Why are we marching for science?

Before the Portland March for Science began at 11 AM on Earth Day 2017, this was the question in my mind. Why? 
Because it was Earth Day and hundreds of cities worldwide were marching, I decided to try and think about it in a context broader than just Portland or the United States. So let's zoom out. In space and in time.

There are more than seven billion humans on planet Earth right now, which is an objectively spectacular number. As writer David Quammen puts it in his book "Spillover":

We're unique in this history of vertebrates. The fossil record shows that no other species of large-bodied beast — above the size of an ant — has ever achieved anything like such abundance as the abundance of humans on Earth right now.

And we’re not done achieving abundance. We will probably hit 9 billion in the next two decades. 

Now let’s look all the way back to the beginning of human civilization. In 8000 BC, the human population was about 5 million. Which means we made ourselves 14,000 times more abundant in 10,000 years. 

10,000 years may feel like a long time to us - I mean, there are young people alive today who think Pulp Fiction came out a long time ago - but 10,000 years is a tiny blip in the big picture of life on Earth. If you compressed all 500 million years of vertebrate life to 178 minutes - the running length of Pulp Fiction--the human success story of 10,000 years would be the equivalent of 0.21 seconds. So from the Earth’s perspective, not only did our population grow by stupendous numbers, it grew stupendously fast. 

Another important nuance to note about the human success story - it wasn’t a simple explosion in numbers like an algal bloom, because algae’s position in the food chain doesn’t change after the bloom. Our story is different. Our distant ancestors were just another mid-level player in the ecosystem, often surviving by scavenging from carcasses. 80,000 years later, we are the most powerful animal on Earth. How did this happen? 

The generally accepted story is that our distant ancestors’ brains evolved, giving them complex linguistic skills and making them good at pattern recognition, planning, forethought and cooperating in large numbers towards a common goal. This created an ever-expanding, shared body of knowledge that was then passed on to the next generation, who could continue to build on that instead of having to reinvent the wheel - literally.

Our ancestors never stopped gathering knowledge because they never stopped asking questions or coming up with hypotheses to explain the natural world. This process became much more effective after the Scientific Method was formulated in the 16th century. Our ancestors came to accept that any hypothesis, even if it was made by Aristotle, was worthless unless experimental evidence confirmed it. 

And so a scientific revolution ensued, and how has the average non-scientist person living today benefited from it? We have now doubled human life expectancy at birth and totally eradicated horrifying diseases like smallpox that killed over 300 million people in the 20th century alone. We split the atom, mastered cheap air travel, built near-instantaneous global communication networks and created vast amounts of wealth that raised living standards worldwide. 

As a layperson, I did not know until recently that many of these achievements have one thing in common - they probably would not have happened without government-funded organizations. In the United States, the federal agency National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) helped develop many aeronautical breakthroughs that are still used today – like retractable landing gear, jet engine compressors and turbines. Global eradication of small pox was conceived within the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The weaponization of nuclear energy was accomplished by the monumental US Department of Defense effort codenamed "Manhattan Project", whose administrator was a visionary by the name of Vannevar Bush. He, incidentally, proposed a desktop machine in 1945 called the “Memex” - "a sort of mechanized private file and library." This vision directly led to future work that created Hypertext and the invention of the computer mouse, without which the internet cannot function. 

After World War II ended in allied victory, Vannevar Bush wrote a report titled “Science, The Endless Frontier” describing the importance of continued government support for basic scientific research during peacetime. In this report, he admitted that “The scientist doing basic research may not be at all interested in the practical applications of his work, yet the further progress of industrial development would eventually stagnate if basic scientific research were long neglected”. Why is that? Bush explained: “One of the peculiarities of basic science is the variety of paths which lead to productive advance. Many of the most important discoveries have come as a result of experiments undertaken with very different purposes in mind.” 
He’s right. Wilhelm Röntgen was investigating the effect of passing electricity through gases at extremely low pressure when he discovered X-Rays in 1896. He won the Physics Nobel in 1901 and he couldn’t possibly have predicted that his investigation was going to revolutionize the field of medicine. When Clair Patterson discovered that the concentration of the toxic element lead was enormously high in the atmosphere and in the human body, his research objective was to calculate the age of the Earth. This unrelated and seemingly arcane investigation led to the banning of leaded gasoline and lead-based house paints in the US, protecting millions of children and adults from lead poisoning.  

Seven decades after Bush wrote that report, humankind is facing a new set of challenges – many of which are of our own making. Our communication networks are becoming infested with deliberately deceptive “news” stories, creating a post-truth environment where facts are often flexible and sometimes irrelevant. The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria may one day cause a pandemic that will be able to spread like never before - thanks to cheap international air travel. At the same time, a well-organized and well-funded movement of anti-vaccine activists with no medical or scientific qualifications is gaining traction. Climate change caused by decades of cheap fossil fuels is threatening animal and plant species in every habitat imaginable, including humans fleeing their homes to escape rising seas or crop failures. Income and wealth inequality have reached historic highs – 75% of the world’s population still live on less than $8.5 per day. One effect of this inequality is that the top 10% are responsible for almost as much carbon emissions as the bottom 90% combined. 
In summary, more than seven billion humans are living longer and consuming more resources than ever - driving overexploitation and accelerated destruction of the biosphere. It can be argued that we achieved extreme abundance too hastily for our own good, with not enough forethought. Which would make the human success story not too different from an algal bloom after all.

Problems of this magnitude are probably impossible to solve without a fundamental shift in the way we live our lives in the natural world. Such a fundamental shift will require at least another revolution of the scientific kind, if not also of the socio-economic kind. So how are America’s federal-funded research institutions doing these days? 

In a Pew survey conducted in 2014, 83% of scientists said that finding federal government funding was harder than it was five years ago. This situation has worsened significantly under the new administration that has proposed slashing funding to the National Institutes of Health [NIH] by 18%, a 31% cut for the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] and an 18% cut to the Office of Science within the Dept. of Energy. Four satellites under the NASA Climate Science program are targeted for elimination, including one already in orbit. The President also intends to roll back vehicle emission regulations and dismantle the Clean Power Plan that has prevented thousands of premature deaths due to pollution. Not surprising, given the new administrator of the EPA has repeatedly denied on camera that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

Global problems aside, the government couldn’t have picked a worse time to turn its back against science, reason and critical thinking. In Dec 2016, we learned that life expectancy has declined in America for the first time since 1993. Why, then, would anyone want to cripple the NIH with funding cuts? What’s the sense in slashing the EPA’s budget and funneling more money towards our military that already dwarfs the rest of the world? Especially when even the Defense Secretary agrees that climate change is a national security issue that can trigger global instability? Why open up federal lands to be ravaged in the name of coal mining, deny the scientific reality of climate change and pass up the enormous economic opportunity to lead the world towards next-generation clean energy?

I couldn’t come up with answers to any of those questions as I stood on the Morrison Bridge ramp, taking pictures of the crowd assembled on the streets. The march attracted not only men and women of science who continue asking questions and studying the natural world in spite of dismal financial rewards, but also regular people with regular jobs who recognized the danger of intellectual stagnation and regressive policies. Hundreds of thousands of people just like them occupied streets around the world to send a clear message to the people in power that turning against science and objective truth would have consequences. This was the first march of any kind I had been a part of and it was an uplifting, unforgettable sight.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t believe we have to actually march in support of facts, defend the objective truth and fight for evidence-based policies. And if that’s what things have come to, shouldn’t every single person in the world be marching? 

Sources: 
https://www.nasa.gov/naca100/overview

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/da-henderson-disease-detective-who-eradicated-smallpox-dies-at-87/2016/08/20/b270406e-63dd-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html?utm_term=.fe9e8694d436

https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-hut-where-the-internet-began/277551/ 

http://www.caltech.edu/news/getting-lead-out-47935

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-climate_1.html

http://www.johnskylar.com/post/107416685924/a-career-in-science-will-cost-you-your-firstborn 

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/29/why-we-dont-produce-more-scientists-a-one-word-explanation/  

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/pi_2015-01-29_science-and-society-00-12/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/pi_2015-01-29_science-and-society-04-10/

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/04/peer_reviewed_non_partisan_academic_study_finds_that_the_epa_emisisons_rule_will_save_thousands_of_lives/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/mar/10/scott-pruitt/epa-head-scott-pruitt-says-carbon-dioxide-not-prim/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/pi_2015-01-29_science-and-society-03-12/  

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/04/04/522040557/citing-abortions-in-china-trump-cuts-funds-for-u-n-family-planning-agency

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38247385

https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-defense-secretary-cites-climate-change-national-security-challenge  

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-coal-analysis-idUSKBN16Z2AT

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39342818

On Birthdays - Part 1

Dr. Oliver Sacks died yesterday. At 82, he was an eminent neurologist and writer of many acclaimed and best-selling books that used medical case studies as examples to explore the inner workings of the human brain.

Dr. Sacks was diagnosed with terminal metastatic cancer earlier this year and I learned about his illness from this article he wrote about his favorite kind of birthday presents. Spoiler Alert: A little nugget of Lead (Element 82) was what he most joyfully received for his 82^nd birthday. His cherished collection contained several dozen elements - little vials holding the basic building blocks of nature that come in all shapes and forms (solids like Lead, liquids like Mercury, gases like Oxygen), all lined up in a fine Mahogany box.

Dr. Sacks looked forward to his birthday #82 with the same enthusiasm as someone a tenth of his age, which I think that represents a really cool way of living. We all looked forward to our birthdays as children, including myself. 
But then somewhere around our mid 20s, we're supposed to start dreading or ignoring our birthdays because we're now growing older. I don't understand this - I was always growing older. Even as a kid, I never had a birthday where I grew younger. 

Even though I have a mental age of about 13, I will turn 31 tomorrow - September 1. Am I now too old to look forward to my birthday? I don't think so. Maybe 31 qualifies as "old" if I was a peasant living in plague-ravaged England of 1350 AD. But this is 2015 and I don't live in a war-torn central African nation with an average life expectancy of 45, which means I am at least half a century away from meeting the Grim Reaper. How is that old?

Anyways when my actual age was around 13, I learned that World War 2 started when Adolf Hitler's troops invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939. In other words, World War 2 has the same birthday as me. 

World War 2 ended unofficially on Aug 15, 1945 when the Emperor of Japan announced over national radio the surrender of their Empire, soon after the United States dropped two nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Emperor's speech included the following lines:

"...Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable... Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization".

The Emperor of Japan wasn't just exaggerating the destructive power of nuclear energy. As this XKCD comic illustrates, things quickly get out hand if you try to compare nuclear fission of Uranium with any regular chemical reactions - like oxidation (burning) of coal or gasoline. 

The Hiroshima bomb was built (born?) in Los Alamos, New Mexico and its core contained Uranium that had been highly purified or "enriched" in Oak Ridge, Tennessee after the Uranium ore (See photo below) had been extracted from a mine in central Africa. 

The Uranium in the Hiroshima bomb's very heart, then, was no different than the Iron in the bomb's outer skin or the Aluminum in the aircraft that dropped the bomb. All these elements had been sitting in the ground as minerals and ores for billions of years, waiting to be dug up and purified. 

The Nagasaki bomb, however, was a little different. Its core contained... Plutonium. And the Plutonium wasn't dug out of the ground and purified like Uranium. It cannot be. It is far too unstable to be just sitting in the ground in any measurable amount for billions of years. Plutonium, the element number 94 has to be synthesized. By humans. Take a second and let that sink in. In order to build the Nagasaki bomb, a new element was created. Not a new compound, like water (H20) from Hydrogen and Oxygen. But a new chemical element.

Synthesizing a chemical element isn't trivial. You know all the minerals of Uranium, Iron etc sitting in the ground? Ever think about how they got there? They were synthesized inside the core of a star that blew up billions of years ago and left behind a debris cloud which then gave birth to our entire solar system, including the Sun. Hydrogen and Helium were synthesized in the Big Bang.

Alright, I'll calm down now. The point is this - in order to make enough Plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb, the world's first nuclear reactor was built in Sept 1944. The moment that nuclear reactor glowed into life is just as massively significant for the human species as the moment when a million years ago, our remote ancestors took a deep breath and lit the world's first controlled fire. 

The world's first controlled nuclear fire, called the B Reactor, was born within a vast military complex in Hanford, Washington, where it burned for 24 years and synthesized enough Plutonium to make 30,000 nuclear warheads. Among other things, it also taught us how to tame these violent nuclear reactions and use them constructively to generate electricity.

On Sep 2, I will be taking part in a public tour of the B Reactor complex conducted by the US Dept of Energy. It promises to be my all-time favorite birthday present to myself. I'm looking forward to it like I'm a kid again...

5 reasons why India should abandon its space program

As you probably know, India successfully launched its first Mars mission on Nov 5. The small spacecraft circled the Earth till Dec 1 when scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization [ISRO] fired its engine for 22 mins to give it the exact velocity required to slingshot away from Earth and towards the Red Planet. Only the US, the former USSR and the European Space Agency have been able to successfully send a probe to Mars till now. 

The successful launch and orbit transfer of Mangalyaan was generally hailed as a triumph because at 4.6 billion Rupees [$73 million], it cost the Indian taxpayer only 15-20% of a similar NASA mission. But some voices from within India questioned the necessity of such a largess given the scale of India's socio-economic problems.

This “delusional quest” was pretty galling to some recession-burdened citizens of developed nations as well - their tax dollars/pounds pay for hundreds of millions given to India every year as humanitarian aid. But as a result of our elite’s screwed up priorities, 350 million people still live on less than $1.25 a day while foreign aid indirectly funds India’s ambitions to beat China in an escalating Asian space race. Here be excerpts from news stories:

Alright. Their argument is that public funds shouldn't be spent on ISRO because poor people need to be helped first. That surprises me because ISRO’s total budget this year was $860 million – only about 1/300^th of the total Indian budget. And 1/6^th of what Dreze's beloved National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was given. 

And Dreze et al have no choice but to go after ISRO's little micro-slice of the budget pie because clearly, ISRO is the last thing standing in the way of total and permanent elimination of poverty and child malnutrition in India. Therefore, if we could kindly do the needful and blow up our PSLVs, all the slumdogs of Mumbai shall be showered with free girlfriends, free Kit Kat bars, free Kit Kat smartphones on which to play Candy Crush and, of course, free toilets... In which to play Candy Crush. Aaaand #happilyeverafter

If we're so close to building a poverty-free India, we must beef up strengthen our argument and come up with more excuses reasons why a space program is not needed for a country like ours. And I'm not sure if Jean Dreze and the rest of the concerned voices can do that. For instance, they don't know that ISRO has been doing this for quite a while now. Depriving the poor, I mean. 

That cart could have been used to lift the very last Indian family out of poverty but these thieving elitists used it instead to fulfill some sort of Ferrero Rocher fetish. And their leader wearing those bell-bottomed trousers clearly nicked that shirt from future Top Gear host James May.

Since my knowledge of the matter is clearly superior, allow me to take you through a Buzzfeed-style countdown of 5 other, equally valid reasons why India’s space program needs to be shut down:

5.The coolest, most impressive part of any space mission is the launch countdown sequence. And the Americans show us how its done - come back to the blog after liftoff.

The American accent feels natural for this task - those swaggering vowels were born to be badass. 

And the Russians? Well, remember the James Bond movie GoldenEye? I do. Because of her - 

Natalya Simonova, the Russian guidance systems specialist, is my favorite Bond girl ever. She is also the only Bond girl who dresses like a librarian but still, her accent makes words like "retro rockets" and "orbit intercept" sound dangerous and sexy at the same time.

My parents took me to see GoldenEye in early 1996. A few months later, I told them that I wanted to be an aerospace engineer when I grew up. I don't think they ever figured out the motivation behind my decision - even though there may have been some subtle signs.

Sixteen years later, I actually am an (half-arsed) aerospace engineer. Unfortunately, my accent is no good if I want to impress a Bond girl - even the nerdy one that dresses like a librarian. Just try to watch this till liftoff if you don't know what I mean. You're encouraged to NOT laugh.

Indian people are the only lifeforms in the Universe capable of making a f#$%ing rocket launch countdown sound depressingly lame. We should just give up. 

4.This attempt to compete against China in the Asian space race is going to backfire because of, among other things, zero-gravity fluid dynamics. In orbit where there's no gravity, liquids are controlled by the next strongest force - surface tension. That's why water droplets stick to each other and become a big, floating blob. Like so:

The exact same thing happens to droplets of urine collecting inside an astronaut's bladder. And since the urine blob floats weightlessly instead of pressing down on the bladder, the astronaut will not realize that he needs to pee - until the blob gets bigger and he REALLY needs to pee. 

Now, Indian men have a notoriously low "pee threshold". As in:  

What do you think an Indian astronaut in space is going to do when he suddenly realizes that his bladder is full of what used to be a glass of Mango lassi? The only wall visible from space is the Great Wall of China. That's all I'm saying. No matter how much our PM apologizes, the Chinese will declare World War 3 on us. Or worse, put an embargo on iPad Airs. 

It's not worth it. We should just give up.

3. Before spending taxpayer money on a space program, India should learn from the US how a proper superpower is supposed to spend taxpayer money. Two words that immediately come to mind are "military budget".

So how do we fix our tiny military budget? What weapon system do we splurge on? I'll tell you - long-range missiles. And here's why. The very first Russian satellite Sputnik and the very first American satellite Explorer-1 were launched into space on modified Intercontinental Ballistic missiles [ICBMs] because back then, there were no such things as "satellite launch vehicles". The rocket scientists had to take the nuclear warheads out of missiles and put in the satellite payload. 

However, India has been launching satellites for decades now and we still don't have a fully operational Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - which is, clearly, all backwards. Furthermore, the ICBMs we're testing now are not really proper because they can't kill anyone in Australia, North America or South America.

You might say India doesn't need proper Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles because New Zealand isn't about to declare war on us. But that's just for lack of trying on our part. We need to take initiative and make more enemies. That's what the Americans would do.

When their arch enemy USSR collapsed in 1991, the Americans didn't shut down the global war machine and go back home listening to "Smells like teen spirit". They just moved on and found a new arch enemy to engage for the next couple of decades - the Middle East. But at the same time, they still maintain roughly 52,000 troops in Germany, 36,000 in Japan, 29,000 in South Korea, 10,000 in Italy and 9,000 in the UK - just in case. That's how you spend taxpayer money. Oh, and also on $3 billion in humanitarian aid to Israel - ranked by the UN as the 16^th most developed nation in the world. India is given $100 million because it is ranked 136^th. Why Israel? Probably because Mossad training doesn't come cheap. Israel shows its gratitude by buying weapons exclusively from the Americans.

We're such aid-receiving gayasslosernoobfags to think we can skip all those military commitments and cut directly to running a world-class, low-cost, peaceful space program. We should just give up.

2. In its attempt to be to be cost-effective, ISRO seems to be drawing inspiration from a dangerously inappropriate source. Look at this:

7 satellites on one rocket... Why does that sound familiar? 



Because desis. 

If we let ISRO run free with these ideas inspired by people on Indian roads, low Earth orbit will start to look like this. 

You might think Indian astronauts will obviously be more careful but who do you suppose will be chosen to pilot India's manned space missions? 170 Indian Air Force pilots have been killed since 1970 by our own MiG-21s. Pretty soon, we will be left with only these dudes: 

And before you know it, everyone's favorite space movie from 2013 will get a sequel. Except, it will be a documentary.

In space, no one can hear your horn OK? Please, let's just give up before we're too late.

1. Alright, look. I'm not just some privileged and out-of-touch NRI brat who makes fun of important people trying to defend the interests of the poor. I have many friends that are poor, OK? They're all still in PhD programs. 

I realize it makes no positive difference to the poor that an Indian spacecraft is on its way to Mars. But then again, shutting down ISRO will not make any positive difference to them either. All it will do is leave 16,000 underpaid but world-class professionals fresh out of a job. Unless we live in a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon.

Jean Dreze knows things don't work that way, he's bound to. And I suspect he also knows about the benefits of a mature space program that can be enjoyed by the common man - a few of which you may find here, here and here. Yet he suggests that the government will be somehow incapable of helping the poor if it funds a low-cost space program. 

I think I see the point now. There are obviously much bigger problems than ISRO - the biggest one is tax evasion and black money. If every citizen paid what they owed in taxes, there would be plenty of money to help the poor and launch all the rockets we want.

But here's the problem - the black money issue is clearly too big to be solved. Let me show you why. Let's say you go through all the trouble of finding a whistleblower for information about Swiss bank account holders.

Wait, really? He still works with CDs? What is this, 2001? While he's at it, I'd like him to burn me a copy of “N Sync – Celebrity” for my Discman music player. No wonder the government had to tell mr_swissleblower1955@usa.net to get lost. He needs to get a freaking Dropbox account if he wants to be taken seriously in this day and age.

What an unbelievable mess. I say we forget about all the pointless hard work of finding another whistleblower who has a flash drive and choose smart work instead. Let's just bully the space nerds out of their offices and make them build public toilets. 

Jaguar F-Type: An ode to the machine gun in a Reiss dress

I cannot believe it. The parking lot is pretty empty. I am early. As in the first one to arrive. Has that really happened or have I just come to the wrong place? This is unsettling. And a heavy fog that has drifted in from the Pacific and obscured the surrounding hills and valleys does not help. I vow to never be early to anything again and get out of the rental Nissan Sentra to take a look around. I don’t have to walk far before the absurd possibility that I arrived early to the right place is confirmed by the most glorious sight that slowly materializes out of the mist.

This is Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey,  California - the most exciting non-F1 circuit in America that I know of. Jaguar very kindly invited me here to drive the cars that you see above – the brand effing new F-Type.

If you're unfamiliar with the F-Type, these are the highlights: It is available in three flavors. The $70k version has the new 3.0 liter supercharged V6 that makes 340 bhp. The $80k "S" version bumps it up to 380 bhp and adds go-faster bits like a mechanical limited slip diff and adaptive damping. The $90k V8 S comes with the supercharged 5.0 liter V8 that produces a dizzying 500 bhp fed to the rear wheels through an electronically controlled active diff. 0-60 in 4.2 sec and a top speed of 186 mph. And now, for the bad news. You can only have them with an 8-speed automatic paddle shift gearbox. 

But what you do get for your money, as you may have noticed, is a very pretty car with stylistic lines that are minimalist and elegant and effortlessly contemporary. The subtle rear haunches and the slit-like tail lights are especially exquisite.

Nice to see that Jaguar hasn't gone the Porsche route in trying to make the F-Type look like the XK.  

A minor irritant for me are the headlights which make the front-end look a bit safe and generic - especially in comparison with the facelifted XFs, XKs and even the XJs. Those intimidating narrowed-eyes headlights work brilliantly with the bonnet creases to create a sort of I’m-coming-after-you-scumbags expression. I rather like that.

Before the drive, I consider the competition Jaguar has to beat. What are my options if I have $70-90k to blow on a European convertible sports car? 

For a kickoff, the 415 bhp SLK55 AMG Mercedes Benz would be immediately disqualified because it looks like this:

I'm sorry but above all, a sports car must be pretty - which as a premise, isn't exactly rocket science. And neither should it be rocket science. Because putting a SpaceX Merlin engine under the bonnet is no substitute for basic, good looks. Mercedes knows how to make properly pretty cars - look at this lovely 190SL from 1955...

They need to go away and not come back till they build something like this instead of yet another perversely powerful AMG gargoyle festooned with logos the size of a dinner plate.

Moving on from Stuttgart to Munich, there's the BMW Z4 with the 335 BHP twin-turbo 3.0 liter straight-six. BMW wants you to call it the  "sDrive35is". Refer to it incorrectly as just "the Z4" three times in a row and presumably, the car will refuse to start. Unless you can correctly verify your maternal grandmother's favorite color.

The Z4 isn't ugly like the Merc and the engine is superbly talented as well. But a great sports car should be greater than the sum of its parts, specifically when it comes to the way it makes you feel. It should take your breath away in the right conditions. It should feel special. And the Z4 just doesn't. It feels like just some interchangeable fancy car you would buy if you had the money, as opposed to a car that makes you go "God I wish I had the money to buy one".

That brings me back from Munich to Stuttgart for the only serious rival for the F-Type - the Porsche Boxster S.

In addition to looking less dorky than before, this car obsessively does everything allowed by the laws of physics to make the driving dynamics utterly peerless. The 3.4 liter 315 bhp flat-six engine keeps the center of gravity low and is buried in between the driver and the rear-axle for the perfect handling balance. And it comes with a proper six-speed manual transmission unlike the Jag. While it is slightly less powerful than the base F-Type, it is also a staggering 270 kilos (600 lbs) lighter. In automotive engineering jargon, that makes the Jag a "fat-ass". You can almost hear Porsche pointing and snickering. "How did that happen with the F-Type’s all-aluminium body, Jaguar? Did your aluminium come out of a shipping container labeled “granite”? HAHAHA #epicengineeringfail".

With this in mind, I get into a V8 S in the correct British Racing Green and do 8 laps of this fantastic track behind the lead driver - a Jaguar professional in an XJ Supersport. I manage to not crash into anyone, go off the track or wet myself through the diabolical Turn 8 - the corkscrew. Win.

When we finish, my palms are sweaty and my lower back is hurting from the cornering forces. And I can't wipe the silly grin off my face.

Since I'm not qualified enough to tell you anything meaningful about the dynamics of the steering and the handling, I will tell you about the driving experience. The F-Type might look as elegantly pretty as Kate Middleton in a Reiss dress but it sounds like a boisterous muscle car and its active exhaust makes noises like a machine gun with diarrhea. It is absolutely hilarious. 

What about the elephant in the room? Finding an automatic paddle shift gearbox in a car like this can make your blood boil, much like finding out that your wife has a secret lover. But after driving it, you discover it to be pretty impressive. As you flick the wheel-mounted paddles in "Sport" mode, you get fast and savage up-shifts and blips of the throttle on down-shifts accompanied by a burst of those 50 cal gunfire farts that will not fail to make you smile. This is like finding out that your wife's secret lover is actually Kate Middleton. It is still betrayal but you might decide you can live with it. 

As a driving experience, the F-Type is the exact opposite in character to the Boxster S - visceral where the Porsche is cerebral. And that makes it much more memorable. When you put the roof down, fire up that 500 bhp supercharged V8 and set off, words like "center of gravity" are made irrelevant. The Jag's unquantifiable sensory assault makes the Porsche's pursuit of quantitative performance look bookish and misguided. 

Yes, I realize that the V8 S is $30k more than a Boxster S. This just means the V8 S has no direct rivals. Jaguar has created this sensational package and somehow priced it way below the nearest competitor - the Audi R8 Spyder. Which is much less powerful too, I might add. So is the other great British roadster - the Aston Martin Vantage. And the Ferrari Califronia. And the Maserati GranTurismo.

If this combination of performance, looks and astonishing value for money sounds familiar, it's because Jaguar has done it before - with this:

The E-Type. When it went on sale in 1961, it was the fastest automobile in the world with a top speed of 150 mph. And yet, it was considerably cheaper than the contemporary Ferraris. Many people, chief among which was an Italian man called Enzo Ferrari, called it the most beautiful car ever made. And that's a hard act to follow. For me, that's the only place the F-Type falters. It is very slightly let down by a nagging sense that Jaguar never really tried to make it truly spectacular like the E-Type. 

At the end of the day, though, it was well worth showing up early for. And that's high praise coming from me.