Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts (3029)

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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):

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
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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.



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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:

photo pt52006figure1.jpg

photo pt52006figure2.jpg


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:


  1. Alternatives like wind and solar sound green and attractive, but we've historically gotten more "bang-for-the-buck" from deceased dinosaurs.
  2. "Green" battery-powered vehicles can also be quite dangerous, and have a few bugs to work out in its own right.
  3. 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.
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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

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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.
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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

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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

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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
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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

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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

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Physics' Top 10...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 18, 2013 at 7:28am
Source: AAAS (see #9)


  1. Neutrino Mass
  2. Shor's Algorithm
  3. Accelerating universe
  4. Extrasolar planets
  5. Higgs Boson
  6. Quantum Error Correction
  7. Topological Insulators (TI)
  8. AdS/CFT
  9. Bose-Einstein Condensate
  10. 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

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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

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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 La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 (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

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Another Use for BMI...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 13, 2013 at 7:34am



Researchers have developed a brain-machine interface (BMI) that allows monkeys to move two virtual arms just by thinking. A separate team of scientists has designed a device that mimics bladder function in paralyzed rats. Both technologies are wedded to the nervous system in a way that could potentially produce more natural, personalized control of sensory and motor function in paralyzed patients. The studies, which appear in the 6 November issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, highlight the future of neuroprosthetic and robotic technologies in human health. The idea behind BMIs is to link the brain activity from imagined movements to a computerized device that enables actual movement. A person with a spinal cord injury can still think about moving his or her limbs, but because the spinal cord is disconnected from the brain, these actions cannot be carried out. BMIs aim to bypass the spinal cord to regain control of limb movement.

AAAS: Technologies Seek to Bypass Nerve Damage in Paralyzed Patients

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Once Again...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 12, 2013 at 8:00am

...we are imperiled by our own inanity, our inability to separate willful ignorance from governance; science fact from misapplied faith.


Katrina, Rita, Irene, Sandy...Typhoon Haiyan. The list increases, one domino falls after the other; each block more powerful than the last; not the geopolitical spread of communism as personified by Kissinger: These dominoes are costing treasure, human and capital. An estimated 10,000 casualties - fellow travelers - have departed our planet. We cannot keep rebuilding forever. This is moral and literal bankruptcy by bloodletting.

Once again we are here...
Philippine Red Cross volunteers throughout the region are reporting significant damage and a growing death toll from Typhoon Haiyan. Photo: Romulo Godinez/PRC

The denials will begin as loud and as shrill as they always are. My post from two days ago eluding to emphasizing the Scientific Method will be called into question; trolls I willfully ignore, having limited science training to appreciate the research of expert others; clearly no agenda other than an authoritarian need to police "THOUGHTCRIME" as I assume I will be seen as violating some Orwellian dogma.


Links are provided below. Give to humanity and our human family in need. It doesn't have to be much, but a little from many has impact. I await an eclipse of real acts of charity. "Pay it forward"...

You never know when karma will choose us next, and we are in need of "love in action"...

(donate button at link)
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Cebu...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on November 10, 2013 at 7:30am
Popular Science

The actual tipping point is predicted to be in 2047. I will be likely be long expired from the sphere, or at the least very old. Most likely, my children and my grandchildren will be here. Hopefully, the inane deniers will also join me in entropy: our shared ultimate physical destiny of dust.

Interestingly, most official sources are not stating super Typhoon Haiyan (an actual term, versus "super storm") is a direct result of climate change. “We don't get to pick and choose which storms are enhanced by a warmer climate and which ones aren't, so this was just as subject to this year's climate as the numerous others that weren't so impressive. Extremely intense tropical cyclones are rare, but have always been a part of nature — we don't need to find an excuse for them.”* However, it may be example of what the Earth might experience more frequently in 34 years.

"But, that's not what you/climate scientists said"...sadly, that statement is forwarded most by those that are not versed in the Scientific Method, which is succinctly:

Problem Statement
Research
Hypothesis
Test Hypothesis
Data Analysis
Conclusion
Retest

Or, another way:

-Ask a question
-Research prevailing data on the subject
-Formulate a null (initial) hypothesis
-Test the null hypothesis via experiment
-Evaluate data results
--Fits hypothesis?
---Yes. Draw conclusions and report results.
--Does not fit hypothesis?
---No. Draw conclusions about experiment viability and ask another question
-Retest

Retest: the most important step, which verifies something as either repeatable or a fluke.

Pretty much both outlines are the same thing, but not conclusive in the light of our need for instantaneous gratification. That lack of appreciation for complexity would be like concluding every detective novel with "the butler did it" and thoroughly unsatisfying intellectually. It is this ignorance that is promoted by our "leadership" so they don't have to grapple with more complex problems than winning their next elections, for which they get handsome benefits and retirement. It is psychological projection to call what the general public has "entitlements" as if unearned.


Cebu is home of the nation's oldest city and birthplace of its indigenous martial arts traditions. It along with surrounding island principalities is a scene of tears.

This is our only home. Gaia weeps as avarice tears her apart.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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