Fantasy vs Science Fiction

This is a draft. I might revise it.

There is a typically acknowledged spectrum of genres that leads from "hard" science fiction to science fiction to science fantasy to fantasy. Anyone with an ounce of integrity working in these genres will admit that the dividing line between most sci-fi and fantasy is a matter of convention and labeling. From Wikipedia: "A hand-held cloaking device that confers invisibility is science fiction; a hand-held Ring of Power that confers invisibility is fantasy."  It's an arbitrary distinction. 

As Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," I propose to take that at face value, and to its logical conclusion. And as Mr. Spock wisely observed in James Blish's novel, Spock Must Die, "A difference which makes no difference is no difference." Therefore, fiction about sufficiently advanced technology is fantasy. The conclusion is inevitable and inescapable. This is as it must be, as we lack any frame of reference for stating with any level of confidence that the technology portrayed is in any way plausible whatsoever.

For me, it's really easy: only "hard" science fiction is science fiction. Everything else is fantasy, be it science-oriented fantasy or sword-and-sorcery. That keeps me from having to draw arbitrary lines and argue from atop shifting sands. It means I get to be relatively objective while everybody else is stuck justifying their prejudices. If your story honestly and sincerely extends the boundaries of current scientific knowledge in a way that extrapolates new discoveries or explores the ramifications of existing technologies in a plausible way, then you have science fiction. I don't mind some minor departures from the norm, as I myself posit in Quantum Propulsion and Other Random Thoughts. But these have to be kept to a minimum, in the spirit of "what if this theory is wrong?" If you're changing more than that, you're off in another Universe.

This is Science Fiction:

Apparently, there's a widely-believed myth in writing circles that you have to resort to fantasy to move the story along. well, you don't. 'Hard' science fiction can be immensely entertaining. I'm going to skip over gobs of it to go back to what I believe to be a quintessential example because it's also one of the very first examples. This is Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Today it's often thought of as an adventure story because so much of what Verne imagined has become commonplace. But the truth is that when he wrote it, it was speculative to the max. What makes it a good story to this day is that it doesn't suffer from the "oh, isn't that quaint!" reaction you get when reading the vintage works of lesser prognosticators. Keep in mind that this book was published in 1869. The United States was still scarred by the Civil War. It was the first ever year for professional baseball. Dmitri Mendeleev had just proposed the Periodic Table of the Elements.

So what did Verne 'invent' for his story?

• Fully 'modern' electrically-powered self-propelled submarines capable of extended periods of submersion (those exhibiting the capabilities of the Nautilus had to wait for the first World War, in 1914. Diesel-electrics weren't around until 1928)
• The Aqualung (invented in real life by Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943)
• Electric stoves (invented in real life by Canadian Thomas Ahearn in 1882)
• Practical electric lighting (commercialized by Edison in the 1880s)
• Highly accurate electric clocks.
• Wetsuits (1950s)
• Submarine warfare (later, H.G. Wells would invent modern aerial combat)

The nascent forms for all of these existed in his time. What Verne did was to take his knowledge of the state-of-the-art technology and extend it to answer the question, "within the limits of plausibility, to what degree can this be perfected, and what will be the practical result of perfecting this?" He then made the story fit the facts. He refrained from inventing 'facts' to further the story. Fantasy does it the other way 'round.

This is Fantasy:

Boy, do I love Star Trek. Ever since I watched "The Man Trap" on September 8th, 1966, I have loved it, and the original series in particular. I've posted a bit about it previously in this blog. I still love it. This makes it semi-painful to seem as though I don't like it, as in a recent Twitter discussion regarding sci-fi vs fantasy. But I've long since decided to be honest about it: Star Trek is not science fiction; it's science-oriented fantasy. Here are some of the fantastic elements:

• Human-alien hybrids. Somebody hasn't been paying attention to biochemistry. An exceptionally lame attempt to explain this away was made in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Chase by claiming that ancient astronauts had 'seeded' the various homeworlds of the galaxy, thereby implying that we would have common ancestry. I say 'exceptionally lame' because it doesn't take into account how distantly removed a common ancestor would have to be for a human to have hemoglobin-based (iron-based) blood while a Vulcan's is based on hemocyanin (copper-based). In other words, even given the 'explanation', you could no more have a child with a Vulcan than you could with an octopus.
• Transporters. Everything about them in recent series is retconned. The plan truth is that it's a cheaper special effect than landing the ship. They actually worked very well in the original series, where they were treated as "sufficiently advanced technology". The writers didn't get into serious trouble until they actually tried to explain them. Then they couldn't keep the damned story straight. First problem; no receiver. Then, the old explanation of "matter to energy conversion" would take GOBS of energy (and there's still no receiver), so they came up with a "matter stream" that never existed previously, and which would be impossible given the previously displayed capabilities... such as transmitting through solid matter without punching holes in it. So the writers had to solve the problem they created by claiming transmission across a "subspace domain". And there's still no receiver. Except, of course, when you want to beam UP. Then there's a receiver, but no transmitter! An honest man would call this a fantasy element; a deluded fanboy would throw another lame explanation at it. I'm a fanboy, but I'm not deluded. This is the definitive example of Leigh's First Rule of Speculative Fiction: If you can't explain it, DON'T.
• Rampant Telepathy. It's everywhere. But is it scientific? REALLY?? It amazes me that many of the same people who would defend such a thing also count themselves as skeptics. If there were a scientific basis for this particular ability then surely James Randi would be a million dollars poorer by now. It's not just telepathy; we see all forms of psionics, from telekinesis to disembodied 'entities' (logically indistiguishable from ghosts). The very purest form of fantasy, no matter how you try to dress it up in PhD's clothing.
  
• Deus Ex Machina. An entity like Q or an Organian can, with a snap of his simulated fingers, literally change the laws of the Universe. Uhm.... ok... yeah, that's like... scientific. NO!! I can't even play along with that!! It's just fantasy, and Q is a god. He's not the only one. We've seen Quetzalcoatl and Apollo, too. And they weren't pretenders, but were the real deal.
• Particle-of-the-Week. Also, Element of the Week. We don't get to make up elements. We just don't.  Although there can be exotic forms of matter, such as antimatter and neutronium, these exotic forms are found in exotic conditions. They aren't found in places hospitable to humans. In other words, it's not the sort of stuff you'll hold in your hand, or even a high-tech bucket. Science has given us a very nice Periodic Table of the Elements that really and truly accounts for all of the normal matter in the Universe. I know that if I go to another world, it will be made of iron and silicon and copper and oxygen and all of the elements that I find here on Earth. Nevertheless, Star Trek bombards us with a never-ending stream of elements and particles that aren't even postulated by science.

From the TNG episode, Rascals. The caption at the lower left reads, "This table lists those elements utilized by the standardized texts of the StarFleet Educational Texts. Other charts are available by accessing material under the heading 'Neat Stuff'.  Some of the elements listed include Cavorite, Cheesium, Harpo, Zeppo, Chico, Disneyium, and Daffyduckium. Would I lie? (source)

We'll leave it off at that, because I could extend this rant to book length if I were to include other WTFs depicted on the show like subspace, warp drive, interdimensional rifts, pocket universes, de-evolution, and wormholes. Mostly these are perverted science jargon. "Perverted" because the theoretical constructs don't exhibit the properties of their fictional counterparts. Wormholes for instance, are science... flying through one is fantasy. Nevertheless, traversable wormholes are among the most plausible of Star Trek's scientific liberties.

I'll close with this list of particles-of-the-week. Your job is to separate them into three columns:

1. those that are real

2. those that are postulated by real science

3. bullshit

Be warned! Some of the things that you "know" to be "real" are simply hypothetical constructs, without even the slightest bit of confirmation whatsoever that would raise them even from hypothetical to theoretical status.

• Anion
• Antichroniton
• Antielectron (see positron)
• Antigraviton
• Antilepton
• Antineutrino
• Antineutron
• Antiproton
• Antitachyon
• Anyon

• Baryon
• Beta-tachyon
• Boson

• Chroniton
• Chronometric particle

• Dekyon
• Duderon

• Electron

• Graviton

• Hadron

• Lepton

• Meson
• Methogenic particle
• Metreon
• Muon

• Nadion
• Neutrino
• Neutron
• Nucleogenic particle
• Nucleon
• Nucleonic particle

• Omega molecule
• Omicron particle

• Photon
• Polaron
• Polaric particle
• Polaric ion
• Positron (anti-electron)
• Proton

• Quark

• Radiogenic particle

• Tachyon
• Tetryon
• Thoron
• Trianium particle

• Verteron

• Warp particle

• Z-particle

The IBM Jeopardy! Challenge

I watched along with everyone else as Watson trounced Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Here is the first of a chain of YouTube videos documenting the event. Start here and link through to the others.



Here's an even nicer link to an IBM website describing Watson and the Jeopardy! challenge.

This was a very nice showcase for what is essentially a very sophisticated search engine by IBM. It was all very theatrical, and the whole three-day affair was designed to make you ooh and ahh over IBM's new tech. In this it was very successful. A lot of people have geeked out over it.

Here are some facts about Watson:

1. It is a huge affair as computers go. It's not so much "a computer" as a network of computers contained within 10 racks arranged in 2 banks... the equivalent of 2,800 computers, having 15 terabytes of memory.
2. For all of that power and capacity, Watson is optimized for one task only: playing Jeopardy! Watson is incapable of general problem-solving or thought. It doesn't hear; it doesn't see.
3. Watson has a distinct advantage over human competitors in two regards: reading speed and buzzer reflexes. Watson does not hear or read the questions; they are transmitted to the computer as a text file from the game board. In human terms this is nearly instantaneous. Watson also presses the buzzer button (identical to the ones the humans use) by means of an electronically controlled solenoid.

Here's what Watson doesn't do:

1. It doesn't understand natural language questions. It parses the questions (a loose definition, since Jeopardy! questions aren't really questions), and within the domain defined by the Jeopardy! category it searches for the best search result fitting key words and phrases within the category. We got a glimpse of Watson's thinking as it ranked its top 3 candidate answers. For some questions it was clear that the results didn't make sense as an answer. Sometimes when it got the right answer it wasn't correct as to whether the answer represented a "who" or a "what".
2. It doesn't run on a computer made of 3 pounds of meat. Meanwhile, in addition to playing Jeopardy!, computers composed of 3 pounds of meat can think, drive a car, and build computers like Watson.
3. It's not environmentally friendly. It's cooled by a huge bank of air conditioners. Each of the servers that composes Watson burned more calories in a single match than Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter does in an entire day. And neither Ken nor Brad is tied to his power source.

Sadly, I don't think that Watson represents a major leap forward in artificial intelligence. It's not even as tremendously huge a leap forward in search technology as IBM implies in the videos.

Try it yourself: Make up a Jeopardy! puzzler and type it into Google. The chances are the correct answer is listed in the first result. Here's my sample "question": "This condiment is the number one seller in the US". The correct answer is "What is salsa?" You'd've gotten it correct even if you'd clicked "I feel lucky" on the search page. You don't even have to drill into the page to get the answer... it's usually displayed in the search results.

What Watson is is a solid improvement in data analytics. Its major achievement is extracting the simple, direct answer from raw data that is readily returned by ANY competent search engine today. The size, speed, and capacity of Watson has less to do with that capability than it does with meeting the game requirement that a contestant's knowledge be self-contained. I'm not getting all googly-eyed over those specs because they're a distraction from the actual tech being displayed, which is the natural language parser and the data analytics.

If anything, what this challenge has proven is how incredibly easily we humans perform the incredibly difficult tasks of natural language processing, data analytics, and cognition. When you're using Google or Yahoo! or Bing, you use these facilities all the time, and the computer does what it does best... sift through the raw data. Presented with relevant data it only takes you a moment to recognize the correct answer and understand it. You do it extremely efficiently. Watson uses a tremendous amount of processing power to do the first two of these tasks, and does the third not at all.

Watson itself is a toy... a fantastically expensive game-playing computer. The technology behind it will underlie important tools in the future. But I'm not among those welcoming our computer overlords... they're not here yet.

---

(P.S. I was amused by one commentator's observation that Watson's avatar was a stylized "smiley face". I'm wondering if all his "observations" are equally myopic. It's a globe, folks. As in, this planet Earth. The continents are overlapping circles. It's based on IBM's "smarter planet" logo. Sheesh.)

The Periodic Table of Geek Musicians.

I've started a new project for charity, thanks to Edric Haleen. Click on the Periodic Table above to see what this is all about.

Memorable Quotes of the Year

I hear that a Yale professor has compiled a list of memorable quotes of 2010. Hmm... sounds like a fun idea, even though the year's not completely over yet. Before I trundle off to read his list, I'd like to compile my own. I expect that most will be political, as this was an election year. So without further rambling, and in order of how the pop up in my head, here they are:

1. At the top of my list is Nancy Pelosi's incredible statement, "... We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it..."; referring, of course, to the 'Obamacare' health-care reform bill.

-- Was she joking, or is she seriously ignorant about the way American legislation is supposed to be carried out? Or is the answer, perhaps, behind Door #3? Here's a hint: she wasn't joking.

2. Next up, Christine O'Donnell's political advertisement stating, "I am not a witch."

-- One thing you should know in any advertising campaign, including a political one, is that you should never, ever do your opponent's work for them. This ad simply dignifies charges that would otherwise be held to be ridiculous. In so doing, and with other gaffes, she solidly earned her loss.

3. Helen Thomas, referring to the people of Israel, said, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine." Pressed to answer where the Jews should go, she followed up with "They should go home, to Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else."

-- Hmm. Apparently, this country offers both free education and whatever the hell Helen Thomas got in place of an education. (Oddly, while you can find dozens of videos portraying the Pelosi quote above, it's difficult to find more than this Fox news clip of Helen Thomas. I'd've preferred one with just the quote.)

4. Buzz Aldrin, of Apollo 11 fame, gives us this gem in support of President Obama's scrapping of plans to put a permanent base on the Moon: "We've already been to the moon -- some 40 years ago."   (click the picture to read a New Scientist article about the policy changes)

-- correction, Buzz. You've stood on the Moon (though Mike Collins didn't). Meanwhile, all of the reasons we wanted to go there wand establish a permanent base in the 1960s remain unfulfilled.

5. Former CBS news anchor Dan Rather gave us this gem about President Obama: "...he couldn't sell watermelons if you gave him the state troopers to flag down traffic."

--  With this unfortunate imagery, Rather manages to prove that no matter how big his foot gets, he can still fit it in his mouth.

6. In July, the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince did a bizarre interview with The Daily Mirror, in which he declared that his album, 20TEN, would be distributed only on CDs in the Mirror on July 10th, and not on the Internet at all. Why? He says: "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it. The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." (click on the picture to read the interview)

-- Throughout the decade of the 2000s, Prince primarily released his records through his on-line subscription service, NPGMusicClub.com. He even won a "lifetime achievement" Webby award for it.. Hmm.... on second thought, judging from this interview, "can't be good for you" may be the understatement of the century.

7. Sharron Angle, while campaigning for the US Senate seat she lost to Harry Reid, opined, "I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

Sharon Angle's Armed Insurrection
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

-- Memorable indeed. Supremely unfortunate is the wording, "take Harry Reid out". That's as in, "replace him through a peaceful vote", not "assassinate him". Many people agreed about replacing him, but Obama has inoculated the electorate against change for change's sake. We now know to make sure the 'change' is for the better. The election was Angle's to lose, and with repeated quips like that she lost it. (To be honest, it was a little difficult picking a most memorable Sharron Angle quote. Her font is as deep as Joe "this is a f*cking big deal" Biden's)

8. Sarah Palin tweeted this in July, "Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate." She recalled the tweet when called on the invented word, "refudiate", and followed up with "'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'", which got her flak from some for "mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius" (click on the picture for CBS commentary)

-- The joke's on the detractors... Not only did they mistake having a self-depreciating sense of humor with "mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius"; she's actually right, we make up words all the time. 'Refudiate' is now a word, and she wasn't even the first to use it. Get over it.

9. Sir Elton John has this to say on the subject of religion: "I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems." (click on the picture for the interview in Parade magazine)

-- On the other hand, Voltaire once said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." ... or re-invent Him, as Sir Elton has just done. 

10. Republican Scott Brown won the US Senate seat that Democrat Ted Kennedy held for over 46 years. Alluding to observations that he had won "Ted Kennedy's seat," Brown responded in his victory speech, "This Senate seat belongs to no one person, to no one political party ... This is the People's seat."

-- Amen to that. 

  

So that's my Top 10 list!  Yes, it's US-centric... that's where I live and those are the people I hear. Now that I've revealed mine, I think I'll track down the Yale list and see if we have any in common.

The WHAT boy's NBA?

I missed this story when it first came out, but today on FoxNews, Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur who founded PayPal and financed Facebook, has been appealing to entrepreneurial college students to put their college plans on hold to start businesses. He's offering $100K to 20 students with workable ideas to put those plans into practice, setting aside their college plans for two years.

This led me to a Slate article by Jacob Weisberg, which - in addition to misreporting Theil's intent - tosses in a bit of racism that has apparently gone overlooked in the media, who, as twisted as they are, don't even see their hypocrisy.

Thiel's program is premised on the idea that America suffers from a deficiency of entrepreneurship. In fact, we may be on the verge of the opposite, a world in which too many weak ideas find funding and every kid dreams of being the next Mark Zuckerberg. This threatens to turn the risk-taking startup model into a white boy's version of the NBA, diverting a generation of young people from the love of knowledge for its own sake and respect for middle-class values.

(emphasis added)

Say WHAT? First of all, there is no "non-white boy's" version of the NBA. It's integrated, which for Weisberg's benefit means "anybody with ability can play." Nor is there any racial or gender-based component whatsoever in Thiel's proposal. Weisberg begins with the completely racist bias that presumes that when we're talking about good ideas for the marketplace, these will come from white males. Weisberg's assumption is despicable, as is his attitude and his inaccurate article.

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Weisberg plays the race card at every possible opportunity. He played it in the 2008 elections (and was proven wrong); he plays it against the Tea Party; he plays it even here where it's completely inappropriate. He uses race as a weapon of first resort and has the nerve to whine like a baby when someone notices. If nothing else, his writing teaches us that if he points his finger hard enough at others it's OK for him to be a bigot on his own time.

Discounting his cheap ad hominem attacks, Weisberg takes Thiel to task for nothing more than having consistent values and putting his efforts behind them, unlike the typical Conservative Republican ("hands out of my pocketbook, but I'll legislate your lifestyle") or Liberal Democrat ("give me your wallet, and I'll pay lip-service to staying out of your private life so long as you live it the way I think you should.").

From Thiel's own lips, the request is to defer university for two years, something ignored by Weisberg. The offer is extended to 20 students who are 20 years old or younger.  The reason for the offer is clear: Thiel does not confuse a degree with intelligence. If you have an idea and you have it now, this allows you to take that idea to market with a lowered barrier to entry. It doesn't matter who or where the idea is from.

Furthermore, Weisberg accuses Thiel of

"...the desire to clone oneself—perhaps literally in Thiel's case. Thus Thiel fellows will have the opportunity to emulate their sponsor by halting their intellectual development around the onset of adulthood, maintaining a narrow-minded focus on getting rich as young as possible, and thereby avoid the siren lure of helping others or contributing to the advances in basic science that have made the great tech fortunes possible."

Pot, meet Kettle. Weisberg believes that it's OK for liberal educators to clone themselves ... that's contributing to "intellectual development" when done in a university setting by academicians... but it's not OK for anyone else to do that, because any learning or development obtained from anyone except people just like you is "halting their intellectual development." Also he clearly indicates that taking an advance to market and actually earning a tech fortune does not make "the great tech fortunes possible." Note also his opinion that starting a company and providing jobs, products, and services isn't "helping others."

Wow... racism, sexism, hypocrisy, and ignorance, all in one Weisberg article!

Unfortunately, Weisberg doesn't stop there. You have here the added assumption that you actually need a university education to develop intellectually, with the implication that you cannot make anything of yourself without it. Not doing as he does is a diversion from "middle-class values".  This is the sort of sort of dumbshit Newspeak snow-job that has been perpetrated by the people whose job it is to sell these educations. Be clear: it is not the job of a university to educate... it is the job of a university to sell education. That is how they earn their salaries; it's how they buy groceries; it's how they pay the rent. It is in their vested interest to convince you that you should spend thirty thousand dollars for a French Literature degree so you can settle for a job at the video store (because God knows there's a burning need for French Lit majors) rather than continue your father's plumbing business and earn $60+ per hour. Meanwhile the French Lit major forks over half a day's wages when he needs his drain unclogged.

Entrepreneurial spirit and innovation isn't limited to Internet billionaires... they are firmly rooted "middle-class values" shared by the plumber, carpenter, electrician, hardware-store owner, grocer... etc. IOW, these values are shared by the actual middle-class, who own businesses and employ people and make it possible to live civilized lives; if not by Weisberg's imaginary middle-class populated entirely by academicians, journalists, and theoretical scientists. The point here is that these pseudo-intellectual Leftists have made a career of belittling people who have simply chosen to take their lives in a direction that the Leftists themselves would not have chosen. This is the basic lie behind the Leftist ideal of "personal freedom"... your freedom of choice is tolerated only so long as it is the "right" choice, as decided by your betters.

Here are a few news flashes, folks, in list form:

1. You don't have to be a white male to have a good idea.
2. You don't have to be a white male to start a company.
3. A university education should undertaken if it gets you to your goal. It is not a necessary requirement for acceptance and self-worth. If obtaining the degree does nothing to further your goal, then you should waste neither the money nor the time. Instead, you should apply it toward starting your business or even paying your rent. You should not be made to feel guilty about that.
4. Your "intellectual development" does not halt should you choose to do something other than buy a university education.
5. Thiel's foundation is designed to shepherd 20 young entrepreneurs over a two year period. It is not an appeal for mass exodus from college campuses.

Thiel has spent his time creating wealth and creating jobs through the practical application in the marketplace of excellent ideas; he is a successful entrepreneur who has expressed an interest in bettering society by providing opportunities to people who would otherwise see those opportunities pass by. Some people will avail themselves of these opportunities. That is their choice. They don't need to be lectured by the likes of Weisberg... one more hypocritical Left-wing elitist, racist, sexist windbag.


(Lest you think I'm lobbing this in from the far Right... think again. There's plenty of hypocritical nonsense on that side as well. But today I'm talking about Weisberg. And if you want to be a French Lit major... more power to you. I used it only as an example of people who attended college for no purpose other than obtaining a credential.)

Never Forget

Quack medical device ads make me sick

It must be the season for quack medicine ads.

Once again I've seen a never-ending parade of ads for i-Renew bracelets. I don't think I can add much to what Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal says about them, except to say this about the i-Renew "balance demonstrations": I got exactly the same results from people by having them hold an astounding new breakthrough "iridium amulet". In actuality the "amulet" was an arcade token in a velvet bag. People will fall for anything with the right pitch and a little applied leverage.

Remember Q-Ray bracelets? Same scam, different pitch. They're still around, sold for unbelievable prices, but they've toned down the marketing since they had to hand back $64.5 million in refunds and $22.5 million in net profits for false advertising. There's a superficially identical product out there called the Balance Bracelet.

The new kid on the block is the Power Balance bracelet. This one's not even trying to be credible. It's a little plastic bracelet with a cheap hologram embedded in it. The pitch?

WHAT IS POWER BALANCE?
Power Balance is Performance Technology designed to work with your body’s natural energy field. Founded by athletes, Power Balance is a favorite among elite athletes for whom balance, strength and flexibility are important.

HOW DOES THE HOLOGRAM WORK?
Power Balance is based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow, similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies. The hologram in Power Balance is designed to resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body.

Yes, they've managed to put "energy fields" and "technology" and Eastern philosophy in the same pitch, with holograms standing in as a cheap technological substitute for crystals. The bottom line on how it works is, ancient Chinese secret. Because, of course, we all know the legendary efficacy of ancient Chinese holograms. And it's important for us to know that it's founded by athletes because who else would know more about holograms and "energy fields" than jocks who want your money?

Does it work at all? Sure, placebos give some people the confidence they need to perform at the very same level they could have performed at with confidence alone and no bracelet. These work to exactly that degree. If they work to any further extent, then it is the responsibility of the peddlers to demonstrate, through scientific testing, that they do. Testimonials mean exactly nothing.

Keep in mind please, that the hologram diffracts visible light frequencies, and faces away from the body, blocked by the plastic bracelet in which it's embedded. Also keep in mind that I've personally demonstrated similar, if not identical, results using nothing more than a brass token in a bag and some not-very-fancy confidence patter. Be it with magnetism, "ionization", holography, or just plain magic, all of these products claim to do the same thing... they all "manipulate the body's natural energy field". Obviously this "energy field" is a highly malleable thing, to be affected by so many disparate influences. I think it's pretty clear that the only influence that matters is wishful thinking.

Oy veh. These are just the bracelets. I could rant all day on the bottles in the pharmacy, plainly labeled as follows:

"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease"

Even though they're marketed for precisely those purposes. In fact, I think I will rant all day. Another day.