Play SAFE or Else ..! Original Photo by: MICHIKO KAKUTANI of New York Times
America's most trusted man, comedian Jon Stewart is quietly chiming in about the new American Chemical Society (ACS) LENR Source Book on secret recipes for would be cold fusion experimenters. Here's what he had to say in a recent "untouched by atomic hands" story from the New York Times.
From "Email Viewers Click here for Google TechTalk Video Lecture" As an electrical engineer, I also like to follow developments in computers and quantum computing. Here's a new computing approach posted on the Development-Cycle web site. The above video is a new Google TechTalk video lecture (see above) of an interesting shared memory computing approach by the famed Dr. Karmarkar. His design approach reduces energy requirements in large scale Peta-flop computing systems, while seemingly exploiting a massive multi-threading capability via an electromagnetic cavity machine design with field emission devices. This ultra-low power design also has the added advantage of using quantum mechanics where it is needed the most, while keeping the rest of the computer design fairly standard in about a square meter of silicon CMOS.
It's ideas like this that excite me about the future of the applied quantum computing, where when you least expect it - new approaches seem to come out of nowhere that will surely help to change the future of computing. Atomic Links Amateur Scientists Get a Reaction from Fusion - Wall Street Journal
'Raises Awareness' on Science, Research & Education [Image (c) Microsoft, 2008] Guitar hero Gates tries raising a water bottle for non-believers
[Wash DC] The Fourteenth International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-14) which gets underway this week had surprising last minute guests drop in Sunday morning for a kickoff debate, involving a member of the media in the DC area, Llewellyn King debating the newly retired Bill Gates.
Did I read that correctly? Bill Gates as a science debate panelist?
Gates opened the debate by saying : "Well, first, I want to clarify: I’m not a fake Steve Jobs, nor a real electrochemist". After briefly discussing cold fusion's past public perceptions and some promising areas for future research, King and Gates then had a lengthy discussions with other panelists about the current energy situation, solar and wind energy, fossil fuel dependence and America's growing shortage of skilled scientists and engineers. "In fields such as chemistry, physics, engineering and specialized software skills, government and industry will need well trained people for future job growth," he said.
"America has such broad capabilities to bring scientists together. I think software and the web can help do that in new ways."
"One thing I'd also like to see more in the future are technology conferences that mix things up, where scientists in one field meet and debate engineers and specialists in another. We don't see enough of that sort of interesting interaction that stimulates new ideas with the public. It would help tremendously to see each others' points of view in a number of technology areas, capture the public's imagination and stimulate cross disciplinary ideas and help investors like myself weigh decisions," Gates said.
Foreign visa concerns were also prominent during the almost two hour debate because of a controversy in the weeks before the conference with some visiting condensed matter scientists. King mentioned that five foreign researchers who would be presenting papers could not get visas to attend this years' cold fusion conference, which caused some last minute scheduling snafus.
"When I ran a run a multi-billion dollar corporation I couldn't get H1-B visa's for many visiting software developers, so do you seriously think that several foreign scientists visiting this conference could cut through all that red tape in time to attend?," said Gates. "It would be like me me trying to levitate this bottle of water with my hand," as he gestured to King.
Gates also impressed upon members of the media to give more attention to improving the teaching of math and science. "This knowledge is essential to many of tomorrow's jobs", he said. "This is a hot issue and the media should help embrace it. The Britney route to inspiring tomorrows youth should sprinkle in a bit of science and math with all that partying we hear about. My fatherly advice is do some studying and set a good example," he said. "The Britney Industrial Complex needs innovation too."
A recent federal government study found almost forty percent of high school seniors failed to perform at the basic level on a national math test. Science skills issues were even more of a concern. "Half of 12th-graders didn't show basic science skills," Gates said.
The panelists fielded many audience questions afterwards.
From this blogger perspective it was a William F Buckley, Jr. style of debate on science and technology issues of the day. Perhaps the following quote from the Breakthrough Institute said it best recently :
'We need to invent totally new energy systems that we haven't even thought of yet.' - Michael Shellenberger The ICCF-14 cold fusion conference runs through friday August 15th, where members of the media, the public and science community are invited to attend.
[Update 2 8/3/08] I have some pretty mixed feelings at the moment on a lot of things going on in the energy industry that we often see in the news. I see an insatiable demand for energy mixed with politics, capitalistic profit taking, over extended Americans trying to save money while they watch prices at the pump oscillate up and down. I also think many voting Americans are not seeing pieces of this energy puzzle, simply because many are not scientists and engineers. On the exciting news front lines, I see some new science breakthroughs reported this week in solar, with some wall street experts now proclaiming solar and wind will be the next great boom. Perhaps these experts are right. They proclaim their expertise almost daily on the news and many seem to believe them.
And what about cold fusion energy with the ICCF-14 conference about to start on Aug 10th? Will any atypical experts chime in? As I've expressed several times in this blog before - even if a successful cold fusion device was demonstrated and all the science experts unanimously agreed it was a modern day miracle (I am personally convinced the science is), it would still take generational changes to alter some past perceptions and media hype. Why? Culturally and technologically absorbing any alternative energy technology that competes with fossil fuels will be a challenge (with risks measured by public opinion).
It took a century and trillions of dollars to build the oil infrastructure we depend on as a civilization. It will likewise take trillions more to convert to alternatives in many areas, assuming the public has an appetite for the risks involved. In other areas, such as some types of plastics oil may never be replaced as a petrochemical source, unless billion dollar petrochemical refineries are redesigned from the ground up.
Ultimately, the questions any inquisitive engineer or economist should ask is: will the oil industry truly help fund the process to replace itself? How fast will alternatives take hold? Will it be a trickle? or through several decades of energy related economic cycles? As far as possible answers go, I don't see these questions being debated enough. They have a huge bearing on the future in my opinion.
In the near term, everything I'm reading tells me that better batteries, increasing energy efficiency in motors, home appliances, computer / multimedia systems and servers along with reducing transmission line losses on the power grid are things that can help most in reducing the need to build new power plants and help reduce fossil fuel consumption and green house gases(and general air pollution). As this 2004 DoE chart clearly shows, "wasted energy" is 56% of the total US energy budget, with electrical losses being over 26%. If you really want to make a dent, help by reducing the transportation losses. Considering that the US produces/consumes Tera-watts of energy, the wider introduction of "energy aware" green electronics would help. Perhaps this is the easiest place to invest in beginning to put a dent in our overall fossil fuel consumption. I'm certainly no expert in all of the above issues. I just have a simple perspective on things after seeing how many modern day electrical devices aren't always designed for energy savings.
This brings up the touchy subject of 'expertise'. What is expertise? My dad who spent decades in the semiconductor manufacturing business used to have a saying about expertise and experts by relating them to a Cracker Jack box. He grew up learning everything from a 'hands on' perspective of a semiconductor assembly line as did several in his day and age. Can anybody really claim to be an expert in a field other than their own training or field of study? He seemed to do it quite well.
Me? I'm just trained as a nuclear engineer, physicist and have a masters in EE with twenty years of mixed experience in these areas. However, believe me, I wouldn't call my self an expert in C++ software and a number of areas in the physical sciences. Trying to keep up with my specialties - I do read the latest materials and journals of all kinds. I've seen a lot of change in several fields over the last twenty years, believe me. But does that also make me an expert in PERL or Visual Basic programming, QED physics, or even Cold Fusion programming for that matter? No. Opinions are just opinions. Even opinions on expertise.
In closing, I would like to share an opinion on how bloggers can help from time to time when mass media is too narrow minded on a subject, but a blogger feels a need to chime in.
I try to follow the blogging rule of "let others speak for themselves" via the articles they've written. Blogging 101 from my perspective is sort of like shouting into a large room and sometimes you echo and bounce back against mainstream media news items and authors who also voice opinions on various technologies and who maybe even read similar news items. Heck, even music videos can communicate opinions. As a blogger I try to link to the articles of others who seem to have similar viewpoints on issues, and who I hope will shout back sometimes(even a polite hello would brighten my day sometimes), but I don't try to put words into their mouths unless I feel I need to possibly help a situation, or clarify a point that they may have missed on a subject. The main thing I think about now is "help". Someone whom I greatly admire, but won't mention by name, said to me once in an email, "write only if you feel you can help." That was probably the single best piece of advice I've ever seen written to help bloggers like myself.
Sure, experience can and often times does substitute for education. Blogging is one such area. There really is no way to learn but by experience. You dive in a try it.
But what do I know? I can barely get my own kids to listen to my advice sometimes. I hope the above thoughts help others out there with some perspective, and why I try to keep my feet on the ground even if I poke fun or try to help someone with a relevant link that looks interesting from time to time.
[Plug: I love Cracker Jacks, and so do my kids !! ]
