Reed's Ruminations: A Blog by Dan Reed

On WSPRs, Geeks, and Luftballons

A few weeks ago, a large, high altitude balloon carrying a large payload of Chinese surveillance equipment was shot down by a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor using an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.  The F-22 was scrambled from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, the downed balloon landed offshore in South Carolina, and an intensive intelligence salvage operation began immediately.  This was a large, likely multiple ton, balloon with a substantial array of solar cells, navigational and directional capability, and electronic packages. Because my wife and I own a beach house in North Carolina, near the South Carolina border, I received local warnings to report and deliver any floating debris to the authorities.

In response, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, canceled his planned trip to Beijing, and Sino-American geopolitical relations, already strained, sank even further, with public accusations and recriminations flying fast and furiously. The resulting consternation ignited political posturing by pundits across the political spectrum, which, in turn, led to strident calls for a public statement from the U.S. President.

How could this happen?  Why wasn’t the balloon detected earlier?  Why was it allowed to drift across the continental United States before being shot down? Members of the U.S. Congress wanted answers, and they got them via classified national security briefings. Meanwhile, NORAD increased its aerial and near-space surveillance, given heightened national awareness and concern about other objects in the sky. 

International law is clear that satellite overflights of a country (i.e., from space) are allowed.  Conversely, countries have the complete right to control the airspace over their territory, though international law is a bit uncertain about the rules at very high altitudes. As a practical matter, might makes right; if you can shoot it down over your territory, you have the right to do so. (Remember the history of the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes and note that the aerial photograph of the balloon above was taken from a U-2.) Relatedly, radio transmissions are controlled by International Telecommunications Union (ITU) treaty, as part of the United Nations.

Putting aside the very real and important national security questions behind the Chinese balloon and the calculations and mis-calculations that led to its path over the United States, the public hysteria and political ennui brought to mind the West German band Nena’s song, Neunundneunzig Luftballons (99 Air Balloons), which became an international hit in 1983 as an anti-war protest. It’s a poignant and melancholy Cold War story of a group of air balloons accidently triggering a 99-year global war, leaving only devastation in its wake.  (You can find it on YouTube, and the German lyrics are just as haunting today as they were forty years ago.)

            Original German                                          English Translation
            Neunundneunzig Jahre Krieg                        Ninety-nine Years of War
            Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger                       Left no room for winners
            Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr                    There is no longer a Minister of War
            Und auch keine Düsenflieger                        And also no jet planes
            Heute zieh' ich meine Runden                      Today I'm doing my rounds
            Seh' die Welt in Trümmern liegen                 See the world in ruins
            Hab' 'n Luftballon gefunden                          Found a balloon
            Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen               Think of yourself and let him fly

An English version of the song, entitled 99 Red Balloons, was released shortly thereafter, with somewhat different lyrics, changed to scan with the original melody, and with a more American-centric story. However, many felt it lacked the punch and ennui of the German original, and it failed to achieve the same chart success. My always limited German language skills have atrophied with time, but I am inclined to agree.

But Wait, There Are More!

In the wake of the balloon shootdown, questions were asked; fingers were pointed; answers were demanded. Were there other, heretofore undetected, balloons floating over the United States and Canada? It turned out the answer was yes, and UFOs, literally – unidentified, flying objects – were back in the news. Soon, an unidentified balloon was reported to be drifting over Alaska and heading into the Canadian Yukon, followed by another over Lake Huron, the latter described as “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it.”

After diplomatic consultations between the U.S. and Canada, both were shot also down by the U.S. Air Force. (Technical aside:  One should be impressed at NORAD’s surveillance capability, which can identify extremely small objects in the large airspace over North America.)

Were aliens in flying saucers involved?  Was North America under threat?  Was there a new Cold War “balloon gap,” analogous to the infamous “missile gap?” Inquiring minds wanted to know.

In a “you can’t make this stuff up” farce, a comedic mashup of fiction and reality – Dr. Strangelove (“You can’t fight in here.  This is the War Room!”), Neunundneunzig Luftballons, and national security fears – the news was soon filled with speculation that the United States may have used a $100M advanced fighter jet and $500K missile to shoot down a $250 amateur science project, a pico-balloon carrying a ~10 gram, extremely low power amateur “ham” radio transmitter. (See Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF.) 

The group potentially responsible for a balloon traversing America’s airspace is – wait for it – the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB), a group of pico-balloon amateur radio  and science enthusiasts whose club was named in homage to the 2009 animated movie Up. If you are thinking these people hardly look like a threat, you would be right; the NIBBB notes that the club’s youngest member is only eleven years old.

One of their balloons, with amateur radio call sign K9YO-15 (balloons use the FCC call sign of the owner and a distinguishing number), was launched from Libertyville, Illinois on October 10^th, 2022 and had circumnavigated the Earth multiple times before the club lost contact with it.  The balloon’s last reported position was at 38,910 feet off the coast of Alaska on February 10^th, 2023.  The NOAA HYSPLIT wind model projected the balloon to be over the Yukon on February 11, 2023.

On that same day, NORAD downed an unidentified airborne object in the Yukon. The Pentagon issued a press release, and the Canadians searched briefly for the downed fragments but found nothing. 

However, given the small size of the balloon and the remote environment, it is unlikely that any debris will ever be found, leaving it uncertain if K9YO-15 was indeed the object shot down.  The NIBBB responded with equanimity as well, noting:

As has been widely reported, no part of the object shot down by the US Air Force jet over the Yukon territory has been recovered. Until that happens and that object is confirmed to be an identifiable pico-balloon, any assertions or claims that our balloon was involved in that incident are not supported by facts.

Even as the klieg lights of sudden and unexpected fame can be harsh and unforgiving, the NIBBB website shares the group’s passion for pico-balloons and amateur radio, including detailed construction details and a bill of materials.

That’s quite the story, with lots of jargon.  Let’s deconstruct this just a bit, starting with pico-balloons.

That’s My Science Project

What’s a pico-balloon, you say?  As the name suggests, it is a very small balloon, such as the Mylar kind filled with helium one might purchase from a hobby store or a florist shop. As anyone who has brought one to a birthday or graduation party knows, they can be purchased for a few tens of dollars, and are at most a few feet in diameter.

Most such balloons are soon discarded, though a few escape, intentionally or unintentionally, and float into the sky, never to be seen again. How high can they go?  The answer depends on the characteristics of the balloon material, gravity, and the Archimedes principle.  Scientifically, a balloon rises until it reaches neutral buoyancy (i.e., the balloon’s average density equals that of the surrounding air and the buoyant force balances gravity).

Simple Mylar party balloons are unlikely to rise to altitudes beyond 6-9 kilometers (20,000-30,000 feet), limited by either helium leakage or material stresses. In contrast, hardier balloons made of polyethylene or latex are neutrally buoyant up to fifteen kilometers (~50,000 feet). Bear in mind that these pico-balloons are much, much smaller than weather balloons ,and are often less than one meter in diameter. As such, their payload is also quite small, only 10+ grams (0.02 pounds for those of us in non-metric countries), and they are easily affected by weather, even frost.  For this reason, experienced pico-balloon aficionados prefer balloons that can rise to higher altitudes above most weather.

Under Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 14 CFR Part 101, such small balloons can be launched by anyone, anywhere in the United States, without the need for FAA approval or reporting.  The only requirements are that the balloon’s payload weighs less than six pounds, and the balloon is launched in an unrestricted area. Given the low weight of pico-balloons, the jet stream can easily carry a balloon around the world, and there are many tracked and reported cases of such circumnavigation.

Why might anyone want to do this?

The truth is that people do such things because they are possible and they are cool. After all, humans did not build the Gossamer Albatross to usher in a new era of human powered aviation. They did it because building a human powered airplane that could cross the English Channel was the union of technological prowess and human inspiration; it was the epitome of cool. (See Science: It’s About the Wide-Eyed Wonder.)

Amateur radio pico-balloon enthusiasts are no different. Yes, the technical answer is that amateur “ham” radio enthusiasts often use pico-balloons to study the atmosphere and radio propagation characteristics, but the joy is in the construction and the operation. In such cases, the payload consists of a GPS tracker for location, a WSPR or APRS radio transmitter, an inexpensive micro-controller such as an Arduino to manage the transmitter, and a few solar cells to power everything. A complete package, including the balloon, can be assembled for at most a few hundred dollars.

What’s WSPR, you say?  It’s an acronym for Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR). The protocol was designed by Nobel Laureate and avid ham radio operator, Joe Taylor, and is intended to test propagation paths on the medium frequency (MF) and high frequency (HF) amateur radio bands using very low (and I do mean very low) power transmissions. A typical WSPR message contains the licensed amateur radio operator’s call sign, the Maidenhead grid locator of their rough location, and the transmitter power in dBm.  The entire message fits in 50 bits. Transmitting such a 50-bit WSPR message takes 110 seconds at 1.46 baud.

Okay, let’s now reconstruct the phrase “pico-balloon carrying an extremely low power amateur ham radio transmitter.”  There are several design options of varying price and sophistication, but here are the elements of a globe-circling amateur balloon, all within the expertise of amateurs and even (with supervision) high school science enthusiasts

• One small balloon (~$50 from Yokohama Balloon or ~$150 for a slightly more expensive research version from Scientific Balloons)
• Helium canister for balloon charging (~$75)
• Lightweight (~10 gram) payload, custom designed or purchased (e.g., ~$90 ZachTek WSPR controller or ~$130 QRPLabs LightAPRS-W tracker) h containing
  • GPS tracker
  • Microcontroller (e.g., Atmel 8-bit AVR microcontroller)
  • WSPR and/or ARPS transmitter
  • Solar cells for electrical power
• Dangling 0.005-inch wire dipole antenna of resonant length for the desired frequency (~33 feet for the 20m radio band)
• Open source software
  • Microcontroller configuration (call sign, Maidenhead locator, …)
  • Flight path prediction (e.g., NOAA HYSPLIT model or com)
  • Pico-balloon tracking collaborations (e.g., https://amateur.sondehub.org/ or http://lu7aa.org/wsprset.asp)

I would have been thrilled beyond measure to have had the opportunity to participate in such an activity as a student. Such projects are precisely the kind of experiential science education that can excite students, filling them with the realization that science is not a desiccated recitation of facts, but rather is an endeavor filled with passion and excitement. We need many more such experiences if we are to attract the millions of additional STEM workers this country needs to remain globally competitive. (See For Science and Society, The Future Begins with Better Dreams.)

My Geek Bona Fides

During the COVID-19 pandemic, my days (and often my nights) were consumed with managing the evolving crisis and ensuring the academic enterprise of the University of Utah continued with as few disruptions as possible.  Given the stress and uncertainty, I regularly counseled others to spend some time away from work doing something fulfilling and emotionally satisfying, lest they be overwhelmed by uncertain and rapidly changing events. (See The Simple Things Matter, Most of All Now.)  Knowing I should heed my own advice, I sought solace and distraction in my own happy place – science and technology. 

My first stop was my digital astrophotography hobby, which though always rewarding, proved uncertain, given the vagaries of Utah weather.  More practically, the late nights were incompatible with my day job due to sleep deprivation. After that, I turned to writing (See My Balm in Gilead) and, finally, to my tried and true friend, computing technology.

First, I developed an end-to-end suite of software for low-power, wireless sensors, using an inexpensive ESP32 microcontroller, LoRaWAN low power wireless transceivers, environmental sensors, and open source software tools.  All of this served as a citizen science complement to the larger SAGE project of which I am a part. (See Cyberinfrastructure: Lots of Room at the Edge.)

With the sensor suite complete, I studied for and passed the three FCC-mandated examinations – technician, general, and amateur extra – to become a fully licensed amateur radio operator.  The study materials gave me an opportunity to refresh my memories of electricity and magnetism (E&M) from undergraduate physics and also to delve more deeply into antenna and radio transceiver design.  The geek in me wished the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) examination materials had been a bit more mathematical, as many of the concepts are best understood via their roots in Maxwell’s equations.

All of which brings me back to pico-balloons and the “because we can” excitement.

First, armed with an ICOM-7300 radio and a trusty PC, I fired up WSJT-X and transmitted WSPR messages (radio callsign KK7EUJ, maidenhead grid locator DP40cp) at one milliwatt on the 20M HF band (14.0956 MHz) using my house’s gutter as an end-fed-random-wire (EFRW) antenna. Reflecting the effectiveness of WSPR encoding in a high noise, low power environment, these WSPR messages have been received by amateur stations across the entire continental United States, as shown at the right.

Second, I have written extensive code for the ESP32 and its smaller, 8 and 16 bit cousins, the ESP8266 and Arduino, the latter based on the Atmel 8-bit AVR microcontroller. Just as the proliferation of powerful, open source software has enabled construction of complex toolkits, so too have open source libraries of hardware components and powerful, open source design tools (e.g., KiCAD) facilitated design of inexpensive, custom hardware boards. As a complement to the wireless sensor library, I have also specified the design of custom printed circuit boards (PCBs), with GPS, sensors, and ESP32, which have been inexpensively fabricated in varying quantities by one of many fabrication firms.

Put another way, I realized I had followed the same path as my pico-balloon compatriots, using open source software and easily designed open source hardware to build new and interesting projects, ones that in the past would have been only within the reach of nation-states.

Coda

Sino-American relations remain deeply strained, and not just because of the surveillance balloon. The global battle for 21^st century geopolitical hegemony is underway, waged via economic competition, trade sanctions, diplomacy and political rhetoric, and military posturing. There seems little doubt that we are entering a new political era, one fraught with uncertainty.

In the midst of all this, I was on Capitol Hill just days after the downing of the Chinese balloon, discussing the importance of greater U.S. research investments and developing the domestic STEM workforce. I have been working with the National Science Board (NSB) on the intersection of dual use technologies, basic scientific research, economic competitiveness, and national security. In addition to a variety of meetings on Capitol Hill, I have invited the White House National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, to join the NSB in discussions.

Meanwhile, no alien UFOs have been confirmed, unless the definition of alien includes a loose affiliation of geeks (young and old), all fascinated by the combination of electronics, software development, atmospheric sciences, mathematics and coding theory, ionospheric electromagnetic propagation, and small balloons, and all wishing to share their scientific passion with others.  Could they be?  They might be. The signs and omens are all there. Yes, they are.  I am proud to say those are my people.

I am a geek, albeit an aging (and balding) left-handed, myopic one, some of those adjectives necessarily being implied by the geek nom de guerre.  I will try not to trigger an international incident by launching any pico-balloons of my own, but I will not rest in encouraging the passion of discovery in young minds.

Nena WSPRed rightly about the Luftballons:

        Man, who would have thought
        That it will come to this
        Because of ninety-nine balloons

From Broadcast to Narrowcast: Finding Signal in the Noise

The arc of the 20^th century is interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is how it was shaped by dramatic and traumatic events, including the Great Depression and two world wars. However, the arc of its communication mechanisms is equally striking, though less discussed outside computing and business circles.  It began with Marconi and “wireless,” transitioned through commercial radio and broadcast television, and ended with the Internet and streaming media.

For millennials and those younger, it may now seem almost inconceivable, but there was a time when almost everyone in the United States heard the news from the same three television channels, watched the same television shows, and listened to the same music on a popular local radio station. Most cities had both morning and evening daily newspapers, filled with both the minutia of daily life – crimes, weddings, and funerals – with a smattering of national and international news, and local investigative journalism by the fourth estate, shining a bit of light into the darkness.  These were shared cultural experiences, woven throughout the fabric of American society.

All that has changed, some for the better, and arguably, some for the worse.

The Golden Age of Broadcast Television

In the first half of the 20^th century, radio was the primary mechanism for disseminating entertainment and news. Beginning in the 1950s, analog (NTSC) broadcast television on the VHF and UHF bands – the big three (CBS, NBC, and ABC) -- began dominating the airwaves, with PBS as a public television latecomer.  Led by CBS News and Walter Cronkite, the nightly news broadcasts from the big three defined the national conversation on U.S. and global events, albeit mostly from a white, middle American perspective.

Unlike today’s extended social commentaries on 24x7 cable news channels, the nightly news was largely delivered in a staccato “just the facts, ma’am” format.  As Cronkite put it at the end of each broadcast, “And that's the way it is.” Although the broadcast standards supported color, the high cost of color television meant broadcasts were mostly in black-and-white until the 1960s.

Nor were there live standups from international locations or from across the studio, rather international reports were often recorded on film, then shipped to news bureaus for subsequent development and editing; remote satellite broadcasts were yet to come. Breaking news interrupted normal network programming, as this iconic photograph of Walter Cronkite informing the nation of President Kennedy’s assassination shows. 

At thirty minutes, including commercials, the network news reports also offered little time for pontification and social commentary. That made Cronkite’s February 27, 1968 special report on the Vietnam War all the more telling, when after returning from Vietnam following the Tet Offensive, he concluded,

But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

Such was the trust in Uncle Walter that unsubstantiated stories have long said President Johnson then remarked, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

However, I did not see that, because for most of my grade school years, our aging black-and-white console TV worked only sporadically. When it did, to change channels, my father had to climb on the roof and manually rotate the antenna, while my mother leaned out the window to give him updates on the TV signal quality.  Needless to say, we picked a channel and stuck with it, in our case, the Springfield, Missouri NBC affiliate (KYTV), which aired the Huntley-Brinkley Report.

Consequently, I distinctly remember Huntley and Brinkley making their own antiwar statement in 1969 by playing Kenny Rogers’ version of Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town. While Rogers sang haunting words about a “crazy Asian war,” a camera panned through various footage, highlighting the sacrifices of U.S. draftees and their families.  Huntley and Brinkley then ended the news with their distinctive signoff, “Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News.”  (Huntley broadcast from New York and Brinkley from Washington, D.C.)

When I was in the fifth grade, my parents bought a new Sears Silvertone black-and-white TV and splurged for a new cable TV connection, and for the first time, we received all four channels.  In later years, this gave me access to Star Trek reruns (See Star Trek@50: Inspiring Discovery and Innovation) and The Dick Cavett Show, which featured an interesting and eclectic set of guests unknown to a small town boy. (See Eudora, You Got the Love?)

Until the 1980s, the four channel cultural gestalt of broadcast television extended far beyond news.  In those days, people remembered where they were and those around them when they learned about the birth of Little Ricky, Who Shot J.R., and the ending of M*A*S*H. (For the latter, I was sitting on a hotel room bed in Madison, Wisconsin.) The morning-after water cooler bonding from discussing I Love Lucy, Bonanza, M*A*S*H. Dallas, and hundreds of other hit television shows has now disappeared.

Top 40 Radio

Top 40 AM radio had a similar cultural reach, where being in heavy rotation was a clear sign that a song was a national hit, known to most teenagers and adults.  Then each Saturday, Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, counted down “the biggest hits in the U.S.A.” and American Bandstand, with the ageless Dick Clark, highlighted a popular singer or band.  I heard and saw little of that, as I had neither a radio nor a television in my bedroom. Nor did I buy and play 45 RPM singles or 33 and 1/3 RPM albums. All of these were far beyond my financial reach.

My parents owned a small kitchen radio, which we only turned on as we prepared for work and school.  Lacking an external antenna, we received only clear channel AM stations and a few nearby FM stations. Like the television, it was an aging vacuum tube radio, which took a while to warm up after it was turned on.  When it failed, we would take the failing tube, which no longer lit up, to the local drugstore, use the tube tester, and buy a compatible replacement tube.

Tuned to the local AM station (KALM), we received news read from the Associated Press wires and a healthy dose of country music.  I became well acquainted with Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, and a variety of other country singers, but I didn’t like the affected twang and the frequent stories of pickup trucks and lost love, all in search of what David Allan Coe jokingly sang about as the perfect country song:

Well, I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got run over by a damned old train

The exception was Johnny Cash; I loved Cash from the very first time I heard him.  As a poet and a fellow Arkansas boy, he spoke to deeper things – social inequities, the war, and personal loss. There are few things more melancholy than his rendition of Sunday Morning Coming Down or more haunting than his late life cover of Hurt, a song by Nine Inch Nails. (Never underestimate the power of a great singer to make another’s song their own. Heart’s Kennedy Center Honors cover of Stairway to Heaven brought Led Zeppelin to tears.)

Surprisingly, we did have the radio on one afternoon on New Year’s Eve, when the local DJ cum newscaster said, with some mocking mirth, that he was going to play the most popular song in the country for that year, the implication being that this music was drug-crazed rock and roll. With that sardonic introduction, Don Mclean’s American Pie began to play, and I was immediately transfixed with wonder.  Here was another poet, as evocative as Cash, speaking to a different generation about sadness and loss.

Given our household’s one radio and shared TV, other than a few TV variety shows like The Hollywood Palace, my access to rock and roll was largely limited to our car, but only after I learned to drive in 1973 and could pick up a Memphis rock station.  As a result, I missed the British Invasion and almost all of the music of the 1960s and early 1970s. I do remember one of the older girls who lived nearby being devastated when the Beatles broke up, though I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal. 

Digital Transformation

The uniformity of radio and television content in the post-World War II era created common cultural referents, but they largely targeted white, middle class families. If you were black, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant, poor, rural, or in any other way not part of the white middle class, you were rarely heard or seen, except in caricature or stereotype. (For the record, the Clampetts on The Beverly Hillbillies were unlike anyone I knew in my small Ozarks town.)

Slowly and haltingly, things began to change for the better, as radio and television began to reflect the population’s social and economic diversity and its wide range of interests more accurately. Antiwar demonstrations and civil rights protests forced broadcast news to begin presenting important social issues in a more nuanced way, highlighting previously marginalized voices, and television shows began doing the same (e.g., see All in the Family).

Concurrently, legal and financial battles over cable television must carry rules, the rise of cable superstations such as WGN and WTBS, the emergence of FOX as a fourth television network, new pay-per-view services, movie networks such as HBO, and expanded cable capacity all diluted and diffused the market dominance of the big three commercial broadcast networks.  Suddenly, everyone could get their MTV.

In the midst of this, the transition to high definition, digital television began, which changed wireless spectrum needs.  Notably, as analog television stations vacated parts of the VHF and UHF bands, portions of this spectrum were repurposed.  While at Microsoft, I served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Technical Advisory Committee and worked with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on the use of the TV white spaces for unlicensed “super Wi-Fi” to address rural and underserved communities and regions in the U.S. and broadband access across the world. (See White Spaces: Celebrating the Cambridge Trial.)  Remember, analog broadcast television originally chose the VHF and UHF bands due to their long distance propagation characteristics, making them idea for communication across long distances.

Today, only live sporting events can deliver the viewership, advertising revenues, and shared experiences once common on broadcast television.  It’s why the bidding for U.S. television rights to the Olympics, the NFL and Super Bowl, and March Madness (NCAA men’s basketball) is now so intense.

Just as these brave new worlds of cable and digital television were reshaping mass media, the Internet and the World Wide Web appeared, something I was privileged to witness firsthand at the University of Illinois when the Mosaic web browser appeared.  As broadband availability and speeds increased, new access modes appeared, and creative market destruction soon followed.  (As the COVID-19 pandemic has again exposed, broadband inequity in the United States – availability, cost, and bandwidth – remains a serious problem. See Broadband: Oxygen for a Digital World.)

Although there were effective Internet search engines before Google search appeared (e.g., AltaVista), Google found a successful revenue model based on targeted advertising. After all, if you are searching for left-handed scissors, you might want to buy a pair. Combining this information with search history and web cookies could delivered a prospective customer hit rate rarely matched by the blanket advertising from newspapers, radio, and television. This devastated the traditional revenue models of daily newspapers, forcing some to merge with rivals and many others to close. Sadly, this has meant many towns and cities now lack local, independent investigative journalism.

Similarly, the convenience of Netflix movie streaming, with thousands of movies just a click away, destroyed the VHS and DVD rental market. Although Netflix initially distributed rental DVDs by mail, it was created in anticipation of higher broadband speeds that would enable streaming. Co-founder Reed Hastings once said this was why they didn’t name the company DVDflix. Coupled with inexpensive, large screen high-definition televisions, the locus of money and power soon shifted from the traditional movie studies, though few would have then imagined that Amazon would someday buy MGM to feed its Amazon Prime Video streaming service.

Paradoxically, Internet broadband gave birth to narrowcasting – websites, channels, and streaming media targeting very specific demographics. Enamored with reruns of The Gong Show (“We’ll be right back with more – stuff!”), The Lawrence Welk Show (my parents loved it) or The Midnight Special? Interested in collimating your Ritchey–Chrétien telescope, folding a paper airplane, or collecting vintage salt and pepper shakers?  Fear not, YouTube is there for you.  Love reggae/zydeco fusion or KISS tribute bands?  There’s a streaming music service for just your interests. Meanwhile, music CD sales (and even downloads) continue to plummet, following the same path to extinction as DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

The Triumph of Narrowcasting

In the early 21^st century, digital narrowcasting has clearly triumphed – whatever the interest, there’s now an app or a targeted steam for it. Every other form of media distribution, from print news organizations through movie studios to broadcast television networks, is now scrambling to adapt, with varying success.  Not surprisingly, any such change brings both new opportunities and associated challenges.

On the one hand, digital narrowcasting has been hugely democratizing, freeing individuals and organizations to communicate directly with their target demographic. This blog is an example, allowing me to ruminate on any topic of my choosing, then share my ideas using social media, something only possible because instant, global communication is now effectively free. Similarly, websites, streaming media, and other tools mean individuals and shared interest groups can quickly find likeminded partners and collaborators, however narrow or arcane their interests.

Historically, the small number of broadcast platforms – newspapers, radio, and television – each had a large audience. Today, a plethora of platforms compete for a much smaller slice of the global audience, some by choice and others by necessity. Although everyone can be a social media content creator, with a potentially global audience, in practice, only a few achieve any significant influence or visibility. As the late Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon astutely noted, “… a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

The insatiable maw of digital channels must be filled, even if with endless and mind-numbing repetition. Just how many home renovation knockoffs of PBS’s This Old House can HGTV make? How many reruns of the Law and Order franchise can competing cable channels show simultaneously? Can the hosts of the cable news channels talk any more while saying even less, filling the minutes with personal opinions and creating venues that attract only the likeminded?

Digital Echo Chambers

As I look to Claude Shannon, the geek’s patron saint of information theory, I fear not all is well in the 21^st century world of digital narrowcasting; the signal-to-noise ratio of digital discourse is now near de minimis, with a cacophony of discordant voices vying for finite mindshare. Is it possible for us to imagine and create a digital world where we more clearly distinguish information (facts) from opinion, persuasion, and social consensus? Each has a role, when clearly demarcated and delineated, but they are not the same.

Facts are independently testable and verifiable, with truth independent of one’s own opinions or beliefs. It is raining at this place and this time is a testable statement, provably true or false. An opinion is not a fact. “I think it is raining” is an opinion; it may or may not be accurate. Fact-based persuasion is convincing someone else it is raining using clear, verifiable evidence that it is, in fact, raining; demagoguery is not. Social consensus is a widely held perspective, best supported by history and evidence.  It is bad if it rains on an outdoor baseball game is social consensus. (See Just the Facts, Ma’am: Reasoning is Not Dead, Jim.)

With that backdrop, the goal of any reputable information source should not be to tell you how to think; it should be to provide you with facts that allow you to develop your own hypotheses, test them against evidence, then revise them accordingly. Unbiased information – the facts – is the prelude to evidence-based reasoning and informed discourse. Such informed national discourse requires shared intellectual context, something in danger of being lost in a narrowcasting world.

All too often, the explosion of tailored communications and personal preferences can trap any one of us in a self-reinforcing echo chamber that separates and potentially demonizes those unlike us, confusing facts with opinions and beliefs. Put another way, if you have been sitting in your underwear for multiple days, binging on potato chips and beer, watching endless reruns of The Big Bang Theory, surfing the dark web, and reading extremist social media (either from the far right or the far left), it’s time to get dressed, open the curtains, seek information, and expose yourself to other perspectives, especially those that differ from your own. Fact-based understanding and multilateral communication are a messy, participatory process – one must listen, talk, and think – but from it, mutual understanding and shared perspectives, both grounded in facts, can emerge.

In higher education today, there is great focus on imparting knowledge and inculcating skills, and they are important, because employers prize them.  However, knowledge transmission pales in importance relative to teaching critical thinking – the ability to analyze evidence, test ideas, adjust one’s perspective, and form rational, thoughtful and nuanced insights. Critical thinking is the upgraded brain software that operates on the data we call knowledge. It is the hallmark of an educated citizenry.

To appreciate nuance, to understand discord, to feel empathy, one must glean the facts and also listen to diverse perspectives.  Read multiple newspapers, domestic and international; consider multiple websites from around the world; listen to news channels from the left, the middle, and the right; talk to people from different backgrounds.  Above all, think critically about what you learn; ask questions; seek your answers supported by facts.  Remember, not everyone who disagrees with you is ipso facto wrong; nor are you necessarily right if all your friends agree with you.

Cronkite knew that, as did Huntley and Brinkley. Each night, they and their compatriots did their best to bring the audience some unvarnished facts to ponder. They reserved editorial comment for rare and extraordinary occasions, and they labeled it explicitly as such, which gave it great power.  Today, the best news organizations and high-quality information sources strive to do the same.

Yes, broadcast news stories were and are filtered by mainstream cultural bias, but they are the mainstream. Though not always right, the mainstream, then and now, is more than a neologism.  It is a shared and evolving Weltanschauung created by the interplay of contrasting and often divergent perspectives, itself derived from broad communication and critical thinking. (See Shaping the Message, Using the Medium and Contemplative Reflection and Instantaneous Communication.)

And that’s the way it is, March 29^th, 2022.  Goodbye, Chet. Goodbye, David. And goodnight from HPCDan.

On the Etiology of Heroes

Have you ever wondered what confluence of circumstances scribes an event, an individual, and an utterance indelibly and forever on our cultural psyche?  From the profound (M.L. King’s “I have a dream”) though the literal, though erroneously shortened (Swigert  and Lovell’s “Houston, we have a problem”) to the banal (Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook”), sometimes the person makes the moment, sometimes the moment makes the person, sometimes it is a propitious combination of the two. 

We are now in one of those defining moments, as “flatten the curve” has become a globally recognizable catchphrase, capturing the essential and defining objective of individuals, organizations, and governments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, Anthony Fauci, though legendary in infectious disease circles and a recipient of both the National Medal of Science and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, has only now achieved rock star status in the popular consciousness, with Brad Pitt playing him on Saturday Night Live.

The history of our republic was shaped by those moments, times when a meme, a message, and an individual have risen above the cacophony and forever shifted the debate to new ground.  In those moments, a social or political epoch can be forever defined and delimited by a single speech or even a single utterance. (See Contemplative Reflection and Instantaneous Communication for a few thoughts on the power of principled oratory and long form debate.)

I believe passionately in the power of words and informed political, social, and scientific discourse to shape our present and our future. The defining moments always recur, testing the mettle of each generation in the crucible of challenge and uncertainty.  In that fire, the dross of superficial pontification burns away, leaving only the enduring words, guiding principles, and character that define the essence of leadership and our shared humanity.

Never forget – a single thoughtful and principled individual can and always has made a difference. That’s what heroes are – people who unhesitatingly say and do the right thing when the circumstances demand it.

Framing the Debate

The U.S. Senate has sometimes been called, sometimes admiringly and occasionally pejoratively, the world’s greatest deliberative body, and the history of the U.S. Congress is replete with confirmatory examples of both appellations. Rather than dwell on the nadirs of contentious and acrimonious discourse, let me offer just a few memorable vignettes of riveting oratory and memorable repartee, followed by two more detailed instances that transformed our world.

Daniel Webster. Perhaps the greatest American orator of the 19^th century, Daniel Webster (Massachusetts), rose to speak on January 26, 1830, in what became known as his Second Reply to Hayne. Nominally a debate on protectionist tariffs, nullification, and the power of states, Senator Webster’s speech forever changed the dialog in the still young United States. No longer would any sentence begin, “The United States ARE” but always, “The United States IS.”  Webster’s rallying cry, “Union and Liberty, now and forever, one and inseparable,” delivered in voice said to “shake the world,” caused Senators and spectators alike that day to weep openly with love and pride of country.

Robert Caro’s wonderful book, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, masterfully tells the tale of Webster’s impassioned and moving defense of the Union, and Webster himself later said that everything he had ever read, seen, or heard took fire in his brain that day. So great was the legend of Webster’s elocutionary power and defense of American principles that writer Stephen Vincent Benét later told a fanciful tale of Webster besting the devil himself in a courtroom throwdown over the soul of one Jabez Stone.

Joseph Welsh. During the height of the 1950s “red scare,“ Senator Joseph McCarthy (Wisconsin) made a series of sensational and largely unsubstantiated claims that communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated a wide variety of U.S. institutions, including the U.S. Army.  As leader of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he held a series of star chamber hearings, with the most infamous being the McCarthy-Army hearings in 1954.  Witness Joseph Welsh, chief counsel for the U.S. Army, finally confronted McCarthy for his outrageous accusations and behavior, exclaiming, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"  It was a defining confrontation that led to McCarthy’s censure by the Senate and an end to political witch hunts during the Cold War.

Barbara Jordan. During the Watergate Hearings, Representative Barbara Jordan (Texas) delivered a ringing defense of the U.S. constitution and the rule of law. Speaking in a stentorian tone, one likened to the voice of God, she proclaimed, “My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.”

Via that single speech, Jordan became a national figure while simultaneously laying bare the tawdry nature of President’s Nixon’s dealings.  It is hard to listen without tears forming in one’s eyes, especially as she remarks on the long exclusion of others like her from “We The People.”

Robert Wilson – All We Venerate

On April 17, 1969, during the height of the Vietnam War, physicist Robert Wilson testified before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.  As the founding director of Fermilab, Wilson sought funding to construct Fermilab’s first high energy particle accelerator, designed to test the predictions of the still emerging Standard Model.  (Though incomplete and by no means a theory of everything or even a validated Grand Unified Theory, the Standard Model is arguably one of the greatest intellectual edifices of the 20^th century.)

The accelerator price tag was high, and the country was spending heavily on the Vietnam War, the cold war space race to the moon, and Johnson’s Great Society, political and military choices that, absent adequate monetary policy, would trigger the stagflation of the 1970s – “guns or butter, but not both.” The January 1968 Tet Offensive was still fresh in mind, and the July 1969 Apollo 11 lunar landing was still few months away.

 In a now legendary exchange with Senator John Pastore (Rhode Island), Wilson defended the importance of basic, curiosity-driven science and discovery.  No mere summary can do it justice; it is best to read the verbatim transcript, a portion of which I have reproduced below.  (You can read an extended transcript here.)

Senator Pastore. Is there anything connected in the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country?

Dr. Wilson. No, sir; I do not believe so.

Senator Pastore. Nothing at all?

Dr. Wilson. Nothing at all.

Pastore, perhaps incredulous that Wilson had not lifted the bat off his shoulder while taking a called strike down the middle of the plate, persisted.

Senator Pastore. It has no value in that respect?

Dr. Wilson. It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with those things.

It has nothing to do with the military. I am sorry.

Again, Pastore gives Wilson an opportunity to make a case for defense relevance, and again Wilson demurs, then delivers the still memorable coup de grâce.

Senator Pastore. Is there anything here that projects us in a position of being competitive with the Russians, with regard to this race?

Dr. Wilson. Only from a long-range point of view, of a developing technology. Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about.

In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.

What makes this exchange so extraordinary is that Wilson did not take the politically expedient and expected path, despite given multiple opportunities, by expounding on the proven scientific mantra that long-term basic research leads to unexpected discovery and innovation that will power the future economy. Rather, Wilson took the politically risky, morally high road by speaking truth to power.  We do science because the pursuit of new knowledge satisfies a deep and unsated yearning, because the result is beautiful and that beauty brings us unbridled joy.

Read and reflect on Wilson’s statements again.  He says plainly and unabashedly that the pursuit of new knowledge is about respect, dignity, love of culture, and making our country worth defending.  Strong words.

Wilson got the money.  He also opened Fermilab on time and under budget. Living his principles, he also insisted Fermilab’s architecture embody beauty and elegance and that there be sculptures on the grounds.

Fred Rogers – Human Values

Just a few days after Robert Wilson’s testimony, Fred Rogers – yes, that “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” Mr. Rogers – appeared before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communication, chaired by, you guessed it, the same John Pastore who had previously grilled Robert Wilson.  Rogers was there to defend the then nascent public television against the budget cuts proposed by President Richard Nixon. 

Senator Pastore. Alright Rogers, you’ve got the floor.

After a plea to read his written testimony, Rogers began – in his quiet, humble voice – to talk about our essential humanity.

Mr. Rogers. This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, "You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are." And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.

  Pastore then asks Rogers if he narrates the program.

Mr. Rogers. I'm the host, yes. And I do all the puppets and I write all the music, and I write all the scripts --

Senator Pastore. Well, I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I've had goose bumps for the last two days.

Mr. Rogers. Well, I'm grateful, not only for your goose bumps, but for your interest in -- in our kind of communication. Could I tell you the words of one of the songs, which I feel is very important?

Fred then recites the words of his television song, “What do you do with the mad that you feel?"

Mr. Rogers. What do you do with the mad that you feel? When you feel so mad you could bite. When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong, and nothing you do seems very right. What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go? It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned the thing that’s wrong. And be able to do something else instead ― and think this song ―

“I can stop when I want to. Can stop when I wish. Can stop, stop, stop anytime ... And what a good feeling to feel like this! And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there’s something deep inside that helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man.”

After that, tough guy Pastore simply speaks from the heart.

Senator Pastore. I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars.

Like Wilson, Rogers elevated the discussion above a muddy battle over money to a principled exegesis of human dignity and helping every child learn, grow, and adapt to the challenges facing them. In doing so, he conveyed a simple, elemental truth, one that transcended circumstance; each life matters, and with that belief, he helped millions of boys and girls become men and women of character.

Coda

In the midst of any crisis or societal inflection point, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception, we crave competence and character.

There are heroes out there, individuals whose words and actions manifest deep and abiding principles, rooted in knowledge, experience, and wisdom. We honor and venerate those who embody them, with dignity and purpose.

My faith in knowledge and reason is total and complete, for they are one and inseparable.

Observe, listen, learn, and emulate.

On Catastrophes and Rebooting the Planet

As all those who can self-isolate to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and all but essential services are closed in many locations, local, regional, national, and international commerce has declined precipitously, with calamitous effects for many workers, businesses – large and small – and even governments and their instrumentalities.  There is fear, pain, and suffering in many places and in many forms, and this reality supersedes any claims to the contrary. (See Nature Cannot Be Fooled.)

This is a wicked problem, more complex in many ways than the Great Recession of 2008 because it convolves two complex issues – public health and economic vitality. The same actions that encourage commerce endanger human lives. Conversely, the actions that protect lives have profound, negative economic consequences.  Our socioeconomic equilibrium has been disrupted, with an uncertain path to its restoration.  It is, to use a common phrase, a global catastrophe -- an abrupt and unexpected event causing great and relatively sudden damage and suffering.

There’s a branch of mathematics that studies such abrupt and unexpected changes; it’s aptly named catastrophe theory.  As Wikipedia explains, “catastrophe theory is a branch of bifurcation theory in the study of dynamical systems,” but a simpler description is that catastrophe theory characterizes small changes in the parameters of a nonlinear system that cause equilibria to appear or disappear and a system to jump from one macrostate to another. In that sense, it is a formalization of the colloquial meaning of a disruptive event.

My Geek Childhood

When I was a young teenager, the catastrophe theory work of René Thom had a brief run in the popular consciousness, as the country grappled with economic shocks engendered by the energy crisis of the 1970s. It was even featured in the print edition of Newsweek, due in part to its popularization by Christopher Zeeman. Catastrophe theory was also featured in that other must read periodical of my childhood, Scientific American, alas after I was already in college. (See Zeeman’s delightful April 1976 Scientific American article, entitled simply, Catastrophe Theory.)

That I both read Newsweek and Scientific American avidly and ravaged multiple libraries for books on the underlying mathematics of catastrophe theory perhaps says more about my young teenaged years in rural Arkansas than about catastrophe theory’s grip on the popular imagination.  (See Libraries: Arms Too Short to Feed the Mind.) Let us now bow our heads in a brief acknowledgement of the self-evident reality that I was and am a geek or nerd. (I accept either appellation – but I take umbrage at dweeb or dork.) Needless to say, I had plenty of time for reading on Saturday nights.  Having explicated the limitations of my teenaged social life, let us plunge deeper into catastrophe theory.

Catastrophe Theory 101

This simple diagram on the right illustrates one of the most commonly used models, a cusp catastrophe. Here, two control variables (a, b) perturb a simple function y = u⁴/4 by the addition of a quadratic

yielding a potential function of the form

(Note that the constants are purely for mathematically simplicity.  Any desired scaling factor can be applied to the control or internal variables.)

When the control variables (a, b) have fixed values, the system settles into an equilibrium state where the internal variable u minimizes the potential function.  However, as the control variables change, a local minimum can disappear, and the internal variable can jump suddenly to a different equilibrium, the cusp in the diagram.

A little calculus – setting the first derivative to zero – shows that the equilibrium surface is

The line that marks the edges of the bend in the surface from the upper sheet to the lower sheet is called the fold curve. Finally, the bifurcation set (cusp) is the critical image of the projection (a, b, u) -> (a, b) from the equilibrium surface onto the control space.

Intuitively, small changes in the (a, b) control plane define situations where a stable solution (for values of u) will suddenly jump to an alternate stable solution. As the diagram also shows, there are hysteresis loops where crossing the cusp curve in one direction may cause a catastrophe, but immediately reversing direction does not restore the previous state.

The astute reader will have noted that the cusp catastrophe describes a deterministic system (i.e., the first derivative is time invariant), and most domains include random, time-dependent elements.  The simple cusp catastrophe can be readily extended to stochastic environments (e.g., by adding a Wiener process, W(t)), resulting in a stochastic differential equation.  This means the equilibrium plane and transition cusp vary over time, based on the underlying stochastic process.

For those of you playing the game at home, a Weiner process is a real valued continuous time stochastic process that is the scaling limit of a random walk.  This is yet another example of the interconnectedness of things, spanning topology, dynamic systems, random walks, probability theory, and diffusion processes.

Rebooting the Planet

Now that I have totally buried the lede of the current public health and economic crisis under childhood geekdom and the mathematics of catastrophe theory, here is the relevance and intuition. Think of our control variables (a, b) as social distancing and government economic policy, respectively, and our outcome as socioeconomic health and stability.  Small changes in social distancing or government policy can trigger abrupt transitions in socioeconomic stability due to large declines in public health or economic function (e.g., a pandemic and recession). This is the important point: no simple reversal of those changes can immediately return society to its prior, healthy and prosperous state. All of which brings us to hysteresis and a restart of global society.

Shutting down a planet, a country, a city, or even a university is neither a small nor a simple thing.  Critical infrastructure must be maintained and essential services must remain operational.  More importantly, each of those has collateral dependences.  Infrastructure and services are fractal and self-similar at multiple levels. They are also globally interconnected, with dependences unimagined even a generation ago. (See The World Is Small and Globally Connected, Globally Worried.)

How does one reboot a planet?  First, an immediate return to normal is simply not possible; as the cusp catastrophe model shows, there is hysteresis in any individual and collective action set.  Jobs and income have disappeared; businesses and industries have been damaged and destroyed; tax revenue has been lost; and families and communities have been devastated by illness and death.

Second, an overly rapid and aggressive restart – an “all is back to normal” ethos – risks a rebound pandemic, given inadequate herd immunity or a time to develop a future vaccine.  Conversely, a timid, overly cautious resumption of business and social activity risks unnecessary economic loss and prolonged pain and suffering for hundreds of millions of individuals.

Resumption is not a binary process. Today, we are self-isolating and social distancing, alternating between sitting alone in sweatpants while anxiously watching talking heads on cable television and venturing out with trepidation for food and supplies, warily eyeing the person across the street, fearful they will not keep their distance. We cannot immediately shift to large group activities, attending mass sporting events and glad-handing colleagues, friends, and family with abandon. Rather, resumption must be phased, with careful monitoring of public health and economic activity and recognition that there may be multiple missteps and necessary backtracking. It is a thoughtful, careful process that must be driven by reason and data, not emotion and intuition. (See The Simple Things Matter, Most of All Now and Just the Facts, Ma’am: Reasoning is Not Dead, Jim.)

Nor are universities exempt, with their tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff drawn from around the world, living, working, and eating in close proximity.  As a practical matter, universities are small cities, with logistics and transportation systems, museums and performing arts centers, hospitals and healthcare systems, housing, dining, and recreation facilities, all interconnected with research, education, and community engagement.

These are complex dynamic systems with many co-moving stochastic components, self-similar at many, many scales.  Individuals adapt continuously, but public policy is necessarily discrete. As my colleague, Michael Good noted, it is wise to view the post-pandemic reboot as consisting of red, orange, yellow, and green phases, each representing incremental resumption of social and economic activities, albeit with potential reversion to earlier phases based on observed outcomes.

Remember the key lesson of the stochastic cusp catastrophe. Disruptions cannot be immediately inverted; complex dynamic systems involve hysteresis. We will persevere and the planet will reboot, but it is more complex than a simple Ctrl+Alt+Del. The future will not look like the past for quite a while, but it can be both different and better if we work together in a collaborative spirit.  (See Renaissance Teams: Reifying the School at Athens.)  

The Simple Things Matter, Most of All Now

These are vexing times, with convolved public health and economic issues whose scope and impact are beyond the living memory of all but a handful of humans.  At best a complex dynamic system beset by chaos or at worst a stochastic process, the future is uncertain, shaped in part by our actions and inactions. History and those few who remember the influenza pandemic of 1918 have some important and sobering life lessons for us as we grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the midst of uncertainty, it may seem that we are powerless pawns in a great and complex game of biological systematics, population dynamics, and economics (both macro and micro) so eloquently described in Fitzgerald’s liberal translation of the Rubaiyat,

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays

Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days,

Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Engage By Example

We may be but darkly wise and rudely great, but we are far from helpless. As individuals, academics, and public intellectuals, we have much to offer in our planet’s time of need. In domains as compelling as public health and biomedicine and as diverse as economics and finance, logistics and transportation, manufacturing and supply chain management, public policy and social services, and education and training, we can and must engage via a wide variety of mechanisms and modalities. Now is the time for each of us to be collaborative and engaged partners with our citizens and our society. (See Public Intellectuals: Seeing the Stars.)

First and foremost, the science matters, both its systematic execution and its public communication.  From molecular dynamics simulations of COVID-19 protein structures through study of viral DNA mutations and epidemiological models of viral spread to design of drugs that block infection, science is the path to understanding and treatment, as well as fact-based public policy.

But it is not enough to conduct science behind closed doors. Resolving the global crisis depends on a combination of sound science, thoughtful public policy, collaborative action, and clear communication. The latter means sharing tested and proven scientific ideas in plain English that informs and enlightens the public, while avoiding the turgid and elliptic prose so common in scientific discourse. (See Simplifying Communication.)

Manage Our Fears

Without doubt, there is reason for concern, but reason must also triumph over fear. Yes, I’m talking to those who descended on Costco and local grocery stores like a swarm of locusts to denude the shelves of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, canned goods, paper towels, and bread. I’m also talking to those who still congregate in devil may care groups or are afraid to help their fellow human beings in their time of need. To quote Frank Herbert from Dune, in the litany against fear:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

We must put aside fear, embrace reason, and act together, relying on both leading edge scientific research and common sense public health guidance, including social distancing and self-isolation to limit viral spread.  We will remain – together.

This is a time when each of us must temper our desire for personal freedoms in the cause of the common good.  Now is the time to be careful rather than frequenting public places and congregating, when calm separation and personal patience would lessen the frequency of personal interaction and the common good.

The Simple Things

Now is also the time to embrace our shared humanity and the importance of the little things, even if separated by time and distance. Character is tempered and tested not in the good times, but in the difficult ones, not in the times of plenty but in the times of deprivation. When anyone suffers, we all suffer.

A nod and wave to a stranger across the street, a smile to the checkout clerk, a thank you to the delivery person – all from a safe distance – can bring comfort and a reminder that we are all united by common desires, whether hope for the health and safety of our families or concern for those who have lost their jobs and livelihoods.

Amidst our concerns, remember that life and nature continue apace. Take joy in a blue sky, a spring breeze, and a golden sunset. We will remain, buttressed by scientific reason, thoughtful action, and our shared values.  Blake was right, if you look, even in the darkest times, it is possible

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

In these times of trouble, remember the basic truths; they are the lasting ones.  Stay calm. Trust the science. Help one another. Savor nature. Be kind.

This too shall pass.

Breathing Easily

All too often we take too many things for granted until sadly, they disappear – our youthful health, the backyard presence of our playing children, and the vigor of our parents.  If we think at all, we assume they will be there forever, then in a seeming instant, they are gone – as we age, our children become adults, and our parents are lost to illness and death. Unrequited yearnings and fading memories are all that remain.

Not the least of these unappreciated blessings is the air we breathe.  A human can survive without food for days to weeks, without water for days, but only minutes without air. Air sustains us, nurtures us, and invigorates us.  Yet for all its importance, we rarely think about either air availability or protection. Unlike food or water, which we must consciously seek, breathable air is just there for the taking, by anyone and everyone, all the time, right up until it isn’t. Then, people get sick and often die, sometimes slowly – via lung diseases and cancer -- and sometimes quickly – via drowning or asphyxiation.

As a pontificating academic and amateur grammarian, I often take umbrage when writers abuse the word “literally.”  (“The land flowed with milk and honey” is a metaphor, adding the word literally shifts it from metaphor to environmental disaster.)  However, our air is literally life sustaining. For something so critical, it’s long past time we were a bit more thoughtful about our next breath and what we and others should do to ensure everyone can continue to breathe easily.

If you have ever walked the streets of Beijing or Delhi, observed pedestrians wearing masks, or looked at the high levels of suspended particulate matter, you know how bad it can be in a polluted and congested city, with near and long-term consequences for millions of people. In the U.S., we have made progress via the Clean Air Act, but there is more to do. Political pundits opine that all politics are local, and air quality improvement, though without doubt a global issue, always begins with local action. 

The University of Utah, as part of its One U commitment to partnership across academic affairs and health affairs, is hosting the first of a series of multidisciplinary symposia on air quality on October 3, 2019. Entitled The Air We Breathe, the symposium’s objectives are to build connections among researchers across Utah’s campus, catalyze new research collaborations, coordinate research activities, and communicate research findings.

Why here and why now? The majority of Utah’s population is concentrated along the long and narrow Wasatch Front. We are surrounded by the natural beauty of our mountains, along with wintertime inversions and summertime ozone haze.  Air quality advisories are common, and the health effects of air pollution are real. An exegesis on the atmospheric physics of inversions and ozone haze are subjects for another day, though these are subjects of detailed monitoring and computational modeling by several Utah faculty. Similarly, there are many biomedical research groups studying the effects of air quality on human health.

It’s not too late to change our trajectory.  We can make a difference – working together across academia, government, industry, and communities. Take a deep breath and think how wonderful it feels. Don’t take it for granted.  Let’s join together to protect the future. 

The Endless Frontier and the National Science Board

N.B. I am pleased that the White House has announced that I am being appointed to the National Science Board (NSB), which provides advice and oversight for the National Science Foundation (NSF). In recognition of this honor and responsibility, I have been reflecting on how much the NSF has shaped my career over the past thirty-five years, and how much I owe the Foundation in return.

Anxious Proposal Writing

As a new, assistant professor in the fall of 1983, armed with a thin NSF proposal guide, I labored to write my first proposal. Like all young and inexperienced proposal writers, I struggled, searching for a lede that was both novel and compelling.  I wrote and rewrote, agonizing over each paragraph, late into the nights.  Sleep deprived, with the submission window at hand, I decamped to the local post office with a postage meter, where I mailed a set of proposal copies to NSF’s old Washington, DC. address at 1800 G St. NW, near the International Monetary Fund. 

Mind you, this was before electronic proposal routing, with far fewer certifications and checklists.  Paper forms were simply duplicated and stapled for mailing. The World Wide Web did not exist, the NSF supercomputer centers (including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)) had not been created, and NCSA’s Mosaic web browser not yet been released.  It was a time when a daily dialup CSNET connection was the state of the art among most computer science departments, and I knew a non-trivial percentage of the electronic world’s denizens blessed with an email address. (See Remembering Internet Dogs.) 

My first NSF proposal was about a then radical idea, one I had explored in my Purdue Ph.D. thesis, that supercomputers could and should be built from large collections of microprocessors. When I began that work, the Intel 8086 was still a new and novel product, and the IBM PC had not been released. Doubling down on this crazy idea, my friend and colleague, Richard Fujimoto, and I later wrote an MIT Press book about this approach. Fortunately, time has shown that we – and others – were right about microprocessor clusters.

A few months after submitting my first proposal, I mustered my courage and called the NSF program officer, hoping for good news. To my great joy, he kindly related that the proposal, entitled Performance Directed Design of Multimicrocomputer Systems, would be funded in the fall of 1984, with the munificent sum of $55,825. Although many tens of millions of research dollars have since followed, I will always be grateful for NSF’s initial investment in my future.

A Lifetime of NSF Connections

At the time of that first NSF proposal, I had no idea what arc my career might follow, nor how intimately I would be involved in computing’s future and its myriad connections to NSF.  These have included serving as computer science department head at Illinois, as NCSA director, as founding director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at North Carolina, and as the leader of the eXtreme Computing Group (XCG) at Microsoft. Throughout, I have been fortunate to be involved in building advanced computing infrastructure for scientific research (clusters, GPUs, and the NSF TeraGrid, now XSEDE), advancing high-speed networking, ensuring access to cloud services for science, and engaging in research collaborations of many forms.

When I wrote that first proposal, neither could I have then foreseen how much the world would change due to computing’s now ubiquitous influence. For a few musings on these effects, see NCSA@30: The Revolution Continues, Microsoft/NSF Cloud Research Partnership, and Reluctant Revolutionaries, the Trolley Paradox, and Ender’s Game. 

The one constant in all of my experiences has been the National Science Foundation. Over the years, I have been fortunate to engage NSF on many levels:

• As a researcher and an early Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) awardee, which made possible long-standing industry collaborations with Intel, IBM, and other companies
• As a member of many multi-institution research projects (e.g., on scalable I/O, virtual grids, and mesoscale weather forecasting)
• As a member of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) advisory committee
• As a proposal reviewer, workshop organizer, report writer, informal advisor, distinguished lecturer, member of National Academy studies, and member of both the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) and the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST)
• As a witness in Congressional hearings about computing, science, and technology futures (e.g., this House Science Committee hearing)
• As a leader of a Major Research Equipment and Facility Construction (MREFC) project – the Distributed Terascale Facility (DTF) and Extended Terascale Facility (ETF) that were the TeraGrid
• As an industry partner – the Microsoft/NSF Cloud Research Partnership

All of that built on a long legacy of NSF innovation.

The Endless Frontier: Looking Forward

In July 1945, Vannevar Bush responded to a request from President Roosevelt with a prescient and insightful report, one whose significance and import echo across the decades.  In that report, entitled, Science: The Endless Frontier, Bush noted, “…without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.” He further notes, 

… since health, well-being, and security are proper concerns of Government, scientific progress is, and must be, of vital interest to Government. Without scientific progress the national health would deteriorate; without scientific progress we could not hope for improvement in our standard of living or for an increased number of jobs for our citizens; and without scientific progress we could not have maintained our liberties against tyranny.

Bush’s seminal report, still worth reading, resulted in what we now know as the National Science Foundation, charged to both develop new knowledge and to train new generations of scholars.

I, along with many of you, have been blessed beneficiaries of that wisdom and foresight. I have also been fortunate to count many CISE leaders and NSF directors as friends and advisers.   It is in that spirit, that I am now pleased that I am being appointed to the National Science Board, where I hope to help the NSF continue to support and sustain scholars – young and old – and to advance scientific research and ensure national competitiveness.

Just the Facts, Ma’am: Reasoning is Not Dead, Jim

As a kid, I watched Dragnet on an aging, black-and-white TV, back in the day when changing the channel required getting up and actually rotating the TV's channel selector. I still recall the dum, de, DUM, DUM Dragnet theme and Jack Webb's monotonic voiceover advising us that the stories we were about to see were true, a meme continued from its radio antecedents. In one ironic twist, the intrepid Joe Friday's catchphrase "Just the facts, ma'am" soon entered the popular lexicon, even though Joe never uttered exactly that phrase, merely several related variants.

In contrast, Star Trek's iconic, "He's dead, Jim" phrase, was actually uttered by Dr. McCoy. Woe be unto any "red shirt" extras who joined the away team, only to die, just before the first commercial break, as Bones looked up at Jim and began to speak those fateful words. So publicly imprinted was the phrase that DeForest Kelley later expressed some concern that "He's dead, Jim" might be the epitaph on his own tombstone. It was not, but at least one obituary opened with the phrase.

When innocuous, these cultural memes are an intellectual and social shorthand, framing a larger social context, quickly and concisely. "Just the facts, ma'am" became a caricature of deadpan delivery and dispassionate situational analysis, whereas "He's dead, Jim" poked fun at Star Trek's often formulaic storylines. In an extended riff, John Scalzi later wrote an entire novel, entitled Red Shirts, on the dangers of self-aware characters trapped and under the influence of badly written television script.

The more sinister variants of cultural catchphrases can label and ostracize, reinforcing inaccurate stereotypes and disenfranchising entire social, ethnic, or cultural groups. Simply put, such memes can become an intellectual crutch, a way to avoid rational and thoughtful discourse and ignore the timeless importance of fact-based reasoning. A line often attributed to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan captures the essence of such fact-based discourse, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

Of course, purported facts are not themselves facts; establishing actual facts (a neologism, for sure) is the essential prerequisite for fact-based reasoning. If one source claims it is raining and another says it is not, the wise person does not report both as opinions. Rather, he or she looks outside and ascertains the existence, as well as the time, type, location, and geographic dispersion of the purported precipitation. As Lincoln once said, "Calling a tail a leg does not make it so."

Nor does saying something loudly and repeatedly make it a fact, even if the source is both respected and authoritative. Indeed, appealing to authority is one of the biggest risks and fallacies in common, public discourse. It ranks right up there with strawman arguments and false dichotomies among the informal fallacies. (I will return to these informal fallacies as well as some of the formal ones discussed in elementary propositional logic, as found in introductory philosophy classes.)

An appeal to authority is especially pernicious in scientific disciplines. Richard Feynman reinforced the magnitude and the danger of this risk in describing the scientific method, "It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it." (See The Epistemology of Science for a few musings on the interplay of scientific discourse and a lay audience.)

In a world of social memes, tweetstorms, fake news (real and otherwise), and alternative facts, it is especially important to think, analyze, and verify, and do so with careful deliberation. (See Contemplative Reflection and Instantaneous Communication for some thoughts on the dangers of speaking before thinking.)

What science fiction writer Bruce Sterling once called the major consensus narrative, a perhaps more erudite version of truthiness, is just that, a social construct, a shared belief. It may (or may not) be sophistry, fully grounded in the facts. (See A Conversation on Designing the Future, where Bruce and I riff on the interplay of technology and social behavior.)

In that spirit, it is worth remembering and holding dear some classic rules and frequent fallacies of logical reasoning. Many valued logics, higher order logics, measure theory, incompleteness theorems, the Chomsky hierarchy, Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, and decidability are fascinating and worthy topics, ones I have spent many a day and night pondering, building constructive and non-constructive proofs, but they, like how Gödel struck down Hilbert's dream, are topics for another day.

Just a few basics of propositional logic and a bit of first order predicate logic, along with recognition of informal fallacies, cover most everyday needs. Here are just a few of the more common fallacies to remember and avoid:

• Ad hominem fallacy – discrediting an idea by attacking an individual or group
  • "Dan is uneducated, so climate change cannot be happening."
• Appeal to authority fallacy – adopting a position because of those who support it
  • "Your father said you could run fast; it must be true."
• Circular logic fallacy -- A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true
  • "You must save money to retire because it takes money to retire."
• Affirming a disjunct – A or B; A, therefore not B (both can be true simultaneously)
  • "The sun is up or it is springtime."
• Affirming the consequent – P implies Q; Q, therefore P (Q can be true even if P is not)
  • "Dan is tall implies he is a basketball player. He is a basketball player. Therefore, he is tall." (There are short basketball players)
• Denying the antecedent – P implies Q; therefore, if not P then not Q (again, Q can still be true)
  • "Dan is tall implies he is a basketball player. If Dan is not tall, then he is not a basketball player." (Again, there are short basketball players.)

These fallacies are everywhere if one reads the news critically or listens carefully to many public statements, and one must be diligent and vigilant to avoid being lured unaware by these seductive Sirens. Remember, given an inconsistent set of axioms (i.e. contradictory "facts"), any statement can be "proven" to be true or false.

Other fallacies abound in first order logic via misuse of existential and universal quantifiers (e.g., the existence of an instance does not imply universality); hasty generalizations are one instance of such. Likewise, here are two simple logic rules that everyone should remember; they are valued, everyday friends:

• Modus tollens – P implies Q; not Q, therefore not P"
  • "It is raining implies the ground is wet. The ground is not wet, therefore it is not raining."
• Modus ponens – P implies Q; P, therefore Q
  • "The sun has set implies it is dark. The sun has set, therefore it is dark."

Notice how similar modus tollens and modus ponens look to affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent; it is crucial to understand the difference.

Remember, it all begins with "Just the facts," rigorously tested and verified. This solid detective work would make old Joe Friday proud. From there, logical reasoning – establishing cause and effect – will lead to other testable hypotheses. It's about following the clues.

Make no mistake, logical reasoning is definitely not dead, Jim, though it seems to have been punched in the gut and beaten bloody by a gang of angry naysayers. Fortunately, it is a bit hardier than Star Trek's red shirts. As long as we pursue just the facts logic will both live and flourish.

Heading West: To the University of Utah

I am delighted to share some news. Effective July 1, I will be joining the University of Utah as its Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs (SVPAA). You can read the announcement at this link (https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/new-senior-vice-president-for-academic-affairs/) or below.

I am both humbled and filled with anticipation.

Daniel A. Reed named Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Utah

Computational science scholar and former Microsoft executive brings unique mix of academic and economic development experience to the U's top academic position.

April 30, 2018 – Daniel A. Reed, Ph.D., has been named senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. Reed, who currently serves on the faculty at the University of Iowa, will start on July 1.

"Dan is an exceptional addition to the university's leadership team and the thought leadership of our state," said university President Ruth V. Watkins. "He is a talented scholar and administrator, and the perfect fit in our efforts to become one of the country's premier public universities. I look forward to working closely with him in the years ahead."

At Iowa, Reed holds the university's computational science and bioinformatics chair and is a professor of computer science, electrical and computer engineering and medicine. From 2012 through 2017, he served as the school's vice president for research and economic development. Reed is a former corporate vice president and technology policy leader at Microsoft, the founding director of the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was the director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois.

"Utah is a great public research university with a deep commitment to student success, breakthrough research and scholarship, effective economic development, and insightful partnerships that serve our society and health, and improve our world," said Reed. "It is a university with an even more extraordinary future. As they say on campus, it truly is Imagine U. I am excited to partner with its students, faculty and staff, and the citizens of Utah, as we build that future."

Reed's most recent scholarship has focused on challenges and opportunities related to cloud and edge computing in both academic and corporate research settings. A graduate of Missouri University of Science and Technology, he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from Purdue University.

In addition to his work on the faculty at the University of Iowa, Reed currently chairs the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee and the steering committee for the National Science Foundation's Midwest Big Data Hub. He previously served on the U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. He also chaired the board of directors for the Computing Research Association, which represents Ph.D.-granting computer science departments in North America, and currently serves on its government affairs committee.

About the University of Utah

Located in Salt Lake City, the University of Utah is the state's flagship university. It provides education to more than 31,000 graduate, undergraduate and professional students from all 50 states and over 100 countries. The university offers 72 major subjects at the undergraduate level and more than 90 major fields of study at the graduate level. With revenues in excess of $4.2 billion (FY17), the university is considered one of Utah's primary economic engines. The institution generates over $600 million annually for the state of Utah in nontax revenue and is one of the state's largest employers, with more than 3,300 faculty members and 33,000-plus full-time and part-time employees. The university is a catalyst for a research corridor through northern Utah that is a hotbed for technology and development activities, colloquially known as Silicon Slopes.

Thoreau, Angst, Ennui, and Coming of Age

July 12, 2017 marks two hundred years since the birth of Henry David Thoreau. As an essayist, philosopher, protestor, and transcendentalist, to name just a few attributes, he is an enduring figure in the American literary pantheon. Best known for his book Walden, which extolled the virtues of lifestyle simplicity, and his Civil Disobedience essay, which called on individuals of conscience to resist unjust government, Thoreau's ideas and influence burn brightly in the hearts and minds of every American secondary school English teacher, and by extension, in the existential ennui and soul searching angst of every teenaged would-be poet and wanna-be folksinger.

Thoreau's famous lines echo Arnold's eternal note of sadness and the long, melancholy withdrawing roar:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. -- Walden

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. – Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

Add a dash of John Donne, a pinch of Franz Kafka, and a teaspoon of Poe. Stir vigorously with a stock of Shakespeare and you have a witch's brew of coming of age uncertainty and self-doubt. What does it all mean? Why am I here? What does my future hold?

The thoughtful of every new generation taste this bitter soup, seeking answers to the timeless questions. I certainly did, and my struggle was by no means unique or even unusual.

As a small town boy in Arkansas, I craved intellectual and emotional certainty. The former, I found in books, which opened a world of science and technology, of art and music, of poetry and philosophy, in a place where those were rare. The latter – emotional maturity – I learned, comes only with life experiences and time, for learning and knowledge, however deep, are not understanding.

As a boy, fishing with my grandfather taught me the essential truth of Thoreau's observation, "Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." Sometimes my grandfather and I caught fish, but both of us knew that was not why we went repeatedly to the pond. Together, young and old, we sought and found something much more important, in the shared conversations, in the fading memories of a life lived, and in the ill-formed dreams of a life yet formed.

Thoreau expressed some essential and eternal truths, sometimes rendered banal by over-repetition, ones all too often lost in the hubbub of living. On Thoreau's 200^th birthday, it is worth remembering just a few:

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

Resist unnecessary conformity; seize opportunity; pursue your dreams; heed the distant drummer; live your own life. Therein lie the answers to those teenaged questions, and a life well lived.

As Kierkegaard said, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."