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Watching Rome Burn & Hell Freeze
The fun physics of global cataclysmPosted in For Your Consideration
What do record fire seasons in the West, record hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, record winter storms in the South and the hottest years in history have to do with each other? Everything.
This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Schools in the Time of COVID
The Decision Will Ultimately Make ItselfPosted in Thoughts
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Yes, schools are desperately important to kids. No, COVID-19 doesn’t care, and COVID is making the rules right now. Attempts to open schools this fall will fail of their own accord. The relevant question is how to meet the needs of children, families and the community in the face of that reality.
COVID-19 Arrives
The Humanitarian Disaster is HerePosted in Thoughts
Currently new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona are doubling every 7 days. ICU beds in the state are already full. The rest of the country isn’t that far behind us. You do the math.
Correctly Predicting Failure
It’s time for scientists to get loudPosted in Thoughts
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Spreading COVID one lap at a timePosted in Thoughts
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
Pine Boxes
Invest now, the numbers are going upPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Scientists Stuck Inside
Curiosity in the Time of COVIDPosted in For Your ConsiderationThoughts
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
After COVID’s First Wave
No getting back to normalPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
COVID-19
Cutting through the confusionPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
Great Deceiverism 101
Explanation or Theory? Therein lies the rub.Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
One Step at a Time
The not-so-mysterious origin of lifePosted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
The Mind’s Siren Call
Being certain is a primrose pathPosted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Being certain lights up our brains like a junkie’s next hit. Literally. Unfortunately, being certain and being right are two very, very different things.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
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Watching Rome Burn & Hell Freeze
The fun physics of global cataclysmPosted in For Your Consideration
-
Schools in the Time of COVID
The Decision Will Ultimately Make ItselfPosted in Thoughts
-
COVID-19 Arrives
The Humanitarian Disaster is HerePosted in Thoughts
-
Correctly Predicting Failure
It’s time for scientists to get loudPosted in Thoughts
-
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Spreading COVID one lap at a timePosted in Thoughts
-
Pine Boxes
Invest now, the numbers are going upPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
-
Scientists Stuck Inside
Curiosity in the Time of COVIDPosted in For Your ConsiderationThoughts
-
After COVID’s First Wave
No getting back to normalPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
-
COVID-19
Cutting through the confusionPosted in Success & FailureThoughts
-
Great Deceiverism 101
Explanation or Theory? Therein lies the rub.Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
-
One Step at a Time
The not-so-mysterious origin of lifePosted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
-
The Mind’s Siren Call
Being certain is a primrose pathPosted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
-
What do record fire seasons in the West, record hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, record winter storms in the South and the hottest years in history have to do with each other? Everything.
This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Yes, schools are desperately important to kids. No, COVID-19 doesn’t care, and COVID is making the rules right now. Attempts to open schools this fall will fail of their own accord. The relevant question is how to meet the needs of children, families and the community in the face of that reality.
Currently new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona are doubling every 7 days. ICU beds in the state are already full. The rest of the country isn’t that far behind us. You do the math.
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Being certain lights up our brains like a junkie’s next hit. Literally. Unfortunately, being certain and being right are two very, very different things.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Over his 30 year career as an internationally known astrophysicist, Dr. Jeff Hester was a key member of the team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. With one foot always on the frontiers of knowledge, he has been mentor, coach, team leader, award-winning teacher, administrator and speaker, to name a few of the hats he has worn. His Hubble image, the Pillars of Creation, was chosen by Time Magazine as among the 100 most influential photographs in history.

It’s Genetic
Returning engineering to its roots
Genetic algorithms are revolutionizing our world by reconnecting engineering with its four-billion-year-old roots.
Republished from my monthly Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
I recall the first time that I saw the famous movie of the windy November morning in 1940 when the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, connecting Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula across Puget Sound in Washington, tore itself to pieces. There she was, “Galloping Gertie” as the bridge was known, wildly bucking and twisting in a 40 mph (60 km/h) wind. Then, suddenly, in a matter of only a few seconds, the third-longest suspension bridge ever built at the time was no more! To this day, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge remains a textbook example of engineering gone wrong. Structures are subject to vibrations, and if you aren’t careful, those vibrations can spell big trouble.
Fighting vibrations with a different approach to design
Enter Professor Andy Keane. The year is 1994, and Keane and his colleagues at Southampton University in the UK are working to design a much smaller bridge — a truss — that is as vibration-free as possible. They aren’t worried about the extreme oscillations that destroyed Gertie, but they do care about the slight vibrations that would cripple a delicate instrument like an astronomical satellite. They start with a traditional design, but that’s where tradition ends. Instead of using their knowledge and insight to improve the design in clever ways, they metaphorically throw intelligence out the window. They hand the job over to a computer and then kick back and wait to see what happens.
The computer itself is kept intentionally dumb. It doesn’t know anything about engineering design principles. It only can do two things. First, it can make new virtual trusses by combining and randomly changing the properties of existing trusses. Second, it can compare trusses and tell better from worse. Armed with no other tricks up its sleeve, the computer marches along, blindly turning the crank:
Step 1: Make a new generation of trusses by shuffling and making random changes in the previous generation.
Step 2: Evaluate the new trusses, and toss the ones that don’t work so well.
Step 3: Repeat. Again, and again, and again …
Ten generations and over 1,000 virtual trusses later, the computer’s best effort is lopsided and twisted and irregular. It looks more grown than designed. Nobody understands it or has the faintest clue how it works. But it does work. It works very well. The vibrations have been improved by more than 20,000 percent!

This truss, designed by a genetic algorithm, may not look like much, but it performs wildly better than a traditional truss designed by humans using standard engineering principles. (Photo courtesy Andy Keane.)
When the right conditions are met, evolution isn’t a theory; it is applied logic.
Keane was not the first to take this approach to design, and he certainly wasn’t the last. Two decades later, such unguided, blind algorithms are revolutionizing our approach to the shapes of airplane wings and turbine blades, new molecules for industrial and pharmaceutical uses, pattern recognition, communications networks, investment strategies, cancer treatments, and hundreds of other applications.
At their core, all of these applications have two things in common: (1) the better an item performs, the more likely its properties will be retained; and (2) when surviving properties are passed on from one generation to the next, variations occur. As long as these two conditions are met, properties will evolve from generation to generation as items become better and better suited to their task.
By the way, life satisfies these two conditions. When evolutionary biologists talk about the first condition, they call it “selection.” When they talk about the second condition, they call it “heredity with variation.” And like any other system that satisfies these conditions, life evolves. Logically, life can’t help but evolve! In one sense, engineers who employ genetic algorithms to evolve technologies are doing something new. But in a deeper sense, they are returning engineering to its roots, tapping the power of the mindless algorithm that has been shaping life for almost 4 billion years.
If you want to understand the algorithm of evolution, talk to a cutting-edge design engineer.
The public discussion of biological evolution is undeniably muddled. In part that is because people tend to approach it from the wrong direction. Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle deserves to be the stuff of legend, but if you want to understand evolution, forget about finch beaks or fossils. Instead, talk to a working engineer who is using genetic algorithms to evolve a truss.
Once you’ve wrapped your head around how and why a truss gets so good so quickly, you have the understanding you need to approach evolution as scientists do. You can use that understanding of evolution to make predictions about the world and then see whether those predictions hold true. When you do that, you discover that the predictions of evolution are in remarkable accord with all that we see. From the fossil record to the common chemistry of life, to the shared structure of different species — and now to pharmaceuticals, jet engines, and bridges — we live in a world crafted by evolution’s unguided hand.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed because it acted like an unstable airplane wing. If you are interested in the wind-driven resonance (called aeroelastic flutter) that caused the collapse, watch this cool video of a computer simulation from the Natural Hazard Modeling Lab at The University of Notre Dame.
It’s Genetic ^ Returning engineering to its roots ©
Dr. Jeff Hester
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