Impact of the LASER

First thing's first, for those who may not know, the word 'laser' is actually an acronym standing for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. For the purposes of this class, I won't delve deep into the physics of it, but rather list a few of the impact this discovery has had on our modern society.

The first concept of a laser wasn't thought up for recreational, medical, or even for simple lighting principles. Physicist Charles Towne was an expert in spectroscopy, or as dictionary.com puts it, "the science that deals with the use of the spectroscope and with spectrum analysis". (If you're like me that didn't help clear it up at all, basically it's the study of radiation, visible or not, and its sources). Nowadays our uses for lasers vary from making slits in baby bottles to measuring the distance between the earth and moon. Here are some other neat (obvious and not-so-obvious) uses for lasers you may or may not have known about.

How much trust do you put in a stop light?

We spoke the other day in class about an idea called Game Theory, which is a way of predicting or manipulating people's actions by combining a limited number of options with assumed rational thinking (a more thorough explanation can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

To demonstrate, many people use the Prisoner's Dilemma. Say two people, Bob and Alice, are arrested for committing an armed robbery. Each has enough evidence to convict the other, and the chief inspector give's them both two options: confess or refuse. If they both confess, they will both spend five years in prison. If one confesses and the other stays silent, then the confessor goes free and the other spends ten years in prison. If neither one confesses then they both spend two years in prison.

		Alice
		Confess	Refuse
Bob	Confess	5,5	0,10
	Refuse	10,0	2,2

The tendency for most people in this situation is to confess, because they want to play to their best strategy, which makes this a stacked game.

I noticed a connection between this and our global driving system. I've often marveled at how hundreds of millions of people have all been taught the same way to drive. Not only that, but for the most part we all comply with the same laws even though they sometimes may be a hindrance. What keeps people from running stop lights? Why do we drive on the right side of the road if no one's coming the other way? The answer is simple, self-preservation; the road system is there to protect us. A similar table could be drawn for this situation.

		Alice
		Run red light	Don't run
Bob	Run red light	0,0	10,0
	Don't run	0,10	7,7

In this case, a 0 represents a crash, 10 means getting to your destination as fast as possible, and 7 is getting to the destination but having to wait a little longer. Occasionally people do run red lights when they feel the risk of getting in a crash is very low. Add on to that the possibility of getting pulled over by a policeman and we have a rather reliable roadway.

Reflection #2

You may have noticed as well as I have that my posting slowed down a bit during October. I had a lot of personal things going on then but I'm trying to make up for it this month. Here's my reflective blog post for the second portion of class.

Peer Blog Review: Jeffrey

Dear Jeffrey,

Great job with your blog this term. It's clear you've been busy blogging this term. The more time you spend creating, the more the readers will want to spend consuming. A few of things stuck out quite a bit to me while I was going through it. First, I love the enthusiasm. You seem to be really enjoying the class and taking full advantage of the self-directed learning. I really like how you've made a goal since the last midterm to improve your blogging and stuck to it. You've been doing great with your links and variety of posts. I had a hard time finding things to improve on, especially comparing it to mine, so I had to be picky. For your hyperlinks, I would recommend using a different color, something that sticks out just a little bit more. I noticed when I was reading through something quickly it was easy to overlook one or two of them. Your post on What Makes Me Unique was one that caught my eye. I really like how you managed to incorporate a broad spectrum of the topics we've gone over in class while also apply it something as current and personal as a job interview. The Blog Checks are also a creative way of both keeping your work relevant to class and creating a sort of table of contents for your reader.

There was one other downside that I noticed, which in a way is somewhat of a compliment: there weren't enough comments. I've struggled with the same problem. It's harder to write when there's no audience. I don't know how much commenting you've done on classmates' blogs but that can be one good way of getting your name around. Another solution, one that I'm thinking of doing myself soon, would be to link your blog to Facebook (if you haven't already, and if you have an account). There's a great how-to on our class blog if you don't know how already. My biggest piece of advice would simply say, "Keep up the good work." Continue keeping variety in your posts and pushing yourself to try new things.

Sincerely,
Chase

Hiroshima: The Trigger of the Atomic Age

In the summer of 2009, I had the opportunity to go to Japan for two weeks on a student exchange with a few other friends from my high school. While there, we spent half a day in Hiroshima where we visited the rather "depressing" (to quote my journal for that day) Atomic Bomb Museum. Here are some pictures and videos from my experience. Forgive the shaky camera, just pause it if you need to get a better look. I encourage anyone who gets the chance to visit this amazing museum.

 

This pillar is at the entrance to the museum.

This video shows a before and after model of part of the city where the bomb hit.

The T-shaped bridge was the target of the bomb.

This is where the bomb exploded.

"I fought with myself for 30 minutes before I could take the first picture. After taking the first, I grew strangely calm and wanted to get closer. I took about ten steps forward and tried to snap another, but the scenes I saw were so gruesome my viewfinder clouded with tears."

 - Yoshito Matsushige

This was one of the most staggering pictures for me. It's the mark left by a man who was sitting on the stair when the bomb went off.

One of the only buildings they preserved.

I had one more video I wanted to show but I guess it's too long to upload from my computer. To summarize, it showed the city a year after the bombing. The population had recovered to about 180,000 people, a black market arose, a former military installation became a new housing area, open-air classrooms were organized, the Aioi bridge was reconstructed, and "the city made progress under a goal of becoming a City of Peace."

Nobody began the Atomic Age more literally than these people. The greatest thing I got our of this experience wasn't the sickening feeling of the effects of atomic warfare, but rather the lack of hatred from the Japanese people. There were no signs of grudges they still might be holding. They remember the past not to avenge it, but to learn from it.

A Logic Named Joe

Here's a really interesting short story we were assigned to read in class. I haven't finished it all myself but I got as far as I could today and wanted to post on it while it was still fresh in my mind. It's written by an American writer named Murray Leinster in 1946. Not only did I enjoy the subtle humor throughout, but in a way he predicts the invention of the Internet with his sci-fi "Logics". Enjoy!



P.S. If you want to know how to embed a web site like this, I learned it from Blogger Tips & Tricks.

Nietzsche, Hitler, and Modernism

Image from Photobucket

During the height of the Modernist movement, two radicals emerged that would arguably change the course of the future. Nietzsche, in his book titled Thus Spoke Zarathustra, coined the "Übermensch", or "overman", meaning the one who is willing to risk all for the sake of enhancement of humanity. This is in contrast to the "last man", or "one whose sole desire is his own comfort and is incapable of creating anything beyond oneself in any form". Adolf Hitler then used the principles of the Übermensch to form his idea of the "master race", igniting the Holocaust. 

Image from Spartacus Educational

As Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe stated, this "dealt a mortal blow to modernism. It shattered the modernist dreeam and defiled the impulse that sustained modern art." While progressive modernism sought to improve all of humankind, Hitler twisted both this and Nietzsche's philosophy into an excuse for genocide.

With the consequences of modernism fully evident by the end of World War II, primarily the industrialization of warfare, modernism began to gradually dissipate beneath the rise of the Atomic Age, a direct result of the war it followed.