The Thinker, by wallyg via Flickr
My blogging friend Indiana Jen has posted an interesting link to a National Geographic article about “The Adolescent Brain”, concluding that although the brain grows very little after the age of 12, it undergoes profound organizational and even structural changes until about the age of 25. The study on which the article was based however did not extend to another question I have, which is to what degree is the adult brain capable of changing?
When I was young it was thought that brain cells no longer replicated after adolescence, i.e., they no longer died and were replaced like other cells in the body. That has been found to be untrue. Just based on my personal experience I believe that adult brains are more flexible than most people think, even in septuagenarians like myself. Here are several examples from my own experience.
- After reading an article about a decade ago I decided that it would be desirable to change one of my driving habits, i.e., how I used the side mirrors on the car. Instead of positioning them to see directly behind me on either side, I adjusted them to cover the blind spots on the aft quarters of the car. For the nautically-learned this is from about 120 to 160 degrees and from 200 to 240 degrees on the relative compass. It did indeed eliminate the blind spots. I would guess it took me a couple of weeks of conscious concentration to reprogram my instincts, but the satisfaction I got from how successful it was helped to motivate me. I was unable to persuade my wife to attempt the change, but fortunately our car has a programmable adjustment for both seat and mirrors.
- You may think me a little (or a lot) nutty for this one, but I am what I am. I am a crossword and puzzle enthusiast and several years ago I noticed that my printing tended to be rather illegible for some letters, particularly the letters B, D, G, P and R, so I devised a better way to make each and with fewer strokes and I now use the new method instinctively. These letters are now made differently from what had been my habit for many decades.
- When I retired, one of the diversions I took up was playing video games on X-box, particularly Halo. I found it a challenge at first – the controller consists of multiple buttons and levers and the game requires fast reactions for the employments of various weapons and activities. The availability of an “easy” mode helped considerably. I would be no match for a teen-age geek hooked on such games I’m sure, but I can get through the game pretty well otherwise.
- I changed from using a Microsoft-based PC to an Apple computer three years ago, a not inconsiderable learning curve – especially with no Apple store nearby. I rate this fairly high on the learning-curve scale.
Image via Wikipedia
Now here’s the bottom line to all this. Age-related brain changes have for sure been documented, so do one’s efforts to adapt and learn new things help to ward off any of the various forms of dementia or brain shrinkage? Beats me, but I am resolved to keep on keeping on as long as I can. I refuse to go gentle into “that good night”. My fellow bloggers are helping the effort too, and my thanks go out to all of you – didn’t know you were aiding the elderly, did you?
Still Skeptical After All These Years 
Well, having played around on early Macs versus early PCs, I’d state that swapping from Microsoft Hell to Apple Heaven is actually rather easy, considering the old joke that Windows 95 was Mac 87! 😀
I can’t speak to ages over 50, but I can tell you that I’ve learned more about how to build a battleship in the last 2 years than I knew for the preceding 4 and a half decades. I do have to admit that some knowledge has slipped (like some chemistry knowledge), but I think that’s more “use it or lose it”.
And I’ll certainly vouch that you and Anson are keeping me on my toes! 😉
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Thanks, John. I will accept all the encouragement available. 🙂
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Hey, we old farts gotta help each other, right? I’ve read plenty of articles over the years in the vein of “use it or lose it” — referring to brain power, of course — and am completely sold on the theory. I started playing PC-based video games in or around 2000 and was quite the addict for a number of years. Then my son gave me an Xbox several years ago and I’ve gradually switched over to console games — harder to play than on a computer, IMHO, but with the distinct advantage of a comfortable slouch on the couch instead of in a much less comfortable desk chair. A few months ago I switched from a Windows laptop to an Apple, and you know what that’s like. And my blog is almost as much about learning CSS and tweaking the design as it is about writing.
Now if only physical fitness were as engaging as mental fitness …
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You bet, Pied. Glad to see you are a kindred spirit. 🙂
Here is a further story. Our family doctor’s employer is a hospital that just embraced electronic medical records and he is being forced to deal with software to make it work. So, he sits in front of the console and painfully hunts and pecks at the thing. I told him he should take a keyboarding class and he looked at me like I had two heads. Then I reminded him that Jimmy Carter’s mother became a missionary and learned a new language when she was elderly! (He is about 60.) I don’t think he’s going to do it, but he has begun to hunt and peck faster.
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John,
Build a battleship??? We haven’t built one since before WWII. Stick to something that counts like a nuclear submarine!!!
I wonder how the talents developed in our older age might be applied to politics, Jim? Duane switched sides when he was a relatively young man. Any chance he could change again now that he is an old f…..?
On the other hand, my left brain, the logical part of my brain would have to die to become a liberal like Duane and HLG!!! LIberalism only makes sense to the right or “touchy feely” part of my brain!
Anson
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Political change does sound impossible, doesn’t it, Anson? However, about half a decade ago I would have told you I was leaning Libertarian, and that has changed for sure. I don’t think my personality has actually changed though, I just think that the extra researching and writing about politics this past year and a half has caused me to know myself better. That’s the theory anyway. Maybe there was always a Liberal inside Duane, wanting to be let out? As for you, I think I agree with Duane. Titanium is impenetrable. 😆
JIm
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Anson- Well, the problem is I use a piece of software called Springsharp, that lets you plug in numbers and build a battleship (any size ship, but only guns and torpedoes). The folks who wrote it haven’t gotten past the period from late pre-dreadnoughts through about 1950. I am trying to get hands on the code, though, so if I can find it, I’ll at least add missiles and nuke power plants. Not sure I’m up to submarine hydrodynamics yet – maybe THAT will be my “keep the brain young” project in another decade or two! 😀
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John, again,
It is easy, by the way. Just start with E=MC (squared). The rest will follow.
Smiling,
Anson
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Beware, my friend, there may be proof in the offing that the speed of light IS surpassable. If that’s the case, we’re gonna have to give that E=MC(squared) doohickey a thorough re-think! 😉
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Yes, John, I saw that news item too. But history shows that it doesn’t pay to bet against Einstein, which is where my money would be. 🙂 (The number achieved was over light speed by an ever-so-teensy amount. Maybe they used a slide rule, something that cost me at least a full grade point in EE.)
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It was something like 6 parts in a million, if I recall. At present, it has barely reached what the industry calls “two sigma” level of proof. Five sigma is considered a very good shot at something, 6 sigma is a working proof (still not absolute, but basically 99.9999% sure). So there is still some way to go.
And the measurement was made in Italy, home of the “Fix It Again Tony” and Silvio Berlusconi. Gotta make sure a little afternoon vino didn’t compromise the readings! 😀 (I KID, I KID!)
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Interesting tid bit, or “big” one. I had not heard of the new “discovery” or whatever is might be. Also never heard of “sigmas”. I wonder how that might be applied to HLG or EC “statistics”!!!
I do know this however. If an absolute value becomes “unabsolute” the ramifications could be astounding for science. Wonder what the acceleration due to gravity might become? As far as I know it is still 32.2 meters per second (squared). Does that constand have anything to do with the speed of light, I wonder? But change that constant and look at the chaos in science with our without a slide rule!!!.
That also says something about political absolutism, which liberals claim to have a corner on the market, it seems. Is it pursuit of happiness or the achievement of happiness????
Anson
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“Sigma”, Anson, is the standard greek letter for one “standard deviation”, an essential concept in statistics. It is also known as the “68-95-99.7 rule, or three-sigma rule, or empirical rule”. Several decades ago Motorola pioneered a new standard of quality assurance called “Six Sigma”, meaning their production was flawless down to 99.99966%.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68-95-99.7_rule
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_sigma#Lack_of_originality
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Jim,
When I first saw the speed of light story, I called in my 16-year-old son and we read through parts of the story. The lesson: Unlike the Church and religious dogma, science is always willing to question long-held claims, like the inviolability of the speed of light or the integrity of the Special Theory of Relativity. Anyone who knows with how much relative certainty the light barrier was (is) viewed, can appreciate the upheaval in the science community, but I appreciate more what it demonstrates about science: tradition means very little.
Duane
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I understand your point, Duane, and it is a good one. I think I would have put it differently, though. I would say that tradition in science provides a sound basis for progress in understanding, but unlike its role in theology, tradition in science must stand on its own merits and does not command veneration out of faith.
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Jim,
First on “sigmas”. How many “sigmas” did the prosecution have on OJ’s DNA??? Then consider “science” and “justice” per Duane’s ideas above.
Duane and Jim,
It would be interesting to listen in to the conversation between Duane and his son on this matter. Does an intelligent 16 year old really understand the implications of “breaking the light barrier”?
Recall the “discussion” before we broke the sound barrier and how that revolutionized flight.
My understanding of the “time delay” in gravity over huge distances is related to the speed of light. If light “goes faster” than an absolute value in some cases, what are those “cases” and consider the implications of future “flight” but in space this time around. Mind boggling to me.
It would mean that “warp speed” could take on a whole new meaning for Trekkies.
Anson
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As well,
If “we” can go fast enough, faster than the speed of light, could we “fly through” a black hole and come out the other side, unscathed?
Anson again.
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Sorry but my mind is still “out there”,
If light (energy) can go faster than “light”, what about “mass”. Einstein predicited mass became infinite AT the speed of “light”. Wonder if that is still “true” plus a sigma or so. And what “new form” might even energy become beyond the current understood speed of light? Super photons anyone? Now go build a “collider” to check out that theory.
Anson
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I have enjoyed reading about Einstein’s theories for as long as I can remember, Anson, and while I am no physicist, I have a sense of having a layman’s understanding of the space/time relationship. For example, consider your question about flying through a black hole. I read an analysis of that by a physicist that made sense, and he said that it was not practical because the gravity near the event horizon is too intense for a material body to survive intact. In other words, the force of gravity at your knees would be significantly different from that at your Adam’s apple and the difference would tear your apart. This effect is apparent, he said, just from straightforward calculations. The same does not occur near a normal body, like planet Earth, because an Anson body can not get as close to the center of gravity as with a black hole. Makes sense to me.
If I were you I wouldn’t get too carried away with plans for Warp drives. Betting against old Albert Einstein hasn’t been successful yet. The only time he’s been proved wrong is when he thought he had made a mistake. (Cosmological constant.) 🙂
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Jim,
You may note that I have posted a blog on the subject with NO politics involved. As noted therein what are the implications to E-MC(squared) I wonder. Just what if there was NO speed limit?
Anson
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Anson – OK, you got my creative juices going, so I gotta fire this off!
1) Implications to E=MC(squared)? Interesting, but I’d have to say, at least initially, none in and off itself, as C is just a number. The ties back to General Relativity, though, might be huge. Mind you, I say might – both science and especially science fiction has played with possible hyperlight particles (Star Trek’s infamous “tachyon”) without injury to General Relativity.
2) Personally, and this is just my VERY humble opinion, I’ve never seen a truly compelling argument to completely rule out hyperlight velocities. My example goes to slower phenomena. You need a LOT of oomph to get near-sonic, but then the power requirements level off for hypersonic. Same thing in water – a large ship pretty much pegs out at 40 knots (I said SHIP, not SUB, guys! ;), but smaller vehicles with dramatically higher power-to-weight ratios (i.e. torpedoes) can go faster. My argument has always been that Einstein’s logarithmic progression of speed doesn’t go to infinity, but simply goes VERY high, then plateaus like going transonic. (I’m a layman, so that’s all just personal opinion, and most likely wrong – I ain’t gonna argue with Einstein until he’s down for the count! 😉 )
Besides, simply going faster sounds a lot more likely that “warping space” or shifting to “hyperspace”. Unless the String Theory folk get their way with 26 (?) dimensions – then maybe a jump drive is just around the corner?
(NOTE: The preceding has been a giant drum of bugle oil. Feel free to ignore it to maintain your own sanity – God knows it’s too late for me! 😀 )
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John,
Consider this. E=MC (2) reveals PRIMARILY that mass and energy are interchangable. A little bit of mass can create a lot of energy. Well how much energy? It is or now was considers to be directly proportional to a CONSTANT, an absolute if you will.
The speed of a ship moving though water is theoretically unlimited in “normal terms” or velocities with which we lived day to day. It, the speed of a ship is directly proportional ONLY to the power “driving” the ship. It is a cubic function meaning the go from 35 knots to 40 knots requires a helluva lot more power that to go from 5 to 10 knots (assuming ship design or drag does not change)
Theoretically, a ship could move at any speed until Einstein came along and a “space ship” would then hit a “wall” as speed approached that of light. If you believe Einstein, the ONLY thing that could move at the speed of light was energy.
No problem IF we could convert all the mass of a “ship” to energy while it was traveling at the speed of light and then reconvert it to mass when the journey ended. Beam me up Scotty then took on a whole new meaning.
Also according to Einstein, time goes to zero at the speed of light. So convert all of one’s mass to energy, travel at the speed of light to wherever, reconvert the energy to the original mass and you are now 1 million light years away but have not aged a second. Recall if you will that science now measures photons or packages of energy believed to have been created during the Big Bang, 13 billion years ago and they are not any older now than when first created!!!
But if the constant C is in fact not a constant, WOW. Now how old is the universe and how long before another one crops up (or this one flies off…..?).
Now if we could convert Dems to all energy we could send them to the stars to practice single pay HC somewhere else to see if it works!!!
Anson
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Anson- First, apologies for not getting back sooner. I’ve been kinda bummed, they shut down the main accelerator ring at Fermilab in Batavia Illinois. I interned there for a summer back in the late 70s, and have always had a love of sub-atomic physics since. A sad day for us science nerds.
Second – “Don’t talk down to the guys who used to run nuclear submarines.” Got it. (Wipes egg off face. 😀 )
Yeah, my ship to starship comparison was flawed, but it works for non-Navy types. (Again, don’t talk down to the ex-Navy guys!) And yes, I know Einstein says that you’d have to convert every bit of the item being accelerated (and probably a whole lot more) into energy to get it hyperlight. I just have problems with that last bit – no, I can’t produce the math to prove my hunches (if I could, I’d buy both you and Jim your own nuke boats!), but infinity has never proven correct in any previous “top speed” calculations. (There’s a lot of writings from as late as the 40s saying supersonic was impossible due to energy needs.)
I don’t think this experiment is going to find C to NOT be a constant, just maybe a HIGHER constant than we have it pegged at. So the math would still work, just with different numbers. And even if they find these neutrinos went faster than our current CC, that’s just one of an entire zoo of quarks, leptons, muons, several OTHER types of neutrinos, and possibly more particles yet to be found. So C may still be the speed limit, there just might be some hooligans out there breaking the law! 😉
And just one final point – I promise to NEVER take anyone’s intellect for granted here EVER again. Sorry!
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Anson,
You said,
A naval ship is limited by a cubic relationship, but a spaceship is not. It is basically a Newtonian one for one relationship, action versus reaction.
You also said,
This is misleading. Your space traveler would perceive himself to age normally. However, he would have aged not at all compared to people on Earth. This is an interesting thought experiment, but obviously not a practical one because there is no way for him to compare notes (unless quantum linkage proves to be a method). By the same token, the photons of suns created soon after the Big Bang are indeed 13 Billion years old. It’s just that they represent what was to be seen when they started their journey. That’s why they allow us to look back in time, not because the photons themselves are young.
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John and Jim,
I think you are both missing a possible point. I cannot prove it but I can imagine it.
Humans have always understood the idea of mass. It is a physical “thing” which we can see, feel, touch, maybe smell, and certainly cannot “walk through” (at least until the idea of quantum theory came along).
It took 4 billion years (or so) for “humans” to grasp the idea of energy, the forces that affect mass. We then found out that mass and energy are interchangable, theoretically. The practical application of that theory then literally “blew up” in our collective faces over the American southwest desert!!
My point now is, what else might there be “beyond” our current concept of energy? Hell we still do not really understand “energy” as we consider it today. We “know” how heat from the sun sustains life on earth today. But has anyone figured out exactly why the moon circles the earth? What is this “thing” that we call gravity today? What holds all those protons inside a nucleus of an atom?
Don’t get me started!!! My imagination can run ‘wild” for sure.
Anson
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@John and Anson,
I agree with Anson that gravity is a “force” that is not understood. We can describe and measure it, but its true nature still eludes. I have read the writings of one physicist who believes that gravity is not a true “force” at all, but merely the way mass behaves because of the relationship of space, time and matter. This would be consistent with the bending of photons by a gravity field, as in the Einstein experiment. However, that guy is evidently in the minority. Please see this link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20215345/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/gravity-still-stumps-scientists/#.Tod1E3PcG7k
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Gravity is a real pain to explain, regardless of the model (Standard Model, String Theory, Super Symmetry). Not everybody agrees that the Higgs boson will bring that answer. Many experiments are looking for what are called WIMPs (who says physicists don’t have a sense of humour?), for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. These would also niftily fill the role of “dark matter” to explain the gravity that is holding all the galaxies together (or at least allowing them to expand more slowly than they should).
Then you throw in one version I’ve seen, where gravity is explained as an extra-dimensional force. Picture everything we know (all three dimensions, plus time, plus all forces except for gravity) on one side of a cube. This theory predicates that gravity is just as strong as the other three forces, but is on the opposite side of this theoretical “cube”, explaining why the resulting impact of gravity is so weak compared to the other forces. (Where the other sides of this theoretical “cube” is, or what they’re made of, hasn’t really been clarified.)
Anybody’s head hurt yet? 😀
So far no theory explains everything, so there is a possibility of a force beyond the four we know now. Or of truly faster-than-light particles, or (for you string theorists) 20-some-odd dimensions, or of just about anything imaginable. So while I’m not ready to count Einstein out yet, I’m also not ready to say he (and he alone) holds all the answers.
And the Large Hadron Collider at CERN isn’t even up to full power yet, but it’s several orders of magnitude more powerful than the now-defunct Tevatron at Fermilab in Illinois. Who knows what they’ll find, hiding in all the debris of the particle collisions?
I’m sad to see Fermilab eclipsed, but it’s gonna be interesting to see what CERN pops up in the next few years/decades…..
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As I said when we started this “string”, I know of no limits to human imagination. We as a species do however run up against the “stops” (limits) when we try to comprehend infinity. My wife drew the symbol for infinity for a former 5 year old grandchild, about ten years ago, the “sideways eight”.
Morgan “got it” immediatly as she reproduced the symbol. As she said back then, “it just keeps going and going on forever”. That is also the best I can do to explain such a concept and I am 70 (almost).
Anson
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Jim- If I might go WAY off-topic for a moment, I would like to ask you and Anson a question.
Have you seen the movie “K-19: The Widow-Maker? (That’s not the question, this is.) If so, how was the realism of sub duty? (I realise the movie portrays the Soviet Union sub service, and that you may not know exactly how they did things.) I was just curious if the “feel” is right for how the men worked their duties and stations.
If you’d rather not take up the blog space, you may Email me directly at zenaru(at)squidge(dot)org.
Thank you both, in advance and as always, for all your help and insight. 🙂
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It has been years since I saw this movie, John, but the Wikipedia page on it helped refresh my mind. Anson, being nuclear-qualified, would of course be better qualified to comment on most technical details than I. However, I will make a couple of comments.
The concern for a nuclear explosion and for a meltdown causing the nuclear warheads to detonate is unrealistic. It is necessary to produce an exquisitely-timed electrical impulse to cause a thermonuclear explosion. A simple nearby explosion might cause the conventional shaped charges to explode, but this would only contaminate the local area (and destroy the ship). The crew interactions seem pretty realistic. The Russian Navy did not have the same ethos of engineering expertise and safety-consciousness that we do and their safety record is terrible. Also, the political interactions are consistent with what I’ve read – all ships had a political officer so far as I know. On U.S. Navy ships, the C.O. is the absolute boss.
The engineering crisis, for me, is somewhat reminiscent of an historic engineering crisis on a U.S. submarine lost at sea, one in which the crew performed admirably even though the ship was lost. That was the USS Cochino in 1949. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cochino_(SS-345)
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Thanks for the response, Jim. I always thought the quote that the warheads would also explode sounded wrong. I knew about the “political officer” in the Army units, I wasn’t sure if they carried that across to the Navy or not.
And thanks for the link about the USS Cochino. Now that I finally have my Inbox tamed, I’ll head over there and check it out.
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John,
I did not watch the movie. But I do have some insights from long ago, at least, of how things might have worked (or not worked) on Soviet nuclear submarines. And for sure I knew how they worked on Americans nukes.
First the inherent safety in design was remarkably different. Early Soviet subs had much higher radiation levels during routine ops, by design. A crewmember could ONLY SERVE ONE TOUR of duty, about 3 years, before reaching his permissible LIFETIME radiation exposure limits set by interanational standars. I served for 23 years and never came close to a yearly limit by such standarads.
I suspect but do not know for sure that the training levels for everyone were remarkably different as well and not just in nuclear matters. Soviets trained by standardization not by individual initiative by and large. In our subs we always took drills to the limit of procedures and beyond to see if watchstanders could think for themselves when no standard procedures would dictate the way to recover in casualities, etc.
But nuclear physics is the same regardless who makes the nuclear devices. An unintentional nuclear explosion or even a “meltdown” is essentially impossible and such has NEVER occurred on ANY nuclear submarine, period. But a helluva lot more Soviet nukes have sunk than American ones. But again none of such losses at sea have occurred as a result of either side interacting with the other or a direct result of a “nuclear” mishap.
The K-19 loss was simply a conventional explosion of rocket fuel while the missile was in a torpedo tube, something that could happen on any submarine, diesle or nuke. The “front end” of that C class Soviet submarine was literally blown away from the conventional explosion and the ship sank. Some crew members survived for a few days in the after end of the sunken submarine but rescue efforts were unsuccessful. We offered “help” but Soviets refused our offer. All hands were eventually lost as a result of inadequate rescue efforts.
Also of note, in no loss of a nuclear submarine for any reason (two Americans and ??? soviets) NO nuclear hazards have ever been presented to affect the “environment”, at least any environment in which humans normally live. The reactors of both the Thresher and Scorpion still rest many thousands of feet beneath the “waves’ off the east coast and Azores with no significant releases of radioactive material for now some 40 plus years since both “went down” with the loss of all hands, about 300 men total for both ships.
Death by drowning is always a possibility on any submarine. Death by “nuclear things” is very remote and in my view, impossible, from a nuclear detonation of any sort unless a group of madmen intend to set one off on purpose, which has yet to happen for sure.
Anson
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Anson- I knew some of the items you mentioned, but not the lack of shielding! A lifetime rad dose in ONE tour? Dang! And thanks for the reminder of our two lost subs’ names – the meds I take have shot huge holes in my memory. I definitely have some reading ahead of me – which is good, I need a break from debating the merits of “what-if” battleships from World Wars 1 and 2! 😀
Once again, thanks to both you, Anson, and Jim, for sharing your knowledge!
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