Cancelled Wiz Leads To Seattle's Pacific Science Center

 The Wiz was not high on my todo list.  It wasn't even on my todo list.  But when invited to accompany my daughter and granddaughter to see the Wiz, I, of course, said yes!

The ferry into Seattle was jammed with Seahawks fans.

We made our way to the Art Museum restaurant for lunch and while eating my daughter got a voice mail saying that the afternoon performance of The wiz wasn't.  An hour before the show we learn it was cancelled? That's even more bewildering because looking on line today I find this at the 5th Avenue Theater site:

"Masks will be encouraged but optional for audience members at The 5th for performances of The Wiz. We strongly recommend and encourage the wearing of highly effective masks such as N95, KN95, or KF94.  Please CLICK HERE for further details.

Please note, the performances of The Wiz on November 19, 20 and 27 matinee have been canceled."   

If the matinee was cancelled last weekend, why didn't they notify us sooner?  (I suggested to my daughter that they hadn't sold enough tickets and she responded that they'd been sold out.)

Oh well.  Flexibility.   

The Pacific Science Center at the site of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair was my granddaughter's immediate alternative destination.  That meant a short rail ride to the monorail, then the monorail to the Space Needle.  

A walk over to the Science Center and to the laser show.  

I was underwhelmed.  I  expected a laser show in 2022 to be more than lots of moving squiggles and primitive cartoons backed with lame electronic music.  (Note:  I like good electronic music.)

A bathroom break.  This was probably the best surprise of the Science Center.  Most surfaces had great sciencish cartoons.  Though this one leaves a sexist conclusion that lacks some key context.  Did they have this same example in the women's room?  (I think you can click on this to enlarge and focus it, but I won't know until it's actually up.)

Then we engaged in various science activities while waiting for a 4pm planetarium show.  Some time in my favorite spot - the butterfly garden.  

Parts do look like they were built 60 years ago for the World's Fair.  

A four o'clock planetarium show was going to get us to a late ferry back to Bainbridge. And we found out that planetarium had an open house, so to speak, where people could drop in and ask questions.  So we got to visit various planets and moons.  It's been a while since I've considered how amazing and humbling the universe is.  All those stars and planets out there that we only have a tiny inkling about.  

From there, we wandered over to the Space Needle.  It seems the women decided that this was a good opportunity for my  granddaughter to go to the top of the Space Needle since both her parents have separate reasons for not taking an elevator 60 stories up in order to look 60 stories down and Grandpa was a perfect escort.  

It's been 60 years since I went to the top of the Space Shuttle, when three friends and I drove up to the World's Fair in 1962 in a '32 Model A Ford.  My memory of being up there is rather hazy.  

But I remember yesterday pretty clearly still.  There are three public floors.  In the top one you can wander around inside with glass walls, drinks, snacks, photo opportunities, or wander around semi-outside, with large glass walls and benches.  The picture above was from that level.  

I'd point out that if you find the green ferris wheel you can see one of the ferries to Bainbridge and Bremerton right behind it.

Here's another view of that outside top area of the Space Needle.

Then there is a middle level that didn't seem to have windows, but did have bathrooms.  

Finally, the lower level also had windows all around.  And it had a ring of floor, sort of like a ring around Saturn, that was glass and slowly rotated.  That took some instinct erasing to step on.

Then back on the monorail to the light rail and a walk back to the ferry where we encountered the Seahawks fans once again.  You couldn't tell their team had lost.  They were loud and chanting - one person shouting "Sea" and the crowd answering "Hawks."  There also seemed to be some testosterone at work.  Though a women managed to push one of the excited ones back until a security officer took him off somewhere. 

And finally, as the ferry left the terminal in downtown Seattle, we could look back up to the Space Needle - that tall tower just left of the center.  

A long and busy day with two of my favorite people.  

Being A Tourist In Town Where I Grew Up - The Observatory, Travel Town, Visiting Dad

A spectacularly clear day when we left this morning for the Griffith Park Observatory.  The freeway was fairly empty and we made great time, with views of mountains all around with lots of snow.  More than I remember ever seeing.  Not just Mt. Baldy and Mt. Wilson, but all the way around.  Here's just a portion from the Observatory.

 Once we got to Los Feliz, just below the Observatory we hit traffic.  The Observatory doesn't open until noon and it was only 11:45 am, but it was a great day to see views from this spot and everyone was there.  I remember as a kid coming often with my dad and even bringing my son here when we still lived in LA.  The parking lot was where on the right about where that car is.

There is still a lot fairly close, but it was full and most people parked below in the Greek Theater parking lot and walked about a mile up.  A continuous stream of people.  It was like a pilgrimage.  People from all over the world.  You can see a bit of the crowd in the picture below.

Below you can see the Hollywood sign from the upper deck of the Observatory.  

One of the telescope domes.

Inside was pretty chaotic.  But admission is free and there are lots of great astronomy exhibits.  You do have to pay for the planetarium shows

 Here's some of the art deco designs along the roof.

Then off to the other side of Griffith Park to Travel Town.  

Another free attraction.

Although it doesn't call itself a museum, it seems much more a museum than yesterday's visit to the Cayton Children's Museum.




If the photo isn't clear enough, it says:  "DEDICATED TO PRESERVING FOR POSTERITY THE VARIOUS TYPES OF TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT THAT HELPED BUILD OUR STATE AND OUR NATION."

The highlight for the kids was the two loops around Travel Town on the miniature train.  And buying snacks in the gift shop.

I took this picture of the hillside from the train to show how green things are after the recent rains.




And about a mile from Travel Town is the cemetery where my father is buried, so we went to visit him as well.  It too is in Griffith Park, a place that he and I spent a lot of time when I was a kid.

 As we pulled up near the grave site, there were deer visiting too.

The light was great as the sun was getting lower in the west.  Sunset in LA has been right about 5pm these days.  (LA is on the east side of the Pacific Time zone, so it's light at 6am, but dark early now.  Check a map.  LA is further east than Reno, Nevada!)

Another Prediction About 2019 Science Events - This Time From Science Magazine

The other day I posted an LA Times list of science events or projects that would likely be in the news in 2019.  Science Magazine has also put out such a list.  They didn't explain the order, so I took the liberty of grouping events under the same title (ie Climate Science) together.  I also took as little as I could to post here, just what I thought was enough for readers to understand what they were talking about.  Go to the original form more details.   Let's see where the two lists - LA Times and Science Magazine -  overlap.


CLIMATE SCIENCE   (LA Times talked about the many projects on Antarctica)
All eyes on polar ice
If you want to understand Earth's warming future, look to the poles. This year, scientists in two international projects will heed that call. In September, researchers will position a German icebreaker, the RV Polarstern, to freeze in Arctic sea ice for a year's stay. The ship will serve as the central hub for the €120 million Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, hosting researchers from 17 countries.

CLIMATE SCIENCE
Solar dimming gets a test
A geoengineering technique to curb global warming by temporarily dimming the sun's rays could get its first, modest field experiment this year. In solar geoengineering, vast amounts of reflective aerosol particles would be sprayed into the high atmosphere, mimicking the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.

SCIENCE POLICY 
A science whisperer for Trump
For 2 years, President Donald Trump has been making decisions involving science and innovation without input from a White House science adviser. Meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier, whom Trump nominated in late July 2018 to fill that void, was awaiting final Senate approval at press time. The question is what his arrival will mean for the administration's handling of an array of technical challenges, from regulation of human embryo engineering and self-driving cars to combatting cyberterrorism and fostering a more tech-savvy workforce.

SCIENCE POLICY
Divided we stand?
You'll need a Ouija board to predict how U.S. science will fare this year under a divided government, with Democrats now in control of the House of Representatives while Republicans retain the Senate with President Donald Trump in the White House. There are the known flashpoints—Democrats challenging the Trump administration on its environment and energy policies, for example.


PARTICLE PHYSICS
Seeking new physics in the muon
By studying the magnetism of a particle called the muon, physicists hope to find results this year that could point to new particles or forces, something they have craved for decades. Scientists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, are examining whether the muon—a heavier and shorter-lived cousin of the electron—is more magnetic than theory predicts.


BIOPHYSICS
A fine-grained look inside cells
In cell biology, higher resolution means more gets revealed. Now, scientists are ready to use new combinations of tools and techniques to provide close-up looks at components inside cells in unprecedented detail, and in 3D. Already, researchers can analyze DNA, proteins, RNA, and epigenetic marks in single cells. This year, multidisciplinary teams plan to combine those methods with advances in cryoelectron tomography, labeling techniques to trace molecules, and other types of microscopy to see subcellular structures and processes.


BIOTECHNOLOGY
New GM mosquitoes take off
The first release of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in Africa is set to happen in Burkina Faso this year, an initial step in a planned "gene drive" strategy against malaria. It will be the first release of GM mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles, which transmits the parasite responsible for the disease. The gene drive approach, under development at the nonprofit consortium Target Malaria, would spread mutations through the wild population that knock out key fertility genes or reduce the proportion of female insects, which transmit disease.


CONSERVATION
Nations size up biodiversity
Three years in the making, a $2.4 million assessment of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystems will be published in May. By evaluating trends over 50 years in indicators such as species extinctions and extent of marine protected areas, it will chart progress toward international goals on biodiversity conservation—and, in many places, how far short the world is falling.



SPACE SCIENCE  (LA Times talks about New Horizon)
The next planetary mission
In July, NASA will chart its next major step in planetary science when it selects the next billion-dollar mission under its New Frontiers program. The agency will choose between two finalists. Dragonfly would send a semiautonomous quad-copter to fly across the surface of Titan, the saturnian moon sculpted by rivers of liquid methane. The copter would search for clues of chemical reactions that could lead to life. The Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return mission would return gases and ice from the nucleus of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

RESEARCH ETHICS
A push to return museum holdings
Researchers are beginning new efforts to return bones and cultural artifacts collected for study and as museum specimens to the peoples from whom they were obtained, often without consent. Expect renewed debate on this issue, as after centuries of exploitative collecting, some researchers use new methods to collaborate with those communities, and also expand efforts to return objects of art.

#METOO  (I'm grouping this with other ethics related ones)
New rights for alleged harassers
This year, the U.S. Department of Education may finalize controversial proposed rules that would reduce universities' liability for policing sexual harassment and sexual assault and give more rights to the accused. The regulations, proposed in November 2018, would change how institutions investigate such allegations under the landmark 1972 law known as Title IX. They wouldn't be responsible for investigating most off-campus incidents of harassment or assault, and the standard of evidence for confirming allegations of on-campus misconduct could rise.

BIOETHICS
China eyes bioethics overhaul  (LA Times does cover this one)
China is likely to tighten its rules for genetic engineering of humans, including the creation of heritable traits, in the wake of an uproar over such work in 2018. A Chinese scientist named He Jiankui announced in November 2018 that he modified a gene in embryos that led to twin baby girls.

LIVESTOCK AGRICULTURE
Disease crisis looms for swine
Pig farmers—and perhaps some bacon lovers—will anxiously scan the headlines this year for news of African swine fever (ASF). Harmless to humans, the viral disease is highly infectious and lethal among pigs, causing serious economic damage through culls and trade bans.

Seems this one is more geared to scientists and the LA Times list toward a lay audience, which makes perfect sense.

Happy Birthday Dad From Maui

It's been, this is somewhat shocking to me, 30 years since my Dad died.  But today is his birthday and I celebrated by going for a swim this morning before it got too hot.  What would we talk about if he were here?   Definitely the Kavanaugh hearings.  Our kids were teenagers when he died, but he spent much of his last month with us in Anchorage.  He loved being a grandfather too.  So we would talk about them and their children.

We'd talk about how long it's been since we've been to Hawaii, how much it's been built up since the last time we were here.  But also how wonderful the water is, and the local fresh food.

Yesterday, Dad, we went beach scouting.  We decided that Kamaole I would be a good place to try out the snorkeling.  It was hot and windy when we parked ourselves on the sand.

There were two sets of fins and two facemarks and snorkels in the condo we're staying at.  I fiddled with the straps so it would be tight on my face and went into the warm (but a little cooler than the air) water.  I don't remember, Dad, Hawaiian water being so warm, but I've always ever been here between December and March.  The water was very clear and I swam around looking for something other than just a smooth sandy bottom.  A small school of small but colorful fish swam nearby.  The water felt great, floating there felt great.  After a while I decided to head back to J on the beach.  But I'd drifted a ways and decided to swim back rather than walk on the beach.  

That's when I saw the sea turtle up ahead of me.  The water wasn't deep.  I could have stood up.  It was coming straight toward me.  Maybe three or four feet long.  It kept coming my way.  I've snorkeled where there were sea turtles before, but only in places further out from the shore and where I'd been told they were likely to be.  But here it was, still swimming straight at me, a foot or so below me.  I tried to move to the side and it went right by.  

Wow!  I wish I could show you a picture I took, but I don't have an underwater camera.  And without the camera I was totally there with the turtle, not worrying about getting a good picture.  Same kind of thrill as a close encounter with a moose like I had last week.  

Later an old friend of J's - who lives on Maui -  came by.  We snacked on two kinds of poke (in the bowl lower left) we'd just bought as well as star fruit.   And the star fruit was, I realize now, a prelude for what were going to see.*  

.  

As the sun set we shifted to the lanai to catch up on all that's happening in each others' lives.

If you look closely, you can see the windmills on the hill on the right.  

And then the stars came out.  Well, I'm pretty sure they're the planets.  

Time and Date lists the planets we can see tonight  in Maui (and I'm assuming last night wasn't too different) but I'm not sure which planet is which in the picture below.

The camera picked up three.  Venus is supposed to be "Fairly good visibility" and sets at 7:40 (tonight).  This picture was taken last night at at about 7:55pm (last night.) (My camera seems to be on PST and about 20 minutes fast.)  So maybe Venus is the one on the horizon.  Mars is supposed to be "Perfect visibility" and set (tomorrow) at 1:51am, so it could be the one on top.  And I'm guessing the middle one is Jupiter which is "Fairly good visibility" and is supposed to set (tonight) at 8:47pm.  If it's clear enough tonight, I'll track them more carefully.  There is sun but also a lot of clouds now.  

[UPDATE 7:49 pm:  The light on the horizon is probably a boat based on what I see tonight.]

Then we went for a good Thai dinner and lots of conversation.

Dad, you didn't follow the stars that closely, but your grandson does and maybe he'll see this and let us know.  And as long as I'm talking to my Dad here, I can also fantasize that he might be up there with the planets and the stars.  

*Ok, planets aren't stars.  But then stars don't look like slices of star fruit either.  

Hot

Anchorage has been sunny and hot.  For Anchorage that means 75˚F or more.  It's gotten into the low 80s some days this week - depends what part of town.  We also have good friends up from California who don't think it's all that hot.  We've spent a lot of time outside, and when at home, on the deck, where the mosquitoes seem to be distracted by the heat too.  There are some, but not many.  So here are some pictures of a bit of our time.  

The sun would seem a perfect start in this weather.  This version is downtown at 5th and G St.   Since Little J is a planet expert, it seemed like a good adventure to start here and visit as many of the planets as we could.  This high school science project brought to life over ten years ago, places the planets around Anchorage, proportionately sized and distant from each other.  So Mercury was a block away (5th and H), Venus another block, Earth a couple blocks, and Mars was at Elderberry Park.  

Then we got the car and went to the end of Westchester Lagoon for Jupiter.  Later that day went to visit friends in Turnagain, so we were able to go down to the bike trail at Lyn Ary Park to find Saturn (who's rings, unfortunately, have been broken off).  Then we drove down to Point Woronzof to find Uranus, which is on the bike trail before you actually get to Point W.  Fortunately, Little J's parents found it on google maps.  Neptune is somewhere further along the bike trail and Pluto is below Kincaid Park, not accessible by car, and Little J was getting tired and I think he'll have to do this another year when he's mastered bike riding.  He wasn't keen on the trailer bike I've got, even with the new dinosaur helmet.  

This was a view of some blooming cow parsnip from the bike trail that goes up Campbell Airstrip Road.  

I took our guests to the botanical garden where we saw this Chinese peony.  

And these prairie smoke flowers.  

And today we walked over to Campbell Creek Park playground where Little J tested all the playground equipment and then joined lots of other kids playing in the creek.  I saw some salmon in the creek a couple of bridges further down the other day.  

Tomorrow, Little J gets a playmate when my granddaughter arrives.  

Diamonds And Volcanoes, Oceans And Space

I wasn't sure what to do with this piece on diamonds.  It was interesting - both because of what it said and because it exposed a gap in my knowledge that probably most people know already.  (Did you?)   I tend to think diamonds and their high prices are due to monopoly and marketing.  Young men are cowed into buying sparkling rings by all the hype about diamonds being forever and the made up tradition of diamond wedding rings.  I'm not making this all up, people have studied this.  The article mentions that diamonds weren't associated with weddings until the 1930s.

But I acknowledge that industrial diamonds probably play an important role in society.  From the USGS:

"Because it is the hardest substance known, diamond has been used for centuries as an abrasive in grinding, drilling, cutting, and polishing, and industrial-grade diamond continues to be used as an abrasive for many applications.  .  . Diamond also has chemical, electrical, optical, and thermal characteristics that make it the best material available to industry for wear- and corrosion-resistant coatings, special lenses, heat sinks in electrical circuits, wire drawing, and advanced technologies."

I actually started yesterday's post with the quote below on diamonds.  That's why yesterday's title was  misleading.  The post was going to be bits and pieces of different things that weren't related and not enough to be a post on their own.  But the post evolved and the photos about the Silverlake walk were enough.  So I cut the diamond reference, but forgot to update the title.

So here's what I edited out yesterday:

"Most diamonds come from depths of 90 to 120 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, Smith said. The only reason they are accessible to us today is because they traveled up through the crust millions of years ago, carried along by rare and powerful volcanic eruptions.
But chemical clues culled from the Cullinan diamond and others like it suggest they were forged at even greater depths than most diamonds — about 224 to 446 miles beneath our feet."

- From an LA Times article on what scientists are learning from diamonds about deep in the earth .

I resurrected the post because last night before going to sleep I picked up my next book club volume - Anthony Doeer's All the Light We Cannot See - and read this:

"A diamond, the locksmith reminds himself, is only a piece of carbon compressed in the bowels of the earth for eons and driven to the surface in a volcanic pipe.  Someone facets it, someone polishes it."

I got the same lesson about diamonds and volcanoes from two different sources on the same day.  Did I ever learn that diamonds were spewed out of the bowels of the earth by volcanoes?  Maybe, but if I did, it didn't stick in my conscious knowledge.  But I was getting a message from someone to pay more attention now.

The original LA Times article is about a scientist studying large diamonds for what they tell us about so deep in the earth - a place, the article tells us, scientists can't reach, so these travelers from this distant region of our own planet offer up clues to what else is there.  And the article says there's a lot more minerals than had been previously thought.

This also got me to thinking.  Voyager has travelled about 12 billion miles from our sun,  about how we can send missions to to explore our solar system, but we on earth,  according to the Smithsonian:

"as of January 22, drilling had only reached a depth of 2,330 feet beneath the seafloor."

That's less than half a mile.  The earth's core is 6,371 kilometers (3,958 mi) according to this extreme tech article.    This site has a lot of clickbait, so checked further.  National Geographic says "about 4000 miles" so it's ok.  [There's an interesting graphic representation of traveling to the center of the earth at this BBC page.]

Is it really harder to drill into the earth than to go out into space?  Or is space just more romantic and better sold - like the diamonds - than earth core exploration?  Perhaps it is simply more difficult.  I found lots of articles comparing exploring space to exploring the oceans (where getting to the earth's core seems to begin).  This article from American Progress suggests it IS 'marketing' or at least what has stirred our exploratory imaginations:

"Yet space travel excites Americans’ imaginations in a way ocean exploration never has. To put this in terms [James] Cameron may be familiar with, just think of how stories are told on screens both big and small: Space dominates, with “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” and “2001 A Space Odyssey.” Then there are B-movies such as “Plan Nine From Outer Space” and everything ever mocked on “Mystery Science Theater 2000.” There are even parodies: “Spaceballs,” “Galaxy Quest,” and “Mars Attacks!” And let’s not forget Cameron’s own contributions: “Aliens” and “Avatar.”
When it comes to the ocean, we have “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and Cameron’s somewhat lesser-known film “The Abyss.” And that’s about it."

And since this quote mentions 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I should mention that a key character in All The Light We Cannot See is reading Jules Verne's classic story in braille.

The Three Body Problem

As people look toward 2017 with relief that 2016 will be over, I have several thoughts.

1. First, a lot of people probably think 2016 was great.  Their candidate was elected to office and now their 'enemies' are feeling what they have felt for the last eight years.  (I could, of course, argue that this is different, but in their minds it's the same - their team won.)   
2. Second, as I read the headlines in the paper and online about what a bad year it's been, I'm wondering what makes people think 2017 is going to be better.  There's lots of news we never read about because it wasn't sensational enough or bad enough.  But the key news item - the US election - doesn't suggest to me a better year.  There will be unanticipated benefits like in any disaster.  People will pull together and discover friends and personal strengths they didn't know they had.  But the man who will be slumming by moving to the White House, thinks he's the smartest guy around.   The truly smartest people are those who know they know very little.  The only way one can be totally sure of oneself is if one has a very simplistic view of the world.  And we have a very cocksure new president and that doesn't bode well.  Yes, there will be some positive impacts here and there, but overall and in the long run, the American people and the world are going to pay big time for the new president's on-the-job training and winner mentality.  
3. But third, I've just finished reading The Three Body Problem which has as one of its key points - don't assume the alternative of a very bad thing won't be worse.   This is a very interesting book, not simply because of the story it tells and how it tells it.  It is a Chinese science fiction novel that won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2015, which makes it unique already.  

The story begins with the Red Guard harassing to death a renowned physics professor during  the Cultural Revolution.   Physicists play a big role in this book.  I really don't want to talk about any more of the plot than that.  Having the plot reveal itself as you turn the pages is a big part of the enjoyment of the book.

I will say that the book's structure has the reader  opening doors into new worlds and thinking wow, I didn't expect this.  Only to have a new door and another new world and another wow, and then another, and another, and another.  This is the first part of a trilogy. The other parts are already available.  I'm just a little behind.

But, getting back to the opening of this post, I will say that the reader will spend time in a secret Chinese military post scanning the universe for signs of intelligent life.  And there's a signal.  And the person who is on duty at the time secretly sends back a signal.  The human condition, this physicist feels, is so dire, that humans would be better off being rescued by a superior form of being.

I'll say no more about the plot, but I'd send you back to my third point above.

It's a fascinating book and I'm looking forward to the next volume of the trilogy.  Have a Happy New Year and focus on making what we have better rather than looking for a savior to take care of things for us.

What do Kp numbers mean? Supposed To Be 5 Tonight

First I got this Tweet from AuroraNotify

Kp 5 forecast tonight, looking good!!! https://t.co/ADMTUxALm9 pic.twitter.com/5bKPH8m4rX

— AuroraNotify (@AuroraNotify) September 28, 2016

But I really didn't know what Kp 5 meant.  So I googled and got to Aurora Service:

The Kp number is a system of measuring aurora strength. It goes from 0 to 9 (0 being very weak, 9 being a major geomagnetic storm with strong auroras visible). So when your looking at the aurora forecast page, you want to see high Kp numbers. The higher the better. Anything above (and including) Kp5 is classed as a geomagnetic storm.

I haven't gone outside yet to check the clouds.  The last few times there were aurora notices, it was cloudy.  But it was pretty clear out late this afternoon.  So I'm going out to check.

I did go out and check about an hour ago.  It was dark enough to see a few stars, so it's clear enough.  But no lights.  Then I finished kneading a bread, made some phone calls, went through some old paperwork (AHRGGGGGGG!!), and now I'm back.

Here's a screenshot of the current map on Aurora Services.

From Aurora Services

So it should be a Kp 5 in (now) less than 18 minutes.  I'll go check again.

There are stars out.  I haven't been out looking at stars for a while now.  It's still not dark dark, and I didn't see any northern lights.  I'll post this now and update it later if I see anything.  It didn't feel cold at all without a coat, but when I checked it was 42˚F (5.5˚C), but there's absolutely no wind.

Why Passover And Easter Are A Month Apart This Year

Well, almost a month.

It seemed to me, though I'd never actually looked it up, that Easter and Passover were generally pretty close together and it had something to do with the last supper being a seder.

 But I noticed this year that Easter is March 27 and Passover doesn't begin until April 22.

 I got an answer - but I decided to double check and the other answers were overlapping, but not quite exactly the same. So here are three sources. This one is about why they are both generally around the same time, from My Jewish Learning:

"First, their inviolable matrix is spring. In each case, the calendar is adjusted to ensure that the holiday is celebrated early in the spring. For the church, which believed that the resurrection took place on a Sunday, the First Council of Nicaea in 325 determined that Easter should always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. In consequence, Easter remained without a fixed date but proximate to the full moon, which coincided with the start of Passover on the 15th of Nissan. 

By the same token, the rabbis understood the verse “You go free on this day, in the month of Aviv” (Exodus 13:4) to restrict Passover to early spring — that is in a transitional month when the winter rains end and the weather turns mild. The word “Aviv” actually means fresh ears of barley.   

Moreover, since the Torah had stipulated that the month in which the exodus from Egypt occurred should mark the start of a new year (Exodus 12:2), the end of the prior year was subject to periodic extension in order to keep the Jewish lunar calendar in sync with the solar year. Thus, if the barley in the fields or the fruit on the trees had not ripened sufficiently for bringing the omer [the first barley sheaf, which was donated to the Temple] or the first fruits to the Temple, the arrival of Passover could be delayed by declaring a leap year and doubling the final month of Adar (Tosefta Sanhedrin 2:2). In short, Easter and Passover were destined to coincide time and again. .  ."

Here's the first one I found that looked at why the two were not so close together this year.  It's from Studies In The Word, and has the dubious title of "Why the Jewish calendar will be incorrect in 2016":

In trying to follow Exodus 12:2, Exodus 13:3-4, 7-10, and Numbers 9:2-3, Judaism [I didn't know that Judaism could speak] says that Passover, which they celebrate on Nisan 15 rather than on Nisan 14, must not fall before the northern hemisphere spring equinox (Tekufot Nisan). The spring equinox currently occurs each year on March 20th or 21st and is that time when day and night are of approximately equal length. The spring equinox establishes the first day of spring. It is a solar, not a lunar, phenomenon. 

But current Jewish calendar procedures periodically conflict with the use of the equinox to establish the first month of the religious year: 

In 2016, Nisan 14 (Passover) can fall on March 22, the first opportunity for the 14th day of a Biblical month to occur after the equinox. But the Jewish calendar sets Nisan 14 at April 22nd. Why? Because the Jewish year 5776 (the spring months of 2016 fall within the Jewish year 5776) happens to be the 19th year of the 19-year calendar cycle and is then, by Judaic definition, a leap year (the 13th month must be added). This forces the first month to begin one month later than it normally would. Unfortunately, their calendar leap year tradition is so rigid that they fail to follow what we agree is the correct interpretation of the scriptures listed above, that God gave them, which strongly imply that the Passover must be kept at the first opportunity on or after the spring equinox. 

What allows them to ignore their own calendar rules? One reason they feel free to adjust the calendar to their liking is because Leviticus 23:2 and 4 are interpreted by Jewish Oral Law as saying that the people are allowed to keep the Holy Days on whatever day is most convenient.

Another site I looked at explained why Easter and Passover were several weeks apart in 2014 - which shouldn't be related to a 19 year cycle if 2016 is on that cycle.  Part of this explanation comes from an astronomer:

"The Last Supper was indeed the Passover; thus Holy Thursday, in the year that Christ was crucified, fell on Passover. That made Easter, the day that Christ rose from the dead, the Sunday after Passover. 

Because Christians in different areas were celebrating Easter on different days, the Council of Nicaea, in A.D. 325, established a formula for calculating the date of Easter. That formula was designed to place Easter at the same point in the astronomical cycle every year; if followed, it would always place Easter on a Sunday after Passover. And indeed, that formula is still followed today. 

Why, then, will Jews celebrate Passover beginning on April 19, 2008, while Western Christians will celebrate Easter on March 23? 

The answer, as William H. Jefferys, the Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professor of Astronomy (Emeritus) at the University of Texas at Austin, explains, is that, since the standardization of the Hebrew calendar in the fourth century A.D., "actual observations of celestial events no longer played a part in the determination of the date of Passover." Thus, "the rule for Passover, which was originally intended to track the vernal equinox, has gotten a few days off." 

The same thing has happened with the Eastern Orthodox calculation of the date of Easter. Because the Eastern Orthodox still use the astronomically incorrect Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian calendar that was adopted in the West in 1582, the Orthodox will celebrate Easter this year on April 27. 

With the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the West brought the calculation of Easter back into sync with the astronomical calendar. In other words, the Western date of Easter is the most closely aligned to the astronomical cycles on which the date of Passover is supposed to be based."

This last one  "the rule for Passover . . . has gotten a few days off" but that doesn't explain why it was three weeks off in 2008 and is again that far off in 2016, which the second reference says is due to the Jewish calendar leap year.

I've quoted a little more than I normally would because there are lots of nuggets and I don't think I could summarize as neatly as the writers did.

Who's In Space Now? How Far Is Mars?

Do you know how many humans are currently in space and where they are from?  How Many People Are In Space Right Now? tells you the current number, their names, and nationality. 

And while we're in space, to get a sense of how far away Mars is from earth check out Distance to Mars.

Northern Lights As We Fly Into Anchorage

I slept the first part of the flight up from Seattle. Then I looked out the window and wondered at the slight glow of a cloud. Could it be lights? As I stared the glow got brighter and greener.

These are not great photos of northern lights. Consider these experiments with my little Canon PowerShot. They look better than this in the camera screen. They're 1600 ISO through the window. I didn't use any telephoto because everything got really grainy that way. But if you look closely, you can see that there were some interesting shapes, basically green. This is about 1:15 am.

Play around with the angle of your screen to get the best view. 

Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep

I can't recall reading any science fiction since I read Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age and then Snow Crash.


Both those books are huge and incredibly rich in detail, great characters, and mind-stretching ideas. 

Really good science fiction - like Stephenson's - is just good literature.  I found though that much science fiction is good in one area - new worlds, new tech, different takes on human life, good story line -  or another, but often just one area and the characters are often flat.  Women now have much stronger roles than they used to, but character development is often secondary.  Of course, all of this is based more on past reading of science fiction, so I don't read much these days.  Things could have changed a lot.  I know, for example, that strong women characters play a much bigger role in science fiction today than in the past.  I stopped reading it except by strong recommendation, since I couldn't keep track of what was really good.

My daughter gave me this one to read when I was looking for a book in her place.   I've been reading large chunks of pages and then having to put it down so I can do other things.  It's not even close to Stephenson, but it offers some interesting ideas - like the packs which live live in small clusters of individuals that share each others' minds.  It was published in 1992 and every chapter seems to have one or two newsgroup posts.  I read newsgroups in 1992, so that means he was using a technology of the period, not really pushing it out into the future.  Though the importance of data in the economy is a central theme of the book, which is still something most of us haven't considered to the level that he takes it.  Much of the time I'm not completely sure what is happening, though I know enough to be able to follow along.  I don't really knowwhat the title means, but maybe it will become clear by the end.  Though I'm over 500 pages into the book.  So far, the story plot has been fairly predictable, but, again, the book isn't finished.  If there are surprises at the very end, I'll add to this post. 

Anchorage Perseids 2012

It's been clear so Anchorage folks should be able to see the Perseids tonight. (I just checked outside and clear is gone.)  I've been trying to see if our western location means we can see them a little earlier.  Or which direction to be looking from here. 

Space.com says:

If you watch one meteor shower all year, then catch the overnight Perseid shooting star display tonight.
This weekend, the annual Perseid meteor shower peaks, sending hundreds of shooting stars flying through the night sky in what many experts call the best shower of the year.
"We expect to see meteor rates as high as a hundred per hour," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement. "The Perseids always put on a good show."

 They also say to look to the Northeast sky (there's a diagram on their site.)

NASA has a chat you can join (It's not obvious to me how it works, but there is a comment box.)  They also have a livestream, except it doesn't seem to be streaming. 

I'm going out to check.  It's not completely dark out and it looks like there are clouds covering the sky anyway.  And it was so sunny and clear most of the afternoon and evening.  Oh well. 

Here's a 2009 report.

Curiosity Lands Safely On Mars - Live Via Ulive

There's been a lot of bad mouthing of 'scientists' these days, mostly by some politicians who don't like what scientists are telling them.  But I'd like to see members of Congress perform as spectacularly as these scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab as they landed their cargo safely on Mars.  This was no small feat.  Here are some screen shots from the live online video feed.  Double click to enlarge them. 

Four minutes to go

JPL Staff Waiting

Simulated Image of Parachuting Down

Touch Down

Safe On Mars - Lots of Hugging

More Happy Scientists

First Two Images - Left Shows Shadow of Curiosity, Right is Wheel

There is still live coverage, as I type, online here.

This is what science can do when supported by politicians approving their budgets. 

Guided Venus Transit in Anchorage at UAA

I'd been hearing the stories, but wondering if Alaska would have a good view and how to watch without burning my eyeballs. It's been cloudy so we probably wouldn't see anything anyway. But I saw an announcement that telescopes and viewing glasses would be available on the garage roof behind the Integrated Sciences building at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Alaska and Hawaii are the only two states where the whole transit would be visible.  We're west enough that the sun wouldn't set before it was finished. And it was sunny.  And I had a nearby viewing spot with experts to guide me.  How could I not go?   But better go before it clouds over. (There were thin clouds, but I think you could see it the whole time.)  Told a friend to go and grabbed a neighbor who was reading in the sun.

There was a variety of telescopes - from the University and from local astronomy buffs.    I got there a little before midpoint.  There was a line to look into the fattest telescope.  People guessed they were there because there was a line.  Someone else suggested that 'bigger is better.'  The other telescopes didn't have lines.  And there were different ways to see Venus crossing the sun.

If you look closely you can see the dot that's Venus in the upper left and lower right images.   Here's another view with Physics/Astronomy post-doc Michelle Wooten answering people's questions.

Venus is the black dot near the bottom of the sun here.  With the telescopes that didn't show the sun directly, the images were flipped over.  Venus was actually going across the top.

Here I put my camera into the eyepiece of a telescope. (The telescope had a dark filter on it so people wouldn't hurt their eyes.)  The dot of Venus is near the top.

Then we went to the planetarium nearby to hear a talk on the phenomenon we were watching live.

I forgot to check the program at the door when I left to get the astronomer's name and I couldn't find a program with names on the UAA website.  Sorry. [UPDATE June 7:  Dr. Andy Puckett, the Planetarium Director and an Asst Prof of Astronomy at UAA introduced himself in a comment below.  Thanks, Andy!]  In the brief video below he shows Venus transiting across the sun and talks about the four contact points - as Venus first touches the sun from the outside, as it touches the edge from the inside, then after crossing the sun, as it touches the edge from the inside (third contact) and from the outside (fourth contact.)  The video ends when he says, now I'll tell you why this is important.

It's important, he goes on to say, because by measuring this transit time from different places on earth, by calculating the small differences in time of the four contact points, you can calculate the distance Venus is from the sun.  He asked us all to stick our arms out with our thumbs up and to close one eye as we put our thumb over some object.  Then switch eyes.  There's a jump and if you know the distance between your eyes, you can calculate the distance to the object.  I remember back to geometry being amazed at the ways you could figure out the third side of a triangle and I think that's what this does.

He also pointed out that when scientists went around the world to watch the second (1761) and third (1769) known transits (a couple of  people saw in 1639) there was no photography yet and the best time keepers were grandfather clocks with pendulums.  So they took grandfather clocks to keep track of time. 

This was a neat illustration on the ceiling of the planetarium.  It shows, if I understood this right, the orbit of Venus (the circle), the sun (the orange dot in the center) and the location of the earth (the blue 'earth'). Actually there are two earth locations - one on the upper left and one in the lower right (harder to see).  These would be on opposite sides of the earth's orbit around the sun.  There's a point on each side of Venus' orbit, where Venus lines up between the earth and the sun so that a transit is visible.  The white lines bounced back and forth to show where Venus would be in relation to the earth.  I think he said 13 orbits of Venus for every eight of earth.  So Venus hits the sweet spot, then misses for eight years, then hits it again.  Then it's over 100 years before it hits it again.

There are lots of places online where you can get more details.  Here's a site that looks at the history of sightings of Venus transits.