Cool Science

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 (0) | 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 (268) | 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 (2) | 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 (2) | 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)