rychardemanne's blog

A Tribute To Richard Feynman: Feynman Point Pilish Poems 2013

Richard Mankiewicz — Sat, 11 May 2013 04:56:41 +0000

Richard Feynman was born on 11 May 1918. Today would have been his 95th birthday. This isn’t a paean to a physicist – it could be, but I’m sure millions of words have been published on this – but a game for wordsmiths and numberphiles.

Within the highly restricted format of the Pilish Poem, the aim is to be both enlightening and eloquent; plus to have some fun playing around.You can follow my train of thoughts at my first article on this so, without repeating myself, I’ll jump right in with the basic rules of what constitutes a Feyman Point Pilish Poem.

The Math-e-Monday Puzzle: A Jailer's Revenge

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:23:34 +0000

This is a fairly new problem, being traced back to as recently as 2003. However, it also has the kind of counter-intuitive solution that has made it a favourite on mathematical websites and forums. In its various retellings, it sometimes suffers from a lack of stringent conditions that result in rather imaginative solutions; perfectly legitimate solutions within the parameters set but not always the ‘classic’ one. If you’ve seen this before, then speed-read to the end where we take the side of the jailer!

The problem

The Feynman Point And Pilish Poetry

Richard Mankiewicz — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:44:25 +0000

When I was a kid, I would happily play around with both words and numbers – I still do. Both have their aesthetic appeal. Whether it is constructing and deconstructing mathematical puzzles or cryptic crosswords, they appear as small artefacts that reveal a grander architecture. Combine this with the serendipity of the internet, and Pi Day was just a hop, skip and jump away from Richard Feynman and pilish poetry.

The Math-e-Monday Puzzle: Polygons In Rings

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:13:01 +0000

The diagram below shows five concentric circles constructed in such a way that the area of each annulus is equal to that of the central circle. Within the first annulus, a square has been constructed such that none of the points on the square lie outside the inner or outer radii of that ring.

For the first annulus, A(1), with radii r(1) and r(2), n=4 is the minimum value of n such that a regular n-gon lies wholly within or on the boundary of A(1).

Find the smallest value of n, such that a regular n-gon will not fall outside the annulus A(m) bounded by r(m) and r(m+1) for values of m = 2, 3 and 4.

Also, what is the smallest value of n for A(50)?

The Math-e-Monday Puzzle: Weird Dice

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 03:45:16 +0000

Alice wants to play a game with Bill. She has just bought some new and rather strange dice. The average of each die is 3.5, just like a normal playing die, but the numbers on each face have an unfamiliar distribution.

Die P has the numbers 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 6.
Die Q has the numbers 2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 5.

The game itself is very simple: whoever rolls the highest total wins a sweet from the candy box. If the box becomes empty, the winner can take one from the other player’s pile.

A Prime Valentine's Day

Richard Mankiewicz — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 01:41:53 +0000

It is somewhat surreal to see the discovery of the largest prime number paraded on prime time broadcast media. Mathematicians around the world are asked to explain the significance of this discovery in layman’s terms, which is up there with physicists trying to explain what the Large Hadron Collider actually does.

Below you’ll see a pretty sparky Sky News interview by Eugenia Cheng, a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield. Just notice at the very end how jolly pleased with themselves the newscasters seem to be.

The Business Of Science

Richard Mankiewicz — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:33:08 +0000

I think there is something deeply wrong with our view of science. The word itself, Science (with a capital "S"), sits alongside other monoliths such as Religion, Art, Music, Literature, Politics and so forth that require constant defining just to ensure we're talking about the same thing. The problem with science is that we are taught a myth... and then complain when the myth is incommensurate with reality.

Father Of Fractals Benoit Mandelbrot Dies Age 85

Richard Mankiewicz — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 07:18:54 +0000

Benoit Mandelbrot died on 14 October 2010 in a hospice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 85. His name is synonymous with the study of fractals, a term he himself coined in the 1970s.

Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension was published in English in 1977 (the original French came out two years earlier) but the book that sealed Mandelbrot's fame as an original thinker was the 1982 classic, The Fractal Geometry of Nature. It is one of those rare books that can be read both by professionals and lay readers. It also helps that it is copiously illustrated so that even if the mathematics may appear esoteric just relax and enjoy the visual candy.

Shock Revelation: Drug Trials Funded By Drug Companies Show Positive Bias

Richard Mankiewicz — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:37:36 +0000

Drug trials conducted by the very pharmaceutical company with an obvious vested interest in a positive result are far more likely to yield a... positive result!

Perhaps not earth-shattering news to anybody with a gram of cynicism in their body but is still an orchestrated effort to undermine the credibility of science as anything higher than the distortion of data in the name of money.

The Spirituality Of Scientists

Richard Mankiewicz — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:15:43 +0000

A new book, just about to be published, has already caused a stir in the blogosphere. “Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think” by Elaine Ecklund, a sociologist from Rice University, claims that scientists are less atheistic than previously thought.

The dustjacket blurb explains:”In the course of her research, Ecklund surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She finds that most of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. Nearly 50 percent of them are religious. Many others are what she calls “spiritual entrepreneurs,” seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion…..only a small minority are actively hostile to religion.”

NASA's Moon Missions Launch Pad Leader, Guenter Wendt, Dies At 85

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:10:51 +0000

There was a time when kids dreamt of being astronauts - a time when going up to the Moon was sexy and being a spaceman was the coolest job on the planet. As astronauts became global heroes they themselves were only too aware that there were many more heroes whose feet remained firmly on the ground but without whom those Moon missions would never have happened: Guenter Wendt was one of those heroes.

Scientists In Parliament: The More The Merrier?

Richard Mankiewicz — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:07:44 +0000

The UK has a General Election looming on 6 May, thereby giving newspapers enough hot air to puff up their websites. But what should their science writers talk about during such times? With the launch of Britain's Science Party, science journalists can now also join in the ritual inflation of unlikely promises, although in science's case it is more likely a desperate attempt to be heard at all. Mark Henderson of The Times has, however, launched into this with a certain relish, without forgetting that the science reader also wants some data to bite on.

Welcome To The Science Party

Richard Mankiewicz — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:18:24 +0000

Welcome To The Science Party

Today, 20 April, sees the launch of The Science Party, a new political party led by bestselling author and New Scientist consultant Dr Michael Brooks. Brooks is standing for the party in the forthcoming British general election in the East Midlands constituency of Bosworth.

Brooks launched The Science Party, whose slogan is “Because Science Matters”, at a Skeptics event in Leicester on Tuesday evening.

Biologist And Former Dominican Wins £1 Million Templeton Prize For Science And Religion

Richard Mankiewicz — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 06:08:36 +0000

"Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist who has vigorously opposed the entanglement of science and religion while also calling for mutual respect between the two, has won the 2010 Templeton Prize." Yet again the prize has gone to a scientist who says nice things about religion.

"Ayala, 76, a naturalized American who moved from Spain to New York in 1961 for graduate study and soon became a leader in molecular evolution and genetics, has devoted more than 30 years to asserting that both science and faith are damaged when either invades the proper domain of the other.

Quantum Entanglement In The Visible Universe

Richard Mankiewicz — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:38:15 +0000

Quantum mechanics has been around for a hundred years and continues to fascinate and astonish scientists. It has been phenomenally successful at explaining the microscopic universe at the level of atoms and elementary particles and yet classical mechanics has survived to model the macroscopic world of everyday objects. But at what level do these two theories meet? Is there a region in which they could overlap; that is, can macroscopic objects display quantum behaviour?

How Is The Date For Easter Calculated?

Richard Mankiewicz — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:03:27 +0000

Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar as it defines a number of theological doctrines. However, Easter has always been a movable feast which can take place on any date between 22 March and 25 April inclusive. The actual methods for calculating Easter have changed down the centuries and, whereas the Gregorian calendar is probably the simplest solar calendar we will ever have, the ecclesiastical calendar on which Easter is based seems to have got ever more obscure and intricate.

Is This How Brain Waves And Neurons Create Consciousness?

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:35:43 +0000

I had previously speculated on how electric and magnetic fields generated by individual neurons may be able to transmit information to other neurons with which they are not in synaptic contact. From a purely physical point of view it strikes me as at least something to investigate. After all, we know that there are broad sweeps of electric fields that travel across the brain - whether alpha, beta, gamma, delta or theta waves. Such endogenous fields are both generated by the brain and feed back upon the brain. There must therefore be a mechanism by which such emergent fields are generated, sustained and propagated by the basic units of our brain: the neurons.

What Are The Symptoms Of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity?

Richard Mankiewicz — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:46:00 +0000

The first cases of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (often referred to as electro-hypersensitivity or even EHS) were studied in the 1970s and yet decades later few people are even aware of the condition. We living human beings are more than just flesh and blood; we are also a highly complex electromagnetic system. This also means that we interact with external electromagnetic radiation (EMR). But try switching off every single electrical device in your home and work and ponder on how dependent we now are on these devices. The problem is that no importance is given to how detrimental all this EMR is to human health.

Why Fat People Don't Lose Weight. The Diet Delusion

Richard Mankiewicz — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:10:31 +0000

Who says science journalism is dying when it seems to be gloating about slaying one sacred cow after another: chiropractic, homoeopathy and now... dieting.

The internet is bursting to the seams with weight loss programs, slimming advice, nutrition counselling, fitness regimes, low fat, low carb, low salt, low sugar, low motivation diets. It's enough to drive one to drink, except that it would also make you fatter...or would it?

Can Neurons Communicate At A Distance With Electromagnetic Signals?

Richard Mankiewicz — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:11:14 +0000

I've been pondering this for some time and have just now been fired into action by a comment I made in another article “Building Smarter Artificial Intelligence By... Shrinking the Body?” One approach to artificial intelligence is to model the activities of neurons as electrical circuits with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. The model assumes that each individual neuron affects only those other neurons with which it has direct contact at the synapses. But, we also know that an electrical signal will also generate an electromagnetic field.

Too Many People Misdiagnosed With Depression: Blame The Criteria Or The Doctors?

Richard Mankiewicz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:17:43 +0000

A study in the March edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, senior-authored by Jerome C. Wakefield, empirically challenges the effectiveness of psychiatrists' official diagnostic manual in preventing mistaken, false-positive diagnoses of depression. This isn't the first time that Wakefield has challenged the DSM criteria for diagnosing depression. His first assault caused such controversy that the criteria were slightly tightened, but DSM-V is on the horizon and I suspect psychiatrists are busy pushing their particular niche obsessions.

Pi Grows To Record Digits: But Is This Normal Behaviour?

Richard Mankiewicz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:35:50 +0000

On 31 December 2009, Fabrice Bellard announced that he had set a new world record for the most number of digits of the number pi. His algorithm has calculated the first 2.7 trillion digits of this famous mathematical constant, beating the previous record of 2.5 trillion digits set earlier in the year.

Life In Deep Space? Organic Molecules Found In The Orion Nebula

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:51:37 +0000

ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. This detailed spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) - one of Herschel's three innovative instruments - demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI will provide on how organic molecules form in space. Several German Institutes contributed essential parts to the HIFI instrument: the Universität zu Köln and two Max Planck Institutes: Radioastronmie (Bonn) and Sonnensystemforschung (Lindau).

Irrational Exuberance – Thank Goodness It's Pi Day!

Richard Mankiewicz — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:10:18 +0000

March 14th is Pi Day, and that's official! This tradition was started at the Exploratorium, in San Francisco, and 2010 will be their 22nd year of irrational exuberance. It also coincides with Einstein's date of birth – which was on 14 March 1879 – so it's a double celebration for geeks around the world.

Sexsomnia: A Sleep Disorder With Sexual Behaviour

Richard Mankiewicz — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:56:53 +0000

Making love in the middle of the night while both of you are half asleep is undoubtedly pleasurable. But what if you suddenly realize that your partner is still asleep; not just half asleep but fully asleep on the job? If so, then he or she may be suffering from sexsomnia, a rare sleep disorder involving sexual behaviour.

The Richard Dawkins Forum: Evolution Or Extinction?

Richard Mankiewicz — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:09:59 +0000

Richard Dawkins should write a paper entitled "How not to run a Web 2.0 website." Perhaps apt that he is now the former Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, as he has shown little understanding of his public, which has also damaged his efforts at science communication. How can I make such bold statements?

Is Science A Belief? Is Religion A Science? Recent Research

Richard Mankiewicz — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 06:14:04 +0000

“Is religion a science?” This may seem an odd question with which to start, but this is the very first question Aquinas asks in his monumental Summa Theologica. “Among the philosophical sciences one is speculative the other practical [natural philosophy], nevertheless sacred doctrine [Roman Catholicism] includes both; as God, by one and the same science, knows both Himself and His works.” For Aquinas, not only is theology both a speculative and natural philosophy but it is also superior to both, in as much as it is guided by divine knowledge, which cannot be misled, and has as its end ultimate bliss, towards which all other sciences strive too.

Science Is Awesome! Sack The Journalists!

Richard Mankiewicz — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:25:15 +0000

In December 2008 CNN announced that it was closing down its whole science and technology production team and moving the environmental agenda into their general news. It was as if the news world had just lost a continent, prompting four of the world's leading science and environmental journalism groups to pen their first ever joint letter of protest. "In wielding this axe, your network has lost an experienced and highly regarded group of science journalists at a time when science coverage could not be more important in our national and international discourse." Nevertheless, the axe fell.