[This is an Encore Post, from August 2007 — just as it appeared then. See especially the links on textbook selection processes, and “cargo cult” science, at the bottom.]
NOVA had a couple of good programs on Richard Feynman that I wish I had — it had never occurred to me to look at YouTube to see what people might have uploaded.
By then, of course, Feynman was one of my heroes. His stories are useful in dozens of situations — his story of joining the samba bands in Rio testify to the joy of living, and the need for doing new things. Brazil was also the place he confronted the dangers of rote learning, when students could work equations perfectly for examples in the book — which they had memorized — but they couldn’t understand real world applications, such as describing how the sunlight coming off the ocean at Ipanema was so beautiful.
Feynman wrote about creationism, and about the dangers of voodoo science, in his now-famous essay on “Cargo cult science” — it’s so famous one has difficulty tracking down the facts to confirm the story.
Feynman’s stories of his wife, and her illness, and his love for her, were also great inspirations. Romance always gets me.
I failed to track him closely enough. During the run of the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors, we had the misfortune of having scheduled a hearing in Orlando on January 30 (or maybe 29), 1986. We had hoped that the coincidental launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28 might boost our press response. Of course, the Challenger exploded. Our hearing went on as planned (we had a tough schedule to meet). The disaster affected our staff a lot, those who were in Florida, and the rest of us in Washington where many of us had been on the phone to Florida when the disaster occurred.
Feynman’s appointment to the commission studying the disaster was a brilliant move, I thought. Our schedule, unfortunately, kept me tied up on almost every day the Challenger commission met. So I never did walk the three blocks down the street to meet Feynman, thinking there would be other opportunities. He was already fatally ill. He died on February 15, 1988. I missed a chance of a lifetime.
We still have Feynman’s writings. We read the book aloud to our kids when they were younger. James, our youngest and a senior this year, read Surely You’re Joking again this summer, sort of a warmup to AP physics and his search for a college. [2009 Update: James is studying physics in the wilds of Wisconsin, finals week at Lawrence University next week — study hard, and good luck, James!]
BBC made portions of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out available for free online. These interviews include a short video of his explaining how a scientist can perceive the beauty of a flower at many different levels, beyond the artist’s view — a testament to science as a way of knowing AND appreciating life.
Neil deGrasse Tyson casts spells over the audience at the University of Texas at Arlington, on February 17, 2009 - UT-Arlington photo
America’s living-room astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson came to Texas. Last Tuesday he spent a day trying to inspire college kids to study physics, or to stick with physics, and then he spent the evening with 3,000 close friends in an auditorium at the University of Texas-Arlington, talking about how much fun physics is, and how the use of real science and reason could improve our lives.
The greatest scientist of all time was Isaac Newton. “Hands down. Darwin and those other guys pale by comparison. Newton is the reason we have seat belts, because he proved objects in motion stay in motion. If you ask people in cars who are not wearing seat belts if they ever took a college class in physics they say no, every single time.”
About using math illiteracy to distort truth, Tyson said he was called for jury duty and the defendant was charged with possession of 6,000 milligrams of a controlled substance.
“Why would you say that? Six thousand milligrams is 6 grams, about the weight of a dime,” he said. When a newspaper headline proclaims half of the children at a school are below average on a test, he said, no one stops to think that’s what average means.”
On the importance the media places on celebrity news, Tyson showed a newspaper cover with a near full-page cover story on entertainer Michael Jackson and two important news stories teased in small boxes above the fold. Tyson said the country suffers from a “warped sense of what is important.”
Great scientific discoveries have not come about because people are interested in science, Tyson said. Just like the voyage of Columbus, funded by Queen Isabella of Spain, discovery is spurred by wars, cold wars and economic gain, he said. The only other inspiration for counties to spend lots of money is to celebrate royalty or deities, like with the Pyramids or the great cathedrals in Italy.
“We live in a country where people are afraid of the number 13. It’s delusional,” Tyson said, pointing to a book titled, “How to Protect Yourself from Alien Invasion” and the hysteria a few years ago with the Mars Hoax, with lots of science fiction circulating because Mars came closer to Earth than it had in 60,000 years. The widely circulated reports overlooked the fact that Mars was just a few inches closer and that was completely insignificant, Tyson said.
And then, according to the blog Politex, from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (one of America’s legendary newspapers now facing the crises that seems to afflict all our better news organizations) someone asked him about creationism:
During the Q&A, an audience member asked Tyson about conservative members of the state Board of Education who want to teach the “weaknesses” of the theory of evolution in Texas high school classrooms.
“I think they should stay in the Sunday school,” Tyson said. Calling intelligent design theory a “philosophy of ignorance,” he argued that a lack of appreciation for basic scienctific principles will hurt America’s scientific output, which has been the largest economic engine in the country’s history.
“If nonscience works its way into the science classroom, it marks…the beginning of the end of the economic strength this country has known,” Tyson said.
Tyson, who spent time in Washington, D.C. after being appointed to committees by then-President George W. Bush, went on to say that he always knew a Republican judge in Pennsylvania would ultimately side with evolution backers in the high-profile Dover education case in 2005. The judge understood that respecting science is good for the US economy, Tyson said.
“What I learned from my tours of duty in Washington is no Republican wants to die poor,” Tyson said.
He’s right about Republicans ( said the former employee of Orrin Hatch/William Bennett/Lamar Alexander). I hope it’s true for Texas Republicans, especially those on the Texas State Board of Education.
January 24 marks the anniversary of the granting of the patent for the microwave oven, “Method of treating foodstuffs.” Do your texts even refer to this by-product of World War II? What benefits of microwave ovens can your students come up with? Will they offer the apocryphal question about how Native Americans could possibly have invented popcorn with their wood-fired microwave ovens?
Dr. Percy L. Spencer noted that a chocolate bar in his shirt pocket had melted when he was working around an operating radar tube, at Raytheon Corp., during World War II (the patent application for microwave cooking was filed on October 8, 1945). With a little experimentation, he determined the microwaves from the radar tube were rapidly cooking things — think exploding egg, think popping corn.
Drawing from the patent of the microwave oven, granted to Percy L. Spencer on January 24, 1950; courtesy the Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communications and Computation
One of the problems Spencer had to overcome was that radar tubes cooked foods way too fast. He had to tune the magnetron tubes to produce wavelengths with less energy, to heat food more slowly so the cooking could be controlled. Spencer explained this process of invention in the first page of text on the patent itself.
Perhaps one could create an interesting DBQ with only patents, tracing radio and radar through the microwave oven.
This is one device you probably can demonstrate safely in any history classroom.
BBC H2G2 backgrounder on patents (remember that regulation of the patent process is one of the express powers of Congress from Article I of the Constitution)
There is much, much more to Singh’s chronicle. Did you know, for example, that helium was discovered in the sun before it was found on earth? Most terrestrial helium had long since drifted into space—hence the name, derived from “helios,” Greek for the sun. Then there is story of George Gamow’s first scientific experiment, when he took home the communion wafer in his cheek and put it under the microscope. He found no evidence of the Transubstantiation. “I think this was the experiment that made me a scientist,” he later wrote.
The report on Singh’s presentation is itself a good, concise history of Big Bang theory development, accompanied by this long list of top-notch, on-line resources about Big Bang.
Resources
Books:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn. 1996. University of Chicago Press. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe, by Simon Singh. 2005. Harper Collins, New York. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Fermat’s Enigma, by Simon Singh. 1998. Anchor, New York. Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Web Sites:
The Astronomy Cafe
Subtitled “The website for the astronomically disadvantaged,” Sten Odenwald’s site includes answers to many frequently asked questions about the universe and its origins and describes a number of books and articles he has written on the subject.
“Big Bang” on Wikipedia
An encyclopedic overview of the subject, including the history of the theory, problems it has faced, and questions remaining to be investigated. The essay includes extensive hyperlinks to other related topics.
Curious About Astronomy? Ask an Astronomer
This Web site for laypeople provides an archive of questions and answers about the Big Bang, and allows visitors to pose their own questions on the subject.
The First Three Minutes
Review of Steven Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes, a book about the very early development of the universe.
Sir Fred Hoyle
Extensive biography of astronomer, mathematician, and novelist Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001).
Great Debates in Astronomy
A series of debates held at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History among leaders in the astronomical community. Features background information, educational material, and published proceedings for each debate.
Science & the Arts
A program organized by the City University of New York New Media Lab that bridges the two worlds. Expert speakers and performers—including recent participants like Laurie Anderson, Wallace Shawn, Michel Gondry, Brian Eno, and Todd Haynes, as well as Mighton and Greene—present examples of the interplay of science and the arts in dance, art, and theater. A calendar of upcoming events is available, as well as information about past offerings.
Faber, S. M. The Big Bang as Scientific Fact. 2001. Annals Online 950: 39-53 abstract | full text
Guth, A. H. Eternal Inflation. 2001. Annals Online 950: 66-82 abstract | full text
Russell, R. J. Did God Create Our Universe? Theological Reflections on the Big Bang, Inflation, and Quantum Cosmologies. 2001. Annals Online 950: 108-127 abstract | full text
George Gamow
Encyclopedia entry on the life of physicist George Gamow (1904-1968).
AstronomyLINKS
A small collection of annotated links on the big bang theory.
Ultraviolet image of the Andromeda Galaxy, first known to be a galaxy by Edwin Hubble on December 30, 1924 - Galaxy Evolution Explorer image courtesy NASA
Today is a good day to celebrate the universe in all it’s glory – December 30. Below, mostly an encore post.
This year for Hubble Day, Wired picked up on the story (with a gracious link to last year’s post here at the Bathtub). Wired includes several links to even more information, a good source of information.
Hubble was the guy who showed us the universe is not only bigger than we imagined, it’s probably much bigger and much more fantastic than we can imagine. Hubble is the guy who opened our imaginations to the vastness of all creation.
How does one celebrate Hubble Day? Here are some suggestions:
Easier than Christmas cards: Send a thank-you note to your junior high school science teacher, or whoever it was who inspired your interest in science. Mrs. Hedburg, Mrs. Andrews, Elizabeth K. Driggs, Herbert Gilbert, Mr. Willis, and Stephen McNeal, thank you.
Rearrange your Christmas/Hanukkah/KWANZAA lights in the shape of the Andromeda Galaxy — or in the shape of any of the great photos from the Hubble Telescope (Andromeda Galaxy pictured above; Hubble images here)
A few of the images from the Hubble Telescope
Go visit your local science museum; take your kids along – borrow somebody else’s kids if you have to (take them along, too)
Spend two hours in your local library, just looking through the books on astronomy and the universe
Anybody got a good recipe for a cocktail called “The Hubble?” “The Andromeda?” Put it in the comments, please
In 1924, he announced the discovery of a Cepheid, or variable star, in the Andromeda Nebulae. Since the work of Henrietta Leavitt had made it possible to calculate the distance to Cepheids, he calculated that this Cepheid was much further away than anyone had thought and that therefore the nebulae was not a gaseous cloud inside our galaxy, like so many nebulae, but in fact, a galaxy of stars just like the Milky Way. Only much further away. Until now, people believed that the only thing existing ouside the Milky Way were the Magellanic Clouds. The Universe was much bigger than had been previously presumed.
Later Hubble noted that the universe demonstrates a “red-shift phenomenon.” The universe is expanding. This led to the idea of an initial expansion event, and the theory eventually known as Big Bang.
Hubble’s life offered several surprises, and firsts:
Hubble was a tall, elegant, athletic, man who at age 30 had an undergraduate degree in astronomy and mathematics, a legal degree as a Rhodes scholar, followed by a PhD in astronomy. He was an attorney in Kentucky (joined its bar in 1913), and had served in WWI, rising to the rank of major. He was bored with law and decided to go back to his studies in astronomy.
In 1919 he began to work at Mt. Wilson Observatory in California, where he would work for the rest of his life. . . .
Hubble wanted to classify the galaxies according to their content, distance, shape, and brightness patterns, and in his observations he made another momentous discovery: By observing redshifts in the light wavelengths emitted by the galaxies, he saw that galaxies were moving away from each other at a rate constant to the distance between them (Hubble’s Law). The further away they were, the faster they receded. This led to the calculation of the point where the expansion began, and confirmation of the big bang theory. Hubble calculated it to be about 2 billion years ago, but more recent estimates have revised that to 20 billion years ago.
An active anti-fascist, Hubble wanted to joined the armed forces again during World War II, but was convinced he could contribute more as a scientist on the homefront. When the 200-inch telescope was completed on Mt. Palomar, Hubble was given the honor of first use. He died in 1953.
“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”
(Does anyone have a suitable citation for that video? Where did it come from? Who produced it? Is there more somewhere?)
Happy Hubble Day! Look up!
Resources:
Journey to Palomar site (production currently being broadcast on PBS affiliates – wonderful story of George Ellery Hale and the origins of modern astronomy at Palomar; that’s where Hubble worked)
I have become curious about something. The core of the Earth is alleged to be molten. It’s also a fact that the deeper you dig into the Earth, the warmer it gets. Where is that heat coming from… surely not from the Sun. What’s the possibility that the Earth generates some of it’s own heat from geothermal processes?
Marohasy lives in Australia — is Google disabled for that continent or something?
These are the people who lead the charge for climate change skeptics? Anthony Watts, where are you?
This is a preview of the sort of ignorance that will elbow its way into Texas science if the State Board of Education succeeds in dumbing down Texas science classes, pulling down the intelligence quotient with creationism.
“Alleged to be molten.”
And water is alleged to be wet.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Every once in a while we get a glimpse of what the future would be like if the creationists ruled education and could teach some of the fantastic things they believe to be true as fact.
“For the Earth to neither warm or cool, the incoming radiation must balance the outgoing.”
Not really.
No, really. Go read the post. And see these critiques, at Tugboat Potemkin, where problems with the rules of the principle of Conservation of Energy are noted, and Deltoid, where LOLCats makes a debut in explaining physics to the warming denialists.
Then go back and read the comments at Marohasy’s blog.
It’s not just the confusion of terms, like treating watts as units of heat. There’s an astonishing lack of regard for cause and effect in history, too:
Conservation of energy: it’s not just a phrase. The theory of radiative equilibrium arose early in the 19th century, before the laws of thermodynamics were understood.
Suggestion for research: Is the denialism virus that affects creationists, DDT advocates, and climate denialists, the same one, or are there slight variations? A virus seems the most charitable explanation, unless one wishes to blame prions.
Creationist physics, denialism in meteorology, physics, chemistry, and history. It makes a trifecta winner look like he’s not trying.
The video fills an educational need. It explains some of the work in high-energy particle physics going on there on the border between France and Switzerland.
This video could make a key part of a geography warm-up, noting research in the European Union. CERN’s premier position in nuclear particle research is due to the cancellation in 1993 of the Superconducting Super Collider, which was then under construction near Waxahatchie, Texas. A little bit of digging could produce a lesson plan on government funding of research, especially in nuclear physics, or on geography of such massive cyclotrons, or on the history of particle physics, black holes, or uses for atom splitting.
If you’re interested in science research, check it out. Some of the posts are terribly technical — I don’t understand them, so I’ll have to get one of our sons to explain it to me — but you can catch the drift of what’s going on. Tommaso also offers a few photos of the Albuquerque area and Sandia Peak, worth the click alone.
It’s a good model of what some of us should do more of (yeah, this is self-flagellation).
No kidding. Our Italian physicist friend Dorigo passed along the note on his blog, Quantum Diaries Survivor. George Gliba at NASA (gliba@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov) hopes someone was watching Bootës at about 6:10 UT (which would be about 1:10 a.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT), if I’m calculating that correctly).
Gliba said:
Last night the NASA SWIFT spacecraft saw the most extrinsically luminous Gamma-ray Burst ever known. Some ground based telescopes recorded the visual optical afterglow to be 5th magnitude!
Here’s your chance to make science history: If you may have seen the thing, or better, if you have a videotape of the incident (which may have lasted a few minutes), scientists would sure love to see it.
Most gamma ray bursts occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. Their cores collapse to form black holes or neutron stars, releasing an intense burst of high-energy gamma rays and ejecting particle jets that rip through space at nearly the speed of light like turbocharged cosmic blowtorches. When the jets plow into surrounding interstellar clouds, they heat the gas, often generating bright afterglows. Gamma ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the universe since the big bang.
“This burst was a whopper,” said Swift principal investigator Neil Gehrels of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “It blows away every gamma ray burst we’ve seen so far.”
Calculations show this one was 7 billion light years away. Cool!
I believe this is an excerpt from a NOVA tribute to Feynman, which has never been available commercially so far as I have found. Anybody know how to get a copy of the video?
Among other things, the piece included comments from some of Feynman’s closest friends, and it detailed their fascination with a tiny republic then inside of the Soviet Union, Tannu Tuva, which Feynman had determined to be the most obscure and difficult nation on Earth to travel to — and so, of course, he wanted to go. The place is known today as Tuva.
No denying the man his orange juice.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Richard Feynman, in the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, appendix (1986)
Photo: Richard Feynman, at a hearing of the Rogers Commission, demonstrates with a glass of ice water and a piece of O-ring material, how cold makes the O-rings inflexible; photo credit unknown
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
In 1924, he announced the discovery of a Cepheid, or variable star, in the Andromeda Nebulae. Since the work of Henrietta Leavitt had made it possible to calculate the distance to Cepheids, he calculated that this Cepheid was much further away than anyone had thought and that therefore the nebulae was not a gaseous cloud inside our galaxy, like so many nebulae, but in fact, a galaxy of stars just like the Milky Way. Only much further away. Until now, people believed that the only thing existing outside the Milky Way were the Magellanic Clouds. The Universe was much bigger than had been previously presumed.
Later Hubble noted that the universe demonstrates a “red-shift phenomenon.” The universe is expanding. This led to the idea of an initial expansion event, and the theory eventually known as Big Bang.
Hubble’s life offered several surprises, and firsts:
Hubble was a tall, elegant, athletic, man who at age 30 had an undergraduate degree in astronomy and mathematics, a legal degree as a Rhodes scholar, followed by a PhD in astronomy. He was an attorney in Kentucky (joined its bar in 1913), and had served in WWI, rising to the rank of major. He was bored with law and decided to go back to his studies in astronomy.
In 1919 he began to work at Mt. Wilson Observatory in California, where he would work for the rest of his life. . . .
Hubble wanted to classify the galaxies according to their content, distance, shape, and brightness patterns, and in his observations he made another momentous discovery: By observing redshifts in the light wavelengths emitted by the galaxies, he saw that galaxies were moving away from each other at a rate constant to the distance between them (Hubble’s Law). The further away they were, the faster they receded. This led to the calculation of the point where the expansion began, and confirmation of the big bang theory. Hubble calculated it to be about 2 billion years ago, but more recent estimates have revised that to 20 billion years ago.
An active anti-fascist, Hubble wanted to joined the armed forces again during World War II, but was convinced he could contribute more as a scientist on the homefront. When the 200-inch telescope was completed on Mt. Palomar, Hubble was given the honor of first use. He died in 1953.
“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”
Update, December 31: CBS’s Sunday Morning has an “Almanac” feature weekly; Hubble was featured on December 30. Unfortunately CBS has not posted the video. However, I did find a description of Hubble’s work on YouTube — in true, irritating internet fashion, stripped of citations. The video is below. If you know details — who made the video, where good copies might be available — please note it in comments.
[*]Newton’s giants:Nicolaus Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Johannes Kepler, René Descartes.Bartlett’s 16th Edition phrases the letter to Hooke a little differently:“If I have seen further than (you and Descartes) it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants.” Others attribute the quote much earlier; it was a saying of the times, it appears, and this is one of the most famous uses of it.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
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