The End of Mr Y

In this superb book, Scarlett Thomas throws together the concepts of modern scientific thinking and physiological reasoning regarding consciousness into a thoroughly gripping yarn. To describe it simply as a novel is doing Thomas a great disservice. In truth it is really a very clever thought experiment in the classical sense of Schrodinger or Maxwell, all nicely encased in a fast-paced, entertaining adventure story. Although there are a number of reviews out there(e.g., bookslut or Katrina), here's my two penneth.

The story follows disillusioned Ph.D student Ariel Manto. Her supervisor vanished some 12 months prior to the begging of the tale, and as we begin her University is falling down. Through a series of strange events she ends up finding a very rare copy of the book 'The End of Mr Y' by Thomas Lumas, a supposedly cursed text of which there are only a couple of copies known to exist. Contained within this valuable work is the recipe to make a drug which allows one to access the Troposphere, a extra set of dimensions where all consciousnesses interact. Obviously, being the plucky young heroine in a modern adventure novel, she goes straight out to get the necessary ingredients and have a go herself. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose and and we're led on a merry old romp.

Although the basic skeleton of the story isn't something insanely creative and new, the concepts Thomas discusses along the way are what make it. Some pretty complex and very thought provoking issues are introduced, all in a manner that leaves the reader interested and wanting to know more. Somehow, Thomas manages to strike the perfect balance between being complex and engaging, without also being confusing.

The basic idea revolves around the principle that thought (i.e., consciousness) is matter, thereby enabling consciousness to take the form of a higher dimensional space. This Troposphere therefore allows you to gain access to other peoples mind and their memories. In principle, the statement that thought =  matter is true, thoughts can be observed as increased electrical activity within the brain. For me, how this ties with an extra 'consciousness' dimension is probably a step too far. But, one idea Thomas discusses along the way, is the belief that consciousness evolves in a similar way to physical traits.

This I find immensely emotive. As is pointed out, under this principle there is nothing to stop machines developing consciousness, indeed it could be thought of as being unavoidable. So, HAL or Skynet mightn't be that far off!

In conclusion, The End of Mr Y is a great book, and doesn't feel anywhere near the 506 pages in length it is. If you have an interest in the philosophical sciences then you'll find it extremely engaging, and well worth curling up with one sunny spring afternoon.

Nyquist and sampling

Due to one thing and another (mostly the one thing commonly referred to as my thesis, although I have some more personal terms for it), I haven't found the time to keep this little corner of the blog-o-sphere up to date lately. However, the blighter is just about finished (the light is most definitely in sight), which means normal service should be resumed in the near future.

In the mean time, there are a couple of things of late that have caught my attention, causing my little grey cells of curiosity to spark into life. So, with luck, I hope to take up some of the time off I'm allowing myself over Easter (ssh, don't tell the supervisors) to catch up on a little bit of blogging.

First amongst the musings I wanted to talk about is a few thoughts I had whilst looking up some information on Harry Nyquist. Anyone who has studied physics, maths, or engineering of some description must has come across him and his famous Nyquist Theorem (although, properly it should probably be called the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem).

For anyone who hasn't come across this particular idea, it is one of the fundamental principles of Information Theory (something which Nyquist and Shannon both contributed heavily toward developing). Regardless of whether you've ever studied this subject at all, it will have played a huge part in your life. Information theory is fundamental to the way the all those electronic gizmos (from the telephone to the computer and the microwave) we have got so used having loitering around the place. The fundamental principles of information theory are what govern the way the information is communicated, both within a electronic system (e.g., signals between the CPU and graphics card in your computer), and between them (e.g., telephone signals). While subtle nuances in the theory allows this information to be transferred faster and more efficiently, therefore making your computer or tv work faster and better.

At the core of this is something called Sampling Theorem; i.e., the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem. This basically covers the way analogue signals are translated into digital ones (and vice versa). This is easiest explained if we consider an example, say music. Lets consider we're sat in a quiet room strumming a guitar. The sound produced by the guitar spreads out through the room as a series of pressure waves. If we were to think about how these pressure waves are heard by a human ear, we would get a continuous line of varying amplitude; an analogue signal (see figure below).

However, if we want to record this sound so we can replay it on a computer we have to digitize it. Computers can't store analogue signals since they, by definition, have an infinite number of amplitude values. Thus, analogue signals are digitized, which means we describe the analogue signal as a series of amplitude values (see figure above). Thus, the sound of the guitar becomes a series of numbers that represent the amplitude of the sound (pressure wave) at a moment in time.

This digitization of the analogue signal is where the sampling theorem comes in. We have all got music stored on our computers which we can listen to. In order for this to sound the same as if were were sat in the same room as the real instruments playing, the sound has to be sampled at short enough time steps so as to convince the human ear that it is not a series of descrete samples. Basically, it's the same way as animations work. An animation consists on c. 30 individual drawings which are flashed onto the screen every second. The human eye can't tell the difference between them, and so is tricked into thinking it is a moving picture. With the digitization of the sound from our guitar, we're doing exactly the same process.

Every electrical gadget in your home works with these digital signals. What the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem describes, is the minimum time step at which a signal has to be sampled in order to convey a certain set of information. Engineers, mathematicians, and Physicists think of this information in terms of it's frequency, which is what the theorem describes; the Nyquist Frequency.

I deal with the Nyquist theorem pretty much every day as it also plays a fundamental part in signal processing, which is essentially what I do. However, what I didn't know was just how successful Nyquist and his colleagues at AT&T Bell Labs who pioneered information theory (amongst other things) were. The total of 11 researchers won 6 Nobel prizes between them! That is an incredible success rate, and probably one which will never be replicated anywhere else. Kinda puts into perspective everything us little people are struggling with!

Watchmen

Last night I went to see Watchmen. Zack Snyder's movie adaptation of the highly acclaimed graphic novel written by Alan Moore...and I wasn't disappointed!

I have to admit, when I first heard that a movie adaptation was actually in the process of being filmed (afterall, Hollywood have been trying to do this since pretty much straight after the comics were released), I was more than a bit worried. Watchmen, the novel, is a classic. A piece of Sci-Fi/Fantasy literature that, for me, ranks right up there with anything H.G. Wells, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, or any one of other masters that have graced the genre have produced. In fact, being completely honest, I think it ranks right up there with any literature of any genre. So, any movie adaptation had very, very big boots to fill even without the lead weight of also being a comic book adaptation, which, lets face it, doesn't tend to bode particularly well.

However, despite all the potential pitfalls, for me it lived up to the billing amply. The cinematography was everything one comes to expect from Snyder (e.g., 300), a compelling mix of breathtakingly panoramic drama and brutal close-ups, but done such that it doesn't dominate the storyline. The casting was perfect with very strong performances all round, although I have to tip Jackie Haley as Rorschach who gave a perfectly pitched mix of madness and heroism. The score was tremendous, right from the off as Bob Dylan's gravelly voice kicked the movie into gear it again hit the difficult balance between dominating the movie whilst also being noticeable and adding a sense of atmosphere.

Most importantly, though, it managed to do justice to a complex storyline of a dozen or more subplots all working on a multitude of different levels. Some details have been cut (and the ending has been tweaked slightly), but none of this is critical. The same driving force behind the story is there, the same subtle poking and prying into the various characters and their morals, the same dark commentary on human society. Somehow it all comes through, along with a bucket load of other brilliant little details and nods to other things (such as Niel Armstrong's fictitious 'Good luck Mr Gorsky' quote).

Some of the ultimate fan boys will complain about how this scene or that scene has been cut. Others will complain about how long it is. But, when all is said and done, the story and characters are still there in all their dark and miserable glory, and 2 hours 40 minutes is not really that long to have to sit still! So, my advice is that, if you're a fan of the comic it's a must, but even if you're not you should give it a go (I went with some people who haven't ready the book and they said it was fine to follow).

It's big, it's bold, it's brutal, and it's bl**dy brilliant!

Science communication

Following on from yesterday's banter, I thought I'd say a bit more on the communication between scientists and the general populace.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to hear a talk given by Michael Jones, Chief Technical Officer at Google and one of the brains behind GoogleEarth, GoogleMaps, and GoogleScholar. His talk was titled 'The Spread of Scientific Knowledge from the Royal Society to GoogleEarth and Beyond', and presented a whistle-stop tour of how the communication of science has changed over the past thousand years (he actually started a little bit before the Royal Society).

One of his major driving points was that, when the Royal Society was at its peak, this coincided with a peak in the effective communication of science to the general public. This was because science at that time, rather than being presented as a a paper in one of a few dozen scholarly journals, was presented in the form of lively, open debates that could be attended by anyone. Effectively, data analysis was being done on-the-fly, in a similar manner to the theological debates of Ancient Greece and Rome. As a result, the quality of the science wasn't always of the highest standard, but the communication of ideas between scientists and the public was instant and free-flowing. Today, however, we are at the other extreme. All the analysis is done behind closed doors, with the data kept a closely guarded secret until it is ready for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal that requires a subscription fee, and is therefore never read by Joe public. As a result, the quality of science being published is extremely high (on average), but very, very little is being filtered through to a non-scientific audience.

One outcome of this is the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of science in the media. There is no wonder the issues surround the LHC occured because most people had never even heard of the Higgs Boson before, much less knew people were looking for it. However, another more sinister result of this poor communication of science is the drop in kids taking science subjects beyond the compulsory level. It's all well and good teaching children about Newton or Maxwell (there is no doubt they are hugely important and what they did for Physics is without parallel), but they can't empathize with a guy who died 300/400 years ago. They can however connect with someone who is alive today, someone who can stand in front of them with a giant tank full of water and mud explaining how beaches are formed, for instance.

Yes, they might not understand the finer details of why this ocean model is better than that ocean model or how you grow cocolithophore cultures in the lab, but if the science is pitched at the right level they can understand why it's important and will be interested. The vast majority of children are, by nature, interested in just about everything as long as it appears relevant.

Michael Jones argued quite strongly that we should actively be trying to move toward the middle ground. Finding some kind of status quo where the peer-reviewed system can be used to maintain high standards of science, but whilst also effectively communicating recent developments to a wider audience. I couldn't agree more.

Hunter S Thompson

'Too weird to live, too rare to die,'

Hunter Stockton Thompson (1937-2005)

On Saturday I welcomed in the New Year by going to watch the film 'Gonzo: The life and works of Dr Hunter S. Thompson'. This new documentary by Academy Award and Emmy winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, is a humorous and thought-provoking ride into the mind of one the most iconic journalists and writers of the 20th century.

Concentrating mainly on his most productive and, arguably, most influencial early career throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, it follows his development from a bit-part, freelance writer riding round California with Outlaw motorcycle gangs, through into becoming the most notorious journalist of his era (probably any era), punching, tearing, and slicing chunks off any authoritarian figure who dared stand in his way. One of my favorite parts of the documentary was Thompson's reply to a TV interviewer asking about the comments made in his 1972 Rolling Stone article that Senator Edmund Muskie was hooked on the obscure drug Ibogaine:

'I said there was a rumour going round Milwaukee, and I should know. I started it!'

Given my most recent post (Social detritus) on journalists stretching the truth, it may appear somewhat contradictory to now be applauding Thompson for driving a wrecking ball through someone's campaign just because he didn't like him. However, this is where I think there is a big distinction between Social Journalism and Science Journalism.

In the former, facts and figure are considerably hazier, being largely governed by one's own social and economic view point. So, when covering events such as political campaigns and policies, it is important for all the different view points to get aired because what is good for one social group will invariably be bad for another. In this manner, having journalists who are willing to take a stand against things they don't believe in (such as Thompson did against the Vietnam War) are an important way of balancing the status quo, otherwise the politicians (who represent a very small portion of the overall social demographic) would have far too an easy time of it, and we would likely see policies favorably cantered toward their peers.

With the latter, facts and figures are considerably less hazy. Indeed, one could quite easily argue the opposite, that, in fact, there is too much information out there at the moment as the number of peer reviewed journal swell in ranks, each demanding larger wads of money from increasingly cash-strapped academic libraries. The main problem with this area of journalism is that the increasing trend towards sensationalism has lead to several radical theories that do not represent the consensus of scientific opinion (e.g., The Day After Tomorrow) getting blown completely out of proportion, and/or articles completely misunderstanding the fundamental science (e.g., LHC).

However, I think that, given the times in which we live, it is unfair to point the finger solely at journalists saying that they should use one approach for one type of article, and a completely different approach for another. That bold articles standing proudly in the face of authority should be confined to only certain subjects. A good proportion of the blame for the public misunderstanding of science is the poor communication skills of most scientists. Lets face it, we are terrible at explaining what the hell we do all day - even to each other!