As today I have just published a piece on CP violation which lacks detail on the theoretical aspects of the issue, I think it is a good time to offer you here a post on the matter written by Carl Brannen, a independent researcher and now Ph.D. student who is a great example of how what is typically dubbed "crackpottery" can at times convert into accepted science. Carl has managed to get a few of his papers accepted for publication, but he remains "on the edge", dealing with issues that many frown upon. Maybe he is right, or maybe he is not, but I sympathize with his approach, so I occasionally offer him this site for his pieces [TD].

A long awaited confirmation that direct CP violation occurs in Bs mesons (particles composed of a b- and an s-quark) not unlike what happens to lighter mesons (the K0, the B0, and the D0) is coming from LHCb. In an article appeared yesterday in the Cornell arxiv, LHCb describe their measurement of direct CP violation in the decays of both B0 and Bs mesons to Kπ final states (a kaon and a pion). The former is now the best precision measurement we have of the phenomenon, the latter is also the most precise bid (only one former measurement of the effect exists).

If you are anything like me, and you had a chance to sit around with Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, you wouldn't ask fanboy questions like 'will we ever understand the soul?' or 'how much should I make fun of evolutionary psychology surveys about sex?' you would instead lean in conspiratorially and ask, 'what's the best way to get out of a speeding ticket?'

Today Greenpeace issued the 52-page report "Lessons from Fukushima". In it the Japanese nuclear catastrophe is analyzed in detail, and its causes and consequences exposed. The report correctly focuses on a few crucial issues: the lack of accountability for the disastrous consequences of nuclear incidents, the lack of a correct approach to the potential risks involved in the production of nuclear energy, and the failure of proper emergency planning.

[Title correction: My goal was to create images of 2D, 3D, and 4D functionals. I think I missed that target. Instead I have 1D parameterized curves that all move in up to 3D in space + time. I have a clear idea how to write new code that could move independently with two, three, or four parameters. That code is not written now, so I will change the title to more accurately reflect the content.]

Nothing like writing a title where I am not sure if I can pull it off. It reminds me of skiing slowly off a 6 foot cliff in Colorado. By the time I landed, I was going fast. Nothing like the constant acceleration of gravity.

One, Two, Three D

I recently read two pieces in RealScience entitled "Cyberwar is already upon us" by John Arquilla and "Think again, Cyberwar" by Thomas Rid.  While there are obviously differing views about what each perspective entails, I couldn't help but be struck by a few comments made by Rid in his piece.

Astronomers have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole - about 20,000,000 miles per hour, 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole.

It's always good to have a back-up plan and I may have found mine if Science 2.0 doesn't get bought by some rich media conglomerate in Germany; people gullible enough to believe their organic food is structurally or nutritionally superior and are willing to overpay for it are also likely to overpay for pet food.