Monday Science Links

This week's science:

• Jennifer at Cocktail Party Physics on Michael Faraday: I've always had a soft spot for Michael Faraday, for any number of reasons, but one of those reasons is that he was a brilliant experimentalist with world-class instincts for investigating the behavior of this strange new phenomenon, and yet he possessed only rudimentary mathematical skills -- something that hampered the broad acceptance of his concept of how electromagnetism worked. And then there was his inveterate bookishness. He came from working class origins: he was the son of an English blacksmith, apprenticed to a bookbinder at 14. Some might have considered this a sucky job, but the young Faraday took advantage of access to all that knowledge, and read voraciously (I was one of those kids who started reading very early, and would compulsively read a cereal box if that's all that was available to me). Faraday was especially fond of reading about the natural sciences. Serendipitously, as his apprenticeship was ending, a friend gave him a ticket to a lecture on electrochemistry by the eminent scientist Humphrey Davey, at the Royal Institution -- not a venue where the young humble-born Faraday would normally be welcomed. Faraday was entranced, and asked Davy for a job. There wasn't a position available, Davy gently told the young man, but shortly thereafter he sacked his assistant for brawling and hired Faraday in his stead. It has famously been said that Michael Faraday was Davy's greatest discovery; considering that Davy discovered the elements barium, strontium, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, that is no mean compliment.

• Sean at Cosmic Variance writes about the physics of Benjamin Button: The important event this Dec. 25 isn’t celebrating the birthday of Isaac Newton or other historical figures, it’s the release of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a David Fincher film starring Brad Pitt and based on the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. As you all know, it’s a story based on the device of incompatible arrows of time: Benjamin is born old and ages backwards into youth (physically, not mentally), while the rest of the world behaves normally. Some have pretended that scientific interest in the movie centers on issues of aging and longevity, but of course it’s thermodynamics and entropy that take center stage. While entropy increases and the Second Law is respected in the rest of the world, Benjamin Button’s body seems to be magically decreasing in entropy. (Which does not, strictly speaking, violate the Second Law, since his body isn’t a closed system, but it sure is weird.)


• Sam at Sorting Out Science has a "Scientific Tourist" post on Gigantopithecus blacki - a cautionary tale: Gigantopithecus has an interesting history in the scientific world. It was first described by the German paleontologist Ralph von Koenigswald based on a single tooth found at a Chinese apothecary’s shop in 1935. Many more fossilized bits and pieces of this creature have since been found — but still, the sum total of Gigantopithecus remains consists of three jaw bones (a.k.a. mandibles), and hundreds of teeth. As such things go, these are slim pickings. Still, it’s been enough for people to propose detailed hypotheses on Gigantopithecus' place in the ape family tree, as well as on its diet, behavior, and general size and description (as is the case for the Museum of Man’s reconstruction). The fact that these are all based on thin evidence doesn’t seem to bother a number of people, some of whom even go on to postulate that encounters with early humans led to the extinction of Gigantopithecus — unless, of course, some remnant populations remain to be the source of Sasquatch / Big Foot / Yeti stories


• Judith at Zenobia: Empress of the East finishes up (I think) her series on Stone-Age Venuses: A Palaeolithic man needed a woman who would bear him lots of children. Not a pretty face but a “faceless fertile being" with a strongly emphasized vulva to produce a continuing supply of young humans. And, if she got too fat in the process, well, there's just more of her to impregnate. So men carved desirable images of obese, passive, child-bearing nurturers -- another weapon in the armoury of Palaeolithic magic. Perhaps these ladies were divine in some sense, but, if so, that was restricted to a place in cults of fertility acted out by men and for men. This was the early 20th century prehistorians' view -- and there may well be a certain amount of truth in it. But not enough to carry the weight of the theory. For it should have been obvious (even at the time) that this could not have been the whole story. Some Venuses didn't fit the model. Someone may have unkindly pointed out, too, that there are no carved children. If Palaeolithic Tarzans were obsessed with the need for abundant offspring, they (literally) didn't show it.


• And the eponymous Skulls in the Stars has another, and detailed, pos on Michael Faraday's excellent researches: Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867) was a master of electricity. His researches established may important results in electromagnetic theory, including some which are now so taken for granted that Faraday’s name is unfortunately not even thought of in connection with them. I started to investigate Faraday’s writings while working on a post about Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel The Coming Race, which quotes Faraday to justify B-L’s fictional source of energy, vril. This led me back through Faraday’s monumental collection of researches on electricity, a collection of over 25 articles published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society under the blanket title, “Experimental researches in electricity.” Faraday, though apparently not very sophisticated theoretically, was an amazing experimentalist. Though I was originally looking for only a single quotation from his articles, I eventually downloaded a half-dozen of his works and I thought I’d discuss their details and their historical import.

Enjoy!