Future Tech: Quantum Redux

One of my favorite Physics topics was always "Particle in a Box." Mostly I like the name. It's just fun to say. This weekend I started explaining the concept to somebody before I got distracted on a tangent, but it got me thinking. Classical physics is nice, neat, and well buttoned up. Yet we are now entering uncharted territory in the Subatomic Realm. I have literally be in the thick of this acceleration, or Inflection point in the words of Raymond Kurzweil, who wrote an amazing book about the acceleration of technology development, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. He points out the incredible, and increasing rate or technological change dictates that it will soon be the dominating force of evolution in our lives.


10 years ago we sequenced the human genome. The biology front is certainly exciting. By some accounts, Craig Venter and his team have created a fully synthetic bacterium. Companies like Affymetrix, Illumina, and others have created rapid sequencing platforms we can use for countless applications. I used Affymetrix Arrays working with Justin Borevitz when he was at the Salk Institute to investigate Alternative Splicing. The company where I work, Cyntellect, has developed a line of Cellular Analysis Instruments which can be used for Stem Cell, and Cancer Applications which allows you to manipulate, analyze, and quantify cells used for therapeutic purposes, drug discovery, or drug production.


On the Neuroscience front, IBM already built Deep Blue, the first machine that could beat a grandmaster at chess. Now they are working on a machine, "Watson" to win at Jeopardy by fundamentally understanding natural language! We already have Autonomous cars that can handle urban and outdoor environments courtesy of Darpa, who also funded a project I worked on to build Soccer playing Segway Robots at the Neuroscience Institute a few years ago. I also happen to believe that in a short time a combination of Memristors, literally silicon neurons, and Quantum Computers will allow us to create systems which can process both logical, and analog problems with incredible capacity. 


Harnessing true AI, and cellular machinery, certainly is dependent on nano tech. The Space Elevator is now literally possible due to the strength of carbon nano tubes, which also promise to make incredibly efficient, and compact transistors. 3D holographic chips promise to revolutionize storage space abilities from todays amazing multi level DVD and Blue Ray Discs. MEMS machines are now being built using semiconductor manufacturing techniques. At Luxtera we worked on optical structures built directly into silicon, and built 40G optical cables incorporating holographic optimal inputs, and used a Mach Zender Interferometer to modulate the light. MEMS Accelerometers, Gyroscopes, and Oscillators, and other devices are incredibly cheap and have no moving parts, so they use very little power and rarely break. How do you think those Wii controllers last so long and are so cheap? How do you think a $100 8 Mega Pixel camera now has motion compensation built in?


So on to the Quantum world, and Modern Physics.


When I was a kid, somewhere around 10-12 my family rented an RV and we drove to Canada and Back. During this trip I got my hands on a first edition copy of The Illustrated Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. This book had a lot of content on matters of cosmology, the big bang and other classical phsyics questions. It also covered relativity, which was the first great non intuitive scientific theory, as well as the underpinnings of Quantum Theory. I believe this book triggered me to become deeply interested in fundamental physics, and later the whole evolution of Quantum Mechanics. From then on I was often found reading interesting, and cutting edge physics books. I never felt drawn into wanting to research, but felt that it was a fascinating subject. Later when I was 19, I took Quantum Physics with Vivek Sharma at UCSD. This guy was SO passionate about the subject, he had a good sense of humor, and was a good teacher. It was his lecture on "Particle In a Box" that I always remember. When I read this New Scientist article today about Quantum Machinery I figured it was time to write an article about Quantum Theory.


Last week I wrote the first part of an article covering the art of temperature sensing, specifically using an infrared temperature sensor, which works off the principle of black boday radiation. A Black Body, is a idealized notion in physics which absorbs all incident radiation completely. This hypothetical notion, in the early 1900s, gave rise to the "ultraviolet catastrophe" which was basically if the Raleigh-Jeans law held true, and object should emit INFINITE energy in the ultraviolet spectrum. Einstein noted that this issue would be resolved by using the notion of QUANTIZING light, which was earlier given by Max Plank for unrelated reasons. This notion of Quantization of light, and really all physical properties was the birth of Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Theory.  A weird world where things don't make sense. A real twilight zone under what seemed to be a universe of sense.


Ahhh now particle in a box. This notion is one of the few which can be stated analytically, so it's one of the first ones you learn. It is also the theory which explains why electrons can only circle the nucleus at certain energy levels (resulting in the emission of discrete QUANTA of energy, in the form of light), which underpins our understanding of chemical bonding behavior. My favorite side effect which I understand via the less idealized notion of a potential well, is, that due to the particle-wave duality, particles can probabilistically tunnel through barriers due to their wave behavior. This "Quantum Tunneling" property is what allows the plug on every device you plug in to work despite a layer of oxidization caused by the atmosphere.


This subject is throughly argued, and hotly debated. It's still a great area of mystery. I could write more for hours, but I figure that's a pretty good introduction. Some other interesting articles....


Quantum Cryptography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography


Wormholes 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole

Quantum Teleportation
http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/

Large Hadron Collider
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/

Infared -vs- Thermal Junction Temperature Sensing Part 1.

Recently I came upon a situation where I needed to take very detailed temperature measurements across a large number of locations to validate and environmental control system. Alas this was a subject I know very little about. In my scenario I was attempting to validate the spread across numerous points using a series of thermocouples to evaluate 2 optical temperature sensors in an environmental control system. So I had to do some research.

In my previous experience there had been 2 scenarios in which you measured temperature. For embedded devices a digital temperature sensor that came calibrated (like a DS1820 from Maxim/Dallas Semi) was usually easy to use, and could be easily bit banged with any old micro controller, meaning code the bus in C as opposed to needing hardware support like I2C/TWI etc. In IC design situations Bandgap Voltage/Voltage Proportional To Absolute Temperature (VPAT). In my experience they were usually used to give "perfect" reference currents for delicate analog circuits like the Optical chips Luxtera Makes. Of course that's until process varaiation, but that's outside the scope here.

So I will start with the fun stuff. Infrared Optical Temperature sensing is basically a practical application of the Black Body Radiation theory that was a first big step from classical physics to the quantum era. Nice! In a Blackbody, all light is absorbed, and re-emitted as a thermal spectrum. To me this is basically turning order into entropy. We know that the spectrum of a flame changes depending on its temperature. In fact the spectrum, and spectral peak of emitted light correlate well with the temperature of an object.

You can use the Stephen Boltzman Equation, add in an emissivity factor, and get pretty good measurements.
Emissivity is basically a measure of how ideal a material is for this type of measurement.

Typical Emissivity Values

Nickel	0.05
Aluminum Paint	0.45
Asbestos: Fabric	0.78
Plastic: acrylic, clear	0.94
Plastic: Black	0.95

As you can see there is quite a range. Nickel is terrible. Graphite is almost ideal. In our case clear and black plastic also happen to be pretty good. There are other factors (good application note) like sample to spot ratio ("dot" from beam small compared to sample size), and getting the beam close to the sample to reduce stray radiation. With a good material the results are very accurate assuming theres no dirty air, smoke, stray light, and some other pretty obvious things. The part we're using claims 0.5C accuracy which is identical to the DS1820, and the results are instant (or basically the speed of light and a look up table), while the 1820 has thermal mass which must equalize with it's surroundings.

In part 2 I will examine Thermocouple based temperature sensing in comparison.

Denialism and FUD!

FUD. Fear Uncertainty, and Doubt. A term used in tech circles. Intel, for example, was purported to have used FUD tactics to intimidate competitors, and the market. They would announce a product aggressively and encourage people to WAIT instead of buying competitors products. Then mysteriously these big products would get delayed or cancelled. Who knows. Products get delayed. Also, SCO -vs- IBM exemplified another form, where SCO made a lot of claims with NO concrete details. Mathematically this equates to throwing out unproven corner cases as arguments, before they are substantiated.

I notice this behavior pattern in people a lot. They are angry, usually for no reason to do with you, and attack something lame. It's usually a good sign that you shouldn't take it personally. A few times my dad has yelled at me for swimming too much. What the hell? Oh, wait.....you're mad about something else. I look for this in myself. When I use a lame excuse to get emotional, I know I should pull back.

Global Warming. Fact Versus Fiction. THERE IS A TON ON BOTH SIDES. Clearly there are a TON of lame excuses to counter global warming details. BUT we know a lot of truths. CO2 DOES increase temperatures. Temps are going up, but this has happened before. The Urban Heat Island Effect skews these readings. And alas, correlation does NOT equal causality. I want to take care of the environment, but I don't think SCARING people into doing it is the right way.

I read article about denialism in New Scientist. They talk about how people get stuck denying things that are obvious. Including Global Warming, though again I stipulate, if you are saying "temps are going up" I agree 100%. If you say "Humans are causing temps to go up" then there is a lot of room to debate.

Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics (see "How to be a denialist"). All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism.

I dig that quote. I always laugh when people justify conspiracy theories. They (New Scientist) also comment on the limitation of some types of arguments:

Similarly, global warming, evolution and the link between tobacco and cancer must be taken on trust, usually on the word of scientists, doctors and other technical experts who many non-scientists see as arrogant and alien.

So a call to action. For years people didn't believe cigarettes were bad because of lame excuses. We KNOW texting and using cell phones is dangerous when driving, yet I see people still doing it all the time. For years we had people who could only call Bush "stupid," like we now have people who just call Obama a "Socialist" instead of arguing policy. There's a lot of this kind of thinking out there, and many people buy in to it, ESPECIALLY in politics. In Buddhist parlance this results from Dependant thinking as opposed to Independent thinking. Let's spend our time contemplating the REAL world, not the world people want us to see.

I should confess this post was inspired by my friend Greta in Brazil, and reading this Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, on Self-Reliance.

5/24/10:
Woah. Check this out. This guy is an awesome skeptic that Seems to embody my thoughts on this subject well:

http://www.michaelshermer.com/

He's got cool stuff about intelligent design, and other pseudoscience subjects.

Roundup Resistant Weeds ATTACK!

I was reading coverage in the NY times about how Roundup resistant weeds are proliferating. This is similar in cause and effect to overuse of antibiotics accelerating development of resistant bacteria. I believe this is once again an example of the shortsightedness on the part of the farming industry, but logical in a competitive market.

Once again I have to go back to natural capitalism for some startling statistics, and information about the state of our farming industry. Our farming methodologies are inefficient with regards to energy consumption:

American farms have doubled their direct and indirect energy efficiency since 1978. They use more efficiently manufactured fertilizer, diesel engines, bigger and multifunction farm machinery, better drying and irrigation processes and controls, and herbicides instead of plowing to control weeds. 

And also even more worrisome is that we are destroying the genetic diversity of our crop species:

Clear-cutting at the microscopic level of DNA may be creating the gravest problem of all. The world's farming rests on an extraordinarily narrow genetic base. Of the 200,000 species of wild plants, notes biogeographer Jared Diamond, "only a few thousands are eaten by humans, and just a few hundred of those have been more or less domesticated." Three-quarters of the world's food comes from only seven crop species, wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, barley, cassava (manioc), and sorghum.

Not only are we reducing genetic diversity, but also our "single crop mindset" is creating fertile breeding grounds for prime predators, and a disaster waiting to happen:

The single-crop mentality both ignores nature's tendency to foster diversity and worsens the ancient battle against pests. Monocultures are rare in nature, in part because they create paradises for plant diseases and insects, as science writer Janine Benyus puts it, they are like equipping a burglar with the keys to every house in the neighborhood; they're an all-you-can-eat restaurant for pests. Disease already damages or destroys 13 percent of the world's crops, insects 15 percent, and weeds 12 percent; in all, two-fifths of the world's harvest is lost in the fields, and after some more spoils, nearly half never reaches a human mouth.

Hopefully we can be ahead of the curve on this one, before disaster strikes
.
5/16/2010
Another example. Recent New Scientist coverage of a Nature article about new pests evolving to attack Genetically modified crops:

The rise of mirids has driven Chinese farmers back to pesticides - they are currently using about two-thirds as much as they did before Bt cotton was introduced. As mirids develop resistance to the pesticides, Wu expects that farmers will soon spray as much as they ever did.

First offshore wind farm

I already read an article dissing the fact that the first wind farm was built in bureaucracy central (east coast), versus the gulf by Texas (no rules basically). Still this announcement of a big off shore wind farm being built is pretty exciting.

As usual there were a bunch of complaints (this time Indians, not environmentalists), but luckily we were able to navigate the rough waters and get it done. I don't want to assign blame, or credit politically. I'm just happy it happened.

Simple Sustainability

Wow. I just came across this site linking from an article I read on Slashdot. Sort of a place to post modern ideas on resource and energy efficiency. Just a couple of articles on inhabitat.com were awesome enough that I wanted to share the site immediately.

A pretty awesome eco-integrated concept building, I would love to see actually get built. Could we get some financing for projects that will reduce our energy footprint, and pay themselves back?

And this one about chemical sniffing phones is an awesome idea. What if everyone was just assigned random chemicals to have their phone sense? I think we could justify getting sensors for industrial waste, and other problem pollutants as well.

This story about paint on connected solar cells is pretty interesting too. They comment that it's not yet commercially proven, but a pretty awesome concept.

All posted today ?!?

Toyota Redux

OK. So we all knew SOME people were making shit up when they claimed their prius, or other toyota behaved strangely. Still you gotta figure SOME other people were telling the truth. Right?

I guess Toyota is looking at criminal negligence charges for not investigating the incidents, and writing them off as driver error. Then I read this, and if these stats are the naked truth. I am now suspicious:

 These incidents were highly correlated with three things:  being elderly, being short, and parking (or leaving a parking space)

Wow. So we all know old people can't drive. We (I know directly) also know that young people can't drive well. Yes there are exceptions to every rule. The point is now I think it was mostly a bunch of hype. I read a few articles saying Toyota was still denying that anything was wrong, and I believe it will stay as such until we have a root cause.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 14th Update.
Preliminary results from DOT testing (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834604575364871534435744.html)
indicates that the Toyota "acceleration" problem appears to be operator error, as backed up by the information presented early on above. It's almost depressing.