Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

ATE...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 9, 2013 at 8:00am

At City College of San Francisco, student Daniela Cardenas prepares DNA for analysis during the biotechnology module of Bio 11: Introduction to the Science of Living Organisms. This course was developed with funding from the NSF-ATE grant titled, "Incorporating Molecular Biology into the Undergraduate Curriculum."

Credit: City College of San Francisco, Biology Department

In the U.S., almost half of all undergraduate students are educated at community colleges. The most recent data show that about 40 percent of community-college students represent the first generation in their family to attend college. Eighteen percent are Hispanic, 15 percent are Black, and 12 percent are students with disabilities.

The community college environment reflects not only demographic changes in the population, but also changes in the economy. As less-skilled jobs are less available, there is a need for more education and training in specialized fields to build or rebuild a career path toward a secure future.

This microcosm of students is key to the National Science Foundation's (NSF) commitment to support high-quality educational experiences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (the STEM fields) while recruiting underrepresented groups into STEM and building the STEM workforce.

In 1992, Congress presented NSF with its first-ever mandate for program creation, known as the Scientific and Advanced Technology Act. In response to this legislation, the NSF established the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program, with the overall goal of increasing the knowledge and skills of technicians who are educated at associate-degree-granting colleges.

In funding community colleges, the program gives them a leadership role in strengthening the skills of STEM technicians. The community colleges work in partnership with universities, secondary schools, business and industry and government agencies to design and carry out model workforce development initiatives in fields as diverse as biotechnology, cyber security and advanced manufacturing.

National Science Foundation: Preparing high-tech workers, meeting needs of employers

"Those in America with the most favorable view of science tend to be young, well-to-do, college-educated white males. But three-quarters of new American workers in the next decade will be women, non-whites, and immigrants. Failing to rouse their enthusiasm - to say nothing of discriminating against them - isn't only unjust, it's also stupid and self-defeating. It deprives the economy of desperately needed skilled workers."

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan, Chapter 19: "No Such Thing as a Dumb Question"

His Day Is Done...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 8, 2013 at 11:00am

Dr. Maya Angelou, I will always appreciate your light while it shines...

Hamba Kahle Madiba...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 6, 2013 at 7:20am

Message from The Nelson Mandela Foundation, The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and The Mandela Rhodes Foundation

5th December 2013

It is with the deepest regret that we have learned of the passing of our founder, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela – Madiba. The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa will shortly make further official announcements.

We want to express our sadness at this time. No words can adequately describe this enormous loss to our nation and to the world.

We give thanks for his life, his leadership, his devotion to humanity and humanitarian causes. We salute our friend, colleague and comrade and thank him for his sacrifices for our freedom. The three charitable organisations that he created dedicate ourselves to continue promoting his extraordinary legacy.

Hamba Kahle Madiba

Site: NelsonMandela.org

I will never cease to be amazed at the sheer callousness of our species.

During postings honoring the death of Nelson Mandela, someone took offense at his stance of forgiveness; could not fathom how he could forgive his enemies after such harsh treatment. More "eye-for-an-eye" than anything civilized. At issue was a quote from Madiba expressed in a similar meme as below:

"No person can forgive/love their enemy," and then referred to this great man as weak and by an epithet I assume would also culturally insult them if applied. I've also found those who advocate armed insurrection usually are armchair enthusiasts with no history nor track record of successful violence. I won't bother repeating it: profanity is evidence of limited vocabulary, shallow values and underdeveloped thought processes.

Madiba was 95 as he passed on, his frame worn out from trial, imprisonment and abuse by the system the world would come to know as Apartheid.

It mirrored almost without variation, the system of suppression and segregation in the Jim Crow south, just as unfair, brutal and deadly.

Yet, like King, he refused to hate. Like Gandhi and King, his nonviolent methods were identified with weakness, not strength. [He was a part of forming a counter insurgency after slaughter by the police leading to his arrest and harsh imprisonment, the more remarkable that with that memory, he could still forgive and not forget.] We no longer have segregated lunch counters, education, water fountains, transportation; South Africa and finally America shattered the opaque ceiling of presidential exclusion to their respective highest offices. Sadly, both nations still have a long way to go, even achieving so much.

Despite evidence we've all descended from the same genome that had its origins in Africa, some insist on their specialness; their apartness by essentially giving divine powers to Melanin and particular exalted shades of its gradient hue. It is no wonder the heavens are silent: ET does not phone, and refuses to be bothered with our present unevolved drivel.

Mandela refused to let the psychopathology of others in charge of an unfair and brutal system - Apartheid/Jim Crow - define his humanity: after arrest and imprisonment on Robbin Island, presumably at the time for life. He and F.W. de Klerk - despite a stormy relationship born of those tensions - would share the Nobel Peace Prize and usher the nation's 1st multicultural elections. For that, he was an inspiration in South Africa and the American South.

No, this post has nothing to do with science. But science, like the pursuit of human dignity, should be a shared, noble endeavor. Sometimes the best among us set the example by their humility and courage in the face of crushing adversity. Such courage may be cursed by a demented, myopic few as cowardice; I prefer instead to celebrate it as it passes on to the ages.

World English Dictionary hamba kahle (ˈhæmbə ˈɡɑːʃlɪ) — sentence substitute goodbye, farewell (esp to the dead) [from Xhosa, literally: go well]

Go well, Madiba...go well.

Quantum-Gravity Interface...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 6, 2013 at 7:13am

Source: Link below

It starts like a textbook physics experiment, with a ball attached to a spring. If a photon strikes the ball, the impact sets it oscillating very gently. But there’s a catch. Before reaching the ball, the photon encounters a half-silvered mirror, which reflects half of the light that strikes it and allows the other half to pass through.

What happens next depends on which of two extremely well-tested but conflicting theories is correct: quantum mechanics or Einstein’s theory of general relativity; these describe the small- and large-scale properties of the universe, respectively.

In a strange quantum mechanical effect called “superposition,” the photon simultaneously passes through and reflects backward off the mirror; it then both strikes and doesn't strike the ball. If quantum mechanics works at the macroscopic level, then the ball will both begin oscillating and stay still, entering a superposition of the two states. Because the ball has mass, its gravitational field will also split into a superposition.

But according to general relativity, gravity warps space and time around the ball. The theory cannot tolerate space and time warping in two different ways, which could destabilize the superposition, forcing the ball to adopt one state or the other.

Knowing what happens to the ball could help physicists resolve the conflict between quantum mechanics and general relativity. But such experiments have long been considered infeasible: Only photon-size entities can be put in quantum superpositions, and only ball-size objects have detectable gravitational fields. Quantum mechanics and general relativity dominate in disparate domains, and they seem to converge only in enormously dense, quantum-size black holes. In the laboratory, as the physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in 2004, “any differences between their predictions are physically undetectable.”

In the past two years, that widely held view has begun to change. With the help of new precision instruments and clever approaches for indirectly probing imperceptible effects, experimentalists are now taking steps toward investigating the interface between quantum mechanics and general relativity in tests like the one with the photon and the ball. The new experimental possibilities are revitalizing the 80-year-old quest for a theory of quantum gravity.

Quanta Magazine: Physicists Eye Quantum-Gravity Interface,
Natalie Wolchover

Measuring Infinity...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 5, 2013 at 7:20am

Source: Link below

In the course of exploring their universe, mathematicians have occasionally stumbled across holes: statements that can be neither proved nor refuted with the nine axioms, collectively called “ZFC,” that serve as the fundamental laws of mathematics. Most mathematicians simply ignore the holes, which lie in abstract realms with few practical or scientific ramifications. But for the stewards of math’s logical underpinnings, their presence raises concerns about the foundations of the entire enterprise.

“How can I stay in any field and continue to prove theorems if the fundamental notions I’m using are problematic?” asks Peter Koellner, a professor of philosophy at Harvard University who specializes in mathematical logic.

Chief among the holes is the continuum hypothesis, a 140-year-old statement about the possible sizes of infinity. As incomprehensible as it may seem, endlessness comes in many measures: For example, there are more points on the number line, collectively called the “continuum,” than there are counting numbers. Beyond the continuum lie larger infinities still — an interminable progression of evermore enormous, yet all endless, entities. The continuum hypothesis asserts that there is no infinity between the smallest kind — the set of counting numbers — and what it asserts is the second-smallest — the continuum. It “must be either true or false,” the mathematical logician Kurt Gödel wrote in 1947, “and its undecidability from the axioms as known today can only mean that these axioms do not contain a complete description of reality.”

Quanta Magazine: To Settle Infinity Dispute, a New Law of Logic,
Natalie Wolchover

Genius Materials...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 4, 2013 at 7:01am

LOOK at your cell phone. No, seriously: the embed below will hopefully inspire you to.

Your smart phone, your Kindle, your Nook, your pad (name the brand), your flat screen mounted proudly above your fireplaces are not the result of "magic," wishful thinking or dumb luck. The skills required to understand and design them are as accessible as an open book, electronic or analog pulp variety, and the will to read it and work out the difficulties with the material.

The technological advances you enjoy will not create themselves in perpetuity. You need scientists, engineers; you need an education system that prepares our youth for the competition that in every other country is advancing quite successfully. We are once again lagging international PISA results, albeit in this country, biased by socioeconomic factors (purposely, my hypothesis) not accounted for in the PISA eval. Wealthy kids against the globe do reasonably well; inner city children have myriad challenges for their attention. The testing curriculum in this country also assumes no impact from social stratification.

We can, as national ostriches with our heads buried in sand and up our collective anal cavities, ignore this disparity; continue on our inane "teach-to-the-test" regime, or accept our coming decline gracefully. Magic nor magical thinking* will be our salvation (STEM will, if allowed), and grace is something from the American electorate I've seen wanting.

* "A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising, an explanation based on will rather than knowledge. There is no truth, in either the moral or the scientific sense." Adolf Hitler (Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as A Candle in the Dark," Chapter 14 - Anti-science)

* "The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

—Unnamed White House aide[1]

The quote is now widely attributed to Karl Rove. (Rational Wiki)

More at: Science.NASA.gov

NEMS Transistor...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 3, 2013 at 4:11pm

An Oscillating Graphene Drum. Source: Link below

Researchers at Columbia University in the US have built the smallest frequency-modulated (FM) radio transmitter ever. Based on a graphene nanomechanical system (NEMS), the device oscillates at a frequency of 100 MHz. It could find use in a variety of applications, including sensing tiny masses and on-chip signal processing. It also represents an important first step towards the development of advanced wireless technology and the design of ultrathin mobile phones, says team co-leader James Hone.

"Our device is much smaller than any other radio-signal source ever made and, importantly, can be put on the same chip that is used for data processing," he explains.

Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like lattice that is just one atom thick. Since its discovery in 2004, this "wonder material" has continued to amaze scientists with its growing list of unique electronic and mechanical properties, which include high electrical conductivity and exceptional strength. Indeed, some researchers believe that graphene might even replace silicon as the electronic industry's material of choice in the future.

Physics World: Nanomechanical FM transistor is smallest yet

Interstellar Primer...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 2, 2013 at 6:49am

Source. Note: not an advertisement for the movie

Nerd fist!

Source of this post is my two grown sons in Texas. We discussed Thor via Skype, and how they missed our Sci-Fi movie romps together. I admit, so do I. I did have my issues with some of the plot devices, and hanging Mjolnir on a coat rack: dude, we're suspending belief knowing you can't even LIFT a hammer "forged from the heart of a dying star" (i.e. a white dwarf?) let alone hang it on a hook on an apartment wall! Yes, I'm in too deep...

Interstellar is a movie coming out in November 2014. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan co-writers - the same Christopher Nolan that brought you the Dark Knight Trilogy. Hans Zimmer is is scoring the thing! I've been a fan of his since the 80's with "Miami Vice."

Yes, it's a year out to wait, but it's based on Kip Thorne and Stephen Hawking "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy." The plot is a little dark, and maybe we need to be shaken out of our doldrums with a dark foreboding possibility regarding an engineered willful ignorance of science (3rd link, next paragraph). I think the function of science fiction, especially Dystopian types, should serve as a warning.

It's exciting when a little science winds its way into our fiction (thinking of "Ender's Game" and "Gravity"), since fiction is cramming its way rudely into our K-12 science...which could result in sadly, a Dystopian future for all of us in the long run.

Your Primer:
Leo Susskind giving a lecture on Inside Black Holes (source of embed: Physics Database):

aoflex | More lectures

You should see a short trailer in "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."

I just gave you another good reason to go to the movies...hopefully, with your family.

Movie site: Interstellar

Meraki...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 1, 2013 at 9:02am

To say the very least, it's been a challenging year. I had a final with Stevens, and as finals in Solid State Electronics go, it was adequately challenging, but doable. Solid State II in 2014. There's a lot of breadth in physics as far as areas of study; I seem comfortable working in the area of the very, very small.

Without going into a lot of detail, I've had to fill in as operations manager on 2 night shifts while holding down a load in online graduate school. That yellow orb in your sky is for you day walkers...

I've also been thinking about Maslow's pyramid of basic needs. Initially, there were 5:

Simply Psychology

That list now includes beyond the apogee of actualization (and sandwiched right after Esteem: Cognitive Needs, Aesthetic Needs, THEN Self-Actualization and finally Transcendence. Elaborated further:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

So, as stressful as the year was, it was also rewarding.

It's the top of the hierarchical structure where I think many of us - STEM people included - become discouraged in the sheer difficulty of understanding, let alone mastery in your chosen field (many drop out and go the non-technical route mid matriculation); or, on-the-job many may get confused and frustrated by the slow pace of our careers; the biases we may encounter; the "politics" we say we don't play (but on certain levels, we all do). That frustration can lead you astray to outside interests that have no bearing on what, and more importantly: WHY you initially chose a career based on studying the hard sciences and applying them to solving problems. Astray meaning in activities outside of STEM; investing time in businesses that function more like authoritarian cults without structure and realistic goals whose achievements outside its echo chamber makes a notable difference in the world. Desperate for the esteem/actualization portions of this new, faux pyramid (and, INTJ types are not very good at selling), every conceivable person you meet becomes a "mark"; no relationship or conversation about the weather seems genuine. Social media automates the process of commodification. You loose yourself in this wilderness of distraction, departing from your "first love," when you did science for the sheer joy of it. I speak from experience.

Similar to Rubik's cubes (dating myself); crossword puzzles or Sudoku, self-actualization is at the end of any struggle in STEM. Every expert started out as a novice; every scientist and engineer have/had problems that stump (ed) them. You've put pencil-to-paper or spent hours banging at a keyboard to master a software package. Whole forests have died in wastebaskets due your efforts in Calculus, Chemistry, Differential Equations (affectionately referred to as "Diffy Q") or the Schrödinger equation; sweat, body odor, unkempt hair (if, unlike me, you have any) and for men at least, the "5 o'clock shadow" dominates. Like a chess match when you have your opponent in check; like a fencer that finds her/his mark, there is a euphoria that is quite pleasant; not sure if that's "transcendence." Two quotes from Einstein come to mind:

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."

Looking forward to the middle of the pyramid now that this semester is over...and a shower.

"Word porn" on Facebook is the source of this post's title, an encouragement never to lose the poetry of mathematics; the transcendence (if, or not STEM) of your first love.

Energy and Employment...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 30, 2013 at 8:14am

From the credits:

Eugene Chudnovsky holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Physics at City University of New York in New York City. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society.

This kind of stuck out to me since the physics Dr. Chudnovsky refers to is thermodynamics: "the study of energy and its transformations" (as I recall my undergraduate textbook's definition).

His article appeared on Physics Today's under the title "The Physics of Unemployment." From the provided link:

The author points out the close correlation between employment and energy consumption, which almost seems oxymoron: employed people spend more in goods as well as energy usage (new gadgets; more electricity usage). We also we may inevitably have to face two physics facts possibly:

Alternatives like wind and solar sound green and attractive, but we've historically gotten more "bang-for-the-buck" from deceased dinosaurs.
"Green" battery-powered vehicles can also be quite dangerous, and have a few bugs to work out in its own right.
We may inevitably have to come to the reluctant conclusion that nuclear energy will have a "greener effect" on the environment (just need a way to store fission byproducts while waiting out the half-life); fusion for that reason being the more desirable of course.

It is naive at best to think our consumption can go on forever; that our assumptions of how to fix things scientifically takes us only in one direction. It is equally naive to ignore the impact of fossil fuels on our climate.

This article attracted my attention largely because for point 3, we'll have to plan and design accordingly to avoid another Fukushima. I believe examining other people's experiences works as the best teacher.

Feynman Lectures - Quantum Mechanics...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 25, 2013 at 7:51am

Image Credit: CapeRay blog, The Promise of Nanotechnology

Preface to the New Millennium Edition

Nearly fifty years have passed since Richard Feynman taught the introductory physics course at Caltech that gave rise to these three volumes, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. In those fifty years our understanding of the physical world has changed greatly, but The Feynman Lectures on Physics has endured. Feynman's lectures are as powerful today as when first published, thanks to Feynman's unique physics insights and pedagogy. They have been studied worldwide by novices and mature physicists alike; they have been translated into at least a dozen languages with more than 1.5 millions copies printed in the English language alone. Perhaps no other set of physics books has had such wide impact, for so long.

This New Millennium Edition ushers in a new era for The Feynman Lectures on Physics (FLP): the twenty-first century era of electronic publishing. FLP has been converted to eFLP, with the text and equations expressed in the LaTeX electronic typesetting language, and all figures redone using modern drawing software.

The consequences for the print version of this edition are not startling; it looks almost the same as the original red books that physics students have known and loved for decades. The main differences are an expanded and improved index, the correction of 885 errata found by readers over the five years since the first printing of the previous edition, and the ease of correcting errata that future readers may find. To this I shall return below.

The eBook Version of this edition, and the Enhanced Electronic Version are electronic innovations. By contrast with most eBook versions of 20th century technical books, whose equations, figures and sometimes even text become pixellated when one tries to enlarge them, the LaTeX manuscript of the New Millennium Edition makes it possible to create eBooks of the highest quality, in which all features on the page (except photographs) can be enlarged without bound and retain their precise shapes and sharpness. And the Enhanced Electronic Version, with its audio and blackboard photos from Feynman's original lectures, and its links to other resources, is an innovation that would have given Feynman great pleasure.

I sincerely hope you find this as useful as I do! Volume I on mechanics/radiation/heat is still up; they're apparently still working on Volume II (electromagnetism/matter).

CalTech: Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume III: Quantum Mechanics
Feynman-Leighton-Sands

Sciences As One Would...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 24, 2013 at 10:30am

"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called 'sciences as one would.' For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of the deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding." Sir Francis Bacon, NOVUM ORGANON (1620)

"A clairvoyance gap with adversary nations is announced, and the Central Intelligence Agency, under Congressional prodding, spends tax money to find out whether submarines in the ocean depths can be located by *thinking hard* at them."

Both quotes from "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle in the Dark," chapter 12 - "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Sir Francis Bacon's quote is in the chapter intro.

Sciences as one would: Sir Francis Bacon was part of Thomas Jefferson's "Trinity of Three Greatest Men." That simple fact of history is clouded by the David Barton's of the world that would have history as they would; science as they would and magical thinking as salvation.

This is the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It's larger than I remember as a young boy. My elementary class visited it. It was a lot different then than this current photo. I'm not sure it was the faux conservative Steven Colbert referring to North Carolinian's as bumpkins or the documentary on climate change that caused its censor - or both.

This is Alayna Wyland:

The tumor on her innocent and beautiful 18-month-old face with its remainder of an eye, the result of zealous parents, apparently so invested in faith healing they put their child in jeopardy. Cosmetic surgery will reconstruct her face. She'll have to adjust her depth of focus; lateral vision for the rest of her days; a prosthetic versus a genetically-generated eye. Numerous other parents have similarly endangered their offspring as well (see the link).

For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of the deference to the opinion of the vulgar.

There should be no need to rearrange recorded history for one's authoritarian whims. There should be no departure of critical thinking skills and science reason to push an agenda. There should be no endangerment of the environment, the planet, children, the geopolitical balance of nations...but, there appears to be a danger in this charade, essentially this "science as one would." An actual fabrication of facts appears to have addled a few of us; the casualties are young, old, all of us. Pray...and take your medicine. Pray...and go to the doctor. Bedouins had not the advantage of professionals certified by the AMA; priests gave up prognosticating weather conditions long ago. Learn real, not pseudoscience because its conclusions challenge your beliefs. A great many questions and motivations science is bereft of talents to handle: abolition, birth ceremonies, charity to the needy, last rites, The Underground Railroad, the March on Washington. I'm frustrated with modern-day Charlatans encouraging us all to chase chimeras outside of their lane of expertise, usually to sell a product of snake oil.

I've come to the sad conclusion from some exchanges with trolls on the Internet, firm residents in the dimension of the fantasy-based community that facts - those pesky things - don't really matter. This willful ignorance appears corporately and individually to affect us all as a species. We're in the life-threatening danger of "sciences as one would" and the "opinion of the vulgar," our common sense lost near the cereal box next to the AM talk radio blathering nonsensically nostalgic utopia.

We've lost our baloney detection kits to our own peril.

Breaking The Rules...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 23, 2013 at 9:11am

UNUSUAL BONDS: Chemical bonds between cesium (Cs) and fluorine (F) might form with not just valence electrons, but inner-shell electrons as well under very high pressures, new calculations suggest.
Image: Maosheng Miao

A study suggests atoms can bond not only with electrons in their outer shells, but also via those in their supposedly sacrosanct inner shells

By Clara Moskowitz

Most of us learned in high school chemistry class that chemical bonds can only form when electrons are shared or given away from one atom’s outer shell to another’s. But this may not be strictly true. A chemist has calculated that under very high pressure not just the outer electrons but the inner ones, too, could form bonds.

Inside atoms, electrons are organized into energy levels, called shells, which can be thought of as buckets of increasing size that can each hold only a fixed number of electrons. Atoms prefer to have filled buckets, so if their outer shell is missing just one or two electrons, they are eager borrow form another atom that might have one or two to spare. But sometimes, a new study suggests, atoms can be incited to share not just their outer valence electrons, but those from their full inner shells. “It breaks our doctrine that the inner-shell electrons never react, never enter the chemistry domain,” says Mao-sheng Miao, a chemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Beijing Computational Science Research Center in China. Miao predicted such bonds using so-called first-principles calculations, which rely purely on the known laws of physics, and reported his findings in a paper published September 23 in Nature Chemistry. Such bonding has yet to be demonstrated in a lab. Nevertheless, “I’m very confident that this is real,” he says. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

Scientific American: A Basic Rule of Chemistry Can Be Broken

We Chose To Go...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 22, 2013 at 1:51pm

Mr. President,

We chose to go because you challenged us. I was barely a month on the planet when you spoke this dandelion seed into the wind. It culminated with a chemistry set, science kits, interrupted cartoons and "one small step for mankind." That seed of science made its landing on me in an urban neighborhood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a degree in physics and a career in science.

Sadly, you didn't live to see its fulfillment, as is equally sad those that have reduced this technological achievement that set the modern electronics age; an accomplishment that riveted the WORLD'S attention into conspiracy theory in line with your own assassination, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.

Sadly, your successors have looked at science as anathema to national prosperity; they have clouded facts; created faux "controversies" tainting K-12 education to cater to the myopic view of a dwindling few who's choice of living in the darkness of ignorance is threatened by Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, Galileo, Hawking, Hubble, Krauss, Raizen, Sagan, Susskind, Tyson, Weinberg. Depressingly, this ignorance is foisted upon us by elected officials more interested in their personal enrichment and retirements than doing the business of the nation.

I will always remember you for this...when your words, your vision for this nation's science sagacity was so clearly set.

You...are...missed...

From the You Tube page this embed originates (part of the speech):

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962

Dallas News: JFK50

Quantum Dot Chains...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 21, 2013 at 4:57pm

FIG. 2.
(a) 5×5 μm 2 AFM topography image of QDC sample C. The chains are aligned along the [1¯10] crystallographic direction; (b) 1×1 μm 2 AFM image of the same sample; statistical distribution with Gaussian fits of the (c) QD height; (d) distance between QDs, d in , within the chains (peak-to-peak) measured along [1¯10] direction; and (e) distance between neighboring chains, d bc , measured peak-to-peak; (f) hall bar structure used for electrical characterization with a channel width of 25 μm.

ABSTRACT

Detailed experimental and theoretical studies of lateral electron transport in a system of quantum dot chains demonstrate the complicated character of the conductance within the chain structure due to the interaction of conduction channels with different dimensionalities. The one-dimensional character of states in the wetting layer results in an anisotropic mobility, while the presence of the zero-dimensional states of the quantum dots leads to enhanced hopping conductance, which affects the low-temperature mobility and demonstrates an anisotropy in the conductance. These phenomena were probed by considering a one-dimensional model of hopping along with band filling effects. Differences between the model and the experimental results indicate that this system does not obey the simple one-dimensional Mott's law of hopping and deserves further experimental and theoretical considerations.

Journal of Applied Physics: Electron Transport in Quantum Dot Chains

Quantum Cheshire Cat...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 20, 2013 at 6:37am

Physics World: see link below

"It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!" Alice thought to herself when she saw a Cheshire cat disappear and leave only its grin behind. It is not only in Wonderland, however, that properties of objects can exist independently of the objects themselves. That is the conclusion of a group of physicists from Israel and the UK, which has shown how the strange laws of quantum mechanics permit a photon to be in one place and its circular polarization in another.

This counterintuitive result was achieved thanks to the quantum-mechanical concept of post-selection. In classical physics, the initial conditions of a set of particles and the rules governing the behaviour of those particles are in principle enough to determine the properties of the particles at any arbitrary point in the future. That is not the case in quantum mechanics, in which a particle's evolution is inherently probabilistic. So while the results of a measurement carried out on a set of particles will have a known probability distribution, individual results cannot be predicted.

Source: Ibid

Post-selection, pioneered by Yakir Aharonov of Tel Aviv University, involves preparing a group of particles in some initial state, measuring each of the particles at a certain point in time, and then making a second set of measurements at a slightly later time. The results of the intermediate measurements will, on average, imply certain results for the later measurements but will not determine them. If the group is then split into sub-groups according to these later results, the identity of the members of those various sub-groups is information that can only be obtained after the final measurements, and not before.

The devices are chosen and arranged so that the first of the detectors only clicks when the photon is in a specific superposition state, and it is this state that is post-selected. The researchers then consider what happens to the photon – the Cheshire cat – and its polarization – the grin – in that post-selected state. They find that while any photon detector would reveal the photon to always travel along the left-hand arm, a polarization detector would occasionally measure angular momentum in the right-hand one. "We seem to see what Alice saw," the researchers write, "a grin without a cat!"

Rabbit-in-hat: yes. Jaffar: yes. So far, no Cheshire cat, quantum or otherwise (ABC needs to step up its game):

Physics World: Physicists reveal a quantum Cheshire cat

Single Photon Detection...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 19, 2013 at 6:54am

Source: Photonics.com

Quantum physicist Stephan Ritter and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, wanted to follow up on a 2004 proposal of a nondestructive method for detecting photons. Instead of capturing photons, this instrument would sense their presence, taking advantage of the eccentric realm of quantum mechanics in which particles can exist in multiple states and roam in multiple places simultaneously.

The trick was manipulating the rubidium so that it was in a so-called quantum superposition of these two states, allowing one atom to be an overachiever and a slacker at the same time. Consequently, each incoming photon took multiple paths simultaneously, both slipping into the cavity undetected and being stopped at the door and reflected away. Each time the attentive state of the rubidium turned away a photon, a measurable property of the atom called its phase changed. If the phases of the two states of the rubidium atom differed, the researchers knew that the atom had encountered a photon.

Science News: Single photon detected but not destroyed
Quantum Dynamics Homepage: Dr. Stephan Ritter

Physics' Top 10...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 18, 2013 at 7:28am

Source: AAAS (see #9)

Neutrino Mass
Shor's Algorithm
Accelerating universe
Extrasolar planets
Higgs Boson
Quantum Error Correction
Topological Insulators (TI)
AdS/CFT
Bose-Einstein Condensate
Quantum Teleportation

Neutrino Mass - surprisingly, neutrinos have a nonzero mass, which provides a window into particle physics beyond the standard model. THE STANDARD MODEL has been getting a lot of attention recently. This is well deserved in my opinion, considering that the vast majority of its predictions have come true, most of which were made by the end of the 1960s. Last year’s discovery of the Higgs Boson is the feather in its cap.

Shor's Algorithm - a quantum computer can factor N=1433301577 into 37811*37907 exponentially faster than a classical computer. This result from Peter Shor in 1994 is near and dear to our quantum hearts. It opened the floodgates showing that there are tasks a quantum computer could perform exponentially faster than a classical computer.

Accelerating universe - the universe is expanding, and the rate of this expansion is increasing. This result has been the source of an incredible number of misconceptions. First, how do we know this is happening? In the 1920s astronomers discovered that some of the really faint ‘stars’ that we see in the night sky are actually distant galaxies. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that these galaxies are actually moving away from us, and away from each other. The question becomes: how did this happen?

Extrasolar planets - over the past two decades, we have detected ~1000 planets outside of our own solar system. As a prerequisite for finding extrasolar life–unless they find us first–we need to discover candidate homes.

Higgs Boson - The Higgs “field” permeates all of space; excitations in this field are interpreted as particles (Higgs bosons); these particles give other particles mass.

Quantum Error Correction - we want to protect quantum information from noise. We also face this challenge with classical computers. It also turns out that our enemy is formidable: we are battling decoherence. One way to think about decoherence is that every quantum system interacts with its environment, creating entanglement between the two – since we can’t control the environment (it both large and unknown), we lost control of our quantum system.

Topological Insulators (TI) - we’ve known for a long time that solids, liquids, gases and plasmas aren’t the only phases of matter; but only recently, we’ve unexpectedly discovered a huge new class of phases. Before topological phases, we classified phases based upon their local symmetries. In the early 1980s, experimentalists discovered quantum hall systems, which were the first materials whose ground states couldn’t be differentiated by only using a local description. The ‘phases of matter can’ had a few dents in it, but the lid was blown sky-high when topological Insulators were discovered in 2006. These materials have bizarre properties; they provide the foundation for a multitude of cousin systems; they are shedding light on questions from fundamental physics; and they will probably be widely utilized in the electronics of the 21st century.

AdS/CFT - AdS/CFT, which sometimes gets called the holographic principle, is basically a mathematical toolkit which says that in certain situations, there is an exact correspondence between gravity problems in n+1-dimensions and strongly correlated electron systems in n-dimensions.

Bose-Einstein Condensate - One of the original BEC experiments involved cooling thousands of Rubidium atoms to extremely low temperatures (a few nanokelvin above absolute zero), at which point their behavior is described by quantum mechanics. The Rubidium atoms behave as predicted, where the thousands of atoms coalesce into a very small area.

Quantum Teleportation - Why is this amazing? Well, teleportation would certainly be amazing, but that’s a bit of a misnomer, and a point I tried to clarify in my posts. Quantum teleportation IS NOT an all-purpose teleportation protocol. But it is incredibly awesome, and will undoubtedly have major technological significance someday. Basically, it’s easy to send photons all over the universe (we are very good at building and operating lasers), but it’s very hard to send more exotic forms of matter, especially when the matter is supposed to stay in a specific quantum state. Quantum teleportation allows us to first spread entangled matter throughout space. Then, at a later time, we can exploit this resource to move delicate quantum states to the location of our entangled matter.

Quantum Frontiers:
The 10 biggest breakthroughs in physics over the past 25 years according to us

Unknown Unknowns II...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 17, 2013 at 9:47am

Original link here.

No Child Left Behind mandates that states use standardized tests to determine if schools are succeeding. (Photograph: Image Source/Rex Features)

Having been briefly a high school math/physics teacher, and personally experiencing the Herculean requirements placed on all of my fellow educators, this article by Erika Sanchez (link below) is a poignant observation and quite sad when you read it. I'd often mused about my students at the time “they don’t know WHAT they don’t know,” meaning our nation's youth have only a bottom-line obsession with “is THAT the answer?” (a byproduct of a-b-c-d and "drill baby, drill") rather than falling in love with the process of actually finding the answer, the sheer joy of learning something you pressed hard to discover; presenting proudly to fellow students on what you initially didn't know. From cell phones to Facebook, Twitter, reality TV, fashion web sites, glorified sporting events et al, they are becoming perfect consumers, narcissistic "ditto heads," automatons that will not question the world around them: they’ll just “Google it.”

In my admittedly fanciful utopia, there are no standardized tests and K-12 teachers are allowed free reign to instruct, be creative and be as close to Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” or Denzel Washington in “The Great Debaters” as possible. It only works in Star Trek apparently: post warp drive, world peace, matter replicators, ending world hunger, the dissolution of money (at least in politics) and hierarchical society. Yep, only Star Trek and Friday night mind blitzes with colorful drinks after several bar hops could fantasize this. No wonder there is such turnover in the profession (low pay also a factor). Idealistic enthusiasm smacks hard into the wall of reality.

In reality: teachers are hemmed by state-mandated test regimens; they are chained to performance evaluations based on unrealistic percentage passing rates in both said tests and classrooms. Greater than the unrealistic 10 – 15% failure rate can get you terminated, or in education parlance “contract not renewed,” a fancy way of not having to pay you unemployment benefits; a legal way to lie through your teeth at the next high school, i.e. you can say you weren't “fired.” The passing rate ironically mimics a manufacturing line's “bell curve,” usually more stringent on the floor (about < 5%); a failure rate there is considered and labeled: “waste.” We are Pavlov’s canines, conditioned and salivating writ large for our sensual drugs of pleasure, knowledge mastery not being one of them. A glimmer of hope: some parents are opting out of standardized testing, a "bathwater immersion" I hope gains broader support.

[Meanwhile, back at the ranch]: Apparently, it requires 40 armed gun enthusiasts to thwart 4 moms against gun violence, as every tragic shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing is quickly defined a "false flag" operation designed to "take our freedoms." Neither Sandy Hook nor Chicago, both offered as false equivalencies will sway this addled crowd from infantile attachment to their metallic "binkies." There can be no sensible legislation in an environment like this that protects everyone's 2nd amendment rights and damns all others (like, education for example) because the gun manufacturers would lose profits. Any mental health screen prior to purchase would probably fail a large percentage of the 40 demonstrably low-esteemed (and possibly libido challenged) enthusiasts, but no such passions to educate our citizenry to be good citizens and compete against a global workforce that is so much better prepared than we. For those that pant after “conspiracy theories” and every word of the post-Fairness Doctrine talk radio circuit, this is a huge, in-your-face social engineering experiment – well designed to our national detriment, and largely quite successful – that the screaming numb skulls are missing...

Whether it be No Child Left Behind or Common Core, the problem lies in manufactured learning. In teaching English at the university level, I have noticed that students are often ill prepared for the demands of higher education. Students who are used to multiple choice tests lack the skills and the confidence to formulate their own complex opinions and interpretations. It is irresponsible to have these students graduate without the proper skills to succeed.

Rigid curriculum's that focus on right and wrong answers teach children to see the world in binaries. These methods don't encourage creativity or innovation. I fear that our deeply flawed education system will produce generations of people who lack critical thinking skills.

What kind of choices will they make in their adult lives when they have never been taught how to look at the nuances and complexities of situations? Who will have the tools to question authority? Who will question the status quo?

Common Dreams:
America's Dumbest Idea: Creating a Multiple-Choice Test Generation

Superconducting Stripes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 16, 2013 at 7:44am

APS - Superconductivity Explained

The physics of low-temperature superconductivity is fairly well understood, but the ultimate goal of achieving the phenomenon at much higher temperatures remains tantalizingly elusive. The most promising high-temperature superconductor candidates are generally considered to be cuprates with perovskite structures, but it is unclear what mechanisms allow these materials to become superconducting — and how the superconducting temperatures (Tc) can be increased.

By examining the stripe phase-ordering in La_1.875Ba_0.125CuO₄ (LBCO) under high pressure at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory, a team of researchers from Argonne, Washington University in St. Louis, and Brookhaven National Laboratory probed those questions, specifically, the relationship between stripe ordering and superconductivity. Their work reveals the interplay between stripes, lattice structure, and the superconductivity of LBCO in unprecedented detail and is an important step in understanding high-Tc superconductivity and eventually achieving practical room-temperature superconductors.

Argonne National Laboratory: Superconductivity with stripes