Moon Halo

I heard all about the moon halo, but I could not see it because somebody misplaced my glasses. The link Caitlin posted does not work, though, so here is the working one. It's almost as cool as seeing the real thing.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonring/

MOON HALO

Did anyone else see the moon halo outside tonight????!!!! 

Without a doubt, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. 

http://home.hiwaay.net/krcool/Astro/moon/moonring

Einstein's Conception of Science and Religion

The religious community has always seemed to regard science with a certain degree of suspicion.  The ideas of Copernicus and Galileo aroused a great deal of concern among the leaders of the Catholic Church, since they directly challenged the Church's interpretation of the physical world.  Even today, science is often accused of "killing God" or at least denying his guiding role in the functioning of the universe.  I find it interesting, then, that the great physicist Albert Einstein ultimately views science as necessitating the existence of God.  He concludes that because man's intelligence is incapable of grasping all the mysteries of the universe, there must be some divine intelligence that not only understands these mysteries, but that also imposes its guiding will over everything in nature.  For our last class, perhaps it would be appropriate to discuss how we all view science in this day and age and whether we agree with Einstein that it is not opposed to religion but is actually linked inextricably to it. 

the car and the garage are killing me

Ok, so I am still baffled by the car/garage thought experiment that we talked in class on Monday. (Seriously, the thing is haunting me.) It all just makes me feel very unsettled. So this is what I'm thinking: If there is an observer outside of garage, (she would be in the same frame of reference or coordinate system as the observer in the garage) couldn't the observer take a picture of what she sees, which would be the two garage doors closed with the car inside? Doesn't this mean that there was a definite moment in time that the car was fully inside the garage with both of the doors closed? What would be the response of the person in the car to this picture?

A Christmas wish

This will be a possible research project for next year's Sci 2.

Can we ever know nature?

The ending of the Labyrinth reading was very interesting in light of some of theories we went over in Professor Goulding’s science class last semester. Pesic says that “nature’s cipher is unbreakable, though intelligible mathematical law operates underneath that cipher” (149) because it uses uncontrollable external randomness. This is why Einstein did not like quantum theory, because of this randomness and unpredictability. Pesic says: “The only way of getting truly random numbers is total stupidity, for any scintilla of mind will pollute the randomness with some taint of order” (150). So the world on the quantum level is completely random and we impose order on nature through our own minds. This idea really reminded of the Kant readings we did last semester and the fact that we merely interpret external appearances in our own mind and do not actually have any understanding of how the world really works. We just have our minds way of interpreting the ‘appearances.’ I was wondering if anyone else sees this connection, and if that means that the further we come to an understanding of nature, the closer we come to the Kantian conclusion that we can know nothing about nature as it really is? If that makes any sense.

God and Einstein

If I understand what Mike's saying, I had a little different perspective on God and Einstein's relationship while reading Pesic. What seems inconsistent to us (that a a 5 ft. car could fit in a 3 foot garage for a second, but never have entered according to the man driving the car, just as a suggestion) makes perfect sense to God: "Our faculties are so limited that it is incredible that we can reach as far as we do.... To put it in Einstein's characteristic way God at least must know perfectly the positions of the positions and velocities of each particle [referring to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle], even if we never can" (145)

Does this perspective help us to understand how Einstein could be comfortable throwing out principles such as absolute time, absolute space and Euclidian geometry? Or is he simply redefining time to be more consistent with the real absolute (God) instead of the human idea of absolute? Does God add an element of stability to relativity?

ALSO!! I accidently performed my own color experiment. I was writing on a yellow sticky note with a blue pen, causing the writing to come out as black. I showed my roommate the result and told her it was due to polarities in color. She didn't seem too excited. I wish Goethe had been there.

Bacon...again

Pesic did a beautiful job of relating Einstein back to Bacon and especially Bacon's mythological and erotic imagery we have all come to know and love. I wanted to point to another moment I felt was Baconian in Pesic's interpretation of Einstein's engagement with the natural world and the implications of his thought, "there is an interesting resemblance to the rhetoric and imagery of the Biblical religion. The "religious paradise of youth" is lost, but a new paradise takes its place, even though "the road to this [new] paradise was not a s comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise" (140). This made me think of the ending to the New Organon and Bacon's idea that science is the answer to the fall and to regaining paradise, "for man by the fall fell at the same from his state of innocence and from his dominion over creation. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part, repaired" (189). It seems that our men of science have felt compelled to seek out the mysteries of the labyrinth and in so doing believe they are doing service to reinstating man in his rightful dignity and dominion.

Quantum theory and the Existence of God

Einstein's objection to quantum theory seems to revolve around his belief that its inherent randomness would preclude the existence of a perfectly intelligent being like God.  Pesic describes quantum theory as "a one-time system, yoking uncontrollable external randomness to internal determinism.  What this means is that nature's cipher is unbreakable, though intelligible mathematical law operates underneath that cipher" (Pesic 149).  It seems that humans are incapable of deciphering the unobservable, determined inner workings behind the random manifestations of quantum physics.  But why should God necessarily be incapable of possessing such knowledge?

Furthermore, Pesic says that in order to do this, "God would have 'know' an infinitude of random digits to possess the key, and such randomness is just what so exercised Einstein.  Without going so far as Einstein did in defense of eternal Law, it is evident that such randomness is scarcely compatible with any sort of mind, much less a divine one" (150).  Ultimately, I don't understand why God, as an infinite being, should be deemed incapable of knowing an infinitude of random digits.  Furthermore, how can humans even begin to understand the mind of God?  It seems to me that while the randomness of quantum theory is unsettling to and incompatible with human minds, there is no reason that it couldn't be fully compatible with the mind of God, which is of course inscrutable and beyond our comprehension.

Relativity

Our discussion in class today, and particularly Kate's objection to the paradox of the car going into the garage got me thinking. Einstein's solution to the paradox is the denial of simultaneity. Now one of the fundamental principles of investigation into philosophy or any science is the "Principle of Non-Contradiction." This states: something cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. Does Einstein's relativity demand a reconstruction of the principle. It would seem redundant to have the phrase "at the same time", when according to Einstein this is already a given; nothing can be and not be at the same time because the concept of simultaneity has already been proven incoherent by Relativity. In taking a "Realist" view on reality, does the the preclusion of simultaneity have any consequences on the way we conceive of actions based upon the Principle of Non-Contradiction?

A Belated Post on The Sandman

In his 1919 essay The Uncanny, Freud uses Hoffman's story of the Sandman to illustrate his idea of the uncanny. In brief, the uncanny is a instance where an object is both foreign and familiar to a person. Frequently, the uncanny creates 'cognitive dissonance' in a person, the object is seemingly repulsive and attractive.

Strikingly, Freud is not attracted the uncanniness of Saplanzani's daughter Olimpia but rather on the repetition of numbers, phrases, and symbols -notably the removing of eyes which Freud associates with castration. "A study of dreams, phantasies and myths has taught us that anxiety about one's eyes, the fear of going blind is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated."

Is Freud's interpretation true? Do we harbor a similar "fear of castration" alongside an attraction to the danger?


Also, I found this article that suggests many Olimpias may be running around the earth soon.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081205100137.htm

"The most striking feature of this technological revolution are social robots, machines with artificial intelligence, and with which we will have emotional and even intimate interactions. “A robot might be a more effective partner and a better person than the humans we actually have in our immediate lives: just as you can see dog owners talking to their pets today, soon we will be talking to robots..."" Although Hoffmann depicts Nathanel's infatuation with Olimpia as both comical and dangerous, modern science seems to point us towards an acceptance of the uncanny. That is, we may have to become quite comfortable with the idea of something looking like us but not entirely being made of the same substance. Will this social acceptance of robots destroy our notion of the uncanny?

Reality

this is a response to andy's post. 

andy says that maybe relativity is reality, since reality is not a single objective experience shared by all. while i agree (how can i not?) that reality is not objective, i do not think relativity is reality. Rather, i think relativity makes reality palatable. We all exist in one 'reality' (i hope...); and therefore we all exist in the same reality even though we all experience it differently. I say that relativity makes reality palatable because it helps us explain that ways in which our different experiences of are related that one, same reality that we all inhabit. 

PS - In Don Quixote, our protagonist carries on in a very warped reality of his own making, totally at odds with others' experiences of reality. Was Cervantes thinking about relativity without knowing it was relativity? maybe...maybe not.       

Relativity and Saving the Phenomena

This is responding to and building on Mike's post about saving the phenomena. I think I would go ahead and expand what Mike said because in general, the whole theory of relativity does seem a little like the saving the phenomena position. On pp. 211-212 of the Einstein-Infeld book, they talk briefly about the fact that you can say either "the sun moves and the earth is at rest" or "the earth moves and the sun is at rest" and that the two statements just signify different frames of reference. They say that the greatness of Copernicus's move can only be understood through the physical point of view. But as for relativity, it does seem to open up several equally acceptable explanations for various observations. I think the big difference is that relativity is supposed to be reality. On p. 212, Einstein and Infeld say, "Could we build a real relativistic physics valid in all CS; a physics in which there would be no place for absolute, but only for relative motion? This is indeed possible!" On p. 213, they say, "Unexpected adventures still await us. But our final aim is always a better understanding of reality." So yeah, it seems to me (and I hardly need mention that I could be misunderstanding relativity) that there are several different explanations, kind of like saving the phenomena. But now that is reality. Whereas the save the phenomena mentality accepts multiple explanations on a mathematical basis, relativity accepts multiple explanations on a physical, real basis. This is quite an "unexpected adventure" and a wild turn in the labyrinth!

Quantum v Relativity

This is partially a response to Tara's post, but also an elaboration on my post last Sunday. From the beginning of Relativity, I noted that Einstein is following several of Newton's for philosophizing in attempting to keep his theories unified, harmonious, simple, and correct. In ch. 21 he addresses the foundations of classical mechanics and special relativity and as Tara, a believe correctly notes, resolves nothing. This is likely part of the basis for the two fold hypothesis of current physics, maintaining quantum mechanics on the small scale and relativity on the larger scale. Stephen Hawking has proposed in his book that both are likely wrong in their own way, and maintains that a unified theory of physics should be sought after. Newton would likely maintain this same belief, especially because of his insistence on harmony in all things. He, of all people, would not have accepted two contradictory theories of physics. So I wonder if with the several hundreds of years of theorizing since Newton if we have taken a step backwards in our human quest to simply nature.

Cue another saxophone

In response to Miriam...

As I was reading Relativity, Chapter XXI caught my eye. I found it interesting that Einstein would put a critique of his theory in the book, but even more interesting that he doesn't seem to prove the critique wrong (unless I am mistaken in interpreting the chapter, which is very possible). To me it sounds like mechanics isn't changed due to relativity. Therefore I am wondering what its significance is in my every day life, or whether its significance only lies in pure scientific knowledge.

Cue Saxophone

So last night as I was thinking deep thoughts and playing a few scales on my light-beams harp I began to wonder: what are the effects if any of relativity on a small scale?  Given that in my lifetime I will never be shot into outer space and return to find my twin way older than me (impossible because I don't have a twin) are there ways I can see relativity working within my day to day experience?

Fields and saving the phenomena

As I was reading Einstein's discussion of gravitational fields, his explanation of fields reminded me slightly of the "save the phenomena" approach to science.  At first glance, fields, as an intermediaries that facilitate the effects of gravity on objects, reminded me of the notion of ether.  As Einstein says, "The action of the earth on the stone takes place indirectly.  The earth produces in its surroundings a gravitational field, which acts on the stone and produces its motion of fall" (Einstein 72).  

However, I suppose that fields differ from ether and other "save the phenomena" notions in that we have a more empirically founded understanding of them and the precise manner in which they function.  After all, Einstein goes on to note that their effects are governed by a specific law:  "As we know from experience, the intensity of the action on a body diminishes according to a quite definite law, as we proceed farther and farther away from the earth" (72).

Like Stephanie, I appreciate Einstein's use of thought experiments but often experience difficulty in processing them.  I also hope that we'll have time to discuss these experiments in greater detail, particularly the ones involving the elevator.

General Theory of Relativity

I found it interesting that Einstein uses so many thought experiments instead of practical, hands-on experiments. This is a huge break in the tradition of Bacon, where we began this course. Did science, and particularly physics, need to come to a point where theories could no longer be developed by observing the natural phenomena of the universe? I, for one, find it more difficult to follow Einstein's train of thought when he is proposing scenarios that one would never come across in daily life.

I do, however, think that in the Einstein-Infield book it is helpful to read the hypothetical discussions between the Old physicist and the Modern physicist. This reminds me of Galileo's technique. I was really struggling to understand the elevator example, so I was hoping we could slowly go over this in class Monday.

Advent calendar

Here, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Tycho Brahe Star

Hey, found an article about the star that Tycho Brahe had looked at. Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute have been examining it. Check it out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7762939.stm