Sam Stokes on Research in your life and studies : Physics homework

Climategate, Global Warming, Provenance: Why

SoCal Sam — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:24:39 GMT

Well the Global Warming discussion seems to be ignoring the lack of provenance for the investigation into the causes. Emails do not make a scientific investigation, it might make an engineering investigations, or a production investigation. Presenting the data for many eyes to view, utilization of true peer review of the science, and maintaining the data so that the many eyes in the future can repeat the experiment.

For example Aristotle, who was looking for the perfect form of thought, stated that heavy objects fall faster than lighter objects. Then for the next 1900 or so years, this statement became fact to religious organizations and engineers as well as the general population.

Galileo came along and might have stated:

“Watch this, I will drop two objects, one heavier than the other, and let’s see if the heavy one really falls faster.”

Oops, Aristotle was wrong, and so was the Catholic Church which viewed Aristotle’s writings as perfect at the time. Other observers did the same experiment and got consistent results.

Aristotle is a philosopher and Galileo is a scientist.

Galileo wasn’t looking for truth, he was simply looking at how the world works.

So in today’s world how can we look at things?

One way would be to use the Trident Workbench as a way for all of us to be able to repeat complicated experiments that use statistical data and databases that contain telemetry data from satellites.

Does this mean that people don’t agree with you will read the data in a way that seems whacky? Yep, after all Galileo was seen by some in his time as a whack job.

To prepare for these videos of the Trident Workbench, please make sure to download and install the Trident Workbench as well as SQL Express, make sure to upgrade your SQL Express installation with SP1 or it won’t work.

ClimateGate, Global Warming and Provenance: Trident Workbench

SoCal Sam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:01:00 GMT

Ok, blowhards like Rush Limbaugh keep stating that the actual science around Global Warming does not fit the “templates”. I guess that Rush means media templates, because I doubt that the Limbaugh the Great understands the first thing about research templates or workflows. Then again, most of the people who believe in Global Warming likely have not heard of scientific workflows either, and why would they? For either of the general groups, the Limbaugh followers or the Global Warming group.

If we are going to take a look at how the Trident Workbench could be a part of clearing up the confusion about the “science” of Global Warming or Climategate, then we need to take a look at some the concepts of the “science” of science. I assume that the concept of “science” of science is either that we turn science into a religion or the conversation has to be around what is the nature of science. No wait a minute, nature of science is also a pretty silly statement, what I am looking for is the “Scientific Method”.

With respect to the Scientific Method, I will start this series of blog entries in the sunny climes of Greece, on the northern frontier of the Greece civilization: Aristotle and the principle of syllogism which is the core of traditional deductive reasoning. Aristotle thinking processes and views on science is now on course to become part of the Christian religion several hundred years in the future. it will take Galileo to break down this view of Aristotle, and will confuse people till modern time about his role with respect to the church, but we will get to Galileo later in these blog entries. The bottom line though: Aristotle philosophical thinking was eventually moved from a basis of logic to a throne of religion. This trend is something that people who understand the scientific method must fight against and tools like the Trident Workbench can ensure doesn’t happen. In the first time in history, the scientific method can be used by everyone who wants to check out the way decisions are made.

Back to Aristotle: Aristotle limited himself to categorical syllogisms, which is a very disciplined approach to deductive thinking, and worked well when the fastest communications moved at the speed of a person walking. Today, we move much more quickly, have better dental health, and so forth. In today’s world it would seem as if using pure deductive thinking is silly, and slow. Perhaps, but for now let’s continue on this line of thought.

Aristotle set himself up for the conversion from the field of strict logic to a religion over the centuries that played out after his time, but in his time, his process of thinking worked against the religion of his region, which had many gods and interesting stories. In Aristotle’s “On Interpretation”, he strictly defines terms, and isn’t it odd that these words from over 2300 years ago still ring true.

And keep in mind that Aristotle said that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects, and he as well as civilization didn’t bother to check for centuries. That is science becoming a religion. Sort of.

Well, I have exhausted the bandwidth for today.

Finally, now what does all of this have to do with the Trident workbench? As we examine the history of the scientific method, I hope to make the case on the importance of the concept of the scientific workbench. Keep in mind that the blogs on the Trident Workbench is to demonstrate the motivation behind the Workbench.

adf

Using Research in your everyday life: Math Add-in for Word 2007

SoCal Sam — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:34:23 GMT

I am working on generating some conherent F# articles, a first for me. In the mean time, I will include a series of article about items on Microsoft Research.

Today, take a look at this paper that an Imagine Cup participant wrote using Word 2007, the Equation Editor and the Microsoft Math Add-in fo r Microsoft Office Word 2007

(You don’t have to purchase the Microsoft Math Graphing Calculator, although it is a good deal, $19.95 US for a graphing calculator that runs on your laptop or desktop!).

Here is the paper by Jared, I had to cut and paste images of the page because of the way the blog engine we use at Microsoft works. I am impressed by the quality of the layout and that Jared was able to use the Math Add-in tool for Microsoft Word 2007, which is part of the Scholarly Communications component of Microsoft Research. Jared gave me permission to use his paper.

That’s it!

Technorati Tags: Physics homework,Math Add-in for Word,LaTex