Polarimetry in the Visible and Infrared: Application to CMB Polarimetry

Interstellar polarization from aligned dust grains can be measured both in transmission at visible and near-infrared wavelengths and in emission at far-infrared and sub-mm wavelengths. These observations can help predict the behavior of foreground contamination of CMB polarimetry by dust in the Milky Way. Fractional polarization in emission from aligned dust grains will be at the higher range of currently observed values of 4-10%. Away from the galactic plane, fluctuations in Q and U will be dominated by fluctuations in intensity, and less influenced by fluctuations in fractional polarization and position angle.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of "The Cosmic Microwave Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews, (eds. S. Hanany and K.A. Olive

NMR Quantum Computation

In this article I will describe how NMR techniques may be used to build simple quantum information processing devices, such as small quantum computers, and show how these techniques are related to more conventional NMR experiments.Comment: Pedagogical mini review of NMR QC aimed at NMR folk. Commissioned by Progress in NMR Spectroscopy (in press). 30 pages RevTex including 15 figures (4 low quality postscript images

Multiple circuit switch apparatus with improved pivot actuator structure Patent

Multiple circuit switch apparatus requiring minimum hand and eye movement by operato

Welded repairs of punctured thin-walled aluminum pressure vessels

Punctures in thin-walled aluminum pressure vessels are repaired by plugging the hole with an interference-fit disc and welding the unit. The repaired vessels withstood test pressures in excess of vessel ultimate design values for 2-, 4-, and 6-inch holes in 0.202-inch-thick aluminum alloy parent material

Quantum Computing and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Quantum information processing is the use of inherently quantum mechanical phenomena to perform information processing tasks that cannot be achieved using conventional classical information technologies. One famous example is quantum computing, which would permit calculations to be performed that are beyond the reach of any conceivable conventional computer. Initially it appeared that actually building a quantum computer would be extremely difficult, but in the last few years there has been an explosion of interest in the use of techniques adapted from conventional liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments to build small quantum computers. After a brief introduction to quantum computing I will review the current state of the art, describe some of the topics of current interest, and assess the long term contribution of NMR studies to the eventual implementation of practical quantum computers capable of solving real computational problems.Comment: 8 pages pdf including 6 figures. Perspectives article commissioned by PhysChemCom

The Lives of the Other(s): The Instability of Foreignness in Deutschland 83

Set in Germany at a hot moment in the Cold War, with the Able Archer exercises and downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 etched in sharp relief, Deutschland 83 is an entertaining spy drama—and considerably more. The critical viewer will find surprises in the first Germanophone series on American television. The hero is an East German spy who goes undercover on a West German military base, and his crossings over the iconic border are not the only traversals as he forms relationships and acculturates to a “foreign” land. Deutschland 83 performs a neat trick: while the series powerfully reconstructs a world starkly split between West and East, it simultaneously challenges this separation, as well as divisions between domestic and foreign, capitalist and communist, hero and villain, and family and outsider. Through the interweaving of actual media coverage of the historic events of 1983 with the fictional plot, the television narrative also chips away at the difference between reality and fiction. This paper will draw on Milica Bakić-Hayden’s theory of “nesting orientalisms” and the work of Anikó Imre and others to explore how this popular drama, among some enjoyable thrills and testosterone, deserves scholarly scrutiny. As it undercuts a clear Other and destabilizes foreignness, this German drama could be a valuable lesson in an increasingly nativist world

The eighteenth-century review journal as allegory: Smollett’s <i>Critical Review</i> and the work of criticism

One way to read an eighteenth-century review journal would be for the critical judgments that it contains. This essay argues, instead, that it should be read as allegory. The essay focuses on the Critical Review, established by Tobias Smollett in 1756, with the (impossible) aim to review everything, and explores how it appears both as what it is and in what it is not. Placed alongside Smollett’s other works of instalment and translation, what is disclosed by the Critical Review is a new work: the work of criticism itself