417 research outputs found
Ep. #183 - Solar Power, Solar Justice (feat. Dustin Mulvaney)
No full textThis recording and transcript form part of a collection of podcasts conducted by the Cultures of Energy at Rice University. Cultures of Energy brings writers, artists and scholars together to talk, think and feel their way into the Anthropocene. We cover serious issues like climate change, species extinction and energy transition. But we also try to confront seemingly huge and insurmountable problems with insight, creativity and laughter.Cymene and Dominic cover the stress (and joy!) of center directorships and sandwich-making on this week’s podcast. Then (13:53) Dustin Mulvaney (http://www.dustinmulvaney.com) visits the pod to tell us all the things we need to know about solar energy but were afraid to ask. He’s the author of the excellent new book, Solar Power: Innovation, Sustainability and Environmental Justice(U California Press, 2019). We start by talking about whether it’s possible to make a solar power revolution both rapid and just. That gets us to the toxic externalities of solar cell manufacture and his work with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (http://svtc.org) to create a Solar Scorecard system that helps pressure manufacturers to clean up their production processes. Dustin breaks down for us the environmental advantages and disadvantages of both photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar (CSP) systems and then we turn to what he calls the “Green Civil War” brewing between animal rights activists and renewable energy activists over land use changes especially in the American Southwest. In closing we discuss whether a radically decentralized energy ecology could help advance environmental justice goals and what lessons should be learned from Obama era ARRA solar investments in terms of improving energy justice in the future
Detlef Dürr, Dustin Lazarovici: Verständliche Quantenmechanik. Drei mögliche Weltbilder der Quantenphysik
No full textJonesin': the life and music of Philly Joe Jones
No full textThis thesis explores the life of drummer “Philly” Joseph Rudolf Jones, one of jazz’s most renowned, unknown figures. As the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet/Sextet and a later incarnation of the Bill Evans Trio, Joe achieved worldwide fame and success. Yet, his life story has always been told in the footnotes of the towering figures he performed with: John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, etc. Jazz history books recognize Joe’s contributions and nearly all provide a space, albeit a small one, to recognize his accomplishments. Leonard Feather’s The Encyclopedia of Jazz has an entry for Joe, Lewis Porter’s An Historical Survey of Jazz Drumming Styles lists Joe as an important figure in the evolution of jazz drumming, and The Oxford Companion to Jazz states that “just about anyone of consequence worked with Jones.” These texts and many others put Joe in a place of prominence for a handful of sentences. However, footnoting Joe’s success overlooks the fact that he recorded on more than one-hundred albums from 1955-1960 and was probably the most recorded American drummer in any genre during that time period. Despite his popularity and critical acclaim, no published author has delved into Joe’s complex life with any depth. This thesis explores Joe’s musical biography and seeks to illuminate the paradoxes therin. Joe’s story contains drug use, prison time, and abrasive behavior. On the other hand, he was an excellent musician and a generous man who mentored many young musicians. Joe’s life is intertwined in a web of circumstantial experiences: a fatherless upbringing, military service during World War II, integrating the Philadelphia Transit Company, and working to survive as a musician in New York. There are also lesser-known parts of his life including his roots as a Rhythm and blues drummer, his love for big band music, and his associations with the avant-garde. Joe overcame the obstacles of socioeconomic status, racism, evolving musical styles, and the drug culture to become a superb musician who still found time to educate the next generation.M.A.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Dustin E. MalloryIncludes discograph
Against Fields
No full textUsing the example of classical electrodynamics, I argue that the concept of fields as mediators of particle interactions is fundamentally flawed and reflects a misguided attempt to retrieve Newtonian concepts in relativistic theories. This leads to various physical and metaphysical problems that are discussed in detail. In particular, I emphasize that physics has not found a\ud
satisfying solution to the self-interaction problem in the context of the classical field theory. To demonstrate the superiority of a pure particle ontology, I defend the direct interaction theory of Wheeler and Feynman against recent criticism and argue that it provides the most cogent formulation of classical electrodynamics
Golden, Oregon cultural landscape report
No full textby Susan Johnson and Dustin Welch ; prepared in collaboration with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and the University of Oregon.Title from PDF title page (viewed on September 4, 2020).This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes.Includes bibliographical references.Mode of access: Internet from the Oregon Government Publications Collection.Text in English
Why "noncommuting common causes" don't explain anything.
No full textIn my commentary, I will argue that the conclusions drawn in the paper Noncommutative causality in algebraic quantum field theory (and similar publications) by Gábor Hofer-Szaboó are incorrect. As proven by J.S. Bell, a local common causal explanation of correlations violating the Bell inequality is impossible
Position Measurements and the Empirical Status of Particles in Bohmian Mechanics
No full textThe paper addresses the debate about the empirical status of particles versus wave functions in Bohmian quantum mechanics. It thereby clarifies questions and misconceptions about the role of the particles in the measurement process, the (un)reliability of position measurements ("surrealistic trajectories"), and the limited empirical access to particle positions ("absolute uncertainty"). Taking the ontological commitment of Bohmian mechanics seriously, all relevant empirical results follow from an analysis of the theory in terms of particle motions. Finally, we address the question, why particle motions rather than patterns in the wave function would be the supervenience base of conscious experience
Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics from the Perspective of Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics
No full textThis paper examines no-hidden-variables theorems in quantum mechanics from the point of view of statistical mechanics. It presents a general analysis of the measurement process in the Boltzmannian framework that leads to a characterization of (in)compatible measurements and reproduces several features of quantum probabilities often described as “non-classical”. The analysis is applied to versions of the Kochen–Specker and Bell theorems to shed more light on their implications. It is shown how, once the measurement device and the active role of the measurement process are taken into account, contextuality appears as a natural feature of random variables. This corroborates Bell’s criticism that no-go results of the Kochen–Specker type are based on gratuitous assumptions. In contrast, Bell-type theorems are much more profound, but should be understood as nonlocality theorems rather than no-hidden-variables theorems. Finally, the paper addresses misunderstandings and misleading terminology that have confused the debate about hidden variables in quantum mechanics
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