Science Debate 2008

I’m adding this to my reading list.  I haven’t had time to look at it in any depth but it seems worth the time of any informed voter also interested in the future of scientific research:

Sciencedebate2008.com:

The Story

In November, 2007, a small group of six citizens – two screenwriters, a physicist, a marine biologist, a philosopher and a science journalist – began working to restore science and innovation to America’s political dialogue.  They called themselves Science Debate 2008, and they called for a presidential debate on science.  The call tapped a wellspring of concern over the state of American science. 

Within weeks, more than 38,000 scientists, engineers, and other concerned Americans signed on, including nearly every major American science organization, dozens of Nobel laureates, elected officials and business leaders, and the presidents of over 100 major American universities.  See who here.  Among other things, these signers submitted over 3,400 questions they want the candidates for President to answer about science and the future of America. 

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Algebra – It’s Everywhere

A good read from the San Francisco Chronicle:  Algebra – it’s everywhere by Jill Tucker.

Algebra, says Devlin, is a language, a very precise language written in symbols, and it’s everywhere: in nearly all electronic devices, every statistic and each Internet search engine – and, indeed, in every train leaving Boston.

"You can store information using it. You can communicate information using it," Devlin said. "Google has made billions capitalizing on algebra."

Yet our schools don’t always do a very good job teaching it, Devlin said. Instead of showing students the possibilities and beauty algebra offers, they ultimately steer frustrated and bored students away from math and the 21st century careers that use it – the opposite of the intended result.

…

Algebra, by the dictionary’s definition, is essentially abstract arithmetic, letters and symbols representing relationships between groups, sets, matrices or fields. It’s a way to find a piece to a puzzle using the pieces you already have in place.

It comes in very handy for engineers, financial analysts and sociologists, not to mention World of Warcraft video game players, some of whom use algebraic formulas to decide which weapon is more effective under certain circumstances – perhaps another hook to lure unsuspecting teens into seeing the useful side of algebra.

…

Laptop computer. The computer is just an implementation in electrical circuits of a special form of algebra (called Boolean algebra) invented in the 19th century. Ordinary algebra is used to design and manufacture computers, and is at the heart of how to program them.

Cell phone. A cell phone is a particular kind of computer. An important feature of cell phones is that your phone receives all the signals sent to every cell phone in the region, but only responds to signals sent to your phone. This is achieved by using signal coding systems built on algebra.

Parking cop. Today’s parking enforcement officers may carry equipment connecting them directly to a central vehicle database that registers your parking fine before you get back to the car and see the ticket on the windshield. Without algebra, such a system could not exist.

Hybrid car. Modern cars often come equipped with GPS, a highly sophisticated system that is designed using enormous amounts of mathematics that builds on algebra.

Delivery truck. Large retail chains use mathematical methods to determine the routing and scheduling of their delivery trucks; algebra is fundamental to those methods.

Stoplight. These days, stoplights are centrally controlled by computers, so there is even algebra involved in turning the light from red to green.

IPod. This is a math device in your hand. The iPod stores music using sophisticated mathematics built on algebra. And the iPod shuffle mechanism uses regular school algebra to order your songs randomly.

…

Even though it is a very pro-algebra article, my favorite quote was by an unknown source:

"Algebra … the intensive study of the last three letters of the alphabet."

Install a Network Printer for All Users

I had to solve two problems for myself today.  I am posting my solutions here, mainly for my own reference but maybe somebody out there might have the same issues to be solved.

The first problem I faced was installing a network printer so that it would be available to all users on that machine.  This is probably a minor problem for seasoned IT pros, but since I am not one, it took some investigating.  I learned that local printers are installed automatically for all users, while network printers are associated with user profiles.  This means that when you install a network printer it is only available to the user profile that you used when installing.

The solution is to install the network printer as a local printer.  In other words, go to Control Panel .. Printers.  Click "Add a printer".  Select that you want to install a local printer.  At this point you will create a new port, using a Standard TCP/IP port.  You’ll need to have the IP address of the printer to do this and you’ll also want to have the drivers handy.

Since it is installed as a local printer it will now be available to all users when they log in.  The bug I still haven’t worked out, though some of you may have an idea, is that even though I have selected it to be the default printer in my profile, it is not necessarily the default printer for other users.  If is the first printer installed, no problem, but otherwise it is not the default for other users.

The Next Google: Cuil.com

A new search engine is on the scene with potential to rival the famous Google search algorithm.  Indexing more than three times as many pages as Google and using a new approach, there may be something to this newcomer.  I haven’t played with it much but will definitely keep my eye on it. 

Check out the story here: Ex-Google engineers debut ‘Cuil’ way to search

From their own site: Cuil.com

Welcome to Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine. The Internet has grown. We think it’s time search did too.

The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.

Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.

Then we offer you helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want and that you know is out there. We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach, so we don’t collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek. With Cuil, your search history is always private.

Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge. For knowledge, ask Cuil.

Check it out.  Tell me what you’ve heard about it and what you think of it.

Gauss, The Chuck Norris of Mathematics

I stumbled across the website of Chuck Norris Facts not long ago.  You know such treasured gems as

1. When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.
2. There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.
3. Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.
and my personal favorite
4. Chuck Norris doesn’t eat honey, he chews bees.

Well, I was quite impressed when I came across a similar list of facts about one of the greatest (some would say THE greatest) mathematicians of all time, Carl Friedrich Gauss.

From Matt Heath:

• Gauss didn’t discover the normal distribution, nature conformed to his will.
• Gauss can construct transcendental numbers only using a compass.
• Parallel lines meet where Gauss tells them to.
• Some problems are NP because Gauss doesn’t like computers.
• Gauss never runs out of room in the margin.
• Gauss can write irrationals as the ratio of 2 integers.
• Gauss never needs the axiom of choice.
• Gauss can square the circle and then transform it into the hyper-sphere.
• The location and momentum of a particle are what Gauss say they are.
• An elegant proof is one line long. Gauss’ elegant proofs are one word long.
• Gauss doesn’t look for roots of equations, they come to him.
• There are no theorems, just a list of propositions Gauss allows to be true.
• When Gauss integrates he doesn’t need to add a constant.
• Hilbert put forward 23 unsolved problems because he hadn’t properly read Gauss’ notebooks.
• Gauss knows the topological difference between a doughnut and a coffee cup.
• Gauss can divide by zero.
• Gauss would never ever have a badbox error.
• Primes that aren’t Gaussian primes get teased.
• If Gauss had to walk 100 metres, and half the remaining distance, then half the remaining distance again, and so on, he’d get there.
• Erdos believed God had a book of all perfect mathematical proofs. God believes Gauss has such a book.
• Gauss has Hilbert hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane.
• God does not play dice, unless Gauss promises to let him win once in a while.

My favorite has to be "Gauss doesn’t look for roots of equations, they come to him."

Factoring Time

One of the first comics I read on the XKCD website was this one:

 

So don’t you think it would be a good idea to write a script that would factor every time throughout the day.  Just to make it interesting you might factor the time as a 6 digit number, including the seconds.  You could answer fascinating questions like what’s the most number of factors a time can have, how many times are prime, how many twin prime’s are there, etc…

Well, if you think it’s a good idea, too late.  It’s already been done and not by me.

Factor Clock

FYI:

What’s the largest number of factors a time can have?

6 factors, 57 matches

How many times are prime, and what are they?

7669

How many times form twin primes, and what are they?

859

No Gender Gap in Mathematics

A study published in Science Magazine today puts to bed the question of gender differences in mathematics.  (Sorry, I chose not to emply the use of some tired mathematical pun like "it doesn’t add up".  I grew weary of them after reading a dozen articles in mainstream media outlets, each one seemingly trying to top the last.) There is no statistically significant difference in the mathematical test scores of the general population (grades 2 – 11) in the United States with respect to gender. 

Over 7 million students’ test scores were compared from 10 different states to reach this conclusion.  Thanks to the NCLB act, a surplus of data was available to address an issue that has been studied through meta-analysis in the past but can now be comprehensively analyzed.  Much of the data made available by individual states were missing adequate statistical information.  Soliciting from all 50 states, 10 were willing to comply with the study (Texas not included). The sample of states seems fairly representative:

Here is the study’s stated conclusion:

Our analysis shows that, for grades 2 to 11, the general population no longer shows a gender difference in math skills, consistent with the gender similarities hypothesis(19). There is evidence of slightly greater male variability in scores, although the causes remain unexplained. Gender differences in math performance, even among high scorers, are insufficient to explain lopsided gender patterns in participation in some STEM fields. An unexpected finding was that state assessments designed to meet NCLB requirements fail to test complex problem-solving of the kind needed for success in STEM careers, a lacuna that should be fixed.

There goes my reasoning for curving all my female students’ grades an extra five points.   

Please note, for my own protection and in case you live under a rock, the emoticon at the end of the statement means I am NOT serious.

For more information on the study:

1. The original study published in Science: Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance (requires subscription)
2. Girls = Boys at Math by David Malakoff (ScienceNOW Daily News)
3. Numbers don’t lie: Girls as good at math as boys, study finds  (Dallas Morning News)

Why would I even need to learn that?

I have a calculator.  I can answer all the math problems I’ll ever need because I own a calculator.  There are many people that worry me when they say they were never any good at math: the nurse administering the medication, the clerk counting my change, the broker managing my investments, the salesman offering me financing at the car dealership, and now, the cop giving parking tickets:

From 360 (Unofficial Blog of the Nazareth College Math Department in Rochester, New York):

The Herald reported last week that a Traffic Warden was incorrectly ticketing cars in a Devon, England parking lot because of how he was using a calculator. In this parking lot, drivers would pay for a certain amount of time and then post a slip in the windshield with the time they’d entered and how long they’d paid for. One driver, for example, entered at 2:49pm and paid for 75 minutes.

Now 75 minutes is 1 hour, 15 minutes so the driver was covered until 4:04pm. But the Traffic Warden figured out the expiration time by entering in 14.49 into his calculator (for 1449 military time, which corresponds to 2:49pm) and adding on 0.75 (for the 75 minutes). He got 15.24, which he interpreted as meaning that the driver was only covered until 3:24pm. Since it was already 3:41pm, he issued the car a ticket. The car owner saw all this and tried to explain the error — that hours have 60 minutes, not 100, so standard decimal addition doesn’t apply — but the Traffic Warden didn’t see any problem and continued to ticket cars.

In good news, after appeal the incorrect tickets were repealed and a letter of apology sent.

Finished Reading "The Grass Crown"

I have been reading a series by author Colleen McCullough called the Masters of Rome.  Two nights ago, I finished reading the second book in the series.  Spanning over 1000 pages per book, I have been utterly fascinated by the lives of men playing pivotal roles leading up to the beginning of the Roman Empire as it moves out of its time as the Roman Republic.

Here is the review I posted over at the GoodReads.com website:

Fascinating continuation of Colleen McCullough’s Master’s of Rome series. This is the second book in the series of seven and it covers the Civil/Social war under the eventual leadership of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It deals largely with the rise of Sulla to leadership both in military campaigns as well as policital power. It finishes with the fall of Gauis Marius, the third founder of Rome, as his mind fails following two strokes and he takes over Rome in a blood bath, killing anyone in Rome who once stood against him. It is his final goal before dying to subdue the rising star of Gauis Julius Caesar, which he supposedly does so by placing him in the role of a lifelong priesthood. The tale ends there, but we all know that Julius Caesar is not out for good and is destined to become the greatest man Rome has ever or will ever see.

I continue to enjoy this series and am continually fascinated by how developed society was even thousands of years ago. The struggles of society not all that different than today, only without the western influence of Christianity.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Reading List Updates

I finished up a couple books since last time I updated the reading list on this blog.  I also added another few books to the list.

Just finished:

Being a Christian in Science by Walter R. Hearn

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough

 

New Additions:

Coming to Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology by Darrel R. Falk Read more about this book…

Biology Through the Eyes of Faith (Christian College Coalition Series) by Richard Wright Read more about this book…

Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? by C. John Collins Read more about this book…

A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram Read more about this book…

 

Currently Reading

* Science and Faith: An Evangelical Dialogue by Harry Lee Poe, Jimmy H. Davis Read more about this book…