Gordian Knots

Astronomers using the XMM-Newton Observatory have witnessed the most powerful collision of galaxies yet seen that sent 100-million-degree gas spewing through space. With an energy output that is second only to the big bang, the event has been dubbed the “perfect cosmic storm.” “What was once two distinct but smaller galaxy clusters 300 million years ago is now one massive cluster in turmoil,â€� remarks team leader Patrick Henry of the University of Hawaii.

The roiling cluster studied by Henry and his colleagues is known as Abell 754 and is located some 800 million light-years from Earth. The data collected by the team using the space-based X-ray observatory is the most detailed look yet at how cosmic objects merge, boosting the idea that our universe built itself “from the bottum upâ€� through collisions of smaller objects to form larger ones, resulting in the hierarchal structure seen today. By tracing the movement of the wreckage of the collision, the scientists revealed the paths taken by the two smaller clusters, one containing some 300 galaxies, the other closer to 1,000. “One cluster has apparently smashed into the other from the ‘north-west’ and has since made one pass through,” explains team member Alexis Finoguenov of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. “Now, gravity will pull the remnants of this first cluster back toward the core of the second.â€�

Scientific American on Supernova

Four hundred years ago this past weekend, skywatchers witnessed the appearance of a new object in the western sky. Later identified as a supernova, the entity was dubbed Kepler’s remnant after the legendary astronomer Johannes Kepler, who studied it during its early years. Now astronomers are using space telescopes to better understand our galaxy’s most recent supernova.

“The glow from young remnants, such as Kepler’s supernova remnant, comes from several components,â€� explains Ravi Sankrit of Johns Hopkins University. “Each component shows up best at different wavelengths.â€� Sankrit and William Blair, also at Hopkins, are thus employing three NASA observatories–the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory–to study the supernova remains in detail. The combined image (above) reveals a cloud of dust and gas 14 light-years across, which is expanding at a rate of four million miles an hour. Infrared observations highlight the hot pieces of interstellar dust, whereas X-ray data from Chandra garner information on gas within the cloud. Hubble’s visible light camera, meanwhile, captures the supernova’s advancing shock wave butting up against dense surrounding gas

Economist.com on choosing Chief Executives

What is the best way to replace the boss? A recent study of large, non-diversified publicly traded American manufacturing firms in the Academy of Management Journal suggests that companies perform better under a new leader if that person has been groomed as the heir apparent—what it calls “relay successionâ€�. The grooming period, say the authors, Nandini Rajagopalan and Yan Zhang, professors at the University of Southern California and Rice University respectively, is “akin to a school, within which a new CEO’s education takes placeâ€�. They found that, other things being equal, relay succession produces a significantly better financial performance than the alternatives—selecting an outsider, who inevitably lacks knowledge of the firm, or holding a competition between internal candidates.

But boards must do more than draw up a list of high-potential employees to plan an internal succession, argues a new report from A.T. Kearney. The management-consulting firm says one of its clients uses a talent-management programme that includes evaluation, mentoring and individual development plans for its high-flyers. “With business units often larger in size than some countries’ economies, and business complexity that requires continuity to sustain and grow shareholder value, more boards are making enterprise-wide succession plans,â€� claims the report.

Companies feel the need to turn to outsiders most strongly when they are underperforming. But unpublished analysis by Marakon, a consultancy, of transitions over the past decade at the top of Britain’s biggest quoted companies shows that internal appointees have been slightly more successful at turning round underperforming firms than outsiders, confirming the findings of Ms Rajagopalan and Ms Zhang. In fact, they found that struggling companies (other than those in “unstable industriesâ€�, such as computers and toys) gained even more from relay succession than did companies that were doing well. So if Disney, whose recent performance has been far from stellar, takes note of these findings, it ought to hand the baton to an internal candidate sooner rather than later.

Economist talks about Ms. Padmasree Warrior, an IIT Delhi graduate!: “Ms Warrior is the ideal ambassador for this new vision, and not simply because she co-invented it. She leads Motorola’s army of 4,600 technologists and marshals a $3.7 billion research budget, but her fearsome-sounding surname is at odds with her grace and charm. As an engineering graduate with a 20-year history at Motorola, she embodies both the technology-driven heritage of the old Motorola and the company’s new, more friendly, user-driven approach. Seamless mobility is a very different approach to that being taken by Nokia, Ericsson or Samsung, she insists, since it is defined not by equipment or industrial structure, but by ease of use.”

IIT Bombay Heritage Fund (http://www.iitbombay.org): “National Semiconductor Corporation announced the promotion of Sadanand Patil to vice president of its Package Technology Group. A semiconductor industry veteran, Patil was most recently director of National’s Package Technology Group and has several patents and publications to his credit. ‘Under Sada’s leadership, National is an industry leader in package miniaturization for analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits optimized for today’s smaller and thinner products including cell phones, flat-panel displays and laptop computers,’ said Kamal Aggarwal, executive vice president of National’s Central Technology and Manufacturing Group. ‘His efforts have led to positive testimonials from many of our customers and have helped drive the continuing growth of our business in innovative packages.’ Patil holds two masters’ degrees, a master’s of science in chemical engineering from Oregon State University and a master’s of technology from the India Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, India.”

IIT Bombay Heritage Fund: “Ramanan Raghavendran, managing director at TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a New York private-equity firm, says: ‘For a technology company looking to quickly find 100 engineers, there really is only one place in the world to do it: India. There are just more engineers there than in the U.S.’ And these engineers are actually contributing to the long-term success of the U.S. economy, he says, because of the needed talent they provide.”

The Official String Theory Web Site

With the recent interest in String Theory because of the 2004 Nobel Physics prize, I thought I will check out this site!

Medicine Nobel Awarded for Elucidating Sense of Smell: “The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded yesterday to two American researchers, Linda B. Buck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Richard Axel of Columbia University. The scientists were honored for their work on unraveling the sense of smell.

For years, the principles governing the olfactory system eluded explanation. Then, in 1991, Buck and Axel published a seminal paper describing a family of about a thousand genes in mice (that is, a whopping 3 percent of the total gene count) for odorant receptors that detect inhaled odorant molecules. Humans have a comparable number of these receptors, which make up a subset of the so-called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). “

New York Times article didn’t explain it very well, but the Nobel Prize in Physics awarded this morning is for the discovery of “asymptotic freedom,â€� a bizarre property of quarks and gluons. Unlike every other force discovered to date, quarks and gluons experience something quite different–a force that is negligible at small distances and that grows larger with distance. Amazingly, as two quarks are separated in space, their force of attraction increases. That’s completely unlike anything seen in the gravitational or electromagnetic realm.

Why does this matter? Of course, it matters if you’re looking to understand the very fundamental construction of the universe. But it also matters if you’re trying to understand the collisions of very large atomic nuclei such as uranium, where what’s thought to happen is the construction of a quark-gluon plasma.

It’s difficult, at the moment, to see a practical application for the work on asymptotic freedom. But it would hardly be the first time a Nobel on an obscure process has led to new developments. The 1971 Prize to Dennis Gabor for holograms is a case in point. A couple of prizes in quantum electronics (1956, 1964) have proved their worth in the computer revolution. Even prizes like that of 1936, for the discovery of the positron, while once theoretical and abstract, have proven themselves prescient with the development of the positron-emission tomograph and perhaps even the positron-electron bomb. This year’s prize has the same feel to it – that 30 years from now engineers will be deciding what to do with it.

Slashdot | Smart Cars Coming to Canada and U.S.: “Most importantly the Smart Car looks cool. It also gets 60 mpg, is four feet smaller than a Mini Cooper (you can park two in a standard parking spot), the plastic panels are easily swappable and one color all the way through (so you can’t scratch the paint), the steel frame makes it safe in an accident, and you can get it with in-dash Bluetooth (and in Europe can read and write email via the car speakers and a microphone). The Smart car is coming to the US soon, and will cost as little as $12,000. You can read about it in Wired or on MSNBC, or you can go straight to ZAP who will be selling them in the US soon, or the smart car website in the UK. “

BBC NEWS | Business | Reuters sees India as data hub: “Reuters sees India as data hub

The southern Indian city will employ 1,500 staff – or 10% of Reuters’ total workforce – the UK-based company said.

The majority of the staff will be data and technical employees, but Reuters said it planned to employ up to 40 journalists in its Bangalore newsroom.

Bangalore is increasingly seen as a hot spot for jobs in information technology and back-office services.

Reuters plans to have up to 400 employees compiling and analysing data in Bangalore by the end of 2004, the company’s editor-in-chief and head of content operations, Geert Linnebank, said.

‘What we are creating here is the largest single hub of information gathering’ within Reuters, Mr Linnebank said.

The Bangalore office will employ 1,000 people by the end of 2005 and between 1,200 and 1,500 people over the next 18 months, he said.

Reuters, which has its headquarters in London, first began operations in India in 1866, providing news and commodity prices to European markets.

The company has 14,700 staff around the world, of whom about 2,300 are journalists.”

Heretic’s Guide: “The Heretic’s Guide

to Choosing and

Buying Your First Telescope”

“At the bottom of reality lies a paradox: self-created creation, either the universe or God. This conundrum of self-causation afflicts all life and consciousness and great art. Occasionally the recursive nature of our existence is captured by a simple witty loop. Here is a fine collection of hundreds of highly evolved self-cancelling/self-generating circuits, called oxymoronics. This handsome and intelligent book is classic cybernetics. I use these witticisms as meditative koans.”

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History’s Greatest Wordsmiths

Marty Grothe

$10

Amazon

Sample excerpts:

The superfluous is the most necessary.

Voltaire

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

Margaret Mead

I shut my eyes in order to see.

Paul Gauguin

We learn from history that we do not learn from history.

Georg Hegel

We are never prepared for what we expect.

James Michener

To be believed, make the truth unbelievable.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions.

Maurice Chapelain

What we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

Sydney J. Harris

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.

Henry David Thoreau

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

Harry S. Truman

Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.

Oscar Wilde

War is a series of catastrophes which result in a victory.

Georges Clemenceau

First I dream my painting, then I paint my dream.

Vincent van Gogh

We are confronted by insurmountable opportunities.

Walt Kelly, From Pogo

A man chases a woman until she catches him.

Anonymous

I want peace and I’m willing to fight for it.

Harry S. Truman

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

Confucius, in Analects

Love is a kind of warfare.

Ovid

All works of art should begin…at the end.

Edgar Allan Poe

An oxymoron has been wisely described as “a compressed paradox.” Looking at it the other way around, I think of a paradox as “an extended oxymoron.” To me, they’re close cousins because they both link up contradictory or incongruous elements. And they both play around in the most fascinating way with the difference between literal truth and figurative truth. For this reason, I include both oxymoronic and paradoxical observations (and a few others, as you shall soon see) under the rubric of oxymoronica.

Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene:

SHENZHEN: Two women have been identified as carrying a mutant gene that is immune to HIV/AIDS, the first such cases uncovered in China, a researcher said.

The finding is the joint effort of a research programme, ‘Association of Human Genetic Polymorphisms with HIV Affections,’ jointly conducted by the University of Washington in the US State of Washington and local Infectious Disease Hospitals and medical institutions in Guangdong Province.

Tuofu Zhu, associate professor of University of Washington and associate director of the Clinical Core at the Centre for AIDS Research (CFAR), introduced the programme to China a year ago as a part of his global research in nations in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.

‘Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races,’said Zhu.”

I spent a few months in a nuclear research center in India. It was interesting to view this short history of nuclear reactor design and modern advancements in Wired :

“‘If you’re going to have 300 gigawatts of nuclear power in China – 50 times what we have today – you can’t afford a Three Mile Island or Chernobyl,’ Wang says. ‘You need a new kind of reactor.’

That’s exactly what you can see 40 minutes away, behind a glass-enclosed guardhouse flanked by military police. Nestled against a brown mountainside stands a five-story white cube whose spare design screams, ‘Here be engineers!’ Beneath its cavernous main room are the 100 tons of steel, graphite, and hydraulic gear known as HTR-10 (i.e., high-temperature reactor, 10 megawatt). The plant’s output is underwhelming; at full power – first achieved in January – it would barely fulfill the needs of a town of 4,000 people. But what’s inside HTR-10, which until now has never been visited by a Western journalist, makes it the most interesting reactor in the world.

In the air-conditioned chill of the visitors’ area, a grad student runs through the basics. Instead of the white-hot fuel rods that fire the heart of a conventional reactor, HTR-10 is powered by 27,000 billiards-sized graphite balls packed with tiny flecks of uranium. Instead of superhot water – intensely corrosive and highly radioactive – the core is bathed in inert helium. The gas can reach much higher temperatures without bursting pipes, which means a third more energy pushing the turbine. No water means no nasty steam, and no billion-dollar pressure dome to contain it in the event of a leak. And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide – designed to last 1 million years – there’s no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.”

Nerd Values: “I’m pretty happy with nerd values: Get yourself a comfortable living, then do a little something to change the world.”