A Bittersweet Benchmark

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Shana Hutchins

On January 19, 2008, Texas A&M University lost one of its absolute best absolutely too soon: Presidential Professor John L. Hogg, a beloved chemist, champion of undergraduate education and science outreach, and all-around life force of graciousness and good will.

Last summer on a casual jaunt across campus for an errand, I noticed an unfamiliar maroon bench outside the Texas A&M Chemistry Complex that I’d apparently missed for the better part of five years — not unlike its namesake in the case of so many.

They say every person has a story, and so does this bench, as told here by longtime Texas A&M Chemistry administrator Ron Carter, associate department head and friend of John Hogg:

Dr. Hogg’s 2008 spring class had just started earlier in the week, and his students were very saddened when they were informed of his passing. Various faculty members stepped in to teach his class and take over his undergraduate advising duties and other roles within the department. While we all handled what had to be done, the students stepped up with their own approach, unbeknownst to anyone that I am aware of to this day. Toward the end of the semester, I received an anonymous telephone call, informing me a memorial gift in the name of Dr. John Hogg had been delivered to the front steps of the Chemistry Building. I went outside, and although no one was in sight, there in the bright sunshine was a shiny maroon memorial bench sitting at the base of the grand staircase leading up the Chemistry Building with an inscription on it honoring the memory of Dr. John Hogg. It was a very overwhelming moment to know his students cared and appreciated him so much that they had come together to purchase a lasting memorial in his honor. We have never received a note or letter from anyone claiming credit for his memorial bench. The Department of Chemistry and the College of Science subsequently provided the funds to have it permanently installed under one of the large oak trees at the main entrance to the Chemistry Building where he once sat and talked with students.

Six years later, an anonymous gift as altruistic as the man himself continues to pay quiet but constant tribute regardless of weather or season to the memory and the ongoing impact of the beloved chemist well-known for shouldering many a worthwhile cause of great consequence with precious little fanfare while also counseling generations of Aggies toward career excellence in chemistry and inspiring anyone fortunate enough to enter his orbit along the way.

Between the bench and the stately oaks that shade it, it’s a picturesque metaphor for a man most at peace among his students, his colleagues and his chemistry who is clearly and dearly missed by all three.

As colorful and exciting an individual as his trademark tie-dyed lab coat, Dr. John Hogg and the Chemistry Road Show program he created introduced more than 2,000 people each year to the wonders of chemistry, physics and general science with the help of fire, explosions, weird polymers and super cold materials.

Life As We Know It

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

Another guest entry from Texas A&M Center for Mathematics and Science Education (CMSE) researcher Dr. Craig Wilson about the importance of seizing not only our days but as many fleeting moments as possible — rather appropriate as we close in on closing out another trip around our Sun:

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Life is ephemeral…

Just what does that mean? I still retain a dictionary, but nowadays most people turn or click to Wikipedia, which defines ephemeral things (from the Greek word εφήμερος or ephemeros, literally “lasting only one day”) as transitory and existing only briefly. Typically the term is used to describe objects found in nature, although it can describe a wide range of things.

So, it was refreshing and thought-provoking to hear this definition offered by a Native American tribal elder when I recently attended the “closing circle” at the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) National Conference in Denver, Colorado. Dried sage leaves were burning and smoking (smudging) and cleansing the gathering that, rather incongruously, had attendees seated in a circle of chairs arranged inside a hotel conference room rather than outdoors under an expansive blue sky with the snowcapped Rockies as a backdrop. Nevertheless, once “smudged,” the speaker was allowed to hold the sacred eagle feathers and thus the floor, whereupon the elder said that, “The Plains Indians consider life to be like the fresh breath of a buffalo on a cold morning.” No book nor the Internet could have put it better, and so I immediately became a fan of oral history and the power of a good story — in my case spoken by preference.

A totem pole carved by an itinerant woodcarver Craig Wilson befriended from Washington State nearly 20 years ago graces his USDA/ARS office. Wilson says he treasures the man’s generous gift, given that members of this particular artisan’s clan of 7th- and 8th-generation First Nations carvers have work in the collections of the Smithsonian and the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, British Columbia.

I have taken to using the phrase “we only pass this way once” (with apologies to any Buddhists and Hindus in my audience) to try to impress on imressionable young minds that they should not be spectators in life but active participants who should try to squeeze out every last drop of juice or aqua viva that is held therein. They should participate. That is, of course, easy for me to say, as I have the luxury in my job of time for thought, while most folks have their noses to the grindstone or, nowadays, to an Ipad/device screen, their thumbs flashing across a miniature keyboard as if their life depended upon reacting or being proactive by text rather than active. There is no thought of taking time out to smell the roses. Why look at or smell an actual rose when you can click on a link and learn that there are Banksianae — white and yellow roses from China — in fact roses from most every continent, of every color, and that they all trace their roots back to slightly more than 100 species? Smell one? What would be the purpose of that?

With that thought in present day, I took myself out of the Howard Johnson — formerly a parochial house for priests and monks — and walked a few hundred yards to the town square in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico where I am currently working. I was there the day before and was immediately struck by the fact that something was missing, different, perhaps untoward. I immediately realized that the fountains had been silenced, the gloriously sparkling pool surrounding the imposing bronze statue in the center of the square emptied and stilled. A magical exercise had been lost to me, given that I have a habit when seated by moving water to focus my eyes on one drop and then to follow its every movement upward and down until it is lost to me, at which point I pick up another water molecule’s path and so on. It is mesmeric. You should try it.

Christopher Columbus statue and fountain in the town plaza in Mayaguez, Puerta Rico.

Christopher Columbus statue and fountain in the town plaza in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

So instead, I took in my surroundings, where a diminutive, suntanned older lady was sweeping leaves off the marbled square with a passion and effort that was both impressive and disturbing in that she was like an automaton of Autumn only employed when the leaves fall and desperate to have the square leaf-free as if it were a leaf-free zone. That took my eyes skywards to see how much work remained, gauged by the remaining foliage, but then I spotted a humming bird flitting from leaf to leaf, breakfasting on insects to bring up its protein count while burning off the calories from nectar collected elsewhere. Native Americans explain that our Earth is covered by a dark blanket into which the humming bird had pierced holes that are the stars. That sounds good to me and to hell with The Big Bang Theory although it does make me laugh!

My thoughts have drifted as usual, this time like smudging smoke, but I leave you with this analogy from the same tribal elder who said, “The Woodland Indians consider life to be like the flash of a firefly in the darkened forest.”

Beautiful but ephemeral…

The Magic Behind Scientists-in-the-Making

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

Texas A&M Center for Mathematics and Science Education (CMSE) researcher Dr. Craig Wilson offers another guest entry, this one about caterpillars, the magic they weave beyond the silk of their cocoons, and their impact on both science and lifelong learning.

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Fairy godmothers are not just the sole preserve of Hollywood and Disneyland, for I discovered one in 2003 in Bryan — or more precisely at the USDA/Agricultural Research Service/Southern Plains Area Research Center (ARS/SPARC) in College Station. Theresa Robinson was one of several teachers from surrounding school districts who gave of their free time to attend a USDA/ARS Future Scientists workshop, the inaugural and pilot version of a science teacher professional development activity that has since been expanded nationwide as the USDA/HSINP Future Scientists Program — partly, I am sure, because of the initial success of these first participants with their students and perhaps a healthy dose of magic wiffle dust and the wave of Theresa’s magic wand.

Being a Protestant bigot, I do not use this adjective lightly, but “saintly” Theresa has worked her magic with children and adults alike at Johnson Elementary School in Bryan for more years than she cares to remember. This is ironic because she does care and care she does for the students entrusted to her care, always with a gentle but firm voice and an uncanny understanding of what each child needs. By contrast, I look out and see a sea of faces differentiated by color and aspect, treating all the same as I did on December 5, when I was invited to make a presentation to all 78 fifth graders.

Craig Wilson, director of the USDA-sponsored Future Scientists Program, works with students at Johnson Elementary School in Bryan, Texas. Through the initiative, Wilson introduces students to a vast array of scientific research projects and principles, not to mention potential careers in science.

They were a captive audience, but I was the one held captive by their naïve enthusiasm and joyous excitement as experiments exploded around them, eliciting questions that are the life blood of science. Sadly, that blood flow is too often cut off or stifled in our schools as being demanding of too much time. But not in Theresa’s class. With a wave of her imaginary wand, a hush descends out of the educational chaos, at which point the inquisitive child is encouraged to articulate the question that may be that rare and magical question, the one for which we do not have an answer and for which all should strive to seek an answer. That is science.

It struck me that I have worked with Theresa for 10 years now and that she has had her students conduct research on the corn earworm caterpillar (Helicoverpa zea), provided free of charge by the scientists at SPARC each of those years. The current audience of students was not even born when we started, but Johnson Elementary seems to be ahead of the curve or already around it by maintaining contact with their alums and inviting them back to a “Breakfast for Seniors” event six years after they walk out the doors of their elementary school for what they thought was the last time. At the most recent breakfast, more than half of those attending are poised to pursue some type of science at college.

Time is relentless, as is the battle to nurture future scientists and to stem the ever-widening gap between the general population and our environment in which a seemingly simple question like, “Where do seeds come from?” results in the answer, “From a seedling.” We have a problem but, one fairy godmother in Bryan is continuing to sow seeds not of doubt but of aspiration that are taking root to grow future scientists who both question and reason. Disney should cast her in a movie where she may cast her spell over a wider audience desperately in need of a magical elixir of observational and questioning skills to benefit the planet.

Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Put ’em together and what have you got? Bippity-boppity-boo … A Scientist!

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P.S. As an aside, another teacher from that Class of ’03 was from a tiny rural school in Gauze. One of her fifth-grade boys who studied the corn earworm has been employed at SPARC as a biological technician (insects) for two years and is at Blinn College studying entomology with plans to transfer to Texas A&M.

Click here to read a past feature story on the Future Scientists Program.

In a Word

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

Don’t look now, folks, but science is on the rise, according to Merriam-Webster, which has crowned a new word king for 2013: science.

Rather than settling for the more traditional (not to mention highly subjective) pulse measurement of popular culture method, officials at Merriam-Webster went with metrics a little nearer and dearer to our disciplinary hearts: analytics gleaned from actual online searches at Merriam-Webster.com. The word with the greatest increase in look-ups — a whopping 176 percent, mind you — was science.

We have arrived, but now, the real work toward maximizing this opportunity begins — in true finals week fashion with a pop quiz: What are your ideas on how to get people hooked on science and related lifelong learning? Inquiring minds clearly want to know.

History Worth Repeating

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

THIS JUST IN: This rest-of-the-story stuff is a universally (pardon the pun) appealing thing.

One of the absolute kingpins of this genre is award-winning author and Guggenheim Fellow Richard Panek, who penned the masterful 2011 book, The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality – a detailed, behind-the-scenes story of the 2011 Nobel Prize-winning discovery that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. In the book, Panek saw fit to give due credit to (among others) Texas A&M astronomer Nick Suntzeff for his early work in Chile that essentially began the field of supernova cosmology.

Yesterday, in his Last Word On Nothing blog entry, Panek shares some vintage Nick Suntzeff – precisely the kind of trademark insight Nick is known for and to which I referred in this very blog last week.

History disease. The one chronic condition we could all be so fortunate to contract, sooner rather than later. Wonder if it’s contagious, not to mention as essential to groundbreaking research as masking tape and aluminum foil?

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), Nick Suntzeff’s astronomical home for 20 years prior to coming to Texas A&M. (Credit: Tim Abbott, CTIO.)

For some additional history on Nick, check out one of the historically significant things he did as an undergraduate at Stanford that continues to educate and inspire to this day.

Yeah, he built that. But here’s how he described his contribution to elite higher education institutional history to me when I originally stumbled across the information:

“It seems not too long ago, a friend and I had no idea what we were doing, but a really supportive physics professor let us believe we could build the thing. He really was the key to this project. It is fun to see it still there at Stanford. I was amused to find out that it is well known as a romantic place on warm evenings. That is, romantic for couples, not astronomers who would be up in the dome cursing whatever is not working and drinking way too much coffee while squinting at a flickering screen and listening to totally forgettable ’60s classic rock. Not a pretty picture.”

Beats the hell outta befriending black widows, in my opinion.

Senses of Wonder

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

From time to time, Texas A&M Center for Mathematics and Science Education (CMSE) researcher Dr. Craig Wilson emails us about his adventures, experiences and related insights gleaned as both a scientist and a keen observer of life. Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting (much less working) with Craig will attest to the fact that to know him is to learn from him — a delightful process definitely worth sharing. Given such, we’re pleased and honored that he has agreed to be added to the blog, Here’s hoping you enjoy his musings as much as we do!

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Most people look but do not actually see. I stress powers of observation when working with teachers and students, explaining that observation in science means using all of their five senses and then asking questions. We need to take full advantage of the gifts we are given at birth that enable us to emerge from the womb as scientists but with an inherent ability to be artistic if we choose to develop those talents. Neither is mutually exclusive, although our education system tends to encourage a divide between left and right brain, science and art, academic and non-academic, success and failure.

A downed 100-foot yellow pine tree on Craig Wilson’s East Texas property, complete with a new pine seedling emerging from a woodpecker hole in the foreground.

For example, if you make the effort to observe it, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, would prick your finger when you touch it, would look glorious because of its vibrant colors, would taste as delicate as its petals you may eat and would sound as quiet as a whisper as it sways in a gentle breeze, if you had the auditory powers of the greater wax moth. This moth is capable of sensing sound frequencies of up to 300 kHz – the highest recorded frequency sensitivity of any animal in the natural world.

Humans are only capable of hearing sounds of 20 kHz maximum, dropping to around 12-to-15 kHz as we age. But, do we actually listen? I have lain down in the prairie grasses of The Badlands in South Dakota to hear the wind passing through and over them. I have been fortunate to sit on beaches of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and a few days ago, the Caribbean, to hear waves crash or roll gently on shore, each with a distinctive sound.

We can all touch people by our actions, but when we touch or feel, we cannot match catfish that are probably the most finely tuned creatures on Earth, as their smooth skin gives them a heightened sense of touch, and they are rumored to be able to detect earthquakes days in advance. When I have actually felt the most is when I was privileged to hold each of our children as soon as they were born in Serowe, Botswana, for each touched my heart in return.

Craig Wilson, during his descent through the cloud forest at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro that inspired the following Haiku:
Why Climb Trees?
Why? To touch the sky!
Why? For all the world to see…
One must climb a tree!

Bloodhounds have the keenest sense of smell of any dogs, as their noses are 10-to-100 million times more sensitive than a human’s. That said, it always intrigues me that when humans encounter certain smells, these odors can trigger a memory perhaps from our youth — for example, the inside of a damp tent that transports me back in time to a hillside in Wales where sheep had invaded our tents while we were away climbing Idwal Slabs. Can a dog do that?

For eyesight, I pick the dragonfly, possibly the most formidable aerial hunter among insects whose eyes are so big that they cover almost the entire head and provide a full 360-degree field of vision. These eyes are made up of 30,000 visual units called ommatidia, each one containing a lens and a series of light sensitive cells. Their eyesight is superb, whereas humans look but rarely see what may be obvious just a few feet in front of them. For example, I can walk down a street in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico and see glorious concrete buildings from the early 1900s with ornate friezes three stories up with ferns growing from cracks but never, ever glance in a shop window to see merchandise.

The average person has about 10,000 taste buds. That number may seem like a lot, but it pales in comparison to, yet again, the catfish that has taste buds not only in its mouth but all over its body, numbering more than 100,000, with some large catfish having as many as 175,000. While in Mayaguez, I tasted pasteles (pork dumplings) for the first time, but I prefer the taste of freedom that my job allows, enabling me to interact with incredible people from friends to research scientists to students with special needs.

Finally, a question for you! Does the seldom-used common sense (7^th Sense) negate the existence of extra sensory perception (ESP) or the 6^th Sense? I wonder?

If you have a few spare moments, this video appealed to me.

Got a Little Story for Ya, Ags

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

As a writer, I do so love a good story and those who wield both the appropriate subject matter and the flair for its proper delivery.

One of the best absolute naturals in all above respects is Texas A&M astronomer Nick Suntzeff, who I describe to people as a marketer’s dream for good reason. Beyond his ease with media representatives, administrators and officials, and external visitors and general audiences, he’s also a master at breaking down the subject at hand and explaining why it matters. And in going the extra mile.

I offer a recent example — a follow-up email to Battalion reporter John Rangel, thanking him for a recent story:

John,

I would like to congratulate you on the article in The Batt on the most distant galaxy. You nailed the science and gave a feeling for the excitement of the discovery. Great job!

By the way, there are some points to this discovery that you, as an engineering student, may enjoy. It is difficult to define what is distance in astronomy because the universe is expanding, and the grid by which we measure distances is also stretching at the same time. So for me the best way to understand distance is just what you did — give it in units of how much time it took for light to get here compared to the age of the universe. However, you will see some articles refer to the distance to this object as 30 billion light years or so. This is the way astronomers would measure it, but this distance is not intuitive. Imagine we are in our galaxy in the early universe and we are looking at this distant galaxy. It would be very close to us because the universe is so small. Imagine putting a 3-D grid on this early universe and put our galaxy at one corner and the distant galaxy at another corner. Now run the universe forward to today. The universe has stretched a lot (expanded, if you will). Our galaxy and the other one are still at those corners, but the grid has expanded by a factor of 9 now. That short distant that separated us and that galaxy has now stretched into about 30 billion light years — the co-moving distance we call it. So you will also hear astronomers quote distances that are greater than the age of the universe.

How can something be farther away than the age of the universe (in today’s time) and we can still see it? Well, the weird thing is that we will never see that galaxy when it is today age — 13.8 billion years old. We can only see it now, but as the universe evolves, the galaxy will actually disappear from our universe or perhaps more to the point — will disappear from our vision.

The other point is that although galaxies appear to be moving away from us and this appears as a Doppler shift, it is actually not a Doppler shift. It is space stretching. Nothing is actually moving. The motion looks like a velocity and a Doppler shift, but there is no kinetic energy involved. If there were, galaxies near the edge of the universe would have a ridiculous amount of energy because they are moving close to the speed of light.

Edwin Hubble, who discovered the expansion of the universe, was careful never to call this apparent expansion a velocity — he called it a cosmological redshift which is what astronomers should also call it, and if they don’t, well I will go kick their butts.

Anyway, sorry for the long email about your great article.

cheers, nick

I don’t know about John Rangel, but for this writer, the initial interview is typically a formative experience. I remember well my first trip to Dr. Suntzeff’s Texas A&M campus office — a veritable time capsule spanning the high points of astronomical history as well as his career, which includes 25 years at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. I was interviewing him for a piece on Albert Einstein’s cosmological constant — Einstein’s self-described “biggest blunder” which he predicted in 1917 as the proverbial glue holding together the theory of a never-changing universe that Edwin Hubble’s 1929 discovery of the universe’s expansion later debunked. (Incidentally, in a Kevin Bacon-esque six-degrees-of-separation constant, Hubble served as mentor to Allan Sandage, who in turn is the one who encouraged Dr. Suntzeff to focus on Type Ia supernovas — specifically their brightness — to measure precise distances, which is how Dr. Suntzeff came to help discover dark energy and roughly 75 percent of the universe. But that’s a whole ‘nother story!)

After posing a basic equation-type question to gauge my level of astrophysical knowledge (essentially negative infinity), Dr. Suntzeff took great pains to explain not only the equation and the basic physics behind it, but also each and every piece in his collection, in addition to the actual research I was there to discuss. And so began an educational relationship across subsequent visits and stories, typically supplemented with emailed anecdotes and other means of follow-up insight about astrophysics and oh, so much more that has always served to enlighten or entertain. (Ask him sometime about saving Alan Alda’s life while down in Chile or about being school mates with Robin Williams — yes, that Robin Williams — or about the time he made international headlines for discovering nothing! Yeah, I have hundreds of these, as does he.)

Bottom line, it all goes to prove my long-held theory that most professors first and foremost are born educators and — big surprise — people, too. Their areas of expertise are vitally important, but somehow lost amid all that focused excellence and relentless drive is their intrinsic motivation and passion for knowledge generation, big-picture dreams and doing what they love and want you to love, too. Or at the very least understand in some tangible way.

Trust me, it’s a great story well worth the time it takes to read. Even better if you get the chance to hear it in person.

Nick Suntzeff claims no one believes that he knew Robin Williams in high school and that the two hung out together, but this image from the Redwood High School 1969 Yearbook offers actual proof from the days long before fame for both or the invention of Photoshop! Redwood is located in Larkspur, California.

Derivative Bee

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Jean Marie Linhart

Tuesday night was the Math Department’s second annual Derivative Bee, as well as my first visit to the event as a faculty volunteer.

TAMU Math Derivative Bee 11/12/2013

Students participate in two categories. Category U is for students currently taking differential calculus (Math 131, 151 and 171). Category G is for students who have completed differential calculus (Math 152, 172 or higher).

In the first round, students are issued clickers and have 3-5 minutes to choose the correct multiple choice answer to a differentiation question. There wasn’t a lot for the faculty volunteers to do at this point, so I thought I’d play along. I was confident of my advantage; this isn’t the first time I’ve taught calculus. And I have those three magic little letters (Ph.D.) following my name.

It didn’t take long for me to get a little attitude adjustment. Question 1 was to evaluate

$\dfrac{d}{dx}\left[\dfrac{(x+2)(2x+3)}{x}\right]$

Since I don’t like using the quotient rule, I changed it to a product

$\frac{d}{dx}\left[(x+2)(2x+3)x^{-1}\right]$

and promptly made a distribution mistake in the multiple iterations of the product rule required to evaluate the derivative.

What I should have done in the first place was to FOIL out the product and divide through by the x in the denominator

$\frac{d}{dx}\left[\dfrac{2x^2 + 7x + 6}{x}\right] = \frac{d}{dx} \left[2x + 7 + \frac{6}{x}\right] = 2 - \frac{6}{x^2}$

which is just oodles easier.

Another problem I got schooled on: find the derivative of

$\frac{d}{dx}\sqrt{x\sqrt{x\sqrt{x}}}$

Me? I love the chain rule, and the first thing I did was apply it incorrectly, not realizing that all those embedded square roots were also multiplied together and that the product rule is required, too! Fortunately, I caught my mistake and corrected it — with a not insubstantial amount of sweat. I was all proud of myself until one of the other instructors showed us the easy way to do the problem usingthe rules of exponentials.

$\frac{d}{dx}\sqrt{x\sqrt{x\sqrt{x}}} = \frac{d}{dx}(x(x(x)^{\tiny 1/2})^{\tiny 1/2})^{\tiny1/2} = \frac{d}{dx} (x^{\tiny 1/2}x^{\tiny 1/4}x^{\tiny 1/8}) = \frac{d}{dx} (x^{\tiny7/8}) = \frac{7}{8}x^{\tiny -1/8}$

which is an easy problem to solve!

This old dog learned a few tricks tonight. Including renewed respect for my colleagues and students. We have some smart people here at Texas A&M.

Light Years Ahead and Apart

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

Every day is a learning experience when you’re covering Texas A&M Science. In many cases, that experience doesn’t end with the finished story — for us as the writers or for the reporters who choose to pick it up.

It should come as no surprise that our professors are natural educators, in and outside their classrooms. Email and social media, along with news outlets that enable and encourage reader comments, offer extended opportunities for those savvy enough to harness them in the ever-broadening realm of public education and outreach.

Take, for instance, the recent most-distant-galaxy discovery. Astronomers Casey Papovich, Vithal Tilvi and Nick Suntzeff went to great lengths to help us get that story not only out but also accurate, from handling initial interviews to helping with multiple revisions and small tweaks to the article in progress as well as to the supporting images and captions.

Breathtakingly beautiful, isn’t it? But as good as it is and we thought we did, it turns out people — general readers and even some astronomers — got a bit confused regarding the distance part of that most distant galaxy find. Enter the chance to educate, as illustrated in the following two examples.

In the first, Papovich expands on the 30 billion light years question in response to a direct email from a science writer in Germany:

Technically, the answer is “yes,” but I tend to use the distance the galaxy appears to be (that’s where we “see” it) That distance is only 13 billion light years distant.

The 30 billion light years comes from the following. If you could stop the universe expanding and run a tape measure, then the distance we would measure would be 30 billion light years. But we don’t see the galaxy there. I tend to quote the “light travel distance” because that’s the distance the galaxy “appears” to be (the light left the galaxy 13 billion years ago and has been chasing after us as we are carried away with the expansion). That distance (the light travel distance) is 13 billion light years.

Now, the galaxy we’re seeing has also been moving in the other direction for 13 billion years, so it has also moved away. That’s why the present-day distance is 30 billion light years (but we can’t see the galaxy at that distance). Because we “see” the galaxy at the light travel distance, I quote that distance (13 billion light years).

Distances are very screwy because the universe is expanding so fast.

Hope that helps, Casey

And here’s the second example, in which Suntzeff responds to a comment on the story featured in the local newspaper, The Bryan-College Station Eagle:

The attentive Eagle readers here have caught an obvious mistake, but let me turn this into a learning moment (hey, give me a break! I am a professor at A&M.) When you measure distances to stuff in the universe, the meaning of distance is ambiguous. It has taken 13 billion years for this light to get to us from this galaxy, and this is one way of measuring distance. Another way, which is often used in astronomy, is asking how much the universe has expanded since that time — sort of how far away is the object in today’s much larger universe. We call this the “scale” distance. That number is more like 30 billion light years for this galaxy. For me, it is easier to think of distance as how long it took the light to get to us, which would be 13 billion years. But the 30 billion year distance is also correct, if not obvious. And yes, this will be on the mid-term.

Any way you slice/write it, I think it’s pretty darned cool we get paid to promote the likes of a discovery of the most distant galaxy known to man (one born only 1 billion years or so after the Big Bang) alongside such great ambassadors for astronomy, Texas A&M University and the state of Texas, and science education as a whole. Welcome to Aggieland!

Why I Ask Why

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Shana Hutchins

I read the other day that the average 4-year-old asks 437 questions a day.

As a mother of three young children (the youngest being a 3-year-old whom I’d consider advanced for his age, if not so much in potty training, then in this department), I can identify. As a journalist who works day in and day out with scientists who poke, probe and ponder for a living, I can also appreciate.

So much value in simple curiosity and in being persistent enough to follow this innate gift to its fruition, whether the outcome ends up being success, failure or something in between. In recognizing and relating to the beauty in the build-up. The end game in the before, during and after insight. The process in and of the pursuit. The long-term possibility, even in the face of setbacks or sidetracks.

In so many ways, scientists and journalists have a lot in common. Both seek to raise awareness and convey information, ideally answers and solutions. In both worlds, accuracy is paramount – or should be. In absence of it, the product/audience is cheated, as is the profession.

Years ago, I got the opportunity to sit in on a PBS interview with 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient Dudley Herschbach, who recounted being asked by a fifth grader whether he thought scientists were made or born. Dr. Herschbach’s answer? “I’m sure scientists are born just like everyone else; however, the difference is, they’re not unmade. Every little kid is a natural scientist because they’re naturally curious. They also want to understand things they see, so they ask lots of ‘why?’ questions. That’s what science is.”

Dr. Herschbach went on to describe research as child’s play, equating it to the way a child first learns a language: “A child isn’t worried about getting the words right or wrong, so they just imitate and they play and they experiment and they learn. That’s the way you need to do science.”

Out of the mouths of babes, not to mention a Nobel laureate: The world depends on 4-year-olds asking questions. And on us retaining our inner 4-year-old. Well, maybe minus that back-talking part! I bet even Dr. Herschbach’s mother would agree.