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arXiv2019

Synergy between Art and Science: Collaboration at the South Pole

We present the result of a cross-disciplinary collaboration between Prof. Donald Fortescue of the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and the Dr. Gwenhael de Wasseige of the IceCube Collaboration. The work presented was initiated during Fortescue's US National Science Foundation funded Antarctic Artists and Writers Fellowship at the South Pole in the austral summer of 2016/17. One outcome of this collaboration is the video work Axis Mundi - a timelapse movie captured during 24 hours at the South Pole, combined with a simultaneous sampling of IceCube data transduced into sound. Axis Mundi captures the rotation of the Earth in space, the transient motions of the atmosphere, and the passage of subatomic particles through the polar ice, to provide a means for us to physically engage with these phenomena. We detail how both the timelapse and the transduction of atmospheric muon data have been realized and discuss the benefits of such a collaboration.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Capturing Cosmic Ray Research and Researchers with Art

We describe our experiment with an alternate approach to presenting cosmic ray research. The goal was to more widely promote cosmic ray research and attract diverse audiences, especially those from groups that are underrepresented in science or that do not have experience attending science outreach events. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory education and outreach team brought together local teenagers, internationally accomplished artists, science communicators, and scientists to produce an interactive gallery exhibit, Messages, that explores the cosmic ray community and science. The artists collaborated with the scientists and students to create two original installations that will be displayed at the UW-Madison Memorial Union Gallery for six weeks, from mid-June, 2019, through the end of the International Cosmic Ray Conference 2019. Event Horizon by Abdu'Allah with Ladoni features portraits of cosmic ray researchers and high school students who are learning more about the field. This installation will examine the science community as it is and as it could be. Messages from the Horizon by Hosale with Madsen is inspired by previous immersive works. It combines sound and light to explore what we know and how we know it.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2020

A Mathematical Model for Meat Cooking

We present an accurate two-dimensional mathematical model for steak cooking based on Flory-Rehner theory. The model treats meat as a poroelastic medium saturated with fluid. Heat from cooking induces protein matrix deformation and moisture loss, leading to shrinkage. Numerical simulations indicate good agreement with multiple sources of experimental data. Moreover, this work presents a new and computationally non-expensive method to account for shrinkage.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

General Relativity, Mental Causation, and Energy Conservation

The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-19th century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether's theorem and its converse. The relevance of General Relativity (GR) has rarely been considered. But a few authors have proposed that the non-localizability of gravitational energy and consequent lack of physically meaningful local conservation laws answers the conservation objection to mental causation: conservation already fails in GR, so there is nothing for minds to violate. This paper is motivated by two ideas. First, one might take seriously the fact that GR formally has an infinity of rigid symmetries of the action and hence, by Noether's first theorem, an infinity of conserved energies-momenta (thus answering Schrödinger's 1918 false-negative objection). Second, Sean Carroll has asked (rhetorically) how one should modify the Dirac-Maxwell-Einstein equations to describe mental causation. This paper uses the generalized Bianchi identities to show that General Relativity tends to exclude, not facilitate, such Cartesian mental causation. In the simplest case, Cartesian mental influence must be spatio-temporally constant, and hence 0. The difficulty may diminish for more complicated models. Its persuasiveness is also affected by larger world-view considerations. The new general relativistic objection provides some support for realism about gravitational energy-momentum in GR (taking pseudotensor laws seriously). Such realism also answers an objection to theories of causation involving conserved quantities, because energies-momenta would be conserved even in GR.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2019

The Sounds of Music : Science of Musical Scales II -- Western Classical

A set of basic notes, or `scale', forms the basis of music. Scales are specific to specific genre of music. In this second article of the series we explore the development of various scales associated with western classical music, arguably the most influential genre of music of the present time.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Anomalous Variability of Dyson Megastructures

In the framework of the approach of Dyson megastructures, by assuming that a super-advanced civilization exists and is capable of constructing a ring-like megastructure around their host star, we have considered the observational signatures of cold (300 K) and hot (4000) K astro-engineering to answer the question: are the modern facilities capable to detect theoretically predicted fingerprints? By implying the spectral resolving power and the radial velocity methods it has been shown that the oscillation of the rings might be detected as anomalous variability of the megastructures.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Doomsday: Two Flaws

Here I argue that the much-discussed Doomsday Argument (DA) has two flaws. Its mathematical flaw stems from applying frequentist probability or faulty Bayesian inference. Its conceptual flaw is assuming that Copernican uniformity applies to a collection of ranked people and their ideas. I conclude that the DA has no predictive power whatsoever.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Spatial resolution, noise and information in the computational-imaging era

Imaging is an important means by which information is gathered regarding the physical world. Spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio are underpinning concepts. There is a paucity of rigorous definitions for these quantities, which are general enough to be useful in a broad range of imaging problems, while being also sufficiently specific to enable precise quantitative evaluation of the relevant properties of imaging systems. This is particularly true for many modern forms of imaging that include digital processing of the acquired imaging data as an integral step leading to final images presented to an end-user. Here, both the well-known historical definitions of spatial resolution and some more recent approaches suitable for many forms of modern computational imaging are discussed. An intrinsic duality of spatial resolution and signal-to-noise exists in almost all types of imaging, with the related uncertainty relationship determining a trade-off between the two quantities. Examples are presented with applications to super-resolution imaging, inline holography and ghost imaging.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2019

How Dualists Should (Not) Respond to the Objection from Energy Conservation

The principle of energy conservation is widely taken to be a serious difficulty for interactionist dualism (whether property or substance). Interactionists often have therefore tried to make it satisfy energy conservation. This paper examines several such attempts, especially including E. J. Lowe's varying constants proposal, showing how they all miss their goal due to lack of engagement with the physico-mathematical roots of energy conservation physics: the first Noether theorem (that symmetries imply conservation laws), its converse (that conservation laws imply symmetries), and the locality of continuum/field physics. Thus the "conditionality response", which sees conservation as (bi)conditional upon symmetries and simply accepts energy non-conservation as an aspect of interactionist dualism, is seen to be, perhaps surprisingly, the one most in accord with contemporary physics (apart from quantum mechanics) by not conflicting with mathematical theorems basic to physics. A decent objection to interactionism should be a posteriori, based on empirically studying the brain.

physics.hist-ph↗
arXiv2021

Content Sequencing and its Impact on Student Learning in Electromagnetism: Theory and Experiment

We investigate the impact of content sequencing on student learning outcomes in a first-year university electromagnetism course. Using a custom-built online system, the McGill Learning Platform (McLEAP), we test student problem-solving performance as a function of the sequence in which the students are presented aspects of new material. New material was divided into the three categories of conceptual, theoretical and example-based content. Here, we present findings from a two-year study with over 1000 students participating. We find that content sequencing has a significant impact on learning outcomes in our study: students presented with conceptual content first perform significantly better on our assessment than those presented with theoretical content. To explain these results, we propose the Content Cube as an extension to the the mental model frameworks. Additionally, we find that instructors' preferences for content sequencing differ significantly from that of students. We discuss how this information can be used to improve course instruction and student learning, and motivate future work building upon our presented results to study the impact of additional factors on student performance.

physics.ed-ph↗
arXiv2019

Life on Miller's Planet: The Habitable Zone Around Supermassive Black Holes

In the science fiction film $Interstellar$, a band of intrepid astronauts sets out to explore a system of planets orbiting a supermassive black hole, searching for a world that may be conducive to hosting human life. While the film legitimately boasts a relatively high level of scientific accuracy, it is still restricted by Hollywood sensitivities and limitations. In this paper, we discuss a number of additional astrophysical effects that may be important in determining the (un)inhabitable environment of a planet orbiting close to a giant, accreting black hole. Foremost among these effects is the blueshift and beaming of incident radiation on the planet, due to the time dilation of an observer orbiting very close to the black hole. This results in high-energy flux incoming from surrounding stars and background radiation, with significant implications for habitability.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Health Wars and Beyond: The Rapidly Expanding and Efficient Network Insurgency Interlinking Local and Global Online Crowds of Distrust

We present preliminary results on the online war surrounding distrust of expertise in medical science -- specifically, the issue of vaccinations. While distrust and misinformation in politics can damage democratic elections, in the medical context it may also endanger lives through missed vaccinations and DIY cancer cures. We find that this online health war has evolved into a highly efficient network insurgency with direct inter-crowd links across countries, continents and cultures. The online anti-vax crowds (referred to as Red) now appear better positioned to groom new recruits (Green) than those supporting established expertise (Blue). We also present preliminary results from a mathematically-grounded, crowd-based analysis of the war's evolution, which offers an explanation for how Red seems to be turning the tide on Blue.

physics.soc-ph↗
arXiv2019

A Quantitative Physical Model of the Snow Crystal Morphology Diagram

I describe a semi-empirical molecular model of the surface attachment kinetics governing ice crystal growth from water vapor as a function of temperature, supersaturation, and crystal mesostructure. An important new hypothesis in this model is surface-energy-driven molecular diffusion enabled by a leaky Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. The proposed surface-diffusion behavior is sensitive to facet width and surface premelting, yielding structure-dependent attachment kinetics with a complex temperature dependence. By incorporating several reasonable assumptions regarding the surface premelting behavior on basal and prism facets, this model can explain the overarching features of the snow crystal morphology diagram, which has been an enduring scientific puzzle for nearly 75 years.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2019

Measuring Danjon index and umbral magnitude of a partial lunar eclipse (July 16, 2019)

The partial lunar eclipse of July 16, 2019, left the lower part of the Moon illuminated at its maximum phase in Padova (Italy). Occulting it behind far buildings it was possible to compare the light of Jupiter and Saturn de-focused to the same diameter of the Moon with the light from the umbra. The luminosity of the eclipsed Moon as well as the Danjon index have been estimated and compared with ephemerides. January 21, 2019, July 27, 2019 and September 28, 2015 total lunar eclipses data are also published.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2025

Universe in a rotating black hole and preferred axis

If our universe was born as a baby universe on the other side of the event horizon of a black hole existing in a parent universe, then the corresponding white hole at rest provides the absolute frame of reference in the universe. In this frame, the cosmic microwave background radiation is isotropic on large scales. If the parent black hole is rotating, then its axis of rotation becomes a preferred axis in the universe. Accordingly, the absolute frame is non-inertial, although the non-inertial forces are small. To decrease their energies, galaxies tend to align their axes of rotation with the preferred axis, resulting in clockwise-counterclockwise asymmetry. The centrifugal force causes a large-scale bulk flow of galaxy clusters in directions perpendicular to the preferred axis. The astronomical data seem to support these motions. The angular velocity of the universe decreases as the universe expands, which is a consequence of the conservation of the angular momentum of the universe. The centrifugal force in a rotating universe, which also decreases, may be the origin of dark energy, in accordance with recent DES observations showing that dark energy becomes weaker with time.

physics.pop-ph↗
arXiv2019

Toward a Unified Understanding of Casualty Distributions in Human Conflict

We are able to unify various disparate claims and results in the literature, that stand in the way of a unified description and understanding of human conflict. First, we provide a reconciliation of the numerically different exponent values for fatality distributions across entire wars and within single wars. Second, we explain how ignoring the details of how conflict datasets are compiled, can generate falsely negative evaluations from power-law distribution fitting. Third, we explain how a generative theory of human conflict is able to provide a quantitative explanation of how most observed casualty distributions follow approximate power-laws and how and why they deviate from it. In particular, it provides a unified mechanistic interpretation of the origin of these power-law deviations in terms of dynamical processes within the conflict. Combined, our findings strengthen the notion that a unified framework can be used to understand and quantitatively describe human conflict.

physics.soc-ph↗
arXiv2019

The Future of Computing: Bits + Neurons + Qubits

The laptops, cell phones, and internet applications commonplace in our daily lives are all rooted in the idea of zeros and ones - in bits. This foundational element originated from the combination of mathematics and Claude Shannon's Theory of Information. Coupled with the 50-year legacy of Moore's Law, the bit has propelled the digitization of our world. In recent years, artificial intelligence systems, merging neuron-inspired biology with information, have achieved superhuman accuracy in a range of narrow classification tasks by learning from labelled data. Advancing from Narrow AI to Broad AI will encompass the unification of learning and reasoning through neuro-symbolic systems, resulting in a form of AI which will perform multiple tasks, operate across multiple domains, and learn from small quantities of multi-modal input data. Finally, the union of physics and information led to the emergence of Quantum Information Theory and the development of the quantum bit - the qubit - forming the basis of quantum computers. We have built the first programmable quantum computers, and although the technology is still in its early days, these systems offer the potential to solve problems which even the most powerful classical computers cannot. The future of computing will look fundamentally different than it has in the past. It will not be based on more and cheaper bits alone, but rather, it will be built upon bits + neurons + qubits. This future will enable the next generation of intelligent mission-critical systems and accelerate the rate of science-driven discovery.

physics.pop-ph↗