Higgs!

When I rolled out of bed on July 4th, I grabbed a cup of coffee and my android tablet. When I fired up Plume (Twitter client), I was greeted with the greatest twitstream I have seen. Several people I follow were tweeting about the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer)
who? Writes the Bad Astronomer column for Discover Magazine
favorite tweet: Higgs! Higgs! Higgs! http://is.gd/pbmFwE #Higgs

HAL 9000 (@HAL9000_)
who? The computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey
favorite tweet: The size of the applause Fabiola Gianotti just got at the #Higgs presentation you'd think she had just unveiled a thinner iPhone

Lifey (@9to5Life)
who? A funny guy on twitter
favorite tweet: Comic sans on the CERN presentation slides because fuck the haters.
honorable mention: I actually just clapped, alone, like an asshole.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson)
who? Astrophysicist, author, science superstar
favorite tweet: On the day we reserve to tell ourselves America is great - July 4 - Europe reminds us that we suck at science. #HiggsBoson

Other folks such as Mike Scully (@scullymike), Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt), and many others chimed in as well. Reading through that stream was tremendous. Sincere thanks to all of you. That was really, freaking cool (in a totally geeky kinda way).

For anyone who wants to figure out what the big deal is, here are some resources for learning more:

• The video What's a Higgs Boson(thanks to The Guardian) is a quick, simple explanation of what the Higgs Boson is.
• Phil Plait's Higgs! (Bad Astronomy blog at Discover Magazine) has the big statistical plot that shows the "bump" at about 125 GeV that represents the Higgs Boson. His article has a ton of excellent links to other articles with background info.
• To learn more about the Standard Model (the physics theory for which the Higgs Boson provides long-awaited validation), check out The Standard Model.
• Matt Strassler's The Higgs FAQ is a really good and informative read.

A Strong Spirit

A few months ago, I saw the documentary Five Years on Mars about the Mars Spirit rover. The story is amazing. Spirit was sent to Mars on a 90-day mission. Several times, it was in great peril, but it survived far longer than it ever should have.

The xkcd strip Spirit is a nice angle on the amazing rover. Having seen the documentary about the mission, it is easy to understand why someone would anthropomorphize the over-performing rover.

Mixed Feelings About a Great Man: Norman Borlaug

Norman Borlaug, who passed away recently, was the father of the green revolution. His work to create and make available crops with insanely high yield and great resistance to disease is credited with saving a billion lives and a billion hectares of forest.

He was a great man and a worthy recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, but not just because he came up with the method to develop these crops. He was so worthy because he made it his life's work to encourage the use of the technology he developed. He didn't patent it and make a billion dollars off of it.

You might be thinking about the title of this post and wonder "How could anyone have mixed feelings about such an amazing man?" My mixed feelings stem from my concerns about overpopulation. It is great that we can feed so many people, but should we? I know it's easy for me to wonder about this. I have plenty of food. Still, overpopulation is something I think about. Here are some interesting reads about Borlaug:

• New York Times Obit: Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist Who Fought Famine
• The Examiner's Thomas Fuller: Norman Borlaug, global warming and overpopulation
• Overpopulation.com had a Norman Borlaug Special Issue

He was a great and noble man, but I think it is reasonable to think about the ethical ramifications of our technological advancements.

Women in Math and Science

I recently read an article about a new study concerning the impact female professors have on achievement. The study showed that female cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy were more likely to succeed in introductory science courses of they were taught by female professors, while male cadets didn't exhibit a gender effect. The original paper has many interesting details about the data and its implications. Here are some quotes I found particularly interesting:

• Compared to men with the same entering math ability, female students perform substantially less well in their introductory math and science courses.
• The gender gap is mitigated considerably when female students have female professors.
• Professor gender seems to be irrelevant in the humanities.
• The effect of female professors on female students is largest among students with high math ability.
• Professor gender has minimal effects on male students' outcomes.

This study made me think back to Lawrence Summers, who was President of Harvard University in 2005 when he made remarks about women in math and science. The most interesting part of his comments (and the reaction to them) was the discussion about the causes of the disparity in female representation in science and math careers. Many people took offense when he said that the cause might not be discrimination. Summers basically said that social causes (including discrimination) are overplayed, and innate ability plays a role. His comments set off quite a bit of controversy and ultimately led to his departure from Harvard.

I'd like to discuss the USAFA study with Summers. Maybe women are under-represented for the same reason they under-perform. Maybe we need more women professors, or maybe we need to show men how to teach more like women teach.

TED Talks, Volume 4: Uncertainty

Here is another talk from TED. I enjoy wading through and looking for talks that bring me new connections or ideas. Listening to bright people with innovative ideas provides much-needed fuel for my brain.

Topic: We all have to make decisions under uncertainty just about constantly, and we stink at it.

Dan Gilbert: How we are deceived by our own miscalculations of the future
Note that this also ties into the topic of happiness.

Peter Donnelly: How juries are fooled by statistics
Lawyers and statisticians can make data say what they want.

This topic is near and dear to my heart. I think that everyone should have to take a decent course in probability and statistics. The goal isn't to create more positions for math teachers, but rather to educate people so they can be good citizens.

TED Talks, Volume 3: Climate and Energy

Climate change and energy are two of our biggest challenges. We need to have smart, creative people working on solutions for these problems.

David Keith: A surprising idea for "solving" climate change
I like that he starts by talking about how we have done so little so far. Frankly, the discussion goes downhill after that first minute or so, but the beginning is worth watching.

Juan Enriquez: Why can't we grow new energy?
Interesting perspective.

Saul Griffith: Inventing a super-kite to tap the energy of high-altitude wind
Wow. This dude is amazing. I'm glad there are people out there who think and create like he does.

The Nature of Holographic Reality

A few weeks ago, I saw a Slashdot article called The Universe As Hologram that had a link to an article at New Scientist. Thanks to Ze Frank, we also have The Weather Master's take on this.

Here is my translation (based on reading the article and reading other translations.

A bunch of scientists are conducting experiments to detect gravity waves (which Einstein predicted should exist). Waves are continuous, so if gravity waves exist, then that would suggest gravity is continuous.

As they were looking for these gravity waves, they found that space/time is grainier than they thought it was. They expected to see things get grainy when they got down to something close to a size limit known as the Planck length, but instead things got grainy at a much bigger length than they thought.

So, why do I care about stuff like this? As one Slashdot commenter said:

...it is easy to take empirical science for granted. Empiricism is an epistemological position that must be defended, and to ignore the fact that science is a branch of philosophy is to forget how fundamental epistemological assumptions are to science.

I'm sure that I am over simplifying, but I wonder if the "graininess" these scientists are seeing is a result of a basic epistemological limit. Maybe the graininess is indicative of a limit to how much we can know. Maybe Heisenberg would love this. Regardless, I like the idea of physical reality being grainier than they thought. If it's a hologram, maybe I can get the universe put on my Visa card.

The Limits of what Darwin Knew

Today is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth.

If you have never read On the Origin of Species, then you should consider it. I found it to be very readable. His essential points are very well-known, but the book that lays it all out is worthwhile and accessible to just about everyone. The distinction between understanding his basic point and reading the seminal text is kinda like the difference between knowing what Abraham Lincoln (also born on this day 200 years ago) did versus actually reading the Gettysburg Address, or knowing what Dr. Martin Luther King did versus listening to his I Have a Dream speech.

Rick Weiss' Something Darwin Didn't Know is like a miniature flashlight into my dark, dank intellectual soul. It gets at the essential core of my view of the whole evolution vs. creationism thing. Like Darwin, I believe in the power of evolution, but (also like Darwin) am unwilling to assume that it negates the possibility that everything was set in motion by some divine force. I'm not a creationist, but not because I think Darwin and The Big Bang provide all the answers. I am not a creationist because I don't buy in to anyone's story that describes how it happened, and I believe that knowing the real answer is unknowable.

Note that this also ties into A Church's Enlightened View Toward Darwin. Some people have extrapolated too far with Darwin's ideas. This is true of many religious folks, but also of many scientifically-minded people. He didn't say that his theories meant that theism was wrong. On the contrary, he was able to separate the role of a creator from the processes we can study scientifically. To Darwin, there was no conflict between science and faith. Here is a quote from a letter Darwin wrote to a Dutch student in 1873:

I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value, I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came, and how it arose.... The safest conclusion seems to me that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect....

I'm not anti science, but believe that science has its epistemological limits.