Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

The three articles below are opinionated pieces about the three topics I selected for my research questions in the post below.

Sanz, Rodrigo Gomez "Central Nuclear Trillo" 10/27/2013 via flickr.com Attribution 2.0 Generic

1. Would nuclear fusion be economically viable?

• The author is John Aziz. He is the economics and business correspondent for the Week.com. Also, he is an associate editor for Pieria.co.uk. He has a twitter account at the twitter handle, @azizonomics.
• This articles audience are individuals interested in how the progress of alternative energies are being developed. In particular, the audience is interested in nuclear fusion and the economic impact it will have on our economy when it becomes a viable option to cheaper fossil fuels. I know this from the article because Aziz continually mentions the economic impact of fusion as it has now passed the ignition point in a recent experiment.
• This article was written on February 14, 2014. The author used a feature medium to present this subject that means a lot of explaining is used because the subject is brand new. The face that nuclear fusion has been a science project for over 50 years that is just becoming viable and the movement from finite resources to create energy to renewable resources prompted this article to be written. The audience has an interest in renewable resources and more particularly nuclear fusion.

2. Ocean-fertilization project off Canada sparks furore

• Jeff Tollefson is the author of this article. He worked formerly at the Congressional Quarterly and was a knight fellow in science journalism at MIT. He also won numerous rewards in New Mexico for his journalist prowess.
• This post is for individuals who want to know about Russ George's side of the story regarding his experiment to boost the ecosystem off the coast of Canada in the Haida nation. Tollefson's writing is heavily bias towards Russ George's side of the story by providing little evidence of the other side debate besides simple, extreme comments.
• This was written in a scientific journal medium so it has a link to a scholarly paper and other references. It was written on October 23, 2012. The global warming epidemic is bringing lots of attention to solutions of how to reduce carbon emissions and get rid of the current carbon dioxide build up in our atmosphere. This is what cultural movement prompted the writing of this article. The audience of this article are individuals interested Geo-engineering experiments being done in Canada in the ecosystems surrounding its coasts.

3. Are Solar Power Towers Doomed in California?

• Chris Clarke is the author. He is a reporter for KCET which is a part of KCETLink. Is currently working on a book about Joshua tree but he is also a natural history writer and environmental journalist. Chris Clarke's twitter handle is @canislatrans.
• These towers attract an audience that has an interest in alternative energies being developed to reduce industries reliance on fossil fuels. The article makes direct references to particular projects in California that are huge project fueled by tax dollars.
• The article was published on September 25, 2015 using a news article format. The authors view of the subject was shaped by the lack of follow through of solar tower projects. A movement from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the reason why this article was written. The people of California and those interested in renewable energy projects are the audiences of this article.

Edit:
Clay and Addie posts about their respective topics of discussion were interesting to read and framed for me the way to evaluate different articles. Reading through Clay's post I got a feeling of how to examine the audience more effectively. Clay did a great job looking at the context of which the article was written in and then that helped him frame who the audience is for the article. So, I will go back to look at my article and examine all the factors of the article to determine who the audience is. In Addie's post I learned how to better explain who the author is and give some more of their popular articles and other organization they may write for. Both had great posts and I learned quite a bit from them.

Developing a Research Question

These three research questions are based off the fourteen grand challenges developed by National Academy of Engineering to be completed within the next century. I have always a huge interest in all three of the topics covered by my research questions. These questions seem to be specific enough but through more research I will refine my question to reflect what my research paper is about.

Sterling College, "Sunflower Solar" 09/10/2011 via flickr.com Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

1. Is nuclear fusion still a potentially an economical way to make energy?
• Nuclear fusion has the opportunity to provide huge amounts of clean energy through the same process our sun creates heat for our planet. Finding more information about the economic feasibility of nuclear fusion will satisfy my curiosity about if the funding for fusion experiments is still flowing for this important research.
2. Are carbon dioxide sequestration methods such as iron fertilization in oceans the best way to get rid of the large build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
• Iron fertilization is a way to geoengineer the planet and without the proper research about how an increase in plankton levels will affect the environment. These questions need to be answered before this plan is pushed into action. Small, controlled experiments need to be done before more irreparable damage is done to our oceans.
3. Can solar updraft towers provide more energy using less land than traditional solar plant fields?
• Solar plants have come under extreme scrutiny in Arizona, especially last year when a large plant owned by SRP only created a fraction of its expected energy output. If solar plants with solar updraft towers can collect more solar energy and push that into the grid then potentially these towers can be constructed in under performing solar plants to boost output.

Reflection on Project 1

Writing a QRG was a difficult task because of the amount of research that had to be done and then compacted into a few pages of summaries and graphics. I enjoyed the final product. The creativity of the project was a departure from traditional essay. Being able to add images was a fun and added another level of communication to the final product! Overall, writing a QRG was difficult but fun.

Francisco, Leland "Reflection [Explored]" 07/03/2010 via flickr.org Attribution 2.0 Generic

• What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide project and how did you deal with them?
• I faced the challenge of consolidating all of my sources into palatable summaries while finding places to insert hyperlinks that makes the most sense for the reader. I dealt with them by linking once to source and then referencing the source in the following summaries. For consolidating my sources, I tried to focus on specific subject and pull from all sources to maximize the amount of information provided to the reader in a simple summary.
• What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?
• Using subheading that related to who, what, when, where, why and how about the debate really helped organize my thoughts and my summary of the QRG. By using these subheadings, I wasn't repeating myself as often and allowing myself to let the reader remember information and people from above because with these simple heading they could always refer back to that particular portion of the QRG.
• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?
• I used ethos as a rhetorical strategy to get my readers to engage in the writing because it helped draw them into a subject that isn't extremely emotional but rather distant. My subject was an argument over mathematical proofs, so drawing on my ability to describe, I made this argument have an emotional aspect to as too let the reader become attached to the scientists who created the proofs instead of the proofs.
• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?
• I found that using paragraphs to explain the timeline of debate was effective because the wall of text it left was imposing. Instead I used bullet points and bolded dates to explain the order in which events took place. This made the essay more skimmable and bogged down the reader less in walls of text.
• How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?
• Finding sources from scholarly databases was a similarity between my other writing assignments in high school. While I have never written about math or physics in an English paper I have used JSTOR to find scholarly articles about the subject I am writing about.
• How was the writing process for this project different from other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?
• All of my papers in grade school were essays with the basic introduction, body paragraph and conclusion. The QRG was a multimedia, summary of ten different sources that was meant to educate an ignorant individual about an extremely complex subject. Not only educate the reader but provide your own opinion about the subject through subtle language selections and provide the reader with both sides of the subject with little bias. This was a very involved writing assignment and its use of graphics was the greatest difference from my other writing experiences.
• Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?
• Since I am majoring in mechanical engineering, writing does not have a heavy emphasis in our class schedules but professors still expect coherence in lab reports. So, having the opportunity to practice writing and be graded on my writing lets me know where I need to improve. Also, my use of blogger and google docs has allowed me to learn about these two programs and will allow me to collaborate easier with groups as I move through college. 

Edit:
I commented on Mark and Scott's blog posts. After reading Scott's reflection, I realized taking a more analytical approach to my QRG might be a better path to writing a paper about a subject by summarizing and tying together a bunch of different sources. Scott also brought up that he struggled getting all the little assignments done throughout the week so he wasn't cramming it all in on Saturday and I am going to try to do a better job of spacing out the assignments across the week throughout project 2.  My reflection was very similar to Mark's especially when it came to compromising explanation for brevity in the QRG. Each subheading of mine had so much information that explaining it all would compromise the most essential convention of a QRG which is brevity. Using graphics and hyperlinks, I maintained brevity through my QRG just like Mark did.

Identifying Basic Grammar Patterns

While I was completing this blog post I stumbled across a few underdeveloped parts of my writing. To begin, I don't vary my sentence purposes enough to provide a variety in tone throughout the paper. As well, if I have different sentence structures like switching between simple, compound and compound-complex sentences will also allow the text to be a little more digestible for the reader. Finally, my use of conjunctions has been pretty similar so using new conjunctions to connect dependent clauses and even two independent clauses. The use of correlative conjunctions can really add some variety to how I connect independent clauses.

Raymond, Nicholas "Under Construction Grunge Sign" 04/19/2012 via flickr.com Attribution 2.0 Generic

Here is link to my paragraph.

Clarity, Part 2

This second four clarity topics that I need to work on in my writing to become a clearer writer. Expressing my ideas in writing and expressing those ideas with a clear words is what makes a great writer. Finally, these particular four sections especially active verbs are some the things I struggle with the most because my words become passive instead of engaging.

Hochman, Dean "japanese garden" 08/14/2014 via flickr.com Attribution 2.0 Generic

Active Verbs- Active verbs create engaging writing. While reading through my QRG I noticed that my writing uses a lot of passive verbs to tell instead of show the reader what is happening. Here is an example of using a be verb in my paper, "Dr. Frank Wilczek presented his mathematical proof to his peers at Physical Review Letters he was met with disbelief". The first part of the sentence contains the action verb presented but in the dependent clause the verb was is used before met as a modifier and that verb becomes a be verb. A couple lines down, an action verb is used, "Dr. Bruno, disagreed with Dr. Wilczek and created his own proof to disprove Dr. Wilczek's". Disagreed is the action in the sentence and the verb is not being modified by another verb meaning it is an active verb. These types of sentences engage the reader more than using modifiers like was or were.

Parallel Ideas- Parallel structure in sentences and across paragraphs is important to keep the reader focused on that paragraph or sentence's point. A switch in verb tense, or not using parallel structure when listing actions can throw the reader for a loop. In my paper is was apparent that I would not maintain parallel structure in lists like this, "Quantum time crystals do not lose energy because their transcendence of time allows them to keep their energy and move without a loss of energy". The use of parallel structure between the verbs to keep and to move adds more flow to the sentence. A good use of parallel structure in my paper was in the paragraph below the subheading When did this happen, "Both papers and comments were published". Notice in the subject that both of the nouns are in the plural after the preposition mentions both. This similarity makes the paper look uniform, more complete and polished which is what clarity will do to a paper.

Shifts- Shifts in verb tense, voice or point of view is the most annoying and confusing mistake a writer can make because it throws into question the entire sentence's point. An unintentional verb tense change will also confuse the reader about when this took place, "another fellow, Dr. Patrick Bruno, would write his own paper to prove Dr. Frank Wilczek's theorem wrong". The use of would write confuses the tense of the sentence. Would implies some sort of condition, that Dr. Bruno wrote this paper on some condition being fulfilled. Instead to clarify this sentence, would should be dropped and write replaced with wrote to simplify the writing. A good sentence in my paper that shows how to write a sentence without unnecessary shifts in tense is, "Dr. Frank Wilczek presented his mathematical proof to his peers at Physical Review Letters he was met with disbelief". This sentence explains an event that happened in the past and both verbs in independent clause and dependent clause use verbs in the past tense. This is the example I use in my paper to ensure all of my sentences have no verbs tense shifts.

Exact Words- Using exact words to describe how an event made a person feel is a task that becomes difficult when traditional words don't fit the bill. In my draft, the use of words that didn't quite fit the context of the sentence were abundant and forcing myself to find different words to replace them with expanded my vocabulary and allowed my writing to be, again, understood clearly. Here are my two worst mistakes, "While many fellows" and "a new machine". The use of fellows so many times in my paper without proper explanation makes it hard to know what a fellow is and a fellow for what. Instead, substituting fellow for peer editor or colleague gives the reader more context about the context. Next, the use of machine to describe a time crystal is a metaphorical device more than a truthful comparison. By using a different word or explaining to the reader that a time crystal not actually a machine but a subatomic structure is way to give the reader more information.

Project 1

Nothing is Crystal Clear about Time Crystals 

moonstar909 "Horsehead Nebula bokeh enhance" 06/23/2009 via flickr.com Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Generic

    Time Crystals are tiny time transcending particles that may be the next frontier in theoretical physics. When esteemed physicist, Dr. Frank Wilczek, presented his mathematical proof that solidifies the existence of time crystals to his peers at Physical Review Letters he was met with disbelief. This proof went against all conventional knowledge of physics because it verified that time crystals were real and moreover that these crystals are perpetual motion machines. But one physicist, Dr. Bruno, disagreed and created his own mathematical proof in rebuttal. This began the debate over the validity of time crystals. Eventually their existence will be either proved or disproved through experiments done by a University of California, Berkeley team of researchers headed by Xiang Zhang and Tongcang Li.

What are Time Crystals?

What crystals look like in the spatial dimensions. włodi, "Rock salt crystals" 09/24/2004 via flickr.com Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Generic

          Before we look at time crystals, let’s first examine what a crystal is. Crystals are structures that are composed of minute, geometric shapes that are similar.  When enough of these shapes combine under extreme pressures, they create a structure that becomes a crystal. As these crystals are created, their shapes are part of a system; each system is called a long range order.  The long range order that makes up a crystal is the same system that makes up the theorized time crystal.

A time crystal is a theorized structure that is based off of the same system that creates a crystal. Crystals as we know, exist in the three spatial dimensions: width, length, and height.  On the other hand, time crystals exist in those dimensions as well as a theorized fourth dimension which is time.  Using Dr. Wilczek’s theorem, these time crystals are simple machines; they rotate and spin, but they do so in their lowest energy state. This means that time crystals are moving without losing energy (phys.org) 

How time is represented in dimensional form. Hise, Jason "Cliford-torus" 02/06/2011 via wikimedia.org CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

 Their manipulation of the fourth dimension allows time crystals to transcend time, and inhabit holes where time does not affect them.  For this reason, time crystals will never have to replace the energy lost from friction, air resistance, or gravity because their initial energy is never depleted.  Essentially, a time crystal, is a perpetual motion machine; a machine that never needs energy and could possibly provide infinite amounts of energy.

Find out a bit more about the fourth dimension here.

Who is Involved in the Debate? 

There are two sides of the debate about whether or not time crystals exist.  Attempting to prove the tangibility of time crystals is Dr. Frank Wilczek.  He created the theorem which proves the existence of time crystals. Dr. Wilczek is a professor of physics at MIT and a 2004 Nobel Laureate. Find out more about Dr. Wilczek here.

Zirkel, Kenneth C. "Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek 2007" 04/12/2007 via wikimedia.org Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Also trying to prove the tangibility of time crystals is a team of researchers from University of California, Berkeley.  The team leaders Xiang Zhang and Tongcang Li. These scientists are attempting to create the conditions by using an ion trap in which they can produce a time crystal (nature.com). Xiang Zhang is a professor of mechanical engineering at the university, as well as a material sciences division director at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Tongcang Li earned a Ph.D. from the University of Texas in Austin.  He is currently an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Purdue University. 

McMillin, Michael. "Screenshot of KBentley57" 09/25/15 via blogger.com

Above is the commentator KBentley57 from science.slashdot.org. KBentley57 is one of the few online social media persons to take an interest in this topic when it first came about in 2012. Although, this commentator could not be found on any other social media, or provided any other personal information beyond its username, it is obvious the KBentley57 takes. KBentley 57 is all for the research of time crystals and their possible perpetual motion is very exciting for this commentator.

And on the other side of the debate is Dr. Patrick Bruno, who disagreed with Dr. Wilczek over the validity of time crystals. In response he wrote his own paper titled Impossibility of Spontaneously Rotating Time Crystals: A No-Go Theorem which disproves the existence of time crystals. Dr. Bruno is Head of Theory Group, Experiment Division at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. Find out more about Dr. Bruno here.

Haruki Watanabe and Masaki Oshikawa published a paper titled, The Absence of Quantum Time Crystals, in July of 2015 that provided a new definition of time crystals and disproved their existence.  Masaki Oshikawa is a professor in the division of Condensed Matter Theory Institution of Solid State Physics at the University of Tokyo. He has a Ph.D. in Physics. Haruki Watanabe is a Pappalardo fellow at MIT and received his doctorate in Physics at UC Berkley in 2015. 

"Watanabe Haruki" http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/pappalardo/watanabe_haruki.html

Gordon Bonnet is a science fiction writer who wrote a blog post about time crystals in 2013. Nothing can be found on the internet or on his blog about Bonnet's education. Bonnet's position on the debate is that he is against the existence of time crystals because he doesn’t want time crystals to become the center of any ridiculous religious beliefs.

When Did This Happen?

• 2010: Dr. Wilczek gets the idea for quantum time crystals while preparing for class. “I was thinking about the classification of crystals, and then it just occurred to me that it’s natural to think about space and time together,” he said. “So if you think about crystals in space, it’s very natural also to think about the classification of crystalline behavior in time” (quantamagazine.org).

• March 2012: Dr. Wilczek submits his paper, Quantum Time Crystals, to Physical Review Letters for peer review.

• October 15, 2012: Dr. Wilczek’s paper is published. Also, Dr.Patrick Bruno’s comment about the impossibility of time crystals on Dr. Wilczek’s paper is received.

• January 7, 2013: Dr. Wilczek replies to the comment with his own comment.

• March 11, 2013: Both comments are published in the Physical Review Letters. (Find those Dr. Wilczek's comment here and Dr. Bruno's here)

• June 2013: A UC Berkley begins experimenting with an iron trap, hoping to create the conditions for a time crystal to be produced.

• August 14, 2013: Dr. Bruno’s paper is published, Impossibility of Spontaneously Rotating Time Crystals: A No-Go Theorem.

• August 27, 2013: Dr. Wilczek’s paper, Super Fluidity and Space-Time Translation Symmetry Breaking, is published Physical Review Letters and is a response to Dr. Bruno’s theorem.

• June 24, 2015: Haruki Watanabe and Masaki Oshikawa publish their paper, Absence of Quantum Time Crystals, in Physical Review Letters which provided proof of the impossibility of time crystals.

Why is this Important?

A visual representation of what time crystals look like. T. Li et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2012) https://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/116

Time crystals are a system of particles that is an incredible breach on modern physics. Time crystals if proven to exist could be the definitive evidence of a new dimension beyond the ones that effect the physical universe. The laws of modern physics would change drastically because these laws only account for the physical universe which may be a small fraction of what the universe can offer. Next, the existence of time crystals opens up the possibility for the existence of a perpetual motion machine.  This type machine is impossible under the current laws of physics which would again force modern physics to expand its laws to account for the new sectors of the universe. Finally, this research into subatomic systems is providing the necessary theoretical research for developers to use in the next generation of technology.  Constant research and trying to push the boundaries is necessary for science to move forward. Whether or not time crystals are proven to exist, the data will still be valuable for physicists because it provides more evidence for either the laws of thermodynamics or the existence of a fourth dimension.  

What’s the Future Hold for the Debate?

The future of time crystals has been squashed. The Haruki Watanabe and Masaki Oshikawa adapted the definition of time crystals to be possible and then created a No-Go theorem that proved the definition to be invalid. Because the definition was proved invalid, there is no evidence that time crystals exist. Recently, at UC Berkley, an iron trap was developed in the hopes of possibly studying time crystals. Early experiments at Berkley failed to produce evidence proving the existence of time crystals.  In the future, researchers hope to use this new ion field to produce the evidence necessary that time crystals do, in fact, exist (research.physics.berkeley.edu). 

The new ion trap desgin being used by researchers at UC Berkeley "Ions in Sombero Potential" http://research.physics.berkeley.edu/haeffner/research/ring-trap/ring-trap.html

In conclusion, time crystals are still a highly theoretical system. The idea of a long range order existing in the fourth dimension is a 21^st century idea. A time crystal has never been thought of or discovered. And like alien life, it may never be discovered. In retrospect, little is known about the universe but physicists like Dr. Wilczek, Dr. Bruno, and the countless other researchers that worked on this subject are pushing the boundaries of our knowledge about the universe to its limits. Time crystals are worth being researched and theorized about because they potentially hold the key to understanding the fourth dimension, while providing the opportunity to discover brand new landscapes that were once invisible to us.