I have read previously how we have to be more careful about causations in our research. If A appears with B, it could be that (1)A caused B; (2)B caused A; (3)A and B are both caused by something else. Recently I experienced a real-life version of the warning. The story goes like this:
I was cooking in my kitchen. It was dinner time. I stpped on a small region of my wooden floors and felt that it sounded funny-it felt like there were something under it and it was puffy. An hour later my neighbor downstairs came knock on my door and reported she had water dripping from the kitchen ceiling. I went to see it-the region of her ceiling was all wet and there were indeed water dripping.
I went to the building manager and he told me to shut down the water in my house first to avoid more leaking--if assume there was leaking from under my wooden floor, maybe a pipe broke or something. I did shut down the water-by turning an old and dingy wheel. But then 10 mins later when I tried to turn it back on, there was no water. Not a drop in the entire house.
So let's sum up what's happened so far: (a)water leaking under my floor-->(b)I shut down the water supply-->(c)when I turn it back on there is no water anywhere(given that all other units have water running in their houses in my building). What could it be?It is intriguing to think of (a) to be the cause of (c) or of some sort of link, because when there was no (a) there was no (c) and the water was running smoothly. It also makes sense to think so because it would be kind of too easy to think that it could be something with the switch--that it happened to be the case that when I turned that wheel and shut off the switch for the water supply to my apt (something I would never do in a year since I've lived here), the switch happened to stop working so when I turn it on I don't get any water anymore. It seems very unlikly that when nobody turn that switch for years at all it's ok, but when I turn it this once--and when (a) happens that it actually is broken. Well, the result is, it turned out, that this is exactly the case--the switch was broken so when I turn it back on it was still stuck there so no water came(stuck from inside and looked perfectly alright on the outsied). As simple is it were, it was hard to believe at first.
And it was clear that event (a) and (c), although appeared in a series of event, were not related at all, in any fashion of (1)-(3)(in which case (3) is referring to single instead of plural), but actually are two completely independent things caused by two independent factors. Of course statistically speaking when you have large samples this may not happen. But it could also be the case where if we assume that the old and dingy switch at a lot of homes were not usually used for years, and then when an accident somewhere happened in the house, they turn-and the switch broke. In that case you may as well link (a) to (c) in a causation link (if, think in the study of minds), while in reality they are indeed two independent events caused by two independent factors-in this case, a broken pipe and a broken switch.
So, what have we learned from this?It seems like we should indeed be more careful while draw conclusions and generalizations about our experiments.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Sleeping, Waking, and Biological Clock
HOW PRECISE?
If you think that our body acts in some kind of randomness, think again. I have recently experienced the power of biological clock. I flew to the US and China within 10 days, and that's what happened: I wake up every morning between 6:30 to 7am. Never once I wake up after 7am, even when I went to bed at 1am. Amazing ah?The brain does all the work, accustomed to the light and dark pattern of the day.
Next Day
I went to bed a little late (I think I fell asleep around 11pm instead of 10) and I got up around 5am to go to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Alas! The clock is tilted. I then work up at 8:30 instead of 7. But, it turns out that I felt more tired--would felt better if waking up at 7am. It has to do with the quality of sleep.
Sleep:More is Less?
Sometimes I do feel that in the morning sleeping 1 or 2 hours more could only make you more tired instead of regaining your energy. This implies that timing, or the time period is extremely important in sleeping, which is what traditional Chinese doctors are always saying. But I always feel that my best sleep time comes in the afternoon when I take a nap. But Chinese medicine tells us sleeping before and around midnight (and possibly around noon) is a golden treasure when your body is repairing your internal organs.So if you can still fall asleep early in the night, you should definitely do it.
If you think that our body acts in some kind of randomness, think again. I have recently experienced the power of biological clock. I flew to the US and China within 10 days, and that's what happened: I wake up every morning between 6:30 to 7am. Never once I wake up after 7am, even when I went to bed at 1am. Amazing ah?The brain does all the work, accustomed to the light and dark pattern of the day.
Next Day
I went to bed a little late (I think I fell asleep around 11pm instead of 10) and I got up around 5am to go to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Alas! The clock is tilted. I then work up at 8:30 instead of 7. But, it turns out that I felt more tired--would felt better if waking up at 7am. It has to do with the quality of sleep.
Sleep:More is Less?
Sometimes I do feel that in the morning sleeping 1 or 2 hours more could only make you more tired instead of regaining your energy. This implies that timing, or the time period is extremely important in sleeping, which is what traditional Chinese doctors are always saying. But I always feel that my best sleep time comes in the afternoon when I take a nap. But Chinese medicine tells us sleeping before and around midnight (and possibly around noon) is a golden treasure when your body is repairing your internal organs.So if you can still fall asleep early in the night, you should definitely do it.
Why Do We Need to Plan and Organize in Life
I was born to be a spontaneous person. I have to admit that by now. I can plan; but I don't like to do it a lot of times. My happiest zone is to act completely spontaneously, and enjoy the unexpected life, places, and people, full of surprise. I think that is in my personality-born that way.
Even when I compose music I do not compose by writing notes on a score. I most of the time would prefer to improvise. As a result, I am not able to reproduce most of my compositions-luckily most of them are recorded computer music. So you can hear my mind at the time but I can't perform for you.
But why suddenly I am an advocate of organization and planning?
Well it's not I don't like them. Actually the reason I want them more in my life is because I felt I like them better and better now. First of all, being an adult means more responsibility and planning and organization is necessary for that. Second, I'm not an artist but a scholar. Third, I am not by myself so my other half would not tolerate my total spontaneous actions.
But recently I realized a more important reason--being in order is one of the biggest challenges in life, yet human beings need that for evolutionary reasons--humans developed for hundreds of thousands of years, becoming more and more intelligent, systematic, organizational, sophisticated, etc., only able to reach where we are today. Without these attributes, human beings could not, as of today, live a more than ever exciting life with numerous possibilities shining in the light of the future. Everyone knows it is easier to be chaotic yet being organized is the challenge. Science and technology are certainly the result of these attributes, and they are the driving force of our history. If we evolve in a different direction and listen only to our biological needs(food,survival,sex,etc), we would be like animals with lower intelligence (not that there is anything wrong with that). But being 98% champ ourselves, we do have biological needs, but sometimes it's better to resist them--such as having a big mac or beef cheese burger everyday-they may be delicious and you crave them, but in the end you know self-discipline is good for you.
Second, I find being organized actually has a lot of benefit for our mood, productivity, health, and physical well being overall. When I am very chaotic and spontaneous, I may sleep very irregularly, eat a lot of junk food, sit on the couch watching tv for long hours, not going out for a day, not interacting with other people--all of those made me feel miserable and my health deteriorating--that is when I often get a uneasy feeling of my heartbeat. But just for two weeks I switched my lifestyle--go to bed before 11pm and get up before 7am everyday, it completely changed. I felt much more energetic (even though I slept less but I actually am less sleepy during the day), eager to do things, being productive, wanting to interact with people--all of these things, including my diet habits become incredibly systematic and I couldn't feel better. Being unorganized can be happy at the moment but later I always come to regret it and it caused me more pain; being organized, it felt always so good. Well, it's just the matter of not to sink into that hell again-i have to regulate myself too.
Third, speaking from a physics point of view, spontaneously, the world is going more and more unsystematic, unorganized, and chaotic. This is the theory of entropy。 Without control, the tendency of the universe is to get more and more chaotic, and it requires energy to actually turn them into systematic.
German scientist Rudolf Clausius is credited with the first formulation of the second law, now known as the Clausius statement:
No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature.
Spontaneously, heat cannot flow from cold regions to hot regions without external work being performed on the system, which is evident from ordinary experience of refrigeration, for example. In a refrigerator, heat flows from cold to hot, but only when forced by an external agent, a compressor.
Lord Kelvin expressed the second law in another form. The Kelvin statement expresses it as follows:
No process is possible in which the sole result is the absorption of heat from a reservoir and its complete conversion into work.
A change in the entropy (S) of a system is the infinitesimal transfer of heat (Q) to a closed system driving a reversible process, divided by the equilibrium temperature (T) of the system.
dS = \frac{\delta Q}{T} \!
Actually a long time ago when I was in high school, in a paper that we wrote for a science contest, called "Resolving Energy Crisis on Earth", I remember we stated at the out front of the paper, that the energy crisis on earth does not mean that the amount of energy on earth is getting reduced; rather, according to the law of energy conservation, the total amount of energy is constant, whereas there are less and less energy available for human use--to convert them into work, so to speak.The key here is that according to the second law of thermodynamics, as the entropy increases, more and more energy becomes obsolete and cannot be re-organized for use again.
Thus,to sum up, why not become more organized?
Even when I compose music I do not compose by writing notes on a score. I most of the time would prefer to improvise. As a result, I am not able to reproduce most of my compositions-luckily most of them are recorded computer music. So you can hear my mind at the time but I can't perform for you.
But why suddenly I am an advocate of organization and planning?
Well it's not I don't like them. Actually the reason I want them more in my life is because I felt I like them better and better now. First of all, being an adult means more responsibility and planning and organization is necessary for that. Second, I'm not an artist but a scholar. Third, I am not by myself so my other half would not tolerate my total spontaneous actions.
But recently I realized a more important reason--being in order is one of the biggest challenges in life, yet human beings need that for evolutionary reasons--humans developed for hundreds of thousands of years, becoming more and more intelligent, systematic, organizational, sophisticated, etc., only able to reach where we are today. Without these attributes, human beings could not, as of today, live a more than ever exciting life with numerous possibilities shining in the light of the future. Everyone knows it is easier to be chaotic yet being organized is the challenge. Science and technology are certainly the result of these attributes, and they are the driving force of our history. If we evolve in a different direction and listen only to our biological needs(food,survival,sex,etc), we would be like animals with lower intelligence (not that there is anything wrong with that). But being 98% champ ourselves, we do have biological needs, but sometimes it's better to resist them--such as having a big mac or beef cheese burger everyday-they may be delicious and you crave them, but in the end you know self-discipline is good for you.
Second, I find being organized actually has a lot of benefit for our mood, productivity, health, and physical well being overall. When I am very chaotic and spontaneous, I may sleep very irregularly, eat a lot of junk food, sit on the couch watching tv for long hours, not going out for a day, not interacting with other people--all of those made me feel miserable and my health deteriorating--that is when I often get a uneasy feeling of my heartbeat. But just for two weeks I switched my lifestyle--go to bed before 11pm and get up before 7am everyday, it completely changed. I felt much more energetic (even though I slept less but I actually am less sleepy during the day), eager to do things, being productive, wanting to interact with people--all of these things, including my diet habits become incredibly systematic and I couldn't feel better. Being unorganized can be happy at the moment but later I always come to regret it and it caused me more pain; being organized, it felt always so good. Well, it's just the matter of not to sink into that hell again-i have to regulate myself too.
Third, speaking from a physics point of view, spontaneously, the world is going more and more unsystematic, unorganized, and chaotic. This is the theory of entropy。 Without control, the tendency of the universe is to get more and more chaotic, and it requires energy to actually turn them into systematic.
German scientist Rudolf Clausius is credited with the first formulation of the second law, now known as the Clausius statement:
No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature.
Spontaneously, heat cannot flow from cold regions to hot regions without external work being performed on the system, which is evident from ordinary experience of refrigeration, for example. In a refrigerator, heat flows from cold to hot, but only when forced by an external agent, a compressor.
Lord Kelvin expressed the second law in another form. The Kelvin statement expresses it as follows:
No process is possible in which the sole result is the absorption of heat from a reservoir and its complete conversion into work.
A change in the entropy (S) of a system is the infinitesimal transfer of heat (Q) to a closed system driving a reversible process, divided by the equilibrium temperature (T) of the system.
dS = \frac{\delta Q}{T} \!
Actually a long time ago when I was in high school, in a paper that we wrote for a science contest, called "Resolving Energy Crisis on Earth", I remember we stated at the out front of the paper, that the energy crisis on earth does not mean that the amount of energy on earth is getting reduced; rather, according to the law of energy conservation, the total amount of energy is constant, whereas there are less and less energy available for human use--to convert them into work, so to speak.The key here is that according to the second law of thermodynamics, as the entropy increases, more and more energy becomes obsolete and cannot be re-organized for use again.
Thus,to sum up, why not become more organized?
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Public Argument in Beijing
People in China are somehow getting angrier and angrier at each other, especially around holiday time. I personally witnessed at least three public humiliating arguments between strangers in one day. Two happened at a shopping center right before the Chinese new year. Rules are observed and then derived by myself:
1. The two strangers, often involves one young and one old;
2. At least one female. This is crucial (often there are more than one female involved).
3. At least one has to be an out-of-towner. Two beijingers never argue like that in public.
4. Very little things can set off the fight. Like getting in the line before someone else while getting on a bus.
5. The first stage of the fight is simple arguments with elevated volume in voice;
6. The moment someone swears, uttering dirty words, the argument becomes a fight.
7. Everyone around enjoys watching.
1. The two strangers, often involves one young and one old;
2. At least one female. This is crucial (often there are more than one female involved).
3. At least one has to be an out-of-towner. Two beijingers never argue like that in public.
4. Very little things can set off the fight. Like getting in the line before someone else while getting on a bus.
5. The first stage of the fight is simple arguments with elevated volume in voice;
6. The moment someone swears, uttering dirty words, the argument becomes a fight.
7. Everyone around enjoys watching.
Film: Amateur
Saw this film at the Cervantis Institute in Beijing this Saturday afternoon. Very European. French girl goes to Spain to search for his biological father, and ended up spending some heart-warming family time with a lonely old man who is the current owner of his father's previous apartment. No big drama, big action. Sometimes, the joy of life is in the most simple and small things. Learn to enjoy "DOING NOTHING">.
Chinese New Year in China: Soundscape
I have not spent Chinese new year in China since 2006, and it's thrilling to re-discover just how great it is this year in Beijing. The greatest thing, besides spending quality time with family, is the fireworks. I'm definitely in for a treat on this, A TREAT FOR SOUND. On the eve of Chinese new year, Feb.3, 2011, the fireworks all over the city started probably god know when in the morning, but really getting intense around after 4pm. The sound of fireworks is all over the city and is seriously NON-STOPPING until after midnight. This works like a symphony. Because there is never a moment of silence, but there is only ups and downs, highs and lows, you can kind of feel the melody there. When a big one comes up the sky near you, it's really exiting, almost making me crying (and making my aunt fell to the ground). After this you hear the rest of them from nearby or faraway. This is truly an exclusive opportunity to experience the sound of fireworks for hours and days, and anyone should not miss this if they have a chance to experience it.
China: Tech Shift
A couple of years ago when I lived in Beijing, we used to go to this electronic product "market" to buy slightly under-priced personal electronic accessories, and CD players and later, MD players, mostly imported legally or illegally from Japan, were the most popular. This year I'm back at Beijing again, and wanted to buy a special battery for my portable CD player(although I do use ipod), only to discover that they're not available anywhere. And for that matter, portable CD players are very rarely seen sold anywhere. The market is filled with authentic and fake mp3 players and ipods and ipads. "who wants CD players when you can have something so much lighter?" wow.
But I still prefer the sound quality of a CD player. There is something to it that I still want to hold on to it a little longer.
But I still prefer the sound quality of a CD player. There is something to it that I still want to hold on to it a little longer.
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