Thursday, February 08, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Braindead Decisions
In most parts of the world, even in Canada, the day has only 24 hours. And there is so much to do in this world, so many books to read, so many stories to tell, so many photos to take, so many papers to write. And so little time in this one life. Every day, we have to set priorities, and make decisions.
My friends know me as a very impatient person. Basically, I don't like to waste time. Especially if the outside temperature is minus twenty-something. If someone can't make up their mind, I'm usually the one who points into one direction, thinking, any decision is better than no decision.
Last weekend, I was pretty braindead. I was so braindead I looked up the smiley for 'braindead'. Here it is:
Then I made the Jung Typology test, recalling that a seat neighbor on a long distance flight urged me to, after he realized I wouldn't entertain him. I shouldn't have taken the test. The outcome was:
The only reason why I'm writing this in my stupid BLOG is to show that I'm working on the 'Introverted' score *gnurg*.
Here is the INTJ profile. In case you belong to my ex-boyfriends you'll find yourself nodding and grinning. 'INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.' A-ha. So-so. Well, currently I don't know what I meant to say. Oh yes, I meant to write something about decision making.
Today, I read at the SciAm blog Big Decision: Head or Gut? Hmm ... by Alex Haslam about the Science article
On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect
Ap Dijksterhuis, Maarten W. Bos, Loran F. Nordgren, Rick B. van Baaren
Science 17 February 2006, Vol. 311. no. 5763, pp. 1005 - 1007
In this article, the researchers examined the decisions of participants to pick purchasable items (cars, furniture) after being confronted with information of varying complexity. They made a distinction between conscious and unconscious thinkers, the latter simulated by distracting the participants and then asking them to make up their mind. They found (guess what) that more complex information makes decisions more complicated.
But more importantly, they also found that when the situation got more complex, the unconscious thinkers did better in choosing the best car. Reading the paper, it remains unclear to me in how far it was common sensus what they actually meant with 'best car'.
In further studies they rated the choice by 'postchoice satisfaction' with unspecified 'products'. What they found was that in not very complex situations, conscious thought works best, but 'the more people thought consciously about complex products, the less satisfied they were with their purchase'. Folks, I wonder if they asked the people again after their Walmart shelf fell apart. If you ask me, the only thing their research shows it that longer thinking raises your expectations, and you are more likely to be critical about your own choice, which in turn lowers 'postchoice satisfaction'.
Already the abstract of the Science article says, maybe deliberately provocative: 'choices in complex matters [...] should be left to unconscious thought', and they end with stating
I totally agree with Alex Haslam that contrary to what the researchers write, this conclusion can not be applied to situations where the notion of a 'satisfactory outcome' or 'best choice' is not as immediately apparent as in choosing a color for your car. As the worst of all possible consequences, he has this scary quotation by a well known world leader, from June 1, 2003, after having invaded Iraq:
Well. He definitely didn't think about whether this was a smart thing to say. Here's politics for beginners: The whole idea of representative democracy is the election of politicians that make the complex decisions based on their expertise. In a time where matters are as involved as today, we citizens just can't take care of every political decisions on our own, but we rely on those who we elect to do their best. That's what politicians get paid for. If I want 'to delegate thinking about more complex matters' - say, like social security, research funding, or invading foreign countries - 'to the unconscious' I can do that myself. Trust me, I'm INTJ, I possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability, and I can reliably imagine things getting even worse if Science articles encourage stupidity.
It seems to me though in their final statement the researches might not have referred to the politicians themselves, but to those who make their X on election day. I seriously hope for the future of your country - whichever it is - that you don't leave your precious civil right to your easy to manipulate unconsciousness. What if the candidate's photo reminds you of your 8th grade teacher who once sneezed a giant booger on your notebook?
In this regard, it is especially interesting that it has been shown (see e.g. Fatal Attraction. The Effects of Mortality Salience on Evaluations of Charismatic, Task-Oriented, and Relationship-Oriented Leaders, Cohen et al, Psychological Science, Vol. 15 Issue 12 Page p. 846–851, 2004) that 'psychological terror', that is, thoughts about death and our own mortality, strongly influence our political opinions. Overall, thoughts of death let us tend to the politically conservative side.
The recent issue of Psychology Today has an article on that matter (The Ideological Animal, by Jay Dixit) which features one of the authors of the above findings, Sheldon Salomon. In this article they don't explicitly talk about conscious and unconscious decisions, but I guess you can easily see the connections:
So, I ask you kindly, if it comes to politics, think rationally.
To summarize: unconscious politics is just plain Bu**sh**.
Now I'm going to work on the 'Thinking' score.
My friends know me as a very impatient person. Basically, I don't like to waste time. Especially if the outside temperature is minus twenty-something. If someone can't make up their mind, I'm usually the one who points into one direction, thinking, any decision is better than no decision.
Last weekend, I was pretty braindead. I was so braindead I looked up the smiley for 'braindead'. Here it is:
%-6 (braindead)
Then I made the Jung Typology test, recalling that a seat neighbor on a long distance flight urged me to, after he realized I wouldn't entertain him. I shouldn't have taken the test. The outcome was:
Your Type is INTJ
Strength of the preferences in %:
- Introverted 100, Intuitive 75, Thinking 12, Judging 44.
The only reason why I'm writing this in my stupid BLOG is to show that I'm working on the 'Introverted' score *gnurg*.
Here is the INTJ profile. In case you belong to my ex-boyfriends you'll find yourself nodding and grinning. 'INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.' A-ha. So-so. Well, currently I don't know what I meant to say. Oh yes, I meant to write something about decision making.
Today, I read at the SciAm blog Big Decision: Head or Gut? Hmm ... by Alex Haslam about the Science article
On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect
Ap Dijksterhuis, Maarten W. Bos, Loran F. Nordgren, Rick B. van Baaren
Science 17 February 2006, Vol. 311. no. 5763, pp. 1005 - 1007
In this article, the researchers examined the decisions of participants to pick purchasable items (cars, furniture) after being confronted with information of varying complexity. They made a distinction between conscious and unconscious thinkers, the latter simulated by distracting the participants and then asking them to make up their mind. They found (guess what) that more complex information makes decisions more complicated.
But more importantly, they also found that when the situation got more complex, the unconscious thinkers did better in choosing the best car. Reading the paper, it remains unclear to me in how far it was common sensus what they actually meant with 'best car'.
In further studies they rated the choice by 'postchoice satisfaction' with unspecified 'products'. What they found was that in not very complex situations, conscious thought works best, but 'the more people thought consciously about complex products, the less satisfied they were with their purchase'. Folks, I wonder if they asked the people again after their Walmart shelf fell apart. If you ask me, the only thing their research shows it that longer thinking raises your expectations, and you are more likely to be critical about your own choice, which in turn lowers 'postchoice satisfaction'.
Already the abstract of the Science article says, maybe deliberately provocative: 'choices in complex matters [...] should be left to unconscious thought', and they end with stating
'There is no reason to assume that the deliberation-without-attention effect does not generalize to other types of choices -- political, managerial, or otherwise. In such cases, it should benefit the individual to think consciously about simple matters and to delegate thinking about more complex matters to the unconscious.'
I totally agree with Alex Haslam that contrary to what the researchers write, this conclusion can not be applied to situations where the notion of a 'satisfactory outcome' or 'best choice' is not as immediately apparent as in choosing a color for your car. As the worst of all possible consequences, he has this scary quotation by a well known world leader, from June 1, 2003, after having invaded Iraq:
G.W.Bush: "I'm not very analytical. You know, I don't think a lot about why I do things."
Well. He definitely didn't think about whether this was a smart thing to say. Here's politics for beginners: The whole idea of representative democracy is the election of politicians that make the complex decisions based on their expertise. In a time where matters are as involved as today, we citizens just can't take care of every political decisions on our own, but we rely on those who we elect to do their best. That's what politicians get paid for. If I want 'to delegate thinking about more complex matters' - say, like social security, research funding, or invading foreign countries - 'to the unconscious' I can do that myself. Trust me, I'm INTJ, I possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability, and I can reliably imagine things getting even worse if Science articles encourage stupidity.
It seems to me though in their final statement the researches might not have referred to the politicians themselves, but to those who make their X on election day. I seriously hope for the future of your country - whichever it is - that you don't leave your precious civil right to your easy to manipulate unconsciousness. What if the candidate's photo reminds you of your 8th grade teacher who once sneezed a giant booger on your notebook?
In this regard, it is especially interesting that it has been shown (see e.g. Fatal Attraction. The Effects of Mortality Salience on Evaluations of Charismatic, Task-Oriented, and Relationship-Oriented Leaders, Cohen et al, Psychological Science, Vol. 15 Issue 12 Page p. 846–851, 2004) that 'psychological terror', that is, thoughts about death and our own mortality, strongly influence our political opinions. Overall, thoughts of death let us tend to the politically conservative side.
The recent issue of Psychology Today has an article on that matter (The Ideological Animal, by Jay Dixit) which features one of the authors of the above findings, Sheldon Salomon. In this article they don't explicitly talk about conscious and unconscious decisions, but I guess you can easily see the connections:
[...] is there any way we can overcome our easily manipulated fears and become the informed and rational thinkers democracy demands?
To test this, Solomon and his colleagues prompted two groups to think about death and then give opinions about a pro-American author and an anti-American one. As expected, the group that thought about death was more pro-American than the other. But the second time, one group was asked to make gut-level decisions about the two authors, while the other group was asked to consider carefully and be as rational as possible. The results were astonishing. In the rational group, the effects of mortality salience were entirely eliminated. Asking people to be rational was enough to neutralize the effects of reminders of death [...].
"People have two modes of thought," concludes Solomon. "There's the intuitive gut-level mode, which is what most of us are in most of the time. And then there's a rational analytic mode, which takes effort and attention."
The solution, then, is remarkably simple. The effects of psychological terror on political decision making can be eliminated just by asking people to think rationally. Simply reminding us to use our heads, it turns out, can be enough to make us do it.
So, I ask you kindly, if it comes to politics, think rationally.
To summarize: unconscious politics is just plain Bu**sh**.
Now I'm going to work on the 'Thinking' score.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Contemporary
Today, I was in the art committee meeting. We were shown a couple of new paintings and photographs for the walls of PI, and some of them were really great! I admit I wasn't really aware it's so complicated to find appropriate paintings or photographs - there seems to be an awful lot that needs to be considered.
Among the pieces we were shown was a recent photographic work of Robbin Collyer (exhibition at Susan Hobbs Gallery), which I liked a lot. I found it in the Canadian Art Database. It's from 2000 and called Crime Scene:
Ah. Oohm... How do I put that? - I just don't like it. But I can understand that one can't possibly decide for or against building decorations by asking everybody who happens to walk by. I should also say that I've looked up some of the artist's older paintings, and these are really good! Like, something between Miro and Hundertwasser. You find a couple on this website. Here is an interesting review of the painting from the Globe and Mail: BIRTH, NEW ART by Gary Michael Dault. It mentions that the painting is the first after a "dramatic shift" that Elizabeth McIntosh made after having her daughter Chlose:
"Why is that, do you think?" She thinks about it for a minute. "It's probably having Chlose," she says. "The paintings are faster and more forgiving now. And since I have a lot less time in the studio than I used to have, it all works out."
Unfortunately, I couldn't find photos of any of the paintings I liked better (well, okay, the problem might be that I immediately forgot the names of the artists). Anyway, while browsing, I stumbled across John Copeland's paintings, which are all entangled in loops and strings ;-)
This one is titled 'A Long Journey' and depicts very precisely how I feel after a day with too many seminars
And while we are at it: on the weekend I was on a pretty weird painting trip, and made some first tries for a new series of works. I'll keep you updated on the progress of the pieces. Here's a close up on the first study (click for an enlarged picture).
Among the pieces we were shown was a recent photographic work of Robbin Collyer (exhibition at Susan Hobbs Gallery), which I liked a lot. I found it in the Canadian Art Database. It's from 2000 and called Crime Scene:
Now what's wrong with the photo? Look again - all the logos and labels are missing. If you have a bit of time at hand, browse some of the artist's photographs, they are worth it.
Ah. Oohm... How do I put that? - I just don't like it. But I can understand that one can't possibly decide for or against building decorations by asking everybody who happens to walk by. I should also say that I've looked up some of the artist's older paintings, and these are really good! Like, something between Miro and Hundertwasser. You find a couple on this website. Here is an interesting review of the painting from the Globe and Mail: BIRTH, NEW ART by Gary Michael Dault. It mentions that the painting is the first after a "dramatic shift" that Elizabeth McIntosh made after having her daughter Chlose:
"Why is that, do you think?" She thinks about it for a minute. "It's probably having Chlose," she says. "The paintings are faster and more forgiving now. And since I have a lot less time in the studio than I used to have, it all works out."
Unfortunately, I couldn't find photos of any of the paintings I liked better (well, okay, the problem might be that I immediately forgot the names of the artists). Anyway, while browsing, I stumbled across John Copeland's paintings, which are all entangled in loops and strings ;-)
This one is titled 'A Long Journey' and depicts very precisely how I feel after a day with too many seminars
And while we are at it: on the weekend I was on a pretty weird painting trip, and made some first tries for a new series of works. I'll keep you updated on the progress of the pieces. Here's a close up on the first study (click for an enlarged picture).
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Guest Post: Stefan Hofmann
When Sabine asked me to write about my motives for spending so much time with physics and in the physics community, she offered me a nice opportunity to bring those motives back into my consciousness, and to unearth my very own roots in a very human and bold venture.Curiosity is a universal human factor only to a certain extent. For each individual, the amount of curiosity is never a constant in time. It changes due to physiological and due to psychological processes. While the former might be traced back to our genetic blueprints, the latter are literally medium effects, created by the interactions between the individual and its local social embedding. Interactions might consist of posing questions out of curiosity, not intended to fulfill the listeners expectations, and an induced reaction might consist of digesting the different levels of answers.
When you observe children acting out their curiosity, you might wonder why we should be concerned about curiosity at all? The answer is: in the beginning there is never a lack of questions, but an absence of good and honest answers. Perhaps the most important characteristic of a good answer is that it aims at establishing an understanding, at increasing the depth of perception. In the spectrum of possible responses, the subset of honest answers includes the honorable "I don't know" and answers that do not replace one unknown concept by another, as in: "Why is the dog behaving like this? - It is instinct, period." Unfortunately, bad answers tend to satisfy the appetite for getting to the bottom of things and diminish our curiosity.
Curiosity can be revived in many ways. One path to it lies in the confrontation with questions that come along with a precise framework to formulate and answer them. Those questions can be viewed either as interesting or boring, they might be considered as being trivial or not of general enough interest. However, these kind of questions offer the opportunity to safely conclude to what extend they have been answered, independently of a specific social embedding.
It was this liberating aspect of the analytical school of thinking that fascinated me, together with the solid ground a precise framework offers: solid enough to analyze processes with powerful (although possibly restrictive) methods that do not care about me being a member of a majority or a minority group or about my social status.
This is the positive outcome of my experience with chicken pox when I was sixteen and found enough time and less distraction to work through a book on analysis written for students in mathematics. It was a lucky accident and my anger is still growing that it had to be an accident. Although mathematics appeared in a new and beautiful light, the intention grew to apply it to something in order to explore its power. This is how physics entered the stage of my interests.
One of my depressing experiences with physics in school is that it has only little in common with the science of physics. You might object that we are being taught some of the basic laws of nature in school, and what else should physics be? Well, the interesting part is not to know some laws by heart, but the whole school of thinking and imagination behind it, the methodology. Surely it is fascinating to rethink and recover the thoughts of the thinkers before us, but at the end of the day we want to have the means to boldly go where no one has gone before us. If we decide not to follow this path, we should do so as free and strong thinkers, not just because we didn't have any real choice in the first place.
But isn't is risky or sometimes even dangerous to question the very foundations of our views of the world? Dangerous for a peaceful mind? Perhaps it is, enlightenment starts often with deconstructing our prejudices, with the first step towards a dark abyss. It is not too difficult to take these fears serious. What seems harder to imagine for many is how frustrating it can be to live in a world constrained by ignorance. Ignorance is a brutal prison for our mind and psyche.
For me physics was and still is the key for breaking out, or at least the hope for a life after ignorance.
Stefan Hofmann is a cosmologist at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, where he thinks hard to shed some light on the dark side of the Universe.
See also the previous contributions to the inspiration-series by
and my related guest post at Asymptotia 'Sabine Hossenfelder: My Inspiration'.
TAGS: PHYSICS, PHYSICISTS
World Champion!
The German handball team is the new World Champion - congratulations! Nearly nobody would have predicted this some weeks ago - it's a wonderful surprise!
The finals against the Polish team ended 29:24 and was quite clear match - there was one moment of trouble and big suspense when in the middle of the second half Poland could equalize from lagging behind by 21:14.
Its the third championship after 1938 and 1978. Tonight, there will be big parties in Cologne, where the finals took place, and probably also in other German cities, and not because of the Super Bowl!
The finals against the Polish team ended 29:24 and was quite clear match - there was one moment of trouble and big suspense when in the middle of the second half Poland could equalize from lagging behind by 21:14.
Its the third championship after 1938 and 1978. Tonight, there will be big parties in Cologne, where the finals took place, and probably also in other German cities, and not because of the Super Bowl!
Your Name on The Moon
When I was a kid I had a map of the bright side of the moon with the names of all the craters on it. Not only was one named 'Sabine' but there was also a 'Stefan'*. So, I just looked up whether today there is a moon-atlas online, and indeed -you can browse all the craters at USGS, where you also find an interactive map.
The crater Sabine is at 1.4N/20.1E, has a diameter of 30 km and is named after Sir Edward Sabine.
The crater Stefan is at 46.0N/108.3W, has a diameter of 125 km, and is named after Josef Stefan. (Yes, this is the Stefan from the Stefan-Boltzmann law. No, Stefan was not Boltzmann's first name.)
There are also craters called D'Alembert, Einstein, Euler, Helmholtz, Hilbert, Lagrange, Maxwell, Plato, Schwarzschild - you see, we are in good company :-)
Is your name also on the moon?
Update: Here's what I love about blogging. I just got an email from Paolo sending me a link to a site where you can send your wishes to the moon with Selene
Thanks Paolo!
Footnote: Stefan is not only my husband, but also one of my brothers, one of my ex-boyfriends, as well as my current office mate, and several other friends, colleagues and relatives. My mother uses 'Stefan' as a synonym for the-men-in-my-daugther's-life.
TAGS: MOON, ASTROPHYSICS
The crater Sabine is at 1.4N/20.1E, has a diameter of 30 km and is named after Sir Edward Sabine.
The crater Stefan is at 46.0N/108.3W, has a diameter of 125 km, and is named after Josef Stefan. (Yes, this is the Stefan from the Stefan-Boltzmann law. No, Stefan was not Boltzmann's first name.)
There are also craters called D'Alembert, Einstein, Euler, Helmholtz, Hilbert, Lagrange, Maxwell, Plato, Schwarzschild - you see, we are in good company :-)
Is your name also on the moon?
Update: Here's what I love about blogging. I just got an email from Paolo sending me a link to a site where you can send your wishes to the moon with Selene
- Wish upon the moon (Deadline, Feb. 28th)
Thanks Paolo!
Footnote: Stefan is not only my husband, but also one of my brothers, one of my ex-boyfriends, as well as my current office mate, and several other friends, colleagues and relatives. My mother uses 'Stefan' as a synonym for the-men-in-my-daugther's-life.
TAGS: MOON, ASTROPHYSICS
Friday, February 02, 2007
Top 10 Microphotographs of Living Things
This is, believe it or not, how the dead fly on your window sill looks like if you get really close
[Proboscis of common housefly, Dark-field microscopy 10x
Photo Credits: Ralph Grimm, Jimboomba, Australia]
From: SciAM, February 01, 2007
Top 10 Microphotographs of Living Things
Prize-winning microviews of everything from mouse retinas to slime mold
Photo Credits: Ralph Grimm, Jimboomba, Australia]
From: SciAM, February 01, 2007
Top 10 Microphotographs of Living Things
Prize-winning microviews of everything from mouse retinas to slime mold
Cast a Wish
From Folly (via randform). Pull on the little triangles to read wishes. To cast a wish, type in letters - they should appear on the ribbon under the tree. When done, click on and pull down ribbon. Aim at tree. If your wish hits a tree node, it will get saved. If applet doesn't work or runs annoyingly slow, go to this page.
Update: I removed the applet do to copyright reasons. Please click on the picture below to use the wishtree.
After a day of wishing, I found a couple of new wishes on the tree :-)
And here's the one I cast: I wish all these wishes became true.
Update: I removed the applet do to copyright reasons. Please click on the picture below to use the wishtree.
After a day of wishing, I found a couple of new wishes on the tree :-)
- I wish I understood quantum mechanics
- I wish there were more women in physics with me
- I wish I my paper got published
- I wish I knew how to quantize gravity
- I wish my proposal was accepted
- I wish I could travel faster than the speed of light
- I wish there was more funding for fundamental research
And here's the one I cast: I wish all these wishes became true.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The party goes on!
It seems that we Germans have a perfect opportunitiy to recycle the flags we have bought last Summer! The handball national team made it to the finals of the championship tonight!
It was an extremely thrilling match, and decided only in the last minute of the second extension: Bad luck for the French, to be beaten with 32:31 goals!
In the meantime, the excitement is reaching more and more people. In fact, hardly anyone had taken notice of the start of the championship two weeks ago, although it takes place in Germany! But tonight, everything is different - there was even an interruption of a session of the Bundestag when the news of the victory against France came in.
Now, we all are looking forward to the finals against the Polish team on Sunday!
It was an extremely thrilling match, and decided only in the last minute of the second extension: Bad luck for the French, to be beaten with 32:31 goals!
In the meantime, the excitement is reaching more and more people. In fact, hardly anyone had taken notice of the start of the championship two weeks ago, although it takes place in Germany! But tonight, everything is different - there was even an interruption of a session of the Bundestag when the news of the victory against France came in.
Now, we all are looking forward to the finals against the Polish team on Sunday!
This and That
- The Discover Magazine's cover story of the February issue is about RHIC: The Big Bang Machine - A Long Island particle smasher re-creates the moment of creation. I have no subscription, so I haven't yet read it, but I'll update.
- I have a guest post at Clifford's blog Asymtpotia that I wrote last weekend: Sabine Hossenfelder - My inspiration. My husband said: You've put everything that your heart is attached to in that piece. Well, he's exaggerating. I mentioned Jelly Beans, but not Haribo Gummy Bears (btw Stefan, I'm still waiting for the care package!)
- The idea to make the Sunday evening guest posts a regular feature is so far fruitful. Also for the next some weeks I have some physicists who will contribute with their story how and why they became a physicist. The previous posts were by Chanda and Tommaso.
- If you have a couple of minutes time, read this thoughtful short story by Isaac Asimov about the increase of entropy and the first moment of time. If you're done and wish you had become a SciFi author, go find out which Sci Fi writer you are (via Asymptotia).
- The 6th edition of the blog carnival Philosophia Naturalis is out now. As always, with lots of interesting pointers towards recent science posts, and definitly worth having a look!
- Blogger is having hiccups, and part of the sites are down, sorry, not much I can do about it. Have a nice day, hope to see you around :-)
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Geothermal Energy
During winter, my mind wanders around a lot. Mostly it travels southwards, but occasionally the journey is in 3-D, from the farthest galaxies1 to the center of the earth.
Though mother earth is pretty cool on the surface, she's despite her age still a hot girl, and when I look out of the window (snow, snow, and more snow) I like to remind myself that we're all just sitting on a thin layer of cold stones below which our planet is dynamical and full of energy.
In 1864, Jules Verne wrote his fantastic novel 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' , and today I read there will be a new remake of the movie, called 'Journey 3-D', which is advertised with "Journey 3-D will be shot in live action, with the otherworldly landscapes and creatures supplied by high-definition, photo-real 3-D technology.".
But there's a very realistic side to the fantastic travels. Since the beginning of the last century, geothermal power plants have been build to use the energy of the earth's heat. The first geothermal power plant was built 1904-1911 in Larderello, Italy - in an area once known as Valle del Diavolo (Devil's Valley) for the boiling liquid that bubbled out of the ground. The power plants in Larderello were destroyed during World War II, but have since been rebuilt and expanded.
One can roughly distinguish four conceptually different technologies for geothermal power plants. In case there is a natural reservoir, one can either
1) Use the hot water from the geothermal source to route it directly through a turbine to produce electricity. When the hot water is released from the pressure of the deep reservoir, part of it flashes (explosively boils) to steam. Therefore these power plants are also called 'Flashed Steam Plants'. The force of the steam is used to spin the turbine generator. To conserve the water and maintain reservoir pressure, the geothermal water and condensed steam are directed down back into the periphery of the reservoir. You can look at a virtual tour provided by calenergy.com: for Quicktime or Windows MediaPlayer.
2) Or, in case the geothermal reservoirs produce mostly steam and very little water, the steam goes directly into the turbine. The largest known field in the world is the Geysers dry steam reservoir in northern California, which has produced electricity since 1960, and, after 40 years, still produces enough electricity to supply a city the size of San Francisco.
These conventional geothermal power stations are generally limited in size and unfortunately are often linked to emissions of volcanic gases and toxic elements. A more sophisticated version to extract the energy is to
3) Pass the hot water from the geothermal source through a heat exchanger, where it is transferred into a second cycle. These type of power plants are therefore called 'Binary Cycle'.
Besides these technologies relying on naturally occurring water resources, there is the more recently developed
4) 'Dry Hot Rock' technology, which makes the energy extraction independent from the natural water or steam resources. All one needs is, well, a dry hot rock that shouldn't be too far below the surface. The current limit for efficient mining is approx 5 km (3 miles) underground. Water is pushed into the hot rock, where it gets heated and due to its own pressure then rises through drill holes back to the surface where energy can be extracted. For more information, see e.g. this website.
The Deep Heat Mining project in Basel, Switzerland, is based on this technology. It was stopped last month following a series of small earthquakes whose center was located at the construction site.
Of course the use of geothermal energy crucially depends on the local conditions. Iceland has a vast reservoir of easily accessible sources, and I would have guessed Iceland is leading in that area. But to my huge, and pleasant, surprise I read at the website of BP
'The US leads the world in installed geothermal power capacity.'
Checking the references, I found the source in this statistic about Worldwide Geothermal Power Generation, Table 1, from the GRC which confirms the leading role of the USA. And it is a lively area of research: Only last week I read about the results of a MIT study:
SciAm, January 22, 2007, U.S. urged to ramp up geothermal power
'MIT's study [...] said the United States as a first step could achieve capacity of 100,000 megawatts - enough to supply about 25 million homes -- in 50 years at an eventual cost of just $40 million a year. That would represent about 6 percent of the current U.S. electricity supply.'
(see also Physorg.com: MIT releases major report on geothermal energy).
Though geothermal energies will not be able to cover the world's increasing need for energy, it is an alternative source whose potential has not yet been fully explored, and I am happy to see that efforts go into this direction. The world's energy supply is a problem that we have to face, or our journeys in all dimensions will come to a very unpleasant and sudden stop.
I just came back from a walk outside, snow under my feet, and it is hard to imagine that only some kilometres below me there is magma in turmoil. Coincidentally, I just read a local success story about heating with geothermal energy in the neighbor town Kitchener which I find quite amazing.
Sometimes I think the English language lacks a dimension because unlike German, nouns have no gender.
The earth as well as nature, energy, science, and also physics are female2.
Progress, optimism and change are male3.
The problem is neutral.
Further Reading:
Footnote 1: My way of signing the book of condolences for the loss of Hubble's best eye, see posts at Cosmic Variance and Asymptotia.
Footnote 2: So is confusion (die Verwirrung), and stubbornness (die Dickköpfigkeit).
Footnote 3: So is the mistake (der Fehler), and the breakdown (der Zusammenbruch).
TAGS: SCIENCE, GEOTHERMAL ENERGY, MOTHER EARTH
Though mother earth is pretty cool on the surface, she's despite her age still a hot girl, and when I look out of the window (snow, snow, and more snow) I like to remind myself that we're all just sitting on a thin layer of cold stones below which our planet is dynamical and full of energy.
In 1864, Jules Verne wrote his fantastic novel 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' , and today I read there will be a new remake of the movie, called 'Journey 3-D', which is advertised with "Journey 3-D will be shot in live action, with the otherworldly landscapes and creatures supplied by high-definition, photo-real 3-D technology.".
But there's a very realistic side to the fantastic travels. Since the beginning of the last century, geothermal power plants have been build to use the energy of the earth's heat. The first geothermal power plant was built 1904-1911 in Larderello, Italy - in an area once known as Valle del Diavolo (Devil's Valley) for the boiling liquid that bubbled out of the ground. The power plants in Larderello were destroyed during World War II, but have since been rebuilt and expanded.
One can roughly distinguish four conceptually different technologies for geothermal power plants. In case there is a natural reservoir, one can either
1) Use the hot water from the geothermal source to route it directly through a turbine to produce electricity. When the hot water is released from the pressure of the deep reservoir, part of it flashes (explosively boils) to steam. Therefore these power plants are also called 'Flashed Steam Plants'. The force of the steam is used to spin the turbine generator. To conserve the water and maintain reservoir pressure, the geothermal water and condensed steam are directed down back into the periphery of the reservoir. You can look at a virtual tour provided by calenergy.com: for Quicktime or Windows MediaPlayer.
2) Or, in case the geothermal reservoirs produce mostly steam and very little water, the steam goes directly into the turbine. The largest known field in the world is the Geysers dry steam reservoir in northern California, which has produced electricity since 1960, and, after 40 years, still produces enough electricity to supply a city the size of San Francisco.These conventional geothermal power stations are generally limited in size and unfortunately are often linked to emissions of volcanic gases and toxic elements. A more sophisticated version to extract the energy is to
3) Pass the hot water from the geothermal source through a heat exchanger, where it is transferred into a second cycle. These type of power plants are therefore called 'Binary Cycle'.
Besides these technologies relying on naturally occurring water resources, there is the more recently developed
4) 'Dry Hot Rock' technology, which makes the energy extraction independent from the natural water or steam resources. All one needs is, well, a dry hot rock that shouldn't be too far below the surface. The current limit for efficient mining is approx 5 km (3 miles) underground. Water is pushed into the hot rock, where it gets heated and due to its own pressure then rises through drill holes back to the surface where energy can be extracted. For more information, see e.g. this website.
The Deep Heat Mining project in Basel, Switzerland, is based on this technology. It was stopped last month following a series of small earthquakes whose center was located at the construction site.
Of course the use of geothermal energy crucially depends on the local conditions. Iceland has a vast reservoir of easily accessible sources, and I would have guessed Iceland is leading in that area. But to my huge, and pleasant, surprise I read at the website of BP
'The US leads the world in installed geothermal power capacity.'
Checking the references, I found the source in this statistic about Worldwide Geothermal Power Generation, Table 1, from the GRC which confirms the leading role of the USA. And it is a lively area of research: Only last week I read about the results of a MIT study:
SciAm, January 22, 2007, U.S. urged to ramp up geothermal power
'MIT's study [...] said the United States as a first step could achieve capacity of 100,000 megawatts - enough to supply about 25 million homes -- in 50 years at an eventual cost of just $40 million a year. That would represent about 6 percent of the current U.S. electricity supply.'
(see also Physorg.com: MIT releases major report on geothermal energy).
Though geothermal energies will not be able to cover the world's increasing need for energy, it is an alternative source whose potential has not yet been fully explored, and I am happy to see that efforts go into this direction. The world's energy supply is a problem that we have to face, or our journeys in all dimensions will come to a very unpleasant and sudden stop.
I just came back from a walk outside, snow under my feet, and it is hard to imagine that only some kilometres below me there is magma in turmoil. Coincidentally, I just read a local success story about heating with geothermal energy in the neighbor town Kitchener which I find quite amazing.
Sometimes I think the English language lacks a dimension because unlike German, nouns have no gender.
The earth as well as nature, energy, science, and also physics are female2.
Progress, optimism and change are male3.
The problem is neutral.
Further Reading:
- Very informative DOE site about Geothermal Power Plants
- More about the Dry Hot Rock power plants
- Brief Intro into Geothermal Energy from RISE - the Research Institute for Sustainable Energy in Australia
- Very readable article in Time Magazine about the power plant in Larderello: Steaming Forward
- Website of the Geothermal Resources Council
- Flashy website from CalEnergy
Footnote 1: My way of signing the book of condolences for the loss of Hubble's best eye, see posts at Cosmic Variance and Asymptotia.
Footnote 2: So is confusion (die Verwirrung), and stubbornness (die Dickköpfigkeit).
Footnote 3: So is the mistake (der Fehler), and the breakdown (der Zusammenbruch).
TAGS: SCIENCE, GEOTHERMAL ENERGY, MOTHER EARTH
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Semifinals again!
About half a year ago, the German soccer team reached the semifinals of the world championship in Germany - it was a huge party here, but, as you may remember, it was Italy who eventually became world champion. Tonight, another German team made it to the semifinals of a world championship taking place in Germany, by beating the acting champion!
Source: Der Spiegel / DPA
Well, in case you didn't get the news - no shame, even here not everybody is following what is going on, and there are no crowded public viewing areas this time. The game is handball, and the German team wasn't a big favourite for the title, so far.
Now, the next match will be the semifinals against France on Thursday.
Good luck, German team!
Source: Der Spiegel / DPA
Well, in case you didn't get the news - no shame, even here not everybody is following what is going on, and there are no crowded public viewing areas this time. The game is handball, and the German team wasn't a big favourite for the title, so far.
Now, the next match will be the semifinals against France on Thursday.
Good luck, German team!
Burrito
I've just received a burrito - ah, I mean, a referee report on my latest paper...
more of Pearls Before Swine at www.comics.com
more of Pearls Before Swine at www.comics.com
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Guest Post: Tommaso - A Happy Fish
I was asked by Sabine to write here about why I became a physicist, and to answer a few ancillary questions she supplied as guidance. I am happy to comply, so let me start from the beginning, as I am a tidy person when it comes to writing.
When I was a kid, I used to be a little mathematics genius. I was fascinated by math and its rationality - everything was simple, and orderly, quite unlike the shattering relationship between my parents. Math was a refuge. And quite naturally, from math I came to appreciate most natural sciences, especially Astronomy.
It was only in high school that I started to study Physics and to love it, stimulated by a very charismatic professor of math and physics. To study Physics at the University became a natural choice, but my interest in the investigation of the organization of Nature at the smallest scales was not love at first sight, but a slow process, and my landing in high-energy particle physics was somewhat accidental - I stumbled in a call for summer students at Fermilab, and got hooked!
I realize that telling the story of how I became a researcher does not fully answer Sabine's question of why I am a physicist, but it is tough to do that. After the University I could have decided to become something else, but so many things pulled in the same direction I did not even start to oppose resistence.
So let me make a list of why I chose a career as a physicist, rather than trying to make sense of each bit in a grand design. Computers are my best friends. I am fascinated by science and basic research. I am ecstatic if I can find a pure thought nobody had before, and use it in my studies. I love to teach. And I love to travel!
But of course there is more. I am not driven by a strong ambition - let's say that my objective is to end my career as a inspirational professor of physics. What drives me in my job is rather the attempt at justifying my life in helping the advancement of human knowledge, and I think the best way to do it for me is by doing research in particle physics.
Of course, I find my job fascinating, and just being part of giant and complex projects such as CDF or CMS makes me proud. There is always so much to learn that one cannot get bored. And it is extremely stimulating also because many of the people I work knee to knee with are at least as smart as I am, and it is a full time job to keep my head above the water.
Yes, I am a happy fish. And my philosophy of life comes to the rescue when I feel I am not doing enough, since I subscribe to Oratio's aurea mediocritas: I do not want to become a general, but just be a good soldier. If they allow me to do my tiny bit to help humanity progress then I feel I have done my duty...
Sabine also asked me about my blog. Why do I spend so much time on it ? I think as scientists we have the moral obligation of doing as much outreach as we can. In today's world there is such a tremendous drift toward irrationality, religious beliefs hindering the progress of a free society, and a continuous barrage fire on the media promoting superstitious beliefs, that if scientists continue to hide themselves in their ivory tower they can only lose the battle. What is the purpose of devoting one's life to the advancement of knowledge, if that knowledge is not shared by many ?
Sure, one could argue that technological advancements are used by everybody even if people do not understand them, but the problem is that as science gest more and more disconnected from the real world the investment that society does will shrink gradually. It took just a few ignorant congressmen to kill a fantastic experiment in the nineties, the SSC. Because of that, we lost 15 years in fundamental physics. So it is our responsibility to educate to science the future congressmen that could kill important new endeavours.
Keeping a blog, maintaining it and making it interesting and stimulating both to non-scientists and to colleague scientists (their contribution is fundamental to keep the effort going) is a heavy burden, but I have some time to devote to it since I do not teach. So I invest part of my research time in explaining particle physics to whomever wants to listen... So far so good!
Tommaso Dorigo is a INFN researcher in particle physics at the University of Padova. He collaborates with the CDF experiment at Fermilab and the CMS experiment in construction at the CERN laboratory. His research activities are in top quark physics and Higgs boson searches. Tommaso is 40 years old. He lives in Venice with his wife Mariarosa, a teacher of latin and greek, and their two children, Filippo (7) and Ilaria (3). When he is not working (that is, most of the time) he is busy with his many hobbies: astronomy, chess, piano. And of course he maintains the blog 'Quantum Diaries Survivor', where he strives to make elementary physics really elementary, by explaining cutting-edge research in simple terms.
TAGS: PHYSICS, PHYSICISTS
Friday, January 26, 2007
Eyeglasses and the James Webb Space Telescope
Did you know...
... that "Brille", the German word for eyeglasses, comes from beryl, the name of a transparent crystal?
It seems that eyeglasses are an invention of the Middle Ages. At that time, however, glasses were not made of glass, but from a mineral which comes in a clear, transparent crystalline variety. This material, beryl, was the material the first lenses were carved from.
Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher wearing glasses made of beryl to help his eyesight. This fresco in a church in Treviso, painted in 1352 by Tommaso da Modena, is the oldest known pictorial representation of eyeglasses. (Source: Books, Banks, Buttons: And Other Inventions From The Middle Ages)
Beryl is, chemically speaking, a cyclosilicate, a compound of the light metals beryllium and aluminium with silicon and oxygen. Its chemical formula is Be3Al2(SiO3)6. In its pure form, beryl is a colourless, clear mineral, but if it is "doped" with trace amounts of other metals, it can have all kinds of colours - and be very precious. Emerald, for example, is a variety of beryl, coloured green by impurities of chromium and, sometimes, iron.
Now, colour centres are a very interesting physics topic of their own, but I was reminded of this beryl story when I came across a comprehensive, freely available paper on the James Webb Space Telescope.
The JWST is a planned satellite telescope which is sometimes called the successor of the Hubble telescope. One of its scopes is to study the first galaxies in the young Universe at a redshift in the range of 5-10. This means that all visible light is shifted far into the infrared. So, the JWST is optimised for observations at the infrared part of the spectrum. It will have a primary mirror with a diameter of 6.5 meters (21 feet 4 inches) which consists of several segments. And these segments will be made of - beryllium.
The primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope will consist of 18 honeycomb-shaped segments made of beryllium (Source: NASA)
Metallic beryllium was chosen to produce the mirror because its stiff, light weight, has very small thermal expansion over a wide temperature range and holds its shape at the low 50 Kelvin at which the telescope will operate.
It's a funny coincidence that the same element, which as a main component in a mineral was used to produce the first eyeglasses, will soon help us to look back into the youth of our Universe!
TAGS: PHYSICS, SCIENCE, JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
... that "Brille", the German word for eyeglasses, comes from beryl, the name of a transparent crystal?
It seems that eyeglasses are an invention of the Middle Ages. At that time, however, glasses were not made of glass, but from a mineral which comes in a clear, transparent crystalline variety. This material, beryl, was the material the first lenses were carved from.
Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher wearing glasses made of beryl to help his eyesight. This fresco in a church in Treviso, painted in 1352 by Tommaso da Modena, is the oldest known pictorial representation of eyeglasses. (Source: Books, Banks, Buttons: And Other Inventions From The Middle Ages)
Beryl is, chemically speaking, a cyclosilicate, a compound of the light metals beryllium and aluminium with silicon and oxygen. Its chemical formula is Be3Al2(SiO3)6. In its pure form, beryl is a colourless, clear mineral, but if it is "doped" with trace amounts of other metals, it can have all kinds of colours - and be very precious. Emerald, for example, is a variety of beryl, coloured green by impurities of chromium and, sometimes, iron.
Now, colour centres are a very interesting physics topic of their own, but I was reminded of this beryl story when I came across a comprehensive, freely available paper on the James Webb Space Telescope.
The JWST is a planned satellite telescope which is sometimes called the successor of the Hubble telescope. One of its scopes is to study the first galaxies in the young Universe at a redshift in the range of 5-10. This means that all visible light is shifted far into the infrared. So, the JWST is optimised for observations at the infrared part of the spectrum. It will have a primary mirror with a diameter of 6.5 meters (21 feet 4 inches) which consists of several segments. And these segments will be made of - beryllium.
The primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope will consist of 18 honeycomb-shaped segments made of beryllium (Source: NASA)
Metallic beryllium was chosen to produce the mirror because its stiff, light weight, has very small thermal expansion over a wide temperature range and holds its shape at the low 50 Kelvin at which the telescope will operate.
It's a funny coincidence that the same element, which as a main component in a mineral was used to produce the first eyeglasses, will soon help us to look back into the youth of our Universe!
TAGS: PHYSICS, SCIENCE, JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
![[original version]](http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/current/map_images/PowerSpectrum512.png){kind=link}
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Water in Zero Gravity
In my apartment the heating is in the ceiling. Not a joke. I've wondered where the guy grew up who had this ingenious idea, had he never heard that hot air rises? But NASA has provided me with a hint regarding this question.
This morning, I was staring at the tea water, waiting for it to boil. Did it ever occur to you that the rising heated water is necessary to get the temperature homogeneously distributed? But what if the hotter water with smaller density does not rise? Say, because there's no gravity?
Well, it stays where it is. And here's how boiling looks like in zero gravity: The heated water stays close to heater. Regions further away from the heater stay cooler, so the actually heated part boils earlier. Once it begins to boil, the vapor bubbles don't rise, but join each other due to surface tension. Eventually, one large bubble forms, that clings to the heater. Cool, eh? I mean, hot. It looks like this
Also: Don't miss a demonstration how to eat tea with chopsticks, a truly essential piece of research.
Now I'm convinced the guy who constructed my heating came somewhere from outer space. That's just how things are up there, why bother. All I have to do is sleep on the ceiling.
TAGS: PHYSICS, SCIENCE, GRAVITY
This morning, I was staring at the tea water, waiting for it to boil. Did it ever occur to you that the rising heated water is necessary to get the temperature homogeneously distributed? But what if the hotter water with smaller density does not rise? Say, because there's no gravity?
Well, it stays where it is. And here's how boiling looks like in zero gravity: The heated water stays close to heater. Regions further away from the heater stay cooler, so the actually heated part boils earlier. Once it begins to boil, the vapor bubbles don't rise, but join each other due to surface tension. Eventually, one large bubble forms, that clings to the heater. Cool, eh? I mean, hot. It looks like this
- More Info as well as some movies about cooking water in zero gravity at this NASA site.
- Check also the bursting water balloon in zero gravity.
- And more fun with water balloons.
Also: Don't miss a demonstration how to eat tea with chopsticks, a truly essential piece of research.
Now I'm convinced the guy who constructed my heating came somewhere from outer space. That's just how things are up there, why bother. All I have to do is sleep on the ceiling.
TAGS: PHYSICS, SCIENCE, GRAVITY
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Risky Research
From:
Popsci - The Scariest Ideas in Science
Undead viruses! Killer foxes! Soldiers who never sleep! This is no horror movie—it's today's scientists at their most daring
Undead viruses! Killer foxes! Soldiers who never sleep! This is no horror movie—it's today's scientists at their most daring
PS: I'm very glad to see they don't mention black holes at the LHC...
PPS: I think some people should add this label on their papers if their work may cause brain malfuncion.
Conferences 2007
Some conferences/workshops on physics beyond the standard model this year:
(will be updated from time to time, let me know if you have something to add)
- CTP 2007 Symposiun on Sypersymmetry at LHC
At the British University in Egypt
March 11-14 2007
(Deadline: March 1st)
'The main theme of the conference is theoretical, phenomenological and experimental aspects of the following physics topics: Higgs [...] CP Violation [...] B-Physics [...] SUSY and Extra Dimensions searches at LHC [...] Supersymmetric theories, Supergravity theories and M-theory, Branes Physics and supersymmetry [...] ' - String Pheno '07
Rome, Italy
June 4-8 2007
'The conference aim at bringing together experts in String Theory, Particle Physics, Cosmology and Mathematical Physics, thus providing an occasion of very fruitful interactions that can spur significant steps forward in all these fields.' - From Quantum to Emergent Gravity: Theory and Phenomenology
SISSA, Trieste, ITALY
11th-15th June 2007
'In recent times there has been a flourishing of ideas and proposals on how to test mesoscopic (high-energy but still sub-Planckian) effects of different QG scenarios. This field of research goes under the general heading of QG phenomenology. It provides ways to put constraints on possible QG effects (for example departures from Lorentz invariance) but also stimulates new conjectures about the nature of the spacetime fabric and its behaviour near the Planck scale. In particular a key question is to understand how General Relativity arises at low energy from theories of QG.' - Planck '07
From the Planck Scale to the Electroweak Scale
Warsaw, Poland
June 9 - 13, 2007
'With the LHC era starting soon, the meeting will mainly be devoted to physics beyond the Standard Model and to the interface of particle physics and cosmology.' - LOOPS '07
Morelia, Mexico:
25 - 30 June 2007
'As in previous years, the conference is meant to provide the main international event on quantum gravity with emphasis on non-perturbative and background independent approaches.' - Les Houches - Session LXXXVII
String theory and the real world - From particle physics to astrophysics
July 2 - July 27, 2007
(Deadline: May 2nd)
'[...] does string theory describe our Universe? In this school, we will discuss the near term prospects for getting evidence for or against this claim, from experiments in particle and gravitational physics, and from astronomical and cosmological observations.' - SUSY 2007
The 15th International Conference on Supersymmetryand the Unification of Fundamental Interactions
Karlsruhe, Germany
July 26 - August 1, 2007
'Since their inception in 1993, the SUSY conferences have become the largest annual international meetings devoted to new ideas in particle physics.' - Cargèse Summer School
Cosmology and Particle Physics Beyond the Standard Models
July 30 - August 11, 2007
Cargèse, Corsica, France
'High energy theorists have been working on various extensions of the Standard Model like Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, theories with extra dimensions. The next generation of particle physics experiments (LHC, neutrino superbeams, B factories...) and astroparticles/cosmology experiments (Auger, Planck, Snap, Lisa... ) will offer the possibility to test these theories and deepen our understanding of the fundamental laws. A very challenging era is awaiting us.' - BSM THEORY INSTITUTE - New Physics and the LHC
CERN, Geneva
August 13th - September 7th
'The aim of this Institute devoted to physics beyond the Standard Model is to gather model-builders, string theorists and collider phenomologists to prepare for the turn on of LHC.' - TeV Particle Astrophysics 2007
27-31 August 2007
Venice, Italy
'The aim of the workshop is to understand what we can learn from present and upcoming experiments at the TeV scale and above, and what are the prospects for discovering and understanding new physics with accelerator and astrophysical searches.'
(will be updated from time to time, let me know if you have something to add)
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