Saturday, December 30, 2006
The Flatness of the Pancake
Looking over my Kansas pictures I remembered a serious scientific investigation of the question of whether Kansas is flatter than a pancake or not. Turns out my memory was not entirely accurate: published in the Annals of Improbable Research (vol 9:3), the investigation was perhaps semi-serious. There was real science and math in the measurements, and a serious consideration by Fonstad, Pugatch, and Vogt (the authors) of ways to compare the flatness of two disparately sized objects: “Barring the acquisition of either a Kansas-sized pancake or a pancake-sized Kansas, mathematical techniques are needed to do a proper comparison.”
Their conclusion that Kansas is indeed flatter than a pancake, predictably, raised some ire in Kansas. First of all, noted one Kansas geologist, the researchers included the edges of the pancake, which adds to the variation of elevation considerably. Second, there are many other means of measuring flatness, other than the “flattening ratio” employed by Fonstad, Pugatch, and Vogt. For example, if you measure flatness by comparing highest to lowest elevations, Kansas – which goes from about 400 feet above sea level in the east to 4000 in the west – ranks only 23nd among the states, Florida being the flattest.
Before I realized the research was done in pursuit of an Ig Noble Prize, I was prepared to take a lot more umbrage at those who might, in the style of the late Sen. William Proxmire and his Golden Fleece awards, inveigh against this frivolous misuse of research funds. Still, even granting its tongue-in-cheekness, the research highlights some interesting and potentially issues: surely, as fabrication technologies approach atomic scale, it might be useful to think through what we really mean when we say “flat.”
Their conclusion that Kansas is indeed flatter than a pancake, predictably, raised some ire in Kansas. First of all, noted one Kansas geologist, the researchers included the edges of the pancake, which adds to the variation of elevation considerably. Second, there are many other means of measuring flatness, other than the “flattening ratio” employed by Fonstad, Pugatch, and Vogt. For example, if you measure flatness by comparing highest to lowest elevations, Kansas – which goes from about 400 feet above sea level in the east to 4000 in the west – ranks only 23nd among the states, Florida being the flattest.
Before I realized the research was done in pursuit of an Ig Noble Prize, I was prepared to take a lot more umbrage at those who might, in the style of the late Sen. William Proxmire and his Golden Fleece awards, inveigh against this frivolous misuse of research funds. Still, even granting its tongue-in-cheekness, the research highlights some interesting and potentially issues: surely, as fabrication technologies approach atomic scale, it might be useful to think through what we really mean when we say “flat.”
Thursday, December 28, 2006
10,000 kwh
Following which milestone, the sun went behind clouds.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Arbitrary measurements
The solar panels are about to produce hit a cumulative10,000 kilowatt hours of production since going online. For no very good reason, I'd like to hit this mark before the end of the year, and it's going to be close. The days are short, clouds are frequent, and we're lucky to get 6 or 7 kwh on a good day.
Thinking about this has impressed on me once again how arbitrary most measurements are. my nice round 10,000 kilowatt hours would be 13,404.83 if expressed in horsepower-hours which I'm not sure anything ever is expressed in.
Likewise, December 31 as the target for hitting 13,4.4.83 horsepower-hours is meaningful only because we have collectively made that the end point for one solar orbit in the Gregorian calendar. In the Hebrew calendar it's an ordinary, ho-hum 10th of Teveth , and would have been the 18th of December had we kept the Julian calendar. Excel thinks it's day 39082.
The pictures show another arbitrary measurement, although they do show that sometimes a gradual but qualitatively important change happens to coincide with some nice round numbers. The picture on the right was taken at more or less the 100th meridian (west) in Kansas, off I-70. "West of Hundred" was historically where the west began. It's flat (duh). Treeless, pretty much. Dry.
The picture on the left is at more or less the 98th meridian, also off I-70 in Kansas. Small hills. Somewhat more lush vegetation.
Neither 98 nor 100 is a boundary, in the sense of a sharp delineation. But something is different at 100.
Thinking about this has impressed on me once again how arbitrary most measurements are. my nice round 10,000 kilowatt hours would be 13,404.83 if expressed in horsepower-hours which I'm not sure anything ever is expressed in.
Likewise, December 31 as the target for hitting 13,4.4.83 horsepower-hours is meaningful only because we have collectively made that the end point for one solar orbit in the Gregorian calendar. In the Hebrew calendar it's an ordinary, ho-hum 10th of Teveth , and would have been the 18th of December had we kept the Julian calendar. Excel thinks it's day 39082.
The pictures show another arbitrary measurement, although they do show that sometimes a gradual but qualitatively important change happens to coincide with some nice round numbers. The picture on the right was taken at more or less the 100th meridian (west) in Kansas, off I-70. "West of Hundred" was historically where the west began. It's flat (duh). Treeless, pretty much. Dry.
The picture on the left is at more or less the 98th meridian, also off I-70 in Kansas. Small hills. Somewhat more lush vegetation.
Neither 98 nor 100 is a boundary, in the sense of a sharp delineation. But something is different at 100.
