Turn Sweat into Power-Grid Energy- is it Practical?

Workout cycle from PlugOut, a supplier of exercise equipment that turns your sweat into electricity.

The last time I was at the gym walking on the treadmill, I looked around and saw dozens of people sweating away, running, climbing stairs and pedaling bikes, all under the bright lights and cooling air conditioner breeze. And I thought, wouldn’t it be great to turn all this sweat energy into electricity that could power the gym and maybe return something to the grid?

We could turn gyms into power plants. You pay the gym and they sell your sweat-generated electricity to the power grid. I wasn’t  the first person to have this brilliant idea. There are now dozens of gyms around the US that have implemented this idea and a number of vendors who supply modifications to existing gym equipment that convert your sweat into electricity.

But, the value is not in the electricity generated, it’s in the idea behind it. Just put in the numbers.

You can buy from the Bicycle Sports Shop, among others, a sensor that will measure the power you expend in riding a bike. They offer a handy table with a few numbers for the typical power that a human can generate.

Two numbers are of interest. The peak power is the average power over a 1 minute interval of sprinting. The functional threshold is the average power that can be sustained over a 1 hour period. These are power per kilogram of body weight. You take your weight in pounds and divide by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms.

Suppose you weight 220 pounds. This is 100 kg. A trained athlete can generate about 6 watts/kg x 100 ~ 600 watts over an hour. One of us mere mortals could generate about 200 watts, or about 0.2 kilowatts of power. For reference, this is about 1/4 horsepower.

Energy costs around the US vary but a reasonable starting place is about $0.1 per kW-hour, or 1 cent per 100 watt-hours of energy.

This means that a person working out might be able to generate about 200 watt-hours of energy in an hour of hard and steady workout at the value of 2 cents. If you have a room of 50 people all sweating for an hour, the value generated would be about $1.

This revenue stream is just not a viable business plan. However, if you had a choice between going to two different clubs, one that you just sweated at, and one at which you sweated, but knew that each drop of precious sweat generated some, even tiny amount of electricity that was put to good use, which club would you want to go to?

When competition between gyms becomes more fierce, small differentiators can be large deciding factors. I think the clubs that offer to turn your sweat into generated electricity will become more popular, even though the amount of electricity generated is trivial. It would be about enough to power the LCD screen of the TV you watch.

The ROI for a gym is not in the revenue generated by the electricity generated, but in the additional number of user who would be attracted to sign up if they knew their energy was being put to good use.

In addition, an exercise machine set up to generate electrical power is also instrumented to display the power generated. This is yet another metric that you can use for feedback to help you feel better about your workout.

And after all, isn’t a large part of working out about feeling better about yourself?

Electrical power generating gyms will not become the power plants of the Matrix anytime soon, but they will make you feel a little better.

The Earliest Influences that Launched Me On My Life Paths

I was invited to talk to a group of six-graders on what influenced me when I was their age, to launch me on the path I followed through life. This gave me an excuse to reflect on what stands out now as important then.

In hindsight, I think there were three things: I had a few simple toys which created an itch to know why, the space program and science fiction books and shows.

My mother used to sew a lot. She had this small but powerful magnet she would use to pick up pins. I was fascinated by it. I noticed it would pick up some pins, but not others. Why? How did it work?

She also had a magnifying glass she would use to check her sewing. I was drawn to how it was able to magnify objects. When I asked her, how did it work, she said it was special kind of glass, but I knew she didn’t have a clue.

I played with these two objects endlessly when I was nine years old. I wanted to know how and why they did their tricks.

Then my god father, Leo, who worked at Sperry Gyroscope, showed me a model gyroscope. Once spinning, it has got to be the most bizarre mechanical device ever. It behaves counter-intuitively. The spin axis of the rotor never moves, however the frame is rotated. If you push on the spinning axis, it rotates 90 degrees to the direction of motion. Why does it do this?

These three devices started me on my path to question and created that thirst to want to know why. It is an itch I am still scratching.

Then came the space program around this time. Some kids have posters of sports stars on their walls. I had pictures of astronauts, like Ed White, in a space walk, on my walls. I wrote away to NASA and got back 8 x 12 inch glossy photos of rocket launches, astronauts in space and space capsules parachuting to the ocean. I sat transfixed in seventh grade, watching the first man walk on the moon.

To this day, I still keep pictures of space ships on my wall.

The last important influence in my early years was a book my fifth grade teacher read us in class, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I was hooked on tesseracts and the possibility of warping space time to travel to the stars. 

This was quickly followed by Robert Heinlein’s Have Space Suit Will Travel. It was the first science fiction book I can remember reading myself. I still remember the day I discovered the science fiction section of our local public library and pulled this book from the shelf.

I then proceeded to read every science fiction book in the library and many more since then.

I inhaled Star Trek and every other science fiction show and movie in the 1960’s and 1970’s in parallel with my science explorations. Even my first science fiction novel, Shadow Engineer, shows an influence in its themes from these two books.

When I look back now that I am 55, a successful physicist in the electronics industry, author of seven technical books and one science fiction book, I see that I have been trying to scratch that same itch to know why, that started when I was nine years old.

Area of a Circle with Simple Geometrical Model

Thomas Greenslade wrote a very simple article for the Physics Teacher in March 2011 sharing a beautiful, wooded model from the L E Knott Apparatus Company which illustrates, at a glance, the principle that the area of a circle is really 1/2 x radius x circumference.

 

A Moment of Tranquility in the Singapore Changi Airport

 

Experience an oasis of peace and calm communing with the butterflies, in the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world.

Fly High, Swim Deep

The signature line of Curt Hillfon, Swedish artist, 1943-

“Whatever you do, do it well,” Curt Hillfon told me. “If you are a bird, fly high. If you are a fish, swim deep.”

Could this be the Ideal Breakfast?

A bowl of instant oatmeal with a handful of blueberries could be one of the healthiest breakfasts to eat. It’s a great trade off between low calorie, filling, quick and easy and it’s probably pretty good for you.

 

The Best BBQ Chicken in the World

The best BBQ chicken in the world is “beer in the butt” chicken. I heard about this way of cooking chicken on a grill many years ago, tried it and was hooked. Apparently, I am not the only one. I did a Google search and found more than 16,000,000 entries for beer in the butt chicken on the web.

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

Sometimes it doesn’t matter if an urban legend is true or not if it sounds cute. This possibly made up story was reported here, and has made its way around the web multiple times. If you’re a geek, it’s worth a quick read.

Top Shelf Astronomy 201 Courses

Looking for an astronomy class a little beyond the basics, but not requiring a PhD and taught by the experts? Here are four recommendations that are “out of this world.”

 

Life Is Too Short To Drink Cheap Wine

For 35 years, I’ve occasionally drunk wine. For most of this time, I didn’t have much of a discriminating pallet, even with a few casual wine tasting classes and visits to wineries.

And then I had a chance to sample a glass of Silver Oak Cabernet. This was a $70 bottle of wine. After this glass, I realized there was a qualitative difference in a $70 bottle of wine from the usual $7.99 wine I used to drink. Sometimes paying extra for a great bottle of wine is worth it.

Since then, I’ve tried to pay attention to wine and taken the opportunity to keep track of the ones I like. It’s all about price range and quality.

For under $10, my favorites are:

• Chardonnay: Chateau St. Michelle
• Pinot Noir: Gallo Reserve
• Shiraz: Yellow Tail

For ~$25:

• Cabernet: Simi
• Pinot Noir: Castle Rock Russian River Reserve
• Chardonel: Reserve, Stonehill

And then when I really want to splurge, for $50-$70 its

Cabernet: Silver Oak

Merlot: Grgrich

As a special note, Grgrich is the winery that put California Chardonay’s on the map. The 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, crafted by Mike Grgich, took first place at the famed “Paris Tasting” in 1976, beating France’s best white Burgundies.

The entertaining fictional movie Bottle Shock, was based on this earth shaking event.

With these price points and favorites in mind, I like to compare new wines, always looking for ones that beat my current favorites. That’s often the fun part of visiting wineries to taste their offerings- the possibility of discovering a new favorite.

If you have a recommendation, let me know!

A Perspective from Picasso

Picasso was on a long train ride, on one of those trains that has seats facing each other. Across from him sat a man who recognized him, but said nothing for a good 30 minutes, and then began mumbling to himself, “don’t like it. ….can’t understand it….shouldn’t be allowed…”

After a few of these comments, Picasso interrupted him and asked him, “What are you talking about?”

The man said, “Modern art. It’s too abstract. I don’t understand it, Galleries shouldn’t show it.”

“What should they show?” Picasso asked.

“Realism. They should show reality, the way the world really is.”

“Give me an example,” Picasso asked, and the man pulled out his wallet and showed a picture of his wife. “This is a picture of my wife. This is realism. This is how the real world is.”

Picasso looked at it, turning it over and said, “My, she’s awfully small, …and awfully flat.”

Estimating the Length of Star Trails in Astrophotographs

The earth rotates, sweeping the star field across the sky. If we take a long exposure of the stars, with the camera stationary, the stars will appear as star trails in the image. We can estimate the length of the trail on our image. This is a useful number if we want to accentuate the trails or adjust the exposure time to minimize the star trails.

New Spin on an Old Poem for Amateur Astronomers

"Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house… "  is the way the classic poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr. 1748 – 1828,  begins. Over the years, 849 variations have been created each with different spins and Matthew Monroe has complied everyone of them.

Some are about Chanukah, like:
Twas the month after Chanukah, and all through the house
Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.
The cookies I’d nibble, the latkas I’d taste
At Chanukah parties had gone to my waist.

Some are about computers, like:
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a peripheral was stirring, not even a mouse;
The modem was hung by the keyboard with care
In hopes that a download soon would be there.

But my favorite of all is about amateur astronomers. This version is credited to Jane Houston Jones of San Rafael, CA, which she wrote on Dec 21, 2002. She calls it

"The Week Around Solstice"
by Jane Houston Jones

Hacking a Cat Box to Last Two Weeks Between Emptying

We have three cats. Two of them, 9 year old males, are at least 15 pounds and the third, a 2 year old female, that weights only 8 pounds, eats (and poops) like she is 15 pounds.

That’s a lot of cat litter each day that needs disposal. Ideally, I want an automatic cat box that I don’t have to clean out for weeks at a time, doesn’t make a mess, never needs maintenance and the cats can use effortlessly. I accept the fact that I will have to add kitty litter every so often.

University Astronomy 101 in Your Pocket

Now that you have discovered how much you love astronomy, do you regret not paying attention in your college classes, or kick yourself for not even taking an Astronomy class when you had the chance?

It’s not too late. In fact, you can listen and view Astronomy 101 classes from some of the top universities or listen to invited lectures by the scientists who are making the great discoveries we read about each day. Best of all, it’s completely free, and you can take it with you on your iPod or iPhone. A new world of learning is available to you at iTunesU.

All you need is a computer and internet access. Download Apple’s completely free iTunes program for the Mac or the PC. Go to the iTunes store and click on iTunesU listed on the left hand menu.

iPhone Favorite Apps: AT&T Navigator

Whenever I’ve rented a car in the past 8 years, I’ve always gotten a gps navigator. I’ve become dependent on it as an essential tool to get around in a new city.

Four years ago, when Verizon came out with VZ Navigator, I thought this was great. It was exactly the same turn by turn voice navigation as the dedicated navigators, like from Garmin, but you carried it around with you.

When I switched to the iPhone, I tried out a number of the navigator features and found the AT&T Navigator to be the best. It uses real time information feeds, so does require 3G network access. However, it also gives traffic update reports and, of course, allows local search for facilities nearby.

I use it locally to find the nearest Starbuck, and to check out new restaurants when I am looking for inspiration.

The turn by turn voice directions are as good or better than other navigators and I like the posting of the ETA to my destination. This is a “First Screen” app for me.

Smart Grid Presentation by Bill Parkhurst

On Thursdays, April 8, 2010, Bill Parkhurst of Cisco Systems, presented a talk on the Smart Grid at the Kansas City section of the IEEE in Overland Park, KS.

Fundamentally, Bill said, the Smart Grid is whatever Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, says it is. He has $4.5B available to fund Smart Grid programs. How this money is used will define what the Smart Grid becomes.

“We Broke It, Now We Own It!”

In the summer of 2009, we caught five raccoons over a period of about a month using a live trap. I would shove the trap and raccoon in the back on my car, drive it two miles and across a freeway to a lake with acres of wilderness and release it. These were five fewer creatures to eat Susan’s garden on our upper deck.

After setting the trap with a piece of chicken one night, I came down to the patio the next morning to find that instead of catching a raccoon, we caught a kitten. This cat could fit in the palms of two hands held together.

What Drives a Writer?

Somewhere along my travels, I heard the following story that captures the essence of what drives a writer.

Three Microsoft Windows Products I Actually Like

The first computer I bought with my own money was a Mac. It was love at first sight. I became a “pod” person. Back in 1985, it was like all of us Mac fans shared this secret. We knew how “insanely great” the Mac was, but those not part of our secret society didn’t have a clue.

When I met a stranger in my travels who had a Mac with them, we would exchange a smile and know exactly what it meant.

Maxwell and Schrodinger at 2 Years Old in 2003

	Since we kept our two cats as inside only cats, I felt sorry for them not having a chance to learn to hunt. So, I bought a live mouse for them to practice with. I don’t think they had a clue what to do with it.
	Goldfish, on the other hand, were more interesting. I would buy a dozen to feed Sir Isaac, the garter snake, and those he did not eat, the cats could play with.
	Susan was able to teach Maxwell to change channels using the remote control, but he would only change it to a channel he wanted to watch.
	“Mom, look what Schrodinger did to me! I was sleeping in the clean clothes basket like I always do and he tipped it over. Make him stop!”
	This was the last time I gave Schrodinger one of my papers to review for comment. He really did not like the first draft at all.

Stories in Pictures for April 2010

	The storm season began with thunderstorms building over the plains of Kansas.
	April is here with flowers in bloom in downtown Kansas City
	I bet you’re thinking, “How is it possible for this kid to have such great aim?” In this one of the many fountains in the “City of Fountains”, Kansas City, the water is actually coming out of the frog and shooting upward.
	In addition to the two port impedance analyzer and 4 port network analyzer, I also have a 1 port cat scanner. Rosalind watches over all measurements in the lab.
	Example of a sun dog to the south of the setting sun. This is created by scattering of the sun light from ice crystals at high altitude
	While clouds offered a very nice contrast for the setting sun, they really screw up astronomical observation plans
	Indeed, the view over my telescope was not very encouraging with the clouds coming in
	Finally finished setting up camp with the Aliner, canopy and telescope. With the clear sky, it was perfect weather for some solar observing. The dog found a comfortable spot in the shade.
	With the clear sky, it was perfect weather for some solar observing. The dog found a comfortable spot in the shade.
	A key benefit in living in our neighborhood in Kansas is the proximity to a large number of beautiful walking trails. This is a view of a creek, just before the beginning of Spring, before the leaves came out.
	On my recent trip to San Jose, I noticed this great cloud formation as the sun set. Almost felt like Kansas.
	Maxwell found a lizard walking across the sun room floor. He isn’t the swiftest cat in the house, and wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Screen Capture for an iPhone

There is a simple way of taking a snap shot picture of whatever is currently displayed on the iPhone screen. It is described in the iPhone help files under the camera.

To record the screen, press the top off-on button at the same time as the home button, the round depression at the bottom center of the iPhone.

A copy of whatever is on the screen at the time is then sent to the camera roll collection of photos which can be viewed with the photo tool or downloaded from the iPhone like any photo.

This means that if I am viewing a map, or directions, or a note, or even a recorded lecture and want to take a snapshot, it’s a simple matter of clicking the two buttons simultaneously and I have an instant record.

How to Nap by Maxwell and Schrodinger

	Schrodinger points out that when you nap style doesn’t count. Comfort is everything. His white moustache is showing.
	Schrodinger illustrates sleeping position #8, nose to nose with a friend. In this case, our friend Rachel.
	Schrödinger shows that if you can’t find a friend to sleep with, a brother will do. This is documented proof that there was a time when both of these now 15 pound cats could fit in this tiny cat bed.
	Here, Susan illustrates that if you fall asleep for more than more than 35 seconds you are liable to wake up with a cat in your lap.
	Of course, Schrodinger discovers the best of all worlds- getting to sleep with Mom and his brother, Maxwell.

The Vertical Wine Tasting at Stone Hill Winery

In a horizontal wine tasting, you sample different types of wines from different grapes, possibly from different wineries and from different years. You are sampling a shotgun variety of sometimes wildly varying textures, aromas and flavors in the hopes of uncovering a gem among rocks.

In a vertical tasting, you sample the same wine from the same grape and the same winery, but over different years. The only difference in the wine you taste is the year. This is a unique opportunity to experience how a specific wine ages and how the specific growing and harvesting conditions of each year affect the quality of the wine.

Gravitational Lensing in a Wine Glass

On May 20, 2009, Prof Patricia Burchat, the Chair of the Department of Physics at Stanford University, presented the last lecture in the 10th season of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures. She gave what I have found to be the best demonstration of gravitational lensing.

Of course, there are many examples of gravitational lensing in Hubble photos of galaxies. These are sometimes called Einstein rings and are the direct result of the bending of light by gravitational fields.

Modern Cosmology was Founded on Luck

The Hubble Constant, which describes the velocity-distance relationship for galaxies, is the foundation of modern cosmology. It establishes the time and distance scale of the universe and the dynamic nature of the galaxies since the beginning of time. It is all the more remarkable that the original data Edwin Hubble took was flawed.

Last Man on the Moon Speaks at Linda Hall Library

Harrison Schmitt, the last man to walk on the moon, spoke to a full house at the Linda Hall Library on Sept 2, 2009, as part of the “To the Moon and to the Planets Beyond” lecture series.

Schmitt left the moon on December 14, 1972 as part of the Apollo 17 mission. He was the only geologist to visit the moon, receiving a PhD in Geology from Harvard. And as the only non military and non professional test pilot among the Apollo crews, much to the consternation of the NASA controllers on earth, he was prone to falling while hunting rocks on his moon walks. In this photo, his suit is covered in moon dust from his close up encounters.

Summer Science Camp for Big Kids

If you missed out on summer camp as a kid, as I did, it’s not too late. But this time, you don’t have to rough it.

For the last few years, I’ve attended various star parties during the summer. These are gatherings of enthusiastic amateur astronomers (not all of whom are Geeks) who get together for a few nights during a new moon with telescopes, campers and tents, to look at the stars and share the sky. They typically span 3-5 days.

Daytime is pretty casual with some events for kids, but mostly time to sit back, read, sleep and chat with folks. Most star parties also schedule a professional astronomer or scientist to speak after dinner. Night time is the time to bring out your scope and observe.

 

Rephrase the Political Debate: Goals, Strategies, then Tactics

 I am tired of listening to political debate in the media today. Both the politicians and the media interviewing and reporting on them have it all wrong. The fundamental problem is that the discussions are all focused on the wrong issues.

Anyone who has ever taken a project management class or who has the slightest experience in running a successful project to completion knows that project success is based on the articulation of the goals, strategies and tactics and their implementation.

You start with the goals, then develop the strategies to get there, then the tactics to implement the strategies. The entire team must buy into the same set of goals, strategies and tactics. You have to start at the top and get agreement on the goals, then agreement on the strategies, then agreement on the tactics. That is the only successful way of completing a project.

Trick to move off-screen windows back on screen

I have multiple monitors on my various computers. If I open and save applications with one monitor configuration, and then change the monitor configuration, or move that application to a computer with a different monitor configuration, I have a problem when I try to open that application again.

The window in which it opens is off the screen and I am unable to see it to even move it back on screen.

I have found a simple trick that works very effectively to find the hidden window and move it back on screen.

If I have an application that opens a window off screen, here is what I do it bring it on screen:

1. press alt-tab repeatedly until the hidden window is highlighted in the alt window
2. press the windows icon button, the shift key and the right arrow to move the highlighted window into the visible monitor

This little trick has saved me endless hours of frustration and works whenever a window is fully or partially off screen and needs to be repositioned.

Essential Telescope Principles: The Real Meaning of Focal Length

This is part 1.

The properties of telescopes are often presented in a confusing way. In fact, it is simple if you keep in mind what a telescope is really doing.

Essential Principles of Telescopes: Field of View (FOV)

This is part 2. To read part 1, click here.

The focal length of a mirror system is a direct measure of the translation of the angular size of an object to its spatial size on the image plane.

 

Fixing a Reset Problem with my Celestron SCT C6 Telescope Hand Controller

I’ve had a recurring problem with my Celestron SCT C6 telescope since I received it in Feb, 2008. Every now and then, especially when I am slewing the scope, and more often in cold weather, the scope stops working and the hand controller resets to the power up state.

This means I have to re-align the scope to its initial position and re-initialize the hand controller. This problem even happened while just tracking in RA (right ascension). There have been times when this happened so often I could not get any observing in.

I found two root causes to this problem. It’s a combination of a poor fitting power plug into the telescope and an undersized power supply.

When the motion of the telescope jostled the cold and stiff power cable, it would cause an intermittent to the power feed and the hand controller would reset. After this loose plug problem was fixed, I found that under some slew conditions, the hand controller would still reset.

By using a power brick that could supply more current, this problem was completely eliminated.

Here is the complete story…

The Difference Between Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Astronomy is the study of what you see in the sky and the dynamics of objects in space. I think of it as about what you can see when you observe the sky with your eyes or through a telescope. What I love about astronomy is that it is accessible to everyone. You walk outside on a clear night and you can participate in astronomy

This is the age of the great space observatories and all their incredible pictures are available to all on the web, like the Hubble Gallery.

Colliding Galaxies at Your Fingertips

When we look at a few Hubble photos of distant galaxies we may get the impression the universe is a static place. Other than the occasional supernova brightening, the galaxies we see haven’t changed much over the hundred years of observational history. But, it may well be the dynamics of energetic galactic collisions that created the variety of visually distinct galaxies we see today.

Though not so common today, images of many colliding galaxies, frozen in time, have been captured. In 2008, NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute released a collection of 59 colliding galaxy images, shown above.

Fix for some Windows 7 compatibility problems

I hated Vista and actually downgraded two computers from Vista to XP. Windows 7 is a huge improvement, and I am in the process of migrating all my computers to this new operating system.

As I reinstall old programs, especially those I use for astronomy and astrophotography, I find that some of them do not install correctly under Windows 7. I learned a simple fix that sometimes works. It was from discussion with the folks at Starry Night Education, who create a really wonderful planetarium software tool that I use to control my telescope.

Here’s the trick that sometimes works. If a software tool does not install correctly in Windows 7, then:

Single-handed Camper Hitch Hook-up

When you are all alone in the middle of the wilderness, how do you hook-up a camper to your car’s hitching ball?

If the camper is not secured, you will be stranded in the middle of nowhere. I found a simple method, using a web cam dangling from the back of the car and viewing its image of the hitching post on my laptop resting on the front seat.

I used to camp in my tent when I visited the dark sky site of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City, in Butler , MO. While this was cheap, it was always a bit of a hassle, both in the set up and the tear down.

Book Review: The Alchemy of the Heavens by Ken Croswell

Astrophysicists sometimes use familiar words, but in a very different way than we are used to. Take for example the term metal. To an astrophysicist, a metal is any element with an atomic mass greater than Helium’s.

That’s because only hydrogen and helium were created during the big bang and all higher atomic mass nuclei had to have been created in some stellar process. This story of nucleosynthesis and what it tells us about the structure of the universe, the origins of our galaxy and stellar evolution is detailed in Ken Croswell’s book, The Alchemy of the Heavens, published by Doubleday, 1995.

Life Long Learning at Your Fingertips

I’ve never given up my thirst for learning more about what interests me in the world. I went to school in Cambridge, MA, where there are 30 large universities in the area, each with weekly talks and seminars. I used to hop from seminar  to seminar, eating the free cookies and cakes and listening to the distinguished visitors from around the world.

With the web and my iPod, I can access the same quality speakers who are expert on almost any subject imaginable, but with the convenience of my schedule. I’ve found three important sources for incredibly great learning.

“Death Star Gamma-Ray Gun Pointed Straight at Earth”

“Death Star Gamma-Ray Gun Pointed Straight at Earth”

So read the headline on Fox News, March 5, 2008. This was no joke. In fact, it was based on nine years of observations on WR104, a Wolf Rayet star about 8,000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It was first discovered in 1999 by University of Sydney astronomer Peter Tuthill.

Wolf Rayet stars, named after two 19th Century French astronomers, Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet, are the most massive stars, typically with greater than 20 solar masses.  Like Achilles of Greek Mythology, they have a short but glorious life. They live fast and die hard. They are the hottest, the brightest, the biggest and the most short-lived of all stars. And when they die, it is by a huge supernova usually resulting in a black hole.

The Stars of Sgr A* (Sagittarius A Star)

Figure 1. Measured (dots) and calculated (line) orbital position of S0-2 based on 16 years of observations. The orbit matches Kepler’s law perfectly. From Ghez, et.al., Astrophysical Journal, Aug 21, 2008.

Peer toward the Milky Way’s center in visible light, and you see clouds of dust and gas obscuring all the stars. But, switch to infra red, near 2.2 microns wavelength, and 1 million stars within 1 square arc second of the sky, come clear.

This region has the highest observed stellar density of the known universe. Using  a distance to the galactic center of 7.6 kpc (kilo parsecs), this translates to about 1 million solar masses per cubic parsec within 1 parsec of the black hole, hidden in the middle of this forest. Our nearby space has only about 1 solar mass per cubic parsec.

Two independent teams have been peering into the center of our galaxy, within a tiny square, 1 arc second on a side, and reported their latest results this year.

White Dwarfs Don’t Remain Silent

“They are like a hot lump of coal slowly cooling”, Ashley Yeager describes white dwarfs in her piece, “Dead – But Not Duds” in Science News, Oct 11, 2008.

White dwarfs, the dead corpse of a star with a mass less than about 1.4 solar masses, create in their final days, spectacular planetary nebula, such as the Helix Nebula, the Ring Nebula and the Cat’s Eye Nebula.

They have become especially famous since the early 1990s as standard candles in the measurement of the acceleration of the universe and the primary evidence of dark energy.

The Top Ten Astrophysics Discoveries of the Last 35 Years

David Letterman made famous his “Top Ten” List. Richard Talcott, a senior editor of Astronomy Magazine created a Top Ten List that Letterman would probably never put on his show. To highlight the 35th anniversary of the magazine, he came up with the “Top Ten Discoveries of the Last 35 Years,” published in Astronomy Magazine, Aug, 2008.

If you ask 10 astronomers for their list, you might get 11 different lists. If you look back over the last 35 years, what would you put on your list as the top discoveries? Before you read on, jot down your list.

Here’re the top ten entries of Talcott’s list:

The Giotti Space Craft: Mission to Comet Halley

In 1301, the medieval Italian painter Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), observed Halley’s comet, which he memorialized as the star of Bethlehem in his painting, Adoration of the Magi.

Almost 700 years later, he was honored by having his name carried by the first space craft mission to visit Comet Halley, Giotti. This was also the first mission of the European Space Agency.

The 212th AAS Mtg in St. Louis, MO, June 1-5

Three themes permeated many of the sessions at the recent American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis, MO June 1-5, 2008.

1. The International Year of Astronomy (IYA) 2009 is going to be a BIG, world wide event.
2. The number of excellent astronomy related web resources are growing faster than any single individual can track them, let alone take advantage of them.
3. Data flow from the new ground based and space based observatories is escalating and we are going to be inundated with new discovery announcements from now on.

Local Artist Finds His Artistic Calling

“It is so great to find your creative self at 40,” Keith Anderson says. In the last five years, he has taken what started as a Christmas present for his three-year old nephew and turned it into an art career.

Anderson has taken up the rare skill of creating paintings in paper. This is not the traditional painting with paints on paper. Rather, he uses colored paper pulp as the medium itself. His pieces range from landscapes to abstract modern art to impressionist style, each composed with delicately sculpted dyed paper pulp, dried and ironed into a sheet of raw paper.

Expectations for the Large Hadron Collider

In “The Origins of the Universe: A Crash Course”, by Brian Greene, posted in the OpEd section of the New York Times, Sept 12, 2008 , Greene, a professor of Math and Physics at Colombia University, offers four possible revolutionary advances the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may uncover.

The LHC is a 17 mile long track with 10,000 superconducting magnets, costing the international community over $8 billion. Last week it turned on. Protons circulate 11,000 times around the track each second creating half a billion head-on collisions. The energy of each collision will quickly “convert to a broad spectrum of other particles,” such as: Higgs Bosons, supersymmeric particles, transdimensional particles, and micro black holes.

Chief Meteorologist Brightens The Day of Local Women’s Group

“Ever since I was 5 years old, all I ever wanted to do was tell people about the weather,” Gary Lezak, Chief Meteorologist at KSHB Channel 41, in Kansas City, KS said today, April 3, 2001, in Kansas City. Listening to his unabated infectious enthusiasm for telling everybody about the weather, you would never guess he was shy and afraid of public speaking in college.

Have You Tested Your House for Radon?

It was 3 am. Jack Eaton and his wife, Karen, were asleep upstairs. They thought they were safe in their Olathe, KS  home, but a deadly killer crept through their house. It entered Jack’s basement office, waiting for him. But Jack, warned by his neighbor, was suspicious. He had left a trap the day before. That simple act might have saved Jack and his family from long-term harm.

Jack had set a Radon detector in his basement and it found four times the EPA recommended limit of Radon.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 15,000 to 22,000 deaths from lung cancer, each year, are due to Radon in homes. Most of these deaths can be prevented with very simple techniques, if only residents have their homes tested for excessive levels of Radon.

Operation Impact Targets Traffic Violators

You’re late for class. You’re rushing down K10 at 80 miles per hour. The last thing you want to see in your rear view mirror are flashing red lights. But that’s the likely outcome if you are speeding during an Operation Impact.

Six to eight times a year, traffic police throughout the Johnson County area participate in an Operation Impact, a metro wide effort to catch traffic offenders, according to Captain Larry Jones of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. These events are held randomly throughout the year, lasting four hours, just as often in the morning as the evening.

“During an operation impact, we typically write three times the number of tickets we normally would. We target tailgaters, road rage, reckless drivers and speeders.” Captain Jones said. “But two hours after we’re gone, the traffic is back the way it was.”

Many motorists who routinely travel the K10 corridor especially welcome focused targeting of speeders there. “Even when I’m doing 80 on K10, I get passed by crazies like I’m standing still,” said John Burden, computer aided design student at the College.

The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) – Latest Eye in the Sky

We have all suffered through the limitations of viewing the stars from beneath the blanket of our thick atmosphere, especially thickened by summer humidity here in Kansas.

While ground based optical observations suffer from dust and small atmospheric fluctuations, some wavelengths are just not possible to view due to absorption by water vapor and other gases. Space based telescopes, orbiting above the limitations of the atmosphere, have literally opened our eyes to higher resolution and extended our viewing to higher and lower wavelengths.

With its successful launch on June 11, 2008, GLAST, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, became our latest eye in the sky. It extends our frequency range into the highest energy yet, from 10 keV to 300 GeV.

Making Career Path Decisions

Last year, the convergence of two events gave me reason to articulate my recommendations on how to decide on a career path.

Our niece stayed with us for more than a year and we watched her struggle trying to decide what she wanted to do with her life.  Anyone who is over 50 years old has gone through this process at least twice, and sometimes more than that.

For more than 20 years,  I have been an MIT education councilor, interviewing high school students who apply to MIT. This last year, I encountered a few students who didn’t have a clue what that wanted to do in life and asked for some advice.

Here’s what I tell them:

Engineer Has New Insight on Power Lines and Cancer Link

“There is a suspected correlation to 60 Hz electric fields from power lines and leukemia in children,” Dr Robert Ashley, a retired electrical engineering professor told a meeting of the IEEE on Monday, October 16, 2000 in Overland Park, KS.

Ashley, a former professor at the University of Kansas at Lawrence and University of Colorado at Denver, now retired, has spent most of the last 10 years investigating the power line and cancer connection. He addressed a lunchtime audience of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (IEEE) at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Overland Park.

The first epidemiological study to show a weak but positive link between overhead high voltage power lines and heath risks was reported by Wertheimer and Leeper in 1979, Ashley said.

Reviewing data taken in the Denver area, they found a three times higher rate of cancer death for children living near power lines compared to living in random locations. From this analysis, they concluded a possible link between magnetic fields and health risks.

Since then, though hundreds of similar studies have been conducted, searching for a link between magnetic fields from power lines and increased health risks, only one other study, conducted in Sweden, has shown any other positive correlation. Ashley thinks he knows why.

“Every study conducted, has tried to correlate health risks to the magnetic fields from the power lines. There is no correlation to any magnetic field effect, because it’s the electric field!” Ashley said.

Science Fiction Convention has Other Worldly Theme

Take 5,000 science fiction fans, 100 famous authors, artists, publishers and editors, 300 dealers of science fiction and fantasy books and memorabilia, mix in too many parties and not enough sleep and stir for five days. What you get is the 58th World Science Fiction Convention, or ChiCon, held in Chicago, Ill on August 31 to Sept 4, 2000.

This is not a Star Trek Convention. Amongst all the fans at ChiCon, not a single Star Trek TV personality could be seen. "This is a literary convention," said Herbert McCaullan, owner of Starbase Atlanta, one of the dealers. "If it’s not a book without pictures, it’s not SF to most of these fans.

That’s not to say fans at ChiCon are dull and boring bookworms.

In addition to over a hundred seminars and panel presentations, ranging from “The Latest Results from the Hubble Telescope” to “Are Comic Book Plots Real Literature?”, a highlight of WorldCon is the announcement of the Hugo award winners, the most prestigious award in the Science Fiction genre.

MIT Professor John King Honored by Students, Peers

MIT Professor Emeritus John G. King (SB 1950, PhD), experimental physicist and pioneer in atomic clocks, fundamental physics experiments and physics education, was honored by more than 60 colleagues and former students on April 1, 2000 in Cambridge, MA.

The leader of the Molecular Beams Lab at MIT for almost 50 years, Professor King’s reach has extended not only to his many undergraduate and graduate students, but to many others who have experienced Project Lab, Corridor Lab and take-home physics experiment kits. "Fundamentally, I had a hell of a good time and lots of fun," he said in summarizing his MIT career.Several former students reminisced about their enjoyment and satisfaction in learning from Professor King, a longtime advocate of training students in the fine art of experimental physics. Fred Dylla (SB 1971, PhD) recalled "getting your hands dirty and being surrounded by brilliant students who were around all the time" in the Molecular Beams Labs run by Professor King, whose teaching philosophy was that "the best way to understand your apparatus is to build it."

Observing from my Back Yard

We had a patch of clear skies before the moon rose which afford a chance to set up my telescope in the backyard and get some pictures. I have a Celestron C6, six inch Schmidt Cassigran with a Canon xsi DSLR camera.

Alignment is the tricky part, but two new techniques dramatically simplify the process. I bought a telrad and attached it to the telescope body. This is a lifesaver. Second, Celestron updated the firm ware of their goto hand controller to implemented a new processes they call Any Star Alignment.

After initial polar alignment, and 2 star alignment, I point to a bright star and click polar align. then I move the telescope mount until the bright start is perfectly aligned. This is better than a polar align, as Polaris is about 0.5 degrees off the true polar axis.

Here’s a shot of my set up on March 14, 2009. Newton is laying beside the system, keeping the critters away.