31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Stephen Chu's Pendulum High School Experiment

For the better part of my last semester at Garden City High, I constructed a physical pendulum and used it to make a 'precision' measurement of gravity. The years of experience building things taught me skills that were directly applicable to the construction of the pendulum. Twenty-five years later, I was to develop a refined version of this measurement using laser-cooled atoms in an atomic fountain interferometer.
Folksonomies: experiment science fair
Folksonomies: experiment science fair
  1  notes

He used the pendulum to make a precise measurement of gravity, and the process would eventually inform his Nobel Prize winning work.

28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Do Not Extrapolate Macro-Philosophy from Quantum Phenomena

Many scientists have tried to make determinism and complementarity the basis of conclusions that seem to me weak and dangerous; for instance, they have used Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to bolster up human free will, though his principle, which applies exclusively to the behavior of electrons and is the direct result of microphysical measurement techniques, has nothing to do with human freedom of choice. It is far safer and wiser that the physicist remain on the solid ground of theoreti...
Folksonomies: philosophy micro macro quantum
Folksonomies: philosophy micro macro quantum
  1  notes

People try to infer that the uncertainty principle means we have free will, but the principle only applies to the behavior of electrons.

19 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Humans Depend on Language

What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.
Folksonomies: communication language
Folksonomies: communication language
  1  notes

Quoting Niels Bohr on the complications of communication.