Brian Clegg's Blog, page 121

A dose of salts

In need of a dose of salts? At one time, the obvious thing to do would be take yourself off to Epsom. But magnesium sulfate, the compound behind those foul tasting waters, really could have health benefits when added to your bath - and it's the subject of my latest podcast for the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Hurry along to the RSC compounds site to see why bath salts shouldn't just be for granny and much more about Epsom's most famous product - or if you've five minutes to spare now, click to to have a listen to my podcast on magnesium sulfate.

The naming of names

I gather from the BBC that Peter Higgs gets rather irritated when the Higgs boson gets referred to as the God particle. Leaving aside those who get miffed that Higgs himself gets the sole glory of the name, I think this is very short-sighted.

Dr Higgs' objections are twofold: a) that he is an atheist and b) 'I know that that name was a kind of joke. And not a very good one I think.' To be honest, I think it might better if we had more God particles and less of the kind of names scientists tend to come up with left to their own devices.

Let's get those objections out of the way first. So what if he is an atheist? Does that make the word 'god' disappear? Irrelevant. (And 'god' is used illustratively by plenty of atheists and near-atheists - Einstein and Steven Hawking to name but two.) As for the second, well yes, it was a sort of joke. But what's the problem with that? A touch of taking-self-too-seriously perhaps? According to Leon Lederman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist behind the name when he wrote a book with that title, he really wanted to call it the 'goddamn' particle, but the publishers wouldn't let him. (To be fair, the publishers were probably correct. 'The God Particle' is attention-grabbing. I have a book called The God Effect , a direct reference to this name, and having the G word in the title of a book does no harm to it.) For that matter 'big bang' was a sort of a joke too, but though there were a few moans early on, it has generally been comfortably accepted.

The fact is, there are three kinds of scientific names. Probably the best are the simple ones that are catchy and get the point across. Think electron, positron and photon, for instance. These are the ideal, but they are few and far between. Then there are the occasional jokey but memorable ones. God particle and big bang apart, we have, for instance, those interesting proteins like sonic hedgehog, pokemon, seahorse seashell party, dickkopf, R2D2, Homer Simpson, glass bottomed boat and, my favourite, abstinence by mutual consent.

Unfortunately we also have lots of dross. Either words with no real mental handles that require rote learning and don't really put anything across (think boson, fermion, lepton etc.) or even worse convoluted terms that if anything mislead. Gauge theory would be a good example - it sounds like it's about measurement, but actually it is, of course, (to quote Wikipedia): a type of field theory in which the Lagrangian is invariant under a continuous group of local transformations. That makes it nice and obvious, doesn't it children?

I think when scientists moan about populist names some are in suffering from a problem that goes back to medieval times. I am very fond of the thirteenth century proto-scientist Roger Bacon and he was a great believer in communicating science. He had to be, bearing in mind the book proposal he first wrote was 600,000 words long. However he didn't believe knowledge should be shared with common oiks like you and me. He was very much of the 'pearls before swine/cabbages before goats' theory. Knowledge was only for the cognoscenti, and I think some scientists actually resent anything escaping from their ivory tower world.

The other reason some dislike these names is the feeling that they trivialize - but that misunderstands the whole point of making something memorable. Which is more likely to stick - big bang or gauge theory? Black hole or eigenvector? If you want to communicate, you have to think about the words you use, and all too often the words that are enshrined in science are a mess.

Privatization worked

There will be much said positively and negatively about the late Margaret Thatcher over the next few days. But whatever your opinion of her policies and what they did for or to the country I have to say that, from the inside, the impact of privatization on at least one company was wonderful.

I joined British Airways when it was a nationalised industry. It wasn't an unpleasant place to work - far from it - but, frankly, it was fairly low energy. I had an interesting job and I enjoyed it, but the overall feeling was of a company that had little unity and more interest in the status quo (down to the separate 'officers' mess' style management canteen) than, for instance, its customers. In the entire time I was working for a nationalized company I only saw a board member once, and that was in the run up to privitization.

Privatization changed everything. There was a dramatic new energy - it really felt like somewhere exciting to be working. More to the point, the majority of people working there went from being enthusiastic about planes or technology to being proud of working for British Airways. There was a dramatic new focus on customer service - suddenly, customers mattered to everyone. I got significantly more exposure to board members, apart from anything because they were spending considerable amounts of time with the staff, rather than squirrelled away in Buckingham Palace Road in London. Without any doubt whatsoever, the airline became a much better place to work, and provided a much better experience to the flying public. I honestly believe that this could never have happened without privatization.

I'm not saying it was perfect, and those who still work for the airline may well say it isn't now what it was back then. But those who look back at a golden age of nationalized companies are living in cloud cuckoo land. Privatization was right for BA - there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind.

If you are a supporter of Mrs Thatcher's work, don't take this as wholehearted praise. There were other things her government did that were disastrously handled or simply misguided. But if you are of the demonizing camp, frankly you do your intelligence a disservice. Everything the Thatcher government did was certainly not bad, as I can testify. Back then, you might well have had reason to see things through rosy tinted spectacles or coloured by the flames of hatred. But now we have the chance to employ 20:20 hindsight and should accept that both bad and good things came out of that period.

Image from Wikipedia

Mind bending shoes

One of the key points in my new book Dice World is something of a truism in the scientific world - and yet it's something that constantly trips people up (in the case of the example we've got here, literally). It's all to do with the way we interpret numbers - something that is crucial to science, but that we also do frequently in everyday life. And there we hit a problem. We interpret the world around us through patterns - and all too often we see patterns where they don't exist. If, for example two numbers move in a  similar way (they are correlated) we tend to assume that there is a cause that links the two (causality). And its very easy to forget the scientists' mantra 'correlation is not causality.'


It isn’t just the person in the street who can confuse correlation with causality. In 2004 a Swedish scientist called Jarl Flensmark published an academic paper titled Is There an Association Between the Use of Heeled Footwear and Schizophrenia? What is disturbing is that despite apparently asking a question in the title of the paper, he presents the hypothesis in the text as if it were a statement of fact: ‘Heeled footwear began to be used more than 1,000 years ago and led to the occurrence of the first cases of schizophrenia.’ Flensmark then shows a parallel between the growth of heeled shoe production and an increase in the prevalence of the disease.

We are told that the first known examples of heeled shoes were in Mesopotamia, as were the first institutions for mental disorders. A whole string of European royals are listed as possible victims of schizophrenia and who were also known – or at the very least thought – to have worn heeled shoes. Flensmark notes that it is the upper classes around the world that typically wore heeled shoes first – and it is the upper classes who were more likely to report symptoms that would now make doctors suspect the existence of schizophrenia. The pattern, Flensmark suggests, is simple. After heeled shoes are introduced, the first cases of schizophrenia appear, and as wearing of the shoes grows more popular, so do the frequency of attacks of the disorder. Simple cause and effect.

Flensmark comes up with an ingenious, if rather intricate explanation for why walking in such shoes could have an influence on the brain. But there are so many opportunities here to confuse correlation and causality. Heeled shoes have, as he suggests, typically first been taken up by the upper classes, because they are impractical, and the appeal of impracticality usually only develops once you don’t have to worry about where your next mouthful is coming from. Wearing such shoes also will tend to increase as society as a whole gets wealthier and more sophisticated. Yet the trappings of class, wealth and sophistication are also more likely to result in more reporting of illness, mental or otherwise. If life is a constant struggle, you either die or you get on with existence despite any illness. In a primitive society like medieval Europe, there is no medical safety net. Being seriously ill and staying alive is a luxury only available to those who can afford it.

What seems to be recorded here are two separate causal links, which when combined result in an unrelated correlation. It seems entirely reasonable that wealth and being of a higher class cause the increased wearing of heeled shoes. And it also seems likely that wealth and being of a higher class produced increased reporting of the symptoms we associate with schizophrenia. But there is no reason to deduce that the shoes caused the mental illness. In fact if there were a causal link, the more obvious one might be that schizophrenia caused sufferers to be more likely to wear heeled shoes, which are hardly a rational piece of footwear. There are, no doubt, many other potential causal structures as well, but the point is that an academic has made an assertion of causality despite there being absolutely no real grounds for making it. Humans – even academics – need their patterns.

Whenever someone tells you on the news, or even in an academic paper, that A causes B, make sure they have clearly identified the causal link. Otherwise get yourself a significant pinch of salt.

Find out more about Dice World.

Goths and hate crimes

You shouldn't be attacked for looking like this
- or any other wayThere was a wonderfully cringe-making piece on the often glorious Channel 4 News last night, covering the move by Greater Manchester Police to consider attacks on goths, emos, bikers and goodness knows what cultural groupings as hate crimes, putting them on a par with racist attacks. The cringe-making part was Jon Snow saying he would like to dress like a Fearless Vampire Killers band member who was one of his interviewees - but the interesting point was made by a journalist present. He was doubtful about this move because it was making an artificial distinction - and I think he was spot on.
The thing is yobs (as the journalist labelled them (and, no, he wasn't from the Sun, it was a broadsheet)) will attack anyone for looking different. It all depends on context. No one is going to attack someone for dressing like a goth at an a concert for a band that has that particular look. But they might have trouble if they turned up in a suit and tie. When I was at school I was twice attacked for wearing my school uniform. Not just verbal abuse (there were plenty of examples of that) - once a punch to the jaw on a crowded railway station (no one took any notice) and once having stones thrown at me in a quiet suburban street
The fact is that literally anyone can be attacked for looking different. For their age, the way they dress, the way they look, the way they behave. For having red hair. This is as old as the hills. I'm not saying it is acceptable - of course it is to be abhorred and punished. But to single out particular groups as a 'hate crime', implying that somehow attacks on other people for exactly the same reason are less significant is a serious mistake and should be avoided at all cost.
Image from Wikipedia

Alea jacta est

I'm delighted to say that my latest book, Dice World is now available for sale. Subtitled 'science and life in a random universe', it's about randomness (well, duh), probability and statistics. It explores how the ‘clockwork universe’ imagined by Newton, in which everything could be predicted given enough data, was disproved bit by bit, to be supplanted by chaos theory and quantum physics. This is a world in which not only is accurate forecasting often impossible but probability is the only way for us to understand the fundamental nature of things.

Where else do you get a chance to meet Maxwell's Demon, Schödinger's cat and take part in an experiment using Bayesian statistics to see how a mug on my desk alters the probability of my owning a golden retriever (no, really)?

I've really enjoyed writing this book, and I hope it will be of wide interest.

As a launch special, anyone who buys a copy from Amazon.co.uk today 4 April can be entered into a draw to win one of three free copies of any one of the following:
Inflight ScienceThe Universe Inside You GravityHow to Build a Time MachineArmageddon ScienceBefore the Big Bang... just drop me an email at brian@brianclegg.net telling me if you bought the paper or Kindle version (no need for proof of purchase, though I'll need to see it if you win).
And whether or not you bother to email me, if you do intend to buy a copy, please try to do it today, so we give the Amazon ranking a good push!
You can see the paper version here at Amazon.co.uk and the Kindle version here at Amazon.co.uk. The paper version is expected any moment on Amazon.com here (there are already some Marketplace sellers), but the Kindle version is already there on Amazon.com.
Ooh, er, I'm all excited!

Forget the clockwork universe. Welcome to Dice World!

Google the reader killer

Feedly in a browserI am not feeling the love for Google at the moment.

I suspect the problem this behemoth of IT has, even more than Microsoft did at its zenith, is that it really doesn't care about its customers, because it gets its revenue indirectly from advertising. So it has no problem with messing its users about.

Like many people I read feeds from many blogs and the like using an RSS reader - specifically the Google Reader. I don't use it direct, I use a front end app on my Mac and phone/iPad - but behind these are the Google engine. And the big-I-am has decided to pull the plug. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues.

I had hoped to stay with Reeder, the Mac-based app that I use most, as they announced pretty quickly that they would find a new back end. And they have - but it's a paying service, and that's something I am reluctant to do for this kind of facility. So it's time to head off in a new direction.

I've tried out several alternatives before settling for Feedly - it doesn't have a Mac app, but it does have a plug-in for Safari and other browsers, plus iOS (and Android) apps. It is free, quick, rather elegant and promises that it will seamlessly transfer over from the Google back end to its own when then time comes. Another essential for me - the Safari plug in has a 'save to Pocket' option, which is the captured info app I use from my reader.

It's not perfect as a replacement. With Reeder the app sat at the bottom of my screen with a little counter, showing me how many new posts there were to read. Now I have to go into Feedly from my browser before I find out. However I used to have iGoogle as my home page on my browser (something else they're giving the chop), so I've now switched over to Feedly. It's certainly a whole lot better than being dumped in the ditch by the ungrateful Google.

You rotten lot.

Has the time boldly gone?

While I loved the original series of Star Trek, for me the ultimate was Star Trek, the Next Generation. With better acting, more depth of characters, much better visuals and some excellent storylines it was a transformation of the Star Trek theme. I mean, come on, Patrick Stewart as captain? What's not to love?

So I was rather excited to have a chance to review a book called On Board the U.S.S. Enterprise by Denise and Michael Okuda, which is a detailed exploration of the NCC 1701-D, both in the pages of the book and on an accompanying CD-ROM with a graphic reconstruction of various parts of the interior.

I suppose I should have realized I was setting myself up for disappointment. Part of the reason for this is that if you watch an STTNG episode now, frankly they can be a bit creaky. So it's not entirely surprising that the same applies to the book. Just as graphically the TV series now looks rather fuzzy, badly coloured and crude, so do the images, mostly taken from screenshots, in the book. Yes, we are told quite a lot about the ship - but there's nothing there you wouldn't have picked up if you hadn't watched the series. And if that was the case, you wouldn't want to read the book. It really doesn't extend what was there already. It's not enough, for instance, to tell me about dilithium crystals - I want to know where they come from, how they work...

Similarly, the graphics on the CD-ROM are quite good, though at each location you are limited to viewing from two or three places in the scene, but the end result is strangely empty feeling, rather like those graphics you want to skip through on DVDs that come before you choose an episode.

My biggest problem with this book is who it's for. An STTNG fan will not get anything more than a whiff of nostalgia - there's certainly nothing new here. Perhaps the best person to buy this book for is a youngish person, discovering the series for the first time and not yet immersed in the Star Trek universe.

I'm sorry not to be more positive - of course if you are the kind of total fan that collects everything to do with STTNG you will want this. But for the mild fan who hasn't got the complete boxed sets but enjoyed it very much at the time, this was a let down. Do, however, feel free to see for yourself. The book is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Lazy computers

Happy Good Friday (if that's not an oxymoron).

I should have had a standing order paid today, but my bank has kindly allowed the computer the day off as it is a bank holiday.

They also give the computer the weekend off, so it doesn't get too tired.

And guess what? Monday is a bank holiday too.

So the standing order due today will actually be paid on Tuesday.

Welcome to the world of 365 days a year, 24/7 electronic banking.

And the banks tell us they are listening to customers.

Arggh!

It's a knockout

Have you ever had the urge to slip someone a Mickey Finn? Well, don't. It's not just illegal, it's dangerous too. But if you had given in, the chances are you would have used chloral hydrate, the subject of my latest podcast for the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Hurry along to the RSC compounds site to discover more about Mickey himself - or if you've five minutes to spare now, click to to have a listen to my podcast on chloral hydrate.