Universities and Wine

A few people have commented on my rather tongue-in-cheek post about solar car racing and beer. I don’t think the correlation there was actually spurious – there really is a tradition of excellent engineering education in the beer-producing areas of Europe, and both the beer production and the approach to engineering education have been exported around the world.

In the USA, for example, we have the influence of Stephen Timoshenko (1878–1972) at the University of Michigan and at Stanford. And we have the influence of Friedrich Müller / Frederick Miller (1824-1888) in the brewing industry.

But lest I be accused of some kind of pro-beer bias, the chart below shows national wine consumption (consumption this time, not production) compared to the date of the oldest university in the country (excluding universities less than a century old). Here we have universities (in the modern sense of the word) growing out of the wine-drinking areas of Europe, beginning with the University of Bologna. Once again, I think the data can be understood as a case of parallel exports:

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World Solar Challenge head to head: Australian Challengers

The World Solar Challenge is an exciting race to find the best solar car in the world. That makes for serious competition between countries. But there are also some interesting contests within countries. The most obvious is between Nuon (3) and Twente (21), who came first and second in the Challenger class last time.

Within Australia, Western Sydney (15, Unlimited 2.0, above) did very well in 2015, coming 10^th in the Challenger class. Adelaide University (7, Lumen II, below) did not do quite so well back then (coming 21^st), but have learned a lot about building solar cars from the experience. Potential competitors Clenergy Team Arrow (who came 8^th in 2015) have switched to the Cruiser class, while newcomers ANU are still on their initial learning curve. Who will be Australia’s leading Challenger in 2017?

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World Solar Challenge head to head: Japan

The World Solar Challenge is an exciting race to find the best solar car in the world. That makes for serious competition between countries. But there are also some interesting contests within countries. The most obvious is between Nuon (3) and Twente (21), who came first and second in the Challenger class last time.

Within Japan, Tokai University (10, Tokai Challenger, above) has a long tradition of excellence in the Challenger class, winning in 2009 and 2011, and coming at least 3^rd since then (see chart at top). Their elegant new car is radically different from anything else in the competition, and looks fast.

Kogakuin University (88) raced in the Cruiser class in 2015, with an innovative design that almost won. This year, they have an equally innovative car in the Challenger class (Wing, below). Can Kogakuin take over the leading Challenger role in Japan? Can their car win against the equally streamlined Tokai vehicle? Or will Goko or Nagoya make a dramatic leap upwards from their 14^th-place and 16^th-place finishes in 2015? Only time will tell.

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World Solar Challenge head to head: Sweden

Flag image by Tage Olsin

The World Solar Challenge is an exciting race to find the best solar car in the world. That makes for serious competition between countries. But there are also some interesting contests within countries. The most obvious is between Nuon (3) and Twente (21), who came first and second in the Challenger class last time.

Within Sweden, JU Solar Team (46, Solveig, above) did well in the Challenger class in 2015, coming 15^th. But fellow Swedes MDH (22) have joined the competition, with a very interesting-looking car (MDH Solar Car, below). Which of the two will be the best Swedish team in 2017?

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The Plimpton 322 tablet re-examined

Several years back I blogged about the Plimpton 322 tablet – a Babylonian clay tablet from around 1,800 BC. It contains four columns of numbers, written in base 60 (with a small number of errors, as well as some numbers missing through damage – these are corrected below). For example, 1.59:00:15 = 1 + 59/60 + 0/3600 + 15/216000 = 1.983402777777778.

Column B of the tablet (with a label on the tablet containing the word “width”) is one of the sides of a Pythagorean triangle, and column C (with a label on the tablet containing the word “diagonal”) is the hypotenuse, such that C² − B² is always a perfect square (yellow in the diagram). Column A is exactly equal to C² / (C² − B²), the ratio of blue to yellow.

A	B (“width”)	C (“diagonal”)	D
1.59:00:15 = 1.983402777777778	1:59 = 119	2:49 = 169	#1
1.56:56:58:14:50:06:15 = 1.949158552088692	56:07 = 3367	1:20:25 = 4825	#2
1.55:07:41:15:33:45 = 1.918802126736111	1:16:41 = 4601	1:50:49 = 6649	#3
1.53:10:29:32:52:16 = 1.886247906721536	3:31:49 = 12709	5:09:01 = 18541	#4
1.48:54:01:40 = 1.815007716049383	1:05 = 65	1:37 = 97	#5
1.47:06:41:40 = 1.785192901234568	5:19 = 319	8:01 = 481	#6
1.43:11:56:28:26:40 = 1.719983676268861	38:11 = 2291	59:01 = 3541	#7
1.41:33:45:14:03:45 = 1.692709418402778	13:19 = 799	20:49 = 1249	#8
1.38:33:36:36 = 1.642669444444444	8:01 = 481	12:49 = 769	#9
1.35:10:02:28:27:24:26:40 = 1.586122566110349	1:22:41 = 4961	2:16:01 = 8161	#10
1.33:45 = 1.5625	45	1:15 = 75	#11
1.29:21:54:02:15 = 1.489416840277778	27:59 = 1679	48:49 = 2929	#12
1.27:00:03:45 = 1.450017361111111	2:41 = 161	4:49 = 289	#13
1.25:48:51:35:06:40 = 1.430238820301783	29:31 = 1771	53:49 = 3229	#14
1.23:13:46:40 = 1.38716049382716	28	53	#15

What is this table all about? A good discussion is by Eleanor Robson [“Words and pictures: new light on Plimpton 322,” American Mathematical Monthly, 109 (2): 105–120]. Robson sees Plimpton 322 as fitting into standard Babylonian mathematics, and interprets it as a teacher’s effort to produce a list of class problems.

Specifically, Robson believes that the table was generated by taking values of x (in descending order of x) from standard Babylonian reciprocal tables (specifically the values 2:24, 2:22:13:20, 2:20:37:30, 2:18:53:20, 2:15, 2:13:20, 2:09:36, 2:08, 2:05, 2:01:30, 2, 1:55:12, 1:52:30, 1:51:06:40, and 1:48) and then using the relationship (x − 1 / x)² + 2² = (x + 1 / x)² to generate Pythagorean triples. If we let y = (x − 1 / x) / 2 and z = (x + 1 / x) / 2, then B and C are multiples of y and z, and A = z² / (z² − y²).

Just recently, Daniel F. Mansfield and N. J. Wildberger [“Plimpton 322 is Babylonian exact sexagesimal trigonometry,” Historia Mathematica, online 24 August 2017] interpret the table as proto-trigonometry. I find their explanation of the first column (“a related squared ratio which can be used as an index”) unconvincing, though. Why such a complex index? Robson calls such trigonometric interpretations “conceptually anachronistic,” and points out that there is no other evidence of the Babylonians doing trigonometry.

Mansfield and Wildberger also suggest that “the numbers on P322 are just too big to allow students to reasonably obtain the square roots of the quantities required.” However, I don’t think that’s true. The Babylonians loved to calculate. Using the standard square-root algorithm, even simplistic starting guesses for the square roots of the numbers in column A give convergence in 2 or 3 steps every time. For example, to get the square root of 1.59:00:15 (1.983402777777778), I start with 1.30:00:00 (1.5) as a guess. That gives 1.24:40:05 as the next iteration, then 1.24:30:01, and then 1.24:30:00 (1.408333333333333), which is the exact answer. That said, however, calculating those square roots was not actually necessary for the class problems envisaged by Robson.

Sadly, I do not think that Mansfield and Wildberger have made their case. Robson is, I believe, still correct on the meaning of this tablet.

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World Solar Challenge: Beer is the secret!

Statistics don’t lie, do they? Turns out that national performance in the World Solar Challenge is predicted by beer production. Yes, beer is the secret!

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World Solar Challenge: doing media right

I’ve often pointed out that a solar car team is more like a startup company than anything else. A little like the early days of Google, really. The main product (the solar car, the search engine) is a gigantic money sink, and any cash coming in relates to something else (sponsorship, advertising). Overall success requires multiple skill sets working together. In particular, making sponsorship work requires an excellent media team (as well as a car fast enough to generate lots of good news). A number of teams have a track record of doing this well – Twente, for example, and Punch.

Deufol Technics packs Punch’s car and gear yesterday

An important example of sponsorship relates to transport. Here, the team acts as a kind of giant billboard for a tricky logistics problem handled well. This year, Punch provided a textbook example of superb media handling on this topic:

“‘Voor mij is het de eerste keer dat ik voor zo een uitdaging sta,’ zegt logistiek manager Pieter Galle uit Leuven. ‘Het batterijpakket versturen is de grootste uitdaging voor het team. De batterijcellen die wij gebruiken zijn vaak niet toegelaten op vluchten. Om deze toch te kunnen versturen moeten er veel veiligheidsmaatregelen getroffen worden. Gelukkig heeft DHL Global Forwarding, in samenwerking met Deufol als verpakker van de goederen en batterijen alles tot in de puntjes kunnen regelen, zodat wij ons met het team volledig op het wereldkampioenschap konden concentreren.’” (Translation: “‘It’s the first time I’ve faced a challenge like this,’ says logistics manager Pieter Galle from Leuven. ‘Transporting the battery pack was the biggest challenge for the team. The batteries we use are often forbidden on flights. To be able to send them, many safety measures need to be taken. Fortunately, DHL Global Forwarding, in cooperation with Deufol our packer, has managed all the details, making it possible for us to focus our attention on the world championship.’”)

And Pieter Galle wasn’t just engaged in hyperbole there – transporting lithium battery packs really is tricky. In 2015, and again this year, there have been horror stories involving battery packs. I should also point out that some good photos really help the sponsorship game too, like these from Twente this year, or this one from Michigan, or this one from Nuon in 2015:

Nuon’s 2015 flightcase being loaded (photo: Jorrit Lousberg)

Another important sponsorship category relates to the team’s university. Here Western Sydney provides an excellent example, with their 2015 car being part of a major university rebranding exercise:

Western Sydney University’s 2015 car (photo: A. Dekker)

Michigan always does a great job of this during the American Solar Challenge. Their media team generates local news coverage everywhere they go. And the University of Michigan can afford to take the long view. If a 12-year-old boy or girl somewhere in rural America gets excited by the car, and decides to study engineering at Michigan one day, that’s a win. And not just for the university – if the sponsorship money keeps rolling in, the cars keep rolling on, and the fans can keep watching.

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World Solar Challenge status update

Well, the World Solar Challenge is getting closer. In 34 days, the race office opens in Darwin. Of the 43 solar car teams currently on the list, 67% have now unveiled their cars, and another 4 teams will do so before the end of the month. The first overseas team – Eindhoven – has already arrived in Australia, with other teams following soon (my annotated team list will continue to be updated with the latest status). Good luck to all the teams!

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The eclipse

Above, a NASA photo of the solar eclipse of August 21.

“The second before the sun went out we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us. We no sooner saw it than it was upon us, like thunder. It roared up the valley. It slammed our hill and knocked us out. It was the monstrous swift shadow cone of the moon. I have since read that this wave of shadow moves 1,800 miles an hour. Language can give no sense of this sort of speed – 1,800 miles an hour. It was 195 miles wide. No end was in sight – you saw only the edge. It rolled at you across the land at 1,800 miles an hour, hauling darkness like plague behind it. Seeing it, and knowing it was coming straight for you, was like feeling a slug of anesthetic shoot up your arm. If you think very fast, you may have time to think, ‘Soon it will hit my brain.’ You can feel the deadness race up your arm; you can feel the appalling, inhuman speed of your own blood. We saw the wall of shadow coming, and screamed before it hit.” — Annie Dillard, 1982

I wish I had been there to see it.

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Killer robots: it’s not the AI that’s the problem

In a recent open letter, Tesla’s Elon Musk and others called for a ban on autonomous weapons, saying “Lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare. Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend. These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways. We do not have long to act. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.”

Yet autonomous weapons are already with us, after a fashion. And artificial intelligence isn’t actually the biggest problem.

A bullet, during the second or so that it is in flight, autonomously follows the laws of physics. But the world is not likely to have changed much during that time. If shooting the bullet was appropriate, that will still be true when it hits. A cruise missile can fly for several hours, and home in on a precise spot, specified by GPS coordinates – although things may have changed during those hours of flight.

Smarter again is a heat-seeking or radar-guided missile, which can home in on an aircraft, even one doing it’s best to evade the threat – yet it cannot distinguish passenger aircraft from military aircraft. The next step up are systems guided by IFF, which can distinguish friend from foe. After that comes the kind of AI that Elon Musk is talking about.

The ultimate extreme is the “Menschenjäger” of Cordwainer Smith’s 1957 short story “Mark Elf.” The Menschenjägers were built by the “Sixth German Reich” to seek out and kill their non-German enemies (whom they could infallibly detect by their non-German thoughts). Being virtually indestructible, the last Menschenjäger had travelled around the planet on this mission 2328 times by the time the story is set. Since no Germans were alive at that point, there was nobody left to shut it down.

The real problem with the Menschenjägers was not their AI, but their persistence in time. A similar problem arises with that most stupid of autonomous weapons, the landmine. Sown in their tens of millions, landmines continue to kill and maim for decades after the war that buried them is over.

It isn’t really a matter of whether the weapon has AI or not – it’s whether the weapon has an off switch or a self-destruct mechanism. No weapon should keep on pointlessly killing people.

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