An Absorbing Collision

CO₂-collision/absorbtionBelief in global warming, and especially the causes of GW (if one believes the data) depend crucially on modeling. The physics of atmospheric gases-solar radiation interactions, especially those involving carbon-dioxide molecules, is of major importance because the increase of CO₂ is often quoted as a correlate to warming. The story is basically that CO₂ absorbs some of the infrared radiation (IR) streaming to the earth from the sun, and reflects the rest back.

Just how much is absorbed? The answer to this question is a crucial one. Until recently, the basic physics of light absorption by gas molecules, though pretty well understood, doesn't get the amounts of IR absorption correct for atmospheric CO₂. Is this a failure of physics, or the model used?

Get serious. Of course it's not the physics. To paraphrase, it's the model , stupid. Physicists decide what goes into a model, and then the physics (in the form of fundamental laws) takes over, yielding the model prediction.

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ODE to Dark Matter

Dark Matter may account for the large-scale structures being mapped by HubbleMy dream job: working at The Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. The latest from this "autonomous" center for theoretical physics is a Teaching tool for Dark Matter - a DVD, Teaching guide, and downloadable activities. The 30-minute video is embedded in this post and is definitely worth watching.

Even though there is now some agreement that Dark Matter has been observed (see my earlier post on this topic), there is still much debate about its reality. For an interesting take on matters dark, consider the position of artist/author Anton Sevcik, who, in a private e-mail to me some time ago suggested that

On a really simplistic level, I'm wondering if we've over theorized the subatomic realm, creating too many particles to explain too few things. Just because something is tiny, we seem to presuppose it can only have one property, so we've created a particle for every property. The reason I'm thinking about this is the dark matter myth. I say myth, because dark is a particularly uncomfortable word to anglo saxons, suggesting evil (say, film noir), and anything inexplicable seems by its nature unsettling to our minds.

Sevcik has since expanded on this theme, and I highly recommend The Fallibility of Perception on his View From the Studio blog.

While we're getting all literary here, a web search for Dark Matter poetry yields way too many hits to be a coincidence, and indeed suggests something dark, impenetrable, and slightly creepy, (if not necessarily "evil") at play in the universe. For example, look no further than Musicman's free verse:

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Art and the Event Horizon Effect

Horizon Event, by Anton SevcikIn a wonderful MASM (meeting of arts and science moment) a few weeks back, Anton (John) Sevcik - an old friend I had not seen in almost 16 - years had an art opening at the Fleisher Art Memorial in Phila. In his show Myth and Landscape, Anton displayed a number of paintings that featured a horizon as part of the story and inspiration for the piece, including one titled Horizon Event.

Anton has read and talked about physics for as long as I've known him. His work is often influenced by the ideas that affect him deeply. In Horizon Event, Anton conflates two ideas - The Event Horizon, and the Horizon Effect.

The event horizon is the boundary of a black hole, a region of space-time from which light cannot escape. Anything passing the horizon will vanish into oblivion.

The Horizon Effect arises from a non-physical situation. This effect is usually used to describe a situation where something that is out of sight - just beyond the horizon - is assumed to either be benign, or not exist. Often the horizon is not a physical one, but rather a demarcation point in a process. Artificial intelligence software, e.g., often suffers from the effect. Using look-ahead trees for decision making (as in, e.g. a chess program), the trees must be truncated at some point, possibly before revealing a fatal error about to occur.

Both event horizon and horizon effect then describe a knowledge/lack of knowledge interface. One is physically defined because of a singularity in spacetime, while the other arises from algorithmic expediency. In both cases there is tension at the boundary between information and chaos, knowledge and incoherence.

Anton's paintings, many of which are dark and brooding (just what is on the other side of that horizon?) suggest a cleft unbridgeable by science but traversable by canvas, oil, and artistic creation.

Anton/John has just started his own blog, View From the Studio, where you'll find more pictures from Myth and Landscape Show.

Niels Bohr To Be Played by James Gandolfini

Niels and Werner in HBO's new QMechI always knew that, even if one couldn't get a job doing physics in a lab or university, at least you'd be able to do anything else on the planet, and do it well.

So it's great to know that Hollywood continues to lure physicists, albeit only two so far (that I know of).

I used to think that the best physics job was that held by Andre Bormanis, who served as the science consultant for Star Trek for many years. While recognizing his envied stature, he does seem nonplussed by the incongruity of his role, remarking that " Like physics, storytelling involves problem solving, formulating hypotheses, exploring unexpected connections between phenomena, and seeking a solution"

Now there is Big Bang Theory ... the wacky new sit-com from CBS. The nano:

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Do E-fields Cause or Hinder Cancer?

Field near a TNT molecule. Click to enlargeWith the ongoing debate about potential health hazards of living near radio/TV towers, or the dangers of extensive cell-phone use, it is reassuring to see the latest news on the efficacy of electric fields in slowing down some cancers.  (Of course a skeptic might claim that the news is a spin job by cell operators to get activists from fighting the placement of towers and cell sites near population centers.)

Nevertheless, the study is intriguing because it describes a set of potential reasons why the E-fields might be the causal agent for the stunted cancer growth.

In vitro, the electric fields were seen to have two effects on the tumor cells.

First, they slowed down cell division. Cells that ordinarily took less than an hour to divide were still not completely divided after three hours of exposure to an electrical field of 200 kHz...

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Intelligent String Theory Design - Patently Falsifiable

String Theory by Marlene Healey Prediction plays a crucial role in the continuing debate of whether string theory and intelligent design are linked by a common lack of falsifiability. Here's how this argument goes:

1) ID does not make predictions that are testable, and therefore not falsifiable, failing Popper's main criteria for categorization of a theory as scientific.

2) String Theory has not produced a prediction that is testable because it requires that there exist objects that are simply not observable - e.g extra dimensions. Therefore it is also not a scientific theory, making it analagous to ID (in a falsifiability sense).

It follow then that if you dismiss ID, you have to dismiss string theory. (See, e.g. W. Dembski's Uncommon Dissent blog)

But do you? An interesting argument against this conclusion is provided by Amanda Gefter's editorial in the Philly Inquirer titled A Scientific Leap Without the Faith. Gefter points out the distinct difference between string theory and ID as one of explanatory power combined with the internal elegance of the mathematics. In fact, it is the presence of mathematics that provides the oomph that catapults string theory over ID:

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The Green Lantern and Quantum Poetry

A recent book of poetry by A. Van Jordan titled Quantum Lyrics has received a lot of favorable press. From the publisher's (AP Norton) site:

This provocative, ambitious collection explores the intersection of the infinite world of physics with the perplexities of the human condition.

For more on Van Jordan, including how he came to include physics in his latest works, see his interview in nat creole.magazine.

I am very interested in Jordan's work for a number of reasons:

a. I am a sucker for all things quantum. The idea of poetry with a quantum flavor, or poetry trying to describe quantum theory, seems to be the most natural fit in a world that appears highly unnatural because of quantum theory

b. Einstein is heavily featured. QL contains a set of poems about Albert as he "wrestles with his marital infidelities as he both reinvents physics and becomes a pioneer in race relations" (Read some excerpts here.)

d. How can I not react to the fractal reference by Linda Gregerson in the following review?

"The superheroes of DC Comics meet the Nobel laureates of particle physics: Charlie Chaplin meets Albert Einstein, who gives shelter to Marian Anderson when no hotel in Princeton will have her; the fractal repetitions of branching twig and leaf vein haunt the son of a father who did or did not teach him cruelty to women: all fuel for the sustained nuclear reaction of Quantum Lyrics. A. Van Jordan's is one of the most capacious, deep-structural imaginations in American poetry today. These poems are radioactive."

c. The Green Lantern is mentioned. Along with The Flash, this was my favorite comic growing up. I could recite Hal Jordan's Lantern Oath by the time I was 6:

In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power - Green Lantern's light

Which always has been poetry to me...

Check out Perry Crowe's LA Citybeat article on the very upsetting changes to Green Lantern over the years.

Unplugging Plug and Chug

Yo - Memorize This!In a disturbing coincidence, the stomach-turning "Plug and Chug" phrase cropped up in 2 situations this week.  In physics class on Wednesday, a student made a comment about "plugging and chugging" to get a solution. I stopped him at that point and did my typical rant against that type of approach to doing physics. (Note - he was NOT advocating it!)

In short, there's nothing more revolting to me as a physics teacher, and a physicist than the thought that somehow physics can be taught, and learned, by memorizing formulas and simply plugging in numbers and calculating.

How then to explain a quote by Erika Gebel in the Aug, 3, 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer? In an article titled "Masters of 'spring' theory: Physics Teachers embrace a new method", Gebel is describing exciting new changes to the way that physics is taught in high school. Citing the approach known as modeling physics , which had just been taught to local physics instructors in a faculty-development workshop in the Philadelphia area, Gebel reports that

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Einstein vs. Quantum Orthodoxy, Revisited

Bob and Alice go spinning?Essential reading for all those reading the current Einstein biographies is a NY Review of Books article titled The Other Einstein by Lee Smolin. Smolin, a theoretical physicist, takes the biographers to task (although he does prefer Neffe's biography, as I have - see my review) for not really answering the most essential questions about Einstein. One such question is whether Einstein's childishness in later years was pre-meditated. Smolin writes:

The question that needs to be answered, although none of the biographers do so, is how this arrogant, charismatic revolutionary turned into the otherworldly sage who was said to be an "emblem...of the mature and reflective human being." The man who was once seen as childish became admired for being childlike. How did this happen? Had Einstein become resigned after facing political and personal tragedies, or was his new character, as Overbye and Neffe both suspect, at least partly an act? "Einstein the lonely genius," as Neffe writes, "was partly a creation of his own making."

Smolin does provide some fascinating stories that lend credence to this suggestion. He also has a very interesting take on Einstein's later years - years though to be "wasted" by many scientists and biographers because of Einstein's failed attempt to find a unified theory, and his stubborn battle against the probabilistic and non-realistic view of quantum mechanics in the Copenhagen Interpretation. According to Smolin, Einstein's "act" worked against the acceptance of his fight against quantum orthodoxy:

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Modeling Acts of God, Part 2 - Earthquakes

This is #2 in a series. (Click here for #1 on modeling hurricanes)

Earthquake modeling seems to generate a wide range of emotions, vitriol, successes, and failures - so wide as to need a logarithmic scale, a la Richter.

The Parkfield Earthquake Experiment, now running for over 22 years, has been the development test bed and experimental "lab" for US Geological Survey/State of California efforts to develop  physical models of earthquakes that will lead to viable predictions. The USGS site contains a wealth of information on the experiment, and good background on the history of earthquake prediction, which is still highly hit or miss. An interesting excerpt from the site neatly illuminates the need for prediction based on an understanding of physical causes as opposed to one based on statistical correlation only:

Early scientific efforts toward earthquake prediction in the U.S. were directed primarily toward the measurement of physical parameters in areas where earthquakes occur, including seismicity, crustal structure, heat flow, geomagnetism, electrical potential and conductivity, gas chemistry. Central to these efforts was the concept that a precursor might be observed in one or more of these measurements. However, the connection between a commonly accepted precursor and the earthquake was often speculative and uncertain. A coherent physical model was lacking.

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