Quantum mechanics (QM) is popularly viewed as a collection of laws of physics dealing with the atomic and sub-atomic world. QM describes the behavior, or defines limits of predictability, of energy and matter. At the visible level, the consensus among non-scientists is that Newtonian or classical physics applies, that at some point in scale, QM gives in to the laws of physics with which we have an experiential relationship. This is an oversimplification of the physical world.
Boingboing reports that researchers at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated that QM applies to objects in the visible world.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The purpose of this blog
For a while now I have wanted to start a science blog. There are a few reasons why I should not. I am not a scientist. I don't have a PhD in any scientific discipline. I can't even claim to be a brilliant autodidact. In short, there is a lot of science that I don't get, that I just can't get my head around. Yet, I am profoundly interested by what I do understand, and perversely more fascinated by what escapes my comprehension. There's a pleasure in the mystery, and much of it seems like magic to me. Who better to write this blog than science's equivalent to the swooning groupie?
I am not totally new to science. Physics was my first love, and along with philosophy, one of my initial majors in college. Of all the sciences, physics remains my most enduring romantic interest. (Even more enduring than the red headed girl I once dated in college. I wish I knew what has become of you, though. Gosh, we had some good times. What's your name?) Sadly, I dropped Physics. Philosophy I kept, and added political science and history for good measure as my trifecta of majors. Even my two minors, humanities and international studies, out me for the liberal arts weenie I ended up becoming. Nor does my professional and graduate work in law and public policy help me in securing scientific imprimatur. I do have over 60 semester hours in math and the hard sciences: calculus, physics, biology, chemistry, and astronomy. At one time I was close to that elusive physics degree. Maybe one day I will do the work to complete what could only now be a work of love.
Yet, I am not resting on my meager formal education as the salvation of this blog from the dustbins of discarded blogs. I am hoping that my soon to be legions of readers will have the collective expertise to illuminate every post, which I anticipate will come from articles that appear in the mass media. My purpose is to comment as intelligibly as possible on the meaning of each scientific event and thereby stimulate discussion; to goad those who possess the keys to the science kingdom to explain these events in layman's terms, to explain their import, their societal impact; to reveal to us their interdisciplinary effect on the rest of the scientific community; and possibly, to predict the next step in the scientific evolution.
I am not totally new to science. Physics was my first love, and along with philosophy, one of my initial majors in college. Of all the sciences, physics remains my most enduring romantic interest. (Even more enduring than the red headed girl I once dated in college. I wish I knew what has become of you, though. Gosh, we had some good times. What's your name?) Sadly, I dropped Physics. Philosophy I kept, and added political science and history for good measure as my trifecta of majors. Even my two minors, humanities and international studies, out me for the liberal arts weenie I ended up becoming. Nor does my professional and graduate work in law and public policy help me in securing scientific imprimatur. I do have over 60 semester hours in math and the hard sciences: calculus, physics, biology, chemistry, and astronomy. At one time I was close to that elusive physics degree. Maybe one day I will do the work to complete what could only now be a work of love.
Yet, I am not resting on my meager formal education as the salvation of this blog from the dustbins of discarded blogs. I am hoping that my soon to be legions of readers will have the collective expertise to illuminate every post, which I anticipate will come from articles that appear in the mass media. My purpose is to comment as intelligibly as possible on the meaning of each scientific event and thereby stimulate discussion; to goad those who possess the keys to the science kingdom to explain these events in layman's terms, to explain their import, their societal impact; to reveal to us their interdisciplinary effect on the rest of the scientific community; and possibly, to predict the next step in the scientific evolution.
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