Knot Too Shabby

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Unknotting Knot Theory

One of the reasons knots have given mathematicians fits is that the same knot can appear in very different guises. Tug here, tug there, and soon a knot will become unrecognizable, but remain fundamentally unchanged. To allow a knotted string to wiggle around without danger of untying, mathematicians seal its two ends together, making it a knotted circle. The first question mathematicians have to answer is simply, when are two knots really, secretly the same?

The dream is to create a sort of machine: Send in one of these looped knots, and out pops some result that would be the same regardless of the particular configuration of the knot. Because the answer wouldn’t vary with the arrangement of the knot, such a machine is called a “knot invariant.” And indeed, in 1927, mathematician J.W. Alexander created just such a “machine,” a method that produces a polynomial (an expression like 3×2 + 4x + 1) from any knot. The good news is that Alexander’s method always gives the same polynomial for a particular knot, even if the knot has been wiggled around to look very different. The bad news is that it can also give the identical answer for knots that really are different. For example, the granny knot and the square knot have identical Alexander polynomials.

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Grab Your ACME Umbrella

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Space station trash plunging to Earth

NASA and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network are tracking the object — a 1,400-pound (635-kilogram) tank of toxic ammonia coolant thrown from the international space station — to make sure it does not endanger people on Earth. Exactly where the tank will inevitably fall is currently unknown, though it is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere Sunday afternoon or later that evening, NASA officials said.

The umbrella won’t help, of course. Just ask Wile E. Coyote.

Video the Vote

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I’m on a mailing list for a singer/activist named Dana Lyons (it’s more for the singing part than the activist part); Dana’s family moved to Niskayuna sometime in the 70’s and he and I were in the Boy Scouts together for several years. He popped back up onto my radar screen when he released “Cows With Guns,” a spoofy little song about resisting the man. Dana was in Washington state and I was living in Vancouver, so the song got a lot of airtime, and when I spotted the CD at the music store and saw his picture on the back I confirmed that it was the same Dana Lyons.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from the email I received, explaining an activity about which I had not previously heard: video the vote.

———————————

My Fellow Americans
It’s Time to Wake Up and Smell the Corruption
In Our Voting Booths

Democracy is Fragile: Educate Thyself:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast’s article in the current
Rolling Stone: Block the Vote
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote
(10-minute read, free)

Bill Moyers Journal on Voter Protections
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10172008/watch3.html
(15-minute watch, free)

“Free For All” Election Documentary
Watch entertaining and well-done free documentary about election
irregularities:
www.freeforall.tv
(80 minutes with popcorn)

Howdy Friends and Family,

I have two great adventures coming up. One which I wish I didn’t feel
it necessary to do and one which is the adventure of a lifetime.

Yes, traveling to Ohio in November is always on the top of everyone’s
vacation list, and I’m heading there next week. I’m traveling to
Columbus, OH to take part in Video the Vote, a movement of citizens
who are concerned about election irregularities across the United
States.

www.videothevote.org

VIDEO THE VOTE
It’s pretty easy. I signed up as a volunteer videographer on the
website. On election day, if they receive reports of election
irregularities (malfunctioning voting machines, ridiculous lines,
harassment, etc.), they’ll give me a call and I will head out and film
it. Then I upload the video to youtube (via videothevote.org) and
voila, the situation is documented immediately. Thousands of folks
will be videoing the vote across the US. Can you help out? They need
volunteers in all 50 states.

I know some of you may think this sounds a bit like a conspiracy
theory (how could any of the nice people like Karl Rove even think of
tampering with an election?!), so I encourage you to read Kennedy’s
article and watch the vid and Bill Moyers and decide for yourself.

For me, this isn’t just about defending democracy: It’s about my own
integrity when I speak to children in schools about working to protect
the environment in our democratic system. I have a steadfast rule when
performing at schools: I don’t lie to children. And I’m not going to
take part in upholding a facade of democracy, making believe
everything is okay, when I’ve seen enough evidence that there is
serious corruption in our election system.

Whew!

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Things have been rather hectic lately. On top of the normal (and abnormal) bureaucratic stuff, there was a little matter of moving our clocks to their new home in another building. The capacity for disaster was simply terrifying, because this represented several Simoleons worth of equipment, and scientist-years of effort. Breaking a vacuum system isn’t really that hard, and even though it would be fixable, it would represent a significant delay and so there was a wee bit of stress in all of this. We had mentioned the impending move at the conference a few weeks ago, and that induced a retelling of lab horror-stories of moving heavy and/or expensive apparati, and that fed our rampant paranoia.

But we pulled it off.

The air sled system worked like a charm; even when a hose popped out of place it wasn’t a problem — there’s a check valve that prevents the air from releasing through the hose attachment, and the load settled down gently. We gathered a contingent of folks to do things like manage the extension cord so it wasn’t a trip hazard, and move the 4’x8′ polyethylene sheets to the front after we’d slid over them. Our group did the pushing and pulling — we weren’t about to trust things to anyone else — which was a decent workout on the inclined surfaces.

I may post some pictures later on, but for the moment I’m taking a breather to relax and try and shed this cold that’s been attacking folks.

Toys in the Office: Gettin' Personal

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My balls, when I’m not using them. (The brass ones are kept in a climate-controlled vault). People will occasionally pick them up and play with them.

The reason why I have them in my office: several years ago, a colleague arranged to have a construction crew replace a telescope dome with a new, sexy radar dome (transparent in all the right places, er, frequencies). The crew cut up the old dome and put it in a dumpster for disposal. Unfortunately, it was a construction dumpster that belonged to another contractor, and they refused to pay to have it emptied, and it became a big mess which I dubbed “Dumpstergate,” (I’m so frikkin’ clever sometimes) and it dragged on and on. It took a long time to find a way to pay to have the dumpster emptied without running afoul of arcane government spending protocols. This lingered to the point where the colleague retired, so another colleague put together a gag gift of a mini-dumpster-truck, and needed a ping-pong ball to slice up and represent the telescope dome. I bought a pack of six, gave him two, gave two to another, and kept two for myself.

Very Illuminating

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Lighting up the night

Berlin, Germany is hosting its “Festival of Lights” this week, until October 26th. Dozens of landmarks are lit up with lamps, projectors and lasers, accompanied by fireworks and other events. We humans light up the night for many reasons, practical, artistic – even reasons with more meaningful messages. Pictured below are night scenes from Berlin and around the world, illuminated in interesting ways. (21 photos total)

Pollin', Pollin', Pollin', Rawhide!

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Don’t try to understand this
Just knock, ring and canvass
Soon we’ll be votin’ high and wide

Obama Takes Lead in Galactic Polls

M83, known sometimes as the “Southern Pinwheel”, is a more complicated case, as its electoral votes are divided following Interstellar Congressional districts. The rural regions continue to hold out for McCain, with disaffected liberals in the more tech-heavy globular clusters opting to vote Nader in protest.