Fun with Liquid Nitrogen

Dr. Mike Moeller opened our class with a demonstration of using liquid nitrogen to freeze and reanimate flesh. He put a laytex glove on, and then added one more glove over that for good measure. He then put his index finger in the liquid nitrogen. When it was good an frozen, he proceeded to take a hammer to his finger to reanimate it. Chips of things came flying off of his hand and soon after my class was done freaking out, Dr. Moeller explained to us that the trick of this experiment is to freeze a hot dog and not your finger.

Which brings me to the point of this blog... Values in science. Most speakers come to our class and use morals and values interchangably, but science is where this would be inaccurate. Morals are chosen by an individual, but scientific values are universal. Science values facts. Science values precision, accuracy, testability, controlled and unbiased observation, peer review, repeatability and statistical analysis. Science values confirmation of predictions and simplicity in explainations.

At first thought, simplicity in explainations as a scientific value sounds very incorrect. Science is hard and there's nothing simple about it. For example, during my last biology class, my professor explained Photosynthesis.

The redox reactions among Q2, pheophytin, plastoquinone, cytochrome, plastocyanin, ferredoxin, and flavoprotein in Photosystems of Photo Phosphorylation Non-Cyclic and Cyclic Light reactions of Photosynthesis allows for an electron to move to make ADP into ATP (whichis known as phosphorylation) and NADPH, which are then used in the Dark Cycle to produce C6H12O6 aka Glucose.

And that was only the first 5 minutes of class. It's just not a simple explaination. But the simplicity in science is the repeatability of statistics. Simplicity is Occam's Razor, the rule that if there is one explaination in science that can equally satisfy a set of observations, scientists tenatively adopt the simplest explanation. This long explaination is better than saying some magical photosynthesis fairies make the plants grow. The simplicity of science is the use of logic to prove an explaination. Simplicity is unbiased, repeated observation that can be used in the future to discover new scientific breakthroughs. Simplicity is this proven pathway in Photosynthesis. Simplicity is freezing a hot dog in liquid nitrogen and not your actual finger. Simplicity is science and what it proves in our daily lives.