Paul Davies writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that we may, indeed, be living in the matrix. In fact, a little hiccup in the simulation may have been detected — a minute change in the speed of light 6 billion years ago.

Like many other people, apparently, I’ve entertained the thought that life wasn’t really real. After reading this article, I’m now a little chilled by the thought. In Davies’ closing paragraph, he writes, “Now the simulators know we are on to them, and the game is up, they may lose interest and decide to hit the delete button. For your own sake, don’t believe a word that I have written.”

Entertaining this train of reasoning, for me, leads to ways to plead with the “simulators” to not hit the delete key. Some questions arise — would the simulators in fact be our gods? In an effort to preserve our existence, virtual or not, should the entire human race become less secular and more religious (whatever religion we might choose)?

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My refrigerator broke last night. One of the benefits of apartment living is that you don’t personally have to run to the nearest home improvement store and drop a large sum of cash for a new major appliance. A quick call to the apartment maintenance guy, and in just a couple of hours a pristine new ice-box is sitting in the kitchen.

This unfortunate event got me to thinking about entropy, a concept which is just weird to me most of the time. I do grasp the Second Law of Thermodynamics (and grok the field of Quantum Bogodynamics), but why does it have to be that way? What caused the fridge to stop doing its fridgy thing? (What was the source of the bogon flux?) I’m sure the maintenance guy is good at fixing things (a strong source of cluons, or anti-bogons), and the fridge will resume its normal function in someone else’s apartment.

I suppose entropy is actually a good thing, because if there were no localized energy potentials, nothing would (could) ever happen, and the universe would be dead. And that makes me think of things like the unevenness of the cosmic background, and that it’s a good thing that when the Big Bang happened, it was ever so slightly irregular. I have to stop thinking of this now, because my head is starting to hurt from thinking of the vastness of it all.

One upside to this event is that fridge failure forces the single guy to get rid of all those mystery containers tucked in the back corners. However, this incident was not without cost. A nearly untouched half-gallon of Breyer’s All Natural Vanilla Ice Cream went all melty on me. Oh, the humanity! At least I rescued the Hershey’s Syrup.

The ultimate iPod accessory.

They’re here! Actually, they arrived right on time, but I’ve been too busy playing to post anything here.

As I mentioned in the last update, I considered dissecting (vivisectioning?) my spanking-new Chauvet Omega I fixtures to play with the dichroic filters inside. Lucky for me, a major disassembly wasn’t required: opening the case to install the halogen bulb revealed the optical path in the luminaire.

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When I was in high school, I borrowed an optical bench from the physics lab. It was kinda fun to play with, but I never really got into it. Light is neat, and the way it behaves is cool, what with all the lenses and mirrors and stuff. (Did you know you can make a lens out of metal plates (PDF) that focusses radio waves? Cool!)

Image courtesy Chauvet Lighting.

When I go out to party, I do like all the colored lights, especially the ones that do stuff besides just blink on and off, or shine on a mirror ball. I really like to watch the intelligent lighting effects that swing their colored beams around the dance floor, briefly illuminating all those writhing bodies. Uh…ahem. No, I’m not stoned and thinking “Oooo, look at all the pretty colors.” I can’t really explain my fascination, but for a long time now I’ve wanted some of my own to play with. So I took my tax refund and ordered a couple.

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via Science Blog

I find things that combine science and art absolutely delicious. David C Roy, an artist with a degree in physics, combines his talents in art and science to produce some stunning kinetic sculptures.

His sculptures combine clockwork-like escapement mechanisms with symmetrical and asymmetrical elements to produce complex motions and mesmerizing optical effects. Like a clock, each sculpture is “wound up” then released to run, in some cases for the better part of a day. In addition to the visual effects of the motion, the gentle clacking of the mechanism produces an auditory pattern that is part of the sculptures’ appeal. One piece, Serenade, even includes tuned chimes as the centerpiece of the sculpture.

David uses Adobe Illustrator, Working Model by Knowledge Revolution, and Extreme 3D from Macromedia on his Mac to design his works of art. After the design phase, David makes his ideas real by first building a model, then refining the model to be sure it performs as he designed it — and occasionally the sculpture will move in delightfully unexpected ways. Finally, David produces the limited edition sculptures in his workshop using laminated birch for stability.

Visit his web site, or better yet, view his work in a gallery near you.

Via Blog-Fu.

I first read about sonoluminescence in the Amateur Scientist column in the February 1995 issue of Scientific American and thought the effect was fascinating, but I wondered how it might be useful. I haven’t really explored the topic since then, but it appears that new research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has found that similar techniques can produce nuclear fusion.

Rather than the distilled water used in classic sonoluminescence experiments, a deuterium-laced acetone solution was employed. At the high temperatures and pressures achieved, fusion of deuterium occurs and produces tritium, which is further used as fuel. It is interesting to note that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories estimates the temperatures involved are anywhere from 10,000°C to 1,000,000°C!

There are some intriguing questions raised by these experiments: Instead of massive electromagnetically controlled toroidal reactors, might much more simple and smaller devices be the future of fusion? If this bubble fusion works, how large a reactor would you need? Might it be small enough to put in your back yard? In your laptop?

Basic sonoluminescence experiments can be performed in the home laboratory, as evidenced by the SciAm Amateur Scientist column. You can purchase the article at the link above, or better yet, buy the complete 73-year archive of the column at the Society for Amateur Scientists web store (SAS members only — why not join?).

Selected sonoluminescence resources on the web:

• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Sonoluminescence Introduction
• Additional information at LLNL
• Super slow-motion movie of bubble expansion and collapse
• Wade Lutgen’s Senior Thesis on Sonoluminescence
• Sonoluminescence Demonstration Experiment from Techmind.org
• And of course, Slashdot articles