Zombie Abstract

This paper shows the first mathematical analysis of various scenarios of a possible outbreak of a zombie infection. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the flexibility of mathematical modelling and to show how modelling can respond to a wide variety of challenges in ‘biology’. That is to say, the paper is instructive to develop mathematical models for an unusual outbreak. Different models are being used which show various scenarios of a possible outbreak of a zombie infection. They are all based on a specific type of zombie which is slow moving, cannibalistic and undead. First of all, within the Basic Model three individuals are considered - Susceptible (S) - humans who have become zombies, Zombie (Z) and Removed (R ) - susceptibles who deceased through a (non-)zombie-related-death. Secondly, the Model with Latent Infection suggests that susceptibles first become infected and only then turn into zombies. The third model is called the Model with Quarantine which assumes that the quarantine of zombies may contain the outbreak. According to another model, the Model with Treatment, a cure might allow zombies to return to their human form again. Lastly, the Model of Impulsive Eradication, shows that the zombie population can be controlled by strategically destroying the zombies. The use of different models led to different results. However, the outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless extremely aggressive tactics, such as aggressive quarantine or sufficiently frequent attacks with increasing force, are employed against the undead. In conclusion, all of these scenarios demonstrate the flexibility of mathematical modelling and show that the modelling of an outbreak of zombie infection is useful for measuring infectious diseases.

What is keeping space tourism from becoming reality?

The technology that allows people to go to space has been developed years ago and the number of commercial enterprises for space tourism is steadily increasing. Therefore, it is only logical to presume that space tourism will soon, that is in the next few years, become reality. However, one very important question remains unanswered: What is taking so long? If the technology already exists and people actually want to go to space (which is confirmed by numerous surveys), then what is keeping space tourism from becoming reality? 

In order to answer this question we first have to think about what space tourism, or for that matter tourism in general, is all about. Tourism is generally acknowledged to be 'the commercial organization and operation of holidays and visits to places of interest'. Space tourism describes 'the practice of travelling into space for recreational purposes'. So, basically tourism and space tourism are the exact same thing. The small, yet significant, difference is that space tourism takes place in space and tourism takes place on earth. What they both have in common is that people offering various (space) tourism options want to earn money with it. On earth every country has its borders which clearly encircle every country's area of acitvity. In space, however, the restriction of areas of activity poses a huge problem, not to say the biggest one.

As we already know from my previous blog posts, space tourism will most likely include space hotels where people will be able to spend their orbital holiday. So, who decides who can claim which area? Will individuals be able to buy certain areas, for example space on the moon or on the Mars? If so, who is going to get the money? And, most importantly, how do you restrict areas in space? There are so many questions which are yet to be answered and all of them present a big problem, especially regarding the ongoing suspiciousness between the two main agents in space, the Russian Federation and the USA. 

For the time being the Outer Space Treaty forbids nations to claim a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet and declares all kinds of celestial resources as common heritage of mankind. However, any nation that wishes to launch space objects is allowed to do so. The treaty which is formally known as the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies entered into force on October 10th, 1967 and was signed by more than 100 countries. Nevertheless, any country can withdraw from this treaty whenever it wants to. What is more, it unfortunately does not specify whether indivuals are allowed to buy property in space to build space hotels. The question concerning the legality of acquiring property in space and of space tourism in general will probably result in numerous lively debates and consequently delay the realization of space tourism for yet another couple of years.

What is more, notably the high costs are keeping space tourism from becoming reality. Travelling to space is simply too expensive for ordinary people. So, I am sorry to disappoint you, but unless you are a millionaire, you will probably not be able to afford going to space in the next few years. The main reason for the high costs is that the vehicles created for flying people to space are either expendable entirely, like satellite launchers, or partly, like space shuttles. The creation of reusable vehicles would significantly decrease the costs. 

A great deal of safety issues is also considerably setting back the development of space tourism. It is important to clearly understand the risks of flying to space before actually doing so. Accidents caused by overly hasty production could seriously trouble the industry if the public sees it as too dangerous. Alltogether, space travel, while desirable, is just too hazardous to become a major tourist activity at the moment. 

Moreover, space toursim still lacks medical standards for the time being. Casual space travelers present new questions for doctors who are uncertain about how to assess somebody as fit enough for flying to space or not. However, it is unlikely that only completely healthy people will be allowed to fly to space, as is the case with professional astronauts. Furthermore, there are a lot of health issues to worry about in zero gravity, such as bone loss, blurry vision and loss of slow-twitch muscles. All of these hazards need to be clearly understood  before flying people to space.   


http://www.space.com/24249-commercial-space-travel-blasts-off-2014.html
http://www.spaceportassociates.com/pdf/tourism_history.pdf
http://www.space.com/25181-private-space-travel-risk-cost-debate.html

How to go back in time and kill Hitler

Required material:

• Time machine
• Loaded gun

Warnings:

The following instruction requires the use of a dangerous weapon.  

Following the instructions may lead to legal prosecution.

If you are a youngster, get an adult to help you please!

1.     Build a time machine. If you do not know how to build a time machine, buy one on Amazon. Choose whichever time machine you like best, press the ‘order’ button and wait for your order to arrive. Hint: As long as the time machine allows you to travel back and forth in time it does not matter what it looks like. It may look like the following ones:

        

2.       Once your order from Amazon has arrived, read the instructions carefully. Hint: If you built your own time machine, you probably know how it works and can skip reading the instructions.

3.       Try out the time machine to make sure it works properly.

4.       Now decide whether you want to kill baby Hitler or grown-up Hitler.

5.     In both cases go buy a loaded gun and make sure you know how to use it by reading the instructions carefully.

6.     Option A: If you decide to kill baby Hitler enter the date 20/04/1889 and the address Salzburger Vorstadt 15. Option B: If you decide to kill grown-up Hitler enter the date 27/08/1910 and the address Meldemannstraße 36.

7.     For option A search a picture of baby Hitler and for option B search a picture of grown-up Hitler. Print out the picture. Hint: The picture serves as confirmation of the right target and should look like the following ones:

  

8.       Grab your loaded gun and the picture.

9.       Press the ‘GO’ button on your time machine and travel back in time.

10.    Search the location you have chosen until you find Hitler. Use your picture to confirm his identity.

11.    Kill him by shooting him in the head and in the heart several times until you run out of bullets.

12.    Take his pulse to make sure he is dead. Hint: The pulse is best taken at the radial artery on the  thumb side of either wrist.

13.    Travel back home immediately. Congratulations! Mission completed.

303 words

Group blog post - Rate the instructions of camera lucida by Tim Hunkin

Tim Hunkin’s instructions about how to make a camera lucida are not very helpful due to various reasons. It does not seem like the author was very familiar with the steps of process. First of all, only by looking at the instructions as a whole, the paper does not look very professional, perceptible from the format, layout and style. The instructions seem to be scribbled down by hand and rather resemble a comic than a clear set of instructions. What is more, the steps are neither written in logical order nor numbered, thus making it hard to know for sure what should be done first, what second and so on. It also might have been more helpful to use keywords instead of writing one, often too long, sentence followed by another. His instructions also often contain multiple actions which need to be done at the same time which inevitably creates confusion. Normally, each step should only be a baby step in the whole process. Secondly, his instructions require previous knowledge which, however, should not be the case when creating well-written instructions. Thirdly, Tim Hunkin did not include a list of items required to build a camera lucida. Fourthly, no warnings as pre-steps are included to indicate that something is critical to be done before something else. In the end the author gives some advice regarding the drawing, as the camera lucida is supposed to be an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists. However, expressing personal opinions, preferences or choices should be avoided, and instructional texts should be strictly factual statements that tell the reader to perform an action. On the plus side, he did begin writing the instructions with a verb, asking the reader to do something, which is essential when giving instructions. All in all, Tim Hunkin’s instructions might mislead the reader and make him end up with different results. 

314 words

Description of the 'Napalm Girl'

The photo ‘Napalm Girl’ was taken by Huynh Cong Ut during the Vietnamese War in 1972 in Trang Bang. The black-and-white photograph shows five children running along a road followed by five soldiers. They are hurrying along a deserted road, as though driven by shuddering fear. Behind them there is a thick cloud of black smoke. In the foreground, on the left side of the road, there is a boy who is wearing a plain white shirt and black shorts and has his mouth opened, crying in utter despair. His eyes stare in disbelief. Behind him there is an about four-year-old boy wearing nothing but a long-sleeved, white button-down shirt. He is turning his head back to the soldiers and to the huge cloud of smoke in the background that seems to be coming closer and closer. In the middle of the road is a nine-year-old naked girl, the ‘Napalm Girl’, who is screaming and running toward the camera in what seems to be agony. Her outstretched arms and her wailing face set the tone of the picture. She cries as if her heart has been wrenched out of her little body. Like the cold breath of a grave, her face seems to cut every person’s soul. On the right hand side of the road a small boy who seems to be bewildered, not knowing what is happening, and a desperate girl - possibly brother and sister - run hand in hand. They are the only fully clothed children in the picture, missing nothing but their shoes. Whereas the scared and desperate children all seem to run for their lives, the four soldiers leisurely walk behind them. They are dressed in their uniforms, helmets and carrying firearms. Their facial expressions are not really discernible, as they are situated too far back in the picture. Another person is visible in the very back of the picture, right in front of the thick, massive cloud of smoke which makes it impossible to see what could be behind it. Both sides of the road are surrounded by grass and some bushes.

Space tourism options - Startup companies

Now that I have introduced you to my CAJ, I would like to give you more detailed information about space tourism and the numerous existing startup companies. Only fifty years after sending the first human to space (the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin) more and more startup companies are developing tourist vehicles for suborbital and orbital flights to space. Various space tourism options are available already and there are more to come in the near future.

Before informing you about space tourism options and startup companies, I would like to explain the difference between suborbital and orbital flights. 

In order to understand the difference you should know that an orbit describes the path followed in space by a body around another body as a result of gravity. For instance, the Earth orbits the sun just like these days many satellites orbit around the Earth. 

The main differences between suborbital and orbital flights are velocity and height. The velocity required for orbital flights is called orbital velocity. It depends on the altitude of the orbit. To give you an example, orbital flights at an altitude of 200 km require an orbital velocity of 7 780 m/s (~28 000 km/h). Orbital flights are placed on a trajectory where they could remain in space for at least one orbit. They fly along the curvature of Earth and never fall back to Earth on their own. (One orbit around the Earth takes 90 minutes.) 

Suborbital flights require a flight speed which is about 8 times smaller than the orbital velocity (~950 m/s) and peak at an altitude of 100 to 160 km. Any flight outside Earth's atmosphere with a maximum flight speed below the orbital velocity is called a suborbital flight. The spacecraft only leaves the Earth's atmposphere for a few minutes during which the engines are shut off. Within these minutes passengers experience weightlessness. Then the spacecraft falls back to Earth and re-enters the atmosphere. The duration of microgravity depends on the altitude which is reached during the flight. To give you an example, 3:10 minutes of weightlessness can be experienced at an altitude of 100 km. 

Due to this tremendous difference in required flight speed the vehicle design for suborbital and orbital flights varies greatly. Thus, suborbital vehicles are smaller in size and mass, technically simper and therefore cheaper in design and operation. 

The leading companies at the moment are Virgin Galactic, Space Adventurers and Blue Origin.  
 

Virgin Galactic is an American commercial spaceflight company. The British entrepreneur Richard Branson plans to provide suborbital spaceflights to tourists via Virgin Group. Virgin Group consists of more than 400 companies worldwide with its core business areas travel, entertainment and lifestyle. Virgin Galactic is currently running a test flight program with Space Ship Two, the successor of Space Ship One from 2004 (designed by Burt Rutan). Contrary to Space Ship One, whose only purpose was to fly to space twice and return undamaged, Space Ship Two is intended to actually take tourists into space one day. As the test results are very promising, commercial flights are expected to begin around 2015 and more than 530 people have already signed up. The flights will be launched from New Mexico’s Spaceport America. The space jet will carry six passengers for $200,000 each. It will reach an altitude of 110 km and take about two and a half hours. Space Ship Two will allow its passengers to feel weightless for about five minutes.

(http://www.space.com/19021-spaceshiptwo.html)

Since 2004 Space Adventurers, a space tourism company from Virginia, offers the experience of various states of microgravity (for instance, gravitational state on Mars or the moon) starting at $4,950 per passenger up to §165,000. The states of microgravity are achieved by doing aerobatic maneuvers known as parabolas with a specially modified Boeing 727, called G-Force One. It all happens between an altitude of 24 000 and 34 000 feet. At the altitude of 24 000 feet the aircraft is gradually being pulled up by the pilot to reach an angle of about 45° to the horizon until reaching the altitude of 34 000 feet. During this pull-up 1.8 Gs are felt by the passengers. Then the spacecraft flies back to the altitude of 24 000 feet at an angle of 30° to the horizon which takes about 20 to 30 seconds during which passengers experience weightlessness. This maneuver is repeated 12-15 times. To experience Lunar (one sixth your weight) or Martian (one third your weight) gravity a different arc over the top of the parabola is flewn.

(http://www.spaceadventures.com/index.cfm)

Blue Origin, which is founded by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, is currently developing a fully reusable suborbital vehicle called New Shepard, which will fly a minimum of three passengers to space.The development of reusable vehicles is intended to significantly decrease the costs associated with flying to space.

(http://www.blueorigin.com/)

Besides the three leading companies at the moment there has been a significant increase in startup companies over the last few years which increasingly gain importance. Logically, different companies have different ideas about how to transport people to space and they have different intentions.

World View, for instance, a Tucson-based company (Arizona), wants to take tourists to near-space by 2016 - not with a rocket, but with a high-altitude balloon. Customers paying $75,000 could spend two hours floating 30 kilometers above the ground. The passengers would not experience weightlessness. Yet, they would still have a magnificent view of the blackness of space against the curvature of Earth - a sight usually only afforded to astronauts. The first launch site is probably going to be Page, Arizona. The weather there is perfect for launching balloons and it happens to be fairly close to Las Vegas which will probably result in many tourists passing by.

 (http://www.space.com/25221-world-view-space-tourism-balloons.html)

SpaceX, a private spaceflight company owned by Elon Musk, wants to launch missions for the United States Air Force using its new Falcon rocket as soon as in 2015. They are creating private space taxis and cargo ships to launch astronauts and supplies into space. 

(http://www.space.com/24942-spacex-ready-air-force-launches.html)

EADS (the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company), now called Airbus is at present preparing its commercial space plane prototype for a drop test. The business-jet sized space plane that is intended to bring tourists into space sooner or later will go up 100 km allowing the passengers to experience zero gravity. 

 (http://www.space.com/24901-europe-space-plane-drop-test.html, http://www.uniktourspace.com/en/sub-orbital-experience) 


All in all, many companies are planning to offer suborbital flights very soon, but so far no suborbital space tourism has occurred yet. However, tourists already have the possibility to go on an orbital holiday. Currently the only vehicle taking tourists to orbital space is the Russian Soyuz which belongs to the Russian Federal Space Agency, commonly known as Roscosmos. In cooperation with Space Adventurers, Roscosmos has sent seven tourists to space so far and they have all travelled to the International Space Station (ISS):

1.       Dennis Tito (American) – 2001, 8 days, $20 million

2.       Mark Shuttleworth (South African/British) – 2002, 11 days, $20 million

3.       Gregory Olsen (American) – 2005, 11 days, $20 million

4.       Anousheh Ansari (American/Iranian) – 2006, 12 days, $20 million

5.       Charles Simonyi (American/Hungarian) – 2009, 14 days, $35 million

6.       Richard Garriott (American/British( - 2008, 12 days, $30 million

7.       Guy Laliberté (Canadian) – 2009, 11 days, $40 million

Rhetorical analysis of an opinion article related to my CAJ

The article “Into the blue: Holidays to Mars and the ultimate honey-moon, former astronaut Jon McBride makes his space tourism predictions” is presented in form of an interview.

The ethos plays an important role. First of all, the source itself (dailymail.co.uk) suggests the credibility of what is going to be said. Secondly, the person questioned, Jon McBride is a 70-year-old man who was a former astronaut. His advanced age, as well has his former profession give rise to the supposition that he clearly knows what he is talking about. Consequently, his space tourism predictions must be somewhat true. What is more, he is one of the few lucky people who made his dream come true, as “every kid in America wanted to be an astronaut” at some point. Therefore, Jon McBride must be special and “credible”.  

The article also contains an elevated number of emotional aspects which notably appeal to the audience’s imagination. The form of the article (interview) itself creates an identity between the writer and the reader. Jon McBride talks about the mental, as well as the physical sides of being in space and the “unbounded joy of seeing the plant from above”. The numerous high quality pictures from the earth out of space that feature the article try to convince the reader of the greatness behind the idea of space tourism. The amazing view makes you want to experience space in person, which is only reinforced by Jon McBride when he says: “You can’t really capture that. Your own eyeballs are the only way to see it and do it.”. He also jokes about “honey-moon” referring to the future when newly married people might actually spend their honeymoon on the moon. All in all, pathos is the strongest appeal in this article.

The main logical aspect of this article is that the technology to send people to space has already been developed years ago. According Jon McBride it is only plausible to let people benefit from the existing technology and send them to space for holiday. Moreover, a comparison to 1914 (when nobody would have thought there would be a man on the moon by 1970 and that we’d be flying 500 people non-stop from New York to Singapore), suggests that space tourism may soon become reality.   


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2579462/Space-tourism-holidays-Mars-Former-astronaut-Jon-McBride-makes-predictions-future-travel.html