Zam-Zam
Senator
I found this piece from Stanford to be fascinating, and not without happy implications:
Scientific discoveries often arise from noticing the unexpected. Such was the case when Stanford researchers, studying a tiny device that has become increasingly important in disease diagnostics and drug discovery, observed the surprising way it funneled thousands of water droplets into an orderly single file, squeezing them drop by drop, out the tip of the device.
Instead of occurring randomly, the droplets followed a predictable pattern. These observations led graduate student Ya Gai and Sindy K. Y. Tang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to deduce mathematical rules and understand why such rules exist. The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It all started with an effort to design tiny devices called microfluidic chips, designed to automate and expedite biomedical research. In the past, lab experiments involved using a dropper to deposit biological specimens into a test tube for observation. But microfluidic devices work much more efficiently. About the size of a postage stamp, they are made of silicone containing many thin channels through which researchers can pump tiny amounts of fluids. The devices allow researchers to place a specimen into a droplet of water surrounded by a thin film of oil. That droplet becomes the test tube. The oily film keeps each droplet and specimen separate.......
.......“While studying the flow physics of the droplets in the funnel, we observed that, contrary to our expectations, the droplets juggle past each other in a very orderly manner as they squeeze from the wide end to the narrow end of the funnel, which can fit only one drop at a time,” Tang said.
Complete text: http://news.stanford.edu/2016/10/10/order-process-previously-assumed-random/
The first implication is that where we often perceive chaos, upon closer inspection, turns out to be anything but, and is in fact a very structured and orderly process. But where does this order come from?
"Instead of occurring randomly, the droplets followed a predictable pattern". In other words, the droplets, as if directed to, form a queue. Now, when you line up for something, whether it be theater tickets or a flu shot, you do so because it's a social norm, and because your brain tells you to. When such order exists in the machines, devices and/or systems we humans create, it's by design -our design. So, the obvious question becomes, where does the intelligence behind the aligning of the droplets....... come from?
It's easy to answer that reflexively and without much thought, but this one might be worth the trip down the rabbit hole.......
Scientific discoveries often arise from noticing the unexpected. Such was the case when Stanford researchers, studying a tiny device that has become increasingly important in disease diagnostics and drug discovery, observed the surprising way it funneled thousands of water droplets into an orderly single file, squeezing them drop by drop, out the tip of the device.
Instead of occurring randomly, the droplets followed a predictable pattern. These observations led graduate student Ya Gai and Sindy K. Y. Tang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to deduce mathematical rules and understand why such rules exist. The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It all started with an effort to design tiny devices called microfluidic chips, designed to automate and expedite biomedical research. In the past, lab experiments involved using a dropper to deposit biological specimens into a test tube for observation. But microfluidic devices work much more efficiently. About the size of a postage stamp, they are made of silicone containing many thin channels through which researchers can pump tiny amounts of fluids. The devices allow researchers to place a specimen into a droplet of water surrounded by a thin film of oil. That droplet becomes the test tube. The oily film keeps each droplet and specimen separate.......
.......“While studying the flow physics of the droplets in the funnel, we observed that, contrary to our expectations, the droplets juggle past each other in a very orderly manner as they squeeze from the wide end to the narrow end of the funnel, which can fit only one drop at a time,” Tang said.
Complete text: http://news.stanford.edu/2016/10/10/order-process-previously-assumed-random/
The first implication is that where we often perceive chaos, upon closer inspection, turns out to be anything but, and is in fact a very structured and orderly process. But where does this order come from?
"Instead of occurring randomly, the droplets followed a predictable pattern". In other words, the droplets, as if directed to, form a queue. Now, when you line up for something, whether it be theater tickets or a flu shot, you do so because it's a social norm, and because your brain tells you to. When such order exists in the machines, devices and/or systems we humans create, it's by design -our design. So, the obvious question becomes, where does the intelligence behind the aligning of the droplets....... come from?
It's easy to answer that reflexively and without much thought, but this one might be worth the trip down the rabbit hole.......