Category: Curiosities of Nature

Sunday Poem

In memory of Ray Bradbury, this week’s Sunday poem is “To Know What Isn’t Known, That’s Mine”, from his 2002 collection I Live By the Invisible, published by Salmon Poetry (buy the book*, support poetry and small indie publishers).

From my perspective as a scientist, the title of the poem alludes to science, but it also alludes to the process of writing. Bradbury begins by explicitly suggesting that writing has the same aim as science. The rest of the poem, while clearly referring to the struggle of the imagination engaged in by writers, also aptly describes the mental wrestling of scientists.

Read this poem and remember why Bradbury was acknowledged as the lyricist of science fiction.

To know what isn't known, that's mine,
My job, refining blood
To find what's good and bad in it,
What in the quick cell lies,
What dies or lives or lingering
Provides the key where all the good stuff hides.
I do not know it, cannot find it, so I try
With words to jump the pheasants forth Continue reading "Sunday Poem"

Even Boltzmann had trouble with probability

Boltzmann was one of the genius founders of statistical thermodynamics, and yet the subtleties of probability tripped him up:

From “Compendium of the foundations of classical statistical physics” by Jos Uffink:

He introduced the probability distribution as follows:

“Let (v)dv be the sum of all the instants of time during which the velocity of a disc in the course of a very long time lies between v and v + dv, and let N be the number of discs which on average are located in a unit surface area, then

N ϕ(v)dv

is the number of discs per unit surface whose velocities lie between v and v + dv” Continue reading “Even Boltzmann had trouble with probability”

To be added to the annals of overwritten science journalism

I tried to shorten the quote, but this is just to rich to abbreviate. The New York Times: “Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World”:

In the menagerie of Craig Venter’s imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. They will be custom bugs, designer bugs — bugs that only Venter can create. He will mix them up in his private laboratory from bits and pieces of DNA, and then he will release them into the air and the water, into smokestacks and oil spills, hospitals and factories and your house. Continue reading “To be added to the annals of overwritten science journalism”

Pictionary

I think my major concern about physicists successfully developing a Theory of Everything (TOE), from which everything in the Universe can be described in a series of equations, is that it would absolutely ruin Pictionary:

Study shows multi-taskers are fooling themselves

This study may be old news to many of you, but I don’t remember encountering it. From my university’s teaching newsletter:

The findings of the third, laboratory-based, study further illuminate the relationship between the use of devices and the potential for distraction. The researchers in this study set out to test whether undergraduates who are “heavy media multi-taskers” might have an improved ability, relative to peers who are “light media multi-taskers,” to filter out distracting information. The researchers defined “media multi-tasking” or simultaneously engaging with different media—including print, television, computer-based video, music, text messaging, instant messaging, web-surfing, email. Their findings were precisely the opposite of what they had expected to find: heavy media multi-tasking was related to a reduced ability to ignore distractions and focus on pertinent information—even after accounting for potential differences in academic aptitude, personality and performance on standard creativity and memory tasks. Continue reading “Study shows multi-taskers are fooling themselves”