Pi Day in Pi Month?

Not only is today Pi Day (3/14) it is also Pi Month! Time to celebrate the inner (and in my case, outer) math nerd. Plus, I love pie.

As March 14 is also Einstein's Birthday, I decided to celebrate by starting a course on Special Relativity with WorldScienceU, the new project of Brian Greene. As I don't have tons of time to devote to it (semester is zipping by, and wedding related things are coming up quick) I am doing the theoretical, not math based course, and opted out of being graded. I've taken both Relativistic and Quantum physics courses in the past, so this is a for-fun refresher!

Darwin Day.

Way back in July 2011, when I started this blog, my first post was about a common misconception regarding the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Since today is Darwin Day, I thought I would revisit the topic. (Happy 205th Birthday Charles!)

Evolution is consistently in the media, and is often presented as something that still requires debating, as "just a theory", or as some skewed version of itself. One of the biggest problems is that evolution by natural selection is viewed as being mutually exclusive with religion. Last I checked, Pope John Paul II was a man of pretty strong faith, and he declared evolution to be a fact, so clearly the two can be reconciled. (Phil Platt, the Bad Astronomer, wrote an excellent column about it here)

From here.

Another problem is the issue of language. Words that have one definition in science can have very different meanings in other areas (such as work, law, hypothesis, or that dreaded one, theory). 

One of the words that causes problems is "fitness", as in survival of the fittest.  What does it mean to be fit? Does one have to go to the gym and bench a lot of weight to become fit?

Survival of the fittest at its most basic should really be regarded as survival of those best suited to their environment. Features and behaviors that benefit a organism in one environment might be a detriment in another. 

But fitness also is determined by how successful you are, not only at surviving, but at having your offspring survive to reproductive age, which ensures the passing on of your genes. (My grade 10's are often appalled when I tell them that, from a biology standpoint, if you don't reproduce you are a 'failure'). 

There is also an indirect type of fitness which provides explanation for colony and/or pack behavior. While individuals themselves may not reproduce, they benefit from helping close relatives rear offspring, as the offspring of close relatives contain similar genes, and the survival of those genes is still ensured. 

This difference between definitions of fitness can explain all sorts of physiological adaptations and behavioral adaptations, but often times the link to fitness is not obvious, lending the impression that the trait is not advantageous and therefore would not be selected for if evolution works the way it is stated. The difference between these definitions also highlights the  need for clear communication. Darwin himself knew he was making arguments that went against the popularly held beliefs of man's supremacy over animals, and that acceptance of his ideas was easily challenged in the eyes of the general public due ignorance about the nuances of language. 

I personally think that Chuck would be rolling in his grave if he knew that the debates that raged in the early years of his theory were still being held today, over 150 years after the publication of Origin. 

My Darwin v Lamarck tee has shrunk too much to wear...

...but I did wear these awesome earrings in honor of Darwin Day!

Notes.

Last weekend (not this past one, but the one before that) I left Dom and Jess alone in my house for approximately 15 minutes. Since then, I have been finding little sticky notes all over my house (mostly kitchen).

This isn't really new... Dom and I used to leave messages all over for each other. 

What's new is that these notes are covered in science jokes and puns. (Forgive the really faded one... I just found it in the lid of my butter dish. It's a bit greasy)

Now, she's not owning up to it being her... But I recognize the writing. The question is... where did she get all year science jokes?

I adore science puns and nerdy jokes.  My students think I'm bonkers, but they're my favorite. 

Fireball.

This was me today... well, not literally, but I did this little demo three times today. It is great. The students usually give the nice sullen teenager attitude of "I've seen this soo many times", and then the explosion happens (I do it in the dark) and they get all "Holy sh*t!" because it is always louder than they expect.

And I began to make these today for a friend who is getting married soon, as they are quite nerdy. This is pre-etching, which will happen another time.

This is a Halloween display at one of my parents' neighbors. I am a bit confused about the headless skeleton on the left. I don't know if it is intentional, or if a high school student stole his skull.

Einsteinmas.

Today is Pi Day.

I have written about Pi Day before (check it out). You might not have known that today is also Albert Einstein's birthday.

A bit devastated I did not have time to make a pi(e) this year... maybe this weekend? Belated pi(e)?

Anyways, here are some pi songs to make you smile:

Pi Day (Waaaaaaay better than Rebecca Black's original)

and

Mathematical Pi (Best pi song ever.)

Vectors.

Sometimes teaching high school is challenging.


This is not to say teaching elementary or (dear god) junior high is not challenging, but high school students present a whole different challenge in the professionalism department.

Usually for me, this is in the form of mildly inappropriate jokes, the kind that you usually keep in your head, but sometimes slip out in the "did I say that out loud?" kind of way. The "that's what she said" type of joke. Often times my students will make double entendre comments, and I just have to giggle under my breath.

In physics right now, we are learning how to add vectors using vector diagrams. Simply put, a vector is an arrow that represents a quantity, where the length of the arrow shows the size, and the direction is indicated by orientation. All vectors must have an arrowhead (at the tip) to show which way they are pointing.

If you were to say, walk a certain distance east, and then walk a certain distance north, we could show that using vectors. To make sure our diagram works out properly, vectors are always drawn so that the end of the first vector is where you start to draw your second vector. This is known as the "tip-to-tail" method of vector addition.

To determine how far away from your starting point you are, if you were to walk the above path, we would draw a new vector from the original starting point to the final end point, like such.

Measuring the length and direction of the red vector would give you your final displacement. Of course, I am not the most accurate drawer, and unless you are using a scale diagram, the actual length of your vectors is not important; most of the time we solve these problems using trig and the diagram is just to help.

So I draw a pretty sloppy resulting vector on the board, and one boy puts up his hand to ask,

"Are those two tips supposed to be touching?"

Hysterical giggles all around. One kid snorts while original boy is protesting how serious the question is. Snigger.

This is the start of a new unit. Better get the giggles out of your systems, boys. There are going to be lots of tips touching over the next few weeks.

Hoo boy.

Osmosis.

With my phone unable to make blogging easier, I obviously went on a bit of a hiatus. Some ideas came to me during that time for good posts, but some were a bit time dependent, and now the moment is gone.

I did a neat demo a couple weeks ago with my science 10's about how water moves across membranes. In the past, I've used eggs, but it's really messy... you need to dissolve the shell off first (which takes 24 hours in vinegar), and then wait minimum 24 hours to see if the eggs change size in different concentrations if salt water. But the shell-less eggs are very fragile, which leads to the messy part.

This year, I used gummy bears. Already this demo is cooler. There is the possibility of eating something. Basically, if you put a gummy bear in tap water, it will swell up. And fast.

What happens is there is a high concentration of sugar inside the gummy bear, and no concentration outside. This difference in concentration is known s a concentration gradient, and typically what would happen is the sugar would diffuse out of the gummy bear (diffusion is movement of particles from an area of high concentration to low). However, gummy bears are made with gelatin, which does not really dissolve in water very well, and the gelatin traps the sugar inside. Since the sugar can't get out to equalize its concentration, water flows in.

The result? Monster gummies. Within an hour you will notice a difference. The ones in this picture were left for about 8.

Green is original size.

Bill Nye.

Holy cats. Today I got to watch Bill Nye deliver our keynote address at the conference. After, of course, I awkwardly pretended not to watch him from across the restaurant at lunch while he sat in a private dining room. (Yes, when he left we tried to talk to him, but were shunned by the underling handlers.)

Sadly, there were no pictures or autographs to be had, but he was an awesome speaker. Funny, smart, and delivered a very inspiring message. I didn't get to have a true fan-girl moment, but was pleased to bits when he slyly interjected a "Please, consider the following" into the middle of a part on the atmosphere of Venus.

I have some short video clips, which I can add later when I figure out how to get them from phone to blog.

Day 2.

Has been an awesome day so far at the Science Conference. No Bill Nye sightings yet, but I got to attend talks by George Kourounis (the storm chaser/adventurer host of Angry Planet) and Major Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. PLUS I got to meet both of them.

Not a bad start. Also, the weather is fab.

With Maj. Jeremy Hansen

With George Kourounis.

ATASC 2012.

I am in Banff right now for this years Science Council conference! Super stoked- our keynote on Saturday is Bill Nye the Science Guy!!!!! Might be the closest I will come to fan-girling in my life. (Unless I someday get to meet David Tennant.)

So far the weather is beautiful for the mountains in November. Great to catch up with old colleagues. Already got to speak to my old Chem professor and reminisce about the time we did the methanol jug demo for some Jr High kids and broke a ceiling tile. Good times.

Shark Week.

Too busy to post this in a timely fashion, but... happy belated 25th anniversary of Shark Week!

In honor of this auspicious occasion, I attended a Shark Week party hosted by Girl Gone Wild Docs, complete with costumes, ocean-related snacks, and a thematic cake by yours truly.

I think I need a smaller icing tip to do writing...

Shark Week is a week-long celebration by the Discovery Channel dedicated to airing television specials themed around sharks as a way of promoting awareness. Shark populations have decreased rapidly over the last century, due to commercial and recreational fishing, and the popularity of shark fin soup, which leads to the horrific practice of finning.

For the unaware, Gordon Ramsay talks about shark fin soup here and exposes the reality of what happens in the industry several Asian countries. Everyone should watch this documentary.

Shark populations are not managed in the same way as other ocean creatures, so it is through increased awareness that policy change occurs. May Shark Week not need another 25 years.

Hoodoos.

Hoodoos are one of the iconic images of southern Alberta, along with endless fields of canola and the steady rocking motion of a pumpjack. While small hoodoos are common in the badlands around Drumheller, larger ones are a sight to behold.

Formed where a harder type of rock sits atop the softer sedimentary rock below, the cap protects the underlying rock from wind and water erosion, producing a column. A hoodoo that has lost its cap is  vulnerable, as it will undergo accelerated rates of erosion, causing these to be some of the more fragile landmarks.

Dinosaurs.

If you have never been to the Royal Tyrrell Museum outside of Drumheller, you really should go. Situated in the badlands of southern Alberta, and devoted entirely to paleontology, it is a dinosaur lovers dream.

Black Beauty replica.

The badlands of Alberta produce a seemingly astonishing number of fossils. (I say 'seemingly' because there isn't really a greater number of fossils here compared to anywhere else... it's just the erosion of the rocks greatly increases your chances of actually finding them.)

Typical "badlands". Sometimes bones literally fall out of the hills.

Fossils are uncommon because the circumstances that lead to their formation tend to be uncommon. In order for an organism to turn into a fossil, it needs to be covered in sediments very quickly, which usually involves ending up at the bottom of a lake or in a tar pit. This needs to happen in an area where the remains will not be disturbed (you won't get much in the way of fossilized remains if scavengers carry off all the parts or they get washed away) and, depending on the type of fossil, in an environment where decay happens very slowly, or not at all.

 

Over time, this ichthyosaur soaked up oil bubbling up from the ground, and

 the oil is now seeping out of its tail. How Albertan. 

Millions of years ago, Alberta was at the bottom of an inland ocean. (It has actually been submerged several times, leading to fossils from all different time periods like the Cambrian Burgess Shale and the Triassic dinosaurs.) This ocean contributed to the large amount of sedimentary rock in the area, and, along with lots of time and several glaciers, helped turn Alberta into the fertile, fossil-filled prairie it is today.

For more info on the Royal Tyrrell Museum... click here.

Higgs Boson.

Neat things are happening in the world of particle physics! Researchers at CERN are pretty much certain they have found the elusive Higgs boson - the so-called "God particle" because it imbues all the other particles we know of with mass.

Article from National Post

Interesting article on the University of Alberta connection here. (The guy in the picture, James Pinfold? Taught me Relativistic Physics.)

This could be my favorite Higgs related headline... Thanks CNN.

Our current understanding of physics at the smallest level involves a number of particles that have different properties. However, physicists have been struggling for years to deal with one sticky point... there is no reason why any of these particles should have mass. On their own, there is no reason for the universe to really have mass. The Higgs boson was proposed in the 60's to explain why these particles become massive when they stick together, and named after British physicist Peter Higgs.

(A boson is a type of particle that includes photons and the force carriers, like gluons and gravitons. It all starts to get pretty technical. Don't believe me? Just try reading the wikipedia page on bosons and see how far you get.)

For those of you who are wondering why we care... the same could be said about Röntgen's discovery of x-ray radiation that gave us modern medical x-rays, or the understanding of quantum mechanics that allows our computers to work. It will be a while before practical applications of the knowledge of Higgs boson are realized, but it is no small thing to learn that we have that much more understanding of our universe.

Plant Movements.

I love plants. This is nothing new. But this weekend I acquired some new ones that are really neat.

In my Science 10 class, we are currently discussing plants, and how they adapt to different situations by moving. A plants response to a non-directional stimulus is known as a nastic response. Most of the time, plants move on a slow enough time scale that we do not notice they are moving at all. Over the course of a few days, a rotated plant will shift its leaves so they are facing the sun. Sunflowers will rotate their heads to allow the sun to warm the nectar in their florets. Pea plants and creepers will twine around their supports.

Some plants move at a much quicker pace, in response to a touch stimulus (known generally as nastic response or thigmonasty) or daylight hours (known as sleep movements or photonasty).

The venus flytrap is the most famous of all moving plants, using the response to touch to allow it to "eat" insects that touch sensitive hairs on its traps.

Smaller than you'd think. The traps are about the size of a fingernail.

Mimosa plants (colloquially "sensitive plants") will fold up suddenly when the leaves are touched. Another touch will cause the entire stem to droop quickly.

Before.

Mimosa plants also exhibit sleep movements, closing up and drooping at night only to perk up again in the morning. Shamrock plants also display this kind of behavior.

After I touched the left leaves.

Both of these responses are achieved by controlling the amount of water in specialized cells within the plants. When tiny hairs on the plant are touched (by wandering insects usually) an electrical signal is sent through the plant, and it will rapidly decrease the turgor (water) pressure in the specialized cells. Plants maintain their rigid bodies using water pressure, so the rapid loss of turgor pressure causes the plant to wilt in very specific locations, leading to the quick change in shape.

Time.

I had a student tell me the other day that he "still doesn't believe that time changes depending on how fast you go".

Because we live in a low-velocity, high-friction world, it is a constant challenge to get teenagers to let go of their misconceptions of how physics works.

From here.

Everyone today understands the idea that motion is relative. Galileo first outlined this principle. This is pretty much the idea that if I throw a ball up while I am traveling in a car, it will return to my hand, regardless of the speed of the car. The motion of the car and the motion of the ball are independent. In the car, I see the ball travel straight up and down. Someone on the street will see the ball travel in a curved path, since it is also moving at the same speed as the car. This, in a nutshell, is relativity.

Special relativity (proposed by Einstein in 1905) explains what would happen if the car started traveling really, really fast compared to the guy standing in the street. In 1881, two American scientists, Michelson and Morely, confirmed that light travels at a constant speed. Einstein took this fact to some interesting conclusions. Light always travels at the same speed; so if you gave a flashlight to a guy on a train and a guy standing in the station, both see the light from their flashlight travel at the same speed. Galilean logic tells you that the man on the train should see light go faster, since the speed of the train is being added to the speed of light. But no matter how fast he goes, the light beam will always travel at the same speed away from him.

To keep light at the same speed, distances must shrink and time must slow down for fast moving objects (speed is distance/time).

Lucky for this kid, he doesn't need to believe in time dilation for it to be true. I say "lucky", because if special relativity were not true, his cell phone wouldn't work, and then he'd actually have to do something other than play Plants vs Zombies on a regular occasion.

St Patrick's.

St Patrick's Day never ceases to confuse me.

St Patrick was a British man, was captured while in Wales, and brought to Ireland as a slave. After escaping, he returned home, joined the Church, went back to Ireland, became a bishop, died, became the patron saint of Ireland, and now has a Feast Day that is celebrated worldwide by mostly non-Irish people with copious amounts of green beer. Oh, and somewhere in there supposedly banished the snakes from Ireland.

One of the few specific facts I remember from my university ecology classes casts some doubt on St Paddy's holy deeds... Snakes were absent from Ireland long before good ol' Patrick got there in the 5th AD.

More likely, the most recent Ice Age was to blame. When the glaciers expanded and covered Ireland and the UK, snakes and other reptiles (and pretty much everything else) retreated to warmer places in Europe. When the glaciers retreated, most animals and plants recolonized, but the snakes never returned. Didn't make it before the sea cut off the island. Britain was re-colonized due to a land bridge, but Ireland stayed blissfully snake-free.

(This is the same reason that England has far fewer wildflower species than mainland Europe.)

Fun fact about shamrocks: the three leaves of the shamrock symbolize the Holy Trinity and was apparently used by St Patrick to teach the Irish doctrine.

National Geographic does a much better job of explaining this than I can. And probably better researched than me trying to recall what my professors told me. In all likelihood, "driving the snakes from Ireland" was an allegory, as snakes are representative of evil (and paganism) in Christian symbolism.

And this is my favorite...

Talented Friends III.

Poster seen in the Remedy Cafe on Whyte.

Life is good.

On Thursday night, I headed to Metro Cinema in the old Garneau Theatre to catch a screening of part of my dear friend Jamie's documentary. So exciting to see her vision realized on the big screen! A twelve minute segment on bison played before a screening of Avatar as part of the U of A's Educated Reel film series.

It was mind-boggling to see footage we shot together at Elk Island Park of Plains Bison, and hear us giggling like school girls over a particularly fuzzy buffalo wiggling his ears in the outtakes. Equally crazy to see my name roll across the credits.

So intensely proud of J and all she's accomplished so far. Things only look up from here!

Breaking News.

Kinda. It broke last week. I'm behind!

...Oh technology.  Thou art a heartless bitch.

And those silly neutrinos!

Remember this?

Update courtesy of  Sixty Seconds.

From Nearing Zero.

Full Moon.

So there is a full moon today. A BIG one. Nice and big and yellow hanging just above the horizon.

Why does the moon look so big when it is rising? No one ever tells you to go look at the giant moon when it is high in the sky. The key thing here is that the moon only looks big.

While the distance the moon is from the Earth varies slightly in its orbit (this is why some tides are bigger than others), on any given night the radius of the moons orbit does not change significantly. The moon is no bigger when it is high in the sky than when it is low on the horizon.

The main reason for this is perspective. When we see objects at a distance, they look small, but knowing in our minds what their true size is, the brain compensates and interprets the objects size accordingly. 

When the moon is high in the sky, we have nothing to compare it to, so its size means nothing. With no reference points, we perceive it to be closer than it is. When it is low on the horizon, however, we see it in relation to buildings and trees, and it looks absolutely huge.

Apparently, one way to un-trick your mind is to bend over, and look at the moon upside down through your legs.

I suppose you could also take a picture, but I loaned out my tripod... unfortunate since there is supposed to be some awesome auroras coming up!