So yea, I read a couple of days ago that Benoit Mandelbrot passed away.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11560101

Not sure what to say about it really.  I’ve been fascinated by fractals for some time and I’m glad I got to study them a bit at university (incidentally the Mandelbrot set picture in the blog header is one that I plotted using some C code as part of the fractals module I took).  But I really feel I’m not as familiar with Mandelbrot’s work as I ought to have been.  No doubt I’ll read more about his work now though.

We’ve lost a brilliant mind, but Mandelbrot has left an indelible mark on the world of science and mathematics.  I’m sure there will be other brilliant minds to continue his work and to continue making wonderful discoveries about the Universe in which we live.

I never saw the appeal when I was younger, But in the last few days I’ve been playing it constantly.  So there you have it, I don’t think I’m going anywhere with this.  Just thought I’d share that.

“The Science & Entertainment Exchange is a program of the National Academy of Sciences that provides entertainment industry professionals with access to top scientists and engineers to help bring the reality of cutting-edge science to creative and engaging storylines.“¹

Wow!  This is a fantastic idea.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve watched films and thought “now that’s just silly” and I’m sure I’m not alone there.  Now I’m not talking about films where the entire story line is based in some sort of fantasy world that clearly isn’t meant to be real.  I’m talking about when films attempt to put science in and they just get it wroing.

I should also point out that the writers and producers etc… have every right to put whatever the heck they like in their own creation, but it would be nice to see more films and TV shows that portray real science and technology.

enter the Science and Entertainment Exchange.  This is a program that allows entertainment people to consult actual scientists about actual science (see above).

Now the reason I believe this is so important is that I think there needs to be more science education made easily available to the public.  Now obviously you can get too bogged down in the science and I don’t think it would make for a very exciting plot having somebody give an in-depth explanation of condensed matter physics.  plus, there are plenty of resources for people to learn about that sort of thing.  But I really think that good stories can be told without having to stray away from reality.  We live in a wonderful universe and often reality is a lot more strange and exciting than fiction.

¹ -http://www.scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/

Perhaps I will start writing some sciency things just as soon as I get myself organized.

In other news I did not succeed in acquiring tickets to TAM London.  I will have to wait until the next one.  Or I may just have to go to one of the proper ones in Las Vegas at some point.

My goal is to be able to do a consecutive 100 push-ups.  So I’ve started a bit of a training regime.

I’ll be doing 100 push-ups every night (cumulative).   I’ll also be using this handy online tool to log my progress (in terms of maximum consecutive push-ups).

My current best is 40.  The other night I did 40, followed by 30, followed by another 30.  Tonight I don’t seem to be doing as well since I just managed 35, so i’m thinking I’ll get to 100, but it may take more goes!

Anyway.  Push-ups ftw!

Former NASA astronaut, Professor Jeff Hoffman is currently teaching a lecture course at the University of Leciester.  This is of course relevant to me because I happen to be studying there!

http://www2.le.ac.uk/ebulletin/news/press-releases/2000-2009/2008/11/nparticle.2008-11-21.4852004914

Now this is not only super awesome, but thoroughly interesting!  The course has been running a couple of weeks, so I’ve attended several lectures on the subject and it has been really engaging.

Professor Hoffman gives a first-hand account of his own experiences on the space shuttle and working on the HST as well as giving an insight into the more technical aspects of human spaceflight.

It’s fantastic to be able to get this insight into our current endeavours into space.  It makes me think, one day – assuming we’re not extinct – humans will need to leave the Earth and colonise other worlds.  It’s going to be a long process, but we’re already taking the first steps now as we plan to re-visit the moon and eventually send humans to mars and beyond!

Awesome!

So I think I’m going to step up my game.  I’m going to start blogging about all sorts of nonsense.  My first thought was that this may detract from the quality of the content, but then I actually re-read some of my previous posts and decided I really haven’t produced enough quality yet for that to be possible!  I’m ok with that though.  I figure if I just start publishing all the nonsense that crosses my mind, then the higher quality stuff will come naturally.  So from now on I will attempt to update the blog more regularly, but expect crap…

In other news I just acquired my copy of ‘Death From The Skies!’ and I can’t wait to give that a good ol’ reading!  But I do need to finish ‘The Ancestors Tale’ first.  It’s been a long read and I’m almost there.  I’m very much a one book person you see, I find it very difficult not to get distracted by something else if I start reading so I have to restrain myself and stick to one book just so I see it through to the end.  Not that ‘The Ancestors Tale’ is boring of course, far from it.  It’s just that I find lots of things interesting and find it very hard not to get distracted when I spot something else interesting.

You see this is the kind of crap I was talking about.  Well I’m posting it anyway, I think it’s for the best!

When i first heard of the internet, I was probably about 7-10 years old and i think in those days was still playing games on a 48k spectrum or something like that.  Anyway, back then it would never have occurred to me the wonders of the computer age.

Consider the fact that I’m able to communicate this message to you (whoever you may be) without having to be in the same room, house, city or even the same country.

Now that idea on it’s own occasionally strikes me as being rather absurd.  But consider this:  I have just sat (and not for the first time i might add) watching a live web-cam feed of somebody’s pilot light. (click to see live video feed!  I’m not sure how to embed things)

I had never even heard of this person previously and yet i was able to sit there (joined by 93 other people) watching a small blue flame half way around the world.  Perhaps even more absurd is the fact that I’m sat here now not only watching more live video feed of the same thing, but also writing a blog post about it.

Yesterday, I never even imagined that such an odd thing could possibly be happening and yet here I am.  Who knows what new and unusual thing i may stumble upon tomorrow?

Well that’s a good question.  (If you can be bothered to read all this then I owe you a pint!)

I hope to either make this clear in the following post or leave you questioning your own existence.  And what I mean by that is I want you to think about what I’m saying, if only because I’m a little inebriated right now, I’ve been discussing these topics in depth and I’m not exceptionally good at summarising my thoughts into anything concise that people can digest.

Now let’s get to the point here.

I have been engaged in a discussion (a very engaging discussion I’ll have you know; hence the aforementioned engagement) about religion and philosophy and such*.

Anywho; the point is that some of my housemates an I (after pissing out the window and comparing with them the length and girth of my membrum virile) were talking in a general sense and we got onto the subject of religion and ultimately philosophy.  So now I’m going to give you my opinion on the whole matter

I’m not sure many of my peers are aware of this, but I think about philosophy in general pretty much all the time.  It’s basically the reason I study physics (that and the the inspiration of one Dr. Phil Plait AKA the bad astronomer [new book out soon ] AKA the president of the JREF).  Anyway, I think I’m behaving in my usual rambling way so I’ll attempt to get to the point.

The discussion concerned religion primarily.  I can’t think how the discussion began, but when drink is involved this is inevitably what the subject moves on to.  Anyway we discussed what we thought were the implications and teachings of many different religions.  Now here are my thoughts.  I’m an Atheist (check out the scarlet A on the blogroll on the right), I have been for a few years, but I haven’t always been.  I’ve been through a lot over the years and I’m still relatively young.  But at some point fairly recently I committed myself to the path of scientific discovery, critical thinking and so on.  Anyway, the point I’m so arduously trying to reach is that from a purely scientific perspective there is no reason to accept any faith whatsoever.  If i was raised as anything it was a christian, but i wouldn’t call myself one, nor would i say anyone in my immediate family belongs to that particular faith.  But I grew up in what was essentially a christian dominated society.  This had an affect on me.

When I was very young I can remember being taught (In school no less)  about the christian faith.  Now I was young and easily persuaded as one might imagine.  Therefore I believed pretty much everything I was being told.   Anyway, it was many years later that I began to think for myself.  I had been perfectly willing to accept whatever I was being told by an authority figure because I didn’t know any better.

So essentially what I’m trying to say is that I’ve rejected all kinds of religion based on a lack of evidence.  It’s essentially the Russel’s teapot argument.  All I’m saying is that there’s no proof of any god that I’m aware of and if there were, I’d sign up right now.  Basically the best position I can take as a scientist is to say “I don’t know, but since there is no evidence to back-up the original assertion, I must assume that the assertion is incorrect”.  In other words, if a scientist devises an experiment to test whether or not god exists.  His hypothesis is “god exists” his experiment sets out to provide evidence for this assertion.  If no evidence is found for the existence of god, the scientist must reject the hypothesis and accept the null hypothesis (ie god doesn’t exist).  Any argument which contradicts this idea of evidence and/or experimentation in unfalsifiable and cannot be accepted as proof of god’s existence.  This very roughly sums up the scientific method and is essentially my main argument for not belonging to any religion.  Of course, if the evidence were to show that it was all true after all then I’d sign up without hesitation.  And I suspect a lot of other doubters would do the same.

Assuming you’re still with me, this bring us neatly to the next conversation piece.  Do I exist?  Do you exist?  How can anyone know the answer to these questions?  Based on the current level of consciousness we are capable of achieving I would say we are not capable of answering these questions.  But I would also say that the questions themselves are irrelevant.  The question of whether or not I (or you) exist makes no demands of the real (ie testable) world.  Therefore whatever i perceive to be real (whether real or not) is real within my own conscious construct.  And since all I can possibly know exists within this construct, surely the best I can possibly do is to assume what i perceive as real to be so.  The only productive viewpoint I can take (whether in my own construct or in the actual real world [whatever that is]) is to assume that i exist and move on to more important matters.

In other words, to quote René Descartes “cogito ergo sum”… “I think therefore I am”.

*The discussion was so engaging I have actually created a new topic of philosophy on this blog! Although since it is usually relegated to ‘drunk talk’,  I doubt this topic will be utilised much at all.  Perhaps that is a reflection of my optimism in suggesting that I wont’ be drunk frequently enough to discuss these topics.  But i suspect there will be ample opportunity for this sort of thing.

In other news, I’ve been searching for footage of Usain Bolt’s already legendary 9.69 second 100m sprint and i have so far failed to find any!  I’m absolutely stunned.  Surely this was one of the most incredible moments of the 2008 olympics and i can’t find any footage anywhere!  All i get is still pictures to music or videos of Rick Astley.  Serisously what the heck is going on?  Do any videos exist on the internet these days of real things actually happening?  It seems to me as though it’s assumed that we’ve already seen it so all the videos on the subject are either parodies or tributes or completely unrelated.

So i challenge my readers* to find me actual real-time footage of the entire 100m sprint final from the 2008 Beijing olympics.  The best I’ve managed to find so far is some sort of news report that shows it in slow motion; I’m sure I can find better than that.

*Perhaps it’s a bit ambitious of me to assume i have more than one reader… prove me wrong!