For those that love muscles and science together...

Check it out, an anatomy chart.

For those that like this kind of thing, check out my science blog, Daughter of Hypatia. (Shameless plug!)

Incidentally, "triceps" and "biceps" refer to the entire muscle group, not to just one arm. The correct usage is "biceps muscle."

Come visit my new science blog, "Daughter of Hypatia"

If there's one thing that I love, it's science and science blogging!

Visit Daughter of Hypatia, my new science-themed blog. It's pro-science and anti-bullshit. (Oooh, that's good! I've got to make that a header or something...)

Welcome to America: Speak Spanish or Go Home!

First, a little about me: I speak six languages, and I am fully bilingual in English and Spanish. Some people have remarked how interesting they find it when they see me do mathematics and I jump and alternate between the two tongues!

As a multilingual person, I always found the "English language only" movement to be a meaningless inflexibility that transforms ignorance and provincialism into a point of pride. Sure, English is a great equalizer and lingua franca and all that, and it is certainly important for for new immigrants to speak English well for no other reason than upward mobility, a fact I can support with family experience! Still, that ideal doesn't always match the "facts on the ground," and people that want to meaningfully participate in their communities should do what intelligent and mature adults always do: adjust to their circumstances instead of instead of insisting everyone adjust to them.

I lived for a number of years, while on full scholarship as an undergrad, in Astoria, Queens, a neigborhood that is mostly Greek to the point some restaurants publish menus in Greek only. So, guess what I learned to do? Speak Greek! I can still do it, too. In fact, after a few months with my looks, lots of people I regularly interacted with assumed I was Greek myself! I swear, only in America could lack of knowledge, xenophobia and thickheaded obstinacy become virtues instead of obvious liabilities.

Obviously some may take exception to that characterization, and to that I have two responses.

The first is that the stereotype of the "Ugly American," monolingual and hidebound, is a stereotype that has real longevity because it is unfortunately often true. Before anyone has the right to get offended about a stereotype, they should ask themselves this question: what have you, personally done to contradict that stereotype?

My fellow women: if you don't want men to stereotype us as incompetent and dependent...don't be incompetent and dependent! If you don't already know, learn how to change a tire. Take a higher level math and science course. Jars can be a pain in the ass, but I use a mechanical jar opening kitchen gizmo, and I have a stepladder in the apartment.

Second, there is indeed inarguably a segment of the American population that revels in ignorance and obstinacy. I do not agree with President Obama on everything, but when he said that every American child should learn a second language, it struck me as a totally true, noncontroversial common-sense statement. No one, anywhere, should just speak one language, and the fact that many do is indeed shameful. But lo and behold, some pundits took exception to the idea Americans should have to learn a language other than English! I just couldn't believe it!

Read them here. These links are work-safe but sanity-unsafe.

Obama: Americans who aren't bilingual are an embarassment (Well, it is an embarrassment!)

Neil Cavuto: Obama wants U.S. Kids to Speak Spanish?

ALIPAC - Voters reject Obama's call for bilingualism

All of this is a part of a greater trend in our culture I find troubling, one so masterfully lampooned on the Simpsons: the demonization of intellectuals, specifically, the manipulation of the doubt that drives science into claiming there is a dispute in areas where in reality there is a universal consensus. Of course I'm talking about anti-science positions like creationism and global warming denial. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to deny physical reality.

The most embarassing moment in recent political history was in Bobby Jinda's response to a recent State of the Union address. He complained about stimulus but singled in on the single worst aspect of the entire bill, support to fund volcano research and early warning. The kicker here is that a few days afterward, one of the volcanoes so monitored erupted!

This reminds me of a great Simpsons episode where a giant comet headed for the town but was narrowly averted. An angry mob formed, with the rallying cry "Let's burn down the observatory...so this never happens again!"

John Cleves Symmes's Globe

If there's one peeve of mine, it's cranks.

All cranks, whether they insist 9/11 was an inside job, or we never reached the Moon, or there are UFOs that kidnap people, irritate me to no end.

There is one theory that actually is pretty interesting to me, the idea the earth is in fact hollow and there are gigantic openings at the poles. There's something so outlandish and 19th Century and improbable about this theory that it's actually a little charming.

The biggest booster for this crank theory was a guy named John Cleves Symmes, who in the 1850s petitioned Congress for three ships (like Columbus!) to head to what he thought were the openings at the polar regions into the center of the earth. He actually was about to get it, too, until the Civil War happened, which put an end to the whole thing.

Symmes's father was actually a great man, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey (which to my mind, explains everything!) and his first cousin was the wife of President William Henry Harrison. Further proof that in Washington, it's possible to fail upwards really spectacularly.

Still, Symmes had made a fabulous one-of-a-kind globe detailing his crank view of what the earth looks like. Perfect for the crazy collectors among us.

Have a Scien-Tastic Day!

400 years ago exactly, Galileo Galilei first used a telescope to identify four moons of Jupiter and found the Moon had craters. Thus, 2009 is the international year of Astronomy, and I encourage every science lover to go out someplace and stargaze.

One of the defining points of Summer viewing: look South (southwest to southeast depending on the time of night) and you should catch the gorgeous summer triangle, Altair, Deneb and Vega.


Speaking of science, my childhood hero Bill Nye, the Science Guy returned for an entertaining adult-themed look at scientific issues in his blink and you miss it short lived 2006 series, "The Eyes of Nye." Intriguingly, the show wasn't about the usually science kiddie show tricks like baking soda and vinegar, but about controversial issues that are actually socially important, like "race" and global cooking.

Incidentally, here's some super-rare footage of Bill Nye on the local Seattle sketch comedy series, Almost Live!

Bill Nye has a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell, and parts he invented at Boeing are still used in most 747s. Also, he invented a device that was used on the Mars Rover back in the 1990s. Hats off, Bill!

Happy Pi Day

“If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.”
- Alfréd Rényi

March 14th, or 3/14, is a good day to celebrate that most irrational of numbers, 𝚷. Pi is a mathematical constant used to reflect the ratio of a circle’s radius to its circumference. It’s a truly magic number – use it to 11 places, and can position a point on the planet earth accurate to a millimeter. Use it to 29, it can calculate the position of a hydrogen atom in the visible universe. In geometry, it’s usually used to figure out integrals that describe radius and circumference of circles, whereas in Calculus, it’s an important part of Gaussian’s integral, and just about any calculation that involves a physical universe.

Visit the Official Pi Day Website!

This website contains Pi up to one million places

I have a lot of good memories related to Pi Day. I was the only girl in my High School Engineering Club, where for the most part our days were spent in a gym, while our teacher showed us taped episodes of MACGYVER.

For those interested in Mathematics, check this great intro-level book out, by Winnie from the Wonder Years:



FACT: Movie star Natalie Portman, a Harvard grad and math student under her real name of Natalie Herschlag, has published several articles on mathematics.

Quit making stuff up, Portugal!

I hope nobody objects if, for a change of pace, I'd do a little science blogging.

Little countries fight for everything they can get. It's why the Danish have never shut up about Hans Christian Andersen or Niels Bohr: because that's all they got.

Portugal is a country smaller than most, and if you read a Portuguese work on the history of aviation, they say it's one of theirs - Bartolomeu de Gusmão - who invented lighter than air travel first, in 1709, years before the Montgolfier Brothers (who happen to come from France, a big, important country).

Bartolomeu de Gusmão was a Jesuit that petitioned to King John of Portugal for the right to build a lighter than air craft. Plans still exist and can be seen: de Gusmão's drawings and design involved tubes that blow at a quilt.

In general, though, de Gusmão isn't considered to be the founder of lighter than air travel, because his machine was never built, it was never publicly demonstrated, and it's doubtful it would have worked at all.

Here's why: in science and engineering, there are only a finite number of ways something can be done because of physical laws. This is why, for instance, dolphins and sharks have similar body shapes despite the fact they're in no way related.

For lighter than air travel, any sort of craft would have to look more or less like a hot air balloon. No matter where it is invented and by whom, look more or less like the hot air balloon the Montgolfiers made. The reason for this is basic high school geometry: a sphere is the shape with the greatest volume and the lowest surface area. Likewise, the cabin would have to be far smaller than the gasbag, so that the gasbag could generate enough lift to carry it.

What's interesting is, de Gusmão's device resembles the helikite, another type of aerostat. Yet hot air below the kite surface itself doesn't generate lift. It needs a gasbag like any other aerostat.

To reward everybody for their patience, here's a picture of a hard guy with a body of pure iron:

(Suckers!)