Una serie de acotaciones al margen a medida que voy leyendo algunos libros... A series of annotations whilst reading interesting books... A collection of notes on books about science, SciFi, history, others topics... Una colección de notas sobre libros de ciencia, ciencia-ficción, historia, otros...

27 October 2011

Neutrinos stunned scientists…

A quick search on neutrinos faster speed will show a list of recently news about awesome results, if they are confirmed.

[interesting if you key in Google with ‘neutrinos fast… Google will suggest ‘neutrinos faster than light’, neutrinos faster than the speed of light’, ‘neutrinos faster light’, ‘neutrinos faster speed light’… seems a lot of people keyed in the same a lot, neutrinos are in fashion]

A friend of mine, physic by heart, study and profession, pointed to me to this more than strange results from the OPERA experiment.

Also enjoying my weekly Skeptic Guide to the Universe Podcast #327 I was updated on the recently developments and possible impact of this new in the mainstream media. Just tune for the podcast in the segment from 10:21 sec to 20:01 sec’s. I like in particular Bob saying “I do not want live in a Universe that Effect precedes Cause” (11:33 – 11:49 sec’s aprox).

They pointed to one reasonable explanation: “that the difference (60 nanoseconds! an statistical correlation from the result of 15K experiments!) can be explained if the clocks at the ending points were not synchronized correctly”. Or:

“The OPERA team timed the neutrinos using clocks at each location that were synchronized using GPS (Global Positioning System) signals from a single satellite. Contaldi's paper says the group's calculations do not take into account one aspect of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity: that slight differences in the force of gravity at the two sites would cause the clocks to tick at different rates” (see Faster-than-light neutrinos face time trial)

Like the Pioneer Anomaly the explanation will be complicated and hard to calculate (reality can be messy), but it will not overthrown Relativity Theory…

60 nanoseconds! Incredibly! So precise is the model!

16 July 2011

Getting the indexes right–Midiendo los índices correctamente

Statistics can have a bad reputation including for the lay person, but it is a field with incredible real life applications. You have to be very skilled to use it and very gifted to elaborated on it. But most important very carefully to read and interpret the results. Maybe the last statement is the most important for all of us, being key decision makers or voters.

Indexes or KPIs in the MBA jargon are important to have an idea where you are and what corrected measures to take. It is used for everything but everyday is taking more importance for defining and deciding which are the best policies, from school systems, health care reforms, or just guiding the economy of a country, last but not least important. The debate is always heated as in today US health care reform, and reading carefully the data is important in order to keep the debate reasonable and not fall in partisan views.

Comparison between health care cost and life expectancy – source National Geographic

This is why I was sorry reading about the meddling of the actual Argentinean government with the Inflation Index or Consumer Price Index (CPI): Lies and Argentine statistics with the subtitle of “Stalinist practices In Buenos Aires”.

“MOST Argentines reacted with a shrug when their government began doctoring its consumer-price index in 2007. Cooking the books cost holders of the country’s inflation-linked bonds at least $2.3 billion last year (…) They reckon that inflation is now running at about 25%. That is far above the 10% reported by INDEC, the government statistics agency, but less than the 30% wage increases public employees have received in recent years.”

“A presidential election looms in October and inflation, and the government’s denial of it, is perhaps the biggest threat to the prospect of President Cristina Fernández winning a second term. That may be why Guillermo Moreno, the thuggish commerce secretary, is moving to stamp out the unofficial, but widely trusted, price indices. To do so he has dusted off a decree, penalising misleading advertising, approved by a military dictatorship in 1983. In February he sent letters to 12 economists and consultants ordering them to reveal their methodology, on the grounds that erroneous figures could mislead consumers. Some of Mr Moreno’s targets refused; the rest were analysed by INDEC, which predictably found their methods flawed”

And going back to statistics and the power of big numbers I found an article in the Sciam.com titled Economists Find Faster, Cheaper Way to Measure Inflation.

“Even in the information age, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics still gathers much of its data the old-fashioned way. Workers make phone calls to find out what dentists charge for pulling teeth, and they visit stores to write down the prices of CDs and Russet potatoes. In the end, the data are accurate but take a month or so to compile and analyze.

To speed things up, Alberto Cavallo and Rigoberto Rigobon, economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created the Billion Prices Project (bpp.mit.edu). Software indexes Web sites to track prices of more than five million goods from 70-plus countries and spits out inflation rates in real time”

The method behind the calculation is impressive and it yields on top of having a massive amount of prices (retail) today available on-line from a lot of countries (70).

At the moment of this writing they are collecting data and estimating the indexes, but worth checking regularly…

21 February 2011

To Kindle....

or not to Kindle...? That´s the question!

Looking at my side bed desk I can see several kilos of books and magazines. The physical weight and the cost of shipping in/out of Timor-Leste of the books, make me think about getting a Kindle, or another eReader. Here is the list:
  • Particulas Elementales, de Gerard´t Hooft
  • Che Guevara, Una Vida Revolucionaria, de Jon Lee Anderson
  • Out of the Shelter, by David Lodge,
  • The Origin of the Species, 1st Edition, by Charles Darwin (already read the 6th Edition in Spanish, but you must read the 1st)
  • The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin (read! but documenting notes and quotes - starting on my tweet feed soon)
  • The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins (read also! But needs quoting!)
  • What Evolution Is?, by Ernst Mayr (read! needs quoting)
  • In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin
  • Statistics Hacks, by Bruce Frey
  • Sciam of Febrruary 2011, November 2010 and October 2010
  • National of December 2010 and July 2010
And the worst is my back log of non read books! Neal Stephenson, Stephen J. Gould, John Irving, etc, etc!

Ok, I can put all them in a Kindle, or another reader, and take them with me almost weightless! That´s a good reason! Also is very good that you can take notes, save clippings and quotations and highlight passages! That´s a lot of good reasons!

But having a library that can hold 100 or 1000 times the number of books of my actual physical library, it just scares me too much! As a junkie book buyer, I love to walk and browse bookstores, and I always walk away with some more 2 kilos to transport in/out of Timor... But the physical representation of the books impose a physical limit of the amount of books I accumulate in my back log to read. But with an eReader.... I will walk less the bookstores, and I will have zillions of books in my virtual library...

eReader? No yet, thanks....