Me and Physics

I thought I would read a book about physics. Either I had no natural aptitude, or I was insufficiently stimulated, but I never grasped it at all at school. I learned to do a very good impression of my physics teacher though - which seemed more important at the time.

Thing is, I have quite a good track record of 'grasping' things when necessary. If I see the point I will devote time to grasping. I even gave eight years of my life to vehicle identification once I realised nobody in the motor insurance world would take me seriously if I couldn't tell a Vauxhall Viva from a Ford Escort. It was 1973 by the way. After I left in 1981 I vowed never to be interested again.

I did the same for early church history which I mastered for about two days in 1983 and it contributed to a theology degree. I may get back to that one.

So I am reading a book about physics. The one illustrated. And I am underlining physics-type sentences that overlap with the arts world. Ones without equations, basically.

You see I can grasp:

...space curves where there is matter.

...space and gravitational field are the same thing.

So, although Riemann's constant would be jolly useful if I needed to do calculations, my two pull-quotes are the heart of an understanding of relativity. And I've only finished one chapter.

Now, on to quanta.

Why did I get so old before I began to find that learning stuff is fun?

Quote of the Day

942. Science has supplanted religion as the chief source of authority, but at the cost of making human life accidental and insignificant. If our lives are to have any meaning, the power of science must be overthrown and faith re-established.
(John Gray: Straw Dogs, page 18)

Bad Science

I am enjoying Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science very much. He has a regular column of the same name in The Saturday Guardian although he is on a six month sabbatical. Read his last column before the break here.

He writes well and entertainingly of his frustration, firstly that few newspapers have the first idea how to present a science story and secondly that so much that passes for science is actually PR - paid for by the industry most likely to benefit from the particular findings of a piece of research. He helps us to understand how to read between the lines and, in particular, not to fall for the pseudo-scientific claims of the alternative medicine community.

It's a tough time to be a scientist. The Observer reported last week that scientists are becoming terrified by the anti-science backlash that now, routinely, rubbishes the science behind climate change and evolution.

This is currently a peculiarly American phenomenon. Listen to the Republican candidates for president arguing and you won't hear a word against the evangelical Christian right even if that involves swallowing a load of unbelievable bunkum as literal truth. They say that what happens in the States happens here within five to ten so watch out.

So scientists find themselves attacked by the right for being anti-religion and attacked by the left for being insufficiently clear. I think it is a brave time to be a scientist with a public profile. I wish them well in their militancy.

In the midst of this Goldacre alone seems to stride like a colossus asking the same questions of everyone. Has this been peer reviewed? Have you drawn your conclusions from the evidence? Have you sampled correctly? Have you published your bad results as well as the favourable ones?

I love him. I just read an article that tells me I will make my brain last longer and avoid dementia if I fast for one or two days a week. I might previously have, er, swallowed that but I did a quick check online and found this piece which says almost the opposite. The article I read was in The Observer, a sister paper to the Guardian who publish Goldacre, and under the name of the Science Editor.

This bad science stuff is rife.

Risk

As an educated bloke with almost total inadequacy at science - sorry but I lost interest in or around 4c - I like to try and make as much sense as I can of scientific news. If I get it I figure most people will be able to get it. So here is what I think I get so far on the whole swine-flu jobbie.

As Andy Hamilton pointed out on The News Quiz last Friday, the best way to scare people right now is to sneeze into your sombrero. Whilst I don't discount the possibility of a horribly ironic death later today I have been enthralled by all the media-conscious, swine-flu victims being interviewed on the tele recently. The nub of their comments is, 'We were a bit poorly for a short while.'

The test for influenza is this; a £50 note blows past the window. If you get up and get it you haven't got the flu.

Swine flu is a virus causing flu-like symptoms. Those with already decreased immunity may die, just as they may have died when a common cold became bronchitis, became pneumonia, became the end. The rest of us, barring further mutations of this virus, even if we get it, will probably live. If we catch it we will catch it off people not pigs, so the beauties I saw at the North Somerset show yesterday looked good and will probably taste good too. Most of us there nearly died of cold but that is irrelevant.

I also imagine that epidemic and pandemic have particularly stringent definitions so when the terms are used by scientists they mean something. When they are used by our lazier journalists they become confused. Let's do what I laughingly call research and look them up in an online dictionary:

Pandemic (adjective. 1666. From the Greek pan = all; demos = people) occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population.

Epidemic (adjective. 1603. From the Greek epi= among; demos - people) affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time.

Notice the date of birth of the term pandemic. The Great Plague. NTWICAP. So the current stats show that swine flu has reached a wide area but has not yet covered a large proportion of the population so it is neither an epidemic nor a pandemic.

The imaginary healthometer on my sidebar informs you it is safe to carry on.

Particle Accelerators

So, under Switzerland somewhere, they are going to accelerate a couple of particles into each other at such a rate it will recreate conditions at the beginning of the universe. This is in order to discover the 'God Particle'. Is that the Higgs Bosun particle or something? I failed O Level sciences (physics and chemistry) and this blog doesn't bother to do research when the comments will sort it.

Bill Bailey suggests that the parameters of this experiment are:

a) Nothing will happen at all.
b) A black hole will open under central Europe.

Could we have a little less uncertainty please?

Cafe Scientifique

Thanks to Rory's excellent Church Leadership Blog at CPAS I found out about this cafe idea. Scientific chats in an accessible format for non scientists. Local Bristol ones listed here.

Trebuchet

Today was fun. I was invited to run three workshops in writing skills for 7-9 year olds from various local schools. The event was at Warwick Castle. With the wall as a backdrop we dreamed up good characters, bad characters, locations and happenings which we mixed and matched to make stories. Harry the Headchopper was a particular favourite.

At lunchtime we all sat on the bank to witness the firing of the trebuchet. I had no idea what one of these was until I moved to within a stone's throw (bad pun, sorry) of Warwick Castle thirteen years ago and Jonathan brought that and etiolate home as spellings. Different league to Cestria County Primary I can tell you.

Anyway a trebuchet. It's a device for throwing rocks the size of footballs at a castle wall, although despicable users are not renowned for restraint and lack of imagination when hurling things into castles. We were told that the machine could be used to throw fire, quick-lime and defeated soldiers' body parts. Oh and manure. Don't forget the manure.

Three or four guys get in a giant hamster's wheel and legging it round use it to lift a counterweight which pulls back a huge arm made of a bendy wood such as ash. The arm is locked off. Then the rope is unsnagged from one end. The sling is filled with the ammo. Everyone stands clear and the firer pulls out the locking pin. The weight falls, the arm shoots up and over in a great arc and the sling attached to it travels back along the ground and then up and over, following the arm and releasing its contents. Boy did those contents get some height and speed.

I went to have a look at the two foot hole in the ground the ball had made. It would make some mess of a castle wall and anyone in the way I can tell you. Terrific fun in peace time. Go and visit Warwick Castle.

The trebuchet is fired twice a day and there are also falconry displays, archery demonstrations and, of course, the dungeons, the ramparts and all the rooms and waxworks. It is £15 for adults but good value I reckon, especially if you can wrangle it so you are paid to go. Tee hee.