Spinor Info

Titus Awakes

May 082013

Many years ago, I came across a strange miniseries on the Canadian science fiction cable channel Space. I could not make heads or tails of it, but its atmosphere was captivating. Later, when all four episodes were broadcast in a late night marathon, I taped them all (yes, taped them; it was that long ago). A few weeks later, I came across that same tape, began watching, and I was forever hooked.

This is how I first encountered Mervyn Peake’s remarkable trilogy, Gormenghast.

Needless to say, I soon bought the book and read it in no time from cover to cover. It was an amazing read. There are only a few books that I can think of in my (admittedly limited) reading experience that I found as profound as this one: for instance, Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, or Marquez’s 100 Years Solitude.

The omnibus edition of the Gormenghast trilogy that I read contained more than just the three novels. It also contained a brief fragment from a fourth novel. A novel Peake never had a chance to write, due to his debilitating illness and eventual untimely death.

Nonetheless, the fourth novel, Titus Awakes, did end up being written. Not by Peake but by his wife and life partner, Maeve Gilmore. Shortly after Peake’s death, Gilmore attempted the impossible: she tried to finish the novel that her husband was not able to complete.

The remarkable thing is that she succeeded. In every respect, Titus Awakes is a true continuation of the Gormenghast cycle. It is a poignant novel that even incorporates a marginally autobiographical element, an attempt by Gilmore to turn back the clock to happier times and to tie the story of the protagonist, Titus Groan, to that of her own family.

This manuscript sat hiding in an attic for decades until it was recently found by Peake’s descendants. Gilmore herself passed away almost thirty years ago. What are the odds that a manuscript of such significance is found after all this time? Yet it is here, and for fans of Gormenghast, it is well worth reading.

I have read the Gormenghast trilogy twice already, and undoubtedly I will read it again. But the next time, I’ll not stop reading at the end of the third novel; I will also re-read Titus Awakes.

Mini reunion

Personal No Responses »

May 072013

There was another reason for me to stop by in London: the possibility of meeting some old high school friends, celebrating a shared milestone in our lives as we are all turning 50 this year.

The reunion was smaller than we hoped for, as in the end, only three of us were present. But the evening went well, good food, good beer, good company and all. One of my friends was, in fact, just recently in North Korea, and the stories he shared were absolutely fascinating.

Finding the TARDIS

Personal, Television No Responses »

May 072013

When I decided to visit London, I secretly hoped that if I am lucky, I’d spot the TARDIS, Dr. Who’s infamous “bigger on the inside than on the outside” time machine.

Thanks to Richard Bartle, my quest was not in vain. The TARDIS, as it turns out, is sitting quietly just outside one of the exits of the Earl’s Court Underground station.

Except that… well, it’s not the real TARDIS. Instead, it’s just an ordinary blue police box, just like the one the TARDIS mimics, but unlike the TARDIS, this one is decidedly not bigger on the inside than on the outside. Still, it was fun to find.

Animals in War and other memorials

Cats, History, Personal No Responses »

May 072013

With four cats in our house, it’s easy to guess that my wife and I are both animal lovers. To be sure, we are partial to felines, but we love most other animals (with obvious exceptions such as flies or mosquitoes) and we are especially troubled when we see animal suffering.

And animals suffer a lot. Especially in wars. Which is why I find the Animals in War Memorial especially poignant.

I happened upon this memorial when I made an unplanned detour on my way to Leicester Square, where I was to meet with Richard Bartle, who was kind enough to come to London to see me. We were supposed to meet under the Shakespeare statue at Leicester Square. When I arrived, there was no Shakespeare statue. Fortunately, I eventually realized that the cordoned off area in the center of the square does, in fact, hide the statue which is currently being renovated. Shortly thereafter, I spotted Richard.

Ten days in Europe

Personal 1 Response »

May 072013

I was silent in the past ten days because I was traveling. I spent six days in Hungary, and a few more in London, England.

I’d like to say that I had a blast of a time but that is not strictly true: I had a rather nasty bout with gastroenteritis that severely interfered with my plans concerning my time in Hungary. Indeed, let this serve as my apology to all those friends I did not have time to look up: the two days I reserved for this purpose, I ended up spending mostly in my hotel bathroom. Oh well.

At least the view I had from my hotel room was enjoyable. I don’t mind trainspotting, and I was on a high enough floor that the noise was negligible, even with the window open.

The view from my London hotel room was perhaps a little less exciting. But, at least it was also a quiet room. Or would have been, were it not for some noisy neighbors next door. (Yes, dear lady, the entire floor heard you when you were loudly banging on your friend’s door at 6 AM yelling, “are you awake?” We all were, by then.)

If only my room had been a tad bigger, with a mattress a tad less worn and a TV mount a tad less broken, I’d have been entirely satisfied. But beggars can’t be choosers, and when looking for reasonably priced accommodation near Paddington station in London, we are all beggars.

And the weather in London was absolutely spectacular. Blue skies and sunshine most of the time, not too warm, with a pleasant breeze.

Now I am safely back home, though still nursing my left foot; I almost twisted my ankle getting out of a car about a week ago in Budapest, and endless walks in London did not help either. Hopefully, I’ll stop limping in a day or two.

Twenty-seven years

Environment, Physics, Politics No Responses »

Apr 252013

Twenty seven years ago tonight, an ill-prepared overnight crew at reactor #4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukraine began an unauthorized experiment, originally scheduled to run during the day, and designed to test how much power the reactor was able to supply while it was shutting down, keeping emergency systems powered while waiting for backup generators to kick in. Trouble is, this particular reactor type was known to have instabilities at low power even at the best of times. And these were not the best of times: the reactor was operated by an inexperienced crew and was suffering from “poisoning” by neutron-absorbing xenon gas due to prolonged low-power operations earlier and during the preparation for the test.

The rest, of course, is history: reactor #4 blew up in what remains the worst nuclear accident in history. A large area around the Chernobyl plant remains contaminated. The city of Pripyat remains a ghost town. And a great many people were exposed to radiation.

The number of people killed by the Chernobyl disaster remains a matter of dispute. Most studies I’ve read about estimate several thousands deaths that can be attributed to the accident and the resulting increased risk of cancer. But a recent paper by Kharecha and Hansen (to be published in Environ. Sci. Technol.) cites a surprisingly low figure of only 43 deaths directly attributable to the accident.

This paper, however, is notable for another reason: it argues that the number of lives saved by nuclear power vastly exceeds the number of people killed. They assert that nuclear power already prevented about 1.8 million pollution-related deaths, and that many million additional deaths can be prevented in the future.

I am sure this paper will be challenged but I find it refreshing. For what it’s worth, I’d much rather have a nuclear power plant in my own backyard than a coal-fired power station. Of course the more powerful our machines are, the bigger noise they make when they go kaboom; but this did not prevent us from using airplanes or automobiles either.

Global warming slowdown

Physics, Space, Weather and Climate No Responses »

Apr 202013

It’s official (well, sort of): global warming slowed down significantly in the last decade and a half.

No, this does not mean that the climate skeptics were right all along. Far from it: their attacks on science, their ad hominem attacks on scientists, their conspiracy theories are all nonsense.

What it does mean, though, is that the climate alarmists were not exactly right either. Overstating the case did not help. Far from creating public support, it may have in fact fueled climate skepticism.

The basic science is not wrong. Take a gas like CO2 that is transparent to visible light but absorbs IR a little more efficiently. Pump it into the atmosphere. Visible sunlight still reaches the surface, but less heat escapes radiatively to space at night. So, the surface gets warmer. Simple. This much was known back in the 19th century, to people like Fourier in 1827, Tyndall in 1872, and last but not least, Arrhenius from Sweden who, in 1896, actually calculated the amount by which the Earth would warm up, or cool, if the amount of CO2 were to change in the atmosphere.

But the devil is in the details. The Earth’s atmosphere is not just a column of static, transparent air with various amounts of CO2. It is a turbulent thing, with many feedback mechanisms, some positive, some negative. The oceans play a big role. Foliage plays a big role. Changes in industrial practices, fewer particulates in the air, play a big role. And so on.

And we also know that the Earth’s climate is not exactly a fragile little thing. After all, it has been relatively stable over geological timescales, allowing life to flourish and evolve. So I always thought that it is rather preposterous to assume that a few hundred years of industrial pollution can do what geological upheavals, global catastrophes, and so on could not: tip the balance and cause a runaway effect.

So we are left with the basic questions. How much will the climate change in the foreseeable future? What are its effects on humanity? And what can we do about all this?

The answer, I fear, remains as elusive as ever. And ridiculous schemes like “carbon trading” don’t help either.

Suspect in custody

Internet, Legal, Society No Responses »

Apr 192013

Minutes ago, a tweet from the Boston Police Department: “Suspect in custody. Officers sweeping the area. Stand by for further info.”

If true: if these two were indeed the clowns who committed mass murder on Monday, then congratulations are in order. They may have shut down a major metropolis for a day, but the result was worth it. This was not a shutting-the-barn-door-after-the-horses-left overreaction, but appropriate action in light of the fact that an extremely dangerous clown with explosives was on the loose. If I lived in Boston, I’d seriously consider intercepting a random off-duty police officer and inviting him for a beer.

An interesting side note, though, about how information flows (or doesn’t flow) in the 21st century: despite the massive media presence and the non-stop breathless reporting, in the end Anderson Cooper broke the news by reading the above tweet from the Boston Police Department. Not sure what it says about the freedom of the press and the authorities’ ability to control the message in this day and age.

A friend’s trip to North Korea

Culture, History, Politics No Responses »

Apr 162013

My friend and high school classmate, Laszlo Varro, teaches mathematics these days at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. He is also an avid traveler, occasionally sending missives from far off places like a small village in Vietnam, a spot off the beaten track in the Arizona desert, or a mountainside in the Andes.

Perhaps this is how it came to be that recently, Laszlo led a group of his students to, of all places, North Korea. They came back with many memories to share, and plenty of pictures and videos. Laszlo put some of those on YouTube.

Of the four clips, perhaps my favorite is the one he titled “Fun in North Korea”, because this is the one clip that offers the most background glimpses at daily lives in the Hermit Kingdom. The daily lives of the privileged, I hasten to add; Pyongyang is a privileged city, and we must not forget that even as we watch these clips, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands who suffer in North Korean labor camps (many born there) and many others may be near starvation.

One thing I found particularly interesting… the North Koreans are elegant. For instance, when schoolgirls sing to honored guests at a school concert, they do so with an almost Japanese grace. Perhaps this, more than anything, indicates to me that North Korean communism is not simply a copy of Eastern European communism, with oafish workers representing the best of the proletariat.

But my friend’s most important message is that Kim Jong-un’s boastful rhetoric notwithstanding, North Korea did not appear to him as a country preparing for war.

One way trip to Mars

Space No Responses »

Apr 162013

There is another ambitious Mars project in the works: unlike Inspiration Mars, the Mars One project aims to send colonists to Mars, people determined to live out the rest of their lives on the Red Planet, with no return ticket.

I wrote about how I would be willing to risk a very dangerous, very uncomfortable 501-day flight to Mars and back. But staying there for good? Now that’s another matter. Leaving the Earth in the company of a dozen or so other people, knowing that from now on, those will be the only people you will ever see face to face? That you will never see a blue sky again, hear a bird sing, or swim in the sea?

Fortunately, this is not a choice I’ll ever have to make. Unlike Inspiration Mars, the Mars One project is not (to the best of my knowledge) looking for middle-aged couples as participants.

Eat mousies

Culture, Humor No Responses »

Apr 162013

One of my favorite cartoonists is the unforgettable Bernard Kliban (B. Kliban, as per his signature) whose unique cats always make me laugh.

The other day, my wife wondered: Could it be that Kliban is of Czech descent? She was asking because there is another amazing cartoonist, Miroslav Bartak, whose irreverent humor is not altogether unlike Kliban’s. Indeed, as anyone who read the story of The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek can testify, there is something uniquely funny about Czech humor… and at least some of Kliban’s cats do remind us of that humor.

So I checked, and… close. Kliban was born in the US, of course, but the family name apparently is a Jewish name of Western Ukrainian origin. So perhaps the cultural roots of Messrs. Bartak and Kliban are not that far apart after all.

Pioneer 11 anniversary

Personal, Physics, Space No Responses »

Apr 162013

In all the excitement (okay, I wasn’t that excited. But, I was busy) I almost forgot to celebrate an anniversary: it was 40 years ago on April 5 that Pioneer 11 was launched at Cape Canaveral.

In a recent Letter to the Editor published in the newsletter of the American Physical Society, a correspondent suggested that Pioneer 11 may still reveal some anomalous behavior. I do not believe this to be the case. While it is true that our investigation of Pioneer 11 was not as thorough as our investigation of Pioneer 10 (due, in part, to the fact that we have less Doppler data from Pioneer 11) there are no statistically significant inconsistencies.

This Letter also reveals two misconceptions about the anomaly. One is that if the anomaly is Earth directed, which would presumably be inconsistent with a thermal cause. This is not so: quite the contrary, since the spin axis and the Earth direction mostly coincide, an Earth directed anomaly is exactly what one would expect to see in case of a thermal cause. Second, I don’t think it is even relevant to say that “a new physics cause may still be possible”. Of course new physics is always possible. But before one can speculate about new physics, “old physics” must be excluded, i.e., there must be an incontrovertible demonstration that conventional physics cannot account for the observed phenomena. This is not the case for the Pioneer anomaly: conventional physics comfortably accounts for the anomalous acceleration. Sure, there are small discrepancies that are within the margin of error, but you don’t fish for new physics within the margine of error. That’s not the way science is supposed to work.

Ambassadors and strange flags

Canada, Hungary, Politics 2 Responses »

Apr 132013

So pretend for a moment the following: In Moscow, the French ambassador gives an interview to a local French-language TV program that is broadcast to the expatriate French community in Russia. As he speaks, you notice that the flag behind him is not the French tricolor but Quebec’s flag, the Fleurdelisé. How would you interpret this? Exactly what is the ambassador trying to say?

Of course France’s ambassadors are generally more diplomatic than that. Even if they were to support Quebec’s independence from Canada, I doubt they would do so in such a crudely undiplomatic manner.

So then, when Hungary’s ambassador here in Ottawa gave an interview to Magyar Képek, a Hungarian-language television program broadcast on OMNI TV throughout Canada, why did he choose to do so standing in front of not Hungary’s tricolor, but the flag of Székely Land (also known as Szekler Land, or Székelyföld in Hungarian, a territory in Eastern Transylvania inhabited by Hungarian-speaking ethnic Székelys)?

I cannot help but wonder about the thinking behind this.

Scary North Korea

History, Politics 1 Response »

Apr 112013

The National Post has an interesting set of infographics detailing the strength of North Korea’s conventional forces.

I made an attempt to create a condensed version:

But if it’s too condensed, it kind of loses its punch, so it might be wiser to study the original. The bottom line: they have a scary number of surface ships, submarines, landing craft, torpedoes, aircraft both relatively modern (e.g., Mig-29) and ancient (biplanes!), and a huge army with a large number of artillery pieces, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, SCUDs, you name it. Probably some non-conventional (chemical) stuff, too, that they would not hesitate to use. And on top of that, maybe a few crude nukes, albeit without decent delivery systems.

Then again… remember Saddam Hussein’s scary conventional army back in 1991, the world’s third or fourth largest at the time, and battle-tested during the Iraq-Iran war, equipped with SCUDs and WMDs? Didn’t do him much good, did it. Seeing SCUDs arrive in Saudi neighborhoods was a scary sight, but in the end, the damage they did was negligible. So maybe the numbers do not tell the whole story after all.

Still, a war in the Korean peninsula would be devastating for South Korea especially, but also for the world economy. And although I have no doubt that North Korea would vanish as a result, reintegrating the North would be a task that’s perhaps even harder than winning the war.

Say hi to @Cmdr_Hadfield

Personal, Space No Responses »

Apr 102013

A few moments ago, my wife looked up through our skylight and lo and behold, saw a moving star.

Not just any moving star; it turned out to be the International Space Station, in all its still sunlit glory over the late evening Ottawa sky.

I once managed to capture the ISS through my cellphone; the picture turned out to be surprisingly good, even showing (I think) the somewhat rectangular shape of the station.

Anyhow, I hope Chris Hadfield is having a great time up there.

Compass

Personal, Technology No Responses »

Apr 082013

Here is a beautiful military relic, a gift from a family friend who knew that I was a sucker for old technology:

It is a very conventional compass, floating in oil in a non-magnetic brass casing. Our friend was concerned about the radiation symbol on the cover: as it turns out, this particular compass had fluorescent markings that were illuminated by the presence of small amounts of radioactive tritium.

As tritium is a low-energy beta emitter, it poses almost no health risk (unless you happen to inhale or consume some quantities of it) and thus it is safe for use as a form of “permanent illumination”. Unfortunately, tritium is also used in thermonuclear weapons, so its possession and sale are often regulated. In any case, this old compass is long past its “use before” date; I don’t know how old it actually is, but its inspection sticker dates back from 1994. The tritium appears to be long gone (not exactly a surprise, given tritium’s relatively short, 12.3 year half life), as the marking are completely dark.

Still it is a beautiful device, and I am very grateful to our friend for offering this to me as a gift. It will be cherished.

Back from the Perimeter

Personal, Physics, Space No Responses »

Apr 052013

After another 550 km drive at the end of an already very long day, I finally made it home late last night, concluding a very productive 3-day visit at the Perimeter Institute.

While there, I gave another talk on the Pioneer anomaly. I felt that it went well and as far as I can tell, it was very well received.

All in all, it was time well spent.

Wintry Perimeter

Personal, Physics, Weather and Climate No Responses »

Apr 022013

That building behind the trees in this wintry landscape is the Perimeter Institute, where I’ll be spending a few days.

Wintry??? Sounds like an April fool’s joke but it isn’t. This really is a long winter.

Message from a young democrat in Hungary

Hungary, Politics No Responses »

Mar 292013

This article appeared today in Hungarian in HVG (World Economics Weekly), a Hungarian news magazine. I felt compelled to translate it into English and publish it here in my blog.

Belated message to former young democrats from a young democrat

March 29, 2013
Author: Nóra Köves

An essay about the quarter century old Fidesz [Alliance of Young Democrats] party by one of the student protest participants. The author was overcome by a strange sensation while standing in the courtyard of the party’s headquarters, with a copy of the party’s 1989 program pamphlet retrieved from the trash.

Fidesz and I are roughly of the same age. I barely learned to speak when Viktor Orban gave his memorable speech during the reburial ceremony of Imre Nagy [Hungary’s prime minister during the failed 1956 revolution, executed in 1958 and rehabilitated in 1989], in which he stated that “in the sixth coffin lies not just a murdered youth but our own next twenty or who knows how many years.” Back then nobody thought that nearly 25 years later the last nail in this very coffin will be hammered in by the same enthusiastically orating young man. On June 16, 1989, as my parents were listening to this young man in their small highrise flat in the town of Zalaegerszeg, they most certainly did not believe that nearly 25 years later their daughter would be fighting for that free and democratic Hungary which they thought was a done deal as they leaned back in their armchairs. They did not think that the very same young democrats who fought for the freedom of a country with many others back then will attempt to take it away a quarter century later.

A few years ago I would not have thought either that my knowledge of international human rights law, which I spent long nights studying, will be used not in Africa or the Middle East, but I will have to stand up for human rights in Hungary. It did not enter my mind that one day I’d reach the point where, within the rules of active civil disobedience, I’ll be using my own body to defend democracy and a lawful constitutional state, because no other means remain at my disposal. And I certainly would not have thought that one day I’d be protesting in the courtyard of the party headquarters of Fidesz, or that I’d be sitting in pouring snow on the stairs of Parliament, demanding a constitution, democracy, and rule of law, accepting the consequences of civil disobedience with both acts, because I see no other way to save the country in which I would like to live and raise children.

Because I dream of a Hungary in which the rule of law and human dignity are fundamental values, in which all people are created equal, in which families are tied by love and not by the government’s conceptual framework. Where our homeless neighbors receive compassion and real help, not police harassment and misdemeanor fines. Where disadvantaged children can look to the future with hope, knowing that they have a chance to become what they would like to be. That this is now only a dream is a result of the fact that those one-time young democrats who 25 years ago fought for similar values forgot it all by now, and wasted away our recently acquired freedom with their tyrannical lust for power.

As I was protesting as a young democrat in the courtyard of the one-time young democrats, carrying the party’s discarded 1989 pamphlet, it occurred to me that in their one-time party office Orban and others must have felt the same gratifying excitement that we did. They must have felt that they were doing something for the rule of law, for the country in which they wanted to live. I stood there and failed to understand how this feeling, which thoroughly permeates a person and leaves a lasting memory, could have disappeared so without a trace and what may have replaced it. I did not have to wait long for the answer: it suddenly appeared in the form of several large, muscular, especially intimidating “security guards”, who were exactly like the ones who hired them: demands for “constitution, democracy, and the rule of law” meant nothing for them because they only believed in force and brutality, and considered money more important than freedom.

But I know that I have nothing to fear. I need not fear from muscular security, from the stick-wielding participants of the “peace march” who frightened others with acid, from the threatening letters, or even from the groundless accusations of the government’s smear propaganda. I do not have to fear because my trust is infinite in my own generation, in those youth who already tasted freedom, and I know that even if sometimes they awake late, in the end they won’t allow freedom to be wasted away. In this country, we will not permit the strong to oppress the weak, or to dismiss as criminals those who are poor or are different from the majority. We will not permit our universities and cultural spaces to be subject to the state’s tyranny. We will not permit them to trample on our Constitutional Court, we will not permit them to steal our future! And let there be no misunderstanding. Given enough time, no generation permits this. Members of Fidesz think that freedom is not important to the people. I think they are wrong. Voters may not appreciate the significance of specific steps, but when they feel on their own skin the harmful effects of this government, the shackles of the fourth amendment of the constitution, their attention will no longer be diverted even by reduced utility bills.

Fidesz and I are approximately of the same age. We are of the same age as this fragile democracy, which they right now are doing their best to tear apart, just so that they can stay in their comfortable velvet chairs longer, forcing onto us their misguided fantasies. I repeat, our generation as democrats will not permit this. We will respond to the government’s infinitely violent and aggressive, exclusionary and legally depriving policies again and again with determined – ever more determined, but nonviolent – action and we will show that freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance and love are the only way to lay down the foundation of a functioning, democratic, lawful state. In 1989, Fidesz also knew this. This is why I promise that we will continue showing them a mirror until the Hungarian people choose to replace them, or until they acknowledge their former selves and ideals, and the fact that they betrayed every single one of them.

Kifli the cat

Cats, Computers, Personal No Responses »

Mar 242013

Here is one of our four cats, Kifli. (Literally, his name means croissant in Hungarian. How did he get this name, you ask? Well, when we got him back in 2001, he was only a few weeks old and he and his brother Szürke actually fit on the palm of my hand, both of them together. Szürke is a gray tabby and perhaps somewhat unimaginatively, that’s exactly what his name means in Hungarian; gray, that is. Kifli has the color of a freshly baked bun, but when he was little, Kifli was very thin and did not look like a bun at all. In Hungarian bakeries, the two most common small bakery products are buns and croissants; not the puffy French type made from leavened dough, but croissants baked from the same dough that is used to make white bread and, well, buns. These croissants are long and thin, just like Kifli. Hence, his name.)

Anyhow, I was testing out an Android photo editing app (PicsArt, in case you’re wondering; seems like an excellent app, by the way) tonight when I snapped this picture of Kifli and applied one of the app’s effects. I think it’s real nice. And while it’s not so nice that Kifli jumped onto a table that he’s not supposed to be on, I certainly approve of his reading choices.

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