Announcing the first round games of the Orbit Region of the 2007 Science Showdown: These games match central physics concepts against one another, in a bid to determine the greatest physics idea, which will eventually face and humiliate ideas from other fields of science.
I'll be announcing the winners on Friday, but ehre's your chance to contribute: The eight first-round match-ups are shown in the graphic above: Which do you think should win? Leave your votes in the comments, and help determine the outcomes.
The games:
1) Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation vs. 16) Newton's Second Law of Motion Which contribution of everybody's favorite white-haired virgin reigns supreme?
8) High Speed Particle Physics vs. 9) High Speed Internet CERN has given us exciting particlwe results, and also the World Wide Web. Which is more important?
5) Quaternions vs. 12) Euler Angles Pick a mathematical construct, any mathematical construct.
4) Particle vs. 13) Wave What's your favorite way of looking at light?
6) General Relativity vs. 11) Special Relaitivity Einstein's two great theories meet in a clash that's sure to make your hair stand on end.
3) Descriptive Statistics vs. 14) Inferential Statistics Having defeated "Lies" and "Damned Lies" to earn tournament bids, two mathematical titans collide.
7) Bosons vs. 10) Fermions Speaking of statistics... What's your favorite quantum statistical category?
2) Dark Matter vs. 15) Ordinary Matter Sure, most of the universe is dark, but don't count ordinary matter out yet!
It's like eight Dorky Polls in one! Vote for your favorites below, and look for the results on Friday.
(Rules and Restrictions: One vote per game per commenter (this means you, Jonathan Vos Post). Final decisions will be made by your humble correspondant, and cannot be appealed. Future rounds will be hosted elsewhere, and you can keep track of all the results via the press room at the World's Fair.)
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Unfair. You've handicapped Newton's Second Law by rendering it "F=ma". Give it a fighting chance as "F=dp/dt".
Bosoms! Yeah!
Oh, it's BosoNs...darn....
I'll go with Wave!
F=ma, high speed internet, quaternions, particle, general relativity, descriptive statistics, fermions, ordinary matter
AAAk! It's so hard! I hate to reject things!
But, here are my votes:
(1) 2nd law of motion. Applies to all forces!
(2) Dark Matter. Ordinary matter is just that froth that collects at the deepest potential well made by dark matter.
(3) Descriptive Statistics all the way, baby. Only to be pounded in the next round!
(4) Particle. I'm a photon kind of guy.
(5) Quarternions. You know, a month ago I would have voted the other way.
(6) BOTH! BOTH! BOTH! Waaaah. This really tears at me. Sniff. OK! Fine! Special Relativity! Make me make the Devil's choice!
(7) Fermions. Bosons will have no chance competing in a game that seeks to exclude competitors from their stat!
(8) High Speed Internet! Less important to physics, more important to absolutely everything else.
Universal gravitation (nothing like a center who makes all shots go through the hoop), high speed internet, quaternions (gimbal lock dooming the Euler Angles), wave (have you ever seen anyone do the particle at a sports event?), general relativity, descriptive statistics (though IS is sure they would have won 90% of the time), bosons (their spin moves are much better), and ordinary matter (dark matter actually scored more points, but the referees didn't see them).
16) Newton's Second Law of Motion
(99.99% of real world physics and engineering boils down to this)
9) High Speed Internet
(Because I feel that something like high speed internet is here to stay, but that something will eventually supercede our current particle zoo models)
12) Euler Angles
(Because they have more real world uses than quaternions, and because I don't know anything you can do with quaternions that's not better done with plain old matrices.)
13) Wave
(I just finished a QFT class. I don't even think of electrons as particles anymore. As far as I'm concerned, if it can interfere with itself, diffract, etc, it's a wave -- even if its energy is quantized.)
6) General Relativity
(Duh. It's more general.)
14) Inferential Statistics
(Does this mean using statistics to predict the results of experiments? 'Cause if that didn't work, there'd be no such thing as quantum mechanics or stat mech.)
7) Bosons
(Because I still think BECs are cool, and because I that QFT class I mentioned has made me hate the Dirac equation.)
15) Ordinary Matter
(Because the whole idea of dark matter leaves me confused and uncomfortable.)
1) Gravitation
2) Particle Physics
3) Euler Angles
4) Wave
5) GR
6) Descriptive Stat.
7) Fermions
8) Ordinary Matter
16. F=ma
8. High Speed Particle Physics
12. Euler Angles
4. Particle
6. General Relativity
3. Descriptive Statistics
10. Fermions
15. Ordinary Matter
Wave narrowly over Fermions
1-16) Gravitation, because the idea that gravity also acted on the larger of two disparately-massed objects was revolutionary.
8-9) Internet
5-12) Quaternions
4-13) Particle
6-11) A few high-speed corrections to Newton's laws, or a different way of seeing the fabric of the universe... general relativity by a mile.
3-14) Descriptive
7-10) Fermions, because all that degeneracy makes me uneasy
2-15) Ordinary matter. Ignoring all this macho/wimpy stuff, we don't even know what dark matter is.
1) Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation vs. 16) Newton's Second Law of Motion:
F=ma is the clear winner; much more applicable.
8) High Speed Particle Physics vs. 9) High Speed Internet:
Again, high speed internet is much more practical, and where would particle physics be without the web anyhow?
5) Quaternions vs. 12) Euler Angles Pick a mathematical:
Totally Euler angles ... algebra meets mechanics: how can you beat that?
4) Particle vs. 13) Wave:
Particles, clearly. Sure, everything is actually a wave, but it's soooo much easier to treat everything (like stars!) as point particles.
6) General Relativity vs. 11) Special Relaitivity:
Special. Except for those pesky factors of two when discussing black holes (and, well, making black holes ...) special relativity is a much more useful (and easier to understand!) theory.
3) Descriptive Statistics vs. 14) Inferential Statistics:
Inferential .... especially if you believe in the anthropic principle.
7) Bosons vs. 10) Fermions:
Definitely fermions. All the particles that actually matter are fermions anyhow.
2) Dark Matter vs. 15) Ordinary Matter:
Now we're getting personal. Yrgh. Dark matter, because we don't know how it'll be in a fight against the others; it's a bit of a wildcard, see.
How is F=ma a 16-seed? The committee needs to be called into serious question here.
As for my votes:
Newton II, Cable Modems, Quaternions, Particle (by the tiniest of margins), S.R., Descriptive Stat, Bosons, and Ordinary Matter. (A third seed as the highest survivor? What a travesty).
(1) v. (16) -- (16)? What? These are the two top teams in the tournament! I hate to eliminate either of these options, but F=ma is the winner for me. Without the idea that it is acceleration, not motion, which has to be explained by an outside force, where would physics be? (I hope that if F=ma wins, she'll be good enough to credit her old coach Galileo and not just the British hot shot who brought her fame.)
Ok, they get easier from here:
(8) v. (9) -- Particle physics takes it. The internet has brought us more practical goods, but particle physics is more interesting as physics.
(5) v. (12) -- Quaternions, because Euler angles confuse the heck out of me.
(4) v. (13) -- I can't understand QFT, but when I read Feynmann I think that I can understand relativistic QED. Until that sad moment when I close the book ...
(6) v. (11) -- General relativity, because it completely changes our view of the universe.
(3) v. (14) -- I don't really understand the argument, so I'll pick the underdog. Inferential statistics, woot!
(7) v. (10) -- I'm biased here, I'm made of fermions. And pretty much all of solid state physics is about fermions. So fermions take it. (Oddly, though, if this had been a math poll, I would have voted for commutative algebra over anti-commutative algebra.)
(2) v. (15) -- Referee bias comes in again, odinary matter it is.
1) F=ma all the way.
2) High speed internet; I use that every day, while I wouldn't even notice of high-speed particle physics went away.
3) Euler angles, because I've actually used them.
4) Wave, but it's close.
5) General relativity, in a game that I probably wouldn't bother to watch
6) Descriptive, in another one that I hope is counter-scheduled with something more interesting
7) Fermions, because without the exclusion principle, chemistry would be really boring
8) Ordinary matter, at least until someone shows me some dark matter on a lab bench.
1) F=ma
2) High speed internet - couldn't vote without it!
3) Euler angles, because otherwise just ewww.
4) This is a nail biter, but I gotta give particles the statistical edge.
5) SR, because their gameplan is simpler and easier to execute.
6) Descriptive - yawn.
7) Fermions, in a pick that goes against my loyalties.
8) Ordinary matter - I'm rooting for the little guy!
Note the red triangles in the poster: they show that areas, and then angular momentum, is preserved even if force only acts in discrete steps. This seems to score for 16.
Awesome, I love it!
1) F=ma but dp/dt is the way to go.
2) High spd. physics of course.
3) Euler angles
4) Wave, who needs particles except Deepack Chopra trying to confuse everyone?
5) General relativity (but I would love to see GR against F=Gmm/r^2)
6) Inferential because I don't know what that is.
7) Bosons, indeed.
8) Dark matter, because I want to see it take on F=ma!
Come on, ordinary matter people? This retro thing is so last year.
16) F = ma, the biggest little guy in physics
9) High speed internet for universal applicability
5) quaternions
13) wave
11) Special relativity
3) Descriptive statistics
7) bosons
15) ordinary matter
F = ma
High speed internet
Euler angles (they're gonna go all the way, baby!)
Particle
GR
Descriptive
Bosons
Ordinary matter
F=ma because as a # 16 it will surprise them all.
High Speed particle physics
Eular Angles
Waves are central to it all, just ask the string theorists.
Special Relativity because there is nothing special about the "General" team.
Descriptive because we want to know what the detail of the outcome is.
Bosons because Force controls everything!!!
Ordinary matter because the game is in sight. How would we know the "Dark" team was there???