It appears that geologist have finally discovered kryptonite...Yes, you heard right.

It's not really a glowing green mineral, but it has almost the same chemical formula given in the most recent Superman movie. The real mineral name will be jadarite, named after the town in Serbia nearby where it was discovered.

I wonder what the mineral name for dilithium crystals would be?

So I've been reading this Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion. Kelly started reading it and recommended it to me. I really like the book so far. It's basically a book about why everybody should be atheists, or putting it another way, believing in a personal god is just downright silly. I don't consider it a detailed critique of religion...more like a common sense "when you really think about it" kind of book. For example, Dawkins talks about the idea of "Religion" and "Science" being separate but equal, and neither can ask or answer questions about the other. Dawkins points out that this is a line of reasoning to pacify or pander to religious people, and it doesn't work in practice. If there really was a way to scientifically prove that a diety exists, or that miracles happen, or that prayer works, you can be absolutely sure that religious people would jump on it. And if science shows that prayer doesn't work (a test study actually showed that people were worse off if they were prayed for!!!), then religious people claim that Science can't test Religion. In theory, it sounds like a great mantra for dealing with controversial Science vs. Religion questions, but in practice nobody follows it.

I could go on, but you get the picture. The book looks at some basic concepts about the idea of God from a practical viewpoint. I've said for a long time that religion always boiled down to pure faith. You either believe or don't believe and there will never be enough evidence to suggest one option over the other. I've always thought that this makes a person's religion more important and special, because it takes a conscious decision. I think that Dawkins tries to make the same case, but then takes it one step further by saying that if it really does boil down to faith, then why bother! He also mentions that you can't force faith. If you don't believe in something, then all the church in the world won't get you into heaven, so why bother.

Whether you agree with the book or not, it definitely makes you think. Several parts have resonated with ideas I've come up with on my own, but I've never really taken them seriously before. I'd strongly recommend it to anybody, religious or not.

The only problem I've found so far it Dawkins' claim that God must be a part of the universe. If he is, then he must be within the realm of scientific exploration. But I'm pretty sure that all Christians believe that God is external to the physical universe (or else how could He create it?)

I also recommend reading the introduction to Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. In that chapter he explains how he changed from a fundamentalist Christian into a full-fledged athiest because he became a Biblical exegesis scholar (studying and translating the original manuscripts, which are actually copies of copies of copies, etc.). The more he studied the original manuscripts the more he became convinced that the book we know of as the Bible is not really the "Word of God" as we are told . It's a fascinating read.

New White Stripes! Fuck Yeah!!!

http://jasper.webvomit.com/?p=1061

I read an interesting article about Lord Kelvin's 1862 calculation of the age of the earth. Assuming that the Earth is just a cooling ball of rock, he could figure out how long it took to cool from the melting temperature of rocks (about 3000 degrees C) to the current heat flux at the surface. He calculated that the Earth was about 100 million years old (and no more than 400 million years old). Of course, all the geologists at that time completely disagreed with that number, although they had no way of figuring out absolute age on their own. Then about 40 years later, once radioactive elements were discovered (and specifically that radioactivity can generate heat), the geologists figured out where Lord Kelvin went wrong. Kelvin assumed there were no internal heat sources in the Earth, and if there were, the Earth would be much older. It only takes about a 10 km layer of granite with a normal concentration of radioactive elements to account for the current heat flux of the Earth.

I never understood this explanation. I didn't believe that there is enough radioactivity to compensate for the Earth's heat flux. If so, I should be flooded with radiation all the time. Well, in this article I read, the author showed that radioactivity doesn't actually account for the Earth's heat flux. Obviously, there isn't a 10 km layer of granite covering the surface of the Earth. And if you include radioactivity into Lord Kelvin's calculations, it only increases the age of the Earth by about 50 million years! Yes, radioactivity is a source of internal heat, but it is not that large. But geologist at the time were so excited to prove the Earth was so much older than Lord Kelvin said, they didn't worry about actually calculating it. And this "myth" has been passed down the years.

What really explains the age of the Earth is convection. Convection of the mantle transports heat from the core to the crust without diffusion. Back in the day, one of Lord Kelvin's students, John Perry, modified his mentor's calculations to include convection, and got an age of around 2.2 billion years (much closer to the actual age of 4.6 billion years). But this solution was never picked up by geologists because (A) radioactivity was a much higher-profile topic, (B) it was considered just a squabble between physicists, and (C) it makes a much less entertaining story.

It looks like ASU has deleted my AFS space, which included a my homepage and some image files. I'm pretty sure I have saved copies of all of those, but it sucks that they just deleted everything without telling me first. I know I'm not a student anymore, so they don't have to make webspace available to me, but at least let me so that I can save everything.

I haven't posted in a while, and a lot has happened. I've been pretty busy with my classes and getting lectures/labs together. But I've also accepted a postdoc offer. I'll be working at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., starting this summer. It will last for two to three years. During that time, I'll be looking at really old organic matter trapped in meteorites, interplanetary dust particles, and cometary material.