Eye on Faith

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Teleportation: What entangled webs we weave

H Atom Orbitals (by Florian Marquardt)

If you think that claims of teleportation are just a case of entangled communication, you may be correct.

According to Phys.org, teleportation is “a means of moving an object from one place to another without it having to travel between them.” Sounds ethereal? Well - it is said that quantum physics involves the dreams that stuff is made of.

It is quantum physics that a team of researchers from Delft University in the Netherlands are invoking as they experiment with entanglement (“the strange interconnectedness of… two particles, whatever happens to one automatically happens to the other, regardless of the distance between them”).

These researchers were able to teleport quantum bits (quibits) of information a distance of more than ten feet (three meters) with 100% reliability. Plus, they did so without altering the spin state of these quibits.

This they accomplished by “trapping electrons in diamonds at very low temperatures,” then shooting them with lasers in order to create quibits. Because these quibits were held in place by the diamonds, spin states were able to be read at both locations.

The entangled communication was thus conveyed via a rudimentary form of teleportation. Researchers

hope to extend the workable distance between quibits, with the eventual goal of developing quantum computers and networks.

Resources

http://phys.org/news/2014-05-team-accurately-teleported-quantum-ten.html

Friday, May 30, 2014

High school yearbook: Photoshopped images

Photoshopped Image (MickStephenson)

When some female students at a Salt Lake City, Utah high school opened their yearbooks, they were dismayed to find that their images had been photoshopped.

Some who had been wearing tank tops when photographed now found themselves “wearing” short-sleeved garments. Worse yet, the images of others wearing tank tops had not been meddled with at all.

ABC News reports that District Superintendent Terry Shoemaker thus far stands by this decision to allegedly “help kids better prepare for their future by knowing how to dress appropriately for things.” Shoemaker's only stated regret is “that the school district did not edit students’ photos on a more consistent basis.”

Comments on this article indicated that many felt quite differently. For example, “Mary” writes: In this day and age of privacy laws, diversity, cultural competence, respect for the individual etc., the students and their parents

should have been notified of the changes school officials wanted to make, then give them the opportunity to choose another, more suitable picture. What if this had been an issue where school officials had changed a student's garb and it was an outfit based on cultural or religious beliefs/practices? We live in a country founded on a constitution and bill of rights that gives its citizens the freedom to choose. Maybe the school officials should take a civil rights course and review those documents.

It’s the age-old ethical dilemma: where to draw the line between individual rights and societal standards…

Resources

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/utah-high-school-alters-yearbook-photos-show-less-162608563--abc-news-parenting.html?vp=1

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Titan: Roll out those hazy crazy sunsets

Titan's Haze (NASA Photo)

It used to be that Earthlings turned to Key West, Florida for some extraordinary sunsets. These days, however, Saturn’s moon Titan is the place to be.

Ian O’Neill of Discovery News reports that there’s quite a bit to be learned from checking out these Titanic sunsets. By analyzing the refracted light that results from transit events “as Titan blocks

our sun from view,” scientists can gain a better understanding of exoplanet atmospheres.

NASA’s Cassini mission is analyzing data from four such transit events, providing “results that include the complex effects due to hazes.” The focus is on “Titan’s uppermost atmospheric haze” because its lower atmosphere “blocks the sunlight, preventing a spectra from being recorded.”

Although it had been previously assumed that “high-altitude atmospheric gases affect all wavelengths of starlight in the same way,” the Cassini mission has instead found “that the haze more strongly affects shorter (bluer) wavelengths.”

This has led researcher Mark Marley to conclude: People had dreamed up rules for how planets would behave when seen in transit, but Titan didn’t get the memo.

Resources

http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/titans-hazy-sunsets-shed-light-on-alien-atmospheres-140527.htm

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Human evolution: Brain over brawn

Young Chimps (by Delphine Bruyere)

Ever wonder why we can't swing from trees quite as adeptly as our chimpanzee “cousins”?

Questions like these are what Einstein referred to as “holy curiosity” – a function of the highly-evolved human brain. However, at what cost has this brainpower developed?

Partnering researchers from China and Germany are theorizing that the human brain might have evolved at the expense of human brawn. In other words, “the observed rapid metabolic changes in brain and muscle, together with the unique human cognitive skills and low muscle performance, might reflect parallel mechanisms in human evolution.”

If you can fully understand that last sentence, then your brain is probably one of those highly-evolved ones.

Just don’t try any heavy lifting…

Resources

http://news.yahoo.com/human-muscles-evolved-weakness-order-boost-brains-144125685.html

Maya Angelou: Thank you, THANK YOU

Maya Angelou in 2008 (Photo by Talbot Troy)

Although Maya Angelou had been associated with worship centers for most of her life, she was feeling depleted as she approached her 80^th birthday.

She told The Associated Press in 2013, “I felt really done in by the work I was doing, people who had expected things of me.”

Around that time, as her son Guy Johnson was having his tenth spinal operation, Angelou attended a Unity church service in Miami.

The preacher, “a young black man” in a mostly white church, challenged the group by saying, “I have only one question to ask, and that is, ‘Why have you decided to limit God?’”

When Angelou heard that, she immediately thought, “That’s exactly what I have been doing.” The preacher then asked her to say a few words to the congregation.

These words turned out to be simple, yet heartfelt. Angelou stood up and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you… THANK YOU” - fifty times over.

The audience began saying it with her.

And meaning it, no doubt.

Resources

http://news.yahoo.com/university-poet-author-maya-angelou-dies-86-134624581.html

Sophocles: Ancient wounded warriors

Philoctetes (J-G Drouais, 1788)

Today's wounded warriors are finding some solace in learning about those of ancient times.

Some of the most poignant depictions of ancient wounded warriors come from the pen of Sophocles, the famous Greek author of such tragedies as Ajax and Philoctetes.

Ajax, written circa 430 to 450 BC, tells the story of this mythological Trojan War hero’s bitter fate. Having been disgraced by the Greek leaders who awarded Achilles’ armor to Odysseus rather than to him, Ajax vows to kill them.

However, he gets tricked by the goddess Athena into thinking that a herd of sheep and cattle are these leaders. After exacting his revenge upon some of these innocent animals, Ajax comes to realize that he’s been fooled and ridiculed. He now feels worse than ever, and ends up impaling himself on his own sword.

Sophocles’ Philoctetes is another Trojan War mythological hero. Having been disabled by a snake bite, he was left behind on a desert island by Odysseus. Wikipedia explains that this bite caused Philoctetes “constant agony, and emitted a horrible smell.”

Philoctetes spends the next ten years bitterly hating Odysseus and the Greeks for leaving him there. His life, however, takes a much happier turn then that of Ajax.

Philoctetes eventually ends up vindicated and healed. His namesake, the Philoctetes Project, continues to inspire such populations as U.S. Marines suffering from PTSD, prison inmates, and hospital staff.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philoctetes_%28Sophocles%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28Sophocles%29

Monday, May 26, 2014

Fire: A flaming mystery

Prometheus Bound (by N-S Adam, 1762)

Although fire has been used by humans for untold ages, it fundamentally remains a mystery.

Rich McCormick of The Verge explains that the Fire Lab in Missoula, Montana has operated for decades with the express

purpose of learning more about this elemental force.

Nevertheless, lab researcher Mark Finney admits the following: With fire, almost everything is counter-intuitive.

Could it be then that the ancients were correct - that fire transcends human understanding because it is essentially divine in nature?

Although Prometheus the Titan managed to steal fire from the gods and bring it to humans, he was not able to transmit all of its secrets. (Even so, Zeus then bound him to a rock and sent an eagle to interminably nibble on his liver. Ouch!)

Agni, the Hindu fire deity, acts as a mediator between worshippers and the other gods. Belenos, a Celtic

god, was known as “the shining one. Wikipedia tells us that in Slavic mythology, “Svarog meaning ‘bright and clear,’ was the spirit of fire.”

Resources

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/26/5751114/fire-in-slow-motion-documentary-montana-lab