The editors of Physical Review D decided that our paper about the stability of boson condensate stars: specifically, a diagram that shows 36 simulated cases, deserves to be featured on their new Kaleidoscope page for February 2015:
Thank you, Physical Review.
I hate software upgrades.
It is one of the least productive ways to use one’s time. I am talking about upgrades that are more or less mandatory, when a manufacturer ends support of an older version. So especially if the software in question is exposed to the outside world, upgrading is not optional: the security risk associated with using an unsupported, obsolete version is quite significant.
Today, I was forced to upgrade all my Web sites that use the Joomla content management system, as support for Joomla 2.5 ended in December, 2014.
What can I say. It was not fun. I am using some custom components and some homebrew solutions, and it took the better part of the day to get through everything and resolve all compatibility issues.
And I gained absolutely nothing. My Web sites look exactly like they did yesterday (apart from things that might be broken as a result of the upgrade, that is.) I just wasted a few precious hours of my life.
Did I mention that I hate software upgrades?
Last month, something happened to me that may never happen again: I had not one but two papers accepted by Physical Review D in the same month, on two completely different topics.
The first was a paper I wrote with John Moffat, showing how well his scalar-tensor-vector gravity theory (STVG, also called MOG) fits an extended set of Milky Way rotational curve data out to a radius of nearly 200 kpc. In contrast, the archetypal modified gravity theory, MOND (Mordehai Milgrom’s MOdified Newtonian Dynamics) does not fare so well: as it predicts a flat rotation curve, its fit to the data is rather poor, although its advocates suggest that the fit might improve if we take into account the “external” gravitational field due to other galaxies.
The other paper, which I wrote together with an old friend and colleague, Eniko Madarassy, details a set of numerical simulations of self-gravitating Bose-Einstein condensates, which may form exotic stars or stellar cores. There has been some discussion in the literature concerning the stability of such objects. Our simulation shows that they are stable, which confirms my own finding, detailed in an earlier paper (which, curiously, was rejected by PRD), namely that the perceived instability arises from an inappropriate application of an approximation (the Thomas-Fermi approximation) used to provide a simplistic description of the condensate.
Oh, and we also had another paper accepted, not by Physical Review D, but by the International Journal of Modern Physics D, but still… it is about yet another topic, post-Galilean coordinate transformations and the analysis of the N-body problem in general relativity. Unlike the first two papers, this one was mostly the work of my co-author, Slava Turyshev, but I feel honored to have been able to contribute. It is a 48-page monster (in the rather efficient REVTeX style; who knows how many pages it will be in the style used by IJMPD) with over 400 equations.
All in all, a productive month insofar as my nonexistent second career as a theoretical physicist is concerned. Now I have to concentrate on my first job, the one that feeds the cats…
Five days ago, I was sitting on an Emirates Airlines flight from Dubai to Budapest.
Our flight took an unusual route. Normally (well, at least within my limited experience) such flights take a route north of Iraq, flying over Iranian airspace towards Turkey. Not this time: We flew across the Saudi desert instead, then turned north over the Sinai peninsula before entering Turkish airspace and turning northwest again. I was wondering about that kink in our trajectory: was it weather or perhaps some airspace over the Mediterranean was closed for military reasons?
As a service to business class customers, Emirates provides a limo service to the destination of your choice on arrival. I was wondering how I would find the limo pick-up location, but it was easier than I thought: the chauffeur was waiting for me at the customs exit, holding up a sign bearing my name. During the journey to my hotel, he told me about his son who wishes to become a particle physicist at CERN. So for a while, we were discussing the Higgs boson and teraelectronvolts, instead of more customary topics, like Hungarian politics.
I rented a car in Budapest, for my mother and I to take a short trip to southern Hungary, to visit my mother-in-law. As we had the car for a whole weekend, on Sunday we decided to take another small trip, this time to the north of Budapest, the small but historical city of Visegrád.
I used to live in Visegrád, from 1974 to 1977, mostly in this building:
At the time, this building served as a resort owned by the Hungarian Industrial Association. As a member of a crafts artisan cooperative, my mother was entitled to vacation in this place, which we did in the spring of 1974. This is how she came to meet my stepfather who at the time was the manager of this facility. To make a long story short, we lived in the manager’s apartment for several years, while my parents built a new house in the same town. I have fond memories of this place.
Today, it serves as a home for the elderly. It seems to be well taken care of. Much to my surprise, one of its terraces appears to have been converted into a chicken coop, complete with a rather loud rooster:
Other than these two excursions and a brief visit to a 91-year old friend who recently had a serious health crisis, I spent most of my time at my parents’ place, a small apartment on the Buda side, nearly filled by a giant dog and his favorite toy:
My parents are very fond of this animal. He is nice, but I remain committed to cats. They are quieter, smell nicer, and require a whole lot less maintenance.
And all too soon, I was on another airplane, flying “business class” on British Airways to London. I had to put “business class” in quotation marks, as there was ridiculously little legroom on this middle-aged A320:
At least, the middle seats were converted into an extra tray instead.
And the flight left Budapest nearly an hour late. The reason? The air crew arrived in Budapest late the previous night, and they had to have their mandatory rest. This presented a potentially serious problem for me: the possibility that I would miss my connecting flight, which, to make things worse, was purchased separately. I probably broke some records at Heathrow Airport as I managed to make it from the arrival gate in Terminal 3 to the Terminal 2 departure gate in only 32 minutes, which included a bus ride between terminals and going through security. I made it with about 10 minutes to spare. I checked and I was told that my suitcase made it, too.
I have to say, while I like both Air Canada and British Airways, their service doesn’t even come close to the quality of service I enjoyed on Emirates or Etihad. And I am not just referring to legroom or the age of the aircraft (the Emirates flight to Budapest was a really aged A330 and the seats, while a great deal more comfortable than these British Airways seats, were nonetheless a little cramped) but also the attentiveness of the staff on board.
Still, the flight was pleasant (except for some rather severe turbulence near the southern trip of Greenland), and some eight hours later, I was back in sunny snowy Ottawa. The land of deep freeze, where the Rideau Canal is breaking all kinds of records, having been open for well over 50 consecutive days already.
I am back from another round of globe-trotting. I spent a week in the UAE, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, followed by a very brief detour to Budapest to visit my parents.
On arrival to Dubai, we landed nearly an hour late. The reason: a massive sandstorm, which still blanketed the city the next day. Sandstorms can be just as scary and dangerous as snowstorms here in Ottawa: they can reduce visibility to near zero, and the sand can cover roadways in no time. In fact, sand is worse than snow in one respect: it does not melt away.
I was taken to Abu Dhabi by car and during that trip, I saw the rarest of desert wonders: rain.
I was unable to book a room in the hotel of my choice in Abu Dhabi, as most hotels were full due to some defense exhibition. I did, however, find not a room, but a whole apartment at a very modest price in downtown Abu Dhabi, in a brand new apartment hotel called Bin Majid Hotel Apartments (second building from the left):
I had a one bedroom apartment, fully equipped, with a beautiful view of the sea:
Around the hotel, I befriended several cats. OK, maybe befriended is too strong a term, but one of them was certainly friendly for a while. It was a mostly white cat with a tabby tail; young, probably, but also rather small and skinny. When I saw this cat for the second time and let her (?) sniff my fingers, she would not stop following me. She rubbed against my leg, dropped on her side onto my shoes, and even when I picked her up and placed her back on a safe sidewalk, she continued to come after me. Only after I picked her up and put her onto a stone ledge did she take offense: she jumped off the ledge and disappeared under a parked car. I hope I did not offend her too deeply. I have not seen her afterwards. However, on my last morning in Abu Dhabi, I went looking for her and found instead another, equally tiny and skinny male cat: obviously an adult male, it was a tabby with a heavy limp and only one functioning eye. I felt heartbroken for these cats, although I have been assured that in the UAE, cats are generally not treated badly.
As always, the food in the UAE was both tasty and spectacular. One evening, a colleague took me to a restaurant recently opened by one of his friends. Here, we were treated with a spectacular feast:
Yum! My only regret is that I couldn’t eat it all. (Actually that’s not true: my other regret is that I came back heavier than I left, which is most unfortunate but not at all unusual when visiting the UAE.)
Then all too soon, it was time to leave. I boarded a direct flight from Dubai to Budapest, a recently introduced route by Emirates Airlines. After take-off, I enjoyed a spectacular view of downtown Dubai, dominated by the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, from my airplane window. Sadly, my attempts to take a picture were not very successful.
And just like that, this part of my journey under the desert sun, a few very busy workdays in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, was over.
Today, I successfully hacked one of my Rogers cable decoder boxes. No, not to do anything illegal, just to get composite video and demultiplexed stereo audio out of them, to make them more usable with the dual-tuner TV card that is in my desktop workstation.
This is the first time ever that I used the services of a custom printed circuit board manufacturer. My design worked on the first try. I am mighty proud of myself.
For years, I’ve been using the online TV guide provided by ZAP2IT to check what’s on TV. Generally speaking, I’ve been satisfied with their service.
Until last year, when they introduced a whole new layout. Which, in my considered opinion, was a significant downgrade (makes me wonder if they were perhaps inspired by Windows 8).
Today I noticed, to my considerable pleasure, that the old layout is back. I now have the option to “Switch to Classic View”. Which I promptly did, without hesitation and with no plans to change my mind.
Now I am no usability or ergonomics expert, but I do have 30-odd years of experience in IT, and I know a thing or two about user interface design. Here are two illustrations that show why, in my considered opinion, the old format is far superior to the new one. First, the new version, with some of its shortcomings highlighted:
And now here are the same shows, in the old format:
So much easier to view! So much easier to find things of interest!
When they switched to the new format, I wrote an e-mail to complain. I did not expect a meaningful response. Noticing the link today, inviting me to switch back to the old format, was a most pleasant New Year’s surprise. I wrote to them again, thanking them for making the old format available. I hope it stays that way.
I know, I know, let this be the biggest problem in my life, when people are suffering and dying in various corners of the world. For what it’s worth, I never for one moment forget how lucky I am to be able to enjoy the luxury of life in a country like Canada. But this stupid TV guide still bugged me :-)
2014 was not necessarily my favorite year. But it could have been worse.
I had some interesting projects. I traveled to places that I have never been to. We lost a beloved cat, but then we were adopted by another. The world became a somewhat scarier place, but so far, it’s still holding together. And we’re alive, in good health.
What do I expect from 2015?
I have some project concepts. As I still have to work for a living, I hope some of them will work out. I have some research ideas. I hope I will have more time this year to work on physics. As for the world, hopefully sanity will prevail. In 2014, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Great War (to end all wars) in relative peace and prosperity. Hopefully, we will be able to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Armistice the same way in 2018.
These year numbers, by the way… I will never be able to shake off the feeling that they are surreal. When I was growing up, “1999” was the year of Moonbase Alpha. “The Year 2000” was synonymous with the distant future. “2001” was about a Space Odyssey. Then there was “2010”, the Second Odyssey, but that’s about it… beyond 2010, it was all vague, a future as distant as the days of the dinosaurs in the past.
And yet, it’s 2015. Weird.
So tonight, my wife and I watched the infamous movie, The Interview, for the princely sum of 7 Canadian dollars, courtesy of YouTube.
Chances are that without the SONY hack and the subsequent decision to pull the film from theaters, we would never have seen it. To be honest, it is a rather crappy movie. And I chose that word with care, as much of the so-called humor was really lower body humor. There were perhaps a few decently funny movements (though none that would make me laugh uncontrollably, not even close.)
Still, let that be a lesson to pisspot dictators: clumsy attempts to censor the West’s entertainment industry only provide invaluable free publicity. An entirely forgettable piece of Hollywood trash this way became an instant immortal icon, mentioned along with classics like Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.
It appears though that the film found a receptive audience in China of all places. Great! Perhaps it will give Beijing’s communist government some food for thought as they consider the consequences of their continuing support for one of the world’s most totalitarian, most abusive regimes.
Year after year, I can find no better way to wish Merry Christmas to all my family, my friends, and all good people on Earth, than with the immortal words of Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman from 46 years ago: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.”
It’s Christmas so it’s bejgli time.
Bejgli is Hungarian (well, actually, the word comes originally from German but let’s not be pedantic at Christmas) for a (walnut or poppy seed) nut roll that is typical Christmas fare in Hungary. This is what they looked like, (nearly) fresh out of the oven earlier this afternoon:
Oh yes, the picture was taken with my thermal camera.
Meet Rufus, our newest cat.
I don’t usually like the idea of accessorizing kittycats, but Rufus is such an elegant creature, a bow tie seemed like an absolute necessity.
The cat who photobombed the shot in the background is our oldest kitty, Kifli.
And, since someone will inevitably ask for it, here is a picture of Rufus in the infrared (sans bow tie, this time):
Today, I became a proud owner of a new smartphone attachment: a thermal camera.
I long wanted to have a thermal camera, but the prices were frivolously high. One of the cheapest cameras from FLIR, for instance, the TG165, costs five hundred dollars and has a measly 80 x 60 pixel sensor resolution. FLIR has a smartphone thermal camera attachment that’s cheaper, but its resolution is also low, and it only works with the iPhone.
In contrast, the Seek Thermal camera attachment costs only two hundred bucks and has a 206 x 156 pixel sensor, which is quite decent, insofar as thermal sensors go. And it works with Android phones, notably my Samsung S3. Better yet, much to my delight I found out that the device is actually manufactured in the United States.
So I knew immediately what I wanted for Christmas. Okay, it arrived a little early, but that’s okay. It is a lovely little device, nicely packaged, looks very well manufactured, with a protective jewel case for safe storage when not in use.
And this is what I look in the infrared:
Lovely mugshot, isn’t it.
Here is what my wife is like this morning:
That is because this is the view from our window this morning:
Oh well. Better than global warming, I suppose.
Today is Remembrance Day in Canada.
Unlike the Remembrance Days of recent years, today is perfect. The Sun is shining, the temperature is going to hit double digits. It is a sparkling, beautiful, almost unnaturally splendid late autumn day.
The combination of exceptional weather and the recent death of Cpl. Cirillo, gunned down last month while guarding the very memorial where Remembrance Day ceremonies will take place, will bring exceptional crowds.
But today is not a day of celebration. It is a day to remember.
To remember the War to End All Wars, which began exactly 100 years ago. Far from ending all wars, it claimed nearly 40 million lives, and redrew the maps of Europe, laying the groundwork for another, even more devastating war less than a quarter century later. To remember all the dead: not just Canadians, not just Allied soldiers, indeed, not only just soldiers but also civilians who suffered and died in even greater numbers.
To remember, for instance, my wife’s great-grandfather, who served in the Austro-Hungarian army at one of the bloodiest fronts of the Great War, along the Isonzo river in present-day Slovenia. His little notebook [in Hungarian] detailing, often in verse, his horrendous experience in the trenches, was found among the papers left behind by my wife’s father when he died.
To remember my great uncle Béla, who taught me to play chess when I was little and who was the first among elder family members who awakened my interest in science and mathematics. Uncle Béla served in both world wars and (if I remember family lore correctly) even spent some time as a POW. A memento, a stringless balalaika, hung on the wall of their tiny, bathroom-less working-class flat in central Budapest, where he lived with his wife, aunt Flóra, until his death.
To remember my grandfather on my mother’s side, whom I never met, as he passed away a year before I was born. He spent some horrendous months as an army engineer near the Don river; he only escaped the devastating defeat of the Second Hungarian Army (and thus, likely death or long-term captivity in Stalin’s gulag) because he was allowed to return to Budapest after contracting pneumonia. Nonetheless, what he went through there probably contributed to his declining health and the massive stroke or brain hemorrhage that struck him just a few years later and left him severely disabled for the last 15 years of his life. He was several years younger than I am at present when his life effectively came to an end.
His wife, my grandmother, was responsible for keeping a family of six (including a newborn baby and two preschoolers, one of them my Mom) alive and fed through the siege of Budapest, when the family spent an entire winter in a basement bomb shelter, even as she herself was coping with illness that nearly took her life.
As I am writing down these thoughts, I am listening to the musical Johnny Johnson, by Kurt Weill. Weill, well-known for his Threepenny Opera, is one of my favorite 20th century composers. He escaped Germany when the Nazis came to power in 1933, to live the rest of his all too short life (he was only 50 when he died) in the United States. It was here that he composed Johnny Johnson, an astonishing anti-war musical. One of my favorite songs has a German and an American priest preaching in canon on the battlefront to their respective troops: one in German, one in English, but preaching the exact same words. But perhaps the most heart-rending scene is at the very end: the protagonist, Johnny Johnson, is now a toymaker selling his “toys for nice little girls and boys” on the street. Unfortunately, nobody is buying: they are more interested in the speech of a politician just a block away, calling for another war.
The title of Johnny Johnson was inspired by the fact the name appeared on United States casualty rolls more often than any other.
The parkways of the Gatineau Park are now closed and the autumn colors are nearly gone. Still, my wife and I enjoyed a pleasant walk today in the outskirts of the park, after a fine lunch at Le Buffet des Continents.
Autumn remains my favorite season. My only complaint is that it ends too soon, and it is often followed by a nasty winter.
This afternoon, I felt compelled to take a walk to downtown Ottawa. Our home is within walking distance of Parliament Hill and the National War Memorial, where a deranged shooter killed a ceremonial guard, Corporal Nathan Cirillo.
It was a beautiful autumn day and the walk was very enjoyable. On my way downtown, I dropped by my favorite computer store (Canada Computers, on Rideau Street) to purchase some needed cables. Then I continued.
There was quite a crowd at the War Memorial, and it was full of flowers. Flowers, flowers and more flowers. Also, many Canadian flags.
And it so happened that I was very lucky: I caught the changing of the guard ceremony. I even managed to record it on video.
Near the end of the clip, a police officer (armed with what appeared to be a fully automatic weapon) crosses in front of my phone camera. He apologized for doing so (I can be heard muttering, “no problem,” on the video). After I was done recording, I stepped over to the policeman and had a brief conversation with him. I mentioned to him that it is an unfortunate necessity that he has to be part of the picture. He understood immediately what I meant. I also thanked him for his service.
I then carried on, right up to Parliament Hill. As a free citizen of a free country, I entered the grounds without encountering any guards, obstacles, metal detectors or other obscenities. It occurred to me that this is the first time I walked on Parliament Hill in 41 years.
The flag on top of the Peace Tower is still at half mast.
I also managed to take a panoramic photo of sorts of the view from the Hill:
Ottawa is still a beautiful city. And, having just returned from the Middle East, it was good to reassure myself that it remains a free city of a free people.
On my way back from sunny Abu Dhabi to autumn Ottawa. My wife asked me to bring some warm weather. I’ll try…
When you fly over trouble spots, the flight path can get interesting.
Our flight carefully avoided Iraqi, Syrian and Ukrainian airspace. We also spent as little time in Iranian skies as possible.
Soon, we’ll be flying over Hungary. Maybe I should try to wave to my Mom, in case she sees me…
I arrived in Ottawa in mid-July, 1987 as a landed immigrant. I was sponsored by my aunt and her husband András. It was András who awaited me at the airport on the evening of my arrival. (No, I did not arrive by air. My connecting flight from Montreal was canceled, so Air Canada put me in a limo along with another passenger. As the limo driver was not from Ottawa, and I knew nothing about the layout of the city, he dropped me off at the airport instead of taking me directly to my aunt’s house.)
I spent some time in the old (since decommissioned) airport building waiting for András to arrive. (In the pre-cellphone days, I first had to exchange some currency, then get some change, then find a payphone in order to be able to notify them about my whereabouts.) After a wait of a half hour or so, András did arrive. We only ever met once before, briefly, when they were visiting Hungary and I spent a few hours at my parents’ home, on leave from my mandatory military service. So when András saw me, he was not sure if I was the right person… as he approached me, he asked, “So you are Viktor?”
“Yes,” I answered, to which András replied with a second question: “Why did you come here, why didn’t you go to Calgary instead?”
Yes, András had a weird sense of humor. Not everyone appreciated it, but I did. I really grew to like him.
Earlier this week, it was Nature’s turn to be funny, while also providing me with a perfectly good answer to András’s question from 27 years ago. This is why, András:
Yes, András, I am a wimp. I can tolerate winter, but I really don’t like late summer snow storms.
Alas, András is no longer among us to hear my response. He passed away many years ago, after losing his battle with pancreatic cancer.
I received an e-mail today that reminded me of an old friend, Gabor Laufer, and his misadventures in his capacity as a medical doctor with the American system of medical insurance.
Gabor was our neighbor when I was a little boy, living next door to our apartment in Budapest, along with his mother. At that time, he was a medical student. He in fact removed one of my baby teeth when I was 7 or 8 or so, and then gave me the pair of dentist’s pliers that he used as a memento.
Not long thereafter, Gabor left Hungary, and eventually landed in the United States, where he began to practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist in the Washington, D.C. area. It was here that he had a disagreement with his insurance company, who opted to settle in a case that involved Gabor, despite Gabor’s objections. Gabor found it fundamentally unacceptable that the insurance company would pay a patient even though he made no medical errors. Unfortunately, his quixotic fight achieved only one thing: the insurance company dropped him, and other insurers were not willing to deal with him either. This made it very difficult for Gabor to continue his practice. This is how he ended up somewhere in Kentucky or Iowa I believe, where he was able to work again at a family clinic.
Gabor was immensely intelligent, and proud of it. In the early 1980s, he authored a computer game, the name of which says it all: Intellectual Decathlon. I had a few interesting discussions with Gabor, although, I admit, sometimes these were a little frustrating, as he had a tendency to conclude that if something was beyond his ability to understand, it could not possibly be right. (Explaining relativistic cosmology to someone who is not familiar with the math is a difficult task.)
I stayed in touch with Gabor intermittently over the years. In the late 1980s, after I moved to Canada, I was a frequent visitor to his computer BBS (long-distance dial-up to the Washington D.C. area at 2400 bps) called Elite Few. But then, the Internet led to the demise of most, if not all, dial-up BBSs, and the Elite Few BBS was no exception.
I once again got in touch with Gabor in the late 2000’s, and we exchanged several e-mails. We also became Facebook friends. The last e-mail I received from him, in 2011, was about an impending change of his e-mail address. I have not heard from him since, and his Facebook page also fell silent.
But now, as I Googled his name, I came across something else: an obituary of sorts, from one of his doctor friends. This is how I found out that Gabor was no longer among us. Perhaps I should not be surprised. Though he was far from old (only 65 when he passed away), he was a chain smoker. Still… it is really sad to learn, more than two years after his death, that he is no more. Gabor’s death was also commemorated on a news discussion site.
As I was going through old e-mails, I came across something else: Gabor’s photo albums on Flickr. It was here that I was able to locate a relatively recent picture of Gabor, made in 2009 I believe, when he was visiting Budapest.
Good-bye, Gabor. It was an honor, knowing you. May you rest in peace.