Science, Philosophy, and Common Knowledge

Philosophy classes resumed this morning, and we started in on the appetites. The Christmas break reading on the subject got the addition of a newspaper article about a week ago, which discussed shopping and what goes on psychologically throughout. Neuroscientists used MRI scans and found a "war in the brain" between the pleasure over a desired item and the pain of spending money for it.

Through my philosophic eyes: "Yes, that makes perfect sense. The concupiscible appetite's attractions and aversions are blah blah blah...."

Through my everyday eyes: "They needed MRIs to show that? Give me a break."

"Climate change" on the radio this morning ...

As near as I can remember:

"What we're dealing with is climate change..."
"Change?"
"That's right."
"So as soon as it stopped warming, it became 'change'?"
"Look, what I'm trying to say is the climate's changing..."
"Of course it is."
"The temperature is..."
"If the climate never changed, it wouldn't be climate."
"When..."
"If the temperature was always the same, we'd have no concept of temperature!"
"Okay, but when the planet's conditions are altered..."
"Uh-huh..."
"...and the temperature is gradually rising over..."
"It's cold out."
"Mike..."
"More people die from the cold than from the heat!"
"And even more die from tsunamis."
"Tsunamis have nothing to do with this!"
"Listen..."
"Tsunamis are caused by a shift in the Earth's crust..."
"...the plates change, exactly..."
"They don't change because of the temperature..."
"Right, it's because of earthquakes."
"Yeah."
"What I'm getting at is..."
"Earthquakes don't happen because the earth heats up!"
"No, I'm just saying that the world changes..."
"Yeah, but..."
"...and we..."
"Listen, Nick... It's getting colder! So shut up!"

A brief mention of religion and science ...

"... the elements will be dissolved by fire ..."

These words were heard in the second reading on the second Sunday of Advent (and are, regrettably, the only subject for blogging that I can remember now that I can actually blog again...). When I heard them, I couldn't help but laugh inwardly at what I began thinking: what would the ancient Greeks have thought of this? They believed fire was one of the elements! "Let me get this straight: fire will destroy earth, water, and air, and then it will burn itself out? That's a rather meloncholy way to end the world."

With today's science, on the other hand, this passage kind of makes sense. Fire is a combustion reaction in which molecular (and sometimes atomic) structures are broken down and re-arranged. So when the day of the Lord comes and Heaven and Earth pass away... Um, how will fire destroy Heaven? I guess I'll leave this up to St. John.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make here is that religion and science are not enemies. This is very limited example, to be sure, and perhaps St. Peter was being metaphorical, but take it for what it's worth.

The Accuracy of 8-Digit Calculators

I just finished my last chemistry problem for this week's homework: find Avagadro's number using blah-blah-blah data about an 8-atom silicon cube. I wanted to get A's # as accurately as I could, so I decided to do the whole thing by hand. I thought, "My calculator can only work with 8 digits, so I'll do this with a pencil, take up a whole page, and get the answer as precise as possible!" The first step was converting X picometers to X centimeters cubed. When I finished multiplying 12-digit numbers, I went to the back of the book to check on my progress, get an idea of where I should be, and use the rounded numbers in the back of the book to see how precise the book's answer would be. I saw that I was 0.04 x 10 -22 off, but I figured that it was due to my superior decimal places. Wrong-o. My final calculation came to 6.10etc. instead of 6.02etc. I realized that my quantity of 0.000000000000000000000158151477991 cm3 was worse than a rounded 0.0000000000000000000001602 cm3. The extra precision I shot for was lost, probably to a single mistake, within the 12-digit multiplications that took me so long. Go figure.

I think too much.

My brother and I watched some behind-the-scenes features for Raiders of the Lost Ark lately. The movie-makers encountered some difficulty filming the scenes with the snakes in the Well of Souls, because the snakes didn't behave the way they wanted. There was a clip of Spielberg holding a snake and talking to it, saying, "You like fire? You love fire... In the script you're supposed to hate fire. Why do you like fire? You're ruining my movie!"

I thought, "Well, yeah, they're cold-blooded. Fire would be a source of heat." Then I started thinking about the probability of the situation in the first place. Here we have a temple that's been buried for hundreds or thousands of years, and it's filled with snakes. Why would it be filled with snakes? Being cold-blooded, the Well of Souls would not be an ideal place to live. It's underground, providing insulation from the heat of the desert. When Sallah looked into it, his line should not have been "Why does the floor move?" If there were any snakes there, they would not have been moving. The temple would have been a hibernation ground, or something.

"You're thinking!" my brother said. "You're thinking! Stop thinking!" Hey, at least I don't think this much when I'm actually watching a movie, or I wouldn't enjoy movies.

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

I'm sure there are many of you out there who watch movies and nitpick, not the plot lines, but the physics. Well, here are some really smart physicists who give summaries of movies mixed with scientific explenations of why things wouldn't work. This site goes into a lot of detail on the small number of movies they currently list, and it's a good place to learn something and get a laugh at the same time.

Energy Crisis

The issue of our energy crisis was, naturally, brought up in tonight's Republican convention. This reminded me of another tidbit from chemistry class this afternoon, when Dr. F related reacting atoms to teenage relationships.



He said that atoms bond, bonds break, and new bonds are formed, kind of like when a girl breaks up with one guy and hooks up with another. And, as I commented at that point, that releases a lot of energy!

Forget oil drilling, we just need to find a way to harness this.