Diane Albanese’s Musings

If you think your summer should be devoid of science then think again! An innocent trip to the amusement park can open up all kinds of possibilities to discover the laws of physics. Consider the roller coaster which is driven almost exclusively by inertial, gravitational and centripetal forces. The fundamentals are all there!

The roller coaster was first patented in 1885 by LaMarcus Adna Thompson. It was a railroad system that consisted of a track that rises and falls sometimes with loops that briefly turn the rider upside down. Most roller coasters have multiple cars with passengers sitting in a seat in some type of restraining device. Some roller coasters allow the riders to dangle from bucket seats therefore extending the thrill by having limbs free to the open air.

In 1959 Disney created a new type of roller coaster that used tubular steel track and the Matterhorn Bobsleds was born. The advantage was that the tubular steel could be bent in any direction and designers went crazy configuring loops, corkscrews and other wild machinations.

Today most roller coasters are made of steel but because some people prefer the old wooden roller coaster ride and some are still being constructed. Wikipedia states that the steel coasters are known for their smooth ride and often convoluted shapes that frequently turn riders upside-down via inversions. Wooden coasters are typically renowned by enthusiasts for their rougher ride and “air time” produced by negative G-forces when the train reaches the top of hills along the ride. There are also hybrid roller coasters that combine a steel structure with wood tracks, or a wood structure with steel tracks.

Wikipedia goes on to explain that “modern roller coasters take on many different forms. Some designs take their cue from how the rider is positioned to experience the ride. Traditionally, riders sit facing forward in the coaster car, while newer coaster designs have ignored this tradition in the quest for building more exciting, unique ride experiences. Variations such as the stand-up roller coaster and the flying roller coaster position the rider in different ways to provide different experiences. Stand-up coasters involve cars that have the riders in a standing position (though still heavily strapped in). Flying coasters have the riders hanging below the track face-down with their chests and feet strapped in. Vekoma “Flying Dutchman” coasters have the riders starting out sitting above the track, then they fully recline so that the riders are looking at the sky. Eventually, they twist into the “flying” position. B&M flying coasters have the riders hanging below the track like in an inverted (hanging) coaster. To go into the flight position, the section of the car where the riders’ feet are is raised to the track. That way, they start in the flight position. In addition to changing rider viewpoint, some roller coaster designs also focus on track styles to make the ride fresh and different from other coasters.”

People disagree but here are the most popular and perhaps the top three roller coasters in the world.

Kingda Ka is a roller coaster located at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey, USA. At its opening on May 21, 2005, it became the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, claiming the title from Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. The train is launched by a hydraulic launch mechanism to 128 miles per hour (206 km/h) in 3.5 seconds. At the end of the launch track, the train climbs the main top hat tower reaching a height of 456 feet (139.5 m). Due to aviation safety concerns, the tower is equipped with three dual strobes: two mid-way up, and one on the top.

The Steel Dragon 2000 is a roller coaster at Nagashima Spa Land Amusement Park in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Built by Morgan Manufacturing, this gigacoaster opened, appropriately, in 2000 - “The Year of the Dragon” in the Far East. It debuted only months after Millennium Force and surpassed the Cedar Point coaster as the world’s tallest complete-circuit coaster. It also set a record for longest track length - 8133 feet, 2 inches (2479 m), which it currently holds.

The Millennium Force is a steel roller coaster located at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, and was built by Intamin AG. The fourteenth roller coaster built at the park, its royal blue track stands 310 feet (95 m) tall at its highest point. The coaster overlooks Lake Erie. When it was built in 2000, it was briefly the tallest complete circuit roller coaster in the world.

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The Cape region is blessed with great libraries and good knowledgeable librarians! From Bethany, through Rehoboth, Lewes, Milton, Selbyville, Georgetown, Millsboro and Frankford there is a complete network of experts ready to help you and your family find the right books. Just in time for summer reading, these libraries most likely have all of the Newbery Medal winners and they can be reserved.

Not familiar with the Newbery Medal? The seal is a badge of honor worn by distinguished books that have earned this honor from the American Library Association in honor of a British bookseller, John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

The following is an account of the latest winner from the ALA site.

The 2009 Newbery Medal winner is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean, and published by HarperCollins Children’s Books.

A delicious mix of murder, fantasy, humor and human longing, the tale of Nobody Owens is told in magical, haunting prose. A child marked for death by an ancient league of assassins escapes into an abandoned graveyard, where he is reared and protected by its spirit denizens.

“A child named Nobody, an assassin, a graveyard and the dead are the perfect combination in this deliciously creepy tale, which is sometimes humorous, sometimes haunting and sometimes surprising,” said Newbery Committee Chair Rose V. Treviño.

The 2009 Newbery Honor books follow.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)

Underneath the canopy of the loblolly pines, amid the pulsating sounds of the swamp, there lies a tale. Intertwining stories of an embittered man, a loyal hound, an abandoned cat and a vengeful lamia sing of love, loss, loneliness and hope. Appelt’s lyrical storytelling heightens the distinguished characteristics of this work.

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle (Henry Holt & Comapny)

The Surrender Tree utilizes compelling free verse in alternating voices to lyrically tell the story of Cuba’s three wars for independence from Spain. Combining real-life characters (such as legendary healer Rosa La Bayamesa) with imagined individuals, Engle focuses on Rosa’s struggle to save everyone–black, white, Cuban, Spanish, friend or enemy.

Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group in partnership with Walden Media, LLC

This rich first-person narrative draws readers into a wild bus ride, winding through the countryside on a journey of self-discovery for Mibs Beaumont and her companions. Newcomer Law weaves a magical tall tale, using vivid language and lively personalities, all bouncing their way to a warm, satisfying conclusion.

After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Books for Young Readers)

This tightly woven novel looks back on two years in a New York City neighborhood, where life changes for two 11-year-olds when a new girl joins their game of double Dutch. Bonded by Tupac’s music, the three girls explore the lure of freedom and build a friendship that redefines their own identities.

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Maybe July 4^th is unlike any other holiday. It’s as if the calendar pauses in the middle of the year and we are in summer and we are at the beach and we can all stop and play.

Families are together again. July 4^th is the time for picnics and barbeques, family reunions and vacations together. Just a big pause from the hectic, ridiculous pace of life and a time to stop work for at least a weekend. A time to rest, relax, refresh with the kids, aunt and uncles and grandparents. Time to play.

This is the time of year that badminton and croquet sets emerge from dusty garage shelves. Lawns are dotted with colorful mallets that are meant to hit wooden balls through strategically placed hoops.

Croquet is played competitively and in the official game one side takes the black and blue balls and the other takes the yellow and red. In the United States there are specific rules for the game of croquet including variations that include mondo croquet, extreme croquet and bicycle croquet. This game is widely believed to be viciously competitive according to a Wikipedia article but when playing with children hopefully everyone will behave!

Badminton is a court game that lacks the rigor or dignity of tennis. It is played competitively but most people are recreational players either on turf or at the beach. This simple game allows totally unskilled people to hit a birdie, also known as a shuttlecock from side to side over a net. This can be played as singles or doubles with the object being never to let the shuttlecock hit the ground.

Another recently popular sport is beach tennis. This game takes the fast pace of tennis and combines it with the sun, sea and sand of the beach. It is played competitively also but most of the time non-athletes of all ages can be seen using tennis racquets to volley a slightly depressurized tennis ball back and forth over a net without letting it bounce on the sand. Points are scored when your opponent hits the ball outside the lines or you fail to lob it back.

Beach volleyball has enjoyed a significant rise in popularity and can be seen being played up and down the Rehoboth coastline. At the highest level, beach volleyball is an art form. Who can forget the Olympic teams that competed last summer in Bejing? Such agility, grace and teamwork! But beach volleyball can also be a fabulous multigenerational game that includes children, teens and adults. The Rehoboth Recreation department has nets set up for everyone to enjoy.

Many stores along the boardwalk sell paddles for paddle ball. The tiny black rubber ball is tossed back and forth by hitting it with a paddle. This game is especially good for families because it requires little skill and keeps active children engaged in for hours.

Cape Henlopen is lacrosse country. Just consider the Cape Henlopen women’s team and their shiny new State Championship trophy! In order for my list of games to be complete, I must mention that I have observed many girls and boys with lacrosse sticks in their hands at the beach tossing around a lacrosse ball. Maybe they will invent beach lacrosse? Maybe that is why Cape lacrosse players are so fierce!

Getting a tan, playing some games, having some fun together: that’s what a holiday is all about.

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JK Rowling was asked to speak at a Harvard graduation 2008. She went to great lengths to describe two conditions that she believes to be essential for the survival of the human spirit. The first was failure or more succinctly, how to deal with failure. That topic was explored here two weeks ago. The other topic is the importance of imagination. In this essay, Rowling stresses that imagination is the basis of our interconnectedness. The following is an excerpt from her speech.

“Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.”

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Failure as a Lesson

6-5-09

June means commencement, the ending of an event, a program, and formal studies. From elementary to graduate level college degrees, students are moving on, graduating and facing life.

Commencement is finality and it means that one chapter of life is closing. It is a pause that allows us to reflect and to consider what is important.

Commencement speeches are philosophical and thoughtful. JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was asked to deliver the commencement address at Harvard last year. Her speech centered on two elements that define a person: failure and imagination. This week we will take a look at excerpts from her speech about failure and next week we will focus on imagination.

Rowling draws from her own experience to write the following:

“Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.”

“Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.”

“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

“Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.”

‘The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

“So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”

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Filed under: Cape Gazette Columns