Cafe2007

2007

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Science in the Café

2007 CALENDAR
The listings are arranged chronologically with the most recent one on top.
Unless specifically stated otherwise (+), cafés begin at 7pm.
Click on the DATE for more details.

DATE	PRESENTER	TITLE
27-Dec-07	Prof Naoko Tosa & Prof Ryohei Nakatsu	Entertainment & Robotics
13-Dec-07	A/P Valerio Scarani	WEIRD IS USEFUL – The Weirdness in Quantum Cryptography
6-Dec-07	Prof Patricia Vickers-Rich	Dinosaurs & Slime Creatures from the Cold Corners of the Past
23-Nov-07	Prof Rolf Pfeifer	Can Robots Think? Artifical Intelligence between Science & Fiction
16-Oct-07	Prof Claus Hviid Christensen	The Last Oil
20-Sep-07 +	Prof Gerhard Wanner	From Euler’s Discoveries in Trigonometry to Fourier Analysis, MP3, and JPEG
29-Aug-07 +	Prof Walter Gautschi	Leonhard Euler – His Life, The Man, and His Work
22-Aug-07	A/P Helmer Aslaksen	Heavenly Mathematics and the Armillary Spheres
25-Jul-07	Dr Bertrand Richer de Forges Prof Peter Ng	Exploring the Biodiversity of the Indo-Pacific The PANGLAO Marine Biodiversity Project 2004-2005
18-Jul-07	Prof Hanspeter Kraft	Leonhard Euler – A Man to be Reckoned With!
29-Jun-07	Mr Ganymed Stanek	Autonomous Driving with STANLEY
27-Jun-07	Mr Shah Alam	The Evolution of Civilisations
10-May-07	Prof Brian J Ford	Science Wars: Journalists & Scientists at Cross-Purpose
25-Apr-07	Prof Rolf Jeltsch	Leonhard Euler – His Life, His Discoveries And Their Impact Today
23-Mar-07 +	Dr Kevin Kuang Dr Douglas Walsh	Photonics & Fibre Optic Sensors
20-Mar-07	Mr Bob Sargent	Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources
15-Mar-07	Ms Kentaké Chinyelu-Hope	Conversations in iSpace
9-Mar-07 +	Dr Sarah Symons & Dr Derek Raine	Ancient Science – Tomorrow’s Scientists
23-Jan-07	Prof Aristides AG Requicha	NanoBots
4-Jan-07	Dr Victoria Vesna Dr James Gimzewski	NanoScience Through Media Arts

DETAILS

Date of Café {Special Notes} Unless specifically stated otherwise, cafés begin at 7pm. Presenter, Organisation / Sponsors Title : Synopsis
4 January 2007 Dr Victoria Vesna & Dr James Gimzewski, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) NanoScience Through Media Arts : Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski have been collaborating for the past 5 years on a series of installations that address the impact of nanoscience on culture and consciousness in an experiential manner. They aim to question some of the prevalent narratives and ideas around nanotechnology and use their respective skills and talents to create interactive works such as buckyballs manipulated by shadows and Tibetan mandalas that allow the viewer to enter into a grain of sand. Their work was exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Castellon, Spain, Seoul, Korea, Beijing, China, Perth, Australia, Benevento and Rome, Italy, and has been featured in a number of magazines and journals that cross disciplines and on television, including the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
23 January 2007 Prof Aristides AG Requicha, University of Southern California / Singapore Robotic Games Committee NanoBots : The IT revolution of the recent past has given us exquisite control over the bits and the bytes – the raw material of information. It has also taught us how to use these basic building blocks to construct exceedingly complex information structures, perhaps the most complex artifical systems ever built. In comparison, our ability to manipulate the atoms and molecules that constitute physical matter is still rather primitive. The ultimate goal of Nanotechnology is to control the structure of matter as effectively as we now control the structure of information. Achieving this goal will have an impact that is hard for us to even imagine at this time. Nanorobotics is an emerging area within nanotechnology. Let's share the Why? What? and How? for this new field. Let's see if we can actually achieve automatic manipulation of molecular-sized objects, nano-sensors, -actuators and other components, systems for nanorobots, and coordination and programming of swarms of nanorobots - self-assembly and massive parallelism.
9 March 2007 {Special Afternoon Session @ 3:30pm} Dr Sarah Symons & Dr Derek Raine, University of Leicester / British Council Singapore Ancient Science – Tomorrow’s Scientists : Dr Derek Raine and Dr Sarah Symons are from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science of the University of Leicester, UK. They will present a lecture-demonstration on ancient Egyptian astronomy and a programme of related activities with discussion. The strands of ancient science and science education will be drawn together to illustrate the use of inter-disciplinarity in problem-based learning (PBL). The session will close with how one example – in this case, a historical scientific context – can be used to encourage critical thinking as a basis for the training of tomorrow’s science managers, communicators and policy leaders.
15 March 2007 Ms Kentaké Chinyelu-Hope, Momi Inc Ltd, NESTA Conversations in iSpace : Conversations in iSpace is a lively, guided tour of the iSpace exhibition followed by a plenary discussion of the impact of technology on our lives, socialisation and culture. It will be a relaxed and informal occasion amongst science, technology and arts practitioners. It would be great if you could come along and lend your perspective on the theme.
20 March 2007 Mr Bob Sargent, The Chartered Institution of Water & Environmental Management / British Council Singapore Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources : The recent IPCC report predicted that significant changes in temperature, rainfall and sea level are likely in SouthEast Asia in the 21^st Century. What impact will these have on our water resources? What will be the costs and what can be done to minimise the impact? How do we live with the coming climate changes?
23 March 2007 {Special Afternoon Session @ 2:30pm} Dr Kevin Kuang, NUS & Dr Douglas Walsh, OptoSci Ltd / Zugo Photonics Photonics & Fibre Optic Sensors : Dr Walsh will give an introduction to Photonics (definition, device categories, applications), and an overview of Singapore’s photonics industry’s developments. He will discuss the impact of this on educational institutions, and how photonics can be incorporated into the teaching syllabus. Dr Kuang will begin by introducing some basics of optical fibres, followed by a summary of a series of experimental work using optical fibre sensors. A simplified overview of the potential of optical fibre sensors to monitor a variety of physical parameters such as strain, temperature, cracks detection, vibration, impact damage/load, post-processing residual strains, vibration, curvature, etc, will be discussed. There will be an e-demonstration of how a simple optical fibre sensing system can be used to detect liquid level. This talk is targeted at the general audience and should be of benefit to all who intend to learn the subject from a practical and fun approach. At the end of the talk, attendants should gain an appreciation of the potential of optical fibre sensors for a wide variety of applications. Dr Kuang will also demonstrate the optical fibre sensor educational kit he invented.
25 April 2007 Prof Rolf Jeltsch, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich / Swiss House Singapore Leonhard Euler – His Life, His Discoveries And Their Impact Today : Leonhard Euler (15/04/1707 – 07/09/1783) was a Swiss mathematician-physicist who made important discoveries in fields as diverse as topology, mechanics, optics, and astronomy. Euler is considered to be the eminent mathematician of the 18th Century and one of the greatest and the most prolific of all times. To the general public, he may be better known as the father of the popular Sudoku. To launch the celebrations of his 300th Anniversary, the presentation will provide insights to the personality of the genius Leonhard Euler. In the cities where Euler spent extended periods of his life, namely Basel (his birth place in Switzerland), St Petersburg and Berlin, Euler's scientific output was prolific, contributing to many diverse fields: some of his results are so fundamental that they are taught at high school. Euler’s major clever inventions will be presented, as well as a few examples of groundbreaking discoveries which still have significant impact today.
10 May 2007 Prof Brian J Ford / British Council Singapore Science Wars: Journalists & Scientists at Cross-Purpose : Britain was in at the beginning of science, and of journalism. Science gave us microphones and television, printing presses and wireless. So why are scientists and journalists so often at war? Why are the scientists – who invented the media – so displeased with the way the media portray their work? Prof Ford's controversial, illustrated presentation analyses the controversy and offers some surprising new answers to a long-standing problem.
27 Jun 2007 Mr Shah Alam, University of Hawai'i The Evolution of Civilisations : 19th century British and American anthropologists traced the development of human social organisation through three evolutionary stages: savagery, barbarism and civilisation. This sequence was based on their classification of the different types of social organisation they observed in various parts of the world. Civilisation, in this case, was associated with the western world, Europe and America, and traces its roots to ancient Greece and Rome. Other, earlier civilisations, had existed in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China, but these had fallen into decay. The assumption is that western civilisation was superior and more advanced, and this notion was sometimes accompanied by the attitude that culture was transmitted biologically. This, of course, was logically contradicted by Darwin’s theory on the origins of species, but some of these ideas have survived to this day, although mainly outside of academia. Contemporary anthropologists and archaeologists have generally resisted the use of the term civilisation because of its association with western chauvinism and racism. However, the term is still used by a minority, although with qualifications. Modern scholars generally consider culture, both ancient and modern, as human adaptation to their environment, and each culture should, therefore, be studied in its own terms. Western civilisation and its antecedents do not provide the only characteristics defining civilisation, and neither do ancient cultures that display spectacular art and architectural remains. This discussion first presents the various definitions of civilisation and its application in the study of early human history. What follows is a visual presentation of variations in the development of ancient civilisations in various parts of the world. Comparisons will be made between the various examples, and there is a particular emphasis on early Southeast Asia.
29 Jun 2007 Mr Ganymed Stanek, Volkswagen Electronics Research Lab Autonomous Driving with STANLEY : The development of the robotic Stanford Vehicle (nicknamed STANLEY) began in 2004. Based on a stock, diesel-powered Volkswagen Touareg R5, it was modified with full body skid plates and a reinforced front bumper, and actuated via a drive-by-wire system developed by Volkswagen of America's Electronic Research Lab. With all processing carried out by 7 Pentium M computers onboard, STANLEY uses GPS, a 6-degrees-of-freedom inertial measurement unit, and wheel speed to drive itself and find itself way. When on the move, it "sees" its environs through 4 laser rangefinders, a radar system, a pair of stereo cameras, and a monocular vision system. Map and pose information are also incorporated, enabling STANLEY to avoid collisions with obstacles in real-time.STANLEY, the autonomous VW, will be on display at the Science Centre's Nexus (i-Space Gallery) from 18 June to 15 August 2007.
18 Jul 2007 Prof Hanspeter Kraft University of Basel / Swiss House Singapore Leonhard Euler – A Man to be Reckoned With! : Who was Leonhard Euler? A well-known citizen of Basel and a world-famous "Swiss Abroad"? The greatest scholar of his time? The leading scientist of the 18th century? One of the most ingenious and productive mathematicians? Leonhard Euler was born on 15 April 1707 in Basel (Switzerland). When he was 20 years old, he went to St Petersburg and thence, never returned to his hometown. In 1741, he accepted an invitation from Frederick II to help with the establishment of the Berlin Academy. Twenty five years later, in 1766, he returned to St Petersburg where he died on 18 September 1783. Euler made many basic and fundamental contributions to mathematics, mechanics, optics, astronomy, and engineering. He published more than 800 scientific papers and about 40 books. He was certainly the most productive mathematician in the history of Mankind. Euler changed mathematics in a fundamental ways! He "created" mathematical fields and started new areas of research. He "used" mathematics and applied it to many problems. He "shared" his thoughts and ideas with the whole world and he popularized the sciences. And he was "pure" and "applied" in the strongest sense. We will describe some easy examples from Euler's work in order to demonstrate how he attacked a problem – either a practical or a theoretical one – with his ingenious mathematical brain, coming up with original new ideas. Not only did he solve the problem, but he opened new ways to think about it, created new methods and tools, initiated further developments and found surprising applications. Many of his ideas are still important and very present in today's mathematical research and its applications: In the theory of graphs and its application to transport problems, in fluid dynamics and the construction of planes and sailing boats (Alinghi!), or in modern cryptography and secure communications over the Internet. We hope that these examples will give some impression of this great scholar and scientist whose work has inspired and still inspires many researchers in mathematics, physics and engineering.
25 Jul 2007 Dr Bertrand Richer de Forges, L’Institut de Recherche pour le Développement & Prof Peter KL Ng, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, NUS / The Embassy of France in Singapore Exploring the Biodiversity of the Indo-Pacific: The PANGLAO Marine Biodiversity Project 2004-2005 : The Indo-Pacific ocean is immense and still poorly known. A great number of new species are discovered every year. The discovery of the hydrothermal vents 30 years ago has also substantially increased our interest of the deep and our understanding of species richness in the oceans. In the Pacific, from west to east, a gradient of biodiversity richness has been observed, with the highest concentration of species in the Indo-Malayan archipelago. An ambitious Franco-Philippine-Singaporean program is now trying to inventory the marine life in the Philippines, the centre of this “hot-spot” of marine biodiversity. To this effect, we have conducted two major scientific expeditions between 2004 and 2005 in the Bohol Sea in the central Philippines. The Panglao 2004 workshop, sampling from intertidal areas to 120m, lasted 7 weeks in the field and brought together 74 scientists from 19 countries. Using a great diversity of sampling methods, the zoologists involved targeted mainly the molluscs and crustaceans. The expedition obtained some 1200 species of crustacea and more than 5000 species of molluscs. In 2005, another major expedition with the Philippine Fisheries Department and National Museum of the Philippines sampled the deep sea fauna of the Bohol Sea to complete the inventory of the species in the range between 100 and 2400m. Hundreds more species were added. In addition to finding hundreds of new species, the expeditions have also discovered many previously rare animals and uncovered many biological facts. One is a study of the ecological hypothesis about the correlation of the size of animals (the majority of the species are smaller than 10 mm) with their habitats, and testing the idea of supposed species rarity. Many supposedly rare species are only so because of our poor understanding of the animals’ habitats and our inability to sample their preferred niche. This Philippine program is continuing. In May 2007, the deep-sea cruiser AURORA sampled the east coast of Luzon Island, an area never surveyed before and more rarities and oddities were uncovered. Two more deep-sea cruises are being planned in the Philippines archipelago. The hope is that this centre of marine biodiversity will become one of the best sampled and best understood in the world, and this knowledge will help us better study and conserve this heritage.
22 Aug 2007 A/P Helmer Aslaksen, National University of Singapore Heavenly Mathematics and the Armillary Spheres : Among the many highlights of the current exhibition, "China: 7000 Years of Innovation" are the armillary spheres. An armillary sphere is made up of interlocking rings that represent the "structure of heaven". They are beautiful works of art, but they were also important scientific instruments. The Chinese emperor claimed to be the Son of Heaven, and to rule by the Mandate of Heaven. This made astronomy, eclipse prediction and calendar-making important not just from a scientific point of view, but also from a political point of view. The purpose of this talk is to teach you enough positional astronomy to understand the meaning of the various rings, and to introduce you to some of the key ideas in traditional Chinese astronomy. After this talk, the armillary spheres will no longer just look like beautiful, yet confusing mess of rings, but you will appreciate their structure and their scientific and cultural significance.
29 Aug 2007 {Maxwell Auditorium @ 4pm} Prof Walter Gautschi, Purdue University / Swiss House Singapore & Singapore Mathematical Society Leonhard Euler – His Life, The Man, and His Work : On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Euler's birth (on 15 April 2007), an attempt is made to bring Euler's genius to the attention of a broad segment of the educated public. The 3 stations of his life – Basel, St Petersburg and Berlin – are sketched and the principal works identified in more or less chronological order. To convey a flavour of his work and its impact on modern science, a selection of some of Euler's memorable contributions is discussed in more detail. Remarks on Euler's personality, intellect and craftsmanship, will round out the talk.
20 Sep 2007 {Maxwell Auditorium @ 4pm} Prof Gerhard Wanner, University of Geneva / Swiss House Singapore & Singapore Mathematical Society From Euler’s Discoveries in Trigonometry to Fourier Analysis, MP3, and JPEG ... retraces the discovery of Euler’s famous formula, cos x + i sin x = exp(ix) in his early work on differential equations. But it was not only this formula, which was one of Euler’s masterpieces, but also the creation of the trigonometric functions, cos x and sin x themselves. We then describe important consequences of this theory for mathematics, physics and today’s civilization (Basel problem, theory of sound and electromagnetic waves, Fourier transform, FFT, JPEG und MP3), without which no radio, no television, no digital camera or no CD-player would work.
16 Oct 2007 Prof Claus Hviid Christensen, Technical University of Denmark / Embassy of Denmark, Singapore The Last Oil ... Contemporary society is probably best characterized as being a fossil (fuel) economy. Even though we are all aware of the importance of oil to the transportation sector, few realize how oil and other fossil resources play a decisive role in providing all the stuff that we take for granted in our everyday lives. However, we are facing two major challenges that are more important than all other challenges. They are the energy challenge and the climate challenge. This café will discuss why these challenges are so important, and the all-important question we will try to address is, “What life after the last oil?".
23 Nov 2007 Prof Rolf Pfeifer, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, University of Zurich / Interaction & Entertainment Research Centre, NTU Can robots think? Artificial Intelligence between science & fiction ... In 1956, the founding fathers of artificial intelligence convened under the assumption that "… every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it." (Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Project Proposal) In other words, intelligent behaviour or thinking was, in essence, viewed as abstract symbol manipulation, as a computer programme. This idea which has lead to many important applications, was dominant until the mid-1980s. More recently there has been increasing interest in "embodiment" – the notion that intelligence is not only a matter of computation, but requires a body, a complete organism that interacts with the real world. As a consequence, many researchers shifted their attention from computers to robots. In this discussion, the far-reaching and often surprising implications of this concept will be explored. While embodiment has often been used in its trivial meaning, ie "intelligence requires a body", there are deeper and more important consequences, concerned with the interactions of brain, body and environment. In this context, I will also argue that thinking is not an all-or-none phenomenon, but a gradual one that has emerged during the process of evolution. Many examples and case studies of robots from our own and other research laboratories will be given to illustrate the ideas developed in this discourse. Finally, an attempt will be made to characterize the state-of-the art of the field of intelligent robotics – what is science, what is fiction?
6 Dec 2007 Prof Patricia Vickers-Rich, Monash Science Centre / Monash University Dinosaurs & Slime Creatures from the Cold Corners of the Past ... Climate change is on the news and in our minds, and we all should be doing something to help keep our only home (planet). This Café will discuss how the climate changed in the past, especially at the time the dinosaurs had a hard time about 65 million years ago and then further back in time when very, very cold conditions could have had something to do with the development of animals. You will meet a few cold-adapted, bright-eyed, big-brained dinosaurs along the way (like Leaellynasaura which my husband, Tom (also a palaeontologist) and I named after my little girl, and Timimus whom I named after my student, Tim Flannery and my son, Tim) – dinosaurs who were able to deal with a polar world while their cousins basked in the tropical sun up north. You will also meet some very strange animals with no eyes and who (seem to have) left no “children”, and who lived during another very cold time on Earth in Namibia, Australia, northern Russia and Newfoundland. Cold climates (and times) have certainly left us a collection of unusual creatures. Come meet them at the café!
13 Dec 2007 A/P Valerio Scarani, Centre for Quantum Technologies / National University of Singapore WEIRD IS USEFUL – The Weirdness in Quantum Cryptography ... Anyone who has interest in science knows that quantum physics is "weird". In spite of huge efforts, even by the most prominent scientists (Einstein, Schrödinger...), nobody has been able to describe quantum behaviour in terms of everyday experience. For several decades, this situation was presented in terms of limitations: "We cannot know both the position and the speed of a particle." // "We cannot measure the particle without perturbing it." // "There is some intrinsic randomness that we cannot tame." // ... Recently, some clever minds noticed that one can adopt a more optimistic outlook: given that nature is as it is, let us stop complaining, and instead, see if we can put these weird features to some use. And indeed we can: the weirdness of quantum physics can be exploited to send secret messages in a fully secure way. This has been called "quantum cryptography". First proposed in 1984, quantum cryptography is not just the object of ongoing research in academia – the first devices have been in the market for some 2 years. This cafe will discuss examples of the weirdness of quantum physics, to be followed by how the idea of quantum cryptography arose.
27 Dec 2007 Prof Naoko Tosa & Prof Ryohei Nakatsu / National University of Singapore Entertainment & Robotics ... Entertainment was once considered as a waste of time. Recently, however, entertainment came to be recognized as an essential part of our life. Although computer graphics-based characters play important roles in such entertainment as video games and animations, they lack an essential feature: physicality. As robots have physical bodies, robots applied to entertainment have a possibility of providing new types of entertainment. In this presentation, several possibilities of robotics-based entertainment will be addressed, including i.plot and Hitch Haiku.