Chronological index of Alternate View columns by John G. Cramer

AnalogScience Fiction & Fact Magazine
"The Alternate View" columns
of John G. Cramer
Chronological Index

"The Alternate View" columns of John G. Cramer are short (~2,000 word) essays about cutting-edge science. They are aimed at readers (and writers) of "hard" science fiction, as exemplified by the SF stories of Analog, but are about real science, usually physics or astronomy. These columns are published bimonthly in Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine. This index is current to the May 2007 issue of Analog
© John G. Cramer, 1984-2007; All rights reserved.
No part of these columns may be reproduced in any form
without prior explicit permission of the author.

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[Each underlined column title is a link to that column; click on the title to go there.]

**2007 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Universe as a Watermelon	An analysis of WMAP data indicates that the initial Big Bang may not have been spherical, but instead was slightly elongated along one axis, giving the early universe a "watermelon" shape.	05/07	AltVw137
Extrasolar Planets and Occult Astronomy	A new star-shade system may enable the Hubble Space Telescope and its successors to discover earth-like extra-solar planets and even detect the presence of life on them.	03/07	AltVw136

**2006 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Universe of Choice	String theory now seems to be predicting a vast "landscape" of possible universes with differing cosmological constants and physical laws. Which one is ours and why?	03/06	AltVw131
Hawking’s Retreat	Stephen Hawking's retreat from his view that information is destroyed in the formation of a black hole.	05/06	AltVw132
Planets of Binary Star Systems	It has been widely believed that binary star systems may not have planets. New calculations indicate that planet formation is, if anything, more probable in binary star systems.	07-8/06	AltVw133
Back in Time Through Other Dimensions	A new variation of string theory in non-compartified dimensions provides a mechanism for creating timelike loops and suggests that such loops may exist in nature.	10/06	AltVw134
EPR Communication: Signals from the Future?	An Innsbruck PhD thesis suggests a way in which one might use quantum nonlocality for communication, which would make possible superluminal and retro-causal signaling.	12/06	AltVw135

**2005 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Big Rip at the End of Time	Some new cosmological models suggest that the universe will expand at an ever increasing rate until ti tears itself apart, producing a "Big Rip" that tears apart stars, planets, atom, and particles, until nothing is left in a dark empty lonely universe.	03/05	AltVw126
Outlawing” Wormholes and Warp Drives	Which solutions of general relativity (e.g., wormholes and warp drives) can be dismissed as violating physical principles and which should be taken seriously. A new quantum approach suggests a way of answering this question.	05/05	AltVw127
Solving the RHIC Puzzle	Interferometry data from Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) appears to be in conflict with other results from the collisions. A new approach explains why.	07-8/05	AltVw128
Dark-Energy Stars vs. Black Holes	Do black holes exist? A new theory suggests that they do not, and suggests instead that collapsing supernovas create "dark energy stars".	10/05	AltVw129
The Ball Lightning Puzzle	What is ball lightning? A New theory provides some answers.	12/05	AltVw130

**2004 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Introducing the Pentaquark	Evidence from several experiments suggests that "pentaqurks", baryons consisting of four quarks and one anti-quark, may form some of the particles observed in high energy experiments. (Note: later work suggests that pentaquarks may not exist.)	03/04	AltVw121
The Sound of the Big Bang - Reloaded	WMAP data is used to synthesize the "sound of the Big Bang" in the early universe, producing a sound file that can be played on an mp3 player.	05/04	AltVw122
Neutrino Results from SNO, KamLAND, and WMAP	New neutrino results indicate that neutrinos have mass, show neutrino oscillations, and set limits on how large the neutrino mass can be.	07-8/04	AltVw123
Left-Handed Materials: Super-Resolution Optics	New constructed optical materials with a negative index of refraction have remarkable optical properties.	10/04	AltVw124
A Farewell to Copenhagen?	The Afshar Experiment brings Bohr's Principle of Complementarity into question by showing that in a quantum two-slit measurement, interference fringes are present even when the slit through which a photon passes is determined.	12/04	AltVw125

**2003 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The New Recycling Universe	A new alternative to Big Bang cosmology in which the universe recycles between claps of extradimensional "branes".	01/03	AltVw115
A Stroll Through the Lyman Alpha Forest	The forest of absorption Lyman-a spectral lines seen in the light from quasars maps the hydrogen "lanes" of the universe and testifies that quasars are very distant objects.	03/03	AltVw116
The CERN LHC: A Black Hole Factory?	Theoretical predictions that the newest high energy accelerator, currently under construction at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, may be a copious source of small and fast-evaporating black holes.	05/03	AltVw117
Watch the Skies: The LSST Project	Plans for a new telescope that watches the skies for fast-changing astronomical phenomena.	07-8/03	AltVw118
The Universe as seen by WMAP	A new study of the small-angle structure of the cosmic microwave background nails down the parameters of the universe.	10/03	AltVw119
A Mission to the Earth's Core	A new "modest proposal" to send an instrument package to the core of the Earth by melting through the crust with molten iron..	12/03	AltVw120

**2002 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Next Big Accelerator	The "next linear collider" is being proposed by US, German, and Japanese groups as the next step in particle physics.	02/02	AltVw110
Brane Bashing: An Alternative to the Big Bang?	Was the universe created by extradimensional "branes" clapping together, with no Big Bang?	04/02	AltVw111
Quantum Computing, 5 Qubits and Counting	Quantum computing has made a step forward, with a 5 qubit computer that factors 15 into primes. What's next?	06/02	AltVw112
Physics Goes Underground	Plans for a new low-background physics laboratory 1.5 miles below the surface of the Earth.	09/02	AltVw113
Quark Stars	Discovery of ultra-dense stars that are thought to be made of quark matter.	11/02	AltVw114

**2001 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
BOOMERanG and the Sound of the Big Bang	Measurements of small angle fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background pin down the Big Bang	01/01	AltVw104
Faster-than-Light Laser Pulses?	Superluminal laser pulses with negative velocities that get there before they start.	03/01	AltVw105
Decoding the Ribosome	Nature's nanotechnology "assembler", the ribosome, has been decoded and its structure revealed.	05/01	AltVw106
2001, Then and Now	How and why the year 2001 as depicted in the Stanley Kubrick film differs from the the reality of the year 2001?	07/01	AltVw107
Supernova in a Bose-Einstein Bottle	Repulsion is changed to attraction in a Bose-Einstein condensate, with amazing and mysterious results.	10/01	AltVw108
Carbon Nanotubes, A Miracle Material	Carbon nanotubes can be conductors or semiconductors, super-strong materials, and could make possible a "skyhook".	12/01	AltVw109

**2000 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Micro-Warp Drive	An improvement on the Alcubierre Drive that makes the warp-bubble large on the inside and microscopic on the outside	02/00	AltVw99
General Relativity without Black Holes	The Yilmaz variant of General Relativity, which predicts that black holes do not exist.	04/00	AltVw100
"Interaction-Free" Quantum Measurements and Imaging	Quantum measurents that can "see in the dark", producing an image of an object without the interaction of a single photon.	06/00	AltVw101
The "Rare Earth" Hypothesis	A new book by an astronomer and a geophysicist argues that complex life must be very rare in our galaxy and our universe. We may be alone.	09/00	AltVw102
New Improved Wormholes	Making wormholes without negative mass	11/00	AltVw103

**1999 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Massive Neutrinos	The Japanese Super-Kamiokande detector discovers that mu-neutrinos have mass.	01/99	AltVw93
Before the Big Bang	Pre-Big-Bang cosmology from superstring theory	03/99	AltVw94
Our Runaway Universe and Einstein's Cosmological Constant	The discovery that the universe is accelerating in its expansion and that the vacuum has energy	05/99	AltVw95
What We Don't Understand	The major unsolved problems of contemporary physics.	07-08/99	AltVw96
A Century of Physics	Highlights of the Centennial Meeting of the American Physical Society	10/99	AltVw97
Our Millimeter-Size Universe	Superstring theory suggests that gravity is weak because its extra-dimensional loops are a millimeter in diameter.	12/99	AltVw98

**1998 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Planet of the Geezers	Telomeres and human aging	02/98	AltVw88
Gravity Waves and LIGO	The NSF's new gravity wave detector	04/98	AltVw89
The Quantum Eraser	Erasing quantum interference retroactively	06/98	AltVw90
Using DNA to Search for WIMPs	Breaking DNA strands to detect weakly interacting particles	09/98	AltVw91
The Music of the (Neutron) Spheres	Audio-modulated X-rays and neutron star masses	11/98	AltVw92

**1997 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Space Drives, Phased Arrays, and Interferometry	Amplitude and intensity interferometry	01/97	AltVw82
Antigravity Sightings	Woodward's Mach's Principle space drive	03/97	AltVw83
The Decline and Fall of the SSC	The killing of the Superconducting Super Collider Project	05/97	AltVw84
The Atom Laser	A laser that emits coherent atoms instead of coherent light	07/97	AltVw85
The Krasnikov Tube: A Subway to the Stars	A solution to Einstein's equations in the form of a time-shortcut tube	09/97	AltVw86
Breaking the Standard Model	Evidence from DESY for a new particle: the leptoquark	11/97	AltVw87

**1996 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Ultra-Energetic Cosmic Rays and Gamma Ray Bursts	Correlation between cosmic rays and gamma bursts?	01/96	AltVw76
Bose-Einstein Condensation: A New Form of Matter	Thousands of atoms in the same quantum state	03/96	AltVw77
The "Real World" and The Standard Model	Effect on the universe of force strengths and quark masses	05/96	AltVw78
Burn Up the Nuclear Waste	Particle accelerators for radioactive waste "burnup"	07/96	AltVw79
Inside the Quark	Preons and quark sub-structure	09/96	AltVw80
The Alcubierre Warp Drive	A warp-drive solution to Einstein's equations	11/96	AltVw81

**1995 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
NASA Goes FTL - Part 2: Cracks in Nature's FTL Armor	JPL Relativity/Quantum Physics Workshop report 2	02/95	AltVw70
GRS1915+105: The Fastest Fireball in the Galaxy	A quasar-like object in our galaxy	04/95	AltVw71
CERN in Transition	The new 33 TeV lead beams at the CERN SPS	06/95	AltVw72
"Texas" in Munich, Part 1: The Constants of the Universe	Closing in on the universe's parameters	08/95	AltVw73
"Texas" in Munich, Part 2: Gamma Ray Bursts	The gamma ray burst puzzle	10/95	AltVw74
Tunneling through the Lightspeed Barrier	Quantum tunneling and FTL barrier transit time effects	12/95	AltVw75

**1994 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Force of the Tide	Gravitational tidal forces	01/94	AltVw63
The Bandwidth Revolution: Internet and WorldWideWeb	The coming of the Web	03/94	AltVw64
Searching for MACHOs massive compact halo objects	The gravitational lensing of brown dwarfs	05/94	AltVw65
News from CyberSpace: Virtual Reality and HyperText	Report on VR and HT Conferences	07/94	AltVw66
Beauty and the B-Factory B mesons and matter	Proposed accelerator to make B-mesons	09/94	AltVw67
Stretch Marks on the Universe Quantized Redshift	Puzzle of clustered galactic red-shifts	11/94	AltVw68
NASA Goes FTL - Part 1: Wormhole Physics	JPL Relativity/Quantum Physics Workshop report 1	13/94	AltVw69

**1993 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Neutrinos, Ripples, and Time Loops	Tachyonic neutrinos, cosmic string effects	02/93	AltVw57
Science and SF in Japan	Report on a trip to Japan	04/93	AltVw58
DUMAND: Neutrinos from Beneath the Ocean	Large underwater neutrino detector	06/93	AltVw59
Science Policy: The Parable of the King and the Grain	The politics of scientific decisions	08/93	AltVw60
The Tachyon Drive: V_ex= and E_ex= 0.	Using tachyons as rocket reaction mass	10/93	AltVw61
The Quantum Physics of Teleportation	Transmitting and recreating a complete quantum state	12/93	AltVw62

**1992 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Killer Asteroids and You	Earth-orbit-crossing asteroids	01/92	AltVw50
Harnessing the Butterfly - The Steering of Chaos	Using chaos for control	03/92	AltVw51
CERN and the LHC	The Large Hadronic Collider project	05/92	AltVw52
Natural Wormholes: Squeezing the Vacuum	Negative mass from squeezed vacuum	07/92	AltVw53
Neutrino Physics: Curiouser and Curiouser	SAGE neutrino detector results	09/92	AltVw54
Centrifugal Forces and Black Holes	Light-like orbits near a black hole	11/92	AltVw55
Nuke Your Way to the Stars	Continuously detonating nuclear rocket	13/92	AltVw56

**1991 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Mega-Projects & -Problems; The Hubble in Trouble	NASA'a problems with the HST	02/91	AltVw44
Quantum Time Travel	Time tricks with quantum mechanics	04/91	AltVw45
RHIC: Big Bangs in the Lab	Heavy-ion collider project at Brookhaven	06/91	AltVw46
Cosmic Voids and Great Walls	The large-scale structure of the universe	08/91	AltVw47
Quantum Telephones to Other Universes, to Times Past	Non-linear quantum mechanics and communication	10/91	AltVw48
Heavy Neutrinos: Who Ordered That?	Reports of a 17 kilovolt neutrino	12/91	AltVw49

**1990 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Einsteins' Spooks & Bell's Theorem	The EPR paradox & nonlocality	01/90	AltVw37
The Twin Paradox Revisited	Special relativity and time dilation	03/90	AltVw38
Wormholes II: Getting There in No Time	Wormholes as starships	05/90	AltVw39
Telepresence: Reach Out and Grab Someone	Robotics and telepresence	07/90	AltVw40
The Rise and Fall of Gyro-Gravity	Spin-modification of gravity?	09/90	AltVw41
A Visit to Virtual Seattle	Virtual reality	11/90	AltVw42
FTL Photons	The Casimir Effect and the speed of light	13/90	AltVw43

**1989 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Supernova Duds and Toothpaste	Neutrinos and fluorine nucleosynthesis	02/89	AltVw31
Falling through to Pelucidar	Shadow matter and gravitation	04/89	AltVw32
Wormholes and Time Machines	General relativity and FTL travel	06/89	AltVw33
The Mouse that Boomed	Fast object seen with radio-astronomy	08/89	AltVw34
Report on NanoCon 1	NanoCon I - The 1st Nanotechnology Conference	10/89	AltVw35
Cold Fusion, Pro-fusion, and Con-fusion	Pons & Fleischman and cold fusion?	12/89	AltVw36

**1988 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Spiral Galaxies and Antigravity Beams	Gravity waves from cosmic strings	01/88	AltVw24
The Coming of the SSC	The Superconducting Supercollider Project	03/88	AltVw25
Watching The Quantum Jump	Exciting single atoms in a trap	05/88	AltVw26
Dinosaur Breath	Cretaceous air trapped in amber	07/88	AltVw27
Paradoxes and FTL Communication	The Calcutta QM Paradox	09/88	AltVw28
The Rainbows of Gravity	Einstein's ring and gravitational lensing	11/88	AltVw29
Dyson on Space	Freeman Dyson's views on the space program	13/88	AltVw30

**1987 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Artificial Gravity: Which way is Up?	Centrifugal gravity on space stations	02/87	AltVw18
Strings and Things	Cosmic strings	04/87	AltVw19
Recent Results	Review of past AV columns	06/87	AltVw20
Laser Propulsion and the Four P's	Laser-sustained propulsion	08/87	AltVw21
Warm Superconductors	Ceramic BaYCuO superconductors	10/87	AltVw22
SN1987A - Supernova Astrophysics Grows Up	Supernovae, neutrinos, and gravitational collapse	12/87	AltVw23

**1986 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Pump of Evolution	The Fermi Paradox and catastrophes	01/86	AltVw11
Children of the Swan	Cygnus X-3 cosmic ray particles	03/86	AltVw12
Neutrinos and WIMPs	The Solar Neutrino Problem	05/86	AltVw13
Antigravity I: Negative Mass	The gravitation of negative mass	07/86	AltVw14
Antigravity II: A Fifth Force?	Hypercharge and hyperforce	09/86	AltVw15
The Quantum Handshake	The Transactional Interpretation of QM	11/86	AltVw16
Super Atoms and Super Fields	Positrons from Z>173 atoms	13/86	AltVw17

**1985 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Dark Side of the Force of Gravity	The Dark Matter Problem	02/85	AltVw05
The Other 40 Dimensions	Klein-Kaluza compactification	04/85	AltVw06
Light in Reverse Gear I	Optical reversal with a 4-Wave mixer	06/85	AltVw07
Light in Reverse Gear II	Advanced radiation	08/85	AltVw08
In The Fullness of Time	The universe in the far future	10/85	AltVw09
Antimatter in a Trap	Penning ion trapping	12/85	AltVw10

**1984 Columns**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
The Alternate Who????	1st column - Introduction of the author	07/84	AltVw00
When Proton Meets Monopole	Monopole catalysis and proton decay	07/84	AltVw01
Other Universes I	GUTs cosmology	09/84	AltVw02
Other Universes II	Everett-Wheeler interpretation of QM	11/84	AltVw03
The Retarding of Science	AARSE - American Association for the Retardation of Science and Engineering (satire)	13/84	AltVw04

**Other Articles in *Analog* (1979-1983)**
*The Alternate View* Column Title	Subject of Column	*Analog* Issue	Column Code
Antimatter in the Universe	The possibility of antimatter galaxies	08/79	Analog-1
The Territoriality of Space Exploration	Guest Editorial: Should the USA have claimed the Moon as territory?	11/81	Analog-2
New Phenomena	Magnetic monopoles, "anomalons", free quarks?	02/83	Analog-3
Again Monopoles	Magnetic monopole detection at Stanford (?)	09/83	Analog-4

Note 1: Month "13" in the issue list above indicates the Mid-December issue of Analog.
Note 2: The "Alternate" of the column title refers to the fact that they appear in alternate issues of Analog, originally alternating with columns by the late G. Harry Stine and more recently with columns by Jeffery D. Kooistra .
Note 3: Recent columns may not be provided with links because they have not yet appeared in Analog, which holds first serial rights for their publication.

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This index was created by John G. Cramer 07/16/96 and last revised 01/07/2007. It now has an access count of:
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