Wrenched Orion—Part 1

I wrote recently about how the stars appear to be points of light scattered on a distant sphere above us. Our eye perceives this phenomenon as if the stars are all the same (great) distance from us, when, in fact, their distance varies. As a result, the constellations appear to us to be two-dimensional planar figures, when they are really three-dimensional objects.

The two-dimensional shape we perceive is a result of viewing a constellation from only one point in space: Earth. If we could move to another point in space, the constellation would appear very different.

Let's consider a simple example. Suppose we had an imaginary constellation of eight stars arranged in a way that they formed the corners of a perfect cube. Here's how a three-dimensional cube is represented:

From a particular point in space eight stars might look like this:

If we used our imaginations (as the ancients did, to create the constellations), we might connect the stars (dots) and see this: It's a cube!

But we might also imagine these eight stars (from this same location in space) to form an object like this:

or even this:

Depending on our culture, we could discern many different objects from these eight stars, depending on how we imagine them to be connected.

But it gets even more fascinating. Suppose we were able to travel vast distances through space. Our perspective of the “cubic” arrangement of these eight stars would change. What if we were to travel to a location where we viewed the cube face-on. It would look like this:

where each of the four stars is hiding another one behind it. 

How the civilizations at this location would perceive this “cubic” constellation, we can only guess. But it's a reminder that the constellations we see have their three-dimensional stars arranged in a pattern that is unique to us, at our location in space.

More on Orion next time...

Deep Snow

The winter has brought too much snow. On one of my treks through the woods, I found this poor individual buried in the deep snow--only his hand protruding, asking for rescue. I was too late.

Old Trees Rule!

The chorus to John Prine's song “Hello in There” begins with, “Ya know that old trees just grow stronger...” The song is a poignant appeal that, while trees strengthen in their later years, “old people just grow lonesome,” so we should make an extra effort to acknowledge them when we encounter them on the street and say, “Hello in there.” Years ago I played Prine's records a lot, and was touched one day when my then-10-year-old son said that he went out of his way while walking downtown to say hi to old people.

Old trees do become more and more magnificent, as the years pass... especially giants like redwoods and sequoia (or oaks and poplars, here in Virginia). I have had the opportunity a couple of times to stand at the base of some of these patriarchs and feel awed by their massive trunks and humbled by how they soar up into the heavens. It makes me feel simultaneously small and grand, to be close to one. It seems a tragedy when one of these behemoths is toppled for furniture.

Trees are also a major source of the oxygen that we animals breathe. They do double duty by both absorbing carbon dioxide from the air (thus countering global warming) as they simultaneously exhaust that life-giving oxygen. We need them, and they are being cut down at a terrifying rate.

There's been much attention in recent years put to the benefits of trees and other vegetation, in countering the heavy load of CO₂ that we are dumping into the atmosphere. But what kind of vegetation extracts the most carbon? Should we protect those kinds of plants more than others? Are they more valuable to the planet (and us)?

It has been assumed that fast-growing young trees are more valuable than big, old trees for removing carbon. But a recent study tells a different story. An international team of researchers published an article in the scientific journal Nature, showing that old trees are not less productive than robust young trees, but significantly more so. Because elderly trees vigorously continue to add mass—even into their senile period—they soak up more carbon than the juveniles do... as much as three times more!

Since I'm rapidly headed into my senile period, I take comfort from the fact that my old woody buddies that surround me aren't slowing down. Maybe they can inspire me to resist the ravages of age and continue to thrive as they do. I think I'll go out and hug a big ol' tree.

An Early Virginia Winter Morn

This was taken by my friend Shell, with her new camera and artistic skills. Click to enlarge.

Narrow or Broad View?

An article several months ago in the Guardian presented an interesting symbol about someone attempting to predict future events: it contained a sketch of a person holding a flashlight, whose beam is shining out into the darkness—the dark representing the hidden future. The description with the illustration described that the holder of the flashlight could choose to focus the beam either into a narrow ray, or a wider cone. The narrower the beam, the brighter the light shone on any future object, and the more accurate a prediction might be. When the beam is widened, more of the future could be revealed, but less light is shown and therefore one's guess would be less accurate.

The article's main thrust was about one's hoping to be able to predict the future reliably (by shining that narrow beam on a potential forthcoming event), but then risking having some surprise event—lurking in the darkness outside the narrow beam—prove the prediction wrong. In order to avoid these surprises, the article described, one could widen the flashlight's beam and spot more potential future events, but only at the expense of a dimmer light beam and nothing being as distinct. It's sort of like a horse wearing blinders: it can concentrate on things straight ahead of it, but is blind to unexpected things to the side.

The image of choosing between the flashlight's narrow or wide beams stuck in my head for a couple of days. It spoke to me as a metaphor for more than just the topic of the article: futurology (the ability to predict future events based on present trends). I came to see the cone of light shining outward as an illustration of one's attention to life in general. If my attention is kept too narrow, my ability to respond to life's events may be well focused, but I can miss the wider picture. Like the horse wearing blinders, I may be able to focus clearly on what I wish to see, but by so doing, I can miss the bigger picture that life is presenting me.

Life is full of surprises. Although we like to think that we're on top of things and that we know what to expect (and thus make smart choices), that's usually not the case. More often than not, life tosses unexpected contingencies in our path, and we stumble over them. If we are too narrowly focused, we can get blind-sided by an event coming from the side that we never expected; an event that we were ill prepared for.

I guess, like many choices in life, it's a case of seeking an appropriate balance: sometimes we focus narrowly and deftly handle an expected event—like shooting an arrow right into the bulls-eye. At other times we should keep our senses open and broad—so we don't miss something that could be important. In either case, our motto could be: PAY ATTENTION!

Weird Icicles Three

Authentic Audio—Part 2

A few years ago MP3s were quite acceptable to most listeners—largely because of their convenience—but recently their status has plunged. MP3s use what is termed as a "lossy compression algorithm" (because they throw away 90% of the information). That word "lossy" has been jumped upon as indicating that the listener is being deprived of some crucial information when listening to an MP3. Isn't some of that discarded 90% important? Well, yes, it is a loss of data, but the vast majority of what is discarded, your ear would never detect anyway. Under only the most exacting listening environments would you be able to perceive the difference. However, for most of us, for most of the music we listen to, for most of the equipment we employ, we'd never miss the lost information. So an MP3 really is very close in quality to a CD, despite the current popular belief.

There are a few other relevant factors, however, that rarely get considered, when comparing MP3s to CDs. For one, the quality of the original recording process is of top priority; such as the excellence of the recording equipment, the placement of the recording microphones, the competency of the engineer doing the sound mixing, etc. If any of these are not handled with care, even a top quality CD will provide a pedestrian experience—and it happens quite frequently for recording companies whose top priority is to crank out and sell as many CDs as possible. Not all of them pay attention to these details—especially those aiming for MTV exposure. And then, there's the final criterion: Are you really listening to that music? Many people are so busy multitasking or otherwise not paying attention to their music, that they'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between an excellent CD and a mediocre one—let alone an MP3.

There is a similar belief that has arisen recently, for those who aspire to being audiophiles: why listen to a digital CD, when you can get the more "authentic" experience from an LP? This thinking comes from the fact that an analog recording gives the listener "everything," while a CD is a digital sample of the music. This reasoning is based on the following consideration: The CD recording process takes 44,000 samples per second, but is still not a continuous offering of the original music like analog is, so the CD (like the MP3) loses something, right? Well, true, for those who are able to hear sounds above 20 kHz—while most of us adults peter out by about 12 to 13 kHz. So, no, there's virtually nothing missing on a CD that your ear could ever discern. In fact, the best thing that is missing on a CD recording, when compared to an LP, is noise: those unpleasant artifacts introduced by the recording equipment or your playback system (such as pops and clicks due to dirt and imperfections on the LP surface or a worn needle).

But the digital CD recording is still sort of artificial, isn't it? After all, it's just a digital sample, not the whole analog signal. Some people declare that it lacks the "warmth" of a good LP. As I wrote above, there really is nothing missing that the human ear can discern. In fact, some experts say that it's likely what they are responding to is not a better sound, but the old familiar analog LP sound that has added things to it: low-frequency turntable "rumble" or other surface noise due to the stylus riding over imperfections on the record's surface.

I think that many people are susceptible to elitist audiophile suggestions. Our desire to acquire the latest and finest "improved" product, so we can stay a step or two ahead of the Acoustic Joneses, makes us vulnerable to the siren song of the marketplace. A high-quality music listening experience comes from far more than purchasing the latest audio fad and then convincing oneself that is the best yet (even when it's LP retro!). This attitude gives short shrift to simply developing good musical taste and attentively listening to what the artists intended to provide.