I Only Read The Articles

Can’t… Stop… Learning…

2009-02-13T14:11:00.004-06:00

This is a brief list of the sites that I like to visit. I attempt to avoid always wasting my time and instead of watching TV I will watch presentations or classes. Most of the time they are just, if not more, entertaining. This way I am entertained and educated. I particularly like TED, MIT OCW, and PBS. The Periodic Table Videos are fun too.

Presentations/Talks/TV programs/Podcast

TED

fora.tv

Fluid Mechanics Films

Institute for Advanced Study

periodicvideos.com

reason.tv

Expert Village

Open Courseware

Blogs/Articles

nature.com

bad astronomy

freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

instructables.com

Digital Teaching - Setup Details

2009-01-24T15:31:00.006-06:00

This post is meant to give details about the possible digital teaching setups. Specific hardware and software will be listed. Cost will be considered as well.

In the previous post a digital teaching nationwide system was discussed. This system uses simple modern technology to transform any classroom to a digital one. There is no need for fancy interactive classrooms. They are expensive. These suggestions use between $300 and $3000 dollars (depending on how fancy you get and what you already have available) to create a digital learning environment.

The Tech:

Tablet PC's such a the HP Pavilion tx2110us (which I use) are cheap (~$1100) and provide nearly everything you need for digital teaching. The laptop can be connected to a projector and written on. Notes can be saved and distributed electronically.

Bluetooth Microphones allow for voice recording. On board and stand up microphones work as well, but they don't give as much freedom for mobility. ($30-$70)

Projectors will be used to project the tablet PC interface onto a screen for the class to see. This isn't always necessary since you could just prepare the lectures on your Tablet PC and have the students watch the lectures on their own time. ($600-$1000+)

Recording Software can be used to save lectures which can be store online for student use. Camtasia is a great program which will record your screen activity and voice. It also has the ability to feed in webcams. Videos are easily edited and posted online in a multitude of formats. There are many programs available for simple voice recording.

Wacom Tablets are available if you already have a PC or laptop and want to add the ability to write on the screen. There are many cheap tablets which are perfect for writing quality. Many of the expensive tablets are made for artistic purposes. There are even wireless bluetooth tablets available. This would instantly give you the capability to transform a cheap PC to a remote in class writing platform. The disadvantage to these tablets is that you can't see what you are writig on them, but with practice that is not an issue. It may in fact be better that you need to look at the board like the students instead of always looking down. ($60-$250)

Cameras can be used to record a lecture. However, they do not work well to record the actual note taking process. High quality cameras are needed (which are expensive) so that you can read what is being written in the final video. Also, a camera may need to be operated (pan and zoom) by a person which is either inconvenient or expensive. Cameras do allow you to record live demonstrations which do not need as high of a resolution. For this a cheap digital camera could be used. ($100-$500+)

All of this equipment can be used in a variety of ways to make digital classrooms. A few options are given here.
This first setup uses most everything we talked about. A laptop feeds in the signal from the wireless Wacom tablet and Microphone. This Data is sent to the projector. All of this can be recorded on the PC as well as an additional digital camera. (1100+700+250+50+300=$2400)

This setup can be modified. The camera is an extra. A cheap stationary PC could be used instead of the Laptop as shown below. (700+250+50+500=$1500)

A bare bones system could consist of just a tablet PC and a projector. (1100+700=$1800)

If you want to get really cheap you could use a cheap PC and a wacom tablet hooked to a projector. $500 (PC estimate) + 100 (Wacom) + 700 (Projector) = $1300.

And if you want to get really cheap don't use a projector. Just prerecord lectures and have students watch them online later. (500+100 = $600)

Considering that most schools already have computers and projectors in classrooms many of these costs may be redundant. It may be as simple as buying a Wacom tablet and a microphone to get started. This would only cost $150 to $300.

And there you have it. Cheap simple ways to drastically change the way we educate.

Digital Teaching

2009-01-20T15:57:00.002-06:00

[I wrote this up a while ago, since then I have made additional observations which I've added in brackets.]

I've been pondering the pros and cons of teaching with a tablet PC. The basic idea is to prepare some kind of material ahead of class (probably slides) and then, using the tablet PC, you can project the image and write on the slides as you give the lecture.

Pro: You no longer waste as much time in class writing out equations and notes.
Con: This may cause a lecture to go too quickly through material, since the time spent writing allowed a student to think.

Con: It is difficult to pace yourself correctly with pre-made notes. The process of writing down notes on a board slows you down to an appropriate pace for comprehension. Josh postulated that it takes twice as long to comprehend as it takes you to write, including the fact that the student is writing down what you are doing and trying to understand.
Pro: Digital media removes the need for the student to write down complete notes, thus permitting them to focus on comprehension.

[Additional thoughts: after doing some lectures like this it seems as if it is not a good idea to have all the lectures premade. There is something natural about writing the equations by hand. The speed at which you write seems to be close to the speed at which people can read and comprehend. The manual writing gives you the appropriate speed naturally. Some equations could be prewritten. General equations, equations that have already been derived, etc, so there are opportunities for premade material.]

Pro: Because the material is presented digitally the lecture itself can be saved and distributed to the class. Notes can be given before a lecture and screen capturing can easily create a video of the lecture. This alleviates the student from having to take so many notes in class.
Con: The note taking process may be beneficial since it acts as a memorization device.

Con: Having all prepared notes conveys to the student that you are unable to lecture about the material without prepared slides. Possibly undermining your respect.

[Applying a mix of premade and handwritten notes should take care of this.]

Pro: Prepared notes will reduce errors, possibly allow for a more dense class, allow student to pay attention to the ideas instead of their notes and allow for easy recording of lectures.
[Just be careful so that it is not too dense.]

Con: Everyone falls asleep during power point slides.
[More reason to continue with hand written notes (remember that they can still be digital via a tablet. Also, some though can be put into the color scheme. Using a projector that does not require the class room lights to be off may help as well. ]

Pro: The class can clearly see what you are writing on the board. i.e. you are never standing in the way.

Modern Digital Education - Changing the Way We Educate

2009-01-16T15:12:00.001-06:00

In a paragraph this is the idea. Lectures are recorded in a digital manner (more on these details later and how it is really cheap and easy.) Students can view these lectures via an online medium. As time progresses the lectures are improved. Questions can be added, mistakes fixed, material added. Student could be asked to add material as well. Explain problems, solution manuals, etc. Essentially the system would iterate towards a 'perfect lecture.' This system has numerous benefits (such as flexibility, resources, mobility) which we will explore. Further infrastructure can be added to make this into a national system, thus making the information available for everyone.

As I see it, if a system like this was setup, you can eliminate the need for traditional lectures. Every few years the lectures could be updated, via redoing the entire series, or adding notes and re-editing. This does not remove the role of the professor (or teacher) it instead shifts it to a more of a tutor type of position. Professors could hold question answering sessions where students could ask questions (which would be added to the digital media) This both enhances the education and reduces workloads allowing teachers and professors to focus on the students.

Once a system like this is put in place we can continue to make even greater changes. I will use high school as an example. It is clear that in many schools there is a large variance in the levels of the students. Some students progress significantly faster than others, some need more help. This creates a big problem when many students are placed together. The fast ones get bored and are held back and the slow ones don’t get the attention they need. By implementing the previous digital system students essentially become their own entities within an education system. Essentially there would still be ‘math’ teachers and such, but no classes. Students would simply have a set of requirements, they would follow the thorough media sets, and possibly on a weekly basis would have a question session for that course with the professor (again all questions are added to the media set. Eventually one would assume that most questions could be addressed via the digital data.)

Additionally, digital lectures do not need to be only of your teacher, they could be a collection of lectures from across the country, collected into a database. Then students would be able to use the lectures they found most informative and also be able to rank and criticize the videos. This fixes a few things – first, the good teachers are clearly recognized and they are recognized for their teaching skills, because, with a flexible learning system the teacher who teaches best helps the student accomplish his requirements sooner. Secondly, it significantly levels the playing field. Schools with less funding or poorer teachers now immediately have access to the best in the country.

One may say that this places too much responsibility into the hand of the student. In my opinion systems which clearly state the requirements and clearly give you a way to challenge yourself and succeed, or fail miserably, will, in the end, work better. No longer will students be able to be content scraping by. Similarly it gives the really talented students as much room to grow as possible. This will give a clear message to the slackers that they need to work harder. We want to prepare students for life, life is tough and you need to know how to work and push yourself. This system of education gives you that skill. Also, by reducing the load of the teachers and allowing the faster students to work on their own it gives the teachers the opportunity to focus on the trouble students. The individual attention may in many cases change their status. Thus, this system helps both the fast and slow students.

Details of the System
A view of the system fully implemented after starting with our current system.

We start things off with teachers recording their lectures. This can be done in several ways. The use of a camera can work, but it has significant downfalls. Without a very high resolution camera the video cannot adequately capture the notes being written. This in turn requires either someone manning the camera zooming in to the text or the high resolution cameras. Both of which are very expensive. An alternative method is to use a tablet PC. The lecturer writes on the PC and the text is displayed to the class (if there is a class) via a projector. The video is captured from the screen and the audio is recorded alongside the video. All this can be done easily and cheaply (~$1000 for tablet PC, $300 for software for a single purchase in a onetime purchase) and it allows the video to have high quality recording of the text being written. The lecturer would not be seen, which in the end is typically unnecessary.For lectures which require visuals (maybe a chemistry course) a lower quality camera could be used alongside the PC recording.

The tablet PC has other advantages. Equations and notes can be premade, allowing the speaker to spend more time explaining and less time writing. Additionally, other digital media can be used easily within the lecture.For schools who may already have computers and projectors the simple addition of a Wacom tablet ($100-$300 for simple versions, even wireless bluetooth versions) and a bluetooth mic ($50) can change a traditional setup to a wireless digital recording system.

This is the first iteration. As a class progresses additional material can be generated. Questions are bound to be asked. These questions can be cataloged and added to the lectures. All of this data would be added to a searchable online database. It could be organized as the users see fit. Preferably, the system should be capable of feedback. Additional data can be added to the system as time progresses. Students can add solution to problems. Practice tests and quizzes can be included as well. Lectures could be updated with additional material and taking into account the questions and comments previously noted.

Initially each school would have its own database. Having such a database gives flexibility to teachers. Now, with lecturers prerecorded, students can watch them individually, at their own pace. Smarter students will have the opportunity to progress faster. This system has immediate realizable benefits even before things get more complicated.

As the catalog of courses matures schools would become interconnected (maybe just all the public schools.) Now students are able to receive lectures from any number of teachers. Lectures could be rated, either based on student reviews, other teachers’ reviews, or ideally by correlating lectures with the students test scores. This could be done by keeping track of which students are watching which lectures. If tests were given in a standardized way the test scores could then be related to the lectures being watched. This allows the best lectures to come forth. Finally a way to quantify teacher performance. All students will then have access to the best lectures and the best teachers will be recognized for it. Most importantly small or poor schools will have access to the best teachers.

Testing would need to be done in a standardized way. This is the only pitfall, but I think it can be overcome. A few things make this different. Because the system is challenging students, harder tests can be written. Also, because everyone can see all the lectures and rate them it would be more difficult to 'teach to the test' since everyone would see it. Additionally those lectures are likely boring and students are going to be interested in interactive entertaining learning. Teaching to the test generally doesn't fall into the exciting category of classes.

Alongside the lectures, open source books could be developed for the public school system. There is no need for them to pay for books. Open source books like Motion Mountain (a physics book) are high quality. Besides the initial investment in technology (which many schools already have,) a digital system reduces schools costs.

Something can be said about giving the students too much responsibility, but in my mind that is the power of this method. Reduced teacher load permits them to focus on trouble students. Many students, given the chance to learn and challenge themselves will. Also, the brightest students will be able to shine at their full potential. There is no longer any mechanism which will hinder them. Students may also be able to finish their class work faster moving them on to college or the work place quicker. This will reduce the number of students in a given high school further reducing teacher load and other costs.

This kind of system does not replace in class or hands on work. Laboratories would still be needed. Gym class, shop class, art class, etc would all still exist as they are (although additional instructional material may still be available.)

Private schools and universities are probably less likely to implement a nationwide system since they compete with each other. State schools could have inter-state systems. Individual universities could at a minimum have their own systems. Many large schools still have multiple teachers teaching the same class so a rating system may still work.

A lot of these ideas may not work for younger students. Personal instruction is still important. As time goes on this could be experimented with.

I have additional material on digital teaching systems and problems. I will add these posts soon

In conclusion. A system like the one presented uses cheap digital systems to alter the current education model. It allows for an iterative method for creating education resources. It allows for student input and rating. Teachers can also then be rewarded for true quality teaching. Poor schools easily (with only an internet connection and computers) have access to the best teachers and materials the nation can offer.

Santa and Religion

2009-01-04T21:54:00.004-06:00

Why do Christian parents encourage their children to believe in Santa? They let them think that there is someone special who watches your behavior and gives you gifts, then when they get old enough we tell them that Santa is not real. Yet, the Christians still expect their children to believe in God.

It reminds me of a story Richard Feynman tells in ‘What do you care what other people think?” When he was a boy during a sermon his rabbi tells him a long story about another boy. Afterwards Feynman asks him a question about the story, then the rabbi tells him that the boy wasn’t real and that the story was just made up to illustrate a point. After that Feynman was upset at his rabbi and asked him how he can expect him to believe any of the stories that his religion teaches. After that he stopped going to church.

Additionally, by telling the children that their gifts came from a magical man the entire lesson of Christmas and gift giving is lost. Christmas isn’t just about being a good person; it’s about showing your love and giving of yourself. The kids don’t realize that you are giving them the gifts because you love them. It creates a sense of false entitlement, in that they deserve things just because they are good.

Maybe there is some way to alter the depiction of Santa to rectify some of these problems while maintaining the legend.

Tools and Education

2008-12-02T16:30:00.004-06:00

I wonder what the net effect of having a spell checker will be on the quality of education, particularly with younger generations. I personally have found that I often do not even find the mistakes, I just click through them and make the corrections. I will spell the same word wrong over and over. Spell checker could seriously set back someone who does not know how to spell well or is learning to spell by making it too easy to avoid learning. I wonder what high school and middle school teachers think about this? Are their students typed assignments without error, but their written notes atrocious. I wouldn't be surprised if it is degrading their education.

Once I noticed that I was avoiding spelling and becoming complacent I started to make a strong effort to avoid using spell checker in the traditional fashion. I think if used properly it can be a learning tool. Typically now I use it to check the words and then if I really can't spell it I see what the computer thinks. Then if I am not feeling too lazy I manual type out the correct word. This helps to cement the correct spelling into my memory, reducing the chance that I will make the same error again. At a minimum I try to look at the correct spelling and notice where I was making the mistake. I think since I started doing this my spelling ability has increased. (grammar is an entirely separate issue.)

Like most technologies, they can either make you lazy, or if used properly, they can aid your learning. It is up to the user to decide.

I had a professor in my undergrad who would curse calculators up and down. Preferring to instead do manual calculations. He thought that calculators were degrading the younger generations minds. They can, but only if you let it happen. Again, you can treat it as a positive tool and let it help you, or you can depend on it and have it weaken you.

I had thought of this topic along time ago, but it was reawakened by a question during my PhD proposal presentation. My math professor, Dr. Kupershmidt, asked me if I had done all the algebra by hand or with computer software. I told him I had done it by hand, expecting a positive response, instead he asked, "Why?" I suppose the true skill is in knowing when to use the tools and when to avoid them. In my case I think I did the right thing because it would have been cumbersome to make the computer go in the right direction with the math. However, we should not be afraid to use our tools out of self righteousness or any other reason as well. It is a careful balance.

In the end, we are humans, the reason we are here is because we make tools. We just need to make sure they do not become our demise as well.

Life and Intelligence

2008-11-23T15:40:00.004-06:00

I enjoy thinking about life and whether we have companions in the universe. The fascinating question - Are we alone? And beyond that, the implications, religious and otherwise. The fundamental equation for estimating the existence of other intelligent civilizations is the Drake Equation.

Essentially we start with the rate of production of stars in our galaxy, then add factors such as the likelyhood of a star having planets, then having ones which can support life, then which of those will develop life, and then those which will develop intelligent life, then those which will create technology which will make themselves visible to us, and finally then length of time which these civilizations last.

Naturally, there are a lot of factors in there which we have no idea about, but you can put in intelligent guesses and see what kind of numbers we are working with. In 1961 Drake Estimated N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10. More current analysis gives an estimate of 2.31. Meaning that at our best guess, on average there will be around 2 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Interesting.

Now, where am I getting with this. Nowhere really. It is just a neat idea. I always like to think of all the crazy things which could have influenced our development of intelligence and technology. For instance, what if the Earth rotated faster? This would have made throwing objects very difficult and that may have severely restricted the development and use of tools. Motions on the earth would be very non-linear, so dynamics and mathematics may have evolved along a different route. Simple linearization in physics and engineering would not have been valid, making the math much more difficult. Or this could have all gone the opposite way. Maybe the challenge of throwing objects in a rotating reference frame would have amplified our intelligence and given us a more non-linear way of thinking. Our math could be entirely different and maybe non-linear equations would be no big deal.

Another thought. What if there was no Moon. Avoiding the geographical and climate changes, the moon was our clear evidence of time. The phases of the moon gave way to calendars, the passing of time evolves to counting and then math. The moon inspires us to look in the night sky. Everything else is a point of light. The moon is dynamic. Eclipses, harvest moons, the phases give clear signs to the orientation of the solar system. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, maybe it would have just slowed our progress. Nonetheless, it is interesting to think about.

I am sure you could think of a millions variables like this. All these would need to be accounted for in Drakes Equation to get a really accurate estimate. In the end, it seems like there is a decent chance that we are alone, or only one of a few civilizations in this galaxy. That kind of makes me feel lonely.

Immigration

2008-11-08T12:26:00.002-06:00

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
-Excerpt from inscription which accompanies the statue of liberty.

I just wanted to put up a quick post saying that I do not understand the current national sentiment on immigration. In my mind we should allow anyone to quickly and easily become a citizen. Simply check someones background and then let them in. This is the foundation of our country and the reason we have been successful. As long as people want to come here, then we know we are doing something right.

Additionally, we should encourage higher educated individuals to come to America. The more educated you are, the easier it should be to become a citizen. We want talented individuals and their creativity.

Putting up walls and limiting immigration is silly. We have plenty of room and resources here. Allowing individuals to come legally will create more revenue and taxes. Creating barriers only will prevent the educated and responsible individuals from entering the country, those are the people we want.

We should not be afraid of cultural influences. This is what we are. We are all German, Irish, Italian, English, Asian, African... everything. Our culture is simply a reflection of all the worlds cultures. Why not involve another?

If we close our borders and claim that this land is only for 'Americans' then we have completely forgotten who we are and how we got here. It will be the end of the beautiful idea of America and we'll become just another country.

Ben Franklin's 8 Reasons to Prefer Old Women to Young Ones

2008-11-01T15:51:00.008-05:00

Ben Franklin wrote this essay in 1745, he would have been 40 years old. He begins with:

"It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness.... It is the man and woman united that make the complete human being. Separate, she wants his force of body and strength of reason; he, her softness, sensibility and acute discernment. Together the are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in that state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry in your profession, with her good economy, will be a fortune sufficient."

However, recognizing the youthful male attitude and the unlikely event of accepting a rational argument he suggested what sort of mistress one should have.

"In all your amours, you should prefer old women to young ones."

For which he presented 8 reasons.

"1. Because as they have more knowledge of the world and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.

2. Because when women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the diminution of beauty by an arguement of utility. They learn to do 1000 services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing as an old woman who is not a good woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience.

4. Because the more experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the affair should happen to be known, considerate people might be inclined to excuse an old woman who would kindly take care of a young man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his ruining his health and fortune among mercenary prostitutes.

5. Because every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of the fluids that fills the muscles appears first in the highest part. The face grows lank and wrinkled, then the neck, the the breast and arms, the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever. So that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two woman to know an old one from a young one. And as in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every knack being by practice capable of improvement.

6. Because the sin is less. The debauching a virgin may be her ruin, and make her for life unhappy.

7. Because compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you frequent bitter reflections, none of which can attend making an old woman happy.

8thly and lastly. They are so grateful."

As a final note, Ben Franklin is generally referred to as being a 'ladies man' with the implications that he slept around. This essay certainly makes it seem so. He did seem to have a healthy libido and did have a child, with an woman unknown to history, before he was married, but all accounts seem to show that he was faithful throughout his marriage.

He did seem to maintain his interest in women, at one point maintaining flirtatious written contact with a younger women during his marriage and similarly with other women during his time in France. I don't think you can blame him for that.

Speak to Me Lover

2008-10-28T21:44:00.013-05:00

I live my life completely unknowing of why I am here and what this is all about. We can come up with hypothesis about God and such, but all of it seems shaky to me. There is one thing that I cannot understand but I can count on, and that is in the ability of nature to completely floor me with its beauty. From a glorious sunset to a tiny detail in a complex flow. It is all amazing, every piece of it. Nature is beautiful, inspiring, surprising and unwavering, just like a perfect lover. That is the one thing that I know.

And what language does nature speak. Mathematics.

“Nature’s grand book, which stands continually open to our gaze, is written in the language of mathematics. Its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures. Without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth.”
-Galileo Galilei, 1623

Higher States of Being

2008-10-20T11:54:00.003-05:00

Considering my recent review of an unfortunate series of correspondences between a Mathematics teacher and an aspiring English teacher in her class, I'm compelled to discuss the underlying problems in the discussion. Let me begin by offering a sort of hypothesis regarding people and their vocations. I conject that there are fundamentally two types of people; each one best suited for one of two types of vocations. Simply put, there are vocations that sustain and vocations that advance. I use the word 'vocation' to imply more of a societal responsibility or calling rather than simply a job, but of course as the argument progresses transposing 'vocation' for 'job' will suffice.

The vast majority of jobs are those that sustain our way of life. They are vitally necessary in order to maintain societies accepted levels of existence. Jobs in civil service are an excellent example. Businesses (in general) operate by exploiting a societal demand for luxury or necessity; again sustaining. One might argue that business entrepreneurs advance humanity. In some cases they would be absolutely correct. However many entrepreneurs take advantage of a missing service in a community rather than advance that community beyond any other. As we develop as a whole these vocations also develop in number and skill. They are an essential part of society.

The vast minority of jobs are those that advance our way of life. These vocations are where we find the creators. Scientists are the obvious example of the 'creator.' They are responsible for every technological breakthrough in the history of man. I submit that technology is the foremost method of advancing humanity to higher states of pleasure. Those versed in philosophy can liken these higher states of pleasures to the concepts proposed by John Stuart Mill. For those not, please understand that 'pleasure,' in this context, refers to not only physical pleasure, but comfortable living, intellectual stimulation, enlightenment, and so on. I am confident that anything created, concocted, or envisioned by man can be traced back to a fundamental science as its enabler. I cannot go without acknowledging artistic creation. The pure skill in the brush or Rembrandt, or the vision of Picasso, or the torment of Blake, the genius of Shakespeare, or the inspiration of Milton cannot go unnoticed when segregating vocations. Without question, these individuals advanced humanity and were also creators.

I give special attention to the teacher. From one perspective teaching serves as a vocation for advancement. By enlightening young people, teachers are an integral part of advancement. On the other hand, the concept of teacher has shifted. We no longer learn by the Socratic Method. The emphasis is now to unsure that students run the gauntlet of classes in order to give them a superficial exposure to many things. Clearly, the purpose is to create well rounded individuals because well rounded individuals are a benefit to society. Unfortunately, this idealistic approach is polluted by the fact that uninspired students leave this arena to embark on careers that sustain. The terrifying truth is that some become teachers themselves. This leaves the teaching vocation in a state of perpetual stagnation and therefore, with the exception of a few teaching, is unable to be classified as an advancing vocation.

I come back to the original purpose of this discussion. The argument posed in the correspondences mentioned in the opening paragraph was that no more than rudimentary mathematical skills are needed for many vocations and therefore advanced mathematical topics should not be forced upon students should they choose against it. There is a fundamental flaw with this statement in that collective advancement cannot be bore on the backs of a few. Collective advancement is the responsibility of the collective, with both creative and logical thinking being its cornerstone. Consider a world in which there were only scientists and no artists. Invention would stagnate. Creativity for invention would be lost. The 'think outside of the box' mentality would be a fairytale. We would have the most scientifically minded collective imaginable but nothing to do with it. Honestly, I have a hard time imagining this extreme because almost by definition science is creative thinking, but bear with me. Consider the other extreme; no scientists and only artists. The world would be as beautiful as anyone could possibly imagine, but it would go no farther in its development. There would be no way to support itself and inevitably would fail. I also have a hard time imagining this extreme because without scientific creation the tools of creation wouldn't exist.

It becomes clear that both extremes are not beneficial. Ideally all people would excel in both venues. This is not possible and therefore divulges the critical foundation of a society: people contributing to the common good by providing their individual skills.

Science has shown how the brain is stimulated by logical thought process verses emotional or creative (liberal arts) thinking. Pure logic and pure creation produce very specific responses that account for 'right brained' and 'left brained' thinking. Science has also shown that both sides can be stimulated simultaneously. This type of synaptic response produces a nonlinear increase in memory and skill retention. Long term training shows an increase in overall cognitive ability. It becomes irrefutable that persons well versed in both types of thinking have a significant advantage over persons who do not. This creates a scientific basis to suggest it is the responsibility, or perhaps obligation, of the individual to train in both areas.

I must discuss myself in all this. I am a scientist, an engineer who was fortunate enough to have the ability to place myself in a vocation for advancement. The title given to those who endure my topics of research is one of high intellectual regard (the astrophysicists might scoff at that statementJ), but one that is expected to have an extreme bias toward logic rather than emotion. There is some truth to both statements, but even in my position I can differentiate the worth of my peers based on their level of enlightenment through well rounded intellectual stimulation. I am confident that the tangible worth based on productivity, not just my perception, is greater for those who observe the benefit of both logic and emotion. In this case we can specifically consider the fruits of science and the fruits of literary work and communication. I personally have a deep appreciation for the liberal arts. My education doesn't include these personal indulgences so I must seek them out on my own accord. Perhaps I am too bold, but if history prevails, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that I and my aforementioned peers have as good or even a better understanding of classical literature and artistic works than does the average liberal arts major.

We are caught in a vicious cycle of ignorance and argument. People in general don't appear to have a sense of self awareness. They don't observe how their actions ripple through time and space. They can't appreciate how the ripples of others have contributed to their current state of being. It is asinine to believe that society as a whole can advance though the minds of scientific or artistic geniuses alone. A society that seeks higher pleasures collectively will outshine the achievements of any single individual. At this point, it becomes a social responsibility, not a personal choice.

To the Mathematics teacher: I rambled a bit, but I hope I have supplied a stronger basis for your argument. You touched on some of these topics and I have the feeling that you'll be in agreement with much of what I said, but certainly being the teacher you must tread lightly.

To the prospective English teacher: I'd like to know what school you teach at. That way I can insure my children aren't accidentally placed in your class. Opinionated ignorance is dangerous.

And now a deep thought…

The fortunate few cannot reach the pinnacle without the wide base of support below them. If the base of support starts a little higher, then those fortunate few are that much closer.

Nonlinear Morality

2008-09-28T10:18:00.003-05:00

I've recently become a guest of Harvard's Justice Online philosophy courses. A recent discussion posed the case of Dudley v Queen of England. The case describes a ship that sunk leaving the captain, a crew member and the cabin boy...maybe one more...in the life boat drifting in open ocean. They had meager food supplies and no water. Soon they ran out and began to starve. The captain suggested they all draw straws and the short straw gets eaten by the rest. However, the cabin boy had already drank sea water and was very ill. In his weakened state, he became the victim of cannibalism to sustain the rest. The remaining crew was eventually picked up without having to kill and eat another member.

A cut and dry utilitarian perspective - the greatest good for the greatest number - suggests that their actions were completely morally acceptable. For objectivism, I've left out some details of the argument that would reinforce the utilitarian viewpoint. The question is: Is the utilitarian perspective correct?

The arguments for and against the case all have an underlying understanding of morality; one that is not so easy to define but rather somewhat universally understood. If it was, then philosophy would be objective and completely understood. The application of what essentially is the same definition of morality produces differences in option when different personal perspectives objectively weigh the means and ends of the decisions. We come to the first observation of nonlinearity. Morality is not deterministic. Presenting the same case to different people with always produce some variation in either the means or the ends.

Lets change the scenario. Only two people are in the boat and one eats the other to save himself. Is it morally objectionable? There is nothing known about either individual that might weigh on their worthiness to live. I think many/most people would find it objectionable. What if there were 6 people? One dies for five to live. The answer becomes less definitive. What if it is 21 people so 1 dies and 2o live? It becomes apparent that utilitarianism becomes more relevant once the prospering majority becomes proportionally larger. This is the second nonlinearity. Utilitarianism becomes disproportionatly relevant as the prospering majority becomes proportionatly larger.

I've already illuded to a conclusion I've made. Morality is not definable, yet is universal. It is the nondeterministic nature of moral application and interpretation that produces differing opinions on right and wrong. For example, in extreme situations we glimpse true humanistic nature in that self preservation becomes the driving factor and can be projected to apply to others. Self preservation is instinctual, primative, yet it allows us to justify extreme actions in extreme situations. With that justification we are exempt from the pain of guilt and remorse and utilitarianism still rules. However, in the case where only two people are involved and one is killed to save the other rather than 21, we can expect a level of remorse even though self preservation ruled; the second nonlinearity exists.

To understand morality I seems that we must consider human behavior on a much more primitive level. Even with that, I doubt that morality will be definable simply because of it's nonlinear characteristics

And now a deep thought...
If we consider guilt to be a primitive human characteristic, perhaps we must examine guilt before we can attempt to define morality.

Grading Classes

2008-09-26T15:35:00.002-05:00

The other day I was thinking about the best ways to grade a class. I know that many of my fellow grad students plan to teach someday. How should we grade our classes?

As engineers, we benefit from the fact that we deal with a generally definitive subject. There are solutions to math problems, so we typically don't have to deal with wondering how to grade a specific problem. It is right or it is wrong. Partial credit can be given based on taking correct steps to get to the answer, but failing to get the right answer. In the end, this is all going to be much more straight forward than grading a literature class for instance.

I don't think they are as popular now, but curving a class is an option. I don't know if I have ever had an engineering class that was curved though. There seems to be some pros and cons. It does make it easier on the professor. Schools typically do not like professors to give all high grades, so the curve reduces this problem. It can help students if a classes or test is really hard, by at least benefit those who did well. Similarly it can hurt students if a class or test was easy, since it punishes the students who may have done well, and understood the material, but were slightly lower than the best students.

This seems to be the heart of the problem. What should a grade represent? In my mind it should be a qualifier of how well the student understands the material presented. Requirements for courses should be laid out prior to a class and students will be expected to meet them. If this is the case there should be no problem will all students getting an A, or all of them getting a F.

In the end it seems as if the best solution is to give appropriate tests. The test needs to be fair and represent the class requirements. If the test is sufficiently difficult it will limit the high scores, creating a sort of natural curve.

Homework and Projects play an important role as well. One system I like is having a few options for how your homework/test combination will lead to a grade. This gives options for students who may find tests nerve racking and difficult. Some people just have a hard time with tests. They can then focus on getting good homework grades to make up for the poor test grades. Additionally, students who demonstrate that they understand the material well by scoring well on tests would not be punished for scoring lower on homework. I always personally had this problem when I found a class easy since I did not feel the motivation to do the homework when I already understood it and my test scores demonstrated that fact.

The one problem I see with this setup is how to deal with giving a fairly graded classes on your first shot. It will be difficult to create a balanced test. I think the only option is to make it fairly hard. Afterwards you can at least curve the scores up. If you make the test too easy, I think there would be a riot if you curved the scores down.

So, what does everyone else think? How can we grade fair without making it a time consuming mess? What is the simple solution? What grading systems promote learning?

Evolution Relationship

2008-08-28T22:12:00.008-05:00

I was watching some videos on TED, a site which I highly recommend. Lately I have been watching random videos when I feel bored. I came across a video on genetic tracing of humanities origins. (Spencer Wells - Building a family tree for humanity) It is a good watch. The thing that I really liked and would like to point out is this idea of our relation to other animals. Typically we just get compared to apes, we came from apes, yada yada. This idea gets some people upset. Instead if we take this a little deeper, the greater idea is that we are related to all the animals on the planet, not just the apes. To me this seems like a incredible viewpoint which is much more 'religious' and uplifting. I wish more people would mention it.

That is all, watch some more videos on TED, like these:

Jane Goodall on what seperates us from the apes.
Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen.
Murray Gell-Mann: Beauty and truth in physics
Joshua Klein: The amazing intelligence of crows

That should be enough to get you hooked.

Olympic Judgement

2008-08-24T11:29:00.004-05:00

I was talking to my Dad about the Olympics. He hasn't watched a lot of it but He started to complain about the sports which give judged scores, preferring the ones with definable quantitative measures. I thought this was interesting since I've complained about this as well. Are we genetically predisposed to complaining about gymnastics scoring? :)

I think it is pretty evident that the scoring system just does not work. This is evident in the spread of the scores given by the judges. If all the judges gave nearly the same score you may be more inclined to believe that the score they gave is what the athlete deserved. Instead, the Olympic judges, presumably the best judges around, cannot give consistent scores between themselves. Right here I would like to run through some numbers, calculating standard deviations of the group scores and compare that verses the variation between athletes. Unfortunately I don't remember enough of my statistics class to do a good job of that quickly. (If someone wants to give it a shot, I'd appreciate it, maybe I'll try later.) Though, I am confident that the variations between the judges is far beyond the differences which determine gold and silver and bronze.

The problem is, I really enjoy many of the judged events. It is amazing what these athletes do. I am in awe. How can we help to increase the confidence in the scores? I think this could be done. I started thinking about diving. A computer-camera system could be put into place which would estimate the angles of the body, determining rotation, separation of the legs, and ultimately it could put a quantitative measure the amount of water displaced. Similar systems could be used in gymnastics as well.

A system like this would not solve the problem outright, but it would give the judges more to work with. It also would give the audience some tangible scores that they could appreciate and understand. In the end the variation between the athletes would need to be accounted for. This would all come down to human judgment, but maybe with some engineers help we can reduce the error within the judges and insure that the athletes get the metals that they deserve.

Electricity vs. Gasoline

2008-08-20T17:12:00.004-05:00

I got fired up to write this article because of hippies. I think they are a frequent source of inspiration for us on this blog. In essence, I was reading a forum and as usual someone has to complain about people driving and that you should just move closer to work and bike. We'll that is great if you can do that, but it is obviously not a solution for everyone. (I am not going to get into the details here but... cost of living, city life, raising kids are good reasons.)

This example wasn't the entirety of my frustration. This kind of mindset is typical of the now more popular casual environmentalist claiming that individuals need to make drastic changes to their lifestyle (possible significantly detrimental ones) in the name of the environment. I think this kind of argument is bound to fail. Individuals will not change make significant changes easily, especially if they are going to inconvenience themselves. Instead, what should the environmentalist ask:

Can we create a global system which has the advantages of our current system without the pollution? How do we accomplish this? What technologies need to mature? What is the impact on the economy or the average joe's wallet? (it needs to be minimal, preferably create a system which makes money) How are we going to address growing energy demands?

If they maintained this attitude (an engineering approach to the problem - maybe they could actually get involved in the engineering and science themselves) they might make more significant changes. This is the point - the environmentalists agenda will not be fulfilled by making everyone feel guilty, instead it will happen if people can make money at it. This is only going to happen if technological advances allow it. Simple, science + money = solution, that is how you change the world.

Somewhere in the middle of this all I was researching carbon dioxide release from several energy sources. People have a tendency to blindly trust what they have been told. I asked myself, how much CO2 is created while driving a car vs. consuming electricity? Here are the numbers. A gallon of gasoline produces around 20 lbs of CO2. That may seem odd, since a gallon of gas only weighs about 6 lbs, but it is mostly carbon and it combines with oxygen from the atmosphere. O2 is much heavier than Carbon. Thus, heavier CO2.

On the other hand, a coal plant might produce around 2 lbs of CO2 per kWh. To put this in perspective lets say a home is using 11000 kWh/year. (An average value) This equates to around 22,000 lbs of Co2/year (if they ran off a coal plant) or maybe as low as 10,000 lbs of CO2. (if they have other combustion energy sources, natural gas, etc) This is equivalent to 500 to 1100 gallons of gasoline per year or 1.36 to 3.01 gallons per day. In a 30 mpg vehicle this equates to 40 to 90 miles of driving per day.

Thus, a 20-45 mile commute to work (everyday) in a vehicle with a reasonable gas mileage will produce about as much CO2 as a typical home.

I like numbers.

World Records

2008-08-12T12:46:00.004-05:00

Josh and I were chatting about the breaking of world records the other day. In specific, during the 4x100 mens freestyle relay 4 teams were past the previous world record. We thought it odd that after all these years a world record could be crushed like that. One would expect some humans would reach some sort of limit, at least limiting world record breaking. To satisfy my curiosity I just had to plot the data.

So there it is. The data shows some sort of limit being reached. This last world record has been a bit of a jump, but not significantly more than previous jumps. I actually love the first set of data, from around 1932 to 1954, that is the trend which one would expect.

It seems as if though individuals, or teams come along at times and make sudden changes. This last Olympics may be an example of that. Here is data from the 400 meter medley which Phelps won a few days ago.

Again we see some leveling off of the records. I noted two swimmers and their records just to show the influence of an individual. This shows you a bit of Phelps true skill. He was able to snap the limit of the records and make significant changes, improving year to year on his own records. Interesting.

The data:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_4x100_metres_freestyle_relay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_400_metres_medley

The Nature of the Olympic Games

2008-08-10T14:00:00.002-05:00

I'll begin by apologizing in my lack of contribution to the blog over the last month. Things have been hectic and I'm sorry to say this had to play second fiddle for awhile. I hope I haven't lost any of our few regular readers.

Recently I received a lot of grief for my excitement for the Olympic Games. To be completely honest, I was surprised and a little dismayed because of it. The summer games have been a very powerful generator of emotion for me since I was a little kid. I don't see why they wouldn't be significant for everyone.

Deep down do I care about swimming, track and field, weightlifting, etc.? No. If it was on TV on any usual Saturday afternoon I might watch it for a while. During that time I would appreciate it, but I don't follow those sports with the same zeal as I do with SEC football. That's not the point. The Olympic Games stand as a symbol of Humanity.

Consider this: when NASA sends deep space probes with the potential goal of contacting extraterrestrial life they use what we comprehend as universal symbols; namely numbers (prime numbers I think). That symbolizes intelligences. They also include symbols of Humanity. If an alien life came to earth and asked "what does it mean to be human?" we would recognize it as a pivotal point for all humans whatever nationality, color, or creed. Now consider the Olympic Games. There are other international competitions like the Olympics, but since their grandeur is less inspiring I will consider them as being less significant.

Because of its broad spectrum of sports, a large portion of the world is able to participate. The spirit of competition shines through in that international differences are ideally, if not always practically, set aside. There was a symbolism when Kerry Strug stuck the landing in '92 that defines the essence of being Human. It is that symbolism that Humans can be defined by perseverance against adversity. On a larger scale we see nations that are not strong players in the world community being forces to be reckoned with in Olympic competition. Kenya has their runners, Romania their gymnasts. Although ultimately insignificant in a capitalistic world market, these are symbols of perseverance and inspiration. They could be springboards for national pride, national identity, and ultimately international security. Perseverance over adversity is a reoccurring theme in many (all) cultures. Nations are forged by the fire of conflict, oppression, and inspiration. It has shaped the course of human history and is so universally shared that it should be considered a defining factor of what we are as a world society.

I also considered art, architecture, music, etc. as being symbolic of Humanity. After considering this for a moment, I realized that those things are a testament to Humanity, not a definition. These things are a product of something greater. The spirit of creating or the ability to inspire through creation or action is much more significant than the creation itself. These things are intrinsic to the spirit of the Olympics.

The very fact that Olympic champions are timeless and borderless shows potential for Humanity to survive. Take note to how many times you see a clip of Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10 performance on American TV during the games. She was not American and she put those marks up 7 years before I was born. However, she is a household name. A name I've known my whole life. She has nothing to do with stop the conflicts in Africa, or supplying aid for the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia. She has nothing do with ending the Cold War or reconciling the differences between feuding religions. Or maybe she has everything to do with it. Back to the original consideration. If it was my job to answer the question of "what does it mean to be human?" this is how I would respond. To be Human is to so much more than just a species.

And now a deep thought…

In the short time between the starting gun firing and the tape at the finish line breaking, there are no white men or black. No Christians, Muslims, or Hindus. No Americans or Russians or Iraqis. Perhaps it is only in that brief moment that we can simply be Human.

Things I Hate: Commercials

2008-07-06T19:36:00.005-05:00

I was thinking about this yesterday. Today I was privy to the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. I was thinking about the effectiveness of commercials in my consumer decisions. I decided that at least half the time the outcome of a commercial elicits the opposite as to their intended purpose. I don't pretend to be the only person who dislikes commercials, but I doubt people really think about it. What is their purpose? Fundamentally, it is to inform the consumer as to the availability of a product or service. The next step in advertising sophistication is to inform the consumer as to the benefit of said product or service by either positively presenting their product or service, or negatively presenting the competition. The later is the first crux. Finally, they must make the commercial memorable in a favorable way by being provocative when smearing the competition or "pop" or "edgy" when trying to promote their own positive characteristics. This is the second crux.

By smearing the competition as inferior we are ultimately deteriorating society by pushing the bounds of ethics. This is common and obvious in the realm of politics. Also, they fail to present a proper persuasive argument by all too often dwelling on a one sided bias. This sort of mentality slights fair trade and ethical competition by forcing the common consumer to make choices without complete knowledge of the product and its alternatives. Inevitably if no company takes the high road, then the consumer must choose between the least of all evils. Complete negative reinforcement will only create lower consumer moral.

The second, and most damnable characteristic of ad campaigns, is the exploitation of consumer through a blunt force trauma use of unsophisticated suggestions. Miracle cleaners and car salesmen are two good examples. A local car commercial was going to have some guy on a motorcycle jump 14 cars. So. I wondered if anybody would even show up to see it. They use an unnaturally annoying high pressure salesman with a fake persona and sales pitch poorly riding a wheelie on camera as he spouts out some crap about this motorcycle jump. What does that have to do with the product? It's simply annoying. It's exploiting people that are unsophisticated enough get excited about gimmicks. The miracle cleaner guy is the same way. He talks quickly and excitably in order to be memorable. His statements are reinforced by a questionable "right before your eyes" demonstration. Any moron should be appalled by the obvious use of rudimentary manipulation techniques.

Either way, these are primitive tactics, brutal like the prom night fumbling in the back seat of your father's car. A conscience stance against these exploitations will align with the spirit of capitalism and the best products will shine through. I will not dance to their tune. An online consumer rating system could effectively weed out the less worthy. Maybe Angie's List is making an attempt at that. I'm not sure if it handles consumer goods or not. If it doesn't then it should.

This paragraph is my acceptance as to the inevitability of commercials. Remember the old Gillette commercials? "Gillette, the best a man can get." They were sophisticated and affective because they employed attractive people in a "normal" yet modern setting. Consider them further. They always depicted a ruggedly handsome man shaving; hence, an attractive person in a normal situation. They were selling razors so they used sharp lines and harsh shadows to define edges. They also used deep, rich color schemes that appealed to the sophisticated side of the consumer. Is this manipulation of emotions? Definitely, but they appealed to complex, evolved emotions. They were void of flashy, trendy gimmicks.

I have to say, sex sells. Damn, I love the most recent Edge shave gel commercials with the hot girls shooting each other with shaving cream. I am a corporate pawn. But let's consider that further though. Sex is as primitive as it gets but sexuality is as sophisticated as it gets. Sexuality and sensuality are equally affective on men and women because sexual, mysterious people are desired and admired. Even purely sexual women such as in the Edge commercials bring positive reinforcement while remaining essentially neutral in a capitalistic way. They are pushing the envelope as to what is exploitation of consumers. I acknowledge that.

My last thought pertains to the "straw" I referred to in the first sentence. I was watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on ABC Family. After I started counting and before I lost my patience it was averaging 5-10 minutes of movie before airing 4-7 minutes of commercials. The total run time is 3.5 hours. The DVD runtime is 2.5 hours. If we adjust for the "edited to fit in the allotted runtime" clause, I'd bet we're talking about a 2 hour runtime without commercials. This is unreasonable. The same thing happened with Batman Begins on FX (I think). Just like poor commercials forcing away my business, I quit watching! Furthermore, it's likely I will not watch your station again because of it. I take things to the extreme, but ask yourself my dear reader…why don't you?

And now a deep thought…

The achievement of mankind cannot be measured by its tangible creations. It can only be assessed by marveling at the great expanse of knowledge learned through its generations.

Rule of 9

2008-07-03T17:04:00.005-05:00

Do you remember when you were in grade school and someone offered to show you this magic trick? It goes something like this – pick a number between 1 and 10, then add *something* to it, then subtract, then multiply …blah blah blah, then multiply by 9 and add the sum of the digits. The person would promptly shout out the number you ended up with. Wow! Hopefully you realized it wasn't magic and there was a mathematical trick to it.

It's actually quite a strange phenomenon that I've dubbed the "Rule of 9." Basically if you multiply any number 1-10 by 9, then add the two digits, the result is always 9. So all the adding and subtracting in the trick is pointless; only the last two steps where you multiply a single digit number by 9 and add the digits is fruitful. I think there is some mathematical principle here, but I really don't know it. I haven't researched the topic thoroughly mostly because I have no idea what the principle is called so I can search for it. I implore the reader to enlighten me if they know more about it than I do.

I messed around with this and created the following table.

It shows that there is significant structure beyond the single digit numbers. Notice that at 11 the sum of the digits is 18. At 21 and 22 the sum is 18, and so on. The pattern follows in that manner until all 10 numbers give 18 as the sum of the digits. Then it starts over with 27 being the number that shows up rather than 18. I'm sure I could express it in some mathematical fashion, but I've never been that good at this sort of random mathematics, and frankly I don't feel like trying at the moment. I suspect this pattern will continue forever and the digits of every number that appears always add to 9. I'm not sure what the significance of this is, if there is any. It's an interesting observation I decided to write about because it reinforces my feeling that these things are the way they are because universe is highly structured and the universe is highly structured because these things are the way they are. It follows the chicken or the egg conundrum. Some physicists have posed that we exist because the universe is the way it is, but the universe is the way it is because we exist. It's along those same lines.

And now a deep thought…

Hmm... What if the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (by measuring (observing) something we ultimately change it) has a limit? Could the structure in the universe have appeared because our influence has forced us beyond the transient state?

Blind Faith Part II

2008-06-23T09:00:00.005-05:00

If by some chance a person of religious zeal stumbles across our blog, this post is for you.

Last week I was in Knoxville, TN for a meeting. I was walking down the street toward a bar and grill to get dinner when I was stopped by two young gentlemen. I had my street map out so I was surprised when their purpose was not for directions but rather to initiate the "have you found Jesus" conversation. Typically I'm not so responsive to people testifying in the street, but I have to admit, these two young men were by far the best I've seen. They were not intrusive, but asked poignant and personal questions regarding my religious background, my ideals, and then commented on their perspective of religion. They were bright and used some of the same manipulative speech I use when I'm trying to be persuasive.

Eric will tell you that my knowledge of the Catholic faith (that's what I was raised as) is probably superficial. I know the things they teach in Sunday school and I have some insight into the foundation of the church from a political perspective including the reformation. I'm not a student of religious doctrine so my opinions must be taken at face value. But I know that and I know I can't strongly argue certain questions of "why" because of it.

I had no intention of contradicting their belief system even though it was bordering on the "Blind Faith" concept I hate so much. I see a benefit to having religious faith, and I've said that many times. The problem is they said (he said – one guy was talking more) something to the effect of "You admit that you've sinned, so what are you going to say to God when you're at your judgment?" I had illuminated them on my belief that my worth as a human is based on my positive contribution to humanity through scientific contribution, service, self awareness, and a general accepting and utilization of my talents to their fullest. He said "but that's not good enough. It is your faith alone that will grant you heaven (he was protestant)." He talked about atonement and forgiveness and all that stuff. I reminded him about confession, the last rights, and purgatory.

Perhaps it was because I was reading Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (the first meeting of Hannibal Lector) that I felt compelled to take the "quid pro quo" stance. I asked him a lot of questions about his personal life, his "sins," and his journey to our chance encounter on the streets of Knoxville. I don't think they were prepared for someone like me. I'd guess they were used to complete rejection and combativeness or complete acceptance. Certainly not a somewhat informed person taking a logical stance toward the persuasive strength of their argument rather than the argument itself. Toward the end of the conversation I stopped it completely and complimented them on their technique. I pointed out the strong and weak points in order to help them be more persuasive. I commented on my recent gift subscription to Creationist magazine and to their complete surprise, I said it was terrible. It was a funny reaction. Then I went to explain that the content was ok, but the lack of proper journalism in that they disregard their responsibility to purvey both opinions of time and point out the issues that support their perspective. They just go straight for the jugular without setting up a sound basis for the attack. I told them to stay away from that kind of argument in their evangelism. Most importantly I retorted to the above comment by saying "if we are all sinners, even after we accept Christianity as truth and have asked for forgiveness, then what separates you from me in the eyes of God? Is your contribution to the world enough to grant you pardon?" I'm sure people have asked that before. It was their specific argument's biggest weakness. He had no answer besides reiterating what he had already said about asking forgiveness. It was circular logic. Believe me I didn't want to trap him, but I was fishing for the answer I believe would help his argument the most. Drumroll please. "Faith." That's simply it. By saying we have to take it on faith he's closes the argument, and has left the decision up to the other person. Honestly, he had said it before, but not in the correct context. "Faith" is an unobtrusive word. It inspires personal interpretation for that "personal relationship with God" that I've heard so many times. He has to accept the fact that inevitably that's all he really has to go on. There is very little in the bible that can be proven explicitly, so inevitably one has to have faith in its truth. I think the quieter one got my point, I'm not sure about the other.

And now a deep thought…

Unless science can someday prove without a shadow of a doubt to every common man the exact origin of the universe and the life in it there will always be a fundamental difference in the faith of science and the faith of religion. But right now both take a certain level of blind faith.

Chaos in Prime Numbers

2008-06-08T12:31:00.008-05:00

About a year ago I sat in on a seminar by Dr. Boris Kupershmidt on the topic of prime numbers. I'm not a mathematician and therefore most of what he said went right over my head. He did say something, however, that caught my attention: "The distribution of prime numbers is chaotic." If I remember right he was referring to "small" prime numbers. Of course in number theory 10^16 is "small." I had previously taken a course in nonlinear systems and had studied chaos. Mathematical chaos has a very interesting and subtle structure; there is order in chaos. My post entitled A Mathematical Perspective of Global Warming talked about chaos in the weather. Anyway, I am enthralled with chaos to the point that I see strange attractors everywhere. Every time I see a flag blowing in the wind I see a strange attractor. My work in hydrodynamic instability deals with turbulence and turbulence is very closely related to chaos so I get a personal satisfaction of coupling my work with my perspective of nature. I digress. I decided to see for myself if by "chaotic" he meant chaotic in the mathematical sense or chaotic in the nonmathematical vernacular.

I read a book by James Gleick called Chaos: Making a New ScienceISBN 0-140-09250-1. In it he discussed a group from the University of California at Santa Cruz called the Dynamical Systems Collective. They devised an experiment to find attractors in water dripping from a faucet. They saw that in general, the water dripped at a steady rate. If the faucet was disturbed they could force the drips to fall in groups. In order to visualize the attractor they plotted the time between one drip verses the time for the next. The plots showed "blobs" centered around two points for pairs of drips, three points for 3 drips and so forth. I got the idea to plot prime numbers in the same way: the "distance" on a number line between one appearance of a prime and the next. Low and behold some very interesting patterns emerged!

The first plot shows the result for the first 100000 primes. Many points actually plot on top of each other. The more points you plot the more complete the graph becomes and the farther it extends in both the x and y directions. However, this is extremely slow since so many plot directly on top of each other.

My next idea was to take the second difference and plotting it against the first difference

I took the 3^rd difference and plotted it against the 2nd difference

Beyond that, the pattern wasn't much different and the shape of the envelope only changed slightly.

As far as predicting prime numbers, I can't really comment on these results other than they seem to give an envelope in which many primes clearly fall and inside the envelope comes organized patterns so that one would not (so) blindly test for primes. As far as theory goes, I'm not worthy enough to even try. The most recent developments in Riemann's Conjecture and computational experiments in prime numbers suggest that this is likely to have been an exercise in futility. That's why I figured it was safe to post this to a blog rather than somewhere in the mathematical community. Either way, if somebody does find this important, I would appreciate some credit!

And now a deep thought…

Is our definition of mathematics universal?

Poverty Fallacy

2008-06-07T16:47:00.003-05:00

These are excerpts from “Understanding Poverty in America”

“Each year, the U.S. Census Bureau counts the number of "poor" persons in the U.S. In 2005, the Bureau found 37 million "poor" Americans.”

“Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.”

“The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.”

“As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished… Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.”

“Eighty-nine percent of the poor report their families have "enough" food to eat, while only 2 percent say they "often" do not have enough to eat.”

“The typical American defined as "poor" by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs.”

Read the article for more details.

Book Review: Advice to Rocket Scientists

2008-06-06T23:13:00.008-05:00

Its been a little while since I read this book, but it is a damn good book, so I needed to say something about. Quite frankly the book is a must read for engineering students, especially those who want to get into academics. The book discusses how to get a job, how to deal with a boss, how to move up in industry, how to publish, how to manage students, how to negotiate a job offer and quite a bit more. To sum it up, it talks about all the stuff that no one ever talks about and it does it in a very simple straight forward way.

Just about everything is good about this book - except for one serious but forgivable flaw - THE TITLE. He states in the first chapter that a rocket scientist is anyone with an aerospace degree or someone that works at NASA, Boeing, etc. This is an absolute shame. This definition is fantastically wrong. A rocket scientist is simply someone who does scientific research on rockets. Simple. All those other aerospace engineers could be working on planes or God knows what, but not rockets, and they are certainly not rocket scientists. The advice in this book pertains to engineers and scientists as a whole - not just rocket scientists.

In my mind this error is a result of one of two possibilities. One, they picked a catchy title so that people would by the book. A very real possibility. Or two, the author (an astronautics - orbital sciences kinda guy) likes to think of himself as a rocket scientist. He is a mission designer. His work is intimately involved with rockets and depends on rockets. But alas, he is not a rocket scientist. He just works really near to them. His incorrect definition may be an attempt to include himself in the 'rocket scientist' crowd.

Before I get all crazy let me bring this article back down to earth and reveal the rocket scientists secret. What we do is hard, damn hard. Rockets are a difficult beast to handle. However, that is not to say that what we do is any harder than a lot of other noble fields. There are a lot of other really smart people out there who do amazing work. By bitching about this title I am not being a high horsed rocket scientist complaining that someone is trying to steal our thunder. Instead, it is simply that rocket science is a very small field with very few people and those of us who actually do rocket science should be acknowledged as rocket scientists, other aerospace engineers are clearly doing other work.

In summary, the book is fantastic, read it, but everywhere he writes 'rocket scientist' replace it with 'engineer' or 'scientist' or 'researcher.' That is who this book is for.

Robotic Nation

2008-06-04T18:23:00.003-05:00

There is an article by the creator the website 'How Stuff Works' named 'Robotic Nation.' It discusses the interesting implications of an increased use of robotics, mainly in the workplace. In summary the idea goes like this:

As time progresses more and more robots will be used. Skilled labor jobs, low wage jobs and assembly line jobs will be among the first to go. Specifically, one could imagine robots replacing the jobs of many low wage workers. As computer AI and user interface is improved it is likely that fast food restaurants and many other 'simple' jobs could easily be replaced.

The question then is: Are other jobs going to be created to replace the jobs lost to robots? The answer is likely no. It takes very few people to make and repair the robots compared to the jobs they will displace. And remember, robots will be building the robots.

What do these people do then? That is the interesting part. Will this cause a large lower class? Those who are unable to do more complicated technical tasks are not going to have anything to fall back on.

Brain Marshall proposes a welfare system of sorts. That everyone will get some kind of grant ($25,000 in fact) to supplement their living. His concern is that with money flowing into the corporations via the consumer, with little money leaving to the general population via salaries, the economy would be starved for money to be spent on products and we would become less efficient. (Where does this money come from - More Taxes - Ick.)

Now, I would suggest that you read the articles yourself and form your own opinion. It is an interesting thing to think about. My personal thought is that a welfare ideology is crap. That it is bound to fail. We need to teach people to be self reliant. Instead, allow a free market to determine its fate. It is likely it will pick what is best for itself (which typically means that it is better for the economy as well.) If you can't get a job as a minimum wage slacker, well then, tough. I would imagine that forcing society to be highly educated is probably going to do more good than bad. In lieu of this 'impending disaster' which only places more reliance on education, we could use our money to, ah... educate ourselves and our children.

If the future is going to demand education, then so be it.

The Case for Space

2008-05-26T14:54:00.004-05:00

Eric and I were invited by the Citizens for Space Exploration to address members of Congress about the benefits of continued funding for NASA and NASA's endeavors (endeavors = projects…not more shuttlesJ). The CSE is a citizens group supporting the U.S.'s continuing support for space exploration. Once a year they invite students and community leaders to have closed room discussions lobbying for a 1% NASA budget. Most of the time we actually met with the technical advisor, not the congressmen. Apparently the technical advisor actually required to have a degree in a non-technical field like basket weaving. That was rude and I'm sorry, but I think most of the people I talked to would agree that it would be beneficial to have a technical person in the technical position. Oh well, they were all pleasant people and seemed quite responsive to the topic. Really I think the number one criterion for those jobs is to be personable enough to pacify an angry or aggressive lobbyist.

The organization of the trip was OK, but not great. I asked if we should have a game plan or a unified theme for each group of five that traveled together. The organizers basically said "wing it." I thought that was crap. These people are busy people trying to balance the problems of millions of constituents. If I know one thing, someone like that will want to hear a coordinated and well thought out summary of the purpose, benefit, and request/solution. But whatever, I did my best to convey a theme at our orientation and everyone seemed to be agreeable with it so we went with it.

I commented on the fact that my American education, and specifically my Indiana education, left be behind the international students when I entered graduate school. I spent about a year where I felt like I was playing catch up. Since we were meeting primarily with Indiana delegates and Indiana doesn't have a center for NASA like Ohio, Florida, Texas,… I guessed that education would be an easy sell. It turned out I was right on the money. My argument illustrated the momentum that President Kennedy built when we went to the moon and how there was a surge in engineers afterward because they were inspired. We haven't had that since and even now with the initiative to go to the moon and Mars we don't have it because there hasn't been the effort to inform and inspire the masses. If we make it to Mars and it is highly publicized, the kids would be self-motivated to be engineers and scientists. From that point I emphasized two things. The first being that if we can't get that public appeal for Mars now, once we get there we probably won't get farther for hundreds of years, and therefore we risk losing the ability for scientific inspiration as a form of motivation. The secondary point is that U.S. educational legislation lives (and will die) with the "no child left behind" idealism. By forcing the brightest students to be slowed down by the lesser we will create a situation where each generation of teachers possesses less knowledge than the previous. Therefore it becomes the responsibility of the child to motivate themselves. Again, without a goal the ability and the self awareness required for self motivation becomes diminished. Countries we consider "third-world" are investing in space exploration and launch capabilities. They are showing serious progress and competition and will eventually overtake us if we do not act.

One staff member we spoke with was military so I mentioned that the first "Space Lawyer" just graduated from a U.S. school. It will become a matter of international interest once other countries establish a significant presence on the moon and in space in general. Lunar resources, especially if water and power become scarce on earth, are an obvious area for international incident. Right now it's kind of like the old west - lawless. But unlike the old west, it's not guaranteed to be the property of the United States. Ideally space would be a unifying point for all the world's nations, but it is not human nature to play well with others. "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum - Arthur C. Clarke." I think he knows better.

There are many more arguments in favor of space exploration. In the spirit of brevity I've only given the stripped down version of my group's focus. I feel those arguments are viable and pertinent and I should hope the U.S. government has the foresight to push for space now instead of scrambling to keep up later.

And now a deep thought…

"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars."

1978 - from Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Blind Faith

2008-05-10T17:24:00.003-05:00

Somehow I got into a discussion a while back with my physical therapist about the cold or flu that was "going around." I don't remember the details exactly, but I'm going to say that she wondered why there wasn't a cure or vaccine for the common cold. I replied along the lines of "the cold virus evolves frequently to counteract the medication and therefore it's difficult to design a drug or vaccine for." She replied "I don't believe in that." I didn't get it immediately. You don't believe in what? If it had been "I don't believe it," then there is no question. She doesn't believe the virus has the ability to adapt. Ok. I guess. Suspecting that wasn't what she meant, I asked "You don't believe in what, evolution?" She replied "No." End of conversation. Apparently evolution is a touchy topic for her for religious reasons.

Religion is a central point in the lives of billions worldwide. Most major religions are devoted to the teachings, if not a direct following of an omnipotent or exceptionally enlightened individual. We follow without truly, unarguable manifested proof. That is faith. Religious doctrine forms the basis for many laws. It lays a foundation for moral life, regardless of religion. I feel organized religion has many benefits for humanity. Unfortunately, truly blind faith harbors ignorance in certain circumstances. Evolution is a terrible topic for Christians (and probably many other religions). The notion that God didn't "just say go" and presto, the universe as we know it, is uncomfortable for those with blind faith. Even harder is the possibility that modern life was founded on the building blocks of the more primitive.

Science has shown glaring evidence that evolution is real, that it still exists, and that it will continue after the time of humans comes to an end. Who are we to state as fact that God's methods don't include evolution? 7 days in the bible could be a metaphor for 7 billion years. It seems reasonable since science shows records predating the timeframe of the bible as calculated with standard time references. For you literalists out there, let me ask you: "What is a day?" A day is based on the time it takes Earth to rotate on its axis. Earth! A day is subjective as to what planet you're on. In an infinite universe, the probability of life in some form on another planet is 100%. Therefore, our "day" is completely meaningless beyond our own planet. Maybe God created the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea from the primordial goo, as according to His plan. And maybe when Genesis was transcribed by Moses some of the facts became inspirational metaphor. After all, God the omnipotent is a bit more inspirational and poetic than God the chemist or God the physicist. Who knows? Does it really matter since a literal believer and a metaphorical believer follow the same moral code? If every word of the bible is absolutely true, then Alabama's math curriculum would have certainly been enlightened (see http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.asp for the joke and http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html for a nonreligious laugh at ignorance followed by a reply that is a perfect example that blind faith begets ignorance).

After all, I'm not arguing God's existence, His influence, or the importance of religion in general. I'm not really even talking about evolution in the sense that it becomes controversial in schools. I'm talking about the ability for a life form to foster selective mutation as a mechanism to adapt. It is basic science. It is not controversial. It is verifiable and repeatable over a very short time. There should be no opposing religious stance. So many of the differences in humans, too often described as beautiful, are a good example of adaptation on a genetic level. We are all "unique snowflakes" but snowflakes with a purpose. Dark skin comes from sun exposure. Thick hair is beneficial in cold climates. Baldness is actually considered as a modern example of evolution because the need to stop heat loss through the top of your head is lessened with the comfort of sophisticated shelter and clothing. We must take an objective stance when observing our existence. We must weigh the proven facts and the non-secular interpretations and find a balance that puts perspective in both worlds.

It is a responsibility of all humans to make decisions, both moral and common, on logic and reason. Rational and informed thinking is the only way to understand fundamental perspectives. So often, religious zealots put their fingers in their ears when a scientific finding (not to mention a religious difference) contradicts their one-dimensional perception of the world. They are hindering human social and intellectual progress. It is their fault because it is their choice.

And now a deep thought…

Extreme ignorance and extreme knowledge of the world and the universe are the only two places that can truly sustain blind faith.

The Cost of...

2008-05-01T14:56:00.000-05:00

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
-Ben Franklin

I began writing this as a discussion of military spending vs. space exploration costs. I would have liked that to be a central theme, but my anger grew as I gathered more and more numbers until I decided to instead basically list a few interesting numbers to give a perspective on spending.

The general misconception is that NASA gets a bunch of money. It is then sometimes attacked as a waste. "We can spend that money on feeding the poor... etc," they exclaim. One thing I have personally come to dislike is military spending. Now, I enjoy the fact that our country has a large military, the largest. We account for close to half of the entire worlds military spending. What I think is that it is too large. Lets look at some numbers.

Now, to date, the Iraq war has cost approximately $515.75 billion. That is around 341 million dollars a day. The 2008 budget for NASA was $17.318 billion, or about 50 Iraq days (ID's). The highly successful Mars rovers cost around $820 million, 3 ID's. The Cassini Probe, another fantastic adventure, cost $3.26 billion, 10 ID's. The entire budget of NASA to date, adjusted for inflation totals to $618.412 billion. The cost of a meaningless war equals sending man into space, landing on the moon, building all the shuttles, a space station, sending countless probes and satellites and robots into space, and all the other stuff NASA does, all of which have added immensely to our base of knowledge.

I guess it just makes me a little sick.

Other numbers:
Yearly cost of nuclear weapons: $15.1 billion
Money spent on gambling in US, 2005: $84.65 billion
2008 Social Security: $608 billion
Money spent on pets in the US a year: around $40 billion
Nation Science Foundation 2008 budget: $5.9 billion

We need our priorities, but math and science and technology are taking a back seat to many other programs. Which of these programs are going to help our nation in the end? Which are going to keep us competitive in the global market? Which will inspire new technology and innovation, thus leading to a strong economy and more jobs and better education? I think it is easy to see.

Good Links: *(other data was collected easily using the Force =>Google)
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
Death and Taxes Poster

Come on Linux, seriously?

2008-04-26T20:36:00.005-05:00

I'm at a point in my career where I'm starting to publish papers with my advisor and potentially with authors I've never met face to face. I see this as the stepping stone to my future as an independent researcher. To promote simplicity in my career I want to build a foundation for consistency in my work, but in the spirit of collaboration I must be versed in the applications others prefer. By this, I'm referring to the platforms used to produce work (windows, linux, office, latex, matlab, c++,…).

Linux and Latex are two pieces of the platform puzzle I want to love, but simply cannot. The idea of open source goes right along with my thoughts on free information for all so I was eager to try these out. The newest Ubuntu distribution came out last week and I immediately got it, installed it, and was abhorred by it! I've read numerous articles on Digg and Slashdot about how Linux is making a serious run at the mainstream operating system race. This distribution is supposed to be as close as any to being a user friendly, efficient, and stable competitor to Windows and Mac. Needless to say I hate the fact that I am Microsoft dependent. Between Windows, Office, and all the other scientific software that is developed to run with them, I would be hard pressed to adopt another platform. Never the less, with all the options in Linux and the open source community, not to mention Vmware and Wine for my cannot-live-without Windows programs, I thought I could find a way.

I'd read an article that suggested Matlab run on Linux could run 25% faster than on Windows for a particular eigensolver code. My PhD will include a massive code for computing eigenvalues – one that I dread writing because debugging an eigensolver that could run for days can only be described as masochistic. My school has copies of Matlab and Mathematica for Linux so I was all set. I was going to get Ubuntu up and running, install Matlab and Mathematica and given those worked fine, get a hold of Vmware to continue my work in Word and Mathtype inside Linux. I installed Ubuntu. Beautiful! They really have the install process streamlined. Wubi comes with it so you can install a simulated dual boot. The partition manager makes it easy to set up a real dual boot. Beautiful! So now we're up and running. It starts much faster than Vista. Everything works right out of the gate. No updates, no drivers…it just works. Now it was time to install some programs. The synaptic manager and the general add/remove functionality is fantastic! I found the programs I wanted, checked the box, and boom, done! Beautiful! Then it was time to install Matlab and Mathematica. Mathematica first. I had .iso of both so I copied them from a SSH server set up in Vista. Easy as pie! It was apparent that Linux's network functionality both local and through SSH were far superior to windows by way of speed and ease of access. I need to mount the iso. I had used the add/remove programs manager to download gmount. I got it figured out fairly easily. Then I stared blankly at the desktop for a bit hoping, but not expecting something to happen. I had a little experience with Ubuntu before so I knew it hadn't had autorun functionality. That was one thing I saw as a logical advancement for this version of Ubuntu and was disappointed when it wasn't there. Another nice addition would be "automount" when an .iso is on the desktop or a disk is in the drive. Anyway, so how in the hell do you install this thing? I read for awhile trying to figure out the commands in the "user friendly" Ubuntu forums. The problem there is that MOST of the help is written to explain these things to Linux literate people. If I was that good I sure as hell wouldn't be looking in a forum for help on copying a file! It really comes across as snobbish. I imagine a socially deficient character sitting at a computer scoffing at the ignorance of the posters and purposefully leaving steps out! If we met face to face I bet you wouldn't be so f*#king smug! Mmm, serenity now! Anyway, not much help there, so I used the Force (Google) and sort of figured it out. In the terminal I had to point to the desktop by typing commands manually. FYI capitalization counts! From there I had to open the mount folder because I never found the command to explore the iso/cd. Then I had to point to the installer folder. Then I typed "install" and bingo! NOTHING HAPPENED! I tried /install, nothing. I tried the entire path, NOTHING! Finally somewhere on some website I saw a command "./install". I thought it was a typo where the period ended the last sentence and "/install" was the command starting the next sentence. It worked. Basically I got lucky.

Everything looks good until the install comes back with an error: "couldn't validate something." Back to the Force. I only got a working answer when I again got lucky and copied the correct combination of words into Google. It said I needed libraries installed. Sudo apt-get install <some obscure combination of abbreviated words>. That got it working fine. The rest was easy. Not too bad. Probably 2 hours from format to a working Mathematica. In Vista, it would have been slower to install the OS but faster (and easier) for Mathematica.

Now it's time for Matlab. This one had so many errors I didn't understand it was ridiculous! Instead of the Windows system; basically double click the install.exe and blindly click next until its finished, I had to make a directory. First problem, what are the commands and where do I put it. There is no intuitive name for the equivalent of "Program Files." A little searching and I figure out where and how to make my directory and get the licensing set up. From that point it was a downward spiral of fighting permissions, setting the target, and actually installing the program. I finally got it installed, but in my previous attempts I messed up the install and the workbench was incorrectly displayed. Of course I have no idea how to uninstall it in Linux so I formatted the whole thing and started over!

Round two was easier and everything was up and running. Time to test. I ran 10,000 points to generate a Poincare map for Duffing's equation…and waited…and waited…and waited! 36 seconds. I've got an identical machine on a kvm running Vista and the same version of Matlab so I switched over and ran it there. 26 seconds! Unbelievable! That translates to hours of wasted time waiting for a code to finish over the course of days or weeks. All this time spent and Vista still ran faster! Total time 8:30am-7:30pm – 1 hour for lunch. Total results=0. The next day I went back to Vista.

I'll make a brief comment on LaTex as well. I took a short course to see if it is better. I learned quickly that my method of derivation and writing cannot be done without a truetype environment. I messed around with LYX which is a graphical interface for LaTex and if I had to, I could use it. Beside the nongraphical interface, the commands are unintuitive. There is no point in me learning a whole new typesetting language (because that's what it is, a programming language) when I have nearly got all the bugs worked out of a much more powerful Microsoft Word.

Apt-get is an incredible tool IF you know the exact syntax of the program you want to install. The Synaptic program manager is an incredible tool IF the program you want is listed and clearly defined. Both are only worthwhile IF the program is hosted on their database. No automount, no installers, no computational speed, no customer! My hopes of becoming Microsoft free were dashed out for another 6 months.

This article is more oriented toward the problems a normal user might face.

http://contentconsumer.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/is-ubuntu-useable-enough-for-my-girlfriend/

And now a deep thought,

-I'm sure all the Linux Fanboys will have fun with their 700mb web browser.

P.S. Firefox 3 beta! Come on. There's not enough plug-in support yet!

Running in the Rain: The Math

2008-04-19T18:28:00.008-05:00

I always wanted to knuckle through this problem. So riding back from Florida I worked through the beginnings of it. Presented here is a preliminary mathematical analysis of whether it is better to walk or run in the rain.

It may seem natural that you would want to run in the rain and get through it as fast as you can, but the argument against it is that as you run the rain hits your forward facing area (vs. just hitting you on your upward facing area) thus making more area for the rain to hit. That way you get wetter. We will see how this idea pans out mathematically.

There are multiple ways to tackle this problem. I first started out with a continuum/flux analysis, but I found that since the raindrops are rather discreet points that it didn't make much intuitive sense to deal with them in this manner. Instead I looked at the problem in a different way.

In the end we are concerned with how many raindrops hit our body as we traveled from point A to point B. This would somehow correlate (not necessarily linearly) with how wet we got. We begin by looking at a field of raindrops. Shown above is a simple diagram of a snapshot in time of a field of raindrops. I am making the assumption for this initial study that they are falling straight down. What we need to find out is which of these raindrops we will intersect with. As we travel forward in space and time the raindrops will fall, the slope of the red line reflects upon this fact. As we travel forward, raindrops which once were higher will fall into our path where they will hit us. The slope of the red line is given by:

We can see the effect of this slope by looking at two situations: one if we travel really fast and another if we travel really slowly.

If we travel really fast so that V_person>> V_rain we would essentially just chop out a section of raindrops. This area (D*h) times the # of raindrops per area (rho_rain times your width) yields the total number of raindrops struck.

If instead we walk very very slowly we would expect that the area created by the arrows to be very large and as V_person -> 0, we should be hit by an infinite amount of rain (at that point you are just standing in the rain.)

After we run the calculations for all situations we end up with:

Where D is the distance traveled, rho_rain is the density of rain times your shoulder to shoulder width, w is your depth, front to back and h is your height. A simple equation, we can see that as V_me -> infinity then Rain Hit = rho_rain*D*h. Also, if V_me -> 0 then Rain Hit -> infinity, just as we predicted.

The real interesting part is seen when the rain is falling straight down. As mentioned before, one would presume that when you run the rain comes at you at a larger angle and therefore you get struck by more rain, however the math shows that no matter what speed you travel the same number of rain drops will strike your forward facing surface. Fascinating.

To add complication, we are also interested when there are cross winds. Thus the rain isn't falling straight down.

The same idea follows, solve for the slopes and figure out the area of rain drops cut out. I'll spare you the math (I'll add a .pdf with all the details later.) In the end we get,

And there we have it. We look at the limits, as V_me -> inf, then Rain Hit = rho_rain*D*h, like before. If V_{rain_across}=0, we get the same equation as before, which is correct. Also, if V_{rain_across}=V_me then we only get rain on our head, also correct. And what is the net conclusion from this equation… it is always better to run faster through the rain, no matter what. Below is a contour plot showing variations in your number of rain particles hit (red=lots of rain, blue = little rain) vs. horizontal rain velocity and human velocity. For reference walking speed is around 2-4 mph, and downward rain speed varies from 7-18 mph (I used 12 mph for this example.) You can see a minimum line when your speed equals that of the rain, this is when you are running with the rain. Also, for any given rain speed, running faster always results in less rain hit. The only exception may be if you are running with the rain and start to run faster than it, you could get slightly wetter, but not significantly.

In Conclusion I want to discuss some of the limitations of this study and address them. Firstly, this assumes you are a rectangle. Admittedly, for the majority of America this may not be true, but for an average person we are not too different from one. Also, the assumption that rain hit = wetness is not necessarily true, if a lot of rain is hitting on top of your head much of it may run off. Also, the relative velocity of the rain hitting you may dictate how well it penetrates your clothing (which is also a significant variable.) So keep in mind this is a limited study, but as all physics goes, starting with a simple model usually gives you significant insight into the problem and although it may not be perfect we still can learn something from it.

Standing on Squares

2008-04-17T22:06:00.003-05:00

A few weeks back I and several friends were at the Kennedy Space Center. They have this shuttle simulator deal where they sit you in a "shuttle" and then they use some interesting tricks to simulate acceleration, rocket vibration, and other such things. It was a terrific experience and I recommend everyone try it. Before we entered the shuttle we had to wait in a hall until the group ahead of us had gone through the video briefing. The briefing was also very well done. It was a little strange though. They had big plasma monitors mounted to robotic arms that moved around while the presentation went on. I'm not sure how or why, but it added to the excitement. Other effects were there for realism. Anyway, go see it for yourself. That's not what this post is about.

Here's the scenario: we're standing in the hallway waiting to go into the briefing room. The door opens and the first people start to walk in. It's an interesting room in the first place, as I've described, but the most interesting thing was a series of squares on the floor. They were clearly outlined square frames that were flush with the floor, about shoulder's width, and carefully organized in columns and rows. The first people immediately found a square to stand in. Of course the squares in the back filled up immediately. As more people came in, it became apparent that there were not enough squares for everyone and people began to hurry a little to ensure they could get a square. Mind you, nobody had mentioned the squares before we walked in.

I was in the middle of the group when I walked in. Immediately I saw everyone standing in their squares in perfect rows facing the monitors. My first reaction was "welcome to 1984, we must conform because Big Brother is watching!" I was pretty sure that the squares didn't mean anything and when I walked in there was still probably enough squares to go around. So I stood there in the middle gabbing away. Then I noticed that more and more people were coming in and there wasn't going to be enough squares for everyone. Then I thought maybe I missed something and we are supposed to stand on the squares. Maybe the number of squares equaled the number of people that can go on the simulator. How the hell was I supposed to know! Damn it! I knew better, but I hurried over to a square. Of course, I was right all along and they didn't matter one bit! Before the video briefing started every square had someone standing in it and a bunch of people without squares standing in the back. Just out of spite I stood to the right of my square, but it was futile. I'd already succumb to their treachery!

I see huge implementation in the little social experiment. If humans can be tricked to conform so easily, what other methods could be used to produce that sort of unforced group behavior? Hell, Pavlov had a harder time with his dogs than NASA did with us humans! If I ever get the opportunity to design a room where this could be appropriate, I'm definitely going to. I should mention that immediately before entering the simulator there were lines on the floor with dots on them. Everybody stood on those too. It was pretty obvious that those pertained to the number of seats in the simulator so I can't really compare the two situations. I don't think that dots would work so well though. The square frames on the floor were the perfect size for a human to stand in. The dots were much too small. I'd also think that the square shape would be more likely to cause that reaction. Maybe it is something about the straight lines running parallel and perpendicular to the monitors. I'm not sure. All I know is I felt used…

And now a deep thought…

If we can broadcast crystal clear FM radio, radio transmissions from the moon, and cell phones that work anywhere in the world, why the hell does our campus weather alert PA system sound like shit?

The Theory of Barwanism

2008-04-13T23:40:00.003-05:00

This is a simple thought, but it has profound implications. This simple theory was originally developed while I was living in Germany. They approach tipping in a different manner than in the US. The waiters in a restaurant or bar get paid a higher wage and therefore do not expect tips. Also, when someone would tip it would generally be much lower than in the US. As far as the wait staff is concerned they are getting paid pretty much the same, but for the costumer this system has deep implications. By limiting or removing the feedback process of tipping you eliminate a natural forcing towards better service. Much like natural evolution this causes a system which does not support the ‘most fit’ and thereby you get your beer much slower. I am going to refer to this as the theory of Barwanism.

This theory also applies to our home front as well. There is a trend which threatens to destroy the very foundations of our fast service. This is the guaranteed 15% tipping. By doing this everything works out the same as if the waiters or waitresses are getting no tip at all – if it is expected it does not promote better service. So what can we do as normal bar goers to see that we lead a happy, well served life? There are a few things.

One, don’t be afraid to vary your tipping based on the level of service. Going from 5-20% can be a good thing. Don’t use this as an excuse to be cheap, these people work hard and typically deserve their tips. We just need to use our funds appropriately. Secondly, giving positive feedback during the meal or drinks can help reinforce good behavior. Though, remember to be civil in your actions. I would not recommend giving much negative feedback to a poor server; we don’t need a bunch of self-righteous assholes running around. That is a terrible buzz kill. Third, for those of us guys who appreciate attractive waitresses, tip the more attractive ones higher. We are already gawking at them, now we need to understand that applying the same natural selection to hot waitresses is beneficial to us, especially in the long run. As long as hot women know that they can make good tips they will become waitresses. But keep in mind that a healthy balance must be achieved. Poor service still must be accounted for; otherwise the entire system will collapse. And four, please don’t over tip. This is creepy. She is not going to hook up with you because you tip well. Also, by over tipping the hot waitresses you could be inadvertently creating terrible waitresses. Ideally we want attractive fast servers.

So there you have it, vary your tips based on the ideals which you hold. It is the fundamental law of Barwanism (actually, it is just capitalism, but barwanism is more fun) and by understanding this we can make a real impact. Now go forth and change the world, one percentage at a time.

Movies I Hate: Run Lola Run

2008-04-11T00:36:00.009-05:00

I love to watch films. I also like most of the movies I watch. I guess I just hate to hate a movie, but every now and then a movie comes along that I just despise. I recently watched a terrible movie and it reminded me of the other movies I hate. So in honor of that horrible film which brought up old memories, I hate Run Lola Run.

It is a German movie. (German title: Lola Rennt.) A friend of mine recommended it to me. That gave me the hope that it would at least be decent. Unfortunately things turned out otherwise. The movie is based on the premise of chaos: that a small initial change can lead to an unpredictably large one. This is a cool thought and fantastic to play with mathematically, but in a film it is a disaster (please note other awful movies such as Butterfly Effect.) The problem is that by showing a specific series of events (as you would in a movie) you defeat the entire premise of chaos and undermine the whole meaning of the idea. The only way it could work (for me) is if they could show every possible outcome. This is probably impossible, and if it is possible it probably would still be terrible.

Run Lola Run achieves its status as one of the few films I have turned off before finishing it by attempting to be deep and philosophic with its treatment of chaos. Instead it bitch slaps it (and the viewer) and gives us three outcomes from the slightly changed initial settings, three outcomes which are completely arbitrary and tell us nothing other than the fact that the best way to write a movie about chaos is to pull random shit out of your ass. Essentially the movie boils down to a ballad of ‘deus ex machina’ which is Latin for ‘God out of a machine.’ That’s the film term for when something magically happens to resolve a situation or move the plot along. It is lame. Anyone can write a script like that. (Notably, the best treatment of deus ex machina is in the movie Dodgeball. After losing, Vince Vaughn’s character suddenly reveals that he bet a ton of money on the other team. As their winnings are rolled out you can see ‘deus ex machina’ written in small letters on the container holding the dough.)

Back to being angry… So please, don’t write crappy scripts and pass them off as something smart. Honestly, for me, the worst part of the movie is seeing how many people really like it. It really makes me sad, sad for this world. Seriously, it is rated 8/10 on IMDB with 60,000 votes. I am about to tear up. Now go and do yourself and film and your soul a favor and don’t watch this movie.

Book Review: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman

2008-04-09T18:59:00.002-05:00

This is going to be brief simply because this book is a collection of true stories illustrating the adventures of our favorite scientist/playboy, Richard Feynman.

I'm not even sure how to begin. I guess I will start by saying if you don't know who Richard Feynman is; it would behoove you to find out. He's an American physicist who has led an extraordinary life. He worked on the nuclear bomb, he won the Nobel Prize, he picked some very interesting locks, and is an artist. His travels have taken him from small town New York, to neighboring Cornell, to Brazil and Japan, and finally to CalTech. This book collects his adventures, social comments, and scientific achievements.

I knew some of the interesting things about Feynman beforehand. I had listened to the "Feynman tapes" which I think much of the book was transcribed from. I knew he was an ornery character, but that's not the half of it.

My one criticism is his "active effort toward social irresponsibility." I preach and preach social responsibility so of course I have a hard time when people do things that provide no social benefit for any sound reason. His active pursuit of social irresponsibility gave me a "what the hell" type feeling maybe 2 or 3 times. It seems to me his reoccurring theme was not to be socially irresponsible, but to sarcastically comment through his actions on the fundamental flaws inherent to common social practices and the egocentricism of lesser minded people. However, most of the good stories did come from some sort of action that would typically be unbecoming of a professor, or at least unusual. Clearly, it is those actions that are the reason he is so openly loved among the scientific community. Actions like doing physics research at a topless bar 6 days a week. Or by refusing to sign his name more than 13 times when asked to give a speech. Or by learning to play the drums in Brazil which ultimately led him, an established physicist, to play drums in a ballet years later under the presumption that he was a musician! We should all be so lucky to live with such zeal, enthusiasm, and wonder without repercussion or the need social appeasement. As a scientist I realize that it sometimes seems difficult to break the cycle of all work no play in order to enrich our life with art, or music, or the many other benefits of society. Feynman was exceptionally gifted at that.

Since it's hard to review incoherent collection of stories really can't say too much more about it. The book is great. The man is greater. He is a person we could all aspire to be socially, culturally, and academically!

And now, a deep thought…

Great minds are so awe inspiring; we sometimes perceive them as more than mere humans. It is comforting to know he likes naked women as much as I do!

A Mathematical Perspective of Global Warming

2008-03-29T13:24:00.007-05:00

Global warming and the environmental impact of humans is a hot topic in the news as well as in the scientific community. People, myself included, observe localized climate change. These localized observations are often projected into a global observation by those less informed or those prone to paranoia. To say "the climate is changing" is an asinine statement even to someone who doesn't have the mathematical perspective. Yes, the climate is changing. It has been changing since Earth was a fledgling planet. It will continue to change long after humankind has killed itself off.

When a normal human measures time in seconds, minutes, hours, and so forth, geologists (and I think physicist use the same term when talking about the age of the universe) use the idea of "deep time." Deep time doesn't bother with minutes or seconds or even years. This perspective considers time in chunks of millions of years. In doing so, all resolution on the relative small scale is lost. For perspective John McPhee describes deep time in the following way [1]

"Consider the earth's history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the King's nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history."

In the 4 or 5 billion years the earth has been around, humankind has made its lasting mark only in the last 10,000 years or so, barely enough to talk about when considering deep time. Over the course of Earth's history, dramatic climate change has been caused by the motion of the continents, the instantaneous (remember "instantaneous" in deep time has a completely different meaning) atmospheric conditions, oceanic currents, and the Milankovitch cycles. Some of these effects are byproducts of others that additively support climate change, some are strong enough on their own, and some are independent but must be supported by another factor in order to produce a drastic effect.

Now that I have tried to give perspective on deep time, I will take a step back. I am not sure if the Milankovitch cycles are considered deep time. This term refers to the eccentricity (elliptical nature of Earth's orbit), axial tilt (the angle of the axis of rotation measured from the perpendicular to the plane of orbit), and precession (the wobble of Earth on its axis; like a top about to fall over) of Earth as it travels around the sun. "The Earth's axis completes one full cycle of precession approximately every 26,000 years. At the same time, the elliptical orbit rotates, more slowly, leading to a 21,000-year cycle between the seasons and the orbit. In addition, the angle between Earth's rotational axis and the normal to the plane of its orbit moves from 21.5 degrees to 24.5 degrees and back again on a 41,000-year cycle. Currently, this angle is 23.44 degrees and is decreasing [2]." Individually, these effects may not have enough strength to cause drastic climate change, but their periodic additive nature is attuned to the 100,000-year ice age cycles. Even if the individual parts of the Milankovitch cycles don't create ice ages, they certainly will cause global climate change. Whether it is a general time shift of the seasons, or regional change in climate, the effects are certainly present.

Now you may say "this is all very interesting, but so far there is no math." Don't worry my friend, the math is about to begin! The term "chaos" has become an everyday word to describe something's random or unpredictable nature. It is a horrible misnomer that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me when I hear it used improperly. Dr. Malcolm from the Jurassic park movie sparked a public interest in chaos by using it as a tool to warn Mr. Hammond of the dangers of creating dinosaurs. He did NOTHING to help expand the general knowledge of chaos. He wasn't entirely wrong, but his perspective on chaos being completely random certainly is. Mathematically, in the nice little world we wish we lived in chaos does look random. However, if we look a little closer we see great structure and organization in chaos.

In 1963 a mathematician and meteorologist from MIT name Edward Lorenz inadvertently stumbled across true mathematical chaos. He was not the first, maybe Poincare was, but his discovery did give chaos theory its roots. The story goes Dr. Lorenz was working on a 3D model for convective roll in the atmosphere as a step toward weather prediction. The equations are a set of coupled nonlinear ODEs given as

I don't exactly know what the greek constants represent. "All σ, ρ, β > 0, but usually σ = 10, β = 8/3 and ρ is varied. The system exhibits chaotic behavior for ρ = 28 but displays knotted periodic orbits for other values of ρ. For example, with ρ = 99.96 it becomes a T(3,2) torus knot [3]." Anyway, he's solving these numerically on the old style vacuum tube computers. These vacuum tubes often broke mid-simulation and the customary way of proceeding was to replace the tube and back up in the calculations, restarting the simulation using the values at the new starting spot as the initial conditions. The solutions are mesh together at the end. He did this, and noticed that initially everything was fine. The code reproduced the same numbers it had before even though he had to restart the simulation in the middle of the interval. After a short while he watched a very small error form in the smallest decimals place. This error grew until the original numbers were nothing like the new ones calculated. This was chaos. This type of chaos occurs in nonlinear systems when small differences in initial conditions propagate into major differences in the final solution. This is referred to as the "butterfly effect." A butterfly flaps it's wings in South America and the motion of the air causes a typhoon in Indonesia. In his case, the machine calculated to more decimal places than it displayed maybe 8 to 4, I can't remember. So his initial conditions were missing 4 decimal places of accuracy. In most cases it doesn't matter, the final solution will be indistinguishable, but not in chaos! I personally have seen chaos rear its ugly head all the way to the 16^th decimal place and beyond when programming in different languages! Dr. Lorenz had discovered what is now called the Lorenz Strange Attractor. In the real world sense, his problem is unpredictable, but if we look closer, we see clear order. The first picture is a phase plot of the Lorenz attractor. The second is a Poincare map. Both show definite structure, but not necessarily predictive capabilities.

Hopefully you're beginning to see the picture I'm trying to paint. Lorenz's predictive capabilities diverged within a couple months because he couldn't account for 4 decimal places. Translating that into the global climate means the exact affect of greenhouse gases, continental drift, oceanic currents, Milankovitch cycles, volcanic eruption, electricity production, human population, ecological oxygen production, etc. must be incorporated. It is ridiculous to consider calculating for all those affects. Even if we did, chaos is still at the root of convective roll; one of the simplest parts! And yet people still try.

A major force in the development of computers 50 or 60 years ago was to predict the weather on the short and long scale. More complete weather prediction methods use the Boussinesq Equation. It is an approximate representation of the Navier-Stokes equations and the Energy equation tailored to produce weather models. I say approximation because that is exactly what it is. It makes a huge assumption about mass conservation being "incompressible" (more accurately constant density) while convection driven density changes remain in the momentum and energy equations. It seems to work alright in practice but is inherently wrong.

So what options do we have? The answer is statistical analysis. Today we have climatic records dating back several thousand years and geological records dating back much farther. Those records suggest that during the period of human civilization and more drastically since let's say the industrial revolution, the climate has been affected. I can't argue that. In fact I feel that we have had a significant and negative impact on the global climate. I'm simply pointing out the problems with blindly jumping on the band wagon. Anyway, the problem with statistical analysis goes back to the deep time concept. I think our geological records have climate predictions back 700,000 years or so, I'm not sure exactly. Statistically, an experimentalist needs something like 11 samples to begin to get an accurate standard deviation and draw viable conclusion. So when thinking about deep time, 700,000 years isn't necessarily enough. An even deeper problem is that in a lab an experimentalist controls all the environmental variables. That way every test is the same. In the context of global climate, we're back to the problem of continental drift, oceanic currents, Milankovitch cycles, geothermal characteristics, and so on and so forth. The external stimulus has never been the same over the course of the history of Earth in the context of deep time. Therefore, you have 700,000 years of single data points that cannot be applied reliably to the next 700,000 years or more from a statistical perspective. In the local scope you can make observations toward the "human element," but since 700,000 years is barely deep time, the causes and effects are mere speculation.

I'm almost done, stay with me. In this day and age we seek to find more ecofriendly ways to maintain our standard of living. Alternative fuels such as methane, ethanol, and biodiesel are common buzzwords. Fuel cell technology has been implemented for everything from space shuttle power generation to electric power plants to powertrains for cars. The push for these technologies should be handled with care. More than they are environmentally motivated, they are seen as a way to relieve the dependence on oil. For that I can't knock it. Eco-hippies and generally uninformed people alike should realize that perfect combustion produces CO2 and water vapor. What are two significant greenhouse gases? CO2 and water vapor! Sorry combustion based alternatives. What about fuel cells? I'm not sure about all of them, but I know Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells produce electricity through the ionization of hydrogen and recombination with oxygen. Bingo! Water vapor! Since this type of fuel cell operates at a manageable size and temperature, they are applicable to the automotive industry. Either way, a popular way to get hydrogen is through electrolysis. That typically uses combustion for electricity generation! The same goes for electric vehicles. Economically they remain viable, ecologically, maybe not so great.

I'm not saying humans haven't changed the climate, I'm saying there is more to it than what meets the eye. We need to weigh the facts before we throw money at a problem with inherent flaws. Alright, I'm done. Thanks for stayin with me!

And now, a deep thought

-What would happen to the lemmings if at the edge of the precipice one stopped and said, "Wait? This doesn't seem right!"

[1] McPhee, J., Basin and Range (1981) ISBN 0-374-10914-1. Republished in Annals of the Former World.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_attractor

Logical Morality

2008-03-26T23:13:00.002-05:00

There was a time when I considered myself a very religious person. Right now I would consider myself to be more of a confused person. In my time as a dedicated Christian I noticed something about many of the moral stances a Christian might take. I found that generally they can all be justified on a logical basis with a root in human rights. Being the logical minded fellow that I am it was typical that I would not truly embrace a moral stance unless I could justify it rationally. That always made more sense to me than ‘the bible says so.’

As an example I will start with the hot topic of abortion. This usually gets people fired up: ‘Pro-life’ vs. ‘Pro-Choice’. I will let you know right off that I do not agree with abortion so there could be bias in my argument. However, I have done my best to eliminate that. As I mentioned before we need to declare our human rights. This is similar to our Bill of Rights; the right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness… that kind of stuff. The major right applicable to this argument is the right to life. It is a difficult one to argue against. I am going to state it as this: All humans have the right to life. Simple.

As far as the abortion argument is concerned we need to determine if the mother is violating the right to life of the unborn child. This comes down to whether or not the unborn is considered a human or in other words, if it is granted the right to life. Since we all can agree that a child which was recently born is alive and has the right to life, we will start there. The first question is if the act of being born makes you ‘alive.’ I think it is difficult to think that a child which is moments from coming into the world is not alive and one who has been birthed is alive. Additionally there have been several murder trials were a late term unborn child was considered a murder victim. This brings us into the womb.

Now, one would need to decide at what point you become human or alive in the womb. This is a difficult question and I am not going to attempt to answer it. My thought is that we just don’t know. What determines life anyways? Because I consider the violation of the right to life to be major abuse I would prefer to avoid it at all costs (when in doubt avoid violating someone’s rights.) Thus we should define life at its least common denominator. In this case it would be after conception.

This is certainly debatable, but in the end we are just a collection of cells. Whether we are bazillions or two makes little difference to me, they are still human cells. If at some point in time someone presented a logical argument for the point which life begins I would be happy to consider it.

There are many counter arguments to the pro-life stance. One which I would like to quickly address is the woman’s right to choose. To be honest I think it is silly. Nobody has an ultimate right to choose as they will; there are other people’s rights to consider. Additionally we have other choices to make, such as the choice to have sex. This brings up the case of the raped girl caring the child of her assailant. This is a difficult topic, to be fair it is rare compared to normal situations of abortion. This is one situation where the right of life of the unborn could be weighed against other considerations. However I still have to hope that the right to life stands above other rights and that it is always given careful consideration.

In the end this become complicated and I guess my moral of the story is that we should take a more logical, thought out approach to our morality and maybe we can all come to agreements on some of these hot topics. If anything the defining of clearer questions (such as when does life begin?) produces more productive arguments, allowing for real progress.

P.S. To humor myself I may write up a few more logical thoughts for other moral decisions.

Book Review: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

2008-03-13T19:30:00.004-05:00

A Celtic legend from the first pages…

"There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And dying, it rises above its own agony to out carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain…Or so says the legend."

I haven't written a book report since elementary school, but I am excited to report on this one! To give a little perspective before I begin; I am not a person who enjoys reading books with exorbitant amounts of description. Books that describe the trees and the birds and the emotions and any other nic nac thing are usually tiresome. Granted I have a better appreciation for them now than I did when I muddled through the Grapes of Wrath as a required read in high school. Also, I have historically not enjoyed romance novels much either. They seem to prey on the weak minded by exploiting rudimentary, but strong, emotion without the need for character development. That makes it very difficult to identify with (or despise) the characters. I am not ashamed to admit that as I get older my notions of romance have surfaced. For that reason, it's possible that I would not have enjoyed this book as much in one of my previous lifetimes, but somehow I seriously doubt it.

If you've been paying attention so far;), you've probably already gathered that this book does indeed use a moderate amount of description to incite emotion. Also, a large portion of the novel is about forbidden romance. If you're very astute you've probably already guessed that I was deeply moved by this book. Truly, it is one of the best reads I have ever partaken. My Mom absolutely loves it. I remember watching the TV miniseries as a kid and being completely enthralled. I probably wasn't more than 7 or 8, but I still remember my parents discussing how well it followed the book.

Reader be warned, I will elude to some "spoilers," but I'll try not to elude to anything you wouldn't gleam from the book jacket.

This book is not an easy task. It is a classic, but I feel it's fallen out of the eye of my generation of readers. It sits around 700 pages of fine print with a larger vocabulary than me, and I suspect the average person has. Also, from time to time the sentence structure feels a little awkward, but definitely not enough to criticize. In reflection, there were long periods when nothing of great significance happens. Perhaps that's the beauty of it: It holds you fixed throughout.

This is a family saga. It is divided into long sections titled by the name of the character it follows most closely through a given set of years. The entire course of the book spans 3 generations from 1915-1969. The main character is by far Meggie Cleary, although as I said each section follows more or less the life of a specific character. The story begins right around her first day of school in New Zealand. She is the only daughter of several offspring of Fee and Patsy Cleary. Patsy is a poor sheep farmer who in a moment of good fortune is invited to move to his rich, estranged sister's large sheep ranch in Gillanborne (spelling?) Australia. She is old and he is to learn the business of running a large operation in order for the family to retain ownership after she passes. Soon after arriving they meet the handsome and charming young priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart. There is an instant reciprocated affection between him and Meggie. I probably don't have to say much more in the way of foreshadowing for you to guess what will happen. Mind you, she is 8 or so and he is 20ish so there is a lot of story left before we get to it so to speak. That age difference is also a major factor in the perception and development of Meggie.

Father Ralph is a very ambitious, yet devout man. He is described as a man of true purity and faith. I infer that he's a man of powerful observational and problem solving skills when applying his talents to others, but no better than a child when pointing those powers on himself. Anyway, he's instantly likeable. Even though he's a priest, surprisingly enough he is easily identified with through his all too human faults.

The first half or so of the book is about life on Drogheda (the name of the sheep ranch) and watching Meggie come to be a young woman. The author's descriptive ability allow no other way to view Meggie as anything but a beautiful, naive, and sadly fragile young woman. She becomes infatuated with Father Ralph at a very young age, which blossoms into a deep Love she doesn't seem to fully understand. Being surrounded by only men, and her mother becoming emotionally closed after the death of her father, she has no idea about her feelings, her sexuality, or herself in the eyes of Father Ralph. Ralph on the other hand, observes Meggie as she falls for him, but is almost obtuse to the idea. He still perceives her as a child and does not respect the magnitude of her feelings. Of course being a priest…and being a priest who repeatedly is described as trying to become "more than a man"…is unable to reciprocate her emotions.

It's during this time that we are first enlightened to the tragedy that is the Cleary family's story. The author has a very unique and effective way of exciting emotion in the reader. Throughout the book, great losses and gains are always very spontaneous and occur entirely over the course of a couple pages. I found myself rereading pages thinking I missed the foreshadowing leading up to significant events. In most cases, the author simply "drops a bomb" on the reader.

Anyway, Meggie is maybe 17 or so when Father Ralph is promoted for the first time. His time at Drogheda is done. Meggie of course, becomes the ultimate martyr of Love. Her advances are ignored and diverted by Father Ralph, leaving her emotionally crippled. Some time passes and she finds herself romantically inclined to one of the new hands, Luke O'Neill. They marry in spite of her feeling for Ralph and move to western Australia where Luke is determined to cut sugar cane long enough to buy his own ranch. By the way, Luke is an asshole, and I saw Meggie's agreeing to marry him a direct result of the emotional inadequacy paralleling so many women around 20 years old. My attachment to Meggie made me frustrated that she was settling for Luke rather than Ralph. Meggie lives with a nice couple as a housemaid while Luke is away with the cane. Months turn to years and Meggie's motherly instincts kick in despite her frustration with her husband. After she got pregnant she despised the baby, even once it is born. I think she was disappointed that it wasn't Father Ralph's baby…who I think by this time was Arch-Bishop…but it might have been out of disdain for Luke.

She is sent on vacation to some tropical island to relieve some of the stress her life has accrued. About this time, Ralph shows up realizing his Love for her. Through a bit of awkwardness he succumbs to his human desires. I want to make a point of this. I was impressed beyond words at how the Love scene was written. I've read scenes that range from modest to what I could only describe as deeply pornographic, but nothing like this. Emotion is the only thing described. It is at this moment that Ralph realizes that he will forever be a man. Forgive my pagan reference; it's as if this is his realization that this woman was his true path to God. This is why I can identify with Ralph. The resounding fact is clear: we are not infallible; that at the heart of it all, we are all bound to the tragedy that is our own existence. With all our passion and ambition and progress toward a better self, we are inevitably human in all its splendor and disrepute. We cannot escape it. This is the underlying theme, and source of tragedy in this book.

I haven't mentioned her first baby, Justine. She embodies everything I dislike in strong willed women. She is one of those women who are a little too big for their britches. This is shown as she makes a series of irrational decisions. She is also emotionally crippled from the start. It's not until her 30s that we see her realize the error of her ways. Fortunately, her brother Dane, and Ralph's lovechild(I bet you never saw that coming;)) is the image of Ralph himself and is instantly likeable. Meggie leaves Luke and neither child ever meets him. Of course, nobody is fooled as to the real father of Dane.

Unlike Ralph, Dane life does not follow my insight into the human tragedy. Rather his life is the tragedy. He is pure. So pure, he enters the priesthood under his unknowing father. Unfortunately Dane's story is ultimately a large part of downward spiral of the Cleary family.

As Meggie endures through the years she becomes much less fragile and much more emotionally withdrawn – much like her mother. That is a tragedy of its own. Her fall from innocence and grace weighed on me as much as any other loss to her or her family. The story ends with Meggie as a woman entering the twilight of her life. Her family is in disarray and she is lonely; reflecting on her life, her children and her business. But still, she is there, persevering till the end in such a way that can only be felt with deep sadness.

I've written more than I wanted to and I don't feel I've done the story justice so I'll leave you my deep thought taken directly from Meggie.

And now, a deep thought

"Each of us has something within us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, it's driven to. We can know what we do wrong even before we do it, but self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it."

Oh NASA, My NASA!

2008-03-02T09:13:00.005-06:00

My work has made me a bit more aware of the current state of science in America and the rest of the world. So far my contributions are small in the scheme of things, but they have given me the opportunity to observe how others are contributing. When I go to conferences I'm always left with a frustrated feeling because typically only one or two presentations seem novel, pertinent, or non trivial. Students latch on to their professor's work which may or may not be important. They end up making a career out of work that no one will care about.

I'm not the best researcher out there. My abilities are always growing, but I can't say that they will ever be as great as I would like them. Like I said, my contributions are small so far, but then again, I'm still just starting out. In time I expect to be a significant contributor. I see a great need for CFD, but I also see an over-reliance on it. By using the "black box" engineering technique the researcher loses all physical concept of the problem. Even if he programs the computations himself, it is still just mindless math unless he formulated the problem as well. I'm fortunate enough to be brought up as an analytical researcher. The trade off is a gain in physical reasoning, but a serious complication in solving problems with significant complexities. Many problems can only be solve computationally. Some can be solved with a combination of the two.

The buzzword around the propulsion community is "instability." It is an ominous word to those who know what it is. The important part for propulsion is simply explained as an observed growth in pressure oscillations and mean pressure. There are a number of mechanisms to create this phenomenon. It's amazing though, every rocket designer builds a rocket with all the best specifications and are shocked when the flow is unstable. It's almost guaranteed to happen. Expect it, plan for it as best you can, but expect it.

The following poem makes me sound like I'm blasting NASA. I do mean to poke fun at them for some stupid things they have been doing for the last 60 years, but understand that I think they are showing promise. I also make some bold statements. In case Big Brother is reading, I'm well aware that the problem is not so easily solved. I also think the right people are working on the problem now.

This poem is loosely based on Oh Captain, My Captain by Walt Whitman

Oh NASA my NASA! The journey has begun,

The shuttle has failed, the funding has bailed, the ARIES project won.

The moon is right to set our site, the daunting task ahead.

Been done before, now we want more, but documents lay shred.

Oh NASA my NASA! How much you waste to save,

Projects canceled to save the hassle, took back are funds you gave.

The tools were here for 60 years, yet common sense still slips

Bald heads ponder and weak minds wander, yet no one comes to grips.

Oh NASA my NASA! What makes the rockets blow?

And eyes that jiggle and structures that wiggle, when flight command says go?

The flow's unstable but you're not able to figure out just why,

But if you read and used your head, you'd find the work you buy!

Oh NASA my NASA! Don't reinvent the wheel!

People are jeering and countries are sneering expecting you to fail!

But you can prevent your imminent death, just scan the pasts research,

Or come to me, I'll do it for free, and show you what will work!

to continue the poetic theme...

and now, a deep thought

-I was once told, the sky is blue,

-The oceans, the lakes, and some rivers too!

-But what would I see from your point of view?

-Would blue still be blue, or a different hue?

The Nature Of Coincidence

2008-02-27T21:18:00.003-06:00

Coincidence has always struck me as an interesting human observation. We find connections in things, some of which are there, and some of which are not. Either way, we enjoy connections. I find the concept of coincidence specifically interesting when put into the context of religion or superstition. Someone may associate a coincidence with an act of God, an answering of a prayer, or the result of a superstition or curse. Typically, if the observer is less swayed by the supernatural they may simply find the array of connections interesting. Now, for the most part this is a harmless occurrence, though, the perpetuation of a false belief in the context of mere coincidences could be harmful to ones long term development. By this I mean that continually believing that the root of a coincidence is something other than just a random improbable connection of events could limit ones imagination. This prevents you from looking beyond the resulting action and eliminates the need to look deeper. It is then that we may learn something new.

Let’s take an extreme example. Someone sees a rainbow. If they immediately account its creation to a higher being they may never think to study it closer. They would lose out on the opportunity to learn about the rainbow, thereby understanding that it is the result of an entire series of events. A rainbow is a fascinating event, photons reflecting and refracting slightly different at different wavelengths, splitting apart the spectrum. There are a myriad of physical processes which all play their role and create a rainbow. By immediately associating a coincidence to something more that a rare series of events we miss out on some of the hidden beauty in life. They say that ignorance is bliss, but in this case you must sacrifice a deep profound beauty which is evident in the multitude of subtle interactions for that bliss.

This problem is a result of the nature of coincidence, and maybe a little bit about how we act as humans. A coincidence may happen once in a while and it stands out among the normal. Thus, we notice it. Though, we don’t necessarily perceive the multitude of times in which things happen to be perfectly normal. Therefore, we do not have an appropriate perception of the rarity of the coincidence. This manifests itself in the context of belief. If we see coincidences often and presume them to be common we make it easier to account them to something greater than random, thereby invoking a connection between the connections. This can potentially create scenarios, and we do this often, where we see more in things than there really is.

This in no way discredits God or any belief for that matter, he might just as well be behind all the events which lead to a coincidence. What this does show is that humans are naturally predisposed towards believing in a superior force or being primarily due to a lack of understanding of probability. At least, that’s what I believe.

Damn you Rubik's Cube!

2008-02-24T11:38:00.006-06:00

In an attempt to enrich my life with activities and skills with a higher level of sophistication than the average human, I decided I was going to solve the Rubik’s cube. The choice to do so actually fell into my lap. I won a Rubik’s cube at a Matlab seminar for answering a question. Up until then I hadn’t thought about the cube for several years.

I, like the majority of you, had put the Rubik’s cube on a pedestal: The impossible puzzle cube that only the super intelligent had a chance to solve. I’m sure anyone who has tried and failed would compare it to the accursed cube from Hellraiser! Since my intellectual achievements would suggest myself being a bit sharper than the average person I was compelled to give it a shot.

Aside: The Rubik’s cube is sometimes referred to as the Genius cube (or the Professor’s cube for larger ones). Let’s consider what it really means to be a genius. Typically we associate geniuses with high IQ’s. But is the IQ test really a good measurement? The original IQ test was completely wrong. It calculated a person’s “mental age” then divided it by their actual age. I believe that our mental capacity is a limit cycle and therefore becomes saturated at some point. If we live by the adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” then let’s say our mental capacity peaks between 25-35. For some people it probably remains consistent from then on out, at least till they reach extreme old age…or no longer use it and therefore lose it. For others I would imagine it declines somewhat as age increases. One thing is constant though; a person’s actual age is always increasing. Therefore their IQ would be continually decreasing. More updated IQ tests are probably better. They use a standardization model which approximately matches a Gaussian distribution where an IQ of 100 is considered the average. I hate to reference an encyclopedia, but to my dismay Wikipedia has a pretty complete synopsis of the IQ. I’m still pretty skeptical of any IQ test, because it’s too subjective (see the Wikipedia section on composite score and IQ factors). For instance, person can improve their IQ by studying! If IQ is a measure of aptitude, that alone is a fundamental flaw and should be enough to discredit it as a real measure of aptitude. I consider intellectual aptitude is an inherent ability to obtain, process, and store mental stimulus; more like an intellectual capacity or prowess. It seems that an IQ test can be likened to a weightlifter. His strength increases the more he uses the muscle. To me, the IQ test is a measure of instantaneous mental ability while it should be a measure of maximum capacity and therefore does not change in time. I acknowledge that, like a muscle, working a person’s mind will unlock greater abilities and should be a life’s pursuit for everyone.

Anyway it doesn’t really matter. For lack of a better understanding of the human mind, we use the IQ test. So what is a genius then? This site (http://wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScoresMean.html) is about on track with other sources that break down IQ into labels. Basically, it follows over the total distribution

· Over 140 - Genius or near genius

· 120 - 140 - Very superior intelligence

· 110 - 119 - Superior intelligence

· 90 - 109 - Normal or average intelligence

· 80 - 89 - Dullness

· 70 - 79 - Borderline deficiency

· Under 70 - Definite feeble-mindedness

For high IQs

115-124 - Above average (e.g., university students)
125-134 - Gifted (e.g., post-graduate students)
135-144 - Highly gifted (e.g., intellectuals)
145-154 - Genius (e.g., professors)
155-164 - Genius (e.g., Nobel Prize winners)
165-179 - High genius
180-200 - Highest genius
>200 - "Unmeasurable genius"

According to the Gaussian distribution approximately 0.25% of the population is at an IQ of over 140. In the U.S. that equates to 752850 people (US pop as of July 2007, 301,139,947 X 0.0025=752850). That’s bullshit. If that statistic is correct, then according to the state testing done on me when I was in school, I’m in that group. However, I am absolutely NOT a genius and I’ll confidently say neither are you! A Gaussian distribution suggests that there is a smaller probability of a random sample falling closer to the tails than the middle. This implies that it’s more and more difficult to fall higher on the tail the closer to the limit you get. This could mean that the jump in capacity between an IQ of 115-124 is much less than the jump between 155-164. I can MAYBE find the 0.25% plausible, but the definition of genius needs to be seriously reconsidered especially if the increase in one point becomes harder to obtain and more significant at the extremes. I might suggest starting the genius IQ's at 160 or so.

So what was the point of that long aside about IQ? I know for a fact that you don’t have to be a genius to solve a Rubik’s cube. In fact, I’m pretty sure that given enough time and patience a monkey could be trained to solve it.

When I first decided to solve it, I decided that there must be a systematic method. I presumed that you could solve the cube a layer at a time. I also expected that certain patterns of rotation (algorithms) would result in a predictable fashion. Sadly, I did get stuck and found some instruction on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQIoPyfQzM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW_BBp3FPMQ

He gives a pretty good description of an idealized solution. It’s not perfect since it is idealized. Either way, I was right on all my presumptions. I feel confident that given a little more patience, I could have discovered all but the very last algorithm on my own. That one is less intuitive, but perhaps… I added a little more description to solve some of the problems that our friend Dan skipped. Follow his nomenclature for the commands.

ROW 1

Fi U Li Ui Cross-right spot wrong orientation

Ri Di | R D Corner-directly below the correct corner

ROW 2

Ui Li U L | U F Ui Fi 2nd layer-moving from top to the left

U R Ui Ri | Ui Fi U F 2nd layer-moving from top to the right

ROW 3

"L" in top left corner If you dont have an "L" just pick a corner and begin

F R U Ri Ui Fi

This gives the "line"

Repeat to get the Cross

once in the cross line up 2 middles with the right sides

IF they are next to each other

put one away from you and one in your right hand

then do

This lines up all the middle pieces on the sides

R U Ri U | R U U Ri never need to do more than twice ?CHANGE ORIENTATION to get the previous description?

rotate u to get all the middles on the sides finished

IF the they are opposite each other, put one facing and one away then do

R U Ri U | R U U Ri

then like normal

R U Ri U | R U U Ri (U)

now with the CROSS and the middle pieces lined up

find the corner that has the correct colors, but not the correct orientation

put it in the bottom right corner an do

U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L repeat if necessary, but always keep the same orientation

IF none are in the correct corner, do it with any wrong in the bottom right corner

once the corner pieces are in the right place, but the wrong orientation,

put it in the bottom right corner and do

Ri Di | R D

rotate ONLY the top until another unsolved cube is in the bottom right and repeat

Really, all you have to memorize is about 5 algorithms. The rest are intuitive or closely related to another. I would suggest that it is just as important to observe how a block is replaced as it is to observe how a block is moves. That will help make the solution much more intuitive. It took me about 1 day to go from zero to being able to solve any cube. There are much more advanced solution than the one provided here. I can solve any cube in around 5 minutes with these instructions. More advanced solutions will decrease the time.

When it’s all said and done, I was extremely disappointed that the solution is so systematic. Absolutely no thought is needed once a person has memorized the algorithms. I really can’t express my dismay enough. I had sought this project as a way to increase my sophistication. How can I not be disappointed when I learned that the ominous Rubik’s cube is, at its heart, rudimentary child’s play?

and now, a deep thought
-How much the Rubik's cube is like life, daunting at the start, but trivial at the end.

Write Like No One's Reading

2008-02-20T22:44:00.004-06:00

I was trying to think if that line made any sense. You should dance like no one is looking, and sing like no one is listening. I suppose you should write for yourself, like no one is reading. Now, doing that is all the easier when writing on an unknown blog.

I ran into Weldon Payne today. I good friend of mine and many others. He is a real writer. I told him that Josh (that is -=JR1=-, I hope I didn't spoil his alias) and I were writing on a blog and that I had one going for a while while I was in Germany. He said that he wished he had written more when he was younger, even 30 minutes 3 times a week. I enjoyed writing about my Germany adventures and now, taking his advice, I have chimed in on the blog.

The blog is supposedly going to have a more sophisticated tone, generally discussing topics in religion, politics, social observations and such. Unfortunately I don't have a clear topic to talk about right now. Although, I was just in the shower and since that is where I have discourses with myself and also where I think of things to write about - well... this is all I've got:

I checked my bank account today and I was happy to see that I got my tax return. In my current economic status, as quasi paid student, it was a pleasant bonus. Now this is mostly unrelated, but while I was in the shower I remembered a commercial for H&R block, or one of those tax places. They said that every year we, as a country, fail to receive over 1 billion dollars in tax returns. They play that up as a big deal. One whole billion dollars. It is a lot, until you remember that there are 300 million Americans. That is 33 bucks each. I bet a tax adviser is more than that.

On the other hand the US nation debt is $9,293,653,182,093.53 as I write. That is a bit more, it works out to about $30,000 a person. We could get a really good tax adviser for that. I actually wasn't trying to make a political statement there, but if there was one it is this: advertisers and politicians are stupid and manipulative.

Maybe next time I will write about something a bit deeper. Don't worry Mr. NoOne, I have ideas. -Eric

The Delusion of the BCS National Championship

2008-02-18T18:25:00.009-06:00

I hesitate to make this the first post. The underlying theme of this blog is certainly not specifically sports related, but rather any random topic of intrigue, controversy, or other intellectual stimulation for reader and writer alike. This just happened to be something I've mulled over for awhile and which culminated about the same time as we formed this blog.

There is a huge controversy regarding the current BCS football system. Before I begin to elaborate, let me state that I’m definitely in favor of a playoff system. Currently there is something like 21 non BCS bowls and 5 official BCS bowls. Information regarding both can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_Championship_Series#BCS_bowl_games or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007-08_NCAA_football_bowl_games. Basically the non BCS games constitute teams that had alright seasons, but were most likely not conference powerhouses. BCS bowls loosely follow the following

Unless their champion is involved in the BCS National Championship game, the conference tie-ins are as follows:

Rose Bowl - Big Ten champ vs. Pac-10 champ
Fiesta Bowl - Big 12 champ
Orange Bowl - ACC champ
Sugar Bowl - SEC champ

The Big East champion takes one of the at-large spots remaining (Wikipedia).

It seems glaringly apparent that since the strength of any specific conference or the number of prominent teams therein can vary from year to year, the best teams may (and most likely) will not be playing for the glory of a BCS title. Take for instance the 2007 Big 12 conference. Missouri was for a short time ranked #1. All things considered, at the end of the regular season they were the highest ranked team in the nation. However, since they lost to another top 10 team (Oklahoma) in the Big 12 Championship game (an extra game played in the Big 12, SEC, and others that slip my mind), they lost their number one spot going into the bowl games. In fact they were removed entirely from any BCS bowl. They went on to an absolute victory against Arkansas in whatever diminished bowl they played in. Two things seem wrong here. First, how can a team who played 13 games (Missouri) be ousted from their spot in the national championship by a team who only played 12 (Ohio State). Especially since a win for Missouri in game 13 would have been inconsequential while a loss would (did) devastate a stellar season. This argument is spurred as much by suspicion of the accurateness of the rating system as it is for the need of a playoff format. Lets say there wasn’t a Big 12 championship game, then the 2007 season would have finished with Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas all in the top 8. Missouri would have been in the national championship game while Oklahoma would have snatched up the other BCS spot. Kansas, who was a #1 team for a brief time, would have been ousted from the BCS in the same fashion Missouri inevitably was. At the end of the regular season, both Missouri and Kansas had only one loss while Oklahoma had 2. Something seems inherently wrong with eliminating Kansas (or Missouri) from a BCS game. Ironically, Oklahoma lost their bowl game while Kansas and Missouri both won. Clearly, the Big 12 fostered 3 of the best teams in the nation while only 2 got to play in the big games. The same could be said for the SEC if LSU hadn’t won the extra game over Tennessee for the SEC championship. In that case Georgia would probably have been eliminated from a BCS game…or who knows, they might have been in the National Championship.

Second, what about teams from less competitive conferences that have shown potential for greatness. For example, as seen in 2006 in the miraculous win by Boise State over Oklahoma in the fiesta bowl, a WAC team finished a perfect season with a win over an established team. Of course Hawaii was unable to follow the following year as they got blown out by Georgia.

Even though I have my doubts as to the validity of the rating system, there is definitely a need for it. Clearly every D-IA team cannot be in a playoff. For this reason an assessment of the worthy teams must be made. For lack of a better system, I do not object to the current one. To amend the current computationally based rating system, I propose removing conference championship games from the rating system (and maybe the season). Also, team stats tallied into the ratings need to be those accumulated during regulation play; not the inflated stats that overtime provides. My proposal for the tournament system would add between 2 and 4 extra games for the top rated teams in the postseason. Here are two suggestions for an 8 or 10 team system based on the 2007/2008 season.

In this type of playoff, only the national champion can have the chance of a perfect season. Perhaps it’s only my perspective, and honestly I feel like it probably isn’t as decisive as I would like it to be, but it seems to promote a clearer national championship if there is only one undefeated team. If all conference championships are eliminated, then we are considering 4 games beyond the regular season at most. The season would need to end by the end of November. Finals for football players would be the first weekend following the first full week in December. That way the students have ample time to study. The first tournament game will be held the second weekend in December. I won’t say 100% since I don’t feel like looking up all possible weekends in the month of December, but I feel confident in saying that 2 weekends can host games during December. I feel it’s important for the students to have Christmas off. If for nothing else, it will give them an one to two weeks to recover from the bumps and bruises of the regular season. Games would start up New Years day. That day would host all the multitude of lesser bowls that are always held on New Years as well as some of the new BCS tournament games. The later of the BCS games would be held the second week of January as has been customary for the national championship in past few years. I’ve found it atrocious that Ohio State two years in a row played in the national championship after having such a long and unnecessary break. Take that from an LSU (and Tennessee…I have a Master’s of Science from UT, but a soft spot for LSU) fan. I wanted LSU to win hands down. As long as a Big 10 team sits that long, it’s always in question. It’s a glorified form of “icing the kicker.”

I don’t really understand the opposition from the NCAA or schools alike. The addition of more, not to mention post season, games will undoubtedly bring about more revenue and recruiting. The question seems obvious: why wouldn’t there be a playoff? It would pacify the fans, increase revenue, maintain the prestige of the BCS bowl games, give the students opportunity to heal and prepare for professional careers, all while making it possible for the most deserving teams to win a national championship regardless of the strength of their individual conference.

and now, a deep thought

-at what point will the players, coaches, and fans alike realize that their dreams for football greatness will always have an asterisk marking what could have been or should have been?