Month: December 2019

The Decade Isn’t Over Yet

On By rolcottIn General: Fun Stuff, Uncategorized3 Comments

My father was a man of firmly held opinions, although he would be quick to say they were conclusions. Trained as a physicist, he lived a career in chemistry because in the Depression you took what you could get. Never hesitating to carry his sciences into the public forum, he wrote many Letters to The Editor on topics from the chemical hazards of powering automobile air bags with sodium azide, to the optimal size of a wine glass, to the historical connection between Hitler’s Navy sowing the North Sea with mines and the rise of industrial vitamin D production in the US.

He once suggested that the best location for highly radioactive nuclear waste would be the already-radioactive Chernobyl reserve in the then‑Soviet Ukraine. Obvious when you think about it, except for the geopolitical part.

Dad enjoyed tweaking the bureaucrats. When he mustered out of the Navy at the end of WWII, he was given a letter stating that because of his extensive top-secret radar know-how, he was to hold himself in readiness should the nation have to call him back to duty. Many years later and in his eighties, he wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Navy. In it he said that his technical skills had deteriorated over the decades and therefore he requested relief from the obligation. He never told me whether or not he’d heard back.

A frequent target of his disdain was the herd of natural foods enthusiasts who abhor “ingesting chemicals.” “We are made of chemicals.” he wrote. “The only thing that is free of chemicals is a perfect vacuum.” He held that the phrase “organic salt” is an oxymoron when applied to any preparation of sodium chloride. I can only imagine his reaction to the displays that advertise gluten-free water.

Dad and I worked on different aspects of the Y2K Problem. From mid-1996 through the first month of January 2000 I and lots of other IT colleagues spent most of our working hours making sure that the wheels of our society wouldn’t grind to a halt because the various gears failed to mesh properly. All that work worked, but because we were successful the rest of society decided Y2K had been no big deal. If only they knew.

Meanwhile, my Dad had a different Y2K concern. He expressed it in this note which appeared in multiple publications:

To The Editor:
 There seems to be friction about naming the final year of the current century and/or the first year of the next decade.
 Those who affirm that 2001 is the beginning of the new century are absolutely correct. There was no year 0.
 Also, there is a substantial group who want to celebrate the year 2000.
 OK, the year twenty-naught-naught is the end of the present decade, century, millennium. We can and should have celebrations for the end of world wars, the end of holocausts, the end of homelessness, the end (hopefully) of drugs, reckless driving, etc.
 Even 1999 has been headlined. Let it be the year of preparation for the next two celebratory years. Those who want to capitalize on the final year of the present decade and the first year of the coming century can use 1999 for planning, organizing and even rehearsing the functions anticipated.
 The three-year spectacle will satisfy a substantial majority of those who seem to be unhappily vocal, one way or the other. Let’s make peace.

  • 1999: On your marks.
  • 2000: Get set.
  • 2001: Go.

~~ Irwin Olcott

Just to show how firmly he held to his calendrical conclusion — despite a medical condition that would have felled a less-determined man, Dad held on until Jan 10, 2001 because he wanted to live into the 21st Century. His initials, “I.O.,” drew his attention on the number ten. We in the family think that’s why he stayed with us until the tenth of the month, although there was some mention of waiting that long for tax purposes. Knowing him, it could have been some of both.

In my opinion, Dad had the right of it. The year 2020 will not be the start of the 21st Century’s second third decade, it will be the end of its first second. May the year and the following ones go well with you.

~~ Rich Olcott

How To Wave A Camel

On By rolcottIn Physics: Fundamentals, Physics: Waves, UncategorizedLeave a comment

“You’re sayin’, Sy, no matter what kind of wave we got, we can break it down by amplitude, frequency and phase?”

“Right, Vinnie. Your ears do that automatically. They grab your attention for the high-amplitude loud sounds and the high-frequency screechy ones. Goes back to when we had to worry about predators, I suppose.”

“I know about music instruments and that, but does it work for other kinds of waves?”

“It works for waves in general. You can match nearly any shape with the right combination of sine waves. There’s a few limitations. The shape has to be single-valued — no zig-zags — and it has to be continuous — no stopping over here and starting over there..”

“Ha! Challenge for you then. Use waves to draw a camel. Better yet– make it a two-humped camel.”

“A Bactrian camel, eh? OK, there’s pizza riding on this, you understand. <keys clicking> All right, image search for Bactrian camel … there’s a good one … scan for its upper profile … got that … tack on some zeroes fore and aft … dump that into my Fourier analysis engine … pull the coefficients … plot out the transform — wait, just for grins, plot it out in stages on top of the original … here you are, Vinnie, you owe me pizza.”

“OK, what is it?”

“Your Bactrian camel.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but what’s with the red line and the numbers?”

“OK, the red line is the sum of a certain number of sine waves with different frequencies but they all start and end at the same places. The number says how many waves were used in the sum. See how the ‘1‘ line is just a single peak, ‘3‘ is more complicated and so on? But I can’t just add sine waves together — that’d give the same curve no matter what data I use. Like in a church choir. The director doesn’t want everyone to sing at top volume all the time. Some passages he wants to bring out the alto voices so he hushes the men and sopranos, darker passages he may want the bases and baritones to dominate. Each section has to come in with its own amplitude.”

“So you give each sine wave an amplitude before you add ’em together. Makes sense, but how do you know what amplitudes to give out?”

“That gets into equations, which I know you don’t like. In practice these days you get all the amplitudes in one run of the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm, but it’s easier to think of it as the stepwise process that they used before the late 1960s. You start with the lowest-frequency sine wave that fits between the start- and end-points of your data.”

“Longest wavelength to match the data length, gotcha.”

“Mm-hm. So you put in that wave with an amplitude near the average value of your data in the middle art of the range. That’s picture number 1.”

“Step 2 is to throw in the next shorter wavelength that fits, right? Half the wavelength, with an amplitude to match the differences between your data and wave 1. And then you keep going.”

“You got the idea. Early physicists and their grad students used up an awful lot of pencils, paper and calculator time following exactly that strategy. Painful. The FFT programs freed them up to do real thinking.”

“So you get a better and better approximation from adding more and more waves. What stopped you from getting it perfect?”

“Two things — first, you can’t use more waves than about half the number of data points. Second, you see the funny business at his nose? Those come from edges and sudden sharp changes, which Fourier doesn’t handle well. That’s why edges look flakey in JPEG images that were saved in high-compression mode.”

“Wait, what does JPEG have to do with this?”

“JPEG and most other kinds of compressed digital image, you can bet that Fourier-type transforms were in play. Transforms are crucial in spectroscopy, astronomy, weather prediction, MP3 music recordings –“

Suddenly Vinnie’s wearing a big grin. “I got a great idea! While that Klingon ship’s clamped in our tractor beam, we can add frequencies that’d make them vibrate to Brahms’ Lullaby.”

“Bad idea. They’d send back Klingon Opera.”

~~ Rich Olcott

How To Phase A Foe

On By rolcottIn Physics: Fundamentals, Physics: Waves, UncategorizedLeave a comment

“It’s Starfleet’s beams against Klingon shields, Vinnie. I’m saying both are based on wave phenomena.”

“What kind of wave, Sy?”

“Who knows? They’re in the 24th Century, remember. Probably not waves in the weak or strong nuclear force fields — those’d generate nuclear explosions. Could be electromagnetic waves or gravitational waves, could be some fifth or sixth force we haven’t even discovered yet. Whatever, the Enterprise‘s Bridge crew keeps saying ‘frequency’ so it’s got to have some sort of wave‑ishness.”

“OK, you’re sayin’ whatever’s waving, if it’s got frequency, amplitude and phase then we can talk principles for building a weapon system around it. I can see how Geordi’s upping the amplitude of the Enterprise‘s beam weapons would help Worf’s battle job — hit ’em harder, no problem. Jiggling the frequencies … I sort of see that, it’s what they always talk about doing anyway. But you say messing with beam phase can be the kicker. What difference would it make if a peak hits a few milliseconds earlier or later?”

“There’s more than one wave in play. <keys clicking> Here’s a display of the simplest two-beam interaction.”

“I like pictures, but this one’s complicated. Read it out to me.”

“Sure. The bottom line is our base case, a pure sine wave of some sort. We’re looking at how it’s spread out in space. The middle line is the second wave, traveling parallel to the first one. The top line shows the sum of the bottom two at each point in space. That nets out what something at that point would feel from the combined influence of the two waves. See how the bottom two have the same frequency and amplitude?”

“Sure. They’re going in the same direction, right?”

“Either that or exactly the opposite direction, but it doesn’t matter. Time and velocity aren’t in play here, this is just a series of snapshots. When I built this video I said, ‘What will things look like if the second beam is 30° out of phase with the first one? How about 60°?‘ and so on. The wheel shape just labels how out-of-phase they are, OK?”

“Give me a sec. … OK, so when they’re exactly in sync the angle’s zero and … yup, the top line has twice the amplitude of the bottom one. But what happened to the top wave at 180°? Like it’s not there?”

“It’s there, it’s just zero in the region we’re looking at. The two out-of-phase waves cancel each other in that interval. That’s how your noise-cancelling earphones work — an incoming sound wave hits the earphone’s mic and the electronics generate a new sound wave that’s exactly out-of-phase at your ear and all you hear is quiet.”

“I’ve wondered about that. The incoming sound has energy, right, and my phones are using up energy. I know that because my battery runs down. So how come my head doesn’t fry with all that? Where does the energy go?”

“A common question, but it confuses cause and effect. Yes, it looks like the flatline somehow swallows the energy coming from both sides but that’s not what happens. Instead, one side expends energy to counter the other side’s effect. Flatlines signal success, but you generally get it only in a limited region. Suppose these are sound waves, for example, and think about the molecules. When an outside sound source pushes distant molecules toward your ear, that produces a pressure peak coming at you at the speed of sound, right?”

“Yeah, then…”

“Then just as the pressure peak arrives to push local molecules into your ear, your earphone’s speaker acts to pull those same molecules away from it. No net motion at your ear, so no energy expenditure there. The energy’s burned at either end of the transmission path, not at the middle. Don’t worry about your head being fried.”

“Well that’s a relief, but what does this have to do with the Enterprise?”

“Here’s a sketch where I imagined an unfriendly encounter between a Klingon cruiser and the Enterprise after Geordi upgraded it with some phase-sensitive stuff. Two perpendicular force disks peaked right where the Klingon shield troughed. The Klingon’s starboard shield generator just overloaded.”

“That’ll teach ’em.”

“Probably not.”

~~ Rich Olcott

Three Ploys to Face A Foe

On By rolcottIn Physics: Waves, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Run done, Vinnie and I head upstairs to my office to get out of the windchill. My Starship Enterprise poster reminds me. “Geez, it’s annoying.”

“Now what, Sy?”

“I’ve been binge-watching old Star Trek:Next Generation TV programs and the technobabble’s gotten annoying.”

“What’s the problem this time?”

“Well, whenever the Enterprise gets into a fix where it’s their phaser beam or tractor beam or shields against some new Borg technology or something, Geordi or Worf get busy making adjustments and it’s always the frequency. ‘Modulate to a lower frequency!‘ or ‘Raise the frequency!‘ or even ‘Randomize the frequency!‘ At one point Dr Crusher was fiddling with someone’s ‘biophysical frequency.’ They miss two-thirds of the options, and especially they miss the best one when you’re trying to mess up your opponent’s stuff.”

“Wait, I thought we said frequency’s what waves are all about. There’s more?”

“Oh, yeah. The fact that they’re saying ‘frequency’ says their beams and shields and such are probably based on some kind of wave phenomenon. The good guys should be fiddling with amplitude and phase, too. Especially phase.”

“OK, I’ll bite. What’re those about?”

I poke a few keys on my computer and bring this up on the wall screen.

“OK, we’ve talked about frequency, the distance or time between peaks. Frequency’s the difference between a tuba and a piccolo, between infra-red and X-rays. That top trace is an example of modulating the frequency, somehow varying the carrier wave’s peak-to-peak interval. See the difference between the modulated wave and the dotted lines where it would be if the modulation were turned off?”

“Modulation means changing?”

“Mm-hm. The important thing is that only the piece within the box gets altered.”

“Got it. OK, you’ve labelled the middle line ‘Amplitude‘ and that’s gotta be about peak height because they’re taller inside the modulation box than the dotted line. I’m guessing here, but does the bigger peak mean more energy?”

“Good guess, but it depends on the kind of wave. Sound waves, yup, that’s exactly what’s going on. Light waves are different, because a photon’s energy is is determined by its frequency. You can’t pump up a photon’s amplitude, but you can pump up the number of photons in the beam.”

“Hey, Sy, I just realized. Your amplitude modulation and frequency modulation must be the AM and FM on my car radio. So in AM radio they sit on the station’s frequency, right, and make a signal by tweaking the amount of power going to the antenna?”

“That’s the basic idea, though engineers chasing efficiency have improved things a lot in the century since they started experimenting with radio. Implementing FM is more complicated so took a few more decades to make that competitive with AM.”

“So what’s the story with, um, ‘phase modulation‘? My radio’s got no PM dial.”

<poking more keys> “Here’s the way I think of a sine wave — it’s what you’d see looking at a mark on the edge of a rolling wheel. The size of the wheel sets the wave’s amplitude, the wheel’s rotation speed sets the wave’s frequency, and the phase is where it is in the rotation cycle. Modulating the phase would be like jerking the wheel back and forth while it’s rotating.”

“So that’s why there’s hiccups in your bottom red Phase line — things don’t match up across a phase shift.. Hmm… I’m still thinking about my radio. AM sound tends to have more static, especially during thunderstorms. That’d be because my radio amplifies any electromagnetic wave amplitudes at the frequency I’d set it for and that includes waves from the lightning. FM sound’s a lot clearer. Is that because frequency shifts don’t happen much?”

“Exactly.”

“PM broadcasts ought to be even safer against noise. How come I never see them?”

“You do. WiFi uses it, precisely because it works well even at extremely low power levels. OK, challenge question — why do you think I think PM would be better than FM against Borg tech?”

“It’d be like in fencing or martial arts. Frequency’s jab, jab, jab, regular-like. Shifting your wave phase would be mixing it up, they wouldn’t know when the next peak’s coming.”

“Yup. Now tell Geordi.”

~~ Rich Olcott

Disentangling 3-D Plaid

On By rolcottIn Physics: Waves, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Our lake-side jog has slowed to a walk and suddenly Mr Feder swerves off the path to thud onto a park bench. “I’m beat.”

Meanwhile, heavy footsteps from behind on the gravel path and a familiar voice. “Hey, Sy, you guys talking physics?”

“Well, we were, Vinnie. Waves, to be exact, but Feder’s faded and anyway his walk wasn’t fast enough to warm me up.”

“I’ll pace you. What’d I miss?”

“Not a whole lot. So many different kinds of waves but physicists have abstracted them down to a common theme — a pattern that moves through space.”

“Haw — flying plaid.”

“That image would work if each fiber color carried specific values of energy and momentum and the cross-fibers somehow add together and there’s lots of waves coming from all different directions so it’s 3-D.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“As complicated as the sound from a symphony.”

“I prefer dixieland.”

“Same principle. Trumpet, trombone, clarinet, banjo — many layers of harmony but you can choose to tune in on just one line. That’s a clue to how physicists un-complicate waves.”

“How so?”

“Back in the early 19th century, Fourier showed that you can think about any continuous variation stream, no matter how complicated, in terms of a sum of very simple variations called sine waves. You’ve seen pictures of a sine wave — just a series of Ss laid on their sides and linked together head-to-tail.”

“Your basic wiggly line.”

“Mm-hm, except these wiggles are perfectly regular — evenly spaced peaks, all with the same height. The regularity is why sine waves are so popular. Show a physicist something that looks even vaguely periodic and they’ll immediately start thinking sine wave frequencies. Pythagoras did that for sound waves 2500 years ago.”

“Nah, he couldn’t have — he died long before Fourier.”

“Good point. Pythagoras didn’t know about sine waves, but he did figure out how sounds relate to spatial frequencies. Pluck a longer bowstring, get a lower note. Pinch the middle of a vibrating string. The strongest remaining vibration in the string sounds like the note from a string that’s half as long. Pythagoras worked out length relationships for the whole musical scale.”

“You said ‘spacial frequency’ like there’s some other kind.”

“There is, though they’re closely related. Your ear doesn’t sense the space frequency, the distance between peaks. You sense the time between peaks, the time frequency, which is the space frequency, peaks per meter, times how fast the wave travels, meters per second. See how the units work out?”

“Cute. Does that space frequency/time frequency pair-up work for all kinds of waves?”

“Mostly. It doesn’t work for standing waves. Their energy’s trapped between reflectors or some other way and they just march in place. Their time frequency is zero peaks per second whatever their peaks per meter space frequency may be. Interesting effects can happen if the wave velocity changes, say if the wave path crosses from air to water or if there’s drastic temperature changes along the path.”

“Hah! Mirages! Wait, that’s light getting deflected after bouncing off a hot surface into cool air. Does sound do mirages, too?”

“Sure. Our hearing’s not sharp enough to notice sonic deflection by thermal layering in air, but it’s a well-known issue for sonar specialists. Echoes from oceanic cold/warm interfaces play hob with sonar echolocation. I’ll bet dolphins play games with it when the cold layer’s close enough to the surface.”

“Those guys will find fun in anything. <pause> So Pythagoras figured sound frequencies playing with a bow. Who did it for light?”

“Who else? Newton, though he didn’t realize it. In his day people thought that light was colorless, that color was a property of objects. Newton used the rainbow images from prisms to show that color belonged to light. But he was a particle guy. He maintained that every color was a different kind of particle. His ideas held sway for over 150 years until Fresnel convinced the science community that lightwaves are a thing and their frequencies determine their color. Among other things Fresnel came up with the math that explained some phenomena that Newton had just handwaved past.”

“Fresnel was more colorful than Newton?”

“Uh-uh. Compared to Newton, Fresnel was pastel.”

~~ Rich Olcott