Sunday, October 31, 2010

How Much Math Do We Really Need?

Hmm I don't quite agree but interesting good for thought.  Math is the language of science so we need proficiency to be articulate and capable scientists but here the point I guess is more about everyday living...

starSlashdot
October 31, 2010 2:03 PM
by samzenpus

How Much Math Do We Really Need?

Pickens writes "G.V. Ramanathan, a professor emeritus of mathematics, statistics and computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, writes in the Washington Post that although a lot of effort and money has been spent to make mathematics seem essential, unlike literature, history, politics and music, math has little relevance to everybody's daily life. 'All the mathematics one needs in real life can be learned in early years without much fuss,' writes Ramanathan. 'Most adults have no contact with math at work, nor do they curl up with an algebra book for relaxation.' Ramanathan says that the marketing of math has become similar to the marketing of creams to whiten teeth, gels to grow hair and regimens to build a beautiful body, but even with generous government grants over the past 25 years, countless courses, conferences, and books written on how to teach teachers to teach, where is the evidence that these efforts have helped students? A 2008 review by the Education Department found that the nation is at 'greater risk now' than it was in 1983, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress math scores for 17-year-olds have remained stagnant since the 1980s (PDF). Meanwhile those who do love math and science have been doing very well and our graduate schools are the best in the world. 'As for the rest, there is no obligation to love math any more than grammar, composition, curfew or washing up after dinner. Why create a need to make it palatable to all and spend taxpayers' money on pointless endeavors without demonstrable results or accountability?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



math


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

How to Construct a Global Visualization Lab | Ocean Bytes

Reminds me I need to compile the notes from the full specs of the VAST lab...good thing Kurt and me are working on a paper together on just this topic to motivate me. Actually all the open house and tour events and classes we have held in the lab had been helpful in allowing me to work on articulating the scope and capacity of the room now to put the tour guide schpiel into text.

http://www.oceanbytes.org/2010/10/31/how-to-construct-a-global-visualization-lab/


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Saturday, October 30, 2010

End of Week 1

starBonaire 2010
October 30, 2010 6:23 PM
by Bryan Keller

End of Week 1

It's been a couple days since I have made a post, things have been quite busy here in Bonaire.


On Thursday I went diving with a group and an instructor named Albert on the eastern side of the island in Lac Bay at a site called Cai. Normally diving is not possible on the eastern side to to large waves and strong currents, however this time of year the waves are generally smaller, which makes diving easier. This was a fairly shallow dive, reaching a maximum depth of 59ft, which allowed me to accumulate a bottom time of 74 minutes. I saw my first sea turtle at this location. It was too far away for me to get a pictures, but was very neat.



PA280075.JPG



Looking out into the ocean.



PA280083.JPG



This site also had many large sea fans.



PA280096.JPG



Caribbean Spiny Lobster (Panulirus argus)



PA280084.JPG



There was also some large elkhorn coral formations here.



I met a man, name Jaap, from Holland, on this excursion that was here with his non-diving wife and was looking for a buddy. Him and I paired off and went on to do another dive in the afternoon at the far northern end of the island at Nucove. This was one of the nicest locations I have been to so far. The coral was fairly broken-up in the shallower areas, but was quite lush and vibrant in the deeper waters.



PA280102.JPG



This is what I believe to be a Black and White Crinoid (Nemaster grandis) a species of Sea Star







PA280115.JPG

One of my profile pictures of the reef.






PA280135.JPG

Peacock Flounder (Bothus lunatus)






Friday, I went out in the morning with Edwin again on his boat to do some work with the drop camera. We again went out to Klein Bonaire to visit some of the deeper sites. After purchasing all of the necessary components to power the camera using the boat's battery I hooked it up and everything was working above water. I lowered it down seeing nothing but water. Once I had let out about 150ft the video changed to nothing and was since after useless. It still displays a fairly clear picture on the surface, but does not work underwater.


Screen shot 2010-10-30 at 5.22.46 PM.png


This is what the camera displays while underwater.






After failing with the drop camera, we decided to do one dive at a location called "The Cliff" which is one of the only reef walls around bonaire. We have some AUV data very close to this location, so I was able to get some good structure pictures here. There was also a small sea turtle that followed us for about 10 minutes.










PA290076.JPG

Steep slope








PA290075.JPG



It's difficult to tell due to the bad lighting, but this is a vertical wall.








In the afternoon, I did two more dives with Jaap, one at a place called "Angel City" and another called "Tory's Reef" These were both nice sites, however my camera battery was dead, so I don't have any pictures.








Today, Saturday, I went diving with Jaap again. He flies home tomorrow evening, so today was his last day to dive. We visited the Lighthouse at the southeastern end of the island, the waves were a bit chopping, making entrance and exit difficult, but the reef there is very healthy due to the low number of visitors that dive that site. The second location was called Red Slave due to its location near the slave houses at the south end of the island. I hope to make it back down there to get some on land shots this coming week. This island has quite an interesting history.





Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Friday, October 29, 2010

Mount Everest Gets 3G Service

starSlashdot
October 29, 2010 11:32 AM
by samzenpus

Mount Everest Gets 3G Service

bossanovalithium writes "It's what every mountaineer wants when they reach the summit of Mount Everest: a 3G high-speed communication. Those who have trekked to the top will soon able to call their mates, go on Facebook or Twitter, and boast that they got there thanks to TeliaSonera and its subsidiary in Nepal, Ncell, which have brought 3G to the Mount Everest area. Climbers who reached Everest's 8,848-meter-high peak previously depended on expensive and erratic satellite phone coverage and a voice-only network set up by China Mobile in 2007 on the Chinese side of the mountain."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



wireless


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Climate Change Blurring Definition of Native Species

starWired Top Stories
October 28, 2010 3:30 PM
by Janet Raloff

Climate Change Blurring Definition of Native Species

As climate change alters ecosystems, scientists are asking: What's a native species?


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

World’s Most Precise Clocks Could Reveal Universe Is a Hologram | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/holometer-universe-resolution/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Panoramio is now adding photos from the Ocean

This will be a really neat resource.

From Google Earth
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/ipgYaVV-4x4/panoramio_is_adding_photos_from_the.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

10-shot gatling t-shirt cannon

Aye but can it fire pumpkins?!

starMAKE Magazine
October 28, 2010 11:00 AM
by John Baichtal

10-shot gatling t-shirt cannon

10shottshirtcannon.jpg

This harrowing t-shirt cannon was built by Team 254 Robotics of Bellarmine College Prepatory of San Jose, California with the help of NASA Ames Robotics. It weighs 160 pounds, can shoot over 200 t-shirts per tank, has a range of upwards of 150 yards, and packs a rate of fire of 3 shirts a second. Check out the build notes if you want to learn more.

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!
Robotics


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Who needs AUV's when we already have narwhals?

NOAA has been tracking winter water temps in Baffin Bay using instruments mounted on narwhal whales. 


~Ashley

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

NOAA - NOAA Awards Multiple Contracts Totaling up to $550 Million for Scientific, Technical Support Services

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101027_scitechcontracts.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Bonaire 2010: Klein Bonaire

Today's entry from Bryan detailing dives around Klein Bonaire.

http://udbonaire2010.blogspot.com/2010/10/klein-bonaire.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Schwehr 2010 CCOM Seminar ERMA on Vimeo

For everyone in my data visualization course this is a must view video about the Deepwater Horizon spill from the perspective of one of the guys behind the scene bringing the situational awareness of the event.

http://vimeo.com/15986976


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Shade of Red Preserved in Jurassic Fossils | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/beetroot-stone-jurassic-color/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Death Toll Rising After Tsunami Hits Indonesia - NYTimes.com

Just learned about this during my GEOL434/634 Geology of Coasts class today. A terribly tragic situation that we will continue to monitor as things develop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/world/asia/27indo.html?src=mv

October 26, 2010

Cool!  Visualizing climate and meteorologic data through an artists eyes!  I dig color :)




This is quite terrifying, but a interesting way to use GIS to visualize data through time.  Here, unemployment rate by county is plotted from January 2007 to present.  Watch as a good portion of the US turns from yellows and purples to black.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Oct. 22, 4004 B.C.: Universe Usshered In | This Day In Tech | Wired.com

Happy Birthday Earth you fellow Libran you!

http://m.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1022creation-4004bc-ussher/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Make: Online : On The Care and Feeding of Ideas: 10 steps in my personal process

These tips and pointers apply to a lot of life...

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/on_the_care_and_feeding_of_ideas.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Life-size monopoly house

Trade in four of these and you can get a hotel :-)

starMAKE Magazine
October 22, 2010 12:00 AM
by Phillip Torrone

Life-size monopoly house

Liu 01

Life-size monopoly house translation below...

An Te Liu is 1967 in Tainan, Taiwan to the world. Prior to his artistic career, he studied architecture and art history. Today he lives and works in Toronto, Canada. His installations and sculptures are concerned mostly with the themes of cleanness, safety and functionality. They are often made of industrially manufactured devices, transferred to the artist in the changing contexts.
Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!
Arts


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

OpenStreetMap: The Maker's Map

starMAKE Magazine
October 22, 2010 7:00 PM
by Steve Coast

OpenStreetMap: The Maker's Map

Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap, is going to doing some authoring for us on this unique, editable world map project. Steve started OSM in 2004 and has been deeply involved in it ever since. He lives in Denver with his wife, where he also enjoys hang gliding and collecting hammers. - Gareth Branwyn

Ricajimarie_mapkibera_1.jpeg
OpenStreetMappers in Kibera, Nairobi, out mapping with GPS units, pens, and paper


Maps are not immune to your DIY impulses, and like any form of making, they suck you in with their combination of in- and outdoor activities, with old and new ways of capturing data, and with the joys of accomplishing something yourself.

Let's start with the problem. Maps today are typically old, wrong, and expensive. As soon as you've made a map, it's already changed, and you have to go out and start fixing it. Someone has changed a road name or closed a street. That makes maps wrong, and increasingly wrong as they get older. They're also expensive and hard to license because of the upfront cost in mapping a country is usually so high that it only makes sense for a couple of companies to try it, and they have to recoup their losses.

This should remind of you of Encyclopedia Britannica and the rise of Wikipedia. Old and broken? Check. Expensive? Check. Hard to license? Check.

Hence OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM is the openly-licensed map of the world that anyone can contribute to. If you want to fix or add a street, you can. Want to add a hiking or ski trail? No problem. We're as open-ended as you are.

How does it work on the ground? Well, you take some GPS traces by walking your favorite trail and collect points of interest along the way. You might record the name of a creek, the speed limit of the freeway you drive there on, or the location of a water fountain. How you record this is up to you, paper and pen is just as good as camera shots or voice recording into a Dictaphone. Then, using a variety of open tools on your desktop or on the site itself, you literally draw your data on to the map. But be careful, it's addictive!

OpenStreetMap is more than just the map -- it's a vibrant community of over 300,000 collaborators from around the world. Regular mapping events (mapping parties) are organized, where newbies are shown how to map, and we have a global conference which will be in Denver in 2011.

If you want to find out more about OSM, there's an extensive wiki, blog, and help forums. So take a look at the map in your area and see what needs to be fixed, it's easier than you think! And, of course, for bonus points, spread the word at your local maker/hacker group.

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this!

Computers


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Team arrives at Scott Base Antarctica

Latest news from the Antarctic gavia team. While they head to cold climates team CSHEL preps for departure to the Abaco islands tomorrow.

http://supercritical.civil.ubc.ca/~efmweb/hamilton/Antarctica2010/Glacier_Ocean/News/Entries/2010/10/18_Team_arrives_at_Scott_Base_Antarctica.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Scripps Viz lab

Website of the Visualization labs for Scripps Oceanographic Institute in California.

You can also access scene files they're made for earthquakes, ridges, etc., through the links on the right.


~Ashley

Data, data, data!

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/

The above links to a series of animations on the NASA earth observatory website.  Click on any one of the nine maps to visualize how a variable, such as snow cover (my personal favorite) or sea surface temperature, changes over a 10 year period.

Most interesting on the snow cover animation is how snowy the northern hemisphere is during their winter.  The snow cover during in the south during southern hemisphere winter, though, is much less widespread and is confined mostly to the Andes Mountains.


Visualization of the greenhouse gas concentration measurements around the globe!

  



Monday, October 18, 2010

President Obama To Appear On Mythbusters

:-)

starSlashdot
October 18, 2010 2:40 PM
by CmdrTaco

President Obama To Appear On Mythbusters

Muondecay writes "President Obama will be featured in the December 8th MythBusters episode, "Archimedes Solar Ray," during which he will challenge Adam and Jamie to revisit an ancient and somewhat controversial myth: Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun during the Siege of Syracuse? This is part of a White House effort to highlight the importance of science education."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



tv


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Barnacle-covered 300-year-old pocket watch revealed

Cool x-ray video
starMAKE Magazine
October 18, 2010 2:30 AM
by Gareth Branwyn

Barnacle-covered 300-year-old pocket watch revealed

Via Nature comes this amazing video of an x-ray trip through a barnacle-encrusted lump from a 17th century shipwreck. It reveals the workings of a very sophisticated, gorgeous watchwork mechanism inside. The researchers (from National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh) who used this x-ray technology are excited about the prospects of using it on future, similarly encrusted underwater finds.


What makes a 300-year-old pocket watch tick?

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Retro | Digg this!
Retro


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Sunday, October 17, 2010

R.I.P. BenoƮt Mandelbrot, 1924-2010

starMAKE Magazine
October 16, 2010 5:30 PM
by Gareth Branwyn

R.I.P. BenoƮt Mandelbrot, 1924-2010

Mandelbrot-660x660.jpg

Wired and others are reporting that BenoƮt Mandelbrot, the mathematician and father of fractal geometry, has passed away, just shy of his 86th birthday. On GeekDad, Matt Blum writes:

I had the rare and amazing privilege of hearing Mandelbrot speak when he came to visit my high school about 20 years ago. Even at my science-and-technology high school, most of the students didn't know much about Mandelbrot, but I'd been fascinated by fractals for years and had brought a copy of his seminal work The Fractal Geometry of Nature for him to autograph, and we chatted for a few minutes. I was a bit starstruck -- I was 16 or 17 at the time -- but I recall that he asked me what kind of fractal-related work I'd done, and showed genuine interest when I told him that I'd played around a lot with the Mandelbrot Set and some variations on the Sierpinski Gasket. In retrospect, I realize this could not possibly have been of much interest to him, but he took a few minutes to make me feel like an intelligent human being because a mathematical genius wanted to hear about what I was working on.
800px-Mandel_zoom_11_satellite_double_spiral.jpg


Here's a fun video for Jonathan Coulton's song "Mandelbrot Set" by Pisut Wisessing:

As the lyrics to the song say: "He saw that infinite complexity could be described by simple rules." And for that, and many other of his ideas and discoveries, he will be remember as a giant of science.

"He Gave Us Order Out of Chaos" -- R.I.P. BenoƮt Mandelbrot, 1924-2010

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!
Announcements


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Proving 0.999... Is Equal To 1

Proving that sometimes close is good enough
starSlashdot
October 14, 2010 9:24 AM
by CmdrTaco

Proving 0.999... Is Equal To 1

eldavojohn writes "Some of the juiciest parts of mathematics are the really simple statements that cause one to immediately pause and exclaim "that can't be right!" But a recent 28 page paper in The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast (PDF) spends a great deal of time fielding questions by researchers who have explored this in depth and this seemingly impossibility is further explored in a brief history by Dev Gualtieri who presents the digit manipulation proof: Let a = 0.999... then we can multiply both sides by ten yielding 10a = 9.999... then subtracting a (which is 0.999...) from both sides we get 10a — a = 9.999... — 0.999... which reduces to 9a = 9 and thus a = 1. Mathematicians as far back as Euler have used various means to prove 0.999... = 1."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



education


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

How Many Digits to Write?

starLoren on the Art of MATLAB
October 14, 2010 3:18 PM
by Loren

How Many Digits to Write?

Recently, my colleague Rob Comer and I were talking about how to write out a number, in decimal, so that if it were read back into MATLAB, would retain its full precision. The question is how many digits to write out. The number depends on several things, including the datatype the value is stored in. In addition, it may depend on the precision of the value - i.e., was it data collected during an experiment in which only two significant figures were recorded? Today I'll post about the solution Rob and I came up with for choosing the number of digits so if you write out the data as a string, you can read it back in to MATLAB with full precision retained.

Contents

Create Some Values

Let's first create some values, both single and double versions of pi.

format long g dblpi = pi snglpi = single(pi)
dblpi =           3.14159265358979 snglpi =          3.141593 

Figure Out Number of Digits

To figure out the number of digits to print, we need to know what the floating point accuracy, sometimes called eps for the number of interest.

eps(snglpi) eps(dblpi)
ans =     2.384186e-007 ans =      4.44089209850063e-016 

As makes sense, we can see that the accuracy of the single precision value is larger than that for the "equivalent" double precision value. That means that the number next closest to the single precision value is farther away than the number next closest to the double precision value.

Number of Digits

We can use eps(x) to help us figure out how many digits to print after the decimal place. First find total number of digits, base 10:

log10(eps(snglpi)) log10(eps(dblpi))
ans =          -6.62266 ans =           -15.352529778863 

To get to a positive number of digits, simply negate the results.

-log10(eps(snglpi)) -log10(eps(dblpi))
ans =           6.62266 ans =            15.352529778863 

And round up to get make sure we don't miss any accuracy.

ceil(-log10(eps(snglpi))) ceil(-log10(eps(dblpi)))
ans =      7 ans =     16 

Let's convert the results to a string. We are taking advantage of the ability to control the number of digits using * in sprintf.

snglpistr = sprintf('%.*f', ceil(-log10(eps(snglpi))), snglpi) dblpistr = sprintf('%.*f', ceil(-log10(eps(dblpi))), dblpi)
snglpistr = 3.1415927 dblpistr = 3.1415926535897931 

Now we've captured each value so if written out as a string, and read back into MATLAB, the accuracy is preserved.

Convert to a Function

Taking what we know for finding the number of digits, let's make a function that we can use to test it out.

digits = @(x) ceil(-log10(eps(x))); printdigs = @(x) sprintf('%.*f', digits(x), x);

Try Some Values

printdigs(pi) printdigs(2/3) printdigs(1000*pi) printdigs(pi/1000)
ans = 3.1415926535897931 ans = 0.6666666666666666 ans = 3141.5926535897929 ans = 0.0031415926535897933 

Some Magic Now

Rob created the necessary magic for getting rid of trailing zeros after the decimal point, while leaving at least one digit to the right of the decimal.

x = 1/2000 str = printdigs(x) strout = stripzeros(str)
x =                     0.0005 str = 0.0005000000000000000 strout = 0.0005 

Let's try some more values. First create a function to help us again.

strippedStringValues = @(x) stripzeros(printdigs(x)); vals = [ 100/289, -1/17, 1/2000, 0, 500 -200, 123.4567] for k = vals     strippedStringValues(k) end
vals =   Columns 1 through 2          0.346020761245675       -0.0588235294117647   Columns 3 through 4                     0.0005                         0   Columns 5 through 6                        500                      -200   Column 7                   123.4567 ans = 0.34602076124567471 ans = -0.058823529411764705 ans = 0.0005 ans = 0.0 ans = 500.0 ans = -200.0 ans = 123.4567 

Here's the magic code for stripping the zeros, for those who are interested.

dbtype stripzeros
1     function str = stripzeros(strin) 2     %STRIPZEROS Strip trailing zeros, leaving one digit right of decimal point. 3     % Remove trailing zeros while leaving at least one digit to the right of 4     % the decimal place. 5      6     %   Copyright 2010 The MathWorks, Inc. 7      8     str = strin; 9     n = regexp(str,'\.0*$'); 10    if ~isempty(n) 11        % There is nothing but zeros to the right of the decimal place; 12        % the value in n is the index of the decimal place itself. 13        % Remove all trailing zeros except for the first one. 14        str(n+2:end) = []; 15    else 16        % There is a non-zero digit to the right of the decimal place. 17        m = regexp(str,'0*$'); 18        if ~isempty(m) 19            % There are trailing zeros, and the value in m is the index of 20            % the first trailing zero. Remove them all. 21            str(m:end) = []; 22        end 23    end  

How Do You Control Printed Digits?

Are you able to just use the default printing from MATLAB for your values? Do you use disp, leave off the semi-colon (;), use one of the *printf functions? What customizations do you need to make to print out values? Let me know here.


Get the MATLAB code (requires JavaScript)

Published with MATLAB® 7.11

Numerical Accuracy Strings


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware