Posts Tagged ‘Kelvin’
“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last”*…
From the arcane through the mysterious to the perplexing, a glorious collecton of obscure– but fascinating– knowledge…
Freakpages is a community-curated directory of esoteric articles across the internet, primarily from Wikipedia. Here, we encourage you to learn about interesting topics you have never heard of…
… divided into categories (Society, History, Technology, Psychology, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Finance, Philosphy), with continuously refreshed selections from both the curators and the community.
A few examples: Egregore, Operation Northwoods, Matrioshka Brain, Zeigarnik Effect, Retrocausality, Horizontal Gene Transfer, Strange Matter Seeding, Keynesian Beauty Contest, Chinese Room…
So many more at: Freakpages
[Image above: source]
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As we explore, we might spare a thought for a man driven by an endles spirit of inquiry, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin; he died on this date in 1907. A mathematician, mathematical physicist, and engineer considered by many “the Newton of his era,” Lord Kelvin was instrumental in the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and contributed significantly to unifying physics, which was then in its infancy of development as an emerging academic discipline. He received the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892 he became the first scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in his honor.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”*…
… perhaps especially not the problem of consciousness itself. At least for now…
A 25-year science wager has come to an end. In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the mechanism by which the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023. Both scientists agreed publicly on 23 June, at the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York City, that it is still an ongoing quest — and declared Chalmers the winner.
What ultimately helped to settle the bet was a key study testing two leading hypotheses about the neural basis of consciousness, whose findings were unveiled at the conference.
“It was always a relatively good bet for me and a bold bet for Christof,” says Chalmers, who is now co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University. But he also says this isn’t the end of the story, and that an answer will come eventually: “There’s been a lot of progress in the field.”
Consciousness is everything a person experiences — what they taste, hear, feel and more. It is what gives meaning and value to our lives, Chalmers says.
Despite a vast effort — and a 25-year bet — researchers still don’t understand how our brains produce it, however. “It started off as a very big philosophical mystery,” Chalmers adds. “But over the years, it’s gradually been transmuting into, if not a ‘scientific’ mystery, at least one that we can get a partial grip on scientifically.”…
Neuroscientist Christof Koch wagered philosopher David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now. But the quest continues: “Decades-long bet on consciousness ends — and it’s philosopher 1, neuroscientist 0,” from @Nature. Eminently worth reading in full for background and state-of-play.
* Albert Einstein
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As we ponder pondering, we might spare a thought for Vannevar Bush; he died on this date in 1974. An engineer, inventor, and science administrator, he headed the World War II U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in radar and the initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He emphasized the importance of scientific research to national security and economic well-being, and was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation.
Bush also did his own work. Before the war, in 1925, at age 35, he developed the differential analyzer, the world’s first analog computer, capable of solving differential equations. It put into productive form, the mechanical concept left incomplete by Charles Babbage, 50 years earlier; and theoretical work by Lord Kelvin. The machine filled a 20×30 ft room. He seeded ideas later adopted as internet hypertext links.
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”*…
Quantum mechanics arose in the 1920s, and since then scientists have disagreed on how best to interpret it. Many interpretations, including the Copenhagen interpretation presented by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and in particular, von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, state that the consciousness of the person conducting the test affects its result. On the other hand, Karl Popper and Albert Einstein thought that an objective reality exists. Erwin Schrödinger put forward the famous thought experiment involving the fate of an unfortunate cat that aimed to describe the imperfections of quantum mechanics.
In their most recent article, Finnish civil servants Jussi Lindgren and Jukka Liukkonen, who study quantum mechanics in their free time, take a look at the uncertainty principle that was developed by Heisenberg in 1927. According to the traditional interpretation of the principle, location and momentum cannot be determined simultaneously to an arbitrary degree of precision, as the person conducting the measurement always affects the values.
However, in their study Lindgren and Liukkonen concluded that the correlation between a location and momentum, i.e., their relationship, is fixed. In other words, reality is an object that does not depend on the person measuring it. Lindgren and Liukkonen utilized stochastic dynamic optimization in their study. In their theory’s frame of reference, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is a manifestation of thermodynamic equilibrium, in which correlations of random variables do not vanish.
“The results suggest that there is no logical reason for the results to be dependent on the person conducting the measurement. According to our study, there is nothing that suggests that the consciousness of the person would disturb the results or create a certain result or reality,” says Jussi Lindgren…
The full story at: “A new interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that reality does not depend on the person measuring it.”
* Philip K. Dick
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As we admire amateur achievement, we might spare a thought for another profoundly-gifted amateur, James Prescott Joule; he died on this date in 1889. A seminal physicist and mathematician, he did “his science” in his free time; in his day job, he managed his family’s brewery.
Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work– work that was prompted by his concern as a brewer to get the most from his steam (and later electric) engines. This led to the law of conservation of energy, which in turn led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics. The SI derived unit of energy, the joule, is named for him.
Joule’s earliest published work met with substantial resistance, as it depended on very precise measurements of heat that most in his audience believed infeasible– but that Joule, drawing on his brewer’s craft, had in fact achieved.
He worked with Lord Kelvin to develop an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, which came to be called the Kelvin scale. Joule also conducted experiments on magnetostriction, via which he found the relationship between the current through a resistor and the heat dissipated, which is known as Joule’s first law.
“It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar”*…
A professor of physiotherapy, Dr. Curran Pope’s practice embraced “diseases of the mind and nervous system”, which he treated with both electro-therapy, and hydrotherapy in his own sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1909, he published Practical Hydrotherapy: A Manual for Students and Practitioners.
As the book’s contents list suggests, Pope considered hydrotherapy – treatment in which the temperature or pressure of water is used – as a viable method for curing anything from diabetes and heart disease to paranoia and alcoholism. The treatments are comprised of baths, douches, enemas, steam, and wet sheets, which are applied in various temperatures and orders depending on the ailment. Pope believed the body to heal itself and that water could aid the healing or indeed help to prevent diseases from occurring. He also believed in testing the methods on himself. He writes in the preface:
Much information and a clearer insight than mere description can give, is to note the physiological action of hydrotherapy by “putting yourself in his place.” One application of a cold jet douche to the spine gives more realistic information than pages of description. I therefore make the suggestion of “practice on yourself” first. Many experiments herein mentioned have had the author as principal party in interest.
Get wet at Public Domain Review, where one will find many more illustrations like the one above; then page through Dr. Pope’s book at the Internet Archive.
* Pablo Picasso
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As we dip our toes, we might send temperate birthday greetings to William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin; he was born on this date in 1824. A physicist, mathematician, and engineer, he has been described as the Newton of his era: At the University of Glasgow, where he taught for over half a century, he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form. He worked closely with mathematics professor Hugh Blackburn in his work, especially the development and application of trigonometry. He had a side career as an electric telegraph engineer and inventor, which propelled him into the public eye (and ensured his wealth, fame, and honor– his work on the transatlantic telegraph project earned him a knighthood from Queen Victoria). And he had extensive maritime interests, among which he was most noted for his work on the mariner’s compass, which had previously been limited in reliability.
Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in his honor. While the existence of a lower limit to temperature (absolute zero) was known prior to his work, it was Lord Kelvin who determined its correct value as approximately −273.15 degree Celsius, or −459.67 degree Fahrenheit.
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