Carthago Sardiniam delevit

Here we have evidence from Sardinia, of Carthage deeming the locals' culture as worthy of obliteration.

(I admit: I had to look up the perfect-tense. I had the notion it was "deluit" for some reason. Maybe in the vulgate.)

That agrees with such genetic evidence as shows a thorough demic replacement of Sardinia's gene-pool with a heavy Levantine infusion. In simpler terms those guys did a Puerto Rico on the island. Not so different from what they'd do in Spain, when the Romans started paying attention.

All I can say is... the balls on those guys. Seriously: Carthage were the people whose main contributions to Western civilisation were a book on how best to handle slaves and the word tophet. And they dared treat the Sardinians as savages.

Rome committed many wrongs, over its long and violent history; but not to Carthage.

Math is hard, harder for planetary physicists

Today I am following DuPont-Murphy's work. (In the meantime I've been downloading and installing VS 2022 Community, since that is Official Release now.) Again, this is all on the unstated assumption that Mars' crustal microteslae are of negligible help shielding the planet at a high altitude.

They work in Earth units until they can get around to putting this stuff into S.I. units. As long as they are working in proportions, they don't ... care about units. They are on the cm/g/s plan, as can be seen in figure 1 where ρv² is B(r)² / 8π. That denominator if S.I. should be 2μ₀ where μ₀ is the vacuum permeability. Be nice if they'd told us . . .

I wasted a heap o' time figuring out what "B(r)" meant. I can make sense of it only if B is a function of r. Apparently B(r_s) = B(r_🜨) × (r_🜨 / r_s)³. I don't know how they came up with that, but - whatever. My problem again is how they didn't tell us.

Moving along to the ram-pressure, here they show their work better - toward an inaccurate result. We all want a function of B(r) at a Standoff Radius which, confusingly, they call B₀ rather than B(r'_s) or even just B'. So - I'll do it. Their equation is B' = B_🜨 × [Earth distance in Mars' units] × [Earth radius in Mars' radius]³ × (r'_s / r_s)³.

That [Earth distance in Mars' units] would be the ram-pressure factor. It is, in effect, the square root of [Solar irradiation at 1 AU in Mars' units].

Earth distance in Mars units is 2/3, for them - which is more than it should be, since we want the worst-case scenario which is Mars' perihelion. That is not 1.5 of Earth AU; it's 1.38. Earth in Mars' radius is indeed more like 2 although, we'll take 1.88. All said and done, they use the fraction 16/3 which is 5.333; pretty sure Math.Pow(6371.0/3389.5, 3.0) / 1.38 = 4.81 would be better. Good news: their errors cancel out, so they hit the high-side!

16/3 of B_🜨 × (r'_s / r_s)³, then. For them r'_s / r_s is 1/6. So they got 1/40 B_🜨; where I have the slightly lower 2/90 B_🜨. Given B_🜨 = 50 that's 1.25 microtesla for them. I'd been given to understand that Earth's field ranges: 25 to 65 μT. Again, they're hitting the high side.

All in all, they err on the side of caution - by accident, and until they get to mass-density. But we'll take it.

Animadversions on the Martian equatorial magnet

Having poasted I took time today to read Marcus DuPont and Jeremiah Murphy, "Fundamental physical and resource requirements for a Martian magnetic shield". Not quite as fundamental as we'd like, is my verdict, and - I suspect - the source of bemusement among the Science Blogosphere over the past month or so.

These two clowns huffed a phat blunt together a year ago and decided, find enough bismuth to make a bismuth-strontium-calcium-copper alloy, and rust it a little. Start coiling the planet with late-'80s "Bisco" (Bi₂Sr₂Ca_nCu_n+1O_2n+6). Repeat until you lay down 100 Eiffel Towers worth, at 3400 km radius. For reference the equatorial radius is 3396.2 km.

Sabine asks-and-answers Where do you get so much bismuth from? Asteroid Mining. - further, I bet you could pluck up a lot of that from the meteorites already dotting the Martian surface. And we'll be dropping comets on here too, say DuPont and Murphy. I expect especially ammonia-heavy comets, they need the nitrogen a sight more than they need the carbon-dioxide. I'm not disputing this much. I'm not disputing even that the colonists want a magnet, as Casey Handmer disputes. Handmer is if anything doubly-wrong in that SML1-Lissajous would flare-protect the higher satellites; this goes beyond the DuPont-Murphy concern.

Mars' tilt is like Earth's so an equator-spanning magnet will leave some less-protected space on the poles. And Mars won't be able to fire off Orions anywhere they like, anymore; so, like here on Earth, the poles will be where those monsters take off. A minor inconvenience because by then I hope Mars will own better ways around Tsiolkovsky.

One major issue I have here is simple longterm logistics. This Bisco has been chosen because it is a super conductor. Our super-fu is still not room-temp, nor even Mars-temp. Poking around, Bisco 2223 hits 107 K. Seems an excellent plan for keeping Jupiter's ions off the Ganymede colonies; Ceres and Callisto, the two likiest pit-stops, don't really need it. Unsure about Mars. DuPont and Murphy did crunch the numbers and figured that keeping the Bisco at 100 K would be the hard part. Underground in the shade, we suppose.

I mean, once we've started keeping the carbon-dioxide in, the air isn't just warming up - it is also conducting heat better. So those underground chambers will need to stay vacuum.

I might further nitpick to add the InSight experiments on the surface which detect about 2 microTesla [doi 10.1038/s41561-020-0537-x]. Crustal field ain't a planetwide field. So: tell us that.

And what's the longterm plan. The next milestone is when Phobos hits the planet. That'll happen sooner if there's an atmo to drag it. I mean, sure; last winter I'd rather whack that moon with another big rock either to push it to areosychronicity or else just to make a big ring out of it, for Deimos to mine the remains. Either of those options is violent and hazardous to the surface. But either way, the Martian Congressional Republic has a problem on its hands.

After the Phobos problem is solved - or Mars is rebuilt after the Big Crash, doesn't matter: our Sun is heating up. Our own good green Earth is done-for in 500 million years. That's going to mean more "mass loss" therefore radiation for Mars. Although if we're starting small, like to keep in a 0.2 bar atmo, in shallah we can keep adding more cable as needed.

More to the point is getting started. Mars is bumpy. To wrap the coil around its equator requires a lot of ups and downs. The Tharsis Bulge is there, and I think so is the Marinaris. Not only is this going to warp the topology of our magnet, but even if it works our descendents must secure it - until the heat death of the Sun. This includes cooling it, because it has to be below 100 K which Mars doesn't get naturally. The authors convince me that the power needs aren't a problem - if all goes well. - but, tell it to a Texan: what if a sector gets whacked by a meteor? or falls down a rockslide? Yeah I know: a Mars-side magnet remains better entropy-management than balancing a (bigger) magnet at SML1. Still, it sucks.

Also I dislike how DuPont and Murphy calculated the ram pressure of the solar wind in Mars' near space. There's the problem: they... calculated it, rather than measuring the actual rads. This was done from the mass loss rate from the Sun and the inverse square law. Cosmic rays are, I recall, correspondingly worse - by the same law. All this is the sort of thing Martians want measured directly... which may be done from any orbiter around Mars. I propose it can be more-directly extrapolated from Geiger meters, as measure sieverts / day. Calculations based on GCSE physics are well and good for extrasolar planets, but frankly we can do a lot better around a planet as well-known as Mars.

Their density for these superconductors is hilariously wrong at 3 g/cm³. The numbers I find [10 Nov.] run from 5.7 (Rebco) to 6.31 (the Bisco they actually want). So, double their mass estimate.

I don't know why they even included the paragraph on Can the device fit in a rocket?. Uh. No? Not even on an Orion, dood. They will moot shifting material from the Asteroid Belt, later on. Which also will require some hardcore thrust, albeit with lower delta-V. That paragraph, I am sorry, needs deletion; and replacement, with some logistics on the delta-V budgets between Mars and relevant asteroids. Luckily these are heavy-metallic so within 3 AU of the Sun.

UPDATE 11/26-8: Suppose there's a 90 kilotonne ring of satellites over the equator. It's already magnetised. Magnetise it some more! Quite literally, from 110 km up, ain't no mountain high enough ain't no valley low enough. Although, it does freeze the place.

If you like SF, watch Dust.tv

... also available on Youtube. Seriously, you need to watch this stuff.

I stumbled onto this about 9:40 last night, all hyped up after the "Crew Number Two" sploosh and having half-assed an unrelated blogpost. I spent rather too long over there, and had a slow-start morning as a result...

If you are looking for Blade Runner / Alien pastiche (to the point of fanfic) you cannot better "The Beacon", which frankly Ridley Scott himself is having trouble doing anymore. "The Shipment" more goes to Lucas stylistic homage, to Mos Eisley and Han Solo (and, of course, to plenty of Star Wars games, and to wider Disney these days). We might also talk "Hyperlight" for an exploration of how FTL messes up Causality; and "FTL" for Zefran Cochran as composed by Carl Sagan.

I also peeked at "The Edge", "Atropa", "The Big Nothing", and "Archetype" but didn't watch those (yet).

Downside: the editing. The soundtracks are often overblown, and there's lensflare which for the life of me I cannot understand this side of 1999. Good sound-control is a particular necessity when you are casting amateur / lowranked actors who do not always have the enunciation skillz of a Hollywood or stage professional. (For the most part their acting, and the scripts, do hit the mark.) Another arguable downside is that these shows tend to be, well, downers - although we might not say this for "FTL". A better arguable is that there is a lot more room in these stories for a larger movie with a more-satisfying conclusion.

And occasionally there is Physics Fail, as "FTL" when a character in Mars orbit is communicating with Earth... in realtime. 3-22 lightminutes away. No, man; have him communicate with some Mars base (which you probably can't do because budget) or else suck it up and assume the delay (costing you... nothing).

Screw it, I'll go there: I ding almost all of these stories for physics. Artificial Gravity is handwaved without considering either a directed-fusion "Epstein Drive" or else a spinning torus. "The Shipment", for one, can be easily EPSTEIN'd by having the protag dock at a spinning wheel and then do his business in a claustrophobic station. For "The Beacon" I'd take a post-Sheffield kernel-infused mass disc.

Warming Mars (locally)

As to other Mid October Stuff I Missed, heeeere's (or waaaas) Sabine H. She mused about terraforming Mars. It looks a lot like we, er, can't terraform Mars. But we can get part of the way there.

If this seems like a repoast ... yeah, I had a post up, 8 November. I moved most of it the next day to a DuPont / Murphy roast. I am hereby [18 November] deleting the original and rethinking the remainder.

DuPont and Murphy were saying that a shielded Mars (if the DuPont-Murphy shield will work which it won't) would get to Earth's unit of pressure (1 bar) in a "Gyr" - a biiiillyun years. By which time our main-sequence star has made of Earth, Venus II; with or without gerbil worming. So how to hurry it up?

Sabine digs up a 2018 article about, hey, by heating the polar caps. That would get the air pressure to 0.2 bar - in theory. (0.2 bar of CO₂ would also kick up the overall temperature by 10 K, which I am calling out as "not worth it".) The Martians meanwhile are taking that away by compressing it for local plantgrowth but, hey; easier. DuPont and Murphy therefore must resort to dropping comets and other volatile-heavy iceballs onto here because why not, we're already full gonzo.

Among Casey Handmer's [11/17] Starship recommendations was, indeed, for warming Mars - with a mirror from SML2. [UPDATE 12/13: By the long, Lagrange halo - so I assume. I'd prefer high polar.] Pace Handmer, wherever this array goes, I recommend Mars itself for launching and maintaining it all. And would they even need the rocket's reusability? Low g and low ρ mean: the rocket doesn't need be built for endurance (so much). Send up the rocket(s) into and disassemble them at their spaaace destination.

Sabine further mooted the aerogel idea: warm the surface directly (so locally) so that plants (well, algae and maybe mosses) can grow outside the manmade habitats. I wracked my brain, here, to see the point; like, maybe Elon wants a Hanging Garden like they had in Babylonia Assyria, to show off to his next wife. Although: it may do as a daylight carbon-scrubber for the colony. And it doesn't even need that magnet.

Overall: Mars is not getting terraformed within the next million (with "M") years by the resources currently available on Mars. Parts of it, tho', might work better.

The language of Qatar

Gorgias Press sent their catalog my way, and in it is a blurb from a book from last January by Mario Kozah and a few others. They're discussing the Beth Qaṭrâyé which means the western Gulf Coast.

Before Islam, Arabic in any form went unspoken along the Gulf - this book argues. Instead the Church of the East recorded "Qaṭrâyîth". In classical antiquity, this Hasa was the home of "Hasaitic" (with Aramaic, for the visitors).

Kozah notes elsewhere the East Syriac Anonymous Commentary – a ninth century exegetical work which in its most extended form covers both the Old and New Testaments. He finds lexemes in here in Qaṭrâyîth. That term "lexeme" implies we're dealing with roots in an inflected language, which I assume means it's Semitic like Hasaitic was.

Is Qaṭrâyîth more-directly related to Hasaitic? FOLLOWUP 5/21/25: Jallad's review.

Philosophy as psychopathology

Per David Yaden and Derek Anderson, comes a psychological profile of philosophers.

Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism

Probably too-good-to-check but, slow day and it's like 10 PM at night - so I shall poast upon't, marry. Just be forewarned on the RED FLAGS on this article.

The abstract does not explain what physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism mean/s to Yaden-Anderson, so I must hazard guesses. I consider myself a mathematician, so - yeah, mathematical proofs assume that Cause And Effect be a thing. My mindset goes that mathematics help build models that make sense of physics and nature. If that helps?

Doing psychoactive drugs would, indeed, predict that your brain is going to be weird; and if your brain is weird, many of you are going to rationalise how weird is normal and it is the rest of us who are the Sheeple. No real surprise here; I indulge in "midwit"-bashing myself. Although usually I do this where the midwits (to my estimation) are being illogical.

I have not had any "experience" beyond the norm, yet I am a theist. To be fair to Yaden-Anderson, there may exist other experiences within the norm as predict theism. "Agreeableness"? Er...

But yes, people who are internally plain broken do seem inclined against this world and toward the next. If the next world be entwined with this one, that's where we get firm predictions on The Storm: whereby all the oppressors shall meet the White Throne, and JFK Junior shall rise from his untimely grave. Since it is powerful people with Q access who enact this Plan, we poor minions are not responsible for these events - but that is fine, since for such people, they're broken, and they don't really feel in charge of their own destiny in the first place. All this... rings truest of all.