Luke Davis | August 23rd, 2011

Insights arising from the atomic theory of matter

Insights arising from the atomic theory of matter

By Luke Kristopher Davis

(Last article)

The theory does not coincide with everyday experience

   Take a few seconds to look around your present environment; the laptop or PC in front of you, the grass or buildings outside your window, the objects that sit on your table and the body that is you. You can touch the table and it feels quite smooth. Nothing from this experience tells you that matter itself consists of small units called atoms. Objects seem intact and their surfaces seem whole… if they were made of small spherical units surely we would see them?  This is not true however.

Humans and their sensory equipment have evolved to deal with the environment around them, our eyes have merely coped with this layer of reality. Our brains find it easier to see objects as big solid objects, not made of tiny tiny particles.

It was in the age of the Athenian philosophers, including Democritus, that the concept of indivisible units of matter arose. The concept arose from the simple empirical fact that objects change; they decay, break, melt and evaporate. They simply asked the question; how can things change if they are completely whole? why doesn’t an object, when broken, simply vanish?  The answer to this was atomos: which is Greek for ‘indivisible’. Objects are comprised of very small spheres which are themselves impenetrable.

Many thinkers simply  disagreed with this absurd hypothesis for three reasons; 1) There was no obvious physical evidence for it  2) It went against everything already known (in those times conservatism was strong)  3)  It didn’t change how they lived.

In 1800′s John Dalton proposed an Atomic theory of matter, which basically stated that substances are made of atoms and that different substances are made of different atoms.  His theory was an explanation of many experiments from different scientists. His paper presented strong evidence for the atomic theory.

It seemed that primitive instinct had failed to reveal the truth about the world. Only precise experiments could detect the molecular structure of matter.

Our coarse senses have a limited power in revealing the structure of the universe, experiments that were invented beyond the atomic theory opened a new layer of the universe. They explained so much about where we live and how it works.

The Modern Atomic theory

   What Dalton proposed was mostly correct, however he did not present any insight into the structure of these so called atoms. He only said they were there, which at his time was a great achievement. It had taken many physicists and chemists since Dalton to delve deeper into the atom.

J.J.Thomson, through his experiments on Cathode rays, discovered the electron.  Which was later found to be a particle orbiting around the nucleus at different energy levels. This finding was partially due to a consequence of the experiments performed by Ernst Rutherford and his assistants (really it was performed by his assistants).  The experiment consisted of a gold foil with a detector of helium nuclei around the foil. The assistants fired helium nuclei at the gold foil and most of the helium nuclei past straight through the foil. There were however some unexpected results, some (a statistical value exists) of the nuclei were reflected back to the firer and some deflected their paths. This result was incredible as Rutherford himself explains:

It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you. On consideration, I realized that this scattering backward must be the result of a single collision, and when I made calculations I saw that it was impossible to get anything of that order of magnitude unless you took a system in which the greater part of the mass of the atom was concentrated in a minute nucleus. It was then that I had the idea of an atom with a minute massive center, carrying a charge.
—Ernest Rutherford
This disproved the plum-pudding model of the atom (everything existing in a sphere with no concentrated points). This experiment revealed the nature of the atom and this itself opened a new world.
Protons where thereby given there name, a particle existing in the nucleus with a positive charge. From this knowledge of the atom ,elements could be described accurately using atomic numbers (A) and proton numbers (Z).
This modern interpretation of atomic theory gave rise to a plethora of scientific knowledge and legacy. Nuclear fusion and fission arose after the creation of the atomic bomb made at Los Alamos. Radiation and the weak decay force could be described. The photoelectric effect, discovered by Einstein was born.
Delving deeper into the atomic world, now known as the subatomic world, has brought us invaluable knowledge. It has also brought us the modern life which we now live.
Interesting explanations
Einstein discovered what is called Brownian motion: the random jiggling of molecules in gas, liquid and solids (minimally). This led to an interesting explanation of what heat actually is. Most of us when we are young, think of heat as some kind of energy that hot things seem to possess and radiate. Heat is actually the amount of jiggling that occurs in a group of molecules. The more hotter something is the more jiggling its molecules experience.
The states and phenomena of H2O can be explained through this jiggling of atoms. Imagine a blob of water that is on your desk. It is stationary and it is sort of spherical. You may ask… what keeps this damn water blob … a blob!?  What stops it from just spilling everywhere?  The atoms of the water are vibrating slightly… in a random manner. The atoms are also attracting each other so that they stay sufficiently close to one another. The atoms that are on the outside are vibrating… not as much as the ones inside (as they lose kinetic energy colliding with air molecules and are not bombarded as much by other water atoms) but are trying to get in to the center of the blob. This is because they are attracted to other atoms inside the blob and next to it and this attractive force is much stronger than their forces due to motion. (As they come too close to one another they repel due to the strong nuclear force).  This is how a blob of water stays a blob… it is due to surface tension.
If there is not a thermal equilibrium between the air and the water blob, the blob may lose thermal energy. The atoms and molecules of the blob will jiggle and vibrate with less rapidness.  If they lose enough energy they may come to a point whereby the atoms form a structure in which the vibration cannot overcome. This is called a freezing point, we know this to be 0 degrees Celsius  for water. In the case of  ice, the atoms form an hexagonal structure with empty centers. These empty spaces create an expansion of the overall system causing water to expand when frozen.  In the case of water, the empty spaces are normally filled with vibrating atoms.
Also the burning sensation and the mark left on the skin by touching something hot can be explained through atoms and molecules. Say for example you have a hot pan, which we know has molecules vibrating and jiggling very fast. When we place our finger tip on the pan, these fast moving molecules come into contact with the cells on our skin and literally pound the hell out of them. The molecules damage the cells due to their momentum and surrounding cells produce a chemical which sends an electrical impulse to the spinal cord, which produces a signal to a motor neuron which then causes our finger tip to move away. (This reflex is sometimes unconscious).  All this happens in such a short amount of time, yet so much is happening. The universe is such an amazing system, such an intricate and complex system.

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Luke Davis | August 7th, 2011

A Facebook interview with: Nat Eguchi

The Facebook interview: Nat Eguchi

by Luke Kristopher Davis

    Louis and Nat Eguchi have had their Ipod application featured in the Banbury Guardian. I am curious about their success and how Nat has built up a curiosity for computer science.  We also discuss other issues that we find important in our lives.

(Luke is in Italics)

What do you think of your recent success on your app?

it’s just proof that a simple app, with very modest marketing can achieve world wide reach in very little time. this, admittedly, has also been proven by the apprentice, but with our success it shows that a little known company can have the same impact.

The App, as you imply, brings to the world a whole new enterprise for companies wanting a quick entry into the world of E-business. Do you think Apple has had a significant change on the internet and business? If so how?

Before the opening of Apples mobile application market place the “App Store”, mobile applications were very much few and far between, with a market place dominated solely by games and simple utilities such as currency converters. with the advent of the Apple iPhone, 3G mobile internet and larger screen sizes, mobile smartphones such as the iPhone have been able to have more feature rich applications with dynamic and stunning content. the Apple iPhone has forced mobile application developers to make functional, well designed applications for smart phones, with fewer bugs and better experiences. Apple has managed to do this by entering the market place with a feature rich set of tools, content and support for developers to create applications for their device. this kind of all in one approach has not yet been reached on platforms such as android. the audited, high quality nature of the App Store makes for a very high number of repeat purchases from consumers and this is the key business model that apple has hit.

Apple has indeed become a ‘tour de force’ in the computing and technology area. Their ‘all in one approach’ as you say and their dedication to design quality has resulted in them having more collected dollars then the U.S government.  Moving on from Apple and onto your own personal curiosity. Why do you create Apps and learn about the mechanics of computers?  When did you start this interest?

My interest in computers apparently started from a very early age, when i was 3 years old, my dad used to bring has laptop (more like a PC back then) back from work every day and he would let me type random garbage on it (usually pages of G’s and F’s). I would then format it and make it look all pretty and he would print off these pages of rubbish when he went back to work the next day, I think it was probably the excitement of getting these back the next day that really got me into computers from a very early age. As i grew up and progressed through primary school it became apparent to the teachers that I knew a lot more than them about the computers and they would often call on me to help with their lessons. It’s rather funny when i look back through all my old school reports they were so scared that I knew so much, I think they thought I was some sort of spy. It was at the end of the summer of 2008 that i got my first real break into the world of programming.. We (my brother and I) were commissioned to create a website for a rally team. It was decided that it was going to be visually stunning and needed a database for all the content. Not knowing anything about this I did what I usually do when I hit a problem and googled it. A couple of months later and I had learnt Actionscript 2, PHP, SQL and created a website. And that is where i really got into programming. It was earlier this summer that my brother came to me with the app idea for totty and asked me whether I could do it, I said “Come back in an hour and i’ll see” so he did and i’d built the majority of it. it was such a simple idea, that it was easy to execute. I think the nice thing about programming is that you can see the results of your hard work almost instantly and that is most satisfying

i am terrible with this!

That is very interesting, I did a lot of research (for the world’s greatest brains series… which is still going) on great mathematicians, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and Nobel laureates and I found that, in their childhood they had an emotional attachment to their subject area, or they were completely filled with awe with nature or their own ability. I am not saying with certainty that you’re going to be successful, I am merely saying you fit the already established pattern. This funnily enough happened to me when I was about 7, my grandad bought me a light bulb, he pointed out the window and said ‘the sun gives us light and so does a light bulb’ I was like… yeah.. it does, ‘ he then said how can light come from two different things’. That question which at first seems simple but has fundamental physical importance, unleashed a curiosity for the governing dynamics of things.

What are your other interests? Are you an advocate of science?

I have interests in D.I.Y and Electronics, I fix everything in our house and am currently trying to repair a 1970′s pen plotter, which is extremely difficult as it has thousands of wires, components and switches and it didn’t come with a manual! I am interested in the way things work and especially how existing online systems work, I have previously hacked SAM learning to make me the “Top Learner” in our year and also hacked spotify to be able to download any song. The other day I managed to create an exact copy of 4ODs ad-serving infrastructure so I could replace the adverts on 4oD with my own, it’s these little fun things that really interest me. using existing systems to do something they weren’t designed for.

Classic stuff! Teach me how to download anything on Spotify! (obviously outside the interview) Just a pre-warning though, the FBI and UN are cracking down on hackers e.g. lulzsec which could be classed as a threat to national security. However, I don’t think they are too bothered with 40d atm. You seem very practical minded with your approach to ‘finding things out’, which is brilliant! I tend (try and will continue to for the rest of my life) to find ‘existing systems’ in nature and to try and understand these and find ways to use these systems for pleasure or for the benefit of humans. It may seem dull to others, but, as you well know, finding things out is a kinda fun.

What do you think of obstacles that restrain curiosity and learning… parents and teachers can sometimes be restraining? Do you think Religion is a restraint on progress.. on finding things out?

I, Surprisingly, find very few obstacles to my curiosity bar time, money and the amount of time i can stay awake before my mind turns to a boiled egg. I have been blessed with fairly “Of the reigns” parents. Another nice thing about the things I do is that religion rarely falls into the lines of what I do, and if it did, i would have to take a thoroughly atheistic argument. I think that some fundamentalists can be stuck in the past about what they accept of science and technology (but then again, isn’t the past the definition of fundamentalism?). I am not worried about this in respect to the pace at which we are finding things out as many of the key nations leading the discovery of new things in science and technology have a very “Hands off” approach when it comes to religion and science, putting the two in very distinct boxes. I think that there is a way of having both coexist. but everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

A very mature and respectful attitude you hold. On my ipod I have a weird facts app ( oh yes another app), one of the facts states that the rate of gain of knowledge is so fast that 90% of what we know in the next 50 years will be discovered in those 50 years. I am glad you are able to explore your curiosity with minimal limits. Just one more question which I will ask future interviewees too… 

what do you think of mattjwaller.com ?

It appears to be a very well written and edited blog, on par with a magazine for the quality of the articles. It’ll get you and matt far.

Thank you very much Nat! Let’s hope it does… we also hope you enjoy more success with your talents. Thank you for taking part in our first facebook interview, stay tuned for more! Adios Nat and readers!

I better get back to packing now!!

 


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Luke Davis | August 4th, 2011

An exploration into: Our brain and central nervous system

Our brain and central nervous system

by Luke Kristopher Davis

An introduction

    As you follow the evolutionary history of life on earth you will see that organisms grow in their complexity and efficiency. This complexity is a consequence of minute alterations to DNA which result in complex organs, this alteration is a result of natural selection. Natural selection is a process which sieves out genes that  are no longer useful, are faulty or another gene for a similar function is a much more adapted gene for that environment. Fast forward this process for a couple of billions of years then as a consequence of natural selection, a vast array of complex organisms will have formed.

Homo-sapiens, as with sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus)  and the scorpion (Hadogenes troglodytes), are products of evolution. We have developed (as with our ancestor the chimpanzee) a complex nervous system and brain. Our complex nervous system has helped us in sensing our environment and equally in processing and acting upon it. Homo-sapiens in particular have a complex brain, we are able to communicate with other humans in enormous detail and we are capable of complex abstract thought. As you can see around you, the human brain is capable of understanding nature and its governing dynamics, enabling technology and a very complicated social structure.

In this article we will explore the mechanisms that underpin our interactions with the world (central nervous system) and our brilliant cognitive machine.

The Central Nervous System

  The central nervous system (CNS) is the body’s control center. It is analogous to the pilot’s cabin and the electronic system of radar and radio to a plane. CNS co-ordinates all the humans actions, both mechanical and chemical (working with hormones) and is made up of the brain and spinal cord. The millions of nerves that perpetuate throughout the body carry electronic impulses from certain tissues, through the spinal cord up to the brain and this happens in the opposite direction too.

The Brain

“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
- Robert Frost

The brain is the organ that controls most of the body’s activities. It is responsible for advance cognition, conscious movement and unconscious activities e.g. controlling the food movement through the intestines. The brain is the only organ able to act ‘intelligently’ which is action based on past experience stored as information, present events and future plans. It is made of millions of neurons arranged into sensory, association and motor areas. The sensory areas receive information from all body parts and the association areas analyse the impulses and make decisions. The motor areas send messages (orders) to muscles or glands. The impulses are carried by the fibers of 43 pairs of nerves – 12 pairs of cranial nerves serving the head and 31 pairs of spinal nerves.

The parts of the brain:

The Cerebrum: The largest, most highly developed area, with many deep folds (which is a sign of complex neuron and lobe structure… advanced cognition). It is located above the cerebellum and the thalamus. The cerebrum is made out of two cerebral hemispheres, joined by a band of nerve fibers (corpus callosum) and its outer layer is called the cerebral cortex. This contains all the most important sensory, association and motor areas. It controls most physical activities (yes… even sex) and is the center for mental activities such as decision-making, speech, learning, memory hippocampus lobe and imagination.

The Cerebellum: The area of the brain which co-ordinates muscle movement and balance, these two are under the overall control of the cerebrum.

The midbrain: An area joining the Diencephalon, which is a collective term used for the thalamus and hypothalamus, to the pons. It carries impulses towards the thalamus, and out from the cerebrum towards the spinal cord.

Pons or Pons Varolii: A junction of nerve fibers which forms a link between the parts of the brain and the spinal cord (via the medulla).

Medulla or medulla oblongta: The area which controls the “fine tuning” of many unconscious actions (under the overall control of the hypothalamus). Different parts of the medulla control different actions.

Thalamus: This is the basic traffic center of the brain, it directs the oncoming nerve impulse traffic to different parts of the cerebrum. It also directs some outgoing impulses.

Hypothalamus: The master controller of most inner body functions. It controls the autonomic nervous system (nerve cells causing unconscious action) and the action of the pituitary gland. This gland is made out of two anterior and posterior lobes which produce hormones for the body, these hormones are mainly of the tropic variety, these hormones stimulate the action of other glands in the body. This part of the brain is vital for keeping our internal systems in order.

The lobes and parts of the cerebrum

The different hemispheres of the cerebrum focus on different cognition. The left is more analytically orientated, focusing on language and computation. The right is more creative and more focused on visual imagination.

The spinal cord

   The spinal cord is a long string of nervous tissue running down from the brain stem inside the vertebral column. Nervous messages from all parts of the body travel through it, some are carried away from the brain and some enter towards it. Others might be dealt with in the cord.

As you can see in the diagram spinal nerves branch from the cord through gaps in vertebrae. There are over 31 pairs of these spinal nerves. Nervous fibers branch from these nerves and so on around different organs and limbs. Each spinal nerve is made out of a sensory root and a motor root, the former sends signals into the brain, the latter sends signals to muscles or glands.

In the spinal cord exists neuroglia which are stiffened cells which support and protect the nerve cells of the central nervous system. Some produce a white, fatty substance called myelin. This coats the long fibers found in connective areas of the brain and the outer layer of the spinal cord, and leads to these areas being called white matter. Grey matter on the other hand consists of cell bodies and short fibers which do not produce myelin.

The neuron

On a molecular level, the governing dynamics of both the brain and spinal cord are greatly caused by the structure and mechanisms of a nerve cell or neuron.

The neuron is made up of a cell body, nerve fibers, dendrites and sometimes axons. The cell body is the part of the neuron containing its nucleus and most of its cytoplasm. The cell bodies of all association, some sensory and some motor neurons lie in the brain and spinal cord. Those of the other sensory neurons are found in masses called ganglia.

Nerve fibers are extensions of the sytoplasm of the cellbody and carry vital nervous impulses to other neurons, muscles or parts of the brain. Most of the lond nerve fibers which run out round the body are accompanied by neuroglial cells which produces myelin around each fiber. Dendrites are the fibers carrying impulses in towards the cell body, axons are the long fibers which carry signals away from the neuron in query.

There are three different types of neurons: sensory, motor and association. Sensory neurons carry information to other neurons, they are detectors and are vital for the bio-mechanical system, they fire signals when stimulated. Association neurons are special linking neurons present in vast quantities in the brain and spinal cord. They pick up information and interpret the sensory information and pass this to the right motor neuron. Motor neurons are responsible for action, they receive information and when stimulated cause muscle contraction or the chemical production of hormones in glands.

Between nerve endings is a synapse which is a small gap between the dendrite and axon of two neurons. A neuro transmitting chemical is produced from the axon to stimulate the continuation of the electrical signal.

An insight

The human body as you can see is beautifully complex yet astonishingly efficient. This is why human consciousness seems so ethereal and quite incomprehensible,with time however neuro-scientists, physicists and biologists may come to model the complex process of consciousness. We have also gained an insight into nature, how nature builds intelligence. We may as humans learn from this and when building artificial intelligence use the phenomena witnessed in the human brain as an example.

A question is raised however, is this the only way nature can produce biological intelligence and complexity? Is there another way which an alien life form may take?

Time will tell.

Thanks goes to ADAM for images


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Luke Davis | July 17th, 2011

Nature and disorder: Chaos theory

Chaos

 

The clockwork Newtonian world recedes in the intellectual horizon. Its time at the frontiers of our science and intuition has come to an end, the gradual rise of a new science has already begun. The seemingly orderly universe which we encounter every second is more liberal than what we thought, instead of being completely predictable and deterministic  nature is unpredictable and chaotic.

Does this mean Newton’s laws of motion and all the work derived from them are useless? Shall we hammer out our linear intuition? The answer is simply no. Simplifying data by formulating linear relationships is still useful, it still governs most of our science and economics. We cannot immediately discard what has granted us so much power and delve into a uncertain and new mathematical world. Linear science, that is, simple linear and exponential mathematical equations predicting natural phenomena is still a good investment. It is still reaping returns. Though like a new idea or business chaos deserves an investment; as it succeeds and evolves its share on the scientific market will grow.

You’re still asking the question… what is chaos? Okay I will briefly introduce it, though the concept and formulation of chaos itself is still growing.

Chaos can be defined as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This means that a system which could be within nature e.g. organisms resulting from small changes in DNA or the weather is greatly dependent on how it starts. If you or nature changes how a system starts or tweak a factor in its initial conditions, you will observe a great difference in the behaviors of the system and as time continues the difference becomes greater. In a lecture about his paper on the chaotic behavior of the weather: ‘Non-periodic flow’ Edward Lorenz named this sensitive dependence as the butterfly effect. The effects of the butterfly on the surrounding air albeit minuscule may cause a tornado on the other side of the globe. This sensitive dependence plus the nonlinear laws that govern a system make it a chaotic one.

 

 

Here we have two images, one represents a butterfly the other a lorenz attractor (a 3 dimensional graph with lines representing variables accross time). The Lorenz attractor is determined by the other picture, that is, the variables represented on the graph is determined by the butterfly effect. The system is sensitive to its initial conditions. The graph is chaotic, it may look predictable but the variables oscillate un-predictably over time.

So why do we need to use chaos when it is unpredictable? Surely it is not very useful? It may seem that way when chaos is over-simplified. Chaos is merely a non-linear science which forms relationships and laws of nature, economics and other systems from non linear geometry and equations of a special kind. New medical research into predicting heart attacks contains chaotic methods. The pace-maker cells, blood flow and cholesterol all at first glance seem to be periodic and simple, however as small changes in the cells or small environmental or diet changes may change the conditions of this biological system. Over time chaos may perform it’s role… what at first seems minuscule may become a momentous heart attack. Like the butterfly causing the tornado.

Non-linear science arises when linear science fails to adequately explain natural phenomena. As classical physics failed to explain the wave-duality of particles and the characteristics of spin, quantum mechanics was born. The genre of phenomena that non-linear attempts to explain what linear science couldn’t is ‘self organisation’.  Self organisation is where a system which is independent of external equipment or major forces behaves in patterns that are random. Linear science needs to know the forces acting on the system… but we don’t know it… the drive of the system is in the system itself. So we need to have a science that explains how certain systems can behave randomly in patterns by themselves.

Another important concept inherent in chaos is self similarity. This concept arose from one maverick genius…  Benoit Mandelbrot. Self-similarity is where a pattern repeats itself at smaller and smaller stages and doing so infinitely. The equation that governed this fractal pattern as he coined was… Z <> Z^2 + C.  The value of Z is continually used to create the pattern. A brilliant yet complex pattern has arose from a simple equation. Our linguistic and intuitive relationship between complexity and simplicity has been overturned. They are not distinct, they are interconnected.

A Mandelbrot set with beautiful geometry. Chaoticists argue that this fractal geometry is inherent in nature.

Chaos is an amazing mathematical discovery, it has applications in nearly every scientific discipline.

What wonders will it bring? Nobody knows. Scientific and mathematical discovery may itself be chaotic, dependent on its initial conditions. I do have intuition that the elegant mathematical butterfly of chaos may evoke an intellectual tornado, changing the landscape of knowledge forever.


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Luke Davis | June 12th, 2011

Worlds Greatest Brains: Richard Feynman

“Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.” – Richard Feynman

 

The first quote on the Albert Einstein article was much more eloquent than this, though it does not contain more insight. Anyway who needs eloquence and fancy words, they are of no use and they just complicate everything. Feynman thought this way, he didn’t like liars or boasters or anyone who thought they were better than anyone else. Even with his fantastic insights: mathematical, scientific and about life in general, Feynman did not boast. He was an honest man in his personal and his academic life. The quote also neatly summarizes Feynman’s scientific perspective: he viewed mathematics as a tool to solve problems but it was not fruitful until applied to nature… the real world. When correctly and carefully applied to nature we can begin to truly understand it. This understanding brings not only the joy of knowing (a slightly platonic feeling) but also technology, medicine, economic structure… you get the point.

He was a fun, adventurous and a determined character. At school he was known as the ‘problem solver’, his friends and fellow pupils would give him their difficult math homework which he would solve even if it took him a while. Feynman would receive the same problem which he had solved before, he would solve it in seconds leaving his friends stunned, they perceived him as a genius (he sure fooled them). Throughout his life Feynman would follow his curiosity, try new things out, go to bars and charm women and win the Nobel prize. One unique characteristic of Feynman is that he was exceptionally intelligent and original with a huge dose of fun.

Feynman was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York and is an American citizen. His parents originated in Russia and Poland and were of Jewish descent, though          Feynman declared himself an atheist from an early age.

Similarly to Einstein, Feynman was a slow learner at a very early age. He didn’t speak a word until he was three. He eventually grew out of it but never lost his  determination to solve a problem or to find something out. Throughout his childhood Feynman loved to play and experiment. His house was quite large and this gave  him room to build mechanical devices such as radios and simple experiments. He once finely tuned a homemade radio and stumbled upon a show which he and his f- riends listened to. He listened to the broadcast before it had been played in his local area. As his friends came over for the actual broadcast he would predict what would happen and his friends would be astonished. He later shared his simple yet ingenious secret. Even when he was working on the atomic bomb with Hans Bethe at Los Alamos, he still played tricks. He would break into top secret filing cabinets and leave cheeky messages such as ‘guess who’.

His father played a vital part in nurturing Feynman’s genius, teaching him how to question common sense thinking and to develop a scientific mindset. His mother helped develop his character and sense of humor which Feynman never lost, he was always light-hearted in nature.

One mindset Feynman left home with just before he entered MIT was this;

“Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.”

This insight is brilliant. I mean, sure, novelists and modern artists are creative but surely imagining natures inner workings requires another level of imagination because you have to really think about whats actually happening. A fiction writer just has to think of some wild plot and make it seem real enough to be read. That’s my opinion. Fiction is entertaining but I don’t think it’s creators are as creative as some of the top scientists.

Feynman entered Princeton university after applying to do a PHD with his life-long friend John Archibald Wheeler. His scores on the entrance exam were phenomenal. His thesis which John Wheeler advised was in the field of quantum mechanics. He successfully formulated the Wheeler-Feynman absorption theory which is an interpretation of electrodynamics, the theory solves the electromagnetic field equations (laws describing electric fields) using symmetry with respect to time-inversion. Don’t worry, I don’t have a clue what the theory is either. The mathematics in this theory was very complex and even Wheeler felt out of his depth. James Gleick wrote in his biography of Feynman:

“This was Richard Feynman nearing the crest of his powers. At twenty-three … there was no physicist on earth who could match his exuberant command over the native materials of theoretical science. It was not just a facility at mathematics (though it had become clear … that the mathematical machinery emerging from the Wheeler–Feynman collaboration was beyond Wheeler’s own ability). Feynman seemed to possess a frightening ease with the substance behind the equations, like Albert Einstein at the same age, like the Soviet physicist Lev Landau—but few others.”

This irreverent genius worked with Oppenheimer and the like on the Manhattan project. This project did unfortunately lead to the Hiroshima bombings, though the blame should never be thrown on the researchers but on the men and women who organised such an attack. I have always wandered why politicians, presidents and Military what nots get to decide how to use the technology and the science which they do not fully understand. It’s like giving a gun to a 4 year old boy and an Xbox to a grandad, they both don’t know how the gun and xbox work and both will cause a lot of disruption and havoc.

Feynman spent the rest of his life at CALTECH. Teaching his beloved physics to keen university students. They all called him the great explainer, as he could explain the most complicated concepts and equations with the most intuitive style. He was an amazing teacher!

His first lecture was quite big. Einstein, Pauli and the great Von neuman all attended. Feynman was nervous, but as he delved into the physics he felt calm and excited, he spoke with complete passion and with a great deal of understanding.

One of Feynman’s greatest creations is the Feynman diagram method. This is used by particle physicists as a language to describe what particles enter and exit during a collision, explosion or in an area of confined space.

 

 

 

 

A collision over time.

 

Feynman’s life was not limited to his science and his personal relationships. He took up art, the bongos and made videos popularizing physics and science.

He never stopped solving problems.

 

As his unsuccessful wife said during a divorce:

“He begins working calculus problems in his head as soon as he awakens. He did calculus while driving in his car, while sitting in the living room, and while lying in bed at night.”
—Mary Louise Bell divorce complaint[

 

What a magnificent brain Richard Feynman had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Luke Davis | June 9th, 2011

Worlds Greatest Brains: Albert Einstein

“Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.”

 

This philosophy was embedded in Einstein’s life. He spent most of his time as a physicist reveling in thought experiments and solving new and prevailing problems in physics, hoping that his solutions will be imprinted into the eternal rulebook of reality. At many moments of his life however, his political and moral nature took hold of him and he would fight for freedom, pacifism and the protection of the world from Hitler through the Atomic bomb. He was one of the key figures who signed Bertrand Russell’s petition for nuclear disarmament. Einstein was an ecstatic genius who was adept in applied mathematics, physics and philosophy, without this German born patent officer our science today would look very different. Not even different… just plain wrong.

As a child Einstein was a slow learner. Many pin this down to a form of dyslexia or shyness, it might be neither. This slow learning did not impede his education, it enriched it:

“I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.”

Were you ever given a physics, math or biology homework which made you think about it longer even if you had already solved it? This is what Einstein did. His brain was such that, he contemplated and inquired into the fundamental nature of phenomena and he questioned what he was taught. This determination to find the true answer that was driven by his restless curiosity stayed with him until his death. Even the physicist himself said:

“I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious.”

An interesting neuroscience research project would be to theorize from MRI scans, what brain structure or amount of grey matter causes a large curiosity. The need to understand and accumulate systematic facts. One day maybe.

At the age of twelve Einstein met his long life friend, mathematics. He was an exceptional mathematician. Many say that he flunked his maths entrance exam… this is nonsense. Einstein scored very highly in maths and physics but failed the liberal arts section.

Through his teenage years he developed his intellect and education through building mechanical devices and reading books given to him by his two uncles. He read the works of the philosopher Kant and later read the papers written by the great physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

 

 

Einstein finally graduated from the polytechnic university of Zurich with a degree in physics. He wanted to obtain a teaching position at the university but as a student he was lazy, rude and eccentric which pissed off most of his professors. He couldn’t get a position.

Though the young Albert was in luck. His friend recommended him to a Swiss patent-office where he would spend a year or so as a patent clerk. Einstein had to assess the inventions going through the office and this required his physics knowledge.

What is so unique and quite frankly odd is that whilst Bertie over there -> was working in the office he wrote three of his most important and ground-breaking papers. He published a paper on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and the special theory of relativity.

What exactly is Brownian motion?  Well… Brownian motion (named after the botanist Robert Brown) is the random movement of particles suspended in air. It can be observed by placing a smoke particle in a test tube and using a lens and microscope one can observe its apparent random motion. Einstein formulated this physical principle and reasoned that the smoke particle is being bombarded by air molecules that are in motion.

The photoelectric effect (might as well explain the other two) is where a photon (a quantum of light or em radiation) collides with and electron and the electron escapes the surface. This can only occur if the energy of the photon is at or above a minimum value. E (energy of photon) = h (planks constant) times by (f the frequency of the photon). This energy must equal the work function of the surface.

Special relativity is the daddy of all daddies. It states that the measured motion, length and time of other objects is ultimately relative to your own state of motion. If I was on a bike and you were standing still eating an ice cream than you will be moving relative to me as I perceive you moving towards me. This sounds absurd but it is physically true. The theory of relativity also states that in any inertial reference frame (state of motion) the speed of light is constant and that all particles cannot accelerate to this speed. Though modern quantum research shows that particles such as tachyons can travel at the speed of light at all times assuming that it has never been at rest.

Phew… a lot to take in. These papers were outstandingly important in physics, maths and chemistry. It paved the way for a new cosmology where space and time become one… a fabric which mass curves at its will.

Einstein contributed massively to other areas of physics. One small one was the Einstein-Szilard refrigerator which uses thermodynamics to cool the refrigerator with no moving parts only with heat coming in (with other gases).

For his paper on the photoelectric effect he earned the Nobel prize in physics in 1921.

This effect paved the way towards quantum physics which is an area of physics which uses statistical mechanics to explain the subatomic world. Einstein later became a hater of this scary un-deterministic physics:

“God does not play dice with the universe” says Einstein.  Bohr swiftly replies; “Stop telling God what to do”

 

Einstein carried on with his physics trying to unify electromagnetism and relativity… with no success. He died trying.

Bohr and other physicists carried on with the successful quantum mechanics.

 

Despite this Einstein is still seen as one of the greatest brains in history. To me, his ways of thinking and of living are inspirational and rational, it is also a playful and fun way to observe the universe.

If Einstein wanted you to learn one thing, it wouldn’t be his theories which might become false someday… but this:

“If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play;
and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

 


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Luke Davis | June 4th, 2011

Nature Podcast Review

 

NATURE PODCAST

HISTORY: Nature is an international science journal which publishes professional papers on a variety of scientific developments, experiments and new theories. It publishes weekly and from a range of universities and teams within different scientific disciplines. The content is technical but the journal provides ‘news and views’ on all the latest discoveries, enabling the public to grasp the effects of the discoveries and the main concepts. You know the content is new and technically accurate.

WHAT IS IT? The journal also provides a weekly podcast which discusses and explains new research from within the journal with scientists and the like.

WHO PRESENTS IT? It’s hosted by Kerri Smith, Geoff Brumfiel and Geoff Marsh, and features reporters Charlotte Stoddart and Natasha Gilbert (American and English). Pretty decent people… keeps the listener amused and interested. No mumbles or waffles of language.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED? The podcast contains on average three main discussions on research which balances between physics, biology and typically archaeology or chemistry. One of these three main discussions is at the beginning and the other two slot in the middle. ’6o second science’ normally follows the first discussion, this is my favorite section as it explains a research topic in a minute in a concise and easy manner. ‘News chat’ and ‘Nature headlines’ also feature each week. The ‘News chat’ is an interview with a scientist linked to a particular topic. ‘Nature headlines’ feature the most significant or bizarre research found in the journal. This structure for me is a good balance of main in depth discussions with small bulletins of information. Also the interview allows the listener to hear the views of professional scientists at the forefront of their field. Perfect for keeping in touch with the latest knowledge.

HOW LONG IS IT? Over an hour on average. This is good to listen on a long train journey, revising, or just to listen to when your browsing. Not for those who want a 15 minute buzz.

WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO IT? Simple. To keep in touch with the latest science and to keep your brain or as my colleague would say ‘the block of matter in your cranial area’  wired. It is interesting and for those who are curious and want to know more.

WHERE CAN I GET IT? Itunes… search ‘Nature podcast’. Or on the website… http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/

 

RATING:  9/10      It’s a keeper!

 


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Luke Davis | May 31st, 2011

The electron is the most voluptuous particle

J.J Thomson discovered the Electron through an experiment which was an attempt to determine the specific charge of cathode rays. Cathode rays move from a negatively charge plate (cathode) to a positively charged plate (anode) when an electric discharge is passed through a gas at low pressure. Thomson found that the charge found in the rays did not depend on the nature of the gas or on the electrode material, suggesting that the ‘rays’ were composed of previously unknown particles which are fundamental to the constituents of the universe. These particles are Electrons.

We use the behavior of these negatively charged particles in all of our electrical technologies. Without our knowledge of this particle we would be stuck in an age of dull, slow and noisy mechanical machines. The electron is the key to our technological development.

For a while physicists have thought they knew the electron very well; they knew its mass, its charge and how it interacts with other particles. But they did not know, to a very precise degree, it’s shape. Researchers at Imperial college London however have become quite intimate with the electron and have witnessed it’s spherical beauty.

A team in the basement at the college in South Kensington have been conducting experiments to measure the ’roundness’ of the particle. The team have conducted what is called ‘satellite gravity probe B’ as an apparatus to determine its shape.

Professor Ed Heinz at UCL:

Well it’s very very very round, one way to explain how round it is, is to expand it to the size of the solar system… then the shape will be round to within about the size of a human hair.

This shuts doors on our earlier education on the electron as we were told that an electron is just a point particle which is practically dimensionless. But as Ed Heinz continues he states that the modern view of an electron is that it is surrounded by a cloud of fluff. This cloud of fluff is interesting. It contains a variety of fundamental particles which come in and out of existence (Be assured they are not mystical religious entities… trust the science). The behavior of these particles influences the shape and size of the electron.

You may think, hmmm wow a cloud of fluffy stuff affects the size a one of the tiniest particles in nature. So what!? It gets more interesting.

In physics there is an elegant and powerful tool called the standard model. This explains how most particles interact at the tiniest of scales (with a little help from our friend: Quantum mechanics). But there is a huge hole in what seems to be a flawless explanatory tool. It cannot explain how everything got here, actually it rules such a thing happening. The standard model predicts that matter and anti-matter will annihilate each other at the beginning of the universe. There should be a universe only consisting of light. However it isn’t. What physicists are trying to do with accelerators is find other particles which can prove the standard model wrong… improving it. Another way of doing this is finding what affects the dimensions of particles like the electron and through this we may uncover secrets untold. The treasure which will help us explain how the hell we all got here.

It is a pretty sexy thought.


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Matt | February 13th, 2010

The Real Facts About Climate Change

Climate change has been at the forefront of politic and scientific discussion for just about the last decade. With numerous promises of impending doom and catastrophic ice ages is it any wonder that many green extremists have gained prominence, trying to control just about every aspect of our day to day lives to make us “carbon neutral”?

Gore has made millions from the commercial success of this film which raises the question as to whether he is using the danger of global warming as a major business venture

Arguably the most popular of these pariahs is Mr Al. Gore, former US vice president and presidential candidate. His multi award-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth” is unashamedly filled with green propaganda and scare-mongering including the use of out of context video evidence and the gross artificial manipulation of scientific data. A particular clip shows a poor “stranded” polar bear on a small platform of ice with water on all sides closing in. What Mr Gore fails to mention is that this clip was filmed at a time of year when Artic ice naturally melts and the bears merely migrate to the nearest dry land.
Unsurprisingly, Gore has made millions from the commercial success of this film which raises the question as to whether he is using the danger of global warming as a major business venture. Is his “Inconvenient Truth” a little too convenient?
Now lets move on to the cold, hard facts about our climate. This isn’t propaganda, this is actual scientific FACT.

  1. The Earth’s climate has changed, is changing and will always change. We do not have a stable climate, it is on a continuous cycle between ice ages and dry periods. In fact, our planet has spent more time under ice than it has in the state it is in at present.
  2. Accurate measurements made from weather balloons since the late 1950′s have shown no warming since 1958 despite ground thermometers showing a rise of 0.4 C. The main difference? Ground thermometers are largely affected by the “Urban Heat Island” effect. This is the heat generated from the cramped urbanisation of most developed nations. This distorts the data and in the last 50-60 years the effect will have greatly increased with additional urban development.
  3. Despite the expenditure of more than $50 billion looking for it since 1990, no unambiguous human impact has been identified in the global temperature pattern.
  4. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acted as the main scaremonger for the global warming lobby that led to the Kyoto Protocol. Interestingly, the IPCC is a political, not scientific, body.

All these facts point towards the gross over-exaggeration of the so called climate change by the liberal extremists which seem to be prevailant in every aspect of modern day society.

The current “Big Freeze” which is currently immobilising our country has been used by many as concrete proof of global warming knocking out the gulf stream (the flow that brings warmer, milder weather from the eastern coast of America to our shores). However, it’s quite to the contrary. Eastern America is experiencing a far worse cold spell than we have at the moment and do so every year. One state reported temperatures of -30 F (-34 C) and a wind chill of -50 F (-46 C)! So, quite simply, the gulf stream is still working, everything’s fine.
Let’s hope a climate change treaty doesnt get signed by our own blundering Mr Brown to further handicap our failing, overspent economy!


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