Report from the Festival

This past Saturday I went to Expo Day for the San Diego Science Festival. There was a big turn out for the event at Petco Park. Science organizations set up booths to share information through activities and demos, mostly geared towards kids.

I like the idea of the festival: represent science in San Diego and involve the public for free.

Most of the booths had very simple activities for the kids. That didn't stop me and my friend from participating, though (c'mon, the flier says the festival is for kids ages 3 – 93). We poked sticks through balloons without popping them, made DNA necklaces, looked at amphibians and reptiles, and solved a math problem for good measure.

The booths made a complete loop around the stadium. Because there were so many booths and people, you could only spend a short time at each one. While the festival promises to “excite your mind”, the crowds and the short activities didn't provide enough oomph to "excite my mind". Even if you gear it towards kids, you can still make something intellectually engaging for adults, too. But there was some exciting eye candy, like robots, can launchers, and plasma tubes.

Some people were great at explaining their demo to you, and others were...not so great. At science museums I always see the bicycle wheel gyroscope demo. A person stands on a turning platform and holds an upright, spinning bicycle wheel. When she tilts the wheel to the right, she and the platform turn to the right (and vice versa to the left). I had never actually done it, so I hopped on the platform and took the wheel. A couple middle school students were in charge of the demo, so I asked one of the girls why I can use the wheel to turn myself. She knew that it had something to do with spinning the wheel, but she admitted she didn't know what happens when you tilt the wheel. (What happens: conservation of angular momentum. When you tilt the wheel, you change the direction of its angular momentum. The wheel correspondingly exerts a force on you and you begin to turn in the direction that conserves angular momentum.)

If there's anything to be improved: maybe they could offer free workshops to provide something more in depth. Also, the booths were poorly organized. If they were organized by category (i.e. physics and astronomy, the environment, health, biotech...), it would be much easier to pinpoint what interests you and go there. The booths were scattered all over the place, but if they were also physically organized by category, you could find what interests you and hit up the booths that way.

That said, there was great representation and turn out. Just having all of these organizations readily available is a good start. I had a good time. This year my friend and I just volunteered at the information booth, but next year it would be fun to be at one of the actual booths interacting with everyone.

Numb3rs

Did you know that 31 million plastic bottles can be produced from 17 million barrels of oil?

Really. You don't believe me? What's that, you did the math?

Ok, you got me, I lied. If what I said was true, that would be one barrel of oil to make 2 plastic bottles. Pretty absurd, right? Actually, one barrel of oil makes 2,000 plastic bottles. That sounds better, doesn't it? What I meant to say was that 31 billion plastic bottles can be produced from 17 million barrels of oil.

That was a mistake published in the LA Times. And according to another LA Times article, "the million-billion mistake is among the most common in journalism." The article goes on to lament that the collective numeric literacy rate in America is "appallingly low".

I agree that most people do not have a good feel for numbers. Take simple quantitative estimations: how many feet is one block? How many liters of water fill up your bath tub? How tall is the tree in front of your house? In basic physics classes they try to teach you to get a feel for orders of magnitude and size. The problem is that up until taking those physics classes, I perhaps got most of my experience back in the second grade when I guessed how many jelly beans were in a jar.

There are some great visualizations of numeric quantities that I've come across. On his blog Jay Epperhart posted a cool visualization of what ONE BILLION means. And he uses the universe, with all the galaxies containing their stars and planets, to do it. Not only did I get a reference point for the number one billion, but I also got a small peek at how insignificantly small and humble Earth is. Also, xkcd has a great guide to visualizing numbers with the metric system

It's a pity that we aren't very numerically literate, because math uses numbers all the time. We're literate in English, of course, but not in the universal language that is math.

"I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind," writes astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson in his book The Sky Is Not the Limit. As math is based on the rules of logic, it is reassuring to know that for the vast majority of people, it doesn't come naturally. Like most other endeavors, it takes effort and practice to begin to appreciate the underlying beauty.

The stigma attached to math is that it is tedious and impenetrable. In his book Tyson mentions a publisher who commented that when writing a book about science, every equation included in the book will decrease the potential buyers by one half. And yes, equations are intimidating. Why make the effort if they are foreign to you?

But what if the education in America prepared us to appreciate the beauty of math, i.e. to be numerically literate? We were forced to read __________(insert tedious and boring book required for high school English) to better appreciate the English language, but we didn't get the same rigor and results to be well-versed in the language of numbers.

SD Science Festival 2010

This Saturday is Expo Day for the SD Science Festival, and I think I'm going to volunteer. I've never been to it before but it looks like fun:

The San Diego Science Festival is back! Widely known as the largest celebration of science on the West Coast, on March 20-27 the Festival is hosting dozens of countywide events promising to “excite the minds” of thousands of students and their families. As a grand finale, there will be 150+ hands on activities and stage shows at Expo Day at PETCO Park on Saturday, March 27. Check out the online calendar for complete details: http://www.sdsciencefestival.com/

How to see in 3D

I was sitting in the theater last week ready to watch my first 3D movie in the theaters, Alice in Wonderland. I looked down at my 3D glasses thinking, “Whatever happened to those red and blue glasses?” The kind you could find in a box of Captain Crunch? The glasses I was about to put on looked like geeky sunglasses. How did they work, anyway?

You might be familiar with the basics of making 3D images. It starts with how humans perceive depth.

Physics at the Olympics

Congratulations to Yu-Na Kim, who won the Olympic gold medal in ladies' figure skating last week. I could gush on and on about Yu-Na Kim and her exquisite skating. Normal people have strengths and weaknesses, and the same goes for skaters. Some skaters have great artistry but lackluster jumps, or athletic jumping but unrefined artistry. Yu-Na Kim is very rare in that all the elements of her skating are excellent. It really isn't fair. But I love watching her.

If you were watching figure skating at the Olympics last week, you were watching physics in action! There are some very simple laws of physics at work that can make or break great skating.