Presentations

This semester I have had to present quite a few presentations. I would call them PowerPoint presentations but I didn't do them with PowerPoint (I used Google slides), but I don't know what else to call them (like a Kleenex).
I find it interesting that my process in making a presentation is a little different then how I would write a paper, although some of my teachers talk about it like it is the same thing.
The main differences are that for presentations I try to think of how to portray my ideas in images or in as few words as possible. Images are tricky though because you can get images of almost anything on the internet but that doesn't mean it is legal to use it.
Sometimes I think I get distracted by trying to make things pretty or I should say, visibly appealing. Especially because I think some of my teachers could care less about the slides and grade it all on your presentation skills. Which brings up another point. Through several experiences this semester I have realized that I do much better at speaking in front of people when I don't have to memorize the words, and I can just talk. Finally, I often feel awkward doing PowerPoint presentations because I hate reading my slides for the audience. They can read it themselves! but yet I have to say something. I find it hard to balance between talking about the slides and letting my audience read them. Perhaps that is why I prefer the slides that have pictures because then I can just explain the pictures.

This was my opening slide. I made the explosions.

This slide went with the previous presentation. I made the little sparks. I used them throughout the presentation.

This was the one slide I could use for my 3 Minute Thesis. I tweaked it for the final version and included references, but I did make the diagram in the bottom right.

I just put some transparency on the background for this one. But I think it makes it less boring.

This one I made with inkscape (vectors are cool!) to illustrate the process.

This is from a presentation on coal. I made the diagram, but I liked the comparison between the two columns as well.

This was also from my coal presentation. I basically remade a chart from an article I made using some of the terms that we used in my class instead of using the terms that were used in the article. 

Just so you know, these are the funner slides from my presentations. Most of them are just boring lists. I have to admit, when I watch other people present I judge their blurry pictures, and the ones where they don't reference where they got the image.

Super Scientists Unite

For one of my classes I had to write a paper answering some questions based on an article we read.
This is the information of the article I had to read:
England, P., 2007, John Perry's neglected critique of Kelvin's age for the Earth: A missed opportunity in geodynamics: Geological Society of America Today, v. 17, no.1, p. 4-9.

This is a slightly shortened version of my paper:

The age of the earth has been a controversial issue ever since people started guessing or calculating it. At times this has been a religious controversy but at other times it was a controversy between scientific disciplines. This was the case during the late 1800s. Lord Kelvin was an esteemed physicist even being called “the highest authority in science now living” by his contemporary, Mark Twain. Unfortunately, however he was not a geologist. Thus, when he and his associate, John Perry, came up with an age that was far too short from a geological perspective, they were widely criticized or ignored. Ultimately, this stunted geologic theory well into the 20^th century.

In order to calculate the age of the earth Lord Kelvin used a simplified model of the earth. He based his model and calculations on three assumptions: (1) energy is conserved (2) the interior of the earth is a homogenous solid, and (3) all heat sources for the planet were known. Unfortunately, the second and third assumptions were inaccurate. The interior of the earth is neither homogenous nor does it act like a solid. Also, there was another important source of heat that was unknown at that time. Although John Perry did not have all the answers he suspected that the assumptions made by his former mentor were incorrect, not his math. Surprisingly enough, it was not these assumptions that Lord Kelvin was criticized for. Instead, it was his simplified model and calculations that were attacked by geologists and others. Geologists believed that the earth and uniformitarian processes were far too complex to be accounted for by a model. Physicists, after all, are known for simplifying problems. According to Kelvin one geologist, Andrew Ramsey, even said that the two of them might as well agree to disagree because each of their fields was far too complex for the other to understand. If however, these two highly intelligent men would have been willing to try to share their specific knowledge, then perhaps in their collaboration they would have learned the strengths in each others arguments and the weaknesses in their own. Unfortunately this did not occur.

Coming from a background of two disciplines myself, I am often surprised and disturbed at the lack of communication and respect between disciplines, sometimes even similar scientific disciplines. Too often different disciplines apparently relearn the same material, sometimes even coining new words that mean the same thing, or using the same word to mean the opposite thing. This makes communication almost impossible. There should be more of a focus on cross-disciplinary teams who can look at the same problem from different perspectives. Then, when there is a problem like Lord Kelvin's impossibly short age of the earth the true inconsistencies and failures can be found instead of just believing that because the science came from another discipline it must have been done in ignorance.