A Story About A Very Important Human

Image: The Guardian

Vasili Arkhipov was arguably one of the most important people in human history; not because he was a great political leader, or extremely influential, but for three reasons, two of which were outside of his control. First: he was in the right place at the right time. Second: humans had recently achieved the capacity to erase the future of the species, and third: he made a choice. That choice is what I'll talk about today.

To create some context, Arkhipov lived during a time shortly after the invention of the nuclear bomb in the 1940's, and a number of nations had developed operational nuclear warheads - the USSR and the United States among them. The political climate between these nations was... a bit tense. The nations would have really liked to go to war with each other, but both heads of state were luckily rational enough to understand the reality that nuclear war is to be avoided at nearly all cost. This is a concept, called Mutually Assured Destruction,- states that if one nation launched a nuclear warhead, the other would be able to retaliate, so neither wanted to take the first shot.

Arkhipov's choice took place during the Cold War, specifically during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October of 1962, Arkhipov was second-in-command of USSR Submarine B-59. He had also achieved the rank of flotilla commander by this time.

On Oct. 27th, there had been no contact between Moscow and the B-59 for several days. Nearby, the American Navy began dropping depth charges to coax the submarine to surface so they could identify it, despite being in international waters. Not knowing whether war had broken out between the USSR and the US, the officers on the submarine has to decide on a course of action.

Usually in this situation, the decision to launch a nuclear warhead requires the consent of the captain and the political officer. Captain Savitsky and the political officer, Ivan Maslennikov, wanted to launch a nuclear warhead, but because of Arkhipov's position as the flotilla commander, he was also required to agree to a launch. Of the three decision-makers on board the B-59 that day, only Arkhipov was against the launch, and so a launch did not occur.

Were the crew to decide to launch an attack against the United States, we almost certainly would have retaliated and nuclear war would have broken out between the two heavily-armed superpowers, and we would be living (or not) in a very different world today.



Cheers,

   - Scott


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Potpourri

Hello!

There are a lot of topic I run across that I can't write a whole worthwhile blog post about, but I'd still like to share these little tidbits with you, so I'll try to assemble a few of those here.

Tidbit 1:

There is a bright red star in the constellation Scorpio called "Antares." It is a fascinating star that is 883 times larger than our star by diameter, meaning that if it were in our solar system, it would envelop all four rocky planets.

The fact that it is so red, coupled with the fact that the star is usually visible for most of the year created confusion because astronomers would often mistake the star for Mars, which eventually led to its name:

ant... = not
...ares = Mars

We called the star "not Mars."

Tidbit 2:

I was curious what the name for those coffee cup wraps was, so I looked it up. On the Wikipedia page, I found a whopping 7 "aka's" in the Wikipedia page. One of them was the term "zarf." A zarf is an ornate metal device made to hold a coffee cup. Here is one from the British Museum:

Image: britishmuseum.org

I think I'm going to call those coffee sleeves "zarfs" from now on.

Tidbit 3:

I heard a story about the early space mission Aurora 7, launched with Scott Carpenter inside on May 24th, 1962. The mission went mostly to plan, except for one variable the folks on the ground couldn't control: Scott. Transfixed by the view from the window, Carpenter used attitude control to point the capsule at things he was interested in seeing, and as a result landed 250 miles off course - a fact NASA was not pleased about.

The astronauts got to name their own missions, and Scott Carpenter decided to call his "Aurora." Now, he grew up in Boulder at Aurora and 7th, so many Boulderites (including me) assumed it was a reference to his street corner until I saw the video below. It turns out it was because his orbit would enable him to see the aurora borealis for the first time.

Tidbit 4:

Image: 99percentinvisible.org - check them out if you haven't yet!

You have almost certainly seen these. Paths where people simple cut the corner and trample the grass to get where they are going. As many hours as someone might put into designing walkways in parks or campuses, many a time, people will take the way that best suits them. These paths actually have a name - desire paths. There's even a subreddit for it.

Fairly appropriate, I'd say

Tidbit 5:

Brothers and sisters together are called "siblings," but did you know that you can refer to your nieces and nephews together as your "niblings?" Also - your brother or sister can be called your 0th cousin.

More:

Tidbit 6:

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The tongue twister "She sells sea shells sitting by the seashore" refers to a real person - Mary Anning. Anning lived in England in the early 19th century and was a paleontologist, fossil collector and dealer. Among other accomplishments she was the first to discover complete plesiosaur and ichthyosaur fossils.

Tidbit 7:

If you happen to have a kidney stone the solution for passing it might be in an unexpected place: Frontierland at the Disney World Resort in Orlando. According to this study, kidney stones are passed 63.9% of the time after riding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Image: AmaryllisGardener

A flight to Orlando and a ticket to Disney World:

Cheaper than some healthcare.

I really suggest reading that paper through. It's full of little gems like this one:

Many people in the United States probably live within a few hours’ drive of an amusement park containing a roller coaster with features capable of dislodging calyceal renal calculi.

Here's a video of the researcher describing his work: 

I love science.

Cheers,

   - Scott

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The Erdős-Bacon Number

A lot of you will be familiar with the Bacon number. It's a play on the "six degrees of separation" concept that states that everyone in the world is six or fewer degrees separated from anyone else, one degree being someone you personally know.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

This graphic shows a minimum spanning tree, which is not what I'm talking about, but I'll take the heat from all the angry graph theorists. 

Someone's 'Bacon number' is this concept played out specifically with Kevin Bacon. Film buffs might play a game trying to link actors to Bacon in as few shared movies as possible.

To give an example, my Bacon number is 4. One of my cousins went to a doctor that had also worked on Micheal Jordan, who appeared in this commercial with Kevin Bacon:

So from me to my cousin (1), to the doctor (2), to Michael (3), to Kevin, there are 4 steps. (I also have a Bacon number of 4 via a family friend, Cozi Zuehlsdorff, Christopher de Stefano to Kevin)

Note: another definition of the Bacon number is that one must use film credits rather than personal connections, and it's this definition we will be using later on.

<sidenote>
Facebook generates a lot of data, and decided to calculate the average connectivity of its users: 3.57 degrees
</sidenote>

Image: Topsy Kretts

Paul Erdős

Another similar number exists, and that is the Erdős number. Paul Erdős was an unusually prolific mathematician and collaborated with a huge number of scientists during his career. Many academics calculate their "Erdős number," which is calculated in a similar fashion as the Bacon Number, but rather than personal connection, you would use academic papers that share the authors' name.

Using these two numbers, you can calculate someone's Erdős-Bacon number, which is the sum of the two numbers. Naturally, this requires both being credited in at least one film as well as author an academic paper, something very few people have done.

A number of famous names have low Erdős-Bacon Numbers:

Richard Feynmann appeared in the film Anti-Clock, which gives him a Bacon number of 3, and an Erdős number of 3 gives him an EBN of 6.

 Carl Sagan had an EBN of 6 as well.

The scientist Stephen Hawking actually has a lower Bacon number (2) than an Erdős number (4), for an ENB of 6.

Natalie Portman, as well as the Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik, have both published papers, giving them Erdős numbers of 5. Both have Bacon numbers of 2, giving both women an EBN of 7.

Perhaps the lowest Erdős Bacon Number belongs to a man named Albert A Chan. He acted alongside Bacon in Patriot Day, giving him a Bacon number of 1, and has published work that achieves an Erdős number of 3, giving him the lowest Erdős-Bacon Number at 4.

Another quick note on interdisciplinary achievement - only one person in history has ever received both an Oscar and a Superbowl Ring - film producer and businessman Steve Tisch. Tisch, as the Executive Vice President of the New York Giants, received Superbowl championship rings for the 2007 and 2011 seasons, as well as an Oscar for producing Forrest Gump.


Cheers,

    - Scott


Email subscription, one per post:

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