It's all too complex for me

I have to admit that my maths is pretty poor. I can cope with basic algebra, I can do quadratic equations and if I think about it long enough I can differentiate and integrate. Where it all goes wrong for me is that bit about complex numbers. I mean, i = sqrt/-1? What's that all about, eh? I mean, I can't even find the ascii code that does square root, that's how bad it is.

However, I am rather in awe of the mandelbrot set, that rather fantastic fractal function which gives rise to this bad boy here.

However, that pales into insignificance when you see what these folks have been getting up to. They've done some extra mathematical wrangling and applied an extra algorithm or two to create an approximation of the 3D mandelbrot set. The results are somewhat breathtaking, to say the least.

To be honest, it kind of reminds me of the growth in the centre of that dodgy orange I talked about last month - while the overall shape is rather different, the fractal nature of said growth could not be denied. If I knew more about how to do the mathematics I'd be very interested to know what possible numerical wrangling could come up with a similar model.

In the meantime, here's one possible version of the 3D mandelbrot set. Pretty, isn't it?

Crunch! Bang! Smash!

A Higgs Boson goes into a church, but is stopped by the priest.
"I'm sorry, you can't come in here," the priest says.
"Why not?" asks the Higgs. "Without me you can't have Mass."

...

Is that tumbleweed I see rolling across the screen?

Anyway, the Large Hadron Collider has been doing it's thing for nearly a week and so far no bits of bread have fallen into the mechanism, nor has a black hole swallowed Switzerland. Nor has a hypothetical Higgs appeared with the sole intention of wrecking the machine just to remain undiscovered, etc. etc. What has happened is that some collisions have taken place, and the folks at CERN are now starting to crunch through some data.

However exciting this may be, it could pale into insignificance compared to the massive collision that is taking place as we speak. Oh, did I mention it was on a galactic scale? It would appear that a "dark galaxy" - a barely discernible yet rather huge cloud of hydrogen (with rather a lot of matter within it to hold it together) is colliding with our own galaxy. Apparently this is not the first time it's happened; the very same dark galaxy did this around 70 million years ago. How cool is that?

A mammoth problem

Here's a story in the BBC about mammoth poo and how it provides clues as to why they became extinct. Well, it doesn't actually say why they became extinct, it just says that a meteor can be ruled out.

The thing is, I know the answer. I was already aware of elephants having certain... erm... needs, as this video shows, and some time ago it led me to this inescapable conclusion: the mammoth died out because it didn't reproduce. Basically the hairy blighters spent too much time playing with themselves and not actually having sex.

Then some bright spark invents the spear and lo! Humans kill off the mammoths, who are distracted by their own masturbatory antics, and yet another species dies out.

World Hunger and World "Leaders"

Well, the G8 leaders have bottled it once again. Ban Ki-Moon and Jaques Diouf of the UN have been addressing the World food summit and of all people, only Silvio Berlusconi of the G8 leaders have actually turned up to see what was going on. Do you suppose he got lost? Well, that's rather unfair, actually; the man has actually done something commendable for a change.

The former UN head, Kofi Annan criticised the G8 leaders most vociferously. And Ban Ki-Moon and Diouf actually took part in a Even the Pope got involved. Incidentally, that website is called "TOTALCATHOLIC.COM" - surely the next step in Action Movies? 'His name was Tony. He had a mission. He was a TOTAL CATHOLIC.'

What can we, as poor, simple folk do? Well, in the west we could try switching to a vegetarian diet, after all the production of cattle, fowl and other meaty products is actually really inefficient way of getting food down our necks. We could try to switch off the odd light here and there to reduce energy consumption (and indirectly reduce climate change). That's all a matter of personal choice, of course, and I would hate to be the one to force anyone to make that choice. While I am vegetarian, I do forget to switch the odd thing off (if you do read this, you might argue that I should have switched my computer off. Ha bleedin' ha.) What we can all do though is to visit http://www.1billionhungry.org/ and give it a click. Listen to what Diouf has to say in his video. Sign the petition. Perhaps something will be done.

Super!

Sorry it's been so long. I've been busy writing a review about smoking and the myocardium which may or may not get accepted some time next year. Plus the wonky shoulder and codeine have ganged up on me and caused me to dribble like a baby for various reasons. However, I'm doing a little better now and feel up to ranting for a bit here.

And what a rant it is, too, even if I say so myself. First of all came the Trafigura / Carter-Ruck thing, which really got my goat. In case you've been living under a rock, this was where Paul Farrelly MP asked a question in the House Of Commons, Trafigura found out about it and called in Carter-Ruck to take out a super-injunction against the press to prevent even a mention of a question being asked.

Needless to say, once the general public got wind of this (through Private Eye and Wikileaks, among others) Carter-Ruck and Trafigura quietly withdrew their injunction and denied any attempt to prevent freedom of speech.

But then another story in the Eye caught my attention. Now, I've linked to the Simon Singh affair before in this blog but briefly, said protagonist suggested that the Chiropractic Association's claim that chiropractor's practices were little more than quackery (my words). Specifically, Singh suggested that they promoted "bogus" treatments. The response was a slap from Justice Eady and a libel award in favour of the CA. Lord Justice Laws has since allowed Singh to appeal, but such is the WHOLLY BLOODY STUPID nature of the UK's libel laws that even if Singh appeals he will be tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket.

In a similar case, one Dr Peter Wilmshurst has also been given a legal kicking regarding his gentle query as to NMT's cardiac procedure (thanks, Dr Aubrey Blumsohn).Yet more cases seem to be popping up daily.

Now that David Nutt has been given the chop by the UK government for stating a few well-researched points about legal and illegal recreational drugs one can't help but feel that science is being stifled in the UK. No longer can we trust to fact: should a statement of fact be disputed purely as a matter of opinion as seems to be the case with many of these legal wranglings, how long before we revert to the dark ages and place our faith with priests, imams and witchdoctors? A tad extreme, perhaps? I'm not so sure these days.