New site

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So long and thanks for all the fish...

Even a good run must come to an end.

I've decided to focus my attention on fewer projects and ideas, namely more (longer) writing pieces and progressing my (real) career.

That means letting a few things pass on. I've learned that giving up is not a bad thing as long as it does not mean giving up on your personal philosophy. Sometimes immediate plans have to be cut loose to preserve long term plans.

This is my last piece for this blog. I will still produce Renegade Science episodes for the time being, but will shortly only upload them directly to YouTube deleting my iTunes site in a few months (including all @renegadescience.tv email addresses).

If you need to get in touch with me after that, then do so via my YouTube or ask to be my friend on FaceBook or just ask for one of my email addresses.

Thanks for the support...I still need it.

All my best,

John

A Weighty Problem...on YouTube

Have a gander at the conversation (?) I have had on YouTube over my weightlessness vid.

I do not dispute this person's argument, indeed it is entirely correct, but I think he(?) fails to understand that it requires the development of intellectual maturity, and a special curriculum, before we can teach weightlessness with a General Relativity explanation to high school students.

Now in my article (Physics curriculum, pdf) I argued for the introduction of General Relativity into a high school physics class...but...only after completely re-structuring all of physics before hand. That is the only way it can be done.

Blind Spot

I had so much fun writing and producing this Blind Spot episode. There is not much more I want to say about blind spots in this blog directly because others have done a much better job.

Try out visiting these links:

Serendip has so much and great depth, in particular try mapping your blind spot with this applet.

Wiki, blind spot. Not much direct information, but some good biological links.

Neuroscience for kids (of all things!

A Weighty Problem Part 1

As I mention in the episode A Weighty Problem, teaching weightlessness is one of the most difficult aspects to teach.

In this episode all I am looking to do is show that if the argument is to say that there is no gravity in space and that that is why astronauts are weightless then that same argument will not explain why, or how, the earth and moon stay in orbit.

The ISS and the Space Shuttle orbit at about 400 km and the moon orbits at 380 000 km. If there is no gravity on astronauts then there cannot be gravity holding the moon.

Explaining weightlessness, will have to wait for another episode...but I'm getting there.

Shrinking Ice

The Toronto Star reports Canada's largest research project in International Polar Year has been forced to switch gears because Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than anyone imagined. Massive shrinkage of the permanent ice pack last summer scuppered plans to run continuous measurements and experiments starting this month at a semi-permanent base out on the ice, south of Banks Island in the Western Arctic.

But don't worry, all we need to do is ask an economist for their scientific opinion and all will be well with the world.

Delightful news

The Royal Ontario Museum has managed to find sponsors for its Darwin exhibit. The Globe and Mail report is not only good news.

The article states: This will make the ROM the first North American venue in the travelling show's itinerary to find sponsors. Corporations, thinking Darwin's 19th-century theory of evolution too hot to handle, have declined to sponsor the show.

If you continue down and read through the responses to the article they are mostly positive about science, evolution and the museum itself.

That too is good news.

John

Simple Climate Answers

The following is a response to the letters to the Editor at The Australian written by Peter Lindsay.

Peter Lindsay’s claim (Letters 8/3) that back-of-the-envelope science is inherently better than computer modeling based on his Manhattan Project analogy is as far from reality and history as is possible.

Granted the control of nuclear reactions is no simple process, it is not akin to the analysis of complex systems like global climates. The calculations those scientists carried out on the back of those envelopes focused on tiny details easily accounted for with simple mathematics and the available data; they would amount to barely a half dozen lines on any of today’s computer modeling programs, and therefore were easy to accomplish by hand. Those solutions were no less susceptible to wrong assumptions or suspect data when first calculated decades before the equations and mathematics were accepted as accurate.

As for Lindsay’s assertion that climate change scientists claim simple answers for a complex question, i.e. human-sourced carbon dioxide emissions, he is off the mark again. There is little evidence that (climate change) complexity is based on a simple cause. What is claimed is that simple causes are capable of tipping a precarious cycle, and that many human-induced causes are doing just that. That precarious cycle is the very one upon which we have built our cities where they are, developed successful farming practices where they are and grown our businesses where they are.

A simple answer can still be part of the answer, and that is the denial upon which we will all suffer.

John