Something old, something new; something not fluorescing, something digital emitting

 In the back room (aka the 'scary room'), there is an array of these very old, institutional feeling fluorescent fixtures: 

As the bulbs fail, I can't bear to replace them with more fluorescent bulbs (not to mention I don't like the fixtures in the first place).  Then, walking through Costco, I noticed some LED panels on sale.  On a whim, I bought one which then force me to do the following:

-take down the old fluorescent fixture

-wire in the new LED panel

-attach the new panel to some cross-beams of my own design (home depot excursion required)

-break off the old fixture's side panels and glue them to the new one

The problem is that, now, I dislike the old fixtures even more in contrast:  When I turn on the light switch, the new light comes on instantly and rains down lovely photons concerted from electricity just about as efficiently as possible.  Meanwhile, the old ones sputter on (or not) and wheeze down some inefficient yellow dominated photons...

As much wood as a wood chuck could chuck

Years ago, we had some trees cut down. These were 100 year old oaks that were easily over 60 feet tall.  I toyed with the idea of them leaving the wood for me to cut up into firewood for our wood stove.  The guy talked me out of it by mentioning how much wood it would be.  "About 6 or 7 cords of wood all at once!" he said.  Ever since, I've wondered if I made the right decision.  Especially around this time of year when I often order seasoned firewood ahead of the winter season.

Late last spring, a medium sized tree fell into my father-in-law's backyard:

We chain sawed it into bite sized chunks and I brought them back to my place over the course of several visits:

Over the summer, I've axed my way though the pieces and it wound up being about 1/2 a cord:

   

I guess maybe I do feel better about that decision years ago even if I don't think I'll order any additional firewood for this winter...

Newton's Third Law Tells the Whole Story

 When I was a student and I encountered Newton's Third Law, I did like most of my students do today: "Interesting, okay - but not too useful in problem solving so..."

In case you forgot, it's the one that goes "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".  Probably one of the more misleading statements in basic physics since it engenders many incorrect schemas in the reader's mind.  You can confirm this by doing a tour of the internet looking for examples of Newton's Third Law and I have found it to be commonly misrepresented ("A rocket first pushes down on the ground so it can then go upwards." Ugh, there is so much wrong with that statement, don't get me started.)

In class, I will usually draw something like this:

And then I will say "See, Newton's Third Law is really a statement about what forces are:  They arise from two objects interacting in some way." And then I mumble and fade away with "It's really a deep philosophical statement about the nature of reality."

The thing is, modern physics has really just continued to reinforce this idea that properties of objects and the nature of reality itself is all about the interactions between objects rather than the objects themselves.  Your chemistry teacher couldn't teach you how to visualize an electron because there really is nothing to visualize other than its interactions - which is exactly what you learn in chemistry!

Turns out Newton's first law assumes a certain point of view and Newton's second law assumed constant mass and that same, special point of view.  So even though they get the limelight, it's really the humble Third Law that is indicating something fundamental.

So get on out of here, you flashy first and second laws... time to give proper respect to the noble Third Law.  

Units and Art

 I love me some intersectionality.  Especially that of Art & Science !

Photographer Greg White has composed seven photos for the seven base units of the metric system (distance, mass, time, brightness, temperature, current, amount of microscopic items to scale up to macroscopic).  To make an aesthetic and informative single shot about science is an amazing accomplishment.  Hats off! (I want to order a set of seven pictures with accompanying explainers to put up in my classroom, but no one has created that yet. Hmm...)

Check out the complete collect at Mr. White's website, but here is one exemplar:

Speed of Light Determines distance

This art comes at timely point in the evolution of metrology as these seven base units (upon which all other units and therefore, measurement, are based) are no longer defined by arbitrary templates created by humans.  They are, instead, now completely determined by the fundamental constants that we find in nature (e.g. Speed of light, Planck's Constant, Avogadro's number). Seven constant of nature for seven base units of measurement:  

https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/meet-constants

(compare to 

Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Athletes 'Choking', Stereotype Threat, and Laurie Anderson

I have found modern psychology's model of our two modes of thinking profoundly informative (one automatic, reflexive and fast; the other slow, reflective, and thorough) in many ways.

Years ago, I did a presentation to the faculty on stereotype threat (simply knowing that others might pre-judging you because of race or gender can handicap your performance).

Recently, I heard part of a piece on the radio about athletes choking under pressure and it all came together for me:  these are all manifestation of the same thing!  When you should be doing something reflexively ('fast' thinking) but some extra awareness throws you into a meta state (thinking 'slow'), you get all messed up.  These two mental modes are at their best in an "OR" state rather than an "AND" state.

I was trying to put all these ideas together and I could hear Laurie Anderson singing "Baby Doll" to me from 1989 (From her awesome Strange Angels album):

"I don't know about your brain-

But mine is really bossy

...

And then I hear this voice

Comin from the back of my head

Yep! It's my brain again

And when my brain talks to me, he says:

..."

Often I love listening to my brain talk to me.  But sometimes, I wish my brain would just make up his mind!

Covering the fire is not a ceasefire but it does get you home on time

My mother is a fluent speaker in English but sometimes she lapses into French.  Multiplication and cursing  come to mind.  Interestingly, if she is switching back and forth, she will sometimes struggle to find the word in the language she means to use and will just slip the other language's word in.

On a recent visit, she got off the phone from talking with her brother in French and, while talking to me she said, "In France, Covid is on the rise again and they are thinking of re-instating a couvrefeu".  As my mind was translating this phrase into "cover fire"and thinking maybe she meant "ceasefire", I realized the French 'courvefeu' sounded like "curfew" in English.  Then the lightbulb went off and I realized all at once that that was what she meant and that was where we got the word from in English.  I tried to relate this origin of  'Curfew' to lights out policies for cities during bombing raids in WWII, but Mom said that was too contemporary.  The original French meaning was to literally cover your fire so you don't burn the house down when you go to bed.  (the more cumbersome cessez-le-feu is ceasefire in French. Even worse, proving cover fire for your allies is feu de couverture)

"Be home before it's time for us to cover the fire for the night!" - sounds like a reasonable request.

Bonus pleasure:  This two syllable evolution of a word from a phrase reminds me a lot of Mandarin phrases.  (for the record, Curfew = 宵禁 which seems to be literally "to spend time closely" when I googled the words xiāo and jìn separately.

A Tale of Home 'Improvement'

1. Move into house. Note strange, unattractive, huge fan embedded in ceiling.

2. For the following 8 years, walk under this behemoth and speculate idly how much thermal leaking was happening. Run fan twice (causing great consternation both times) in those 8 years.

3. During recent heat wave reach up and touch metal slats and gather unambiguous data that the thermal leakage is enormous.

4. Decide to remove fan and put in insulation. Look at huge, heavy fan and change plan.

5. Electrically disconnect fan (protecting yourself from forgetful future you or innocent future owner). Stuff in left over insulation from cousin Roger (Thanks, Roger!) between fan and (missing) ceiling.

6. Randomly saw left over drywall from Roger with jig saw (jigsaw saw?) borrowed from Roger as well until that drywall has been rendered into small, useless pieces. However, successfully nail in scrap pieces of 2 by 4's in random locations about the hole as attachment surfaces for drywall.

7. Run to home depot. Purchase 4' x 8' drywall for 3'x3' hole. Realize in parking lot the Sienna can not fit a 4 by 8 of anything. Tool-lessly (cluelessly?), clumsily snap 4 by 8 in half and haul two 4 x 4 sections home.

8. Measure once and cut 6 or 7 times until drywall resembles hole. Screw drywall to 2 x 4's as carefully as they were placed there earlier.

9. Watch 14 youtube videos on how to repair holes in your ceiling.  Ignore all of them and run back to home depot to buy 'mud'. (I know buying the premixed joint compound identifies me as a noob but the single tub cost less than the multi-lifespan amount of the smallest bag of the dry stuff you mix yourself!)

10. Slap mud all along the joints. Happily call in the family to bask in their praise.

11. "When are you going to finish it and paint it white?" was not the desired reaction. In response I slather a Rothko inspired layer all over the surface.

12. Suspicious that this mud dries white I mount a campaign to convince the family this is an improvement to the house.  When I get to the equations of heat transfer, they give up.

13. Victory

14. Consider relabeling disconnected fan switch "countdown to the apocalypse". Too much?  Not sure, I will take the next 8 years to figure out what to do with this switch...