Experimental Blog # 188

Comments on 2 books:

# 1 "Math on Trial - How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom" by Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez

This mother and daughter mathematical team describe 10 historical or recent criminal trials where mathematics, that is, statistics and probability, were seriously misunderstood and/or misapplied to determine guilt or innocence. These math subjects, statistics and probability, turn out to be far more complicated than very many people really understand. This results in that the verdict of innocent or guilty depends on the authority of those explaining the particular math application.

The conclusion seems to be that a jury of peers of the accused can not and does not really decide the case, when such complicated mathematics is used. It might be said that this book subtly suggests that prison is not the right place for all guilty people.

#2 "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an - Islam and the Founders" by Denise A. Spellberg

About 20 years ago many people were calling Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite. Another way to put the matter is to question whether "actions really, or always, speak louder than words", as the saying goes.

It certainly appears that in the life and work of Thomas Jefferson it was not so. The author, Denise Spellberg, describes Thomas Jefferson's intellectual efforts, that is, his words, in overwhelming detail; and he still seems overwhelmingly intellectually impressive. At the same time, Thomas Jefferson lived his whole long life on the product of African slavery, and not once convincingly spoke or acted against this way of life.

Thomas Jefferson's contemporary, John Adams, was intellectually just the opposite on the matter of African slavery, but he is hardly remembered very positively for anything.

Experimental Blog # 187

Quotations from "China's Silent Army" - The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers Who Are Remaking the World in Beijing's Image by Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araujo, translated by Catherine Mansfield

" ... at exactly 8:08 p.m. on August 8, 2008, history changed its course. That moment marked the beginning of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games..."
"September 15, 2008, just three weeks after the end of the Olympics, marked the beginning of the crisis which threatened the downfall of the Western financial system."
"In a little less than a year, China's prestige and position in the rest of the world had taken a 180-degree turn, from treacherous dictatorship to savior of the world's economy."
"In just ten years the country has multiplied its trade with the rest of the world six times, with an increase from $510 billion in 2001 to $2.97 trillion in 2010."

"As there is no welfare state, the Chinese people save over 40 percent of their earnings, which represents the highest rate of savings in the world. < > this huge quantity of deposits is combined with < > "financial repression," which < > means that depositors are forced to lose money with their savings."
"Therefore the magic wand of limitless funding is paid for at great expense by Chines savers ..."

" ... the whole planet can now hear the deafening grinding of the tectonic movements caused by the rise of China < > The new world order is excellent news for many countries in the developing world. China's pragmatism offers undisputable benefits to < > many African countries that today have access to infrastructure which they had never even dreamed of .."

" ... who is capitalizing on the opportunities offered by China if it is not the local populations?
" ... you probably already know the answer: the local elites, whether economic and/or political, in both democratic countries and autocratic regimes."

Experimental Blog # 186

Notes and quotations from "Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field" - How Two Men Revolutionized Physics by Nancy Forbes and Basil Mahon and "The Age of Radiance" - The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era by Craig Nelson

From "Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field":
"Faraday's first notion of lines of force, < > grew into Maxwell's sophisticated mathematical theory, which predicted that every time a magnet jiggled, or an electric current was turned on or off, a wave of electromagnetic energy would spread out into space < >, changing the nature of space itself."
" ... something in space must be storing electromagnetic energy and transmitting its forces, .."
"Maxwell had achieved the seemingly impossible - he had derived the theory of the electromagnetic field directly from the laws of dynamics."
"These were the laws of motion that had been discovered by Newton, with one addition - the principle that energy was conserved in any closed system. The concept of energy in space was central to Maxwell's new approach ..."
"It{the mathematics} described how the various quantities interacted with one another and how they varied in space and time."

From "The Age of Radiance":
Of all the scientists referred to in this very comprehensive and probably controversial book, Robert Oppenheimer seems to be a close second to Enrico Fermi.
In the photo section of the book Craig Nelson says that, "Edward Teller{possibly fourth most referred to scientist after Leo Szilard} was the Richard Nixon of physics, testifying against Robert Oppenheimer and leading Ronald Reagan down the path of Star Wars. But many believe his invention if the hydrogen bomb made Alfred Nobel's dream come true, keeping the Cold War cold and the world at peace." The author expresses these opinions more than once in his book.