Contemplating sliding scales

I have an essay out in this month's Nature Chemistry —"It figures" — about how the computational tools we use shape what we teach and not necessarily in good ways.  It's framed around slide rules, an obsolete analog computer that used to be as much a marker for nerd as a plastic pocket protector.  Science and engineering students wore them like light sabers on their belts.

They've faded from popular imagination, most of my students have never heard the term, or if they have, don't really know what they look like.  The last slide rule slid out the door of Keuffel & Esser in 1975 (they sent their engraving equipment to the Smithsonian).  A few years ago ThinkGeek sold replicas. You can still find the classics, used and even unopened packages ready to sell to engineers and scientists.  The Oughtred Society has a online museum, as well.

Writing this article reminded me of the aesthetic pleasures of non-electronic geeky things. Like my stereoviewer for looking at stereopics of molecules.  It's like the difference between chopping my onions with the deliciously sharp knife I brought back for The Egg from Japan and tossing them into the food processor.  Perhaps slide rules are like rosaries, a way to mindfulness and contemplation for scientists?

It reminds me a bit of this poem by the Muslim mystic Rābiʿah al-Baṣrī, though for her it was potatoes, not onions.

Don't know how to use a slide rule?  It's fun, it's geeky. No need to buy one to play, check out this simulator and these instructions (written to respond to Crash's questions) at Nature Chemistry!

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You can read the article here:  http://rdcu.be/sY5Q

The Rules: Seven Motifs of Disgust

[Warning: This post offers no deep spiritual insights. Contains references to adolescent humor.]

The house rules have been posted on our refrigerator since 2005:

1. If you open it, close it.
2. If you use it up, throw it away.
3. Put it in the hamper.
4. Flush.
5. No Greek choruses.

Last year, when I was writing this piece on urban legends of chemistry we added an unwritten rule to the list. Conversation invoking one of the seven motifs of disgust were banned at the dinner table.

Tonight The Boy asked me if I could list the seven motifs for him. "Uh, not off hand, why?" "In Latin class today my teacher told us three topics that should never be raised in polite conversation and I told her that at my house the seven motifs of disgust were banned. When she asked what they were, I told her the only one I remembered was bestiality."

Oh, no. Now I wonder just what this teacher thinks we talk about at the dinner table.

The legendary seven 'motifs' of disgust were described in a paper by a colleague ("Individual differences in sensitivity to disgust: a scale sampling seven domains of disgust elicitors" Haidt, McCauley and Rozin, Person. Indiv. Diff. 16, 701-713 (1994)). I promised The Boy I would look them up, so here goes (with examples mostly drawn from conversations vetoed under the policy at our dinner table similar to the items on the "official" scale - these are not for the faint of heart, and after reading them you may understand why I ban the topics).

Food: Eating olives and vanilla ice cream at the same time.
Animals: You are walking barefoot and step on something that Fluffy left on the mat.
Body Products: I have teen-aged boys...do I need to say anything else?
Sex: (This is the bestiality one...and no, we don't talk about that at the table, it's just what they invoke when I bring up the Seven Motif ban.)
Envelope violations: Remember when The Boy cut his foot and....
Death: Picking up one of Fluffy's offerings...
Hygiene: Learning that someone else was using your toothbrush in the (mistaken) belief it was his.
Sympathetic Magic: Thinking that tongs that have been used to pick up a dead mouse can be used for food if well washed (a proposal actually made by a male person in my house and which I firmly squashed)

And who said that psychology research is merely an academic exercise?

I digress

francl, v. intrs., /'fran səl/ to discursively digress with minimal prompting. Usage, "Did you know that you can use purple cabbage to make an acid-base indicator?" interjected into a conversation on coleslaw.

It's cold at night in the California desert - though the daytime temperature hovered near 100^o, the nights were in the low 50s. One night last week, we were sitting around the fire at my brother the Irreverent Reverend's house, roasting marshmallows (Do you know how many different types of marshmallows Campfire makes? Hint: it's more than just mini marshmallows and regular size.) Facebook Nephew wondered if we would see any meteors from the Pleides shower (without any humidity or significant light pollution, the viewing at the Reverend's is pretty amazing).

I responded (undoubtedly chirpily, but I'm taking the fifth here), "Do you have any idea how many objects the size of a minivan enter the earth's atmosphere in a year?"

From the darkness on the far side of the fire came the Boy's deep voice, "To francl, a verb. To describe in great detail. To answer questions no one has yet asked...." His monologue included a drop-dead perfect imitation of me, soon we were all laughing so hard we had tears on our faces.

His cousins and sib wondered if they could reproduce the "frindle" effect (from the book of the same name by Andrew Clements) and coin a new word. The Boy has threatened to add it to Urban Dictionary. He has high hopes; fueled by a text from a friend not present at the fire using the new word.

Update: The Irreverent Reverend has submitted "francl" to Urban Dictionary.

Bonus point: How many times did I francl in this piece? (Not counting the example in the definition!)

Come to think of it, this is why I keep another blog - it's a place to work off my urge to francl without driving my family crazy.

Can you tell if your child is part-Vulcan?

Barnacle Boy was sprawled in (across?) a chair in the sunroom last night, watching 3rd Rock from the Sun on Netflix while I lounged on the sofa trying to catch up with my email (I'm down to only 31 messages in my "critical" box). He casually reached over and hit the pause button. "Can I ask you something, Mom?" "Sure." "I've been thinking, if you have a two-dimensional surface and two polygons on it that just touch at a vertice...the size of the overlap is zero."

He's right, of course, a point has no width, depth or length. And he's right that it's a bit mind bending. The polygons overlap at one point, but the area of the overlap is zero. Never and always, touching and touched, to quote Spock (orginal series, Amok Time, since we're talking vintage TV here). Now I'm certain this child is part Vulcan (it's from my side, my brother Geek Guru is almost certainly Vulcan).

He leaned over to hit play, then turned back to me and sighed, "I find the shape of sine curves really appealing..."

Of course, based on an earlier conversation, I shouldn't be surprised. And he is the son of a geometer, after all.

Clap on, clap off

Favorite Facebook Nephew was sprawled on the sofa this morning, his mother, No No Nannette, needed the table set. When there was no response to an audio prompt, she clapped her hands loudly, eliciting a groan and creaky movement from the body on the sofa. "Clap on, clap off" - a new device to activate your teen.

No No's comment: "If only it really worked."

Books: Form or Function?

Just as I'm getting used to the idea that December is here, the January issue of Family Circle showed up in my mailbox. (Yes, I know, it's hardly the New Yorker, but can you say "middle school magazine drive"? and the cookie recipes are great….) Between the January hiatus and now lie a myriad of projects: grading, new kitchen cabinets, one more column to write (Christmas). I should have tucked it away for a cold grey afternoon break with a cup of tea.

Alas, I'm a sucker for anything that promises to help me tame the chaos in my house. And right there on the cover, hovering over the cinnamon buns in a cast iron pan is the line: NO MORE CLUTTER.

"Shelves crammed end to end with books usually look cluttered." I'm excited, maybe they will have some advice for the aspiring-to-well-ordered academic household. We have bookshelves, plural, in the dining room. And every other room in the house (ok, except the bathrooms -- too steamy!). And they are all crammed end to end with books. Personally, I've never counted books on actual shelves (as opposed to on desks, floors and chairs) as clutter, but I'm willing to learn!

I eagerly turn the page to find this suggestion: "Group books by color or size so that they work well together visually." Somehow I suspect this person and I don't quite have the same idea about the function of books in a household. On second thought, reorganizing my shelves upstairs (Psalms has just outgrown it's original spot and had to get pushy to find a shelf to occupy) I discovered that it might not be such a bad idea. My desert fathers tomes are all appropriately desert toned, and my Rahner collection tends to shades of blue and white….maybe it could work.

What do I really need? Even more than a full time housekeeper and cook or house elf? A house librarian.

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Photo is of the books I took with me - and artfully arranged, with flowers! - in the hotel on my last trip to Southern University to talk about contemplative practices.

Oprah's take on quantum mechanics - and mine

I was checking my stats (read seriously procrastinating folding the laundry) and noticed that one of the search terms that was sending surfers my way was "Oprah's take on quantum mechanics". She has one?

I promptly popped it into Google to see what would come up. I had to know.

I found out. The Law of Attraction. Think and you can change what happens. Proven by quantum mechanics. The Quantum Cleanse. (Don't ask - you don't want to know.)

Somehow the word "quantum" manages to sound simultaneously mysterious and scientific, and so people attach it to things that they want to sound simultaneously mysterious and scientific. Like diets and the power of positive thinking, or even theology.

I named this blog "Quantum Theology" as a play on the two fields I'm trained in: quantum mechanics and theology. Recently a friend of almost forty years wondered just exactly what was quantum mechanics - just what do I do for a living. Repair broken quantums?

To a physicist or physical chemist, a quantum is a fixed portion of energy. (The word was coined by Max Planck in 1900.) Quantum mechanics considers the interaction of energy and matter on the atomic level. What happens when light hits an atom? Why is it that only certain amounts of energy can be absorbed? How is it that matter can behave as a particle, and as a wave?

When I say something is quantized, I don't mean it's mysterious, I mean that only certain values are allowed, and nothing in between. A good everyday example is your shoe size. You are a 5 or a 5 1/2, but never a 5 1/6. Off the rack shoes (are there any other kind these days?) are quantized.

Evidence that matter could behave like a wave suggested to Erwin Schrodinger that he could write an equation to find a mathematical description of this behavior. (There's a steamy Oprah show for you - about Schrodinger, his mistress, the twins he was tutoring in physics, the pearls he put in his ears - and the development of wave mechanics!)

So what is it I actually do? I use quantum mechanics — specifically solving Schrodinger's handy little equation — to predict the structures of molecules and their energy, then use that information to think about what molecules might exist, or how hard it would be for them to react and what products are likely to form. Right now I'm exploring molecules that are uncomfortably twisted - and topologically "interesting" (Moebius strip molecules).

Want a bit of quantum theology? One of my Jesuit friends asked me a few years ago how I could manage to reconcile the idea that an electron could behave like light and like matter. "The same way I can believe that Christ is both God and man." It's rare you can render a Jesuit speechless.

A Night in the Museum or A Variant on the 30-days

When I was in elementary school we lived in a small town outside of Chicago. The local rec department had a terrific summer program, drop-in arts & crafts, boating lessons and field trips galore. My favorite trips (besides the outings to Cubs' games) were to the Museum of Science and Industry - what I called the "push-button" museum for all the interactive exhibits. I could go again and again...and did. We were on our own in the museum, something that is probably unthinkable in these hypervigilant days, trusted to return on time to our yellow school bus for the long trip back home.

When I read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler I didn't dream of running away to the Met in New York, I dreamed of hiding out in the Museum of Science and Industry. I would have slept in the U-boat.

My brother Geek Guru (who I think I could have counted on to be my co-conspirator in such an adventure) sent me an announcement for a competition to spend a month living in my all time favorite museum. The ground rules, oddly enough, are much like the 30-days: limited communications (no cell phone, but blogging encouraged), sleeping in small and odd spaces. Though instead of days of silent meditation hidden away, you essentially become an interactive exhibit.

Alas, I'm not on sabbatical, and am so committed for the fall that there is no way I could go, even if I could survive the competition. But a girl can dream, can't she?

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Photo of The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL. Photographed 9 April 2006. © Jeremy Atherton, 2006. Used under CC license.

A version of this is cross-posted at Culture of Chemistry.

Looking out

I just finished another piece for Nature Chemistry - Urban Legends of Chemistry. In case there is any doubt that I am a geek, I quote both Carl Jung and Locutus, the Borg (the assimilated Jean Luc Picard, for those of you not up on your Trek lore).

The editor asked for a graphic to accompany each piece, and I'm still looking around and about for just the right image for this piece from Nativity Episcopal Church in Michigan. I talk about stained glass and the play of light and color (maybe it's the piece by Stratoz that hangs over my desk?), which is why this graphic appealed. Or perhaps some riff on Jung? or Locutus? It's due Thursday....anyone who wants to read a draft and offer suggestions is welcome! Send me an email...

Jesuits and Klingons

Ok, there is nothing directly about Klingons in this post except they are (fictional) aliens, but a real Jesuit, Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, SJ, was on the Colbert Report last night (about 10 minutes into the episode) talking about why the Vatican isn't worried that there might be aliens out there. He did a great job (after listening to myself "um" my way through this talk on contemplative science I'm really impressed with anyone who can talk lucidly on camera or radio), and they showed off his glorious new book, The Heavens Proclaim. I'd be partial to the book anyway, given that it's written by a friend and its title comes from the psalms (my favorite book of all time) but the photos are beautiful. A great book for geeks - even if you're not Catholic.

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Psalm 19:2 "The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft.

Photo is of star forming region in the nebula NCG 604, in the nearby sprial galaxy M33 (from Mt. Palomar observatory).

Tea Hacking

I use Cuppa to time my tea. Last night I hacked it so that instead of the nice spoon clinking sound it makes when it's done I hear this instead.

Meme

Math Man and I enjoyed a lovely, last second dinner in Philadelphia last night. We parked near Rittenhouse Square and walked in the rain until we happened on this place. I loved the logo (choosing a restaurant by the sign, like wine by the label?) - which is not the meme of the Internet but Mémé. The food was terrific (sizzling mussels in a pan with lemon and garlic and...), and I could write a forever about the people watching. The two young women at the next table, with the Bohemian young man, one saying breathlessly, "so you get a stipend? You must be set, for like six years, in graduate school!" The woman of my age with curly dark hair in the most amazing red dress, it looked comfortable and chic - that I was too chicken to ask where she found it. The Palm Beach crows in Lilly P and heels and hair that was just too, too, done. The grey haired geeky couple...oh wait, that would be us!

Column: The Speed of Light

Chris' joke - "What's new?" "c over lambda" is the physics equivalent of why did the chicken cross the road?" (though these "philosophical" versions do much to revive the chicken genre!) A rough translation from geek to (almost) English is "Do you know how to calculate the frequency of electromagnetic radiation?" "Of course, divide the speed of light by the wavelength!" The formula for the conversion is ν = c/λ. The standard symbol for frequency is the Greek letter ν, ("nu", pronounced "new"). What's ν? c/λ!

My physicist friend blogs here (and works at the Vatican Observatory which does not look like the description in the da Vinci Code!).

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard and Times on 21 May 2009.

Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” — Mk. 8:27


We had a physicist friend to dinner last week. In honor of the occasion, Chris wore his geekiest math t-shirt and practiced his newest physics joke. He greeted our guest with the straight line “What’s new?” To Chris’ utter delight, our visitor came right back with the punch line: “c over lambda!” The joke is all about light and how fast it moves — c is the speed of light.

A couple of days later I walked into Bryn Mawr to run an errand. As the cars whizzed past, I briefly regretted that I had chosen this much slower method of transportation. Everyone else seemed to move at the speed of light by comparison; surely my time could be better spent.

As I walked, it occurred to me that in one sense I was moving at the speed of light. Christ is Light from Light, True God from True God, the fundamental constant in the universe from which the rest flow, and yet He chose to move at this same deliberate pace. No timesaving, miraculous translations. He walked. This was the speed of Light.

So I walked. No longer anxious about how fast I was moving, I opened my eyes to see what Christ might see if He walked these same streets with me, and my ears to hear what questions He might have for me, as He had for those who accompanied Him 2,000 years ago.

Walking makes you aware of what you carry and what you choose to pick up and take home. Needs and wants suddenly must be balanced against their cost, at least in space and weight. How often do I think about the cost of what I want — or those for whom the cost of what they need is more than they can bear? A mistake in direction takes more effort to correct when you walk than when you drive. Walking encourages you to think before you step: am I going in the right direction?

Creation is not once removed when you walk, but under your feet and within reach. So, too, is the trash on the ground and caught in the trees and shrubs. When you slow down and look, even the small bits of trash — the gum wrappers and bits of glass — are glaringly obvious. When I slow down and look at my own life, can I see that which mars what God has created me to be? I find as I walk that I am resolved to pick up some of the litter that is caught around my soul.

Like the disciples who walked with Jesus in Caesarea Philippi, questions dogged my footsteps. But I returned home sure that while Christ intended those walks to be instructive for His disciples, as they were for me, it is not the fundamental reason He took to the roads. He walked because when you are on foot, there is no shield between you and your fellow travelers.

The older woman I have seen so many times heading into town with her walker is no longer a nameless blur as I sail by in my car, someone to whom I might give just a passing thought. Now? I know her name; I know that she is going to the library; I know how much she cherishes the freedom of these walks. Christ walked with us so that He would know our names, our stories and our destinations — and we His.

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Sovereign God, ruler of our hearts, You call us to obedience and sustain us in freedom. Keep us true to the way of Your Son, that we may leave behind all that hinders us and, with eyes fixed on Him, walk surely in the path of his kingdom. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. — Opening Prayer for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Girly Girl?

At a school event last week, the woman sitting next to me - a neighbor, though not one I know all that well - wondered if I wanted to scrapbook with her daughter. "You are such a girly-girl!" she says. Huh? I must have looked puzzled because she elaborated, "It's not that you can't do sporty, but you are so girly.."

I'm still puzzling over this one. What is a girly girl? Are there only girly girls and sporty girls? What about the geeky girls? Somehow my interest in quantum mechanics (of which the neighbor is unaware) doesn't seem all that "girly" but I don't really think that quantum is just for guys either.

I asked Barnacle Boy and Crash for their opinion. The Boy: "Anyone who discusses electromagnetic radiation on a car trip with her sons in not a girly-girl." [Note, we did have two such conversations last week!] Crash: "No way."

I may now have a more intimate and personal grasp of identity politics. Who do you think I am?

Geeky Delights

I'm on the road for a few days - and took the train north this afternoon. Alas there were delays, which left me time to eat my lunch and browse the NY Times while waiting in Philly's restored train station when I happened upon this article: Amazon to sell E-Books for Apple Devices. This is the 21st century - before I finished my yogurt I had downloaded the free Kindle app, picked a book to read and updated my iPod.

In the interest of traveling light (and of getting a lot of writing done on various projects while on the train) I'd left behind an extra book. Without adding an ounce, and for less than the cost of a paperback in the station bookshop, I now have a book for the trip. I read the first chaper while waiting in line to board.

Amazon notes that the Kindle is better if you're doing lots of ebook reading, and I agree, and I prefer book books to electronics as a rule, but it's nice to have for the road!

How to tell if you're really a chemist

You pronounce unionized as UN-ionized not union-ized.
When you hear the word mole, you don't think of an animal.
Milli is a prefix, not a girl's name.

This Sceptical Chemist blog post suggests a new test to tell if you're really a chemist. What do you see when you look at this illustration by Joon Mo Kang? If the first things you see are five bonds to carbon, and three bonds to a hydrogen, you're a chemist. If that's all you see - you are really a chemist.

A couple of chemists missed the point of the illustration so completely they wrote to the NY Times to let them know of their chemical illiteracy. Another blogger was also vexed by the nonsensical molecule.

I'll admit it -- I saw five bonds.