Announcement: This Saturday at The Science Circle - "Panel: Gravity"

 

"Panel: Gravity"

Saturday February 27

10AM to 11AM SL time

To aid everyone in the audience in getting the most from our presentations, The Science Circle is introducing a series of presentations that seek to explain popular and important topics in different fields of science. Each presentation will start with a basic understanding that most pre-college students may have and gradually work up to the types of things that experts know, and still do not know, about each topic, all within an hour.

For this month’s Panel discussion, the topic is Gravity. Gravity is something so present in our lives that we may take it for granted, but it is also what makes possible some of the most fantastical concepts that explain, and objects that make up, our known universe.

     Panel Host Matthew Burr will start by reviewing that we understood about Gravity until the beginning of the 1900’s, based on Newtonian mechanics.

     Dr. Phil Youngblood will then review the new ideas that Einstein discovered at the turn of the century regarding the relativity of space-time. 

     Dr. William Wall will conclude by talking about Einstein’s field equations and the more exotic aspects of gravity associated with massive objects.      

On March 20, Phil Youngblood will continue the series with an explanation of “Elementary Particles” at different levels of understanding.

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/67/129/32

Announcement: This Friday and Saturday at The Science Circle - "Climate Change and Risk Analysis"

 

"Climate Change and Risk Analysis"

Satutday February 20

10AM to 11AM SL time

Over the last 40 years, a wide scientific consensus predicted a global, annual average, temperature increase due to human emissions of carbon dioxide plus the feedback of the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can contain as the atmospheric temperatures increased. The primary focus of scientific policy recommendations was mitigation of such global warming by shifting to carbon neutral energy production  Nonetheless, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has continued to increase from a preindustrial value of 285 ppm (parts per million) to a concentration in 2000 of 370 ppm to about 418 ppm today, high than any prior time in human history.. This increase is sufficient that we can no longer focus only on global emissions reduction but must reckon with local adaptations to already existing economic and social system risks, where a risk is considered to be an undesirable event stemming from a changing climate.

This initiates a project, often at the level of cities and counties, of identifying potential risks, estimating various levels of likelihood, tying those levels to consequences for human lives, social systems, and economics, and then pursuing means of adapting to reduce the risks. 

Presentation by Dr. Keith Grant

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/67/129/32

Commentary: Virtual Worlds "To Game or Not to Game?"

Some months ago, Wesley Regenbogen wrote a commentary around the issue "Is Second Life a game," expanding it to cover virtual worlds in general as he had experience in other places such as Cybertown. But it never did see print at the time. Today it's up finally, and Wesley had a few things to say about the issue, comparing virtual worlds and games and how they are different.

Read Wesley's commentary in Extra.