Cool Science

There's this awful crutch in science writing which I think needs to be exposed and eliminated. It goes a little like this - but let me set the scene first. You're reading a science book (good for you!) and the author is telling you about an important theory or perhaps a law. Now look, any good idea in science needs to be broken down, examined in parts, applied carefully to specific cases, and so on. It takes care to work this stuff out. So inevitably, almost every writer will say over and over something like, "Next, we have to deal with the case of...".

Maybe I'm jaded by slang of the 80's and 90's, but to me 'dealing with' something has a negative ring to it. It sounds like a chore. "Next we HAVE to DEAL with the case of blah blah blah..." And once the writer finishes one such task, they trudge onward,"This means that we have to deal with the case of bleh bleh bleh...". And it always seems to stretch on and on. I think this is a crucial example of why science texts are criticized for seeming drab and dull: because they are. So many science writers are constantly 'dealing' with things as if the whole text is some sort of unwelcome burden to them and to you, the reader.

Exploring the different cases of a theory or a law is fun and interesting and stimulating and should be written that way. I don't think it's too hard, but it might take some practice. What would you rather read:

'Next we have to deal with the application of the Second Law to a cyclic process'

or

'Next we're going to apply the Second Law to a cyclic process'

or how about,

'Next, when we apply the Second Law to cyclic processes, we will discover that all reversible heat engines are equivalent.'

Whether you understood that or not, I bet you'll agree that the last one is a lot more engaging to read. So if you find yourself trudging your way through some dry science text that you can barely stand, then look to see if you spot the author 'dealing with it', and then you can take that as a sign that your inner nerd will not be happy...

Posted by Dave at 01:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's easy to make fun of science. Pundits do it - why? - likely to attract attention to themselves, boost ratings, and so on. The less the pundits know, the easier it is to draw fabulously skewed portraits of scientists bilking the taxpayer to fund outlandishly silly projects.

The pundits would probably have us believe that our tax dollars are wasted on studies of mass sponge migration. I really shouldn't have to point it out, but let's all rest assured that no public grants from the NSF have been made in this area.

I don't mean to over-sentimentalize this, but science used to be front page material. Consider this extraordinary front page in the Jan 30, 1939 issue of the Palo Alto Times. This clipping ominously foreshadows Hitler's brutal campaign but also proclaims the marvel of Russel and Sig Varian's invention of the Klystron tube, an extraordinary device to amplify microwave and radio signals, which ironically had many implications for the outcome of WWII.

Can science hit the front page again? Or, should science grace our front pages again? Maybe, probably. Yet it seems as a society we can't talk about, or promote science in any objective way any more. Is that the pundits at work, relentlessly forcing themselves into these discussions, stoking and inciting others, all for personal 'branding'? Maybe - but let's consider also that the pundits could be a symptom of something deeper. Regardless of what political aisle you stroll, it is natural to grapple with opinions on the applications of genetic engineering, the development of nuclear power, the ethical uses of nanotechnology in consumer products, the testing of new drugs, and much more. So perhaps all of this is a sort of social maturing process. We are in the throes of the realization that society can't be a spectator to science. Where might this lead?

Is it too much to hope that the pundits will adapt, and try to stimulate and lead authentic discussions of science? I don't think I am too naive in believing that the nation in some form is demanding this. Or maybe we could get the Kardashians to do a science show...

Posted by Dave at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Nothing more boring than writing (or reading) about the weather, but the time comes once in a while that it must be done. I once saw an interview with Bill Nye about the weather and HE made it seem pretty interesting. But no matter, weather is on my mind and here are some of my random intersections with the weather this past week:

1. About a mile from our house, a small tornado ripped the roof off of a large barn. Pretty amazing. Who knew that there would be tornados in our little neck of the woods here in central PA?

2. Down south, all this cold and rain has completely messed up bee production in the southern apiaries and I had two orders for bees cancelled because of this. So I have my one proud hive which I will have to nurture through winter. You can take a lot of views on this. Is it global climate change or just a freakish spring here on the east coast? My own bias is that it's probably a bit of both.

3. Related to that I planted my potatoes right as it started to turn cold and get rainy and generally blechh. So perhaps they are all rotting in the ground? Hopefully they'll poke up soon. Technically, I love this part of spring, the wild temperature swings, the winds, the rolling thunderstorms, the heat waves and the cool-downs and everything else. Just a little more sun would do wonders for the spuds I'm sure... It would be oddly existential, and ironic, if this year's rains and cold wreaked the same damage as last year's terrible drought.

Speaking of which, Henry got a quick bug and watched a fair bit of spongebob and so we did too. I've concluded that SpongeBob is the quintessential everyman hero of this masterpiece of existential writing. Fish paste!

Posted by Dave at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The secret to Rice Krispie treats is 7 cups of Rice Krispies, not 6. That and go name brand. Trust me.

Can you define and/or explain temperature? Harder than it sounds. Think about it.

I can now call myself a beekeeper - woah. Kind of cool, but I'm a complete beginner and novice and my only goal is to not kill them in the first few weeks. Can't wait to see where this leads. There is a lot of interesting chemistry and science with bees so maybe I'll start rambling on that.

The Large Hadron Collider has not found the Higgs boson yet. Just this week a leaked memo suggested they might have had a glimpse. Hard to know what to say about this. 'Leaked memos' raise a red flag. Hypothetically, suppose they don't find it? Is a negative result truly as successful as a positive one? In science we hold that it is just as important to discover a negative result as it is a positive one. Do you agree?

Posted by Dave at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, I'm Dave and I like thermodynamics.

(Hellooooooo Dave)

While reading Wikipedia's various pages on thermodynamics, I was pretty surprised at the inaccuracies, mistakes, etc. There's a lot that's right, so let's not all run for the hills over this, but the poor condition of several thermo entries actually took me off guard. Yes, apparently I am THAT naiive.

So I fixed a particularly glaring problem on the Heat Capacity page that was really serious and embarrassing to read and I just couldn't stand leaving it there. That was kind of satisfying so I decided to tackle a bigger challenge: the poor condition of the page on isentropic processes. There were incomplete explanations, incorrect statements and missing progressions. I worried what may happen if my students would ever look there and convinced myself that any student attempting to read this page would only get more confused. So I worked on straightening it out and I really fixed up the section 'Derivation of the isentropic relations'. I got pretty far, congratulated myself and then got a bit of work done. I told myself I would return later to fix other things.

So in a fit of narcissistic indulgence I surfed back to 'Isentropic Processes' and found that all of my changes were gone baby gone. I logged back into my Wikipedia account and found my work had been marked as vandalism by an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that scans recent changes and reverted all of my work!. For shame Watson! I had added equations on ideal gases, entropy and energy and this was vandalism!?!?!?!? I managed to restore my changes and crossed my arms in self-satisfaction that all was well.

Nope, the AI reverted my reversion of their reversion claiming that my reversion of their reversion was also vandalism. Are you still with me?

So I followed a bunch of links they offer if you want to protest their decision. I had to read a page explaining that the AI was almost never wrong and that surely I must be a miscreant and vandal. And so I finally clicked through enough screens that I got my changes back and they have somehow survived so far. The whole process was a massive annoyance and time sink.

Oh, and the best part: now wikipedia seems to think I am a vandal and has blocked my IP address from fixing this page further (although I can log in and that allows me back in).

So my attempt to help Wikipedia avoid thermodynamic embarrassment ended in an absurd sort of success: l had succeeded in reverting their reversion of my reversion of their reversion of a few equations on reversible adiabatic processes - hmmm, maybe that does sound a little suspicious?

So I'm done with Wikipedia.

Oh, and for all you math types, this is possibly the best check ever written.

Posted by Dave at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

...for an awesome daily graphic for Robert Bunsen's birthday today. Enjoy!

Posted by Dave at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'll come back to the 'confessions' series in a bit, but here are some other things on my mind.

In the world of animation (and as with so many things, I have no actual expertise here) the illusion of gravity is very hard to depict, yet Wile E. Coyote makes it look so easy... Especially in CGI, take a closer look at the top stuff out there (yes, even Toy Story 3, etc.) and you'll see a little bit of moonwalking, or maybe even a lot. So while I wouldn't normally have an opinion about things like this, I think 'How to Train Your Dragon' beats 'Toy Story 3' in many ways, including the depiction of gravity. The flight sequences felt laden with gravity and were a big achievement in CGI in my novice opinion.

I went on a tragi-comic adventure to find something to read at a major grocery store chain. I naiively thought that by going to one of the oversized 'Super!' stores that the reading selections might offer something for a the geek in all of us. Learn from me - nothing geeky, sciency, mathy, etc. shall be found in any grocery store. Walked away with a newspaper.

A chem joke I heard at an Odyssey of the Mind competition: if you irradiate a cat, how long will it live? Answer: Eighteen half lives.

In honor of a conversation earlier today, an overlooked fact is that bleach is incredibly pH basic and has a very high concentration of sodium hydroxide. Sodium hydroxide solutions like bleach feel slippery because the sodium hydroxide react with oils in our skin to convert them into soap-like molecules. This process is called saponifcation.

Saponification is the mechanism employed by class K fire extinguishers for putting out grease/oil fires. These wet extinguishers convert the oil and grease which fuel the fire into soap! A thick soapy foam forms over the fire which suffocates the fire. Additionally, it is widely claimed that the saponification reaction is endothermic (absorbs energy) and helps to cool the fire - this is certainly plausible and elegant, but grease fires are extremely hot, and so it's hard to know how important this chemical cooling effect really is in extinguishing the fire.

Posted by Dave at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)