Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Man, I totally missed a golden opportunity today.
So there I was, in my supervisor’s office this afternoon. And he casually notes his need for new spectacles. I made some comment in reply, then we carried on with the rest of our meeting. After talking about work-y stuff, I brought the conversation back to eyewear; using his earlier comments as a springboard, I gave him tips regarding flixible hinges, anti-reflective coating, how to minimize eye magnification, and how to keep his lenses as thin as possible.
So after offering these helpful tidbits, my supervisor asks: “So, did you work in the eyeglass industry at one time?”
I said: “Yes.”
Dammit! Sometimes I’m so stupid. What a missed opportunity. I should have responded with something better.
What I should have said: “No, I’m just THAT knowledgeable about nearly every aspect of humanity. Aren’t you glad you hired me?”
I’ll be kicking myself about this for a long time.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
I delivered speech #9 in Toastmasters today.
As you may recall (if not, read HERE), I had considerable difficulty coming up with and deciding upon a topic that met the requirement of the speech. The only criterion was that it be persuasive…but I just couldn’t find anything that worked well with my knowledge set and the audience.
Anyway, for a while I considered doing something completely absurd, such as “Why Hall and Oates are the Greatest Band in the History of Rock and Roll,” but I kept struggling with how I would prepare 5-7 minutes worth of information on such a lousy topic. Then I changed ‘er up and decided to go with a speech on being left-handed, but as my wife deftly noted: What exactly would I be persuading people to do?
So then, this past weekend, I was conveying to my wife some of the fascinating information I learned while reading Greg Laden’s blog, specifically, THIS POST. In the midst of my staccatic rant, Jennifer said, “Hey, you should use this topic for your speech on Wednesday, you sexy hunk of masculinity” (I’m paraphrasing).
Huh. Thought I. That’s not a bad idea.
As luck would have it, I had a chance to speak with Greg on Sunday. He gave a lecture on evolution at the Roseville Library. Or, wait – that sounds confusing. What I should say is: At the Roseville Library, Greg gave a lecture on evolution.
Anyway, I told him of my plans to purloin his information and use it to further my goal of achieving the Competant Communicator Certificate from Toastmasters. He was more than happy to supply me with additional information, and even passed my name on to a couple of other biologists, who then wrote to me with a gallon of other web posts I might find helpful. (I did!)
So, I gave my speech today. It wasn’t as good as my backwards speech, but I was still pleased with my performance. Of the eight speeches delivered today, I won the “Best Overall Speech” award – it’s kind of like winning an Oscar only it’s made of Hershey’s chocolate, not gold, and only, like 30 people were watching, not 997 million.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
As long as I’m talking about nerdy science things, let’s switch from Biology to Physics.
Okay, back in 2003, when my wife and I were loyal subscribers to Discover Magazine (yeah – isn’t that funny? Jehovah’s Witnesses who subscribed to Discover. Talk about cognitive dissonance), there came an issue with an article asking:
Of course, Einstein was wrong a number of times, most notable in his choice of hair stylist. As a human, he was error-prone just like the rest of us you, but the article tried (and succeeded) in teasing readers with the thought that maybe, just maybe, the greatest genius in the history of the Solar System has now been proven wrong.
This is a fascinating line of thought for a number of reasons. For one thing, it shows that science continually progresses. For two thing, Einstein’s theories and discoveries were so far ahead of their time, it would be amazing if we had now – finally – 100 years later, been able to one-up Mr. Smarty-pants. For three thing, the scientist or engineer or technician who does succeed in proving Einstein wrong is sure to become famous in her own right.
The article, though, pretty much ends by saying, “Well, if Einstein is wrong about A, B, or C, we haven’t proven it yet.”
I wasn’t surprised.
Late last year, the scientific community was abuzz with the announcement that some uppity European scientists observered faster-than-light (FTL) particles. Of course this was front page news. What’s funny is that the big news wasn’t so much the discovery of FTLs, but the fact that such a discovery proved Einstein was wrong about his fundamental assumptions.
I didn’t buy it.
When my wife asked, some six months ago, why I didn’t believe it, I said, “‘Cause Eisntein wasn’t wrong…these guys are just jumping the gun.”
In fact, I was even editing an essay (as part of an internship I am engaged in right now) recently, and the writer, in trying to show that no facts are immutable, noted that even Einstein has now been proven wrong. I kicked back on this; I made a note in the margin to the head editor saying that I didn’t think this was accurate. I said: “I like XXXXX’s idea of showing that science can change and be refined, but this is not a good example.” So, that part of the essay was altered.
Anyway, I’m writing about this now, because it appears all is once again right with the world. Labeling their story as “Breaking News,” Science Insider says that Einstein’s theories are still in tact. It turns out, the scientists at CERN – not Albert Einstein – were the ones who made an error in their calculations.
Huh. That’s funny. I wouldn’t have guessed that. I mean, whenever I perform a calculation that disagrees with Einstein, my first thought is: “Hey, look! I just proved Einstein wrong! I better take this to the press!”
I hope it’s obvious I’m being facetious here – if I, or you, or anyone else is ever in a situation where it looks like our math is at odds with Einstein’s…we better check our calculations…’cause I assure you: the error does not lie with the person who was so intelligent, their last name has become synonymous with genius.
This is Albert Einstein. He knows more than you do. Deal with it.
Ha! I didn’t join the “Einstein” is wrong chorus either. There was something hinky about that story, and no Sir, I didn’t like it.
Yeah. There’s just some things that aren’t likely to change in our lifetime, and Einstein’s theories fall into that catergory.
I think these attention-grabbing scientists are forgetting that Newton – himself a supreme genius – first articulated the laws of motion. For 200 years, everyone thought Newton’s calculations were the end-all and be-all of physics. Then Einstein came along and said, “That genius Newton – you know, the guy who brought us into the modern world and explained the workings of the universe? Yeah, he’s wrong.” When a guy, working alone, can unravel the doings of Newton, I don’t think we’re gonna see anyone one-up that guy for a long time.
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Here’s the conclusion from the original paper:
“In conclusion, despite the large significance of the measurement reported here and the robustness of the analysis, the potentially great impact of the result motivates the continuation of our studies in order to investigate possible still unknown systematic effects that could explain the observed anomaly. We deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of the results.”
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897v2
Thanks for supplying the original source.
I suppose I should put more of the blame on the reporters, who didn’t always include that caveat, and less on the scientists. I think it’s understandable, though, since this disclaimer (similar to that appearing in many scientific papers) appears at the very end. I’d be interested to know if the paper’s authors ever contacted the media and said, “Um, excuse me, but despite what the first 99% of our paper indicates, we aren’t totally sure we’re correct.”
Third sentence in the article you linked to:
“In fact, the researchers themselves are not ready to proclaim a discovery and are asking other physicists to independently try to verify their findings.”
Sorry. That sentence, like others in similar articles, was buried in the avalanche of attention-grabbing headlines. I let myself get sidetracked in these comments I made here; my original point was just that there’s been a couple of times (at least) when headlines proclaim Einstein was wrong, only to be followed up later with explanations for why we were all wrong for thinking he might have been wrong.
Glad the reporters included the caveat. It’s funny, that kind of renders the whole story non-news.