www.RogerWendell.com
Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic EvolutionSM
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Albert Einstein Science Stuff
(See also my pages on Biology, Cosmology, Evolution, and Paleontology...)

Atom

 

 

Hisenberg May Have Slept Here

 

Capon

Brian Capon The Scientific Method
 
"The second stage of the scientific methos is the formulation of a hypothesis, a provisional conjecture based solely on preliminary observations of how the phenomenon takes place. The hypothesis is then tested by a series of carefully planned experiments."
 
"Finally, when sufficient and convincing evidence has been collected for presentation to the scientific community, conclusions are drawn that may or may not support the original hypothesis. Regardless of the outcome, the gathered information is of use to other scientists only if it is reported factually and without bias on the part of the investigator. Nowhere in all human knowledge must truth be accounted for more rigorously than in the world of science."
 
- Brian Capon in his book, Botany For Gardeners (An Introduction to the Science of Plants) Fourth Edition, pp. 145-146

 

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Krauss

Laruence Kruass Dr. Shane Huntington: "Laurence, you mentioned before there are a variety of projects in areas where Congress and others in the U.S. and I guess around the world, have concerns about funding this type of work. What is the justification for funding this sort of work, especially the stuff that's down at the very theoretical end?"

Theoretical physicist Professor Lawrence M. Krauss: "You know, as far as I know, people don't ask the question, 'You know, what's the value of a Mozart symphony or a Picasso painting?' Science is a cultural activity, and it's produced some of the most amazing ideas that Humans have ever thought about. And, the cultural value of science, of understanding where we are and where we'come from, is the same as art, music and literature. Great art, music, and literature forces us to reassess our place in the cosmos. That's what science does at its best. And if we are so impoverished that we have to stop asking questions about where we came from and where we're going, it's indeed a sad time. These are the most interesting questions that humans have ever asked. And, by comparison to the money we spend on many other things, that isin my opinion much more useless, the investment is very small. And, so, if we are at the point where we have to say, look, we can't stop asking these esoteric questions, that change our picture of ourselves, then it's a sad time for humanity."

University of Melbourne Up Close
Episode 159, 2011 (transcribed by me)

 

Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for the Super Kamiokande Realtime Monitor!

 

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Richard Feynman "...I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

- Physicist Richard Feynman
The Character of Physical Law 1965

 

Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for my page about Biology!
Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for my page about Paleontology!
Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for my page about Plants!
Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for my page on Life...
Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for my page on Evolution...

 

There is No Consensus in Science

Michael Crichton "I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."

- Michael Crichton at a 2003 lecture he gave at the California Institute of Technology

 

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Sagan

Carl Sagan The Sagan standard is a neologism abbreviating the aphorism that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE). It is named after Carl Sagan who used the exact phrase on his television program Cosmos. The standard illustrates a core principle of the scientific method and skepticism and can be used to assess the validity of a claim.

 

"In an era when new technologies are constantly emerging, scientific literacy should be fundamental. On the other hand, it isn't necessary that you have four extra years of college sciences to understand them. You don't need to have a detailed knowledge of exactly how the physics works to appreciate the revolutions in quantum computing or cosmology. It is important, rather, to understand why these developments are significant, and how they are poised to change technology and our lives."
 
- Dave Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist
in their book, A User's Guide to the Universe, p. 3

 

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Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg "Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think."
 
- Werner Heisenberg in his book, Across the Frontiers

 

"Werner Heisenberg enunciated the 'Uncertainty Principle.' You can never perform the same experiment twice. Heraclitus,
living in the old acoustic world before Greek literacy, said, 'You can't step in the same river twice.' And today in
the electric world we say, 'you can't step in the same river,' period."

- Wilson Bryan Key
Subliminal Seduction, p. XIV

 

Bondi

Herman Bondi "First we are all struck with awe and wonder when we contemplate the universe around us, whether we think of the depths of space in astronomy, or of the incredible complexity of even the simplest forms of life, or of the structure of mountains, or of ecology, or of the intricate web of human relationships. Anyone not so impressed must be very insensitive."

- Physicist Sir Hermann Bondi
at the Spanish humanist congress in Madrid, April, 1995

 

"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful
vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls."

- Professor Matt Cartmill, Duke University

 

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Electromagnetic Spectrum

 

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In the early 2000s, Roger studied at LSU's CAMD facility and then at a test reactor in Maryland.

Click on this page's "Thumbnail" images for a larger view!

Please Do Not Feed the LSU CMD Scientists!
Do Not Feed the Scientists!
CAMD Synchrotron Facility,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Roger visiting Roger at CAMD - Louisiana State University's Synchrotron Facility, 2000
Roger visiting Roger at CAMD
October, 2000
 
RAW's nuclear foot at NIST
RVW's Nuclear foot at NIST
Summer 2001

KamLAND:
(Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector)

In May, 2004, RVW took us on this fantastic tour of KamLAND, a Neutrino detector he'd been working on a kilometer or two inside a Japanese zinc mine. We took a jeep ride into the bowels of the mine and then hopped out to get a close-up view the detector and the experiment KamLAND is engaged in. (Super-Kamiokande was the first experiment to show that neutrinos have a non-zero mass. However, even today we don't know exactly what the mass is, just that its much smaller than than of other particles. KamLAND confirmed that an important theory of neutrino oscillations and thereby confirmed that we have a good understanding of nuclear processes happening in the sun.) Click Here for KamLAND's homepage...

Cherenkov Radiation Demonstration by RAW - Japan, May 2004
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KamLAND Visitors Must Be Properly Dressed! - Japan, May 2004
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KamLAND Ladder - Japan, May 2004
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KamLAND Pipes - Japan, May 2004
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Your Humble Webmaster Leans on Some Stainless Steel Stuff at KamLAND - Japan, May 2004
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Detector Viewed From the Side - Japan, May 2004
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Back of a Detector - Japan, May 2004
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Control Panel at KamLAND - Japan, May 2004
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KamLAND Digital Display - Japan, May 2004
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KamLAND Data Labratory - Japan, May 2004
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Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for more on our visit to Japan...

Arrow Pointing Right Click Here for Roger A. Wendell's Neutrino Animation!
(Click Here for other RAW plots...)

 

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The Three Families of Fundamental Particles:

Family 1
ParticleSpacer Mass - in multiples
of the proton mass
Electric charge Weak charge Strong charge*
Electron .00054 -1 -1/2 0
Electron-Neutrino <.00000001 0 1/2 0
Up Quark .0047 2/3 1/2 red, green, blue
Down Quark .0074 -1/3 -1/2 red, green, blue

Family 2

ParticleSpacer Mass - in multiples
of the proton mass
Electric charge Weak charge Strong charge*
Muon .11 -1 -1/2 0
Muon-Neutrino <.0003 0 1/2 0
Charm Quark 1.6 2/3 1/2 red, green, blue
Strange Quark .16 -1/3 -1/2 red, green, blue

Family 3

ParticleSpacer Mass - in multiples
of the proton mass
Electric charge Weak charge Strong charge*
Tau 1.9 -1 -1/2 0
Tau-Neutrino <.033 0 1/2 0
Top Quark 189 2/3 1/2 red, green, blue
Bottom Quark 5.2 -1/3 -1/2 red, green, blue
*Each type of quark can carry three possible strong-force charges that are labeled as colors that represent charge values.

The Four Forces of Nature:
Force Force particle Mass**
Strong Gluon 0
Electromagnetic Photon 0
Weak Weak gauge bosons 86 and/or 97
Gravity Graviton 0
**Mass in multiples of the proton mass

 

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"I have become a lonely old chap who is mainly known because he doesn't wear socks and who is exhibited as a curiosity on special occasions."

- Albert Einstein
in a 1942 letter to a friend

 

Pi Miscellaneous Definitions:

 

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Papers, Theses, Dissertations, and other Text:

 

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A warm cup of quarks and leptons courtesy Peter Higgs and CERN.
(first posted on my FaceBook page April 16, 2020)

Lagrangian Equation Cup "The Standard Model of particle physics is one of the most successful theories in physics and describes the fundamental interactions between elementary particles. It is encoded in a compact description, the so-called 'Lagrangian,' which even fits on t-shirts and coffee mugs.
 
"The Standard Model of particle physics is the most important achievement of high energy physics to date. This highly elegant theory sorts elementary particles according to their respective charges and describes how they interact through fundamental interactions. In this context, a charge is a property of an elementary particle that defines the fundamental interaction by which it is influenced. We then say that the corresponding interaction particle 'couples' to a certain charge. For example, gluons, the interaction particles of the strong interaction, couple to colour-charged particles. Of the four fundamental interactions in nature, all except gravity are described by the Standard Model of particle physics: particles with an electric charge are influenced by the electromagnetic interaction (quantum electrodynamics, or QED for short), particles with a weak charge are influenced by the weak interaction (quantum flavour dynamics or QFD), and those with a colour charge are influenced by the strong interaction (quantum chromodynamics or QCD). Contrary to the fundamental interactions, the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) field acts in a special way. Because it is a scalar field, it induces spontaneous symmetry-breaking, which in turn gives mass to all particles with which it interacts (this is commonly called the Higgs mechanism). In addition, the Higgs particle (H) couples to any other particle which has mass (including itself).
 
"Interactions are mediated by their respective interaction particles: photons (γ) for the electromagnetic interaction, the weak bosons (W-, W+ , and Z0) for the weak interaction, and gluons (g) for the strong interaction. Furthermore, an elementary particle can be influenced by more than one fundamental interaction, in which case it has several charges. For example, due to its electric and weak charges, a muon is influenced both by the electromagnetic interaction and the weak interaction."
 
"The development of the Standard Model of particle physics started in the early 1970s and has so far withstood every experimental test. The latest success was the verification of the Brout-Englert- Higgs field by ATLAS and CMS at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in 2012. Both experiments successfully detected the quantised excitation of the BEH field-the so-called Higgs boson. This confirmed the Higgs mechanism, which associates elementary particles with their respective mass."
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license;
Julia Woithe et al 2017 Phys. Educ. 52 034001
Let's have a coffee with the Standard Model of particle physics!

 

Neutrinos, Mass, and the Higgs Field

I've asked how a Neutrino achieves mass. In April 2023, I cobbled together this answer from a couple of sources:
 
The "slowing down" is exactly the analogy often used to describe how particles acquire mass from the Higgs field. The more a particle interacts the heavier (and slower) it becomes. If it were not for those interactions all particles would travel at the speed of light. Neutrinos don't interact much, so they are very light and travel close to the speed limit. Photons don't interact at all.
 
Essentially all fundamental particles are thought to be just excitations in their respective fields - a bit like waves in the ocean. Interestingly scientists don't know if this is the mechanism neutrinos get mass. It's a possibility, but there are others. However, all the other elementary particles get their mass from interactions with the Higgs Field.
- Roger J. Wendell

 

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Links, Pix, Games and Graphs:

  1. arXiv.org - Cornell University Library
  2. Academic Earth - Free video courses from leading universities
  3. A-cubed - Aurora Astronomical Association
  4. APS - American Physical Society
  5. Biology
  6. Britney Spears - Semiconductor Physics
  7. 1728 All kinds of online calculators!
  8. Computer Stuff
  9. Cosmology
  10. DAS - Denver Astronomical Society
  11. Earth Impact Effects Program
  12. Electromagnetic Spectrum (expanded view) (71k)
  13. Energy
  14. Engineers Without Borders (Ingénieurs sans frontières)
  15. Evolution
  16. Few-Body Group
  17. Feynman Lectures o Physics
  18. Free Math Help
  19. Gravity Probe B - testing Einstein's Universe...
  20. Institute of Physics - Promoting physics... Support physicists...
  21. IOP Science - Institute of Physics publishing
  22. KamLAND Neutrino Detector
  23. Metric Conversions - Science Made Simple, Inc.
  1. Murayama, Hitoshi - Unveiling the Universe
  2. NIST's reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty...
  3. Nuclear Power
  4. Neutrinos - Three Flavor Oscillation Analysis of Atmospheric Neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande by Roger A. Wendell
  5. Oreodont (radius and ulna)
  6. Phi - The Golden Ratio
  7. Pi - The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter
  8. Prime Numbers
  9. Random.org - true random numbers
  10. Retraction Watch
  11. Scientific American
  12. Science Friday
  13. Science Hub
  14. Solar and Appropriate Technology
  15. Space Weather
  16. String Theory basics
  17. Super Kamiokande Realtime Monitor
  18. There is no God
  19. Time and WWV's Cesium Fountain Clock
  20. Travel
  21. UCS - Union of Concerned Scientists
  22. Wind Energy and Appropriate Technology
  23. WIPS - Western Interior Paleontological Society

 

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