Category Archives: Politics

From Where Will Our Energy Come?

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I ran across this blog post on future energy concerns — Less heat, more light: solving the energy crisis, and while much of it seems solid and there are some very good points in it, there are some things that are very, very wrong. And there’s this whole problem with conclusions drawn from invalid premises — you can’t claim they are valid, even if they happen to be correct; you can’t be sure if the correctness is accidental.

Basically, a discussion of how much energy will we be demanding in the future and where will we be getting it. World-wide we use about 14 TW of power (terawatts, or 10^12 watts) — for an idea of scale, that’s like having fourteen one-terawatt light bulbs — and if one assume a 2% annual increase in use, that will double by 2050.

The first issue I have is that the “let’s get more efficient” isn’t first — if the new real demand isn’t actually going to be 14 TW, then let’s use the real number as our target. So the conclusions about nuclear

A two gigawatt plant needs to be built every month from here to 2050. That will get us all of one (1!) terawatt out of the fourteen needed.

is a little off if fourteen TW isn’t actually needed. Also, the conclusions about how much uranium we have available to us

There’s lots more U in sea water, but if you think we should try the environmental disaster of mining seawater — to get 1TW of radioactive energy — you probably got that idea via the fillings in your teeth.

well, sorry, but snark isn’t science. Since we’re basically talking about filtration (technically adsorption on a polymer), the “disaster” part isn’t leaping out at me.

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Sowing and Reaping Science

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ZapperZ discusses Public Impatience With Science, or the importance of doing basic research now so that people can do applied research later and bring new and useful technology to market in the future.

This ties in what I was talking about in my last entry, (and earlier than that) because while there are the funding organizations and agencies out there trying to drive applied research who also fund some basic research, it is usually in a narrow scope. Funding, overall, needs to expand in breadth and depth. What needs to be remembered is that advances and discoveries have a way of expanding and being adopted by other researchers, even crossing the traditional lines between disciplines, but it takes time to diffuse.

Even within the sciences themselves, many forget that some of the advancement in biochemistry, for example, were brought about because of something that was developed in physics years before. Synchrotron light sources came out of research in high energy physics, and it took many decades before the field of biochemistry, medicine, and pharmacy realized that such facilities can be valuable to their work.

And what is originally a heroic effort to observe some result will eventually become a standard lab practice or tool (BEC being a good example), allowing more advanced inquiry, but again, it takes time for this to happen.

New Data

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Unlike some pursuits, in science new information sometimes means having to revise your conclusion. Just after snarking about how unscientific congress is, I read that Bill Foster, another physicist, has been elected to fill Dennis Hastert’s seat.

So the raising operator has been applied by the good people of the 14th district in Illinois, at least until November, when the measurement gets redone.

Prof. Higgins Sings

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Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?

An interesting article on the gender-representation issue in the sciences. Many assume it’s all sexism, but whenever somebody checks to see if that’s really the case, two things seem to happen: they come to the conclusion, “Not so much,” and they are often attacked for raising the question. Congress has gotten into the act, with a push for a “Title IX for Science.” I’m all for removing barriers that might prevent women from pursuing a career in a science discipline, or shunt them into some other discipline against their desire, but if you don’t ask the question of how we know it’s sexism, such a path is, well, unscientific. (of course, that’s not surprising, since politics and political-correctness is involved). But the Title IX analogy fails, because science doesn’t have a men’s league and women’s league.

There is another essential difference between sports and science: in science, men and women play on the same teams. Very few women can compete on equal terms with men in lacrosse, wrestling, or basketball; by contrast, there are many brilliant women in the top ranks of every field of science and technology, and no one doubts their ability to compete on equal terms.

I think one of the problems in this issue is that some people are taking “men and women are equal” and subtly (or not-so-subtly) taking that to mean “men and women are identical.” And assuming that because the former is true that the latter must be as well.

via Twisted One 151

There’s also a new book, reviewed at the NY TImes, related to this topic. The Sexual Paradox by Susan Pinker.

Pinker parks herself firmly among “difference” feminists. Women’s brains aren’t inferior, she argues, but they vary considerably from men’s, and this is the primary explanation for the workplace gender divide

Basic Research

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An essay on basic research and budgets and making a case for the necessity of funding.

In truth, fundamental research is a necessity, not a luxury. Most of the technological developments made in the past 100 years have been fuelled by fundamental research into science.

It’s mostly about “Big Physics” and there’s a lot that can be discussed about the value of funding “big” vs “small” physics, which (to me) is a separate issue. Pulling funding of basic research is extremely short-sighted. What is getting lost is that applied research depends a lot on basic research having found interesting things about nature, that the applied research then exploits. It’s not exclusive, of course — you can have applied research find something new and exciting. But it’s a question of where you’re looking and what pressures are upon you. If you, as an applied science researcher, see or could see some interesting/unexplained signal in your apparatus, you aren’t likely to investigate it if it negatively impacts the deadline for finishing your project. It’s probably not a priority unless it’s an anomaly that threatens a milestone. You are better off with a person doing basic research, who is free to go and look at whatever they want, and for whom funding can be available if they do quality research.

The other problem is with beancounters that don’t understand the scientific process but unfortunately decide funding. I recall observing a review board when I was a postdoc at an accelerator lab, and there was a government representative on the review board (prioritizing funding and beam time). After the director gave an overall briefing of the lab, and highlighted some of the significant discoveries that had been made over the years, the government rep asked what discoveries were going to be made in the upcoming year. That’s the kind of question that makes my shoulders slump forward and my head hang. As my thesis advisor said on more than one occasion, “if we knew the answer, it wouldn’t be called research.”

via Physics and Physicists

Nanofear

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Nanotechnology isn’t morally acceptable to a lot of people.

My immediate reaction, after playing “what the?” is that this is a reaction from ignorance. I mentioned before that many people get visions of nanobots taking over the world dancing in their heads when you mention the word “nanotechnology” so I suspect this is just a simple reaction. It’s unknown, so I am suspicious and am predisposed to rejecting the idea. Calling it immoral is just an easy way to reject it, requiring little thought.

Of course it’s ignorant, because most of the respondents probably have a computer, which has nanoscale components in it. And use other nanotech products, perhaps even on a daily basis.

I’m not sure how the pollster draws the religious conclusions, because the poll questions aren’t given and we only have his word that the people were well-informed adults. I don’t trust polls, especially ones that are opaque.

Narrowing the Field

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Primary season is upon me, and as with the elections last fall, I am being inundated with phone calls. I will take the same strategy on Tuesday as I did in November: if I get a call from or on behalf of a candidate, I won’t vote for them. It’s an open primary, so I can vote for either party.

I just got a call from Bill Clinton. Hillary is out.