At Dragon*Con (which I won’t mention again until next summer) some fascinatingly misguided person suggested that ghosts are made of Dark Matter. Dark matter is the missing 22% of the stuff the universe is made of. This is stuff – it is just stuff that doesn’t interact with the electromagnetic force in a noticeable way. This means it does not obscure light (like dust), it does not give off light (like stars), it does not chemically interact, or in fact it does not do anything other than move stuff with its mass via gravity. This means that if you can see something, it is not Dark Matter. This means that if you can detect something as a cold spot (which implies something happened to the heat energy in that spot), and if you can measure something via some electromagnetic something (changes in inductance, conductance, etc of air), it cannot be dark matter.

I do not believe ghosts have been proven to exist.

That said, the folks trying to prove they exist have “results” based on stuff that requires ghosts interact via the electromagnetic force.

If dark matter was as visible as they claim ghosts are, my job would be a whole lot easier. Dark Matter can only be detected via gravity. Ghosts cannot be made of dark matter based on any of the “Observables” ghost hunters tote out.

One more point: if you try and claim ghosts use gravity to move stuff around, then they couldn’t selectively move things because they’d need HUGE amounts of mass to move a small chair, and in the process they’d probably bend walls and collapse ceilings. They could not simply push or pull on the chair because without the electromagnetic force at play, dark matter pretty much just passes straight through normal matter (like chairs).

In case you missed it, ghosts are not made out of Dark Matter.

Try again, and please stay out of astronomy next time.

For some reason the names of things in astronomy have come up many times in the past couple weeks, and when faced with some really cool names from physics, I decided I just needed to blog about it.

So first there was the annoyance of learning there is a line of children’s plush toys that allow you to register the name of a star in a database astronomers and astronomy software will never utilize. This means there are now going to be little starry-eyed kids coming up at star parties, with starry butted toys, and asking, “Can you point at my star? I’m Mary Jane Doe.” And I’ll have to say, “No.” I already feel a sense of dread.

Stars generally have a whole series of names, but none of them are going to be based on your name. Instead they’ll be some HR number, HD number, some HIC, SAO, or AAVSO number. The brightest stars might have ancient names, but those names came from before we realized there are more stars than words in all the languages of the world. Today, the official governing body of astronomy, the International Astronomical Union, limits the naming of stars to things that are based on systems – numbers, coordinates, IDs – that are easy to use, easy to store, and easy to understand. While ‘Fred’ might make a good name for a star, the name ‘Fred’ doesn’t offer any information on the star, and ‘Fred’ will never be a real stars name. It just isn’t going to happen.

The irony is, there are many things in astronomy that have been named after people who had never really intended to get things named after them. There is the Tully-Fisher relation, the Hubble diagram, the Butcher-Oemler effect, and who could forget Newton’s laws? In each of these cases, the idea is named after the author of the peer reviewed paper that first took note of something new. It took time for Hubble 1929 to become Hubble’s law, but this is the way of the best works – once referenced enough times the Name Year reference becomes just Name. Many astronomers have a golden hope somewhere in their heart that their citations will grow into named theories. It’s possible for any of us.

As I write papers, the authors’ names become surrogates for entire concepts. The Galaxy Zoo project becomes Lintott et al. 08 and much to my dismay, Astronomy Cast becomes Gay et al 07. Admittedly, things could be far worse. The Gay Effect in galaxy evolution is something I hope never to discover. Any of you who know me in real life know there isn’t a homophobic bone in my body, but middle school was hell, and I do not wish for the snickering I dealt with as a youth to follow around the discoveries of my adult life. Should I ever work on a team that finds something remarkable, someone else will get to go first on that author list. If I want to have something named after me, I can want all I want, but I can’t make it happen – I can just increase the odds of the people I publish with through excellence and constant hard work.

Now an asteroid, those are fun. My friends Phil Plait and Chris Lintott both have rocks named after them, as do Rick Fienberg, David Levy and Mr Rogers (Complete list here). There is no Gay asteroid (although that type of fun I could get behind), and asteroid Pamela isn’t named after me. To get an asteroid named after you, you have to earn it by living the type of life that catches the attention of someone who discovers asteroids, and hope that they decide to offer up your name to the naming committee. Alternatively, you can catch the attention of someone who is bored. If an asteroid has been known for more than 10 years and no one has named it, anyone can petition the naming board with a name that isn’t obscene (which means I probably can’t have an asteroid named after me, but I’d really love be a fly on the wall if that conversation ever occurs). This also means anyone can search for a number (wiki works for this) of an asteroid that hasn’t been named, and submit, submit away.

So, names in astronomy either come from boring catalogs, from the evolution of references into nicknames, and silliness with petitions. There are also the occasional insults – like Big Bang – that catch on as permanent names. And then there are lame names, like accretion disks.

But sometimes names are cool.

This is what started all of this actually.

I was walking down the hallway earlier today and noted on one of the physics faculty doors a series of derivatives on a white board. As I watched, one of our grad students filled in after the question marks. Here is what it all read:

Yes folks, Snap, Crackle, and Pop are physics terms. Here is some evidence (hat tip to Ryan).

We need more equation names that remind us of breakfast food.

It all starts with the premise that those subscribing are saved and going to heaven and that the 62 people they are leaving email for are not, and are destined to go to hell. It is a good business model – take the money of the good saved Christinas…. But this requires one to judge, and to know the true heart of others. Um, even if you are a Christian, isn’t judging a sin and doesn’t the Bible say only God can see a person’s soul?

This is only a minor criticism among many. Next we have the way it works: The software behind this site is set to automatically fire if it isn’t logged into for 3 straight days by 3 of the 5 staff around the world. We are about to move into a period of high solar activity. This means there is a fairly good chance our Sun, in its inconstant glory, may decide to send a Coronal Mass Ejection our way and eat many telecommunications systems and large chunks of the power grid. It is highly conceivable to me that the server farm could get isolated from the 5 globally distributed folks for 6 days, at which point emails of “We’re sorry you weren’t saved,” will be sent out globally (and wait in queues while internet gets restored). I honestly think this is far more likely to be triggered by natural disaster than by rapture, and that is just an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

But, can you really imagine the internet surviving any sort of event that would cause this stuff to be triggered? Really? The flood of emails from 9/11 took down more than a few servers. If something takes down the Internet for 6 days (or Rapture occurs) do you think the intended emails will really reach their intended targets?

So, let’s ignore the whole “You have to judge” thing, and ignore the whole, the internet survives thing, and even ignore the fact that this is more likely to get triggered by a solar flare than by rapture, and move on to look at that whole 62 people thing. This company is claiming to be a Christian firm. Why limit the number of people? The way they couch it, “We all have family and friends who have failed to receive the Good News of the Gospel.” This line alone is no big deal, but to me it reads like “we don’t mean for it to happen, but we all end up with sinners in our life.” If you actually read the Bible, its most revered new testament figures are people who spend their time surrounded by non-believers. If someone is a truly evangelical Christian, they are going to always be surrounded by non-believers, and 62 just isn’t going to cut it. Why limit the number of people that can be reached?

To my cynical heart this looks and smells like a scam. “Just $40.” If you honestly believe that the one true path to salvation is through Jesus alone, I see you seeing this as being a bargain. But then again… Isn’t it also an excellent way to dupe overly compassionate people out of their money? Why isn’t this a non-profit free service that accepts donations? Why isn’t there resource sharing such that everyone has a free e-Bible and free access to whatever propaganda best fits the doctrine of the site? People are being asked to go in on their own, and somewhat encouraged to leave private details like family records. How will that help?

This just smells wrong.

If you’ve lived a good Christian life and the folks around you who you care enough to email notice “Wow, that person got physically transcended into heaven,” don’t you think the seeds of “They acted like a good Christian, maybe I should try that too” should grow naturally? No website, no fees, no family records required?

I’m frustrated by this for more reasons, but if I go on, I will be incoherent and I already know this post is going to get flamed.

For instance, what makes astrology not science is that it doesn’t make specific predictions that are testable. For instance, for my 12/12 birthday I find the following horoscopes for the day that has already transpired:

From Horoscope.com

The ability to be thankful for our position in life is a rare gift, but a valuable one. Today you will feel particularly aware of all the small things that may not be much on their own but add to make you the person that you are. This will give you a wonderful boost of optimism to help with any difficulties that appear today.

From Astrology.com

Pursue your goals with fierce determination. Distractions have no place in your life at this moment; all you can think about is the desired outcome. With that kind of attitude, success is pretty much assured.

From MSNBC.com

Today there are many areas that you can shine in, dear Sagittarius. You need only be yourself to win over the hearts of others. There is a graciousness about your manner that draws people close to you, whether you’ve ever noticed it before or not. Realize this, and know that it is not a fluke. You need not take much action; everything you need today will come to you.

What was today actually like? Well, I slept in late, stayed home, putzed online, and recorded Astronomy Cast. I then went out for Chinese and to an art opening with close friends. I don’t see the science of Astrology specifically predicted any of this.

A favorite student activity I’ve seen people do with students is to hand out a bunch of horoscopes and have them guess which is their horoscope. There is a 1/12 chance they will get the right one, and indeed, about 8% of the students get a match. But, if astrology was predictive, we’d expect something other than a random match. After all, hindsight is 20/20. And, if you go back to horoscopes for 9-11-01, death wasn’t predicted for a large section of New York City. “Stay home from work – it will be good for your health” would have been a valuable command to anyone reading the papers that day. But, that command wasn’t there. (For a skeptic discussion on 9-11 and astrology, see this article at Skeptico.

So, it is easy for me to, as a scientist, say that astrology does not meet the standards required of a science. It is a theory, but it does not make specific predictions, and it doesn’t match specific past observations. Q.E.D.

But, lurking in physics departments are people called string theorists who write theories on string theory that are published in peer-reviewed physics journals. These theories do match past observations/experiments. Unfortunately, while they make predictions, to my knowledge they do not all make testable predictions (although some do make predictions in particle physics).

Now, I have to admit that I am not smart enough to understand the differences between flavors of string theory. I do not understand the details of their mathematics, and I have to rely on the translation of others. But, as near as I can tell from my reading, string theory is not always predictive.

So, is it science?

Lurking in physics department there are also people who work on things like inflationary multiverses and the cosmic landscapes. Again, these are theories that require brilliance to understand, that match the current universe, but don’t make predictions.

Is this science?

I don’t know. Logically – no. They aren’t. I used to think of them as pretty mathematical art work, but I’m told by people who do theoretical math that they aren’t even that. They are just math.

And this leaves me in an uncomfortable place. I work really really hard to teach my students what makes good science. Do I teach them these are not science and thus fall in the same bin as astrology? Or…?

Until I understand more, I’m going to simply say, “here be dragons” and wait and hope for predictions to be made.

Image credit: Hoover Archives