Into space

Space travel is back in the news. The adventures of Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have made it possible for an average person like me dream again of traveling in space. 

The last time I had that feeling was in the late 60’s after moon walks. We believed then that space travel would become common place and we would all be making journeys to the moon, if not Mars. Remember 2001: A Space Odyssey? Well, 2001 came and went, and 20 years later, we are still no closer to travelling to moon. Now, I am getting too old, but thanks to Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, there is some hope that my dream will be fulfilled.

 

For many people, this is just a stunt by very rich people and they could have used their money elsewhere. Well, yes, and I am not endorsing Bezos or Branson. They are showmen and have accumulated enormous wealth, some of it on the backs of people who work for them. They are also human beings with faults. 

 

But that does not take away from the fact that they demonstrated at their own risk two different systems for commercializing space travel. These are still baby steps but now there is a price attached to make any individual an astronaut. It is still expensive, but the price will come down. Also, this is just one of many possibilities opening up…consider the SpaceX system for example. They have announced an all-civilian crew for an orbital flight later this year.

 

Regarding spending money elsewhere, I have heard that argument many times, for example, when NASA was launching manned flights or when the Indians Space Research Organization was testing rockets in the 60s. If you go with that attitude, there will be no discoveries, no adventures, no excitement. 

 

Now a few explanations and clarifications. 

 

In US, if you go above 50 miles (80 km), you become an astronaut. Another organization (FAI) requires the altitude to be 62 miles (100 km). This is when you cross what is called Kármán Line, and the atmosphere is so thin, you require centrifugal force to remain afloat for a long time. That is how satellites or space station stays afloat. 

 

The space-flight of Bezos or Branson was not quite sustainable. They went up above the 50-mile limit and came down making them (and their fellow travelers) astronauts. In the past, a rocket powered experimental aircraft, X-15, went up high enough to make its pilots astronauts in 1959, long time before Virgin Galactic. 

 

They did experience weightlessness. Weightlessness does not mean zero gravity. Gravity is always around---you experience weightlessness when you do not resist its force by being in a free fall. After reaching its maximum altitude, Blue Origin crew experienced weightlessness because they were in a free fall inside their spacecraft which was also in a freefall. Hence the sensation of floating around in their vehicle. 

 

Now if you add horizontal speed to the vehicle, free fall will not be straight down but a parabola. This is what an airplane designed to simulate weightlessness does…it executes parabolas starting from high altitude. It is nicknamed vomit comet because of what it does to many people experiencing weightlessness. 

 

If you keep increasing the horizontal speed the vehicle will fall further and further away until at one speed, it will not fall and start going round and round earth. This is when it will be in orbit. 

 

Another, easier way to understand weightlessness while in orbit is to observe two forces: gravity (very much present) and centrifugal force. They balance each other out. Also, both the vehicle and the astronauts are in the same force balance situation and so they can float around. 

 

Oh, how I would love to participate these emerging possibilities! 

 

I realize that at this stage it is a competition between my physical ability to undertake such a journey and its financial affordability. 

 

Who will win?

Pandemic of the No-Vaxxers

 So, we are back to using masks in enclosed space after getting used to not doing so over the past few weeks. The new cases are rising everywhere in the country, the virus is making a comeback and there seems to be no end in sight. This time you cannot blame it on any government screwups or lack of understanding on how virus spreads. You can blame it squarely on misguided people who stubbornly refuse to get vaccinated…the “No-Vaxxers.”

I am tempted to say that let them catch Covid and then refuse to provide them treatment if they get it. That, however would be a cruel and unusual punishment. As they say, you provide treatment even to injured enemy troops during war. That is what makes us human. 

 

However, being a human also means that I can get angry. I ask myself, “What the hell (or another four-letter word) is wrong with these people?”

I know some of these “No-Vaxxers.” When asked what are the reasons why they refuse to get vaccinated, I get one of the following responses:

“I am afraid of the side effects of the vaccine.” My response to them would be: Perhaps you prefer the side effects of Covid.

“The cases are rising due to the Delta variation.” Yes, and who is providing home to these variants? 99.5% of the Covid patients are non-Vaxxers and for that Corona virus thanks you. 

“The vaccines were rushed through without much testing.” Ok, do you know the procedure for getting vaccinations approved? Where, in your opinion were corners cut? How about hundreds of millions of people who have been vaccinated? Can you think of a bigger clinical trial in the history of drug approval? How many of them have died?

That will bring up the next objection. “I know so-and-so who died even after taking vaccine.” Yes, maybe there are isolated cases here and there, but have you heard of Confirmation Bias? It means looking for evidence to support whatever your belief you hold. You will hang on to any news report (the source be damned), that provides ammunition to what you believe in. What about the hundreds of millions of vaccinated people who did not die? 

Now it starts getting more and more bizarre. “I don’t like foreign DNA to invade my system.” Hmmm. How much genetics do you know? What do you think these vaccines are composed of and how they work? Where did you get this dazzling insight from? Fox News?

“I don’t believe in science.” I strongly suggest that the next time you have medical problem, go to a snake oil salesman. They are supposed to cure every disease known to men.  

“It is a plot by Bill Gates to plant microchips in our bodies.” As I mentioned, it gets more and more bizarre. 

“It is a free country and I can decide what I want to do.” Sure, I don’t care, as long as you don’t harm the others. In this case, that is not the case. Just see what you have wrought. 

You are allowing the Coronavirus to continue its rampage by providing safe havens. Thanks to you, the virus feels free to develop even more resistant mutations, and someday even the ones that attack people who have taken vaccines. Like myself. And what about kids who have not been vaccinated? How do we protect them from people like you? Finally, what about the cost of treating you? If your insurance pays for it, where will that money eventually come from?

Do you go around driving drunk? How is not getting vaccinated any different? In both cases, by claiming that you can do what you want, you kill not just yourself but others as well. Yes, I know, you don’t drink and drive, because if you are caught, you will end up in jail. For not getting vaccinated, our permissive society does not punish you. In fact, we can’t even ask you if you have been vaccinated, in order to protect your privacy. You are given a free pass. 

So, what exactly is the end game according to you? 

Do you believe that the virus will get tired and just go away? 

 

Exploring creativity through photography

 A few years ago, the person who founded MetroWest Camera Club in the Boston area asked me to go beyond taking “pretty pictures”. I took up his challenge and have been exploring the medium of photography to find my voice in the world of creative art. A recent lecture by a famous photographer Guy Tal provided me with the vocabulary to express what I am doing.

 

Guy Tal does not consider himself to be a photographer who makes art, but a self- expressive artist working the medium of photography. In other words, he has successfully moved on from taking pretty pictures. 

 

A stepwise progression of what one needs to go through to attain that level can be found by studying what Minor White, another great photographer, has written. He classifies photographic images in four categories: 

 

·      Informational: This is---and how the camera saw it.

·      Documentary: I was there—and this is what I saw.

·      Pictorial: I saw this—and here is how I feel about it.

·      Equivalent: I feel this—and here is a symbol for my feeling

 

Most photographers stay within the first two categories. Those pictures of flowers, landscapes or family document what they saw. When you move to the last two categories, you enter the zone of creativity. 

 

The question is: why do it?

 

The answer can be found in what a guy with an unpronounceable last name, Mihaly Csikszentmihaliy, has written (as per Guy Tal), “Most of the things that are interesting are the results of creativity…. The reason why creativity is so fascinating is that when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life. The excitement of artist comes close to the ideal fulfillment we all hope to get from life and rarely do.” 

 

He calls “Flow” as the state you are in when creating art.  “…the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

 

That’s why. You do it to get into Flow. 

 

Personally, as I attempt to progress in the Pictorial and Equivalent categories of photography, I have experienced that zone of excitement, and I like it a lot.

 

My version of using photography as an art form comes in several different varieties:

 

·      I like the concept of minimalism---to express what I am seeing and feeling with very few objects, sometimes just a few lines or shapes.

·      Minimalism very often that leads me to convert color pictures to black and white. Removing the distraction of color makes one focus on shapes, textures, shades, lighting and composition. 

·      I try to find beauty in small things. A flower is interesting but a petal with backlight is more so. 

·      I enjoy converting photographs into images that are impressionistic. Instead of realism, I try to distill the essence of the experience using Photoshop techniques such as creating composites of multiple images, and applying various layers and filters. 

·      I create abstracts that are nothing but colors, shapes, and lines arranged to my satisfaction. (There are ways by which a photograph can be distorted into abstracts using Photoshop.) I cannot articulate how I conclude that an image is acceptable...I just feel it in my guts.

·      I combine slideshows of images (real or abstracts) with music, generally Western Classical compositions. I am exploring the connection between visual and aural experiences and feel good when they complement each other. 

 

Here are examples of what I create:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/ashokbo/

 

Now these are the areas to get my fix of excitement through creativity that Mihaly talks about. Different photographers pursue different avenues in their attempts to go beyond taking pretty pictures. That is if they feel the urge.  Many don’t and that is totally their prerogative. 

 

As for me, I thank the founder of that camera club for pushing me into this quest.

 

Why some scientists disagree with science?

 I find it intriguing when some of my fellow engineers, doctors or scientists take view-points that do not agree with science. A classic case is that of climate change. There are several deniers in my cohort group, and they are firm in their convictions that either it is a hoax or human beings have very little to do with it. Unfortunately, such denying is not restricted to climate change, other scientific or historic findings are also under assault form these folks who one would consider to be supporters of science.

 

What is really mystifying to me is how they started on this journey of denying science. (May be not all of it, but some aspects of it.) Once they start the journey, there is little they can do or anyone else to bring them back to reality. They slide into their echo chamber and only read/listen/view only those who agree with them. The social media makes sure of that. Such confirmation bias is too difficult to overcome. 

 

I can think of several reasons why they started:

 

1. They think of themselves as independent thinkers. Yes, the world will not survive without independent thinking, but that does not mean that you start disagreeing with well-established facts just to demonstrate your independence. There still are flat earth societies in existence, I am sure, with members who are proud of their independent thinking. It could also be that they started on the slippery slope due to some other reason, as articulated below, and then call themselves “independent thinkers” as a boost to their egos.

 

2. They slide into taking the opposite viewpoint because it comes as a package with something else. So, for instance, if you are a conservative, you find the platform of a certain political party more appealing than that of others. However, belonging to that party means listening to broadcasts or TV show that deny science or provide simple explanations for complex phenomena. You eventually end up buying the whole package, hook line and sinker. 

 

3. They have a strong religious background. Now, it is possible for scientists to be religious, however it must be quite difficult to strike the balance. Many folks who belong to Jain religion in India do not eat things that grows underground because they carry germs. One can argue that such non-scientific stand cannot coexist with their professional training. However, it does. Being a member of the tribe, and following traditions to do so, take priority over their science background. 

 

4. They have taken the view that any research done by a (fill-in-the-gap) is suspect because all those people want to do is to perpetuate their view points of the world. The candidates for the class of scientists/historians/writers who are suspect include---those who live in the West, white folks, Jewish people----you name it. Anyone who comes up with a historic research on your country, your tribe, or your ethnic group who does not belong to your country/tribe or ethnic group, is a suspect with a hidden agenda. As it is with reason number 1 above, this can be an excuse to justify what they have come to believe due to another reason. 

 

5. They take the opposite viewpoint because their place of work encourages them to do so. If you are working for an oil company whose profits are going to be harmed if people switch to alternate energy, the employer will convince you that Climate Change is hogwash. Not believing in the company’s view point may be harmful to your employment. 

 

Compounding the problem is the situation that most scientists are generally not savvy in marketing. They call their findings hypothesis or theories, not facts, even when there is little doubt that they are not true. Another issue is that these theories are often dealing with overall trends and not short-term fluctuations, including those that appear to be contrarian.  For example, global warming can include days of freezing cold without violating the overall trend. 

 

Either of these issues allows the deniers with an opening. “See, the scientists are not sure of their own work, how can I believe it?” Or, “aha, how can there be global warming when I am freezing in record cold?”

 

When an average Joe, not trained in a scientific discipline, takes such a stand, I understand (sort of). I find it disappointing when someone who has a similar background as mine and had a successful career does that.

 

PS: Thank you, my friends, who I shared these thoughts with, for your contributions.

Photoshop meets authenticity

 I wrote a couple of Blog Posts on authenticity some ten years ago. A conclusion I had arrived at in those posts was if you can achieve your objectives, even if it includes showing off, by purchasing a non-authentic thing, a rational person would do so. The implication…. authenticity will become a thing of the past!

 

More than ten years later I encounter subject of authenticity in a different form. It has to do with one of my passions, photography. I take pictures, use Photoshop to spruce them up, create composites (mixing two or more pictures) and even create abstracts that have nothing to do with reality. 

 

I have also moved to California and joined a local camera club. They help us enter our photographs in competitions sponsored by a massive consortium of camera clubs. There are multiple categories in which you can enter your photos. I will use some of these categories to illustrate my point.

 

The first one is a category called “Nature.” You can enter your birds and bees pictures in this category. However, there cannot be any manmade object in your photo because then it will be disqualified. So, our camera club will teach you how to remove manmade objects using Photoshop, but do so in a manner that does not arouse suspicion. So, my first question is, why do they have a rule that encourages cheating? Would somehow a picture be less about nature if a wooden post appears in it? 

 

Similarly, a picture in category “Travel” can only be entered if there has been no editing done to it. So, if you remove an unwanted person from the photo will it represent the place less so than if you had left it alone? Is the object of the competition to reward the art of photography or the one that chronicles a place faithfully? 

 

Really interesting things happen in a category called “Creative.” Here is where you would enter your Photoshop images, such as composites. In fact, you run into trouble if your image looks like it was not Photoshopped. Your end product should appear unreal, but not too much. Abstracts are considered too unreal and not allowed.

 

This when I realized that this is a different version of authenticity. Authenticity in this case does not mean that you are trying to sell your photograph as one created by Ansel Adams. Nor is it where you are altering reality by inserting a politician in a compromising picture. So, authenticity of the end product is not in question.

 

It is authenticity of the process used to create the end product that is questioned. 

 

Did your process of creating that lovely bird photograph include removing a manmade object after the picture was taken or you found a bird away from anything that would be considered manmade? Did the process of creating that wonderful photo of sunrise in Miami require you to remove an unwanted person in the photo or did you wait patiently for the beach to become empty? Was the process used to create your image of moon behind camels included using Photoshop (as you are supposed to in the Creative category) or you just happened to be there when moon was rising behind camels?

 

I always thought it is the end product that matters, not the process used to create it, especially in art.

 

Did someone forget to tell Ansel Adams that he could not use his post-processing in a darkroom to create his wonderful images...they had to be as they were taken?

The Dark Forest

One of the more intriguing Sci-Fi novels I have read in recent days (and I read a lot of them) has been Remembrance of Earth’s Past, written by a Chinese author Liu Cixin and expertly translated in English. Actually, this is not one book but a trilogy. The three voluminous books are: “The Three-Body Problem”, “The Dark Forest”, and “Death’s End”. In China, the trilogy is referred to as The Three-Body Problem, the title of the first book, however, the title of the second book is most descriptive of the central theme of the trilogy. 

 

The universe is a dark forest with hunters quietly moving around. Since you don’t know the intentions or capabilities of the other hunters, it makes sense to take a hostile position against any civilization you find out about and eliminate it. However, you cannot take an instantaneous action due to distances involved. Even at the speed of light, the nearest star is more than four light years away. So, there is a potential negotiating window. 

 

Under this scenario, one of the most precious commodities you have against your enemy has is their exact location. You use the information of their location as a deterrent during the negotiating window. “If I see you coming after me, I will broadcast your location to the universe so some others will come and kill you. So better not come after me.”

 

This is similar to mutually assured destruction (MAD) used at the height of cold war.  “If I detect your missiles coming towards me, I will fire mine and destroy you.”  The way such a deterrence can be neutralized is if the enemy is able to destroy your broadcasting capability through a sneak attack, just like the enemy wiping out your counterattack capability during the MAD days. 

 

Three different technologies are envisaged for broadcasting the location of your enemy to the universe: amplification of the radio signals by using sun, creating a morse code using precise detonation of nuclear weapons in orbit, and gravity waves. Without giving away too much of the story, I can say that each one of these is considered.

 

Besides these principal themes of dark forest, deterrence, and attack running through the three volumes, there are some other interesting future projections, some literally mind bending.

 

Hibernation will allow humans to live almost forever, as long as they are willing to skip years of experience in between. The purpose may be to pass time while they are looking for the cure of your disease. It could also be a societal decision to send you to the future where you will be more useful.

 

The Superstring Theory proposes the presence of ten physical dimensions, not three that we are familiar with. In this Sci-Fi work, these extra dimensions are unfolded and come into play in several different ways. One is used by the aliens to interfere in the life on earth by managing to stop advances in science (so they will have an easier time defeating us), the other in travelling through space almost instantaneously, and yet another in causing massive destruction. 

 

Several ideas related to protecting human beings from an attack on the sun are described in detail. One involves using a spaceship that uses propulsion system manipulating curvature of space. It can achieve speed of light almost instantaneously without crushing the occupants. The other has humanity hiding behind the gaseous planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Yet another speculates slowing down the speed of light, so that the entire solar system can go into hiding. 

 

The name of the first novel, The Three-Body Problem, is one of those hard to solve challenges in celestial mechanics, making it virtually impossible to predict motion of three objects in space moving around each other.  So, if you have the misfortune to live in a system with three stars, you will have no idea how they are going to behave. During some periods, they will all be together, frying the surface of your planet. Other time, they will all in different locations and your home will be frozen and nothing will grow. 

 

The aliens living under these terrible circumstances do develop a technology which depends on dehydrating themselves during rough times, and rehydrating when things are going well. During the good times, they develop a very advanced civilization but they are very eager to leave their home and find someplace more pleasant. Fortunately for them, someone on earth sends out a signal inviting outside forces, because that someone, a woman scientist, is fed up with her government (China during the cultural revolution). 

 

Stephen Hawking, one of the most famous astrophysicists of our time, had warned us not to reach out to aliens out there in universe because an advanced civilization can put us at risk. This dark tale speculates what can happen.  

 

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Native habitat restoration

 We recently came across an interesting sign outside Arroyo Seco, an area in which we frequently go for walks. “Native Habitat Restoration,” it said. You see, in Southern California, a lot of vegetation is from plants and trees that are not native. They are of invasive species. The restoration aims to remove them and bring back the natives. “With the aliens taking resources, the natives can’t thrive,” they argue. 

 

This made us think of the larger picture involving people, both natives and aliens. The vociferous opposition to new immigrants, “aliens,” is based, among other things, on belief that they take away resources from those living here already, the “natives.”

 

The first problem with this is who is native and who is alien. Yes, California has native Americans. In our areas, there used to be Hahamongna Indians who lived before being displaced by the aliens. First those from south (Mexico), and then from East (United States). 

 

However, if you speak to most Californians, they would not consider themselves as aliens. They are natives. Only those who are immigrating recently are aliens, otherwise, the narrative does not work. They would not want to be uprooted so that the habitat goes back to Hahamongna Indians.

 

We came across a woman, an elderly local, who lamented the fact that in their zeal to restore native vegetation, the authorities had chopped of a lot of trees. She was not happy at all. The trees being chopped off were so valuable. Good for you, we said. 

 

So, my fellow Californians, let us not get too zealous about restoring native plants at the expense of the alien ones. Listen to the argument made by the old lady we met, and apply it to the human population. We recent immigrants, the “aliens” are here to stay, and we add a lot of value to the society, just as alien plants do.