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)

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)

But first a riddle - why is that every time you put on lotion, something happens that makes you wash your hands?

An exam means two things. One is assessment - see how the students are doing, what they're studying, are they keeping up with the material, etc. And for better or worse, it is a significant basis for assigning grades. But for many of us, an exam is much, much more. Yes, I want to see you show core areas of knowledge and I'm going to clone some homework problems into the exam to reward you for studying. But I really want to see you think and I'm going to have a small number of questions where I want to see some ownership of your knowledge. I want this so much, that if you answer a problem wrong but show terrific understanding of the material in justifying your work that you will get a heck of a lot of credit.

Now, I can't put many of these questions on an exam, because they are the hardest to grade. But they tell me more about a student's progress than anything else. And it means you have to think just a little to do well on these questions. They're not trick questions. I hate trick questions. Many times students say afterwards something like,"I figured out that one question and that was really cool".

Ages ago, a Prof once expressed a frustration something like this,"you can teach material, but how do you teach some one to think?'. That's not easy - but in an exam, the students have the most material in their heads, no distractions, and just have that question in front of them to think about. The exam experience forces you to get in touch with your inner monologue, to 'talk aloud' in your head, perhaps to doodle on the extra sheets to get some new ideas and to go through an intensely creative and analytical thought process that doesn't happen any where else. Nobody likes exams - I don't. And I'm the first to jump on the bandwagon that we overtest our kids at an early age. But I think they can create a special place in learning that is where you 'learn how to think'.

Posted by Dave at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanksgiving was amazing but hectic and I didn't get in a post...let's imagine what might have been:

When it's time to pass out on the floor after dinner - why is there so much tryptophan in turkey and does it really make you tired?

It was amazing to wake up to snow - but how can it snow when the temperature is above freezing?

What temperature is definitely lethal to bacteria and why is it different for different meats?

I guess we'll never know the answers to these cosmic mysteries...

And why DO they call it Black Friday? Ask Jenn.

Posted by Dave at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So hopefully you liked wrapping your brain around the last post. Since it's the night before thanksgiving I have to phone this one in a bit, so how about playing around with entropy and knowledge.

Take a basketball team with 6 players (sounds bad already!). How many ways are there to field a team? Suppose you know that player #4 is injured and cannot play Now how many ways are there to field a team?

Before you knew about the injury, there were 6 microstates: hunh? There were six ways to field a team - each possible set of 5 players is a 'microstate'. But after you were told about the injury there was now just one microstate (remaining 5 players are the only way to field a team). As Feynman said so well, entropy is the number of ways you can rearrange something so that it always looks the same from the outside. So at first in our basketball example there would be 6 different ways this team could play a game and that is a higher entropy than when there is only one way for the team to play.

So more information means less entropy...

Posted by Dave at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In a Star Trek TNG episode, an alien life form refers to humans as 'an ugly bag of mostly water', which is an iconic line on many levels, not the least of which is that it hits a little too close to the truth.

The point could be made in a little more detail that we are bags of water full of enzymes. Enzymes are special protein molecules which go around speeding up reactions that would have occurred anyway, but are just way too slow on their own. A reaction which might take minutes, hours or decades, can be accelerated by an enzyme to a tiny fraction of a second.

So that's all we humans do - we go through life speeding up untold vast quantities of reactions that would have occurred anyway, just more slowly. Consider this analogy: eating a banana breaks it down much more quickly than letting it rot on a shelf for say half a year.

So this means that the world is less ordered because we are in it. Deep thoughts...

Posted by Dave at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember Pons and Fleischmann and their unfortunately error-prone attempt to pull off cold fusion, which was all-too-hastily announced in the mid 80's and then publicly debunked by thousands of international researchers? Not surprisingly it was too good to be true, but what strikes me today is the context of it all. It was the mid-80's and gas and energy were fairly cheap and abundant, yet even then the prospect of truly clean energy already resonated strongly with the public. The excitement wasn't the science, but what the science could do. There is so much to say about that last sentence...

But anyway, I've decided as perhaps my only 2011 resolution that this will be the year I try my hairbrained attempt at a cheap energy transducer and I'll try not to walk in the shoes of P&F, which is ironic because my little idea indee will probably fall flat on its head and that will be that. See, it won't be fusion. It definitely won't break, or even get close to touching, any laws of thermodynamics. It won't be sexy and I think it would flop on those invention reality shows, and it probably won't work. But I have to try because sometimes I go to bed putting together parts in my mind and wondering if it has the ability to run even one led light on a christmas tree. So ultimately I'm an experimentalist: I'll have to put the thing together and see. Will it ever be good for anything? Well maybe one thing: it'll be good for a laugh.

Posted by Dave at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Out in the blogosphere is this good read of actual test answers, my favorite being the first on hard water. I've seen some creative answers, but none at this level and I am thankful for that.

I want to try to share something about how science is 'hard'. Some is, some isn't. A lot of science can be done very well by any body willing to go at it slowly and carefully. It is a very democratic discipline and this is something that I think is misunderstood about science. But where I did my Ph.D., there was a sort of vain but appealing mantra about the pursuit of science that went like this,"If it's not hard, it's not worth doing". And I like that a lot - for better or worse that has guided me throughout the years; it doesn't happen every day and the dry spells can be years even, but it's a hell of an endorphin rush when you crack a tough problem wide open.

After seeing a talk by an eminent visiting scientist, one of my research students shared his epiphany that we live in a day and age with so much advancement that we are limited only by our creativity, cunning and dedication and are in a position to solve problems of immense, unthinkable difficulty. He realized that this is one of the biggest reasons he wants to go to grad school. He's right - science is undergoing a quiet renaissance which is obvious to insiders, but harder for the public to see unfortunately. Scientists will ask and answer questions that would have been scoffed at even just 10-20 years ago.

It's already happening. For example, about 10 years ago, one human being was sequenced at cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Today you can get yourself sequenced for something in the neighborhood of $10k.

Posted by Dave at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I love science, there are nights like these where I need a mental break from science. Unlike Dave Letterman, this scientist does have an off position. So let's look at the week in review. In a fascinating conversation with a colleague I learned that I am not the only one worried about seeing a small number of students at the college level -and in a highly selective institution - struggle with algebra. It does not seem serious at this point and it may never be, but it's something to watch. I also learned how concerned admissions folks are about science and math in the US and how much work they put in to recruiting top science students. It really was reassuring to hear of their efforts, to be honest.

And then there was this. The web was abuzz when poor Bill Nye fainted on stage and the audience rushed to their iphones and blackberries to tell the world about it while he lay there helpless. It's an odd thing and I feel badly for him. On the bright side, anthroplogists will probably study it for decades so Nye can take heart in that perhaps...

Posted by Dave at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently stumbled across the Boltzmann Brain concept which I have to say I'm not a big fan of. Why brains? It should be called the Boltzmann supercomputer paradox. Why supercomputers? Maybe since the paradox is concerned with things that are highly ordered, it should be the diamond paradox since that is an incredibly ordered material. The irony is that the paradox attempts to question an anthropomorphic view of the universe by using a flawed anthropomorphic example. My two cents.

Posted by Jenn at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

When it is the most inconvenient time possible, the copier will spazz out on you and waste an incredible amount of your time and take years off your life in stress. This should be called the missing fourth law of thermodynamics: all copiers tend towards maximum entropy exactly when it will most annoy you. I'm sure you can appreciate how ground-breaking my new postulate is in thermodynamics due to the inclusion of a time axis. I should have been a theoretician.

Henry has been grappling with the idea of infinity. 'What's the largest number?' he asks. Jenn jumps in with 'there isn't one'. To which Henry brings out his favorite response, 'Why?'. ' Because you can add one to any number, no matter what it is' Jenn sagely volleys back. Then there is the characteristic silence, with wheels churning behind his brown eyes, staring vaguely away, and finally ending with Henry diving back into his syrup-drenched pancakes after having apparently reached some level of internal satisfaction about it and leaving us maddeningly curious about whether he gets it or not. By the way, I'm starting to think Jenn is a closet mathematician.

Posted by Dave at 01:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Being confined as we are in the boonies, a conference is a rare chance to get actual food. Little did I know it ahead of time, but by a happy accident I recently ended up in the 'little india' of new jersey on a recent trip and was blown away by the awesomeness of the food and felt immediate jealously that our little microcosm of the world can't even support anything more than a chinese buffet (which sometimes is just what the doctor ordered, let's be fair). I can't believe I'm saying this, but I would in fact like more conferences in New Jersey for just this reason...

Posted by Dave at 01:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I caught a glimpse of the Tina Fey lifetime achievement award show and some of Steve Martin's routine. He talked about how comedians are only as good as their last joke and about how hard it is for somebody to rise to greatness in comedy. He joked that Einstein only had to discover 'one thing' to gain timeless fame...

But that's just it. If you think this is a time traveler, then Einstein is a shoe-in because what stuns us today in science is how MUCH he did. By this account, he wasn't just a time traveler, he was a sloppy one. He gave us the particle view of light, the theory of relativity, and the microscopic theory of diffusion and even more. All rocked science. And he even knew there would be more than quantum mechanics, perhaps foreshadowing string theory.

Historians have often lamented that the heavy hand of the Romans on the Greeks may have set back science and human knowledge by not tens but hundreds of years. I'll indulge in a little exaggeration, but to try to get a handle on the scale of Einstein's work, he single-handedly put us back on track.

Posted by Dave at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

American currency (and probably others?) is printed with magnetic ink. I wish I knew more about what components are incorporated into the ink to impart the magnetism but I'll have to research that and save it for another post. Instead I'm pleased to offer some fun pics using my big honking N45 magnet. Magnetic ink is probably not a major security feature, but is used in automated counting machines for example. A forgery so bad that they forgot magnetic ink probably will be easy to spot...but this is just cool so I'm happy to trim my fingernails and share.

Let's start with the bill held on one end and hanging:


Bring the magnet a little closer and bam:


Very slowly lift to get the money shot:

Huge thanks to Jenn for taking these pics!

Posted by Dave at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I think I have found the reason why I'm a scientist, my purpose for being here as it were. Let's talk elements. Four elements were named after the Swedish town of Ytterby because they were discovered there. Yet when Tellurium was discovered a couple hundred years ago in Transylvania, some how we all lost out on what could have been the best element name ever: transylvanium. But no, we get Tellurium. I'm announcing right here, right now my campaign to rename tellurium to transylvanium.

Posted by Dave at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, I watched it; I think I even liked it. I may not be able to eat celery again, but there you go. Given that I established low expectations going into it, and further that my primary task at hand and therefore the focus of most of my attention was the installation of a snazzy deadbolt and entry handle on our solid hardwood door, I suppose I stacked the deck a little bit. Maybe it was the oddly karmic symmetry of Val Kilmer doing a film not unlike his first movie Top Secret!, that gave it the extra little oomph.

True, just like SNL, the film had moments where they didn't know when to stop a tired joke. Who knows, but I laughed, cringed and had a good time and it made me forget the tedium of chiseling out recesses in door frames. But they needed to have more fun with MacGyver's gadgets, chemistry, engineering and swiss army knife prowess. A few token laughs went this way, but they missed out on this completely.

Did you go into science (or know some one who went into science) because of MacGyver? Yes? Then you are REALLY, RIDICULOUSLY old because that went off the air eons ago. Sure, I suspect many were inspired by the mulletted one to try science; and intriguingly the chemistry was often done very well, suggesting an above-average consultant behind the scenes. I'd be really curious about that.

But to turn this narcissistically around, this was not the case for me; no knock on MacGyver which I just had to watch every week, but the credit to a large degree was my incredible high school chemistry teacher. He is this large, intimidating man who spoke softly and carefully and with a heavy measure of stoicism. The direct, straight-talk approach was just what I craved at that age, which I think is not all that unusual when you think back about what it's like to be a teenager. You just want people to level with you and not sugar coat anything. It worked.

Well, about to miss out on the time stamp for this post, so that's all...

Posted by Dave at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Henry and I had what might be characterized as our first math squabble today, and I suspect there will be many more... In kindergarten, they are teaching him to recognize patterns. He has it down and enjoys quizzing us frequently. Oh and before I forget, his favorite shape is the trapezoid. So anyway, it goes a little like this

Henry: Dad's turn - what is 1-0 -0
Me: Uhhh, it's B-A-A
Henry: Daaaaad! That's not it. It's A-B-B.
Me: Since 1 comes after 0, you should start with B not A.
Henry: You're wrong Dad, it's A-B-B.

What ensued can only be characterized as a 5 year old brainwashing his dad, until I grudgingly agreed to call it A-B-B, because I was probably being a little petty. So yes, it was hist first math argument and one could say that he won.

By the way, dubbing foreign films has never been, nor ever will be, a good idea. When will the media goons figure this out?

Posted by Dave at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I am a slave to my cells, although I'm lucky to have a lot of help from one of my students. Yes, we grow e. coli, and we make lots and lots of the buggers. They aren't the stuff of grocery store infamy. In fact they're almost the opposite - these genetically engineered wonders - we have to coddle them, keep them alive, and talk very nicely to them and tell them that they are good e. coli. And so this evening I've been running back and forth into lab, checking on them, adding nutrients at the right times and finally spinning them down into a truly unpalatable, pasty pellet for safekeeping.

Once started, the e. coli growth process can't be stopped and takes on, well, a life of its own. You must keep to their schedule no matter what, and sometimes they want to eat in the middle of the night. Sometimes they feel like growing more slowly or more quickly and you find yourself sneaking out during an awesome dinner with friends to feed the dang bugs and then sneaking back in (sorry guys!).

What's the payoff? Well, sometimes I wonder.... But the bottom line is that these e. coli work like billions of miniature factories, making protein for our lab to study. And there are really no better ways to get highly pure protein in large quantities except from these bacterial industrialists. All of us do this for our work. And so it's ironic and beautiful all at the same time that these rudimentary bacteria are the key to virtually all life sciences research today.

Posted by Dave at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I suppose then that this is where I have to admit that I really like So You Think You Can Dance. I love watching dance. So there - I'm a chemist who loves watching dance. In an alternate reality, I'm probably a dancer. Weird. And it dawned on Jenn and I the other day that Henry sometimes behaves like a dancer, and we're not really sure where that came from.

But, to get to the point, I'm a big fan of the poppers and this show has found some of the best like Robert Muraine, whose instantly viral audition launched him into a lot more than 15 minutes of fame.

What happens when a chemistry student becomes obsessed with popping, spends every minute he is not in lab learning the extraordinary muscle control and moves and in so doing finds his own expressive style and becomes one of the most influential online fixtures in popping? And what happens if this guy decides to NOT give up his day job? You get only one thing : the dancing mad scientist. I have to say it - the kid's got a glowing future.

Posted by Dave at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

...is actually Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics. By a stroke of luck or fate or just pure quantum indeterminacy, I discovered that my father owned this book and he generously shared it with me and I can't stop reading it. Granted I'm slowing down rather badly around page 70 and I admit I have 'skipped to the end', but it's one amazing book, and will reveal quantum mechanics to you in so many ways that no one else will dare to match.

And to be candid, I'm a little mad and upset. Dirac explains fundamental things plainly and authoritatively that nobody, not any of the typical texts, bother to explain. It's as if all of my previous texts and profs have used this as a sort of secret text that they were worried we'd discover one day. If you read even the first 60-70 pages of Dirac you will not be disappointed and you'll really see the gorgeous reasoning behind his formulation of quantum mechanics.

I've written before that I'm worried that we have generally lost some understanding of quantum at the college level and after reading Dirac I might believe this even more strongly. I feel some temptation to re-imagine a course in which we would use only primary literature. Wouldn't it be cool to teach a class today in the 21'st century using only the beautiful monographs of Dirac and others?

Posted by Dave at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I may be oversimplifying a bit, but this is true. The rare element ytterbium was initially discovered in a mineral called erbia. Yet it became known as ytterbium. On the other hand, the rare element erbium was first discovered in a mineral called (wait for it) yttria. Yet it came to be known as erbium. Really? Nablopomo, here I come!

Posted by Dave at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

...happened in the science world this week. But why write about that when we can take this to another level. Yes, I can only be referring to lab coats. They look cool on tv shows, so they must be good for you. I have to put in the politically and technically correct issue first: when used properly, lab coats can provide a major increase in laboratory safety. But I don't like them because they are too easy to mis-use, to give false impressions of safety, and to even increase risk when mis-used.

There's the rub. If you get something on your lab coat, you MUST take it off right away. If you spill some chemicals on your sleeve and leave it on all day because you 'feel' safer, you're actually succeeding in giving yourself a long term exposure to whatever is soaked onto the sleeve.

Snap, crackle, pop. For reasons I don't understand, some lab coats are made with a variety of angst-inducing buttons. It should only fasten with snaps so that the coat can be ripped off at a second's notice. If your lapel is on fire, do you want to be fiddling with buttons?

It's a wash. And then you have to wash it regularly, and the ideal is if this is done on the premises by your employer in a washer/dryer set aside for this purpose only. If you don't wash it, you get even longer term exposure to the chemicals you spill on it. I am always deeply worried about people who have been wearing the same lab coat for years.

False security syndrome Wearing a lab coat seems to make people feel a little TOO much security and hubris in the lab and more willing to take risks, let things spill on the coat, etc. It's the NFL padding effect - the development of amazing new pads is being blamed for the extraordinary rise in hard hits and concussions.

Alarming. This is a controversial one, but here goes. Accident detection is more difficult with a lab coat. That's not controversial - it's a second layer of clothing so that when you spill on a lab coat, you may not even know it. But here is a conundrum - if you spill on a layer of clothing that does contact the skin directly you will detect it right away and be able to respond immediately, but you risk the consequences of skin exposure. If you spill on a lab coat, you may not know it for a long time so that you avoid the direct skin contact, but you do give yourself the long term exposure.

Klutzy. Look, maybe this is only me, but the lab coats I've dealt with back in the day had baggy sleeves right around the wrist. It was so easy to knock things over, dip it into things, get it too close to the flame, etc... I hated those sleeves - maybe they've fixed that with tapered sleeves now.

Well, that's my rant about lab coats. I know that it's not popular to complain about a safety garment, especially one that makes you look really, really good looking and smart. But there it is.

Posted by Dave at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Unexpectedly, I learned some chemistry tonite from David Blaine . Is it bad form to give away an illusionist's secrets? Hmmm. Well, I guess I'll risk it seeing as how I don't figure out most of his illusions/tricks any way and it's very interesting science.

The illusion is a great one for Blaine's street magic style; he wanders down the street until he spots some one drinking a hot beverage. That's important. He urges one of the coffee-drinker's friends to produce some coins, a whole bunch. That is also important. He plucks a nickel (interesting choice) from the palm of this unsuspecting person and places it in his own hand. Blaine then pours the other dude's coffee into his own hand onto the coin. Before everyone's eyes the coin melts and slips through Blaine's fingers.

At first, I felt outrage, feeling certain that Blaine had polluted the streets of fair NYC with mercury, lead or both. But I was wrong. I did know he could have only used an alloy with a peculiar property. And after a few moments on the 'net, I knew this could only be Field's metal, a sufficiently non-toxic alloy of bismuth, indium, and tin which has the marvelous property of being a fairly deep eutectic (by 'deep' I just mean that it is a particularly low melting alloy compared to other eutectics). So what is a eutectic alloy? It's a specific mixture of elements which forms a solid well below the melting points of any of the individual components. Of course if any one in my lab were to be caught discarding a few grams of bismuth, tin and indium in the streets I would be fired and my host institution would be fined a six figure sum. Call it 'magic' and apparently the EPA doesn't care anymore. Sigh.

Perhaps the best known eutectic alloy is solder, which epitomizes what a eutectic is all about. Solder is a eutectic metal alloy which melts low enough that we can work with it fairly easily and safely with soldering irons. Another way to look at it is that solder solidifies very quickly once the heat is removed, which is a nice feature since you don't want to risk having the solder deform while you're waiting for it to cool and solidify.

So you have surely figured out now also how this works. Back in his studo, Blaine (or an assistant?) made plaster casts of all of the silver colored coinages and then made a good stash of them all using Field's Metal, which melts at 62 Celsius and therefore is trivial to melt and pour into casts (and is also silvery in appearance). As per the above link, it's so easy to cast Field's Metal that it can be a children's toy! Since Field's Metal melts at 62 Celsius these fake coins will stay solid in Blaine's pocket with no trouble. Blaine urges the bystander to pull out a bunch of change - he needs to spot a good match to the fake coin he has stashed somewhere in his sleeve. When Blaine takes a real coin out of his victim's hand, he only needs a sleight of hand to substitute his own coin. Then pouring hot coffee (a good bet the coffee is hotter than 62 C) onto the fake Field's Metal coin, he lets everybody watch it melt in the palm of his hand and then let's the molten metal slip through his fingers for extra drama.

So 'eutectic' is a pretty scary word, but just recall Blaine's amazing melting coin as an easy mnemonic.

Posted by Dave at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are a few tips which I'll feel better about after I exorcise them here. Some of these are 'official' and some are 'dave-isms'. Can you spot which are which? Enjoy:

1.
spectra : plural
spectrum : singular
spectrums : NOT A WORD

Use in a sentence: "My last spectrum fit well with the other spectra I acquired today."

2.
Tick marks in figures should never lie inside the figure body, since they aren't data.

3.
data:plural

Use in a sentence: "None of these data support the model that..."
Trick: replace 'data' with 'facts' to determine if you have written your sentence properly

4.
OK, this is not specific to science, but never begin a sentence with 'Because'.

5.
Similarly, never begin a sentence with 'This'

6.
Omit figure titles. If you *must* have one, then don't regurgitate the axis labels.

7. Incredibly, contractions are making it into publications (don't, can't, etc.) showing that some editors don't (pardon: do not) seem to care about proofing for these any more. Catch these yourself or else.

Posted by Dave at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

This is where I confess that for some time now I have been surfing the web and youtube for information on the brown recluse spider, because now that we have kids and we live in an old house with lots of spiders I get just a little defensive and paranoid. The outcomes of a nibble are gross, and I'm not even going to link to the youtube videos, and let's just leave it at that. Now even though the brown recluse doesn't do well in our fair state, I'm allowed to be concerned.

So the other day we get in the car to drive to the PO to drop off a netflix and I notice that there's this elongated piece of debris like fine straw streaming horizontally off of the sideview mirror like a thin bunch of sticks, flapping wildly in the breeze. It's flying right next to my arm which is hanging out the window and I think about flicking it off. But then at a stop sign, out of the corner of my eye this little group of twigs unfolds in Ridley Scott fashion into a nicely sized half-dollar sized spider. And when I go again it stretches out and goes flapping in the breeze again holding on by just a thread of silk. I'm impressed and feeling both some admiration and sympathy for the arachnid, but also a little creeped out...because a big, freakishly strong spider is flying chaotically next to my arm in a 30 mph breeze. I soon draw my arm into the car.

So I pull over to take a closer look at the spider. It's light brown, with long thin legs. But so are like half of all the spiders in the world so I need to be a little more intelligent than that. First, it was big and in the right size range for an adult recluse, and out of range of the size of many common spiders. Next, it was very fast and was darting with surprising speed between the mirror and the hood when I brought a piece of paper nearby it, also classic 'recluse' behavior like the videos which stress the unusual speed and retreating reaction. Further, the body was fairly small compared to the legs, consistent with expected recluse appreance. And for what it's worth, in the very minor menagerie of spiders I've encountered so far, I hadn't seen any one like this before.

Now remember the recluse is not happy in our climate and has to be introduced from a warmer one, like the fair states of VA and NC where we had just spent time a couple days prior, and has to be somewhere warm also (like the warmth of a car - and our weather had been unusually warm the whole time also). In other words, it seemed plausible to me that this fellow could have been a stow away and enjoyed the warm spell that we were in.

So the only remaining challenge is to spot the violin (aka 'fiddle back') on a big, fast moving spider. This specimen was a lighter tan color, suggesting it might not be doing well and which is also a normal variant for the recluse also. But this does make it harder to spot the violin due to the weaker contrast, especially for a total novice. I did see darker coloration behind the head in the right area, but couldn't pin it down and had no interest in doing so.

The abdomen was the only thing that gave me doubt, as it seemed narrower than in the classic pictures which depict a rounder abdomen. But to be perfectly honest the little bugger had an appearance some what in common with this guy and the size and speed and shape were too close for comfort. So as this large, brown, agitated spider darted back and forth unpredictably around my open window with the kids strapped in nearby I flattened it unceremoniously with Jenn's flip flop.

Could have been a smart move, or could have been a dumb city guy doing in a perfectly harmless spider after watching one too many youtube videos. A candidate for something harmless and admittedly more likely would be the 'giant house spider', a nice big brown spider also. It's a strange world.

Posted by Dave at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I greatly enjoyed my stay in your hotel that normally costs as much per night as an iPad, but which fortunately I could afford because of a group conference rate. Truly I felt like a minor celebrity for a night. But if I may be so bold, I think you may benefit from some advice. First, although having a doorbell on my room made me feel like I was in my own apartment, I must ask where is the flat screen tv? Come on guys, does a blurry CRT that was well over 15 years old really cut it? Next, although it was awesome to be on the highest floor and enjoy amazing views, what is the deal with the mini-fridge in which every item (including a Butterfinger candy bar, surreal) is held with an electronic sensor? Truly, nothing conveys hospitality and luxury more than letting your guests know they are electronically monitored. I was afraid to touch any item in the room (how much to open the window curtains?) for fear it would trigger a fee that only a Kardashian could afford to pay. How relaxing. Oh, and there was actually no room in the mini fridge to put any of my stuff. Thanks! You have indeed thought of everything. Finally, although it's true that the plethora of polished marble made the bathroom shine like I was on the inside of some gemstone, when it comes to something a guest might actually need like the 'net why the heck are you charging extra for internet access? It's always complementary at the 'lesser' hotels who charge a fraction of your Trump-esque costs. Thanks for thinking of the things your guests will need and then excluding them in your fee while phoning in superficial luxury. Once again, you have thought of everything.

Overall, looking past these constructive comments, it was actually fun to play along with the charade and role-play a more decadent life for a night. Heck, I almost put on the robe and slippers hanging (nay - taunting me) in the closet but was afraid they might have been attached to a sensor too. I know now why celebrities and rich execs are so neurotic. I don't feel sorry for these guys, I just don't want to be one of them.

Sorry guys, no science here, just a little rant before I hit the hay after a really good conference...

Posted by Dave at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I should be grading, but probably a little procrastination would be good for me. Anyway, music has suddenly been the theme of the last week or two and I feel driven to share.

First, I broke down and bought a pair of budget headphones (Philips SHP2500) for home. I didn't realize it until now, but the Grado SR80's I listen to at work have really spoiled me and I'm mildly stunned at the difference. Budget headphones get the job done and sound better than budget headphones of 20 years ago, and I'm happy since they were cheap. But I have noticed that sounds blend together and have less depth and I find myself straining to pick out things that I take for granted I will hear on my high end 'phones. I think somehow I've become a sort of mild headphone audiophile. Translation: I'm destined to lose my hearing at an early age. Sigh.

Second, I started in on a xylophone project for Henry and whipped up something with a PVC frame and pine boards for notes. The complexity of sound from the pine planks is really surprising and tuning this thing is rough. The electronic tuner seems to have no idea which frequency to analyze. Tuning longer boards is getting interesting because the density of the wood makes two boards of equal length have very different tones, and the method of suspending the planks (hooks, string, etc.) not to mention the tension, plays a role in the tone too. So I really underestimated this project, but it's fun and Henry seems to dig it.

As I was striking the wooden planks and listening to them carefully, I experienced a big flashback to a nice era in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) when many spectrometers would play the audio equivalent of your data. The ear (technically the brain I suppose!) can sometimes analyze the character of the signal better than visual inspection of the raw data as it would appear on a scope. It's a long story, but NMR has a great deal in common with an FM radio station. Anyway, the NMR data we generated usually sounded like a slightly metallic bell with various reverberations and complexities that we trained ourselves to pick out by ear. I long for that again, for its deeper sensory connection to the data and the work we do. In addition to some potential advantages to processing our data by listening, the use of more senses forged a deeper emotional connection to the work also I have to admit.

If you think about it, in the chemical sciences at least, sound plays virtually no role in the application of our senses to the discovery of knowledge. We view data and we handle chemicals - so sight and touch are especially important. Smell can still be useful, and taste is forbidden for obvious reasons. But I claim that hearing is underutilized. So I'll end on a speculative question for fun if nothing else: is it possible to better engage our hearing in the conduct of scientific inquiry?

Posted by Dave at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's the time of year when I get really annoyed at how often our heat comes on to maintain our house at a pretty modest temp. After all, we live in a tiny little cottage-style home and it should be cheap as hell to heat this place and it shouldn't feel like the inside of a fridge.

When we first moved in to our fair abode, we couldn't be there for the home inspection, and as far as I can tell the guy just phoned it in. That's a disappointment but I've made my peace with it for now because we anticipated a lot of the issues for ourselves. But the biggest surprise probably was the "insulation". I have to use quotes because when I poked my head into our little attic space I was horrified that about 20% had no insulation and the rest had 2-3 inches of crumpled up mess. I happily took care of most of this and smugly indulged in way too much diy pride.

But incredibly the house was as cold as ever, especially upstairs. "How", I wondered, "could I have taken major tracts of ceiling from no insulation to R-34 and see no return?". It must be the windows right? They give us a nice breeze whether they're open or not. But our house has about as many windows as our four door sedan, so that can't be it. I sat on it for a while, stewing.

Then for a birthday (I think?) I got this awesome surface-scanning thermometer gun that I'd wanted for a while (initial motivation was to monitor the temperature of my smoker without lifting the lid). And I wanted it out of sheer gadget-envy too, ok. I was reading the literature that it comes with, and that was annoying because it didn't explain the science. Closest I could figure from the vague description - and this strikes me as a little unlikely - it may do a blackbody radiation analysis, which I find surprising for the temperature range it covers. But the one reason why this might be right is that blackbody radiation is theoretically independent of the material (not quite true in reality), a very desirable property of a surface scanning thermometer. But even if I can't find a source on the science, I can see plainly that it works.

And I was surprised at how good the good precision was, and realized I could use this to start hunting for variation in wall temperatures. It's so good I can use it as a stud-finder.

And I now know why our house is still cold. First (cue the 'ironic surprise' music) large tracts of ceiling that were not visible to me from the attic are not insulated and it was really easy to spot with the thermometer from inside the rooms; and I went spelunking in crawl spaces and found it. Yes at least 50% of our ceilings were not insulated at time of purchase. I see in hindsight that after I fixed the attic, it dropped to maybe 30% of our ceiling being uninsulated. If I ever meet our home inspector I don't know if I'll be able to be civil. So I'm about to start on putting that missing insulation up.

Second, 60 year old insulation is really, really bad. I replaced an original batting with a combination of styrofoam board and new batting and saw the wall temperature increase 3-4 degrees over a region with old insulation. So I'm now on a humbug to go through and do that all around also.

Those two are the biggies - I found a bunch of other problems less interesting to mention here. So, if your house feels cold don't be a dope like me - there's probably an obvious, fixable reason and a cheap surface thermometer gun will at least make it fun to discover how the person before you bungled the insulation.

Posted by Dave at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Toyota has been - publicly at least - very confused in trying to explain run away vehicles that accelerate uncontrollably and have been connected to truly tragic accidents. It does not look like loose mats any more. More recent reports in the news appear to blame the pedal itself somehow, while private litigates are suggesting an electronic culprit. Toyota has been more silent on this than they probably should have and is promising to announce the definitive fix. Is this a problem with the japanese corporate culture, as many have said? Maybe, probably. But there's potentially another reason: this could also mean that they don't know.

Seems crazy right - how is this possible? The modern car is a study in complexity and when a failure is sporadic and unpredictable, how do you test if the culprit is mechanical, software or electronic? Even worse, nearly every system in a car contributes to 'making the car go' so that there are thousands of mechanical parts directly or indirectly contributing to accelerating the car. And that's just the mechanical. So something is failing sporadically - and spectacularly - and its only symptom is that the car accelerates. Not good. Analysts are railing on Toyota for reckless outsourcing and cost-cutting that may have contributed to this. So don't feel sorry for Toyota, but let's hope they figure out a way to deal with the complexity and find the culprit soon or that the NHTSA does first.

Compare to NASA who manages complexity on an entirely greater level and scope - every successful shuttle launch is a technical marvel in which millions of parts work together in astounding harmony to lift many thousands of pounds off of our fair earth. The feat can barely be described by words. They make it look too easy. I DO feel sorry for NASA.

Anyway, I meant to build all of this up to reflect on the role of complexity in scientific data, and really took my sweet time doing it. Well with over the counter terrabyte storage and wondrous new instruments, we can collect such vast quantities of data that human inspection of the raw results is utterly impossible. Such a thing would normally have been frowned on - experimentalists have always aspired to elegantly design studies that isolate variables one at a time (and still do). But what is new is that there are more ways of extracting meaningful information from vast quantities of data. I met a scientist who can take an orange and tell you exactly where it was grown because they have a wealth of data on oranges in a data base - another who could take a cod (yech) and tell you where it was caught, all in the space of a few minutes (not counting wrestling the cod I suppose).

These are impressive, but the big prize is to demystify body fluids. There are a lot people working to develop what you and I would most closely recognize as the Star Trek 'tricorder'. You pee in a cup - maybe submit a blood sample too - and a few minutes later, you receive an astonishingly complete medical diagnosis of diseases, conditions, etc. This will probably happen in our lifetimes. You heard it here first.

I tried to think of a really cheesy, clever Star Trek quote to wrap this one up and got writer's block about it. It's monday night and BBT was new and awesome so in honor of Sheldon, I'll leave it to Spock,"Life...is not a dream".

Posted by Dave at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

...how to make killer ramen noodles. Yes, I'm going to divulge here the secret 37 styles (or thereabout) of ramen fu. Here it is:

1 pack of chicken ramen (any brand)
1 green onion, diced
half a celery stalk, diced
chicken broth (splurge on organic)
soy sauce
ginger powder
dried oregano

Make a 50/50 mixture of water to chicken broth in a medium sauce pan and turn the heat to high. Make a lot - make a little. Up to you. Add the green onions and celery. Add a splash of soy sauce, a pinch of ginger powder, the spice packet that came with the ramen noodles, and a couple shakes of the dried oregano. Bring to a boil, let boil a minute maybe two, add dried noodles from the ramen pack, decrease heat to medium. Serve after about 4-5 minutes (absolutely no longer). Yes, it's flipping awesome.

Want to get crazy? Then splurge on fresh cilantro and sprinkle on a generous amount of cilantro whole leaves right after you pour it into a bowl.

There, I gave it away. World peace through ramen, man.

Posted by Dave at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I am freshly sans tonsils and have this to say : it takes a sore throat to get rid of one. ;-)

Posted by Dave at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, so last year Jenn and I made an attempt at some sort of a garden with actual food in it. Lo and behold it worked out fairly well. There were potatoes, brussels sprouts, hot peppers and lettuce. Yup lettuce. I don't know who grows leafy weeds like that for fun - apparently we do - but it was really successful and cool for a while. For a couple of weeks we ate really great salads.

This year we (translate : Jenn) think to ourselves: why not do it again except bigger and better? So we plant a leafy forest of mixed greens that takes up half our planter (don't worry, you'll get to see that soon enough) and congratulate ourselves for our initiative, healthy choices and all-around suburban coolness.

I still need to impart a little more background. Long story short : our neighbor's house is pretty badly neglected, and the large, cavernous space underneath the deck has several access points where we have seen herds of cats entering and leaving. One such opportunity looks like this (and if you have sharp eyes, then yes that is in fact poison ivy all around the neighbor's deck)

This was all fine and well until Jenn saw a groundhog saunter into that very opening yesterday afternoon and then she and I saw it again a few minutes later - double visual confirmation. Awww, cute groundhog, wonderous survivor and creature of nature. After oooo'ing and ahhhh'ing over the waddling, plump groundhog butt as it scurried under the deck, I averted my eyes towards the garden and discovered that about a third or so of our plants looked like this :

Yes, our uninvited guest (honestly, who else could it be?) had dined yesterday morning on a springy mix of sweet and delectable young sprigs of lettuce and clearcut about a third of our less-than-a-week-in-the-ground plants. And he had done it in the space of a few hours, because yesterday morning, Henry and Jenn and I had been admiring the fabulous lettuce plants in their full non-chomped glory.

Now growing up there was a lot of gardening going on - dad is the champ of gardening. And if I've learned anything about groundhogs ... it's that they always win. The only course of action is to lock horns in mortal combat, playing out the epic struggle of man vs beast, and hope to spare some shred of edible matter by the end of the summer. I had no illusions about this: the remaining lettuce would be eaten to muddy stumps by this morning. Indeed, yesterday afternoon I watched the groundhog and the feral cats prance around and underneath the neighbor's deck, vying for space (sorry no groundhog pictures...YET). The groundhog knew he wanted a condo right next to the garden and was trying to claim it, and I knew that no matter what he would be back for the rest of the lettuce.

So into the car I go -ostensibly to go to work and grade (that's what I told Jenn), and make sure I can turn in my grades on monday when they're due - but instead I truck to Lowes, truck back home, and assemble this minor masterpiece:

As of this writing, the lettuce survived the night and I am declaring an initial victory (with apologies to the cute but annoying groundhog - lest you feel sorry for him, he was very plump prior to discovering my ultra-low-calorie treats).

But let's not forget rule number 1 : the groundhog always wins. So I am waiting for him to escalate the arms race and do something new and drastic. For starters, they are good diggers. Sigh.

Posted by Jenn at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

So I just boarded a gigantic, crowded plane in L.A. bound for Boston, and the stewardess is going through the usual information such as what weather to expect when we arrive in Boston. "It's still raining in Boston..." she concedes, knowing that we have all been basking in west coast sun. Saving the only shred of good news for last, she adds "but it's about 45 fahrenheit in Boston, which is 7 Celsius, and if I'm doing my math right, that's 280 Kelvin". She was d**n well doing her math right and I felt this awesome rush just like those old Klondike Bar commercials. Out in the real world, not in some nerd-infested conference like the one I was returning from, some totally random person perfectly and casually used the absolute temperature scale.

If you too wish to do this, then take the temperature in Celsius, add 273.15 (it's a lot easier to skip the .15 for convenience - do you really care if you are off by a tenth of a degree?) and voila. So 7 C turns into (7 + 273) = 280 K.

Some temperatures that every chemist should commit to memory in Kelvin: (many of these assume 1 Atm ambient pressure).

0 K (-273.15 C, -459.67 F) - absolute zero; funny thing about this is you can never reach absolute zero in the laboratory (or anywhere else for that matter...) - that's a law. But you are allowed to get as close to it as you like.

4.2 K (-269 C, -452 F)- boiling point of liquid helium, very possible nature's most precious resource for supporting modern science and medicine.

77 K (-196 C, -321 F) - boiling point of liquid nitrogen; this is the temperature you need to reach to liquify nitrogen.

90 K (-183 C, -298 F) - boiling point of liquid oxygen; yup - when working with liquid nitrogen, you can liquify oxygen out of the air.

273.15 K (0C, 32 F) - freezing point of water; ho-hum.

298 K (25 C, 77 F) - the classic default temperature we all call 'room temperature'.

310 K (37 C, 98.6 F) - body temperature!

373.15 K (100 C, 212 F) - boiling point of water; yawn.

Posted by Dave at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our totally adorable son asked me what a magnet was. I have no idea. Really, I'm crazy about magnets, I have tons of them, and I use a big honking magnet in my research, and I completely got my flux lines in a twist on this one.

Here's a common definition : a magnet is a material that creates a magnetic field. Totally useless. Nobody should accept this. It's like saying a pork chop is a chop made out of pork. Yes I know it's technically correct, and there's a deeper meaning in it when you think about what a field is, but fundamentally, what is a magnet? Light is a photon or a wave depending on how you look at it. Electricity is just electrons moving around. A magnet is, ummm, uhhhh,.....

OK here's another common definition : a magnet is an object that sticks to metals. This one is kind of tempting, but has the major problem that there are certainly metals that a magnet won't stick to (ok - weakly diamagnetic, which repels the magnet anyway) such as copper I think.

With my cow-eyed three year old staring up at me, I came up with ' a magnet can stick to some metals, but not all, and it's kind of funny how it sticks to some and not others and...' and then I was totally losing him. I was thinking, how can I tell my kid that any charged particle with angular momentum has a magnetic moment? Why is this so hard?

Then Jenn saved the day. Because of course we were playing with Henry's magnadoodle at the time and she says simply that a magnet is anything that can draw on the magnadoodle. And so he starts imaging all kinds of magnets from our fridge on the magnadoodle and drawing with them too. I'm not worthy.

Posted by Dave at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

While CNN's recent scitech blog seems to think that 'twitter' is science, fortunately the rest of the web has got better ideas. I was ecstatic to see a link to a Wired article on a nice piece of pure science on self assembling magnetic particles on the yahoo front page. It immediately made me think of the linear magnetic chains found in so called magnetotactic bacteria, which are also in the category of truth being stranger than friction (some bacteria carry around what is essentially an iron needle compass inside their bodies). Whether there is ultimately a connection or not is anybody's guess.

This led me to stumble onto Wired's top 10 amazing physics videos and then Wired's top 10 amazing chemistry videos. Why do I get the strange feeling I'm the last nerd to know about these?

No doubt we will be inundated by this story shortly, but why not use science to find bin laden? The rough idea is to apply principles used to hunt for endangered species. One assesses needs in terms of natural resources, shelter, social requirements, etc... and then overlays them on satellite images and computes probable locations where all needs are maximized.

But back to Wired magazine -they'd like to give you advice on how to make a home chemistry lab , and even want to start you off with something that could melt holes in your floor. I admire them for being true to their word and NOT having the 'don't do this at home' disclaimer.

Posted by Dave at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm told that philosophers have entire journals devoted to quantum mechanics. This worries me since I'm also told these journals have no math in them, a strange situation. I suppose I should look at an issue some time. Although quantum is 'just a theory' , I haven't heard anybody complain about it or file lawsuits, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time (or is it space-time? And what does matter have to do with space-time anyway?). The thing is this : everybody out there has an opinion on quantum mechanics. While med students have a deathly fear of thermodynamics (a gorgeous theory) and the far right is cooking up ID primordial soup (blechhh), everybody loves quantum mechanics and takes joy in waxing on about its many unfathomable implications.

Thermodynamics gave us the industrial revolution. Quantum gave us the electronics/tech boom. Any decent explanation of any teenager's igadget du jour demands quantum. And quantum is just plain fun :

-->there is actually a chance that I could walk through a brick wall unharmed thanks to quantum mechanics. The probability is so infinitesimally small that all I would succeed in doing is smashing my nose against the wall an infinite number of times, but TECHNICALLY it can happen.

-->quantum mechanics puts some limits on human knowledge. I am not allowed to know both the position and velocity of an electron with high precision at a given instant in time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Quantum mechanics makes a living out of telling us all the things we aren't allowed to know.

But this is the popular stuff. The real meat and potatoes of quantum, the rigorous physics and math, is tough and I'm in the throes of writing a difficult article in which I'm taking on somewhat deeper quantum than usual and it's a little hard on the noodle. Why am I suddenly hungry? I'm realizing that the 50's and 60's were high times for quantum. Every scientist lived, ate and breathed it and discussed it in the halls with others. It dominated all the papers, and the understanding of quantum in the 50's and 60's was perhaps the best it's ever been. I think our understanding of quantum -in the rigorous physics and chemistry sense- is fading.

We've all had to spread ourselves out thin to learn molecular biology, nanotechnology, proteomics, metabonomics, name-your-favorite-omics, etc. And it shows. Our math is suffering, our hard science backgrounds are suffering. I'm feeling a need for us all to get back to our roots a little bit, geek out and make pure quantum mechanics hip again. I think we need it.

Posted by Dave at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yup - it's been way too long again. Should I write about CNN's dismal coverage of science - again? Too easy. It's been a good week though. In the category of 'truth is stranger' than fiction, it's going to be hard to beat this. And Obama is attempting to increase science research. I'm a believer in the concept that the only way out of a hole is innovation, and science drives innovation. Now if only GM and Chrysler had understood that a decade or more ago. Meanwhile Toyota will be releasing the first (?) car to include a solar panel, and Ford has a very capable hybrid that takes aim at Camry and Prius.

And then there's a study which finds that public school students score better in math tests than private school students. What's the reason? The authors claim private schools are teaching out-dated math curricula, while public schools are forced to follow trends and improvements in curricula. Statistics are a tough thing, because what the authors of the study state is that public schools are essentially teaching students to take the tests of today. So do public schools give better math education legitimately, or are they simply 'teaching to the tests', a hot-button issue right now in public education? I don't know.

Finally, if you have not yet found Phdcomics, you should. Obviously written by somebody in the know, they're good and sometimes hit juuuuust a little too close to the truth.

Posted by Dave at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A very dark side of the so-called 'scientific method' as it is taught in high schools is to encourage students to write purpose statements. And what's disappointing here is that this is creeping into the college level, and it seems as though (or am I just becoming pessimistic?) I have to be increasingly diligent to break students of this practice.

There are two problems here in my view.

The first is pedagogical. What I see is that when students write a purpose statement, independent thinking suffers. Beginning a sentence with 'the purpose of this lab was...' is to put mental blinders on. It's a very constraining way to understand an experiment (more on that below). But deep down I have to wonder if it doesn't make us all regress a little bit to a high school or middle school science class state of mind and forget for a moment that we are independent minded adults. I worry (and as I said in the last post - this is anecdotal and don't ask me for the research on this because there ain't none) that students are taught the purpose statement as a rote crutch, an obligatory part of form-based lab reports.

My justification for this first point is anecdotal but powerful. I always remember the looks of surprise I get from a few students every year at the beginning of lab when I tell them purpose statements are forbidden. Some still insist on it - certain I can't be serious. And then I can compare. Students breaking free of the purpose statement show me more independent thinking in the abstract and lab reports. Students clinging to the need to do a purpose statement against all requests give rote descriptions of the equipment and methods.

One other pedagogical comment: when I see a purpose statement it almost always turns out that the student had unusual difficulty understanding the experiment and so I think they reverted to the purpose statement as a crutch.

The second problem is that a purpose statement is an empty comment that loses sight of the analysis and the context of the study. Going back to our purple deer, I think in high school or earlier students are encouraged to write something like, "The purpose of this experiment was to make field measurements of deer colors." But this statement is terribly incorrect. Measuring deer colors was just a method, a tool of the study. Measuring deer colors merely provided data that was analyzed to try to answer interesting questions. The purpose statement encourages students to passively recite the methods and to lose sight of the real prize: the opportunity to perform critical and independent and creative analysis of the results.

Say that you're a food critic and you just visited a restaurant where the food was awful and you can't wait to write a masterpiece of scathing critique. Would you write,'The purpose of my visit to the new french bistro in town was to repeatedly place the food in my mouth and sample it across my palette using standard eating utensils."? While it may be easier to recognize that this is absolutely ridiculous, it is just as bad as the purpose statement above on purple deer. This is why purpose statements never appear in any peer reviewed scientific literature.

Look - I have to admit that this is all part of what we do to nurture students along. Before college they start off with purpose statements to develop initial skills in thinking about science, but then we need to transition them out of it in order to reach the next level of doing science. At the college level we are in the role of facilitating that very important transition. What I'm wondering is if - when we think about what we can do to try increase the scientific prominence of our educational system - we shouldn't be looking more critically at some of the pedagogical tools that are not serving us well. My worry is that we have canonized a poor view of the 'scientific method' that should be rethought.

Posted by Dave at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jenn rightly teased me for rehashing my movie list post, but I just couldn't resist. Sorry.

I've thought about writing this up as a more formal essay at some point, but for now will use the blog to help figure out some of my thinking. The bottom line : I'm uncomfortable about the 'scientific method' as it is taught in middle and high schools, particularly with the way in which hypotheses are presented. It may or may not come as a shock that practicing scientists who are extremely successful at advancing the forefront of knowledge stray significantly from hypothesis-driven research as it is conventionally defined. And they need to.

Perhaps scarred just a bit from my own experience, but having seen the 'scientific method' regurgitated enough in print, I am worried about the appearance (and more importantly the consequences) of a too-rigid, rote view of how science is done. I can tell already I'm going to need a couple of posts to explain this right.

In my view the most wonderfully subversive thing about teaching students the hypothesis driven approach to science is that it is supposed to condition students to tackle a problem by asking well-phrased questions. In my view, a hypothesis is a very well phrased question that is asked in a way that can be interrogated by experiment. Is that controversial? Maybe it is.

To be clear, right now my feelings on this are anecdotal and I'm wondering if I have the time/inclination to research this right, but my sense is that there has been a distortion of what a hypothesis should be. My view that a hypothesis should be presented in question format seems to be a minority view. I will call this a question-based hypothesis. But the popular view is that a hypothesis is a guess about how the world works that can be tested by experiment. I will call this a law-based hypothesis, which is admirable on the surface, but quite dangerous.

I've invented a simple example, which is a bit flawed, but shows the point. Suppose your friend the hunter tells you he saw a purple deer once. A scientist who formulates a question-based hypothesis might say: "If I find out what colors of deer are observed in a large population and with what frequency I might spot a trend that will solve this mystery". A scientists who formulates a law-based hypothesis might say: "I assert purple deer are genetically prohibited, simply don't exist and expect that a field survey will show 0 instances of purple deer". After hiring tons of graduate students to perform field work, both scientists count 0 instances of purple deer. The latter scientist submits a manuscript to Nature entitled 'Purple deer do not exist in the wild type population' to state his new law. The former scientist submits a paper to Hunter's Quarterly reporting,'Advice to hunters: although there are no purple deer in the wild, many reddish shades are observed which, when considering the spectrum of light that shines through atmospheric pollution at dawn and dusk when hunting is popular may create an illusion of purple deer'.

A law-based hypothesis promotes the need for a boolean right or wrong answer and tempts one to overstate results (there is no such thing as purple deer). A question-based hypothesis should insist on advancing knowledge (cataloguing deer colors; finding that environmental conditions may trick an observer to perceiving a deer as purple), but does not need to state a law or solve a problem on the first go (since no reasonable experiment can measure the colors of all deer, living or deceased, it is not possible to prove there are no purple deer).

Posted by Dave at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I thought I would post a comment on the aforementioned blog entry on the CNN site. I commented "Does CNN think this is science?". Kept it simple, to the point. Naiively I thought it might provoke a response from the editor/author. It never made it through the moderator who I assume is the author. In the meantime at least one other post did. I am forced to conclude that I've been censored by CNN. I think I feel pretty good about that actually. Yes, it would seem that CNN has very complex emotions about science.

Today was a good day. Got recommended for tenure and promotion. Yeah! Thought I'd shout that out to cyberspace. Maybe I should go totally controversial and risque with this blog now - woo hoo!!! Yeah, right. Let's face it -I don't have the guts.

I'm really in the mood for some whacky, nerdy movie tonite for emotional catharsis for the last five and half years. In the spirit of CNN I propose a post that has nothing to do with science. Let's talk about the movies nerds like me love (in no particular order)

1. The Princess Bride - sure laugh, but it's the only chick flick that ever attracted a male audience

2. Ghostbusters - "back off man, I'm a scientist" ; should I say any more?

3. Akira - a disturbing hand-drawn masterpiece that makes you wonder 'how'd they do that?'

4. The Matrix - Neo was the everyman hero for the digital age

5. Star Wars (4-6) - Show them to Henry in a few years I will.

6. Buckaroo Bonzai - Bigboote! (if you don't get it, then you obviously have no appreciation for the fine arts); did I mention that Peter Weller references Mr. Wizard?

7. Big Trouble in Little China - "Jack Burton, Me!"

8. LOTR - extended editions of course

9. Jurassic Park - forget the CGI dinos, this is the movie that depicted a 3D computer GUI that drove all us computer types crazy and which Apple has a huge headstart on over Microsoft, according to patent drawings.

10. All Star Trek movies: Kahhhhhn! Am I the only one totally sick of the whale movie?

11. Jackie Chan - you must learn to say this like one word: Jackiechan! Then you will truly know the awesomeness of the drunken master.

12. Doom (the video game) - movie was a good try but didn't work (sorry - that's the way it is).

13. Civilization (the video game) - even science types like me were embarrassed to admit how addicted we were to this. But it didn't change the fact that we played it until carpal tunnel set in.

...back to movies...

14. Steel Dawn - the movie Patrick Swayze wishes he never made, but which got me through college.

15. Blade Runner - a gorgeous, musing film predicated on the famous 'Turing Test'

16. Fifth Element - supergreen

17. Predator - groundbreaking cinematography and sci-fi; true fans recognize how significant this flick is.

18. Tremors - a lesson on whose basement not to break in to. OK, a lesson on how low-budget sci-fi can be totally awesome. Think about it - this is the movie that made the Blair Witch possible.

19.The Keep - so overlooked it is not even on netflix; you are a true fan of the genre if you know this one, featuring Ian McKellan, Gabriel Byrne and Scott Glenn; eerie, wandering, frightening movie with some social commentary thrown in. You are a truer fan if you are drawn to this movie because of the superb score by Tangerine Dream.

20. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - a most unprecedented movie; see the above comment about Tremors.

That should do for now.

Posted by Dave at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

When penicillin was discovered by accident, could they at least have had the courtesy to also discover a miracle antiviral compound at the same time? On day 6 here of an extremely annoying cold and wondering why nobody has addressed this yet.

On the subject of a completely different virus, I heard a talk about corporate drug development to combat HIV and I had to share. In our own cells, our body goes to a lot of lengths to make accurate copies of our DNA for cell division. But in HIV it's a completely different story. HIV carries around its genetic information as a single stranded RNA molecule. When HIV attaches to and invades a CD4 cell (unfortunately CD4 cells are part of our immune system) the first order of business is to make a DNA copy of the HIV's RNA. This process is called reverse transcription. In HIV, this process is highly error prone. HIV intentionally makes a lousy DNA copy of its RNA. Why? It means that HIV mutates at an incredibly fast rate. In fact, so fast that it is morally unethical to treat a patient with any single drug since it is guaranteed that a mutant HIV strain will arise very quickly in the patient with resistance to this drug. To combat the high rate of mutations that HIV undergoes, modern treatments uses multiple drugs simultaneously, putting HIV in an evolutionary conundrum where it needs an exquisitely improbable set of simultaneous mutations to have any chance of adaptation. In quite a number of patients, this is extremely successful in suppressing the virus over long times.

Despite this, it does seem to still adapt, but much, much more slowly. So what do they do? I know drug companies take a tough rap sometimes, but I have to tell you this is amazing. They try to anticipate and profile the mutant HIV that successfully evade one cocktail of drugs and develop new drugs to attack that mutant and so on. Some hold out hope that a 'magic combination' of drugs can one day be developed to which there is no possible evolutionary trap door escape for HIV. As Jeff Goldblum's character cautioned in 'Jurassic Park', will we be humbled since "nature finds a way"? That the possibility of cornering HIV is even on table gives some hope I think, as it would have been unthinkable 10-15 years ago.

Posted by Dave at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An article last week (on yahoo I think?) listed the top 5 'most scientifically plausible sci-fi movies'. Kudos to yahoo for mentioning Gattaca and 2001. We are definitely in the genetic engineering age and the advent of commercial space tourism is a more than symbolic step towards the future Clarke envisioned. Special commendations for mentioning the Truman Show. But I have to ding them for not mentioning Star Trek. Come on, have you SEEN the iPhone? Makes a tricorder look like one of Henry's plastic toys.

But the surreal one was none other than....Iron Man. The author of this article gravely and with much authority proclaims that 'many of the underlying principles are sound' after giving disclaimers about the boots and the force fields and all that (btw - what the heck IS a force field anyway?); but what is left then? That cool glowing power generator on Iron Man's chest that generates colossal quantities of energy with no discernable fuel source is pure fantasy. Is the underlying principle cold fusion? My inner nerd is just dying to burst out and proclaim that Batman is a heck of a lot more plausible than Iron Man. There - I've said it. I feel better already.

Posted by Dave at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

So I did something I almost never do. I returned something.

About two weeks ago, I made an impulse buy of a blu ray player (Sony S300) because it was on sale. They were clearing it out for the new models and it was dirt cheap. We have the kind of t.v. that should look gooooood on blu ray. Brought it home - surprised Jenn - gave her Nightmare Before Christmas on blu ray, and then we settled in for a good movie.

We agonized for several minutes just for the blu ray player to 'boot up'. A comical circus of hitting the eject button too many times ensued. After several minutes, the tray opened and closed and opened and closed and opened and closed and... When this was done we proudly plopped our very first blu ray in and tucked under a blanket in eager anticipation. We waited. And waited as the dvd 'loaded'. At one point it went to a funny screen that made us think the unit froze. We waited some more and then a very nice menu finally appeared. Clicking through this was a Nightmare Before BluRay. 'Click' - wait for the menu selection to highlight -'Click' - wait for the next selection to highlight - 'Click' - .....

OK, you get the point. Finally we watched the movie. It looked good, but not great. We threw in some of Henry's beloved dvd's and realized that the upconversion of regular dvd's looked as good as the native blu ray format. Isn't that interesting.

Here's an aside: Jenn thinks I'm nuts (but loves me anyway, what a doll!) but the Sony did a better job of upconversion than our budget Samsung upconverter. Also interesting.

And the menus were slow and annoying on the other dvd's too. So - after thinking about how much I would enjoy blu ray, how cool it would be to start putting blu ray discs on our netflix queue, how life in hi def would be a better life indeed, I marched it right back to the store for a full refund.

Posted by Dave at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The old saying goes that no one has more respect for the sea than the people who sail it for a living. Sailors take more precautions than any one else. It seems funny to outsiders because we think sailors have legendary command of the waves, uncanny skills to read the water, and a set of gills underneath those tall collars.

So I need this to make an analogy. No one has more respect for chemicals than a chemist. Chemists are not supernatural wizards who hide their talents by squirreling away in ivory tower labs producing fantastic chemicals that promise better living for all. (anybody get the oblique reference?) Stereotypes would have us believe that chemists have eschewed the natural world and committed to a new life full of synthetic wonders from rayon to pesticides.

But the truth, while quite a bit less romantic, still is compelling. Here is one example first and let's leave more examples for other posts. Chemists know that nature has evolved chemicals of more elegance and complexity than anything ever made in any research lab. Some chemists spend their whole careers trying to find ways to make naturally found chemicals in their own labs, such is their respect for nature's chemicals. Also chemists and chemical industries can be found trying to protect nature's best chemists: frogs. Look, I'm not an expert on frogs, but it goes something like this: because the frog's skin takes up foreign chemicals so easily, frogs have evolved the most sophisticated molecular defenses of any species on earth. The late Steve Irwin championed this well known fact that frogs are an indicator species because they absorb foreign, non-native chemicals into their systems more than any other animal. The point : chemists are not running around conceitedly trying to outdo nature, but instead have a tremendous respect and desire to preserve and learn from the marvelous chemistry in nature, like in frogs.

Posted by Dave at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

...part 2. Let's carry on our list here of great camp sci-fi/fantasy movies.

5. "Legend", a star-studded experimental Ridley Scott film in which he set out to make a fantasy flick in an Indie-European style. The result is an unbelievably deeply stylized film with gorgeous cinematography, but which never caught the interest of the American movie-going public. The DVD features the european cut which is a significantly better (interestingly mainly through subtle changes) version. Forget the critics, the acting is compelling, Mia Sara is awfully easy on the eyes, and Tim Curry steals the show.

OK - I admit : this is not a quotable movie - in fact it barely has any dialogue. True geeks should try to spot Robert Picardo (not easy).

6."Dude where's my car". One could argue it's a little too recent to be a true cult classic but it's close enough for me. Extremely quotable, with several choice cameos (should have skipped Andy Dick though), it somehow manages to pull off commando ostriches, multiple ridiculous aliens, and a bunch of situation sketches that are borderline ridiculous but completely rope you in.

Memorable Quote (chinese drive through): "And theeeeeeeeeeen...."
Memorable Quote (multiple characters) : "It's mystery is exceeded only by its power"
Memorable Quote (Jesse): "SWEET!!!! What about mine?"
Memorable Quote (Chester): "DUDE!!! What about mine?"

7. "Akira" - this is not a campy film in the sense that the others are. After all, this one takes itself seriously. And if it's your first exposure to anime, you're in for a wild ride. It's a violent, bloody, unapologetic rendition of an apocalyptic future of experimentation and technology gone haywire. And no computers were used in the production of it (hmmm, ironic?) - it's a hand drawn masterpiece with stunning graphics and accompanied by an unrelenting, addictive percussive soundtrack. Incredibly abstract, even for anime, it will leave you guessing, but also wondering if even director/writer Katsuhiro Otomo understands his own film.

Memorable Quote : Hmmm, I need to learn Japanese; whatever you do, don't watch it dubbed; watch with subtitles.

Geek comment: notice that Batman's motorcycle in 'The Dark Knight' appears to have been influenced by Kaneda's motorcycle, which is an extremely iconic image in anime.

OK, I'm all camped out. Watch this space.

Posted by Dave at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

...watching a good campy movie right now. So if you're a big nerd like me, what might that be? Let's make a list of the some of the 'standards' in campy sci-fi/fantasy. If you love one you'll love them all. And if you hate one, well, you're just weird. You should be able to quote each and every one of these extensively. In no order:

1. "The adventures of buckaroo bonzai across the 8'th dimension." Just ask Jenn how psyched I was when I realized that the end credits of the "Life Aquatic" were an homage to the campy end credits of Buckaroo - and both had Jeff Goldblum. Genius.

Memorable quote (by Peter Weller as Buckaroo): " Remember, no matter where you go....there you are."
Memorable quote (by John Lithgow as Dr. Lizardo):"Laugh while you can monkey boy!"

2. "Ice Pirates". The most under-appreciated entry in this list. Completely ridiculous, but strangely addictive. It's the kind of movie you'll laugh at and then be embarrassed you did, and then you'll want to see it again.

Memorable quote: Can't be repeated on a family-oriented blog.

3. "Big trouble in little china". Kurt Russell was almost too good as Jack Burton, the reckless all American trucker who stumbles into some bad china-town mojo with his big rig. Probably John Carpenter wants to forget the flop, except it exploded into a cult phenomenon with fans clamoring for the return of Jack Burton. A lot of physical comedy and endless one-liners. Just one quote this time:

Memorable quote: "Jack Burton, Me!"

4. "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" is the movie that every one lampooned, even trekkies. But that's a shame because it's wicked fun, easily the most quotable of any of the trek flicks, and is especially true to the spirit of the franchise and Roddenberry's insistence on an optimistic view of the future. Star Trek V had the audacity to put out some lofty philosophical questions and let them hang out there. Let's pause to have a brief confessional here : I'm Dave and I like Star Trek V. I feel better already.

Memorable Quote (Kirk): "What does God need with a starship?"
Memorable Quote (Spock): "Life-is not a dream"
Memorable Quote (McCoy): "God I liked him better before he died."

OK, this is a good start - we'll leave it at this until tomorrow....

Posted by Dave at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Click and clack were my commencement speakers, and they were awesome. Who wants to listen to a politician give a forgettable, canned speech? Who wants to hear a writer ramble self-indulgently on their own peculiar creative process? Who wants to hear pretentious celebrities or actors try to don the mantle of wisdom for 20 minutes? It usually leads to priceless commencement quotes like " Lots of hairy guys are pervs". (yes, it's fictional)

Here's a crazy idea: why not look through your roster and invite back two alums who have become wildly successful practicing some of the things they did at MIT and then share with the grads how they dit it? This should happen more often, but unfortunately Click and Clack were the exception, not the rule. And I'm floored I got them on my graduation! They went crazily over time, and I still remember the big picture message "unencumbered by the thought process", which was a reminder to open your mind, have the courage to do the things that you enjoy, that you're good at, and good things will follow. I'm not claiming anything about how well I followed any of that advice, but it's the sort of thing that when you hear it you feel as though you're a better person for just thinking about it! I think I was channeling Paris there.

Anyway, the point (I think) is that Click and Clack are out there making a career by using their brains. They never get to see any of the callers' actual vehicles, and they figure out the problems most of the time. You have to think to fix cars. There's a concept.

I'm working my way around to something I've been pretty excited about, which is a new PBS show coming up this summer: as the wrench turns with none other than click and clack. And I'm pretty psyched about it because the more people on television who actually think and use their brains and set a good example for the rest of us, the better off this crazy world is going to be.

Posted by Dave at 01:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's make this a true diary for the moment. Ignorance is not bliss. I hate it when something is out there that I just can't wrap my brain around. Like now. I've got data that yields lines when you take the logarithm of it. But I can't explain why. It's just one of those 'done things' - you log your data and plot it and look at the pretty lines. A lot of people do it, but I don't think they understand it. See it means your data looks something like a^bx where a and b are some constants. Except the data doesn't look anything like that at all. Conveniently the papers never explain it. Go figure. Or I'm too stupid to recognize it. One or the other.

Oh wait. OK - I've got an idea. If you look at the two limiting cases and the series expansion of the exponential, then part of it falls into place. OK, so maybe I'm halfway there. Sometimes you just have to get mad enough to see past all your misconceptions. Still don't have it sorted all the way, so I'm still annoyed. Have to get madder.

A priceless quote from CNN:"The international space station's lone toilet is broken, leaving the crew with almost nowhere to go." It would appear, I hate to admit, that the astronauts will have to find some other place to go where no one has ever gone before.

Posted by Dave at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's been a long time, but still trying to to find my voice here. We'll see.

NASA made another mars landing look easy, which blows my mind. This is living history.

Spent a week at the beach recently and picked up a mild tan and somehow managed a real coup: first time at the beach without a burn. Might have something to do with being bed-ridden with a nasty cold for 3-4 days. But I still had enough time to try out our spiffy new delta kite from Kitty Hawk Kites.

The wind was low for most of the trip so getting the thing in the air was really tough. Spent many afternoons chasing the thing around the beach, hauling it in from the surf, and so on. One evening the wind picked up nicely, and I got the kite up in the air. With glow-in-the-dark pirate patterns, the kite looked really good. The wind was good because some dark clouds were blowing in and I didn't really make the connection at first. But then I felt my first good jolt, as I stood barefoot in the saltwater surf. Not wanting to accept the truth and haul it in when the wind was just right, I chalked it up to a freak vibration of the line (which was pretty moist from said surf), and I left it a few hundred feet in the air. Then I felt the second jolt, maybe a little stronger, and changed my mind. Who wants to go down in history (or outer banks headlines) as the dumb tourist who got electrocuted with a kite in a storm. So I reeled it in and lived to tell and I have to give Franklin some credit.

Then, to justify my hubris (hubris = fancy word for stupidity), I speculated about whether these discharges could be used to solve this nasty little energy crisis we're having. So just to get it on the record: I propose starting huge kite farms that collect atmospheric discharges and provide power to the grid. This could have a much better aesthetic than windmill farms. I'm on to something. IPO!

That's what I've got for now - maybe I'll go back to thinking about what a Hilbert space is since that's been bothering me for a while.

Posted by Dave at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a quickie, but it's too good to pass up.

A group of investigators found a rare species of shrimp that can communicate with circularly polarized light. Science News talks about it here. It's essentially like a highly protected code since this is currently thought to be unique to this shrimp. Of course now that it has been demonstrated with this little guy, it might provide clues to finding it in other animals, but given what is currently known it will be exceedingly rare if it is found in any other animals. This falls in the category of something so cool you could never make this stuff up.

Posted by Dave at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In today's update I started to think about what happened to the fellow from several weeks ago who has a seemingly miraculous generator. Haven't heard anything since. This of course can only mean that it's being suppressed, man! But here's a guy with a fun idea for perpetual power - at least two easy reasons why it can't work. I'll save them for another post - I just don't have space in the margins provided here.

Looking for more ways to save the world? So are we! Not easy. I've gotten a little pessimistic recently. If you want to get into social justice by buying fair trade products, unfortunately you're best off doing it through charitable organizations (churches, student groups, etc.) since popular outlets just can't resist price gouging on these products since they have become "hip" and "trendy". Will this change? No idea.

More people are starting to bring their own cloth bags to grocery stores and so on. I think that's really cool.

A long, long time ago I heard about a study that showed scientists had a higher percentage who maintained religious beliefs/practices than other professional groups. I wanted to go looking for that study but couldn't find it. An apparently more recent study reported in an article at physorg.com finds that scientists have a lower percentage who practice or maintain religious beliefs compared to the general population, but finds that there are many misconceptions about religious beliefs in academia. Of course something about this study already raises suspicion for me - it only polled "21 elite universities". Who decides this, and what about the thousands of other universities in the country who weren't included in this study? Although the response rate was high - the sampling scope was breathtakingly narrow. And somehow the physorg.com article manages to use the word "elite" with an oddly sinister tone. So I say "thank you" to physorg.com for encouraging your readers to mistrust and be suspicious of higher education. Thank you.

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

Did you know you have lots of nerves at your fingertip? Of course - but if you ever want to be REALLY sure that they are there, just skin your thumb really good (think on the level of an ER visit) and then try to keep your mind off of it. Oh treacherous thumb, I love and hate thee.

OK, the point of the post was to take my mind off of the throbbing. I can always count on the wickedly awesome thinkgeek.com to brighten my day with genius products like this backpack: keep your things safe it will or this totally unbeleivable laser game that I wish I thought of.

Fermat famously bragged in the margins of one of his notebooks that he knew an elegant proof to the theorem which now bears his name, but didn't have the space to write it out. Well, I'm no Fermat because he was scary smart, but I've been sitting on an idea for a heat engine that generates power directly and which might fit in the palm of your hand. It would have decent efficiency I think and it's really simple and cool but I just don't have the space to describe it here.

You gotta love the brits.

For a little fun chemistry, check out what you can do with supersaturated solutions. I don't like calling it 'hot ice' because that dumbs it down too much, but cheers for a good video. I could probably show this in my class actually. Hmmmm.

Posted by Dave at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was making tremendous progress on my lecture writing when I stumbled on something that stopped me right in my tracks. I refer of course to the Christmas spirit.

Yes, I have some favorite new Christmas-ey youtube videos. To see what it's all about, how about a little sandstorm to get you in the mood. And if you're a scrooge and didn't like that, then how'd you like to live next to this guy?.

Now you see what this is all about and want more eh? For technical excellence and amazing sound-synch, this actually won some sort of award.

And while it's not the most visually stimulating of the lot, nothing gets me in the Christmas mood like Vince Guaraldi and the Peanuts theme.

I have a new mission in life: to out-do all of these. And to think Jenn's leaving me alone for the weekend...

Posted by Dave at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One trend sweeping the chemistry labs of the world is the use of microwaves to speed up reactions. It started up with people trying it in regular kitchen models, seeing their reactions go faster/better/etc. But now crazy-fancy lab microwaves with all kinds of cool features are the hip thing to have in your synthesis lab and no bench top is complete without one.

In an exchange with a former colleague that I though was funny but that I think led him to look at me somewhat awkwardly, I announced that I discovered a new microwave-enabled reaction. His eyebrows lifted visibly and he leaned in a little bit, and I announced that microwaving hot water WITH the tea bag led to more flavorful tea compared to microwaving the water separately and steeping the tea the "old fashioned way", as I now call it. Whether silly habit, or even sillier conviction, it's now my m.o. to nuke a mug of water with the tea bag.

Just to be clear - I nuke the water for about 2 minutes, and then I throw in the teabag and nuke it for about 30 seconds. If you try to do the whole thing with the teabag, it can come out way too strong.

The question bugging the chemistry/industry community is why some reactions proceed in microwaves that are slow, non-selective or not even reactive under other conditions, even if those 'other conditions' involve heating by other methods like using a hot plate. So there's the "heat stimulates the reactions" camp of the microwave community and the "inducing higher rotational states of molecules stimulates reactions" camp. Neither explanation is entirely satsifactory. As I mentioned above some microwave catalyzed reactions proceed where heating doesn't work, which is a problem with camp #1. On the other hand, rotational states are energetically boring and should not (in principle) play a big factor in whether a reaction goes forward, which is a problem with camp #2.

So this is an area where somebody could come in and make a big contribution if they could explain what's happening and settle the scores between the two camps. Who knows - maybe it's *both* (gasp).

And yes, I wrote this while drinking tea.

Posted by Dave at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)