Jason Wright

“One very prominent distinguishing cosmetic defect of this CCD is a large felt-tip pin mark near the center of the CCD. It was kindly added by some technician at Tektronix to remind us that this virtually flawless $100,000 CCD is only an engineering-grade device. Unfortunately, the folks at Tektronix seemed to have forgotten how to make science-grade devices, so we are stuck with this annoying blob.”

Ah, that takes me back!
(I remember hearing about the papers almost published. 😆)
It’s referenced in the manual:

Anyway, this is absolutely true! Especially if you see a really big effect that surprises you, go back a level in the data reduction and see if you can spot it “by eye“.

You will learn a lot about the systematic errors in your measurements this way!

I can’t find the reference now, but there was a short-lived anomalous deuterium abundance measurement in the Ly-alpha forest made at Keck HIRES that turned out to be a bad part of the CCD where someone had made an ink spot to distinguish it from another CCD.

Silly me, being in problem-solving mode when supposedly serious legislators are complaining and just want to be heard.

That makes the whole legislative effort more trivial than it already seemed!

So perhaps the answer is “permanent daylight saving“ is a quixotic bit of grandstanding and not a genuine problem certain states really want to solve? Or perhaps they have made the petitions and they been rejected for some reason?

So I guess that’s what I don’t understand. Ted Cruz and others have been trying for years to get permanent daylight time put through Congress with no luck. Why not just petition the DOT to move a TZ over?

Is there, like, a map somewhere in the US code that specifies time zone boundaries? They didn’t delegate this to a department?

So, when Maine talks about switching to the Atlantic time zone that would also require an act of Congress?

I can understand why mussing with the rules for Daylight Time is complicated but I don’t understand why Congress wouldn’t let states choose their own time zones.

Are the time zone boundaries really set by federal statute, and not some sort of Department of Commerce regulation That can be altered without congressional approval?

Is there some insurmountable complication that comes from Texas following “Eastern” Standard Time?

I understand federal law doesn’t allow states to do permanent Daylight Time, but I continue to be confused about why states that would prefer that are not legally allowed under some sort of statute just switch to the next Standard Time zone to their east.

Working with Kathryn Denning and reading @drspacejunk.bsky.social helped me a lot! Their fingerprints are all over the social science sections.

Otherwise, buy your copy here (hardback copies available in selected countries):

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Theory and practice The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Theory and practice, Wright, Jason T

Get your eBook copy here!

Most educational institutions have a library subscription so it will be free! Ask your librarian!

People in the UK and a few other countries can get a paperback edition here, too:

Which reminds me of a prank I pulled on him once upon a time…

x.com/Astro_Wright...

Lee Roberts at BU was my first physics teacher at Boston University and had a huge impact on my development as a scientist. He had a manuscript for his Vibrations and Waves textbook and offered us 25¢ per error that we found in it.

Even in 1995 we felt that was laughably not worth it!

Would be happy to appear on @universetoday.com again!

I have a section on Ancient Aliens!

I’m honored!

… And of course, the first section I flip through I immediately spot an error! 🤦

p.5-8: “Lorenz invariance of general relativity” should read “Lorentz invariance of special relativity”

I could only bring myself to submit the manuscript by telling myself there would be a 2nd Ed to fix this stuff!

Paging @publishing.aas.org

I think it is quite readable and there are a couple of chapters on the humanities and social sciences so I encourage you to give it a try! Ask your librarian if they can get you a free PDF.

Are aliens receiving radio signals from Earth? – Sciworthy Scientists calculated the maximum distance at which extraterrestrials could detect radio signals from Earth.

sciworthy.com/are-aliens-r...

Fan et al. 2025 discusses the detectability of broadband transmissions from the Deep Space Network: rather than the carrier waves and planetary radar continuous wave transmissions that are detectable to much greater distances: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

My long largely hypothetical textbook manifests!

No path to purchase physical copies in the US yet unfortunately (these are author copies), but you can buy the e-book anywhere!

I mean, it depends on your lat and lon? One man's DT is another's ST.

I feel like every county in the US should pick the best time zone for them and STICK WITH IT. This includes the option of Atlantic Standard = Eastern Daylight for Maine & Florida and whoever else finds it suits them.

I liked it too, and relate to it. I'm empathetic to these authors, but don't have time to help them (and some REALLY don't like being told they're wrong). Tons of respect to Curt Manning, a retiree and Berkeley astrophysics grad school peer of mine who learned enough to publish his theories!

I *do* choose to engage based on substance. If the substance is cranky, I usually don't engage.

Of course it's great if a piece of popular science conveys a proper philosophy of science that makes it clear to the reader the degree to which plain English descriptions are necessarily incomplete approximations of scientific reasoning. I agree that also makes for good scicomm.

I agree that is *a* thing that a good science communicator can convey, but I don't think it's a necessary condition of communicating science well. All I meant was that *all other things being equal*, scicomm is better when the reader feels that they have a good understanding of the material.

Ideally one could use these contributions to describe the philosophy of science and the demarcation problem, illuminate why mathematics is foundational and indispensable to the task, and turn these crackpots' enthusiasm and interest into a positive educational experience for everybody.