mmilk-money

[mmilk-money]

I too found myself shocked and astounded when Schrodinger’s cat was replaced with a human being and other things that could be in a “superposition of states”. I also found it hard to accept that the cat was both dead AND alive, as it does seem to defy common sense. But much like how the determination of a superposition of states relies on perception, perhaps common sense does as well. So maybe if we did change our notion of common sense, Schrodinger’s cat could exist in two states at once. Or superposition could be a final, third state that the cat could take on. 

Schrodinger’s Cat

It’s no surprise that Schrödinger’s cat, one of many paradoxes, has undergone many inconclusive debates since it’s commencement. Honestly for me, it’s pretty straightforward at first. The cat is both dead and alive if it is not being observed. It doesn’t make sense at all to me, it rejects any notion of common sense, but it is a relatively easy concept to grasp. In fact, this chapter specifically mentioned that it is easier to make sense of an electron “in some superposition of states” than to mentally configure a cat simultaneously being dead and alive.  With this simple paradox in mind, I read through this particular section of the chapter with more confusion as each beings in the box progresses more in intellect.

“Wigner’s Friend” is described to be a “competent observer” with the ability to “collapse wave functions.” If he makes it out of the box alive, he will not recall being both dead and alive just because there was no one to observe him for the duration of his time in the box. I’ve known about Shrodinger’s cat for a while now, and I’ve never thought to replace the cat with a human being. To add to that, the person still occupies a superposition of states, until he is being observed. Does that mean that his testimony of being alive and well in the box carries no weight to physicist?

At this point in the chapter, things become a little weird. The author now replaces the humans with computers which lack the capacity to physically, mentally, emotionally react to any environmental stimuli. They can, however, report with extraordinary accuracy every second of information about the radioactive decay. Do they have the ability to collapse the wave function? The author asks himself this question as well, but goes on to say “at least inside the wave box.” From here, I double take. This implies that the human wasn’t able to break the wave function inside the box. As I read through this chapter, I was convinced that Wigner’s Friend could at least disturb the wave function inside the box. Turns out said friend can neither break the wave function outside of the box or inside of the box. This, for whatever reason, totally blows my mind. So I readx on to see if this computer can break the wave function. The author know says that human observation or awareness has no effect of quantum level physics. The fact that the each radioactive atom is being recorded on a quantum level broke the wave function. This reminded me of the Doctor Quantum Double Slit video. Observing the atom, recording it’s every move eliminates any possibility of superposition, meaning one can definitely say whether whomever in the box is alive or not.

[mmilk-money]

Reflection #5

For a while now, there has been a strong belief that time can only move forward, never back. Backwards is a direction that complements forwards and can only be applied to space. It can only be applied to the hands of the clock that show time, but never time itself. But perhaps this is only the collective perception of time. Surely, there is more than one world than ours, a universe of hypothetical situations coming to life paralleling our own decisions. John Gribbin argues that if we were to step outside of our current conception of time, we would be able to understand how to go “backwards” in time and how to time travel.

If you were to flip the axes of life and exchange the axis of space (for most people) for the axis of time (for most people), you could cover vast amounts of time with a leap or a few moments with a step. Although you would still see small steps of time. But Gribbin assumes that time and space are unrelated, that they are quantities that exist independently of each other and just happen to intersect at a 90 degree angle so that they can form a graph. On the normal axes, time will always be increasing regardless of the space you move in. But I would interject that there is some sort of relationship between time and space. The two words are always hypenated, as in time-space continuum or time-space compression. I propose, to counter Gribbin’s time travel, that space is instead a function of time, since an object occupies a coordinate of space at a unique moment in time.

Space is not a variable that is always increasing as time is. If you were to stay fixated in that one particular instance of time, as you are when sitting in a chair, you would occupy the same space as that moment in time. Time wouldn’t resume its flow once you landed in a location, as it is the axis of space for the rest of the world, and space does not take the characteristic of time as it flows. Time loses its property when flipped and space never gains time’s property. Thus, in order to progress throughout the time on your own axis, you would have to travel along the axis of space that the rest of the world has their perception on, which may be very short lived if you find yourself at the edge of a cliff.

But that is if you define space in units of distance from a certain point, or displacement. If space is instead displacement, one could build a time machine equipped with a treadmill. Each step you take registers as a mile in space to the world but an hour in time for you. In order to time travel, you would need to keep increasing your distance. But that is yet another issue: distance is always positive and increasing, which means you would only be able to progress along your axis of time in one direction, which defeats the purpose of time travel altogether.

The idea of time travel is still something that needs to be explored. Neither I nor the author of a book can explain a possible solution for time travel in a single tumblr post.

[mmilk-money]

Strengths: 

1. The presenter of the butterfly poster increased my understanding of the topic by defining technical terms as he introduced them. He made no assumptions about my prior knowledge, and by explaining them he increased their supposed significance to the topic. The explanations made me more interested in the overarching topic of alpine butterfly behavior and global warming.

2. All the presenters were not only knowledgeable about their research project, but also learned about related topics. They anticipated related questions and increased their seemed expertise (pathos) by answering my questions and explaining the topic in more detail.

Weakness:

Having a uniform poster. Some had different font styles and/or sizes throughout the presentation, and looking at them amongst the other cleaner posters, I would think that the presenter didn’t put enough care into his or her project. I did not notice the aesthetics of the other posters until they were pitted against ones with designs that were slightly out of place, which made them seem even more out of place.

Poster Presentation Assignment:

This is a simple one. DUE Friday.

You will identify and briefly discuss 3 things about the presentations that you found interesting. 

2 will be strengths: something a presentation did well that you would like to copy. Example, something that made the presentation more enjoyable, easier to understand. 

1 thing you think could be improved on. Example, something you as an audience member would have liked to seen but wasn’t there in one or all of the presentations. 

This won’t take a whole paragraph. Just a few sentences for each strength and weakness. 

[mmilk-money]

This particular sentence also intrigued me when I first read it. The finality of time's passage seems odd, as many things in nature, such as flowers and water ripples, exhibit symmetry. Perhaps this means that time isn't something natural? I really can't think of how my mind comprehends event reversals; they just don't. It's just a new instance and nothing goes back to the way it was, but goes to a new position that may or may not be alike to something in the past. Perhaps time doesn't have to be future-based, but it can be based on anything since it doesn't seem to follow the rules of nature. It's man-made, and as a human you can control the scope in which you understand time.

Physics Reflection 4

The portion of Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos which stands out to me the most is when Greene discusses the direction and nature of time.  Greene states, “Eggs break, but they don’t unbreak; candles melt, but they don’t unmelt; memories are of the past, never of the future; people age, but they don’t unage.  These asymmetries govern our lives; the distinction between forward and backward in time exhibited the same symmetry we witness between left and right, or back and forth, the world would be unrecognizable (13).  This thought interests me because I feel like it is a concept and principle which goes unnoticed.  We are all just used to events occurring this way, our minds cannot wrap around reverse occurrences, apart from the photography technology and time-warped imaging which can be created today, our natural outlook on the world is future-based.  The parts of this idea which really compel me are Greene’s examples of memories and aging.  By their very nature, memories are created when information is stored and retained in the mind for future recollection.  They are mainly associated with past events, but why memories do not give insight to the future is a mystery.  Instances such as deja vu are inexplicable, but perhaps they are in fact memories of the future, this process would completely usurp the system of retainment which we have created for ourselves.  The notion of which memories do not have to be of the past intrigues me and causes me to wonder if our human conceived principles are merely ambiguous and theories of the past, present, and future are only relative.  The second half of this illustration of which I am drawn to is when the author discusses aging and “unaging”.  It is true that if aging were nonexistent or the reverse of what it is now, the world and everyone in it would be unrecognizable.  Aging backwards is a concept which can only be found in fairy tales and movies, even then, the concept is simply guessed at and its effects are construed with no real basis or fact.  While these thoughts about memories and age are accepted and known as true and factual, after reading this literature, I can not help but wonder how the world would be if things were different and time was not future-based.  Although the essay focuses on time having a natural direction and rhythm, I tend to focus more on the “what-ifs” then the concrete, as science and exploration is all about questioning one’s surroundings, not accepting someone else’s ideas without giving a second thought to the unknown.

[mmilk-money]

Physics Reflection 4

Two objects can be far apart in space, but as far as quantum mechanics is concerned, it's as if they're a single entity (p.12)

It is this single sentence that opened up a universe in my mind and finally led to the understanding of quantum mechanics. It finally makes sense why something that happens over here, in this place, affects something else over there, in that place. It's all part of the same thing. When the idea was first stated, it absolutely blew my mind. To control the circumstances from a distance, the command still has to travel to reach the destination through some sort of medium. Pressing a button on your car remote activates radio waves that are in turn traveling to the car to unlock it. Things like that take time to travel from one object to the next.

But that is resolved when you take a different perspective on the world. What if things aren’t separate? What if, instead of objects, there were an object, singular? That’s how the message is so instantaneous. There is no need to spend time jumping from connection to connection when everything is already connected.

Taking on the single-entity worldview also helps one understand a different principle of quantum mechanics: how things can be partly this way or partly that way. If we treat a human as a single “thing”, that one unit can be waving its arm and walking on its feet at the same time. By deductive reasoning, if a person is made out of particles and humans can have partial states, so too can particles have partial states. Of course, a particle can change properties with the addition of other particles, but even that is in a partial state of togetherness.

[mmilk-money]

I also saw the discrepancy between Young and Einstein's theories and I thought about last week's reading: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. You're right, there's always something flawed in theories and they always have to be reshaped. What are we supposed to believe then? The law that someone has not yet disproved? Just because someone hasn't found the thing that's wrong with an idea, doesn't mean it's correct. It really stuck out to me when you mentioned that new theories are formulated on old theories. I think new theories are on their own level and require the breakdown of old theories. It is precisely because former ideas are only transitory that new theories must be constructed. If you're feeling a bit confused about how to label science, you may as well group it as "fact" for now. Take it as an assumption for which you'll make all your mathematical calculations and explanations about the world now, just until a new law comes along to break it all down.

Physics Reflection 3

From Gary Zukav’s The Dancing ‘Wu Li Masters, I have been led to question the validity of theories construed by scientists and physicists. While there have been thoughts that are considered laws and unable to be disproved, if there are some areas that seem concrete but are able to still be contradicted, who is to say that any thoughts are absolute and undisprovable?  As Zukav begins explaining the quantum theory and movement of light, he states that light is made of particles, but shortly after makes a contradiction.  Zukav states, “The only problem was that one hundred and two years earlier an Englishman named Thomas Young had shown that light is made of waves, and no one, including Einstein, was able to disprove him” (54). This presents a problem, as no two clashing theories can both be correct.  This leads me to wonder if any thought can be truly credible, as it seems that there is always someone who can craft an opposing notion.  If all theories are subjected to this level of questionability, then is science itself so easily disproved? How are new theories to be constructed based on the principles of previous theories if the former ideas are only transitory?  The answer seems to be simple, science is not to be trusted, there are no laws which can be actually considered fact, as so many theories are rejected easily, even though they were previously considered uncontradictable. This is a worrisome thought to me, as we then know nothing about science, we simply accept a batch of “facts” and continue to research and study these principles.  If a theory is disproved, then scientists and researchers who spent their entire lives dedicated to the theories wasted their time.  Overall, this reading led me to not trust scientific principles at all, and I now do not know if any concept that we have created can be considered a “fact”.

[mmilk-money]

Reflection #3

It’s not the first time that someone has changed the paradigm on which to conduct scientific research. Max Planck jiggled the theory of jiggling electrons as the cause of color changes at increasing temperatures, as well as how brightness changes. It was flawed because it didn’t explain why moderately hot objects emitted red light instead of white light, if a slight change in temperature was all that was necessary to trigger the “atomic oscillators”, which would pass on the energy to the atom.

And so Planck theorized that excited “atomic oscillators” could emit and absorb only specific amounts of energy, as according to the size of their energy packets. Each “quanta” (energy packet) either absorbs or releases enough energy to fill or empty the packet. Atomic oscillators contain energy packets of increasing size, and as the larger ones are filled, the higher energy colors of the visible light spectrum are seen, such as green, blue, and violet. 

Note: the above diagram does not include all frequencies on the visible light spectrum and is simplified for this response.

Planck would say that each atomic oscillator releases energy in fixed quantities called “spurts”. Since they cannot be released in halves, quarters, or ninths of a spurt, we’d say that the amount of energy is released in increments and is thus discontinuous.

It seems that Planck’s theory of discontinuity in the processes of nature does not apply to the human perception of brightness in heated objects. Things get brighter gradually. A dimmer light switch doesn’t immediately light up a room; it gradually adds more light until everything is bright enough to be seen. Even with a light switch, light still reaches some particles before other particles, and thus makes them brighter before others. Accordingly, Zukav applies his understanding of Planck’s discontinuity, for throughout the passage he anticipates any objections his readers may have:

The tiny “steps” upward and downward in brightness are so incredibly small that our eyes cannot discern them.

Replace the word “steps” with “spurts” as referred to the amount energy that atomic oscillators release, and everything falls together. The spurts themselves and the time (or space) between releasing them are so small that it seems continuous. Replace the word “spurts” with “dots” and you get the art of pointillism.

As portions of Sunday in the Park with George only seem to be continuous because of the size and proximity of the blots, so too do the steps of brightness seem continuous. (The saturation of the colors is also due to the number of blots per unit of area, which also parallels the intensity of brightness.)

As for physics describing the patterns of organic energy (the main point that Gary Zukav was trying to convey), Planck’s analysis of discontinuous energy quantities demonstrates that life processes are discontinuous. And things that seem to be continuous are merely changing at rates too small for detection. 

[mmilk-money]

Prompt A Response

Thesis  Human-made objects reveal the circumstances that a designer has considered during the design process as shown by their contemporary forms and functions.

Summary  In The Evolution of Useful Things, Henry Petroski describes the appearance and operations of everyday objects and how they have changed over time, such as the fork and the paperclip. He discusses the motivations of the designers who create those artifacts, which, by discovery of failure or a better alternative, lead to fulfilling a certain need demanded by their users. In addition, Petroski demonstrates how the eras and the people living within them are included in an inventor’s motivations.

TEA Argument  An engineer creates an object with a vision of what it will look like and what it is meant to do. An architect hired to design spikes to set outside Manchester stores is given the task to build a structure that keeps people off the ground. Supposedly, this is a response to customer complaints to “reduce litter and smoking”, but the main focus of the designer is to be exclusive (“Anti-homeless spikes: ‘Sleeping rough opened my eyes to the city’s barbed cruelty’”). He or she may think of the people who would loiter outside the stores to litter and, although not explicitly stated, the homeless who live there. The physical spikes are a vicarious representation of the maker’s ideas. The function of the created object fits within the era of the inventor. In eighteenth century Europe, the fork and knife underwent many revisions in design, such as the number of tines and the shape of the handle. Such modifications improve the eating experience of the user. But the designer made the utensils “for eating in a society in which eating is done with a knife and fork” (The Evolution of Useful Things). He or she has regarded factors that may affect the popularity of their product, targeting human tendencies to behave like other members in their surroundings. And so, tangible creations speak for the abstract thoughts of the designer by their structures and services to the world.

[mmilk-money]

I don't agree with you that practical and applicable research always furthers the current paradigm and that the only contradictory evidence comes from inapplicable and impractical researches. Kuhn himself says that "genius does not here manifest itself in more accurate or objective observation". It is not simply due to data collection that scientists create different paradigms, nor that either method of data collection is incorrect. If however you mean that the research is impractical and inapplicable with respect to the current paradigm, that is where I agree with you.

I also agree when you write that society's productivity would be greatly increased if fields of science and politics were based on pure facts rather than fabricated arguments. In this sense I believe they should be objective fields, which may be the start of a huge paradigm change and revolution.

In an excerpt from The Structure of Science Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn, Kuhn brings comparison to scientific revolutions with political revolutions. From what he pointed out, it makes a lot of sense of how both revolutions are very similar. Seeing that both usually occurs between two parties, one sticking to the traditional view and one that seeks the new institution. He pointed out that the discovery of new information can be cumulative or revolutionary. Although there are scientific laws such as Newtonian motions and thermodynamics that are almost impossible to challenge or disprove, most research results are still able to be challenged. Practical and applicable research usually produces cumulative information and furthers the current paradigm while impractical and inapplicable researches are more likely to create revolutionary results that contradicts the current paradigm. As pointed by a colleague with an affinity with rubber duckies, many of Albert Einstein’s research was not very common during his period of science research, but he ended up producing revolutionary results and theories such as the theory of relativity and theory of gravitational waves. Impractical researches/ revolutionists are important in the developing of society by replacing old paradigm.

Newly established scientific institutions allow people to see a completely different view of the world as political revolution theoretically creates a better system of order to benefit everyone. As time goes on, however, the author points out that argumentation and presentation of information has became more influential than the actual content sometimes when it comes to political and scientific issues. In my opinion, society would be much more productive if both field were more fact based and informative rather than argument and story based. On informal information exchange platforms such as Facebook, attention seekers often overstate or report false news to gain attention and create false information being shared around.

[mmilk-money]

Reflection #2

What’s the big deal about paradigms?

Describing the large upheavals and changes of thought come way before the term “paradigm shift”, as used by Thomas S. Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Perhaps not the earliest instance to date, the Latin idiom res novae figuratively means “revolution” as we know it today. But taken literally, it means “new things”. The word res in Latin is just as fluid as the word “thing” in English, as it can mean business, affair, fact, cause, or, especially relevant, event. These new events, “phenomena”, attempt to push their way into the boxes of existing paradigms created by previous scientists. When they do, science and life exists, just as it was before. But when they don’t, they break those boundaries, which then must be reformed as a more inclusive principle.

Scientists are constantly forming new theories about the observed and the not-yet-observed. A new theory therefore must include all the ideas in the past in addition to the novel phenomena from which it is derived. To do so means to change the “fundamental structural elements of which the universe to which they apply is composed”, as Einstein experienced when developing his theory of general relativity. Einstein’s mass was convertible with energy, while Newton’s mass was conserved at all times. These theories of relativity cannot coexist, because it is as if Einstein’s theory were made out of Legos and Newton’s mass were made out of Jenga blocks; they are using the same term to refer to the construction of two entirely separate forms of matter. And so, the destruction of one paradigm, one viewing relativity as per Newtonian mass, is necessary for the creation of a new paradigm, one viewing relativity as per Einsteinian mass.

Paradigms are such a major deal because those are the laws that should remain constant to continue describing the world. Scientists ought to be referring to the same thing with the same properties when using technical terms, such as “electricity” or “atoms”, as to avoid confusion or major scientific screw-ups. Thus to continue examining the same world, observers have to agree to use the same methods and terminology to report clear data and form concrete generalizations  about the existing universe.

[mmilk-money]

As someone who learns from the ground up, learning basic ideas of a topic and then learning other concepts that increase in complexity provides the best framework for my understanding. And so I agree with you that the learning of the basic unit of matter, the atom, leads to a further understanding of physics, chemistry, and biology. It really is a beautiful concept, that each of those fields of science differ only by slight nuances. The atom is such a concrete concept that it is the logical “root” from which all those ideas “stem” from. Truly, by observing the similarities between the fields, we can further the discern the complex differences of future subjects and heighten our understanding of the physical world.

Six Easy Pieces

The first segment of Six Easy Pieces by  Richard P. Feynman discusses the methodology of teaching physics. He initiates this discussion by organizing the principles of the studies of Science into various steps and disciplines.  Humans, being observant creatures, have acquired knowledge of how the physical world functions. This bulk of knowledge has been concentrated and classified into various theories and laws, which offer a logical equation or statement to describe a recurring pattern in nature. Yet, this process is not even close to simple pattern recognition. As emerging scientists built upon the knowledge of their predecessors, they discovered gaps in the structure, obstructed by paradigms limited in their scope of how the universe truly functions. Their ability to both imagine and experiment has allowed for theories once accepted as Dogma to be invalidated. This leads to fairly simple laws- such as the invalid statement that mass is independent of speed- to lose their simplicity.

As these more commonly observed and simple theories lose their validity at extremes, the question is then what to make of the instruction of such concepts. Feynman questions if more abstract concepts should be introduced initially instead. As a response, he offers a set of principles for the process of learning new concepts; To absorb prior knowledge, find the accuracy of its experimentation and theory, determine its fit as a subcategory of a greater field, and examine the potential for the concept to change given new knowledge and data. His guidelines are clear and direct, but traditionally, learning basic concepts and progressing upwards in complexity offers the best path of development even if the basic concepts have exceptions.

For the following (much larger) segment of the excerpt, Feynman addresses the most fundamental concepts regarding the nature of our universe, of which encompasses all disciplines of science; the atomic hypothesis. The hypothesis is the backbone of almost every discipline; physics, chemistry, and biology are all contingent upon the structure and characteristics of the atom. He introduces the forms that the atoms take in solid, liquid, and gas. He then discusses basic laws such as the proportionality of force and area, pressure to density, and pressure to temperature. The coalescence of of atoms into crystalline structures, and the formation of molecules and compounds through chemical reactions is also discussed. Such concepts are paramount, as their principles are built upon in every field. By knowing the structure of matter, the function of cell membranes is increasingly tangible. Understanding the formation of various chemical compounds into unique structures is also dependent upon knowledge of how atoms orient themselves in relation to others.

As atoms combine to form larger and more complex structures, a variety of these structures can be organized to form a larger and complex being. As Feynman states, humans are a pile of well placed atoms. Chemistry, Physics, and Biology all fill in the gap between humans and atoms, showing how they are all truly intertwined in the pursuit of a better understanding of ourselves and our world. Feynman uncovers a beautiful aspect of science, in that all fields are all rooted in a basic logic. Diving into abstract theories such as quantum mechanics is therefore unhelpful, as it is too specific to find underlying patterns. By starting with the fundamental nature of the building block of our world, we can apply this knowledge to increasingly complex concepts and niche fields as time goes by.

[mmilk-money]

Reflection #1

To write this reflection, I’ve taken the approach that the excerpt itself has provided for learning new material. This I have also condensed into the mnemonic “King Arthur Fosters Camelot” (which will probably not be useful in completing any mathematical calculations), for taking what is Known now, how Accurate it is, how it Fits into everything now, and how it may be Changed when we learn more. It’s a solid manner of thinking that prevents uninformed readers from becoming gullible when an expert states a statement and then form logical conclusions of their own.

I remind myself that the fabulous King Arthur fosters the fantasy kingdom of Camelot while reading the “be-all end-all” statement that contains the single (supposedly) largest unit of scientific information in the least amount of words: the atomic hypothesis. Author Richard P. Feynmen states it as thus:

All things are made of atoms–little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.

I agree that this statement contains a lot of information which can only be weaned out by a lot of imagination and thinking. I had already known about the attracting and repelling forces of atoms as well as the fact that atoms are vibrating in place for the basic eternity. The sentence accurately describes the motion of attracting and repelling along with the basic jiggling. But does it really fit everything that is said in the passage?

The skepticism arise out of the particular section describing pressure and how that changes the motions of atoms. Pressure is the force of an object that pushes “back” on an atom when it collides with the said object, such as a wall, to remain stationary. That force (pressure) causes the atom to shoot back with greater speed in the opposite direction than which it arrived with. At the root, one could say that the atoms of the object are pushing back on the atoms colliding within it to create pressure, thus defining pressure as a form of atomic repulsion. But the text does not seem to mention the atoms in the piston, but only refers to the force of the piston. Is the descriptor “perpetual motion” enough to describe the change of an atom’s motion? Is this single sentence too broad to include the idea of pressure?

In essence, the given statement is too general to encompass the idea of pressure, evaporation, and freezing. If this were the only statement left of any scientific knowledge due to a cataclysm, future scientists could derive all these theories about pressure, evaporation, and freezing of atoms (with a ton of imagination and thinking). But simply saying that “little particles move around in perpetual motion” does not immediately bring to mind what happens when particles move faster or slower. Perhaps that sentence may need to change to be a little longer to actually contain the ideas of an atom’s change in motion, and not simply lead to those conclusions.

06/25/17

[mmilk-money]

Clear as Mud

Clarity is a scale to measure how well an intended thought is transmitted as a received thought. Clarity is contingent and is affected by a number of factors. A person’s preexisting knowledge of scientific jargon could improve the clarity of a scientific paper, as they understand the context in which it was written. The situation in which a thought is brought up also plays a major role in the clarity of ideas. A statement relating to dairy cows may be clear during an agricultural presentation, but not at Sunday brunch with family in the city.

06/25/17

[mmilk-money]

Welcome ESP 2017