Science Circle

Mathematics Club
2024-03-14 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-03-21 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-03-28 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-04-04 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-04-11 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-04-18 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-04-25 08:00 - 17:00, 2024-05-02 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Maths Club

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education
2024-03-16 10:00 - 11:00 | VWBPE
VWBPE-website
QUADRIVIUM 3: Essential Digital Skills for Living and Learning in the Age of Fake News and Unfettered Speech

Facilitator: Linda Sautereau/Peggy Daniels-Lee
Assistant: Wisdomseeker
Transcriptionist: TBD
With the polarization of ideas posted in social media and personal blogs, it has become more difficult to use the Internet for teaching and learning. The International Society for Technology in Education has for years proposed dedicated curricula that focus on the digital citizen: skills that include being safe online, securing your digital footprint, and how to critically evaluate the content we read online. This discussion will focus on the skills and practical strategies that both students and educators can employ to engage in positive and productive discourse that moves beyond what is fake and what is polarizing.
VWBPE Program

Classical Concert
2024-03-17 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-03-24 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-04-07 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-04-14 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-04-21 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-04-28 07:00 - 08:00 | The Lighthouse Café

Moon Base meeting
2024-03-18 10:00 - 11:00, 2024-03-25 10:00 - 11:00, 2024-04-01 10:00 - 11:00, 2024-04-15 10:00 - 11:00, 2024-04-22 10:00 - 11:00, 2024-04-29 10:00 - 11:00 | Moon base

Who is Emmy Noether & Why Have You Never Heard of Her?
2024-03-23 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
WHO IS EMMY NOETHER & WHY HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF HER?
Trail Guide: Tagline – a.k.a. Robert Hendrix

Did you know that Saturday March 23rd, 2024 is World Maths Day? A tradition since 2007, millions of students from 240 countries and territories around the world are participating.
Quite appropriately, that date also happens to be the birthday of one of the greatest mathematicians in human history, Amalie Emmy Noether, PhD (pronounced NOY-ter). Furthermore, Dr. Noether is widely considered to be the number one, greatest female mathematician in the history of mathematics.
So why do you not know about her already?
Emmy Noether was the “go to” person for other scientific geniuses for her depth of understanding of INVARIANCE, and is known for having “put it all together” with her deep, encompassing concepts in modern ABSTRACT ALGEBRA, particularly with regard to Noether Rings and Modules, as well as
NON-COMMUTATIVE ALGEBRAS, in which ORDER MATTERS IN MULTIPLICATION OF PAIRS OF ELEMENTS, i.e.,
A x C ≠ C x A
Aside from her seminal, creative work in the foundations of modern mathematics, Dr. Noether also developed FUNDAMENTAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO FIRST and SECOND NOETHER THEOREMS of MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS in which she shared her deep insights into the natural universe by proving the equivalence of CONSERVATION LAWS with inherent SYMMETRY in Space and / or Time. This has provided a powerful tool to physics right up to quantum dynamics and current work on SUPERSYMMETRY.
We will discuss these intellectual achievements by a general, heuristic approach. And we will explore her life to better understand where such extraordinarily creative humans come from and how they are sometimes capable of pervasive impacts on the world, even in the worst of circumstances.
Finally, we will discuss the first great woman ever of mathematical history, Hypatia. As one of the last great thinkers of ancient Alexandria, Hypatia studied and taught mathematics, astronomy, and
Neoplatonist philosophy. Hypatia is credited with the invention of the Astrolabe as an astronomical instrument.
In 380 CE, Christianity was proclaimed the official state religion of the Roman Empire. Though Hypatia was very popular among the people of Alexandria, she was regarded as a heretical pagan by zealots of the early church. In March 415 CE, a mob of Christian monks under direction of Bishop Cyrus of Alexandria attacked Hypatia, dragged her into a church and brutally tortured and murdered her.

Hypatia was the last of the Alexandria school of philosophy. Her death was an ominous setback for progress in civilization. Subsequently, the decaying western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE, and the stagnation of Dark Ages began in Europe.
WORLD MATHS DAY Saturday 23. March 2024

Inventions
2024-03-30 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
Discussion: Which invention do you appreciate most?

Hypatia
2024-03-31 09:45 - 12:00 | Auditorium
Following Robert Hendrix’s presentation about Emmy Noether on March 23, today we will look together at Hypatia’s life story. Log in 15 minutes early because you need to download something. The film is 2 hours long and is on Blu-ray. Grab your popcorn, cup of tea or whatever you like… let’s enjoy and dive into a dark part of the history of science.
Members Only event!

Swimming with the (pep)tides
2024-04-06 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Swimming with the (pep)tides
Stephen L. Gasior, Ph.D
You have probably heard of the type 2 diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic, Mounjaro, Rybelsus, Wegovy, and Saxenda. These are a recent entry into the drug market and are expected to be billion dollar blockbusters. But, they also represent a whole new class of drugs with even more potential for human therapy. This drug class is called peptides. Peptides are like little stubs of proteins made up of only several amino acids but are common signaling molecules in the body. But only recently has the chemistry come about to make them useful and stable drugs. This presentation will cover peptides in general then talk about the first 3 to market drugs including Bremelanotide and Afamelanotide.

Science and Zeitgeist
2024-04-07 10:00 - 12:00 | Auditorium
Everyone knows one or more life stories of, for example, Socrates, Hypatia, Galileo Galilei or Nikola Tesla.
Lives that were heavily influenced by the political winds of the time, several even ruined.
2024 and history repeats itself. Today we are going to watch a documentary together, which we will discuss next week. The documentary lasts 2 hours, halfway through we take a 10-minute break so everyone can grab a snack.

A History of Quantum Mechanics
2024-04-13 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
A History of Quantum Mechanics
By Robert Lawson Brown, Ph.D., physicist

The presentation will cover the founding of quantum mechanics in the period from 1900 to the 1950s. In addition, there will be an overview of the current efforts in quantum mechanics.
Max Planck and the Birth of Quantum Theory (1900)
Albert Einstein and the Quantum Theory of Light (1905)
Niels Bohr’s Model of the Atom (1913)
Louis de Broglie’s Hypothesis (1924)
Werner Heisenberg’s Matrix Mechanics (1925)
Erwin Schrödinger’s Wave Mechanics (1926)
The Copenhagen Interpretation
Paul Dirac and Quantum Electrodynamics (1928)
Quantum Entanglement and EPR Paradox (1935)
Richard Feynman and Quantum Electrodynamics (1940s-1950s)
Many-Worlds Interpretation (1957)
Modern Experiments in Quantum Mechanics
Additional notes.
From the World Quantum Day website
The World Quantum Day is celebrated on April 14, a reference to 4.14, the rounded first digits of Planck’s constant: 4.1356677×10−15 eV⋅s = 0.000 000 000 000 004 1356677 electron volt second, a product of energy and time that is the fundamental constant governing quantum physics.
The World Quantum Day aims to engage the general public in the understanding and discussion of Quantum Science and Technology.
It is a decentralized and bottom-up initiative, inviting all scientists, engineers, educators, communicators, entrepreneurs, technologists, historians, philosophers, artists, museologists, producers, etc., and their organizations to develop their activities, such as outreach talks, exhibitions, lab tours, panel discussions, interviews, artistic creations, etc., to celebrate the World Quantum Day around the World.

Science & Zeitgeist, a Discussion
2024-04-14 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
Last week we watched a documentary together and today we will discuss the impact. Everyone has had a week with their own thoughts on this matter and I would like to hear from everyone what your reflections have been.

SC & Chemistry World at SLB
2024-04-20 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
The 21st birthday for Second Life is coming up, and will be celebrated in the month of June. Linden Labs have announced the theme for the celebration will be “Elements” and explains “This theme invites us to explore the fundamental components that make up our vast virtual landscape and the diverse communities within it.” The Science Circle and Chemistry World regions would like to propose to Linden Labs that we display side-by-side celebrations of the elements of science, using different representations of the Periodic Table as framing devices for our concept maps of the sciences. The full proposal is due May 1, so this meeting will be used to present the framework and preliminary ideas, call for volunteers to help, and organize how we will put together our build.

How can we best support highly intelligent children/students in our education system?
2024-04-27 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
Gifted children and their school careers… often paved with obstacles by our rigid education system.
As a parent, being invited to school for the umpteenth time because… Your child finishes faster than the rest of the class.
Because… he/she is obsessed with scientific and philosophical issues and cannot concentrate much on doing the same set of sums repeatedly.
Because… he/she answers all the mathematical questions correctly, without writing down the entire sum.
Because… he/she is impatient when language, mathematics, etc. keeps coming back.
Because… he/she always knows the answer fastest and that makes other children in the class ‘lazy’.
Because… he/she always stays longer at school to consult with teachers and ask questions.
Because… he/she cannot tolerate injustice and can clearly justify his/her position… with the result that the entire class ends up in chaos.
In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Education claims on its website that educational institutions receive extra funds to better guide these children. As a parent, I have not noticed any of this over the past 18 years. The schools our son could attend tried to get out of it and pass it on to the next educational institution. A toddler who knows more about Saturn than his kindergarten teacher is not a well-liked child.
Schools seem more interested in guiding all students through their 14-year school career at the same level. Not too much effort, no exceptions, all the same standard education. But as a result, society misses out on a lot of talent. Young people who hardly get through high-school because they have been dulled by previous teachers in a rigid education system.
What can we do to provide this group, 2,5% of society, with what they need? In the Netherlands that is 430,000 people, worldwide 14,500,000 (14,5 million).
