Later is better than Never

I’m away from Austin now, in Boulder,CO visiting.

1)  Austin claims to be the Green capital of TX.  First i would say if it is, its very marginal.  Austin doesn’t have a decent mass transit center.  Compared with CO, Austin is not green at all.  What CO has?  real bike trails with multi-use paths with desginated lanes.  Compost and Contaminated recycling bins in restaurants and major landmarks.  Solar powered Airport.  Share-rides and share cars, all electric…

2)  The shift from particle to cosmology for many theoretical physicists is still very strong.  The outlook for particle physics in general is very poor.  After the LHC, it might be a decades long lull in the most fundamental field in physics.

3)  I’m still working on the paper with title TBD (the word “revolutions” will be in it of course).  The events in Iran have not rekindled the work sadly.  It has only confirmed my thesis for the paper.  It is very rough, even the short version.  Sadly I do not think of the current affairs in Iran ground-breaking or monumental and emphasize problems of the “humane” revolutions of modern society

2 months have past

1) obama got elected; now lets see what he does
2) economy suxs, still; economists are blaming business for corruption; business CEOs blame economists for playing god.  politicians sign over blank checks… nothing happens
3) the world didnt implode on itself like GOP said it would if obama wins
4) evereyone didnt start holding hands and stopi fighting like the uber liberals said would happen if obama wins
5) gas price is down, and its a bad thing; when gas price was up it was a bad thing…. whats the magic number then?
6) budget looks bad and thats without the bill from Iraq; as usual all those campaign promises look unlikely
7) College football and the BCS is still ridiculous.

 

on a personal note, im enjoying the married life and hope im lucky enough to live a long life with my wife.

Texas Science Education round ????

An article in the Austin American-Stateman showed the 6 experts on the panel for science curriculum which will determine the standards in Texas public schools for the next ten years.  This is not new news for people who have kept up with this; the question is will this issue of creationism in public schools see any resolution with 3 members on each side of the issue.  I think i’ve already talked to death about the fundamental reasoning behind why i believe creationism should not be in science and why it is not even a scientific hypothesis.  Rather than labor the point i thought we might actually look at the panel.

1.  expertise – on the creationism side we have a chemist professor specializing in molecular synthesis, someone with a degree in history and philosophy of science who founded the Discovery Institute, the leading think tank on creationism, and a professor of microbiology specializing on ;

on the evolution side we have professor of integrative biology who is also the direto of center of computational biolgy, a professor and dean emeritus of education with specialty of science education, and a professory of anthropology and director of a center for teaching.

grade… tie, maybe slight edge to evolution; my biggest problem.  umm we call it PHYSICS.  the basis for physical science and engineering, 2 areas which the US is very far behind the curve.  It is very evident that many of these later picks were done sonely on the evolution/creationsim battle and physical science and engineering will suffer the collateral damage. 

2.  qualification – on the creation side we have an associate prof, a person not involved in scientific education or research and a biology professor.  on the other side we have a biology prof, a former prof and dean of science education, and a prof in anthropolgy.

grade - tie… except the prof in anthropology also works in education which tips it into the evolution side.  

Unfortunately some of these profs i had a hard time finding their papers so i cant judge them on their research.  judging them on their teaching?  thats pretty much impossible.  anyways i find it alarming that one issue has taken over the decision making. 

i guess i should be constructive and offer an alternative. 
1)  Expand the panel – 6 members is clearly not enough; there is not enough representation on this board of science at the post-secondary level.  Also there are not enough people on the panel with expertise on education, curriculum, and instruction.  Assuming that computer science and math are in a separate panel, and ideal number might be 12 which would allow at least one member being a full professor in physics, chemistry , and biology; 3 members involved in education study in science at the collegiate level, and at least 3 members who are representing teachers at the k-12 level.  Extra members could be from engineering, kinseology, etc. etc.  other areas which are dependent on sound science fundamentals.

2)  objectiveness – members should be charged by charter/constitution of the board to represent the consensus of the scientific community.  This is how real science is done.  You will always find exceptional scientists who do not believe current theories; however, by definition, scientific fact and law are built on observation law and concensus which are the building blocks of scientific theory.  Acceptance of the theory is through concensus of scientists in the field based on the facts and laws established by experiment and observation.  This should prevent politicians from nominating scientists solely on their stance o n evolution/creationsim or any other subject.

VP debate and energy

i had to dvr the debate but after watching it i feel like saying a few things. 

1) please please stop saying natural gas is clean… it is cleaner than other fossil fuels; by about 30-40%/ per Joule.  its still a fossil fuel, it will still emit CO2 and it will still run out in the future.  natural gas is only a transfer of a problem to the future generation equivalent to transfering balances from one credit card to another.  You want to claim natural gas is clean as compared to solar? wind?.  please include the ER.

2) in terms of oil, there is no way the US can hope to produce all the oil domestically that it uses.  US consumes about 20 million barrels a day in 2006. while producing only 8 million a day.  that production rate will shrink as US supplies have peaked.  im sure you can do the math but even with the estimates of the oil reserves in ANWR will only provide 2-3 yrs of extra oil, except that it will take 10 yrs to drill in which the demand and usage of oil in US and overseas will have grown.  This is about true for offshore drilling in terms of supply and time except offshore oil will have to sell at a higher rate; these solutions are poor at best imho.  oil from shale is a possible is a large source of oil but is less economicla then liquifying oil and more harmefuel the the environement.

3)clean coil technology does not address CO2 except with the hypothetical technique of carbon sequestering which has not been proving technological viable at large scales nor economical.  Also the long term effects have yet to be studied well.  Also clean coil technology does not address, as far as ive seen, mercury pollution, a standard byproduct of coil plants.  Also estimates of clean coal technology reaching commerical scales is at least a couple of decades away last i saw. 

4) while one can argue that offshore drilling has gotten better, it is and will always be a risk to the environment.  there is still the water discharge from the drilling that still occurs although capped by most countries and there is always a threat of an oil spill.  whether this is a small risk has yet to be documented quantitatvily (i havent seen it).

btw, i think palin should not call herself an expert on energy issues.  of course i dont think any politician i know of should call themselves an expert on energy.

Not one to toot his own horn but….

ive been saying it for awhile… US lead in physics is gone; so will the next technology industries too.

click here

“practical purpose” of LHC

i think this is a nice article on praticality of science (i.e. whats in it for me) and how it
differentiates with scientists p.o.v

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24556999/

LHC makes front page

MSNBC made some nice pages on LHC and physics… mostly right too which is more impressive.

Particle zoo

LHC collider experiments
the actual article

lazy rumors

Theres some rumors (and even a lawsuit) stating that Barack Obama is
ineligible to run for President of the US since he is not a US citizen,
claming his actual birth took place in Kenya, not Hawaii.

This point is mute; under the Immigration and
Nationality Act (INA) section 301 (g) any child born
outside the US from one US citizen parent is a US citizen by birth. 
This took me less than 10 minutes
to find this on the official US state office webpage.  Yet this rumor
still continues?  Obama’s mother was a US citizen and
definately lived in the US for over 5 years ( 2 after 14 years old). 
It doesn’t matter where he was born. 

I once told someone that ppl only hear the stuff they like
and disregard everything else as lies.  I said
this half-jokingly but i guess its true in many respects

“….only at the end, do you understand.”

this is probably the first time i remember there being good news with the science budget in the US.
Little bush just signed increases to FY08 additional funding to NSF, DOE, NASA, and NIH of roughly 4%
increase.  of course  this is much less than the promised America COMPETES bill targeting 15% increases
in the science budget but its better than the last 6-8 years we’ve had.

I was glad to hear the scheduling of additional servicing of the Hubble Space telescope.  I can not stress
how significant the HST has been to science today.  The impact it has made to cosmology, astrophysics,
and physics in general (particle, atomic, molecular, non-linear & plasma) has been more than promised
(as opposed to the international space station (ISS) so far…)

also exciting is the rumors of congress proposing NASA launch an extra shuttle mission to put up the
alpha magnetic spectrometer onto the ISS.  So far, in terms of science, the ISS has not done much; the
AMS has great potential to change this situation.  It could be a WMAP, HST, or LHC; but as of now its
just another superconduction super collider; an expensive paperweight.   most of the AMS funding
is from other countries so US would only be flying it up there.

up next: McDojo’s

ID gains ground

looks like Louisiana will pass the “academic freedom” amendments in favor of Intelligent Design(ID).  not
the win ID wants (ID wont be in textbooks or taught as science) but not what science community wants either.  I, on the other hand, have issues with giving “academic freedom” to elementary school kids.  i think
it highly unrealistic a 3rd grader can handle this kind of flexibility.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2008/06/id-creationism-in-louisiana/