A Medley of Potpourri

Monday, December 30, 2013

Nothing Can't Exist!

Many of you, I am certain, have heard what would seem to be (and was for a while) the most "profound" question for philosophy and science, particularly physics, of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? It is also a question religious people often ask, contradictorily, as their ironic proof of the particular deity's existence.

And yet the answer is easy. Something exists because nothing logically cannot.

I am not speaking about recent developments in quantum mechanics (QM) and virtual particles, but I should sum some things up. QM is physically founded on the so-called Uncertainty Principle. This principle declares that non-commutative variables of particles -- the typical example being location and momentum -- can never be simultaneously measured with no uncertainty. If you need perfect certainty in one variable, you must sacrifice all knowledge of the other.

Another pair of non-commutative properties are time and energy. If we measure time in shorter and shorter intervals, an uncertainty builds up in energy (or mass) as a result of the Uncertainty Principle. This means that if we sample a reason of space over exceedingly short intervals (like a trillionth of a trillionth of a second and smaller), we will find filled with so-called "virtual particles" popping into and out of existence at all times. Nor are they trivial, not at all. The total mass/energy of these particles can be enormous; we are fortunate they exist, or all known physical forces (possibly excepting gravity) require them to carry them to exist, and if they didn't exist -- well, we wouldn't either.

Thus, from a QM (and experimental) point of view, nothing isn't nothing, and can't be, as long as the laws of physics are still in our otherwise empty space. But what if we press further (assuming we can), and remove all physical laws, and perhaps even logic, from the space? Would it then be empty. My answer is still NO. For example, without the First Law of Thermodynamics (the ordinary law of conservation of mass/energy), what would there be preventing not just virtual but permanent particles, or all kinds, coming into existence? And without the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which govern order and the inexorable evolution toward disorder (entropy), what would prevent all this mass/energy from assuming the most possibly ordered form possible? Nothing.

Add to that all the other physical laws and logical and -- is it possible? We might find ourselves right at the very beginning of the Big Bang. Of course, many other arrangements are possible too, so multiverses of all kinds are possible. We may be living in an infinite reality containing an infinite number of universes, infinitely creating more all the time. But I leave here to let the theoreticians and philosophers to seek truth, and conclude my essay with my conclusion: nothing cannot exists, any time, anywhere. Oh, and no deities needed at all.

Significant Science of 2013: An Explosion of Exoplanets

Posted by Tim De Chant on Mon, 30 Dec 2013 on Novanex
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/space/significant-science-of-2013-an-explosion-of-exoplanets/?preview=true

This year was a banner year for planet-hunters. Though 2013 doesn’t hold the record for number of exoplanets detected, many of them are Earth-like, meaning they have masses, compositions, and orbits that put them in the sweet spot of habitability. Astronomers have found so many that some estimate that up to 22% of sunlike stars could harbor Earth-like planets.

Leading the charge has been the Kepler space telescope, an orbiting, purpose-built, planet-seeking machine that has been spotting potential exoplanets by the hundreds.

An artist's impression of exoplanet Kepler-22b

John Timmer, writing for Ars Technica:

With 34 months of data in total, the number of planet candidates has grown to over 3,500, a rise of roughly 30 percent. Although larger planets are easier to spot since they block more light, 600 of these candidates are now Earth-sized or smaller.

Kepler operates by observing the faint dimming that occurs when a planet passes between its star and the telescope. Astronomers have focused on sunlike stars, 42,000 of which have been in Kepler’s view.

Unfortunately, Kepler suffered the debilitating loss of two of its four reaction wheels, devices which keep the craft steady. Without them, its vision isn’t nearly clear enough to keep up its planet-hunting mission, and astronomers can’t shift its gaze to different parts of the universe.

But all is not lost. Kepler may soldier on with a new mission—searching for starquakes—and the time it spent looking for exoplanets has yielded so much data that it’ll be another another few years before scientists have sifted through the backlog. Who knows? Maybe 2014 will be an even better year for exoplanet enthusiasts.

Study: Fracking saves water

Chuck Ross

Reporter, Daily Caller News Foundation

Hydraulic fracturing conserves water compared to other energy-generation methods, according to a recent study that undermines claims by fracking opponents.

Bridget Scanlon and a team of researchers at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University

of Texas compared the state’s water consumption levels for 2010, a non-drought year, and 2011, a drought year, at the state’s 423 power plants.

Even after accounting

for the water used in obtaining natural gas from the ground, natural gas-powered plants use much less water to obtain the same amount of energy as coal-powered plants.

“Although water use for gas production is controversial, these data

show that water saved by using natural gas combined cycle plants relative to coal steam turbine plants is 25-50 times greater than the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing to extract the case,” reads the report, published in Environmental Research Letters.

“Natural gas, now ~50% of power generation in Texas, enhances drought resilience by increasing the flexibility of power plants generators,” the report continues. The researchers predict that reductions in water use from the increased use of natural gas will continue through 2030.
This is good news for the state of Texas, which is prone to drought. Even counting the amount of water used in the hydraulic fracturing process — which uses water and other chemicals to break shale below the earth’s surface to free

up natural gas — the researchers estimated that if Texas’ natural gas plants had instead burned coal, the state would have used 32 billion gallons of extra water, enough to satiate 870,000 residents.

Scanlon and her

team looked at what is known as the “water-energy nexus.” Drought conditions can severely limit energy generation. In turn, the increased energy usage brought on by drought requires more precious water. But the recent study suggests that switching from other forms of energy generation, such as coal, would improve the drought situation.

“The bottom line is that hydraulic fracturing, by boosting natural gas production and moving the state from water-intensive coal technologies

, makes our electric power system more drought resilient,” said Scanlon in a press release.

Environmentalists believe fracking is unsafe and have tried to regulate, and even ban, the drilling practice.

But Josiah Neeley, a policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, calls the new

study smart, saying that it shows that fracking is “actually a net water saver” when compared to other energy generation methods.

“As with anything else, you have to compare fracking to the available alternatives, instead of looking at it in the abstract,” Neeley told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The latest charge has been that fracking uses too much water,” he said. “That’s a big concern in Texas, because of the recent drought. What this study does is look not just at how much water gets used in fracking, but compares this to how much water you would need to generate the same amount of electricity from other sources.”

Neeley said that this study pokes another hole in environmentalists’ objections to fracking. “When each of them is proved baseless they simply move on to the next allegation,” he concluded.

The recent report focused solely on Texas, but the researchers felt that the findings could apply to other states. “These changes in water and electricity in Texas may also apply to the US, which has seen a 30% increase in natural gas consumption for electric power production since 2005.”

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Atheist Says Challenging Religion is ‘Cruel,’ Nonbelief is for the Wealthy

What Do You Think?

December 26, 2013 By Paul Fidalgo

David Strumfels -- I tried being in AA/NA (Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous) many times, but since they are religious-based organizations (though they often tried to deny it) and I cannot believe in "God" or anything superstitious, in the end I realized they had nothing to offer me. Religious people, on the hand, did seem to get help -- if they were serious in their beliefs. So the article below sparked my interest. Unfortunately, I find the attacks on Dawkins' and other athiests ill-founded, and only reflect his own 16 year old mind; yet I think he is largely talking about a general principle, one that very well could be true. There is nothing in the laws of nature that make believing an absurdity an absurd thing itself; it should be beneficial in many cases.

Chris Arnade has a PhD in physics, used to work on Wall Street, and now works with the homeless. He is an atheist, but just about none of the people in trouble that he works with are, calling them “some of the strongest believers I have met, steeped in a combination of Bible, superstition, and folklore.” In a piece he wrote for The Guardian, he seems to be saying that this is more or less how it should be. And why? Because it is in this religion and superstition that they find hope.

In doing so, he unfortunately invents a heartless atheist strawman:

They have their faith because what they believe in doesn’t judge them. Who am I to tell them that what they believe is irrational? Who am I to tell them the one thing that gives them hope and allows them to find some beauty in an awful world is inconsistent? I cannot tell them that there is nothing beyond this physical life. It would be cruel and pointless.

Is there anyone doing this? Is there any atheist activist or celebrity who is targeting the downtrodden and brazenly attempting to force the blessings of godlessness on them? Of course not.

Instead, many organized atheist groups and individuals trying to lend aid without any theological (or atheological) strings attached.

Arnade concludes that atheism is something that is really only tenable for those who “have done well,” or at least are not struggling to such an extent as the subjects of his work are. Certainly, it is easier to step back and take a critical look at supernatural claims if one is not constantly worried about one’s safety or ability to feed one’s family. Of course those who are desperate are more vulnerable to seeking a grain of hope wherever they can find it, even in the ephemeral or fictional.

Arnade recalls his 16-year-old self who, as he tells it, snidely turned his nose up at believers in fragile and desperate situations.

I want to go back to that 16-year-old self and tell him to shut up with the “see how clever I am attitude”. I want to tell him to appreciate how easy he had it, with a path out. A path to riches.

I also see Richard Dawkins differently. I see him as a grown up version of that 16-year-old kid, proud of being smart, unable to understand why anyone would believe or think differently from himself. I see a person so removed from humanity and so removed from the ambiguity of life that he finds himself judging those who think differently.

I suppose Arnade has caught Dawkins lurking around, being extremely nasty to people in the streets, telling them how stupid they are.

Look, I understand that many atheists can be uncomfortable with confrontation of religious claims, and I even understand that one can take issue with the tactics or rhetoric of certain groups or figures.
None of them, not Dawkins, not Hemant, not the big atheist groups (including my own), and definitely not me, get it right all the time. (I’m kidding, Hemant, you always get everything right. Please don’t fire me.) The magic force field our culture has placed around religious belief and superstition makes every discussion and debate fraught with tension and tender sensitivities.

But Arnade makes a mistake by castigating atheism-writ-large as some heartless, elitist club of buzzkills and dream-crushers. For many, if not most of us, our decision to be public and active about our atheism and our opposition to religion stems from a desire to see the world at large lifted out of a morass of bad and oppressive magical thinking. Flawed as we are, we are trying to make things better.

If religion is giving desperate people hope, rather than shake a finger at those who argue against religion, perhaps we should be working as hard as we can to give these people something other than religion to lean on. Something real that actually solves problems, rather than mystical falsehoods.

To leave things as they are, to allow religion to continue its infestation in the lives of those who deserve something better, just because it seems like the nicer thing to do in the short term, I think that’s what’s patronizing and elitist.

Image via Shutterstock.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Welcome to the 'Era of Behavior'

by Dov Seidman

December 29, 2013, 8:00 AM

As the world has gone from connected to interconnected to interdependent, I believe we’ve entered a new era. What I call the era of behavior. I acknowledge that behavior has always mattered. What

I’m saying is that behavior now matters more than ever and in ways it never has before. And what I mean by behavior – it’s not just doing the right principle, the responsible thing.

Of course that’s fundamentally what I mean by behavior. But every Tweet is a behavior. Every email is a behavior. We call these things communications and Tweeting and friending and unfriending. But every email we write, collaboration is a behavior. Innovation is a behavior. How we lead is a behavior. How we engender trust in our relationships. How we say we’re sorry when we should. It’s all behavior. And the more connected the world gets, the more that every form of these behaviors and the more that leaders can create cultures where these behaviors can flourish and be scaled and be embedded into the DNA – the more these are the organizations that will succeed and, more importantly, achieve significance in their endeavors and therefore lasting enduring success. So I believe that we have entered deeply the era of behavior.

Now I want to make a distinction when it comes to behavior. Carrots and sticks. The proverbial carrots and sticks, you know, bonuses and compensation and threats of punishment or discipline – they can shift behavior. You know, we went through an election where tiny slivers of swing state voters received ads, were bombarded with ads trying to get them to shift from one camp to the other. If you put a product on sale we’re shifting behavior. Buy now, not later.

So we’ve scaled up marketplaces and mechanics of shifting behavior – left, right, forward, back, now not later. But if you sit with corporate managers and you say, “What behaviors do you want from your colleagues, from your people?” They say, “I want creativity. I want collaboration, loyalty, passion.” And they go on and on and on – responsible, principle of conduct. These are not behaviors you can shift for. You can’t say, “You two, go in the room and don’t emerge until you have a brilliant idea.” “And you two from different cultures, go in a room and don’t come out but I’ll pay you double if you figure out how to truly collaborate and move us forward. The behaviors we want today are behaviors that we elevate. These are elevated behaviors.

And what’s elevated people since the beginning of time is a mission worthy of their loyalty. A purpose worthy of their dedication. Core values that they share with others that really animate them. Beliefs that they believe are near and dear and a kind of leadership rooted in moral authority that inspires them. So not only are we in the era of behavior where competitive advantage has shifted to behavior, we are in the era of elevated behavior and what elevates behavior are fundamental values that we share with others and missions and purposes worthy of our commitment and dedication that we also share with others.

And twenty-first century leadership is about connecting with people from within. And that’s what I mean by this notion that there’s only three ways to get another human being, a friend, a colleague, a worker, to do anything. You can coerce them, do this or else. You can motivate them with the carrot, with the bonus, with the stock option. And fireable offenses, for example, coercion and paying people well – they continue to have their place. But the freest, cheapest, most enduring, most affordable and cleanest form of human energy is inspiration.

And when you inspire somebody, you get in touch with the first two letters of the word inspire – IN. And what’s in us are beliefs and values and missions and purposes worthy of our commitment. And leadership today is really fast going from command and control with carrots and sticks as the mechanics of command and control to inspirational leadership. Leadership that’s animated by moral authority that connects with people in an inspired way from within. And I think twenty-first century leadership is about becoming an inspirational leader.

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think's studio.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Why America is NOT the greatest country in the world, anymore.

More Good News for Solar Power

Solar cell performance improves with ion-conducting polymer

Sep 04, 2013

Researchers at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology have found a way to make dye-sensitized solar cells more energy-efficient and longer-lasting.

Drawing their inspiration from photosynthesis, dye-sensitized solar cells offer the promise of low-cost solar photovoltaics and – when coupled with catalysts – even the possibility of generating hydrogen and oxygen, just like plants. A study published in August could lead to more efficient and longer-lasting dye-sensitized solar cells, says one of the researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

A research team that included James Gardner, Assistant Professor of Photoelectrochemistry at KTH, reported the success of a new quasi-liquid, polymer-based electrolyte that increases a dye-sensitized solar cell's voltage and current, and lowers resistance between its electrodes.

The study highlights the advantages of speeding up the movement of oxidized electrolytes in a dye-sensitized solar cell, or DSSC. Also on the team from KTH were Lars Kloo, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and researcher Muthuraaman Bhagavathi Achari.

Their research was published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics on August 19.

"We now have clear evidence that by adding the ion-conducting polymer to the solar cell's cobalt redox electrolyte, the transport of oxidized electrolytes is greatly enhanced," Gardner says. "The fast transport increases solar cell efficiency by 20 percent."

A dye-sensitized solar cell absorbs photons and injects electrons into the conduction band of a transparent semiconductor. This anode is actually a plate with a highly porous, thin layer of titanium dioxide that is sensitized with dyes that absorb visible light. The electrons in the semiconductor diffuse through the anode, out into the external circuit.

In the electrolyte, a cobalt complex redox shuttle acts as a catalyst, providing the internal electrical continuity between the anode and cathode. When the dye releases electrons and becomes oxidized by the titanium dioxide, the electrolyte supplies electrons to replenish the deficiency. This "resets" the dye molecules, reducing them back to their original states. As a result, the electrolyte becomes oxidized and electron-deficient and migrates toward the cathode to recovers its missing electrons. Electrons migrating through the circuit recombine with the oxidized form of the cobalt complex when they reach the cathode.

In the most efficient solar cells this transport of ions relies on acetonitrile, a low viscosity, volatile organic solvent. But in order to build a stable, commercially-viable solar cell, a low volatility solvent is used instead, usually methoxypropionitrile. The problem is that while methoxypropionitrile is more stable, it is also more viscous than acetonitrile, and it impedes the flow of ions.

But with the introduction of a new quasi-liquid, polymer-based electrolyte (containing the Co3+/Co2+ redox mediator in 3-methoxy propionitrile solvent), the research team has overcome the viscosity problem, Gardner says. At the same time, adding the ion-conducting polymer to the electrolyte maintains its low volatility. This makes it possible for the oxidized form of the cobalt complex to reach the cathode, and get reduced, faster.

Speeding up this transport is important because when slowed down, more of the cobalt complexes react with electrons in the semiconductor anode instead of with the electrons at the cathode, resulting in rapid recombination losses. Speeding up the cobalt lowers resistance and increases voltage and current in the solar cell, Gardner says.

Explore further: Cobalt replacements make solar cells more sustainable