Daily Archives: June 5, 2013

Arts, History, Science

Quantum Leaps: Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662…

PASCAL

Blaise Pascal, a Frenchman who passed away at the age of just thirty-nine, his time on earth unfortunately cut short by poor health, made significant contributions to the fields of mathematics and science – this, despite his abandonment of scientific study in favour of religious devotion in 1655.

During his twenties Pascal spent a large amount of time undertaking experiments in the field of physics. The most important of these involved measuring air pressure. An Italian scientist, Evangelista Torricelli (1608 – 47), had argued that air pressure would decrease at higher altitudes. Pascal set out to prove this by using a mercury barometer. He took initial measurements in Paris and then, at the 1200m-high Puy de Dome in 1646, confirmed in no uncertain terms that Torricelli’s speculation was true.

  • Pascal’s Law

More significantly, though, his studies in this area led him to develop Pascal’s Principle or Law, which states that pressure applied to liquid in an enclosed space distributes equally in all directions. This became the basic principle from which all hydraulic systems derived, such as those involved in the manufacture of car brakes, as well as explaining how small devices such as the car jack are able to raise a vehicle. This is because the small force created by moving the jacking handle in a sizeable sweep equates to a large amount of pressure sufficient to move the jack head a few centimetres. Applying the lessons of his studies in a practical way, Pascal went on to invent the syringe and, in 1650, the hydraulic press.

  • Child prodigy

In spite of these developments, however, Pascal is probably better remembered for his work in the area of mathematics. It was here that he showed his genius from an early age. For example, having independently discovered a number of Euclid’s theorems for himself by the age of just eleven, he went on to master The Elements, the great mathematician’s definitive text, a year later. When he was sixteen he published mathematical papers which his older contemporary Descartes at first refused to believe could have been written by someone so young. In 1642, still only nineteen, Pascal began work on inventing a mechanical calculating machine which could add and subtract. He had finished what was effectively the first digital calculator by 1644 and presented it to his father to help him in his business affairs.

  • Theory of Probability

It was not until later in his short life, around 1654, that Pascal jointly made the mathematical discovery which would have the most impact on future generations. It had begun with a request by an obsessive gambler, the Chevalier de Méré, for assistance in calculating the chance of success in the games he played. Together with Pierre de Fermat, another French mathematician, Pascal developed the theory of probabilities, using his now famous Pascal’s Triangle, in the process. As well as its obvious impact upon all parts of the gambling industry, the importance of understanding probability has had subsequent application in areas stretching from statistics to theoretical physics.

The SI unit of pressure – the pascal – and the computer language, Pascal (named in honour of his contribution to computing through his invention of the early calculator), are named after him in recognition of two of his main areas of scientific success.

Seven of the calculating devices that he produced in 1649 survive to this day.

  • Pascal’s Wager

Like many of his contemporaries, Pascal did not separate his science from philosophy, and his book Pensees, he applies his mathematical probability theory to the perennial philosophical problem of the existence of God. In the absence of evidence for or against God’s existence, says Pascal, the wise man will choose to believe, since if he is correct he will gain his reward, and if he is incorrect he stands to lose nothing, an interesting, if somewhat cynical argument.

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Syria, United Nations

UN Report on Syria: ‘Conflict at new levels of brutality’…

A picture taken on April 26, 2013 shows smoke rising after shelling in Houla in Syria’s Homs province. The opposition National Coalition has accused the regime of using chemical weapons in the northern province of Aleppo, in Homs in central Syria, and in rebel-held areas near Damascus. (Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images)

The Syrian conflict is now two and a half years into a violent and civil bloody war between the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and various rebel groups. According to a recent report from United Nations investigators, the bloodshed is only intensifying: in a survey of events in Syria between Jan 15 and May 15, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s independent commission on the civil war says it has reached ‘new levels of cruelty and brutality’ – and that there’s no reason to believe the carnage will abate any time soon.

This week, commission chair Paulo Pinheiro told the Human Rights Council that ‘Syria is in free-fall… no one is winning… more weapons will only lead to more dead civilains and wounded.’

Investigators report that there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that chemical agents of an unspecified variety had been deployed in civilian areas. The commission found no conclusive proof determining whether one or both sides in the conflict have deployed chemical weapons, but warn there to be a heightened risk in the future.

On top of the grave risk that nerve gas and other chemical agents could be deployed in civilian areas, ‘non-combatants’ are continually under attack from all sides of the conflict. More than 70,000 civilians have died (with some estimates as high as 100,000) and millions more have been displaced since the civil war broke out over two years ago. The commission concludes that both Assad’s forces and many factions within the rebels are guilty of war crimes against civilains, including torture and rape. Nearly 7 million people, half of them children, are ‘in need of urgent assistance’ due to lack of medical care and food shortages instigated by the conflict.

The U.N. commission ends its report with a strong recommendation for a negotiated settlement:

… A diplomatic surge is the only path to a political settlement. Negotiations must be inclusive, and must represent all facets of Syria’s cultural mosaic.

In the United States, foreign policy hawks such as Sen. John McCain, continue to call on the White House to militarily intervene. Mr McCain believes that America could intervene by launching cruise missiles from the US naval fleet in the region. This, he says, would decapitate Assad’s air defences and would not require boots on the ground or the establishment of a no-fly zone (NFZ).

President Barack Obama has previously said that the use of chemical weapons on civilains would cross a ‘red line’ and therefore may justify intervention. Last month, the White House said it was supportive of Israeli air strikes within the country.

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Economic, Technology

Technology and the erosion of labour…

Over the past few decades income inequality in America has exploded, but there is considerable disagreement about the cause of the shift. Are impersonal forces like globalisation and technological development to blame, or is it to do with policies designed to disproportionately benefit the rich?

A recently published study by Tali Kristal, an Israeli sociologist, says that the overall share of income by the labour workforce is declining because workers are losing the power to fight for their own interests.

Ms Kristal found that the biggest inequality spikes have occurred within industries where unions have traditionally held a lot of influence – within manufacturing, transportation, and, to a lesser extent, construction. That’s partly due to the labour movement as a whole witnessing its power sharply declining since the mid-twentieth century, but Kristal has also identified another factor which she calls ‘class-biased technological change.’

Technological development is not apolitical or self-directed, she says. New tools are always made by human beings, and those humans have their own political influences and agendas. Institutions that fund technological development also tend to have a particular motive, whether it’s winning a war, curing a disease, or increasing corporate profits. Class-biased technological change simply means the sort of development which “favours capitalists and high-skilled workers while eroding most rank-and-file workers’ bargaining power”, according to Ms Kristal.

A good example of class-biased technological change is various kinds of factory automation, which can render some manufacturing jobs obsolete. But Kristal also highlights new workplace monitoring tools and increasingly sophisticated workplace control strategies, which have given managers unprecedented levels of power to use more legal and illegal anti-union tactics, such as the illegal discharge of union activists, surveillance of union leaders, captive-audience meetings with top management, and an entrenched refusal to negotiate collective agreements.

Tali Kristal does not mention Frederick Winslow Taylor in her paper, but his ghost haunts the margins. At the turn of the twentieth century, Taylor became one of history’s first professional management consultants, explicitly advising factory owners on how they could break the power of their employees’ craft unions. Nowadays, Americans tend to regard Taylor’s most influential innovations – such as the assembly line and the role of the middle manager – as benign improvements to efficiency. The assembly line, though, was designed in part to take control over the speed of production out of the hands of workers and into the hands of management.

If Kristal’s study is to be believed, Taylorism is alive and well in the United States. Fittingly, America is now experiencing levels of inequality last seen during the lifetime of its inventor.

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