THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
05/24/13 -- Vol. 31, No. 47, Whole Number 1755
Butch Cassidy: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Sundance Kid: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Bing Translator Adding Klingon
And Speaking of tinyurl.com ... (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
A Problem with Ellipses (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS (1999) (filmed stage play review
by Mark R. Leeper)
A Month in Space (comments by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
This Week's Reading (POMPEII, THE UNITED STATES OF ARUGULA,
and AT LAKE SCUGOG) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Bing Translator Adding Klingon
The Bing translator has added Klingon to the forty other languages
it supports:
http://tinyurl.com/void-klingon
==================================================================
TOPIC: And Speaking of tinyurl.com ... (comments by Evelyn C.
Leeper)
You may have noticed that we often give URLs as
http://tinyurl.com/... rather than the real location. If you are
worried about clicking shortened URLs because you do not know where
it will really take you, you can paste it into
http://www.longurl.org/ and have it display the final
destination. This site expands tinyurl.com, bit.ly, and many more
condensed URLs. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: A Problem with Ellipses (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I want to write this week about ellipses. This is silly since I am
writing in text and without any diagrams or illustrations. It is
actually fairly difficult to try to explain even a simple bit of
geometry entirely in ASCII text. But it is a result of an exercise
I set for myself out of curiosity, and I want to show you something
I found surprising.
So what is an ellipse? I can answer that multiple ways. Most of
us have some idea that an ellipse is sort of an oval shape. If you
take the cardboard tube like you find at the middle of a roll of
paper towels and cut it at an angle the new edge will be like a
stretched circle. An ellipse is sort of a stretched circle. One
way to draw an ellipse is to put two map pins into a board, call
them A and B. Take a piece of string and tie one end to A and the
other end to B. Leave considerable slack in between. Now with a
pencil point pull the string taut and put a dot on the board. Go
around the whole way around the two map pins pulling the string
taut and putting dots on the board. For each dot the sum of its
distance from A and its distance from B is always the same. You
are tracing out an ellipse.
See a diagram at http://tinyurl.com/void-ellipse.
The two points where the map pins are sticking into the ellipse are
called the "foci" of the ellipse. (The singular is "focus".)
In the diagram they show the string also going directly between the
two map pins to complete a triangle, but for our purposes we can
ignore that piece. It is always the same length anyway. If we
lengthen the string we will get a bigger ellipse, but it will have
the same two foci, namely where the map pins stick into the board.
In Newtonian physics, planets travel in an ellipse around the sun
and with each such ellipse the sun is at one focus of the ellipse.
I remember asking my high school physics teacher, "If the sun is at
one focus of the Earth's orbit, what is as the other focus?"
"Nothing," he said with a half smile. He didn't understand why
that was so frustrating for me. One focus is the entire sun and
the other is just an unacknowledged point in space. In mathematics
it would be an important point, but at least as far as my physics
teacher was concerned it was just not a point worth naming or
thinking much about. Now what I really am asking myself is, "If
you have a really narrow orbit, do you expect the planet to go
close to the sun as it is skimming round the near end or will it
shoot past the sun and go a fair distance away before it is pulled
back?" Pictures I have seen seem to suggest the former, but I want
to have the figures. Essentially I want to see if in a thin
ellipse is the distance between the foci a large fraction of the
length of the "width" of the ellipse or is it a relatively small
fraction and the two foci are near the center. I want to know the
ratio of the length of the major axis to the segment whose
endpoints are two foci.
Let us say that the long (horizontal) axis of the ellipse we will
hold constant and say that it is of length 2C. Both of the foci
lie on this axis. The short (vertical) axis of the ellipse we can
vary and we will say it is of length 2V. Let us lay a grid on top
of this so the ellipse is centered at (0,0). The major axis goes
from (-C,0) to (C,0). The short axis goes from (0,V) to (0,-V).
We want to figure out where exactly the foci lie. They must be on
the major axis but how far from the ends of the major axis?
Now as we said above, any point on the ellipse itself will have the
same sum for the distances to the positive and to the negative
focus. In specific (C,0) will have that property. But the
distance from (C,0) to the nearer focus will be the same as the
distance from the far focus to (-C,0). So the sum of the two
distances has to be 2C, the same as the length of the major axis.
Let F be the distance from the center of the ellipse to the focus.
It can be either focus since they are equidistant from the center.
I am looking for 2F/2C in terms of V. Now I can find that. Point
(0,V) is distance C from (F,0) and also distance C from (-F,0). We
want to find the value of F. The segment from (0,0) to (F,0) is
one leg of a right triangle with hypotenuse C and the other leg is
V. That is just sqrt(C^2-V^2) by the Pythagorean Theorem.
2C/2F = C/F = C/sqrt(C^2-V^2) = 1/sqrt(1-(V/C)^2)
So when C is much larger than V the focus will be very near the end
of the axis. But you may have already caught that I have been
leading you down the garden path. 1/sqrt(1-(V/C)^2) may look
familiar. That is called the Lorentz Factor. V is velocity and C
is the speed of light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor
A moment ago we were looking at geometry and a question concerning
Newtonian physics. But the formula we derived is coincidentally
(or not) a formula you are more likely to see in relativistic
physics. One example of a use of the Lorentz Factor might be so
compute what is the mass of an object with a rest mass of M
traveling at velocity V. Let us say it has been accelerated to one
half the speed of light. Then its velocity compared to the speed
of light is one half. V/C = 1/2.
1/sqrt(1-(1/2)^2) = 1/sqrt(3/4) = 2/sqrt(3) = 2*sqrt(3)/3. That is
about 1.155. So if an object has a rest mass of 1kg, if
accelerated to half the speed of light its mass would be about
1.155kg.
What does all this have to do with ellipses? I don't see it. But
we live in a parsimonious universe. Formulas show up time and
again in different contexts just like some numbers--pi and e for
example--show up over and over. Apparently ellipses and foci have
something to do that mimics relativistic physics. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: As a piece of intelligent science fiction J. J. Abrams's
new STAR TREK film is only middling, but as an action film it is
really quite good. It has some arresting images, some very
engaging character development, and perhaps two or three too many
explosive action scenes. A saboteur apparently within the
Starfleet Command is bent on destroying it. Captain Kirk,
dishonored for his handling of a previous space mission,
nonetheless has the Enterprise restored to him to sneak into
Klingon territory and capture the culprit. Don't like the
plotline? Wait ten minutes and the story will have transformed
into something else. This film has a complex plot that manages to
balance character writing with slam-bang action sequences. Great
acting by the intriguing Benedict Cumberbatch. Oh, and as a "Star
Trek" series film INTO DARKNESS ranks among the very best. Rating:
low +3 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
Minor spoiler after the main body of the review.
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS opens in the middle of a spectacular action
sequence involving an erupting volcano and the Starship Enterprise
doing something we never knew before that a starship could do. In
saving Spock (Zachary Quinto), Kirk (Chris Pine) must violate the
Prime Directive. Back on Earth Kirk has his command taken away
from him. But after an attack on Starfleet command by a saboteur
Kirk gets the Enterprise back for an emergency mission to go after
rogue Starfleet agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) who is
hiding out in on the Klingon home planet where just being present
is an act of war. But Kirk is in for some surprises. And so is
the audience. This is a film in which you can never be sure what
is really going on until the end credits roll.
The writing by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof
balances character drama, plot twists, and action scenes. The
latter are an embarrassment of riches. They come strong and fast
until the explosive climax. Then something else happens and we are
in a different action sequence and a different climax. Then as
things are tied up we find out something else and there is another
action sequence. The film is eventually 132 minutes with only
moments not action-packed. The writers do know how to make
effective use of material from the original series.
By placing the story in an alternate universe from the TV show and
the pre-Abrams films Abrams is able to be faithful to the original
series or surprise the audience with a major change as he wishes.
In this universe Spock can be an orphan and have a love interest,
neither of which were true in the original stories.
In the last Abram's "Star Trek" film, STAR TREK, the young actors
seemed to be doing impressions of their original counterparts. One
could hear Leonard Nimoy's voice in Zachary Quinto's lines and Carl
Urban felt like he was mimicking DeForest Kelley as Bones. By now
they are comfortable in those voice patterns and sound much more
natural. One would hope they could be their own actors and not
have to mimic their predecessors the entire series. The one
character that really did not fit his role was Simon Pegg, who
played Scotty too broadly and with a little too much unbelievable
and silly comedy. The comedy is toned down a bit and he is given a
bigger role in the new film. The result is maybe still a little
too comic, but much better.
Two actors who can each believably play intelligent and interesting
characters get to square off here. There is Zachary Quinto, the
series Spock and actor from the excellent MARGIN CALL. Opposite
him is his British equivalent Benedict Cumberbatch, TV's Sherlock.
Here he plays a character with ambiguity and complexity.
Things I could have done without include a planetoid near Jupiter
with Earth gravity, climate, and atmosphere. Starfleet Command
seems to have a meeting room based on the War Room from
DR. STRANGELOVE. There is a discussion whether the Enterprise is
for exploration or for military purposes. Hint: The Enterprise
seems to be heavily armed. Of course, it could just be that the
best defense against a bad heavily armed starship is a good heavily
armed starship.
Do not go to STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS looking to be intrigued by its
science fiction ideas. If you want to get into the characters in
the new "Star Trek" universe or if you want some high-octane
actions scenes with a strong dose of spectacular visual effects, or
if you just want to have a little fun, this film is and will
probably remain one of the best of the year. I rate STAR TREK INTO
DARKNESS a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10. The film could
not be shot both 3D and IMAX. The producers chose IMAX so the 3D
was added after the shooting.
Minor spoiler:
This is the most spectacular "Star Trek" film so far. There are
some major flaws in the script. One is a sequence that is almost a
reenactment of an iconic sequence in the original film series. The
other is one that promises to make a major change in the series
only to be undone by a deus ex machina reset button. Also when you
have a major actor in a minor role, it is often a tipoff that he
will later become important to the plot.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/combined
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_into_darkness/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS (1999) (filmed stage play review by Mark
R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Possibly attempting to mimic the success of the play LES
MISERABLES, Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon adapted the other
famous Victor Hugo novel NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS (a.k.a. THE HUNCHBACK
OF NOTRE-DAME) as a musical stage play. Gilles Amado filmed the
stage play and the result is a confusing hodgepodge of anachronism,
revision of plot, and frustrating missed opportunities. Major
scenes are missing or mishandled. The idea might have been good,
but the execution is lacking. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10
The French play LES MISERABLES is an international sensation. I
suppose this naturally suggested that someone should try to follow
in its footsteps adapting that other popular novel by Hugo, NOTRE-
DAME DE PARIS. It has been adapted by Richard Cocciante and Luc
Plamondon to be a stage play, but everywhere lacking the same
impact. The production has been filmed under the direction of
Gilles Amado, and the audience sees little beyond a filmed
performance.
The musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel started well by
giving the production the same title that Hugo gave the novel.
There are many characters in the story and the first-time reader
may not expect that Quasimodo, his innocence, his pain, and his
love, will become the main focus to the story. Re-titling the
novel THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME is something of a spoiler. So
the play starts out with points in its favor but quickly squanders
them. The only adaptation that seemed worse was, of course, the
film in which Disney turned this bitter, misanthropic tragic novel
into a children's film.
In this adaptation, written by Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon
and based on the Hugo novel, the deaf and usually nearly mute
hunchback is talkative and to far too great a degree eloquent.
Much of the book only works with Quasimodo unable to speak up in
his own defense. Here the story omits the trial of Quasimodo, but
the story is the poorer for it. But where the real deficit occurs
is much later. It is in the novel Esmeralda is going to be
unjustly executed and nobody can do anything to stop it until the
seemingly least powerful character in the city, the bell-ringer,
does what nobody else can and rescues Esmeralda and saves her life.
For one moment the seemingly least powerful man in Paris becomes
the most powerful. In this play it is the peasant army who frees
Esmeralda with the participation of the bell-ringer. It is the
most exciting moment in any telling of the story and to not have
the scene is a real letdown.
The production we see has little interest in creating a feel of
1482. Nobody is in period dress and most of the dancers dress in
what look like loose shirts (or no shirts) and pants for men,
shorts for women. Gringoire sings of how the world should accept
the gypsies in "a world without borders." It is a very nice
sentiment, but not one we would likely have heard in the 15th
century. It is very much a 20th century concept. He sings about
ignoring the color of Esmeralda's skin tone, which looks exactly
like Gringoire's own skin tone.
In fact, there is no apparent concession to making Esmeralda appear
to be gypsy. She wears a non-ethnic-looking dress and appears very
20th Century-ish. There is nothing about her appearance that
supports or even fails to refute her being a gypsy. The musical
lyrics claim that Quasimodo is ugly and has only one eye. He
appears to have two perfectly functioning eyes. His face is done
with a little bit of face paint and some blackened teeth. The
crooked body just appears to come from some cloth padding under his
jacket. This is a very unconvincing hunchback.
In any case trying to give Esmeralda the appearance of a 15th
century gypsy would not have been entirely successful since all the
speaking or singing actors wear very large obvious boom mikes
spoiling any effect. The Notre-Dame Cathedral is portrayed by a
climbing wall with pegs for handholds. The peasants blockade the
streets with bicycle racks.
The translation is poor and it is not always easy to understand
what is happening on stage, but the DVD does have subtitles. If
the idea was to make another LES MISERABLES it is well beyond the
play writers' reach. The score is not as complex, melodic, or even
as interesting as the musical score for LES MISERABLES. The
staging has a lot more dance that seems to have little to do with
the plot. While LES MISERABLES is full of memorable (or earworm)
melodies, the words are sung to no memorable or often even
identifiable melody.
Sadly, as much as I like the novel NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS there is
little to like in this musical film version. I rate it a 0 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 4/10. Undoubtedly someone someplace is trying to
adapt the same novel to try to catch the lightning of LES
MISERABLES. I wish him better luck. NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS is
available for rent from NetFlix.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285800/combined
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/notre-dame-de-paris/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: A Month in Space (comments by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
To help communicate the quickening pace of space development, I
thought it would be cool to assemble what I thought were the most
important actual flight hardware tests from the period April 1,
2013 to May 1, 2013. I did not include press releases, ground
tests, communication satellite launches, or ISS operations.
Instead, I focused only on ground-breaking tests of completely new
spacecraft. As you can see from below, there is an enormous amount
going on, and only one launch, the Antares, was funded as part of a
NASA program. Welcome to the future of space travel, and enjoy the
cool videos! If you can't click on the links, copy them into a
browser.
The month began on April 1 with a flight of Masten Space Systems
Xombie technology demonstrator. The Xombie reached a height of
1,600 feet above the ground and flew 1,000 lateral feet to a pin-
point landing. The Xombie program is focused on developing new
technology for planetary landings. Check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv0Q5jIZuO0.
April 3 brought a glide flight of Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two.
This 9-minute flight tested wing feathering and in-flight nitrous
oxide venting. It was followed rapidly on April 12th with another
test flight of Virgin Galactic's White Knight 2/Space Ship Two
suborbital vehicle. This flight of SS2, which lasted 10.8 minutes,
tested in-flight venting of nitrous oxide.
On April 21, Orbital Sciences launched the Antares for the first
time from the new Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at the
NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This flight is the
second part of the COTS program for commercial re-supply of the
International Space Station. The first part, which is already
operational, relies on the SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon capsule
combination. The Antares flight represents a key milestone in
ending the reliance on the storm-prone Florida launch sites,
allowing for more reliable commercial orbital operations. You can
find a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3L7crGudVU.
SpaceX's experimental fully-reusable rocket, the Grasshopper,
achieved a height of 820 feet, and then returned to the ground
safely. The Grasshopper is a 10-story vertical take off-vertical
landing vehicle that SpaceX is using to develop a fully reusable
two-stage to orbit craft, which, if successful, will drastically
lower the cost of flying to space. You can find video of the test
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoxiK7K28PU.
April 29 brought the first powered flight of Space Ship Two, built
by Virgin Galactic. The flight lasted 13 minutes (16-second engine
burn) after SS2 dropped from its carrier aircraft, the White Knight
Two. SS2 topped out at Mach 1.22 and 56,200 feet, and glided
backed to the Earth. Commercial sub-orbital tourist operations are
expected to begin in late 2013 or early 2014. You can check out
the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pln9JKEjFks.
During a May 1 test flight, the Boeing X-51A Waverider unmanned
vehicle (a military program) achieved the longest air-breathing
hypersonic scramjet powered flight on record, flying for 3.5
minutes and reaching a maximum speed of Mach 5.1, or about 3,500
miles per hour. The X-51A should eventually lead to a new
generation of ultra-fast transcontinental jets and single-stage-to-
orbit space planes, as well as hyper-velocity cruise missiles. You
can check out a video of the test at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.zQu6p_aMQ.
This was an especially exciting month, but we are on an upward
trend. I expect future months to be even more bountiful! Ad
Astra! [-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
POMPEII by Robert Harris (ISBN 978-0-679-42889-3) is a historical
novel set in Pompeii right before and during the eruption in 79
C.E. Harris is the author of FATHERLAND, a "Germany-won-World-War-
II" alternate history, which is a sort of historical fiction, and
has apparently done a fair amount of research on Pompeii for this
novel as well. Unfortunately, the story that he has attached to
the eruption, having to do with the engineering of aqueducts and
political corruption around it, is not very engaging.
THE UNITED STATES OF ARUGULA: HOW WE BECAME A GOURMET NATION by
David Kamp (ISBN 978-0-7679-1579-3) sounded promising, but was
disappointing. I had hoped for a book that would cover our
transition from a macaroni and cheese nation to a place where salsa
outsells ketchup and the question is not whether to have Thai food,
but which of the four Thai restaurants with five miles of our house
to go to. Instead, Kamp mainly focuses on celebrity chefs and
their effect on eating habits. He starts with Julia Child, Craig
Claiborne, and James Beard, and continues to the many chefs today.
There is a nod to East Asian cuisines and Mexican cuisine, but
nothing about Indian cuisine, or Middle Eastern cuisine, or indeed
any cuisine outside of Europe or the United States.
Even if I were interested in the actual topic, I would find the
writing style a turn-off. I cannot pin down the problem: Are the
sentences too ornate? Does Kamp try to jam too many ideas into a
single sentence? Consider this sentence, randomly chosen: "In 1976
when she was still only twenty-three, Piper opened up her own place
in Madison, L'Etoile, which was, if anything, an even greater
triumph than the Ovens of Brittany, its dedication to local foods
inspiring the food press to posit Piper as a Midwestern analogue to
Alice Waters." Judge for yourself.
[In other words he just has run-on sentences? -mrl]
AT LAKE SCUGOG (ISBN 978-0-691-14942-4) by Troy Jollimore and is in
a genre I usually do not review: poetry. But it appeared on
someone's "best of the year" list for its year (2011) and the poems
were described as both philosophical and mathematical, so I decided
to give it a try. (It took so long because I had to request it via
inter-library loan and I tend to put that off.)
The very first poem, "The Solipsist", delivers on the promise of
philosophical ideas, beginning:
Don't be misled:
that sea-song you hear
when the shell's at your ear?
It's all in your head.
That primordial tide-
the slurp and salt-slosh
of the brain's briny wash-
is on the inside.
...
In other words, everything is really all in your head.
(I am at a loss as to how much of a poem I can quote in a review.
David Orr wrote about this in the New York Times in 2011 ("When
Quoting Verse, One Must Be Terse")
As he said, "The difficulty is not so much that the copyright
system is restrictive (although it can be), but that no one has any
idea exactly how much of a poem can be quoted without payment.
Under the "fair use" doctrine, quotation is permitted for criticism
and comment, so you'd think this is where a poetry critic could
hang his hat. But how much use is fair use?" Publishers seem to
give answers varying from three or four lines to almost an entire
poem. Giving a percentage figure (say, 5%) is problematic for
short poems (for example, haiku).
For example, Mark wrote a haiku on his office door once:
Sorry, no haiku.
They will return soon. I am
Off on Vacation.
That is 62 characters; 5% would be "Sor".)
Further on, we get something worthy of Lewis Carroll in "Regret":
I'd like to take back my not saying to you
those things that, out of politeness, or caution,
I kept to myself. And, if I may -
though this might perhaps stretch the rules -I'd like
to take back your not saying some of the things
that you never said, like "I love you" and "Won't you
come home with me," or telling me, which
you in fact never did, ...
that try as you might, you could not imagine
a life without me. ...
Jollimore does make a mathematical (and grammatical) error, though,
in "Tom Thomson in Space", when he writes, "it treks where no man /
(and even fewer *women*) have gone before ..." Clearly there
cannot be fewer women than zero who have done something. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I've always said, I have nothing to say, only to add.
And it's with each addition that the writing gets done.
The first draft of anything is really just a track.
-- Gore Vidal