Cicero's Songs

The average Human brain consists of at least 86 billion neurons and perhaps ten times more glyial cells. Yet each neuron, through synapses, can connect to as many as ten thousand other cells. The estimated number of neural connections is thus in the order of trillions: in fact an estimated 0.15 quadrillion connections . Brain specialists believe that each Human Brain may be capable of processing as much as 2.5 petabytes of information through these synapse connections. This is about seven times larger than the entire library of congress .  Incidentally, to build a computer of similar power on current technology would require the power of a small city to run it. For the brain i t is not the total number of cells, but the connections between them that makes its processing ability so powerful.  As for the Brain so for other systems. In information systems, the value of an individual computer, no matter how fast its processing power or how large its memory, is as nothing compa...

Astronomers using the Kepler telescope have noted something odd about star  KIC 8462852 . It has some very large changes in its brightness. Most likely these changes have random, natural causes, but still amongst the possibilities is the chance that these changes are in fact artificial- that there are space aliens and that they have technology that can harvest energy on a stellar scale. Cosmologists have often speculated on how we might recognise a civilisation beyond our own solar system, and they have applied different criteria to identify the level of development of any intelligence that we may encounter. These criteria were first suggested by a Russian cosmologist in the 1960s and are therefore known as the Kardashev scale . Broadly speaking Kardashev suggests that the level of development of any given civilisation would depend on the ability to harness energy. Thus Level I civilisations could control the whole energy provided by their home planet, Level II could control energy...

The outbreak of Norovirus in the UK has been greeted with the customary restraint and good sense we know so well from the British press. It is certainly an unpleasant infection, and anecdotal evidence suggests that it has been particularly nasty this year. Yet in fact the disease is relatively safe in that, in almost all cases, the symptoms will clear up quite quickly by themselves.  However, the breakdown in several areas of the healthcare system that have come as a result of the outbreak should absolutely terrify us. If the infection was one that needed medical intervention in order to treat, then it is clear that the British NHS would struggle to cope. The benefits of large, centralised hospital centres of excellence, that are much touted for the treatment of non-infectious diseases, such as heart conditions or cancer, become huge liabilities when trying to contain a large scale outbreak of infectious problems, such as Norovirus. Healthcare professionals are amongst the first...

OK so the State of Delaware may not have elected a Witch ("I'm not a Witch, I'm not a Witch..." WHATEVER). However the United States has elected an awful lot of people whose opinions do not vary a whole lot from such simple superstition. Evidence gathered from peer reviewed papers is not the way that the US Congress conducts its business. Over 95% of the members of Congress- both new and old- have no Scientific background whatsoever. There are more people in American politics who say that they believe in the "literal truth" of the Bible than those who acknowledge the demonstrable truth of the theory of evolution by natural selection. If you can not base your political ideas on the Scientific method of sceptical empiricism then you might as well believe in witchcraft and spells to put things right. It is through such methods that we have been able to start to catch the merest glimpse of the spectacular wonders of the Universe, and our place within it. It is...

As a child of the space age, it is hard not to be disappointed in the fact that we do not have human beings in permanent Moon bases, and should have landed humans on Mars some time ago. On the other hand it is also easy to notice that space has been very largely the realm of state enterprises, whether that is American NASA, the Russian Cosmodrome, ESA of the Europeans or indeed the Chinese government. But, of course, various treaties have dictated that no part of space, including the Moon, may be owned in any way except, as the Outer Space treaty has it, in common benefit for all mankind- and if "all" own something it is the same as if no one owns it. Well, it is true that Columbus' expedition was a state enterprise, yet what brought the Conquistadors back to the Americas was the prospect of limitless wealth- albeit that this was wealth plundered from the native population. There is wealth on the Moon, but there is no population, yet still, "private ownership" o...

The Wright Brothers first flew their Kitty Hawk on December 17th 1903. On July 25th 1909, Louis Bleriot made the first aeroplane crossing of the Channel. On June 5th 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown made the first aeroplane crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. On May 21st 1927 Charles Lindbergh became the first man to fly non-stop across the Atlantic from New York to Paris. It was only 18 years from the 35 minute flight of Bleriot to the 35 hour flight of Lindbergh. From that time, the pace of technological change seemed to accelerate dramatically. The invention of the jet engine by Sir Frank Whittle saw the first jet aeroplane, the Gloster-Whittle fly on May 15th 1941. After the end of the Second World War, speeds became ever faster: the sound barrier was broken by Chuck Yeager on October 14th 1947. Finally, on 12th April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man into space. It was only 58 years since the first flight. In December 1968, Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, and Bill And...

Cicero has a fairly humanities driven brain. Although I enjoyed science as a kid, I had to make a choice fairly early on, and thus while I kept on with Physics, I had to drop Chemistry and Biology as subjects at 14 in favour of subjects like History and of course Latin, which I was frankly much better at. Nevertheless, though I do not feel that I have an intuitive feel for Maths, I have always enjoyed reading popular science books and reading through the occasional copy of New Scientist . The latest book I have been reading is written by the Cosmology consultant of New Scientist , Marcus Chown. The title, " The never-ending days of being dead " is perhaps a clue that the ideas in modern Cosmology are beginning to ask some very fundamental questions about the nature of the Universe. In the end the questions that Cosmologists are asking end up sounding very much like the Question that was posed to the Deep Thought Computer in Douglas Adam's "The Hitchhikers Guide to th...

This is the E8 pattern, the most intricate shape known to mathematics. It is an eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in small print, would cover an area "the size of Manhattan". E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Garrett Lisi, a scientist who rather splendidly seems to spend most of his time surfing or snowboarding, reckons that the mathematics of particle physics conforms to the same pattern, and he predicts that a further twenty particles will be discovered when the Large Hadron Collider comes online next year. Exciting times to be a physicist!