Thanks Again Science!

What's the smallest thing you have ever seen? Not any more. Scientists from IBM have successfully imaged a single molecule.

I am sorry if the shock and awe produced by this discovery caused anyone to faint, become incoherent or otherwise harm themselves in disbelief. A better introduction might have been "Are you sitting down? No, then find a chair because your mind is about to be blown."

Day Two

Today we discussed the scientific method as an iterative process. Rather than grinding out answers mechanically, the scientific method grinds out experimental results, from which we may infer the answers. Was our initial claim correct? Does that indicate anything about our hypothesis and it's underlying structure? Was there anything we assumed? Most importantly, does any of that affect the possible Truth of my claims? Deciding we needed a better understanding of these things, we called in the big guns, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, et al for next time.

We also mentioned the differences between a hypothesis and a theory, and studied the long and winding road the former travels to become the latter.

Addendum: The analyses of the in-class poem were reviewed and discussed. Excerpts and commentary will be posted soon.

Day One

We constructed twelve randomly selected lines of text, divided into three groups of four. Ostensibly, these are the intro, conflict, and resolution of some internal theme. During our initial pass at understanding (first order approximation) we spotted some common threads.

• Christian imagery
• death and rebirth
• fire and water
• groups of people characterized by following
• suffering and the benefits of eventual discovery

and so on. For next time, we need to start thinking about how to combine these into a coherent theme or "meaning of the poem." Are these the only connections that can be found? Have we utterly exhausted the content of our text? Of course not. As long as we stare at the lines, we will continue to generate connections between varying images in the work.

As we continue to study these things (physical systems) we will get a clearer understanding of what it means to mean something, and how certain we can be that our meanings are real.

Forum for the course

I have set up a forum page for the class, in the event that we need one. If you can think of any subdivisions that would be useful, let me know.

controlmachine.freeforums.org

Go to Hell, Science!

Folks are flocking to the Israeli town of Kiryat Yam to cash in on what I can only call a sure thing. All they have to do is get a photo of the town's mermaid. Simple as pie, folks. Whoever ponies up this reward money is an idiot. How long can this contest take, like 8 minutes? Here's a contest idea for you: "$1,000,000 for any photo of a broken sand dollar!"

In my experience, it's more difficult to take beach pictures without mermaids littering the shot. I have a filing cabinet filled with vacation pictures absolutely ruined by mermaids. Perfect shots of the sun setting over the horizon...marred by comely sea wenches lolling about on the sands. Award winning visions of morning fog slowly fading under the intense gaze of the rising sun...poisoned by the emerging forms of she-fish. At least with jellyfish, you can listen to the radio and get an idea of the population density.

Note: The graphic accompanying this post does not constitute photographic evidence of mermaids.

Link to article (LiveScience.com).