What Makes a Utopia Inconvenient? On the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Realist Orientation to Politics

Contemporary politics is often said to lack utopias. For prevailing understandings of the practical force of political theory, this looks like cause for celebration. As blueprints to apply to political practice, utopias invariably seem too strong or too weak. Through an immanent critique of political realism, I argue that utopian thought, and political theory generally, is better conceived as supplying an orientation to politics. Realists including Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss explain how utopian programs like universal human rights poorly orient their adherents to politics, but the realists wrongly conclude that utopias and other ideal theories necessarily disorient us. As I show through an analysis of utopian claims made by Michel Foucault, Malcolm X, and John Rawls, utopias today can effectively disrupt entrenched forms of legitimation, foster new forms of political identity, and reveal new possibilities within existing institutions. Utopias are needed to understand the political choices we face today

Dynamics of mistuned radial turbine wheels

This paper presents investigations carried out at Holset into the dynamics of mistuned radial turbine wheels, including a literature review, a lumped parameter model, identification of the most responsive blade, distribution of the peak maximum order response and a method of mistiming identification

High-resolution spatial mapping of a superconducting NbN wire using single-electron detection

Superconducting NbN wires have recently received attention as detectors for visible and infrared photons. We present experiments in which we use a NbN wire for high-efficiency (40 %) detection of single electrons with keV energy. We use the beam of a scanning electron microscope as a focussed, stable, and calibrated electron source. Scanning the beam over the surface of the wire provides a map of the detection efficiency. This map shows features as small as 150 nm, revealing wire inhomogeneities. The intrinsic resolution of this mapping method, superior to optical methods, provides the basis of a characterization tool relevant for photon detectors.Comment: 2009 IEEE Toronto International Conference, Science and Technology for Humanity (TIC-STH

Understanding the internal structures of the X(4140)X(4140), X(4274)X(4274), X(4500)X(4500) and X(4700)X(4700)

We investigate the newly observed $X(4500)$ and $X(4700)$ based on the diquark-antidiquark configuration within the framework of QCD sum rules. Both of them may be interpreted as the $D$-wave $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$ tetraquark states of $J^P = 0^+$, but with opposite color structures, which is remarkably similar to the result obtained in Ref.~\cite{Chen:2010ze} that the $X(4140)$ and $X(4274)$ can be both interpreted as the $S$-wave $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$ tetraquark states of $J^P = 1^+$, also with opposite color structures. However, the extracted masses and these suggested assignments to these $X$ states do depend on these running quark masses where m_s (2 \mbox{ GeV}) = 95 \pm 5 MeV and $m_c (m_c) = 1.23 \pm 0.09$ GeV. As a byproduct, the masses of the hidden-bottom partner states of the $X(4500)$ and $X(4700)$ are extracted to be both around 10.64 GeV, which can be searched for in the $\Upsilon \phi$ invariant mass distribution.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.

New molecular candidates: X(1910), X(2200), and X(2350)

Assuming the newly observed resonant structures X(1910), X(2200), and X(2350) as $\omega\omega$, $\omega\phi$, and $\phi\phi$ molecular states respectively, we compute their mass values in the framework of QCD sum rules. The numerical results are $1.97\pm0.17 {GeV}$ for $\omega\omega$ state, $2.07\pm0.21 {GeV}$ for $\omega\phi$ state, and $2.18\pm0.29 {GeV}$ for $\phi\phi$ state, which coincide with the experimental values of X(1910), X(2200), and X(2350), respectively. This supports the statement that X(1910), X(2200), and X(2350) could be $\omega\omega$, $\omega\phi$, and $\phi\phi$ molecular candidates respectively.Comment: 9 pages, 9 eps figures; the name of X(2000) changed to X(1910) according to the updated data of experiments; more references and discussions added; accepted for publication in PRD. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1211.2277, arXiv:1201.341