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Science as a way of life
I am working on some very smart things to say here. Really. Meanwhile, there's this and this. Welcome.
February 9, 2010
Category: Prime Stream
Silence the expression of two pesky genes, and hey presto! you've got a tomato that stays fresh for as long as a month or more. Clearly this is a very useful trait for fruits and vegetables in India where Things Fall ApartTM--even when they are inside the freezer. Kudos to the scientists at National Institute of Plant Genome Research in Delhi.
Posted by Selva at 5:54 AM • 0 Comments
February 8, 2010
Category: Prime Stream
You get a square! More exciting mathematical thoughts in the latest edition of Steven Strogatz NY Times column.
Posted by Selva at 5:11 AM • 0 Comments
February 1, 2010
Category: Prime Stream
Steven Strogatz is beginning a column in NY Times aimed at you and me. Not to be missed.
I have a friend who gets a tremendous kick out of science, even though he's an artist. Whenever we get together all he wants to do is chat about the latest thing in evolution or quantum mechanics. But when it comes to math, he feels at sea, and it saddens him. The strange symbols keep him out. He says he doesn't even know how to pronounce them.In fact, his alienation runs a lot deeper. He's not sure what mathematicians do all day, or what they mean when they say a proof is elegant. Sometimes we joke that I just should sit him down and teach him everything, starting with 1 + 1 = 2 and going as far as we can.
Crazy as it sounds, over the next several weeks I'm going to try to do something close to that. I'll be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there who'd like to have a second chance at the subject -- but this time from an adult perspective. It's not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it's so enthralling to those who get it.
Posted by Selva at 3:47 AM • 0 Comments
January 29, 2010
Category: Creative commons
You may know that a while ago the swiss voted to ban any new minarets from being built. And now comes this. A local court in Switzerland has upheld a basketball headscarf ban. From the beebs:
A Muslim woman has failed to overturn a ban stopping her from wearing a headscarf during league basketball matches in Switzerland.Personally, I will stand by her side if she chooses to appeal. If headscarfs are unsafe, then neck chains with crosses, rings with gemstones, and all the other superstitious paraphernalia should be unsafe as well, isn't it.Sura al-Shawk, 19, was told she could not wear a headscarf by the basketball association (ProBasket) in August 2009.
A local court in Lucerne has upheld the ruling on safety grounds. ProBasket also argued the sport needed to stay religiously neutral.
The important question is, why should this young lady feel the need to wear a headscarf (as a religious symbol) while playing a game? The sad logic of frustration and protest? What a shame!
Posted by Selva at 11:18 AM • 0 Comments
January 20, 2010
Category: Prime Stream
"Brain 'entanglement' could explain memories"[New Scientist] is a bit of a hyperbolic title. Oh, what's in a title, you ask. Quite a lot. For instance, you can be mislead into thinking that there is a connection between quantum entanglement and the phenomenon of human memory. Aforementioned New Scientist article co-opts quantum mechanics terms for a neurological process (which is fine in itself, of course.) However, neural firing described in the article has nothing to do with quantum entanglement--this hasn't been made clear (in fact, the opposite seems to have been done with phrases like "spooky action at a distance").
Sometimes mixed terminology can lead to confusion about the fundamental scientific principles. In this case, it is best to clarify or perhaps even avoid sensationalizing the title with borrowed terms.
Posted by Selva at 6:35 AM • 0 Comments
January 18, 2010
Category: DesiPundit • Prime Stream
Chesnut School Lane, Amersham.
A few days back when England was covered in a bit of snow, an image on the television screen caught my eye. An aerial camera was showing a highway from above--for a moment the snow covered trees and houses looked like they were engulfed in thick white clouds. Snow looks like clouds: this is so obvious that I thought nothing of it until later, when I started having a nagging feeling that it wasn't so obvious.
Why should snow and clouds look the same to us? I mean, is there a way to find some way to measure the two on some aspect and say, right, this is why they look similar?
One candidate for measurement could be their fractal dimension, since the structure of clouds and snow is more amenable to fractal geometry than conventional geometrical measurements. Interestingly, the fractal dimension of snow and clouds are quite close as far as I could find out (close to 1.2).
Obviously, the above is a small subset of much broader class of illusions in nature that deceive us. What's curious about this, to my mind, is the apparent fractal connection to our perception of illusions.
Note on fractals:
Fractals, first called by this name by Benoit Mandelbrot, are mathematical objects that have the curious property of fractional dimension, like 1.3 or 1.5. Dimension, as we normally know it, is the extension of an object in some measurable directions (includes imaginary ones). Dealing with objects this way--using conventional measurements--is effective. However, there are situations where other ways of representing objects is more intuitive and clear. For instance, consider how we could mathematically represent a leaf or a cloud. Instead of using the straightjackets of normal mathematics that uses Euclidean space (three spatial dimensions, height, width and depth), a more useful representation would be to represent it's cloudness mathematically--the characteristics of clouds that make them all look alike. Some of these characteristics are surprisingly simple: the property called self-similarity where bits of cloud look the same as each other, another aspect is called scale-invariance where clouds looks the same from different distances. There are many objects in nature that are self-similar and scale-invariant. Coastlines, forests seen from above, leaves, veins and arteries in our bodies, broccoli and many more. These are fractals and the measure of their self-similarity and scale invariance is, in a way, their fractional dimension (this is only roughly true, but it is ok for a beginning, I think).
Posted by Selva at 6:56 AM • 0 Comments
January 14, 2010
Category: Creative commons
14 Jan 2010. Seven die in India temple festival stampede
Sep 30, 2008. Atleast 100 dead at Chamunda Devi temple in the city of Jodhpur.
August 3. 140 dead. 40 children. Stampede at the Nainadevi temple, Himachal Pradesh.
July. 6 dead. Stampede at Jagannath temple, Orissa.
March. 10 dead. Stampede at temple, Madhya Pradesh.
January. 5 dead. Stampede at Durga Malleswara temple, Andra Pradesh.
Posted by Selva at 4:23 AM • 0 Comments
January 13, 2010
Category: Creative commons • DesiPundit
I am reading "Einstein, a life", by Denis Brian. The book is remarkable--a two decade long labor of great love and reading. Quoted in the book is a dinner conversation where Einstein is asked about his religion by someone at the dinner:
"What?" exclaimed Kerr. "It isn't possible! I must ask him right away. Professor! I hear that you are supposed to be deeply religious?"Denis Brian remarks that this is 'arguably the best explanation Einstein gave of his religious atitude'.Calmly and with great dignity, Einstein replied, "Yes, you can call it that. Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious."
Posted by Selva at 1:17 PM • 0 Comments
January 11, 2010
Category: Prime Stream
Seems it does. I hear a distinct change of sound outside now that there is a lot of snow covering up things.
Posted by Selva at 9:17 AM • 0 Comments
PZ Myers 02.08.2010
PZ Myers 02.09.2010
Greg Laden 02.08.2010
Darren Naish 02.10.2010
ERV 02.09.2010
