To all,
Before we begin, I am sorry for my extended absence, but here we are and we must continue. I don’t have work on the wind tunnel to report just yet, but I do have some discussion of interesting science. To begin, here is a quote from Robert Wilson speaking at a congressional committee defending the funding of a very expensive particle accelerator:
“It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.”
I believe this serves as an appropriate introduction to quite an expensive experiment. A little over a week ago, the Mars Science Laboratory launched for one of our neighboring planets…you guessed it, Mars. JPL provided a great animation (not actual video) of its travel, entry into the martian atmosphere, landing, and operation. I am so struck by the audacity of the mission! (Follow the Link)
Mars Rover animation
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Science: Is it True?
Dear All,
Is science true? Yes, that is the question. Is it really, really true? Helping to motivate this discussion, we recently assailed upon a little philosophy of math, here, where we remarked and marveled how math can represent both real and non-real things and yet both kinds can teach us about reality.
I thought this was incredible, and so it is! However, I used the Navier-Stokes equations in fluid mechanics as an example and as one commenter stated, even the respected Navier-Stokes equations aren’t true in the hard sense…they neglect many things like radioactive decay. This did not sit well with me, for I like to think what I am doing is true, and caused me to wonder what is truth, and what in science matches this. Let’s combine this discussion with a little science history.
Navier-Stokes momentum equation
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