Wednesday September 03, 2008
Bennett L. Rouse
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- General
Wednesday September 03, 2008
On a lighter note
I spent the majority of last week recovering from a fever
that had been bogging me down since the first day of school. There was little
that could make me smile under the surplus of make-up work that had conglomerated
over the span of a week. However, surprisingly enough, I found a little bit of
humor in something as stoic as my Physics textbook. The text is not even
remotely humorous at first glance, but upon further investigation, it?s freaking
hilarious (just bear with the "theme" of the text, don't even bother
to worry about the concepts at hand):
"The meter is the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a
time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second... The second is the duration of
9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between
the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom... The
standard of mass is now the least satisfactory. Unlike the operational
definitions of length and time, which are based on procedures that can be
repeated by scientists anywhere, the unit of mass is defined in terms of a
particular object... The prototype kilogram is made of a special
platinum-iridium alloy that is very hard, not subject to corrosion and very
dense. Nevertheless, it could conceivably change, and in any event comparison
with such a standard is less convenient than an operational definition that can
be checked in a laboratory. So scientists are working on techniques based on
counting the number of silicon atoms in a given volume, to scale up from the
mass of a single atom to a new definition of the kilogram."-Essential
University Physics, Richard Wolfson
There are a plethora of items that scientists measure every day, especially using
the kilogram unit. However, if we have gone this far in time without
scientifically proving that the kilogram does indeed weigh a kilogram, I think
we'll live. In fact, I think we were set once we discovered that "the
meter is the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time
interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second." I am not an expert by any means
concerning this research, but I am pretty sure that this number has quite
enough digits to pass around for consumers to ensure that their meter sticks
are indeed a meter long.
On a lighter note, couldn't this same type of technology be used to figure out
how to project food into the mouths of starving children in third world countries
around the globe from across the ocean? That's just a suggestion, but it's
probably nowhere near as important as symbolizing the equivalent of the
kilogram (which we defined a solid three centuries ago) in the laboratory to
show off just how savvy technology is today.
Posted at 03:34PM Sep 03, 2008 by Bennett L. Rouse in General | Comments[2]
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Your thoughts at the end of this blog made me think of an interesting question: Should we be more concerned with advancing mankind to new levels, or should our priority be too bring mankind to equality? I'm not convinced that there is an answer as they both are continual efforts and can never be truly "achieved".
Posted by Dayne on September 07, 2008 at 10:23 PM EDT #
I forwarded this blog post to my physics professor Dr. Mowat, and we came to a mutual agreement concerning the necessity of performing such tests. Tests performed on such a microscopic level could mean nothing at first, but could mean something greater down the road. Nanotechnology could result from the "silicon method." I never doubted this concept- just think about what the abstract concept e=mc^2 has done for this century. Though my arguing point in this article comes from shear ignorance and stands far less superior to his point presented, the song remains the same in that we have the technology NOW to "project food into the mouths of starving children."
Ideas concerning projectiles and starving children are derived from Bill Hicks, a cynical, philosophical comedian that died in the 90s. Nonetheless, if you can get past the fact that he is a vulgar person, he offers a very unique perspective on life and technology as we know it today and how it should be otherwise utilized by "love instead of hatred." (from his work Relentless).
Posted by Bennett Luke Rouse on September 24, 2008 at 09:45 AM EDT #