The Science of Life

I am currently working on a YouTube project called "The Science They Don't Want You to Know", where I will cover science that various organizations and individuals don't want to be known by the general population for one reason or another.  It will be set up in seasons, since there are so many related topics to consider. The first season will cover conspiracy theories which affect public health.  In it, I will run be dependent on two papers, one which revolves around the mathematics of known conspiracies, and the other which describes the psychology of conspiracy theorists.  The math paper , which is written by Professor David Grimes of the University of Oxford, looks at various conspiracies which have been leaked to the public.  Examples of this include the NSA spying on us , the old syphilis "experiments" , and Watergate.  What he did was to use these known cases of conspiracies to develop a model for figuring out what the probability would be fo...

In every physical science, we rely heavily on mathematical models to accomplish further scientific research.  (Yes, even you biologists and organic chemists; you just have the mathematical models hidden.)  Mathematical models are the key to all scientific research.  (And for those reading this from outside of the United States, I will use the word "sciences" in place of the term "physical sciences" from here on out; be prepared for that.) This brings up a key question; what exactly is a mathematical model? It would be good to have an equation fall under a mathematical model.  This can be the case, but more often than not, one equation is insufficient.  It also doesn't have to contain equations; there can also be inequalities, where a value is either less than or greater than a certain quantity. Mathematical models are descriptions of a system with mathematical language , which can be one or many equations or inequalities.  This is more of a...

I apologize for a longer-than-acceptable absence. My academic progress is getting in the way of so much of my life right now, including but not limited to this blog. I will, however, persevere in continuing with it – both the academics as well as the blog. I have also been working on a few projects outside of academia and outside of this blog. This includes a new website which incorporates poetry, chemistry, undergraduate papers, ACS news, and my tutoring in chemistry. For those of you curious, it can be found at http://poetchem.alexandersdesigns.net/ .  Over the course of the next few months, I will be transitioning this blog over there. For this blog entry, I will detail how one of my classes – in particular, Calculus III – relates to the real world. This is one project I have been working on for the past few semesters.  This will also be my final extra credit project for that course. There is something you have to understand about the realm of mathematics,...