Losing Track of Time

 

We like our categories definitive and our time uninterrupted.  Nature, however, doesn’t care about what we like to project onto it. Time is especially tricky.

I’ve written before about the relatively recent division of time we call minutes and seconds.  But once we wanted to use these arbitrary, definitive categories for time, it turned out our leap year system was no longer good enough to keep us perfectly lined up with the OG timekeeping device: Astronomical events (solstices and equinoxes signaling the start of seasons).  

(Side note:  you probably don’t actually know the rule for leap years (because it is not, of course, exactly 365.25 days in a year); the rule is: extra leap day occurs in each year that is a multiple of 4, except for years evenly divisible by 100 but not by 400.)

Since the invention of atomic clocks in the late 60’s, we have actually been keeping ‘universal’ (a misnomer if ever there was one!) time down to the second.  However, to keep things lined up to the second, we had to introduce the leap second.  Unbeknownst to most folks, we have actually quietly slipped in an extra second 27 times at midnight, either at the end of June or the end of December. 

The problem is, just like when 1999 was turning into 2000 and all these computers that were only keeping track of the last two digits of the year were about to get messed up, many modern computers that are rectifying things down to the second are now getting messed up when the leap second happens.

The solution has just been decided on (Thanks to Isabelle for pointing this out to me!).  We will now do for the second what the leap year system does for the annual drift of a few hours:  we will wait until enough seconds have accumulated to do a big leap hour with plenty of warning.  At least a few 100 years will be needed before we have to worry about it…

The Leap Second

1972 - 2027

Trying to keep up with the youths

Today at the end of class, I pretended to be a student and joined a group of my physics students who were clearly talking about the exam I just gave.  I eagerly said "Oh, do you think the teacher will scale the test?" and one particularly witty student said "Why don't you ask him for us since I think you guys get along.  You know, you are kind of similar".  I replied (after a lengthy pause during which I could feel the cogs of my slow brain turning, creakily) with "Oh, he's super-cool like me?"  

The dry, serious response was "I really admire... your capacity for self-delusion."

A few minutes later, after I had recovered (several creaky turns of the old noggin), I lamely said, "Self delusion is how we maintain happiness." SC quickly agreed and whisked out of the room.

Soon, I will no longer be able to joke around with these youth's - I just don't have the quickness like I used to...

... but then again, I do have remarkable capacity for self-delusion so I'll probably be okay.

Bed Project

 Step 1: Bring your great-grandmother's bed out of storage and assemble it:

Step 2:  Realize it has nonstandard measurements and fall into despair over not being able to find a boxspring that will fit.  Purchase some wood and cut it down to size:

Step 3:  Realize that this foundation is too thin and your mattress will sit too low.  Ruminate over possible solutions and the realize you can just lay down some spacers under the boards to pop them up an additional 4 inches:

Step 4:  Obtain a mattress of the right width but a few inches too long but still can just slip inbetween the headboard and footboard:

Step 5:  Make your bed up with new sheets and a quilt:

Hopefully my Mom, Nana, and Great-Nana all approve of my daughter's 'new' bed.  It may have skipped a couple of generations in storage but 5 generations is a pretty good run, right?

LLMs, Math, and being Human

LLM's have really been tearing it up in the field of math lately.  Really phenomenal stuff as my brother pointed out to me recently.

Here's the thing though, we tend to forget that math is actually a language invented by humans.  Sure, the most useful language - the language of logic, the language of science.  But just like writing clear prose, people who are good at it tend to be smart people. So, we feel especially threatened when LLMs sound human or do math!

However, since the LLM's already blew us away with their ability to write clear expository essays - of course math was next.  Those same underlying connections between the tokens of language that enable it to strip away the fluff and get at the foundations of the relationships between words and ideas in language is exactly what math needs too.

Now, we must think about what it means to be good at being human if some of our core skills are being eclipsed by machines.  Emotions, intuition, the absurd, the irrational?  Nick Cave has often written that music is at its most powerful in its original form:  in-person performances where the group of humans on stage is in emotional resonance with the audience.  

My role as a teacher has never been clearer (or more difficult).  I can't pretend like my primary job is to explain the physics cleanly and in a well scaffolded way.  Really, I am there to make sense of the relationship a person can have to physics:  the beauty of it, the way it can transform and sharpen your thinking, the impact it has had and will have on society.  In a way, share my own emotional response to physics with my students.  This was probably always true, but it was never as clear to me as now. 

A Primer for Today's Nobel Prize in Physics

 

1930	Pauli proposes the existence of an undiscovered subatomic particle to save the conservation laws (certain subatomic reaction appear to violate conservation of momentum and energy)
1930	Photomultiplier tube is invented.  Allows for the detection of single photons via the photoelectric effect and a cascade of accelerating potentials for subsequent generations of electrons which produces an electrical signal big enough to detect a single photon event.
1932 1938	Fermi names Pauli’s proposed particle a “neutrino” to distinguish it from the nucleon “neutron” which has just been discovered. Fermi wins Nobel Prize.
1934	Cherenkov discovers the radiation released by a faster-than-light particle (peaks in the blue).  Note: this is faster-than-local light, not light-in-a-vacuum speed (which cannot be surpassed; light in media travels slower than light in a vacuum).  Cherenkov radiation is like a sonic boom but for light rather than sound.
1945	Pauli wins Nobel Prize
1956	Neutrinos are discovered experimentally (with photomultiplier tubes detecting gamma rays released when neutrinos collide with a proton in a water molecule)
1970’s	Neutrinos are adopted into the Standard Model as a fundamental particle (not a composite particle) alongside quarks, electrons, and photons.
1988 2010	Halzen proposes building the IceCube detector where compressed ice in Antarctica is used instead of water.  A cubic kilometer is necessary to detect these high energy cosmic neutrinos. Drilling the array of boreholes with photomultiplier tubes embedded in Antarctica is finished.  Neutrinos are detected by photomultipliers responding to the Cherenkov radiation emitted by faster-than-light subatomic particles produced by neutrino-proton collisions.
2026	Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin”

For more:

https://icecube.wisc.edu/

Dreams, New School Years, and Empty Nesting

 I just started my 24th year of teaching last month.  Every year since the first I have had back-to-school inspired dreams.  Subconscious letting me know I am nervous or something I suppose. 

Not this year.

The trick you ask?  Well, spend August moving both kids out of the house and onto their respective college campuses - that'll do it.  

Instead, I had a dream that I woke up in a house somewhat like my parents' and, upon exiting the room I had been asleep in, I tripped over an unevenness in the ground.  Upon inspection, there was a toddler-sized Sebastien (Maybe 3?) sleeping face-down on the carpeted floor right in front of my door.  Looking around, I spied Isabelle lying a bit more comfortably with a pillow she'd brought out before she fell asleep keeping an eye on her brother.  I was just starting to wonder why they were so young and where we were exactly when I woke up to an empty-feeling house...

Home Repairs: A How-to Guide

 When I find something in need of repair around the house:

I do the following:

1.  Watch about 3-4 youtube videos that give you a false sense of confidence as to your ability to execute this particular home repair.  Now let those videos stew in your subconscious for a few weeks.

2.  Gather your materials - this phase usually takes me 2-3 months; you don't want to skimp on your mis-en-place!

3.  Once everything is set, revisit your favorite of the youtube videos.  Get nervous about the task now that it is right before you.

4.  Delay as long as honor and personal pride will allow.

5.  Do it quickly and move on without another thought.

(optional: 6. blog about it)

Coast-to-Coast

Only one week apart in time, but a continent apart in space!

 

West Coast:  Rideouts get together on the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz:

East Coast: Kuos get together on the Atlantic Ocean in Old Saybrook:

On the west coast, a 5K was run by some dudes who look like they might be related:

Unsurprisingly, we finished in reverse age order!

On the east coast, I was asked to make back-to-back paellas:

Assisted by Irene's second cousin once removed who speaks French and went to Carnegie Mellon.  Small world, huh?

LLMs really get me!

 Often I rely on autofill to browse to a site I go to frequently.  Then, if it doesn't work, the first search hit is usually what I am looking for.  Today I did this for this very blog.  Now, of course, sometimes you get an AI answer.  Well, look at this on-the-nose summary:

Little Miss Muffet

A new experience for me thanks to a gift from a former student (Thanks, JM!).  It was easier than making beer but fairly labor intensive.  

Scooping the curds from the whey

Pressing the curds into cheese in the background, whey soup in the front

Drying out the hunks of cheese

Cheese made this way is somewhere on the cottage cheese to mozzarella spectrum.  

So far, I've eaten the cheese plain, in a sandwich, on a hamburger, on a salad.... who knew?
 

I also have a lot of whey I need to make use of.  (Not a sentence I have ever constructed before)

Am I the outlier or am I just old school?

As long as I can remember, when writing down the time by hand, I write the hour big and the minute as a superscript to that.  I must have been taught this somewhere along the way?  But when I do this on the board for my classes, my students have to puzzle it out - sometimes only figuring out what those cryptic numbers are months into the school year.

Note:  my school has very odd start and stop times for our teaching periods.

Class starts at 12:48 and ends at 1:34!

When I am observed by administration they always note "Mr. Rideout has an agenda posted on his board: Great teaching technique!"  However, what they don't know is that I post the agenda for myself or else I might just tell stories from the Viscotek days or the vineyard all block!

School Projects, Old Blogs, Great Minds?

Recently, Isabelle shared a project she made for one of classes (the assignment was the make an accurate map using specialized software - the details are a bit fuzzy for me).  

In any case, as soon as I saw it, I thought - this reminds me of an old blog post of mine!

(for the record, she got an A and they asked if they could use it as an exemplar in future classes)

I am Iron Chef!

 I thought these words to myself as I victoriously incorporated the 'suprise' vegetables from our local CSA.

Not knowing beforehand is part of the fun!  The victorious feeling of a successful incorporation makes me feel powerful.

As I was designing dinner plans around the latest veggies, I realized I was living IRL a kind of version of the classic, OG cook-off show, "Iron Chef".

Although, I have not watched many (if any) of the subsequent popular spin-offs, we did watch the original, highly-stylized Japanese show when it was circulating here in the States (repeat shows dubbed over in the early 2000's?).

K-Drama Drama

 The other day I logged into my streaming app and got the following distressing news:

What is this??  Four days to find out if the Sovereign of the Spirit World is going to get back together with the mortal world's most dashing general??? How am I going to make it?

Technically this show is a C-Drama since it is Chinese not Korean, but I lump my J's and C's into K's.  I mean, if a show has the requisite moves, it's a k-drama to me:

-the wrist grab

-the camera pan-out (from multiple angles!) while the leads stand about 5 feet apart, stationary, gazing intensely into each other's eyes.

-a chaste piggy-back ride (usually gratuitous to the plot)

-a focus on food, especially the slurping of noodles

-a drunken confession

-a sudden, impulsive, un-signaled kiss which the other the other person unexpectedly melts into, only to have one of them push the other away in denial

-the 'hold your hand (or grab your arm) suddenly while I'm sleeping' move

-the over-arching stretching of the audience's emotions by thwarting the romantic pairing at the heart of the show because one (or both!) of the leads thinks they are not good enough or will ultimately hurt or put in harm's way the other one (with good reason such as:  they are from a different time period, a different level of society, they are undying and the other is mortal, they are an alien, a goblin, a grim reaper, sworn-to-kill-you-because-you-are-the-enemy (or the child of an enemy), they are in the middle of a body-swap incident and so not who they appear, they are actually a cat or a fox or something - in other words, the usual stuff we all have to deal with)

-over-the-top emotive soundtrack (examples here and here)

-the mandatory flashback sequence of 'all those signs I missed but the audience noticed' as well as always backing up a full scene at the start of a new episode

I remember my mother reading these derivative, unoriginal romance novels when I was a kid and then, many years later, my mother-in-law watching various C-Dramas (she even told me confidently once that I would like them).  I thought "what is wrong with them?" 

Over ten years ago, for reasons I can no longer recall, I secretly watched my first K-drama:

My First

My heart raced, I cried, I didn't understand what was happening, I stayed up all night binging episodes in the corner of the living room after the fam had gone to bed.  Little did I know it was just the start of my K-drama journey.

Now, I'm proud and out.  I've thought about doing a top 10 list for K-dramas but I thought I would first make this post and see how it sits with me.  Younger Ken mortified, Current Ken bemused for sure but what about Older Ken?  I'll have to ask him when he reads this post in a couple of years...

By the way, Younger Ken - don't be so quick to judge your own mother and mother-in-law!

My latest

Electric Field Aura?

The other day, I was doing the old 'disco-plasma-ball can use its electric fields to light a fluorescent bulb up' demo (probably my favorite demo of the year) when WH asked if he could snap a picture.  Later, I saw that he was using it as his screensaver on his phone.

You can't see it, but I am, of course, muttering an evil inflected 'Muh Ah Ah Ahh" (as requested).

The old day job can still be fun!

Monet, Wenders, and Komorebi

Last year, I saw beautiful poem of a movie by one of my favorite directors:

The ending scene defines a very Japanese word:

Of course, the same culture that gave us the Haiku poetry form would have a word capturing something so ephemeral.

Today, in the MFA, I happened to catch an explainer about Monet that referenced this concept (although not the word itself) in the context of his fascination with Japanese art.

Aha, I thought - of course - the master of light in nature would be chasing komorebi :

Time: Ephemeral

Each Instant of Life Passes,

Real or Imagined?

Knight Rider, Education, and Me

 

In the 80's, there was a period of time where Knight Rider was pretty much the coolest thing, like, ever!  With its talking car and iconic soundtrack, it was a huge international success.  I, of course, watched my fair share back in the day.  However, I have never felt the hankering to go back to check it out in the streaming world.  Irene, however, is systematically working her way through all the 80's hits and so I am hearing the soundtrack again. (for the record, the little I have watched does not encourage me to recommend it to the uninitiated).  It is a cultural touchstone for everyone around my age though so I can confidently reference it to a peer casually and be assured they will get the reference. 

For instance, Michael Knight is known to work for "The Foundation", so if I hear those words, my first thought will be of KITT and Hasselhoff.  I had forgotten the full name was actually "The Foundation for Law and Government" (yikes!).

Now, let's go back to 2008 when I was a new hire in Wayland and my mentor (fellow physics teacher PS) was giving me a tour of the campus.  When we got to the faculty lounge, there was a parent representative from the local fundraising organization :

Me being me, when the dude from the organization said "I'm here from the Foundation", I quickly responded with "I love the work you've done with Michael Knight".  PS busted into a surprised chuckle as the parent searched his memory for a teacher named Michael Knight that they've supported with a grant in recent years...

Oh, I'm still proud of that one...

Chess Rap 2026

This may be the end of an era...

Video creds to JM!

A Sweet Thank You

 Through the years, I have gotten a few cookies as thank you's from students - but rarely have they spanned so widely across the curriculum as these from KT:

In case you can't tell, it's a rocket ship (suspiciously similar to Veritasium's rocket ship!), a Wheatstone bridge circuit, and a free body diagram.  I ate the free body diagram one arrow at a time but I had to do it quickly since it started accelerating away once I broke the equilibrium...

Immigrant Moms Get the Job Done

 

 I am the son of an immigrant Mom

My wife is the daughter of an immigrant Mom

I was 21 when I saw this movie that showed me the richness of the melting pot that is the USA.

I didn't even know there were Indians in Mississippi nor that there were Indians from Uganda (!)

This Mamdani fella has been making the news.

I heard he has an immigrant Mom too.

Today, I found out his immigrant Mom is the director of that movie