Clever Figures Can Mislead

A new book written by a physics professor exposes the misleading messages we are bombared with every day using figures and numbers. Joseph Ganem, an associate professor of physics at Loyola College in Maryland has written a book titled "The Two-Headed Quarter: How to See Through Deceptive Numbers and Save Money on Everything You Buy" which exposes how these numbers can be very deceptive.

This is where one can use such examples and tell kids why they need to learn mathematics. If there are any teachers that need some incentive to get the students to pay attention, this would be it. It will get ride of the myth that they will only use mathematics if they get jobs that make use of it. The examples given in this book shows that what we do everyday requires knowledge in elementary mathematics.

Zz.

Chef David Mullen Uses Physics to Add Flavors

I got excited when I read the title of this interview. Being a "foodie" and an amateur cook (read my post on how I learned how to bake bread because of physics), anything that mixes my profession with my hobby is always exciting. This is because I've always considered cooking as being chemistry.

However, when I read this interview, I see hardly any "physics" involved in here. The closest that David Mullen said that had anything to do remotely with physics was

I have been working with a technique called spherification. This is exciting because it allows me to change the physics of an ingredient. It doesn't change the flavor. The process just creates a light 'shell' about this tiny ball bursting with flavor and a liquid center. You can also change liquids to solids, in either case, it brings a new dimension to a dish.

Well, that wasn't a lot of "physics", was there? Minor application of phase transition, maybe.

I think those pastry competition where they had to construct outrageous chocolate and sugar pieces have more physics involved, or at least, structural engineering. :)

Zz.

Photons Really Have No Premonition on How It Will Be Observed

The double slit experiment continues to be the subject of many of those who are trying to "understand" quantum mechanics. Philosophers especially seem bent on trying to make some sense out of it, and crackpots use it as "evidence" for this wild metaphysical mumbo jumbo.

Physicists, on the other hand, continue to test and study it one aspect at a time and systematically tries to find the answer to very definite questions. A case in point is this latest report. A very meticulous study on whether photons have an advance notice on how it is going to be measured seems to have ruled that out in a very clever way. Unless there are signals that are traveling faster than the speed of light, photons have no idea of the setup they will encounter and simply behave as they should when they it.

Zz.

Lastest Update on FY2007 Funding

If you need to read up on the saga of the US Science funding for Fiscal Year 2007, read here.

We have just gotten the news that the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives a few weeks ago, has just been approved by the US Senate and signed by the President yesterday. This bill includes a $200 million increase for the US Dept. of Energy.

So this is a done deal. However, how much money that will trickle down to the needed research area, and how all this money will be allocated, is still not known.

Zz.

Mottness

Phillip Phillips has a very good review of the normal state of the cuprate superconductors. One may wonder on why we care about the normal state behavior when what we want is what is causing it to be superconducting. Well, as with the conventional superconductor, the normal state tends to give us a lot of clues on what exactly is going on as one approach the superconducting regime. By looking at various parameters in the normal states, we can see how they evolve and maybe give us hints on the cause of the onset of superconductivity in these materials.

One of the interesting aspect of the normal state is the resistivity behavior. The linear resistivity as a function of temperature is seen almost over the whole doping range. While such a thing is predicted within the phenomenological model of a Marginal Fermi Liquid, it actually provides a strong argument for quantum criticality in the phase diagram of this material. This is illustrated in Fig. 1 of the article.

However, I don't believe that there has been a clear evidence of, say a highly overdoped cuprate that goes from the superconducting state into a Fermi Liquid State, and then into a Strange Metal state as one raises its temperature. I think there have been a few evidence that there might be 2 different gap scales in the underdoped cuprates, so this certainly matches that part of the phase diagram. But the overdoped part isn't clear. In angle-resolved photoemission on the overdoped cuprates, the coherent peak, representing the presence of well-defined quasiparticle states, survives till very high temperatures (150K or so). I don't think there's any evidence yet that the peak disappears abruptly as it crosses from the Fermi Liquid regime into the Strange Metal regime. We expect this to occur because for optimally doped cuprates, its normal state is the Strange Metal. As soon as the material goes above Tc, the quasiparticle peak disappears promptly.

The mystery continues...

Zz.

More Evidence of Martian Water?

It seems like more evidence are flowing in (pun intended) to indicate the presence of water on Mars, either presently or in the past. A report presented at this week's AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco is using high resolution pictures from the orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to support that view.

So then, where are the little green men?

:)

Zz.

Burton Richter To Speak On Future Of Particle Physics

Nobel Laureate Burton Richter will speak today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco on the future of particle physics. This is in light of the pending shutdown of the Tevatron at the end of 2009, the coming of the LHC at CERN, and the recently announced budget for the International Linear Collider (ILC).

There are certainly a lot of exciting activities and results to look forward to. It is just that all of the excitement will not be on US soil, especially if the ILC goes elsewhere.

Zz.

Was It Really A Quantum Computer?

I reported earlier in the week about the brouhaha surrounding D-Wave System's impending announcement of a "quantum computer". As expected, it isn't a done deal, and many experts not only argue that it isn't really a quantum computer, but also that what was revealed is slower than conventional computers.

Why am I not surprised?

Zz.

A New Way To Learn Physics And Astronomy

The students at Ithaca College has a new way to learn physics. Rather than huge lecture halls, they seem to be making use a lot of "business" technology in a rather cooperative and interactive learning.

This is fine and dandy, but not many schools can afford such a thing, much less, have capable people to maintain it. The introduction of something that can't be implemented at many schools seems to rather ... er... I dunno, besides the point? Anyone can dump tons of money into something like this and claim to achieve outstanding results. What will that accomplish in trying to raise and standard of teaching of physics in general? One could have easily put ONE professor teaching ONE student and claim to have made a significant progress in the teaching of physics.

What we need is a realistic methodology/technology combination that can be implemented at most schools, not some pie-in-the-sky that most can't afford.

Zz.

Blogging for Physics - Part 2

I highlighted earlier the interview with Sean Carroll published in PhysicsWeb. PhysicsWeb has a follow up to this and profiled one of the most popular (if not the most popular - Woit's Not Even Wrong may argue with that) physics blog in cyberland - Cosmic Variance. If you have never been there, give it a try. It is never boring! :)

Still, I think the coverage of all this physics blogging missed one very important site which I would consider to be THE original physics blogger - Bob Park's What's New. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Bob Park has essentially done his "blogging" way long ago than probably all of us. I'm guessing that most people forget that because he has been doing this before "blog" was even a well-known word. Still, his impact cannot be overlooked.

Zz.

Nature's News on the Purdue's Bubble Fusion Fiasco

Yes, I have decided to call this the Purdue's Bubble Fusion Fiasco, because this is no longer a blemish on Taleyarkhan.

Nature has finally a news item on Purdue's decision. It is longer and more in detail, with almost all of the main player being interviewed. I still can't believe that Purdue administration thinks they can actually get away with something as sneaky as this. It only makes people think they do have something to hide. What I found incredulous was this particular news item:

The university never responded to Suslick's concerns. Peter Dunn, Purdue's associate vice-president for research, told Nature that he believes the university followed its procedures. He declined to comment on why he never replied to Suslick, or on whether evidence related to Suslick's concerns was forwarded to either inquiry. Purdue hasn't revealed the identities of the members of the second inquiry panel, but Dale Compton, a professor of industrial engineering at Purdue and a member of the first panel, says he has no recollection of being asked to consider the questions about Taleyarkhan's data.

Lefteri Tsoukalas, who asked Purdue to investigate Taleyarkhan in February 2006, has called the announcement "an outrage". Tsoukalas was head of Purdue's nuclear-engineering school until he resigned in October 2006 in protest at the way the university was handling the concerns. He notes that the usual procedure for handling allegations of scientific misconduct is to hold a preliminary inquiry, then either proceed with an investigation or close the matter. That did not happen in this case; instead, the university ran a second preliminary inquiry. Apart from Tsoukalas, calls by Nature have failed to locate anyone who raised concerns about Taleyarkhan's work who was interviewed during either inquiry. "Purdue's finding is as mysterious as bubble fusion itself," says Tsoukalas.

I mean, people, you have got to be kidding me! I can understand (barely) if this is a multi-national conglomerate, but for an academic institution that has a reputation to maintain? Hello?

I think the Cold Fusion disciples of Fleshmann and Pons have finally found a place where they can work.

Zz.

Football Physics

Or should I have clarified that this is American Football physics?

I highlighted earlier of the public lecture by Tim Gay that will be held during the upcoming APS March meeting. He has also written a short essay on Physics Central on this that you might want to read.

Zz.

Fermilab Open House

It says that Fermilab wows 2000 at its Open House this past Sunday. I wish the number would have been higher, because Fermilab needs the support of the community right now. The open house at Argonne that I've reported here drew roughly 18,000, and we have had even more in past years before the long break.

Still, I thought that it is strange that Fermilab has its Open House in the middle of winter. That could certainly discourage many people from making the trip out there.

Zz.

Quantum Computer To Be Unveiled Tomorrow?

That soon?

A Canadian company, D-Wave Systems, has announced the unveiling of what it has called its "quantum computer" tomorrow (Tuesday). Of course, there's a chorus of "yeah, right!" coming from many corners.

So far, the details are sketchy (and we all know that the devil (god?) is in the details). Just because someone calls it something doesn't make it what it is supposed to be (i.e. quantum "teleportation"). Still, how many want to bet that this is really the "quantum computer" that we all had in mind?

Zz.

A Prediction Falsified but Ignored?

OK, I may get into trouble with this, but hey, we only live once! :)

Back in 1998, Nima Arkani-Hamed et al. published a paper in PRL titled "The Hierarchy Problem and New Dimensions at a Millimeter"[1]. In it, they essentially predicted that the "extra dimension" in which gravity might "leak out" into could be detected at the millimeter scale. This, of course, created quite a buzz, since now, something like this could actually be tested. It means that at that scale, there should be a deviation of the Newton's gravitational law.

Well folks, it is close to 10 years now since that paper was published, an in the mean time, several tests have been done. Starting with Eric Adelberger's group at the U. of Washington, the Newtonian gravity has been tested several times, and up to the micrometer scale, and no deviation has been observed![2]

Now, I am sure that Arkani-Hamed is a fine physicist that has made several other contributions to this particular field of physics. However, in many of the interviews that I've read and reports on him, how come no one has ever addressed this fact that one of his major predictions that got him a lot of publicity has been thoroughly falsified? I mean, if I'm interviewing someone and one of the major point that that person is making has clearly not come true, do I try to ignore it like a 20,000 lb gorilla in the room? I simply can't. Even Barbara Walters would not have missed such an opportunity, and we all know how soft Barbara can be!

Maybe he has been confronted with this fact at various conferences, etc., I don't know. I don't move in the same circles. So if anyone knows anything about this, can you pass it on to me? I just find it incredulous that no one has called up on this.

Zz.

[1] N. Arkani-Hamed et al. Phys. Lett. B 429, 263 (1998).
[2] http://www.aip.org/pnu/2000/split/pnu483-1.htm ; http://www.aip.org/pnu/2005/split/734-2.html ;

Uncertainty - Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science

The New York Times has a good review of this book by David Lindley. I suppose this is another one in a long series of books about the historical struggle of quantum mechanics. Still, it might give a different perspective on an already well-worn path.

Zz.

30 Tesla Superconducting Magnet Possible?

It is, according to this article.

I'm still skeptical. I will reserve my judgment till after I read the paper. It would be interesting to see that "phase diagram" that they have mapped out. Still, I'd like to see how they could get the material to not have migrating vortices at that magnetic field, even at 12K.

Zz.

Arts at Argonne

Last night we attended another Arts at Argonne concert. It was fantastic! The performers were the Altenberg piano trio from Vienna. They performed Mozart Piano Trio No. 5, Beethoven's "Kakadu" Op. 121a, and Brahms Piano Trio No. 1. The Brahms piece was a total revelation. I've never heard of it before, and the opening allegro was simply dazzling!

It's one of the "perks" of working at Argonne, I would say. They organize the Arts at Argonne series of concert each year, and this is their 19th season. The concert is open to the public - you just have to call ahead to make sure you have a gate pass to be able to enter the grounds. We try to go to roughly 2 concerts each year, depending of what they have in the series. Still, I think that they could never top the performance that we attended a couple of years ago which, till this day, I still think about. It was a performance by I Solisti Di Venezia, and bar none, it was THE BEST live musical performance that I've ever, ever attended. I have no idea when this group would be coming back to the US, but if they're anywhere nearby, I'm going.

This is one of the few occasions that I do not mind going in to "work" on a Saturday evening.

:)

Zz.

Light, Polarization and Liquid Crystals

If you are in the Boulder, Colorado area, you might not want to miss this. It appears that this is similar to the "Wonders of Physics" show that I am familiar with as an undergrad at UW-Madison.

I am of the impression that shows like this are more effective in transmitting physics knowledge to kids than, let's say, a non-guided visit to a "science center". So in my book, such shows should be highly encouraged.

Zz.

Can You Remove Huge Amounts of CO2?

If you know or can invent a device that can remove large amount of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, you might just win $25 million!

Al Gore and billionaire Richard Bronson have joined forces to offer this "Virgin Earth" challenge.

The winner must be able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric, greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects

OK, so get on with it! :)

Zz.