Cool Science

I don't talk politics at school - it's not right. If any of my students have found this blog, hopefully you're mystified about my political leanings, don't care what I think about politics, and have resolved to decide for yourselves. That's an order. But out here in blog-space, I can muse a little about it.

It's amazingly selfish but true - most voters choose on the basis of what they perceive will be best for themselves. So I'd like to point out my own anecdote that I have heard Obama often mention 'research' in his talks and sound-bites. I haven't heard that word come out of McCain yet. Maybe he's said it - this is not en entirely fair judgement. And sure, it's in his platform and if asked he would say glowing things. But given how flooded we are with political multimedia (which reminds me : would Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann both please stop yelling at me?), McCain has had plenty of chances to spontaneously say it out loud. So what this says to me is that Obama has 'research' enough on his brain that he can squeeze it into some prominent political appearances and it sends a signal that science has a chance to be something that would be valued in his administration.

Posted by Dave at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a little old, but I've been wanting to comment on the Large Hadron Collider, which is down for repairs for a long time after a very nasty event when one of its superconducting magnets turned resistive and melted a lot of the stuff around it. This leaked a lot of helium in the process. Now helium is a *^&%$ precious resource and it's disappointing to see such a loss of it as all of us in science depend on it. I heard anecdotes that the total helium use of the LHC consumed half of the world's production capacity, which is insane. I'd be curious to get my hands on the real numbers. The LHC is an extraordinary, unprecedented use of resources on a speculative experiment - it's one of the most audacious experiments in humankind for that reason. For the vast monetary cost and vast use of helium, this experiment needs to produce incredible results.

Want to know a little more about helium and the LHC? Well if you have not already found the guilty pleasure of the youtube periodic table videos posted by a British group, then try out this one on the LHC if for nothing else than the Prof's hair. I aspire to have science hair like that.

I stumbled onto a strange thread of blogs which were fussing that scientists are hotly arguing and debating what defines a theory. No, they're not. Every scientist knows what a theory is (or should know!), how it differs from fact even when it gives exact results, etc. Not sure where that silliness came from. Evolution is a theory and a *&^# good one at that. Quantum mechanics is a theory and is also *&^# good. So is thermodynamics. Bad theories die and good theories live. It's not really a big deal, so here's MY theory: the economy is down, bloggers need to sell ads, and so they need to find something 'controversial' to argue about to try to attract internet gawkers, so it might as well be that.

Posted by Dave at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Not a pretty sight out there on wall street. Maybe look somewhere else for some good news?

I was pretty floored when Jenn sent me the story about Google's Mail Goggles. Google's creative lab guys got the idea to write a program that won't let you send an email unless you answer a bunch of math questions, correctly and in time (ooh, word twist: mite, mit, met, tie, item, emit).

So this is to prevent you from sending emails you would later regret because you were mentally compromised (let's be candid: drunk); if there is any doubt that they are poking a little fun at enebriated email sprees, the default timing of this "feature" is for weekend nights. Using math as the sobriety test is slightly awesome. To come to the point here, it shows what quite a few of us have known for some time (wait for it....): you can't drink and derive.

Posted by Dave at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'd like to think I'm a writer, but somewhere in college (and let's face it : with the crystal ball of hindsight, this started way back in high school) I had to face the truth. In high school I actually won a national writing award for an EXTREMELY BAD story which will prevent me from every entering politics to spare the embarrassment. The classic saying in sports is that a great team can find a way to win a game even when they're playing badly. I indulged in the fantasy to think this way about that hideous story.

I had a good run in the coveted Creative Writing class in college and I remember writing some things that seemed to strike a chord with the students and the Prof and that actually got a lot of people engaged. That was cool. And several years back I got a science blurb published (anonymously) in the Boston Globe in a friendly competition to write an answer to a science question. That was cool too.

But Jenn will know where this is coming from - I wanted so much to be good at writing, that I didn't relax when I wrote, and some part of the writing process was missing from the nether regions of my psyche. On a subconscious level, I accepted that some crucial part of me that is 'on' when I do chemistry, is 'off' when I am writing.

I hear that writers experience the same distracted bliss while writing that long-distance runners report kicks in around mile 3 or 4 of a long run. To be fair, I think this happened from time to time while sitting in front of my very, very, very cool orange monochrome monitor powered by the prized Hercules graphics card; but I would look back at the typed pages and realize it was total crap, try to edit it into something on the page that jived with what was in my mind, and then in the final stage of this cycle of failure, walk away for a bit convinced that I would return later with fresh ideas.

This comes up for a lot of reasons. For example, interestingly I have at least three good friends (let's keep this anonymous even though nobody reads this journal) who are becoming very successful writers in very different ways. Oh, did I mention I married an english major who writes stunningly well? And so it's on my brain. Also, it's the time in the semester where I see one or two students who really want to do chemistry, who really think it's cool grapple with the cold fact that they just can't seem to pull it off, and I truly, deeply empathize with them.

But it also comes up because I'm not happy with this science blog. My theory about this blog was that the Globe blurb worked out pretty well because I was writing about chemistry; and so I would do more of the same. There's something to that I think, but I'm not having fun with it. And naiively I fantasized that writing about science in this little corner of the internet could make a difference. Not yet.

So to the great void of the internet which is better off watching awesome videos like this unreal hockey save: I'm rethinking this stuff, and looking for a different muse. Applications accepted.

Posted by Dave at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)