I-RACK

I can't help but think that Fox is either operated by precocious 13 year olds and/or evil geniuses.
Like most things, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

The Rhind Papyrus

The Rhind Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian document dated to around 1650 BC. It is one of the oldest mathematical documents in existence and vital to our understanding of Egyptian math.
More subtly, it gives us a glimpse into the social and economic world of the ancient Egyptians. Out of 84 problems (and solutions) contained within it, here are a few of my favorite:

Problem 64. Divide 10 hekats of barley among 10 men so that the common difference is 1/8 of a hekat of barley.

Problem 79. There are seven houses; in each house there are seven cats; each cat kills seven mice; each mouse has eaten seven grains of barley; each grain would have produced seven hekat. What is the sum of all the enumerated things.

Problem 24: A quantity (any) plus one-seventh of it becomes 19. What is the quantity?

A modern day mathematician or even a high school student would view solutions that the Egyptian mathematicians gave to these problems as labyrinthine. On the other hand, they might also view the original works of Newton or Euler as convoluted too. What might seem trivial today was emergent yesterday. In that way, nothing is truly trivial. It only seems that way because we have forgotten a time when we didn't know it.

There is also the Moscow Papyrus appearing about 200 years before (~1850 BC) the Rhind Papyrus. We are not sure how but translations do reveal that they had known the value of Π to an accuracy not acheived until Archimedes and how to calculate the volume of a frustum.

"Walking among the ruins of Ostria, the ancient port city of Rome, it is impossible to overlook the mosaics lining the city's walls and floors. These were the advertisements, posters and billboards of their day, identifying services, merchants and celebrities (including Alexander and Helix, famed boxers whose fists are still raised at an oyster bar), as a multicultural population of citizens and slaves connected themselves through a web of trade routes."

From Tiles to Pixels: Media and the City Roy Strickland

Gamma Ray Bursts

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) are the most powerful explosions in the universe. They can release as much energy in a few seconds as 1000 suns can over their entire lifetime. Thanks to BATSE they are observed to be extra-galactic in origin. GRB's can be classified as long duration (more than 2 seconds) or short duration (less than 2 seconds). There exist several competing, yet, unreliable models that can explain the observed properties of short duration GRB's. There exists, however, a nascent model that can explain many of the observational and theoretical properties of long duration GRB's. It is called the Collapsar Model.
Roughly speaking, this model requires very massive, rapidly rotating, metal poor stars to collapse to form a black hole via a super supernova explosion. It turns out that some of the stellar material far from the black hole does not immediately fall in to the center but, rather, forms an accretion disk. The eventual infall of this material (via loss in angular momentum) creates super heated jets that shoot out from the stellar poles at speeds close to that of light. This is thought to produce the rare and elusive GRB's we observe. In this way, GRB's are thought to accompany supernovae explosions. Several details of this model need to be reconciled with observations (see, transport of angular momentum problem) but because it matches several other observational and theoretical constraints it continues to be a viable model. Scientific models are always a work in progress slowly but surely inching towards the truth.

Recently, I came across an interesting article:
No supernovae detected in two long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts
by D. Watson, J. P. U. Fynbo, C. C. Thone, J. Sollerman

The authors have found not one but two GRB's with no apparent supernovae explosions. They have established that these were indeed long duration bursts caused by massive, rapidly rotating stars which is exactly what the Collapsar model demands. To be sure there is no supernova detection, they have analyzed the presence of dust levels along the line of sight and found it to be low.
Assuming, the result stands up to peer review, the Collapsar model will need to be refined so as to explain the lack of supernova detection and/or, as the authors suggests, this could be evidence for a "new phenomenological type of massive stellar death".

X-Files

It is safe to say that the X-Files was one of the most intelligent shows on TV.
Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) was the Sherlock Holmes of the paranormal. They both believe, "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

The last movie, The X-Files: Fight the Future, is one of the few movies I can watch over and over again without getting bored.

There has been serious talk of another film for several years. After looking here, I thought Julianne Moore might be playing Agent Dana Scully as Gillian Anderson had turned down the part. It turns out to be an evil April Fool's Day joke intended to prey on X-Files fans. Some things are just not funny.

Still, I am glad that Julianne Moore is not really going to playing Agent Scully. She is a smart actress but she would not fit the role of Agent Dana Scully very well. I recall watching the X-files after David Duchovny went on temporary hiatus only because Gillian Anderson remained. There will be another X-Files film but not as soon as I hoped.

Welcome

Welcome to Divergent Boundary! This is a new blog published by Jennifer Miller and Khurram Gillani. It is nice to be a part of the ever expanding blogosphere.