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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| Nothing profound or, hopefully, controversial today; mostly just a lesson in how not to write a headline. And maybe some physics... but no math, so don't run away just yet. The singing neutrino Nobel laureate who nearly bombed Nevada  From desert to gold mine — Frederick Reines was a larger-than-life physicist who did larger-than-life experiments. I mean, neutrinos sing? I admit I'm not up on all the latest advances in physics, but I didn't know we taught them to- oh. It's the scientist who sang. Article is a book review, but also functions as a summary of the guy's bio. I shouldn't have to mention once again that I don't automatically shy away from book-shilling articles here on a writing site, but I just did anyway. In the early 1950s, the physicist Frederick Reines and his colleague Clyde Cowan designed an experiment to detect neutrinos From what I've read about physics, this was a Big Deal. Theoretical physicists can come up with all sorts of hypotheses, but it takes experimental physicists to support (or disprove) them. Very few physicists delve into both. The experiment was to take place in the Nevada desert. A flux of neutrinos would be created by detonating a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb I can see the grant proposal now. "First, we build an atom bomb..." At the last minute, Reines and Cowan transferred the experiment to a nuclear reactor Aw. It's implied that the bomb went boom anyway, as they were wont to do back in the 1950s. However, I seriously doubt that "at the last minute" should be taken literally. The neutrino-research community has mushroomed over the decades It's always amusing to see a pun, intended or not, in articles like this one. The article then goes into the aforementioned summary of Reines' life. Neutrinos were nicknamed ghost particles because of their uncanny properties. Turns out they're even weirder than scientists first thought, but that's another topic. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if, as with the "God Particle" (the Higgs boson) decades later, the media didn't latch on to this and create the entirely wrong impression. But with no charge and a vanishingly small mass, they can be detected only indirectly, when they interact with another particle. Okay, but technically, that's the only way to detect anything. As Cole describes, Reines and Cowan began what they named Project Poltergeist at a plutonium-producing reactor in Hanford, Washington. Project Poltergeist, plutonium-producing... come on, there have to have been more opportunities for alliteration in there. Reines left Los Alamos in 1959 for the Case Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. Seven years later, he moved to the University of California, Irvine. Note how there is nothing reported for Reines during his time in Cleveland. I like to think that this is because nothing good ever happens in Cleveland. Anyway, like I said, nothing of tremendous import to most people, and this is more of an example of science book review writing than anything else. But there were enough little amusing things to make me want to include it here. |
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Finally. Fascinating stuff. All of them. There is something rather philosophical about comedy. You are certainly right there. 
