Priests and scientists review

This boring book is in a way interesting but overall gets filed under 'boring'. I'm talking about Prêtres et scientifiques by Jean-Michel Maldamé.
I thought this was going to be an interesting read. I got bogged down. It took me three afternoons to finish a mere 200 pages.
The outset is good: What is the relation between science and religion for some well known priest-scientists and did they conflict in any way in their research?

To investigate this he chooses five priest-scientists from Pierre Gassendi (tried to reconcile Epicurian atomism with christianity), Bernard Bolzano (of Bolzano theorem fame; he is erronously named 'Pierre' Bolzano on the cover), Henri Breuil (prehistorian), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (famous for having conflicts with Rome on the doctrine of original sin and a less strict interpretation of the book of Genesis) and home-grown George Lemaître (alumni of my university and the first person to propose the theory of the expansion of the Universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble). The choice looked very promising. Different fields of research, different time periods, different stances on the religion/science relationshop. But...

I don't really like the way French authors write. They never use one sentence if they can say it in three. If I were just to read the two pages of the conclusion every scientist gets at the end of his own chapter that would have saved me a lot of bother.
Plus the author is very much biassed, being a dominican himself. He interprets certain things as very pious or courageous in light of religion and priestly devotion to the catholic cause.
Plus I cannot stand sentences with exclamation marks.

I did like how he explained the way the religion shaped the scientific research or the philosophical and theological work of the priest-scientists, although Lemaître stressed several times that religion had no place in scientific research and vice versa. Somewhere toward the end Maldamé concludes that these five men voulu lier les champs du savoir separé. But he does not present any convincing evidence for the case of Lemaître, quite the opposite.

Of course the author chose 5 individuals who were easy to analyze because they had written a lot about their relationship between their research and their religious background and calling. But I would like to have Maldamé broadened his research and find some priest-scientists who failed to keep religion separated from their science. I'm sure he could have equally found five of those which would have made a more varied and balanced read.

Anyway, it was a compulsory read for a subject I'm taking this year on the Church in society in the 19th and 20th century.

Dark Sky Status

I want to live in an area with a Dark Sky Status so I can resume the full star gazing experience. It must be awesome to be standing there with a telescope among the ruins of Llanthony Priory.

Uncle Dicky under a car park

I saw the live broadcast of the announcement of the body under the car park being that of Richard III yesterday through the BBC live stream. 
It is true, the only thing I could think of was that Blackadder episode The Foretelling.

"My arms will end up at Essex, my torso in Norfolk, and my genitalia
stuck up a tree somewhere in Rutland."

"and my uncle under a car park in Leicester".

Irony for the sake of science

Thomas the Unbelievable has a point

I'm currently reading a book I got as a present for my birthday from Dr Livingstone.
It's called: 'De ongelovige Thomas heeft een punt'.
Translated: Thomas the Unbelievable has a point.
It's a 'manual for critical thinking'.
Actually it goes through the very basics and explains logical fallacies, the tricks the brain plays on us like wishful thinking etc and how people use that to trick people.
Examples like the basketball-gorilla thing, a whole chapter on Randi debunking Geller, Houdini vs Conan Doyle etc.
Most of the stuff I already know through the SGU podcast. I haven't been listening for aaaages due to lack of time.
But some interesting things (so far) and some basic stuff I hadn't heard of like the hot hand fallacy.

They put up a website to illustrate some of the bits in the book. It's quite cool, it has all kinds of youtube movies, bits of lectures and so on grouped per chapter.

I've read 1/3 of the book so far. I'm going to the hairdresser in a bit, I hope to read on in there.

Rebel without a Specola Vaticana

I stumbled upon a review of the inauguration of two new telescopes of the Vatican observatory at Castel Gondolfo in the mid 1930's. The Specola Vaticana at that time had a Zeiss Visual Refractor Telescope (aperture 40mm, focal lenght 600mm, and a Zeiss double astrograph installed in the pope's summer residence 24 km south of Rome. It chose this location and moved out of the Vatican gardens because of light pollution tightening the grip on modern Rome.
The article contained a picture of Pope Pius XI standing outside the observatory talking to father Johannes Stein, the Dutch director of the Vatican Observatory. It reminded me of another scene in front of an observatory. I was thinking of the famous knife fighting scene in Rebel without a cause at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
Sure, James Dean is no pope (and vice versa), but there is an eery similarity between the two settings...

Antihydrogen Atoms Trapped For 1000s

Or 16 minutes and 40 seconds. Enough for a cookery show to produce a three course meal and maybe enough to finally have a break-through to help answer the question why we live in a matter universe and not an antimatter one.

The question I'm most concerned with is, if we can, in a not too distant future, harness antigravity so I don't break stuff when it slips from the hand and is attracted to the floor. And have teleportation. And loads of other cool stuff.

Gravity map

ESA presented new results of the GOCE gravity mission. Here's an example of a gravity map. This is what earth looks like if modelled on the strenght of gravity. Blue areas (the flat ones) have less pull on objects, red and orange parts (the bulges) more.

Jenny McCarthy Body Count widget offline

My Jenny McCarthy Body Count widget had gone off-line and I haven't had time to look into it, until today.
Apparently the lay scientist has gone offline and layscience.net won't be back relaunching until summer 2011.

Pi Day

Happy Pi Day everyone!

Although I don't really feel like celebrating anything. I haz a sad thinking about Japan.

Happy Birthday Buzz

A very happy birthday to my favourite engineer/scientist/astronaut Buzz Aldrin!

Partial Solar Eclipse

Partial Solar Eclipse today! Of course it was cloudy. So I had to look for a live webcast. Even in Pakistan observations were messed up because of the cloud cover.
Thanks to the Spanish Agrupación Astronómica de Sabadell I was able to see it! Even a tiny group of sunspots was visible.
Moltes gracies!

Corduroy jacket + red turtleneck

Weather man Frank Deboosere has been going down the Carl Sagan route.
He's been donning the turtleneck/smoking jacket combination.
Very cosmic.
It cannot be chance. He knows. Only the in-crowd recognize it.
I see it Frank!

Shocking Proust

I'm having my second round of shock wave therapy today. Last week my left elbow was up for it. Now I'm having the other side treated.
All I can say is: It's bloody painful. The doctor had administered local anesthesia and I'd taken a couple of painkillers about an hour or so in advance. To really, in my opinion, no avail. But it doesn't last very long. As long as you take big, deep breaths it'll fly by.
This machine gives off 800 pulses of high energy waves so it gets rid of some calcification on some mysteriously named exotic sounding bits of my body.
After the treatment I didn't feel a thing. I just felt a bit flustered and a bit light headed from breathing heavily. It felt like I'd sucked all the oxygen out of the room. "Now I understand why you asked me if I wanted the air conditioning on" I told the doctor. "Well, you're in luck. In July we were in a room without and two patients fainted."
It beats surgery anyhow. It's just five minutes of uneasiness. Now I will probably have to wait about two months to notice any improvement.
I asked the doctor if I could read a book while she was treating me. "Well, it's never been done. In fact your the very first person to ask".
After the treatment she asked me if I'd managed to read anything. I did manage one page on the life and times of Marcel Proust. I do feel like a snob. Bringing him along as a comfort.
Ten minutes and I was out the door. The local anesthesia was still working, so I drove home using one arm.
This Friday I'll be taking the bus, I can't change gears with an arm that doesn't respond.

Dava Sobel - Galileo's Daughter

I finished Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter the other day. The book had everything I had expected te read. After reading Longitude, I knew I was in for another good read on science history.
In June I had also read Steven Shapin's The Scientific Revolution for a more philosophical approach to the whole matter, encompassing a few centuries of -his conclusion- a non-revolution.
I even had to recommend the book to someone teaching at the history department at my university. The lady in question had never heard of Torricelli. She mistakenly proclaimed Blaise Pascal to be the inventor of the barometer.
Luckily she had corrected her mistake before she forwarded the handouts to all of the students.
So I highly recommend reading Galileo's Daughter. It discusses (among other things) Galileo's Inquisition Trail plus all the events leading up to it.
And I highly recommend Longitude too, if you haven't done so already.

So I added a little cartoon for comic relief's sake. But it is inaccurate (if you read the book you'll know why). And if you haven't or aren't planning on doing so, here are the reasons:

- Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter in 1610. He measured observed mountains on the Moon in 1609.
- The edict against Copernican doctrine wasn't issued until 1616.
- The pope 'in charge' as you will when the Inquisition Trial was in effect was pope Urban VIII. He didn't become pope untill 1623.
- The papal grudge against Galileo only took form around 1632 after the publication of his Dialogues.

Now I feel like a real pedant. And the cartoon isn't funny to me anymore. It is factually wrong.
Meh. Sometimes being a geek feels like a curse instead of a blessing.

Don't do it teens!

Finally went to a doctor today who can help me get rid of my painful elbows. My physiotherapist had advised me to go and see someone but I'd been putting off visiting one (for over six months) because of the interference it would have with my school work. But it has severely been impeding the way I live. Everything hurts. Ironing, holding a book, gardening work, sleeping, stroking Mouser, holding a pot, typing,... You name an activity that involves using arms (or not), it takes ever so long to get work done.
So I rung up for an appointment last week, went in this morning at 9.20 am, went to the other hospital in town to get X rays and echo and by 10.30 I was driving back home. I love living in Belgium and its super duper health system.
In two weeks time I'll be hearing the results and then it'll probably be shock wave treatment (yeah baby!) to get rid of all the unwanted bone that has been hampering my tendons and what not. Shock wave therapy is a newer form of nonsurgical treatment. It uses a machine to generate shock wave pulses to the sore area (the same principle they use to crush kidney stones).

She reaffirmed what I'd heard from other doctors: I'm put together all wrong. The story of my life.
Hyperextenstion. My body bends ways it's not supposed to.
It did help with the Rhythmic Gymnastics I did as a teen. But probably is also responsible for all the problems I've experienced now that I'm older.

Sports: don't do it teens!

Galileo's Daughter

I couldn't restrain myself from ordering books again. But I did try (honestly guv!). I was a very good girl and ordered (a very small amount) of what was on my wish list. I've never had such a speedy delivery. I'm using alibrisstrore.co.uk. They have a lot of old books out of print and work with different sellers who ship through them. I ordered them on Wednesday morning (21st), by evening I got a notification 6 of the 12 books had already shipped.
And this morning (23rd) the first one of them already showed up on the doorstep! \o/
Very chuffed.
It's Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel. I really enjoyed her book Longitude and read raving reviews about this one.
Here's a good plot summary:

This is the story of Galileo's life with actual historical record commentary from Vatican documents and the letters written by Galileo's daughter in a convent, the nun Sister Maria Celeste. We follow the development of Galileo's ideas and writings and how they were thwarted. We see Galileo support his children, especially this daughter, who supports him in return and comments on everything from the planets' revolution around the sun to what his housesitter should do with his wine while he's away at trial in Rome.

Can't wait to get started. But first have to finish The History of Ugliness by Umberto Eco.

Trappist operated from Belgium

Scientists really have a thing for giving awesome names to the expensive high-tech stuff they are allowed to toy with.

Cop a load of this:

A new robotic telescope has had first light at ESO's La Silla Observatory, in Chile. TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) is devoted to the study of planetary systems through two approaches: the detection and characterisation of planets located outside the Solar System (exoplanets) and the study of comets orbiting around the Sun. The 60-cm telescope is operated from a control room in Liège, Belgium, 12 000 km away.

Telescope. Trappist. Operated from Belgium.

I love science!

From more on the TRAPPIST project and pictures got to the research web site.

Image credit

Shroud of Turin

The shroud of Turin is back on display for a limited time only. This thirteenth or fourteenth century piece of cloth has been restored. Some catholics still believe it was used to wrap Christ's body in and it magically transferred an image of a man that had been subject to a round of whipping and crucifiction onto its surface.
What science or religion have failed to prove either way is not why the image of a man believed to be Christ appeared on the fabric when everyone can clearly see it is the image of the Devine Frank Zappa!
We even have a picture of him when he appeared on the cover of his 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti wearing some kind of similar head gear.
There you go. Mystery solved!

Collision

I feel like such a dork.
I cried with happiness when I heard the first 7 TeV collision happened yesterday in the LHC.
I wish I was a particle physicist.