Great Math word

Everday Orthogonality:
[Via The Quantum Pontiff]

Another one from Michael, who spotted an article about one of my favorite mathematical words to use in everyday speech (much the chagrin of non-scientists) used in the Supereme Court of the United States:

Supreme Court justices deal in words, and they are always on the lookout for new ones.

University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman discovered that Monday when he answered a question from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, but added that it was “entirely orthogonal” to the argument he was making in Briscoe v. Virginia.

Friedman attempted to move on, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” Roberts said. “Entirely what?”

“Orthogonal,” Friedman repeated, and then defined the word: “Right angle. Unrelated. Irrelevant.”

“Oh,” Roberts replied.

…

“What was that adjective?” Scalia asked Monday. “I liked that.”

“Orthogonal,” Friedman said.

“Orthogonal,” Roberts said.

“Orthogonal,” Scalia said. “Ooh.”

Friedman seemed to start to regret the whole thing, saying the use of the word was “a bit of professorship creeping in, I suppose,” but Scalia was happy.

“I think we should use that in the opinion,” he said.

“Or the dissent,” added Roberts, who in this case was in rare disagreement with Scalia.Of course last time I commented on using mathematical words outside of their natural habitat it spawned a comment thread with over 2000 comments.

Other favorites that I like to sneak into casual conversation are “canonical”, “dual”, and “asymptotic.” Other good scientific / math words that you like to use in everyday conversation?

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I love the word orthogonal and hope it sees more usage. Canonical is nice too but I figure that religious types may think using canon implies a Biblical term. But asymptotic, while very nice, has somewhat limited places to properly use it.

Technorati Tags: Science

View of yellow journalism from a journalist

Another scientist caught in the maw of climate politics — and yellow journalism:
[Via CEJournal]

Do the cold temperatures gripping large parts of the Northern Hemisphere herald the arrival of 20-30 years of global cooling? That’s what two articles in the Daily Mail claim. But what does the science actually show? (Source: NASA Earth Observatory)

As you may have heard, there’s been yet another global cooling eruption in the blogosphere and on Fox News following publication of two startling stories in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, one yesterday, and another one on Sunday.
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I discussed this some yesterday. That was more from the scientist’s viewpoint. This article provides some insight into how a journalist sees this piece of work. A nice quote:

Even for the most responsible and hard-working journalist, there are many opportunities for misunderstanding during interviews with scientists, especially on a subject as complex as this one is. That’s why I tell my students always to go to the primary scientific literature. If the writers for the Daily Mail had done that — and if they were actually honest — they would not have written what they did.

It seems very likely that the writers of the original article were not really interested in any sort of truth. They were interested in generating hits and getting people to read the article. This is a real problem for reporters as the needs of the publication they work for (i.e. money from ads and eyeballs) can outweigh the need for truthful reporting.

Then the journalist seems to have a choice – refuse and quit or write the piece that will get the eyeballs, even if it is not really very truthful. Unfortunately, those that quit simply allow the spots to be filled by those that will write anything they are directed to.

There are more outlets now on the Web for journalists to write truthful articles. We may not have the final business plan for these outlets but I am sure we will find one. because there are a lot of people that would be very interested in truthful reporting not yellow journalism.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science