TTBrown

RIP John Henry Reitmann 1920-2008

John Henry Reitmann b. June 21, 1920 in Red Wing, MN to the late Mary Buchholtz and John H. Reitmann, died September 2, 2008 in Dallas, TX.  Preceded in death by Francis Dean Reitmann.  Survived by their three children, John David Reitmann, Jane Kass-Wolff (Don), and Ann Stout Schatzkin (Paul), & "adopted" daughter Cindy Anderson; 5 grand-children: Chris Kass, Robert and James Stout, Tim Reitmann, and Brooke Naegele (Matt); and two great grandchildren, Grant and Reese Kass. A sailor, bridge player, traveler and photographer.  A graduate of U. of Minnesota. Medical School and U. of Cincinnati.  Captain in U.S. Army Medical Corps, three years of service in Germany after WWII.  Resident of Dallas since 1961, practicing psychiatry at Timberlawn and private practice.  Member of AMA, Dallas County Medical Society, North Texas Chapter,  American Psychiatric Assoc.; faculty at UT Southwestern Medical School Psychiatric Dept; after retirement at age 86, a volunteer docent at Dallas Arboretum.  In lieu of flowers, contributions to American Cancer Society or Dallas Arboretum.

Where's Paul?

Well kids, he's in Texas -- again. Here's why. No telling when I'll be back to my garret, but I've got my laptop, I found a place that's got WiFi, and I brought my red-penciled hard copy of the book with me so that if I'm here for longer than a few days I can get back to work.  I've also got all the materials I need (I think) to polish the book proposal that I've been working on. So I've got plenty to keep me occupied.  Which is a good thing, because there's no telling how long this vigil will take -- but that is nature of such things. 

Tesla's Spirit Lives On

One of the lasting legacies of Nikola Tesla is his quest to deliver electrical power wirelessly.  Now Intel says they've achieved just that, although without giant tower on Long Island...

Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.

Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco.

Electricity was sent wirelessly to a lamp on stage, lighting a 60 watt bulb that uses more power than a typical laptop computer.

Elephants Master Math

Maybe this one can tell us what happened to those cowboys' missing dollar:

Add elephants to the growing menagerie of animals that can count.

An Asian elephant named Ashya beat this reporter at a devilishly simple addition problem. When a trainer dropped three apples into one bucket and one apple into a second, then four more apples in the first and five more in the second, the pachyderm recognised that three plus four is greater than one plus five, and snacked on the seven apples. (In my defence, I watched the video in a noisy and crowded auditorium.)

"Amateur Fusion" makes the Wall Street Journal

After months in the making, this morning's Wall Street Journal offers a front page story featuring the "amateur fusion" community hosted here at our companion website, fusor.net:

Many of these hobbyists call themselves "fusioneers," and have formed a loosely knit community that numbers more than 100 world-wide. Getting into their elite "Neutron Club" requires building a tabletop reactor that successfully fuses hydrogen isotopes and glows like a miniature star. Only 42 have qualified; some have T-shirts that read "Fusion -- been there...done that."

Link: Nuclear Ambitions: Amateur Scientists Get a Reaction From Fusion - WSJ.com.

Hang 10 in Space

This has a certain familiar ring to it, i.e. "surfing a wave" of spacetime:

"Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Gerald Cleaver, a physicist at Baylor University. "The ship would be pushed by the spatial bubble and the bubble would be traveling faster than the speed of light."

Strange as it sounds, current evidence supports the notion that the fabric of space-time can expand faster than the speed of light, because the reality in which light travels is itself expanding.

Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a Baylor graduate student, tapped the latest idea in string theory to devise how to manipulate dark energy and accelerate a spaceship. Their notion is based on the Alcubierre drive, which proposes expanding space-time behind the spaceship while also shrinking space-time in front.

Now, somebody help me out here, where did we talk about the Alcubierre drive before.  And, hasn't the B2 been described as "surfing an electrogravitic wave" of positively charged space behind it an negatively charged space in front of it?  Is there a trend here?

The Universe Is Filled...

....with Magical Things.

It was a documentary called "Isaac Newton and Me" where I first heard the line "The universe is filled with magical things, patiently waiting for your wits to grow sharper." Unfortunately, the producers of that documentary did not see fit to track down Eden Philpotts as the source of the quotation. But most of the program was about the physicist Michio Kaku, who discusses some of the possibilities of just such a universe in this clip:

Remember the Women

This might not have anything to do with Townsend Brown (you never really know...), but it has been brought to our attention in a post to the forums from Mikado14, and here is one of a number of You Tube videos about Irena Sendler, who passed away earlier this year:

Irena Sendler was nominated a number of times for the Nobel Peace Prize, most recently in 2007, when the award went to somebody named Al Gore.  He made a movie.

Big Scientific Discovery!

Ohmigod, a miraculous new element has been added to the periodic table:

Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every action with which it comes into contact.

A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons ex change places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

And we all know who the lead moron is...

What Would YOU Do...

...if you had $200K to spend on a vacation?

Richard Branson has partially moved on from inner space travel to the final frontier. The founder of Virgin Airlines and Galactic calls 2008 the “Year of the Spaceship.” His White Knight mothership and spacecrafts were unveiled in Mojave, Ca. The project took about 4 years to complete and will house rich tourists. Designed by Burt Rutan, the project already has involved more than 250 budding astronauts that paid $200,000.00 or gave deposits to be the first to blast off for only 5 minutes about 62 miles above the planet.