What Is An Electron?

I get asked that question surprisingly often. It is understandable because of all the mysterious, unseen subatomic, elementary particle in our everyday lives, electrons are the ones we either encounter or deal with the most. It is the predominant carrier of electricity, and it used to be what caused our TVs to display images in the old days when we still used cathode ray tubes. So naturally, many of us are familiar with the presence of electrons, but we don't quite know what it is.

This is especially true in light of quantum mechanics. QM has made all subatomic particles, including electrons, mysterious. What we thought we knew, now seems to exhibit behaviors that are rather strange.

Frank Wilczek has a very nice article in last week's issue of Nature addressing "The Enigmatic Electron"[1]. He said something that people who are not trained in science should pay attention to:

Modern quantum theory reinforces Bohr's conclusion that what you see depends on how you choose to look. Electrons are both ideally simple and unimaginably complex. They are understood with precision yet remain mysterious. Electrons are stable bedrock in physicists' world picture, and are playthings that we are learning to fragment and transform.

And that is the central theme here. Something can appear to be mysterious, appear to have strange behavior, etc., but it doesn't mean that we know nothing about that. We have such huge and vast knowledge about electrons, their behavior (especially their collective behavior), etc. This is what drove advances in modern electronics. Yet, based on QM and QFT, there are a lot of things we either don't know, or can't quite reconcile with our classical understanding of the world. So being mysterious is NOT synonymous to not understanding anything about it.

I am emphasizing this because this is identical to what I mentioned earlier when I keep hearing people claim that no one understands quantum mechanics. This is, of course, utterly silly considering that we have a formal theory of quantum mechanics, and we have used it to produce useful applications! This ability is MORE than what can be said about many other things that people seem to think they understood.

Don't miss the Wilczek article if you have access to it.

Zz.

[1] F. Wilczek, Nature v.498, p.31 (2013).

"The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics"

One of the questions I get asked a lot online by members of the public is "what do I need to know if I want to be an amateur physicist?" There are many people who obviously are interested in "doing physics" without making a career out of it. While I am not quite sure what an "amateur physicist" actually do, or what they can accomplish, I can certainly understand why those who have a keen interest in physics but with an already-established career, might want to know that they need to be equipped with to continue trying to understand physics. This is especially true if one wants to know beyond the superficial level all the interesting discoveries and news from the world of physics.

So it is with that in mind that I'm highlighting a new book written by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky that attempts to address that very issue. A review of this book appears in this month's issue of Physics Today.

Enjoyable it was, but its utility is narrower than I might have hoped. In fairness, it seems to be excellent for its stated purpose: as a first textbook for the “ardent amateur” who is perhaps taking a continuing education course or seeking to learn about physics at a level a bit higher than in the usual gee-whiz, calculus-free course. I, however, was eager to analyze the book as a supporting resource for mechanics courses for two different classes of amateurs: life-science students taking physics as a premedical requirement and engineering or physics students with a comparatively weak background. There is a chronic need for a clearly written “theoretical minimum” textbook to help the many students who try to learn physics but cannot remember, or who never properly learned, the necessary elementary math skills—not to mention students whose high school physics course was so poor it actually obstructed their conceptual understanding.

A few minor issues notwithstanding, it does sound as if this is a worthwhile book to have especially if one is a physicist in academia.

Zz.

Staging the Drama of Quantum Physics

This news report presents an account of the staging of the infamous battle between Bohr and Einstein that is forever linked to this history of quantum mechanics.

At the center of the drama was the rivalry and grudging friendship between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, two brilliant physicists who fell on opposite sides of the new debate that came to be known as quantum theory.

Did you attend this? If you did, I'd like to hear your view of this play.

Zz.

The Physics Of Toasty Buns

It's summer (at least, here in the northern hemisphere), and lots of outdoor grilling goes on. So what a timely article on the secret to getting proper grilling of food.

At high temperatures -- about 400 degrees and up -- a substantial part of the heat that reaches the food arrives in the form of infrared light waves rather than via hot air or steam.

The higher the temperature, the bigger the part that radiant heat plays in cooking. But this form of heat interacts with color in a profound way.
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A silvery, mirror-like fish skin is even more reflective than a white car. About 90 percent of the radiant heat striking it simply bounces away. Because only around 10 percent of the energy sinks in and warms the fish, cooking initially creeps along slowly but steadily.

That changes rapidly, however, as soon as the food gets hot enough to brown. It's like changing from a white shirt to a black shirt on a sunny summer day.

As the food darkens, that 10 percent of energy absorbed rises by leaps and bounds, and the temperature at the surface of the food soars.

So learn your physics to understand how to be good in grilling! :)

Zz.

Interview With David Gross

Wired as an interview with Nobel Laureate David J. Gross.

I think the title of the piece is misleading. It seems that he is urging more of a 'revolution' in theoretical physics, not ALL of physics.

These days, Gross enjoys challenging young physicists as they chalk equations at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, the think tank funded by the National Science Foundation that he ran from 1997 until stepping down last year. He is eager for younger scientists to surpass his achievements, to break the impasse of under-determination that currently troubles particle physics, whereby competing theories predict the same physical results and may therefore be immune to experimental verification within the lifetime of the universe.

Gross characterizes theoretical physics as rife with esoteric speculations, a strange superposition of practical robustness and theoretical confusion. He has problems with the popularizing of “multiverses” and “landscapes” of infinite worlds, which are held up as emblematic of physical reality. Sometimes, he says, science is just plain stuck until new data, or a revolutionary idea, busts the status quo. But he is optimistic: Experience tells him that objects that once could not be directly observed, such as quarks and gluons, can be proven to exist. Someday, perhaps the same will be true for the ideas of strings and branes and the holographic boundaries that foreshadow the future of physics.

He has an interesting, but not surprising, take on String theory:

Simons Science: Is it possible to falsify string theory/quantum field theory? Or is that a purely philosophical question?

Gross: The question of how we decide whether our theories are correct or wrong or falsifiable has a philosophical aspect. But in the absence of empirical data, can we really judge the validity of a theory? Perhaps. Can philosophy by itself resolve such an ontological quandary? I doubt it. Philosophers who contribute to making physics are, thereby, physicists!

Now, in the last century, great physicists such as Ernst Mach, Bohr and Einstein were also philosophers who were concerned with developing theories of knowledge. Einstein famously criticized Heisenberg for focusing only on observable entities, when there can be indirect evidence for entities that cannot be seen. It may be the same with string theory.

Zz.

Sonoluminescence

Here's Minute Physics description of sonoluminescence.



Zz.

Theorists And Experimentalists

Hey, this is a rather good article on why many in the public seem to know more about theorists than experimentalists, and know more about theory than experiments.

Similar themes proliferate throughout the popular view of physics. Everyone knows Paul Dirac who conjectured the existence of the positron, but how many know Carl Anderson and his collaborator Seth Neddermeyer who actually found it? People similarly know about Wolfgang Pauli and Enrico Fermi stating the requirement for a ghostly particle called the neutrino in the 30s, but ask popular science enthusiasts if they are aware of the dogged pursuit of the neutrino by Raymond Davis for over 30 years and you will likely see knitted brows. Finally, even today, a schoolchild would likely know Einstein’s prediction of the bending of starlight by the gravitational field of a star, but Arthur Eddington’s verification of this fact would be little known.

The author produced a not-so-well-known quote from Feynman on the importance of experiments:

In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.

For many physicists, this is the main issue surrounding String/Superstring, etc.

The author produced a number of reason why the public are more inclined to be fascinated by theorists/theory than by experimentalists/experiments.

It seems to me that there are at least two important reasons why the public, in spite of tacitly appreciating the all-important role of experiment in physics, fails to give experimentalists their due. First is the sheer success of theoretical physics in uncovering the deepest mysteries of the universe through armchair speculation. Nobody can fail to gasp in awe at an Einstein or Bohr who, working with a few facts and pencil and paper, divine grand operating principles for the cosmos in short order.

Compared to their efforts based on pure thought, the corresponding efforts of experimentalists who get down on their knees, liberally coat their hands with grease and spend most of their time soldering electronic circuits and fashioning precision machine parts on a lathe sounds humdrum and boring.
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Secondly, there are also outstanding example of discoveries made by experimenters which really had no theoretical precedent. That is what makes Rutherford and Faraday the two greatest experimental physicists in history. Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus in 1908, but it took thirty years for physicists to develop a concrete theory of the nucleus. Similarly Faraday discovered the seamless relationship between electricity and magnetism – one of the very few examples of unification by experiment – but it took until after his death for Maxwell to come up with his pioneering theory of electromagnetism. Experimentalists  often follow in the steps of theorists, but the instances in which they lead the way are as full of creativity and achievement as the work of an Einstein, Bohr or Feynman. And even when they follow, they are the ones who bridge the gap between idea and hard fact.

Hum... OK. I don't quite agree with the 2nd part, even when the author gave some examples on when experiments produced something that hasn't been predicted by theory. I would say that in physics, it is more of a rule that the major advancement were made DUE to the unexpected discovery found from experiments, not the other way around.  Superconductivity, fractional quantum hall effect, dark matter, dark energy, the whole field of electromagnetism, etc.. etc. all came about out of observations first. In fact, one only needs to read Harry Lipkin's provocative essay in Physics Today from a few years ago when he asked "Who Ordered Theorists?" One can even say that Gell-Mann's often-used exclaim of "Who ordered that?" is a direct result of many experimental discoveries that no one expected or anticipated.

Zz.

Why Supersymmetry?

OK, so we had a video out of Fermilab explaining to us what Supersymmetry is. Now comes a video on WHY.



Zz.

Can You "Feel" Temperature?

Another fine video, and might answer the question (if you have it) on why a metal feels colder than a book, even when both are at the same temperature.



Zz.

Where Are All Those Doomsayers Now?

It's about time someone calls out those crackpots who predicted all those apocalyptic end-of-the-earth scenarios. This is especially true with the LHC and all that nonsense about it destroying the earth.

These prophesies share something else as well. Whenever an apocalyptic prediction fizzles, the doomsayers remain strangely silent — until the next opportunity to capture the public’s imagination. The new millennium did not bring down airplanes or knock out power grids; but no software engineer has confessed that the Y2K scare was a con — or at least a serious mistake — that cost the United States alone an estimated $300 billion. On the contrary, some have begun to warn that, in 2038, certain computer software and systems will experience “integer overflow,” causing them to report negative system times and, in turn, to fail.

The interval between a doomsday prophecy’s fall and the rise of the next one evidently is decreasing, perhaps owing to the accelerating pace of modern life — and, with it, the acceleration of forgetting, which enables potential beneficiaries to capitalize. Last year’s misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar clearly helped — and was probably helped by — the proprietors of some Yucatan hotels, which reached 100-per-cent occupancy in the weeks surrounding the world’s projected end.

Unfortunately, these crackpots would not get any kind of free publicity were it not for the media that seem eager to jump to such sensational story.

Unfortunately, mainstream media outlets are eager to provide a platform for fear-mongers. Doom sells; scientific empiricism, not so much. In an increasingly cutthroat media culture — in which falling behind a story is often considered worse than making a mistake — serious journalism has largely given way to infotainment and sensationalism.

For example, in 2008, the Russian physicist Grigory Vilkovisky claimed to have proved that black holes radiate away only about half of their mass — contrary to Stephen Hawking’s celebrated finding that they radiate away their entire mass. At the time, I wrote that, if Vilkovisky were correct, accepted ideas about black-hole physics would have to be radically altered, and “black holes created at CERN might actually survive long enough to be taken seriously.” While I intended only to suggest that the black holes would be considered seriously as a scientific phenomenon, my words were interpreted to mean that the black holes could pose a serious threat to Earth.

Anyone who has written a science article for the public, or have science blogs, will inevitably encounter something such as this:

On the other hand, the rising incidence of false prophecy might equally reflect the increasing prevalence of charlatanism masquerading as science. Each time I publish a scientific essay, I attract the attention of a dozen self-proclaimed messiahs eager to impart their divinely inspired ideas, which invariably lack higher mathematics (or, in the case of the black-hole sentinels, rely on elevated but meaningless mathematics). Their conviction that they represent the Alpha and Omega of knowledge is as rigid as their scientific illiteracy.

I certainly have. I lost count on how many "comments" I had to delete coming from people who claim to have solved the entire mystery of the universe. Love that DELETE button on Blogger. I've ever used the MARK AS SPAM on habitual crackpots who can't seem to get a clue that none of their garbage will ever get free advertisements on here.

Ah, such fun!

Zz.

Philosophy Isn't Dead Yet?

This is a rather strange article. The author is arguing that the problems that physicists are dealing with right now shows that philosophers are still needed. He presented several different major questions being dealt with in physics, including QM/GR unification, the measurement problem in QM, and the question of what is "time"?

But there could not be a worse time for philosophers to surrender the baton of metaphysical inquiry to physicists. Fundamental physics is in a metaphysical mess and needs help. The attempt to reconcile its two big theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics, has stalled for nearly 40 years. Endeavours to unite them, such as string theory, are mathematically ingenious but incomprehensible even to many who work with them. This is well known. A better-kept secret is that at the heart of quantum mechanics is a disturbing paradox – the so-called measurement problem, arising ultimately out of the Uncertainty Principle – which apparently demonstrates that the very measurements that have established and confirmed quantum theory should be impossible. Oxford philosopher of physics David Wallace has argued that this threatens to make quantum mechanics incoherent which can be remedied only by vastly multiplying worlds.

Beyond these domestic problems there is the failure of physics to accommodate conscious beings. The attempt to fit consciousness into the material world, usually by identifying it with activity in the brain, has failed dismally, if only because there is no way of accounting for the fact that certain nerve impulses are supposed to be conscious (of themselves or of the world) while the overwhelming majority (physically essentially the same) are not. In short, physics does not allow for the strange fact that matter reveals itself to material objects (such as physicists).

And then there is the mishandling of time. The physicist Lee Smolin's recent book, Time Reborn, links the crisis in physics with its failure to acknowledge the fundamental reality of time. Physics is predisposed to lose time because its mathematical gaze freezes change. Tensed time, the difference between a remembered or regretted past and an anticipated or feared future, is particularly elusive. This worried Einstein: in a famous conversation, he mourned the fact that the present tense, "now", lay "just outside of the realm of science".

I'm scratching my head here because these are all physics issues. I do not see how philosophy could SOLVE any of those, because inevitably, what will resolve these issues are accurate physical theories AND experimental verification. Last time I checked, none of those are done in philosophy. In fact, I would even put it to you that the reason why some parts of physics are in "such a mess" IS because they have neglected a major aspect of physics, which is the experimental part. To paraphrase Brian Greene in his "Elegant Universe" TV series, if String theory cannot provide a way to produce an experimentally measurable effect, it isn't physics, but rather a philosophy! So I can easily turn this around and say that this mess is caused by a "philosophy" rather than by physics.

And this is generally the case in physics when there isn't a sufficient body of experimental evidence YET. Lacking a set of decisive experiments, many different scenarios can fit into the same set of observations. So you end up with competing but different ideas, all claiming equal validity. That is why experiments are so important, and why continued refinement of existing experiments and continued performance of new experiments are needed to weed out which idea is valid. That is how physics and science in general have worked. It is just that it is taking long and longer now for that to occur because the problems are getting to be more and more difficult to solve.

Zz.

Accelerators For Baggage Scanners

I've been doing my part in trying to convey the fact that the overwhelming majority of the applications for accelerators have nothing to do with particle physics. Here is another example, the use of accelerators to generate x-rays for baggage scanners.

Two SLAC physicists with decades of particle accelerator experience helped a Silicon Valley company design and build X-ray devices that scan cargo containers for nuclear materials and other hazards. A version of this screening system is now in commercial use, and on May 16, the company received national recognition for its successful development from the federal Small Business Administration. 

There are a lot more examples of this that many of you come in contact with almost everyday. You use or come in contact with particle accelerators more often than you realize.

Also note that this is another example where research that was meant for the study of fundamental physics, found an application elsewhere as an off-shoot.

Zz.

"Ghostbusters 3" To Be Based On Physics Research?

I'm trying very hard not to roll my eyes (it's getting difficult to pop them back into the sockets), but hey, if it is done tongue-in-cheek like the first movie, it might just be entertaining enough.

It appears that the new Ghostbusters movie will tackle spacetime, or at least, something that threatened our spacetime.

Dan Akroyd told the ever-famous radio personality about the story of Ghostbusters 3:

“It’s based on new research that’s being done in particle physics by the young men and women at Columbia University. Basically, there’s research being done that I can say that the world or the dimension that we live in, our four planes of existence, length, height, width and time, become threatened by some of the research that’s being done. Ghostbusters – new Ghostbusters – have to come and solve the problem.”

Oooookay! Another creation of black holes in a particle collider that could destroy our universe, perhaps?

It sounds like it could be a storyline for a Marvel movie. We'll just have to see how they play this out.

Zz.

What Is Supersymmetry?

Here's a video "tutorial" of what Supersymmetry is.



Zz.

A "Quantum Micrsocope" To Look At The Hydrogen Wavefunction

The hydrogen wavefuction is one of the few systems that we can solve analytically. That is why we teach them in undergraduate QM classes. Yet, the ability to actually view such wavefunction isn't trivial and is part of the fundamental aspect of QM.

This latest work looks at the nodal structure of a hydrogen atomic orbitals using photoionization. In the process, the authors have provided a significant step in developing a "quantum microscope".

Writing in Physical Review Letters, Aneta Stodolna, of the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in the Netherlands, and her colleagues demonstrate how photoionization microscopy directly maps out the nodal structure of an electronic orbital of a hydrogen atom placed in a dc electric field. This experiment—initially proposed more than 30 years ago—provides a unique look at one of the few atomic systems that has an analytical solution to the Schrödinger equation. To visualize the orbital structure directly, the researchers utilized an electrostatic lens that magnifies the outgoing electron wave without disrupting its quantum coherence. The authors show that the measured interference pattern matches the nodal features of the hydrogen wave function, which can be calculated analytically. The demonstration establishes the microscopy technique as a quantum probe and provides a benchmark for more complex systems.

The link above provides free access to the paper.

Zz.

A Physicist Having A Yard Sale?

You'd think that we physicists are immune to having a yard sale. That's the look that I got over the weekend when some people found out that I was a physicist.

Over this past weekend, I decided that I've had enough crap.... er ... stuff in the house that needs to go. So I decided to do a garage/yard sale, since that was the weekend that my city designated as our zipcode-wide garage sale days. I set up stuff very early on Friday, and it went through till mid afternoon yesterday.

So it is your typical yard sale in many ways - old stuff, used stuff, but also a few new stuff that never been opened. But I guess what made it rather unusual are all the science/math books that I had for sale. Some people who walked by the stacks of books did a double take when they see books on math, physics, spectroscopy, etc. A person even picked up the infamous Abromowitz and Stegun's "Handbook of Mathematical Functions", looked at me, and said "Really?!"

And I replied "Really!".

A few people inquired what I do for a living, and of course, many of them have never met a physicist (at least, not that they know of). A person even asked if I work at CERN! :)

Anyway, the 3-day yard sale weekend was tiring, but it was a lot of fun. Made more than $300 selling stuff that I no longer want. Whatever's left will be donated.

And no, the Abromowitz/Stegun book didn't get sold, as with the rest of the math/science books, even though I was selling them for 50 cents a piece! If you are in the Chicago area, look out for those on sale at your nearest charity resell stores in the near future!

Zz.

From CERN To Goldman Sachs

When I read this article, my first reaction was "Is this new?"

This news article is describing the case of a CERN physicist being hired by Goldman Sachs, thus changing his career from high energy physics (presumably) to quantitative finance.

Ryan Buckingham, a particle physicist with a PhD from Oxford University, spent three and a half years at CERN before joining Goldman Sachs in London as an associate in the credit and mortgage structuring team earlier this month. He declined to speak to us and Goldman didn’t return our request for comment, but it seems that the path from CERN to investment banking is a well trodden one.

“CERN is the place to find top PhDs in physical sciences and computing,” said Dominic Connor, head of quantitative finance recruitment firm P&D Quant Recruitment. “Working at CERN is one step up from having any old PhD. There a lot of people who have doctoral degrees, but you know that if someone has worked at CERN they will be very good indeed.”

Buckingham isn’t the only CERN alumni working in finance. Alexey Afonin, a vice president in strats and modelling at Morgan Stanley used to work there too. So did Anne Richards, the chief investment officer at Aberdeen Asset Management. So did Nikolaos Prezas, a quantitative researcher at J.P. Morgan and plenty of others. Most people seem to work at CERN early in their careers, and then move into finance.

Which is the reason I am puzzled at why this latest "acquisition" by the financial world making it into the news. Especially here in the US where funding for high energy physics is so crappy, a lot of PhDs in this field have to go look for employment elsewhere. Most of the people who work at CERN are not guaranteed at a long-term employment. Postdocs, for example, don't get to stay for as long as they want. And with their knowledge in statistical analysis and computational analysis skills, it is not a surprise that the field of quantitative analysis would swallow these people up.

Zz.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Prefers Star Trek Over Star Wars

Hey, you can't win 'em all.

Famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, in an interview, indicates that he prefer "Star Trek" over "Star Wars" because, in his own words, Star Wars "... made no attempt to portray real physics. At all.... "

Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger.

You can read and hear the rest of the interview at the link above.

Zz.

The Future Of Fermilab

A video of a briefing to the community of the future of Fermilab. Here is the synopsis accompanying the video:

On Thursday, May 9, 2013, Fermilab invited elected officials and leaders from local communities to hear Director Pier Oddone lay out his vision of the laboratory's future. The presentation was held in Wilson Hall, and included both short-term (NOvA, Muon g-2) and long-term (LBNE, Project X) experiments, as well as an overall look at the direction of the laboratory's impact on Chicagoland. For further information on these projects see www.fnal.gov, http://www-nova.fnal.gov, http://muon-g2.fnal.gov, darkenergysurvey.org, http://lbne.fnal.gov, http://projectx.fnal.gov

It is interesting that Pier Oddone is presenting HIS vision of the lab future, considering that he is leaving Fermilab! :)

Still, with the dismal funding of high energy physics in the US, the future of Fermilab is really uncertain at this point. Many of the long-term projects being presented do not have a certain funding picture yet.

Zz.

"Einstein's Planet" Discovered

There's nothing special about this planet, other than the claim that it was discovered using Einstein's Relativity concepts. However, there appears to be slight error in this news report:

The researchers capitalized on subtle effects predicted by Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity to find the planet. The first is called the "beaming" effect, and occurs when light from the parent star brightens as its planet tugs it a nudge closer to Earth, and dims as the planet pulls it away. Relativistic effects cause light particles, called photons, to pile up and become focused in the direction of the star's motion.

"This is the first time that this aspect of Einstein's theory of relativity has been used to discover a planet," research team member Tsevi Mazeh of Tel Aviv University in Israel said in a statement.

Additionally, gravitational tides from the orbiting planet caused its star to stretch slightly into a football shape, causing it to appear brighter when its wider side faces us, revealing more surface area. Finally, the planet itself reflects a small amount of starlight, which also contributed to its discovery.

Not to be nit-picky (well, I guess I am!), but this sounds like it is relevant to the GENERAL theory of Relativity, rather than just the Special theory of relativity. I guess I will have to wait for the paper to appear (unless the preprint are floating around already) to confirm this.

Zz.

You Can Teach Yourself To Think Like A Scientist - Part 3

{You Can Teach Yourself To Think Like A Scientist - Part 2}

This entry deals with two separate issues, but both are related to the same 'event'.

In Part 2, I stated the technique of going back to the central, generalized principle. People often state their reasons for their actions or decision because they are abiding by some general principle. Realizing what this general principle is is crucial because it often clarifies the boundary of the argument, and one can also use that as a counter argument if the principle is not applied consistently.

In this part, I will attempt to show a specific example, and application, of this technique. Furthermore, I will also use the example to change the subject a bit (thus, the two separate issues) and presumptuously tell you how you should elect your political representatives. Yes, I know how pompous that sounds.

Let's start with the first part, which is applying the technique of investigating the generalized principle. During the height of the last US Presidential election, Senator Marco Rubbio of Florida was, at some point, considered as a potential vice presidential candidate for the Republican party. He wasn't, of course, but he is still in the US Senate. So who he is and what he stands for are still relevant. During this period of active political event, GQ magazine conducted an interview of Senator Rubio. One of the questions asked caught my attention:

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?

Marco Rubio: I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries. 

OK, so before I apply the "look for the general principle" method, let's get this very clear. If he is referring to Science, there are NO multiple theories on the age of the universe, and there is no issue at all on the age of the Earth. While there may be some uncertainty in the EXACT age (as is the case when we produce numbers for quantity such as this), we certainly are NOT making a mistake between 6000 years, versus 3 billion years! We do not make such magnitude of errors, and there's nothing to suggest that we are off by that much! It is not a great mystery.

So now, let's get back to applying the general principle argument. Reading his response, what kind of "general principle" is he abiding? I can see at least a couple: (i) he lives by the principle that if he isn't qualified in something, he then has no answers to questions in that area, nor does he have a strong-enough opinion about it to answer such questions; and (ii) if an issue isn't related to our "economic growth", he isn't interested in it or does not think that it is that important to receive an answer.

OK so far? Did you see anything else that we can extract as his overriding general principle?

So now, as we did in Part 2, let's adopt these two principles, and see what consequences they lead us to.

1. No qualification or expertise in an area, so don't have any answers, or won't answer, or don't have any strong opinion.

Now, this is strange. Senator Rubio has a law degree (like many politicians in the US). So his area of expertise is actually rather narrow. Does that mean that he only has an opinion in the area of law and nothing else? Does that mean that he won't answer questions about other issues, or can't make a decision on other issues? After all, he decides on stuff related to the US economy all the time. Is he claiming that he is an expert on various economic theories, ideas, principles, etc.? When he votes on the various bills and legislation, he obviously has opinions on those to arrive at his decisions. Is he then an expert in those areas?

Of course, things don't work that way. Politicians have staffers who are supposed to do the dirty work and research things. At some point, they also have people who advise them on issues. I'll deal with this more in detail later on. However, in this part, I'm pointing out the absurdity of not answering the question simply because he is claiming that he is not an expert (not a scientist) to answer that question. Yet, other questions where, presumably, he does not have an academic expertise in, are answered. This is another example of selective application of a general principle.

2. Not interested in issues unrelated to the "economic growth".

Apply this principle, we would expect Senator Rubio to abstain from voting on issues such as gay marriages. After all, what possible significant "economic growth" impact can that have? So has he disqualified himself in dealing with such issues throughout his political career?

The inconsistent application of the general principle is very common, especially in politics. People justify their actions by appealing to some general principle that they live by. When you understand what that principle is and state it in its direct form, you can then apply it, and see how, in many instances, they ignore that principle. As I had mentioned in Part 2, this means that there is often a more overriding principle that they are not stating, or trying to hide.

So now comes the related by separate issue part. I mentioned in #1 that politicians have to decide on a lot of issues, and practically all of them are outside of their area of expertise. This is where it matters to consider how they decide what opinion to listen to. Sen. Rubbio may not be a scientist, but does he listen to the consensus of scientists regarding the age of the earth? He appears to know about the biblical age of the universe, so why didn't he say "I'm not a theologian. I'm not qualified to answer that question". He didn't say that. Instead, he qualified that he's not a scientist. Does that mean that he will accept the opinions of scientists, even if it contradicts his biblical understanding? After all, he is implying that to be able to answer such a question, one needs to be a scientist.

There is also a puzzling effect here if one examines this closely. There are things we expect almost everyone to know, not because they are "experts" in such-and-such a field, but because as a citizen of the world, and as a citizen of a particular country, there are just certain level of knowledge that everyone is expected to know. What if I asked Sen. Rubio to point on a map the location of Washington DC, or Afganistan? Is he going to say he can't answer it because he's not an expert in geography? There are just things that we expect people to know. Sen. Rubio may not be scientist, and he may not know the scientific consensus of the exact age of the earth, but he should be AWARE of the orders of magnitude, and also the widely-conflicting discrepancy between that, and his biblical understanding. Maybe he's afraid that the interviewer would ask him how he would deal with such discrepancy, so he chose not to answer that question. Is this better than answering that he knows the scientific and biblical age of the earth, and is aware of the discrepancy? Personally, I prefer the latter. Simply not answer the question by claiming that he's not an expert makes him appear to be ignorant of something a knowledgeable person should know. Do we want an ignorant to be our political representative? I'd rather have someone who has the knowledge, and who is aware that there are discrepancies between what he "accepts" as part of his beliefs, versus what is accepted by experts in a certain areas. It is like being an alcoholic. You have to be aware of the problem FIRST before you seek help. If you deny there is a problem, you won't become better. Ignorance is not bliss.

So how am I telling you how to elect your political representatives? First of all, I will immediately tell you that my suggestion will never work and will never take hold. Very few people will agree with this methodology because most people will NOT vote this way.

Most of us choose our political candidates to vote for based on his/her stand on various issues. Maybe there are one or two issues that we consider to be extremely important, and so, we tend to prefer candidates who happen to also have the same opinion as us on those issues. We may overlook other smaller, less important issues that those candidates may or may not have the same opinions as us. But what it boils down to is that we choose candidates based on their agreement with what we believe in or what we feel strongly about. In other words, we want someone who holds our opinion on certain matters.

I consider this to be a very poor way of electing a political official. When someone is elected to a political office, he/she is faced with many different scenarios, variations, events, etc. that often change over time. Market crashes, war happens, disasters occur, etc. What looks good back during a political campaign may not look good now, especially in the climate of politics where you are dealing with other politicians, and with the progression of time and other events, even outside of one's country or immediate area. To rigidly hold on to some issues often does not work, and what end up happening is that most politicians have to compromise somewhat in varying degree to try to get the job done. This is why we then accuse them of "lying" to us, because they had to renegade on their promises to do certain things. We tend to hold them to the items they promised, rather than hold them to do their jobs, which is to take care of the country in the best way they know how.

So I propose that we elect politicians not based on what they believe or based on the compatibility of their opinions, but rather on their ABILITY TO THINK!

Now, think about it for a second. It is a revolutionary concept! :)

I want someone who has a rational and sensible way to think things through. I want someone who knows that when he/she doesn't know something, he/she would find reputable sources to learn about those things. I want someone who has the analytical ability to know that he/she is using some general principle, and to be aware when he/she isn't being consistent to those principles. I want someone who has the analytical ability to analyze a problem, who where to seek knowledge and information, and then find a sensible solution. Nowhere in there is there any requirement that this person agrees with my opinion on this or that.

This elected person will be faced with a mountain of issues, and often, things come up very unexpectedly. Many things occur that cannot be predicted. I want someone who has the ability to evaluate all of these, to analyze them systematically, to seek proper advice and sources, and then to arrive at a decision. I do not want someone who is stuck and rigid with a certain ideology, while the rest of Rome is burning down around him/her. The inability to think and rationalize a problem systematically means that decision that comes out of this person may easily be flawed.

This is why I'd rather Sen. Rubio said that he knows about the scientific age of the universe, and is aware of the discrepancy between his Christian beliefs and the scientific facts. It would have shown that he is a man of knowledge, and that he is not ignorant. It shows that he is aware of the issues, and it is something he hasn't reconciled yet. I'd rather have someone like that, who obviously have thought of things, rather than someone who ignores things but STILL has no qualms on making decisions based on things he/she doesn't know much about.

But of course, this will never happen.

:)

Zz.

Edit 5/16/2013: It appears that Sen. Marco Rubio must be an expert in biometric scans, because he didn't hesitate to give his opinion on the matter, if we were to apply his principle:

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Gang of Eight member who voted for the amendment, expressed his disappointment after the senators rejected the proposal. “Immigration reform must include the best exit system possible because persons who overstay their authorized stay are a big reason we now have so many illegal immigrants,” his statement read. “Senator Rubio will fight to add biometrics to the exit system when the bill is amended on the Senate floor. Having an exit system that utilizes biometric information will help make sure that future visitors to the United States leave when they are supposed to.”

Intro Physics Lab Data Analysis

So bear with me. I'll explain the point of this trivial-looking exercise at the end.

A student is given a circuit containing a variable power supply, a resistor, and an ammeter all in series, and a voltmeter attached across the resistor. The student is then asked to determine, as accurately as possible, the resistance of the resistor.

Knowing that Ohm's Law stated that V=IR, the student made a series of measurement of potential difference (V) versus current (I) on the resistor. The student end up with this data set:

Using Ohm's Law, he knows that the slope or gradent of PD versus I will give him the resistance of the resistor. He then enters these numbers into his data analysis program, runs a linear line fit routine, and it spits out the value of the slope that he wants, which is ~0.4 Ohm.

Sounds alright, doesn't it? However, there is one MAJOR problem with this. Can you describe what it is? You may assume that the voltmeter, ammeter, and power supply are "ideal", meaning they do not contribute to the accuracy or inaccuracy of the measured values.

So, I gave that as a trivia quiz on Physics Forums a few weeks back. I'll provide the answer below, so if you want to work it out yourself before looking at the answer, don't scroll down any further.






















A quick glance at the plotted data reveals that it is not a straight line. Fitting a straight-line to those data does not make an accurate representation of the behavior of the data. So the data analysis is faulty. Applying V=IR in this case is no longer valid since there is no longer a linear relationship between V and I, with R being a constant.

There is a long story associated with this, and why I asked this question. When I was a lab TA during my graduate school years, we had a typical lab on finding the spring constant using a set of weights. One time, I added a second spring that was deformed to each group's equipment and required that they try to find the spring constant of that as well. Well guess what? Most of the students in the class simply dumped the data into the linear regression program, let it spew a result, and that's that, regardless of the fact that if they examine the plot, they would see that the relationship between F (applied mass on the spring) and x (extension of the spring) was no longer linear! Only a few of the students actually commented in their report on this.

The moral of the story here is that the software you use can do many things, and it WILL spit out a number for you. However, it doesn't mean that that number has any meaning or is a valid result based on the relationship shown in the data.

Zz.

The Higgs Boson And Our Life

What is the impact of the Higgs boson on our lives? Good question.

This is a video of a seminar given by Fabiola Gianotti of CERN, who is the spoke person for the ATLAS collaboration.




Zz.

Pear-Shaped Nuclei Hint At Physics Beyond The Standard Model

Just in case people forget that CERN (and also the LHC via predominantly the ALICE detector) can also do nuclear physics experiment, here's a new report on the study of the shape of heavy nuclei that might provide hints at physics beyond the Standard Model.

Although there was some limited evidence for pear-shaped nuclei in experiments carried out on radium-226 and neodynium-148 in the 1990s, neither study was conclusive. What Peter Butler of the University of Liverpool and colleagues in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US have now done is to find strong evidence for octupole transitions in radon-220 and radium-224. These transitions are a sign that the nuclei are lopsided and appear in the spectrum of gamma rays these nuclei emit as they decay from an excited state.

I'm sure that this is just the very beginning of this line of inquiry.

Zz.

Is The Wavefunction Real?

This is a rather lengthy article on PhysicsWorld that has a good coverage of the ever-present question on whether the solution to the Schrodinger equation - the wavefunction - is real, or not. It covers the latest status in this investigation with the PBR theorem.

A good "general" article if you are interested in such things.

Zz.

Combing the LHC Data For Hints Of Something Beyond The Standard Model

With the LHC in shutdown mode right now, one would think that everyone involved in the major detectors are taking a holiday. Not so. In fact, it appears to be a very intense period of data combing. The accumulated LHC data are being carefully examined to look for hints to indicate new physics beyond the standard model. The article linked above describes this hunt. However, it also describe other important discoveries made at the LHC beyond just the Higgs, which did not make the headlines in the popular media and the public.

Those waiting for new physics can take comfort in the fact that the LHC has achieved far more than the discovery of the Higgs over its three-year operation. A year before the Higgs's detection, for instance, the ATLAS experiment found another new boson: the so-called Chi-b(3P) quark-antiquark pair. That was followed by the discovery last year of a new excited Xi(b) baryon by CMS. Although not elementary particles like the Higgs is thought to be, Chi-b(3P) and Xi(b) have helped tie up some of the Standard Model's loose ends by confirming the nature of the strong force, which binds quarks together.
Perhaps more important than these particle discoveries, however, have been the LHC's precise measurements of existing Standard Model phenomena. Some of these are quantities that cannot be accurately predicted, such as the high-energy structure of the photon that is being studied by the ALICE experiment. But other measurements can put the latest theories to the test. These include the energy distribution of particle jets (which are produced when quarks collide), and the production rate of pairs of heavyweight elementary particles such as W and Z bosons (which carry the weak force, responsible for radioactive decay) and top quarks. "Those calculations have been taken now to a higher degree of precision," says Incandela. "We have a very good match between our data and our simulations, which tells you that our calculations are very good."

So there is clearly a lot of things that have come out of the LHC that have advanced our knowledge of elementary particles. This is not a one-trick pony machine.

Zz.cer

April 24, 2012 Gamma Ray Burst

I don't know how long these Opinion pieces are available for viewing on CNN webpage (very often, these articles are gone after a few months and the link I often use are dead). So you should read this (and save it if you wish) as soon as you can.

This is a rather clear and concise reporting on the recent, puzzling gamma ray burst, discovered this year on April 27. For an article written for CNN, this is a rather good science report, but then, it wasn't written by some reporter who simply understood it by hearing or reading other 2nd hand material. It was written by a physicist from Yale. So I must commend CNN for actually finding someone with a high level of expertise to write and report on something like this. Other news outlets should learn from this.

Zz.

Neils Bohr Between Physics And Chemistry

If you had missed this free article from month's issue of Physics Today, well then, don't miss it. It deals with Neils Bohr model of the atom, and how that contributes to chemistry and physics.

Zz.

LHC Through Google Glass

Here's a short video of a view of the LHC through Google Glass. You may follow his blog in the link below.



http://agl-initiatives.org/teaching-with-glass/

Zz.

Commonly Mispronounced Name Or Phrase In Physics

Do you know of any commonly mispronounced name or phrase in physics? I know of a few. Many of these are often names in another language, such as French. So many in the English-speaking world, especially here in the US, often tend to pronounce these words the way they are spelled, rather than the way they should be pronounce in their native tongue. Even the popular name of "Einstein" is commonly mispronounced when compared to what it should be in German.

Here is my list that I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Brillouin
2. Auger
3. Double Chooz.

I may come back later and add more to this list.

Zz.

Vacation

I've been on vacation. Did I miss any big physics news? :)

It'll take me at least through the weekend to catch up. It is tough to get back to speed after powering down for several days.

Zz.

Female Physicists Doctoral Experiences

I haven't had time to read this paper in its entirety, but that should not prevent me from highlighting it here. You should be able to download the paper for free.

Abstract: The underrepresentation of women in physics doctorate programs and in tenured academic positions indicates a need to evaluate what may influence their career choice and persistence. This qualitative paper examines eleven females in physics doctoral programs and professional science positions in order to provide a more thorough understanding of why and how women make career choices based on aspects both inside and outside of school and their subsequent interaction. Results indicate that female physicists experience conflict in achieving balance within their graduate school experiences and personal lives and that this then influences their view of their future careers and possible career choices. Female physicists report both early and long-term support outside of school by family, and later departmental support, as being essential to their persistence within the field. A greater focus on informal and out-of-school science activities for females, especially those that involve family members, early in life may help influence their entrance into a physics career later in life. Departmental support, through advisers, mentors, peers, and women’s support groups, with a focus on work-life balance can help females to complete graduate school and persist into an academic career.

Zz.

Secrets Of The Dark Universe: Simulating The Sky

I'll post the synopsis to this video, which you can also read on YouTube:

An astonishing 99.6% of our Universe is dark. Observations indicate that the Universe consists of 70% of a mysterious dark energy and 25% of a yet-unidentified dark matter component, and only 0.4% of the remaining ordinary matter is visible.

Understanding the physics of this dark sector is the foremost challenge in cosmology today. Sophisticated simulations of the evolution of the Universe play a crucial task in this endeavor.

This movie shows an intermediate stage in a large simulation of the distribution of matter in the Universe, the so-called cosmic web, accounting for the influence of dark energy. The simulation is evolving 1.1 trillion particles. The movie shows a snapshot of the Universe when it was 1.6 billion years old.

While this video may be obvious to people in the field, it would be nice if they had some narration to accompany each scene so that we know what we are looking at! After all, they went to all this trouble to make a visual representation of the simulation and posting it on YouTube for the public to see. Might as well put a little bit more effort in telling us what each of those different scenes are. Otherwise, all we see are cool images without learning anything much.

Of course, the physicist in me would like to know what kind of parameters were used, what are the assumptions, where was this/will this be published, etc. Y'know, the mundane stuff! :)

Zz.

You Can Teach Yourself To Think Like A Scientist - Part 2

{You Can Teach Yourself To Think Like A Scientist - Part 1}

OK, I'm trying to pick up this series again, hopefully with less typos and grammatical errors (hey, you have to expect these things especially when many of my blog entry are written on the fly).

The idea behind this series is to emphasize the notion that many of the decisions on how we live and behave are due to how we arrive at certain ideas or knowledge. I truly believe that the more we realize that we need to use the same scientific methodology in arriving at decisions and actions that we do everyday, the better off we are.

It has been raining a lot in the Chicago area the past couple of weeks. I was in a friend's vehicle during one of a rainy period, driving to somewhere. He had his windshield wipers on, and driving rather slowly. I told him that he could speed it up a little so that we get there faster. He told me he is just abiding the law, and driving just below the speed limit that was posted. I told him if he was so concerned about abiding the law, why didn't he have his headlights on? He had no answer.

{Here, in Illinois, the law says that when you have your windshield wipers on, you must have your headlights on as well}

One of the things I see very often here is that people often justify their actions because they are following some more generalized principle. In the example I relayed above, my friend was living by the principle of "abiding the law". A consequence of living by this principle is "driving under the speed limit". But as we all know, there are OTHER CONSEQUENCES of the principle of "abiding the law". I mentioned one of them, "wipers on, lights on". Yet, my friend didn't do this, and chose to ignore it, without any explanation.

So now, we are left to speculate on why that is. Is he truly living by the principle of "abiding the law"? Or is he really living by the principle "abiding by the law that I find convenient and the one that I remember"? If he is doing the latter, then simply espousing the idea that he is living by the principle of "abiding the law" is highly inaccurate. If you live by a certain principle, then you must follow and do all that principle asks you to do. You cannot pick and choose. If you do, you are no longer living by that principle, but rather, living by a modified form of that principle. This, you must clarify or you are conveying the wrong information.

In physics, any general idea, principle, or theory has a body of outcomes and consequences. Special Relativity, for example, makes many different predictions. Each one of them must be tested and confirmed. If any of the predictions and consequences do not match experimental observations, then (i) either the theory is wrong or (ii) there's new physics beyond what that theory can predict. We simply cannot pick-and-choose. This means that if something doesn't work all the time, we must know clearly where that boundary is, and this must be made very clear so that people know that beyond this boundary, it no longer works.

To think like a scientist in this case is to make a clear analysis on what the general principle is that people are using to justify their actions or arguments. You need to sit back, and figure out if what someone is arguing is based on some central principle or belief. Let's apply it to a hot topic of the moment, the debate on gay marriages. It is a hot topic here in the US at the moment, and it is certainly is one in France right now.

One of the most common argument against gays, and against gay marriages, that I've heard is that it is "not natural". Some of these people tried to "intellectualize" the argument against it by taking out the religious aspect of it, and using Mother Nature as the argument. So let's apply our analysis that I stated above. What is the overriding principle involved here? Of course, it is the principle of living "naturally", obeying what is natural, or opposing what is "not natural". Let's look at this critically.

First of all, what actually is meant by "natural"? Is it what would happen if left on its own without human intervention? Is it what can be found in nature without any artificial means or intrusions? Let us adopt both.

If these people are living by the principle of upholding what is "natural", then:

1. Does that mean that everything that is natural is OK and can be practiced by human beings? This includes animals eating and devouring their youngs that they know won't survive, and having multiple sexual partners, which is prevalent in the animal world.

2. If they are opposed to everything that is not natural, then they should also question other unnatural human behavior, such as clothings, shaving, circumcision (now what could be more unnatural than cutting off a piece of one's body?), etc.

Yet, these people who opposed gay marriages on the grounds that it is "not natural" (the principle involved here) do not oppose other unnatural aspects of human life. So are they like my friend who drove very slow, but chose to ignore turning on his headlights? Are they arguing against something "not natural", but with caveats? Are they closer to living the principle of "I oppose things that are unnatural, but only limited to my own personal dislike of certain behavior". Or maybe "I oppose things that are unnatural that are dictated by my religious beliefs. Other unnatural things are fine."

Either one of those will be significantly more accurate than simply stating that one is opposed to something because it is "not natural". The reason why this must be made explicitly clear is that knowing what principle is involved provides a very well-defined boundary condition and playing field. You clearly know that this really isn't JUST about something being unnatural. There are other factors involved. The analogy to physics is that this isn't just a simple trajectory motion. Other external factors such as wind resistance is involved. So the discussion (or arguments) can be framed within such boundary conditions. That other person is arguing against something based on a number of factors, not just because it is "not natural", the same way my friend was driving slow not just because he's obeying the law.

And interestingly enough, I find that some of the people I talked to, often do not realize this aspect themselves. In other words, those who opposed gay marriages by using the argument that it is "not natural", often truly believe that that is all the reason for such opposition. Like my friend, when I asked them whether they also oppose circumcision and wearing of clothing, and shaving, they looked at me funny. It often never occurred to them that there are other unnatural human behavior, and yet, these never bothered them. What is happening here is that they never examined ALL the consequences and outcomes of adopting such a principle. They never carefully thought through what other unnatural behaviors and practices are out there. Just because wearing clothes is normal, it doesn't mean it is natural. Just because one is familiar with something doesn't make it "natural", based on our definition above. Just like my driving friend who never considered the fact that living by the principle of abiding the law means that one has to abide by ALL the laws, these people also never made such consideration of living their lives without anything "not natural".

In physics, knowing what the general principle is is extremely important. It is the origin and the source of many other things, and we understand the limits, the boundaries and what can and cannot be done based on that overriding principle. A lot of  arguments that I've seen among the public and in politics are often arguments of the consequences of such-and-such a principle. Some politicians want to cut spending because they live by the principle of "small government" or some other things. Yet, if you examine carefully, the principle that they live by are not well-defined, and more often than not, they adopt it inconsistently, applying it here, while ignoring it there - cut spending and budgets for science funding, social programs, etc, while continue to increase military spending (drive under the speed limit, but ignore to turn on the headlights).

My personal diagnosis on all of this is that, many people FIRST adopt the CONSEQUENCE (i.e. oppose gay marriage, oppose funding social programs, don't want to drive fast), and THEN went back and find some general principle to justify their position (not natural, want to cut spending, want to follow the law). Now, there's nothing wrong with that. It is done in science too. In physics, we tackled problems such as the Blackbody radiation, which then eventually led to a more general principle of quantum mechanics. Only later on, do we realize that the blackbody radiation is a consequence of QM. But once QM has been formalized, we adopt ALL of QM as we learn more and more about it. We continue to test it, and explore the boundary of its applicability.

Unfortunately, this is not true in the cases of human decision that I've stated above. There was never any self-diagnose of one's adoption of some overriding principle. Those who adopt the opposition to things that are "not natural", never examined if they are opposing ALL of things that are not natural, because they are not! My friend never examined if he truly is living by the principle of abiding the law, because he wasn't.

So the central principle of this entry is the examination and the consequences of a central principle. Isn't that neat? :)

Zz.

APS April Meeting Plenary Session Videos

In case you didn't attent this year's APS April meeting, the plenary session videos are online.

http://www.aps.org/meetings/april/events/plenary.cfm

Zz.

"Do You Read Science Fiction Books?"

I wrote a while back on one of the most frequent question that I get asked once people find out that I'm a physicist. "Do You Watch "The Big Bang Theory"?" is one of them. The one other most common question: do you read science fiction books? They think that since I deal with a lot of science, then reading science fiction would be almost second nature.

Simple answer: I don't!

First of all, I seldom read fiction books. I seldom read books anymore, actually. I just can't have any long-term relationship with a book of any kind. I do so much reading in a day, the last thing I want to do when I wind down is read some more. So putting in a lot of time to read and finish a novel is not my idea of a good time.

Secondly, while I know of many scientists who enjoy reading science fiction novels, and many find them "stimulating", I don't. This is because I often find it a bit annoying that that some parts of logic, reality, and even some aspects of physics is "bastardized" to such extent. I suppose it is my problem that I simply can't let go of reality when I try to read such novels. While I do enjoy watching sci-fi movies, I find them to be more of an entertainment for a couple of hours, view them more for the story than for the accuracy. The exception being some of the more awful sci-fi movies that simply makes no sense and force you to suspend logic and reality way too many times.

Lastly, many of the sci-fi novels tend to use the more "sexy" aspects of physics, but they miss many more fascination parts that do not get wide press coverage. This is where I find stuff in physics a lot more imaginative and a lot more fascinating than even some of the most outlandish imagination in sci-fi. The concept of "phase coherence" is a conerstone in quantum mechanics. But has it been used and depicted in sci-fi novels? Or what about the fact that in 1D conductors, the many-body effect of spin-charge separation would cause a "particle"'s spin and charge to move separately?

These are details that those who are not in physics would not have understood, and thus, unable to exploit. Yet, to me, they are extremely fascinating. If I were a sci-fi writer, I could make one heck of a story using those principles alone.

As imaginative as sci-fi stories are, I find actual physics to be significantly more fascinating. So kids, that is why I don't really read science fiction books.

Zz.

Self-Assembling Nanoparticles

This is a video showing nanoparticles self-assembling into a larger structure.



This brings me to a related topic on evolution. One of the arguments that I often hear from those who oppose the concept of evolution is the idea that the probability of life occurring out of this random mess is extremely small that it should have never happened. Thus, the idea out of evolution that we call came about due to this random formation of life in the beginning, and then slowly evolve over time, can't be correct.

The few so-called estimates on the probability calculation that I have seen never ever mentioned, or take into account, something that many of us in condensed matter are aware of, which is this very fact that there are phenomenon of self-assembly of atoms and molecules. We know this happens. Each time we have ice crystals, or see naturally-formed quartz, etc., those are naturally-occurring self-assembly. What are the odds of those things being formed simply via random arrangements or capture of atoms? The fact that they do form, and form pretty frequently, means that the phase-space for that happening isn't that small, and actually is quite high.

So I can't help wondering if that such self-assembly, especially when there is a change that causes a form of phase transition, might play a role in the formation of life or single-celled form of life. And because of that, the chances of it happening isn't as small as it is made up to be.

Zz.

Let's Measure the Diameter of the Sun

Hey, Forstbite Theater is back! In this video, they show a demo on how to measure the diameter of the sun.




Zz.

Parallel Universes: Many Worlds

Here is Minute Physics take on the 'ever popular' Many Worlds/Parallel Universes picture of quantum mechanics. While this view may make it easier to digest certain conceptual issues of QM, it also creates a whole slew of other issues that I find hard to swallow. As is the case, you might solve one, while creating other set of messes.




As an experimentalist, until there is an ability to test one versus the other, I'll stick to the "Shut up and calculate" view. It is less stressful! :)

Zz.

Peter Higgs: In His Own Words

Here's a fascinating interview with the man of the moment, Peter Higgs.

1. He got into theoretical physics because he was "incompetent" as an experimentalist:

That sort of set the scene for me and when I chose to go to university, which was Kings College London, I continued to show all sorts of symptoms of incompetence in the lab while I was a student there. So very early on, I was heading towards the theoretical end of physics as the only kind of thing I was competent in.

2. He thinks that the field that has been named after him should have been called the Goldstone field instead:

It shouldn't be a Higgs field. If it's anybody's it should be Goldstone field, I think. When Nambu wrote his short paper in 1960, Jeffrey Goldstone of Cambridge University, who was visiting Cern, heard about it. He then wrote a paper which was conceptually similar to what Nambu had done, but a simpler model.

3. He doesn't like the name "god particle". In fact, I know of no physicist who does!

That name was a kind of joke, and not a very good one. An author, Leon Lederman, wanted to call it 'that goddamn particle' because it was clear it was going to be a tough job finding it experimentally. His editor wouldn't have that, and he said 'okay, call it the God particle', and the editor accepted it. I don't think he should've have done, because it's so misleading.

4. He thinks, as I concur, that the LHC should have sold itself in a broader term, rather than being popularized as a machine to look for the Higgs. As I've said many times, no one and no institution would fund something THIS expensive just to do ONE thing.

I was a bit unhappy about the way it was being sold. Not because I didn't think they should go after the Higgs Boson, of course, but I thought they should have educated people more about the breadth of the programme of the machine, and not concentrated on this so much. It seemed to me they were taking a risk that when they found the thing, then a lot of people would say 'oh well, that's it, isn't it? Why do we still want this machine?

5. His reaction to the announcement at CERN that the Higgs might have been found:

I didn't accept it was me that they were cheering. I regarded it as cheers for the home team, as at a football match, and the home team were the two experiments, Atlas and CMS, with 1,500 members each. That's what it was really about. Maybe they were cheering me too but that was a minor issue.

Don't miss an earlier spotlight on Peter Higgs that has a bit more in-depth coverage of the history leading up to the formulation of the Higgs field.

 Zz.

Possible Detection of WIMPs?

A preprint that was just released from the CDMS collaboration indicates a strong possibility of detection (finally!) of WIMPs. which is a candidate for dark matter.

You can also read a press coverage of this here.

Zz.

Fair-Sampling Loophole Closed

Another Bell-type experiment out of the Zeilinger's group, and this time they have effectively closed the fair-sammpling loophole in this experiment.

This kind of tight monitoring is important as it closes an important loophole. In previous experiments on photons, there has always been the possibility that although the measured photons do violate the laws of classical physics, such non-classical behaviour would not have been observed if all photons involved in the experiment could have been measured. In the new experiment, this loophole is now closed. "Perhaps the greatest weakness of photons as a platform for quantum experiments is their vulnerability to loss – but we have just demonstrated that this weakness need not be prohibitive," explains Marissa Giustina, lead author of the paper.

I will not be surprised if we will soon see in one experiment where ALL the loopholes are closed simultaneously.

Zz.

Lasers

Another video out of JLab, and this time it is on lasers.

However, this video only describes the different types of lasers, and says nothing about the principles behind it. It didn't even describes what a free-electron laser is, even though the person in the video works with FEL. Too bad!




Zz.

Fund Me, Maybe

OK, so I may be late getting to the party, since this video obviously has gone viral without my knowledge of its existence till recently (thanks to Lavabug at Physics Forums). Still, if you haven't seen it, it is hysterical.

From the description, the video footage was captured during the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, CA.



With the US Science budget in the dumps during this budget sequestration, maybe all of us need to make such a video!

Zz.

Recent Physics PhDs - Skills Used and Satisfaction With Employment

The AIP has released its latest statistics on recent PhDs. This one is from the graduating class of 2009 and 2010, meaning that these people graduated and entered the job market at the height of the economic meltdown. This survey asked about the skills used in their jobs, and the level of satisfaction in those jobs.

The non-surprising aspect here is the set of skills needed between postdocs and those in the private sectors:

Differences by type of position can be readily inferred from the previous figures. Postdocs were far more likely than PhDs in the private sector to regularly do basic research and utilize advanced physics principles regularly in their work. A large proportion of PhDs in the private sector were regularly involved in design and development, applied research, and quality control.

These differences reflect inherent differences in these types of employment; postdocs are temporary positions with research agendas largely motivated by scientific exploration, while jobs in the private sector typically involve producing a tangible product for a customer or providing a service to a client.

A lot of data also on the job satisfaction, and whether they had sufficient mentoring from their advisors.

Zz.

Review of "Nuclear Forces: The Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe"

Here's another name that is a giant among physicists, yet it isn't a household name for the general public. This is a book review of of a recent biography of Hans Bethe published in this month's issue of Physics Today.

Of course, my admiration for Bethe can be summed up in this paragraph of the review:

Among the most pervasive features of Bethe’s emerging style was his fundamental criterion that theory must be grounded in real-world observation—a view he shared with other young physicists in his circle, including Edward Teller, Rudolf Peierls, Nevill Mott, Enrico Fermi, and later Richard Feynman. Bethe’s physics would not be aimed at formulating radically new ideas, but rather at critically analyzing and extending theories and formulating models that could test their validity.

This is probably a good book to read about Bethe. I plan on getting it, but if you have read it, I'd like to hear your views on it.

Zz.

The Man Who Put His Head In A Particle Accelerator And Survived

OK, it is highly recommended that one doesn't try this. But it is still an amusing story.




Of course, if this were to happen today, in the US, there's a good chance that several major safety violations would have occurred and this facility would have been shut down.

Zz.

What Is An Electron?

OK, I am normally a fan of videos produced out of JLab (check the series of educational and hiliarious FrostBite theater videos). Unfortunately, this is a rather surprisingly weak production coming out of this lab, explaining what an electron is:




OK, a "tauon"? Is this really the common name that is used in place of the tau? The Standard Model chart that we distribute to people, and also the particle data book, both call this a "tau". I know we are arguing about something as trivial as the name here, but really, if there's no reason to call the same thing with different names, then we shouldn't!

But the bigger problem is this. He said "electrons are so small, we haven't been able to measure it.."!!! This is extremely misleading and possibly erroneous. We HAVE been able to measure it! That's how we know it has a charge, a spin, etc.. etc. What we haven't been able to measure, and what I think he meant, was that we haven't been able to measure its SIZE!

This is important because I can easily see getting someone coming into a physics forum, showing me this video and quoting this particular line as "evidence" that we haven't been able to measure an electron! Again, it is extremely crucial that, when we communicate to the public who has a weak understanding of science/physics, we pay extra attention to not only what we say, but how we say it. There are plenty of times where what we mean is not what they understood! This video contained way too many things stated almost in glib, and that's too bad considering the opportunity they had to inform and educate. It was as if this was done as an after thought.

Zz.

Planned Apple Building Costs Several Times More Than NSLS II

I some time shake my head at some of the twisted priorities we often have, and how little we value science, which is the seed for many of the future economic growth.

I was reading a report on the future headquarters for Apple that have been dubbed as the Apple "Spaceship". Maybe it looks like a spaceship to the general public (or reporters), but to me, it looks like a synchrotron center! :) But what caught my eye was the current projection of the cost to be at $5 billion. Now mind you, this is an OFFICE COMPLEX, costing $5 billion!

Since it looked like a synchrotron light source, I decided to look up ballpark costs of a synchrotron source being built right now, and I know of one - the NSLS II that has just been constructed at Brookhaven. I suppose I could scout around more carefully at what it cost to build this, but I found an early estimate for it, and it costs around $1 billion. Now, this is not just the building, but also includes all the "content", which is the accelerator complex, the storage ring, etc.. etc. Anyone who has deal in purchasing scientific equipment can attest that these components are not cheap, especially when they are custom made.

Now, obviously, I haven't compared the floor space and size of these two buildings, but c'mon! An office complex costing almost 5 times the cost of a complex, complicated, and an extremely important scientific facility? What do they have? Solid gold toilets? Or maybe they are secretly housing a particle collider in there to challenge the LHC! Coming to your nearest Apple Stores: the iCollider!

For $5 billion, we can do a lot of things in science that will produce immeasurable benefits and advancements. But until society realizes the value and how they have benefited from such investments, and until people who have rather short attention space realizes just how far in advance they have to invest into science to reap its benefits, this upside-down skewered priorities will never correct itself.

Zz.

The True Science of Parallel Universes

For this one, MinutePhysics tackles the different models of "parallel universes". It took them more than a minute to do this, though... close to 5 minutes! :)

It boils down to 5 minutes of describing something that "has no experimental support" certificate! :)




Remember, kids. Physics is science, not philosophy! :)

Zz.

AMS Confirms Excess Positrons

Hope you guys were following the announcement today.

In any case, APS has released the paper on the latest result from AMS, reporting and confirming earlier reports on the excess positrons measurement. You can get acess to the PRL paper for free from the link. What does this all mean?

There has been no shortage of speculation about what might cause the positron “excess” above 10GeV. One idea is that relatively nearby cosmic bodies, such as pulsars, act as accelerators and colliders that produce antimatter, much like our terrestrial Large Hadron Collider. But a more exciting possibility is that the positrons come from the annihilation of dark matter particles, which may populate the Milky Way and its halo. Dark matter is, after all, a dominant form of the matter-energy budget of the Universe, but we don’t know its particle nature or how it interacts with itself and with normal matter (other than through gravitational interactions). It is no overstatement to say that identifying the dark matter is one of the greatest problems in modern science.

A lot of work remains to be done, but unlike the search for Supersymmetric particles, there are experimental indications that are consistent with Dark Matter models.

Zz.

Recent Results From The AMS Experiment

I don't know if the buzz surrounding this announcement will amount to anything, but there is certainly a buzz.

Samuel Ting will present the latest result from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer instrument that's orbiting earth. If you recall, the AMS went up with the Space Shuttle on one of its last missions. This could have some implications on the search for Dark Matter.

I probably won't have a chance to view the life feed. If you are planning on it, or if you have the chance to actually attend this event, I'd appreciate a brief report.

Zz.

Lifting Lemon

This is a simple experiment, and variations of this have been done in many classroom demonstrations, I'm sure. But it still becomes a topic of discussion as to why it happens, as demonstrated by the discussion on this video's YouTube page.



This link provides an explanation for this effect.

Zz.

Angry Birds At The Kennedy Space Center

You know it was bound to happen. When Angry Birds went into space, all the signs pointed to it partnering with NASA to come up with some educational tie-in. So now it has happened.

At NASA's invitation, the online game birds are roosting at Kennedy Space Center for the next 1 1/2 years in an effort to lure youngsters to the cosmic wonders of math and science.

The huge interactive exhibit opened March 22 and immediately packed in the kids, including this reporter's 7-year-old son, who couldn't get enough of the mirrored maze and design-your-own Angry Bird and play-the-game stations.

Too bad they didn't have this when I was there last December. Maybe I'll make it back there some time soon before the exhibit goes away.

Zz.

RToBad

Too eTooad 

Tooor

e here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/03/27/4733211/space-centers-angry-birds-exhibit.html#storylink=cpy