Day #21 Problem?

Day #19 Don’t believe everything you were told at school!

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

[From “Cargo cult science” by Richard Feynman]

So, How many time you being fool by school?

Noble gases don’t react.

Proton, neutron, electron are fundamental particle of an atom.

The only possible combination of Na and Cl in a compound is 1:1 – NaCl.

This is small example of what we learn from school, but how can you sure that what you learn is up to date?

Science is dynamic. New theory appear, then a group of experiment-addict dig for every evidence and proof it. But sorry, they never teach you up to date.

Let’s see how much lesson that your teacher teach you a wrong things for nowaday. (16 September 2014)

These wrong things in this article is only a example from many wrong things which still teach in high school in Thailand but already update base on many research in many country, I don’t know what I can do with it.

Because their dumbass education system, I accept that I learn nothing useful from school but still go to school for 11 years now. This is a country that learn to earn not learn to live, also never listen to student too!

1. Noble gases don’t react.

What’s wrong : Noble gases do not react chemically with other substances.

For nowaday : Noble gases do not react chemically with other substances except under certain special conditions.

Noble gases, also known as the inert gases, are located in Group VIII of the periodic table. Group VIII is sometimes called Group O. The noble gases are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon, and ununoctium. The noble gases have high ionization energies and negligible electronegativities. The noble gases have low boiling points and are all gases at room temperature.

Because the outermost electron shell of atoms of these gases is full, they do not react chemically with other substances. Noble gases are not reactive. This is because they have little tendency to gain or lose electrons.

So, noble gases do not react chemically with other substances. Your teacher say.

But for today, noble gases do not react chemically with other substances except under certain special conditions.

British chemist Neil Bartlett, working at the University of British Columbia, Canada, was not trying to defy conventional wisdom, he just following common logic.

In 1961, he discovered that the compound platinum hexafluoride (PtF₆), first made three years earlier by US chemists, was an eye-wateringly powerful oxidant. Oxidation, the process of removing electrons from a chemical element or compound, bears oxygen’s name because oxygen has an almost unparalleled ability to perform the deed. But Bartlett found that PtF₆ could even oxidise oxygen, ripping away its electrons to create a positively charged ion.

Early the next year, Bartlett was preparing a lecture and happened to glance at a textbook graph of “ionisation potentials”. These numbers quantify the amount of energy required to remove an electron from various substances. He noticed that xenon’s ionisation potential was almost exactly the same as oxygen’s. If PtF₆ could oxidise oxygen, might it oxidise xenon, too?

Mixing red gaseous PtF₆ and colourless xenon supplied the answer. The glass vessel was immediately covered with a yellow material. Bartlett found it to have the formula XePtF₆ – xenon hexafluoroplatinate, the first noble-gas compound.

Many other compounds of xenon and then krypton followed. Some are explosively unstable: Bartlett nearly lost an eye studying xenon dioxide. Radon, a heavier, radioactive noble gas, forms compounds too, but it wasn’t until 2000 that the first argon compound, argon fluorohydride, was reported to exist at low temperatures by a group at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Even now, the noble gases continue to produce surprises. Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, admits to being shocked when, also in 2000, chemists in Berlin reported a compound of xenon and gold – the metal gold is supposed to be noble and unreactive too.

Noble gases are still the least reactive elements, but you can enforce elements to do almost anythings.

2. The only possible combination of Na and Cl in a compound is 1:1 – NaCl.

What’s wrong : The only possible combination of Na and Cl in a compound is 1:1 – NaCl.

For nowaday :  The only possible combination of Na and Cl in a compound is 1:1 – NaCl, but in spacial condition – we have Na3Cl, Na2Cl, Na3Cl2 and NaCl7.

Chemistry textbooks say that sodium and chlorine have very different electronegativities, and thus must form an ionic compound with a well-defined composition. Sodium’s charge is +1, chlorine’s charge is -1; sodium will give away an electron, chlorine wants to take an electron.

The only possible combination of these atoms in a compound is 1:1 – NaCl.

Not for today, now we have Na3Cl, Na2Cl, Na3Cl2 and NaCl7.

A team of researchers led by Prof Artem Oganov of Stony Brook University has shown that, under certain conditions, ordinary rock salt can take on some surprising forms that violate textbook rules of chemistry.

The scientists first used new computational methods and structure-prediction algorithms to identify an array of possible stable structural outcomes from compressing NaCl.

They then attempted to verify these predictions, using a diamond anvil to put salt mixed with molecular chlorine or metallic sodium under high pressure.

“We discovered that the standard chemistry textbook rules broke down,” said Dr Alexander Goncharov from Carnegie Institution of Washington, who is a co-author of the study published in the journal Science.

“We found crazy compounds that violate textbook rules – NaCl3, NaCl7, Na3Cl2, Na2Cl, and Na3Cl,” said lead author Dr Weiwei Zhang of Stony Brook University.

“These compounds are thermodynamically stable and, once made, remain indefinitely; nothing will make them fall apart. Classical chemistry forbids their very existence. Classical chemistry also says atoms try to fulfill the octet rule – elements gain or lose electrons to attain an electron configuration of the nearest noble gas, with complete outer electron shells that make them very stable. Well, here that rule is not satisfied.”

NaCl turned into stable compounds of Na3Cl, Na2Cl, Na3Cl2 and NaCl7, all of which have highly unusual chemical bonding and electronic properties.

Their structures were calculated using the crystal structure prediction technique invented by Prof Oganov and called USPEX (Universal Structure Predictor: Evolutionary Xraystallography) making this Russian word, standing for ‘success’, popular around the crystallographers and material scientists.

These compounds not only expand our understanding of chemistry but may find new practical applications in future.

For example, NaCl7, NaCl3, Na3Cl2, and Na2Cl are metals (that explains the apparent violation of electroneutrality since charge balance rules are inapplicable to metals), and only one semiconducting phase of NaCl3 is stable in the pressure range between 250 and 480 thousand atmospheres.

We have NaCl, but in spacial condition – we have Na3Cl, Na2Cl, Na3Cl2 and NaCl7.

3. Proton, neutron, electron are fundamental particle of an atom.

What’s wrong : Proton, neutron, electron are fundamental particle of an atom.

For nowaday : Quark and electron are fundamental particle of an atom.

Proton, neutron, electron are fundamental particle of an atom. Most of people – from elementary, high school to university students still believe this.

It’s fundamental for someone who stuck in school system, now quark and electron are fundamental particle of an atom.

By the 1930s, it was clear that atoms were made up of even smaller particles – protons, neutrons, and electrons, then considered to be the fundamental particles of matter. A proton is a positively charged particle that weighs about one atomic mass unit [1.0073 AMU]; a neutron has about the same mass [1.0087 AMU] but no charge; and an electron has a much smaller mass [0.0005 AMU] and a negative charge. Protons and neutrons make up the tiny nucleus of an atom, while electrons exist outside the atomic nucleus in discrete energy levels within an electron “cloud.”

By 1970 it began to appear that matter might contain even smaller particles, an idea suggested in 1963 by American physicist Murray Gell-Mann (who called the particles quarks ) and independently by American physicist George Zweig (who called them aces ). There are in actuality hundreds of subatomic particles that have been observed, but many of them are unstable.

Quark and electron are fundamental particle of an atom. Remember it!

This is only small example of very big wrong, but what’s that actually wrong is education system.

The biggest problem of education system in my country is they never teach us. Yes, THEY NEVER TEACH US.

You go to school to learn, right? That is the school system’s explicit purpose. So that children can learn.

But what do you learn in school? I mean really? What really stays with you?

Well, you learn to read and write and to do basic math. That’s good. If you’re lucky you might end up with survival level in a second language too. That’s sound reasonable!

This is Richard Feynman comment on education in Brazil long time ago. And now it is serious condition for Thailand too.

“I have discovered something else,” I continued. “By flipping the pages at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, I can show you what’s the matter – how it’s not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance. Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you.”

So I did it. Brrrrrrrup – I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: “Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed…”

I said, “And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven’t told anything about nature – what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can’t.

“But if, instead, you were to write, ‘When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called “triboluminescence.” ’ Then someone will go home and try it. Then there’s an experience of nature.” I used that example to show them, but it didn’t make any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like that everywhere.

You can learn everything that you actually remembered from school in about three years, just remember it!

How long did it take to learn to read and write and do basic math?

Not long. Four years at most. And if you hadn’t been distracted by the useless stuff combined with that… yeah, two years sounds reasonable.

So school is not about learning. If it was, people would have realised how much more efficiently it could be done. About 10 years of school time, then, are wasted from the perspective of learning.

Free yourself, learn everything your way and explore the world.

May the gravitational force be with you!

Day #17 Congratulation to #BL4S winner team(s)

“CERN is famous for the Large Hadron Collider, but there’s much more to the laboratory than that. A large part of CERN’s research and development is carried out using fixed-target beam lines, which are used for a variety of experiments that range from investigating the inner workings of protons to probing the mysteries of antimatter. In 2014, to coincide with its 60th anniversary, CERN is making a fully equipped beam line available for a team of school students to run an experiment. Physicists, engineers and experts in data acquisition and analysis are offering students guidance. Beam time will be allocated by scientific competition, just as it is allocated for all CERN experiments. ”

“Beamline for schools competition, start!”

455 teams registered before the deadline of midnight CET on Friday 31 January 2014. Teams will not be judged on their 140-character statement, but some statements may be featured by CERN in its own communications.

I, particle physics freak. Never lose this chance! I register on 20 December 2013 and waiting for good news. I think that there’re more that 10 teams from Thailand, but I guess it wrong!

Only 3 teams from Thailand,include my. And one team from my home country is gone with proposal deadline.

55 days to complete proposal with 1 physics teacher, 1 particle physics freak, 1 translator and 6 high school student who know nothing about particle physics but interest in my project and ready to challenge for new things. We’re inexperience and it’s too short time for a group of student from Thailand who have fucking many real-life-useless homework from dumbass education system.

Thank you for give us this chance!

Here is 2 winner teams from #BL4S

Dominicuscollege – a team of five – will grow their own crystals to make a calorimeter, a device that measures the energy of a particle, and test it with the beam at CERN. Their calorimeter will also be used as a component in the pion-decay experiment. Physicists, engineers and experts in beams, detectors, data acquisition, data analysis, safety and radio protection from across all CERN departments are helping with the preparations for the experiment and will offer guidance during the experimental phase at CERN.

Odysseus’ Comrades – a team of 12 – will look at the decay of charged pions (particles made of a quark and an antiquark) to investigate the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature.

Congratulation to all winner teams!

Day #12 Pyramid cult leader appointed to reform our school curriculum! I need someone help ASAP!!!

Yes, Pyramid cult leader appointed to reform our school curriculum. Oh my higgs! I never believe this would be happen until I see the news. Too many pseudoscience in my country now…

I feel like I want to get mad when I see ‘quantum medal’ sell on roadside, it help you nothing except wasting your money in case that you have too much money and want to throw it away somewhere.

Real scientist comment from http://en.khaosod.co.th/detail.php?newsid=1409494445&section=14

“If Dr. Art-ong, a believer in pseudoscience, has the role in reforming curriculum, he may use beliefs that are not based on credible science to affect his decisions about reforming the curriculum,” the petition reads. “It may lead to teaching false beliefs to Thai youth.”

Fortunately, A prominent scientist has started an online petition protesting the recent appointment of a cult leader and UFO believer to lead a national education reform panel in Thailand. Thanks for your petition!

Petition link here! I don’t want to see real science in my country die.

So, What is pseudoscience?

Look in dictionary first.

Pseudoscience (noun)

A collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.

(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/pseudoscience)

Or with easier explanation – The word “pseudo” means fake. It’s fake science. It sound cool with many theory and technically words but absolutely not base on scientific method.

The best way to spot a fake is to know as much as possible about the real thing – in this case, about science itself. Knowing science does not mean simply knowing scientific facts. It means understanding the nature of science – seeking for evidence, design of meaningful experiments, weighing of possibility, the testing of hypotheses, the establishment of theories.

Better explanation by Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/

How to know what is science or pseudoscience?

Many pseudoscience theories are sound very nonsense for me. As particle physics freak who know a little bit about quantum mechanics, I found that many pseudoscientist use the word “quantum” in the wrong way. My recommend book “How to teach physics to your dog” have 1 full chapter that write about fake “quantum” theories and products!

This is pseudoscience ‘nonsense’ point

Pseudoscience displays an indifference to facts.
Instead of bothering to consult reference works or investigating directly, its advocates simply spout bogus “facts” where needed. These fictions are often central to the pseudoscientist’s argument and conclusions. Moreover, pseudoscientists rarely revise. The first edition of a pseudoscience book is almost always the last, even though the book remains in print for decades or even centuries. Even books with obvious mistakes, errors, and misprints on every page may be reprinted as is, over and over. Compare this to science textbooks that see a new edition every few years because of the rapid accumulation of new facts and insights.

Pseudoscience “research” is invariably sloppy.
Pseudoscientists clip newspaper reports, collect hearsay, cite other pseudoscience books, and pore over ancient religious or mythological works. They rarely or never make an independent investigation to check their sources.

Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis—usually one which is appealing emotionally,
and spectacularly implausible—and then looks only for items which appear to support it.
Conflicting evidence is ignored. Generally speaking, the aim of pseudoscience is to rationalize strongly held beliefs, rather than to investigate or to test alternative possibilities. Pseudoscience specializes in jumping to “congenial conclusions,” grinding ideological axes, appealing to preconceived ideas and to widespread misunderstandings.

Pseudoscience is indifferent to criteria of valid evidence.
The emphasis is not on meaningful, controlled, repeatable scientific experiments. Instead it is on unverifiable eyewitness testimony, stories and tall tales, hearsay, rumor, and dubious anecdotes. Genuine scientific literature is either ignored or misinterpreted.

Pseudoscience relies heavily on subjective validation.
Joe Blow puts jello on his head and his headache goes away. To pseudoscience, this means jello cures headaches. To science this means nothing, since no experiment was done. Many things were going on when Joe Blow’s headache went away—the moon was full, a bird flew overhead, the window was open, Joe had on his red shirt, etc.—and his headache would have gone away eventually in any case, no matter what. A controlled experiment would put many people suffering from headaches in identical circumstances, except for the presence or absence of the remedy it is desired to test, and compare the results which would then have some chance of being meaningful. Many people think there must be something to astrology because a newspaper horoscope describes them perfectly. But close examination would reveal that the description is general enough to cover virtually everyone. This phenomenon, called subjective validation, is one of the foundations of popular support for pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience depends on arbitrary conventions of human
culture, rather than on unchanging regularities of nature.
For instance, the interpretations of astrology depend on the names of things, which are accidental and vary from culture to culture. If the ancients had given the name Mars to the planet we call Jupiter, and vice versa, astronomy could care less but astrology would be totally different, because it depends solely on the name and has nothing to do with the physical properties of the planet itself.

Pseudoscience always achieves a reduction to absurdity if pursued far enough.
Maybe dowsers can somehow sense the presence of water or minerals under a field, but almost all claim they can dowse equally well from a map! Maybe Uri Geller is “psychic,” but are his powers really beamed to him on a radio link with a flying saucer from the planet Hoova, as he has claimed? Maybe plants are “psychic,” but why does a bowl of mud respond in exactly the same way, in the same “experiment?”

Pseudoscience always avoids putting its claims to a meaningful test.
Pseudoscientists never carry out careful, methodical experiments themselves—and they also generally ignore results of those carried out by scientists. Pseudoscientists also never follow up. If one pseudoscientist claims to have done an experiment (such as the “lost” biorhythm studies of Hermann Swoboda that are alleged basis of the modern pseudoscience of biorhythms), no other pseudoscientist ever tries to duplicate it or to check him, even when the original results are missing or questionable! Further, where a pseudoscientist claims to have done an experiment with a remarkable result, he himself never repeats it to check his results and procedures. This is in extreme contrast with science, where crucial experiments are repeated by scientists all over the world with ever-increasing precision.

Pseudoscience often contradicts itself, even in its own terms.
Such logical contradictions are simply ignored or rationalized away. Thus, we should not be surprised when Chapter 1
of a book on dowsing says that dowsers use newly cut twigs, because only “live” wood can channel and focus the “earth-radiation” that makes dowsing possible, whereas Chapter 5 states that nearly all dowsers use metal or plastic rods.

Pseudoscience deliberately creates mystery where none
exists, by omitting crucial information and important details.
Anything can be made “mysterious” by omitting what is known about it or presenting completely imaginary details. The “Bermuda Triangle” books are classic examples of this tactic.

Pseudoscience does not progress.
There are fads, and a pseudoscientist may switch from one fad to another (from ghosts to ESP research, from flying saucers to psychic studies, from ESP research to looking for Bigfoot). But within a given topic, no progress is made. Little or no new information or uncovered. New theories are seldom proposed, and old concepts are rarely modified or discarded in light of new “discoveries,” since pseudoscience rarely makes new “discoveries.” The older the idea, the more respect it receives. No natural phenomena or processes previously unknown to science have ever been discovered by pseudoscientists. Indeed, pseudoscientists almost invariably deal with phenomena well known to scientists, but little known to the general public—so that the public will swallow whatever the pseudoscientist wants to claim. Examples include firewalking and “Kirlian” photography.

Pseudoscience attempts to persuade with rhetoric, propaganda, and
misrepresentation rather than valid evidence (which presumably does not exist).
Pseudoscience books offer examples of almost every kind of fallacy of logic and reason known to scholars and have invented some new ones of their own. A favorite device is the non sequitur. Pseudoscientists also love the “Galileo Argument.” This consists of the pseudoscientist comparing himself to Galileo, and saying that just as the pseudoscientist is believed to be wrong, so Galileo was thought wrong by his contemporaries therefore the pseudoscientist must be right too, just as Galileo was. Clearly the conclusion does not follow! Moreover, Galileo’s ideas were tested, verified, and accepted promptly by his scientific colleagues. The rejection came from the established religion which favored the pseudoscience that Galileo’s findings contradicted.

Pseudoscience argues from ignorance, an elementary fallacy.
Many pseudoscientists base their claims on incompleteness of information about nature, rather than on what is known at present. But no claim can possibly be supported by lack of information. The fact that people don’t recognize what they see in the sky means only that they don’t recognize what they saw. This fact is not evidence that flying saucers are from outer space. The statement “Science cannot explain” is common in pseudoscience literature. In many cases, science has no interest in the supposed phenomena because there is no evidence it exists; in other cases, the scientific explanation is well known and well established, but the pseudoscientist doesn’t know this or deliberately ignores it to create mystery.

Pseudoscience argues from alleged exceptions, errors, anomalies, strange events,
and suspect claims—rather than from well-established regularities of nature.
The experience of scientists over the past 400 years is that claims and reports that describe well-understood objects behaving in strange and incomprehensible ways tend to reduce upon investigation to deliberate frauds, honest mistakes, garbled accounts, misinterpretations, outright fabrications, and stupid blunders. It is not wise to accept such reports at face value, without checking them. Pseudoscientists always take such reports as literally true, without independent verification.

Pseudoscience appeals to false authority, to emotion,
sentiment, or distrust of established fact.
A high-school dropout is accepted as an expert on archaeology, though he has never made any study of it! A psychoanalyst is accepted as an expert on all of human history, not to mention physics, astronomy, and mythology, even though his claims are inconsistent with everything known in all four fields. A movie star swears it’s true, so it must be. A physicist says a “psychic” couldn’t possibly have fooled him with simple magic tricks, although the physicist knows nothing about magic and sleight of hand. Emotional appeals are common. (“If it makes you feel good, it must be true.” “In your heart you know it’s right.”) Pseudoscientists are fond of imaginary conspiracies. (“There’s plenty of evidence for flying saucers, but the government keeps it secret.”) And they argue from irrelevancies: When confronted by inconvenient facts, they simply reply, “Scientists don’t know everything!”

Pseudoscience makes extraordinary claims and advances fantastic
theories that contradict what is known about nature.
They not only provide no evidence that their claims are true. They also ignore all findings that contradict their conclusions. (“Flying saucers have to come from somewhere—so the earth is hollow, and they come from inside.” “This electric spark I’m making with this electrical apparatus is actually not a spark at all, but rather a supernatural manifestation of psycho-spiritual energy.” “Every human is surrounded by an impalpable aura of electromagnetic energy, the auric egg of the ancient Hindu seers, which mirrors the human’s every mood and condition.”)

Pseudoscientists invent their own vocabulary in which many terms lack
precise or unambiguous definitions, and some have no definition at all.
Listeners are often forced to interpret the statements according to their own preconceptions. What, for for example, is “biocosmic energy?” Or a “psychotronic amplification system?” Pseudoscientists often attempt to imitate the jargon of scientific and technical fields by spouting gibberish that sounds scientific and technical. Quack “healers” would be lost without the term “energy,” but their use of the term has nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of energy used by physicists.

Pseudoscience appeals to the truth-criteria of scientific
methodology while simultaneously denying their validity.
Thus, a procedurally invalid experiment which seems to show that astrology works is advanced as “proof” that astrology is correct, while thousands of procedurally sound experiments that show it does not work are ignored. The fact that someone got away with simple magic tricks in one scientific lab is “proof” that he is a psychic superman, while the fact that he was caught cheating in several other labs is ignored.

Pseudoscience claims that the phenomena it studies are “jealous.”
The phenomena appear only under certain vaguely specified but vital conditions (such as when no doubters or skeptics are present; when no experts are present; when nobody is watching; when the “vibes” are right; or only once in human history.) Science holds that genuine phenomena must be capable of study by anyone with the proper equipment and that all procedurally valid studies must give consistent results. No genuine phenomenon is “jealous” in this way. There is no way to construct a TV set or a radio that will function only when no skeptics are present! A man who claims to be a concert-class violinist, but does not appear to have ever owned a violin and who refuses to play when anyone is around who might hear him, is most likely lying about his ability to play the violin.

Pseudoscientific “explanations” tend to be by scenario.
That is, we are told a story, but nothing else; we have no description of any possible physical process. For instance, Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) claimed that another planet passing near the earth caused the earth’s spin axis to flip upside down. This is all he said. He gave no mechanisms. But the mechanism is all-important, because the laws of physics rule out the process as impossible. That is, the approach of another planet cannot cause a planet’s spin axis to flip. If Velikovsky had discovered some way that a planet could flip another’s spin axis, he would presumably have described the mechanism by which it can happen. The bald statement itself, without the underlying mechanism, conveys no information at all. Velikovsky said that Venus was once a comet, and this comet was spewed out of a volcano on Jupiter. Since planets do not resemble comets (which are rock/ice snowball-like debris with connection whatsoever to volcanoes) and since Jupiter is not known to have volcanoes anyway (or even a solid surface!), no actual physical process could underlie Velikovsky’s assertions. He gave us words, related to one another within a sentence, but the relationships were alien to the universe we actually live in, and he gave no explanation for how these could exist. He provided stories, not genuine theories.

Pseudoscientists often appeal to the ancient human habit of magical thinking.
Magic, sorcery, witchcraft—these are based on spurious similarity, false analogy, false cause-and-effect connections, etc. That is, inexplicable influences and connections between things are assumed from the beginning—not found by investigation. (If you step on a crack in the sidewalk without saying a magic word, your mother will crack a bone in her body; eating heart-shaped leaves is good for heart ailments; shining red light on the body increases blood production; rams are aggressive so someone born in the sign of the ram is aggressive; fish are “brain food” because the meat of the fish resembles brain tissue, etc.)

Pseudoscience relies heavily on anachronistic thinking.
The older the idea, the more attractive it is to pseudoscience—it’s the wisdom of the ancients!—especially if the idea is transparently wrong and has long been discarded by science. Many journalists have trouble in comprehending this point. A typical reporter writing about astrology may think a thorough job can be done by interviewing six astrologers and one astronomer. The astronomer says it’s all bunk; the six astrologers say it’s great stuff and really works and for $50 they’ll be glad to cast anyone’s horoscope. (No doubt!) To many reporters, and apparently to many editors and their readers, this would confirm astrology six to one!

(http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pseudo.html)

Many way to know what is science and pseudoscience but unfortunately, many people believe pseudoscience more than real science.

I don’t know why!

Day #9 Daily life in 16 m from ground level, I really have no idea what I going to write this day!

As I say, I have no idea what I want to write here so I write I have no idea what I write.

This is my very boring day, blah blah blah.

Looking Ingress intel for my next target and my portal, someone recharge it for me.

Dig up CERN Document Server for interesting stuff and new technology

Check out what’s going on at SLRI. (Same place as Day #6 Invasion)

Open my blog dashboard. Oh, I see they’re more view than I think on my blog.

Top view by country, can you tell me where are you come from?

Thanks for all reader!

Day #8 I meet my superpartner, eh?

Very very short writing this day, and sorry for unable to complete SLRI invasion part 2/2 in time.

I meet my superpartner now, everything same except charge. 😛

Well, he is Day #7 writer. Both of us are experimental particle physics follower, what a symmetry…

Great! I forget my lab result, I must go to pick it now!

Day #7 The new writer is here !

Hi there, let’s get to it!

I’m particle physics freak. My name is Nattanon
Studying at Suankularb Wittayalai Nontaburi School. I’m interested in a Computer Science and Particle Physics. I’m a big fan of Compact Muon Solenoid, one of the most complex machine at CERN. My dream is to work as a Network Engineer and Data Center technician at CERN tier 0 Super Computer and also an engineer for CERN’s grid computing network, taking care of the most awesome computer grid system would be fun!  I’m planing to take part in Computer Science department at Chulalongkorn University. Thank you for letting me become one of the greatest Particle Physics Community in Thailand.

@NattanonDSN
I love Computer and Physics

 

Day #6 Synchrotron Light Research Institute invasion!!! (Part 2/2)

I’m half recovered, I must complete this before get sick again!

Last time I’m very busy so I can’t add all full detail, now I will reveal everything in 2hr 45min at the awesome facility near my home!!

(Some part is copy from my note, some is from my memory.)

[N] 05/16/2014 AD 9.16 GMT+7

Day start with headache, still have more mission for me.

it’s time to move.

[10.30]

Arrived, first thing you can see is big building that look like made by glass.

OK, you can see how many awesome guys work here. Oh – long time ago, the older building look like…THIS.

This is only one synchrotron facility in Thailand. Many university here have SAXS or XRD but if you need powerful X-Ray beam for your analysis quality, you must come here.

For someone who really love particle accelerator, I want to know how they work, how to do something awesome and how they live in daily life. And this is the place that inspire me to make this blog!

I want to be the first person in target area so I running up stairs, forget everything include that I sick… so this is the result

Because the floor is slippy, friction hurt me!

I slip and everyone come to see me. I made my first “fall” on the front door!

Next, I have to find my professor when I’m in the experiment hall. I text him but nothing back, no internet connection on my phone. How can I forget about that!

This is my second fall.

I try to ask everyone I can but they look at me like – “Who are you? How you know this guy?”

WTF…I can’t lost this chance to talk with real physicist!! Someone help me!!!

No internet connection, no one answer me where I can meet my professor and very sick. What a bad day…

I think I’m going to resign, but statistically – You can not have only bad thing in all day!

I use my facebook to talk to my professor, so he don’t know my real name, everything end up like this…

My professor appeared!

He look at my group…

and

.

.

.

Everyone starring at me, I tell them nothing about this! (I guess I will go to meet him after Experiment hall touring)

Stop looking at me like that,please…

He ask me that I want to look everything in Experiment hall and go to his office after finish or go to his office now, I choose choice 1.

In the Experiment hall is very cold, or I think it is.

Real beamline look like a lump of metal and foil, tangled wired and look very not interesting for other people. Some of them is lock up in radiation proof  room, no lab coat guys here.

This is my reaction to these beamline.

Many people shock when they see my picture I take with particle accelerator and beamlines then said it radiation or it dangerous, I could say they really misunderstand everything!

Normal people get average 2.5 mSv (Sv – Sievert – Unit of radiation absorption) per year. We call this “Background radiation” because it is a radiation from environment, from carbon-14 that you breath it in and out, or eat it everyday, from building materials, from ground, from Radon and Thoron, from nature. Some radiation you all get is from medical, example – chest X-ray. You can read more about background radiation here.

OK. Then, why I say everyone misunderstand? First, before we enter experiment hall, they warn us to stay in line (Green line of visitor area), do not eat or drink in experiment hall (or you will get a chance to eat radioactive dust that land on your food/drink, if you want), etc. to keep us from absorb any radiation as much as they can.

Experiment hall tour finish, my classmate go away. It’s time to move!

This is what I think I do…

I’m agent Sine, I’m in target area and ready to break into control room! El Psy Congroo

No, I never do something like that. It just what I think I feel like!

Then, this is what I feel like when waiting for my professor…and what I actually do

No, I’m not that intelligent, and I’m not that evil… I just standing and wait…

Many people say

“If you see what your future work actually look like, you will change your mind”

but it NOT, I born to be this!

I don’t know how to explain what it look like inside control room (and I forget to take any picture)

It look like a control room in many movie, but don’t have a control panel with many switch. Many monitor show machine status or a graph. Also have real-time status online but it much more interesting to see a real control room!

Actually, many particle accelerator status have real-time status online. You can use a link I give below, it’s free and don’t have to log in or register!

Large Hadron Collider – CERN (Acceleraor Active/Realtime status Active)

http://meltronx.com/ (All)

http://op-webtools.web.cern.ch/op-webtools/vistar/vistars.php (All)

http://www.lhcportal.com/ (All)

http://cmsdoc.cern.ch/cmscc/cmstv/cmstv.jsp?channel=4 (CMS)

Tevatron – Fermilab (Accelerator shut down/Realtime Status Active)

http://www-bd.fnal.gov/notifyservlet/www?project=outside (All)

Siam Photon Source – Synchrotron Light Research Institute

http://accelerator.slri.or.th/machine-status/ (Machine Status)

http://accelerator.slri.or.th/machine-status/mobile/live-camera-1.php (Control room live camera)

First step into control room, It’s a trap! Control room floor is something look like made of thick cardboard, or something like that. It can slightly bent and you can pull it from the floor to do something with tangled wire under your feet.

No, I’m not falling into a lump of wire, but I feel like I fall when it bent. I hate very high place so it make me feel unsafe a little bit.

When I start walking around I can see many thing interesting, and I know what I want to do now! Particle accelerator engineer, act cool and stay late. Just kidding, they keep accelerator running 24/7 and solve every problem that able to appear in every minute! But Its look cool too 😀

Many particle accelerator control room feature is emergency beam dump switch, big red switch for dump particle beam in emergency circumstance. Example is earthquake. But many people really want to bump this switch with no reason!!

Maybe it’s an XM influence, I want to press that switch too but I don’t want to being kill by a group of angry engineer/physicist and buried at the basement of the building. It’s would be my worst end of my life!!

I can say that control room really small, messy and noisy. 2 machine operator per shift but this time I see 8 people in this room, 6 more people – exclude me.

Many particle accelerator facility have complex security system to make sure that everyone must be safe and stay outside radiation area before run the accelerator. When particle accelerator is not working, it safe to be there but when the machine operating it produce some radiation that could kill people.

This is combination of 3 things you need – Key, Access card and machine operator. If all key is not at its place, access carn not in a slot, you’re somewhere in the world but not control room. You can’t run the accelerator.

That also a 3 things you need to enter accelerator area. Agent Sine,that’s hard mission. Isn’t it?

Then,

IT’S TIME TO MOVE !!

…

…

…

Welcome to another world~~~~~~~~!!!

Freak’in annoying sound!!!

Accelerator is shut down so it’s a sound of pump and motor, I bet you that sound can drive someone insane!

Tangled wire everywhere, messy as same as my desk. 😛

Very very cold inside, or I’m sick…Nevermind it. Prepare your jacket before enter because this room have very low temperature for keep accelerator running well.

This machine is cooling with deionized water, a very very pure water that have no ion, mineral and nonconductive. I wonder how it taste like but not dare to ask, also not dare enough to drink it.

give me 30 millisec for shocking, then start walking around and try to make a mess.

It really look not interesting but guess what is it? Surely, more than 90% of people who answer is WRONG !!!

(Answer will be post when I complete this article)

…To be continue…