Lecture by Leo Susskind...
Lecture by Leo Susskind...
Physics World: Quantum Hall effect created using light
National Institute of Standards and Technology:
Perfect Faults: A Self-Correcting Crystal May Unleash the Next Generation of Advanced Communications
Source: Science in Seconds |
Ironically, the NOAA posts a disclaimer: "Climate data on this page is PRELIMINARY (unofficial). CERTIFIED (official) climate data is available from the National Climate Data Center (NDCC)."
404 Not Found
The requested URL /rah/cliplot/www.ncdc.noaa.gov was not found on this server.
The actual URL I did find, and it has some useful information, but sadly seems as well-designed as the health care exchange site. I'm not saying the information is NOT there: it's just going to take some patience on your and my part since neither of us are environmental engineers.
I'm posting not just due to a week from Hurricane Sandy's anniversary: the "quick fix" solution promoted (and I've reported on this blog) has been geoengineering, i.e. seeding the clouds with sulfate aerosols deliberately to cool the temperature of the planet. I had a strong reaction to this: One of my process engineering projects had been eliminating chlorofluorocarbons from [then] our Polysilicon Etch processes. The problem with the whole aerosol spray thing is there could possibly be less rain, and since the planet and our bodies are made of ~70% melted comet snow balls, that presents problems only Bedouins so far have successfully adapted to. Of course, the Bedouins kind of "know" where the water is for their survival. Quick fixes seem to be the norm in the post-Google world of downloading information versus studying to master it; we've lost an appreciation for the process of discovery and problem solving: both take time, and soon that luxury will not be afforded us.
In Caveat Emptor, I pointed out a large percentage of the elements/rare earths for so-called green technology are found in the country of our banker, China.
We appear to be painting ourselves into a very narrowing corner, our options are few and sadly due to the elevation of the politics of deliberate science ignorance at the highest level: self-constricting...
PSA: It's election day, and every one counts. Go out and vote for the representatives that can answer these questions: ScienceDebate.org. Money becomes free speech only when free people stay home.
Technology Review: One Potential Problem With Geoengineering: Less Rain
In Austin, Texas I witnessed the caravans from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Interstates 10 and 45 packed headed towards Austin and Dallas respectively.
And, great wealth only matters: when you have a functional planet to spend it on.
Site: Climate Change Refugees
You Tube: Real Time With Bill Maher
Do the Math: 350.org
Your memories will truly outlive you by eons...
Physics arXiv:
Towards Gigayear Storage Using a Silicon-Nitride/Tungsten Based Medium
Source |
expert
It started right before the dawn of the 21st Century, the hand-wringing with regards to the "information superhighway" and access to it by minorities, or the fear of lack of access to what was then essentially emerging as a global database. Knowledge is power, advantage; hope.
Expertise, as the definition above suggests, can be acquired from skilled practice; repetition its mother; skill its patriarch. What is now understood as muscle memory, ancients mystified as "no mind." Expertise suggests a teacher-disciple relationship, tutelage and qualification from some combination of observation and tasks performed. It used to be an earned credential that qualified for a specific line of work endeavor.
The site now reflects to Health Central, may Dr. Koop rest in peace. Hopefully, their financial situation is not as dire as reported in 2000. However, one of the causes of the dot com bubble bursting was the notion of assumed expertise and viability because of the existence of a web site. Venture capitalists threw money at start ups with abandon and aplomb, knowing how to make money in the old world; arrogantly not perceiving or researching the viability of their gambits in the cyberspace of the then emerging new one. They fed and inflated the bubble.
I say assumed because pre-Google, one had to study for and pass a test administered by most librarians on the Dewey Decimal System. Knowledge was and is precious, as well as the development of basic research and critical thinking skills. With the diminishing importance of Dewey Decimal and the perceived public lack of Boolean logic in search engine queries, we have collectively lost our curiosity; our ability to separate the biblical "wheat from chaff"; to discern facts from loudly declared opinions. We are thus participant in inflating a bubble of dangerous ignorance.
The democratization of information has meant we have access to a global database: true. Teenagers as a demographic however, tend to use it to keep up with one another, bored with any other application; knowledgeable with regards to the opinions of other peers versus laws of nature, mathematics or critical thinking. Pundits have become entertainers, the lines blurred utterly between Comedy Central and so-called Cable News. Networks have sued for the right at the very least, to not run a story unfavorable to a major sponsor; many hired to disseminate information or disinformation in prime time are not educated nor trained in journalism, nor increasingly do actual journalists feel it is their duty to hold power accountable in a democratic republic.
Conspiracy theories used to be passed around on pamphlets by fringe groups whose meeting places you had to seek out and find on your own. Now: you may join a chat room, and become angry about anything fed you via cookies after a few search engine queries. The fringe are not only mainstream; they are AstroTurf movement, wielding power in principalities and higher offices of gerrymandered localities; temporarily shutting down democratic republics.
It is a power reinforced by uniform resource locator, the digital equivalent of preaching to a choir of the already convinced; similar to teens online - tweeting during the State of the Union; playing poker during senate hearings on Syria - our political leaders seem only interested in the echos within their own bubble chambers, reinforcing unyielding opinions. And like some pundits and most developing teenagers, they do not have to be skilled in governance to win higher office. Thomas Gray said "ignorance is bliss"; George Orwell "ignorance is strength." And when this bubble pops, there will be massive casualties.
Related links:
Successful Workplace: Is social BPM the end of focused expertise?
The Atlantic: The End Of Expertise?
Forbes:
The End of the Expert: Why No One in Marketing Knows What They're Doing
Source: link below |
Nanotech Web: Silica nanoparticles deliver anti-cancer drugs
University of Edinburgh: The Discovery of the Higgs Boson (click "Join this course")
Credit: Physics arXiv Blog; paper link below |
Physics arXiv Blog: When the new ideas of quantum mechanics spread through science like wildfire in the first half of the 20th century, one of the first things physicists did was to apply them to gravity and general relativity. The result were not pretty.
Scientific American, see [2] below |
I recall once that observation being made by someone I worked with at Motorola: "we're the 'only black engineers' in the room," my fellow alumni said. "And, we're the best damn engineers IN the room" I shot back. Despite that bravado, I wish I had Dr. JC Holbrook's paper on survival strategies [3] in many instances I felt the pressure of stereotype threat. Religion and spirituality - as she mentions - are forms of mental survival strategies (go see 12 Years a Slave) and cultural expression that if not abused by charlatans, pundits, lying politicians and political machinations spewing manipulative talking points, propels individuals and groups forward despite near insurmountable obstacles. Think of the Civil Rights movement. Unless society were to make a massive, herculean change towards eliminating inequality, this will remain necessary.
1. Reducing Stereotype Threat: What is 'Stereotype Threat'?
2. SciAm Beautiful Minds: The Need for Belonging in Math and Science
3. P4TC: Survival Strategies
BBC Universe: Quantum Mechanics |
Seebeck Effect - see arXiv (1) below |
1. Physics arXiv: Evidence for a Magnetic Seebeck Effect
2. Thermomagnetism: Using Heat to Make Magnets, Nik Papageorgiou, EPFL, Scientific Computing
Physics arXiv: Near-field thermal transistor
StopBullying.gov |
T Shirt Guru |
I've long championed what I like to term "conversational physics concepts," as well as diversity on this blog, particularly gender ascendancy in science, technology, engineering and math. Thus, my concentration this month wasn't all physics (though, I'm admittedly partial). For the nation to advance in the future, we need every one of us.
Hispanic Americans have contributed to our country in measurable ways in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Knowledge is power: a cliche to be sure, but a commanding statement. Its corollary leads to poverty and personal powerlessness. Carl Sagan said: Science confers power on anyone who takes the trouble to learn it (although too many have been systematically prevented from doing so). Resist that systematic effort when you detect it with all your might. Get help and study; form groups; connect to local chapters of NSHP and SHPE; invite speakers. Too many ethnic minorities drop out of STEM because it is difficult. Anything worth mastering is. Think of the other things in your life that were hard, and you didn't give up. That is the determination I'd like you to bring to this fight. It's more than just a career in science: it is literally learning how to think, and you can apply that in any area of your lives. For a democracy to function, we need an electorate with critical thinking skills. The cost you pay in this challenge I offer to you will be evident and measurable; the cost of the loss of your genius to this country is frightening and incalculable.
I post this as a father, with two young men with dreams, hopes and futures in Education and Civil Engineering. I have watched over Robert and Mildred Goodwin's grandsons. As they did for me, I hope and work for a future that they can contribute to positively.
Shout out to the students and teachers at Manor High School
For students, your futures lie not just in sports or rap music; a future in science, technology, engineering and math is not only possible: it is "what you can do for your country" (John F. Kennedy)...and for yourselves.
El reto: ¿Qué vas a celebrar? Adios...
...or at least found on the former planets around them.
Science Mag: Stellar Graveyard Shows Signs of Possible (Past) Life
Warwick:
Water discovered in remnants of extrasolar rocky world orbiting white dwarf
At the end of 1990, Alcubierre moved to Wales to attend graduate school at the University of Wales, Cardiff, receiving his doctorate through study of numerical general relativity.[1][2][3] After 1996 he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany, developing new numerical techniques used in the description of black holes. Since 2002, he has worked at the Nuclear Sciences Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he conducts research in numerical relativity, employing computers to formulate and solve the physical equations first proposed by Albert Einstein.[4] The solitary wave solutions proposed by Alcubierre for the Einsteinian field equations may possibly prove general relativity consistent with the experimentally verified non-locality of quantum mechanics. This work militates against the idea that quantum non-locality would ultimately require abandoning the mathematical structure of general relativity.
On 11 June 2012, Miguel Alcubierre was appointed Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Alcubierre is best known for the proposal of "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity" which appeared in the science journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.[5] In this, he describes the Alcubierre drive, a theoretical means of traveling faster than light that does not violate the physical principle that nothing can locally travel faster than light. In this paper, he constructed a model that might transport a volume of flat space inside a "bubble" of curved space. This bubble, named as Hyper-relativistic local-dynamic space, is driven forward by a local expansion of space-time behind it, and an opposite contraction in front of it, so that theoretically a spaceship would be placed in motion by forces generated in the change made by space-time.
WikipediaPhysics arXiv: The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity
Miguel Alcubierre, Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Wales, College of Cardiff, UK
Amazing Mexicans: Miguel Alcubierre Moya, PhD
#P4TC links:
Alcubierre Drive
As Dreams Are Made Of
Warp Fields and Research Efficacy
I'm Given Her All She's Got, Captain
Physics World: Chemistry Nobel honors trio who combined classical and quantum physics
Source link |
The Chronicle of Higher Education:
In the STEM Fields, How Hispanic Students Pay for Their Education Affects Success
By Elyse Ashburn