In the eye’s mind

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What you see depends on what you’re looking for

catalog1Our photographic consultant is fond of pointing out to us, with the help of books and magazines, the different styles of great photographers. Clearly part of the variation in the final image is in the subjects they choose: Ansel Adams is famous for mountains and landscapes of the Southwest, quite a different thing from a New York City street photographer catching an instant among people. “But,” he says, “put in exactly the same place, facing exactly the same subject, they’d still come up with different pictures. They just see differently.” Which is true, and much more widely applicable than he meant. Even the same person looking at the same scene can see something entirely different at a different time.  A simple exercise can show this.

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“I was, like, you know. . .”

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A different kind of communication

Our astronomer has often found himself traveling on public transport and occasionally eating alone at crowded restaurants. This means he has overheard many a conversation, unintentionally to be sure (he lacks the gossip gene, or alternatively the instincts of the spy). Many of them have been very irritating to him, and at least he sat down to work out why.

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What were the odds against that?

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Concidence, probability and asking the right question

Our chief consultant writes:

diceWe’ve all had it happen: some unexpected, unusual occurrence, and someone asks: “What were the odds against that happening?” As an exclamation, an alternative to the pedestrian, “That’s unusual,” this is fine. Language should have flexibility and the freedom of metaphor. This becomes a problem, however, when the unusual event is taken to imply unknown laws of physics or perhaps sinister forces at work.

Actually working out probabilities in any but the simplest cases can be pretty tedious, and we’re not about to get into that here. But it’s easy to make basic mistakes in setting up this kind of question (respected scientists have done so); we present two rules to help keep you out of trouble, even if you’re not going to punch any numbers into your computer.

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How do you set out to learn something?

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Taking charge of your own education

rolls of filmThis week our photography consultant had the opportunity to watch as two young people developed their first rolls of film. Of course he enjoyed their excitement at actually using this unfamiliar old technology, and was reminded that his own first roll was a long time ago. (It’s still available in the archives, but is—understandably—not brought out for printing very often.) More important, though, are his observations on learning things, which is not the same as being taught.

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The webmaster builds character

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A physical scientist encounters social media

We mentioned, some weeks ago, that our webmaster had been assigned to develop the Five Colors S&T social media presence. This wasn’t because he’s an expert already, but because he wasn’t; in fact his inclinations tend toward weekends reading eighteenth-century essays by the light of a kerosene lamp. We thought that, apart from the fact that he generally does a decent job of anything, it would be good for him to do something unfamiliar and especially to have contact with people not like him. As Calvin’s dad (from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes) would say, he’d build character.

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Mythology and cosmology

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bbcc1Our chief consultant writes:

Science is a part of our culture. It’s not just that the products of science are all around us, in our hands and in our lives; no less, the discoveries of scientists are covered in the mainstream news media (not always well) and the concepts widely known (not always accurately). It’s clear enough by comparing our world with that of other cultures, say in the particular case of astronomy. We have cosmology (the Big Bang and all that); the ancient Greeks, a series of stories about gods and Titans.

Studying humans, even as amateurs, one seeks out similarities across cultures, and so we see cosmology equated to cosmic mythology. This leads to assertions like, “Cosmology is only our way of explaining the universe to ourselves, exactly the same way other cultures use other explanations.” This is just true enough to be seriously misleading.

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Your future as a street performer

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Why passion is not a career

Our chief consultant writes:

15C03-20iAt left is a busker, a singer who performs on and near Washington, DC Metro stations. He is very, very good. His voice is rich, powerful (he sings a cappella) and educated; his choice of material is largely classical. He should be subsidized by all the companies with offices near where he performs, because a couple of minutes’ pause to listen to him on the way to work will raise employee morale more than any possible corporate vision statement.

He may in fact have other gigs. Indeed, it would be a massive waste if he didn’t. But running into him reminds us of the many areas in which people can be passionate and skilled, as well as hard-working and dedicated, and still not make a living. You can do what you love, but the money will follow someone else.

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Are selfies selfish?

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A subtle social effect of technology

lensOur photographic consultant was somewhat bemused by the rise of the “selfie,” that picture of one’s self possibly including others, possibly including a situation or location, taken normally with a smart-phone camera and distributed immediately and electronically. Self-portraits are as old as art and pictures of the family in front of the Grand Canyon as old as Kodak Brownies, but the enormous flood of “selfie” shots seems to be a new phenomenon. An older generation is inclined to blame the self-centered Millenials, using the newest of technology mostly in an adolescent game of self-promotion.

We think, however, that the “selfie” instead demonstrates an interesting example of how a simple technological change can result in a social phenomenon. This is not to say that technology is a cause, but it enables unexpected things—when people are included.

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How can you tell, if you’re not an expert?(3)

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Dueling PhDs

Our chief consultant writes:

gas-tube spectrumWe come to the hardest problem to set a layman: suppose there are two (or more) experts, that is, people who disagree strongly about some scientific or technical question, each of which has some claim to expertise. Call this “dueling PhDs.” You, as a layman, are called upon to decide between them. What do you do?

We assume that the matter is advanced or esoteric enough that there’s no question of you actually checking the math yourself. Also, that it’s not a matter of current research, where the answer really isn’t known. (That excludes, for instance, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose disagreeing about the Nature of Space and Time.)

You could try to evaluate the credentials of either side, working out whose PhD is stronger; or take of vote of scientists working on the matter; or, perhaps, decide on the basis of motivation, asking who is funded by whom. Slightly more useful is analyzing the rhetoric, on the assumption that someone with a poor scientific case is more likely to try to cover it with noise. All of these techniques leave us uneasy, and though we have some suggestions on how to use them we prefer a harder, more time-consuming method as a more reliable way of getting at something like the truth.

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Photography Perfected

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Contax 139 SLR camera
Contax 139

Our photography consultant writes:

This is the ubiquitous 35mm SLR, the single-lens reflex camera, the design you’re most likely to have actually seen and touched. (The Contax of the picture is a lesser-known name, but still recognizable as the same type as millions of Nikons, Yashikas, Pentaxes, etc.) With its many variations it dominated photography from the 1960s to the end of the film era. In fact, one can argue that the current master of the field is only a modification of this type, as its name implies: digital single-lens reflex, DSLR.

One could also argue that for overall flexibility, ease of use and quality of results the SLR has never really been surpassed and that (as far as such a thing is possible) in this design we see photography perfected. Of course pictures are made by photographers, the camera being only a tool, but after its invention more professional photographers chose this kind than any other.

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