The art of being human : a project for general philosophy of science

Throughout the medieval and modern periods, in various sacred and secular guises, the unification of all forms of knowledge under the rubric of ‘science’ has been taken as the prerogative of humanity as a species. However, as our sense of species privilege has been called increasingly into question, so too has the very salience of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’ as general categories, let alone ones that might bear some essential relationship to each other. After showing how the ascendant Stanford School in the philosophy of science has contributed to this joint demystification of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’, I proceed on a more positive note to a conceptual framework for making sense of science as the art of being human. My understanding of ‘science’ is indebted to the red thread that runs from Christian theology through the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment to the Humboldtian revival of the university as the site for the synthesis of knowledge as the culmination of self-development. Especially salient to this idea is science‘s epistemic capacity to manage modality (i.e. to determine the conditions under which possibilities can be actualised) and its political capacity to organize humanity into projects of universal concern. However, the challenge facing such an ideal in the twentyfirst century is that the predicate ‘human’ may be projected in three quite distinct ways, governed by what I call ‘ecological’, ‘biomedical’ and ‘cybernetic’ interests. Which one of these future humanities would claim today’s humans as proper ancestors and could these futures co-habit the same world thus become two important questions that general philosophy of science will need to address in the coming years

Interaction of gases with lunar materials

The surface chemistry of Apollo 17 lunar fines samples 74220 (the orange soil) and 74241 (the gray control soil) has been studied by measuring the adsorption of nitrogen, argon, and oxygen (all at 77 K) and also water vapor (at 20 or 22 C). In agreement with results for samples from other missions, both samples had low initial specific surface areas, consisted of nonporous particles, and were attacked by water vapor at high relative pressure to give an increased specific surface area and create a pore system which gave rise to a capillary condensation hysteresis loop in the adsorption isotherms. In contrast to previous samples, both of the Apollo 17 soils were partially hydrophobic in their initial interaction with water vapor (both samples were completely hydrophilic after the reaction with water). The results are consistent with formation at high temperatures without subsequent exposure to significant amounts of water

Interaction of gases with lunar materials

Quantitative efforts to assess the surface properties of lunar fines, particularly water induced porosity are discussed. Data show that: (1) changes induced in lunar fines are not visible in high energy electron micrographs, (2) scanning micrographs show no change in particle size distribution as a result of reaction with water, (3) water induced changes are internal to the particles themselves, (4) normal laboratory atmosphere blocks alteration reaction with water, and (5) surface properties of mature lunar soils appear to be almost independent of chemical composition and mineralogy, but there are some variations in their reactivity toward water

The photovoltaic market analysis program : background, model development, applications and extensions

The purpose of this report is to describe and motivate the market analysis program for photovoltaics that has developed over the last several years. The main objective of the program is to develop tools and procedures to help guide government spending decisions associated with stimulating photovoltaic market penetration.The program has three main components: (1) theoretical analysis aimed at understanding qualitatively what general types of policies are likely to be most cost effective in stimuating PV market penetration; (2) operational model development (PV1), providing a user oriented tool to study quantitatively the relative effectiveness of specific government spending options and (3) field measurements, aimed at providing objective estimates of the parameters used in the diffusion model used in (2) above.Much of this report is structured around the development and use of PV1, an interactive computer model designed to determine allocation strategies for (constrained) government spending that will best accelerate private sector adoption of PV. To motivate the model's development, existing models of solar technology diffusion are reviewed, and it is shown that they a) have not used sound diffusion principles and b) are not empirically based. The structure of the PV1 model is described and shown to address these problems.Theoretical results on optimal strategies for spending federal market development and subsidy funds are then reviewed. The validity of these results is checked by comparing them with PV1 projections of penetration and cost forecasts for fifteen government policy strategies which were simulated on the PV1 model. Analyses of these forecasts indicate that photovoltaics will not diffuse significantly during the time horizon studied if government market development funds (money allocated to the purchase and installation of PV systems) are withheld. Market development spending has the most positive effect on photovoltaic diffusion in strategies where it is deployed early and concentrated in the residential and commercial sectors. Early subsidy spending had little influence on ultimate diffusion. The analyses suggest that any subsidies for PV should be delayed until photovoltaic costs drop substantially. Extensions of the model and approach to other technologies are discussed

Neutrino-Neutrino Scattering and Matter-Enhanced Neutrino Flavor Transformation in Supernovae

We examine matter-enhanced neutrino flavor transformation ($\nu_{\tau(\mu)}\rightleftharpoons\nu_e$) in the region above the neutrino sphere in Type II supernovae. Our treatment explicitly includes contributions to the neutrino-propagation Hamiltonian from neutrino-neutrino forward scattering. A proper inclusion of these contributions shows that they have a completely negligible effect on the range of $\nu_e$-$\nu_{\tau(\mu)}$ vacuum mass-squared difference, $\delta m^2$, and vacuum mixing angle, $\theta$, or equivalently $\sin^22\theta$, required for enhanced supernova shock re-heating. When neutrino background effects are included, we find that $r$-process nucleosynthesis from neutrino-heated supernova ejecta remains a sensitive probe of the mixing between a light $\nu_e$ and a $\nu_{\tau(\mu)}$ with a cosmologically significant mass. Neutrino-neutrino scattering contributions are found to have a generally small effect on the $(\delta m^2,\ \sin^22\theta)$ parameter region probed by $r$-process nucleosynthesis. We point out that the nonlinear effects of the neutrino background extend the range of sensitivity of $r$-process nucleosynthesis to smaller values of $\delta m^2$.Comment: 38 pages, tex, DOE/ER/40561-150-INT94-00-6

MSW-like Enhancements without Matter

We study the effects of a scalar field, coupled only to neutrinos, on oscillations among weak interaction current eigenstates. The effect of a real scalar field appears as effective masses for the neutrino mass eigenstates, the same for \nbar as for \n. Under some conditions, this can lead to a vanishing of $\delta m^2$, giving rise to MSW-like effects. We discuss some examples and show that it is possible to resolve the apparent discrepancy in spectra required by r-process nucleosynthesis in the mantles of supernovae and by Solar neutrino solutions.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 1 figur

LOCATION OF A MIXALCO PRODUCTION FACILITY WITH RESPECT TO ECONOMIC VIABILITY

Monte-Carlo simulation modeling is used to perform a feasibility study of alternative locations for a MixAlco production facility. Net present value distributions will be ranked within feasible risk aversion boundaries. If MixAlco is a profitable investment, it would have a major impact on the fuel oxygenate and gasoline markets.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Frequency shift of hyperfine transitions due to blackbody radiation

We have performed calculations of the size of the frequency shift induced by a static electric field on the clock transition frequencies of the hyperfine splitting in Yb+, Rb, Cs, Ba+, and Hg+. The calculations are used to find the frequency shifts due to blackbody radiation which are needed for accurate frequency measurements and improvements of the limits on variation of the fine structure constant, alpha. Our result for Cs (delta nu E^2=-2.26 times 10^{-10}Hz/(V/m)^2) is in good agreement with early measurements and ab initio calculations. We present arguments against recent claims that the actual value might be smaller. The difference (approx 10%) is due to the contribution of the continuum spectrum in the sum over intermediate states.Comment: Added discussion of Cs results and reference