Brane Space

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Facing A Half-Billion Bond To Appeal How Many More Grifter Gimmicks Has Trump Up His Sleeve?

Trump trots out his $399 gold sneakers at 'Sneaker Con' in Philly

Bleeding cash, after facing pressure from NYC AG Letitia James to put up almost $500m for a bond in order to appeal his tax inflation-deflation conviction, Traitor Trump appeared this past weekend at Philly's Sneaker Con — a footwear convention for shoe aficionados and collectors.

Onstage, the Reepos' front-running, Putin-loving traitor - who has doubled down on inviting Russian attacks on NATO countries- held up golden sneakers emblazoned with his “T” logo and the American flag. Some in the crowd cheered as the president called the shoes “the real deal.”

What real deal, maestro? You mean they won't not fall apart after walking or running in them for a block, like your Trump University cratered? Then boasting:

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time! I think it’s gonna be a big success.”

The only "big success" in fact, is likely going to be the scamming of a multitude of dummies and suckers into buying his “Never Surrender High-Tops”. These garish clown shoes are just the latest product in the endless line up of grifter gimmicks to entice the low IQ demographic to dump money into his bogus presidential campaign or subsidize his gargantuan legal bills.

The moronic red 'Make America Great Again' ball caps have already made scads of money for him to lure millions of bucks from the pockets and bank accounts of millions of grievance-filled dopes. Nor will these likely be the last. This grifter needs tons of money - literally hundreds of millions - to pay off all his fines, legal penalties as well as billable hours (which by now must total 1 billion).These have now exploded after two verdicts, one awarding $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll and $355m in fines for his New York tax manipulation schemes.

Aside from the infamous “Make America Great Again” red caps, the insurrectionist's lines of merchandise have included shirts sporting his mug shot as well as Trump-branded vodka, cologne, shirts, ties — even furniture. According to a website dedicated solely to Trump’s sneakers, the shoe line is “super limited” — only 1,000 pairs were being sold.

In other words, assuming all the shoes have sold out - i.e. at least a thousand dummies with four hundreds bucks each to blow on sneakers, the orange imp will make $400,000. But that isn't even enough to cover lawyer Alina Alba's billable hours for one week. So no, I don't buy it's "super limited", I buy it's a test run to see if Trump's minions are prepared to shell out even more $$$ to support him.

The small print on the site notes that the shoes are not “designed, manufactured, distributed or sold” by Trump or his organization but rather by a company identified as 45Footwear, LLC, which uses Trump’s name and likeness under a license agreement. The site claims to be “not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign.”

But Dotard seemed to imply that the shoes were part of an effort to reach younger voters, saying: “We’ve got to get the young people out to vote.”

Why any young person - say between 18 and 24 - would cast a vote for this orange pestilence is beyond me. That would mean they do not give a rat's ass about the planet's climate, their own future reproductive rights, or the nation's future - not necessarily in that order.

But never fear. There appear to be plenty of dummies Trump has hooked on his fake success shtick. By Sunday morning, the shoes appeared to have sold out and Trump’s site promised they are estimated to ship in July.

The site also offers two different $199 pairs of Trump shoes — not gold, but red or white. The perennial traitor misfit is also selling a new cologne on the site, “Victory,” which the site promises to ship out by June. The stuff is described as “the signature scent of strength and success” designed “for the decisive and the bold.” Read: Insurrectionist loons and traitors.

Also dummies. Buying grift from this orange baboon and thinking he has superior mastery in economics over Biden as a "businessman". Never mind he cratered 6 businesses into bankruptcy before even running for president.

In his speech on Saturday Trump brought a crying supporter on stage. The woman exclaimed:

"My kids need you, Trump. I love this man, we need him. He's a good Christian. He's a good honest man, go out and vote for Trump."

Lady, a "good Christian" doesn't grab pussies, rape other women (like E. Jean Carroll) and brag about putting to death our top generals (like Gen. Mark Milley), while vowing that if elected he would allow Russia to "do anything they want" to NATO countries.

Now as to some good news, though we know it may not impact the November election as much as a real patriot might want: A new poll of historians which came out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranked Joe Biden as the 14th-best president in American history, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. True, that may not get Mr. Biden a spot-on Mount Rushmore, but it certainly puts him well ahead of Mr. Trump, who places dead last as the worst president ever. But you already knew that, right?

See Also:

Donald Trump

Trump’s Brand Is Now Synonymous With Fraud and Failure After $450M Judgment

by Carl Gibson | February 18, 2024 - 7:01am | permalink

— from Alternet

Former President Donald Trump's business empire was dealt a severe blow by New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday, and one longtime Democratic strategist is arguing that the nine-figure judgment is a lasting stain on Trump's image as a savvy business magnate.

In a Saturday column for the Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal — who was a senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton — wrote that despite his father, Fred, trusting him with both his sizable real estate portfolio and the family's name, Trump has been "steering the family legacy on to the rocks."

"Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling on Friday concludes the nearly century-long history of the Trump Organization in New York in disgrace and ruin," Blumenthal wrote. "The Trump brand is now adjudicated to be synonymous with fraud and failure."

The $355 million judgment Engoron handed down comes with roughly $90 million in interest that accrues every day the sum is not paid, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James. That means the former president's civil fraud judgment hovers around the half-billion mark. According to Blumenthal, this marks a new low for Trump, who — along with his father Fred — reached their "pinnacle of acceptance" in New York City in the late 1970s.

And:

Donald Trump | Republicans

‘They Are Going To Empty the Coffers’: GOP Panics As Trump’s Legal Costs Hurt Fundraising

by Carl Gibson | February 25, 2024 - 7:19am | permalink

— from Alternet

Former President Donald Trump's mounting legal bills are threatening the Republican Party's ability to fundraise ahead of a pivotal presidential election.

The Washington Post reports that the Republican National Committee (RNC) is already starting to fret about its finances given that it's trailing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in fundraising by an almost three-to-one margin. The DNC has roughly $25 million in cash on hand, compared to the RNC's $8.7 million. And between President Joe Biden's campaign and the Trump campaign, the difference looms even larger: Biden had more than $56 million in cash available by the end of January 2024, whereas Trump had less than $31 million. At the end of 2023, Biden also led in unique donors, with 172,000 to Trump's 143,000 unique donors.

Leading GOP figures are now starting to question whether that gap can be closed at all given that Trump still needs to pay for his legal defense in four looming criminal trials this year.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Michigan State Univ. Adopts A New 'Rubric' For Graduate Physics Admissions: Is It Really A Better Way?

MSU physics grad students work on a problem in class.

Entry criteria for MSU Physics Grad students

The admission of graduate students to post-bachelor’s physics programs is a complex and challenging system. Any graduate director, faculty member, or graduate student can recount their own vivid experience with that complicated and, quite often, opaque process, but in the late 1970s not so much. My graduate school entry was based on submitting undergraduate transcripts, GRE test score results and passing a physics qualifying exam.

But Michigan State in its latest iteration for setting admission standards has evidently gone ‘over the top’. While an applicant to a US physics graduate program will typically submit their CV, undergraduate transcripts, letters of recommendation, and multiple written statements covering such topics as their personal history, research experience, motivations and goals for attending graduate school, my own requirements to attend U.W.I.

But according to Physics profs at MSU, writing in the July, 2023 issue of Physics Today : “Our department began to rethink its graduate admissions process in 2016.”

That led to the faculty members deciding on five categories for a rubric that aligned with both their previous experience from reviewing applications and the recommendations of the workshop leaders: academic preparation, research experience, noncognitive competencies, fit with program, and GRE scores.

Each of the categories was then further divided into subcategories that mapped onto specific information about the applicant, such as their technical skills, their GPA in physics courses, and whether their research interests aligned with those of faculty members. Information to assess the subcategories, of which there are 18 in total, comes from the applicant’s materials, which include transcripts, a CV, a personal statement, a research statement, and letters of recommendation. (Refer to the lower graphic above).

Was this a case of academic overkill? That can be debated. At first blush it appeared the team's approach made sense and was practical, as they noted:

"We found that before we started using the rubric, our model could correctly predict whether three out of every four applicants would be admitted based on only the applicant’s GREP score, GPA, and score on the quantitative portion of the standard GRE. "

But then the MSU team admitted (ibid.):

"The data from after we started using the rubric are murkier. Those three numbers are no longer determinative of whether an applicant will be admitted, which does make it seem like we are evaluating applicants on a broader set of criteria."

Which is true, as inspection of the table shows. Statistically, it makes sense the determinative aspect would lessen as the number of subcategories for evaluation increase. This is particularly so for the more subjective subcategories, like: research disposition, achievement orientation, conscientiousness, perseverance and alignment with faculty. All of which, I'd argue, can be dropped with minimal loss of evaluation accuracy. After all, who is to say how much perseverance a grad student really displays? Is that observer monitoring the student all the time, seeing the late night burning of the "midnight oil" invested? Likely not. As for "alignment with faculty" that is about as subjective and variable as one can get given faculty interest in research can often turn on a dime even in the same semester or quarter.

The MSU team then goes on to admit:

"But even when we used the rubric scores to build a model, the resulting simulation was not able to predict whether a given student will be admitted. Perhaps the lack of a few predictive features signifies that our admissions process has become more holistic and that the rubric has created multiple routes to admission. "

This obviously constitutes a major failing of the MSU rubric scores, if they can't predict whether a student will be admitted. It kind of defeats the purpose and I attribute that to the imbalance of actually predictive (or determinate) criteria. Hence, I'd argue the model stands a better chance of predicting future admission using the original criteria.

Still it is gratifying to read:

"We’re currently working on determining what parts of the application are driving admissions decisions so that we can know for sure."

While also acknowledging that the new rubric with all the 18 subcategories has succeeded in: "admitting more applicants from underrepresented groups in physics without increasing the time required for faculty to review applications."

That's definitely a plus and physics graduate department observers will impatiently await the MSU team's next moves in showing what sections of its application process delivers most 'bang for the buck."

Friday, February 16, 2024

Now We Know: Media Focus On Biden's Age Is A Case Of Media Malpractice

"Maybe the media will ignore this trial for my sake!"

“Surely, our fearless media, defender of truth and our Republic, will ensure that all Americans are aware of this critical fact of an FBI guy (Smirnov) lying for Republicans during a pivotal election in our history ...

Nah, too busy with Biden's mental state. Just like they were with Clinton's email and the Clinton Foundation in 2016, which was part of the reason we ended with Trump in the first place.” - Commenter on Washington Post after an FBI informant was charged with lying about Hunter Biden and Burisma

It has now become painfully clear again that the U.S. print media cannot be trusted to do its job. This imbalance in our media - treating both Trump and Biden as normal candidates (but one with major mental decline) while the traitor seditionist gets numerous passes is at the core of it. This may be why media analyst Margaret Sullivan came right out writing current media coverage is "nothing short of journalistic malpractice."

She referred to how the Hur Hack report by a dubious special counsel (or rather a Reep plant masquerading as one) circulated on all major papers and their websites with very little in the way of fact checking. Including that Robert Hur violated a number of DOJ guidelines to produce that hit job on President Biden. When in fact. as former DOJ prosecutor Andrew Weismann observed a week ago on ALL In, his report should have been no more than 1 page (not 345), the same as the one clearing Mike Pence for his own documents case. He thus had no warrant to perform an expansive 344 page editorialization of Biden's mental state when he lacked any professional background for such. He overstepped the bounds of justice and propriety by doing such a hack job on a president who stands at the gate guarding against a traitor's advance. Is Hur a traitor's accomplice? His actions suggest as much, but one thing for sure, the media would have to act as accomplices too given all the coverage they gave to it,

Biden’s Doddering Document Defense

Special counsel Robert Hur says a jury might not convict the elderly, forgetful President.

Let's recall the media already acted the part of bad actors in 2016 when the cumulative negative coverage of Hillary Clinton's email habits generated a pseudo - scandal that helped propel the pussy grabber Trump into the White House (along with Russian help). The same media basically is at it again, this time harping on Biden's age and cognitive fitness onto which the bogus Hur report tossed gasoline. This despite Trump only being three years and 7 months younger but he gets a pass because "he talks with energy and calls people names, yells insults". Yeah, well my niece's three- year old does too but that doesn't make the toddler presidential.

Never mind. The U.S. media continues to play the "both sides" game, somehow convinced that if they offer any consistent, sustained negative coverage of Trump - as when he bellowed Saturday about getting the Russians to attack NATO nations - then they must go after Biden on the age side.

This despite the fact Trump displays just as many or even more mental lapses, as well as lies, name mix ups and gaffes (e.g. mixing up Nikki Hayley and Nancy Pelosi, China with North Korea). A guy so addled he thinks repeating "person, man, woman, camera, TV" proves otherwise (yet really only proving his vocabulary is no more than 400 words as Anne Coulter insisted not long ago). But all this gets far less examination than Biden's word gaffes.

As for the "Russia go attack 'em" yelp which he's now doubled down on, historian Douglas Brinkley called him out yesterday on 'Morning Joe' noting:

“I never would have thought Trump could go lower than his dictator for a day remarks, but his proposed mafiosi shakedown of NATO countries did just that and his doubling down on those remarks makes him unfit for command. Ronald Reagan would have gone ballistic against Russia even thinking about using nukes to take out satellites.

And here now is Trump, in an age Russia is prepared to put nuclear weapons in space saying like ‘Ah Putin’s not so bad and I’ll back him if he attacks Lithuania”.

Adding:
“I blame people like Lindsey Graham who are too afraid to break with Trump. Ronald Reagan would have gone ballistic again Russia - and any former American president for even thinking such a thing."
But sadly, our media is cool playing this degraded, despicable game which they are convinced confers journalistic "objectivity" on them. It doesn't. It's journalistic malpractice as Ms. Sullivan has noted. The media, like the sleepwalking public, has now become so inured to Trump's outrages, falsehoods and malevolence we have entered the realm of white noise. A deadly state of numbness and mental detachment that may well cost us our democracy.
Add to this the pundits, like the hare-brained WSJ op-ed columnist Peggy Noonan, e.g.
Democrats Are Too Resigned to Biden - WSJ
Who insists Biden "step aside" and "be a hero", and you grasp the extent of the problem. This suggested for a president who has been responsible for:

- Booming jobs and an economy outdoing all others in the world.
- Keeping NATO in support of Ukraine.(Trump didn't even have the basic decency to mention the death of Putin opponent Alexei Navalny).
- Bringing respect, responsibility and resolve to America by supporting allies.

Peggy, daft as ever, writes:
“This is what Democrats argue: There is nobody else. But there is. Here we summon the usual names, starting with the Gs—Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Add Jared Polis, Josh Shapiro, all the candidates of the 2020 primary.”
None of whom, possibly with the exception of Newsome, have any serious name recognition, and nine months is inadequate time to build it. Plus, they lack the power of incumbency Biden has. As for Newsome, Atlantic staff writer Caitlin Flanagan shot down that option last Friday night on Real Time, noting how the GOP already has an attack plan ready for him based on: San Francisco crime waves and homelessness, soaring home prices in the Golden State, and coddling migrants with "sanctuary cities." But maybe Peggy is too dumb to know - or have researched- any of that. As when she also brain farts:
"Lyndon B. Johnson, the last president to decline to seek a second term, dropped out on March 31, 1968. There was still time for contenders to launch and fund races. "
Ah yes, LBJ, four years after he launched the Vietnam War based on the pretext of the Tonkin Gulf incident. He did drop out, only to hand the election to Richard Milhous Nixon who stomped LBJ's Veep Hubert Humphrey. Next up for Pegs?
"The Democratic Party is a mess,"
Uh, no Peggy, the Reeptard party is a mess. They couldn't even get a bipartisan border bill through after yammering about it for donkey's years. One of their own in the Senate - conservo Paul Lankford - negotiated it and the imps shot it down. Then their moronic impeachment effort of Biden went up in flames yesterday when the key witness- an FBI informant - was charged with lying his ass off. And you talk about the Dems being a "mess". Let me give you a clue: Any party that takes orders from a two-bit traitor criminal like Trump is not only a mess but an unmitigated disaster. It ought to have the living daylights stomped out of it and its leader - assuming a sane media and rational voting populace.
Fortunately, we have powerful voices like former DOJ spokesperson Neal Katyal who articulately summed up Trump's circular immunity arguments last night, e.g.
'Recipe for disaster': Neal Katyal breaks down Trump's circular immunity argument (msnbc.com)
As fellow guest (and former DOJ prosecutor) Andrew Weismann also pointed out, the payoff case which will now begin March 25- and which have Trump's lawyers bawling- is not minor. It entails serious election violations including paying off a porn star to hide Trump's sex escapades in order to get elected in 2016. In addition falsifying 34 business records to ensure the concealment.
All this could earn the swine 4 years in the slammer.
"Bring it on!"
So as Mr. Weissmann warned, never mind the scatter -brained pundits who insist this is a 'nothingburger'. It is major and may well be the actual case that nets a conviction. Diss and exploit porn stars at your own peril.
See Also:
Donald Trump | Media
Journalists Have Already Moved on From Trump’s Fascist Rhetoric—That Is a Serious Mistake
by Chris Edelson | February 20, 2024 - 6:50am | permalink
Excerpt:
It is profoundly surreal to observe that, in the year 2024, Donald Trump’s breath is rank with the fetid stench of fascism. Of course, fascism has visited the United States in the past, but it was still dizzying, late last year, to hear a former U.S. president pledge to “root out the communists, Marxists…and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of the country” while despicably slandering immigrants for “poisoning the blood of our country.” There is no mystery here. Trump is parroting classic fascist rhetoric of the sort deployed by Hitler and Mussolini.
It would be tempting to dismiss Trump as a backward-thinking Neanderthal, like the character in The Great Gatsby who, after insisting that others heed his warnings about the imminent collapse of the “Nordic race”, is dismissed by the narrator as an ignoramus reduced to “nibbl[ing] at the edge of stale ideas.” The problem, of course, is that Trump is not a fictional character but rather someone with a very real chance of returning to the White House in this year’s election.
Unfortunately, media attention seems already to have moved on from Trump’s fascist rhetoric. This is serious stuff that will demand close and sustained scrutiny. Trump is putting fascism on the ballot and it is essential that voters understand exactly what his election would mean.
And:
Donald Trump
Fix the Insurrection Act Before Trump Uses it to Create a Police State
by Thom Hartmann | February 15, 2024 - 7:56am | permalink
— from The Hartmann Report
Excerpt:
When Senator Tommy Tuberville (who just took Putin’s side on the Ukraine invasion) was meeting with the Trump family and team the night of January 5th in the DC Trump Hotel, plans had already been laid for the Proud Boys and other fascist street gangs to seize control of the Capitol to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 7-million-vote victory.
The key would be invoking the Insurrection Act, a basket of laws dating from 1792 to 1874 that’s been used a bit over two dozen times, the first by George Washington and the most recent by President George HW Bush in response to the riots that erupted around the police beating of Rodney King.
The Act gives the president wide latitude to decide what is and isn’t an insurrection, and how to respond to one.
There is virtually no congressional or judicial oversight: this act is the single most powerful weapon a rogue president can use to execute a coup and seize complete control of the nation.
And:
Republicans
House GOP Can’t Wait To Have Hearings on How Old Biden Really Is
by Joan McCarter | February 16, 2024 - 7:44am | permalink
— from Daily Kos
Excerpt:
House Republicans aren’t even waiting for the Justice Department to respond to their demand for the transcripts of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. They are already planning the hearing with Hur probing into how old Biden really is. Hur has been preparing for his starring role.
Hur found no evidence against Biden in the documents-handling case he was investigating, which rose to a prosecutable level. But the former Trump official needed to do a solid for Republicans, so he added in a lot of gratuitous hits on Biden’s age in his report, which legal experts have called “a partisan hit job.”
According to Axios, Hur has been consulting with fellow former Trump official Sarah Isgur, who was Trump’s Department of Justice PR flak. Isgur has been helping him prepare to “navigate a congressional hearing.” Isgur has also been making the rounds of the Sunday shows and lying about Hur’s findings. Isgur said on ABC’s “This Week,” "They found evidence that (Biden) willfully retained national security information. And even probably beyond a reasonable doubt." The report actually said "we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," hinting at just how much of a set-up for the GOP his report was.
And:
How Not To Become "Sheeple" For Authoritarians And Why The U.S. Media Must Do Its Part

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Improving Proton Beam Therapy For Better Cancer Treatment - Depends On Tweaking Cyclotron Energies

Comparing degrees of localization of proton beam therapy with other treatment modalities, in terms of dose v, tissue depth.

The basis of 'momentum cooling' for proton beam therapy

I (briefly) considered getting proton beam therapy when my prostate cancer was first diagnosed back in July, 2012. However, my wife (a former radiotherapy software specialist) convinced me that high dose rate brachytherapy - which her company specialized in - was the better option. Plus, she knew the best center in the nation to get it: the Helen Diller Cancer Center at University of California - San Francisco and had worked with the world-famous oncologists there . She was also skeptical proton beam centers existed that could give 100 percent assurance and confidence that through all the 30 or so days of treatment one would not see a "geographical miss". That is, the proton beam hitting a critical region like the bladder or lower bowel instead of the cancer, putting an unwanted micro-hole in either.

For those not aware, proton beam treatment is a form of external beam therapy in which positively charged particles (protons) are accelerated to 60 percent of the speed of light, or 180,000 kilometers per second. They are constrained to form a powerful beam that can be programmed to deposit most of its energy directly into a target tumor - say in the prostate gland - minimizing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissues (say bladder and lower bowel in the case of prostate tumors)

As seen in the graphic at top, x-rays still remain the tool for most radiotherapy. They deposit their energy everywhere along their path in tumor and healthy cells alike. Hence, the potential for averse side effects. Protons, by contrast, have scattering cross sections that depend inversely on their kinetic energy. So a proton passing into tissues slows down in increments and leaves most of its energy right before it stops. By controlling the beam's direction and initial kinetic energy clinicians can position the radiation-affected region in all 3 dimensions.

In practical terms, however, controlling proton kinetic energy is not so simple. Clinicians and oncologists basically need proton energies ranging from 60 Mev - for tumors close to the body's surface- to 230 Mev for tumors tens of centimeters deep. Problem is that a single cyclotron produces proton beams at just one energy and it would be exorbitantly expensive to have a cyclotron for every energy needed. Most proton therapy centers use cyclotrons at the top of the energy range, 230-250 MeV, but this is where the greatest inefficiency enters.

True, one can turn high-energy protons into lower-energy protons by passing them through a chunk of solid material, usually carbon. But the energy-degradation process also turns a monoenergetic proton beam into one with a considerable energy spread—no longer suitable for clinical use, because the protons’ localized depositions of energy, known as Bragg peaks, are no longer all in the same place. The standard approach is to use a dipole magnet to disperse the protons by energy and then pass them through a slit to select protons with as close to a single energy as possible. Most of the protons, as a result, are thrown away.

The waste is worst at low clinical energies. The more the cyclotron protons need to be degraded, the larger their energy spread, and the lower the fraction transmitted through the energy-selection slit. For target energies greater than 200 MeV, perhaps 10% or more of the initial protons can be salvaged. But for target energies less than 100 MeV, less than 1% can.

Existing ion-optics setups treat the two dimensions perpendicular to the beam symmetrically, and they apply the same focusing and defocusing forces in both directions. But the dimensions aren’t symmetrical—in part, because the protons are dispersed by energy in one direction but not the other. It turns out that recent research by V. Maradia et al (1, 2) has shown that by accounting for that asymmetry, they could improve transmission by up to a factor of six.

There remains the greatest source of inefficiency: the protons discarded at the energy-selection slit. The solution, it turned out, was deceptively simple. The protons were already dispersed by energy, and their momentum can be slowed by passing them through solid material. So Maradia et al proposed sticking a wedge into the beam, as shown in the lower graphic at top of post. from a cyclotron are tuned to the energies required for proton-beam therapy, they end up with a momentum spread p ± Δp that’s too wide for clinical use. The conventional approach is to use a dipole magnet (dark blue) to disperse the protons by momentum and then pass them through a slit to select out the protons with just one momentum value, p.

But if, instead, a wedge-shaped absorber is used to cool all the protons momentum to p – Δp, more protons can make it through the beamline and into the patient. Long story short, Maradia came up with the momentum-cooling idea on his own, but he noticed afterward that wedge-shaped absorbers had been used before in other areas of particle physics, such as muon experiments.³ To be sure muons had not been considered before for proton therapy, perhaps because when the protons scatter off the wedge, their momentum spread perpendicular to the beam increases. But Maradia and colleagues’ improved ion optics were equipped to handle the increased spread.

The results have been positive but modest: From an initial fraction of 0.27% of protons, the wedge increased transmission almost twofold, to 0.5%. Why such a small improvement? The beamline as a whole was designed on the basis of the assumption that only protons with one specific energy would ever make it through to the patient. After being dispersed by the dipole magnet, most of them collide into the beamline walls before they even reach the wedge. If the dipole magnet deflected the protons at a shallower angle, the loss could be mitigated, and the researchers estimate that transmission at the lowest energies could be boosted to perhaps 7%. Making such a change to an existing beamline is probably not feasible. But according to Maradia it would be relatively easy to incorporate momentum cooling into future proton-therapy centers.

Alas, all these improvements would simply be too long in coming to have any benefit to me now, though my urologist has proposed the nanoknife as a radiotherapy option to deal with further metastasis. The problem is that this procedure entails general anesthesia and I have already suffered significant memory dropouts from three administrations of such over 18 months in 2016-17, see e.g.