“After an intricate and detailed band meeting back stage, I can tell you that we here at Wagons plan on having an amazing time for the next 55 minutes.” Henry Wagons, leader of the Melbourne-based country rockers, was explicit about what the afternoon crowd at Edmonton’s inaugural Interstellar Rodeo could expect. And it’s exactly what they got. Continue reading “Could Aussie band Wagons help new science teachers?”
The link between information and entropy on Azimuth
Mathematical physicist extraordinaire John Baez digs in to Shannon entropy and coding over at Azimuth:
So, I want to understand Shannon’s theorems and their proofs—especially because they clarify the relation between information and entropy, two concepts I’d like to be an expert on. It’s sort of embarrassing that I don’t already know this stuff! But I thought I’d post some preliminary remarks anyway, in case you too are trying to learn this stuff, or in case you can help me.
Continue reading “The link between information and entropy on Azimuth”
Former climate skeptic finally catches up to current science
LA Times: Koch-funded climate change skeptic reverses course
WASHINGTON – The verdict is in: Global warming is occurring and emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activity are the main cause.
This, according to Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at UC Berkeley, MacArthur Fellow and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. Never mind that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of other climatologists around the world came to such conclusions years ago. The difference now is the source: Muller is a long-standing, colorful critic of prevailing climate science, and the Berkeley project was heavily funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, which, along with its libertarian petrochemical billionaire founder Charles G. Koch, has a considerable history of backing groups that deny climate change.
Continue reading “Former climate skeptic finally catches up to current science”
What is wrong with this hypothesis?
Is there anything wrong* with Calvin’s hypothesis and/or experimental design (click-through for full protocol)?
*The answer “Thou shall not tempt the Lord your God” will not be accepted. Really, what is the point of omnipotence if you can’t be tempted**. BOOOORRRRING.
**Can God make something so tempting that God is tempted?
Sunday Science Poem – Nature’s Law
Inspired by this morning’s brunch of toad in the hole and baby bridies at St. Louis’ great Scotch bar, I’ve chosen Robert Burns’ “Nature’s Law” (1786) as this Sunday’s poem. The poem is about reproduction, and instead of God’s command to multiply and replenish the Earth, the drive to reproduce is here presented as Nature’s Law. Assigning the attributes of God to Nature (with a capital N, naturally) became a common tactic of the Romantics, who avoided traditional symbols of piety, as well as the hyper-rational Deism of Age of Enlightenment.
Recognizing “nature’s law” of reproduction is the first step towards Malthusian logic, the second step being the recognition of the consequences of unbridled reproduction. Malthus published his groundbreaking An essay on the principle of population twelve years after this poem, and of course Malthus’ writing was a direct influence on Darwin and his discovery of natural selection.
“Great Nature spoke: observant man obey’d” – Pope
Let other heroes boast their scars,
The marks of sturt and strife:
And other poets sing of wars,
The plagues of human life:
Shame fa’ the fun, wi’ sword and gun
To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name, and nobler fame,
Wha multiplies our number.
Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
“Go on, ye human race;
This lower world I you resign;
Be fruitful and increase.
The liquid fire of strong desire
I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;
Here, on this had, does Mankind stand,
And there is Beauty’s blossom.” Continue reading “Sunday Science Poem – Nature’s Law”
The Finch and Pea 