A Common Question About String Theory

Talk about weird and abstract physics, and string theory is likely the ultimate poster child. The question that always comes up deals with the extra dimensions string theorists have concocted. The prediction is that we live in a universe wth 10 or 11 dimensions, rather than the 4 that Einstein used in general relativity. But where do these numbers come from? Probably the best explanation I have seen taht is not full of te advanced mathematics is on the Scientific American website. I quote it below:

Moshe Rozali, a physicist at the University of British Columbia, explains.

"These numbers seem to be singled out in the search for a fundamental theory of matter. The more you probe the fundamental structure of matter, the simpler things seem to become. In developing new theories that can encompass the current ones, scientists look for more simplicity in the form of symmetry. In addition to being elegant, symmetry is useful in constraining the number of competing models. The more symmetry there is, the fewer models that fit that symmetry exist.

One useful such symmetry is called supersymmetry, which connects matter in the form of fermions with force carriers in the form of bosons. This is an elegant symmetry relating seemingly different aspects of our universe. Although this symmetry is still theoretical, the Large Hadron Collider, scheduled to start operation by the end of the decade, will look for it experimentally. Fermions and bosons differ by the property known as spin. In quantum units, fermions carry half-integer spin, whereas bosons have integer spin. Supersymmetry relates the spin of particles differing by one-half. For example, the electron, which has spin ½, is thought to have a partner called the selectron, which has spin 0; in this sense the electron and the selectron are mirror images. All their properties are related to each other by the symmetry. So, too, the boson and fermion can be related in this symmetry.

But there can be more than one supersymmetry, just as there is more than one way to position a mirror. A single supersymmetry connects a boson to a fermion. If there are other such symmetries, they connect more bosons and fermions and thereby unify more aspects of our universe. For example, with additional supersymmetry, the electron and the selectron would have additional partners of spin 0 and 1. The symmetry would also restrict the form in which these partners can interact with each other.

Ultimately, though, too much symmetry simplifies the theory to the point of being trivial. All the particles are unable to interact with each other or with our measuring devices. This is certainly not a good thing for a theorist to construct ,so the goal is to get the greatest amount of symmetry that still allows for interesting physics.

A guide in this pursuit is a theorem devised/put forth by physicists Steven Weinberg and Edward Witten, which proves that theories containing particles with spin higher than 2 are trivial. Remember each supersymmetry changes the spin by one half. If we want the spin to be between -2 and 2, we cannot have more than eight supersymmetries. The resulting theory contains a spin -2 boson, which is just what is needed to convey the force of gravitation and thereby unite all physical interactions in a single theory. This theory--called N=8 supergravity--is the maximally symmetric theory possible in four dimensions and it has been a subject of intense research since the 1980s.

Another type of symmetry occurs when an object remains the same despite being rotated in space. Because there is no preferred direction in empty space, rotations in three dimensions are symmetric. Suppose the universe had a few extra dimensions. That would lead to extra symmetries because there would be more ways to rotate an object in this extended space than in our three-dimensional space. Two objects that look different from our vantage point in the three visible dimensions might actually be the same object, rotated to different degrees in the higher-dimensional space. Therefore all properties of these seemingly different objects will be related to each other; once again, simplicity would underlie the complexity of our world.

These two types of symmetry look very different but modern theories treat them as two sides of the same coin. Rotations in a higher-dimensional space can turn one supersymmetry into another. So the limit on the number of supersymmetries puts a limit on the number of extra dimensions. The limit turns out to be 6 or 7 dimensions in addition to the four dimensions of length, width, height and time, both possibilities giving rise to exactly eight supersymmetries (M-theory is a proposal to further unify both cases). Any more dimensions would result in too much supersymmetry and a theoretical structure too simple to explain the complexity of the natural world. "

So these numbers of dimensions really are derived and not pulled out of a hat. Scientists have looked for the past couple decades for evidence of supersymmetry, and up to now no direct evidence has been found for all the new SUSY partners it requires. The hunt for supersymmetry, as well as the search for the Higgs boson and new types of matter that could be categorized as 'dark matter,' remain the top goals for particle physicists as the commission date for the LHC at CERN moves ever closer.

State of the Union: More Science and Math Teachers

I did not get a chance to see even one second of the SOTU speech last night, but one initiative I heard about was the president's call for 70,000 more science and math teachers for public schools. I assume this is in response to the efforts put forth quite successfully in places lke India and China, where there is an enormous push to crank out new engineers, mathematicians and scientists in order to compete with the West, particularly the U.S. While anyone who knows me knows I think this is a necessary step for the U.S. to maintain our lead in science and technology, it is also likely an unrealistic goal as long as teacher salaries remain the lowest among any profession in the U.S. Other fields of study pay much more than one could make in teaching, and many of our best and brightest have been going into those areas of study (business, law, medicine, and even journalists make more on average). Zenpundit touches on this topic, as well.

I did want to address one question I have heard a few people bring up, inculding one of the comments to the Zen post, and that is "Why should Americans want to study math and science in the first place? Why should it be a national priority?" It does seem silly to pursue teaching math and science if you come at it from a purely economic perspective. But it is absolutely in the best interest of the nation to get a strong base for the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians. I would argue it may be the single most important issue raised in last night's address, simply because almost everything else Bush addressed depends on science and technology.

To win the war on terror, for example, will require us to constantly improve on telecommunications and surveillance technologies of all types. Our military response to any potential conflict is built around our lead in technology, which in turn stems from science research. As we delve deeper into a digital world, where health, insurance, financial, government, military, and all other types of records is being digitized and placed in supposedly secure databases, we will always need to push the envelope to develop the next generations of encryption and security hardware and software. This is built around mathematical algorithms and technology. The president called for a push for cutting our dependence on oil. This will only happen when we get serious about developing new and more efficient methods of production for alternative sources of energy. We cannot imagine all the possible uses and paths we may one day take when it comes to nanotechnology and molecular biochemistry. Medical and agricultural research needs to be maintained. In short, our entire economy is built around the products of science and technology. We will need some number of our best and brightest to go into all of these fields, and we simply are not seeing the numbers majoring in these areas with the current crop of college students. Or reliance on foreign students and scientists to keep our research infrastructure and programs intact is showing signs of weakening as well, as more of them head back to their own countries.

In the end, it is a nice thing to say in the state of the union to show you (finally) realize it is an upcoming crisis (and something nice to say in an election year), but I don't see it happening until there are financial incentives for students to pursue it. It all starts in K-12 science education, particularly in high school and AP type classes, where serious students in technical areas get hooked before they go to college. There is already a shortage of qualified high school science and math teachers, which must have some correlation to the shortage of college students in these areas, and within the next 15 years or so we will need to be prepared for the consequences if the present trend does not change. But it will take money, and with continuing record deficits and spending and permanent tax cuts (i.e. less revenue), the Bush proposal is meaningless and unrealistic. I am afraid this was just a statement for show and politics, with no plan at all as to how we will accomplish it.

Change in Democratic Leadership in Congress Needed

Is it just me, or do other Dems out there wish the current leadership in the House and Senate would just step down and let someone else come in before the midterm elections? In particular, I cannot help but think life would be so much better for Senate Dems if Barack Obama, 99th in terms of seniority, would be able to take on the Minority Leader position. After seeing him on ABC's Sunday morning show This Week.., I am again impressed by his honesty and willingness to speak in terms of his true beliefs as well as some common sense. It was no different than when I met him at a fundraiser before the 2004 elections, where he comes across as someone who truly is there to help people, and not play the power game. He is not afraid to say when he agrees with Republicans, he is not afraid to criticize Dem strategy such as the Alito filibuster, and he was not afraid to come right out and say what I have been waiting for a Dem to say: they need to stop complaining about every little thing the Republicans do and stop doing political maneuvering, and rather step up and focus on an actual message and alternative ideas to real problems. Republicans have been absolutely correct in their criticism of Dems when they say the Dems have nothing better to offer; the message has been lost in politics, and that is the responsibility of the leadership. The table has been set for a long time now for Dems to make real noise in House elections, but they have, thanks to the leadership, been blowing it in my opinion (and many others, for that matter).

OK, I just had to vent for a couple minutes.

Achievement Gaps and Economics

Here is some food for thought as far as academic achievement gaps and the economic status of students. There is an update in the NEA Today newsletter on how a 5-year old system in a North Carolina county district is going. The system is based on integrating classes not by gender, race, or academic level, but rather the economic status of the family. Ten years ago, only 40% of Black 3rd through 8th graders scored at grade level. Since the adoption of the new integration system, this past year the number of Black students who were at or above grade level hit 80%. And this includes the fact that the number of low income students has actually risen during the past few years by 7-percent.

Research has suggested for quite some time that such an integration scheme helps improve academic achievement for all students involved, and I find this North Carolna success impressive. Lower income students (regardless of race) tend to come from families whose parents have a low education background, and in many cases education is not the priority in the home since parents may work multiple jobs just to put food on the table. Many parents in this position are not as involved in their kids' education as they may wish to be. My experience with juniors and seniors in a low income environment includes the fact that many of those students work numerous hours while still in high school to help the parents out, or to help raise younger siblings. School takes a back seat out of necessity in some cases. Students coming to school from such an environment, who are exposed to peers coming from more comfortable homes where education and achievement are typically a high, if not top, priority with the parents, experience a positive peer pressure to work hard in school and find success along the way. This postiive push and motivation from peers tends to have positive effects all around.

Another education result that is linked to the economics at the home: Students with home computers are 6 to 8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school (according to a U. of California, Santa Cruz, study). As far as stats go, it is estimated that as many as 50% of Black and Latino students do not have computers in the home (probably safe to say most are low income), while 75% of White students have computers.

It is research and stats such as these, along with a decade's worth of personal experience, that make me want to scream sometimes when someone gets up and insists that money has no effect on education; it is not, of course, the absolute answer to problems with the education system, but there is no question that money does, indeed, play a significant role in many situations.

Some Wise Words About Our Approach to Dealing With Complexity in Real Life

I've started to read Thomas Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," which gets into Friedman's observations and thoughts about globalization. Here is a blurb from it that I personally think hits the nail on the head when it comes to thinking about globalization or any type of complex system. It starts with a quote Friedman has from Nobel Prize winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann (developed the quark theory in particle physics back in the 1960s, and helped found the Santa Fe Institute for the study of complexity). This is on pages 27 and 28 of the book:

"Here on earth, once it was formed, systems of increasing complexity have arisen as a consequence of the physical evolution of the planet, biological evolution and human cultural evolution. The process has gone so far that we human beings are now confronted with immensely complex ecological, poitical, economic and social problems. When we attempt to tackle such difficult problems, we naturally tend to break them up into more manageable pieces. That is a useful practice, but it has serious limitations. When dealing with any non-linear system, especially a complex one, you can't jsut think in terms of parts or aspects and just add things up and say that the behavior of this and the behavior of that, added together, makes up the whole thing. With a complex non-linear system you hae to break it up into pieces and then study each aspect, and then study the very strong interaction between them all. Only this way can you describe the whole system."

Friedman adds:

"That to me is the essence of what I consider the globalist school in international relations. But to have a globalist school, we need more students, professors, diplomats, journalists, spies and social scientists trained as globalists."

One last quote from Gell-Mann:

"We need a corpus of people who consider that it is importnat to take a serious and professional crude look at the whole system. It has to be a crude look, because you will never master every part or every interconnection. Unfortunately, in a great many places in our society, including academia and most bureaucracies, prestige accrues principally to those who study carefully some [narrow] aspect of a problem, a trade, a technology, or a culture, while discussion of the big picture is relegated to cocktail party conversation. That is crazy. What we noce considered to be the cocktail party stuff - that's a crucial part of the real story."

These are words of wisdom that can provide the beginning of a roadmap for the path all disciplines and schools of thought should consider taking. Life consists of multiple complex systems interacting with each other, and looking for things like organizational principles and understanding the interconnections between the smaller parts of systems that make up the whole is the next step in understanding the reality of the world. As I like to say to my students, we need to keep taking steps away from the nice neat world of 'physics land' and constantly try to figure out how to make it more and more real; it is not easy to do, for each little extra piece one adds means an additional layer of complexity, and it is out job to determine how it all relates to other features of the system. This way of thinking is important for understanding cultures and politics as well, as Friedman points out. Just look at the complicated problems introduced by Hamas winning a majority of the Palestinian seats in their government! How do we break that down in terms of the peace process? Political relationships? What is the 'big picture' way to think about this and other issues in the Middle East? Do we simply say we will never negotiate with Hamas and ignore the reality that they are part of the whole (i.e. government) now? That is a simplistic, unrealistic way to approach it, so now the world is stuck with trying to figure out what all the possible pieces are, and how are they related, and also try to predict what the consequences are if certain actions are taken. Talk about complexity! We absolutely need to consider how to train people to think in these ways and get away from single-issue or single-topic thinking.

Standards Fine, But Without High Expectations Tough to Attain

The standards movement in education has been rolling along for a number of years now, and depending on what district a student may live in, and some times what school within a district he or she attends, largely determines how well the population does with respect to standards. This is no secret. The question is, why can some schools perform above standards on average while others perform poorly, even though those schools may have similar student demographics and even be within the same district (meaning they would likely have similar resources, funding, support, etc)? There are two answers that may or may not fully explain such differences, but I am fairly certain they are among the most important reasons when this situation arises. These are the quality of the teachers and the level of expectations that are set for students, both by teachers as well as by the students and their parents.

The quality of a teacher in a classroom goes without saying, for good teachers are typically defined (at least on the academic side) as those who are able to get their students excited about learning, no matter what the subject area is, and help students improve their knowledge and thinking process over the course of the school year. It is my experience that one can also define good teachers on the personal side, as those (particularly those who work with the lowest level students) who are able to take kids with a wide variety of serious personal problems and help them become motivated to learn and perhaps turn the corner to get their lives on a better track.

Either way, the most effective teachers I know have a common characteristic in their classes: they have high expectations for all their students. They push the kids to try and improve, regardless of the level of student academically, and convince the students that they are fully capable of doing good work and learning. The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) began a unique approach to including larger numbers of students in more demanding classes when I was in the district ten years ago, and that approach has been paying off as over 6800 students, mostly minority and of low-income homes, ever since. The approach I speak of is the implementation of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program into numerous high schools. The IB program has a rigorous college-prep curriculum in multiple subjects, with its own exams and IB diploma. From an academic perspective, it is on-par with the better known Advanced Placement (AP) program designed and run through the College Board, but was originally designed for international schools that children of diplomats could attend and still be in the same curriculum as they were at an old school. I was fortunate enough to have helped write the science portion of the proposal that brought in the IB program at my old high school before leaving CPS, and I attended a formal training session for IB in Nashville. It is a well-designed curriculum that sets the bar at a high level for its students.

Last Sunday's Chicago Tribune ('Education Today' section, Jan. 15, 2006) had a nice article that presented results from a DePaul University study of CPS graduates who were in an IB program and then attended DePaul. The study shows that these once at-risk students who stereotypically should not do well in high school, let alone go to college and succeed, have a nearly 100% retention rate in college (at least at DePaul) and perform above average college levels. The enormous range of students now in IB programs (41 CPS high schools are now IB schools) is catching the attention of educators nationwide as well as with the international organization that runs IB. Challenging courses are being taken by larger numbers of students who typically are not exposed to this level of study. The perceived expectations for inner city youth have traditionally been they are not capable of doing college-level work because they are at-risk in terms of socioeconomic factors, the spread and influence of gangs and drugs in the neighborhoods in which they grow up, broken homes, English as a second language for many immigrant children, and the lack of education of the parents (many of the IB students who are making their way through the program and to college are first-generation high school graduates in their families, let alone first-generation college students). We have placed the blame on these factors for decades, concluding that these children have little chance of making it academically, and honestly the systemic reaction has too often been to water-down the curriculum in order to pass children through to graduation. What the education system has not done often enough is what CPS is experimenting with, where we instead raise the bar and allow those students who want to take a chance and try in school to see what they can do with a legitimate college-prep program.

I don't think CPS is as concerned with how many students ace the exams associated with the IB programs (of course they want the scores to be high, etc., but it is also important to give many kids a chance), as compared with how many kids are exposed to higher expectations and learning opportunities and who try to make something of themselves. In part, this process is in my mind a sort of social experiment to see if a critical mass of students who were not likely to make it academically exists and can change some of the culture of the inner city education establishment. I certainly hope that the programs continue to thrive and expand, and this becomes more of the norm than the historical failure of inner-city students. I applaud CPS for trying this approach, and for some new initiatives that they will be trying to implement in the near future (which I will write about at some point, after they are finished being designed, organized and implemented; I am fortunate enough to be involved with some of the new work that is beginning).

Who Do You Trust?

My wife found a list in last week's Chicago Tribune Magazine, which listed some names of people whom the public currently perceives (rightly or wrongly) as incorruptible and trustworthy. The list is:

Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton (as the Trib mentions, nothing left to hide!), Walter Cronkite, the Dalai Lama, Senator Russ Feingold, Patrick Fitzgerald, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Abner Mikva, Paul Newman, Arnold Palmer, Tim Russert, Paul Volcker, and, of course, Oprah Winfrey

I just found this interesting, and I welcome any suggestions of others that should be on this list. For instance, should someone like John McCain be on such a list? Alan Greenspan? Judge Judy? Let the names begin!

A Fairly Unknown Risk for the Pluto Space Launch

NASA is getting ready to launch a probe that will ultimately make it out to Pluto. This new mission, called New Horizons, will take some seven years to reach its destination to the ninth planet in our solar system (last year a tenth planet was discovered well past Pluto's orbit). What many people do not realize is that, for years and numerous missions (six Apollo missions and 19 others, including more recent missions to Mars and the 1997 Cassini mission to Saturn), NASA has had up to 80 pounds of plutonium and other radioactive elements on probes that serve as power sources and to help keep the spacecraft warm. The New Horizons probe will have 24 pounds inside special casing at launch time. Of course, the main risk is that there could be an explosion at launch time (tomorrow) that will dissipate plutonium, one of the mroe deadly materials known to humans, into the atmosphere, where it could spread over some number of square miles of land.

NASA and the Department of Energy estimate the odds of this happening at 1 in 350 chances. The White House had to approve the mission because of this potential threat. The estimated threat to humans living within 60 miles of the launch site, which is Cape Canaveral in Florida, is minimal, with a worst-case scenario of some individuals ingesting an amount of radiation that is at 80% of what we take in naturally from background radiation in one year's worth of time. At each launch are teams of experts trained to handle nuclear accidents in the environment and for public safety issues. Good luck to NASA for this latest mission which, in addition to studying Pluto, will study the Kuiper Belt outside of Pluto's orbit. This is a region with numerous icy bodies that become comets when they enter the solar system.

Reasons why U.S. Should Stay Away from an Exam Meritocracy

In my last post I mentioned it would not be in the best interests of the U.S. to continue on this path of making our public education system entirely focused on test results. First there was the No Child Left Behind law that ultimately judges a school or district by looking almost solely on test results. A new merit pay system being adopted by the Houston school district continues with this test craze and will allow teachers to receive bonuses based solely on increased test scores. Everything about these types of trends in education continues to push the U.S. towards a mroe European and Asian style education system, where test results determine the paths of students, usually at an early age. I absolutely think the U.S. is headed down the wrong road for its public schools if we continue to adopt this sort of imported system, as I argued some time ago in an earlier post.

In last week's Newsweek (Jan. 9, 2006; page 37), Fareed Zakaria examined a question in education that is related to the push for constant testing. It is well known that many Asian countries, in particular, score higher than American students in international science and math exams. But the question becomes: If American kids test much worse, why do they do much better in the real world? Singapore, for instance, has been at the very top in test scores in math and science for a number of years, but when is the last time one of those former high school testing phenoms won a Nobel Prize, or developed a miracle drug, or changed the world with a new technological advancement? Why are American workers the most productive in the world? Why do Americans continue to win the Nobel Prizes, attain top patents, and why do we have one of the highest living standards in the world with the most diverse population and culture in human history? Why are we the only remaining superpower (at least for the moment)? None of this would be true if our education system wasn't doing something right, particularly for our top students.

Zakaria interviewed Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Singapore's minister of education, to get his opinion. The minister said, "We both have meritocracies. Yours (the U.S.) is a talent meritocracy, ours is exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well - lke creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. These are areas where Singapore (and I believe many other Asian nations are thinking this too...my words) must learn from America." I'll say. These are all aspects of education that a test, test, test system kills. In our public schools, students have a chance to take on electives and find themselves and their interests and strengths along the way. Extracurricular programs in all areas allow students to explore their interests further. More often we see schools with expanded community service opportunities, which my students have told me countless times give them an expanded perspective of what real life is like outside the protected walls of school. And more importantly, a student's educational future is not determined prior to high school as it is in any other nations, based on test scores taken in elementary and middle schools. It is true that a number of individuals peak a bit later and have opportunities to still attend college and work their way into something of interest. I would personally like to see more of this for students, as I am a supporter of Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (or competencies, in my opinion), and individuals need exposure to many different subjects presented in multiple ways to learn how they best learn and where they have some talent to further develop. We allow, to at least some degree, some amount of freedom for our students to pursue higher learning skills not only in core subjects, but the arts, athletics, public service, and so on. That hidden variable, creativity, is something we cannot kill off for students because that drives innovation in all areas of society later in an individuals life...it needs to be allowed to develop and grow at relatively early ages in order to be productive later in life. Classrooms and schools that focus on test preparation and results means precious time for the creative and developmental aspects of a student is taken away.

Another interesting point brought about in Zakaria's article is that American universities are unrivaled globally, and getting better in many cases. International students have flocked here for college and graduate school in order to obtain an American education, and many have remained, all to our benefit. The U.S. has a public-private partnership that is unmatched in the world, with billions of dollars coming in from the federal government as well as private foundations and industry partnerships. In addition, public and private schools compete for top talent and this raises the standards in many areas of study across the board. I could not agree more; talk about a complicated network structure!

I know from personal experience Singapore is serious about trying to change their system to some degree to begin to mimic aspects of the American education system. Last spring I was asked to meet with a group of educators from one of Singapore's top science and math high schools. They were here observing both successful high school and university programs, and I met with them at Northwestern University. They picked my brain about how to get beyond student memorization of facts and more into developing creative solutions and higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills, which are much more important in the long run than memorizing a few facts (that can be easily forgotten after a test). It is one thing to remember a solution to a particular type of problem and repeat the solution on a test, and something entirely different to truly learn an important principle or concept, and then having your brain take it and use it to create a new/original idea, discover a new principle, or expand on someone else's idea.

Part of the process is to get kids thinking about how the material applies to their lives, and allowing them to discuss that and put it into their own words. The guests from Singapore had not really thought that something like this should be a priority. Zakaria's article brought this back into my mind because he mentions that a friend of his from Singapore recently moved back from America and put his kids into one of the top Singapore high schools. He described the difference, that "In American schools, when my son would speak up, he was applauded and encouraged. In Singapore, he is seen as being pushy and weird." This is a vital observation and feature of our schools, and we should continue to pursue and push for it. Our children must continue to be encouraged to think and contribute, and not just sit there and memorize test strategies and facts that are gong to be on the next standardized test.

Of course, there are failing schools in America by any standards, and those schools tend to be in inner-city, poor (and minority) areas. We must do better, because there are too many students who are not allowed to make it out of their high school and find their true talents and potential. That is another issue that is tremendously complicated to address and make real progress, but the answer still does not rest solely on how well they ultimately do on a particular test.

Merit Pay for Teachers - Asking for Trouble

A very busy week is over for the moment, so here is an article that caught my eye today. The Houston school district (7th largest in the country) will be giving teachers up to $3000 in merit pay that is linked solely to improvements in state and national test scores by their students. Sounds good, no? Think about this, though:

In my current position as a teacher, I would be thrilled and planning a vacation for when my teaching bonus arrived. In my case, 100% of my students exceed state and national science scores! Yes, give me my money! But, here is the thing. I teach advanced placement, calculus-based physics, meaning I get the cream of the crop in students. My students go off to the top colleges in the country, so life is good.

In my former position in a large city school, I'd have been lucky if 10% of my students ever exceeded state and national test scores. I would be bummed out, and would have to cancel that vacation because I would be hard-pressed to raise the test scores significantly for my former students. At that school, 75% of students had English as a second language, a good majority were from immigrant families and were coming in with reading and math skills that were years behind their age and grade level, and 95% came from low-income families. What would have been overlooked is the fact that most of those students increased their math skills by several grade levels and improved their problem-solving skills, and some percentage greatly improved their reading comprehension and reading speed from the time I spent with them before and after school (in many cases those skills were doubled from when they began). What would have been overlooked is the fact that after my first three semesters at that school physics enrollment went from 5 sections to 14 sections as word spread students really could enjoy and learn physics, which is always thought of as 'one of those hard classes' that won't be much fun. But because some standardized test scores that largely test how fast you can work rather than how well you know the material are the only thing that mattered, I would not have been considered to be a teacher that was worth a bonus check. And so much for being a runner-up for Illinois Teacher of the Year, that would not have mattered, either.

The point is, this is a foolish way of doling out merit pay. Having our public education system judged and assessed solely by test scores is a foolish path to take, which is essentially where we are at with No Child Left Behind. It overlooks what good work hundreds of thousands of good teachers are doing with their students, and all the extra time they spend with them that goes unrecognized. Houston teachers are being pushed and encouraged to teach solely to the test, where 'drill and kill' methodologies rule and the fun of and love for learning begins to be strangled. I'll be posting soon about gearing education towards 'mastering the standardized test' and why that is not the ideal systemic goal.

Financial Costs of the War - New Estimate

In a new report published by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University) and Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes, the budgetary costs of the war in Iraq should ultimately top the $1 TRILLION mark over the next decade.

Try to think back to the administration's hype for the war. In 2003, Larry Lindsey, the White House economic advisor, said the costs of the war might hit $200 billion. We are nearing $300 billion already. This figure is what has been spent in day to day operations. But what the administration has not talked about are the long-term costs, which Stiglitz and Bilmes are now considering. We will need to include long-term health and disability costs for at least 20,000 veterans of the war who have been or will be injured from the war. The economists predict, for example, that for brain damaged veterans alone the long-term cost will be some $35-$40 billion (I am sure assumptions have to be made for how long they will live). In addition to long term care payments for veterans, future reconstruction costs in Iraq, increased defense spending because of the war, demobilization costs, and a variety of disability costs quickly and easily reach the $1 trillion figure.

Why do we not hear the White House or GOP controlled Congress talking about the long-term costs? Very simply, because the war is already unpopular and this sort of news just before the GOP tries to pass an additional $70 billion in tax cuts for the well-to-do will not be welcomed by many voters in an election year. It appears the White House must be aware of the unbelievable costs, which will be at least 5 times what they sold the public on when they hyped the war, because they have again notified Congress that the debt ceiling needs to be raised by February, when the national debt will surpass the current ceiling of over $8 trillion. The ceiling will soon be closer to $9 trillion. How much more irresponsible can our supposed leaders be? How outrageous are their claims of being "fiscally responsible" and "compassionate conservatives" after making such disastrous choices? This is all absolutely insane, and we cannot sit back and continue to take it.

We are stuck with Bush for two more years, but we can make a difference with the Congress. It is time to act this year and remove the House leadership. In my opinion, the best thing that can happen for the country is for the Democrats to take back the House, and force the agenda back to the middle, just like what happened in 1994 when the Republican shift occured. It was the GOP takeover of Congress that helped Pres. Clinton be more moderate compared to the far left that had strong influence during his first two years in office, and the country was ultimately better off because of it. Having the same party in control of both the executive and legislative branches typically moves the agenda from the middle, which is where most would agree we should be. Certainly in terms of our current economic status (i.e. a mess), we need the Dems to come in and be the fiscally responsible leaders.

European Nations Warming to Nuclear Power

Europe has not seen new nuclear power plants built for the past two decades, but that trend is changing. As I wrote about back in November, new technology in the nuclear power production sector has made this type of energy more attractive. In Finland, the first of several new nuclear reactors in a variety of European countries has been under construction and is due to be completed and online by 2009. This type of production was halted back in the mid-1980s as the Chernobyl crisis sent shock waves through Europe. But as oil prices rise and problems with oil coming through the Ukraine mount, and Europe's participation in global climate relief programs such as the Kyoto Protocol mandate reductions in greenhouse gases, nuclear power has become a resurrected possibility for energy. Note that nuclear power plants do not release greenhouse gases. Look for continued interest in Europe as well as other areas of the world, including the U.S., as far as the use and scope of nuclear power programs.

Congress Braces for a Storm

Ah, our elected officials, voted into office to supposedly look out for our interests as our representatives, are shaking in their shorts as Jack Abramoff, lobbyist extraordinaire, has agreed to testify for prosecutors. He has put in a plea of guilty to fraud charges and apparently is about to blow the whistle on some 20 members of Congress and top aides to congressional leaders, who allegedly accepted bribes from the lobbyist in order to gain votes on a variety of bills. According to initial reports, included in this group is Illinois' own Speaker of House Dennis Hastert. President Bush has just returned $6000 in campaign contributions from Abramoff, and I am sure this will be the trend the next few days as members on both sides of the aisle race to separate themselves from yet another Washington scandal. Much more to come, I'm sure, on this and other countless blogs over the next days and weeks. I suspect this will turn out to be a good thing as we have now entered an election year, as we the voters will have a chance to show our point of view and perhaps clean house a bit at the ballot box come November.

Some sites to check out if interested in networks, complex systems, etc.

I've had some number of posts over the past couple months related to network theory and complexity, and each day it seems as if there are more applications and questions that revolve around these topics. Here are some good sites if you are interestedin learning more about such topics.

Northwestern University IGERT Program on Complex Systems
Notre Dame's Center for Complex Network Research (Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's group)
Santa Fe Institute (dedicated to complexity science)

One can find all sorts of papers and outlines of the research programs...good stuff!

Top Science Stories from Scientific American

Check out the summaries of Scientific American's top 25 science stories for 2005. Some interesting material, ranging from the possibility of global climate change leading to more ferocious hurricanes like we saw this past year to the discovery of gamma ray burst sources (colliding neutron stars, for example) to figuring out the genome of chimps, which puts humans and chimps at 98.8% genetically the same. We also have a tenth planet that is three times farther from the Sun than Pluto, and it has its own moon; evidence for a quark-gluon plasma (a new state of matter that theoretically existed just after the Big Bang) that behaves more like a liquid; soft tissue preserved from a 70-million yer old T. Rex; and the ongoing debate of intelligent design being taught in science classrooms. And more...as always, a rich year in science across all disciplines, and look for more and more multi-/interdisciplinary discoveries as time goes on.

A Happy and Healthy New Year to all!!

U.S. Debt - Up, up and Away.....

On the evening of President Bush's victory speech when he won re-election in 2004, the Treasury Department sent a letter to members of the House and Senate requesting that the debt ceiling be increased by $800 Billion, to an astonishing $8.184 Trillion. The debt ceiling is legally something that Congress needs to set in order for the federal government to not default on its financial obligations, because it is needed for the government to continue to borrow (largely from overseas governments like Japan, China, India, and so on). Guess what? Secretary Snow of the Treasury has just sent a letter to Congress requesting that they quickly raise the debt ceiling again, because we will have burned through that additional $800 billion from last year by February, 2006. I would have to think this will push the ceiling to nearly $9 trillion (Snow did not include a number in his letter...yet...but these are usually fairly large numbers).

With all of this going on, in order to have "debt reduction," Congress has passed legislation that will cut nearly $40 billion from programs that involve little, insignificant things like food stamps, college loans, and Medicaid (used to pay for health care costs for low-income Americans). Of course, this will be washed out and then some when Congress will likely pass $70 billion in tax cuts (almost all for wealthy Americans) when they return from recess, so their plan is to take from the poor and in order to recduce debt, but then actually add a net gain in debt by giving to the wealthy. And then, to continue borrowing hundreds of billions more that will add on to the trillions in debt our kids and grandkids will have to worry about. Notice they did not cut any of their pet projects in the transportation bill or energy bill, which they use to bribe us for their votes in next year's midterm elections.

How about this; pass this along to your friends. Let's spread the word and vote out all the assh*#@%s in the House who went along with this nonsense and try to do what is right for a change, and get the country back on the path of economic stability and sanity. Who's with me?!?!

The Importance of Variety in the Classroom

It has always been my philosophy that, when teaching a classroom full of students, perhaps the only way to reach all students is to have a variety of ways of presenting the course material. This always seemed logical because in a typical class there is a variety of ability among the students as well as a variety of ways each student best learns. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I tested my intuition with data. The data came from a survey given to a number of physics classes at the three levels we have at our high school: regular, honors and advanced placement (AP). The information below summarizes the results of the survey, along with the main conclusion that, without question, it is absolutely essential to teach in a variety of ways in order for all students to have a chance of learning at their highest level.

The Survey
The survey that was passed out to physics classes consisted of a ranking system for sixteen (16) different activities/methods teachers may employ in their physics classes. While this was done only for physics classes, the survey should be relevant for any science discipline. The sixteen activities/methods were: Lecture, Research Papers, Small Group Discussions, Whole Class Discussions, Teacher Demonstrations, Quiz/Exam Prep by students, Homework, Laboratory Activities, Study Groups Outside Class, Reading the Textbook/Articles, Computer Simulations/Activities, Tutoring/Being Tutored, Projects, Field Trips, Review Sessions for Exams, and Videos/PowerPoint Presentations. Although this is not an exhaustive list of what a teacher may do in a science class, it gives a reasonable range of activities
Students were asked to rate each of these teaching techniques/activities on a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 represented an activity that students feel is “most helpful” in their learning of course material, and a 1 represented an activity that the student felt is not effective in their learning.

The Data
Surveys were distributed to physics students in regular, honors, and AP classes. We received 117 returned surveys from regular classes (57 males, 60 females), 61 surveys from honors classes (27 males, 34 females), and 86 surveys from AP classes (64 males, 22 females). Table 1 below shows the percentage of students in each level of physics who rated the activity as a 5 (still trying to get a table formatted properly...anyone know how to do this in Blogger?). The first observation that stood out in the data is that every one of the activities on the survey had multiple students rate it as being something they thought was very important in their learning of physics. Several activities also stick out, with the top three being Teacher Demonstrations, Review Sessions, and Field Trips (not entirely surprising). Teacher Demonstrations and Review Sessions were the only two activities that had an overall average of above 4 on the rating scale. The three least beneficial activities according to the survey were Research Papers, Computer Activities, and Projects. These were the only three activities that had an overall average below 2.7 on the scale.


Activity Regular(M) Regular(F) Honors(M) Honors(F) AP(M) AP(F)
Lecture 5 10 18 23 33 27
Research Papers 7 3 11 9 9 5
Small Group Work 7 13 18 9 25 27
Demonstrations 49 47 41 59 41 36
Class Discussions 21 32 33 35 20 23
Quiz/Exam Prep 12 27 35 32 28 32
Homework 5 15 11 20 19 59
Laboratory Activity 14 25 13 18 11 23
Study Groups 3 3 8 18 17 14
Reading Text 7 8 11 9 11 5
Computer Activities 5 3 0 0 3 0
Tutoring/Tutored 21 15 15 18 23 23
Projects 7 2 8 9 6 9
Field Trips 38
Review Sessions 28 48 22 47 45 50
Videos/PowerPoint 16 17 4 15 5 9

Table 1: Responses of 5 (Most Helpful to Learning) by male and female students in regular, honors and AP physics classes. Numbers refer to percentage of students who rated the activity as a 5. There were 57 regular male students, 60 regular female students, 27 honors male students, 34 honors male students, 64 AP male students, and 22 AP female students who responded.


Another interesting aspect of the data lies in the ability to statistically compare different groups of students. For example, the ratings on a particular activity can be compared between male and female students, and they can be compared between white and African-American students. Evanston Township High School has a student population that is roughly half white and half minority (about 40% African-American), and in our case it is important to identify if there are significant differences in how different groups of students learn (or at least perceive how they think they best learn).

Two-sample t-tests were performed between different groups, where the average values of the group’s rating for a specific activity was compared to another group. A t-test of this sort determines the probability that there is a statistical difference between the rating values, and therefore a difference in how groups believe they best learn. I had groups of my AP Physics students who were also in AP Statistics perform the t-tests. Several interesting results were found. For instance, it was discovered that male students feel they learn better than female students when lectures are given. Another example is that there is a large statistical difference between how white and African-American students believe they learn from lectures, with white students being more comfortable within a lecture environment. African-American students, on the other hand, believe they learn significantly better from laboratory activities than white students. Apparently African-American students seem to feel they learn best when actively involved in hands-on, interactive activities. It should be noted that physics courses at our school are quite segregated by race, with the majority of African-American physics students taking regular physics, while the AP classes are almost entirely white. Honors sections also have an under-represented fraction of African-American students. As one progresses from regular to AP physics, the percentage of lecture time in class increases because of the nature of AP exams, where problem-solving is emphasized more than laboratory skills. The data seem to suggest one possible contribution to the very low percentage of minority enrollment in AP Physics has to due with the growing emphasis on an activity that is more ineffective for their learning of physics. This is something that should be looked at carefully by teachers and investigated further.

Other activities white students preferred significantly more than African-American students, as given through the t-tests, were research papers, small group work, study groups outside of school, and tutoring. African-American students reported that doing laboratory exercises, having class discussions, and viewing videos are some of the best ways they learn, and that they prefer over white students. These data have shed some light and have given us some things to think about as we approach classroom planning and activities.

Conclusion
I encourage other science teachers to give similar surveys at their schools. I was not surprised by the fact that variety in a classroom is a primary goal for all teachers, but the data did suggest that how we approach classes with different groups represented may need to focus more on some teaching options than others. While the results for physics classes in Evanston show several differences in how students believe they best learn, it is likely other differences would show up at other schools and in other science courses. Local surveys and analysis could lead to useful and interesting results that may help improve our ability to most effectively reach every student in our classes.

Effect of Smaller Class Sizes

Anyone who has ever taught knows that smaller class sizes typically mean better results for the students in that class. It disturbs me when I hear other adults who rip on teachers who push for smaller class sizes as being lazy or wanting to make the job easier, rather than placing the focus on students and what is best for them. A few days ago I overheard a parent speaking in a negative manner about a local school that was trying to get more money in order to help reduce class sizes by a couple students. The classic complaints that schools already have too much funding and have incompetent teachers made it into his argument. I could not help but ask him if his kids ever had difficulty in a class, to which he replied "Yes." I asked what he did for them and he mentioned that a tutor helped to get them back on track in school and they ended up doing fine. He soon realized he shot a hole larger than the one in the ozone layer in his argument about what the schools wanted, and agreed that if the ultimate 'small class' of one with a tutor made the difference for his own child, then he could understand why teachers want to have slightly smaller classes, in order to spend more one-on-one or small group time with students who are having difficulty learning and growing.

The Education Testing Service (ETS) recently found that the percentage of high school graduates peaked in 1969 at 77%. By 2001, graduation rates slipped to 69%. This percentage eaked up into the low 70s in 2002 and 2003. It is disturbing enough when some 30% of all high school students around the nation do not get their diplomas. It is more disturbing when one considers that for African-American and Hispanic students, graduation rates are typically around 50%...half of the students in these minority groups (who tend to be low income) do not get their diplomas. This is a staggering statistic, but from my days in the Chicago Public Schools I know it is true. There are all sorts of reasons for the dropout students, and the reason varies tremendously from one individual to the next. What I also know to be true from personal experience is that city schools, which tend to have large numbers of low income, minority students (who are most at risk for dropping out), also tend to be overcrowded and have large class sizes, often over 30 students per class.

A study of Tennessee schools back in the 1980s found that students in smaller classes (13-17 students) were 11% more likely to graduate than students who were in classes with 22-26 students. This was a statistically significant result that has been cnofirmed in follow-up studies. What's more, low-income children were nearly twice as likely to graduate if they had small classes in primary school. Smaller class sizes allow more access to teachers by students who are struggling. Smaller class sizes allow teachers to know their students better, and have a better grasp of individual learning styles, strengths and weaknesses. Small classes tend to have fewer discipline problems, which means more time can be devoted to learning.

This is not rocket science, but there are still those who believe educators are simply looking to make life easier on themselves when they ask for more money to hire more (overpaid) teachers to reduce class sizes. The data do not support the conclusion that small class size do not help, nor does anedotal evidence from teachers. If anything, we can keep reminding opponents of small class sizes that if their kids ever had tutoring that helped improve performance, they should seriously reconsider their views and complaints about smaller class size. To extend on this topic, we should remind proponents of vouchers and No Child Left Behind that taking money away from a public school (which has a good chance of being overcrowded) in order to send students to private schools (which likely limit enrollment in classes to keep the numbers manageable for teachers) only makes matters worse for all those students who remain at the public school.

Leadership: The Essentials Across All Domains

What is leadership? Are there characteristics that recognized exceptional leaders share? These are questions that are, of course, debatable, but which I found interesting in Howard Gardner’s book “Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership.”

Gardner concludes after studying acknowledged leaders in a variety of fields that there are six common traits that they share. The list of people he chose to base his research on include George Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, Jean Monnet, Margaret Thatcher, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mahatma Gandhi, Pope John Paul XXIII, Alfred Sloan, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

A simple Webster’s definition of “lead” is ‘to show the way to, or direct the course of; to guide, or cause to follow.’ In order to do this, a leader must be able to interact with a specific audience that he/she wants to inspire in order to achieve some common goal(s). Gardner develops six constants of leadership that he identified from his pool of individuals, constants that are independent of the domain in which a person has achieved leadership status since they were common in the areas of politics, scientific and technological institutions, business, and education.

The six constants of leadership are:

Leaders must have an identifiable story or message to tell. The story must address the sense of individual and group identity (differentiate between “we” and “they”), and typically not only provide background information relevant to a cause, but also outline future options in terms of action and how the group can go about trying to attain specific goals. Preferably, leaders try to develop stories that are most often inclusionary, so individuals feel as if they are part of something worthwhile and the movement or institution the leaders are in charge of can expand. But there is a fine balance effective leaders are able to reach because if one is interested in making connections with larger and larger groups, then certain subgroups may develop that feel they are entitled to some form of special status, and if they are not recognized as such, they may challenge the leader for power, influence and/or control. This problem with trying to develop an inclusonary story is readily observed in poltical parties, where conflicts arise frequently between various subgroups and individuals, all of whom want to have raised status and a voice in the party.

Consideration of the audience is a second constant of leadership. The relationship between a leader and an audience is interactive and complex, to say the least. But if there is no audience to lead, there is no need for a leader. A movement of any sort requires a dynamic interplay between the needs, concerns, and desires of the audience and the contours of the leader’s story. Effective leaders must develop a fresh story to fit the audience’s initial needs and not only say some things the audience wants to hear, but then convince the audience that he/she has a plan of action that will take the audience to wherever it is they want to go. Some times a leader needs to define where that place is that the audience needs to get to (perhaps where a nation needs to go in order to rebound from hard times, such as Marshall needed to do), and some times that place is well defined and a leader needs to outline the steps and organize multiple subgroups within the audience in order to achieve a common goal (much like Oppenheimer had to do with the Manhattan Project). Leaders of homogenous audiences tend to have an easier time making changes than leaders of heterogeneous groups. Effective leaders also must be able to take their original story and tweak it rapidly in response to the mood of the audience if they are to maintain control, and often this skill is the type that cannot be taught, but is rather an innate characteristic of a leader (and one of the reasons why effective leaders are hard to find in any realm).

A third constant of leadership is the development of an institutional or organizational foundation. Leaders can speak directly to the audience on given occasions, but without organizational structure enduring leadership is unlikely, in not impossible. Perhaps the organization already exists and a leader works his/her way up through the organization. This is the case the majority of the time in groups like churches, businesses, political parties, educational institutions, and so on. It is not as common to bring in outsiders for well established organizations, unless there are individuals who have had success in other, similar organizations and another group is looking for some dynamic individual to turn things around. Other organizations need to be built from scratch. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Oppenheimer, however, are examples of leaders who had to build up organizations, and this requires leaders to have stories that are inspiring, logical, and also lay down a path of getting to a certain point that appears to be doable to the audience. If the story is too complex or confusing, or the leader does not appear to be passionate or charismatic enough about the cause, it is likely the audience will not respond or develop into the organization that the leader is trying to build. This connects to the next constant of leadership.

A fourth constant of leadership is the embodiment of the story by the leader. No person is perfect, and normally an audience is not looking for or is expecting perfection. However, someone who steps in and wants to lead needs to appear legitimate. They need to not only have a good, effective story, but their lives and actions need to suggest that the story is relevant in that person’s own life. If someone appears to be hypocritical, or if there appears to be a contradiction between the story and the facts of the person’s existence, an audience is unlikely to respond in a positive way. Leaders need to appear to be authentic, and not just someone who is looking for a position of power and will say anything they think the audience wants to hear. As Gardner reminds us, Abraham Lincoln once said, “One cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

A fifth constant of leadership is the interplay between direct and indirect leadership. There is the possibility of indirect leadership in creative fields such as art, music, literature, and other creative fields through the symbolic products certain individuals have developed. Entire artistic movements develop from influential leaders without those leaders necessarily directly addressing the audience. Often indirect leadership of this sort takes longer periods of time to develop, and the leaders who attempt to stay out of the spotlight tend to have more time to reflect and consider their next contributions without too much of a rush. There are also indirect leaders in politics and business, who do not seek to directly address a larger audience (such as running directly for public office), but prefer to affect change and influence behind the scenes. Much of what a president or CEO does, for instance, is largely ceremonial and requires a direct leader to be in the public’s eye, whereas a chief of staff works behind the scenes in order to get the policymaking done. On the other hand, direct leadership is more risky and up-tempo. Direct leaders need to be able to take the audience’s pulse and may have little time to reflect on how best to tweak how things are going. Leading in this manner generally requires a different skill set than in indirect leadership, and in the end leaders must determine how to make the biggest impact, either within a specific domain or with a wider society.

A sixth and final constant of leadership is the issue of expertise. In nearly every domain of experience today, some leaders will lack important technical knowledge, and the same can be true of some audiences. This situation becomes more relevant for those who want to lead directly over a larger society than for those who want to lead indirectly. In many specialized organizations, say a university or corporation, leaders may emerge who are not the top experts of the domain, but rather have better technical expertise and skills in management. This needs to be considered by leaders and those who seek leadership roles. At times this requires intimate knowledge or a ‘feel’ for the audience. Political leaders face this in a general campaign, for example. The audience, which is the general public, tends to be nonexpert on most issues. The details of the health care system, foreign relationships, economic principles, race relations, educational policy, tax codes, and so on, are all very complicated and technical areas of study, and those who wish to be political leaders need to be aware of the lack of technical expertise of those who they are often addressing, especially on the stump. The story often becomes generalized, and details are often overlooked as a dumb-downed outline of specific plans or policies is presented. This is where ‘people skills’ and the perception of personality becomes so vital for want-to-be leaders. A good example of this comes in the last two presidential campaigns. I don’t think anyone will disagree that Al Gore and John Kerry had the upper-hand when it came to technical expertise on issues and policy compared to George W. Bush. But because the audience of voters quickly becomes lost when details are presented, the Gore and Kerry stories did not have the same impact on the audience that the Bush story did, who kept it to character traits and a simple, consistent message. Especially in the current environment, the information age, this aspect of leadership has become much more important for individuals to consider than ever before. Add to this the range and use of technology in a leadership role, and one can better appreciate why leaders today often need to have established personal organizations that include consultants of all types.

These are the six constants of leadership as identified by Gardner. In general, I found his examination and conclusions to be thorough, and I encourage others to add their two cents to the list. The list of six constants seems to me, at least, to be valid, reasonable and essential for all leaders in all domains to consider. Different individuals have their own personalities and flaws, strengths and weaknesses, and styles of leadership they are comfortable with. But in the end, they do need a story, regardless of the domain they wish to lead in. They need to consider the audience, and how they think the audience will best respond to a story. Individuals need to be seen as authentic. They may be able to lead indirectly, under the appropriate conditions, or they may need to get in front of a crowd and directly address the audience’s concerns. And for long-lasting influence, an organization is essential.

This analysis, as recognized by Gardner, does not address many other aspects of leadership, such as leaders as moral authorities, how leaders should develop and shape policy, and so on, because that is the next level of leadership that is specific to the domain and to the individual, and the variation on those aspects of leadership is cast and cannot be modeled in a general way.

Big Brother is Here

As the eavesdropping story unfolds, new information is rapidly coming out, and none of it is encouraging. President Bush has admitted that he has allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on people within U.S. borders who have known links to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. This was all done outside of existing law, which requires the NSA or other groups to get a warrant from a secret court located in Washington, DC. He has claimed that he has the legal authority to do so without consulting with Congress or any other federal court because of the law Congress signed just after the 9/11 attacks authorizing him to use whatever force he deemed necessary to fight terrorists. There are a number of problems with this defense, however, and this entire process is screaming out for investigations to determine how far the president has taken his supposed power for domestic spying.

According to Tom Daschle, who at the time the original congressional vote to give Bush power to fight the war on terror was the leading Democrat in the Senate, the original language Bush wanted included taking the fight within U.S. borders. Daschle did not allow this because of trouble with possible trampling of our civil liberties. He claims that things like domestic wiretapping and eavesdropping was not discussed and the focus was on foreign/international terror groups and the nations that harbored them. And within the Patriot Act itself, a separate piece of legislation, Bush and the Department of Justice has wanted congressional approval for things like widespread wiretaps and access to library records, etc., which have been resisted by members of both parties because of the potential for abuse of our civil liberties. The permanent extension of the Patriot Act has been delayed by the Senate because of these issues and the language that the administration wants for certain domestic concerns.

As the New York Times has just posted on its web site, it appears that what Bush has admitted to is incorrect. In fact, the spying that has taken place within U.S. borders appears to be much more widespread. The NYT has multiple, unnamed current and former government officials and telecommunications personnel who have gone on record stating that the NSA has been receiving large volumes of various international phone records from our telecommnications companies and monitoring Internet usage of private citizens, looking for patterns that could hint at terrorist activity. These records apparently cover a wide range of citizens and other people living in the U.S., and goes well beyond the Bush claim that only individuals with known (or possibly highly suspected) links to terror groups have been targeted. All of this has been done without any oversight or a single warrant from any court to justify the action!! Does this not sound like one of those reasons we had problems with the former Soviet Union and others like Saddam, who spied on their own people? The entire reason we have the existing law that requires warrants from a court is to have at least a minimal amount of protection for civil liberty and a minimal amount of oversight to prevent abuse of executive power. Any level of trust in the president is quickly fading away as this story progresses.

There is the argument from the adminstration that speed is essential, meaning the NSA and other law enforcement agencies like the FBI need to be able to set up wiretaps and monitor telecommunications activity at a moment's notice, and that warrants delay the process. This is especially true with new technologies that allow instant global communcation that are available to anyone. With the technology that now exists, the administration argues the 1978 law is out of date and not relevant with the current environment. All true. The trouble is, it is still the law on the books and still requires warrants! But, what I don't understand, is that in the existing law the government can go ahead and eavesdrop at a moment's notice, wthout a warrant, as long as they go back and get the court issued warrant retroactively within 72 hours. Bush can have the NSA and other agencies do their surveillance work within U.S. borders, on the fly and in real time, without delay, and then go back to get the warrant that gives us some level of protection for our rights and some assurance that the surveillance is just of suspected bad guys and not randomly affecting any old citizen. No problem. It is all fine within existing law. Bush has admittedly broken this law, and with the latest NYT revelation of widespread eavesdropping and Internet monitoring, we may have our answer as to why Bush is going around the law. Perhaps he and the administration believe some of the spying being done is questionable in a legal context and they do not believe warrants would be allowed. We must find out if this is the case.

This has become a very disturbing story indeed. It screams for Congressional and independent investigations to find the true scope of domestic spying. If the latest claims by the NYT are confirmed and there is indeed widespread monitoring of law abiding U.S. citizens who have no suspected terror links, one of the countless questions becomes: is this an impeachable offense? If Clinton can be impeached for lying about sex, should a president be impeached for possibly lying about and covering up widespread spying on Americans that is outside of existing law, with total disregard to any checks and balance or oversight protection for our civil liberties? We simply cannot have a president with, dare I say, near dictatorial power to do whatever he wants outside of the law. Contact your congressional representatives and demand that we discover what the true extent of domestic spying is.

For an excellent post on this with numerous links to relevant sites and details, read Zenpundit.

Federal Judge Makes Decision About ID in Dover Case

A Federal judge decided that "intelligent design" (ID) cannot be taught in Dover public school science classes. This is a big win for science education, for the inclusion of a 'theory' whose premise rests with an unidentified intelligent designer, aka supernatural creator, would diminish the integrity of science itself.

Eight of the nine school Board members who voted for the addition of ID to the science curriculum were voted out of their positions back in November, before this decision was reached, and replaced by new members who are against the teaching of ID in science classes. Said Judge John E. Jones, "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy." Such attempts to include a modified form of creationism in public school science curricula was clearly identified by the public and led to the removal of the Board members who promoted the policy. This was absolutely the correct decision, and a new precedent has been set for other cases that are sure to arise in other areas around the country that are centered on ID being taught in science classes.

Persons of the Year

Time magazine has named Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as U2 singer Bono, as persons of the yar for their charitable work around the world. The Gates Foundation has an endowment in the range of $29 billion, easily the largest in the world that I am aware of, and they have targeted several areas of concern, ranging from education, making medications for AIDs and other diseases available in the poorest nations of the world, and addressing extreme poverty and hunger around the world. Bono, who is genuinely concerned about AIDs and poverty, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on several occasions for his efforts to convince world leaders to forgive debt owed by the poorest nations in the world. He has been associated with up to $40 billion in debt relief, as he has met with numerous world leaders over the last several years.

Time went on to name former presidents Bush (senior) and Clinton Partners of the Year, for their efforts to raise disaster relief funds for the tsunami, earthquake (Pakistan) and hurricanes in the U.S.

In my opinion, these are fine choices. I appreciate how they made sure to honor those who have directly tried to fix some of the world's worst problems by taking action, and who have gotten away from all the rhetoric that so many leaders put out there about how terrible poverty and the spread of disease are, but then go about business as usual. I'd be interested in other candidates you have in mind, who are deserving but not recognized by Time. Who is your Person of the Year?

The Coming of Big Brother

One cannot go anywhere without surveillance cameras watching you. In public places, I can go along with that. But with the breaking story from the New York Times that the president allowed the NSA to eavesdrop, without warrants, on possibly thousands of people within the U.S. is going too far. Normally the NSA would have to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court in Washington that deals with national security matters, before it can tap lines or intercept emails and other correspondence. Warrants issued by the courts is our best defense from being spied upon by our own government. Taking this out of the process is playing with fire, and in principle can allow NSA members to spy on anyone they want whenever they want. The White House has been avoiding the questions all day today, and even ranking Republican members of Congress and the Senate are publicly criticizing this decision by the president and calling for investigations (not quite what Republicans need going into an election year, with all the other scandals and problems that have come up in the past year). I would imagine the president will see another negative bump in the polls with this one, as he should.

In one sense I can see the temptation for a move like this, because one wants to do whatever it takes (within the law) to try and catch terrorists before they perform their missions. However, are our enemies not winning when we start tearing down our own freedoms and civil liberties because of the threat they impose on us?

One of the great Nuts of the world

What motivates someone in a position of power like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to shoot off his mouth with fiery rhetoric? By 'fiery' I mean his comment yesterday that the Holocaust is a myth, a "fabricated legend" made up by Jews. It was only in October that he said Israel should be "wiped off the map." Why would he say these things, right when the world is lined up against Iran because of their nuclear program and potential weapons ambitions? Fortunately he does not have the same type of power as an American president carries, but this type of fanning the fire of resentment and near fanaticism is not what this region of the world needs right now. What we need to figure out is how strong and deep are these types of feelings in terms of the public and religious leaders within Iran.

150 Nations to Further Discuss What to do About Climate Change - Minus the U.S., Of Course

On Friday 150 nations agreed to meet to further discuss what we can do to alter the rate of global climate change. The U.S. will not participate in these discussions and negotiations. Rather, the Bush administration has apparently accepted to meet in watered-down "exploratory dialogue" sessions about what to do about global warming, greenhouse emissions (of which we contribute 25% of the world's total, with only 5% of the population), and climate change. I actually agree that the Kyoto Protocol is not the best plan that should be implemented, but without the U.S. taking part in negotiations how will anything worthwhile ever happen?

This is, of course, no surprise, since the administration rejects the science behind climate change studies and simply says it needs another study (it is not happy with the other studies it commissioned, which conclude there really is something to human contributions to climate change). Bush is committed to big business and big oil, so naturally his administration will do nothing that may affect the bottom-line of various industries, even though some of those same industries are seeing record profits and continued tax breaks. The administration has in the past actually admitted that humans do have some affect on global warming (forgive me, at the moment I cannot find the reference), although it refuses to take any real action. As more data has been collected and computer simulations become more detailed and reliable, predictions of what the consequences of continued global warming are continue to suggest some action must be taken, now. Putting in new pollution standards, making investments into existing technologies such as new filtering systems for various pollutants (for factories and power plants, for example), investing in renewable energy sources and more fuel efficient vehicles, and so on, will, in the long-term, be much more cost effective than waiting for higher ocean levels that will begin (actually, has begun) to cover high-priced coastlines, the spread of diseases into regions that have not been exposed to them before, drought, changes in water supplies, air quality, stronger storms (is this past hurricane season going to become the norm?), and altered agricultural production, to name a few.

Climate change, of course, happens naturally, and the warming trend we are seeing now is almost certainly due to natural causes. I don't think many people would likely disagree with this statement. However, the science absolutely suggests the changes are not entirely natural, but to some extent due to humans. No one can put a percentage on our contribution at this point, but if there are steps we know we can take to help limit the extent of climate change, then we need to step up and do it. The scenarios that could take place just in the next few decades are not what we should wish for for our children to have to deal with. The military has supposedly already begun to develop contingencies and strategies for international conflicts that may develop due to consequences involving climate change, particularly in those regions of the world where water supplies may be greatly disturbed. Is this what we want? Should we not do something, anything, that may help reduce the effects if it is within our power to do so? Perhaps in two years when someone else is in the White House, but I'm not holding my breath until then.

High level Business and Political Involvement Needed to Turn Around Science and Math Education

The note below came from the NSTA recently. In my mind it will take initiatives like this to begin to dent the potential problems the U.S. may face in the not-so-distant future if we do not get more talented students majoring in the hard sciences, mathematics, and engineering to replace the large numbers of science and engineering babyboomers who will be retiring over the next 10-15 years (and as the rate of foreign students and scientists who leave the U.S. continues to rise). As many nations across the globe begin to narrow the technology lead the U.S. has built since World War II, continued commitments to research are essential to our economy, natonal security, and role as superpower. Business leaders who commonly complain about the lack of American prospects for technically trained employees need to help out with their influence with polticians as well as their deep pockets. Now, we only need to see results from meetings such as described below.


"On December 6, CEOs nationwide will come to Washington, DC, for a high-level meeting with top administration officials to press for greater funding for research and development and a greater focus on science and mathematics education.

During the summit, which is being hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, CEOs will discuss the competitiveness challenges their companies face and hold private meetings with cabinet officers to discuss specific policy options to address those challenges. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) initiated this summit. Participants will include Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, (R-NY), chairman, House Science Committee; Congressman Vernon Ehlers, (R-MI), chairman, House Environment, Technology and Standards Subcommittee; Richard K. Templeton, President and CEO, Texas Instruments; James G. Berges, Retired President and Senior Advisor, Emerson; David Sampson, deputy secretary of commerce; Gov. John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers; and Dana Mead, retired CEO of Tenneco and chairman of the MIT Board of Trustees. Samuel Bodman, secretary of energy; Elaine Cho, secretary of labor; Carlos Gutierrez, secretary of commerce; and Arden Bement, director, National Science Foundation, will participate in the private sessions.

The event is hosted by the American Electronics Association (AeA), Business Roundtable, Council on Competitiveness, National Association of Manufacturers, Northern Virginia Technology Council, and George Mason University."

A Step Towards Quantum Computing

In the latest edition of the scientific journal Nature, researchers at Georgia Tech have demonstrated a key step in the pursuit of quantum computing. Here is the abstract:

"Nature 438, 833-836 (8 December 2005) doi:10.1038/nature04315

Storage and retrieval of single photons transmitted between remote quantum memories
T. Chanelière1, D. N. Matsukevich1, S. D. Jenkins1, S.-Y. Lan1, T. A. B. Kennedy1 and A. Kuzmich1

An elementary quantum network operation involves storing a qubit state in an atomic quantum memory node, and then retrieving and transporting the information through a single photon excitation to a remote quantum memory node for further storage or analysis. Implementations of quantum network operations are thus conditioned on the ability to realize matter-to-light and/or light-to-matter quantum state mappings. Here we report the generation, transmission, storage and retrieval of single quanta using two remote atomic ensembles. A single photon is generated from a cold atomic ensemble at one site 1, and is directed to another site through 100 metres of optical fibre. The photon is then converted into a single collective atomic excitation using a dark-state polariton approach2. After a programmable storage time, the atomic excitation is converted back into a single photon. This is demonstrated experimentally, for a storage time of 0.5 microseconds, by measurement of an anti-correlation parameter. Storage times exceeding ten microseconds are observed by intensity cross-correlation measurements. This storage period is two orders of magnitude longer than the time required to achieve conversion between photonic and atomic quanta. The controlled transfer of single quanta between remote quantum memories constitutes an important step towards distributed quantum networks."

Quantum computing takes advantage of things like quantum spin states, which are only allowed to have very specific values, in order to create qubits, which play the role of normal bits (binary digits) in computer coding (strings of 1's and 0's). One problem has been trying to reproduce and store the same information in a network, which appears to have been solved by this group. Quantum computing, encryption, and other technologies that utilize quantum mechanical systems have long been sought, and I suspect it is a matter of time before the next big step in computational technology becomes a reality.

How fortunate we are...

Zenpundit had a post yesterday that puts many things in perspective. No matter how bad we think we have it in the U.S., we cannot EVER forget what has happened in other types of governments and regimes. Here is Zen's entry in full:


"MOUNTAIN OF SKULLS, OCEAN OF BLOOD: MAO'S CHINA AS THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF DEATH

RJ Rummel, the noted scholar of genocide and murder by government, has retabulated the totals for democide for The People's Republic of China under " The Geat Helmsman" Mao ZeDong: 77, 000,000 Dead

This total is twice as large as all combat deaths for the Russian and Mexican Revolutions,WWII, Korean and Vietnam wars combined. It may exceed all combat deaths in the 20th century and puts the maniacally genocidal exertions of Hitler ( 20,946,000) and Stalin (61,911,000) in the shade. (All figures here are Professor Rummel's). Only Pol Pot, in the percentage of population category, approaches Mao in sheer savagery and bloodlust. As Professor Rummel commented:"Now, my overall totals for world democide 1900-1999 must also be changed. I have estimated it to be 174,000,000 murdered, of which communist regimes murdered about 148,000,000. Also, compare this to combat dead. Communists overall have murdered four times those killed in combat, while globally the democide toll was over six times that number. Let freedom ring. "

Somewhere, Mao's academic and journalistic apologists in the West are enjoying a comfortable retirement."


Indeed, let freedom ring, ultimately for every person on the planet.

When you consider that most other nations on earth are considerably less heterogeneous than the U.S. (most diverse nation in history, I would have to think), freedom is the key to peace and prosperity. The fact that we allow anyone of any faith, creed, nationality, and so on, to live life largely as they please means individuals are allowed to keep a sense of identity to one's culture and heritage. This allows us to live mostly in harmony. Yes, there are rivalries, bigotry and racism, but because we are allowed to have the opportunity to go off and be ourselves prevents large-scale violence as is seen in other countries, where there are much greater levels of homogeneity. If there are ethnic and religious rivalries, but with a brutal dictator and/or no individual freedoms, the 20th century shows us what happens instead. How fortunate we are...

U.S. Executes its 1000th Person - Not Something We Should Celebrate

On Friday, the 1000th person was put to death since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Is this something we should be proud of? Is this really 'justice,' or is it an act of revenge? While 76 countries allow state sponsored death penalties, most of those nations do not execute criminals with any regularity, and 97% of all known executions from 2004 happened in China, Iran, Vietnam, and, sadly, the U.S. Is this really the company we want to keep?

Polls show a majority of Americans support the death penalty. I wonder why this is in a mostly Christian nation. Many will quote scripture, saying an "eye for an eye." Is it convenient to forget "vengeance is mine (the Lord)" or "Thou shalt not murder"? Or to forget that everything Jesus preached goes against bringing harm to anyone, even an enemy? Why do I know so many who are "pro-life" but also "pro-death penalty?" I'm simply confused by all this, so forgive me for bringing this up.

Many will say that the death penalty is a deterrent for violent crime. Where is the evidence to support that? We have had record years of murders since 1977, so that argument is not much of one. If someone is so enraged that he or she is capable of taking someone's life, it is more likely that they are not thinking clearly about anything, including the consequences of their actions. Will a drug lord or gang-banger really be deterred by the possibility of a death penalty, when they live each day with the possibility of much worse suffering at the hands of rivals?

Then there is the 'what if' response. What if my wife was murdered...would I want to see the murderer put to death? My reaction if that were to happen would certainly be, "Yes, and I'll do it myself!" But if I were to do that, I would also expect to go to jail for I, too, would have just murdered someone, and I would then be no better than them. This sort of action would just be an act of revenge. In fact, when I think about which is worse punishment, I would rather be put to death than have to serve life with no chance of ever seeing daylight again, where one would go day to day for years and realizing your life is absolutely meaningless at that point...I, for one, would lose my mind in that situation, and it would be unbearable.

Is it still right for us to lecture other nations (such as China) about human rights issues, as the president recently did when he was in Asia, when we practice some of the same things as thsoe nations do? We lose some of our moral authority and standing in the world as we continue to put people to death, and I do not enjoy seeing the U.S. in this position.

Challenging Young Students in Schools

Eideneurolearning found an article about a school district that has been accelerating larger numbers of middle school students to take high school level algebra, after relaxing the entry criteria from only those who scored in the 90th percentile on exams to allowing students who scored in the 70th percentile or better. This increased enrollment by three times, while only 5% did not meet standards on a state achievement exam. There is also evidence that brains of younger children at the middle school level are better suited to learn mathematics such as algebra better than adult brains.

At some point when I have more time, I will write a good deal more about what I believe is absolutely essential for public education to take the next step in dealing with numerous issues (especially with trying to close the minority achievement gap), and which deals with long-term commitments and collaborations between all levels of schooling, including universities. In addition, the article referred to above also hits on the need to provide intellectual challenges for students. This can take the form of more challenging classes as well as extracurricular activities and competitions.