List of KITP Wikispaces

2011

Asteroseismology in the Space Age
Topological Insulators and Superconductors
Holographic Duality and Condensed Matter Physics
Dynamics of Development (Minipgm)
Network Architecture of Brain Structures and Functions (Minipgm)
Nonperturbative Effects and Dualities in QFT and Integrable Systems
The First Year of the LHC
Biological Frontiers of Polymer and Soft Matter Physics
The Harmony of Scattering Amplitudes
The Nature of Turbulence
Galaxy Clusters: the Crossroads of Astrophysics and Cosmology
Microbial and Viral Evolution
Iron-based Superconductors

2010

Disentangling Quantum Many-Body Systems: Computational and Conceptual Approaches
Emerging Techniques in Neuroscience
Beyond Standard Optical Lattices
Langlands-Type Dualities in Quantum Field Theory
X-ray Frontiers
Electron Glasses
Physics of Glasses: Relating Metallic Glasses to Molecular, Polymeric and Oxide Glasses
Strings at the LHC and in the Early Universe
The Theory and Observation of Exoplanets
Towards Material Design Using Strongly Correlated Electron Systems
Evolutionary Perspectives on Mechanisms of Cellular Organization

2009

Formation and Evolution of Globular Clusters
Low Dimensional Electron Systems
Fundamental Aspects of Superstring Theory
Quantum Control of Light and Matter
Quantum Criticality and the AdS/CFT Correspondence
The Physics of Higher Temperature Superconductivity
Particle Acceleration in Astrophysical Plasmas
Morphodynamics of Plants, Animals and Beyond
Quantum Information Science
Excitations in Condensed Matter: From Basic Concepts to Real Materials

2008

Workshop on the Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Insulators
Building the Milky Way
Population Genetics and Genomics
The Theory and Practice of Fluctuation-Induced Interactions
Gauge Theory and Langlands Duality
Dynamo Theory
Physics of Climate Change
Anatomy, Development, and Evolution of the Brain
Physics of the Large Hadron Collider
Nonequilibrium Dynamics in Particle Physics and Cosmology
Workshop on the Interplay between Numerical Relativity and Data Analysis

2007

Workshop on SRO and Chiral p-wave Superconductivity
Moments and Multiplets in Mott Materials
Star Formation Through Cosmic Time
Biological Switches and Clocks
Strongly Correlated Phases in Condensed Matter and Degenerate Atomic Systems

2006

Applications Of Gravitational Lensing: Unique Insights Into Galaxy Formation And Evolution
String Phenomenology
Stochastic Geometry and Field Theory: From Growth Phenomena to Disordered Systems
Physics of Galactic Nuclei
Attosecond Science Workshop
New Physical Approaches to Molecular and Cellular Machines

2005

From the Atomic to the Tectonic: Friction, Fracture and Earthquake Physics
Mathematical Structures in String Theory

Daya Bay

The Daya Bay site in southern China. Image: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

An international collaboration of physicists working on a neutrino experiment in southern China announced today they have made a difficult measurement scientists have been chasing for more than a decade.

The results of the Daya Bay neutrino experiment open an important window into understanding the behavior of neutrinos, and now the race is on to determine the implications. Two American experiments, one proposed and one under construction, seem well positioned to take the next steps. See:Daya Bay experiment makes key measurement, paves way for future discoveries

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PMTs convert light from particle collisions to electric charge. Since the experiment must collect the light emitted from each event, the reflectors at top and bottom of the acrylic vessels enhance gathering of light.

See:The Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment: On Track to Completion

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Dialogos of Eide: Mysterious Behavior of Neutrinos sent Straight

Dec 24, 2009... to the NOvA detector in Minnesota. The neutrinos travel the 500 miles in less than three milliseconds. See:NOvA Neutrino Project. ***. Using the NuMI beam to search for electron neutrino appearance. The NOνA Experiment...

Dialogos of Eide: Gran Sasso and Fermilab

Oct 31, 2011 Funded by a grant from the University of Minnesota. (Credit: Fermilab Visual Media Services). ***. Fermilab experiment weighs in on neutrino mystery. Scientists of the MINOS experiment at the Department of Energy's Fermi...

Dialogos of Eide: Linking Experiments

Mar 29, 2010 Scientists would use the LBNE to explore whether neutrinos break one of the most fundamental laws of physics: the symmetry between matter and antimatter. In 1980, James Cronin and Val Fitch received the Nobel Prize for...

Dialogos of Eide: ICECUBE Blogging Research Material and more

Oct 27, 2011 Linking Experiments(Majorana, EXO); How do stars create the heavy elements? (DIANA); What role did neutrinos play in the evolution of the universe? (LBNE). In addition, scientists propose to build a generic underground...

Inspirations

Inspired on Escher's works. A free vision on how could be his workplace.

I was made aware of This Youtube video by Clifford of Asymptotia. He also linked, Lines and Colors.

Brain Mechanisms of Consciousness

Consciousness is at once the most familiar and the most mysterious feature of our existence. A new science of consciousness is now revealing its biological basis.

Once considered beyond the reach of science, the neural mechanisms of human consciousness are now being unravelled at a startling pace by neuroscientists and their colleagues. I've always been fascinated by the possibility of understanding consciousness, so it is tremendously exciting to witness – and take part in – this grand challenge for 21st century science. SEE:Consciousness: Eight questions science must answer

SEE Also: Brain Info

Geodesy and geophysics

Mean Gravity Field


Anomalies by definition would require that we understand something about our selves that we did not know before, in that the whole history of you, is a large synopsis of everything that thinks and breath? Imagine indeed that such a vast resource could defined you as in some book to know that what would come next would be the unfolding of what you have been to what you shall become.

So I veered away from this act of who you are, toward a question of our relationship with understanding the world around us. What can exist in nature as some anomaly is really our inability to describe something in nature that awes us and had never gone deeper then then on the surface observance of who we are and where we live.

Map of free-air gravity anomalies around Britain and Ireland

Variations in the strength of gravity occur from place to place according to the density distribution of the rocks beneath the surface. Such gravity anomalies have been mapped across the British Isles and the surrounding seas and they reveal aspects of these islands’ geological structure.

(Bouguer) gravity anomaly map of the state of New Jersey (USGS)

 The Bouguer anomalies usually are negative in the mountains because of isostasy: the rock density of their roots is lower, compared with the surrounding earth's mantle. Typical anomalies in the Central Alps are −150 milligals (−1.5 mm/s²). Rather local anomalies are used in applied geophysics: if they are positive, this may indicate metallic ores. At scales between entire mountain ranges and ore bodies, Bouguer anomalies may indicate rock types. For example, the northeast-southwest trending high across central New Jersey (see figure) represents a graben of Triassic age largely filled with dense basalts. Salt domes are typically expressed in gravity maps as lows, because salt has a low density compared to the rocks the dome intrudes. Anomalies can help to distinguish sedimentary basins whose fill differs in density from that of the surrounding region - see Gravity Anomalies of Britain and Ireland for example.

Bouguer Anomaly Map of Belgium and Surrounding areas

The anomalies are calculated using a uniform Bouguer reduction density of 2.67 gr/cm³ the grid was obtained by Krigging, cell size : 5 km, search radius : 30 km. The French data are copyrighted by BRGM (France).

While the examples above help to shed light on how we can perceive earth in a way that we are not accustomed too, this idea of gravity is important to understand the way in which gravitationally we my look at the world/earth. In our early years abstractly the idea of curvature was something that did not make sense until one moved beyond the Euclidean lines of understanding to a Non Euclidean view?

To that point we did not understand what the earth look like in its pearl form in space without having left the confines of earth?

I want you too look at space as well to understand what may be conceivable even though we may talk about an anomaly in nature that to this point we did not necessarily understand until we were presented with the examples as to confront and require an explanation. So you have the earth and space to contend with here.

LTool

So we graduate with the understanding with how we have seen the earth in observatory implicitness to have it detailed in a more "ugly definition of its composed parts?" To me it's not really that ugly at all,  although as you venture to take in the color representation of the component parts of our earth's geological structure,  you learn to understand the concreteness of our definitions.

Anomalistics

Charles Fort, anomalistics pioneer

Anomalistics

Terminology
Coined by	Robert W. Wescott (1973)
Definition	The use of scientific methods to evaluate anomalies with the aim of finding a rational explanation.[1]
Signature	The study of phenomena that appear to be at odds with current scientific understanding.
See also	Parapsychology Charles Fort

Anomalistics is the use of scientific methods to evaluate anomalies (phenomena that fall outside of current understanding), with the aim of finding a rational explanation.^[1] The term itself was coined in 1973 by Drew University anthropologist Roger W. Wescott, who defined it as being "...serious and systematic study of all phenomena that fail to fit the picture of reality provided for us by common sense or by the established sciences."^{[citation needed]}

Wescott credited journalist and researcher Charles Hoy Fort as being the creator of anomalistics as a field of research, and he named biologist Ivan T. Sanderson and Sourcebook Project compiler William R. Corliss as being instrumental in expanding anomalistics to introduce a more conventional perspective into the field.^[2][3]
Henry Bauer, emeritus professor of Science Studies at Virginia Tech, writes that anomalistics is "a politically correct term for the study of bizarre claims,"^[4] while David J. Hess of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute describes it as being "the scientific study of anomalies defined as claims of phenomena not generally accepted by the bulk of the scientific community."^[1]
Anomalistics covers several sub-disciplines, including ufology and cryptozoology. Scientifically trained anomalists include ufologist J. Allen Hynek,^[5] Carl Sagan, Christopher Chacon,^{[citation needed]} cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans,^[6] and CSICOP founder Paul Kurtz.^[7]

Contents    1 Field   2 Scope 3 Validation 4 References

Field

According to Marcello Truzzi, Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University, anomalistics works on the principles that "unexplained phenomena exist," but that most can be explained through the application of scientific scrutiny. Further, that something remains plausible until it has been conclusively proven not only implausible but actually impossible, something that science does not do. In 2000, he wrote that anomalistics has four basic functions:

1. to aid in the evaluation of a wide variety of anomaly claims proposed by protoscientists;
2. to understand better the process of scientific adjudication and to make that process both more just and rational;
3. to build a rational conceptual framework for both categorizing and accessing anomaly claims; and
4. to act in the role of amicus curiae ("friend of the court") to the scientific community in its process of adjudication.^[8]

 Scope

In the view of Truzzi, anomalistics has two core tenets governing its scope:

1. Research must remain within the conventional boundaries; and
2. Research must deal exclusively with "empirical claims of the extraordinary", rather than claims of a "metaphysical, theological or supernatural" nature.

Anomalistics, according to its adherents, is primarily concerned with physical events, with researchers avoiding phenomena they considered to be purely paranormal in nature, such as apparitions and poltergeists, or which are concerned with "Psi" (parapsychology, e.g., ESP, psychokinesis and telepathy).^[3]

Validation

According to Truzzi, before an explanation can be considered valid within anomalistics, it must fulfill four criteria. It must be based on conventional knowledge and reasoning; it must be kept simple and be unburdened by speculation or overcomplexity; the burden of proof must be placed on the claimant and not the researcher; and the more extraordinary the claim, the higher the level of proof required.
Bauer states that nothing can be deemed as proof within anomalistics unless it can gain "acceptance by the established disciplines."^[4]

 References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Hess David J. (1997) "Science Studies: an advanced introduction" New York University Press, ISBN 0814735649
2. ^ Clark, Jerome (1993) "Encyclopedia of Strange and Unexplained Physical Phenomena", Thomson Gale, ISBN 081038843X
3. ^ ^{a b} Wescott, Robert W. (1973) "Anomalistics: The Outline of an Emerging Field of Investigation" Research Division, New Jersey Department of Education
4. ^ ^{a b} Bauer, Henry (2000) "Science Or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena and Other Heterodoxies," University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02601-2
5. ^ Clark, Jerome (1998). The UFO book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial. Detroit, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. ISBN 1578590299.
6. ^ Science 5 November 1999: Vol. 286. no. 5442, p. 1079
7. ^ CSI - About CSI (2007-05-05)
8. ^ Truzzi, Marcello (2002) "The Perspective of Anomalistics" (section only) - "Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience", Fitzroy Dearborn, ISBN 1-57958-207-9

2012 TED Prize Wish: The City 2.0

See Also: Ted: Ideas Worth Spreading

Finding the Limits of Science?

By 'dilating' and 'expanding' the scope of our attention we not only discover that 'form is emptiness' (the donut has a hole), but also that 'emptiness is form' (objects precipitate out of the larger 'space') - to use Buddhist terminology. The emptiness that we arrive at by narrowing our focus on the innermost is identical to the emptiness that we arrive at by expanding our focus to the outermost. The 'infinitely large' is identical to the 'infinitesimally small'. The Structure of Consciousness John Fudjack - September, 1999

While I may use the quote above to help explain a series of pictures above,  it is also pointing how this inside/out relation with the world around us?

 


To take an investigative look at the world in which we live it was important to understand the "depth of our connection to reality?" I am not even sure that I am proceeding correctly but it is very important that I do so in a very scientifically correct way.

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego consciousness extends.... All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral. Carl Jung

I can understand our science to a degree, as one can draw from the subjective analysis of, or, try to understand what we have learned in life. But to confront the known limits of our science is very important. To see experimental processes and phenomenological approaches as to satisfy this relation with science is also to discover something about ourselves as well.

The Flammarion woodcut. Flammarion's caption translates to "A medieval missionary tells that he has found the point where heaven and Earth meet..."

Part of the understanding of looking at our world is not only a particulate understanding of reductionism but of a consolidating function of these constituents from a condense matter theorist point of view. How we make use of, as a understanding of the mass forming capabilities we are engaged in. While we engage in the theoretical, the foundation and basis of science is included. Conceptually the mathematics helps to build the concepts. The very schematics of these geometric forms are buried deep within us?

If conceived as a series of ever-wider experiential contexts, nested one within the other like a set of Chinese boxes, consciousness can be thought of as wrapping back around on itself in such a way that the outermost 'context' is indistinguishable from the innermost 'content' - a structure for which we coined the term 'liminocentric'.

If understood to the degree to which we are looking at the frequencies of how we look at the universe it is how we will see different parts of the universe in different ways. So this allows us to see a greater depth to the universe in which we did not understand before.

A picture of the sun taken "over time" in gamma ray detection.

See:Central Theme is the Sun

But I do contend that before we concrete our relation with reality we saw all these sensual factors as different facets of the same thing? This is before we became acclimatize to the reality with which we choose to live?

We Are Stardust, So What does the Mind Use in Thought??

The matter defined state of our bodies(like ice or concrete), the emotive fluids that course through our bodies as feelings, what substratum does our mind occupy if we might consider it to be of a much finer quality.....as if steam. Would such an abstract nature to that thought process be called "yellow" in face of the assumption matter states and fluid states could be called its own collaborative characteristic. If mind are capable of using the ratified states of existence, then are we not turned inside/out?

I do assume some will never be able to understand, but, their will be those who do. They will be able to follow

We Are Stardust

Where did we come from? I find the explanation that we were made in stars to be deep, elegant, and beautiful. This explanation says that every atom in each of our bodies was built up out of smaller particles produced in the furnaces of long-gone stars. We are the byproducts of nuclear fusion. The intense pressures and temperatures of these giant stoves thickened collapsing clouds of tiny elemental bits into heavier bits, which once fused, were blown out into space as the furnace died. The heaviest atoms in our bones may have required more than one cycle in the star furnaces to fatten up. Uncountable numbers of built-up atoms congealed into a planet, and a strange disequilibrium called life swept up a subset of those atoms into our mortal shells. We are all collected stardust. And by a most elegant and remarkable transformation, our starstuff is capable of looking into the night sky to perceive other stars shining. They seem remote and distant, but we are really very close to them no matter how many lightyears away. All that we see of each other was born in a star. How beautiful is that?See: 2012 : WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?

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See Also:

 

Dialogos of Eide: Are We Made of Stardust?

Jan 30, 2006

IN context of the cyclical nature of this universe, it is behooving to us to ask the question about what exactly that "stardust" is made up of. So we had some inkling for us lay people as to what had currently landed for us to ...

 

Dialogos of Eide: Aerogels and Stardust

Jan 13, 2007

So having understood what "less gravity can do" in organizing of chemicals in space, it is of course of interest when such a chemical can be made into a product in it's "pure form," to have it "almost clear" in it's constitution and ...

 

Dialogos of Eide: Gravity Free Environment on Earth

Jan 13, 2007

See:"Cosmic Variance" Anyway to the essence of what has been instigated by the post of Seans, and what came about from the "Aerogel and Stardust" Post. Microgravity Science Glove Box-The MSG will enable astronauts on ...

Time Crystals?

We consider the possibility that classical dynamical systems display motion in their lowest energy state, forming a time analogue of crystalline spatial order. Challenges facing that idea are identified and overcome. We display arbitrary orbits of an angular variable as lowest-energy trajectories for nonsingular Lagrangian systems. Dynamics within orbits of broken symmetry provide a natural arena for formation of time crystals. We exhibit models of that kind, including a model with traveling density waves.See:Classical Time Crystals

Difficulties around the idea of spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry in a closed quantum mechanical system are identified, and then overcome in a simple model. The possibility of ordering in imaginary time is also discussed.See: Quantum Time Crystals

See Also: The Edge World Question Center:

Evidently, something powerful had happened in my brain.FRANK WILCZEK 

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?

Simplicity leads to beauty: For it leads, as we've seen, to symmetry, which is an aspect of beauty. As, for that matter, are depth and elegance.

Thus simplicity, properly understood, explains what it is that makes a good explanation deep, elegant, and beautiful.Frank Wilczek