy. What I do know is that, looking back, I remember the tired, quiet men at that hotel bar table.
And I realize now that I'm jealous of them -- not because they are successful, respected and reknown, each in his own way. I'm jealous because they can sit down and enjoy a ball game with a friend, and put aside all the other things associated with their jobs and lives. They valued their time, and their friends.
They valued baseball.
Once, one summer, Jim Bell gave me a ride to our Astro baseball team practice. (The team name: The Big Bangers.) I was incredibly depressed at that time, and all I could think of was how grateful I would've been for a dad like Jim to take me to baseball practice. But how could someone say that? So this someone never did, until this moment, though I think he noticed a few tears.
I failed to become a scientist, not because I didn't study enough, or try hard enough. I failed because at some point I separated science from being a person, and failed to build those relationships with other human beings that make a person whole. And part of that is putting aside everything else for time with people.
I'm going to see Cosmos. But I'm going to see it because it gives me a chance to spend time with my mom, and maybe, make up a bit of that lost time.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
O Magnum Mysterium
This is beautiful, in part, because I don't understand the words.
When I first fell in love with astronomy, it was in this way. It was the stately beauty of Neptune, taken with precious little energy at the far reaches of the solar system. It was the eerie beauty of a sequence of Messier objects, representing a bizarre diversity, even by the standards of a child growing up in the modern world.
I fell in love before i knew what I was falling in love with.
With time, I began to tease apart those amazing structures. I learned the calculus that allowed me to express, in partial elegance, with partial clarity, the nature of stars. I learned the physics that gave me the beginnings of the understandings of the depth behind these things. I even learned a bit of computer programming, that I might better participate in peeling back the curtain of the unknown.
And somewhere along the way, I lost that wonder. I lost the ability to look, and just see what my eyes see, and not the questions, and work, and challenges behind those high resolution images.
Some can do so. For some, the odd combination of challenge and complexity, wedded with a firm belief that understanding is possible, gives a richer sense of beauty. These people enjoy a long, happy marriage to space -- not without its challenges. But they still feel enough to work at the relationship and find new, mature beauty as the relationship continues.
I was not. I found its very comprehensibility, and my limits at comprehension, too harsh. It was that, or it was other things -- opportunity cost, more terrestrial thoughts, hopes, and fears. So we ended our relationship, and unlike some, I never looked back and missed it. Those feelings were just gone.
And so I enjoy this song, and do not seek to look up its lyrics. For the unknown itself is what I find alluring, as long as it remains, unknown.
Maybe this is why, despite the best efforts of relatives and my therapist, I don't seek a greater connection to God. For when I do, I find my interest torn asunder by questions of doctrine, historical origins, temporal contamination of divine intent, Biblical literalism, and the like. I can only appreciate faith from a distance, and so there is where I remain, and where I am happiest.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Why I wanted to become an astronomer
This is the story of how I got interested in astronomy and managed to will myself somewhat far down the professional path.
There were three primary influences: a man, books, and television.
The man:
I think I was about six when I met Uncle Kimo, a cousin-in-law-in-law. (My aunt married a man who had a sister who married Uncle Kimo.) At the time, Uncle Kimo worked at JPL as an instrumentation engineer. I really liked "Uncle Kimo". He seemed to know a lot of things! We spent time drawing maps of continents and he would tell me about space. Over the years, he sent me some of those nice high-gloss photos from Voyager and other space missions. Some of my personal favorites were a radio reconstruction of Venus' surface, Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, black and white images of Uranus' satellites, and that stunning deep blue shot of Neptune and the Great Dark Spot, accented by some bright white storms (the largest called "Scooter", if memory serves).
I think I loved Uncle Kimo not just because of the cool space stuff. He was maybe the first male family member I really felt comfortable around. My dad was crazy and unstable; my uncles either scared me because of their anger or were just not that interesting/good with kids. I loved my grandpa, but he was intimidating (especially to everyone older than me), and the language barrier made us not quite as close as we might have been.
Also worth emphasizing: Uncle Kimo was the first adult who really tried to teach me about the world around me, and do it in a way that didn't assume I was just a dumb kid.
I only saw Uncle Kimo a few times growing up, but I'd still place him as a tremendous influence on my life in general, and my interest in astronomy in particular.
Books:
I spent a lot of time alone growing up. My parents divorced when I was three. My mother worked, and so my grandparents played a large role in raising me. They were kind and loving, but didn't speak much English, so I ended up turning to books. My mom says I initially hated to read, and would slam my little hand down on any book she tried to open and read to me. Maybe I was creeped out by Shel Silverstein's artwork in Where the Sidewalk Ends. But, eventually, I did start reading on my own.
As a society, are we still ok with this?
One of the first books I got was The Golden Book of Stars and Planets.
I still remember it mentioning NGC 5128 (depicted on the cover, right side), thinking "That's a weird name for a galaxy. Why wasn't it called something like the Milky Way? Or Snickers?" (It's a radio source, and got special mention, though I thought it made weird sounds because the artist's depiction made it look like it was surrounded by hair.)
I also went through a weird phase as a kid in which questions in a book would freak me out. They scared me! Because of that, I'd have to skip over the last part of the Mars section? "Was there ever water on Mars? Could there have been life?" It was that and an earthquake preparedness pamphlet that creeped me out with those "?", which I must have mentally read in some sort of spooky voice. (Did anyone else have this, or was this a leading indicator for profound mental unsoundness? -- again, with scary questions!)
I loved that book so much.
More books. Remember Scholastic catalogs? Or Arrow? Or the other one? Classroom teachers would give us these catalogs filled with books that we could buy at (what I thought were) reasonable prices. Now, I didn't know how money worked, even though I loved Scrooge McDuck in Ducktales and tried to swim in a pile of dimes in my grandparent's living room. (Maybe another flag that this boy ain't right.) I remember that in first grade everyone wrote a letter to President George H. W. Bush. I wrote that the process of making change (money, not policy) seemed unfair -- why does someone get to keep more of the money? My teacher helped me write it, but I'm a bit annoyed she didn't try to sit down and explain it to me at the time. I got a photo back, but I don't think the letter had an answer.
Also, in retrospect, this was one place where economic differences started to show. A lot of my classmates probably couldn't afford any books. I always got to pick a few, as well as get a subscription to Highlights! magazine.
Goofus generally gets what he wants, even if he is an asshole. Gallant is a spineless appeaser and a fake, pretentious prick. Guess who I grew up to be?
One of the books I got this way was Planets: A Golden Guide to the Solar System.
This was not my favorite book. I don't know why -- I carried it around everywhere. It just seemed not as exciting, or less accessible because of more data. There were tables of numbers, I think, and maybe fewer dramatic, page-filling images.
I got a more important book that had both dramatic pictures and tons of numbers (though not derivations) around first or second grade. My Sunday School teacher gave me his old college astronomy textbook, a paperback that cost $34.75 at the Aschula's student store. (I still remember the sticker on the cover.) The book was Essentials of the Dynamic Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, Second Edition by Theodore P. Snow. Sadly, I can't track down the cover image, but it must have been a saturated image of a star, or an AGN, or something like that, with some rainbow accents suggesting spectra.
I think I read that book cover to cover several times. This was the source of nearly all of my knowledge of introductory astronomy. Memory being what it is, those early memories were retained much more easily than ones in college, making it sometimes challenging to rewrite my knowledge of certain important constants. (The distance light traveled in a second was, in my mind, 186,282 miles, and not 299,792 kilometers. Mercury orbited the Sun at a distance of 38 million miles -- and unfortunately all my distance scales inside the Solar System remain imperial.)
Same church: our rather conservative junior minister occasionally called on me, possibly for comedic effect, to quote some astronomical fact -- closest star, distance to the Sun, etc. -- that had some tie-in to his sermon.
Years later, after being accepted at CU Boulder's astronomy grad program, I happened to meet with Theodore P. Snow. (I think he went by Ted at the time.) Usually, meetings were about prospective research, but I spent the entire time as a fanboy gushing about how incredibly important his textbook was to my life. I have no idea whether it was flattering or scary for him, but I was thrilled to put a name to a face. (It also helped that he seemed nice -- read: Not A Professor Asshole.)
This book and interactions with that pastor explain why I never, ever thought of a conflict between science and religion until I started paying attention to politics/went to college. I still think it's misguided/overrated.
Books were a good substitute for technology. I was lucky enough to get a small telescope for Christmas, but quite frankly, it was a piece of crap Celestron. I probably should have read the manual more carefully, but none of us really took the time to figure out how to use the RA and DEC wheels, or how to use coordinates to find things in the sky. Oh, and perhaps most importantly, I couldn't see jack shit because I was too close to Los Angeles. Saturn's rings and the Galilean satellites were nice to see, but a bit anticlimactic after spending years staring at NASA images.
Television
As a kid, I watched a ton of TV, unsupervised. I remember being confused as to why "Orchie Bunkur" was so angry all the time. (This is a reference to All in the Family.) I even wrote a letter to that effect, to no one in particular. (I liked writing letters as a kid.) This letter was proudly placed in my grandpa's scrapbook without further comment, a testament to both his love and the complete absence of analytic evaluation of child behavior in my family.
I watched a lot of Star Trek: TNG. Remember that it ran from 1987-1994. From the age of four to eleven, I saw brand-new TNG episodes. I saw the very first airing of "The Best of Both Worlds". Eat your hearts out, young nerds.
I would record a lot of these episodes and re-watch them endlessly (VHS, in case the young people are curious). I didn't have particularly good taste -- I recorded as much as I could, and ended up with a skewed impression of the overall series, with Data being held up by Samuel Clemens with a .45 revolver playing a more important role than, say, "The Inner Light" or "Darmok". More fortunately, I also recorded and watched "Chain of Command", though maybe even scrubbed and tidied torture scenes weren't the best thing for a young child to process.
I also watched Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Again, I had no taste -- I thought Babylon 5 was an incredibly well-acted show and ST: DS9 weak by comparison (I would reverse those judgments years later.)
But in addition to sci-fi, I watched some sci-fact. NOVA specials were great, and what I know of cosmology comes from them.
The most personally important program, however, was a National Geographic documentary titled Asteroids: Deadly Impact. It primarily focused on Gene Shoemaker and his study of asteroid and comet impacts. Of course, no one man or team can claim sole ownership of such a broad field, but it made for great watching.
Only the intro is available for free online: Asteroids Deadly Impact
Again, I recorded this, and watched in at least 50 times. I returned to it a few times in high school, especially when I had an abysmally poor physics teacher, to sort of remind me why I thought astronomy was worth studying.
Epilogue:
These influences were critical. I enjoyed reading books. I had a person who cared about me, and encouraged my interest. Even my religious authority figures fed this interest in astronomy.
I didn't really know what astronomers do until later, and in retrospect, I probably should have looked into it a bit more before embarking on a professional path.
But in some ways I was more successful than I should have been. How many of us dreamed of being a paleontologist as a kid? Or a marine biologist? At some point, most of us revise those dreams -- ideally because we discover other interests, but often because the impracticality of our dreams are beat out of us by parents, teachers, or others.
When I was about four, I said I wanted to be a pediatrician, probably because my pediatrician, Dr. Nakashima, was a hilarious and awesome guy who claimed to be a ninja turtle, and maintained that despite my challenges. But my mom's asshole friend said that that wasn't a good idea, and I never, ever considered being a medical doctor, even though, in retrospect, I probably would have been a good one.
I was lucky, in some sense. I was lucky to have enough resources and opportunities to follow my dreams without reality intruding. Sure, it was unfocused and overly idealistic. Sure, I hit points when the contradiction between what I felt were my skills and interests diverged from what I appeared to be doing. And yes, it ended pretty badly, and I'm still recovering from poor choices I made.
But I got away with it for a hell of a long time, partly because I was good enough at math and science to do it, but partly because I had just wanted it so badly and didn't know "better" not to irrationally pursue what should have been a more deliberate, cautious, and considered course of action.
Maybe I shouldn't think that I failed spectacularly. Maybe I should instead be grateful that I got away with it for so long.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Explaining the past to a young cousin
It just occurred to me that I'll have to explain some things to my young cousins someday.
Teruo: Ryan, you were an astronomer once, right?
Me: Sort of. I was training to be one. But I stopped before I became a professional.
Teruo: Oh. (pauses) Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure thing.
Teruo: (pauses) Why did it take so long to send a submersible to Europa to look for life?
Me: (long pause) Do you remember something called a Kardashian?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about "The Jersey Shore"?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about Twilight?
Teruo: No!
Me: Well, between the First and Second Cold Wars, America spent roughly the amount of money and time and energy on these three things that it would have taken for such a mission.
Teruo: Were these important projects?
Me: (pause, thinking) They were to some, Teruo. They were to some.
Teruo: Ryan, you were an astronomer once, right?
Me: Sort of. I was training to be one. But I stopped before I became a professional.
Teruo: Oh. (pauses) Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure thing.
Teruo: (pauses) Why did it take so long to send a submersible to Europa to look for life?
Me: (long pause) Do you remember something called a Kardashian?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about "The Jersey Shore"?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about Twilight?
Teruo: No!
Me: Well, between the First and Second Cold Wars, America spent roughly the amount of money and time and energy on these three things that it would have taken for such a mission.
Teruo: Were these important projects?
Me: (pause, thinking) They were to some, Teruo. They were to some.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
WolframAlpha is interesting, but occasionally farts
I was using WolframAlpha recently as a graphing calculator. For those of you who don't know, WolframAlpha is a remarkable site that serves as a graphing calculator, computational tool, and aggregator of information. You can do a search for lots of things - not all technical in nature.
It is generally reliable, although I did run into a problem in which it returned only one of two correct roots (a quadratic involving sixth roots, or something like that; unfortunately, I didn't save the output.)
I was once curious about the demographic trends between Brians and Ryans in America. To my delight, it appears Ryan will soon become the dominant name in America.
Maybe Brians will have their names mangled, for a change.
But, occasionally, the outputs are really weird.
I'm not sure how I got this output - maybe I accidentally clicked on something. Maybe the book I was reading at the time somehow bumped the right set of keys. But I ended up with this.
Contrasts it with a query involving an actual celestial object.
I think God is telling me to get in touch with my roots. Either that, or Sanrio and WolframAlpha are engaged in a massive conspiracy to take over the United States using kawaii pilots.
It is generally reliable, although I did run into a problem in which it returned only one of two correct roots (a quadratic involving sixth roots, or something like that; unfortunately, I didn't save the output.)
I was once curious about the demographic trends between Brians and Ryans in America. To my delight, it appears Ryan will soon become the dominant name in America.
But, occasionally, the outputs are really weird.
I'm not sure how I got this output - maybe I accidentally clicked on something. Maybe the book I was reading at the time somehow bumped the right set of keys. But I ended up with this.
Contrasts it with a query involving an actual celestial object.
I think God is telling me to get in touch with my roots. Either that, or Sanrio and WolframAlpha are engaged in a massive conspiracy to take over the United States using kawaii pilots.
 |
| 70 years is still too soon. Who in the world thought this was a good idea? |
Friday, March 2, 2012
Wait a minute - NOW I get research insight?
For those who want only the insight that I got from a dream, scroll down.
Introit (Introduction):
For those who don't know me well, I'm about four years out of grad school. It was rough going, and I actually left with a masters degree with a full year of NSF fellowship money to go. I suppose I could've stayed another year and no one would've bothered me too much, as I had my own money. But it was hell, mostly self-inflicted. It's tricky though to still be uncertain about whether it was the right choice.
During that time, I worked on something called non-redundant aperture masking interferometry. It's a lot of words, and it deserves them. I'll do my best to explain it without much jargon.
Assuming little or no science background
Because light behaves as a wave, it can form interference patterns. I used a specially designed device that "created" the interference pattern by forcing a star's light to pass through a small metal disk in a detector. The metal disk had a number of holes drilled into it (9 or 18), spaced apart just so that it would generate a snowflake pattern that was both pretty and scientifically useful. Very Important Fact - the spacings were such that no two holes were the same distance apart, and were arranged at a variety of angles along the disk. By analyzing the pattern using some sophisticated software, it was possible to identify binary stars that were otherwise too close together. The software could also be modified to do things like detect asymmetry - as in a planetary nebula. Second Very Important Fact: this only works at telescopes that have adaptive optics, which can help correct for atmospheric turbulence.
I was part of observations at Palomar Observatory, a couple hours outside of San Diego. (Fun aside: one of the observatory staff told me stories of a former Cornell professor who shall remain nameless who, back in the day, would take his students to TJ when they were rained out. Once in TJ, they would get completely drunk. Needless to say, I'm guessing he had an all-male research group, and that he's a particular outlier as far as professionalism/personal adventurousness. I believe he's still a professor, and quite successful.)
Analogy for high school/early college physics students (non-majors):
Remember Young's double-slit experiment? Well, instead of two slits, I had pinholes arranged such that each set of pinholes was essentially a double-slit, each in a different direction. This is the non-redundant part.
More complicated, for engineers and scientists
The non-redundant mask generated an interference pattern that was spread across the near-IR detector (InGaAs, if I recall). The baselines ranged from about half the pupil length to nearly the full pupil, and sampled pretty comprehensively different orientations on the sky. The hole diameter was made to be smaller than the scale of an atmospheric turbulence cell, given by the Kolmogorov 5/3 law.
To wit, you use a (inverse) Fourier transform on the interferogram to reconstruct the original image. The key is to use closure phase, which basically says that for a flat incoming wave, the difference in phase across each leg of a triangle array should be zero. Any nonzero results are due to asymmetry in the wavefront, which is corrected using the telescope's adaptive optics system and a nearby calibration star.
Don't ask me for any more mathematical details. It'll just remind me of the stony silence I got at my committee meetings when I struggled with the presentations.
Note: I realize this is fairly elementary to radio astronomers. The key excitement factor is getting the technique to work in optical and near-IR wavelengths. It deserves to be kind of a big deal.
Astronomer's note: the targets were nearby low-mass stars (class M), identified as such by spectroscopy and their high proper motions.
Kyrie (frustration):
One of the frustrating things is that it often didn't work well. I was using someone else's software, and to be honest, I had trouble following the math. I had the background, but it was still a challenge, and my Fourier Transforms class at Mudd was right after lunch. (This means I fell asleep a few times, even though it was a class of only about 25 people.) Also, I'm guessing atmospheric turbulence made it challenging. Additionally, the targets we were looking at were relatively dim. More dim means less light, which means the snowflake pattern gets pretty weak. All of this conspired to make it such that, when it came time to present my work, I had no results from the dozen or so stars I looked at that actually used the technique. (I did identify a half-dozen or so previously undiscovered companions using standard adaptive optics.)
Rex tremendae (Research insight):
So here comes the dream. I'm in a Harvey Mudd classroom, specifically the electronics/modern physics lab in the physics department with people from high school. Then it hits me - the problem is throughput. Therefore, move the targets to brighter stars (sun-like stars). We did that for the calibration stars. But wait! This could be used to analyze the host of transiting systems detected by ground observations and the Kepler mission. (These are systems where a planet passes in front of the star, which is detectable from Earth as a small decrease in the star's brightness.)
Non-redundant aperture masking could actually improve the resolution such that it would be possible to determine the precise orientation of the planet and star along the sky. Coupled with radial velocity data, it might lead to improved resolution on the planetary masses.
Lacrymosa (Problems with this insight):
As I wake up more fully, I'm realizing a couple problems with this.
First, the point of this research was to get resolved data on a binary system. By taking snapshots at regular intervals, it would be possible to determine the orbit in 3-D space, allowing for a precise mass determination of both components in a binary. (It could be generalized to more complicated star systems, but the analysis gets - you guessed it - more complicated.)
Sampling from just across the planetary disk won't provide enough information on the orbit to actually provide a full 3-D picture of the orbit. Or, more accurately, it provides little that can't be determined just from regular techniques.
Another problem: Transiting systems are ideal for analysis precisely because they are edge-on systems. What this means is that the line of observation (Earth to the transiting system) is necessarily perpendicular to the angular momentum vector of the system. This means the radial velocity data provides not a lower mass limit, but the actual mass.
The potential improvement in determining this angle is minor, at best.
The only possibility for actually useful results would be if this technique still provided enough information about asymmetry that it could, with standard photometry, get a more accurate sense of the size of these planets. This could provide information about its density and potential composition, which could prove important for formation models.
But again, as I wake up a bit more, I'm less confident about this.
Agnus Dei (Conclusion):
It was interesting - I told a classmate in the dream that I was going to blog this.
Unfortunately, the wakeful, somewhat thoughtful part of me is now questioning the value of this "insight" gained in the dream. This is unfortunate, not because I felt like making a contribution to observational astronomy and extrasolar planet research, but because it was going to be the first problem I had solved in a dream. (During my first semester in college, I occasionally had dreams about programming and math, but I never actually solved anything this way. Also, in dreams where I'm being chased by bad guys, my gun never works. I wonder if my subconscious is trying to suggest I'm sterile or impotent. In that case, fuck you subconscious!)
Poo. This wasn't worth waking up and breaking Facebook fast.
Introit (Introduction):
For those who don't know me well, I'm about four years out of grad school. It was rough going, and I actually left with a masters degree with a full year of NSF fellowship money to go. I suppose I could've stayed another year and no one would've bothered me too much, as I had my own money. But it was hell, mostly self-inflicted. It's tricky though to still be uncertain about whether it was the right choice.
During that time, I worked on something called non-redundant aperture masking interferometry. It's a lot of words, and it deserves them. I'll do my best to explain it without much jargon.
Assuming little or no science background
Because light behaves as a wave, it can form interference patterns. I used a specially designed device that "created" the interference pattern by forcing a star's light to pass through a small metal disk in a detector. The metal disk had a number of holes drilled into it (9 or 18), spaced apart just so that it would generate a snowflake pattern that was both pretty and scientifically useful. Very Important Fact - the spacings were such that no two holes were the same distance apart, and were arranged at a variety of angles along the disk. By analyzing the pattern using some sophisticated software, it was possible to identify binary stars that were otherwise too close together. The software could also be modified to do things like detect asymmetry - as in a planetary nebula. Second Very Important Fact: this only works at telescopes that have adaptive optics, which can help correct for atmospheric turbulence.
I was part of observations at Palomar Observatory, a couple hours outside of San Diego. (Fun aside: one of the observatory staff told me stories of a former Cornell professor who shall remain nameless who, back in the day, would take his students to TJ when they were rained out. Once in TJ, they would get completely drunk. Needless to say, I'm guessing he had an all-male research group, and that he's a particular outlier as far as professionalism/personal adventurousness. I believe he's still a professor, and quite successful.)
Analogy for high school/early college physics students (non-majors):
Remember Young's double-slit experiment? Well, instead of two slits, I had pinholes arranged such that each set of pinholes was essentially a double-slit, each in a different direction. This is the non-redundant part.
More complicated, for engineers and scientists
The non-redundant mask generated an interference pattern that was spread across the near-IR detector (InGaAs, if I recall). The baselines ranged from about half the pupil length to nearly the full pupil, and sampled pretty comprehensively different orientations on the sky. The hole diameter was made to be smaller than the scale of an atmospheric turbulence cell, given by the Kolmogorov 5/3 law.
To wit, you use a (inverse) Fourier transform on the interferogram to reconstruct the original image. The key is to use closure phase, which basically says that for a flat incoming wave, the difference in phase across each leg of a triangle array should be zero. Any nonzero results are due to asymmetry in the wavefront, which is corrected using the telescope's adaptive optics system and a nearby calibration star.
Don't ask me for any more mathematical details. It'll just remind me of the stony silence I got at my committee meetings when I struggled with the presentations.
Note: I realize this is fairly elementary to radio astronomers. The key excitement factor is getting the technique to work in optical and near-IR wavelengths. It deserves to be kind of a big deal.
Astronomer's note: the targets were nearby low-mass stars (class M), identified as such by spectroscopy and their high proper motions.
Kyrie (frustration):
One of the frustrating things is that it often didn't work well. I was using someone else's software, and to be honest, I had trouble following the math. I had the background, but it was still a challenge, and my Fourier Transforms class at Mudd was right after lunch. (This means I fell asleep a few times, even though it was a class of only about 25 people.) Also, I'm guessing atmospheric turbulence made it challenging. Additionally, the targets we were looking at were relatively dim. More dim means less light, which means the snowflake pattern gets pretty weak. All of this conspired to make it such that, when it came time to present my work, I had no results from the dozen or so stars I looked at that actually used the technique. (I did identify a half-dozen or so previously undiscovered companions using standard adaptive optics.)
Rex tremendae (Research insight):
So here comes the dream. I'm in a Harvey Mudd classroom, specifically the electronics/modern physics lab in the physics department with people from high school. Then it hits me - the problem is throughput. Therefore, move the targets to brighter stars (sun-like stars). We did that for the calibration stars. But wait! This could be used to analyze the host of transiting systems detected by ground observations and the Kepler mission. (These are systems where a planet passes in front of the star, which is detectable from Earth as a small decrease in the star's brightness.)
Non-redundant aperture masking could actually improve the resolution such that it would be possible to determine the precise orientation of the planet and star along the sky. Coupled with radial velocity data, it might lead to improved resolution on the planetary masses.
Lacrymosa (Problems with this insight):
As I wake up more fully, I'm realizing a couple problems with this.
First, the point of this research was to get resolved data on a binary system. By taking snapshots at regular intervals, it would be possible to determine the orbit in 3-D space, allowing for a precise mass determination of both components in a binary. (It could be generalized to more complicated star systems, but the analysis gets - you guessed it - more complicated.)
Sampling from just across the planetary disk won't provide enough information on the orbit to actually provide a full 3-D picture of the orbit. Or, more accurately, it provides little that can't be determined just from regular techniques.
Another problem: Transiting systems are ideal for analysis precisely because they are edge-on systems. What this means is that the line of observation (Earth to the transiting system) is necessarily perpendicular to the angular momentum vector of the system. This means the radial velocity data provides not a lower mass limit, but the actual mass.
The potential improvement in determining this angle is minor, at best.
The only possibility for actually useful results would be if this technique still provided enough information about asymmetry that it could, with standard photometry, get a more accurate sense of the size of these planets. This could provide information about its density and potential composition, which could prove important for formation models.
But again, as I wake up a bit more, I'm less confident about this.
Agnus Dei (Conclusion):
It was interesting - I told a classmate in the dream that I was going to blog this.
Unfortunately, the wakeful, somewhat thoughtful part of me is now questioning the value of this "insight" gained in the dream. This is unfortunate, not because I felt like making a contribution to observational astronomy and extrasolar planet research, but because it was going to be the first problem I had solved in a dream. (During my first semester in college, I occasionally had dreams about programming and math, but I never actually solved anything this way. Also, in dreams where I'm being chased by bad guys, my gun never works. I wonder if my subconscious is trying to suggest I'm sterile or impotent. In that case, fuck you subconscious!)
Poo. This wasn't worth waking up and breaking Facebook fast.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Hale's invitation
If you find yourself wandering and lost,
stop by
my corningware oubliette.
Bring me a touch
and I will share with you the loveliness,
the loneliness
of eternal sky
stop by
my corningware oubliette.
Bring me a touch
and I will share with you the loveliness,
the loneliness
of eternal sky
My favorite astropolitik story
Louis XI (1423-1483), the great Spider King of France, had a weakness for astrology. He kept a court astrologer whom he admired, until one day the man predicted that a lady of the court would die within eight days. When the prophecy came true, Louis was terrified, thinking that either the man had murdered the woman to prove his accuracy or that he was so versed in his science that his powers threatened Louis himself. In either case he had to be killed.
One evening Louis summoned the astrologer to his room, high in the castle. Before the man had arrived, the king told his servants that when he gave the signal they were to pick the astrologer up, carry him to the window, and hurl him to the ground, hundreds of feet below.
The astrologer soon arrived, but before giving the signal, Louis decided to ask him one last question: “You claim to understand astrology and to know the fate of others, so tell me what your fate will be and how long you have to live.”
“I shall die just three days before Your Majesty,” the astrologer replied. The king’s signal was never given. The man’s life was spared. The Spider King not only protected his astrologer for as long as he was alive, he lavished him with gifts and had him tended by the finest court doctors.
The astrologer survived Louis by several years, disproving his power of prophecy but proving his mastery of power.
-Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power
One evening Louis summoned the astrologer to his room, high in the castle. Before the man had arrived, the king told his servants that when he gave the signal they were to pick the astrologer up, carry him to the window, and hurl him to the ground, hundreds of feet below.
The astrologer soon arrived, but before giving the signal, Louis decided to ask him one last question: “You claim to understand astrology and to know the fate of others, so tell me what your fate will be and how long you have to live.”
“I shall die just three days before Your Majesty,” the astrologer replied. The king’s signal was never given. The man’s life was spared. The Spider King not only protected his astrologer for as long as he was alive, he lavished him with gifts and had him tended by the finest court doctors.
The astrologer survived Louis by several years, disproving his power of prophecy but proving his mastery of power.
-Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power
Monday, August 30, 2010
An email from myself, four years ago
I received an unusual email today. It was from me, four years ago. I’d completely forgotten I signed up for, or used, Futureme.org. I had apparently written it on August 29, 2006, just at the end of my first year of graduate school.
Dear FutureMe,
Hi, this is me in grad school. Remember grad school? Yeah
Remember to laugh and love.
Remember how awesome Ann and Ryan and Dave and Suniti are.
Remember to be true to yourself, and to never give up.
You've been given a lot, so make the best of it!
-Ryan
Dear FutureMe,
Hi, this is me in grad school. Remember grad school? Yeah
Remember to laugh and love.
Remember how awesome Ann and Ryan and Dave and Suniti are.
Remember to be true to yourself, and to never give up.
You've been given a lot, so make the best of it!
-Ryan
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Resurrected Facebook Post No. 3: In Memoriam, Ed Salpeter
I created this group to commemorate the passing of one of the senior statesmen of astrophysics, Edwin (Ed) Ernest Salpeter, who passed away today.
I'm hoping everyone will take a bit of time to post your memories or thoughts about Ed on this group.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Does anyone know an astronomer at Griffith Park Observatory?
I'm trying to set up a tour of GPO for my cousin Nathan. My cousin Sally mentioned at the concert tonight that little Nathan loves Star Wars. I thought it would be exciting for him to be exposed to some real astronomy.
I'm hoping that one of the wonderful astronomers I've been privileged to meet, and whom I might even presume to call "friend", could help me get in touch with someone at GPO.
You might be able to say no to me, but I'm pretty sure you'll find it hard to say no to this guy:
I'm hoping that one of the wonderful astronomers I've been privileged to meet, and whom I might even presume to call "friend", could help me get in touch with someone at GPO.
You might be able to say no to me, but I'm pretty sure you'll find it hard to say no to this guy:
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Old Words
I recently sent out some tutoring applications, which gave me an opportunity to peruse some dusty files from my academic career. I stumbled across an essay I had written for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
I'm a little surprised how much my perception of the essay, and myself, has changed since late 2005. As late as 2007, I had thought it was a pretty good essay, and that by writing it, I was holding myself to the standards I had outlined. I had spent a couple months working on it, passing drafts back and forth with my adviser. To this day, I'm grateful for his tremendous insights into the grant application process, as well as the time and effort he expended on my behalf.
I'm a little surprised how much my perception of the essay, and myself, has changed since late 2005. As late as 2007, I had thought it was a pretty good essay, and that by writing it, I was holding myself to the standards I had outlined. I had spent a couple months working on it, passing drafts back and forth with my adviser. To this day, I'm grateful for his tremendous insights into the grant application process, as well as the time and effort he expended on my behalf.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Kepler will find Earth-like planets
Comments - To the Sun-like stars: Life beyond Earth (Financial Times)
To be fair, Kepler is doing a photometric study. It won't be able to use the light of these incredibly dim (relative to their parent star) planets to look for oxygen, the clue that life exists on that world. But it will hopefully achieve the 10^7 contrast ratio for Sun-like stars in the near-infrared (or 10^10 in the visible) needed to identify a planet around a star.
Disclosure: In case you didn't know, I used to work on ground-based detection of low-mass companions to M-dwarfs in the near-Infrared at Palomar. Not nearly as glamorous, but I did find about ten new stars.
Glad to see astro made it in the financial pages. :)
To be fair, Kepler is doing a photometric study. It won't be able to use the light of these incredibly dim (relative to their parent star) planets to look for oxygen, the clue that life exists on that world. But it will hopefully achieve the 10^7 contrast ratio for Sun-like stars in the near-infrared (or 10^10 in the visible) needed to identify a planet around a star.
Disclosure: In case you didn't know, I used to work on ground-based detection of low-mass companions to M-dwarfs in the near-Infrared at Palomar. Not nearly as glamorous, but I did find about ten new stars.
Glad to see astro made it in the financial pages. :)
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Why Anti-Religion in Science is Undesirable
In the coming days, I hope to clarify my thoughts on science and faith, especially, but not limited to, the astronomy issue, in a set of articles to be posted here. For now I will post what I feel to be the main reasons I think attempts by members of the astronomical community to attack religion in general are short-sighted, detrimental, and to me, personally offensive.
Astronomy ought not, and perhaps can not, position itself in opposition to, or otherwise discriminate against, religion or the religious for the following reasons:
The Nature of Science:
1. Science, at its best, seeks to be universal in its accessibility and its benefits. This does not mean it seeks to be universally applicable, or the only system by which legitimate knowledge is created and understood.
2. Science functions best in a working democracy. A working democracy defends the minority from the tyranny of the majority. To the extent that science is, or can be, democratic - a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes from the lowliest student or the most respected researcher - it must seek to avoid the tyranny of the majority.
Economic Assessment of Product, Consumers, and Labor Force:
3. Astronomy itself depends upon a quasi-mysticism that underpins its continued relevance to society.
4. It is utterly foolish to propose to discriminate against 50% (rough percentage of Americans who consider themselves born-again Christians) of your potential labor pool. Excellence from all backgrounds needs to be encouraged and nurtured. Note that this is the equivalent (logically, morally, and even numerically) of barring women from science.
Broader Societal Tensions, Conflicts, and Dangers:
5. If there is truly a cultural/ideological war being waged, astronomy, and science in general, will lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the individual and society if science is seen to be absent of heart and spirit.
6. It plays into the hands of individuals and groups who stand to benefit from a fight between the scientific and religious communities. More specifically, by using a divide-and-conquer strategy against two of the strongest sources of legitimacy outside the legal/economic/political institutions that make up American society, those who actually control a great deal of American policy, economic wealth, and benefit from its legal structure will perpetuate their power and influence, and without checks from these alternate forms of legitimate authority, will do so at the expense of the broader community.
Astronomy ought not, and perhaps can not, position itself in opposition to, or otherwise discriminate against, religion or the religious for the following reasons:
The Nature of Science:
1. Science, at its best, seeks to be universal in its accessibility and its benefits. This does not mean it seeks to be universally applicable, or the only system by which legitimate knowledge is created and understood.
2. Science functions best in a working democracy. A working democracy defends the minority from the tyranny of the majority. To the extent that science is, or can be, democratic - a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes from the lowliest student or the most respected researcher - it must seek to avoid the tyranny of the majority.
Economic Assessment of Product, Consumers, and Labor Force:
3. Astronomy itself depends upon a quasi-mysticism that underpins its continued relevance to society.
4. It is utterly foolish to propose to discriminate against 50% (rough percentage of Americans who consider themselves born-again Christians) of your potential labor pool. Excellence from all backgrounds needs to be encouraged and nurtured. Note that this is the equivalent (logically, morally, and even numerically) of barring women from science.
Broader Societal Tensions, Conflicts, and Dangers:
5. If there is truly a cultural/ideological war being waged, astronomy, and science in general, will lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the individual and society if science is seen to be absent of heart and spirit.
6. It plays into the hands of individuals and groups who stand to benefit from a fight between the scientific and religious communities. More specifically, by using a divide-and-conquer strategy against two of the strongest sources of legitimacy outside the legal/economic/political institutions that make up American society, those who actually control a great deal of American policy, economic wealth, and benefit from its legal structure will perpetuate their power and influence, and without checks from these alternate forms of legitimate authority, will do so at the expense of the broader community.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Arecibo Question
I've had some interest in space politics for quite some time. An excellent source can be found at www.spacepolitics.com. Jeff Foust is a graduate of MIT in Planetary Science and is now employed at the Futron Corporation. In addition to spacepolitics.com, he runs the Space Review, a free online space policy newsletter.
For those of you that don't know, Arecibo Observatory has been identified in the Senior Review as a target of the budgetary axe. Its operating budget of 10.5 million dollars will be reduced to 8 million for FY 2007, with a further reduction to 4 million in 2011. Funding of 4 million per year is actually contingent on matching funds secured from non-NSF sources.
There are other complicating factors: 5 million for paint loaned by Cornell to NSF, which NSF will repay over the next few years; 1 million that is dedicated to the radar program; new instrument upgrades; appeals for international funding; the consultation (if any) between NSF-AST and NSF-ATM, the latter of which contributes some funding to Arecibo; China's desire to build an Arecibo+active surface observatory.... I will edit this post later with more specific budgetary information.
The key question is the following: what options are available for Cornell/NAIC to fight the Senior Review recommendation? I have identified the following:
1. Stop the Senior Review from becoming NSF policy
Cornell/NAIC is attempting this as I write. They sent a document criticizing inconsistencies in mandate and factual information in the Senior Review to Wayne Van Citters, the head of NSF's Astronomy Division. In addition to incorrectly claiming that surveys would be done by 2011 (the actual date is closer to 2015), the Senior Review exceeded its mandate (identify $30 million in assets that might be reallocated) by making specific recommendations for facility closure. One reason why the Senior Review members may have done this? Well, a number of the members have affiliations with proposed projects (e.g. LSST, TMT) that will require funding.
Either this is done on a purely factual basis (i.e., you screwed up the info we gave you), or intrapolitical stuff will fall out. (How significant is it that Wayne Van Citters has not visited Arecibo? Will my former college president, Jon Strauss, a member of the National Science Board, be in a position to decide/steer NSF's ultimate decision on the Senior Review? Should Cornell send Michael Crosby a bunch of Godiva candy, given my personal experience that he likes chocolate?)
Needless to say, this is messy, especially since NASA will invariably be dragged into this mess. NASA and NSF have played football with the funding for the radar program for some time; it's unclear whether the handoff will take place, or if there will be a fumble. Cornell has drawn the line in the sand, stating that without additional funding, the radar program will be cut.
2. Appeal to Congress to save Arecibo Observatory
I call this approach the "Hubble gambit". This approach is bad for a number of reasons.
The Hubble Gambit succeeded for the following reasons:
a. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) made it a high priority for NASA to make sure ST-9 (the servicing mission to Hubble) by threatening to withold funding from NASA. I imagine that she was influenced in part because Goddard Space Flight Center is located in her state, and the end of Hubble meant the end of the Space Telescope Science Institute and quite a few jobs.
b. Hubble makes beautiful pictures that were widely distributed to the public. Many of the Astronomy Pictures of the Day (APOD) are taken with Hubble. Optical instrumentation is considerably more developed than infrared, and as such can detect a great deal of beautiful structure in astrophysical phenomena.
c. University of Colorado - Boulder, the Southwestern Research Institute, and Ball Aerospace had spent $60 million to build the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. When I visited Boulder, this was identified as the single most expensive museum piece this side of the Mississippi. Not completely sure if that's true (where is Blue Boy?) but I got the point.
How does Arecibo measure on these points?
a. Arecibo Observatory is located in Puerto Rico, which has no voting representation in Congress. The non-voting member can lobby, but since PR depends heavily on subsidies (and enjoys tax-free status), he has little clout and motivation to push too hard.
b. Pretty pictures are nice. Radio does not make pretty pictures. It creates wonderful science, but the images I see tend to be reddish orange blobs. These images are somewhat more difficult to interpret.
c. There are new instruments that are being installed at Arecibo. However, these instruments do not require delivery and maintenance by a special launch vehicle or a crew, which for political reasons, need to go into space and do something- anything- until 2010.
In addition, it's probably a bad idea to try to lobby Congress. The politicization of science has received a fair amount of press, especially in - but not limited to - this administration. The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney, is on my bookshelf, waiting to be read.
Brian Dewhurst at the National Academy of Sciences, sitting on the Space Studies Board, points out in a Space Review article the many reasons why the Decadal Survey is good for both Congress and science. (The Decadal Survey is conducted every 10 years in the astronomical community, and identifies the best projects to support.) In short, Congress and the science community appreciate the process because both feel the money is being well spent, without insidious influence.
The Hubble gambit harmed this relationship, and it is probably for this reason that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has not reinstated the scientific advisory committees that were decommissioned during a reorganization following the departure of Administrator Sean O'Keefe. Doing so for Arecibo would probably rip the breach further, frustrate politicians, and invite the scientific community to join political camps.
3. Lobby Congress for an overall increase in NSF's funding
I believe this approach is the best. The American Competitiveness Initiative proposes a doubling of funding for NSF by 2010. While NSF-AST's share won't quite be $30 million, it will be significant. Combined with international funding and a somewhat reduced program, it should be possible to keep Arecibo running well after 2011.
I think this approach also has merit in a broader sense. Astronomy is uniquely positioned to be an excellent way to introduce young children to science. If NASA and NSF-AST were willing to develop effective curricula and standards - incorporating some of the goals and recommendations outlined in various science ed reports from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the National Academics, the National Science Foundation, and others - then we'd be well on our way of improving scientific education and training. This is timely, especially given that No Child Left Behind will begin testing for scientific competence. Once NCLB finds what everyone knows (America is pretty bad at science), the curriculum will have developed to meet the political/policy goal of repairing K-12 science education.
Under this broader framework, I think Cornell/NAIC can successfully point to their record and active programs (scientific and educational/public outreach) to say that Arecibo deserves to be saved. I'm fascinated by ALFALFA's organizational structure. I think Professors Haynes and Giovanelli have an excellent collaboration that promotes science not only at Research I institutes but also at liberal arts colleges. Such organization can and ought to be applied to other scientific programs that will promote earlier and more comprehensive entry of America's youth into the scientific process.
All this and I still have a paper to write...
For those of you that don't know, Arecibo Observatory has been identified in the Senior Review as a target of the budgetary axe. Its operating budget of 10.5 million dollars will be reduced to 8 million for FY 2007, with a further reduction to 4 million in 2011. Funding of 4 million per year is actually contingent on matching funds secured from non-NSF sources.
There are other complicating factors: 5 million for paint loaned by Cornell to NSF, which NSF will repay over the next few years; 1 million that is dedicated to the radar program; new instrument upgrades; appeals for international funding; the consultation (if any) between NSF-AST and NSF-ATM, the latter of which contributes some funding to Arecibo; China's desire to build an Arecibo+active surface observatory.... I will edit this post later with more specific budgetary information.
The key question is the following: what options are available for Cornell/NAIC to fight the Senior Review recommendation? I have identified the following:
1. Stop the Senior Review from becoming NSF policy
Cornell/NAIC is attempting this as I write. They sent a document criticizing inconsistencies in mandate and factual information in the Senior Review to Wayne Van Citters, the head of NSF's Astronomy Division. In addition to incorrectly claiming that surveys would be done by 2011 (the actual date is closer to 2015), the Senior Review exceeded its mandate (identify $30 million in assets that might be reallocated) by making specific recommendations for facility closure. One reason why the Senior Review members may have done this? Well, a number of the members have affiliations with proposed projects (e.g. LSST, TMT) that will require funding.
Either this is done on a purely factual basis (i.e., you screwed up the info we gave you), or intrapolitical stuff will fall out. (How significant is it that Wayne Van Citters has not visited Arecibo? Will my former college president, Jon Strauss, a member of the National Science Board, be in a position to decide/steer NSF's ultimate decision on the Senior Review? Should Cornell send Michael Crosby a bunch of Godiva candy, given my personal experience that he likes chocolate?)
Needless to say, this is messy, especially since NASA will invariably be dragged into this mess. NASA and NSF have played football with the funding for the radar program for some time; it's unclear whether the handoff will take place, or if there will be a fumble. Cornell has drawn the line in the sand, stating that without additional funding, the radar program will be cut.
2. Appeal to Congress to save Arecibo Observatory
I call this approach the "Hubble gambit". This approach is bad for a number of reasons.
The Hubble Gambit succeeded for the following reasons:
a. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) made it a high priority for NASA to make sure ST-9 (the servicing mission to Hubble) by threatening to withold funding from NASA. I imagine that she was influenced in part because Goddard Space Flight Center is located in her state, and the end of Hubble meant the end of the Space Telescope Science Institute and quite a few jobs.
b. Hubble makes beautiful pictures that were widely distributed to the public. Many of the Astronomy Pictures of the Day (APOD) are taken with Hubble. Optical instrumentation is considerably more developed than infrared, and as such can detect a great deal of beautiful structure in astrophysical phenomena.
c. University of Colorado - Boulder, the Southwestern Research Institute, and Ball Aerospace had spent $60 million to build the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. When I visited Boulder, this was identified as the single most expensive museum piece this side of the Mississippi. Not completely sure if that's true (where is Blue Boy?) but I got the point.
How does Arecibo measure on these points?
a. Arecibo Observatory is located in Puerto Rico, which has no voting representation in Congress. The non-voting member can lobby, but since PR depends heavily on subsidies (and enjoys tax-free status), he has little clout and motivation to push too hard.
b. Pretty pictures are nice. Radio does not make pretty pictures. It creates wonderful science, but the images I see tend to be reddish orange blobs. These images are somewhat more difficult to interpret.
c. There are new instruments that are being installed at Arecibo. However, these instruments do not require delivery and maintenance by a special launch vehicle or a crew, which for political reasons, need to go into space and do something- anything- until 2010.
In addition, it's probably a bad idea to try to lobby Congress. The politicization of science has received a fair amount of press, especially in - but not limited to - this administration. The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney, is on my bookshelf, waiting to be read.
Brian Dewhurst at the National Academy of Sciences, sitting on the Space Studies Board, points out in a Space Review article the many reasons why the Decadal Survey is good for both Congress and science. (The Decadal Survey is conducted every 10 years in the astronomical community, and identifies the best projects to support.) In short, Congress and the science community appreciate the process because both feel the money is being well spent, without insidious influence.
The Hubble gambit harmed this relationship, and it is probably for this reason that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has not reinstated the scientific advisory committees that were decommissioned during a reorganization following the departure of Administrator Sean O'Keefe. Doing so for Arecibo would probably rip the breach further, frustrate politicians, and invite the scientific community to join political camps.
3. Lobby Congress for an overall increase in NSF's funding
I believe this approach is the best. The American Competitiveness Initiative proposes a doubling of funding for NSF by 2010. While NSF-AST's share won't quite be $30 million, it will be significant. Combined with international funding and a somewhat reduced program, it should be possible to keep Arecibo running well after 2011.
I think this approach also has merit in a broader sense. Astronomy is uniquely positioned to be an excellent way to introduce young children to science. If NASA and NSF-AST were willing to develop effective curricula and standards - incorporating some of the goals and recommendations outlined in various science ed reports from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the National Academics, the National Science Foundation, and others - then we'd be well on our way of improving scientific education and training. This is timely, especially given that No Child Left Behind will begin testing for scientific competence. Once NCLB finds what everyone knows (America is pretty bad at science), the curriculum will have developed to meet the political/policy goal of repairing K-12 science education.
Under this broader framework, I think Cornell/NAIC can successfully point to their record and active programs (scientific and educational/public outreach) to say that Arecibo deserves to be saved. I'm fascinated by ALFALFA's organizational structure. I think Professors Haynes and Giovanelli have an excellent collaboration that promotes science not only at Research I institutes but also at liberal arts colleges. Such organization can and ought to be applied to other scientific programs that will promote earlier and more comprehensive entry of America's youth into the scientific process.
All this and I still have a paper to write...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)