Science

Folks, I will be away the next weeks to expand my physical horizon. Expect blogging to be spotty and photo-heavy. br /br /PS: Unless our visit counter breaks down again today, we should cross the 1 million mark in a couple of hours.br /ppdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-7451394600615088261?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

I’ve learned a new expression: a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science”Citizen Science/a. This means that interested people do contribute to a research project, either by collecting data, or by allocating computing time of their PCs to contribute to the analysis of huge sets of raw data - a href=”http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/”SETI@Home/a is an example of the latter kind of Citizen Science. Sabine and I talked about this some days ago, and just then, I came across a wonderful example of the former kind of Citizen Science: a href=”http://www.globe.gov/GaN/index.html”GLOBE at Night/a.br /br /The idea of this project is to establish a map of “a href=”http://www.globe.gov/GaN/learn_light.html”light pollution/a”, the iillumination of the night sky caused by artificial light sources on the ground/i. Light pollution is nuisance to everyone who wants to marvel at the stars, and it can be harmful to the biology and ecology of animals in the wild. br /br /To map the extent of light pollution over the planet, participants of GLOBE at night are just asked to look at the constellation of a href=”http://www.globe.gov/GaN/learn_findorion.html”Orion/a and report what they see. Yesterday night, what I could see from the patio was something like this:br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.globe.gov/GaN/observe_magnitude.html”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 208px; height: 164px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AWa1cp-Somo/SbmpxKfxULI/AAAAAAAAAYs/R1DZ1n3VQt4/s320/GatN_40N_m3_b.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312463897556504754″ //abr /which means visibility of stars corresponding to a a href=”http://www.globe.gov/GaN/observe_magnitude.html”Magnitude 3 Chart/a. But then, this result may have been skewed a bit, as there was a huge natural source of light pollution - the nearly full moon. To avoid this interference by the moonlight, the actual observation period is scheduled towards the next New Moon, between March 16 and March 28.br /br /So, we all can become “Citizen Scientists”, by a href=”http://www.globe.gov/GaN/report.html”reporting our view of Orion/a to the GLOBE at night! I just hope my view will soon be better again than tonight:br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AWa1cp-Somo/SbmqMhsfTvI/AAAAAAAAAY0/n0zRwO40waA/s1600-h/GatN_c_small.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 208px; height: 144px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AWa1cp-Somo/SbmqMhsfTvI/AAAAAAAAAY0/n0zRwO40waA/s320/GatN_c_small.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312464367640334066″ //acentersmallCloudy Sky./small/centerbr /br /hr noshadebr /smallTags: a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/astronomy” rel=”tag”Astronomy/a, a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/light+pollution” rel=”tag”Light Pollution/a, a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/citizen+science” rel=”tag”Citizen Science/a/smalldiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-1763318642381218882?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

The other day I got an email asking for permission to reprint a figure from one of my papers on black hole evaporation for a forthcoming popular science book on “Endings”.br /br /Endings have been fashionable for more than a decade now. We all know that we are allegedly approachinga href=”http://www.amazon.com/End-Science-Knowledge-Twilight-Scientific/dp/0553061747″ The End of Science/a, a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man”The End of History/a, a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Faith”The End of Faith /aand have reached a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/07/end-of-theory.html”The End of Theory/a, or generally a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-WmDdXZflo”The End of the World as We Know It/a. The Internet too has an end - a href=”http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm”been there, done that, what’s next?/abr /br /So let me share with you an ancient German proverb: Everything has an end, only the sausage has two*. Or to put it differently, what all these folks proclaim as an end is actually a sign of beginning.br /br /I read yesterday in Kevin Kelly’s a href=”http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly06/kelly06_index.html”Speculations on the Future of Science/a: “This will be a century of biology. It is the domain with the most scientists, the most new results, the most economic value, the most ethical importance, and the most to learn.”br /br /Well, I totally disagree with him. This won’t be the century of biology, it will be the century of the social sciences or there won’t be no next century. Our social systems, political systems, economic systems have reached a level of so high complexity we are constantly faced with emergent phenomena that are beyond our individual understanding. Unfortunately, they are also beyond the understanding of current scientific research. This is pretty much disastrous. We either figure out how to deal with that, or we won’t be able to keep up this high level of complexity and tumble back down towards a lower level.br /br /As Homer-Dixon masterfully argued out in his book a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/02/book-review-ingenuity-gap.html”The Ingenuity Gap/a, we need two types of ingenuity: Technical ingenuity to find new scientific insights and develop applications. But that alone is not sufficient. We also need the social ingenuity to not only implement these insights in a practical and timely manner, but also to foster an environment that is supportive to their development to begin with.br /br /It is important to realize these both types of ingenuity are not only necessary for improvement. They are necessary to simply to remain on the level where we are, for we constantly cause new problems that we have to solve. When we fall behind in either category, we will eventually be overrun by problems. Thus, a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/10/lightcone-institute.html”it is about time we finish the scientific revolution/a, and realize that for sustainable progress we need insights from both the natural AND the social sciences.br /hr /br /* It is in fact a seasonably popular song by Steffen Remmler a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4JSE32fuOc”emAlles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei/em/a that is dusted off annually for Carnival and ranks in the same category as Klaus und Klaus’ a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf6iKBYa49g”emAn der Nordseeküste/em /aand the unavoidable, ugh, a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC_bFoH4CfA”emPolonäse Blankenese/em/a (don’t get scared when the audience jumps at him, that’s the point). So much about German “culture” ;-ppppdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-262074785510653036?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

I don’t usually dump every nonsense I come across on this blog - in that case I wouldn’t be doing anything else (for the smaller updates, see a href=”http://twitter.com/skdh”my Twitter status/a in the sidebar or a href=”http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05027953661445668080″my shared items on Google reader/a). But this you just have to see: German frozen food company introduces the “Obama Fingers” - fried chicken with a curry dipbr /br /br /centera href=”http://prime-spot.de/Bilder/BR/obama_fingers.jpg”img src=”http://prime-spot.de/Bilder/BR/obama_fingers_s.jpg” border=”0″ //a/centerbr /[a href="http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-40537.html#backToArticle=612684"Via Spiegel Online/a]br /br /Notice Stars and Stripes and the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I couldn’t quite decide whether it’s a joke, but either way, enjoy.pppdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-610784699645496732?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div

Here in Waterloo, snow is slowly melting away, leaving behind garbage, coins and lost gloves. Below some founds that I came across recently and thought you might find more interesting than this useless piece of information:br /br /ullia href=”http://www.yearofscience2009.org/”Year of Science 2009/a, a website a href=”http://www.yearofscience2009.org/about/about.html”about “How We Know What We Know,”/a has a href=”http://www.yearofscience2009.org/themes_physics_technology/celebrate/”dedicated the month March to physics and technology/a, and offers a nice collection of links./libr /br /liHarry Collins, who attended our a href=”http://science21stcentury.org/”last year’s conference on Science in the 21st Century/a, has an interesting article in the current issue of Nature, titled “a href=”http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7234/full/458030a.html”We cannot live by scepticism alone/a”. He points out the necessity for science studies to move beyond cynicism and skepticism to being constructively useful by acknowledging the importance of the scientific enterprise for our societies. “Whenever a scientist, acting in the name of science, cheats, cynically manipulates, claims to speak with the voice of capitalism, the voice of a god, or even the voice of a doctrinaire atheist, it diminishes not only science but the whole of our society.”/libr /br /liThis week’s colloquium at PI was by Rob Cook from Pixar. Rob, whom I had previously met at a href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/08/scifoo-camp-sessions.html”SciFoo last year/a, talked about “Cartoon Physics,” and how animations use or abuse physics with many examples, from simulating clothes and water to wobbling bellies and more. Definitely worth a look! You’ll enjoy it even if you know next to nothing about physics: a href=”http://pirsa.org/09030001″PIRSA: 09030001/a /libr /br /liMost heartwarming comment we’ve ever had: “This is great information! Thank you for writing it; now I’m not scared to go to sleep at night. I was afraid the LHC would create black holes that would swallow the earth. Your explanation helped me understand there probably won’t be many black holes, and if there are, they’ll either shoot off into space or disintegrate. Thank you! –Jonathan, age 8 (typed by his mom),” in reaction to our post a href=”mhtml:%7BF3869971-9B0F-43C7-A995-0DE7C2C29EC2%7Dmid://00000947/!x-usc:http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/04/black-holes-at-lhc-what-can-happen.html”emBlack Holes at the LHC - What can happen?/em/a/libr /br /lia href=”http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2009/03/vague-but-exciting-20-years-of-www.html#c7079132281046482130″As Tommaso pointed out/a, we are approaching our 1 millionth visitor!/li/uldiv class=”blogger-post-footer”"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” ~ Albert Einsteinimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://res1.blogblog.com/tracker/22973357-7709083585263996343?l=backreaction.blogspot.com’//div