To What End, Rainbows?

I was driving away from the house with my boys to run some errands.  I was silently ruminating about how we had managed to get loaded up in the car right when the rain got significantly heavier when I looked up in the sky and saw a clearly defined rainbow.

I find rainbows exciting, and that particular rainbow stripped my rain induced annoyance away.  My eldest finds rainbows exciting too, as was evidenced by his elation when I pointed it out to him in the sky after we stopped at a light.  I asked him what colors he saw.  He said, "Blue, orange, yellow and red."  I'm not sure if I got his order right or not, but he enumerated all but purple (the purple portion was rather dim besides).  He was also quick to point out that blue was his favorite.

Rainbows are one of those great science treats out there.  Kids love them.  Adults can love them, too, if they remember to.  Simple droplets of water in the air offer a natural glimpse of the prismatic nature of white light, begging for someone to look and wonder, "How?"

It turns out some notable people started wondering how quite a while ago.  A quick trip to Wikipedia confessed a litany of names, beginning with Aristotle, and including an Arab physicist (Ibn al-Haytham), a Persian philosopher (Ibn Sīnā), a Chinese scholar (Shen Quo), a Persian astronomer (Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi), the French natural philosopher René Descartes, and Sir Isaac Newton (let's just call him a scientist... he had he wore too many hats to list them all) all did their part in furthering scientific explanations of rainbows.  Many other didn't make my far from exhaustive list.  So, if a rainbow has ever inspired your wonder and curiosity, you're in some good company.

One of the things I find most fascinating about rainbows is their natural gratuity.  There are many beautiful phenomena in nature that inspire us to ask questions.  Yet most of them have a rather clear purpose.  From the amazing star forming regions in Orion's belt where the most fundamental necessity for our kind of life, the creation of a star, is being repeated time and again, to the amazing color spread of a male peacock's feathers, carefully crafted through evolutionary time to woo potential mates, beauty comes with purpose, there is function to form.  There is no obvious useful purpose served by rainbows.  Rainbows are a special treat endowed by a Universe that rewards those who know how to forget getting soaked long enough to appreciate a little bit of color in life.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Do Dinosaurs Eat People?

While getting my boys into their room to put them to bed the other night, my eldest asked me, “Do dinosaurs eat people, Daddy?”  I saw a teachable moment I could seize on and responded, “Dinosaurs and people never lived together.”  He, of course, wanted to know why not.  I explained to him that all the dinosaurs were gone long before any people were around.  I told him that millions of years ago, a large comet struck the Earth and made it dark everywhere, which made the plants die, so that the dinosaurs didn’t have anything to eat.

I also told him that little creatures survived underground, and that they eventually became us.  I realized my over-simplification and decided to risk pushing the explanation beyond his years (I have always believed it better to err on the side of providing too much information to children rather than too little).  I rephrased, explaining that the small creatures that survived evolved – that they changed a little bit at a time, over and over again – until some of them turned into people.  He was satisfied enough with my description to eventually drift off to sleep without one more, "Why...?"

I thought back to the trip we took to the California Academy of Sciences a few months earlier,  and remembered the large Tyrannosaurus Skeleton Reproduction (pictured above) looming by the entrance.  My eldest had been amazed by it when we went inside - and so was I.  It is still amazing to me that such creatures existed.  Everything represented by that modeled set of bones - the depth of time that has passed in our planet's history, the sheer grandness of such a large predator, the fragility of life, and the ability of science to help us learn it all - will never cease to amaze.

The ironic thing was that the next night I saw a bit of Jurassic Park on television.   The part I saw included the scene where one of the park employees was eaten off of the portable toilet by the Tyrannosaurus Rex he was hiding from.  So maybe I should have told my inquisitive son that people and dinosaurs had never lived together – yet!  I’m kidding.  Really.

Image Credit: Me :-)

Farewell Discovery, and We Thank You

 

“And, Houston, Discovery, for the final time, wheels stop,” Shuttle Commander Steven Lindsey announced over the radio as the Space Shuttle Discovery coasted to a stop after a perfect  touch down on the tarmac at the Kennedy Space Center, signaling the beginning of the end of an era.

Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, which went on to become one of the most successful scientific instruments of all time, not only because of the wealth of data derived from it, but also because of its ability to capture images that truly captured the public’s imagination.

Discovery picked up the pieces after the loss of the Challenger, being the first return flight after the hiatus.  It was also the first shuttle to return to space after the loss of the Columbia.  It was the first shuttle to fly with a female pilot (Eileen Collins), was the last shuttle to dock with MIR, and returned a national hero from the glory days of the space program, John Glenn, to outer space.

Discovery played a vital role in the construction and supply of the International Space Station, and it launched several satellites and scientific instruments.

In total, Discovery flew 39 missions, more than any other in the fleet.  It also logged the most time in space, a full 365 days, and the longest distance traveled while in orbit, 149 million miles – a trip to the sun and halfway back.

After decommissioning, Discovery will be taken to the Smithsonian Institute where it will be put on display as a lasting reminder to us all of what is possible.  Even its name – Discovery – leaves us with a lasting legacy.

Image Credit: NASA via Wikipedia

Perception From Experience

I was driving home from the grocery store with both children in the back of the SUV, their obligatory free helium balloons bobbing in vivid color in my rear view mirror, when we came to a stop at a red light.  My eldest called out, "Polar Bear Crossing!"

I glanced over my shoulder at him, preparing to ask what he was talking about.  While initially dumbfounded, I got my answer as my eyes swept back to the front to check the light.  The bank on the corner had a bear logo, and a prominent advertising sign on the front lawn near the intersection.

Any time I viewed the Bank of the West sign, I fell victim to instant brand recognition out of past familiarity and commercial conditioning.  My son, on the other hand, was used to seeing traffic signs near intersections.  Seeing a sign with a large bear outline facing the opposite side of the street, coupled with his experience with human crosswalk and deer and cattle crossing signs, led him to the completely logically conclusion to watch out for bears, even in the middle of the city.

Though little experience with bears in developed areas probably played a role in the fact that I had never seen a bear crossing sign on that lawn, I will not sell short the influence of brand recognition.  My youngest, still resorting to frustrated screams as a form of communication to bridge the gap between his understanding and skills of articulation, started calling for his balloon as soon as he saw the Safeway sign from the parking lot.

One thing was certain:  I would never again miss the Polar Bear Crossing sign my son had pointed out.

Time in a Bottle

My eldest discovered an hourglass for the first time today. He had seen it, and even played with it, many times since taking it home from his first dentist appointment, but this was the first time he had seen its time pass a few yellow grains at a time. He propped himself against the bathroom counter and stared with intensity as the sand descended through the time managing bottleneck in the middle. The how and why question started to pour from him faster then I could answer. It was clear he had seen a familiar object from an entirely new perspective. He flipped the hourglass over and said, "It's going away," as he observed the sand in the top half of the timekeeper disappear. Needless to say, it was hard to pry him away to finish getting ready for bed.

Meanwhile my youngest was obsessed with delight over the small plastic caricature whale bath toy he found in the bathroom drawer. Every time my wife would wind it up and hold fast the small white knurled knob as she placed it in his hand, he would look with his trademark grin of devilish anticipation until the whale reached his hand; then his adorable boisterous laughter as the tail flipped up and down, rocking his hand. After a few iterations of this, his brother joined in, excitedly transferring the whale into his hand after it was wound so as to share in his excitement.

Then the proverbial wheels began to turn. The younger one looked at the freshly motionless whale in his hand and poked the tail with his other hand. The tail flipped a couple more times. He then focused on the small white knob, and tried in vain to turn it. He had observed how we made it function and tried to follow suit. We're afraid of the time where he turns his attention to door knobs.

R.I.P. NASA

The worst thing about the announcement was the timing. February 1st is the anniversary of the Shuttle Columbia disaster.

I saw the initial reports on Friday about the impending doom of the space program. I refrained from commenting here as I was hoping that leaked reports of the Administration's scientific shortsightedness were greatly exaggerated. With the release of the Federal Budget today, little choice remained. It is official, NASA's budget has a gaping hole where funding for the Constellation Program once rested.

For those who don't know the program by name, the Constellation Program was the future of America's manned space flight program. It was to encompass a new set of booster rockets and spacecraft that would first let us retire the shuttle fleet while remaining independently space-faring, and eventually lead people back to the Moon and eventually on to Mars. It was to be a visionary program bringing us back to the stars in earnest. It was.

With the shuttle fleet scheduled for only a handful more launches before mothballing, we will soon be in the position of depending on the Russians for all of our launches to the International Space Station. It's a sad state for astronauts from the only nation ever to put human feet on the moon to be relegated permanently to the shotgun seat. Not to mention the fact that Indian or Chinese astronauts could very well place the next set of footprints on the moon in the not too distant future (India intends on being space-faring in 2016). Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for humanity at large exploring the stars, but our drive to explore used to be a point of great national pride, and it's hard to watch it dissolve into apathy.

I've heard many people over the years question whether the expense and danger of spending people into space is worth it. I've often been one of those to retort things like, "We owe so much of the technology and standard of living we enjoy to the Space Program." I've said it, and meant it, many times. But the news of the budget cut made me really start looking at what we've gained from our astronauts. The list is longer than I ever imagined. In coming posts, I'll explore some of the notable examples, and references for discovering them.

Wishing Upon a Star

Last night I took my eldest son outside to see the Leonid meteor shower, hoping that it would be the predicted storm the news casters had promised earlier in the day. I hadn't figured that, at almost three-years-old, his attention would stay skyward for very long, but he was excited, and so was I. I gave him our ritual peak at Jupiter through my aging Dobsoinan reflector, and then got our naked eyes trained upward.

I saw two barely perceptible streaks in the constellation of Taurus, and pointed the spot out to my son as he sat bundled up and perched on my shoulders in the cold night air. Just then, a slightly brighter meteor transited near the same spot in the sky. I'm not sure that he saw it, but when I asked him if he'd seen the streak of light, he said yes.

My son's greatest fun for the night was to come from a non-celestial source. I caught sight of a white flash at the outer perimeter of my eyeglasses coming from behind my field of view in the open sky above our front porch. Thinking that a fireball was lighting up the sky, I quickly drew his attention to... a moth flying overhead. "Oh," I said, "it was just a bug." He laughed hysterically as he repeated, "It was just a bug!"

We stayed out a little longer, but didn't see any more shooting stars, though the moonless night and our dark skies provided a spectacular view of the heavens. My wife's first report of the observing session came from my son excitedly chanting, "Oh, it was just a bug!"

Later, after my son had gone to sleep, I stepped outside again in the bitter chill of the backyard at the predicted peak time of the shower. After observing for a while, I counted three meteors, none of which were much beyond the detection threshold. But I did spend some time staring with purpose at the Orion Nebula, Sirius, Aldebaran and a few other companions from my more avid observing days. I hadn't looked at a star chart in awhile, and I wasn't even sure what planets were slated to visible, but I instantly recognized the bright red dot hanging near the Southeastern horizon line on the ecliptic as Mars, mankind's next major frontier.

There was a time when I would have been disappointed by the nights observing sessions. The fireball that wasn't (coupled with the fact that I hadn't seen any real fireballs in the sky) was a bit disappointing. The shower's meteor count was far from spectacular. But the chance to share the night with an eager (and excitable) developing mind reminded me of why I started looking at the stars in the first place. The moth also reminded me that science is often a series of education missteps that must be taken in stride (which is much more easily done when accompanied by a child's honest laughter).

My son isn't ready for in depth conversations about defunct comets in Earth crossing orbits, like Tempel-Tuttle, giving rise to the natural fireworks of a meteor shower, but that promise is on the horizon. It is in the passing of an appreciation for the natural world around us to the next generation that we truly find that appreciation for ourselves. Passing on the ways of the Universe also serves to remind us of why we do science in the first place: the betterment of life, especially for those who come after us.