Autonomous software: Myth or magic?

We discuss work by the eSTAR project which demonstrates a fully closed loop autonomous system for the follow up of possible micro-lensing anomalies. Not only are the initial micro-lensing detections followed up in real time, but ongoing events are prioritised and continually monitored, with the returned data being analysed automatically. If the ``smart software'' running the observing campaign detects a planet-like anomaly, further follow-up will be scheduled autonomously and other telescopes and telescope networks alerted to the possible planetary detection. We further discuss the implications of this, and how such projects can be used to build more general autonomous observing and control systems.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, to appear in proceedings of Hot-wiring the Transient Universe (HTU) 2007, Astronomische Nachrichten, March 200

Pioneers on the air: BBC radio broadcasts on computers and A.I., 1946-56

Between 1946 and 1956, a number of BBC radio broadcasts were made by pioneers in the fields of computing, artificial intelligence and cybernetics. Although no sound recordings of the broadcasts survive, transcripts are held at the BBC's Written Archives Centre at Caversham in the UK. This paper is based on a study of these transcripts, which have received little attention from historians. The paper surveys the range of computer-related broadcasts during 1946–1956 and discusses some recurring themes from the broadcasts, especially the relationship of 'artificial intelligence' to human intelligence. Additionally, it discusses the context of the broadcasts, both in relation to the BBC and to contemporary awareness of computers

Cyril Scott, Segovia and the Sonatina for Guitar

Cyril Scott's guitar Sonatina, composed for Andres Segovia in 1927, was regarded for many decades as a lost work. Following its incomplete premiere in 1928, it disappeared from Segovia’s repertoire, remaining unpublished, unrecorded, and unavailable to other guitarists. The manuscript was thought to have perished, and the work acquired almost legendary status in the guitar world. The recovery of the manuscript in May 2001 confirms the Sonatina’s significance as a major break from the overtly Hispanic and folkloristically inspired pieces that dominate the pre-World War II repertoire of modern guitar music. The author’s researches into Segovia’s reception in Paris and London in the mid-1920s, and into other ‘lost’ works composed for Segovia at this time, provide a context in which the story of Scott's piece is unfolded and its significance assessed

Why Do We Worry about Trace Poisons?

Dr. Mazur relates how protests by the political left against nuclear tests and by the political right against fluoridation set the stage for Silent Spring to move the public toward being concerned about latent risks

Processes acting to produce glacial detritus

The traditional view of attrition and abrasion as the major agents producing glacial debris is considered in the light of recent work by engineering geologists and geomorphologists. The decomposition of certain rock types when affected by frost action leads to the concept of rock deterioration within the body of the glacier. It seems that differing rock types with varying responses to low temperature conditions would produce a heterogeneous mixture of particle size such as is usually termed glacial till. Observations in recent work on rock stability emphasise the importance of clay minerals and their mode of occurrence. It is considered that a detailed study of the stability of rocks forming the source region of a glacier should give considerable insight into the nature of the till produced

Exceptionalism and the broadcasting of science

During the course of several decades, several scientists and groups of scientists lobbied the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) about science broadcasting. A consistent theme of the interventions was that science broadcasting should be given exceptional treatment both in its content, which was to have a strongly didactic element, and in its managerial arrangements within the BBC. This privileging of science would have amounted to ‘scientific exceptionalism’. The article looks at the nature of this exceptionalism and broadcasters’ responses to it