Physics Fun on Localish

Ray Hall is a California physics professor and a skeptic friend from way back. So yes, he is made of win.

He has also crafted arguably the best account on Instagram: physicsfun. And by "arguably" I mean that you and I might have an argument if you think there's a better Instagram account out there.

As a delightful bonus, physicsfun passed the million follower mark months ago: a reason to be hopeful for the future.

If you don't have an account on Instagram, physicsfun is a reason to get one.

Folks are taking note. ABC's Localish produced a nice segment on Ray and his Instagram.

S1E31 Crazy for Physics on Instagram 

Instagram: physicsfun

An unexpected delight: Working with the Sacramento Speakers Series

I am more likely to get things I don't deserve than I am to be denied things I do deserve. So there I was on a Tuesday night, introducing physics media star, Dr. Michio Kaku to an audience of some 2000 at the Community Center Theater, where he was the second celebrity in this year's Sacramento Speakers Series.

I was given the honor of being the introducer via my connection to Rio's Civitas program chair, Linda Reed. She works with the Series' "Share the Vision" program, which affords local high school students a special pre-show audience with the speakers. They get their own question and answer session with the luminaries. Quite brilliant, really.

Michio Kaku is well-known in the physics community as a prolific author and frequent media science expert. He's carved out a niche in prognosticating the "science of the future". He's very comfortable in front of the camera, and speaks with confidence and authority on the scientific topic of the day. This distinguishes him from most physicists, and it makes him a reliable media darling for journalists.

Kaku's presentations on how things will be in the future are captivating. I confess to not being well-versed in Kaku's expansive oeuvre. I even floated the notion of introducing Kaku to my physics- and skepticism-rich friendosphere on the off chance that Kaku advocated some weirdness that would set him outside the scientific mainstream. I didn't want to be heaping praise on anyone with a "Dr. Oz problem". No objections were raised, so heap praise I did. (The script of my introduction is in the comments.)

Everyone associated with the Sacramento Speakers Series was first-class and professional. They took very good care of me, and it was very groovy to hang out with the principal organizers, manager, Dr. Kaku, and ABC10's Cristina Mendonsa backstage in the green room. She's as personable as she is polished, and did a great job interviewing Kaku and managing the audience question cards. I made a point to personally thank Mitch Ostwald and each of the organizers who worked with me to facilitate my wee role in the evening. They are doing great work and adding to the cosmopolitan nature of Sacramento. [Photos courtesy of The Sacramento Speakers Series]

UC Davis physics faculty call for Chancellor to resign

From Cosmic Variance:

Chancellor Linda Katehi
November 22, 2011
UC Davis

Dear Chancellor Katehi:
With a heavy heart and substantial deliberation, we the undersigned faculty of the UC Davis physics department send you this letter expressing our lack of confidence in your leadership and calling for your prompt resignation in the wake of the outrageous, unnecessary, and brutal pepper spraying episode on campus Friday, Nov. 18.

The reasons for this are as follows.

• The demonstrations were nonviolent, and the student encampments posed no threat to the university community. The outcomes of sending in police in Oakland, Berkeley, New York City, Portland, and Seattle should have led you to exhaust all other options before resorting to police action.

• Authorizing force after a single day of encampments constitutes a gross violation of the UC Davis principles of community, especially the commitment to civility: “We affirm the right of freedom of expression within our community and affirm our commitment to the highest standards of civility and decency towards all.”

• Your response in the aftermath of these incidents has failed to restore trust in your leadership in the university community.

We have appreciated your leadership during these difficult times on working to maintain and enhance excellence at UC Davis. However, this incident and the inadequacy of your response to it has already irreparably damaged the image of UC Davis and caused the faculty, students, parents, and alumni of UC Davis to lose confidence in your leadership. At this point we feel that the best thing that you can do for this university is to take full responsibility and resign immediately. Our campus community deserves a fresh start.

Sincerely,
Andreas Albrecht (chair)
Marusa Bradac
Steve Carlip
Hsin-Chia Cheng
Maxwell Chertok
John Conway
Daniel Cox
James P. Crutchfield
Glen Erickson
Chris Fassnacht
Daniel Ferenc
Ching Fong
Giulia Galli
Nemanja Kaloper
Joe Kiskis
Lloyd Knox
Dick Lander
Lori Lubin
Markus Luty
Michael Mulhearn
David Pellett
Wendell Potter
Sergey Savrasov
Richard Scalettar
Robert Svoboda
John Terning
Mani Tripathi
David Webb
David Wittman
Dong Yu
Gergely Zimanyi

Power Balance settlement bankruptcy media dump

Look for stories that document the fact that the bracelets don't do what they claim to do. Actually, don't. You won't find them here. These articles simply document the legal and business aspects of the news.

The Sacramento Bee - City Beat

The Sacramento Press

Business Insider

International Business News

KCRA - NBC - Channel 3: Text - Video: ?

KXTV - ABC - Channel 10: Text - Video: ?

KOVR - CBS - Channel 13: Text and Video - Video: via Yahoo!

KTXL - Fox - Channel 40: Text and Video (Leave it to Fox to give Power Balance a pass!)
Power Balance Naming Rights to be Vacated?

KFBK - AM1530 - Text - Audio (Another generous report from a right-wing media outlet.)

KYMX - Mix96 - Text

Huffington Post

Associated Press

Yahoo's The Post Game

CSU Sacramento's The State Hornet
"I wear one because I believe they help to balance electromagnetic energy," says Dr. Kristofer Chaffin, Sacramento Kings chiropractor, of the "hologram-powered" Power Balance bracelets. Tells you everything you need to know about chiropractic.

What did I miss?

Drive to Discover: The EX-F1 and me on TV!

Not everyone believes me when I tell them I don't see much broadcast TV. I don't have cable, and telecasts that I see with my DTV converter box--connected to an amplified antenna--are something akin to water torture. Two words: un watchable.

But I digress. This post is about a report produced by Bay Area technology reporter, Richard Hart. The report shows how high-speed cameras are being used by the masses now that they're within the grasp of consumers. As fortune would have it, he interviewed me for his Drive to Discover piece.

He filed the report for ABC's KGO-7 in San Francisco over a month ago. So here's my cutting edge, up-to-the-second blog reporting, submitted for your approval.



Click that little bracketed box (lower right in the video frame) to go full-screen. Trust me, you want to see my mug in full screen. There is some debate as to whether the camera-angle-to-hair geometry is simply unflattering or downright fright-inducing.

Special thanks to my buddy, Chris Knopp. He told me a friend had seen the segment. You'd think with an ego the size of mine, I would have been on top of this thing weeks ago. But there was AP testing, finals, and the end of school. Sigh.

Giving credit where it's not due

I'm originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was a nice place to grow up... in many ways. But it was--and still is--a very Christian community. An example of what passes for multicultural education in the public schools is learning how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Lessons on how Rosh Hashanah or Ramadan are celebrated in Grand Rapids? Not so much. And there's absolutely no love for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (My public high school biology course was taught by a man who proudly proclaimed--in class--that he believed the Biblical account of Creation.)

So I probably shouldn't be surprised when the local news broadcast credits prayer for helping to save a heart attack victim. For those who follow the evidence, the only evidence for the "power of prayer" is that there is none. Indeed, heart patients who were prayed for suffered a greater rate of complications. For what it's worth, evidence for the claim that prayer was helpful for in vitro fertilization was completely fraudulent.

In its defense, I will hasten to add that Michigan is in the midst of a debilitating recession. It is one of two states that lost population last year. These are not conditions that drive communities toward rational though and critical thinking.

We see so many of these credulous, feel-good stories in the mainstream media that we generally don't take much notice. To get a sense of how much it stands out to people like me, imagine stories like this on your evening news: "Quick actions, witchcraft, help referee who collapsed," or "Quick action, pact with Satan, help referee who collapsed."

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for anyone who's found their path. And if that path includes prayer, no worries. But to proclaim that prayer has a power that is specifically contradicted by evidence? That's irresponsible. And it's on par with the claims of psychics and other proponents of woo.

The "quick actions" mentioned in the story, two athletic trainers and an RN administering CPR, did save the heart attack victim. The prayers were a kind and thoughtful gesture, but deserve no credit in saving the man's life. Think of it this way: suppose three people were to collapse in heart attacks. One got the "quick actions and prayer," one got "quick actions" only, and the third got prayer only. Two of the three would stand a good chance of survival.

Gas station ghost!

When will the madness stop? When there are no more people, I suppose.



The source? Always a local TV news program with minutes to fill. Always. Never CNN, never PBS, never even national nightly news. Always a local TV news show.

The tone? Always credulous. Virtually no skeptical sentiment to be found in these pieces. Ever. Providing the skeptical viewpoint would only point out the silliness of the piece and expose it for the timefiller that it is. Hence, the tone is always to promote the paranormal "explanation." (Of course, paranormal explanation--like jumbo shrimp or creation science--is an oxymoron.)

And paranormal explanations? Watch the video and try to keep a straight face through the patrons' "theories." The reporter loses points in my book for not hanging around long enough to find someone willing to proclaim that it was a visage of the Virgin Mary. I'm sure it wouldn't have taken more than ten minutes. Clearly she was up against an unyielding deadline.

The real cause of the image? Better to let you find that out on your own. But trust me, you can do that from where you are right now.

Angel of Carolina! Or not...

The story of an angel photographed over the South Carolina state fair has been making the rounds. I found it at Bad Astronomy. I promptly made a lesson of it. My students dug right into it. They had even less patience for this story than I did!

The original story from South Carolina is here.

The Bad Astronomy post and about 100 comments are here.

An interesting recreation of the pic can be found at the Xenophilia blog.

As far as the classroom lesson goes, here are a few of the questions I thought to ask after showing the video clip.

1. What was the source of the broadcast: cable news, network news, local TV news, etc.?
Local TV news is never-ending fountain of "too-good-to-verify news." Here in Sacramento, the ABC affiliate, News10, seems to take pride in their extreme credulity. Of course they linked to this story; they seem eager to jump on every wacky story that comes along.

2. Was the story skeptical/critical or accepting/sympathetic toward the photographer?
Once you've seen two stories of this nature, you know how they always play out. It wouldn't even *be* a story if an ounce of skepticism had been applied. So the "reporter" shepherds the story along to make it seem like there's actually a story going on.

3. Who provided the skeptical perspective?
The self-proclaimed believer in angels mentions that not everyone agrees with her assessment. She promptly dismisses the nay-sayers, but she provides the only hint that any kind of alternative interpretation is possible. Let's just say she's no James Randi. Or Michael Shermer. Etc....

4. Are there any inconsistencies between the photo shown and the verbal descriptions of the photo given by the photographer or her son?
Despite the short duration of the piece, there was enough time for a few to slip in. The photographer describes the "angel" as being centered in the middle of the photograph. Her son refers to legs that can be seen. Wha?

5. What's the best explanation for the photo and how could one go about reproducing such an image? Assume *no* manipulation of the photograph (via Photoshop or anything else).
The best I've seen was an argument in favor of a hummingbird. But the moth advocates make strong arguments as well. The illumination of the critter is due to the fact that nearly everyone who points-and-shoots a camera leaves the camera in "auto" mode. The camera meters the dark scene and fires the flash. The critter was in darkness before and after the shot was taken. Thus giving the photographer and her son the sense that the "angel" was invisible to the naked eye when they were at the fair. This "only the camera can see it" phenomenon is a common thread in paranormal flummery.

After the discussion on the true nature of the photo...

6. What's the key difference between moths/hummingbirds on the one hand and angels/fairies on the other?
The fact that moths and hummingbirds actually exist, as The Bad Astronomer says, is something of a clincher!

The guilty party in all such stories is the reporter. The participants might have shown poor critical-thinking skills, but the reporter is the one who exploits these people. Strokes them and encourages them, knowing better all along. But working on a deadline and desperate for a byline.