New thin film solar cells boost efficiency by 50%
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 2, 2008
MIT has come up with a new solar cell technology that boosts efficiency of the cells by 50%, uses less material, and thus should approach per-KW power generation costs similar to current power grid costs.
m.
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Topics: Alternative Energy | No Comments »
New method to capture energy from slow moving water
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 2, 2008
Traditional power generation via water turbine has been around for quite a long time. But here is an interesting new idea whereby power can be generated through slow moving water. The idea came in part by paying attention to the way a fish motivates in water:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/
Here’s the company established to commercialize the idea:
m.
Topics: Alternative Energy | No Comments »
PDO - The Pacific Decadal Oscillation officially changes to a cool phase
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | April 30, 2008
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) put out a press release about a week ago indicating that the PDO or Pacific Decadal Oscillation had moved into the early phases of its cool phase. [1] [2] The PDO is a Pacific Ocean cycle of water temperature (like La Nina or El Nino) except that is affects different areas and is longer term, as short as 3 years or as long as 30 years. The cause of the PDO cycle is unknown.[2]
The cool phase of the PDO is characterized in large part by a horseshoe shaped band of cooler Pacific waters along the west coast of North America. The current state of the PDO is shown on this map:
The effects of cooler water along the Coast is uncertain but probably includes cooler temperatures at least along the coastal areas. The previous state of the PDO in recent decades is indicated in this chart:
It is certainly curious to note that the cooler Pacific water temps coincide with the cooling trend observed from 1940 - 1975 as noted in many places, including my previous Climate Talk post. [3] It’s not impossible but seems implausible to believe the two things are not related somehow.
So both the PDO cycle and the various Solar cycles indicate that global temps should trend downwards over the next several years which is opposed to the general claims of AGW (aka - global warming). Of course all these things may be independently acting at once and we just see the final result. But it seems likely to me that the PDO and the solar cycles are somehow related. And it is unclear to me how much of the warming observed in recent decades and currently causing all the ruckus could be due to the warmer PDO phase that just completed.
Instead of independent silos of knowledge battling one another for public attention it would be useful for some person or group to be able to learn enough about each discipline and the science therein to produce some synthesis. This would start some movement towards more comprehensive conclusions than is now able to be reached. It’s likely that we will see this start to happen over the next decade or so.
m.
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1. See the NASA press release here: Larger Pacific Climate Event Helps Current La Nina Linger.
2. Anthony Watts pointed out the NASA / JPL press release and discussed it here: NASA: PDO flip to cool phase confirmed - cooler times ahead for the West Coast?
3. Here: Climate Talk #5
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Expelled: No Intellegence Allowed
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | April 27, 2008
I recently saw the new Ben Stein documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The movie deals with a theory of natural origins called “Intelligent Design”. It is centered around the basic idea that organic life is made up of mechanisms so complex and interdependent that it is impossible for them to have arisen via random mutation combined with natural selection as Darwinian Evolution proposes. This theory has been in the media a lot in the last few years.
The main points of the movie as I saw it are as follows:
1. The primary point was to document a vigorous spirit of “group think” and intolerance in academic circles towards Intelligent Design.
Academia, as is well known, is completely vested in the orthodox system of Darwinian Evolution. This is true to such a degree that it is unacceptable and intolerable for anyone to question the “fact” of Evolution or to give any time to discussion of alternate ideas. Any question in regard the absolute verity of Darwinian Evolution is portrayed as a secret attempt to introduce Creationism, religion, or even Christian Fundamentalism into the realm of schools and science. The movie documents several cases of people who dared to give time to the idea of Intelligent Design and were subsequently attacked, pressured, harassed, and sometimes even fired while their credentials and intellectual abilities are questioned.
2. The 19th century Darwinian theory is actually weakening in terms of explaining the growing body of scientific evidence in the biological sciences. Biological science has documented an incredible amount of detail that Darwin could not have even imagined. The theory shows the sign of an established dominant system that is weakening in terms of explaining the evidence and is lashing out against change.
3. Darwinian ideas have been closely associated with and even been a fundamental support for highly discredited social movements such as Nazism and eugenics and more modern ones like euthanasia.
The movie was done well. I don’t know if it was great but at only 90 minutes it was not hard to follow or keep up with. I think it made it’s points fairly. For example, the well-known Darwinian spokesman Richard Dawkins was given quite a bit of camera time.
The movie spent a bit more time on point #3 than I would have liked only because I’m more interested in the science and the intellectual part of the debate. But that doesn’t make that point #3 unimportant.
Overall, I would suggest seeing it. The debates over Evolution and alternate theories are not going away any time soon. And being an uninformed blind zealot for Darwinianism as some would desire is simply not a good idea.
m.
Topics: Origins | No Comments »
Space.com reports that an unknown force is acting on spacecraft that approach and then recede from earth
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | March 3, 2008
Space.com had a very interesting article posted on Febr. 29th. Basically it reports that JPL scientists have verified that there is some unknown force operating on 5 of 6 spacecraft that have taken paths that approach earth and then recede from earth on a new path.
Basically it comes down to some well-measured but very small deviations from predicted velocities of such craft. For example, one spacecraft receded 13 millimeters per second faster than expected. This was a deviation from an expected velocity of the craft which was roughly 30,000 mph.
It seems possible if not probable that that this phenomenon is related to the the Pioneer Anomaly, which is basically the discovery that Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft, launched in the 1972 and 1973 did not travel out of the solar system exactly as expected. Last year it was reported that a great deal of Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 data had been recovered from JPL archives and was being processed for additional data that might help understand what is going on with those spacecraft.  At this point it still remains unexplained though many theories have been proposed and examined.
m.
Topics: Physics, space | No Comments »
More press coverage on the intesifying “global warming” versus “global cooling” debate
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | March 2, 2008
Even the New York Times is taking note of the recent increase of debate activity between the global warming/anthropogenic and global cooling/solar crowds
Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell
In general the article is pretty good and balanced in terms of reporting the debate. At the end it even points out the danger that the anti-global warming crowd just turns into the opposite extreme of what they claim the global warming crowd is.
So is the solar/global cooling crowd little more than the typical anti-majority reactionary ‘Everyone is against me. But I’m smarter than everyone else. And now I’m a martyr position?’ Or is there more to it than that?
Whereas the global warming crowd makes some pretty bold statements as to what they know and understand on the basis of the climate models they work with, no one claims they know it all in regard to the connections between solar behavior and changes in climate. Or if they do the ignorance behind the claims is pretty obvious, amounting to nothing but another ‘correlation is proof of causation’ argument.
In the end, lots of people see that the decisive period of time is coming up in the next five years or even three years after which we will know much more about who knows what. That makes for a very interesting period and a very interesting topic in science.
So in sort of a preparation to the main events, I want to take a closer look at some of the solar related arguments in a few posts.
m.
Topics: Physics, climate, space | No Comments »
Climate in Jan/Feb 2008: Wait a minute
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | February 19, 2008
Previously I wrote eight entries on climate and the ongoing discussion of global warming. At the time I presented a contrast between the global warming crowd and the solar causation crowd. There is quite a bit of news in the last 12 months that has only served to sharpen the contrast between the groups and raise the volume on the debate.
First, 2007 it turns out was globally another warm year. In fact NASA reported that it tied with 1998 as the second-warmest on record [1]. Both years, curiously, were years that experienced El Nino events that helped raise the overall temperatures.
However, at the end of 2007 El Nino gave way to La Nina. And it has rapidly strengthened. At the same time, 2008 has started out as a much cooler year than 2007.
There have been many reports of severe winter weather in the Northern Hemisphere:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/jan/hazards.html#winter
And La Nina continues to gather strength. The latest animation of data can be seen here:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml
Closer to home, Colorado has experience record snowfall this winter and - I can personally report - it’s been an old-school winter here in Nebraska.
Formal data from January 2008 is now available from multiple sources. GISS data shows that there was a -.65 degC change
in temps from January 2007 to January 2008 (which is a very large drop for one year), although the January temps were
still slightly above average. RSS data shows a similar drop from year to year but actually showed a January that was below average in temperature. This chart shows the drop: [3]
So the official explanation is a strong La Nina that will dissipate in Spring and then global warming will continue.
At the same time there is slightly unusual solar behavior to report. We are still waiting the onset of Solar Cycle 24. It’s been over a year with very little sunspot activity. In January NASA spotted the first sunspot with the correct magnetic polarization and declared cycle 24 had started. [4] But the spot disappeared and now there are no spots again. So we continue to wait. [5] More unusual is the very low readings of geomagnetic activity from the sun. It is the lowest ever recorded. The data is depicted here:
The solar cycle crowd is gathering their arguments that we are at the beginning of a period of decline of solar activity and point to historical examples like the Maunder Minimum. The predictions are actually being made of global cooling and rather significant cooling at that by 2030 or 2040.
So both groups are commenting vigorously on the latest data from early 2008, while bashing each other as much as they can muster. At its heart is the argument of whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases affect climate more than an expected slow down in solar activity. [6] It is very interesting to watch such diametrically opposed theories playing out in real time. The next few years of weather will teach us much about what we know and do not know in regard to earth’s climate.
m.
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[1] See 2007 Was Tied as Earth’s Second-Warmest Year
[2] http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
[3] Taken from: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/rss-satellite-data-for-jan08-2nd-coldest-january-for-the-planet-in-15-years/
[5] A year ago some scientists predicted that cycle 24 would start in March 2008. Solar Cycle 24 Prediction. So we are about to test that prediction.
[6] The solar slow down is expected on the basis of several factors, which I will explore in a later post.
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BREAK: Gravity Probe B - update Sept 2007
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | February 18, 2008
Another update for Gravity Probe B in preparation for presentation of conclusions in November.
http://einstein.stanford.edu/
Topics: Physics, history of science, space | No Comments »
Origins #5: Natural Philosophy within Christianity
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | February 18, 2008
Original July 7, 2007.
In the course of the history of Christianity, Greek and Roman philosophy has always been close by as part of the culture. And often it influenced language and thought. In Late Antiquity the ancient philosophies were still being interpreted and practiced by the pagan schools and stood literally side by side with developing Christianity. During the course of the reemergence of the European Latin West from the Dark Ages, ancient philosophy, Aristotle in particular, played a large role in the new intellectual climate that emerged. [1] Aristotle heavily influenced all University studies in general in the Late Middle Ages and the study of theology in particular.
The Reformation in the Latin West was in part a reaction against the influence of Aristotle in the church and upon theology. The Lutheran reformation in particular expended great effort to reform European education such that theology was reinstated as the “queen of the sciences”.[2] In this model, theology based upon revelation created the basic world view or the basic intellectual framework within which the details of empirical science was carried out. God and his creative effort provided the basic explanation for the order observed in the cosmos. Empirical and observational efforts of individuals were the attempt to understand the order of the cosmos in more detail.
This combination of revelation framing ongoing empirical investigation formed a combination that could be called Christian Natural Philosophy. The given data of revelation found in Genesis was the start of its logic. Empirical investigation was the method to add to this framework. In this way, Genesis and the sciences were part of a Natural Philosophy in a broad sense. And this Christian Natural Philosophy can accurately be described as the consensus framework within which great European scientific minds like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton all worked for several centuries.[3] But the precise boundaries of where revelation ended and science began were under constant revision as the contemporary interpretation of revelation and the empirical work of scientists came into conflict, that is, when the queen of sciences and the subservient scientific method clashed.
The conflict that arose when empirical investigations led to conclusions that were contrary to contemporary interpretation of the biblical text, can be seen in the lives of of Copernicus and Galileo in particular. Their observations led to the conclusion that the sun did not revolve around the earth but that the earth and the other planets revolved about the sun. This conclusion placed them in conflict with accepted traditional biblical exegesis. And so they had to be very careful in their publications so as to not run into conflict with the powers that be, an effort that was not always successful.
It is this type of conflict between the empirical work of these scientists and the church that created the modern “religion versus science” intellectual model that is still powerful in the Western mind. Science, it is concluded, can have nothing to do with religion and must reject all influence of religion. There must be a separation of church from not only the state, but also science. These are important components of the contemporary ideas of “secularism” and “modernity”. And in its most extreme form, it is claimed that for science to be logically complete (or intellectually satisfying), it must explain the rise of the cosmos and of life, without reference to religion or the divine.[4]
Ultimately then, Creation Science is a modern reaction to the earlier reaction. It is an attempt to return to the framework within which Kepler and Newton and Galileo worked. It is an attempt to contextualize the empirical work of scientists within the biblical framework of divine creation. In this sense it is an attempt to reestablish Christian Natural Philosophy, even if its proponents would not state it that way.
Understood in this way, much of the contemporary mocking and jeering of Creation Science as not being “science” is a mocking of the intellectual world of Newton, Kepler, etc. And the extreme proponents of this criticism who say you can not be an empirical scientist and believe in this sort of biblical framework, are making statements that are historically ignorant.[5]
On the other hand, what could be a consensus framework in Early Modern Christian Europe and provide a basis for some of the most important scientific work ever done, can almost certainly not be a consensus framework in the modern West in any future that is presently likely. Christian Natural Philosophy can not be a consensus framework in the West just as Christian ethics are no longer the consensus ethical framework and Christianity is no longer the consensus religion. The diversity of our world is orders of magnitude greater than it was 500 years ago.
And so any demand by Creation Science to be the only world view in which empirical/experimental science can be performed must be considered to lie within the realm of religious evangelism. But also, it must be granted that true empirical science based upon the experimental method can be performed and peer reviewed as well within the framework of Christian Natural Theology as it can within the framework of Darwinism. After all, the beauty of experimental science is that physics will perform as physics will perform no matter if you are a Christian, a pagan, or a Muslim.
m.
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[1] This occurred in large part through the influence of Islamic Spain because the intellectuals of Islam had retained and used much of Aristotle in Arabic translation.
[2] See my paper on Wittenberg and Reforms in the University.
[3] The role of religion in Newton’s life was show very recently by the public display of some of his personal papers. See Newton’s Religious Side. For example, Newton had an interest in calculating the date of the Last Day through interpretation of the book of Daniel. Yemima Ben-Menahem, one of the exhibit’s curators, said “These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervor, by a desire to see God’s actions in the world.”
[4] As shown in an earlier post, this is in fact a primary goal of Darwinism.
[5] There are many statements that have been made that basically state that accepting the idea of divine creation removes all motivation for empirical studies. Why study nature when it all goes back to revelation and creation, it is asked.
Topics: Natural Philosophy, Origins, Uncategorized, history of science | No Comments »
Origins #4: Creation Science as Natural Philosophy
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | February 18, 2008
The term “Creation Science” refers to a body of work started in the late 1950s that started as an attempt to gather new natural observational evidence or interpret existing evidence according to a specific historical world view. This historical world view is based upon a literal reading of the creation account contained in the biblical book of Genesis chapters 1-3 and the flood of Noah described in chapter 6 of that book. Some critics of the movement designate it “creationism” instead, in order to emphasize their belief that the movement does not practice science but is rather an offshoot of religious belief. [1]
So the primary characteristic of this movement is its presupposition, an acceptance of the biblical book of Genesis as a book containing divine revelation which literally reports God’s work in creating the heavens and the earth. The work of the movement is openly stated and executed according to this model. Evidence is examined, interpreted, and published in order to support this presupposition given is the correct one. That is, the argument is generally, see here is evidence that supports the argument that Genesis gives a literal account of the creation of the cosmos in 7 days.
Proponents of this movement generally do not characterize their movement as a “philosophy”. [2] If we consider the the definition of “philosophy” for a moment, we’ll find that the term is commonly used to designate an ordered system of thought and language that attempts to describe reality through an investigation of logical or rational thought.
In this narrow sense, “philosophy” can be used in opposition to “empirical science” because philosophy is not based upon the scientific method of experimentation. “Philosophy” in this narrow sense can also be used in opposition to “revelation” since philosophy in this narrow sense does not rely upon any sort of revelation from God.
But philosophy even in the strictest sense is not opposed to “religion” or to ideas regarding the divine in general. In fact, most of the classical philosophical schools included a significant component that dealt with the divine in so far as the philosophy tried to characterize how the divine related to the cosmos. This speculation led some major philosophical schools such as the Platonists to expend significant effort toward explaining how the cosmos came into being. [3] It is therefore a relatively recent notion that states a system of rational thought must exclude any reference or notion of the divine and must exclude any references to the super natural in explaining the rise of the natural.
So, if we would apply these ideas to the Creation Science movement, we see that it does not qualify as a philosophy in the strictest sense, in that it starts with the presupposition that Genesis is divine revelation and this supersedes any other logical argument.
But even this presupposition can be treated as a part of the logic of the overall system. Then Creation Science becomes a member of the well established historical category of Christian Natural Philosophy. And this will be the next topic.
m.
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[1] See Wikipedia’s definition of Creation Science. In spite of Wikipedia’s language of consensus where it says the “scientific community regards the term “creation science” as a misnomer”, there are many degreed and professional scientists who would not agree with this characterization.
[2] See one definition here: Definition of Philosophy
[3] One of the most famous examples of ancient cosmogony is Plato’s Timaeus.
Topics: Natural Philosophy, Origins, history of science | No Comments »
