Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Science

  • A New Dawn

    We’ve just had twenty solar panels installed on the roof.

    20130418-1549-33

    Apparently, we’ve joined a growing trend in the Netherlands. In 2012, there was 260 MW of energy produced via solar panels – a doubling of what was produced in 2011.

    I must admit I get a kick out of watching our electricity meter run backwards – indicating that we are supplying electricity to the national grid (and getting paid for it by the Power Company!), rather than consuming from it.

    This is a long term investment – it will probably take ten years to break even, but I’m glad that we’ve done it.

  • The Challenger

    Last night, BBC Two showed “The Challenger” – a film dramatisation of the public inquiry (the Rogers Commission) that investigated the causes of the catastrophic accident that befell the space shuttle Challenger. The film has the title Feynman and the Challenger in the US.

    It was riveting. Amidst the political manoeuvering, and the attempts by NASA officials to mislead the inquiry at the time, Richard Feynman ploughed a course that uncovered the true cause of the disaster. He was played in this dramatisation by William Hurt, who delivered a completely believable portrait of Feynman, culminating in the scene where Feynman destroys the testimony of the NASA officials with a glass of iced water. I remember seeing the actual event on TV at the time, and thinking how extraordinary it was.

    The dramatisation was based on Feynman’s experience on the Rogers Commission, as documented in his book What Do You Care What Other People Think? As wikipedia has it:

    Feynman’s account reveals a disconnect between NASA‘s engineers and executives that was far more striking than he expected. His interviews of NASA’s high-ranking managers revealed startling misunderstandings of elementary concepts. For instance, NASA managers claimed that there was a 1 in 100,000 chance of a catastrophic failure aboard the shuttle, but Feynman discovered that NASA’s own engineers estimated the chance of a catastrophe at closer to 1 in 100. He concluded that the space shuttle reliability estimate by NASA management was fantastically unrealistic, and he was particularly angered that NASA used these figures to recruit Christa McAuliffe into the Teacher-in-Space program. He warned in his appendix to the commission’s report (which was included only after he threatened not to sign the report), “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

    That statement closed the film. It’s a film worth seeing.

  • Great British Innovations

    Via Gia Milinovich’s blog, I came across the Great British Innovations web site, which is asking members of the public to vote for their top past and future scientific innovations. The results will be announced on the 25th March 2013.

    The lists are interesting, and I’m finding it difficult to choose which two (past and future) I will vote for. Perhaps it’s just me, but when I think of the term innovation, I tend to think of something that results in practical impact on our lives in a fairly direct manner. So, for example, while Turing’s Universal Machine was a stunning scientific theorising about the nature of computation, I don’t think it could be said to lead directly to computers as we know them today. Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the protocols that underpin the World Wide Web, on the other hand, has completely transformed the way in which we share information in just over twenty years. In the same vein of practical impacts, Percy Shaw’s catseyes have had direct impact on making the roads safer for millions of road users.

    I see that Gia will be voting for Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s discovery of pulsars, which, again, while it transformed aspects of astronomy enormously, I don’t think it has resulted in practical impacts on most of our lives. The Bell Burnell story is an interesting one, and one that, as Gia says, deserves to be better known. But, practical impact? I’m not so sure.

    The shorter list of future innovations also contains a couple that seem to me to be out of place when judged in terms of direct practical impact. For example, the discovery of the Higgs boson is indeed a stunning scientific achievement, and a confirmation of the standard model in physics, but isn’t this really about the engineering achievement of the building of the Large Hadron Collider? I’m not sure what the practical impact of that will be for the rest of us, unless it leads to the engineering that will enable us to build fusion reactors. That would indeed be a real innovation, and a revolution in our energy sources.

    It looks as though the Raspberry Pi is currently the front-runner in the votes. Personally, it’s not a favourite of mine. I can see that it has had a direct impact on a new generation of children growing up and getting them introduced to programming, but I’m not entirely convinced that we really need “to create a new generation of computer programmers”. I think I’d be more inclined to vote for one of the others, e.g. Graphene, or Ionic Liquids, or Quantum Dots.

  • My Precious…

    Lawrence Krauss, articulating both the wonder and the insignificance of humanity. I agree.

    No gods required.

  • RIP Patrick

    So Sir Patrick Moore has died – at the age of 89. I can’t say I’m surprised, he has not looked at all well in his recent Sky at Night programmes, but it is still sad news.

    I grew up watching the Sky at Night – it introduced me to Astronomy – and I still have my dog-eared copy of The Observer’s Book of Astronomy, authored by Patrick Moore F.R.A.S., F. R. S. A. He inspired generations of children to look up, wonder at, and, above all, observe the heavens. He was an amateur in the true sense of the word, and one whose meticulous work advanced our understanding of the moon in particular.

    The next time I look up and see the moon in a clear night sky I shall remember him with affection and respect.

  • Curiosity Rover and Usain Bolt

    Yesterday, a man ran 100 metres in 9.63 seconds. This morning, a robot laboratory successfully landed on Mars and will begin its search for evidence that life may also have existed on a neighbouring planet.

    Of these two stories, it’s the second that makes me feel more proud of what my species can achieve when it puts its mind to it.

    And as one of the comments on the Curiosity Rover story says:

    Oh man, that was so cool!

    They basically just parked a Volkswagen Beetle on a predetermined spot on another planet more than 150 million miles away by lowering it with ropes from an almost hovering jetpack.

    Just like that.

    Of course, ordinary folks like me in the nation that managed such a feat still can’t afford healthcare insurance, and Texas is about to execute someone with an IQ somewhere in the 60’s.

    Goddam, this is one crazy fucking world, ain’t it? You couldn’t make this shit up, y’know?

    Quite.

  • The Newton Channel

    Today, the Guardian newspaper launched a promotion of the Newton Channel, a company that makes short films on science topics. Whilst the Newton Channel has been around for a while, this is the first time that I’ve come across it.

    I’m rather looking forward to browsing through their catalogue, which has such eminent science stars as Richard Dawkins, Brian Cox and Marcus du Sautoy dealing with a variety of scientific topics.

    I began with Marcus du Sautoy, whose exploration of the land of mathematics is always rewarding. And while this capsule on probability is good, I confess that I found the reference to Sally Clark rather superficial. Yes, du Sautoy pointed out the faulty statistics behind her conviction, but what was left unsaid was the human cost. Sally Clark is dead, almost certainly as a result of what she was put through. The cold equations have a human side that must not be forgotten.

  • Apotemnophilia And Phantom Limbs

    V. S. Ramachandran is a neurologist, and someone whom I can listen to for hours. He is fascinated by, and fascinating about, all aspects of the human mind – particularly the more unusual manifestations of behaviour.

    He’s probably best known for his work on the phantom limb syndrome, but recently he’s been looking at its converse: apotemnophilia, or the desire that some people have to have a perfectly healthy limb amputated.

    Edge have posted a video (and transcript) of him talking about these, and other syndromes under the title of Adventures In Behavioral Neurology—Or—What Neurology Can Tell Us About Human Nature.

    We saw a patient recently who was a prominent dean of an engineering school and soon after he retired he came out and said he wants his left arm amputated above the elbow. Here’s a perfectly normal guy who has been living a normal life in society interacting with people. He’s never told anybody that he harbored this secret desire—intense desire—to have his arm amputated ever since early childhood, and he never came out and told people about it for fear that they might think he was crazy. He came to see us recently and we tried to figure out what was going on in his brain. And by the way, this disorder is not rare. There are websites devoted to it. About one-third of them go on to actually get it amputated. Not in this country because it’s not legal, but they go to Mexico or somewhere else and get it amputated.

    It’s worth listening to.

  • The Science Delusion

    There’s a book review in today’s Guardian. It caught my eye, because the book’s title is The Science Delusion, which sounded rather provocative.

    Turning to the review, I saw that it was written by Mary Midgley, and my heart sank. I read the review, and she likes the book. That settled it for me. The book, by author Rupert Sheldrake, is probably tosh, and not worth getting. She also ends her review with a not-unexpected swipe at her bête noire, Richard Dawkins.

    I see that Dr. Adam Rutherford has felt moved to add in the comments on the review:

    I’ve read this dreadful book, and fail to recognise any of it in this review. It is, I’m sorry to say, drivel. Drivel that stands in opposition to Dawkins’ work to cynically promote Sheldrake’s many times debunked fantasy supernatural gubbins. If there is a philiosophical point therein, I missed it for all the tales of dogs who know when their owners are coming home, experiments abut the Nolan Sisters and Sheldrake’s woo phlogiston which he calls Morphic Resonance.

    A couple of years ago, I wrote this piece on Sheldrake, which applies to this current book too. A book for ignoring.

    Based on my previous exposure to both Midgley’s and Rutherford’s work, I judge Rutherford’s opinion to be the more sound. The book is almost certainly tosh and I definitely will not be buying it.

  • The Scientific Method

    The scientific method is the process by which science is done. To quote from Wikipedia:

    Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The Oxford English Dictionary says that scientific method is: “a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”

    Equally important in the scientific method is the sharing of results and peer review:

    Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible, to reduce biased interpretations of results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established.

    It’s therefore a bit odd when criticism of an experimental cancer treatment results in those voicing the criticisms being threatened with legal action.

    Enter the Burzynski Cancer Clinic and one Marc Stephens who may, or may not, be a lawyer, but who claims to be acting on their behalf.

    Mr Stephens has been very busy of late. He’s been sending blustering letters to Rhys Morgan, a 17 year-old schoolboy:

    Rhys,

    This is my THIRD AND FINAL WARNING to you.

    Please convey this message to your entire Skeptic Network, which includes but not limited to, Ratbags.com, thetwentyfirstfloor, quackwatch, etc. I represent Dr. Burzynski, the Burzynski Clinic, and the Burzynski Research Institute. I’ve attached Azad Rastegar, and Renee Trimble from the Burzynski Clinic for your confirmation.

    In the following weeks I will be giving authorization to local attorneys in multiple countries to pursue every defamation libel case online, including your online libelous statements. I suggest you shut down your entire online defamation campaign about Dr. Burzynski, and remove ALL recent or previous comments off the internet IMMEDIATELY. The minute you post any libelous comments online about my client I will pursue you and your parents/guardians To the Full Extent of the Law. I have no obligation to train you, or teach you, the meaning of defamation. Google it, or go to the library and research it.

    This is a very serious matter. Please confirm your mailing address, which I have on record as (my address). If you do not cooperate an official legal complaint requesting punitive damages will be mailed to that address. I will be contacting your school as well to inform them of your illegal acts.

    As Rhys says:

    Since the initial email, I have discovered others have received similar legal threats from Marc Stephens including Peter Bowditch of ratbags.com, who blogged about Burzynski eleven years ago, but is only now receiving this legal threat. Another blog threatened includes Quackometer.net from Andy Lewis, A.K.A Le Canard Noir. You can find a blog about his ordeal with Marc Stephens here:

    I posted the blog so that patients, their friends and families would be aware of the whole story about Burzynski and his unproven therapy. I want them to be aware that the treatment seems to be in a constant cycle of trials generating unpublished results. As Dr Howard Ozer, director of the Allegheny Cancer Center in Philadelphia, said – it is scientific nonsense.

    In fact, the actions of Mr. Stephens may have backfired a little. There is now a long list of posts popping up drawing attention to this interesting interpretation of what the scientific method entails.

  • Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do…

    No, it’s no good, I must stop reading the stuff that Mark Vernon is prone to write (and, I might add, get paid for!). It’s not good for my spleen.

    This time he’s using some philosophical fenceplay from Raymond Tallis as an excuse to trot out his (Vernon’s) own earnestly desired wish that we are not just wetware, meat machines; that consciousness simply has to be more than just neurons firing.

    While I rather like the work of Tallis as an author and philosopher, it does strike me that he’s got a book to sell (Aping Mankind), so coining terms such as neuromania and Darwinitis may be good for the book sales, rather than having any real basis behind them. I note also that his book has garnered glowing reviews from the likes of Roger Scruton and Mary Midgley – neither of whom I count for much when it comes to the field of science. And on the basis of this article, that goes for Mark Vernon as well.

  • “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”

    That’s the title of a short story by Harlan Ellison, but it is also a reference given by Roger Ebert in his stunning presentation at TED last month.

    Ebert is a brilliant critic of film, but cancer has removed his jaw and his ability to speak. His presentation at TED is an example that being born into this particular “box of time and space” where PLATO, HAL 9000 and the DEC Rainbow all occurred, together with advances in medical science, have ensured that Ebert’s voice, in all its manifestations, can continue to be heard. Wonderful.

  • The Magic Washing Machine

    I’ve mentioned Hans Rosling and his artistry in showing statistics before. Here he is again, this time taking the humble washing machine as the springboard for an exploration on its impact on society and the environment. Great stuff.

  • Did I Miss Something?

    Last night, I settled down to watch the opening episode of Professor Brian Cox’s new series on science: Wonders of the Universe. Unfortunately, I was very tired and promptly dozed off. Every few minutes I would almost wake up and catch sight of the prof standing proud in some gorgeous location and then promptly sink back down into oblivion.

    And I’m left with a nagging doubt that perhaps the programme wasn’t good enough to snag my attention and return me to full wakefulness. Reading today’s review of the programme in The Guardian only serves to strengthen the doubt. I really must try and stay awake next week.

  • Turing’s Papers Saved for the Nation

    For a while, it looked as though there was a real possibility that Alan Turing’s papers might disappear abroad, possibly to a private collector in Silicon Valley. However, news comes today that the UK’s National Heritage Memorial Fund has pledged £200,000 to make up the shortfall and meet the seller’s reserve price.

    So the papers should end up in the museum at Bletchley Park where they rightfully belong. Excellent.

  • The Story of Wind and Mr. Ug

    Vi Hart describes herself as a recreational mathematician. She’s also a pretty good storyteller, as evinced by this little tale set on a topologically challenging world.

  • Science or Dogma

    A few days ago, I mentioned Jacob Bronowski and his TV series The Ascent of Man. Here’s that scene of him speaking at Auschwitz, explaining the difference between science and dogma.

    (hat tip to Alun Salt for providing me with the link to this key scene)

  • My Father, The Bomb and Me

    When I was growing up. Jacob Bronowski was a presence on the telly. He was the scientist, the boffin, who could be relied upon to explain science to the rest of us. In 1973, he presented a ground-breaking series, The Ascent of Man, that gave him a platform to present his humanist view of the role that science has played in the development of our species.

    The bit that sticks in my mind, that probably sticks in everybody’s mind who saw the series, is the scene where he is ankle-deep in a muddy pool in Auschwitz, and he suddenly bends down to bring up a handful of mud before the camera, while talking to us in that faintly-accented voice of his. Except that this is not mud, this is ash. The ash of millions of human beings who were consumed by the ovens of the Nazis. I can never watch that scene without being overwhelmed.

    Last night, I saw that scene again. It was part of a documentary, My Father, The Bomb and Me, presented by the historian Lisa Jardine. She is his daughter, and she explored aspects of his life that she knew little of. For example, the fact that he worked in operations research during WWII, designing more effective bombs, and she wondered how she could reconcile that with the loving father that she remembered.

    Her documentary succeeded brilliantly, bringing to life a man who was both humane and who was deeply affected by remorse at some of the things that he had to do in his life. The depth of that remorse was expressed by the simple act of cleaning his glasses in public on a talk show. It sounds ridiculous, but watching his daughter watch the video of that sequence with her seeing the deeper meaning in what he was doing as he carefully sought for the just words to answer the interviewer’s question made everything come clear, and the thought arise, in my mind at least, that here was a good man doing the best he could, as he always had done.

  • The Antikythera Mechanism – in Lego

    I have mentioned the astounding Antikythera mechanism before, but here’s something really brilliant: it’s been reconstructed using Lego. What I like about the video is that it demonstrates how the various component parts work together and end up as a machine for predicting solar eclipses. Quite wonderful.

  • Statistics Made Fun

    Nobody does this better than Hans Rosling. Here’s a particularly nice example:

    (hat tip to Pharyngula)