Finally http://www.univerbstudios.co.za/ is back online. We had to shut down the previous forums because of the huge amount of spam we incurred.

Have read up on our current focus, the E8 Framework, basically a Linux / Windows based game development framework written in C++, this framework will enable us to produce better projects quicker as time goes on.

Have a browse, register and interact with us as we move on with our various projects.

When a person shoots a basketball, the exact force and direction necessary to give the ball a velocity that will result in a basket can be calculated exactly. There are no complications. The difficulty is that these quantities can’t be measured exactly by eye, and the application of the force is through muscles which can’t be controlled perfectly one hundred percent of the time.

So how does this guy manage to make so many shots successfully?

The answer is ‘kinesthetic memory‘. A player cannot possibly calculate the correct angle and force for a shot, and even if he knew what they were, couldn’t reliably make his muscles do exactly what was necessary. Instead, the player practices the shot over and over, thousands of times. What the repetition does is familiarize the athlete with what a good shot feels like, and what movements he was making to achieve that perfect shot. It’s the same in all sports.

In the case of this basketball player, he makes the shot often because he ‘lets his muscles do it’ … he does it exactly the same way he’s done it thousands of times before, and doesn’t have to think about it. Read more about the physics theory of basketball here.

There’s a good question that I used to ponder over but gave up on. Why are there universal laws that all matter obey? Law of gravity, etc. Why is there order in the universe instead of chaos? Why don’t things just fall apart? Instead we see them coming together in an ordered fashion, and are able to work together for a, supposedly, specific function. Such as the cells in our body.

2 questions plaque the human mind, resulting in ‘faith’:

1.Why is there something rather than nothing?

2. Why do things seem to work together in an ordered fashion, resulting in intelligent objects such as ourselves? How can intelligence arise from non-intelligence?

Since there are intelligent objects such as ourselves, perhaps there is an intelligent designer somewhere out there?

Researchers at the University of Illinois report that a toxic molecule known to damage cells and cause disease may also play a pivotal role in bird migration. The molecule, superoxide, is proposed as a key player in the mysterious process that allows birds to “see” Earth’s magnetic field.

The discovery, reported this month in Biophysical Journal, occurred as a result of a “mistake” made by a collaborator, said principal investigator Klaus Schulten, who holds the Swanlund Chair in physics theory at Illinois. His postdoctoral collaborator, Ilia Solov’yov, of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, did not know that superoxide was toxic, seeing it instead as an ideal reaction partner in a biochemical process involving the protein cryptochrome in a bird’s eye.

Cryptochrome is a blue-light photoreceptor found in plants and in the eyes of birds and other animals. Schulten was the first to propose (in 2000) that this protein was a key component of birds’ geomagnetic sense, a proposal that was later corroborated by experimental evidence. He made this prediction after he and his colleagues discovered that magnetic fields can influence chemical reactions if the reactions occur quickly enough to be governed by pure quantum mechanics.

“Prior to our work, it was thought that this was impossible because magnetic fields interact so weakly with molecules,” he said.

Such chemical reactions involve electron transfers, Schulten said, “which result in freely tumbling spins of electrons. These spins behave like an axial compass.”

Changes in the electromagnetic field, such as those experienced by a bird changing direction in flight, appear to alter this biochemical compass in the eye, allowing the bird to see how its direction corresponds to north or south.

“Other researchers had found that cryptochrome, acting through its own molecular spins, recruits a reaction partner that operates at so-called zero spin. They suggested that molecular oxygen is that partner,” Schulten said. “We propose that the reaction partner is not the benign oxygen molecule that we all breathe, but its close cousin, superoxide, a negatively charged oxygen molecule.”

When Solov’yov showed that superoxide would work well as a reaction partner, Schulten was at first dismissive.

“But then I realized that the toxicity of superoxide was actually crucial to its role,” he said. The body has many mechanisms for reducing concentrations of superoxide to prevent its damaging effects, Schulten said. But this gives an advantage, since the molecule must be present at low concentrations – but not too low – “to make the biochemical compass work effectively,” he said.

via Bird Migration: Toxic Molecule May Help Birds ‘See’ North And South.

As portrayed in the critically acclaimed documentary, Waking Life:

“Scientists are coming ever closer to understanding the cellular navigation tools that guide birds in their unerring, globe-spanning migrations.

The latest piece of the puzzle is superoxide, an oxygen molecule that may combine with light-sensitive proteins to form an in-eye compass, allowing birds to see Earth’s magnetic field.

“It connects from the subatomic world to a whole bird flying,” said Michael Edidin, an editor of Biphysical Journal, which published the study last week. “That’s exciting!”

The superoxide theory is proposed by Biophysicist Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lead author of the study and a pioneer in avian magnetoreception. Schulten first hypothesized in 1978 that some sort of biochemical reaction took place in birds’ eyes, most likely producing electrons whose spin was affected by subtle magnetic gradients.

In 2000, Schulten refined this model, suggesting that the compass contained a photoreceptor protein called cryptochrome, which reacted with an as-yet-unidentified molecule to produce pairs of electrons that existed in a state of quantum entanglement — spatially separated, but each still able to affect the other…”

Reverse-Engineering the Quantum Compass of Birds – Wired Science

Many thanks to my friend Iain for bringing this article to my attention.

Went to central London again today. Lugged my aunt’s last box of belongings from house to taxi, from taxi to Upminster station, from station to actual train (district line), travelled what seemed like ages in the train before getting off at Gloucester Road (realizing,just now that each train stop had a distinct personality, and that as we progressed through the line, the faces waiting at the station for our train became more Asian. At one point, stopping in Barking, I knew we were in Barking, because the smell, that of chicken, seemed to come from the chicken and chips shops so famous around Asians, particularly students who could not afford regular exorbitantly priced restaurant food), lugging the box up Gloucster Road station, crossing the street, walking by the sidewalk, going up the place where the office was. Had fish and chips after (yay!), wanted to try some hommous, but urge to have fish and chips defeated that urge. Walked to the Natural History Museum after (dinosaurs! bones! lots of kids! ugh), then to the Royal Victoria and Albert Hall (rugs! jewelry! sculpture!), took the bus, passed by most of Kensington and Chelsea, got off Picadilly, found ourselves in Leicester, made our way to Trafalgar, took bus 11 (sometimes it’s 23) to Liverpool Street, went through the familiar streets, pass St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Courts of Justice, Fleet Street, Bride Lane, and so on, then got off at Liverpool Street. Got on the train going to Shenfield. Train stopped at Ilford for awhile, there was a fire, but it did not seem serious, because we left shortly after. Got off at Romford, aunt bought something from Superdrug, we went to Marks and Spencer to get some snacks and a drink, then parted after.I’ve only been here 14 months, but I feel like I’ve been here longer. Like so much has happened in the space of 14 months, more than in the 30 years I have lived in the Philippines. cannot begin to describe what I have gone through in those 14 months, and it is hard to encapsulate it in a blog, but suffice it to say it will be one unforgettable experience.  But where before travelling to central London always filled me with dread, now traveling to London fills me with confidence, with a kind of joy and excitement, although these days it is also tinged with nostalgia, melancholy, sadness. Always I go wanting to bottle up the very Londonness of London – its brick buildings, its narrow roads, the very Englishness of its very atmosphere – by soaking up as much of the sights as I can, but find in frustation that I cannot. I have come, finally to love this place. Only to tear myself away and go back to the Philippines again. But maybe each journey is like this – I am not meant to linger. I meant to learn from it, and move on to the next journey, careful to learn and enjoy the sights along the way. ^_^

So tired now I’m just reading “Random Acts of Heroic Love” by Danny Scheinmann. Didn’t think much of it before. It’s interesting, though. Definitely easier to follow than “Unbearable Lightness of Being”.

This is a thought-provoking book. Funnily enough, I bought it with thoughts of someone (now an ex) in mind. So in love with this person that everything I saw seemed to point to my love for this person. We have, since then, broken up, in the middle of my stay here in London, but how interesting that this same book would be thought-provoking. It asks questions as: Can we change the world simply by  looking at it differently? What if we imagine that this earth already is heaven? What if we changed our story? Why do we waste our lives preparing for a future that may never happen? or arrive?

Some quotes I like from the book:

“Find your happiness now.”

“Remember the journey. Forget the arrival.”

“The only power I have is the one I exert over myself.”

“The division between past, present and future doesn’t mean anything, and has only the value of an illusion, tenacious as it may be.” – Albert Einstein

“physics theory is merely a description of reality, but the more deeply we look into things the more extraordinary reality appears…(p.189)” – Robert Panconesi, a character in “Random Acts of Love”

“People are very uncomfortable with the infinite and the eternal, especially when applied to themselves. We are a clannish and small-minded race.We feel more comfortable defining ourselves by our jobs, our social class and our religions than by our boundless potential… We are each a small piece of infinity and in some form or other we live for eternity. Quantum theoryproves that the world is neither fragmented nor divided.” – Robert Panconesi, a character in “Random Acts of Love”

“The beginning does not exist; it is indefinable, indefinite. We can only talk of where our knowledge begins. It is a beginning, not the beginning. In a beginning our great scientists tell us there was an enormous fireball and in this fireball trillions of electrons and other particles jostled together in a sublime cosmic dance. Then there was a big bang and these electrons were scattered forming the universe. Some of these electrons came together to form stars. In time some of these stars exploded and deposited a shroud of carbon dust into the atmosphere. Layers  of carbon dust settled on earth. As you know, carbon is life. Every living cell, be it in plants, animals or humans, contains carbon. So my friends, as you leave today console yourselves with this thought: you are literally made of stardust, and whatever becomes of you, the particles from which you are made have been around since the dawn of time and will continue to live forever. You are inseparable from the universe,you were once part of it, you remain a part of it, and you will always be a part of it.” Robert Panconesi (p.195-196), a character in “Random Acts of Love”

A comforting thought. Reminds me of Carl Sagan, Neil Gaiman and the movie “Stardust”.

PS

12:26am – almost done with “Random Acts of Love.” Actually a good book. And it mentions the Philippines. Yay!

Another quote: “For every act of love or hate, the whole universe is sent spinning.”

Waaay back in April, I attended a local physics theory teachers’ meeting that I helped organize.  It was definitely one of the best such meetings we’ve had in years, though I must say we do a good job on meetings.  I don’t recall a bad speaker that we’ve had or bad food.

Our Friday evening we hosted a local top physics theory student and his physics theory teacher, part of our new outreach initiative.  We enjoyed a catered meal with adorable tiny and multitudinous desserts…oof.  Thank goodness for the exercise class I started taking at school!  Then we walked to the building next door and listened to University of Pennsylvania professor Ken Lande, who amazed us and grabbed us with his energy talk.  He’s nearly as good as Al Bartlett – certainly he is as alarming.  I started thinking about what I can do to help save the world.  (Follow the Al Bartlett link and watch his talk – I highly recommend it)

Saturday we had a talk by my NCSU professor, Bruce Sherwood.  He’s the one who taught me to use vpython and completely changed my view of introductory physics theory.  I’ve been promoting vpython with the local physics theory teachers and Bruce’s talk was very well received.

There were some short talks by members of the group and a business meeting at which I was elected “Corresponding Secretery” which means I took over the mailing responsibilities and I now write a bi-weekly newsletter.  But after lunch, we had an awesome experience:

Ollie brought members of the Eastern Electgric Vehicle Club (EEVC) and their cars to explain electric cars, answer our questions, and show off their work!  I was impressed by the plug-in vehicles made by modding existing vehicles.  There was a guy with a  Ford 150 pickup truck that he converted to a plug-in gas-electric hybrid, a woman with a student-modified van, a guy with a Geo Metro convertible (link gives specs) turned into a purely-plug-in electric vehicle, and more!  Here’s the workings of the Metro:

under the hood

in the trunk

The acceleration on these electric cars is very exciting – lots of delta v in a short delta t!  It comes from having a powerful electric motor and a low mass that needs to get moved.  The Metro got towed to the meeting behind a sexy sportscar, that’s how light it is.

Here is Ollie in a car converted to electric by high school students:

Ollie let us drive this car around the parking lot, and that was pretty cool too!  Those extra guages on the dashboard show the voltage across the batteries and the current drawn by the engine.  Multiply the two values together, and you will get the power in watts.  746 watts is 1 horsepower.  Mostly, you wouldn’t multiply while driving though…but you have to keep track of the voltage or you could find yourself stranded without enough “juice.”

I had a great time!  I am itching to find some crappy used car in decent shape, rip out the insides, and make an electric car for runs to the grocery store or whatever.  Yet another thing to put in the “future projects” file…