An arguable misnomer in physics: the term “quantum mechanics”

Analog or digital,  uninterrupted or pixilated, continuity or discontinuity, field or particle? These pairs of opposing adjectives and nouns often occur in texts and discussions about physical reality and theoretical modeling. The periodic table of discrete chemical elements with their characteristic numbers and spectra directs scientists towards a quantum view of matter. As an example: the solution of Schrödinger's equation for the hydrogen atom provides us with quantum numbers (n, l, and m), which are integers [1]. Important: these integers are coming forth from solving an equation formulated with continuous variables for physical quantities that encode electron movement and potential. Thus, quantum mechanics models reality on the basis of continuity. Discrete values result from the approach in which the theoretical model is treated and solved; but may not be nature-inherent.

Intrigued by cosmological challenges and debates over the fundamental laws of the physical world, David Tong—a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge—is giving the continuity-discontinuity interrelation a closer look. He writes that the term “quantum mechanics” could said to be a misnomer for a theory that formulates its equations in terms of continuous quantities [2].  He cites Leopold Kronecker's proclamation “God made the integers, all else is the work of man.” and counters with “God did not make the integers. He made continuous numbers, and the rest is the work of the Schrödinger equation.” [3].  Tong explains the latter in detail:

Integers are not inputs of the [quantum] theory, as Bohr thought [Danish physicist Niels Bohr “implemented” discreteness at the atomic scale]. They are outputs. The integers are an example of what physicists call an emergent quantity.  In this view, the term “quantum mechanics” is a misnomer. Deep down, the theory is not quantum. In systems such as the hydrogen atom, the processes described by the theory mold discreteness from underlying continuity. 

Quantum phenomena are these days demonstrated and animated in educational as well as entertaining videos. The Zeitgeist-driven perception: What I simulate and animate, is what I see and believe in. Yet, living in a digital age does not automatically imply living in a digital universe.

Keywords: physics, philosophy, quantum theory, physical world, pointillist universe, emergent integers.

References and more to explore
[1] Quantum Mechanics: Solving Schrödinger's equation [users.aber.ac.uk/ruw/teach/237/hatom.php].
[2] David Tong: The Unquantum Quantum. Scientific American, December 2012, 307 (6), pp. 46-49 [www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n6/full/scientificamerican1212-46.html].
[3] Quoted at axeleratio.tumblr.com: axeleratio.tumblr.com/post/36680758289/god-did-not-make-the-integers-he-made-continuous.

A lead-free borosilicate glass, G 702 EJ, named Py-Right, Pie Rite and eventually Pyrex

PYREX^® is  is a transparent, lead-free borosilicate glass with a low thermal expansion coefficient—an example of  a material with good heat shock resistance. The excellent thermal properties of Pyrex facilitate its use at high operating temperatures [1].

Pyrex-branded borosilicate glass products were invented and produced at Corning Glass Works in the upstate New York city of Corning, nicknamed Crystal City for its legacy of glass factories and glass cutting shops. In the early 20th century, a hot flame tolerant borosilicate glass, named “fire glass”or  Nonex, was successfully manufactured by the Corning specialty glassmaker and integrated as components in electric lightbulbs and railway signal lamps [2-5]. A borosilicate glass is made by adding borax (sodium tetraborate decahydrate) to the typical glass composition of silica, sodium oxide and lime. By further employing other minor additives, glass properties can be fine-tuned for desired applications.

Pyrex was developed by Corning scientist William Churchill, based on Corning's Nonex know-how. While Nonex released lead when exposed to acids (for example from food), a lead-free borosilicate variation with code G 702 EJ, did not. The latter showed promising properties for being used as ovenware and laboratory glassware.

In 1915, Churchill and Corning made G 702 EJ public under the tradename Pyrex—rhyming with Nonex—after playing with names such as Py-Right and Pie Rite, referring to the first appetizingly prepared cakes and custards in Pyrex dishes. In 1916, these look-right-through dishes were marketed and advertized as ovenware that saves time, labor and fuel [5]: one of the earliest ads further states that Pyrex will not crack, chip nor craze, not be affected by the hottest oven and that “Pyrex is everlastingly sanitary, durable, easy to wash, a constant source of satisfaction in the well-appointed home.”

Keywords: history, materials science, glass research, glass engineering, borosilicates, labware, kitchenware, baking, cooking.

References and more to explore
[1] Pyrex^® Borosilicate Glass [www.pgo-online.com/intl/katalog/pyrex.html].
[2] Washington Glass School: Historical Glass Fun Facts: Invention of Pyrex & the Studio Glass Movement [washingtonglass.blogspot.com/2012/01/historical-glass-fun-facts-invention-of.html].
[3] History of Pyrex^® [www.classickitchensandmore.com/page_4.html].
[4] William S. Ellis: Glass. Avon Books, Inc., New York, 1998; pp. 49-50.
[5] Regina Lee Blaszczyk: Cooking with Glass. Chemical Heritage Fall 2012/Winter 2013, 30 (3), pp. 8-9 [www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/thanks-to-chemistry/ttc-food-pyrex.aspx].

Crystal City—a pseudonym for Corning, New York

The upstate New York city of Corning is located on the Chemung River in Steuben County. Along the river, the buildings of Corning Glass Works—originally named Corning Flint Glass Works—can be found, where glass and ceramic products for industrial and scientific applications are manufactured.  The Corning Museum of Glass at 1 Museum Way (Corning, NY 14830) calls itself a wonderland of glass, in which master glass-workers demonstrate the making of spectacular glass objects. World-changing innovations in glass can be discovered there [1]. Corning's cornucopia of glass-making arts and technology led to the nickname Crystal City [2], as this picturesque and industrial city often was and still is dubbed in the media.

Physicists and chemists may think of this pseudonym as a misnomer, since glass is an amorphous, non-crystalline material. But its optical transparency and large content of silica (SiO₂) may justify the crystal association. Students and hobbyist of glass-working can try their skills by enrolling  in classes at the Corning Museum of Glass, experimenting with phases and facets of non-crystalline matter in the Crystal City [3].

Two articles in a recent Chemical Heritage edition review the collections of the Corning Museum of Glass and feature the history of glass-making in Corning, beginning with Nonex for signaling lamps, Pyrex for lab- and kitchenware and continuing on with fiber optics and touch-screen technology [4,5]. According to the Hot Stuff article by Kelly Tuttle [5], the museum  showcases a Dale Chihuly sculpture in its glass-walled entrance and “houses the largest collection of glass in the world, with over 45,000 objects spanning 3,500 years. In 1868 the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company moved to Corning and bacame the Corning Glass Works. By 1905 upward of 2,500 glass craftspeople had moved into the then industrialized area, which acquired the pseudonym Crystal City.” 

References and more to explore
[1] Corning Museum of Glass [www.cmog.org].
[2] Corning, New York: The Crystal City [lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/NY/200003367.html].
[3] William S. Ellis: Glass. Avon Books, Inc., New York, 1998; page 204 (also see www.cmog.org/programs/classes#.UKwALGeAYYs).
[4] Regina Lee Blaszczyk: Cooking with Glass. Chemical Heritage Fall 2012/Winter 2013, 30 (3), pp. 8-9 [www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/thanks-to-chemistry/ttc-food-pyrex.aspx].
[5] Kelly Tuttle: Hot Stuff. Chemical Heritage Fall 2012/Winter 2013, 30 (3), page 46.

Acronym in cytology and organogenesis: SFEBq for serum-free floating culture of embryoid body-like aggregate with quick reaggregation

SFEBq stands for serum-free floating culture of embryoid body-like aggregate with quick reaggregation. A complex acronym for a complex process! This cell-aggregation process occurs in three-dimensional culture solutions (instead of  single-layer dish cultures), wherein floating stem cells self-assemble into complex tissue topologies—depending on fine-tuned experimental conditions and supply of chemical precursor compounds. SFEBq technology was developed to explore artificial growth of  protoretina resembling the neural retina in mammalian eyes [1-4].

The successful SFEBq-driven retina growth, including the development of the optic vesicle and its structural collapse to form the optic cup, demonstrates that building and shaping of a retina can occur without support from neighboring tissues such as lens cell. In the words of Yoshika Sasai, a neurobiologist at RIKEN Center for Develiopment Biology in Kobe, Japan [4], “retinal formation, at least in vitro, is a self-organizing phenomenon based on an internal program that resides within these cells.” 

Keywords: molecular neurobiology, organogenesis, neurogenesis, compound tissue, neuroepithelium, mammalian embryogenesis, embryonic stem cells.

References, cell-adhesion figures,  schematic diagram and further reading
[1]  M. Eiraku , N. Takata, H. Ishibashi, M. Kawada, E. Sakakura, S. Okuda, K. Sekiguchi, T. Adachi and Y. Sasai: Self-organizing optic-cup morphogenesis in three-dimensional culture. Nature April 7, 2011, 472, 51-56.
DOI: 10.1038/nature09941.
[2] Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence: Stem cells used to create retinal tissue. April 7, 2011 [www.kurzweilai.net/stem-cells-used-to-create-retinal-tissue]. 
[3] M. Eiraku and Y. Sasai: Mouse embryonic stem cell culture for generation of three-dimensional retinal and cortical tissues. Nature Protocols 2012, 7, 69-79.
DOI: 10.1038/nprot.2011.429.
[4] Y. Sasai: Grow Your Own Eye. Scientific American November 2012, 307 (5), 44-49.
DOI: 10.1038/scientificamerican1112-44.

Rhyming in harmony about dinosaur's anatomy

Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921), using B. L. T. as his initials, was writing humorous columns for newspapers [1-3]. He also engaged in writing comic and delightful verses, which often expose some little-noted wisdom or truth. One of my favorite poems is The Dinosaur, in which B. L. T. referred to the ‘second brain’ (large ganglion in the pelvis) of some dinosaurs [4-6]: 

Behold the mighty dinosaur,
Famous in prehistoric lore,
Not only for his power and strength
But for his intellectual length.

You will observe by his remains
The creature had two sets of brains -
One in his head (the usual place),
The other at his spinal base.

Thus he could reason A priori
As well as A posteriori.
No problem bothered him a bit
He made both head and tail of it.

So wise was he, so wise and solemn,
Each thought filled his spinal column.
If one brain found the pressure strong,
It passed a few ideas along.

If something slipped his forward mind
'Twas rescued by the one behind.
And if in error he was caught
He had a saving afterthought.

As he thought twice before he spoke
He had no judgement to revoke.
Thus he could thing without congestion
Upon both sides of every question.

Oh, gaze upon this model beast,
Defunct ten million years at least.
............>> Bert Leston Taylor <<

Conclusion:
With two brains quite distinct, dinosaurs yet went extinct!

Keywords: comparative anatomy, nerve trunk, educational rhyme, poetry, humor, anthropomorphizing.

References
[1] New York State Literary Tree: Bert Leston Taylor [www.nyslittree.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/DB.PersonDetail/PersonPK/1655.cfm].
[2] Evi: Bert Leston Taylor biography [www.evi.com/q/bert_leston_taylor_biography].
[3] Bert Leston Taylor: The So-Called Human Race. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1922 [activefolio.com/files/ET31138.pdf].
[4] Karen's Poetry Spot: The Riddle of The Dinosaur by Bert Leston Taylor. October 16, 2007 [karenspoetryspot.blogspot.com/2007/10/riddle-of-dinosaur-by-bert-leston.html].
[5] The Dinosaur [www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/50593/].
[6] Richard Dawkins: The Greatest Show on Earth. Free Press, New York, 2009; page 306.

An English-American mess: the term ‘turtle’

Do you think you know what a turtle is?

A dictionary definition sounds like this: “any of various chelonian reptiles, especially those of the marine family Chelonidae, having a flattened shell enclosing the body and flipper-like limbs adapted for swimming.” That's for the “English turtle.” US and Canadian turtles are “any of the chelonian reptiles, including the turtoises and terrapins.” [1]

There is a better understandable (and funnier) illustration of this subject in Richard Dawkins' book with the title The Greatest Show on Earth [2]. Quoting George Bernhard Shaw's saying that “England and America are two countries divided by a common language,” Richard Dawkins continues:

In Britain, turtles live in the sea, tortoises live on land and terrapins live in fresh or brackish water. In America all these animals are ‘turtles,’ whether they live on land or in water.  ‘Land turtles’ sounds odd to me, but not to an American, for whom tortoises are the subset of turtles that live on land. Some Americans use ‘tortoise’ in a strict taxonomic sense to refer to the Testudinidae, which is the scientific name for modern land tortoises.In Britain, we'd be inclined to call any land-dwelling chelonian a tortoise, whether it is a member of the Testudinidae or not.

What a mess! In case you wonder, Australians use the word turtle in yet different ways.

Any solution to this linguistic jumble? Zoologists, in their research, use the term chelonian. Broad-based aspects of the conservation and biology of these animals are covered in an international scientific peer-reviewed journal: Chelonian Conservation and Biology [3].

Like the scientific language, the German language has one word for all: Schildkröte for turtle, tortoise and terrapin [4]. Schildkröte literally means shielded toad. A terrapin is a Sumpfschildkröte, Sumpf meaning swamp or bog.

Keywords: languages, terminology, biology, Testudinidae, Chelonidae, nomenclature, taxonomy, classification, confusion.

References and more to explore
[1] Dictionary.com: turtle [dictionary.reference.com/browse/turtle?s=t].
[2] Richard Dawkins: The Greatest Show on Earth. Free Press, New York, 2009.
[3] Chelonian Conservation and Biology [www.chelonian.org/ccb/].
[4] Edmund Launert: Biologisches Wörterbuch. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart, 1998.

One plant genus and 14 plant species named after Francis Guthrie, who first made the graph-theoretical Four-Color Conjecture

In 1852, the English law student Francis Guthrie at the University College of London conjectured that four colors would suffice to color any map, such, that border-sharing regions never come to share the same color [1-3]. The Four-Color Problem, or Four-Color Conjecture, turned into a theorem, when it was proven in 1976 by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken—a computer-assisted proof, triggering further work in theorem-proving software and strategies.  

Francis Guthrie (1831-1899) developed a strong interest in mathematics and botany. In 1861, Guthrie left England for the Cape Colony, now part of South Africa, where he took up the chair of Mathematics at the Graaff-Reinet College and, in 1878, at the South African College (Zuid Afrikaansche Athenaeum), which became the University of Cape Town in 1918 [2]: Besides mathematics, Guthrie taught botany; inspiring Harry Bolus (1834-1911), who later became a celebrated botanist and illustrator. Honoring his teacher, Bolus named a genus in the plant family Achariaceae after Guthrie: Guthriea Bolus, including the flowering plant Guthriea capensis [4].

Bolus also named plant species after Guthrie. For example, Satyrium guthriei Bolus (1893) in the family Orchidaceae, Gladiolus guthriei Bolus (1917) in the Iris family and Indigofera guthriei Bolus in the family Fabaceae [2,4-6]. 

Keywords: mathematics, graph theory, history, botany, plant species, flowering plants, taxonomy.

References and more to explore
[1] J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson: The four colour theorem. September 1996 [www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/The_four_colour_theorem.html].
[2] Pieter Maritz and Sonja Mouton: Francis Guthrie: A Colourful Life. The Mathematical Intelligencer 2012, 34 (2), pp. 67-75. DOI: 10.1007/s00283-012-9307-y.
[3] Georges Gonthier: Formal Roof—The Four-Color Theorem. Notices of the AMS December 2008, 55 (11), 1382-1393. PDF: www.ams.org/notices/200811/tx081101382p.pdf.
[4] JSTOR PLANT SCIENCE: Guthriea capensis Bolus [plants.jstor.org/visual/nbgsld0001378], Satyrium Guthriei Bolus [plants.jstor.org/flora/floc014377], Indigofera guthriei Bolus [plants.jstor.org/specimen/nh0005500-0]. 
[5] Victoria Wilman: Gladiolus guthriei F. Bolus [www.plantzafrica.com/plantefg/gladiolusguthriei.htm].
[6] Red List of South African Plants: Indigofera guthriei Bolus [http://redlist.sanbi.org/species.php?species=357-204].