Every now again I get an email from DarkSyde, who writes for DailyKos. He wanted to write about supernovae and specifically neutrinos and Supernova 1987A, and asked what I knew. I told him I studied 87A for my PhD so I have maybe a little inside info. 
His blog post is now up at DK. It’s a pretty concise description of the goings-on in the core of an incipient exploding star (I’ll have more details — and the somewhat grim aftermath — in my book Death from the Skies! this October), and he ties it in with Bill Foster, a professional physicist running for Congress in Illinois.
You read that right. Foster is an actual scientist, and he wants to help run the government. He has a picture of Fermilab up on his main page and everything. How cool is that?
Head on over there and take a look; what better way is there to spend a Sunday morning?
February 17th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Re. Foster: It’s too bad I live in IL Con. District 13 instead of 14
It was 14 that elected Hastert, repeatedly, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. (From the people I’ve talked to, it sounds like Jim Oberweis (R) is the lead candidate. Aside from the (R) bit, he also has name recognition in the region — he’s the current owner of Oberweis Dairy.)
February 17th, 2008 at 10:52 am
There is also Rush Holt (D, NJ), who is a physicist, formerly of Princeton’s plasma lab.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Wow! Intelligent people running for public office?
What’s next? The apocalypse?
Gary 7
February 17th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I asked on DS’s diary:
Does the spike lasting “just a few seconds” 160,000 years after it started represent any kind of spreading-out, or was the initial event of the same duration?
and DS suggested you might know the answer.
Thinking a bit more on it, I wonder whether the (spatial) width of the initial event is big enough that the time between the closest and most distant parts of the sphere translates to any measurable time - whether we could, with sufficiently sensitive instruments, see a double peak. Or whether we’re picking up signal from the whole initial sphere, so there’s a shape to the arriving peak that reflects the sphere. But mostly: what was the duration of that initial creation of neutrinos, and does anything in a couple hundred thousand years spread the signal out at all?
Thanks.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
The dailyKOS mud slings and and are too far left for me too stomach. Maybe if they did balanced reporting and articles, it’d be worth it.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Too bad we don’t have a scientist running in Texas!
February 17th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Good luck to Bill Foster, it’s always nice to see someone with a science background running for office. The anti-science types are over represented in all areas of government right now so I hope Mr. Foster starts a trend.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
DailyKos isn’t a news site, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a liberal blog that offers views on current events and raises money for progressive candidates.
I wish I could vote for Bill Foster, but I live next door to his district. Jim Oberweis has been running for office for so long, that I’m concerned that people might vote for him out of sympathy.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Having complete Luddites run the government is bad, but it doesn’t follow that electing a scientist to Congress is actually good. I mean, Ron Paul and Bill Frist are doctors, and look at how well they worked out.
February 17th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
“I mean, Ron Paul and Bill Frist are doctors, and look at how well they worked out.”
True. Congressman John Barrasso (R-WY) is behind that bill allowing handguns for National Park visitors and he’s…..a doctor! (Or maybe medical doctor and “scientist” are sometimes polars).
February 17th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I wanted to use the email to give you the tip about this BBC story… but your spam infested contact looked rather unfriendly.
I’m so dissapointed with the BBC, their Science reporter … Helen Briggs, from Boston… makes a classic galaxy-solar system confusion.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7249884.stm
Title:
‘Hundreds of worlds’ in Milky Way
Excepts from the article:
“New evidence suggests more than half the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way could have similar planetary systems.”
“There may also be hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System, astronomers believe.”
BAD BBC!!!!
February 17th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I live in the 14th, and I’m behind Foster. I was supporting his opponent, John Laesch, in the primary, but I confess I wasn’t really paying attention. Laesch lost to Hastert in ‘06, and apparently I’m the only liberal in the county who acknowledges that his 40-60 loss to Hastert was very, very impressive considering he had less than 1/10 of Hastert’s budget.
I’m worried about Oberweis, though; he’s got name recognition and the radio station where I work part-time has been running Hastert’s “I support Jim Oberweis” commercial.
I have no idea how or why Hastert was so popular in this district in ‘06, when even the Republicans who attended the town hall meetings indicated they were sick of him.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I’m in the Illinois 6th, can’t vote for him either but I would like to. I am on the border of the 13th district and we had Judy Biggert for a representative for a while before we got gerrymandered back. She’s a one of those rare republicans-one that it is worth voting for. She jumped in to help Fermilab even though it isn’t in her district. Our representative, Peter Roskam is one of those Wheaton loons and is still working on flag burning or gay marriage or something.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
[…] Lorenzo wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptEvery now again I get an email from DarkSyde, who writes for DailyKos. He wanted to write about supernovae and specifically neutrinos and Supernova 1987A, and asked what I knew. I told him I studied 87A for my PhD so I have maybe a … […]
February 17th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The latest episode of History Channel’s “The Universe” was about supernovae and covered 1987A relatively extensively. Maybe some educated people look down on this show and see it as a “puff piece”. I think it’s a pretty good show considering the alternatives. I had no idea Betelgeuse was (relatively) close to going supernova.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:22 am
“Wow! Intelligent people running for public office?
What’s next? The apocalypse?
Gary 7″
I think there are a lot of intelligent people in public life you don’t get through and ivy league law school being a idiot(at least not unless the school is named after you) I think the issue is lawyer while it some case like public defenders are very community minded people that work on principles and you could say the same for prosecutors since neither really make that much money but both have strong personal reason to be there. Most lawyer that go to law school do it for the money and those are the kinds that we have in congress right now. They care about number 1 and thats all thats not to say they aren’t smart but I do think it is to say they are uninformed and lean on there staffs to much rather than having a good grasp of the issues on there own. It Scary how often it turns on that Congressmen and women haven’t even read what they are voting on. Scary stuff
I’m glad we have physicist running for congress I just hope he doesn’t forget how to think on his own when he gets there. Freshmen congressmen tend to give up ghost early at once its gone theres not much hope.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:19 am
@Danezia
I read that BBC story too: I think you’ve skipped over the significant word “also” in that sentence you quote. To me it seemed quite clear that the author knew the difference between our solar system and our galaxy.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I’m glad my congressman is Rush Holt. His bumper stickers read “My congressman IS a rocket scientist.”
February 18th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
@AI…
In the original story (saved a copy… in case you would want to read it yourself)… the author clearly made a confusion between galaxy and solar system.
I may not be a native english speaker but I’m not that dumb…
HINT!
You should have noticed the title change of the article from:
‘Hundreds of worlds’ in Milky Way
to
Planet-hunters set for big bounty
Why would somebody change the article title in less than a day if everything was ok?
February 19th, 2008 at 1:58 am
The BBC article is a report on the AAAS meeting…
It summarizes at least two talks. The 1st by Michael Meyer, describes the Spitzer results that BA describes in another blog entry: Earths may be common in the galaxy. (don’t know how to make a link) The second talk was by Alan Stern discussing how many undiscovered planets there might be in the Kuiper Belt and possibly in the Oort Cloud.
There is also a section quoting Debra Fischer on the “Goldilocks Zone”, but I can’t tell if this was a talk or an interview.
Anyway, the 2nd paragraph (after the lead-in) is a summary of Meyer’s remarks and the 3rd paragraph is a summary of Stern’s. The reported is definitely *not* confusing the solar system with the galaxy.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:27 am
If I recall right wasn’t it ‘DarkSyde’ or ‘DailyKos’ that posted a spectauclar artwork of Gliese 581c (or link to same?) when it was first discovered and - we now think wrongly - considered to be potentially habitable?
One the BA in turn linked to or posted on?
So they’re not all politics …
Sane and intelligent politicians in the USA - I wish em all the best & hope, really hope, they do better than many in the world expect based on past history ..
I can think of a few better things to do on Sunday - or any morning than sit in front of a computer ..
(Not knocking blogs or ‘puters mind you jus’ sayin’ ..)