Next Generation Collider in China

I'm a little behind on this, but I did move in to my new apartment today.  The Guardian has reported that Chinese state media has announced that the proposed 100 TeV experiment will begin construction within 5 years.

China will begin work on the world’s largest supercollider in 2020, a mega-machine aimed at increasing understanding of the elusive Higgs boson, state-run media has reported.

Pseudoscience still Bullshit, People still Idiots

The Guardian reports on a new study into the worthlessness of homeopathy:

Homeopathy is not effective for treating any health condition, Australia’s top body for medical research has concluded, after undertaking an extensive review of existing studies.
...
These claims have been widely disproven by multiple studies, but the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has for the first time thoroughly reviewed 225 research papers on homeopathy to come up with its position statement, released on Wednesday.

This, of course, is right up there with detailed studies about the religion of the Pope.  But I committed a basic error: I read the comments.  And then I wept for humanity.

Climate Body Reopens

Tony Abbot made clear his position after winning the election two and a half years ago by scrapping the position of science minister, funds to stimulate green industries and scrapping the Climate Commission, a body tasked with analysing the science of climate change.  In a small piece of good news, the Commission has reopened:

An Australian climate change body scrapped by the new government has been relaunched as a non-profit organisation reliant on public donations. 

 ...

But the group resurrected itself as the Climate Council, saying it hoped "Obama-style" public donations raised online would keep it open

Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population.

Cars Kill Cities

An interesting article that's being doing the rounds suggests that cars are bad for cities:

In the early 1960s – when highway construction was at its peak and cars were just beginning to leave their mark – a handful of critics predicted there would be irreconcilable tensions between vibrant cities and their motorized inhabitants. Nearly 50 years later, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania published research validating this idea.

The essence of the argument is that cars need places to park.  Space devoted to parking is not devoted to people, in the form of commerce and other sources of employment.  In short, cities should prefer public transit over cars as the primary means of commuting.

Age of Wonders

Sometimes, you have to stop and remember just how amazing the modern world is.  For example, this recent story about the first UK hand transplant:

A former pub landlord from West Yorkshire has become the first person in the UK to have a hand transplant.  Mark Cahill, who is 51, had been unable to use his right hand after it was affected by gout.  Doctors say he is making good progress after an eight-hour operation at Leeds General Infirmary.  It is still very early to assess how much control of the hand will be gained - so far he can wiggle his fingers, but has no sense of touch.

Transplants have become commonplace, almost boring.  But really: we're talking about replacing someone's hand.  There's a lot of stuff going through the wrist; blood vessels, nerves, muscles; and we (as a species) can connect that?  And make it work?

Hell, I didn't even realise till reading the article that this is not that new; the first hand transplant was almost fifteen years ago.  Just as long as we can avoid the world of Gil `the ARM' Hamilton.

Because Predictions are Never Wrong

Ominous news from Italy:

Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L'Aquila.

A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter.

Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes.

It is important that the government, including government scientists, should be held accountable.  But the case here is not good.  The prediction of earthquakes is an inexact science; with current knowledge, we will always make mistakes.  And yet that seems to be all these people have been found to have done, made an error.

Armstrong in Hospital

Neil Armstrong has just had heart surgery.  The reports suggest that he's recovering well, and cutting into your heart is almost routine these days.  But I couldn't help but be reminded of this old XKCD comic.

Climategate Crooks to Avoid Justice

As per the BBC:

The police investigation into the so-called "ClimateGate" affair is over. 

Norfolk Constabulary says there is no realistic prospect of finding the culprit within the statutory time limit of three years since the 2009 offence.

In a sense, the crime of hacking into people's emails is not that serious.  But the damage done by this theft and its resultant distortion by anti-science elements of the media could be severe.  How many people know that eight separate investigations exonerated the researchers?  (Even I didn't, I thought it was only three.)  Criminal prosecutions for those responsible might have served to send a message to those who try to twist science for their own political ends.

British Science to be Free to All

From the Guardian:

The government is to unveil controversial plans to make publicly funded scientific research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014.

The specific approach is to require researchers to pay journals a fee upon acceptance of their work.  As I noted in an earlier post, at the moment Universities pay journals anyway, they just do it in the form of subscription fees.  So this move is a good one, and to be applauded in making science more accessible to the general public.

There are only two problems with this plan.  The first is that there are no proposed increases in the research budget; while this should be made up in reallocating existing University budgets, there's no guarantee of this.  A bigger one is that this constraint will only apply within the UK.  Hopefully it will bring pressure on other countries to follow suit; but as long as the UK is alone, it will effectively be subsidising the research of other nations.  (Many if not most journals present research from many countries, so they will still have to be paid for.)

Still, these drawbacks should not outweigh the benefits and, in any case, should only be temporary.  So I'll raise a glass to the government---for one day, at least!

The Role of Academic Journals

The Wellcome Trust intends to use its money to encourage open access science:

The Wellcome Trust plans to withhold a portion of grant money from scientists who do not make the results of their work freely available to the public, in a move that will embolden supporters of the growing open access movement in science. In addition, any research papers that are not freely available will not be counted as part of a scientist's track record when Wellcome assesses any future applications for research funding.

 As one of the major donors to scientific research in the UK, this is bound to have an effect.  I support this; science requires that knowledge is shared, so that advances can be checked and built upon by multiple researchers.  Repeatability is at the heart of the scientific method; while the possibility that anyone can contribute ensures both the highest level of scientific development, and protects science against cultural biases and blindspots.

The problem is the position of scientific journals as the gatekeepers of the knowledge.  Published work remains the gold standard for assessing a scientist's output.  The review process serves to catch and correct mistakes and omissions, and to check that a research paper says something genuinely original.  The journals in turn need funding to maintain themselves, so must charge a fee.  The low print runs mean that the cost of a journal is quite high, and if the work in a journal is freely available elsewhere, there is little incentive to buy them.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

One of the most useful, general tools in physics is symmetry.  To a scientist, a symmetry is any change we can make to reality that is undetectable.  For example, if I moved the entire universe five metres to my right, how would anyone know?  All we can measure are the relative positions of objects, e.g. the Earth relative to the Sun.  If I move the everything the same amount, then relative locations are unchanged.  This is then a symmetry of nature.  Hopefully, it is clear that there is nothing special about the distance and direction I chose; all such shifts are unobservable.

Why is this helpful?  The key lies in Noether's Theorem, named after the German mathematician Emmy Noether.  This states that whenever we have a symmetry in nature, there is a conserved quantity associated with it.  Conserved quantities make our lives easier, since they simplify calculations.  Amount in equals amount out is a pretty easy expression, after all.  (Not all physics demands advanced mathematics!)  For example, the symmetry I mentioned in the previous paragraph leads to conservation of momentum, while the fact that physics is constant in time means energy is conserved.

Statistics

I'm planning another post on a recent research paper, but in preparation I want to talk about statistics.  Specifically, I want to talk about Frequentist versus Bayesian perspectives for the interpretation of experiments.  I won't get technical, or go into the actual details about how calculations are done, but rather talk about philosophy.

My casual impression, based on reading papers to stay abreast of the field, is that most experiments use Frequentist methods in analysing their data.  In this approach, discovery of new phenomena is based on disproving the null hypothesis, the assumption that there is nothing to discover.  In this sense, Frequentist methods are very Popperian.  Frequentists will argue that this ensures their methods are objective, which is more or less true.¹

The problem with Frequentism is that it has a tendency to be misinterpreted.  For example, let's say in a particular experiment we can exclude the null hypothesis at 95% confidence level.  What does that mean?  It is tempting to interpret it as saying that there is a 95% probability that the null hypothesis is false.  However, this is wrong.  The strictly correct statement is: if the null hypothesis is true, the probability of getting this experimental result is 5% or less.

The Heartland Institute Climate Denial Ads

Yesterday, the Heartland Institute put up some billboards comparing Global Warming to mass murder:

Thankfully they've already taken them down in the face of a torrent of criticism.  But I couldn't comment on this yesterday, I was too angry and needed to calm down.

Apollo 11 Engines to be Recovered

According to the Guardian, the Apollo 11 engines have been found on the Atlantic Ocean floor by a team lead by the Amazon Chief Executive, Jeff Bezos.  He has plans to attempt to recover them, with the goal of placing them on public display.

This is very exciting news.  The Apollo missions were an excellent example of what we can achieve as a species through science and engineering.  The Saturn V rockets are pretty awe-inspiring, too; I saw the one on display at the Kennedy space centre, and it's huge.  But to see the actual ones to propel the first humans to ever walk on another celestial body would be magnificent.  The only problem is that by the time they are put on display, I'll probably have left North America!  But I'm sure I can wangle a visit before or after a conference.