The "beam" is pulses of (initially) hydrogen nucleii (protons).  These travel at a speed so close to that of light that it makes no sense to talk of speed, but of energy.  How much energy?  A lot.  The entire beam, which contains no more rest mass than a grain of sand contains the energy of a full-speed freight train when accelerated.  Each proton has the energy of a gnat in full flight - you could feel it.   What happens on collision?  Beams circulating in opposite directions are focussed so that they cross, and within a very small radius. 

So what is all this business about "beam capture" and "beam splashes" that have been reported?

"Beam capture" means that the pulses of protons have been synchronised with the acceleration system, which adds energy.

A "beam splash" is what happens when the beam hits the collimator - a system to ensure that the beam is even, and the collimator has been closed.  The collision of particles with the collimator results in secondary particles which can be seen in various detectors. 

So things are looking good for the start-up of the LHC.  But patience is required.  Even at the phenomenal rate of up to a GB per second of data during the collisions of protons it will take years for enough samples to be collected to confirm the detection of new particles.

I've been following the start-up of the LHC on Twitter (@LHC, @CERN).  It's all very exciting, but I will admit to having little idea what they are talking about.

It started with beam 1 moving between 8 different points around the ring.  I found this a bit puzzling as I thought the beam was supposed to be travelling at the speed of light, and so rather too fast to follow on Twitter.   Then they "captured" the beam.  That sounds good too!  Some quality improvement followed.  Always good to improve quality.  Then, they did the same thing with the beam in the other direction, so it was a backwards countdown.   And now they are reporting "splashes" from the beam.

I am actually pretty excited about this.  Whatever the results, the LHC is going to produce important data.  However, I'm going to have to get clued up about how the equipment works if I am going to follow their reports.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6569144/Faith-groups-to-be-key-policy-advisers.html

"Anyone wanting to build a more progressive society would ignore the powerful role of faith at their peril," he said.

What peril, exactly?

"We should continually seek ways of encouraging and enhancing the contribution faith communities make on the central issues of our time."

Like what?  What exactly do faith communities contribute that secular communities can't?  The protection of paedophile priests?  Institutionalising the inequality of women?  Rejection of equality for homosexuals?  The imposition of religious laws?

"Faith is a strong and powerful source of honesty, solidarity, generosity – the very values which are essential to politics, to our economy and our society."

"Honesty?"  As in the Catholic cover-ups of paedophilia?  "Solidarity"  As in the divisions in Northern Ireland?  "Generosity"?  As in the campaigns for Church organisations not to to have to conform to human rights and equality legislation?

"I don't like the strand of secularism that says that faith is inherently a bad thing to have and should be kept out of public life," Mr Denham said.

Faith IS an inherently bad thing to have.  It praises and privileges belief without evidence.  How can that possibly be wise for government policies?

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, criticised the Government's move.

"It's not right that they should have this privileged position to promote their dogmas, many of which are unacceptable."

Exactly.  This is a dangerous backward step.

It's 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  It is hard to describe to anyone too young to remember it the sheer joy of the occasion.  The ending of the Cold War was a time of indescribable relief for millions.  The constant fear of death through nuclear war had been around for decades.  No matter how much we fear terrorism these days it is nothing compared to the constant worry of instant global disaster that was part of  so many people's lives.

It was a much-hyped web event. A quality drama, with well-known actors and writers. Because of its web presence and the past roles of the actors it would have been of interest to people who expected something strange.


So what happened with Girl Number 9?

It was fun to watch, but..

There were so many plot holes. A basement interrogation room with just one entrance? Talk about breaching of fire regulations! Interviews in which an officer was alone with the prisoner, and had a gun? What about the promise from a handcuffed prisoner to prevent the death of someone while still handcuffed, and alone in a locked room? ("Kill yourself", he said to the officer, "and I will save her"). How? Telepathy?

There was also some inappropriate gore. The first victim was ripped apart. There was no plot reason for such a gory death. It diminished the shock of the death of the police officer in the final episode.

Also, the ending was a disappointment. For goodness sake, given the hype and the presentation medium I expected something weird. A plot twist. The whole thing being a "Mission Impossible" style setup to catch the villain. The villain not being real, but some "Tyler Durden" alternate personality of the police officer: Imagine the excitement of an ending in which it turns out that the officer had set everything up, and was found alone, having committed suicide in the locked room.

But it was entertaining. The acting was very good indeed. Tracy Ann Olbermann (Eastenders, Doctor Who) dominated each scene she was in. Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones from Torchwood) was simply amazing. Joe Absolom (Eastenders) started off pretty well as a Hannibal Lecter-style villain but his characterisation ended up as merely a psychopathic yob, when it could have been more.

So, Girl Number 9 was flawed, but I'll certainly watch something again from the same team.

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by Barrow and Tipler is a well known popular science book about..  well, it is hard to know what it is actually about.  The vague idea is that if the universe is all about us, then we can explain why it is why it is.  I'm reading the book as research for a book of my own, and it has been quite a surprising read.

The "Anthropic Principle" is actually a series of ideas, which go from the obvious (any models of real universes has to include at least this universe because we can see it) to the bizarre (the universe only exists because we observe it).

The problem is that no-one has really sorted out what "observe" means.  This leads to a real problem, as the many uses of "Anthropic Principle" have no clear foundation until that definition is clear.

There is also a real problem with any definition of the Anthropic Principle which says that the universe had to include life, or even intelligent life.  Because what is life, and what is intelligence?  Life is vastly complex chemistry, but it is still chemistry.  Intelligence isn't what it seems; just read a few books by Daniel Dennett.  We barely have any idea of what is going on in our own heads.  We aren't even competent and intelligent observers of ourselves, let alone anything else.  Intelligence seems to be just some form of information processing (Barrow and Tipler talk about "computing").

So, If life is just chemistry, and intelligence is just a form of information processing, then all versions of the Anthropic Principle reduce to the following:

At least one universe exists, and it allows for pretty complex chemistry that can do some kind of information processing.

Which doesn't really get us anywhere.  It certainly doesn't lead to anything as bizarre as Tipler's ideas of intelligent life having to exist effectively eternally, and the Omega Point.

The book highlights a real problem.  If you start with an idea which may seem vaguely right ("observers") but has no real definition, then you can build wonderful castles in the air.  Tipler's later books on physics and Christianity show the consequences of such castle building.

Incidentally, I'm not saying that this complex information processing chemistry isn't rather wonderful.  I am very happy to be a particular bunch of chemicals typing this blog entry.

Horizon: Who's Afraid of a Big Black Hole?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nslc4/b00nsl09/Horizon_20092010_Whos_Afraid_of_a_Big_Black_Hole/

An experiment:  A "live blog" written as I watch the programme.


Starts off badly talk of black holes being totally mysterious.

Then asks several physicists "Black holes - are they made of anything?" and shows them lost of words.  The answer is clear:   No.  They are a self-sustaining wave of spacetime, which persists because the gravitational waves don't interact in a linear way.  The physicists are probably lost for words because of how to explain that to the public, not because they don't know.

Are they totally mysterious?  No.

Now a series of pictures (on hand-held cards?) of pictures of another galaxy.  The pixels shown as an "image of a black hole" at the site of a previous supernova in another galaxy is totally misleading.  A stellar black hole is only city sized.  There is no way we could image an object the size of a city in another galaxy.

Nice waterfall analogy for a black hole, and good description of the inner horizon of the rotating centre.  This is the first time I have heard that horizon mentioned in a popular documentary series.

Oh dear.  They spoke about a "singularity" at the centre of a black hole beyond the inner horizon.  This is a bit misleading, as for rotating holes (which have an inner horizon) there is no point singularity.  It is a ring.  But that amount of detail may have been too much to expect.

Nice description of the fact that the theory of Relativity is incomplete, and that singularities aren't real.

Truly wonderful illustration of the orbits of stars around the black hole at the centre of the galaxy. 

Relationship between mass of black hole and mass of containing galaxy.  It's linear.  Bit of a big step though to suggest that black holes influence the galaxy.  Need some models to show that.

Michio Kaku:  "each galaxy with a raging black hole at the centre".  Raging?  Not in our galaxy.  We don't all live close to quasars!

Did they really say that "anything, no matter how unlikely, happens all the time" in the context of quantum mechanics?  Oh no.

"Ultimate reality is a quantum world".  That's a bit dodgy.

No explanation yet as to why quantum mechanics alone can't handle black hole centres.

Max Tegmark: "Nature has one unique way of operating".   Does it?

Kako explains why QM doesn't work.  But also says, unfortunately, "Nature is smarter than we are".

They are going to mention String Theory.  I just know they are.

Black holes as guides to origin of the universe.  Hmm.

"The singularity at the centre of the black hole is the same as the singularity at the start of the universe".  No, it isn't.  Singularities at the centres of black holes are chaotic.  The singularity at the origin of the universe is very, very ordered (according to Penrose).

Lawrence Krauss:  "there are singularities at the centres of black holes and at the origin of the universe".  That's better.

Lots of pictures of eyes of physicists.  How strange.

Now onto direct observations of black holes.  The shadow of an event horizon.  But not for 10 years!

Max Tegmark seems to like waterfalls.  Or at least being filmed by them.

Not a bad documentary.  8/10

Jerry Coyne tries to move on from accommodationism, with a post that has great summary of his position on the compatibility of religion and science:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/the-debate-that-wont-die/

But (and didn't you know there was going to be a 'but'):  I have to disagree with his strategy for dealing with irrational views (such as, he says, those about the effectiveness of condoms against HIV).  Working directly for atheism is not directly going to be either successful or necessary for achieving a reduction in irrational views.  I don't think working  for atheism is even a useful political strategy for dealing with religion, although this depends on what "working for atheism" actually means, and I will discuss that later.

Why do I disagree?  Because although religion can be the source of very many worrying irrational views, it isn't the only source even though it is the most visible. For example, there is a real problem right now with the widespread acceptance of "alternative" medicines and the rejection of mainstream medical opinion such as the necessity of vaccination.  That does not seem to come from religion. It comes from a general ignorance and lack of acceptance of science. 

Anyway, what does "working for atheism" mean?  I can only assume that it means promoting the visibility of atheism, and that atheists should be accepted as equals in society.  That is entirely admirable, as people should not be excluded because of their opinions (or lack of opinion) regarding the existence of gods.  But that is a political position, not a scientific one.

However, problems arise when the principle that the public should be scientifically literate about important matters (such as stem cell research) becomes entangled with the political promotion of atheism.  Because, there are conflicts.  Sometimes you can end up pushing atheism and putting aside the matter of scientific literacy.  When the literacy is about health and medicine, then the result can be dangerous,  as in the case of the AAI Award to Bill Maher.  That is a form of accommodationism that is more than just academic.

So, I propose a stronger and broader form of anti-accomodationism:  science and nonsense are not compatible.  Stop the tendency to focus on the compatibility of religion and evolutionary science, because while the concentration has been primarily on that subject more dangerous kinds of unreason have spread.  Also, the obsession with religion/atheism, although understandable, has I think been a distraction from the wider battles that need to be fought.  We need more than just New Atheists, we need New Scientists (if you will excuse the magazine reference): people who will vigorously attack not just religion but the far wider acceptance of nonsense throughout society.

Here is another suggestion:  When supporting atheism be very clear to differentiate political from scientific contexts. Politics is a dirty business.  Science needs to stay clean.  I'm not saying don't have conventions, or atheist meetings.  But be open about the reasons for your promotion of your beliefs in each situation.  Don't mix up  scientific atheism and political atheism.  The Maher case was the worst example of this.  Having the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science co-sponsoring a partly political event (the AAI 2009 Convention) was perhaps unwise.  At least in my view.

Finally, let's have some consistency. Just as Coyne says that "the National Center for Science Education and other scientific organizations should make no statements about the compatibility of science and religion", so an organisation should make no statements about the compatibility of the belief that condoms prevent HIV infection, and religion. Theism and atheism are conclusions.  They should be reached, not jumped to.  Get some Catholics to realise that the Vatican is scientifically wrong about condoms and that may help some move away from theism, but most importantly, it could save some lives.  What is more likely to come first - a conversion to atheism or believing evidence about condom use?

You don't get to promote science effectively by trying to deconvert people from religion.  You promote science effectively by being a good promoter of scientific understanding, of which Coyne is one of the finest.  If someone has gained an understanding of the wonders of science and its workings along with a better understanding of reason and how to use it, isn't that "mission accomplished"?

In Futurama, Professor Farnsworth encounters a Robot:

Robot: Mumbo, perhaps. Jumbo, perhaps not! With all your modern science are you any closer to understanding the mystery of how a robot walks or talks?
Farnsworth: Yes, you idiot. The circuit diagram is right here on the inside of your case.

I have been watching a great lecture series by Dan Dennett, on “Brains, Computers and Minds”:
http://mbb.harvard.edu/resources/dennett09.php
Links to videos:
http://mbb.harvard.edu/resources/pastnews.php

Along with the lectures were great post-talk commentaries, including an excellent criticism of Dennett's use of “memes” by Stephen Pinker (which Dennett then had a good go at refuting).

One interesting thought, expressed in the second commentary, about Dennett's dealings with consciousness was that Dennett never seems to quite deal fully with consciousness itself.  He says how it must be built up from unconscious processes otherwise there is no explanation.  Dennett also shows a great cartoon of “stream of consciousness” which he says must also, by definition, be the stream of consciousness of entities which are “philosophical zombies” - hypothetical entities which appear in every way to be identical to us, but supposedly have no subjective experiences.  But still, Dennett doesn't quite close the loop, doesn't deliver the punchline.  So I will.

The devastating blow for the idea of consciousness (not in the meaning of being awake, but having supposedly mysterious subjective experience) is not just that other people could be zombies and yet act in every way like we would assume that they would if they were not, and so, according to Dennett, the idea of consciousness in the sense I use above has no use.  The real blow will come when there is sufficient understanding of neurology so that we can explain why a brain will come to have the feeling that it is conscious, and the feeling that this conscious state is something that needs explaining.  What is more, it is the nature of the philosophical zombie that the explanation for why someone ends up saying “I am conscious” has to be purely neural.

Like when Farnsworth refutes the robot in Futurama; when someone says “qualia can't be explained”, we will be able to say “yes, they can:  the diagrams are here in your brain”.   Ok, so not quite, but we will be able to say something perhaps more meaningful:  “These diagrams of your brain show why you have the feeling that qualia can't be explained.”  Quite how those who wish to insist that qualia have some separate reality proceed after that is going to be interesting to see.