Blogs: Assigned Entry #6: Entering the Blogosphere

I really enjoyed blogging for this class. I learned how to meter my tone for my audience. I tried my best on this assignment, and I feel that it was ultimately beneficial. The only complaint I have is that the commenting requirement was difficult sometimes. Many students' blogs are difficult to respond to.

Blogs: Unassigned Entry #4: Nucleosynthesis

   Our world is a rich tapestry of different compounds, and different elements. How did these basic building block form? The answer varies based on the size of the atom. For brevity's sake, I will not address all of the elements here.

• Hydrogen (atomic number 1) and helium (#2): In Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the Big Bang produced a raw quark-gluon plasma. As the universe cools, this plasma condenses into protons and neutrons. Most of the neutrons decay into protons and electrons, but some bind to protons. As the universe cools further, these one to four nucleon (proton and neutron) elements grab the electrons, forming hydrogen and helium. Very little lithium (#3) and beryllium (#4) was also formed, but atoms so produced were very radioactive and none still exist today.  

• Lithium (#3), beryllium (#4), and boron(#5): In addition to creating a quark-gluon plasma, raw energy in the form of light was produced in the Big Bang. This light, called cosmic background radiation, still exists and sometimes slams into atoms. When a carbon atom is slammed into in this way, lithium and beryllium atoms can be formed. Likewise, the same process breaks boron off of oxygen. All of these elements are quite rare.

• Carbon (#6): Once the universe filled with hydrogen and helium gas, gravity began to cause clouds of gas to fall in on itself, forming stars. Stars are, obviously, very hot and very dense. They are hot enough that magnetism no longer is a major force inside of them. They are so dense that sometime three atom nuclei would collide at once. When three helium nuclei collide, carbon is formed. This process is call the triple alpha process, because helium nuclei are sometimes called alpha particles.

• Nitrogen (#7) and oxygen (#8): Once a star begins to fill with carbon, the carbon can be bombarded with protons. As it does, it is converted into nitrogen and oxygen. As a side-effect of these reactions, even more helium is formed, which can form even more carbon via the alpha process. This cycle, called the CNO cycle, is the reason why carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe.

•  Fluorine (#9): Fluorine is very rare. It is produced in a process similar to the CNO cycle, except that fluorine is almost instantly converted to oxygen and helium, or neon and hydrogen. The only reason why free fluorine exists is because sometimes stars explode before the fluorine has a chance to be destroyed.

•  Neon (#10): Neon is produced by fluorine decay. Unlike fluorine, neon is very stable.

Blogs: Unassigned Entry #3: The Dialetheia

   In logic, there is a basic principle: nothing can be both true and false. This law of the excluded middle has been known since the time of Aristotle at least. What if it was untrue, that is, what if there was something that is in fact both true and false, a true contradiction? Dialetheists answer with a resounding 'yes', and such true contradictions are called dialetheia. This view is controversial; in classical logic, everything is proven by a contradiction, and so a contradictory theory is completely useless. Most dialetheists counter this objection by denying that everything is so proven, such logics are called paraconsistent logic. As complicated as logic can be, paraconsistent logics are even more detailed. However, the dialetheia is not limited to ontological claims. Even if a person believes in the law of excluded middle, the dialetheia can be useful. Many time in our lives, we have inconsistent information. While we hope that all such confusion will be cleared up in time, in the mean time it would be nice to be able to deal with it logically. A related use is in computer science. Sometimes a computer's sensor will be broken, but the data it transmits might still be somewhat usable.

Blogs: Assigned Entry #4: Capitalism: A Love Story

   In Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, he uses a lighthearted yet moralizing tone to establish the problems with America's relationship with capitalism. His main point seems to be that capitalism encourages people to adopt predatory practices, and these predatory practices are both unethical and go against the Constitution. He instead supports democratic socialism.

   Democratic socialism is a political system that favors a gradual and peaceful transformation of modern democracies away from capitalism and towards some sort of common ownership model. The particulars of this model vary wildly, but the basic ideas are of equality and a certain grassroot ethos.

   The outstanding flaw in Capitalism is that there is no suggestion for an act. The audience is given all this dramatic and interesting information, and even people to blame, and yet there is nothing to be done. This is a common theme with democratic socialism; there is no real way to get there from here. The reason why is simple; it is a political theory that is not based on political science.

   In Weber's seminal work, Politics as a Vocation, he says that "a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." Since violence defines the state, maintaining this monopoly is the highest goal of any functional state. Thus, moralizing reasons to change the system fail to motivate change; only a proof that socialism is better than capitalism at maintaining the monopoly, will change the state. Such an argument I have never encountered, whereas capitalism has the military-industrial complex in its corner. Socialism with something similar might work, but would also lose some of its appeal as a morally superior system. Certainly though, the argument that the poor have sacked capitals of empires before is a motivating reason to divide the wealth at least a little more equally.

Blogs: Unassigned Entry #2: What's in a Number?

   Numbers. We all use them practically every day. We basically take them for granted, but what exactly is a number? How can we know that our conception of numbers even make sense? The first question is a major topic in the philosophy of mathematics, and I will not answer is, at least not today. The second question however, is today's topic.

   On the sensibility of numbers, of mathematics, rigor has been the strategy for centuries. The thinking is if you have a short set of rules, and prove everything from these rules, everything will make sense. In 1931, Kurt Gödel proved that no system can ever be know to be logical, they are either illogical or not yet proven to be illogical. Despite this, the rules-based approach is the best thing we have.

   So what are the basic rules, or axioms, of numbers? There are many different numbers; natural, integer, ration, real, complex, quarterion, hyperreal, surreal, the list goes on and on. Limiting the discussion to just natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, ...)

1. Each natural number is a list, or set. 0 is a set with nothing in it; {}.
2. 0 is a natural number.
3. Each natural number is the set of all smaller numbers. i.e. 1 = {0}, 3 = {0, 1, 2}.
4. Each natural number has a successor number, the number that comes next, represented s(x). e.i. s(0) = 1, s(12345) = 12346.
5. No natural number's successor is 0; 0 comes after no number.
6. If a natural number succeeds two numbers, they are the same number, i.e. If s(x) = 17 and s(y) = 17, then x = y = 16.
7. All natural numbers are a result of finite applications of succession to 0. Thus, s(s(s(s(0)))) is a natural number (namely 4), but s(s(...)) is not because of infinite succession. {0, 1, 4} is not a number because it cannot be formed by succession; you cannot add 4 before adding 3.

These rules together define the natural numbers; all other numbers can be defined in terms of the naturals and there are other rules for addition, multiplication, etc.

Blogs: Assigned Entry #3: Local Story Respond

Apparently, ASU will start offering shorter classes. If they are simply offering additional classes, I cannot envision a problem; Professors get more classes (and more money), students get more flexible schedules, and the school gets more money. However, if these classes begin to replace longer class, that is a problem. No one should have to pick between taking a normal length class and graduating on time. Since the University's administration tends to be oblique concerning their future plans, this development require monitoring.

Blogs: Assigned Entry #2: The Helical 'Model' of Our Solar System

In August of last year, a man that goes by the handle 'DJ Sadhu' created a video on the supposed working of the solar system. According to him, the solar system is a helix that corkscrews throughout the galaxy. From what I knew, that did not sound right, so after a quick Google search, I found a rebuttal.

After reading the rebuttal, I decided to check his website. Apparently, he described it this way because his New-Age religion describes it this way. In addition, he has many other controversial and categorically false videos and posts, such as anti-Vaccine propaganda, MMS (using chlorine bleach as a dietary supplement) nonsense, and September 11th conspiracy theories. Needless to say, he is an expert only at making attractive videos.

Blogs: Unassigned Entry #1: Reaction Mechanism of the Reddy Alcohol to Amine Reaction

The Reddy Alcohol to Amine Reaction is an incredibly useful organic chemistry reaction. In essence, it is a combination of a modified Appel reaction, followed by a Staudinger reaction, all done in one reaction vessel. The basics are as follows:

This reaction actually proceeds through several steps. First, the thriphenylphosphine abstracts a chlorine from the carbon tetrachloride.

Then, the thrichloromethanide abstracts the hydroxy hydrogen from the alcohol. The resulting alkoxy (or aryloxy) displaces the chloride in the PPh₃Cl^- anion.

The azide attacks the R group, a process driven forward by triphenylphosphine oxide's stability. By diluting the carbon tetrachloride with dimethylformamide, the chances of unwanted organochlorine formation is drastically lowered.

The alkyl azide is then attacked by a second triphenylphosphine, generating a phosphazide.The phosphazide attacks itself, creating a cyclic intermediate. This intermediate releases molecular nitrogen and forms an iminophosphorane. Upon work-up with water, the primary amine is formed.

Blogs: Assigned Entry #1: Blogs I Like

Blogs can be a great way to present information to interested parties; people all over the world can read and share in the common body of human knowledge. While Sturgeon's Law guarantees that many, many blogs will leave much to be desired, but the great ones can truly be gems.

There are many of these good blogs out there; Superclassical is a good source of information on the philosophy of logic. I definitely recommend it to any logical positivists out there as well as any staunch logical anti-positivists. I'd give it a 9/10.

Derek Lowe's In the Pipeline is a nice place to read on all the latest pharmaceutical research news, but its combination of highly opinionated and highly technical writing is a bit off-putting. All in all, I'd give it a 7/10

Rationally Speaking is a less than stellar.example. Under the patina of professionalism lies a highly personal and unfounded philosophy based on the importance of individuals. Such subjective and relativistic philosophy requires better support. It gets a 4/10.

Blogs: Assigned Entry #0: Introduction Practice Entry

Greetings, people of Blogger. I am Chris. My passions are organic chemistry and philosophy. In my spare time, I run a philosophy blog on Tumblr, The Thunderer's Empire. I came to Glendale Community College to improve myself, and to eventually transfer to the University of Arizona. I have many hopes for this blog, including:

• Attract new readers to my main blog
• Enhance my blogging skills
• Entertain and inform others
• Foster interest in philosophy or organic chemistry
• Get a good grade in this class

If you have any questions or concerns, you can send me an email at chr2132317@maricopa.edu.