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Mathematics in science fiction

May 27, 2021 12:42 pm

Mathematics in science fiction

The three leading Mathematicians in contemporary American Science Fiction are:

    1. Professor Vernor Vinge – recently retired from teaching Mathematics in a major San Diego, California, university so as to write full-time;
    1. Professor Rudy Rucker – Ph.D. in Mathematical Logic; taught at San Jose State University, in the heart of Silicon Valley;
    1. Professor Jonathan Vos Post : also known as Your Humble Webmaster, in the 2nd semester as part-time professor of mathematics at Woodbury University, in Burbank, California; with a B.S. in Mathematical Logic from Caltech, and 4 Mathematics papers written in the first 4 weeks of 2004 and submitted to journals and international conferences.


There is plenty of Fantasy and Science Fiction about Mathematics, including:


    

  1. 

      

    1. “Socrates and the Slave”, by Plato [date?] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Tachypomp”, by Edward Page Mitchell [18xx] : Originally published in a New York newspaper; arguably the first story ever about computer-enhanced human intelligence; idiot has what we would call a computer implanted in his skull, making him a genius; likely influenced the classic “Flowers for Algernon” and the botched film “Lawnmower Man”; Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Plattner Story”, by H.G. Wells [1896] : 4-D rotation makes 3-D object mirror-reversed;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Peter Learns Arithmetic”, by H.G. Wells [18xx]: Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Young Archimedes”, by Aldous Huxley [1924]: Peasant prodigy discovered by couple vacationing in Italy; explicitly shows boy rediscovery of a theorem of Pythagoras; warning: tragic ending. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Captured Cross-Section”, by Miles J. Breuer, M.D. [1929] : A multi-dimesnional geometry fiction, where the Mathematician hero has to save his mathematician finacee; starts with some Linear Algebra, and quickly moves to a 4-D creature manifesting in our 3-D world; Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica; has a sort of sequel by Greg Bear {to be done};
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Death of Archimedes”, by Karel Capek [19xx] : Historically, we think that Archimedes was killed by an ignorant Roman soldier. In this tale, the soldier knew very well who Archimedes was, and the murder stems from the great Mathematician refusing to work for the Roman Army, after some fascinating discussion about the use of Mathematics in military science. Karl Capek wrote the famous Science Fiction play “R.U.R.” which introduced the word “robot”, and the SF novel “War with the Newts.” Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Jurgen Proves it by Mathematics”, by James Branch Cabell [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “A. Botts and the Mobius Strip”, by William Hazlett Upson [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “God and the Machine”, by Nigel Balchin [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Misfit”, by by Robert A. Heinlein [1939] : math prodigy Libby;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “And He Built a Crooked House–“, by Robert A. Heinlein [1940] : tesseract-projected-into-3D house folds into 4-D in California quake, with occupant inside; considered one of the most cited Mathematics story in modern fiction;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Inflexible Logic”, by Russell Maloney [1940] : Old theory that enough monkeys typing on enough typewriters would eventually type all the books in the British Museum. In this story, six chimpanzees are put at six typewriters, and start typing flawlessly. The Mathematician has to decide whether or not to intervene, to save the Laws of probability. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “No-sided Professor”, by Martin Gardner [1946] : First published in Esquire. A Mobius strip is a strip of paper with a half-twist, that has only one side. Is there a way to keep going and get no sides? And what if you could fold a person that way? Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica; reprinted in Mathenauts; has a sequel “The Island of Five Colors”;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Wall of Darkness”, by Arthur C. Clarke [1949] : topological weirdness;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Incomplete Enchanter”, by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt [1942] : in this novel, which had sequelae, a mathematical logic equation when read aloud as if a magical spell, is the key to travel to alternative universes, mostly ones inside what are fictions from our world;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Pythagoras and the Psychoanalyst”, by Arthur Koestler [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Mother and the Decimal Point”, by Richard Llewellyn [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Superiority”, by Arthur C. Clarke [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Expedition”, by Fredric Brown [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Universal Library”, by Kur Lasswitz [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica; probably influenced Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babylon”;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Postscript to The Universal Library”, by Willy Ley [19xx] : Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “John Jones’s Dollar”, by Harry Stephen Keeler [19xx] : The power of Compound Interest; clearly influenced “Door into Summer” by Robert Heinlein, and “Age of the Pussyfoot” by Frederick Pohl. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “A Subway Named Mobius”, by A. J. Deutch [1950] : Boston’s transit authority (MBTA) build a new train line, and the network becomes some complicated that train vanishes, disappearing into multidimensional network topology, or something like that. The math is not correct, but the story is fun. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica; allegedly adapted to a movie;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Mathematical Voodoo”, by H. Nearing, Jr. [1951] : a collection of short stories (not a novel as claimed on the cover) originally printed in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
      
[Curtis Books, paperback, number 123-07051-075, cover price 75 cents, 224 pages; contains these stories among others: “The Mathematical Voodoo”, “The Hyperspeherical Basketball”, “The Factitious Pentangle”, “The Malignant Organ.” Cleanth Penn Ransom is the math Professor protagonist, although his name is obviously a composite of three famous poet/critics. Title story reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The island of Five Colors”, by Martin Gardner [1952] : sequel to “The No-sided Professor.” Characters try to solve the Four Color Theorem in Topology (which has been solved recently by a computer-assisted proof that few people can follow).
      
It gives a good summary of the Theorem, and then launches into a story about an imaginary African island divided into five simply-connected districts each of which borders the other four as well as the ocean. Professor Slapenarski is about to explain all, before he is kidnapped via a Klein Bottle by some sort of giant bug. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Last Magician”, by Bruce Elliott [1952] : Magician with Klein Bottle baffles extraterrestrials. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “FYI”, by James Blish [1953] : transfinite arithmetic;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Devil and Simon Flagg”, by Arthur Porges [19xx] : A deal-with-the-devil story with a unique twist: the Devil is challenged to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. By the story’s end, he and the human are collaborating with enthusiasm, to the disgust of the man’s wife. Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica; a short and somewhat different version was published under the title “The Devil a Mathematician Would Be”;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Fantasia Mathematica”, edited by Clifton Fadiman [1956] : essential anthology;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Occam’s Razor”, by David Duncan [1959] : explains Calculus of Variations;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “The Mathematical Magpie”, edited by Clifton Fadiman [1962] : essential anthology;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Euclid Alone”, by William F. Orr [1975; in Orbit 16 anthology] : author is also a mathematician;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Sorority House”, by Frederick Pohl (19zz) ;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. various stories, by Norman Kagan [19zz] ;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Solid Geometry”, by Ian McEwan [1976] : sort of a sequel to “No-sided Professor” [1946]
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Cosmos”, by Carl Sagan [19xx] : the novel (but not this film) has a particularly absurd subplot near the end, where the digits of “pi” are calculated to an immensely large distance, and a 2-D image of a circle appears, as if as the signature of God. This is absurd for several reasons, including: God has no reason to prefer Base 10; and Pi is Pi in any universe, regardless of the physics;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Mathenauts”, by Rudy Rucker [19zz] : anthology;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. various other books, by Rudy Rucker [19zz] ;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Kandelman’s Krim”, by J. L. Synge [19zz] ;
      2. 

    

    2. 



    

  1. 

      

    1. “Luminous”, by Greg Egan [19zz]
      2. 

    2. “Division by Zero”, by Ted Chiang [19zz]
      3. 

    

    2. 



;


    

  1. 

      

    1. others
      2. 

    

    2. 



: {to be done}


There are also Fantastic or Science Fictional MOVIES about Mathematics,
most notably:


    

  1. 

      

    1. “A Subway Named Mobius”, by A. J. Deutch [1950]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: Reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica; allegedly adapted for film;


    

  1. 

      

    1. Goodwill Hunting [1997]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: Directed by Gus Van Sant; screenplay by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; starring Robin Williams as Sean Maguire, a janitor at MIT who has a natural gift for Mathematics;


    

  1. 

      

    1. Pi [1998]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: Kabbalists and Wall Street goons chase a mathematician who has been going insane while earching for a pattern in the digits of Pi; the actual Greek lower case letter for “pi” is the official title of the film;


    

  1. 

      

    1. A Beautiful Mind [2001]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: Directed by Ron Howard; adapted to screenplay by Akiva Goldman from the book by Sylvia Nasar; starring Russell Crowe as John Forbes Nash, the brilliant Game Theorist who redirected Economics with his discoveries at Princeton, and then was captive of hallucinatory schizophrenia for decades;


    

  1. 

      

    1. Hypercube [2003]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: sequel to “Cube”, where 4-D geometry and a kind of time travel complicate things for a motley assortment of people trapped in a Military Industrial Complex deadly super-secret project;


    

  1. 

      

    1. others
      2. 

    

    2. 



: {to be done}


And there are movies that have fragments of Mathematics:


    

  1. 

      

    1. Return of the Pink Panther
      2. 

    

    2. 



: in the Lugash National Museum, we see the Star of Lakshmi, also known as the Star Polygon {8/2} which the Hindus use to symbolize Ashtalakshmi (the 8 forms of wealth); this figure is also widely used in traditional Mexican art;


    

  1. 

      

    1. Last Year in Marienbad [1961]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: as Margherita Barile points out, Alain Resnais’ film has two players in the Game of Nim, alternately taking counters from one of 4 heaps of 1, 3, 5, and 7 counters at the start, with the player winning who moves last;


    

  1. 

      

    1. The Avengers [date?]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: Uma Thurman descends a Penrose Stairway, and ends where she began. A Penrose Stairway famously appears in M. C. Escher’s prints “Ascending and Descending” and “House of Stairs”;


    

  1. 

      

    1. The Man Without a Face [1993]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: Mel Gibson (as Justin McLeod) demonstrates the Perpendicular Bisector Theorem to Nick Stahl (as Chuck Norstadt);


    

  1. 

      

    1. It’s My Turn [1980]
      2. 

    

    2. 



: as Margherita Barile points out, The Snake Lemma is explained in the first scene of this film by Claudia Weill, starring Michael Douglas and Jill Clayburgh;


    

  1. others : {to be done}
    2. 



For illustrations of some of the above, see: Mathematics in Film

For some examples of Mathematical concepts in stories not promarily about math, see:
Mathematics in Literature

For a "geneology" of my teachers' teachers' teachers, including many of the most famous Mathematcians in History, see:
My Teachers' Teachers' Teachers

For a web page about the Mathematics of "The Four Nines Problem", see: The Four Nines Problem

I am not automatically assuming that all Computer Scientists are Mathematicians, although some are. Your Humble Webmaster is also in the Faculty Pool of the Computer Science Department of California State University, Los Angeles, but not teaching there this semester (state budget crisis). But there is a plethora of quasimathematical content in Computer-oriented Science Fiction: see the section on Cyberpunk in this web page.


			

			
			







		

		
					
	

	
Ecology and Biology in Science Fiction

	

		May 27, 2021 12:31 pm	

	
Ecology and Biology in Science Fiction


Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by Magic Dragon Multimedia. All rights reserved Worldwide. May not be reproduced without permission. May be posted electronically provided that it is transmitted unaltered, in its entirety, and without charge.




We examine both works of fiction and important contemporaneous works on non-fiction which set the context for ecological Science Fiction and Fantasy. Some questions that we study include:


    

  • How do living organisms grow and reproduce? (Tribbles, TV: Star Trek)
    • 

  • What forces shape the evolution of species, including our own? Could humans evolve into something very different? (novel: Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut)
    • 

  • What kind of planet is needed for living things and ecosystems to evolve? (novel: Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson)
    • 

  • What would a desert planet look like? (novel: Dune, by Frank Herbert)
    • 

  • How does genetics create us–and recreate living things? (novel: Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton)
    • 

  • Could genetics make us immortal? (novel: The Children Star, by Joan Slonczewski)
    • 

  • What if an alien invader tried to do us in–from within? (novel: Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton)
    • 

  • What if the aliens decide they like us–too well? (novel: Dawn, by Octavia Butler)
    • 



Biology in Science Fiction: Syllabus by Prof. Joan Slonczewski.

Prof. Joan Slonczewski describes her required reading list as follows
(the hotlink shows the color art for each book):


    

  • Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, by Wayne Douglas Barlowe [New York: Workman Publishers, 1979] “In his classic guide, Wayne Douglas Barlowe’s brilliant portraits bring to life 50 aliens from science fiction literature: Larry Niven’s Thrint and his Puppeteer, Arthur C. Clarke’s Overlord, Frank Herbert’s Steersman, Robert Silverburg’s Sulidor and more. Humanoids, insectoids, reptillians-even protoplasmic, gaseous, and crystalline life forms-are all faithfully and naturalistically depicted so that you can now visualize what could only before be imagined.”
    • 

  • The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells [New York: Bantam Books, 1895] “When the Time Traveler courageously stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the year 802,700 — and everything had changed. In another, more utopian age, creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveler thought he could study these marvelous beings — unearth their secret and then return to his own time-until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.”
    • 

  • Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut [New York: Dell Publishing, 1985] “Galapagos takes the reader back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Galapagos islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave new, and totally different human race. Here, America’s master satirist looks at our world and shows us all that is sadly, madly awry-and all that is worth saving.”
    • 

  • Dune, by Frank Herbert [New York: Ace Books, 1965] “Set on the desert Planet Arrakis, a world more awesome than any other in literature, Dune begins the story of the man known as Muad’dib-and of a great family’s ambition to bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream…”
    • 

  • The Children Star, by Joan Slonczewski [Analog magazine serial; New York: Tor Books, 1999] “The Children Star — A world so alien that only children can be lifeshaped to live there. The Children Star features mind-bending genetic engineering, and tire-shaped creatures that evolved with triplex DNA and exotic amino acids. And which of the many circular- shaped life forms is actually an intelligent species with its own plans for the human colonists?”
    • 

  • Dawn, by Octavia Butler [New York: Warner Books, 1987] “Xenogenesis: The birth of something new-and foreign. Lilith Iyapo awoke from a centuries long sleep…and found herself aboard the vast living spaceship of the Oankali. Alien creatures covered in writhing tentacles, the Oankali had saved every surviving human from a dying, ruined Earth. They healed the planet, cured cancer, increased human strength and disease resistance, and were now ready to help Lilith lead her people back to the Earth. But for a price. For the Oankali were genetic engineers. DNA manipulators. Gene traders. They planned to give us their alienness. They planned to take our humanity. They planned to interbreed. And there was no way to stop them.”
    • 

  • Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson [New York: Bantam Books, 1993] “For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitovna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is to give Mars an Earth-like atmosphere. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planet’s surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces — for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.”
    • 

  • Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton [New York: Ballantine Books, 1990] “An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now, one of mankind’s most thrilling fantasies has come true. Creatures extinct for eons now roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery and all the world can visit them-for a price. Until something goes wrong…”
    • 

  • The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton [New York: Ballantine Books, 1969] “What if there was a virus so lethal, it could kill people as quickly as they took a breath? What if it spared some people from instant death…but drove them hopelessly insane instead? What if the swiftest acting, deadliest, virus ever known to humankind could be spread, by no more than a gust of wind, from the remote desert site of its first massacre to the busiest cities in America…and the world? What, if anything, could stop it?”
    • 

  • The Cartoon Guide to Genetics, by Larry Gonick and Mark Wheelis [New York: Harper Perennial, 1991] “Have you ever asked yourself: Are spliced genes the same as mended Levis? Watson and Crick? Aren’t they a team of British detectives? Plant sex? Can they do that? Is genetic mutation the name of one of those heavy metal bands? Asparagine? Which of the four food groups is that in? Then you need “The Cartoon Guide to Genetics” to explain the important concepts of classical and modern genetics.”
    • 

  • Brain Plague, by Joan Slonczewski [New York: Tor Books, 2000] “What if alien microbes could give us whatever our brains imagined–at a price? ‘Brain Plague’ gives new epic meaning to hearing voices inside your head. Tune in or you’ll be sorry.” — Eva, Fantastica Daily
    • 



Joan Slonczewski's Book List




The following list is selected, permuted, and edited from:
Themes/Genres in Science Fiction:
An idiosyncratic and woefully incomplete list, by Kay Fowler

©All the material in this website is copyrighted to Kathleen L. Fowler 
unless explicitly indicated otherwise. Permission is granted to use and
distribute this material freely but please attribute properly by retaining 
the full header information. 11/16/99 

"This list has been constructed over time based on a list and categories 
originally constructed by the late Professor Ted Michelfeld and owing debts to 
a number of other sources including The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 
It is still under construction and by no means complete but it is a starting 
place. The categories are by no means as distinct as is suggested here. 
Most every one of these works could appear in multiple categories and in 
many cases I have assigned them rather arbitrarily to one of the many choices 
they might occupy."


Plagues/Disease/Epidemics:


    

  1. Mary Shelley. The Last Man (1826)
    2. 

  2. Jack London. The Scarlet Plague (1915)
    3. 

  3. George Stewart. Earth Abides (1949)
    4. 

  4. Michael Critchton. The Andromeda Strain. (1969).
    5. 

  5. Sherri Tepper. Grass (1989); Raising the Stones (1990) Sideshow (1992). Earth has become “Sanctity” controlled by fundamental relgionists. Rich exploration of themes of religion, ecology, social relationships, etc.
    6. 



Agricultural/Ecological/Population Disasters:


    

  1. George Griffith. Olga Romanoff (1894) comet strike and alien invasion.
    2. 

  2. M. P. Shield. The Purple Cloud (1901). poisonous gas.
    3. 

  3. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Poison Belt (1913) the Earth passes through a poisonous ether
    4. 

  4. J. J. Connington. Nordenholt’s Millions (1923) agricultural disaster
    5. 

  5. S. Fowler Wright. Deluge (1928). flood.
    6. 

  6. Philip Wylie. When Worlds Collide (1932). dying sun on collision course with Earth. Film: When Worlds Collide (1951).
    7. 

  7. John Wyndham. The Day of the Triffids (1951) Venomous Plants.
    8. 

  8. Isaac Asimov. Caves of Steel (1954) overpopulation — and a great mystery story
    9. 

  9. John Christopher. The Death of Grass (a.k.a. No Blade of Grass) (1957)
    10. 

  10. Robert Silverberg. Masters of Life and Death (1957). overpopulation.
    11. 

  11. J. G. Ballard. “Billenium” (1961) population
    12. 

  12. J. G. Ballard. The Drowned World. (1962). flood
    13. 

  13. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Cat’s Cradle (1963) Ice-9
    14. 

  14. J. G. Ballard, The Drought (aka The Burning World) 1965.
    15. 

  15. Harry Harrison. Make Room! Make Room! (1966). Film: Soylent Green (1973).
    16. 

  16. William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.Logan’s Run (1967). Film: Logan’s Run (1967) Overpopulation; destruction of those over 30.
    17. 

  17. Lee Tang. The Wind Obeys Lama Torus. (1967). From India. Overpopulation.
    18. 

  18. John Brunner. Stand on Zanzibar. (1968). Young adult novel on overpopulation.
    19. 

  19. James Blish. A Torrent of Faces (1968)
    20. 

  20. Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle. The Inferno (1973). Cosmic radiation
    21. 

  21. Nancy Bond. The Voyage Begun (1989). Young Adult. In a near future Cape Cod, dwindling resources, unemployment, and ecological damage combine to make the Cape a dangerous, and forlorn world.
    22. 

  22. David Brin. Earth. (1990). Black hole.
    23. 

  23. Karen Hesse. Phoenix Rising (1994). Young adult. A young girl on a farm in Vermont copes with the consequences of a nuclear accident in Massachusetts. Dedicated to the children of Chernobyl.
    24. 

  24. Monica Hughes. Invitation to the Game. 1996. Young Adult. overpopulation and shrinking resources leave most unemployed and without hope — unless they can get into “the game”
    25. 

  25. Jack McDevitt. Engines of God. (1997) Alien artifacts related to ancient mass destructions on a number of planets. Should we be worried?
    26. 

  26. Mary Sullivan. Earthquake 2099. (1997) Young adult.
    27. 





Using Science Fiction to Understand Biological Concepts
by Tamsen K. Meyer and Cheryl H. Powers
©1994 Woodrow Wilson Biology Institute

     "Integration of disciplines that involve science, social issues, 
and literature is an increasingly attractive alternative in curriculum 
development today."
     "Science fiction has great appeal to many students who do not necessarily 
think of themselves as readers nor as the stereotypical 'math/science
student.'" 
     "The following is a resource list of science fiction short stories and 
novels that might be used either as an interdisciplinary teaching unit for
teachers, an enrichment exercise in your biology course, or possibly a summer 
reading list for students entering your course the following year." 
     "It also can serve as a starting point for students to create their own 
science fiction stories if only selections from these novels or short stories 
are read.
     "Students can demonstrate their understanding of complex biological 
concepts by writing their own short science fiction stories on topics such as
'The Day Diffusion Stopped.' What a difference a gene makes: food in the 
future, medicine in the future, eugenics revisited, and restoring extinct
species are possible genetics ideas that could be developed."
     "Readings are listed by title rather than author because titles seem more 
useful. Titles were submitted by several Woodrow Wilson participants. 
A content summary is included for most of the selections and if there is a 
film version of the book, the notation FVA (film version available) is added
in the following bibliography.


    

  1. Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton. 1969. New York: Knopf, Random House. A returning space capsule releases an alien virus on the earth. FVA
    2. 

  2. The Beast, Peter Benchley. 1991. New York: Random House. Coral reef ecology is disturbed and a giant squid picks man as his new prey.
    3. 

  3. Blade Runner, The, Alan E. Nourse. 1974. New York: D. McKay & Co. In a future of increased human longevity, doctors struggle to cope with problems of overpopulation, hereditary disorders, and virulent new diseases. FVA [The Ultimate Science Fiction Web Guide says: actually, the title is used in a film based on Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”; see below]
    4. 

  4. Boys from Brazil, The, Ira Levin. 1976. New York: Random House. Dr. Mengele attempts to produce cloned copies of Adolf Hitler, but in order to do so he must reproduce the environmental factors which made Hitler the evil genius that he was; deals intelligently with the fashionable subject of cloning. FVA
    5. 

  5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. 1946. New York: Harper and Bros. Reproductive technology as imagined in the 30’s – this famous satire about a technologically stratified world six centuries in the future helped define 20th-century humanity’s view of itself. FVA
    6. 

  6. Clan of the Cave Bear, The, Jean Auel. 1980. New York: Crown. Human evolution at the level of the Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal junction. FVA
    7. 

  7. Congo, Michael Crichton. 1980. New York, Knopf: Random House. Animal behavior, primate evolution: near future thriller of African exploration involving a tribe of talking gorillas.
    8. 

  8. Deathworld Trilogy, Harry Harrison. 1974. Garden City: Nelson Doubleday. Coevolution and adaptation: mysteries of a planet where every life-form appears to be implacably hostile to human colonists.
    9. 

  9. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick. 1968. Garden City: Doubleday. After World War Terminus, the Earth is an underpopulated wasteland where people keep electronic animals as pets; killer androids come from off-Earth where most economic activity takes place. Filmed as The Blade Runner.
    10. 

  10. Dorsai, Gordon R. Dickson. 1976. New York: Dow Books. Themes of human development and the purpose of life; originally published as The Genetic General.
    11. 

  11. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey. 1968. New York: Ballantine. A well crafted tale of a planet threatened by spores from space which can only be defeated by taming fire-breathing dragons; first of Dragons of Pern series.
    12. 

  12. Dune, Frank Herbert. 1965. Philadelphia: Chilton. Planetary environment and system of cultures much like that which would be present on Earth if Earth had no water. FVA
    13. 

  13. Earthclan: Startide Rising, David Brin. 1987. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday. Genetic manipulation, origin of man: intelligent dolphins and chimpanzees cooperate with man in the exploration of space.
    14. 

  14. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card, 1985. New York: Tor, A Tom Doherty Association Book. Interstellar war, aliens and genocide.
    15. 

  15. Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov. 1988. New York: Doubleday and Co. Microminiaturization is used to explore the human body; written originally as a screenplay for the movie of the same name. FVA
    16. 

  16. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. 1980 (1818). James Kinsley and M.K. Joseph eds., Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Gothic horror story about a medical student who creates an artificial man; first English science fiction novel. FVA
    17. 

  17. Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut. 1985. New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence. An observant ghost haunts the Galapagos Islands for a million years and watches as the descendants of a few marooned humans devolve into a new species – furry, finned, and small of brain; a sadly funny Darwinian fable.
    18. 

  18. Genesis Quest, Donald Moffitt. 1986. New York: Ballantine. A species of intelligent starfish in another galaxy use genetic engineering to recreate the extinct human race.
    19. 

  19. Human Error, Paul Preuss. 1985. New York: Tor. Scientists produce a biochip or living microcomputer.
    20. 

  20. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton. 1990. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. This fictional account of a theme park featuring dinosaurs cloned from DNA in mosquitoes fossilized in amber lends itself to many interesting discussions of genetic engineering, ethical issues, and chaos. FVA
    21. 

  21. “Last Question, The,” Isaac Asimov. 1959. in: Nine Tomorrows: Tales of the Near Future. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Themes of artificial intelligence and definition(s) of intelligence.
    22. 

  22. Mortal Fear, Robin Cook. 1988. New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons. Eyedrops accelerate the aging process.
    23. 

  23. Mutants: Eleven Stories of Science Fiction. Robert Silverberg, ed. 1974. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Anthology of collected works.
    24. 

  24. Plague Dogs, The, Richard Addams. 1977. London: Allen Lane, Rex Collings. Issues of animal experimentation, epidemics.
    25. 

  25. “Rendevous with Rama,” from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur Clarke. 1985. London: Octopus. Ecosystems necessary for terraforming are described.
    26. 

  26. Ringworld, Larry Niven. 1970. New York: Ballantine. Complex artificial world is the main focus of this popular book.
    27. 

  27. Science Fiction Adventures in Mutation, Groff Conklin, ed. 1956. New York: Vanguard Press. An anthology of collected works. [the referenced site misspell’s Groff’s name]
    28. 

  28. “Sound of Thunder, The,” Ray Bradbury. 1966. in: Science Fiction for People Who Hate Science Fiction, Terry Carr, ed. New York: Doubleday. Ecology, human impact on the environment.
    29. 

  29. Sphere, Michael Crichton. 1987. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. The discovery of an ancient spacecraft deep in the ocean is the focus of a scientific probe. [FVA]
    30. 

  30. Time Machine, The, H.G. Wells. 1931 New York: Random House. Ecological splitting of society leads to human evolution. FVA
    31. 

  31. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne. 1908. London/New York: J.M.Dent. Underwater adventures with sea creatures, technology of sea exploration.
    32. 

  32. Watchers, The, Dean Koontz. 1987. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Ethics of genetic engineering and issues of animal welfare.
    33. 

  33. West of Eden, Harry Harrison. 1984. New York: Bantam Books. Imagine a world where dinosaurs did not die but survived to develop their own civilization; their culture comes into conflict with an emergent human race.
    34. 



"An excellent resource for short summaries of works of science fiction is: 
The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, 
David Pringle. 1990. Grafton Books, London; Collins Publishing Group." 

"Numerous anthologies of science fiction short stories are available in libraries and science fiction magazines have many interesting
short pieces. Omni, Amazing Stories, Fantasy in Science, and Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact are four that are recommended." 
This is by no means a comprehensive list of science fiction that could be used at the secondary level. Hopefully, teachers will use this as a
springboard to generate their own annotated bibliographies that might also include favorite biological literature (books, poems, stories, and essays)
and film resources that are not science fiction."
"A sample writing exercise that might be done after students have read  'The Andromeda Strain': 
Support the truth of these quotes as demonstrated by events in the book: 
       "The survival value of human intelligence has never been satisfactorily demonstrated." 
       "Increasing vision is increasingly expensive." 
In the acknowledgments Crichton states, "We can expect more crises on the pattern of Andromeda." How much truth exists in the novel? 
What evidence do you see to support his prediction?  (Thanks to Susan Terry for these questions.)




Miscellaneous ecological novels:


BLOOM by Wil McCarthy
[New York, Del Rey, 1998, paperback, 303 pages, cover art by Rick Berry]
[A New York Times Notable Book]
A science fiction book featuring nanotechnology.
Reporter John Strasheim, Captain Wallich, bioanalyst Renata Baucum, 
and the rest of the small crew of the space ship Louis Pasteur 
travel on a dangerous mission from Jupiter's moon of Ganymede 
and the Immunity, visiting the Gladholders in the asteroid belt, 
to the inner solar system, including Earth, which has been taken 
over by the feared Mycosystem. 
From the back cover:
"Mycora: technogenic life. Fast-reproducing, fast-mutating, and 
endlessly voracious. In the year 2106, these microscopic machine/
creatures have escaped their creators to populate the inner solar 
system with a wild, deadly ecology all their own, pushing the tattered 
remnants of humanity out into the cold and dark of the outer planets. 
Even huddled beneath the ice of Jupiter's moons, protected by a 
defensive system known as the Immunity, survivors face the constant
risk of mycospores finding their way to the warmth and brightness 
inside the habitats, resulting in a calamitous 'bloom'"
   But the human race still has a trick or two up its sleeve: 
In a ship specially designed to penetrate the deadly Mycosystem, 
seven astronauts are about to embark on mankind's boldest venture yet --
the perilous journey home to infected Earth.
   Yet it is in these remote conditions, against a virtually 
omnipotent foe, that we discover how human nature plays the greatest 
role in humanity's future."
Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club
SCIENCE FICTION BOOK SELECTION




Miscellaneous Biological novels/films:


    

  1. Fantastic Voyage, film based on novel by Isaac Asimov, where an (impossibly) miniaturized submarine explores the interior of a living human body.
    2. 

  2. Them, film: radiation makes ants grow (impossibly) large.
    3. 

  3. The Thing, film (and remake of film) from short novel “Who Goes There” by John Campbell; an alien creature terrifies antarctic expolors with its ability to change shape. How do you know that your partner is not an alien morphed to resemble a human?
    4. 

  4. Film: It Came from Beneath the Sea
    5. 

  5. Film: Jaws
    6. 



MANY MORE: {to be done}




Academic Papers on Ecology and Science Fiction

"From Earth to Ecosphere: Science Fiction, spaceships, and ecology",
by Mark Rich
pages 373-93 of:
"Science et science-fiction", Actes de 4eme colloque international de 
science-fiction de Nice, 3-6 Apr 1991, Ed. Denise Terrel, Metaphores, 
#20-21-22 (sep 1992), 2 vols., 653 pages, 180 ff.  Order from J. Emiliana, 
UFR Lettres, BD Herriot, 06007 Nice Cedex, France



		
	







	
What is chaos? The butterfly effect explained

	

		May 26, 2021 10:17 am	

	
Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on chaos.


Chaos is a behavior of any dynamical systems which appear to have random change and irregularities, but which actually follow simple underlying patterns and deterministic laws.


The butterfly effect describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.  There is nothing random or mysterious – just a very sensitive dependence on initial conditions.


A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in one place can  eventually cause a hurricane someplace else.


The discovery of the butterfly effect comes from the work of mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz. He discovered that the details of a tornado (exact time of formation, exact path taken) is very influenced by minor perturbations, such as, just say for example, a distant butterfly flapping its wings several weeks earlier.


Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed runs of his weather model with initial condition data that were rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner. He noted that the weather model would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.


Basic idea: Whenever we look at something in the real world – or even in a computer simulation! – we always have either errors in measurements, or problems due to rounding errors in numerical computation.


This leads, over time, to widely diverging outcomes of these systems, making long-term specific prediction of their behavior impossible.


This is true even though such systems are deterministic and is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.


In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable.


Explainer: What is chaos theory?


Chaos Theory, The Butterfly Effect, And The Computer Glitch That Started It All


What is Chaos? a five-part online course for everyone


Chaos is something that shows up in any complex, classical system.


We can never know the initial conditions of an object (position, speed, momentum, etc.) with complete accuracy.


So small uncertainties over time lead to large uncertainties as time goes by.






IMAGE FROM WIKIPEDIA, DOUBLE-COMPOUND-PENDULUM.GIF




This is an animation of a double compound pendulum showing chaotic behaviour.


The two sections of the pendulum have the same length and mass. The mass is distributed evenly along the length of each section, and the pivots being at the very ends.


Here we see that even planetary orbits are not stable forever.


Chaos orbit of 6Q0B44E orbit around Earth data from NASA’s Horizon’s system.


Prof. Rory Barnes animations of chaos in planetary orbits


See What defines a stable orbit?


History of the field


Joshua Sokol writes


The story of chaos is usually told like this: Using the LGP-30, Lorenz made paradigm-wrecking discoveries. In 1961, having programmed a set of equations into the computer that would simulate future weather, he found that tiny differences in starting values could lead to drastically different outcomes.


This sensitivity to initial conditions, later popularized as the butterfly effect, made predicting the far future a fool’s errand. But Lorenz also found that these unpredictable outcomes weren’t quite random, either. When visualized in a certain way, they seemed to prowl around a shape called a strange attractor.


About a decade later, chaos theory started to catch on in scientific circles. Scientists soon encountered other unpredictable natural systems that looked random even though they weren’t: the rings of Saturn, blooms of marine algae, Earth’s magnetic field, the number of salmon in a fishery.


Then chaos went mainstream with the publication of James Gleick’s Chaos: Making a New Science in 1987.


Before long, Jeff Goldblum, playing the chaos theorist Ian Malcolm, was pausing, stammering and charming his way through lines about the unpredictability of nature in Jurassic Park.


… Yet two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science.  Ellen Fetter and Margaret Hamilton were responsible for programming the enormous 1960s-era computer that would uncover strange attractors and other hallmarks of chaos theory….


The Hidden Heroines of Chaos, Quanta Magazine


Videos


Chaotic Solar System


Chaotic Planets MinuteLabs.io


Apps


Gravity Simulator TestTubeGames


Chaotic Planets app MinuteLabs.io


Articles


The Butterfly Effect: Everything You Need to Know About This Powerful Mental Model


When the Butterfly Effect Took Flight, MIT News Magazine


Chaos Theory, The Butterfly Effect, And The Computer Glitch That Started It All


Edward Norton Lorenz, biography, University of St Andrews, Scotland


The Hidden Heroines of Chaos, Quanta Magazine


 









		

		
					
	

	
How to draw elliptical orbits lab

	

		May 24, 2021 8:03 pm	

	
Here’s an easy to do lab that just requires paper, a pencil, some string, thumbtacks, and cardboard to lay the paper on. With this we can demonstrate the path of objects around the sun.


Basic idea: A circle is just a special case of an ellipse!



How to draw elliptical orbits


The next few paragraphs are from “Science Curriculum by Aaron Keller”


Pictures of the Solar System tend to show all the orbits of the planets as circles centered on the Sun [but] no orbit in the solar system is perfectly round.


In reality, the planets orbit the Sun traveling along an oval path. The mathematical term for this shape is an ellipse.


Notice that the Sun in this picture is not right in the center. The Sun is at one of the two ‘centers’ of the ellipse. These are called foci (plural for focus). The closer these foci are together, the more circular the orbit. The orbit of Venus is the closest to a circle of any planet in the Solar System.


Scientists have a name to describe just how much like an ellipse an orbit is. This is called eccentricity and is a measure that uses numbers between 0 and 1.


If an orbit has an eccentricity close to 1 then the ellipse is so long as to be more cigar-shaped than round.


Comets tend to have very elongated, high-eccentricity orbits.


The closer the eccentricity is to zero, the more circular the orbit.


Ellipse = the big oval shape.


Has a major axis (the longer axis) and a minor axis (the shorter one).


Has two foci: in the case of planetary orbits one focus is the Sun.


All the points in an ellipse are defined in relation to the foci.


The sum of the distances from each point on the ellipse to both foci is constant for all points on the ellipse.


Point on an orbit nearest the Sun is called perihelion.


Point farthest from the Sun is called aphelion.



Here is a similar image from a different source.


From Brian Ventrudo, One Minute Astronomy, Kepler’s laws


External links


Introductory Astronomy: Ellipses


Learning Standards


Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Mathematics

Expressing Geometric Properties with Equations G-GPE Translate between the geometric description and the equation for a conic section.


3. (+) Derive the equations of ellipses and hyperbolas given the foci, using the fact that the sum or difference of distances from the foci is constant.


MA.3.a. (+) Use equations and graphs of conic sections to model real-world problems.


Expressing Geometric Properties with Equations G-GPE Translate between the geometric description and the equation for a conic section. 3. (+) Derive the equations of ellipses and hyperbolas given the foci, using the fact that the sum or difference of distances from the foci is constant. MA.3.a. (+) Use equations and graphs of conic sections to model real-world problems.


Analytic geometry. The branch of mathematics that uses functions and relations to study geometric phenomena, e.g., the description of ellipses and other conic sections in the coordinate plane by quadratic equations.


2016 Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework


8.MS-ESS1-2. Explain the role of gravity in ocean tides, the orbital motions of planets, their moons, and asteroids in the solar system.


HS-ESS1-4. Use Kepler’s laws to predict the motion of orbiting objects in the solar system. Describe how orbits may change due to the gravitational effects from, or collisions with, other objects in the solar system.


ESS1.B Earth and the solar system – The solar system contains many varied objects held together by gravity. Solar system models explain and predict eclipses, lunar phases, and seasons.


 









		

		
					
	

	
Teaching ecology and science with Lovecraftian speculative fiction

	

		May 23, 2021 6:41 pm	

	
In this lesson students read passages from classic American science fiction and horror authors such as H. P. Lovecraft; see scenes from related movies; and delve into a collaborative fiction and art project based on these ideas.




In doing so students


* learn about the concept of superorganisms


* learn how to take notes on an organism’s biology and environment


* We then extend the critical thinking skills used here to real life organisms and ecosystems.


Introduction to the project


Mystery Flesh Pit National Park began as a much-loved exercise on r/Worldbuilding. The brainchild of Redditor u/StrangeVehicles, aka designer, illustrator, and writer Trevor Roberts, it has since evolved into a series of imaginary NPS effluvia showcasing the monstrous attraction.




Roberts describes the MFPNP as such:




The Mystery Flesh Pit is the name given to a bizarre natural geobiological feature discovered in the permian basin region of west texas in the early 1970s.


The pit is characterized as an enormous subterranean organism of indeterminate size and origin embedded deep within the earth, displaying a vast array of highly unusual and often disturbing phenomena within its vast internal anatomy.


Following its initial discovery and subsequent survey exploration missions, the surface orifice of the Mystery Flesh Pit was enlarged and internal sections were slowly reinforced and developed by the Anodyne Deep Earth Mining corporation who opened the Pit as a tourist attraction in 1976. In the early 1980s, the site was absorbed into the National Park System which operated and maintained the Mystery Flesh Pit until its sudden closure in 2007.




This section quoted from Welcome to Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, One Redditor’s Colossal Feat of Worldbuilding, Stubby the Rocket, Tor.com


A sample paragraph from this project:


“”While the rural areas of west Texas are known for their sparse populations, one tourist attraction seems to continually generate a steady stream of visitors around vacation seasons. The titular “Mystery Flesh Pit” has been a wellspring of fascination for geologists, biologists, sociologists, engineers and the general public alike. Guests are advised to book age-appropriate tours and activities well in advance of their visit, as only small groups are permitted into the orifice at any given time. That said, pheromonal discharges and the overall aggression level of the MFP can vary with short notice, so visitors should be advised to be prepared for changes in schedule & availability.””


Here’s a realistic period brochure from the US National Park service: Mystery Flesh Pit National Park


You can see the other contributions from this collaborative project here: https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/archive


* maps


* scientific papers


* advertisements aimed at tourism


*advertisements for the research corporation studying it.


* Newspaper clippings, both mundane, but also revealing dangerous events.


Anatomy & Physiology


This superorganism isn’t real. Yet we ask students to speculate what kind of organs a creature like this would or wouldn’t have, based on the available information.


We can create analogies to real biological phenomenon.


GIF made by SSACC and hosted on imgur.com


Students could work in groups to come up with answers – and they show their mastery of ideas in anatomy, biology, ecology, and physics, when they try to scientifically justify their conclusions.


For instance, they might claim that –


* the organism has, or hasn’t, a skeleton


* the organism has, or hasn’t, its own internal or external parasites


* the organism is or isn’t still growing


* the organism gets energy and/or nutrition from [….]


* it does/doesn’t have a circulatory system, nervous system, brain, etc.


Students learn about superorganisms


What is an organism?


What is a superorganism?


What is a colonial lifeform?


Our resource – colonial animals and superorganisms.


Here are a couple of real, Earthly colonial lifeforms:





What constitutes the difference between life and non-life?


In real life science, as well as in science fiction and horror, an active topic of interest is what is the line between life and death? When do some organisms become dormant? When do they re-emerge from dormancy?


In the works of American author H. P. Lovecraft we read about these ideas in relation to the fictional creations in his mythos. The Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu have lurked in dim places of the cosmos since the beginning of time:


That is not dead which can eternal lie


And with strange aeons even death may die.


 – Abdul Alhazred, Necronomicon


Students can consider


What does it mean for an organism to be dormant?


For how long can organisms survive in a dormant state?


Why do some organisms spend time in a dormant state? How does this effect their need for food, and their production of waste metabolites?


How could an organism like this get the power necessary to live?


How would an organism like this affect the stability of our ecosystem if it became more active?


How does this relate to the idea of  sustainability?


How do causes relate to impacts across various size and temporal scales?


How would humanity react to global environmental/existential crisis?


How would you talk to a student going through an existential crisis about the impacts of superorganisms possibly affecting all life on earth?


This is of real-world relevance: Devastating, catastrophic worldwide environmental disasters have indeed occurred:


Consider megacalderas, supervolcanoes, megathrust earthquakes, comet or meteor impacts, and large igneous provinces.



ELA connections


This project is inspired by the fiction of HP Lovecraft, and the later school of writers who created new books inspired by his works.


A couple of Lovecraftian quotes for those familiar with this literature:


“Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn”


The Shadow Over Innsmouth, H. P. Lovecraft, Written 1931, published 1936


“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.”


“The Call of Cthulhu” H. P. Lovecraft, 1928


Related articles


Could there be a shadow biosphere here on Earth?


search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)


External resources


https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/


https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshPitNationalPark/


PBS NOVA The search for superorganisms


Natural History – Superorganisms


Learning Standards


This unit addresses critical thinking skills in the Next Generation Science Standards, which are based on “A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas”, by the National Research Council of the National Academies. In this document we read


“Through discussion and reflection, students can come to realize that scientific inquiry embodies a set of values. These values include respect for the importance of logical thinking, precision, open-mindedness, objectivity, skepticism, and a requirement for transparent research procedures and honest reporting of findings.”


Next Generation Science Standards: Science & Engineering Practices

● Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information.

● Ask questions that arise from examining models or a theory, to clarify and/or seek additional information and relationships.

● Ask questions to determine relationships, including quantitative relationships, between independent and dependent variables.

● Ask questions to clarify and refine a model, an explanation, or an engineering problem.

● Evaluate a question to determine if it is testable and relevant.

● Ask questions that can be investigated within the scope of the school laboratory, research facilities, or field (e.g., outdoor environment) with available resources and, when appropriate, frame a hypothesis based on a model or theory.

● Ask and/or evaluate questions that challenge the premise(s) of an argument, the interpretation of a data set, or the suitability of the design


Science and engineering practices: NSTA National Science Teacher Association


Next Gen Science Standards Appendix F: Science and engineering practices


Common Core, English Language Arts Standards » Science & Technical Subjects


CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.1 – Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to the precise details of explanations or descriptions.


CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.2 – Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; trace the text’s explanation or depiction of a complex process, phenomenon, or concept; provide an accurate summary of the text.


CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.4 – Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context.


CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.5 –  Analyze the structure of the relationships among concepts in a text, including relationships among key terms (e.g., force, friction, reaction force, energy).


CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.6 – Analyze the author’s purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, defining the question the author seeks to address.









		

		
					
	

	
Opinion: Teachers should require our students to use textbooks

	

		May 21, 2021 4:58 pm	

	
There is a growing trend in schools to ditch textbooks, and have students rely instead on videos, lectures, handouts, and free online texts.


While every way of learning has its place, what would be the result of students leaving high school without learning how to read books and take notes on what they have read?  What impact will this have on their ability to do well in college?




Shay Westlake writes – I am a retired teacher. I taught for 25 years. I am sorry in advance for saying this: I think teachers that do not use the textbook are not doing their students any favors. Imagine if your teachers never used a textbook. How would you have read textbooks in college?


When teaching high school we always had the kids read the chapters. We started the year out showing several different ways to take notes. Then we told them to choose the way they want to take them. At that point we started doing open notes quizzes. When they are done we have them staple their notes to the back of a quiz.


That is how I caught a ring of students that took turns reading and taking notes and giving the typed notes to like 20-25 people. At that point we made them do handwritten notes.


Every year after we told the story and told them we would allow them to type their notes until someone shares typed notes with someone else then everyone would have to do handwritten notes. It never failed in either the first or second quiz we would find the exact typed notes.


As the person above mentioned we would have numerous kids come back and thank us for having them read and take notes. They told us the majority of students did not do that and several would fail in their college classes. They also said it was so much easier to study for tests.


This is not judgmental. I just do not understand why you would teach high school kids and not make them do the hard work to prepare for college.


About the author: Shay Westlake taught for 25 years in Plano ISD. I taught U. S. History, World History and World Geography.









		

		
					
	

	
Respiratory viruses (influenza, rhinoviruses, coronaviruses etc)

	

		May 19, 2021 1:52 pm	

	
What is a respiratory virus?


They are viruses that affect your breathing passages.


They cause common cold and flu-like symptoms.


They can cause shortness of breath and in more severe cases cause pneumonia.


Some infect mostly the upper respiratory tract, in the larynx, vocal cords and above.




Others infect mostly the lower respiratory tract symptoms – below the larynx and vocal cords.




and


Symptoms


These vary significantly from person to person.


Aching muscles and joints

Cough and sputum

Fever

Headache

Runny nose

Sneezing

Sore throat

Tiredness


Common complications of respiratory viruses include:


Bronchiolitis – inflammation of small air passages in the lungs


Croup – inflammation and swelling of the voice box (larynx), the windpipe (trachea) and the airways (bronchi)


Pneumonia – lung infection with inflammation


Sinusitis – infection or inflammation of the sinuses


What are the common respiratory viruses?


Influenza virus – “the flu”


The CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.


Respiratory syncytial virus


common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. Most people recover in a week or two, but RSV can be serious, especially for infants and older adults.


RSV is the most common cause of bronchiolitis (inflammation of the small airways in the lung) and pneumonia (infection of the lungs) in children younger than 1 year of age in the United States. – CDC


Human parainfluenza viruses (HPIVs)


Human parainfluenza viruses (HPIVs) commonly cause respiratory illnesses in infants and young children. But anyone can get HPIV illness.


Symptoms may include fever, runny nose, and cough. Patients usually recover on their own. However, HPIVs can also cause more severe illness, such as croup or pneumonia.


Metapneumovirus


MPV is associated with 5% to 40% of respiratory tract infections in hospitalized and outpatient children. It is distributed worldwide and, in temperate regions, has a seasonal distribution generally following that of RSV and influenza virus during late winter and spring.


By the age of five, virtually all children worldwide have been exposed. Despite near universal infection during early life, reinfections are common in older children and adults. They may cause mild upper respiratory tract infection (the common cold).


However, premature infants, immunocompromised persons, and older adults >65 years are at risk for severe disease and hospitalization.


from Wikipedia metapneumovirus


Rhinovirus


The most common viral infectious agent in humans. Main cause of the common cold. Exists in three species with at least 160 recognized types.


Coronaviruses


Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal.


Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused by other viruses, predominantly rhinoviruses), while more lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.


Adenoviruses


Adenoviruses are a type of virus without an outer lipid bilayer, with a double stranded DNA genome. More than 50 distinct types have been in people.


They usually cause mild respiratory infections, the common cold. But they can cause life-threatening multi-organ disease in people with a weakened immune system.


Human bocavirus (HBoV)


HBoV1 is strongly implicated in causing some cases of lower respiratory tract infection, especially in young children. Discovered in 2005.


These are the fourth most common virus in respiratory samples, behind rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus and adenoviruses. Usually causes the common cold although it can also cause very dangerous illness.


Several versions of this virus have been linked to gastroenteritis.


The full role of this emerging infectious disease remains to be known.


– Wikipedia


Main method of transmission is through the air


See this infographic


Image from paper by Jianjian Wei and Yuguo Li. Airborne spread of infectious agents in the indoor environment


In Deep Cleaning Isn’t a Victimless Crime we read


These days, Goldman is extending his crusade against fomite fear from COVID-19 to other diseases. The old story is that if you make contact with a surface that a sick person touched, and then you touch your eyes or lips, you’ll infect yourself.


While Goldman acknowledges that many diseases, especially bacterial diseases, spread easily from surfaces, he now suspects that most respiratory viruses spread primarily through the air, like SARS-CoV-2 does.


“For most respiratory viruses, the evidence for fomite transmission looks pretty weak,” Goldman said. “With the exception of RSV [respiratory syncytial virus], there are few other respiratory viruses where fomite transmission has been conclusively shown.”


For example, rhinovirus, one of the most common viruses in the world and the predominant cause of the common cold, is probably overwhelmingly spread via aerosols. The same may be true of influenza.


Many experiments that suggest surface transmission of respiratory viruses stack the deck by studying unrealistically large amounts of virus using unrealistically ideal (cold, dry, and dark) conditions for their survival. Based on our experience with SARS-CoV-2, these may not be trustworthy studies.


Deep Cleaning Isn’t a Victimless Crime The CDC has finally said what scientists have been screaming for months: The coronavirus is overwhelmingly spread through the air, not via surfaces.  Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 4/13/2021


Thompson also writes:


It’s quite possible that ALMOST ALL respiratory viruses mostly spread through the air—including rhinovirus (lots of common colds) and the flu. That means the best way to avoid getting sick isn’t power-washing strategies, but ventilation strategies. Think windows over Windex.


Articles


Science Brief: SARS-CoV-2 and Surface (Fomite) Transmission for Indoor Community Environments, CDC, 4/5/2021


People can be infected with SARS-CoV-2 through contact with surfaces. However, based on available epidemiological data and studies of environmental transmission factors, surface transmission is not the main route by which SARS-CoV-2 spreads, and the risk is considered to be low. The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus.


and


Aerosol Transmission of Rhinovirus Colds, Elliot C. Dick et al., The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 156, Issue 3, September 1987, Pages 442–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/156.3.442


and


Exaggerated risk of transmission of COVID-19 by fomites, Emanuel Goldman, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Vol. 20(8), p.892-893, 8/1/2020


 









		

		
					
	

	
Classic African American leaders on the value of education

	

		May 19, 2021 12:09 pm	

	
Classic African American leaders and teachers on the value of education.




In this picture: Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and Alain Leroy Locke


Also see our article on Diversity & Inclusion in STEM.


Frederick Douglas (1818–1895)


“Education…means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free. To deny education to any people is one of the greatest crimes against human nature.”


Address to the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth, 9/3/1894


Douglas writes:


In the old slave times, they colored people were expected to work without thinking. They were commanded to do as they were told. They were to be hands—only hands, not heads. Thought was the prerogative of the master. Obedience was the duty of the slave. I, in my ignorance, once told my old master I thought a certain way of doing some work I had in hand was the best way to do it. He promptly demanded, “Who gave you the right to think?” I might have answered in the language of Robert Burns,


“Were I designed yon lordling’s slave,

By Nature’s law designed,

Why was an independent thought

E’er planted in my mind?”


But I had not then read Robert Burns. Burns had high ideas of the dignity of simple manhood. In respect of the dignity of man we may well exclaim with the great Shakspeare concerning him: “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In apprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!” Yet, if man be benighted, this glowing description of his power and dignity is merely a “glittering generality,” an empty tumult of words, without any support of facts.


To deny education to any people is one of the greatest crimes against human nature. It is to deny them the means of freedom and the rightful pursuit of happiness, and to defeat the very end of their being.


Blessings of Liberty and Education, Frederick Douglass, September 3, 1894


Frederick Douglass, Defender of the Liberal Arts. Though he believed vocational education was key to empowerment, the former slave’s writings offer a reminder that subjects like literature and philosophy are still integral to social mobility. E. Thomas Finan, The Atlantic, 4/7/2015


Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)


“Character, not circumstances, makes the man”


“Democracy and Education”, address to the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn NY, 9/30/1896


“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”


Up From Slavery: An Autobiography, Booker T. Washington


The Educational Contributions of Booker T. Washington, The Journal of Negro Education

Vol. 44, No. 4 (Autumn, 1975), pp. 502-518


Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)


“Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore, remove yourself as far as possible from ignorance and seek as far as possible to be intelligent.”


“It is by education that we become prepared for our duties and responsibilities in life. If one is badly educated he must naturally fail in the proper assumption and practice of his duties and responsibilities because the Negro has been badly educated.”


“Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.”

― Marcus Garvey


Links to Online Resources, Marcys Garvey, The National Humanities Center


Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)


TBA


W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963)


The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois


“I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed Earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?”


https://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm


DuBois took four years of Latin and three of Greek in high school. At Fisk, he read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Demosthenes’ speech On the Crown, Sophocles’ Antigone, and the New Testament in Ancient Greek. In Latin, he studied Livy and Tacitus (cf. Broderick article below).


https://willamette.edu/arts-sciences/classics/careers/dubois/


“At the age of 17 W. E. B. Du Bois enrolled in Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. There he studied subjects such as Latin, Greek, English, chemistry, and physics. In the fall of 1888 he entered Harvard University where he graduated with a Ph.D. in 1890. He then studied at the University of Berlin for two years. DuBois was then invited to become a member of the faculty to teach Latin, Greek, German, English, and sociology at Wilberforce University in Ohio.”


The Contributions of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois in the Development of Vocational Education, Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, Volume 34, Number 4, Summer 1997


and


Howard University’s classics department is an incubator for Black equality

Anika T. Prather, USA Today, 4/26/2021


Alain LeRoy Locke


“Father of the Harlem Renaissance” for his publication in 1925 of The New Negro—an anthology of poetry, essays, plays, music and portraiture by white and black artists.


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alain-locke/


Alain Locke believed so much in reading from the canon that the hall where the classics department is housed is named after him. Locke, who taught at Howard, became the first African American Rhodes Scholar and is considered the father of the Harlem Renaissance.


Howard University’s classics department is an incubator for Black equality

Anika T. Prather, USA Today, 4/26/2021


Alain Leroy Locke: Crusader and Advocate for the Education of African American Adults, Rudolph A. Cain, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Winter, 1995), pp. 87-9


Malcom X (1925–1965)


Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

– By any means necessary


The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.


Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.

By any means necessary


You can’t legislate good will – that comes through education.


My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X


“Learning to Read” excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

http://accounts.smccd.edu/bellr/readerlearningtoread.htm


Malcolm X’s critique of the education of Black people

Jerome E. Morris, Western Journal of Black Studies Vol.25, No.2, 7/1/2001


Click to access Malcolm%20Education.pdf


Martin Luther King Jr (1929-1968)


One of the more eye-opening documents you can find online is Martin Luther King Jr’s hand-written syllabus for a seminar he was teaching at Morehouse College in 1962. It’s a glimpse of what King believed an educated black man should know. It’s a challenging list:


Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine’s City of God, all the way to Bentham and Mill. There’s also a copy of the exam questions he set. Among them: “List and evaluate the radical ideas presented in Plato’s Republic”; “State and evaluate Aristotle’s view of slavery.”


What King grasped, it seems to me, is the core meaning of a liberal education, the faith that ideas can transcend space and time and culture and race. There are few things more thrilling than to enter a whole new world from another era — and to see the resilient ideas, texts, and arguments that have lasted (or not) through the millennia.


These ideas are bound up, of course, in the specific context and cultures of the past, and it is important to disentangle the two. But to enter the utterly alien world of the past and discover something intimate and contemporary is one of the great joys of intellectual life. MLK wasn’t the only classics student among the great civil rights leaders. Malcolm X was too.


https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-the-classics-d60


and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Handwritten Syllabus & Final Exam for the Philosophy Course He Taught at Morehouse College (1962)


In his graduate work at Boston University and Harvard in the 50s, he read and wrote on Hegel, Kant, Marx, and other philosophers. And as a visiting professor at Morehouse College—one year before his arrest in Birmingham and the composition of his letter—King taught a seminar in “Social Philosophy,” examining the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill.


This is King’s final exam that he gave to his students:

Compare and evaluate the series of Justice in the thinking of Plato and Aristotle.

Compare and evaluate the radical ideas presented in Plato’s Republic.

State and evaluate Aristotle’s theory of slavery.

Appraise the student movement in its practice of law-breaking in light of Aquinas’ doctrine of law.

Compare the social contract theories of the following: Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke

State the principles of Rousseau and Locke most influenced the formulators of Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Compare Machiavelli and Kant on the question of moral principles.


Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Handwritten Syllabus & Final Exam for the Philosophy Course He Taught at Morehouse College (1962)




How Martin Luther King, Jr. Used Nietzsche, Hegel & Kant to Overturn Segregation in America


King’s critical appraisal of Hegel extended to other radical philosophical thinkers as well, including Kant, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietzsche. Gertz offers many samples of the budding civil rights leader’s notes on various thinkers and philosophies, including the first paragraph of an essay entitled “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” (below), in which King confesses that his encounter with Existentialism often “shocked” him, especially since he had “been raised in a rather strict fundamentalist tradition.”


And yet, he writes—in an allusion to Kant’s reaction to David Hume—he acquired “a new appreciation for objective appraisal and critical analysis” that “knocked me out of my dogmatic slumber.”


How Martin Luther King, Jr. Used Nietzsche, Hegel & Kant to Overturn Segregation in America




“The Purpose of Education” January-February 1947, Atlanta, GA


King Wanted More Than Just Desegregation. The civil-rights activist’s vision for education was far grander than integration alone. How disappointed he would be. Eve L. Ewing, The Atlantic, 2/2018


Ralph Waldo Ellison (1913-1994)


Novelist, literary critic, and scholar


“Show me how I can cling to that which is real to me”

Going to the Territory (ed. Vintage, 2011)


https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/46130/going-to-the-territory-by-ralph-ellison/


https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/20/specials/ellison-territory.html


 









	
Do data (information) have mass?

	

		April 19, 2021 12:26 pm	

	
Is data – information – something physically real? As it turns out, yes. All data has physical reality.


What about performing a computation? Computation is a process on data. Since data has physical reality then all computations are physical processes.


This connects with the laws of thermodynamics! In the 1960s Rolf Landauer realized that whenever we manipulate or erase information, entropy increases.


Data can be stored on any physical objects.


Here’s an example in which data is stored with real objects, each of which has mass, but changing data adds no weight:


Get 256 coins. Lay them out on a table.

Use heads to represent a ‘1’ and tails to represent a ‘0’.

Arrange the coins to create a sequence of 1’s and 0’s.

This then encodes 256 bits (32 bytes) of data.

We can erase this data by flipping all of the coins to ‘0’.

The mass of the coins does not change.


Flip the heads and tails all you like. New data, but no added mass.


But now let’s change our storage system.  Get 256 empty glasses, lay them out on a table, in a grid.  Use an empty glass to represent a 0 and add water to the glass to represent a 1.  Here different data would have different mass.


Ways of storing data


Info in ancient cuneiform tablets




(Contract for the sale of a field and a house in the wedge-shaped cuneiform adapted for clay tablets, Shuruppak, Sumer, circa 2600 BC.E)


Letters written on parchment – or any kind of ink on paper, is data.




This is the earliest type of punch card, a way to store data as zeroes and ones.




and here is the Babbage computer, the Difference Engine.




1970s punch card, storing data for a Fortran computer program.




Data can be create and stored with paper and pencil.




Data can be recorded as a series of indentations on a vinyl circular disc, such as a vinyl LP record.


Here we see the needle of a vinyl LP record player going through the grooves.




Hard drives – patterns of magnetized particles




CD, DVD and Blu-Ray disks – burn patterns pits in a disk.




A Flash drive stores information in patterns of electrical charges


Transistors can store information. They trap electrons like a capacitor.


Does adding data to a hard drive or floppy disk drive change its mass?


For the most part, no. Data is stored by switching the magnetic polarity of tiny particles on one part of the disk. No mass is added or taken away.


Switching the polarity of tiny particles on a disk is just analogous to picking up a magnet and turning it around. Nothing added or taken away.


But, if we look at the physics much more closely –


“Hard drives store data by flipping poles in magnetic domains on the disk – at first glance this means nothing is added or subtracted and thus no weight.


However, that’s not the whole picture. The orientation of those domains matter.


There is less total field energy when the domains are 1010101010 than when they are 11111111 or 00000000. I’m sure everyone is familiar with e=mc^2.


Putting energy into the domains DOES mean mass, albeit an incredibly small amount of it. My physics isn’t up to even trying to estimate the mass but I’m sure it’s beyond anything the most sensitive scale could possibly measure.”


from How much does a gigabyte worth of data physically weigh on a hard disk?


Does adding data to RAM change its mass?


Some forms of RAM store data by adding electrons into certain ultra tiny parts. For all practical purposes there is not any noticeable gain in mass. But since when have we ever restricted ourselves to just practical purposes? 🙂


=== begin quote ===


In RAM, however, bits are comprised of electrons (or lack thereof) and they do have a mass which is about 9.10938215 × 10−31 kg. So for a gigabyte of memory, assuming equal distribution for zero and one bits, we get around


4294967296 n × 9.10938215 × 10−31 kg


4294967296 would be the number of one bits in memory (assumed to be 50 %) and n would be the number of electrons that are on average in one bit.


So we can give an estimate of how much mass 1 GiB (gigabyte) of memory would have:


1 GiB, half filled with ones ≈ 3.91 × 10−16 kg = 391 femtograms


1 GiB, completely filled with ones ≈ 7.82 × 10-16 kg = 782 femtograms


1 GB, half filled with ones ≈ 3.64 × 10−16 kg = 364 femtograms


1 GB, completely filled with ones ≈ 7.29 × 10−16 kg = 729 femtograms


So in general you can assume that weight to be pretty unnoticeable (or, with hard disks to be downright nonexistent).


This explanation is from How much does a gigabyte worth of data physically weigh on a hard disk?


 


All Computation is a physical process


The Fundamental Physical Limits of Computation

What constraints govern the physical process of computing? Is a minimum amount of energy required, for example, per logic step? There seems to be no minimum, but some other questions are open.


Charles H. Bennett, Rolf Landauer,, Scientific American, v253 n1, p.48-56 7/1985


http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~taustin/EECS598-HIC/public/Physical-Limits.pdf


Does Quantum Mechanics Flout the Laws of Thermodynamics?

Vlatko Vedral, Scientific American, 6/1/2011


Everyone who has ever worked with a computer knows that they get hotter the more we use them. Physicist Rolf Landauer argued that this needs to be so, elevating the observation to the level of a principle. The principle states that in order to erase one bit of information, we need to increase the entropy of the environment by at least as much. In other words we need to dissipate at least one bit of heat into the environment (which is just equal to the bit of entropy times the temperature of the environment).


Landauer’s erasure principle has been considered controversial in physics ever since he proposed it in the early ’60s. Was it a new law of physics or just a consequence of some already existing laws? Our new paper argues that in quantum physics, you can, in fact, erase information and cool the environment at the same time. For many physicists, this is tantamount to saying that perpetual motion is possible! What makes it possible is entanglement, but let me not get too far ahead of myself…


.









		

		
					
	

	
Misuse or misunderstanding of science

	

		April 3, 2021 8:33 am	

	
Science isn’t a position or a person. Rather, science is a method that allows us to test claims.


In science we approach claims skeptically. That doesn’t mean that that we don’t believe anything. Rather, to be skeptical means we don’t accept a claim unless we are given compelling evidence.


So while process of science can’t be disingenuous or harmful, certain people have used the word “science” to promote questionable or harmful products.


There are some products which were marketed in the 1800s or early to mid 1900s, which were claimed to be “proven safe by science.” In later years it was found that many of these products never really did what they promised, and that some were even harmful. When this was discovered many people began to think that science was unreliable. They would say things like “Science changes its mind all the time, so why should we believe it?”


That’s a legitimate question, but if someone asks it then should listen to the answers – and there are several:


(A) Very often the advertised product simply wasn’t ever proven scientifically to be effective or safe. Salespeople simply lied.  American laws on advertising have always been very loose; in many ways the laws on some products are still quite loose today.


So if someone lies about a “scientifically proven product,” this doesn’t mean that science is unreliable. It means that the salespeople were unreliable.


(B) Just as often, when a product is first invented, people have only incomplete information. They may have done some testing, they may have involved some doctors, engineers, or scientists, and they may truly believe that their product is a good one. Sometimes positive effects are apparent immediately but harmful effects take time to show up. When this happens, that’s not fraud. It’s the inevitable result of people developing new things. We don’t always know how they will turn out long down the road.


(C) Some scientists knew of the danger, but it wasn’t made clear to the public at that time. For many years newspapers and radios didn’t employ writers with a scientific background. Writers and editors were told about science related stories, or occasionally investigated such stories, but without a highly trained staff they often couldn’t recognize a story worth pursuing and giving to the public. This is true, for example, about the radium being used in many popular products, such as watch dials. I stress to add that in many ways the situation is repeating itself today. Many social media sites used to disseminate news don’t have scientifically educated employees.


As such, issues like this are very important. We need to be very clear in how we discuss them.


This next image is surprising: We see here four advertisements, casually foisting harmful products on the American consumer. Three of these ads are absolutely real. Yet a fourth one is technically “fake,” it was created for a popular videogame, but it (sadly) based on genuine ads touting the supposed medical safety of the product. Can you figure out which is which?


“These ads were not deliberately used to harm people initially but highlight the consequences of not knowing because of not using science or having testing technologies that have been developed since the creation of these products. ”




Cigarettes


For many years, from the 1800s to the mid 1900s, cigarettes were promoted as a great weight loss tool. They were said said to relieve stress, and help one better digest a meal. Cigarette companies paid medical doctors to endorse certain brands of cigarettes as safe and healthy. A number of supposedly scientific research papers were paid for, done, and published, by cigarette companies themselves, and those conclusions were always the same: cigarette smoking is safe.


But by the 1950s doctors had observed a huge increase in lung and throat cancer that seemed to correlate with cigarette usage. Slowly, over time, more and more scientific studies were done on this topic. A simple and clear trend emerged:


Every scientific study done by impartial scientists, with all the data open to reviewers, showed that cigarette smoking was strongly linked to cancer.


Every scientific study paid for by cigarette companies, with hand chosen doctors working for those companies, with much data kept hidden, showed that cigarette smoking was safe.


The conclusions were obvious and undeniable: Cigarette smoking really was causing cancer, this was clearly proven by science, and the few individuals who said otherwise were all on the payroll of cigarette companies.


As such we may conclude – science never claimed or proved that cigarette smoking was safe.  It was only for-profit cigarette companies that made this claim.


When Cigarette Companies Used Doctors to Push Smoking


“The Doctors’ Choice Is America’s Choice” : The Physician in US Cigarette Advertisements, 1930-1953


When Smoking Was Just What the Doctor Ordered


Over the counter heroin use


Heroin is an opioid. It was first developed in 1895 as a medicine to help treat respiratory diseases.


In some countries, in a highly regulated way, it is used medically to relieve pain, such as during childbirth or a heart attack. It is often used illegally and dangerously, as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects.


For many years, many nations allowed heroin to be sold over-the-counter (without a prescription) as a way to treat pain. Since it was discovered by scientists and was sold legally,  some people could conclude that science has decided that this was a safe drug.


However, at this time there were very few, if any, peer-reviewed studies which showed the long term effects of unregulated heroin use.


The Bayer pharmaceutical company started making diacetylmorphine, and its marketing name was heroin. At this point, heroin was available over-the-counter. Heroin was viewed as a cure-all for everything from headaches to the common cold…. At the time, heroin was viewed as a safe alternative to morphine because it was seen as less addictive


By the mid-1800s, opium had become extremely popular, with opium dens located around the world, including in the United States…. Around the 1850s, morphine became available in the U.S. and its use was popular in medicine…. following the Civil War, it started to become clear that morphine had a serious side effect: addiction.


Heroin History Timeline in the U.S., Megan Hull, The Recovery Village, 12/20/2019


By the early 1900s scientists and doctors began to realize that this drug was far more dangerous than initially realized. As data accumulated, people lobbied the government to regular this substance. The first major law to do so was the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, 1914. It controlled the sale and distribution of opioids; it did allow opioids to be prescribed and sold for medical purposes.


By 1924, the US Congress banned its sale, importation, or manufacture. Heroin is now a Schedule I substance, which makes it illegal for non-medical use in signatory nations of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs treaty, including the United States.


Some see this as an example of science falsely saying that a substance was safe, and then changing its mind. That is not so. Sure, in politics changing your position is seen as a weakness. People call it “flip flopping.”  But in science it is a positive value to be open to new ideas. Science encourages us to change you mind if evidence reveals a better way of understanding something. 


Neil Degrasse Tyson


Asbestos


“Asbestos has been mined and used in a variety of materials since Ancient Greece. It wasn’t until maybe the 1950s where the connection to mesothelioma and lung cancer were made.”


Automobile industry


From 1900s to the 1960s the industry falsely claimed that cars were so safe that they didn’t need seatbelts, etc.


Radium


Radium used in lotions and toothpaste and cosmetics and as a healthy glowing elixir /fountain




How We Realized Putting Radium in Everything Was Not the Answer, Taylor Orci, The Atlantic, 3/7/2013


and this is of great historical interest: Radium Historical Items Catalog, By Buchholz and Cervera, Oak Ridge Institute


In the years following the discovery of radium-226 in 1898 by Madame Curie, radium became a novelty product used in everything from medicinal “cures” to children’s toys. At the time, radium was believed to pose negligible risk due to the radiation, and in fact was believed by many to have health benefits. However, over time the risks became apparent, and the use of radium in consumer products was gradually phased out, with the last common consumer application being in luminescent timepieces during the 1960s.


While radium-containing consumer products are no longer generally produced, many of the historically produced items are in circulation, sold in antique stores, held in private collections and displayed in museums. Record keeping by the manufacturers at the time was poor, and most companies that manufactured the products are no longer in existence. This makes identification of these items and finding applicable information difficult.


Under contract with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) has compiled this catalog of historical items known to or claimed to contain radium, either as a component of uranium ore or as purified radium.


Facts and ideas from anywhere: The Radium Girls, William Clifford Roberts, Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center). 2017 Oct; 30(4): 481–490


DDT


DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline compound. Its insecticidal action was discovered in 1939. It was used to limit the spread of insect-born diseases like malaria and typhus.


The DDT issue is complex: Many people today believe that (a) DDT is terribly dangerous, (b) its use was only due to profit induced pseudoscience, and (c) Rachel Carson exposed the danger of this compound, and called for it to be banned.


The problem with those ideas is that none of them are quite correct.


The overriding theme of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world. Carson’s main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed “biocides” because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests.


DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides—many of which are subject to bioaccumulation—are scrutinized. Carson accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically.


Most of the book is devoted to pesticides’ effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides. About DDT and cancer, Carson says only:




In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them, but felt there was some “justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas.” Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a “chemical carcinogen.”




Carson predicts increased consequences in the future, especially since targeted pests may develop resistance to pesticides , and weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated invasive species.


The book closes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control. Carson never called for an outright ban on DDT. She said in Silent Spring that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counterproductive because it would create insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:




No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse.


The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story – the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.




Carson also said that “Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes”, and quoted the advice given by the director of Holland’s Plant Protection Service: “Practical advice should be ‘Spray as little as you possibly can’ rather than ‘Spray to the limit of your capacity’ … Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible.”


Excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring


None of this is meant to suggest that all DDT use is safe. Rather, the point is that how it is used and in what quantities matters. There indeed are dangerous consequences to overuse or inappropriate disposal of DDT.


How a shocking environmental disaster was uncovered off the California coast after 70 years, Jeff Beradelli, CBS News, 4/12/2021


Thalidomide


thalidomide


Podcast – Thalidomide: Justice Delayed, Justice Denied, Erin Welsh and Erin Allman Updyke,, 9/29/2020,


All of this is why the DEA and the EPA were created.


Books


Trust Us We’re Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, 2002, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber


Public relations firms and corporations know well how to exploit your trust to get you to buy what they have to sell: Let you hear it from a neutral third party, like a professor or a pediatrician or a soccer mom or a watchdog group. The problem is, these third parties are usually anything but neutral. They have been handpicked, cultivated, and meticulously packaged in order to make you believe what they have to say—preferably in an “objective” format like a news show or a letter to the editor. And in some cases, they have been paid handsomely for their “opinions.”


Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming


A 2010 non-fiction book by American historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the global warming controversy and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain, DDT, and the hole in the ozone layer. Oreskes and Conway write that in each case “keeping the controversy alive” by spreading doubt and confusion after a scientific consensus had been reached was the basic strategy of those opposing action. In particular, they show that Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tanks and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.


Additional sources


Fact check: ‘Trust the science’ critique includes 3 real ads – and one from a video game, Nayeli Lomeli, USA TODAY, 6/30/2021


 A “Nico Time” advertisement that promotes smoking during pregnancy is fake. It was posted in a Fandom page called “BioShock Wiki,” which is dedicated to the video game series BioShock. The site wrote that the advertisement was designed by Kat Berkley, a concept artist who worked on the game.


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bioshock/comments/1qiqhg/good_ol_rapture_advertising/


https://bioshock.fandom.com/wiki/Nico-Time


Learning Standards


A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (2012)

Implementation: Curriculum, Instruction, Teacher Development, and Assessment

“Through discussion and reflection, students can come to realize that scientific inquiry embodies a set of values. These values include respect for the importance of logical thinking, precision, open-mindedness, objectivity, skepticism, and a requirement for transparent research procedures and honest reporting of findings.”


Next Generation Science Standards: Science & Engineering Practices

● Ask questions that arise from careful observation of phenomena, or unexpected results, to clarify and/or seek additional information.

● Ask questions that arise from examining models or a theory, to clarify and/or seek additional information and relationships.

● Ask questions to determine relationships, including quantitative relationships, between independent and dependent variables.

● Ask questions to clarify and refine a model, an explanation, or an engineering problem.

● Evaluate a question to determine if it is testable and relevant.

● Ask questions that can be investigated within the scope of the school laboratory, research facilities, or field (e.g., outdoor environment) with available resources and, when appropriate, frame a hypothesis based on a model or theory.

● Ask and/or evaluate questions that challenge the premise(s) of an argument, the interpretation of a data set, or the suitability of the design


2016 Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Standards

Students will be able to:

* apply scientific reasoning, theory, and/or models to link evidence to the claims and assess the extent to which the reasoning and data support the explanation or conclusion;

* respectfully provide and/or receive critiques on scientific arguments by probing reasoning and evidence and challenging ideas and conclusions, and determining what additional information is required to solve contradictions

* evaluate the validity and reliability of and/or synthesize multiple claims, methods, and/or designs that appear in scientific and technical texts or media, verifying the data when possible.








	

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