A climate scientist's approach to dealing with the latest global climate conference

 For the past two weeks, tens of thousands of delegates from, I believe, every country on the planet, were in Dubai for this year's global climate conference. There have been something like 30 of these over the past few decades. And unfortunately, no real progress has been accomplished. 

We just had the latest hottest year on record. We just had a record year for most CO2 emissions. And the 'agreement' signed in Dubai a couple days ago, looks to reduce and eliminate burning fossil fuels by 2050. That sounds great! But the trouble is history shows this will not come close to happening, and since there is no timetable or blueprint for actionable steps or goals along the way, it is easy to be skeptical that not much progress will be made even twenty years from now. 

Keep in mind more poorer countries will want to progress and develop, and population growth continues to happen. We will see 10 billion people in the next few decades. Our younger generation needs to be aware of all this and take the lead sooner than later, since you and your kids will inherit a massive problem. 

Does Gravity have to be quantized?

 For many decades, the assumption in physics has been that all the forces, including gravity, must be quantized - that is, we must look and find the quantum theory for gravity. And that the key to the "theory of everything" rests on that great discovery waiting to happen. 

But decades of work by the top theoretical and mathematical minds of multiple generations have not resulted in any testable theories. A good question to ask is: does gravity have to be quantized? Maybe, just maybe, gravity in this universe is 'classical' and continuous, and really just the result of warps in spacetime as Einstein proposed in general relativity! Some physicists are asking just that type of question, and developing theories based on gravity being classical with the others - electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces - follow quantum field theories. Maybe, just maybe, this is the reason gravity is SO different from the others and so difficult to link into the Standard Model. I am really interested in seeing how this evolves, and may very well create testable experiments in the near future...something that has not happened yet for quantum models of gravity. In the end, experimental results will determine how things really work. 

Greenland's glaciers - before and now

 A report about Greenland's glaciers, and some before and now photos. So frustrating and maddening the human race collectively moves on this at glacially slow rates...

Article about EMPATHY Project in The Evanstonian

  One of our students at Evanston Township High School, Emir Bombaci, was kind enough to write about EMPATHY in our student newspaper. We certainly appreciate the positive coverage, and are in the process of raising some more funds to help some of the new schools get started with this process! Check out the EMPATHY website for more information.

Nobel Prize for Economics for understanding economics of the gender gap in the labor market

 The last Nobel, for economics, was awarded today to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor, for her groundbreaking work in understanding the historical reasons and consequences of the gender gap in payment for work. She went through a study of 200 years of data to understand how women's roles in the labor market have evolved, and the reasons why they evolved the way they did. To this day, this is a topic of much debate and political and economic activity, as record numbers of women are becoming educated and are working on careers. 

This is also historic, since Dr. Goldin is just the 3rd woman to win the Nobel in economics. 

Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Quantum Dots

 Three scientists are sharing the Nobel in Chemistry for their discovery and applications of quantum dots. 

Moungi Bawendi (MIT), Louis Brus (Columbia U), and Alexei Ekimov (industry, NY), discovered these tiny bits of matter in their nanotechnology work. When materials shrink in size, at some point the laws and weirdness of quantum mechanics take over. Quantum dots are nanomaterials that are so small, this happens - effectively they are the smallest particles in nanoscience. 

Researchers and doctors use these for everything from television images on flat screens to LED lighting to surgeons using them to help remove tumors. 

Nobel Prize in Physics for producing attosecond pulses of light

 Here's a metric unit one does not see very often - atto. This is one quintillionth (10^-18)! Three physicists figured out how to create attosecond pulses of light in order to study and measure electron activity and processes. It revolutionized how scientists can view and measure the shortest processes one can imagine, and that occur in the quantum realm on a regular basis. 

The winners are Pierre Agostini (French, at Ohio State), Ferenc Krausz (Hungarian), and Anne L'Huillier (French). This is historic, as well, since Dr. L'Huillier is only the 5th woman to ever win a Nobel for Physics...in 117 years! The technique of creating attosecond laser pulses opened a new type of physics and can be used to observe and measure chemical reactions, molecular and atomic processes in new ways.

Nobel Prize in Medicine & Physiology, 2023

 The Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to a Hungarian-American and an American for their work in developing messenger RNA vaccines. Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share the Prize for their groundbreaking work that was used to develop the COVID-19 vaccines, which have been credited for saving millions of lives the past 3 years. Both are professors at the University of Pennsylvania, and will split the nearly $1 million prize. 

Rupert's Drop - Fascinating object made from glass

 Here is a cool video about Rupert's Drop, a certain shape one can get when molten glass is rapidly cooled in a container of cold water. The way in which it EXPLODES...not shatter, but truly explodes...is way cool!! Check it out in this well-done high-speed video analysis. 

Diversity amongst professional STEM workers

 When one sees photos or pictures of the scientists who made discoveries years ago, they are overwhelmingly white men. Many believe this is still the case among professional STEM workers, but consider that things have been changing over the past ten years in particular. Here are some links to show how STEM is becoming more diverse - slowly at times, but many feel this is a really positive step! 

500 Queer Scientists (https://500queerscientists.com/) 

500 Women Scientists (https://500womenscientists.org/)

1,000 inspiring Black scientists in America (https://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/1000-inspiring-black-scientists-in-america)

100 inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America (https://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/100-inspiring-hispanic-latinx-scientists-in-america)

Does the Fermilab result from last week wreck Physics as we know it?!?!?

 Some people have been asking me if the recent results published at Fermilab (outside of Chicago) about a certain property of a particle called a muon wrecks physics! This result made it to the mainstream press because of the fact that the measured magnetic properties of muons is a little bit different than what a theory called the Standard Model predicts. The difference is significantly different from the theoretical prediction, meaning the difference is statistically strong enough to qualify as a 'discovery' in the science world. 

If this difference really is true, then it likely is an indication of 'new physics.' The most likely candidate would be some type of new particle never thought of and outside of the Standard Model (which is well tested since the 1960s). 

However, like most things in science when there is potentially a major discovery, everyone should be skeptical and try to pick apart this experiment (to be sure they did things correctly), as well as the theoretical calculations the experiment is being compared to. Some recent work by theorists have suggested that the calculation may need to be refined - and that after this revision, perhaps the difference will go away and theory and experiment may be consistent with each other once again! 

This is hard stuff!! Some of the hardest math around is used in the theory, and the values being worked at are so precise (basically meaning there's so many decimal points) that tiny differences in a calculation may move some of those decimal values a tiny bit, but push it within the error bars of the experiment). Like most things in science, we must be patient and let the process proceed over the coming months. 

Evidence Vaping has Health Risks...DON'T SMOKE, DON'T VAPE

 The American Heart Association has issued statements this month on research of the terrible health risks that result from Vaping. The strange conclusion so many have, particularly teens, that vaping is "healthy" is false. It may not be as bad as cigarettes, but not by much. 

This is relevant and alarming since vaping has gained so many young users over the past five years, and it is on par with the negative and addictive characteristics of smoking cigarettes. 

Bottom line is: DON'T SMOKE AND DON'T VAPE! You are simply putting poisons into your body over time, and on average you are taking years off your life. Photo from Roseburg Community Cancer Center.

SEL in Schools

 My students know I am really into the inclusion of helping humanity into our physics classes, and also promoting the skills we ALL need and use every day of our lives, Social-Emotional Learning skills (SEL). It is to the point where ETHS, and most districts around the country, are promoting and including SEL into their district plans and goals. This is good news for everyone, and now the challenge is to all learn what SEL is (and is NOT), why we need it for our students, evidence that it works (otherwise it would be a waste of time and resources), and finally how it can be embedded within content courses. 

If interested, I have created a SEL in Schools series of slide decks and accompanying videos, as well as hundreds of examples of lesson ideas in all subject areas/departments for middle schools and high schools, in order to train teachers and staff, as well as build up 'buy in' among teachers when they see how possible and valuable it is to include SEL in lessons on a fairly regular and consistent basis. 

If you happen to view it and find it useful, please share with other teachers, administrators, schools, etc. 

Plumpy Nut - Helping feed the hungry around the world

 If you are now aware of Plump Nut, here's an introduction. This is a simple mix of peanut butter, milk, sugar, vitamins and minerals, that is in the form of a paste. It can be stored at room temperature and has a good taste, especially to children. Groups like Doctors Without Borders use plumpy nut in places of extreme poverty and hunger in order to quickly build up the nutrition of their diets. This has been highly effective for a number of years with severely hungry and malnourished children, where a couple weeks of plumpy nut can revitalize their health and energy levels. 

I have always loved this example as one where it is sometimes the 'simplest' solution that can solve real problems. Can you come up with simple, creative ways of solving an important problem? It is so tempting to overthink problems, and assume one needs fancy equipment, technologies or mathematics to reach a solution - and often it just take some common sense and trial and error to develop a simple solution. It reminds me of early in the space race, when the US spent all sorts of money to build pens that could write in space, whereas the Soviets used pencils. Einstein was a fan of thinking conceptually about a problem in as simple a way as possible, and then add in the math after a simple physical model was in his head. 

Good example of how scientists need to step away from 'the textbooks' & group-think every so often

 In theoretical physics for the past 50 or so years, thousands of the world's best physics minds have dedicated themselves to looking for the quantum theory of gravity. Since Einstein, the dream has been to unify gravity with the other three forces of nature into a single theory - no one has done it, despite the HUGE effort given to this problem for decades. And on the experimental side, nothing has been found that suggests gravity comes in 'bundles' just like something like light comes in bundles of energy we call a photon.                  

Despite the lack of any substantial breakthrough, everyone keeps plugging away, assuming gravity MUST be quantized since the other forces are. In science, putting blinders on while looking to answer the unknown is dangerous. Part of the process of science is to be skeptical, even of things we do know! Check out this article and video about physicist Jonathan Oppenheim from University College of London, who has made the assumption that maybe gravity is not quantized as we all have been thinking - what if it is how Einstein describes it in General Relativity, where it is not a true force but rather just the consequence of curved space-time? 

Prof. Oppenheim and his students are developing a theory, as well as suggestions for experiments, that could test whether gravity is simply different and is a 'classical' force rather than a quantum force. When I teach gravity and Einstein's model, and we get into the modern thinking about quantum gravity, we have over the years asked the question if gravity might not be quantized, and that's why it is so different from the other three forces of nature and why no one has found the unified theory. It is good to see this possibility getting some attention and those isolated few who question the textbooks and group think that can happen in science...scientists are still humans, and fall into the same patterns and traps as everyone else! 

I look forward to seeing where this work goes, as all that matters is we make progress in understanding the true nature of Nature, regardless of whether it fits into our assumptions and expectations or not! 

Quasar clocks - another test of Einstein's GR

 Over 100 years later, and we continuously seem to be testing Einstein's ideas about space, time and gravity over and over, in numerous different contexts. The latest is a test of how the passage of time has changed as the universe has expanded! 

In Einstein's general theory of relativity (GR), he predicts the 'strength' of what we call gravity, which is really the consequence of the warping of space AND time, can change how quickly time passes. For someone living near a black hole, time would be passing very slowly compared to those of us living on earth, simply due to the gravity being MUCH stronger near a black hole compared to earth's gravity. 

Well, when the universe began the mass-energy density (which was really entirely energy until the universe expanded and cooled a bit so that matter could form) was large, and we might expect that time passed more slowly then when compared to the passage of time now, after the universe has expanded for 13.7 billion years and the densities have decreased tremendously. Because quasars are very far away, they 'lived' 12, 13 billion or more years ago, when the universe was young and time should have been running more slowly. By observing and measuring the light emitted from quasars so long ago, scientists have analysis techniques where they can compute how much that light was affected by the early universe compared to now, and the result is time had been running 5 times slower than time today!! These measurements once again are in line with Einstein's predictions from his GR field equations. Remarkable!!

Scientists detect collision of two supermassive black holes

 Astrophysicists and astronomers have detected the strange vibrations in space-time itself, caused by the collision of two supermassive black holes! These are the black holes at the centers of galaxies, with large masses from millions to billions of times more than the Sun. Gravitational wave detectors like LIGO have been sensing these since 2015, but now new techniques were used for the latest discovery. By looking at minute changes in the timing of a sample of pulsars, which are fast-spinning neutron stars that emit periodic, clock-like bursts of radio waves, the distortions of those precise bursts are measured by radio wave detectors, and are consistent with what Einstein's theory of general relativity predict. Amazing, and this constant 'churning' of the space-time sea is now being studied for all sorts of different events and signals! 

Quantum Computing - Want to learn about it? Here's a book and course anyone can take

 Quantum computing is already here in prototype form, and is rapidly evolving into a next generation computing technology, the consequences of which we do not fully understand. But let's also recognize that many companies, universities, national labs, the military, finance and business sectors, medical research and most other fields you can think of, will be in great need of workers who know what this is and how to use it. And the day is also coming where quantum computing and AI become mixed. 

If you are curious about this field and technology, here is an online textbook that is setup as a course in quantum computing. Use it and go at your own pace. Have fun! 

Countries and Institutions with most top Physics personnel

 The productivity and 'success' of scientists can be measured several ways, and perhaps the most popular is looking at the number of publications and citations a scientist has. This makes sense because to be  published in peer reviewed journals shows the work is considered strong, and people cite it when they find it useful, valuable, and well done. Citations mean the work is affecting the field. There is a measure called the D-index based on these criteria.

So you can find the countries and institutions with the most physics personnel with high D-index values. By far, the United States leads for countries, followed by Great Britain. For institutions, Caltech leads the way, and the only non-US institutions in the top ten are the Max Planck Institute and University of Cambridge.

Everyday physics important in real research - Example, don't use magnets to hunt for meteorites!

 What happens when a magnet gets close to an object that may have a weak magnetic field? 

Hopefully any senior who has gone through E&M should be able to answer that the weaker magnet can be affected and changed by a stronger magnet. 

A common way of searching for meteorites is to use magnets, since rocks from space are likely to have some iron in them. But this also means that using a magnet can change any magnetic field the meteorite may have, thus erasing valuable scientific information about the magnetism in our solar system that that rock had carried for perhaps billions of years before finally crashing into the earth. This is a problem for scientists who need meteorites to study and collect information about the ancient solar system! And this is a problem since so many meteorites are found by amateur 'hunters'. 

So basic physics we learn in high school make a difference in real life research efforts! 

                             

April 18, 1955 - the day Einstein died

 April 18, 1955, was the day the world lost one of the greatest minds, certainly scientific, in human history, when Albert Einstein died at the age of 76. 

For an interesting summary of what that day was like, check out this Life article. The below photo is from biography.com. 

How does ChatGPT work?

 ChatGPT and other AI platforms are causing a great deal of excitement, concern, ethical questions to be asked, and lots of interesting applications and concerns. But how does it actually work? 

A decent introductory article about how it works is here, from Stephen Wolfram.

"Where we go to College" Visualizations - Way cool!

 One of the pages I maintain on this blog is Where We Go To College - my former students go all over the place to top colleges and universities, and I want to honor their choices and commitment to learning, growing, and figuring out what they want to do in life. 

There are now some visualizations of that list, thanks to Dr. Liz Durango-Cohen. 

Here's a site for selecting a college and seeing, by graduation year, who has gone there. 

Here's a site with a national map showing how many have gone to each state, and to which colleges in each state. 

Earth's inner core more complex than once thought

 New seismic wave analysis by geophysicists suggest the earth's inner core has multiple layers/shells. The structure and composition of the core is really important for the behavior of the earth's magnetic field, which is vital in protecting us from harmful cosmic radiation. Check out this article for more information if interested. 

Women's History Month - Nobel Prizes

 A total of 61 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to women since 1901. Because Marie Curie won two, Nobels have gone to 60 different women. 

Check out what these prizes were for, and learn about the women who have helped change the world! 

And a good site for 22 extraordinary female scientists is here. 

Microreactors - a new design for fission reactors

 I got this from the UIUC Nuclear Engineering Department, as they are becoming leaders in research to design and build cheap, safe and clean fission reactors on small size scales. Here's a description: 

Nuclear microreactors are a new class of nuclear fission technology capable of producing up to roughly 20 MWth depending on design. Beyond their size, the primary distinguishing features over other fission systems is that microreactors are designed to be: factory built and delivered to site by truck, rail, or ship; plug-and-play with minimal onsite construction or preparation; capable of long operational periods between refueling (10-20 years); and minimal decommissioning required to return the site to greenfield status. Nuclear microreactors are a promising technology to enable a clean, climate conscious, energy future. The campus deployment focuses on the research, education, and training necessary to see advanced reactor technology become widely deployable, marketable, economic, and ultimately a safe and reliable option for a clean energy future.

Something to REMEMBER:

 You can't be best friends with everyone, but you CAN: 

- notice everyone

- be friendly to everyone

- make room for everyone

- cheer for everyone

- listen to everyone

- have a smile for everyone

- say hello to everyone

- empathize with everyone

Oh, and you can be nice to yourself, too! 

Magnet experiments/magic tricks with everyday materials

 You need to try some of these if you enjoy magnets! Or even if you just cool science tricks! 

Earth's magnetic field likely to flip in near future (centuries, perhaps)

 A timely article appeared in Science News, about how the rotation of the liquid iron core of the earth may be reversing its rotation! As weird as it sounds, this is something that happens naturally and numerous times in earth's history. The result of that reversal of rotation would be a reversal of the North and South magnetic poles of the earth. Again, this is normal, but hasn't happened since modern humans have been around. 

What skills are employers looking for?

What skills are your future employers looking for in this day and age of maybe in the office/maybe at home work?

Turns out the World Economic Forum published a list. Here’s the top 10:

Complex problem-solving Critical thinking Creativity People management Coordinating with others Emotional intelligence (largely meaning you're aware of and practice SEL skills) Decision making and judgment Service orientation Negotiation Cognitive flexibility

Ice core analyses show Greenland the warmest it's ever been in at least 1000 years

 A new analysis of ice cores, allowing scientists to go back in time 1000 years, shows Greenland is now the warmest it has ever been during that period. This is significant because so much of its ice-sheet is land based - its melt water therefore contributes to ocean rise around the world.

Keep in mind that what used to be nearly unheard of, Arctic cyclones, are more frequent and powerful over the last couple decades. These have a large, negative effect on sea and glacial ice when it hits Greenland. 

Quick & bad science jokes

 Check them out, some good and/or bad science jokes. 

Some types of wood piezoelectric - put mechanical stress on it, and create some electricity

 Some types of wood are piezoelectric - that is, when warped or put under mechanical stress, some woods can create a voltage difference and current. One can make a wood dance floor be used to generate electricity at some level, it turns out! 

This would be a really cool research and engineering project for anyone who is interested! 

New Glacier study and simulations predict losses through 2100

 As we continue with the climate science project, a new study of extensive satellite data and computer simulations of the worlds glaciers has been published in Science. It looked at the projections of what can happen with temperature increases from 1.5 degrees C to 4 degrees C, and the toll that takes on glacial melting and sea level increases. The video below was made by the lead author of the study to summarize the work. Basically some 2 billion people who rely on glacial melts for their water will be affected by continued global warming, to varying degrees depending where they are.