LOCAL/STATE
students 'get 'weightless'
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 19, 1998 - 5A
f Joshua Rosenbatt
ily Staff Reporter
Four students from the College of
igineering will leave the chilly climate of
n Arbor tomorrow for two weeks of high-
ing fun in sunny Houston.
e NASA-sponsored program that the
u ents are taking part in - the reduced
avity student flight opportunity program
gives 48 groups from colleges across
e nation an opportunity to experience
icrogravity first-hand as they soar
rough the sky in the experimental KC-
5 aircraft.
In addition to feeling the effects of the ultra-
o gravity force, the groups also will perform
rious experiments while they are floating
ugh the air.
's more fun for us because this way, we get
float around," said Engineering junior Aaron
cobovits, one of the team's members.
In addition to "floating around," the four-
me will test "microgravity pipe flow induced
"It's more fun for us
... we get to float
around.E"
-- Aaron Jacobovits
Engineering junior
through asymetrical oscillation," which means
they will attempt to determine whether it is
possible to move water upward through a pipe,
shaking it in a reduced-gravity situation.
In putting together their experiment, which
they call "Flow Blue," they had to utilize the
resources and knowledge of several depart-
ments.
Mechanical Engineering Prof. William
Schultz gave the students design suggestions,
in addition to providing theoretical calcula-
tions, while aerospace Engineering Prof. Luis
Bernal helped with the specifics of the experi-
ment.
Shultz said the team received assistance
from various departments and people, but the
bulk of their experiment was in the students'
hands.
"This is really a student project," he said.
The team had to learn everything from how to
secure a laptop in an almost gravity-free envi-
ronment to how to drill holes in a sheet of metal.
"We had to change our plan a dozen times
along the way," Engineering sophomore Erica
Pendergrass said.
While the group, which also includes
Engineering senior and team leader Stuart
Feldman, as well as Engineering first-year
student Alejandra Salinas, has worked
together since November, they urge inter-
ested undergraduates to "get started signif-
icantly earlier."
Those interested in learning more or partici-
pating in the program next year can contact the
group at KC-135-pipe@umich.edu.
Engineering sophomore Erica Pendragrass, Engineering senior Stuart Feldman and Engineering junior
Aaron Jacobovits display their technology yesterday.
Students protest in defense of affirmative action
Speech on time
travel delights 'U'
CONNERLY
Continued from Page :A
California did not save affirmative
action in 1996.
"There were groups in California
saying 'We're mobilizing.' They did
not do that much," he said.
In recent months, the affirmative
action debate has heated up on campus
as a result of the two lawsuits filed
*gainst the University that target its
use of race as a factor in its admissions
policies. Connerly said the court will
eventually strike down the University's
use of race in admissions.
"It points to the fact that there are
people who feel they are being dis-
criminated against by the University,"
Connerly said. "Ultimately, it will be
the court that will have to resolve the
issue. The courts are going to say,
ou cannot use race, even if it is used
to achieve diversity."'
Taking a broader step than the law-
suits, state Rep. Deborah Whyman
(R-Canton) recently annouced plans
to collect signatures to put an initia-
tive on the November ballot to elimi-
nate "racial preferences."
Whyman, who attended the speech,
said she plans to start collecting the
required 310,000 signatures next week.
* "If it goes on the ballot, it will
pass," Whyman said.
Connerly, who helped pass Prop.
209, which banned the use of affir-
mative action in the state of
California in 1996, said Whyman has
a strong case for a similar initiative in
Michigan.
State Sen. David Jaye (R-Macomb)
said he was disappointed that the
crowd did not allow Connerly to
>eak, adding that the structure of the
event created additional difficulties.
Jaye said audience members who do
not support affirmative action should
have been allowed to speak.
Amid shouts of, "How come
you're so two-faced" and "Let him
speak," students told Connerly that
they are part of a national movement
to halt the resegregation of the
United States.
"Let's embrace our differences,"
shouted LSA first-year student Boyd
White, who asked all University stu-
dents to fight for equality. "United we
stand, divided we fall."
But others heralded Connerly's
message.
"Affirmative action is demeaning to
minorities, and it should be done away
with out of respect for equality," said
RC sophomore William Wetmore.
Hours before Connerly's speech
began, more than 100 picketers held
signs and waited in front of the
League, chanting, "Back to segrega-
tion, we won'L go; Ward Connerly's
plan, hell no!"
RC first-year student Daniel Kahn
said he joined the protest to show
Connerly how University students
felt about his visit.
"I think it's an interesting stop for
him to make because he should
know that he has a lot of enemies
here, and we're going to let him
know that," Kahn said.
LSA junior Dan Keebler criticized
the picketers, saying their demonstra-
tion lacked substance.
"It's a lot of noise, weak arguments
and a lot of show," Keebler said.
One protester said Connerly is
being manipulated by the anti-affir-
mative action movement.
"He's more like a puppet -- a per-
son who can't think for himself. He's
conditioned," said LSA senior
Larthell Hasan. "He's sitting on his
little high chair and doing whatever
he has to do to keep that position.
He's like a slave obeying his master."
- Daily Staff reporter Eliana Raik
contributed to this report.
By Sam Stavis
Daily Staff Reporter
In the classic movie "Back to the
Future," Marty McFly travels back in
time, and his teenage mother takes a
rather unmotherly liking to him.
To secure his own future, McFly has
to make sure his mother falls in love
with his hopelessly uncool father.
Does this violate the laws of time
travel? Is time travel even possible?
Physics Prof. Yukio Tomozawa dis-
cussed brain-teasers such as these at last
night's public lecture on time travel, pre-
sented by the Student Astronomical
Society.
The presentation caused an audience
overflow at the Kuenzel Room in the
Michigan Union, attracting a variety of
curious University students. The ques-
tion on nearly everyone's mind was
whether time travel is possible.
"Time travel is a subject which may
be science or may be fiction,"
Tomozawa said.
Tomozawa addressed many different
topics of time travel, ranging from
wormholes to black clouds to multiple
universes. The material was presented
with minimal mathematics, and ques-
tions were encouraged during the show.
Traveling to the future is easy to
explain and "scientifically correct,"
Tomozawa said.
According to Einstein's Special
Theory of Relativity, if a person travels
away from and back to the Earth at
almost the speed of light, less time will
have elapsed for the traveler than for the
people staying still.
In essence, the traveler will have
gone to the future.
"The only' problem is, going close to
the speed of light is difficult,"Tomozawa
said. "It requires a lot of energy."
Another problem is that this process
is irreversible. Once in the future, the
traveler can't return to the past by
means of a similar process.
Although traveling back in time is a
more complicated topic, it is still possi-
ble, Tomozawa said. It requires entering
and exiting a black hole, which is
accepted by most of the scientific com-
munity as impossible.
"One has to change the concept that
nothing can come out from a black
hole," Tomozawa said.
In order to do this, the time traveler
would have to enter a special kind of
black hole, Tomozawa said.
The small size and incredible density
of an ordinary black hole causes "tidal"
effects on objects near it, where the force
of gravity differs across the object. Only
objects on the atomic level will survive
these brutal shearing forces.
In a human body, this can cause the
"spaghettification" process, ripping the
body apart.
In order to safely enter a black hole,
it would have to be huge - similar to
the size of a quasar. It would also have
to be environmentally friendly.
Once inside this black hole, a person
conceivably could travel to the past in
either the same or alternate dimensions.
Despite the complicated nature of the
subject, Tomozawa made his points
clearly and concisely, some audience
members said.
"We try to gear our presentations to
the general public," said LSA junior
Dale Kocevski, a member of the
Student Astronomical Society and an
organizer of the event. "We try to stay
away from any mathematics."
But what about McFly?
Tomozawa did not fail to include in
his presentation that, thanks to a Chuck
Berry guitar riff and a lightning-pow-
ered DeLorean, Marty McFly managed
to get his parents together, and go back
... to the future.
EMILY NATHAN/Daily
University students and Ann Arbor residents protest Ward Connerly's speech
against racial preferences in front of the Michigan League.
LAN SING
Continued from Page 1A
a person's skills.
The anti-affirmative action move-
ment has taken off in California,
where voters in 1996 approved a pro-
posal forbidding state and local gov-
ernments from discriminating against
or granting preferential treatment to
any individual or group on the basis
of race, sex, color, ethnicity or nation-
al origin.
California Gov. Pete Wilson pushed
the issue even further last week by
formally ending enforcement of a
California law giving preferences in
state contracting to firms owned by
minorities and women.
Connerly said he doesn't know if
Michigan residents are as receptive to
ending affirmative action as
California voters have been.
If the response he got yesterday
was any indication, the answer is no.
The heavily black audience taunt-
ed Connerly, who also is black.
Connerly decried the "tactics of
intimidation."
"Programs that treat people differ-
ently are hanging on by a thread," he.
said.
U U111111111
lit
1 .4k A
Learn
skills to
improve both
yourself and
* your organization.
This conference is free
to all U of M students.
Registration deadline
is Wednesday, March 25th.
Registration forms are
available at SAL, 2209 Union.
Student Activities
and Leadership Office
A Division of Student Affairs
www.umich.edu sa6350
salead~umich.edu 763-5900
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