MOHAMMAD JARRAHI: March 2008 Archives

Odenwald believes that an emerging gap in the existing theories has urged physicists and mathematicians to relentlessly pursue an alternative; namely superstring theory.  The standard models and ordinary general relatively are not robust enough to span the gap between everyday physics and the high energies where quantum gravity operates.  Addressing the gap, Superstring theory as an encompassing conceptualization has worked its way into different areas of today’s physics, ranging from nuclear physics to condensed matter physics.

Superstring theory is essentially erected on the basis of “extra dimensions”. Conventional superstring theory suggests the existence of extra dimensions in addition to the usual three.  These extra dimensions give physicists extra handle to delve into the theory of gravity and illuminates the properties of known particles. They are enormously smaller than a proton and unfold as six additional coordinates attached to each point in normal space. In fact these extra dimensions are pivotal for physics since they are regarded to change the behavior of gravity at small distances.  

The author however reveals his concerns of possible irrefutable data that can dispense with the theory. Once the theory proves refutable, many scientists believe that a vast amount of mathematical knowledge that has been accumulated over the years would be swept away. As a matter of fact string theory is sparse on experimental validation, and hence scientists are yet to fully validate it.  For instance, superstring theory contends that if nature follows supersymmetry (a mathematical principle of the theory) then every normal particle has a superpartner.  But these superpartners have not empirically been observed and hence are mere hypothetical entities. The author grapple with the possibility of some counterevidence and states that if we come to understand that these ideas are wrong, “the theory would go down in history as the most spectacular wrong-turn science has ever taken.”

The abovementioned concern, invited me to draw on Lakatos’ essay on “the falsification and the methodology of scientific research programs.”  I think the stance that Odenwald takes is in concert with naive falsification which puts forward that if a theory is “refuted” by experiment, it is irrational (and dishonest) to develop it further, and that one has to replace the old and refuted theory with a new and unrefuted one.  Lakatos on the other hand does downplay the role of such “crucial experiments.” He states that few experiments are really important. The heuristic guidance that physicists receive from tests and these sorts of refutations are usually so trivial that large scale testing may well be a waste of time. In most cases we need no refutations to tell that a theory is in urgent need of replacement.  While Odenwald is worried about the result of prospective experiments which could conflicts with pillar of Superstring theory, Lakatos dubs this view “instant rationality”, and considers it to be utopian. Lakatos cannot be receptive to the agenda that experiments can instantly flesh up the value (degree of confirmation) of a theory, and the elimination can take place as the instant result of the verdict of experiment.  

Laktos embarks on a number of case studies in the history of science (i.e. the Michelson-Morley experiment) and strives to demolish the concept of instants rationality.  In his view purely negative and destructive criticism like refutation does not eliminate a research program. Criticism of a program is a long and often frustrating process which demonstrates that rationality work much slower than most people tend to think. His model lends new emphasis to the “hindsight” element in scientific appraisal and leads to a further relaxation of firm falsification standards. To this end, a theory like superstring theory is not eliminated in the face of even the bitterest counterexamples (anchored in crucial experiments).  Lakatos strongly believes that each research program is allowed a few such defeats.

Reference:

Lakatos, I. (2004). "FALSIFICATION AND THE METHODOLOGY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROGRAMMES." Karl Popper: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers.

The reading of this week once again directs attention to the old problem of reductionism. Over the fifties and sixties, the unreal optimism about weather forecasting was at its height. Even scientists like Von Neumann were speculating over control of the weather through the heightened understanding of the whole phenomenon. However, one thing that their endeavors were blind of was the possibility of chaos.

This line of reasoning was indeed stemming from the primacy of Approximation in natural science.  Approximation is regarded as modeling of nature through understanding of natural law, and attending to initial conditions of a system. What essentially happens through Approximation is reduction of the whole reality and overthrow of small influences, so that scientists are able to calculate the approximate behavior of a system. Approximation has been cornerstone of many sciences ranging from hard sciences (i.e. Physics) to human science (i.e. Economies). For instance, as with global weather forecasters, economists heavily rely upon this principle in their predication of systems’ behavior.

These models however cannot simplify what is really going on. The chapter states that in practice econometric models proved dismally blind to what the future would bring. These simplifications are employed since they are deemed to be better than nothing. Likewise, even though whether predications being engendered through these models can statically forecast a few days, they are incompetent when it comes to periods more than six or seven days.

Having scrutinized the patterns of the weather change, Edward Lorenz concluded that meager incidents can lead to thunderstorms or blizzards. In other words scanty uncertainties would multiply through an unknown and mysterious chain of turbulent future. His argument would inevitably imply that even the best kind of approximation brought about by the most advanced technologies would not be able to accommodate all these phenomena in its calculation. So there is no perfect approximation in existence.  System theory resonates with Lorenz’s conceptualizations. The universe as an open system comprises of infinite elements interacting with one another. One cannot grasp and predict the behavior of a system without examining all the delicate relationships between every single element and others. That is to say if some of these elements are left out in the assessment, we would lose the holistic view and any such prediction could not be totally conclusive.

The paper that I have chosen for this week is more or less an application oriented paper rather than a pure theoretical one.    It basically sheds light on problems of traditional supply chain management. One of the pivotal difficulties in this respect is “Bullwhip Effect.” The paper contends that the lack of information (what I call the lack of insight into the whole system) is taken as the main cause of “Bullwhip Effect.” This problem takes places where small fluctuations in every stage of supply chain become larger at every step up in the chain, from the customer through to the raw material suppliers. This effects result into increased raw material costs, overtime operations cost, additional transportation and warehousing const, and etc. I believe that this echoes what is implied by Butterfly effect where petite uncertainties magnify through the interaction of the system’s elements.  That is why manufacturers cannot oversee a great deal of patterns beyond immediate business patterns.

References:

• Lee, Hau L; Padmanabhan, V. and Whang, Seungjin (1997). "The Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains". Sloan Management Review 38 (3): 93-102
  

This week’s readings center on the three most influential figures in the human history although their fame stem from divergent things. Will Durant sheds light on the role of “the most fascinating figure of Renaissance” , Leonardo da Vinci, in the history of civilization. Michael Hart similarly singles out the two other figures whose achievements bring about two distinct momentums in the history of science and civilization.

Will Durant, while admiring da Vinci, discusses over the life of the painter and looks at many different aspects of his work as well as his personality. This is the most detailed portrayal of da Vinci’s life that I have ever read. Not only does Durant scrutinize his attainments, but also illuminates why he has embarked on specific work or journey.  To this end, Durant closely investigates things like whether da Vinci was a homosexual, and then uses these in the analysis of his motives and inspiration for specific artistic work. Interestingly these considerations could yield a noble understanding; for instance, da Vinci is said to be left-handed; that is why Durant concludes that this made him write from right to left.

I believe that by reading the chapter, one could come up with two reasons for distinctiveness of da Vinci among his peers whether painter, engineer, or scientist. First of all, da Vinci was paying a whole lot of attention to nature and its features. Durant states that the repetition as an innate quality of nature never dulled for him the marvel and majesty of what was going on; he filled thousand pages with observation concerning them. He was also curious over the peculiarities of nature simultaneously; da Vinci wrote: “The Nile has discharged more water into the sea than is at present contained in all the waters of the earth, so all the sea and rivers have passed through the mouth of the Nile as infinite number of time.” This enormous interest in nuances of nature could have been a central reason for his work being so gifted.

Second, as opposed to the most of other artists or scientists, da Vinci was not a sole artist, engineer, scientist or what not. He is all of them; in fact he had integrated most of these outwardly disparate skills. When he was painting he was borrowing the law of proportion and perspective from other disciplines. Durant contends that he tried his hand at almost every science. He took enthusiastically to mathematics as the purest form of reasoning, and he used that perception in geometrical figures of The Last Supper.   As such, his acquaintance with mathematics, anatomy, physics, and chemistry and so on provided him with a multidisciplinary view which makes his work so distinct.

In the second reading, Hart believes that the invention of paper and printing technology can place both Tsai and Gutenberg among the first ten persons in the list of the most influential persons in the history. This is because Tsai’s invention of paper pushes the Chinese civilization as well as the whole human civilization rapidly. Gutenberg‘s invention subsequently contributed massively to outburst of knowledge.

The paper I have opted for puts Hart’s argument in a somehow different way. It puts forth that there have been three significant revolutions in the history of human thoughts.  The first one took place hundreds of thousand years ago with the advent of language. The change is deemed to be revolutionary as thereby we became the first specie able to explain the world in which we live. The second cognitive revolution unfolded when the writing emerged in the human societies. Written language indeed made the man capable of preserving the code (oral one) independent of any speaker. The third revolution was the result of the invention of printing press in our own millennium. This is where its taxonomy overlaps with Hart’s.

I think this classification seems more inclusive than Hart’s. It is more in line with the trajectory of human cognitive and scientific progress. In fact it spans more portions of history.  Second, it is not that oriented toward and dependent on material technologies. The invention of language, though not a tangible technology, has had a great bearing on the whole history. In addition, the paper maintains that it singles out only these three revolutions because they had a qualitative effect on how we think. In a nutshell, speech made it possible to make propositions, hand-writing made it possible to preserve them speaker-independently, and print made it possible to preserve them hand-writer-independently. All three had a dramatic effect on HOW we thought as well as on how we expressed our thoughts, so arguably they had an equally dramatic effect on WHAT we thought.  As such the rest of the technological development were only quantitative evolution of the media created by speech, writing, and print.

References:

Harnad, S. (1991) Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: The Fourth Revolution in the Means of Production of Knowledge. Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2 (1): 39 - 53

“An incomplete education” looks like a guide for “dummies” to the history of science. It seems as if the authors wanted to sum up a whole lot of scientific data and to feature it in a way that such an audience could digest. The title of the book sounds a bit ironic suggesting that most of the newcomers might not receive enough insight into the science realm through a formal education system.

That being said, the chapter gave me the impression that it was to categorize the most pivotal areas in a bunch of scientific disciplines. As such, I had a tough time to grasp the linkage between numerous constructs being explicated. At times it seemed to me that the authors were rambling over too many disparate directions; so making it to figure out what the structure of the text is. However, the tone of the text reminds me of encyclopedias like Britannica where brevity and inclusiveness do mother the most.

The part which interested me the most was where some contentious things were addressed and the author’s were revealing their specific takes on them. For instance, they raised the question:” is it true that the Arabs kept science alive during the middle ages, while Europe slumbered?” In fact this question underscores the gap in the history of scince that I had noticed when I read though the previous readings. By placing too much emphasis on the west’s contribution to the evolution of science, the role of the other side of the globe was almost neglected.  Particularly when it comes to the middle ages those sorts of historians unrealistically draw the pictures such that once would conclude that the middle age stopped the progress of science. Although this could be the case in the Europe, the science was moving forward in other regions, particularly the Middle East. Surprisingly the chapter contends that Islam made science international. As a result, Arabic was in effect the great switching station. In this regard, it brings up the example of Al-Razi, a Persian physician, who wrote the Comprehensive Book, whose title suggests the overall range of the effort: The comprehensive Book summed up everything that had been known of medicine in Greece, India, and the Middle East and some of what had been known of medicine in China.

The paper I have chosen elaborates more on the role that was played by Al-Razi. It suggests that many important Greek medical texts were translated to Arabic in the 9^th century. For the most part Muslim physicians reflected on the Greek medicine, and seldom questioned it.  But this is not to say that they did not add anything to it. Of the physicians who were working in Baghdad in that period, Abu Bakr Muhamamd Al-Razi stands out as exceptional. He soon became one of the greatest and most prolific physicians of the medieval period, wiring over 200 works ranging from Medicine to subjects like philosophy, theology, mathematics, astronomy and alchemy.

His seminal work, the Comprehensive Book, encompasses what he had read to the date, and has a great deal of parallels with the core concepts of today’s medicine. For instance, it suggests that “The physician, even though he has his doubts, must always make the patient believe that he will recover, for the state of the body is linked to the state of the mind.” His comprehensive understanding of the medicine anchored in multiple sources made his book one of the greatest contribution to medicine to date. In fact this has been taught in many schools all over the world before the emergence of modern medical science.

Reference:

Tibi S. Al-Razi and Islamic medicine in the 9th Century. The James Lind Library 2005. Available online at www.jameslindlibrary.org