French President Sarkozy Speech in Support of Basic Research

[September 2010 Note: I am appalled but what President Sarkozy has done of late regarding the Roma People, but I am leaving up my positive impressions of him from this summer on the narrow issue of science funding]

I am attending the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Paris. I'll write a subsequent post about the science. But first, in a perhaps unprecedented move, a head of state for major country has chosen to address a physics conference. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic of France, gave an impressive impassioned visionary speech to a skeptical audience of particle physicists. He won us over.

The speech lasted perhaps 1/2hr, and was constructed specifically for the assembled audience. No doubt he can use elements in other speeches, but most of it was really directed at us. He said that some of his friends asked why he would give such a speech to "those people", and the content of his speech was a ringing answer. He highlighted the need for basic research, especially in a world where fundamentalism and economic conditions threaten it. He stressed the need for politicians, such as himself, to work actively to support science. And he talked about the role basic research plays in future innovation, saying something like "you can't build a lightbulb by successive improvements to the candle". Finally, he called upon us to convey what we know to the public.

The speech was also remarkable for it humility and for its grasp of the topic of the conference, which really is, in some sense, an attempt to understand the very small in order to understand the very large.

So to President Sarkozy and his staff, all I have to say is, "Merci beaucoup".

UPDATE: Here is a page devoted to the speech with video and full text in French and English.

[photo: Mike Paterson, from the only other hint I have seen of the speech on the web thus far: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/jul/27/sarkozy-high-energy-physicists-ichep]

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Searching for Unusual Hay in a Haystack: The Case of CDMS

Over the past two weeks, rumors have swirled around the web that the CDMS collaboration had discovered particles of "dark matter". [I have not yet written a promised post on dark matter, but there is this.] It all started with a single blog post which contained "facts", such as the statement that there was a paper in press at the journal Nature, which turned out to be false. One very connected person tweeted about the post, and it spread like wildfire. Soon the Nature editor sent the blogger a snarky letter denying the claim, which the blogger posted. Others speculated that the Nature editor was just trying to throw them off track. The next day the Nature editor posted a comment on the blog apologizing for the snarky nature of the letter, but again refuting the claims. Still rumors shot around the net about what result there might be.

So there was much anticipation Thursday when the CDMS collaboration gave two simultaneous talks announcing their results.

I watched a live stream of one of them. It proceeded in a halting fashion from the strain of the web traffic. Then, when the speaker got to the point of announcing their results, the stream froze for ten solid minutes. When it recovered, it zipped straight to her conclusions (how many of you were assuming the speaker was male--come on admit it), and I was left to guess a number of the details. But the bottom line is this: they saw 2 events with a background of 0.8. What does that mean, you ask?

The experiment looked for a very rare signal: that a particle of dark matter, which rarely interacts with anything, leaves a small ripple in the detector. The detector is located at the bottom of a mine to shield it from most cosmic rays. But there are still background events: interactions in the detector from particles which come from radioactive elements in the rock or particles which somehow survive going through hundreds of meters of rock. There are telltale signatures of dark matter particles (such as the energy and timing of the event) which help distinguish them from background particles, but occasionally a background particle mimics those signatures by chance. In the CDMS experiment, they calculate that over two years of running, that happened on average 0.8 times ( it took heroic efforts to keep it this small) . Maybe this helps: if they ran for 20 years with the same detector, i.e. 10 times longer, then they'd expect it to happen 8 times.

Now they saw 2 events. So what is the chance that those events are really signals of dark matter particles? Well, it is easier to ask "what is the chance they are background events?". If you ran for 20 years, what is the chance that 2 of the background events happened in the first two years. Using something called the Poisson distribution, they find that there is about a 1/4 chance those 2 events are both just background events. That's not a strong signal. As good as their efforts were at reducing backgrounds, it was not enough. If there were no dark matter particles and you ran the experiment for 20 years and divided them into ten two year periods, about two or three of those ten periods would happen to have 2 background events in them.

Still, if the events do turn out to be really from dark matter, it will begin to explain one of the great mysteries of science. So we await future experiments with more signal and less background.

UPDATE: Sometimes It's Just Hay

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The Two Cultures

Fifty years ago, C. P. Snow lamented in his famous lecture, The Two Cultures, that there was a rift in understanding  between the sciences and the humanities.  He noted that ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics is akin to never having read a work of Shakespeare, and that such scientific illiteracy could prove harmful to society.  How can our leaders solve our problems if they don't understand them?

So it was with great interest that I went last Saturday (9 May) to the New York Academy of Sciences, at the top of the world, to attended a conference exploring the current state of the Two Cultures and what could be done about it.   There were many fascinating people there.

The 192 year old NY Academy of Sciences now resides in the gleaming new building at 7 World Trade Center.  Forty stories up, there is a panoramic view of Manhattan, and an overlook on the unimproved hole of ground zero.  

Actually, one feels the presence of 9/11 as soon as one steps in the elevator.  Each wall of the elevator is roughly polished metal, so that one's reflection is distorted  as it is bounced back and forth, and one is surrounded by ghostly images.

There were two main topics discussed: the nature of the divide between scientists and nonscientists (both in the humanities and the general public), and what one could do to bridge the gap.

  

E. O. Wilson, the famous biologist, described his idea of consilience, and argued that the walls between fields were illusions because of the interdisciplinary bridges which already exist.  He is a hardcore reductionist who believes that complex sociological behavior can be mapped to chemical reactions in the brain.  On the other hand, the historian Ann Blair argued that having walls between fields was important so they can flourish independently.

But most of the day was spent discussing how to bridge the gap between science and the larger society (such as you, dear reader).   There was a panel on "How to more effectively communicate science issues to the public," with the executive producer of Nova, Paula Apsell, and the host of Science Friday, Ira Flatow.   There was a panel on science and politics with the founders of Science Debate 2008.  And there was a concluding keynote address by Segway inventor, Dean Kamen.  I have to say that I was impressed with his organization, FIRST, which sponsors a robot competition that makes science cool for kids.  In just 20 years, it has gone from a handful of people, to something which won't fit in the Houston Astrodome!

Science is  increasingly important for our society.  For democracy to work in such an environment, it is essential that the average citizen be at least somewhat scientifically literate.  For example, everyone should have some vague idea why a perpetual motion machine can't work (thermodynamics says, "there ain't no free lunch").  So I hope we can all work on bridges of understanding between ourselves.

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Science Debate Answers!

As I introduced in one of my first posts, there has been a grassroots effort to get the presidential candidates to have a debate centered on concerns of science and technology.  These concerns are intertwined with many foreign and domestic political issues.  It is vital that the next President be aware of these concerns when constructing policy.

Well, we didn't get the candidates to hold a live debate, but we did get them to answer 14 important questions.  Senator Obama responded on 30 August, and Senator McCain on 15 September (McCain thus had the advantage of seeing Obama's answers before committing to his own).  Here are their complete answers, side by side.  Below I offer a brief summary of their answer and my take on them.  [under construction]

Innovation

Obama proposes doubling federal funding for basic research over the next decade.  McCain would provide tax incentives for research.  It is not clear whether he would increase funding for basic research, but he does say he will "Fund basic and applied research in new and emerging fields".

  

I am all for stimulating the market to engage in technological research, but basic research can take decades to pay off. Further, some basic research will end up enriching our culture but not providing direct economic benefit (e.g. the Hubble Space Telescope).  So we cannot rely on the market alone.

Climate Change

Obama: "I will implement a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050."

McCain: "I will institute a new cap-and-trade system that over time will change the dynamic of our energy economy.  By the year 2012, we will seek a return to 2005 levels of emissions, by 2020, a return to 1990 levels, and so on until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050."

It is encouraging to see both candidates state that climate change is real and to set specific goals.  McCain seems more likely, IMHO, to expand fossil fuel use in the short term (e.g. his position on offshore drilling) which is unlikely to move the market in the right direction.  But this is one area where he does seem to differ markedly from the Bush administration.  I do worry, however, about Gov. Palin, who seems to be skeptical that global warming is caused by humankind.  To meet the goals that Obama or McCain have laid out will require a determined push from the White House.  If Palin were to assume the presidency, I fear that she would return to the disastrous do-nothing policy of the Bush administration.

[more to come]

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Is the Large Hadron Collider safe?

The Large Hadron Collider, usually referred to by scientists as the LHC, had its first preliminary test today.  All went well.  But what does the LHC do, and is it safe?

What is the LHC?

The LHC is a "particle collider".  It has two main parts: beams and detectors.  Two beams of protons will be channeled at near the speed of light around a tunnel 27 km in circumference, one clockwise, one counterclockwise, by a pair of rings made of 9000 superconducting magnets.  The beams will cross in several places, allowing the particles within them to collide (hence the term "collider").  The by-products of those collisions will be observed by two enormous detectors (as well as two somewhat smaller ones).  It short, it collides beams of particles and detects what happens.

What is the LHC for?

Physicists have learned a lot about the fundamental constituents of matter by bashing particles together.  The higher the energy scale of the collisions, the deeper, in a sense, one can probe.  We now understand what particles make up all the matter we can see, and what particles are responsible for forces.  For example, as I said in a previous post, we understand about electrons and their siblings (yes, I know I haven't gotten around to doing the followup posts yet), and we understand that the electromagnetic force comes from the particle of light, the photon.  In fact, we have understood how these particles and forces behave in terms of some rather beautiful symmetries.  A symmetry is an invariance, as in "looks the same in a mirror", or "runs the same if you switch all the red and black cables for one another".   A key point is that a symmetry can be broken.  For example, you don't look the same in a mirror.  Even if you part your hair down the middle, there is always some freckle to give away that it is a mirror image.

Our theory of particle physics using symmetries works great, except for understanding why most of the particles have mass.  If the symmetries of the theory were not broken,  these particles would have to be massless.  We need to understand how the symmetries are broken—we have to find the freckles.   The main freckle is called the Higgs boson (please, can we stop using the awful term "God particle"!).  It has never been seen.  We think that is how the electron gets its mass, but we don't know for sure.  And we don't understand how the Higgs boson might fit into a more complete theory.

The LHC is designed to find the Higgs boson, and we hope it will point us to a more complete theory of matter and energy.  It may also shed light on the dark matter, but that is a post for another day.

Is the LHC Safe?

Sometimes the LHC is described as "recreating the Big Bang".  This sort of language is colorful, and conveys the grand nature of the endeavor, but it also makes it sound scary, and, more to the point, is completely inaccurate.  The LHC will probe a new frontier for humans, but the kinds of collisions that will take place in it happen in and around the Earth all the time.  Cosmic ray protons hit protons in the atmosphere and create sprays of particles just like in the LHC.  If you were to wait in one location, it would be quite rare that you would see a collision at the same energies as the LHC, but across the whole atmosphere they happen all the time.  If these collisions were dangerous, they would have done their damage long ago.  

One worry that has been stated in the press is that the LHC might produce mini black holes.  Well, that is a possibility if there are extra dimensions of space that become visible just at the LHC energy scale, but that is unlikely (not quite as crazy as it sounds though).  But such mini black holes would not be like the monsters you may have seen in Sci Fi.  They would be tiny (way smaller than protons) and would decay in a fraction of a second.

Could these mini black holes be stable?  First of all, even if they were, a mini black hole would take hundreds of millions of years to grow appreciably in size in the Earth, so it could not be the doomsday machine some have feared.  But everything we know about the theory says that such mini black holes must decay very rapidly due to quantum processes.   Mini black holes are essentially  just another kind of particle that decays. 

If all of that is not enough to convince you that the LHC is safe, here is a final comfort:  we have seen pulsars.  Comforting eh?  You see, pulsars are like canaries in the coal mine.  They are spinning neutron stars.  Neutron stars are dense cinders of dying stars that just barely avoided collapsing on themselves into black holes (the large kind).  They would feel the effects of a mini black hole much much faster than the Earth would.  They too are bombarded by cosmic rays all the time.  They recreate the LHC experiments each second.  If particle collisions created mini black holes that somehow were stable, all neutron stars would quickly be triggered into collapsing.  We see pulsars, so that can't have happened.

So the LHC is not a threat.  It is just a tool to look for freckles.

An engineer leans on a magnet in the 27km-long tunnel that houses the Large Hadron Collider (BBC News; Image: Cern/Maximilien Brice)

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Texas Master's Program in Creation Research

The Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research is trying to start a master's degree in "science education".  Here is an article from the Austin American-Statesman (thanks DG): Leading scientists oppose creation institute's degree plan.  (see contact info below to take action.)

"Creationism" and "Intelligent Design" are two different words for the same thing (with a bit more window-dressing in the second term).   Creationism is not evidence-based and not, like all good science, open to falsification.  It is a story written by people in a very different time, from within one of many religions the world has seen.  If you choose to believe it as fact, that is your choice, but it is not science and has no place in a science curriculum.  I have no objection to it being discussed in a comparative religion class, though. 

There are real consequences to confusing creationism with science.  For example, to deny the theory of evolution is to deny an understanding of how drug-resistant bacteria arise.  Or avian flu.  So if your physician tells you he is a creationist, I would find another doctor.

Action item:

Here is the contact info for Raymund Paredes (see story):

 

Higher Education Coordinating Board (Texas)

Raymund Paredes, Commissioner

Dr. Joseph Stafford, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Affairs and Research

Contact: Linda Battles

Academic Affairs and Research

P.O. Box 12788

Austin, TX 78711

Phone: (512) 427-6200

Fax: (512) 427-6168

Email: linda.battles@thecb.state.tx.us or cheryl.rosipal@thecb.state.tx.us

Website: http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/

[1/24/08 8pm]

Action item:

Also, the individual mentioned by David in the first Comment, Stephen Schafersman, is part of Texas Citizens for Science.  For some reason, the Wikipedia page for TCS is up for deletion, perhaps due to creationist forces?  If you have a Wikipedia login, please indicate that you do not want the page deleted (whichever side of the debate you are on). 

[Media Credit: Photo Illustration by Jane Pojawa

Every religion incorporates a myth of how the world was created. This illustration depicts the creation myths of Hindism, Navaho, Aztec, Egyptian, Christian, Aboriginal, Jewish and Islam.]

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Lawrence Krauss on Religion

Here is an interview with Lawrence Krauss about science and religion  from Point of Inquiry.  The interview is about half an hour long, so here's the main thing I got out of it.  Krauss argues that scientists should convey what they have learned studying nature, particularly in the area of biological evolution, but that, in the end, religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are outside science's purview.   Thus he is somewhat at odds with Richard Dawkins, at least in style.

My own view is complicated, but I promise I will eventually write some posts on it.  For now, let me say that I definitely agree with Krauss' criticism of Dawkins.   I also agree wholeheartedly with Lawrence's call for greater scientific literacy, which is one of the motivations for this blog.

[I should mention that I've met Krauss several times, and he is involved with Science Debate 2008, but I don't think any of that has colored my view of this issue.  Krauss gets involved in many things.  If you're reading this Larry, I just want to know, do you sleep?  :) ] 

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Science and Engineers for America Info on Candidates

Here is info from the SEA on all the remaining candidates (thanks DF).  They have info on the candidates' views on Energy, Evolution, Global Warming, Healthcare, and Stem Cell Research (only Huckabee is against that):

• Barack Obama
  
• John Edwards
  
• Hillary Clinton
  
• Dennis Kucinich
  
• John McCain
• Mike Huckabee
  
• Mitt Romney
• Fred Thompson
  
• Rudy Giuliani
  
• Ron Paul (their info on his position on evolution is incomplete)

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Barack Obama for US President

I debated whether I should endorse a presidential candidate in this blog.  Much of the time, I hope to present information and let you form your own opinion.  I think all of the candidates for US president have their plusses and minuses, and I could understand someone sensible supporting almost any of them, for one reason or another.  I could also understand someone being opposed to any of them.  But one has to decide.   I am for Barack Obama.

I considered putting the endorsement behind the 'read more' link.  But in the end, I decided to give you my opinion.  If you want to know the reasons for my endorsement (including Barack's position on research), please read on.

Given his background and his rhetoric, I believe Barack Obama has the best chance to heal the wounds caused over the last seven years.  He has an amazingly heterogeneous background, and he brings a thoughtful, hopeful, peaceful message.   He has progressive positions on healthcare, workers' rights, and the environment (though so do many of the other Democrats), and seems able to achieve advances through pragmatic compromise.  He also supports increasing the research and education budgets -- what the US needs in this information society.  

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”

— Barack Obama Presidential Announcement Speech in Springfield, IL 02/10/07

I also think Barack has a good shot at winning in the general election.  (I think it is crucial that the next US President be a Democrat, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the Republican candidates have not repudiated the policies of the current administration.  A vote for them is to some extent a vote in support of the last seven years.)

 

I was worried at the beginning of the campaign that Barack was not experienced enough to run a national campaign, but the campaign has stretched on so long that he has had time to learn.  His positive pragmatic message appeals to independents.  Finally, he does very well in head-to-head match-ups with his possible Republican opponents. 

It should be noted that I am posting this the night before the Iowa Caucuses.  I hope my endorsement stays relevant, at least through super Tuesday!

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Ron Paul Rejects The Theory of Evolution

 

US  Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul says, "It's a theory, the theory of evolution, and I don't accept it".  Sigh.  I am going to delve into this subject a lot more later.  Let me make two quick points.

First, the word theory is used differently in different contexts.  When you think of "theory", you may think of the phrase, "it's just a theory", which makes a "theory" sound like a flippant thing.  But when a scientist says, "The theory of X",  or "So-and-so's theory of X",  they mean, "the theoretical framework which convincingly explains X and has withstood many attempts at falsification".  An example is "Newton's theory of gravity", which has been well tested in the regime to which it applies (for strong fields, one needs general relativity).  Darwin's Theory of Evolution is at least as well tested.

 

Second, to say, "I don't accept the theory of evolution" is equivalent to saying, "I don't accept the fundamental basis of our understanding of biology".   It would mean, for example, invoking divine intervention to explain how drug-resistant bacteria arise.

If you reject the fundamental basis for biology and therefore most of modern medicine, I think you are unfit to be a world leader.  So, I hope at least some of Ron Paul's many net supporters condemn his stance on the The Theory of Evolution.

[If you are picky about grammar, see my note about punctuation and quotation marks here.]

[I got this video here.]

[confidence level: established, my qualifications: informed]

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"One small step for man..."

The explorer was getting low on food.  He was in a desolate landscape of sand and rocks.  His lame leg tore a ragged trench as he doggedly dragged it through the sand.  How long could he last?  Would he find the treasure, or would he expire first?  Then he came upon it without warning.   Ironically, it had been uncovered by his lame foot.  There glistening in the sunlight was a streak of "white gold", evidence for an ancient hot spring on Mars.

 

 

 

The explorer is 4'11" tall, weighs 384 lbs, and rides on six wheels.  

It is the Mars Rover Spirit.  It gets its "food" from the sun.  As the Martian sand builds up on its solar panels, less sunlight get through, and it "starves".  At one point recently, a lucky gust of wind cleared its panels, but now they are dusty again and  Mission Managers are unsure whether Spirit will make it through the cold dim Martian winter.  One of Spirit's six wheels stopped turning in 2006, so they have had to drive it backwards through the sand since then.  The "lame leg" digs a trench wherever it goes.  It just happened to uncover a patch of white silica, the stuff of window glass.

 

The NASA Press Release states

 

"It could have come from either a hot-spring environment or an environment called a fumarole, in which acidic steam rises through cracks. On Earth, both of these types of settings teem with microbial life."

 

This was originally announced in May of 2007, but the conclusion has been bolstered by the finding that a rock called "Innocent Bystander" has an interior rich in silica and is probably thus a siliceous sinter.

 

While I am fascinated with these hints that ancient Mars may have been more hospitable to life, that's not what I wanted to stress in this post.  I anthropomorphized Spirit to make a point.  We respond viscerally to humans meeting challenges.  (Actually, the public was quite interested in the Mars rovers when they landed, which surprised me.  But that interest has faded.)  If there were a human whose survival on Mars was in doubt, it would be the top story on every news outlet (and rightly so).  If a human had dug up the silica, we'd be hearing all about her personal history and idiosyncrasies. 

 

Humans are also much more adept than a robot in a setting, like Mars, where autonomous actions are required.  A human could probably do the work the rovers have performed in a few days.

 

BUT, human space travel is very expensive.  It would cost many, many more times the rover program to get a human to and from Mars (perhaps as much as a few months of the Iraq war).  When the human part of the space program is expanded, other programs suffer, and there is often less science done.

 

Further, robotic vehicles are becoming more and more sophisticated.   They may be all we need to accomplish our scientific goals.

So, until we are willing to commit the resources for both an intensive robotic science program and an expensive human space flight program, I think we should concentrate on sending robots, not humans. 

 

[confidence level: likely,  my qualifications: informed]

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Science Debate 2008

Seemingly out of nowhere, a grassroots movement has erupted over the last few days calling for a debate between US presidential candidates on science-related issues.  Scientists, science writers, politicians, and bloggers have joined forces to form

which has the credo listed in the sidebar:

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we, the undersigned, call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Medicine and Health, and Science and Technology Policy.

What a great idea!  Ordinarily, it might be difficult to convince the public that science should be debated by politicians.  It could have been argued that scientific issues are too arcane, something for advisors or technocrats to address, not folksy leaders.

 

But today so many issues are tied to science that one can argue effectively that it is crucial for our leaders have good science sense.

• It's crucial for security issues, because so many security concerns are tied to our dependency on foreign oil.  Our leaders need to know what the pros and cons of each energy alternative are.  
• It's crucial for environmental issues, especially global warming.  Leaders need to understand the magnitude of the threat, the wide spectrum of potential consequences, and the set of things we can do to mitigate the problems.
• It's crucial for economic issues, because science and technology are such an important part of the US and the world economy.  We need to be prepared for the future (see for example the report Rising above the gathering storm).

Also, it is important that we know where our leaders stand on issues of science and morality, religion, and priorities.

• Would they allow stem cell research with frozen embryos? [It is not clear that this is a moot point yet.]
• Do they believe in evolution?  Can they articulate what evolution is?  Should religious ideas be taught in science classes?
• Which is more important, putting humans in space (which includes building things to allow them to survive, like space stations), or putting scientific instruments in space (e.g., space telescopes and robotic landers)?

A debate among presidential candidates, if it did nothing else, would get the candidates to think about these important issues.

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