I would have expected vacuuming the cat to turn the feline into a frenetic fuzzball.
Time Sink
Outrun the doom from the meteor and avoid becoming extinct
One More Thing . . .
The other thing that struck me about bait-and-switch was this
I gravitated toward a scientific life with fantasies of sci-fi movies running through my head, with large machines emitting lightning at the flip of a huge Frankenstein-type switch, or several people poring over softly-glowing computer screens as an experiment produces fantastic data in real-time, and great discoveries are made. I thought this kind of thing actually happened even as I started grad school (even if I had never seen it in my various research summers…)
It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen (depending on your definition of “great”). Back in my first postdoc, at TRIUMF, we trapped radioactive potassium atoms for nuclear-decay tests of the standard model. Or, more precisely, we planned to do this, since the research had progressed only to the point where stable potassium had been trapped when I started working there. Not too long after my arrival we were scheduled for a few stretches of beam time, with an appropriate target to produce the radioactive isotopes we were trying to trap.
Since these were radioactive isotopes, the exact frequency for trapping them was unknown, though the presence of stable isotopes meant (in principle) that the isotope shift could be calculated to some degree of accuracy and narrow down the range of frequencies for the trapping and repump interactions. Since the linewidth of the transition is somewhere around 5 MHz, and you should be able to see a trap with a laser detuning of somewhere between a half a linewidth and several linewidths to the red of resonance, we set up to scan in discrete steps of several MHz, pausing at each step to look for fluorescence at the center of the trapping region — literally looking: we integrated the output from a CCD camera and displayed it on a computer screen, along with a graph of the total fluorescence.
Continue reading
Rube-y Goldberg Tuesday III
Silly Blog Games, Part II: Poll Pimpin'
Over at Science After Sunclipse, Blake is cruising for traffic with a new poll, “Should PZ Myers send his readers to crash online polls?” Vote early, vote often, vote “harlot.”
Take Me Out, Out, Out to the Ballgame
A map of Armstrong and Aldrin’s moon walks, superimposed on a baseball diamond. One fly ball to right-center, and nothing else left the infield. Apparently Armstrong had a wicked slider and Aldrin a nasty cut fastball.
(A couple of years ago, a friend had the opportunity to meet Buzz Aldrin. My suggestion: as you’re shaking his hand, say, “Wow! I can’t believe I’m meeting someone who actually knows Neil Armstrong!”)
Out of Business?
The illusion business. Posting them, that is. Too much direct competition: Illusion Sciences
Illusions and explanations, by an illusion designer and psychologist
Bonus: Illusion of the year contest, top 10 finalists
via Cognitive Daily
Crackpot Bingo
It happens in science blog comments, and more so in discussion boards where you get some crank with their pet theory of some science subdiscipline, and how it’s the new paradigm ready to emerge and topple the orthodoxy. And it’s almost formulaic like a Hardy Boys mystery (or even a Robert Ludlum novel) with the same arguments cropping up in different combinations. Read several in a row and the commonalities jump out at you.
Hmmm. A finite set of arguments, appearing seemingly at random. Sounds like bingo to me!
Here are the major points, many of which are shamelessly cribbed from the crackpot index
Strawman – use of the strawman fallacy
Unbelievable — use of the argument from incredulity fallacy (I don’t understand, therefore it’s wrong)
Gedanken — use of a thought experiment to debunk a theory or actual experiment
ALLCAPS — extensive use of ALLCAPS or large font
Galileo — as in, comparing themself favorably (i.e. persecuted)
Einstein — as in, comparing themself favorably (i.e. I am the next one)
Nobel — claiming they will win one
School — listing degrees and/or schools attended
Dropout — usually a proud declaration
Many years — how long they’ve worked on their theory
Prize — offer a prize to anyone debunking their work
Terminology — new terms or acronyms
Particles — new particles proposed (Tachyons don’t count)
Interaction — a new interaction is proposed
Eponym — naming something of their work after themselves
Math — admitting to be unable to do it or doing it horribly
Theory — as in, “it’s only a theory” argument to dismiss accepted science
Metaphysics — the work explains “why” or what some phenomenon “really is”
Censorship — complaints about work being censored
Rue — “you’ll rue the day you ignored me” or similar warning
Religion — claiming science is a religion
Priest/Bible — scientists are high priests, or some work is the science bible
Gifs — animated, very pretty, meaningless
Graphs — must have unlabeled axes or be otherwise incomprehensible
See? — claiming the model explains/predicts many phenomena, but without actually presenting evidence
Huh? — befuddlement over lack of instant acceptance of new paradigm
We — the royal we; “we don’t understand X” applied to a well-understood issue
You — “You don’t understand X” directed toward an individual with significant experience in the field
Predicts — model predicts phenomena that have never been observed, but should have been
Turtles — all the way down: all of physics is due to one fundamental particle
Quotes — supports position by selective quoting
Like — argument by analogy
Topology — use of mobius strip or klein bottle in argument
Mum — won’t divulge details for fear of idea being stolen
Polly — simple repetition of claims, unchanged, after being debunked
——
Indignation — at being asked for evidence or other corroboration (added 5/11)
I’ll add more if worthy ones are suggested.
Card generator available here
The Illusion of Knowledge
Over at Backreaction
Current illusions such as the idea that if it’s on the internet, and especially if it’s in an oft-visited location, then it must be true (argument from popularity), if it can’t be explained in a short presentation, it must be false (argument from incredulity), if it’s not on the internet then it must be false, newer information is always better, and others.
I think some of this is a remnant of the idea that if something appears in print, it must be true — print used to be instant credibility in part because print was relatively expensive. The cost aspect was especially true in the earliest days, and you wouldn’t bother to commit something to writing unless it was very important, but before mass-printing, that was often spiritual truth rather than scientific truth. But with the advent of printing, thanks to Gutenberg, more information could be shared at less cost, so knowledge was put down on paper and distributed.
But it’s still largely driven by economics, and the illusion was present even back in the day. As long as a lie is profitable, and this could mean power and control, as well as money, putting it in print has a payoff. And as the cost of print goes down, the wider the illusion spreads. Today, of course, electronic print is dirt cheap. There is almost no threshold at all to making misinformation available, and even sending it to you — hey, you’ve got spam! Every crank and their inbred cousin can have a web site that “teaches” us how relativity is a conspiracy, quantum mechanics has a connection to the mind and body, the earth is 6000 years old, etc.
One danger, to which Bee alludes, is that if you’ve been hoodwinked into thinking a solution has been achieved, you aren’t as likely to support further investigation — legitimate, scientific investigation — into the problem.
The problem is not lack of knowledge. The problem is the Illusion of Knowledge that comes with an overabundance of unstructured information. It fosters the public manifestation of unfounded believes, stalls scientific arguments, and hinders progress.
I Think I Can, I Think I Can
Babbage’s difference engine #2 has been built and has “just gone on display in Silicon Valley” (Where? Not sure. Make sure you make a left turn at Albuquerque. Then ask.)
Despite Babbage’s reputation and government backing, the machine was never manufactured.
The plans were consigned to the dustbin of history until they were fished out by Mr Swade when he was working at the Science Museum in London. While there he went on to create the world’s first Difference Engine No 2. which was completed in 1991.
And, of course, one is reminded of Babbage’s excellent quote about GIGO:
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Hat tip to Caroline.