LEGO ® in the Age of Aquarius Presenting complex technologies to diverse audiences. astronomy – Leiden – 30 Nov 2009 Rob Seaman National Optical Astronomy Observatory IVOA VOEvent Working Group Chair

This talk A little philosophy LEGO® telescope demo A bit of technology Advertisements The bribe 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

Why is it so hard to explain science and technology? Complexity? Unfamiliarity? Lack of context? Neurophysiology? “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”? or perhaps it’s… A competing non-scientific worldview?

Reasons intrinsic to the things being studied Complexity (astronomy is the study of – well – everything) Unfamiliarity (rare and distant phenomena) Lack of context (contingent & hierarchical structure) These are issues of systems engineering

Reasons pertaining to the beings doing the studying Neurophysiology (linear brains in a non-linear world) “Having the knack” (only some are cut out for science) Pre-scientific worldview (Can coexist, or must replace?) These are issues of social engineering

Spheres of influence DotAstronomy is about “exploring the connections between astronomy and the Internet” IVOA “enable[s] the international utilization of astronomical archives as an integrated and interoperating virtual observatory” VOEvent is about “representing […] the discovery of a transient celestial event, with the implication that timely follow-up is being requested” 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden present past future

Astronomy Domains 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden DotAstronomy VO VOEvent HTN O/IR “System”

The Age of Aquarius? When the Moon is in the seventh house And Jupiter aligns with Mars Then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars – Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden “Astrological gibberish” – Neil Spencer

Astronomy versus an Astrology worldview ★ AQUARIUS 20 Jan – 19 Feb By tradition, Jupiter (now in your skies) is the planet of luck and liberation, the latter quality meaning that sometimes you're unhitched from people or situations you have outgrown. Even if you're in a comfortable groove, this is the month to stretch your perspective and ambitions, with optimism and idealism central to your mission. Romance? Exciting, but quite a tangle, especially this week. Patience called for. – Neil Spencer 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

But a good omen! ★ SAGITTARIUS 22 Nov – 21 Dec The Sun's arrival in your skies today opens a birthday month when your spirit is re-charged and your affairs re-animated. It's handy timing for your professional outlook, where Saturn's shift signals that a deadlock has, for better or worse, been broken. The new rules call for a co- operative ethic; even if you can't be an all-out team player, you need allies, preferably with clout. Fine week for brainstorming. 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

Worldview colors everything We live in an extraordinary age of discovery …that is extraordinarily underappreciated (7 billion humans, ~ 7 thousand astronomers) Astronomy looks outward many other worldviews (Astrology) look inward We’re a self-centered species Retaining deeply tribal outlooks 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

Tribal Worldviews Humans are hugely diverse: Politics Religions Ethnicities Economics Nationalities Gender identities New-age “philosophies” 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden Popular cultures Musical genres Sports & games Hobbies Social networks Computer OSes Pseudo-sciences Coexist in each of us plural

Scientific Worldview The universe is one unique shared reality, but H. sapiens (Cro-Magnon in this neighborhood) have been around for about 400 centuries “H. science” for less than 4 centuries Astronomy has been around ~400 decades The internet for less than 4 decades Kurzweil says we’re headed for a singularity One has reason to be skeptical 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden singular

Where did the scientific worldview come from? Descartes’ house (or maybe the site of his house?) His “method”, published in Leiden 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

René Descartes Introduced modern concept of skepticism –“I think therefore I am” (a cliché, maybe, but not therefore untrue) That is – he created the scientific method –Science has replaced much of philosophy – but science has not dislodged cogito ergo sum (elaborated into the anthropic principle) Empiricism, phenomenology, epistemology, … –Philosophers’ views of science – an inherent splintering of isms & ologies? Noumenon vs. phenomenon (Kant) –Inaccessible “thing-in-itself”, inferred via observable physical manifestations –Platonic ideals? (long history of “natural” philosophers: Thales, Democritus, …) 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

14 Mar 2005Transient Universe Ask yourself, what is this thing in itself, by its own special constitution? What is it in substance, and in form, and in matter? What is its function in the world? For how long does it subsist? – Marcus Aurelius “We also know there are known unknowns” – Donald Rumsfeld also Hannibal Lector to Agent Starling in Silence of the Lambs

14 Mar 2005Transient Universe First Things First (“time management”) Covey’s “highly effective” habit #3

Astronomy Domains 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden DotAstronomy VO VOEvent HTN O/IR “System”

Venn Diagram 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

Venn Venn shows all subsets whether possible or not 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden Euler omits empty subsets shows contained vs. disjoint shading for empty sets Magical, not physical Science, not science fiction –> Euler Diagram implies boolean logic

Evidence from the Historical Record 1.intersection of the Mineral & Animal sets 2.an Animal disjoint from Four Legs set 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden not Gorignak Gorignak

Impose order in the universe Infinite unsorted options many (most?) are impossible (un)conditional logic, not physics 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden Actively assert knowledge animals are biological entities only some have 4 legs Pain-free ontologies

Try to show this with a Venn Diagram! 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

How can we demonstrate the limits of the impossible? 30 Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden With software systems we have learned to expect the depiction of impossibilities (e.g., special FX) Astronomy is full of apparently impossible things – So we focus on visualizing dramatic phenomena But science is precisely concerned with delineating limits – natural laws – Physics is about “articulating your intuition” – Bayesian statistics, physical priors, null hypotheses, … Robots are one way to ground system behavior in the physical constraints of the real world

Backbone The emerging VOEventNet Roy WilliamsAlasdair Allen Andrew DrakeMatthew Graham Rob SeamanPhil Warner Robert WhiteScott Barthelmy Roy WilliamsAlasdair Allen Andrew DrakeMatthew Graham Rob SeamanPhil Warner Robert WhiteScott Barthelmy 26 May 2006 DataScope etc VOSpace etc UKIRT Hawaii UKIRT Hawaii Palomar-Quest Caltech Palomar-Quest Caltech Palomar P60 Caltech Palomar P60 Caltech Pairitel Berkeley Pairitel Berkeley Liverpool Telescope La Palma Liverpool Telescope La Palma OGLE III Las Campanas OGLE III Las Campanas Faulkes South Australia Faulkes South Australia Faulkes North Hawaii Faulkes North Hawaii SDSS SNe U Wash/Stanford SDSS SNe U Wash/Stanford RAPTOR x 8 LANL RAPTOR x 8 LANL SWIFT, GLAST etc VOEvent Other Event Flow Key Roles Author Subscriber Key Roles Author Subscriber Publisher Filter Repository Publisher Filter Repository JAC Hawaii JAC Hawaii Exeter Caltech LANL Data Mining Exeter Data Mining Exeter SkyDOT (database) SkyDOT (database) Microlensing Survey Exeter Microlensing Survey Exeter Tools/Services Community Tools/Services Community Surveys CTIO/KPNO Surveys CTIO/KPNO NOAO VO-GCN GCN NASA GSFC GCN NASA GSFC CBAT AAVSO Gemini

Thread Safe Astronomy Rob Seaman NOAO Data Products Program

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 27 VOEvent Lifecycle Publish / subscribe paradigm Alerts generate follow-ups These comprise rich threads Threads create telescope behavior

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 28 Multi-threading Forked execution Simultaneous tasks Typically lightweight Time slicing

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 29 DARPA Grand Challenge $2,000,000 challenge Autonomously cover ~200km course 5 finished, ~30 kph Previously, none > 10 km Stanford winner –Drive-by-wire –Focus on SW

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 30 Autonomous astronomy? The challenge isn’t to build one autonomous car - or robotic telescope The challenge is to build a complete ecosystem System of systems

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 31 Issues for an autonomous astronomy ecosystem Standards Observing modes and paradigms Telepresence (remote observing, tng) Data representation / compression Proprietary data rights Market pressures Data transport etc.

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 32 Hardware versus Software Hardware State of the art –but frozen Expensive –but can budget What is impossible? Laws of Nature Software Options –not canned features Cheap –deceptively so What is possible? Nurture

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 33 Probes “Probes” appear in many science fiction stories –often central to Star Trek plots Absurdly general purpose –minimal configuration –zero experimental design –all wavelengths / particles? –continuous cadence (picoseconds?) Infinite bandwidth, zero latency –no data reduction needed Can detect or infer unknown phenomena or noumena (note: not the “melodic death metal band” from Finland) e.g., “see” dark matter & energy ?

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 34 NXT Specs 32-bit ARM LabVIEW 3 servo motors 4 sensor ports Extensible 64 KB KB Bluetooth USB

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 35 Issues Heterogeneous technology Gearing versus form factor –physiology, not just anatomy Power / cable wrap Interesting sensors –can be expensive

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 36 Possibilities Engineering prototype (“toy”) Outreach Curriculum Interacting telescopes Emergent behavior Multiple programs

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 37 Impossibilities Functioning optics

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 38 Extending the demonstration Current prototype plays “Simon says” Tie this into one or more expressive astronomical applications Behavior is as important as the graphics Must be robust Prizes!

Hot-wiring the Transient Universe Posters courtesy Pete Marenfeld of NOAO

Visions of VOEvent “Novel view of the Solar eclipse of 11 July 1991…” “… a VOEvent where the location of the observer mattered”

Some upcoming meetings Eventful Universe, Tucson, 17 – 20 March 2010 IVOA InterOp, Victoria, 17 – 21 May 2010 SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation, San Diego, 27 June – 2 July 2010 (Observatory Operations III) ADASS XX BoF, Boston, 7 – 11 Nov 2010 AAS Meeting Workshop?, Seattle, 9 – 13 Jan 2011 Hotwired III, Tucson?, Spring 2011? New Horizons in Time Domain Astronomy, Oxford, 26 – 30 Sep Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

Abstract Astronomy is the most dramatic of the sciences. It is also the most foreign to everyday life. The complex technologies involved in modern astronomical research often act to enlarge the gulf. This is particularly true of the astronomical time domain, in which the observational assets of numerous networked telescopes must be combined in ever changing synoptic and transient response observing modes via a rich suite of computer software and protocols. Even among professional astronomers few have the opportunity to visit remote mountaintop observatories; by their very nature, interconnected networks of such telescopes are impossible to view from a single location. Thus professionals as well as the public often must view various sorts of depictions of distributed facilities in order to comprehend the most basic facts of their operations. Conveying the complex dynamics of networked telescopes requires more than a static picture. LEGO NXT robotics provides a rich environment for modeling the behavior of complex network-based technologies engaged in otherwise opaque empirical investigations. We demonstrate the application of NXT to modeling celestial transient response observing using the VOEvent protocol of the IVOA in combination with web services. We discuss how best to use such models to reach a target audience. (These devices can be seen at Nov DotAstronomy – Leiden

Tucson - June 4–7, 2007 HOT-WIRING the TRANSIENT UNIVERSE 43 Kepler LEGO Demo