The Spinning Egg Rises

Scientists theoretically explained the paradoxical behavior of a hard-boiled egg: if it is spun with its axis of symmetry horizontal, this axis will rise from the horizontal to the vertical, raising the center of gravity. -- This is not a joke. See the reference [1]. -- They traced the essential mechanism to the action of the frictional force between the spinning object and the table. Their paper was referred to in a column of a Japanese newspaper [2]. A non-scientist friend of mine read the column, and told me that she wished to experiment. I noticed the original paper before, but did not think to experiment by myself. She had more of a scientist's mind than me.

Being stimulated by her words, I tried to rotate a boiled egg on the floor. It seemed difficult to make the egg rotate fast enough around its axis of symmetry put horizontally to cause rising. Starting from rotation around the axis a little off the vertical, however, I could see the axis rising and becoming just vertical. This is wonderful enough. I heard that the friend had also succeeded in observing the odd motion of the egg. She added that she had been quite thrilled when the axis became vertical.

The scientists also write why a raw egg does not show the same behavior. It is because the angular velocity imparted to the shell diffuses into the fluid interior; this process dissipates most of the initial kinetic energy imparted to the egg, making the remaining energy insufficient for the condition of gyroscopic balance to be established. This is a type of research Torahiko Terada (Japanese physicist, astronomer and essayist. Professor of Tokyo University. 1878 - 1935; see a portrait) would have liked.

1. H. K. Moffatt and Y. Shimomura, "Spinning eggs -- a paradox resolved," Nature Vol. 416, pp. 385-386 (2002).
2. Y. Uchiyama, "Self-rising boiled eggs," Asahi-Shimbun, 22 Apr., p. 23, (2002).

Narcissus and Immunology

The cover of the Science magazine issued on 12 April 2002 shows Narcissus gazing at his reflection, as depicted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573 - 1610). This picture is used for the special section "Reflections on self: Immunity and beyond." The following explanation is given on the contents page of the issue:

As the story from Greek mythology reminds us, and as discussed in this issue, effective recognition of self is important to general survival and to successful immune surveillance, reproduction, community structure, and philosophical integration of the individual.

Reading the above explanation, I thought that "effective recognition of self" meant narcissism, because Narcissus highly valued his own reflection. Then the special section seems to say that narcissism is good for a biological reason. Is this right? The introductory article of the section, "Self-discrimination, a life and death issue" written by Stephen J. Simpson and Pamela J. Hines, however made me notice that my thought was wrong.

Narcissus could not notice that his reflection was his own image, and fall in love with it. However, he was unable to be loved by it, was exhausted and died. So what he did was not the effective recognition of self, but non-recognition of self as such. To work well the immune system has to know which are the cells of own body and which are not. This is what is meant by "effective recognition of self." -- Caravaggio's painting was not cited to praise narcissism. --

Two Kinds of Joy: About Hawking's Birthday Talk

The British physicist and astronomer Stephen William Hawking is considered to be the greatest theorist of the latter twenties century. He is especially known for his theories on black holes and the origin and evolution of the universe [1]. To celebrate his 60th birthday, a workshop and symposium were held in Cambridge from 7 to 11 January 2002 [2].

Hawking delivered the final talk of the meeting. The title of his talk was "60 Years in a Nutshell," a humorous modification of the title of his recent book [3]. The talk consists of four parts:

1. Student Days
2. Expanding Universe
3. Singularities
4. Black Holes
5. Ultimate Theory?

At the end of the talk, the great cosmologist says, " There's nothing like the Eureka moment of discovering something that no one knew before. I won't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer." While saying that he would not do so, Hawking compares the two kinds of joy. Surely, the joy of discovering scientific truth would last long. However, there would be a different theory about the time length of the other kind of joy, wouldn't there?

1. "The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference," P. Barnes-Svarney ed. (MacMillan, New York, 1995).
2. G. W. Gibbons and E. P. S. Shellard, Science, Vol. 295, 1476 (2002).
3. S. Hawking, "The Universe in a Nutshell" (Bantam, New York, 2001).

"I Was Destined to Write ..."

The cover of Marcia Bartusiak's book, "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony." Clicking the image leads you to the buying information page of the book at Amazon.com web site.

I have been submitting customer reviews on books to Amazon.com since August 2000 (see "Book Reviews by tttabata"). The 21st review was on Marcia Bartusiak's "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony." This book elegantly portrays the hunting for gravitational waves, the existence of which was predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Immediately after my review had been posted at the Amazon web site, I received unexpectedly an e-mail message of thanks from the author.

I found it interesting that the author uses "bar2siak" for her e-mail account. The original detector invented by Joseph Weber for directly catching gravity waves consisted of a big aluminum cylinder surrounded by piezoelectric sensors and suspended in a vacuum tank. This type of detector is called "bar." Further, a pair of bars is commonly used to cancel noises out by the coincidence method. Thus "bar2" can be interpreted as two bars used for trying to detect gravity waves and described in detail in "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony." Wondering if she had noticed it herself, I wrote this finding of mine to the author.

Ms. Bartusiak wrote me back:

I never thought of my e-mail address in that way. You're right! I guess I was destined to write on gravitational-wave bars after all.

It is again interesting that the science journalist used the religious word "destined."

The writer acknowledges Ms. Bartusiak's kind permission for citing the above passage from her e-mail letter.