Tag: It’s a Science Thing

Peirce’s phenomenological grounding of Science and Matters therein

Presenter(s): Timothy Schatz—Philosophy, Math

Faculty Mentor(s): Scott Pratt, Erin McKenna

Session 1: It’s a Science Thing

Any survey of C .S . Peirce’s philosophy will reveal a vast but shattered continent . Hence, any reader who ventures beyond a single text will have to ask themselves how they are to regard the relation of these texts . I am aligned with the unitary interpretation, espoused by the late Dr . Joseph M . Ransdell, and so affirm the Peircean system as essentially phenomenological . The divisions of science, or systems of science, maintains three divisions: mathematics, philosophy, and special science . Phenomenology finds its home in philosophy, and it is here where knowing first encounters being . As such, following Peirce’s underlying gestures towards positive philosophy, post-Kantian empiricism, realism, and christen mysticism, phenomenology naturally arises as ground and loci of his philosophy, insofar as it places the subject in a living world . In the first division of this work, the general system of phenomenological reflection reveals a form of knowing which is inherently human in which beings are known as a world and not disparate things . This reflection is threefold in which reflection folds back onto itself to reveal the triadic structure of Being . Thus the second division shall take up the triadic structure, the categories, in phenomenological detail qua their expression in being . Lastly, this paper culminates in the general architecture of phenomenology, which serves as the ground for Peirce’s Weltanschauung, that is, his conception of the cosmos .

The Atomistic Reconstruction of Coarse-Grained Polymeric Systems via Machine Learning Techniques

Presenter(s): Jake Olsen—Chemistry and Mathematics

Faculty Mentor(s): Marina Guenza, Jake Searcy

Session 1: It’s a Science Thing

Polymeric systems, things like proteins, DNA, and synthetic plastics, are of great interest for their applications in material design and the biomedical industry . Therefore, having time-efficient and inexpensive approaches to investigate these systems on multiple scales, from the microscopic to the macroscopic level, is of great importance and necessity . Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are one such tool for investigating these systems; however, MD simulations that simulate polymer systems in their atomistic (AT) representation are unable to reach the time scale necessary so that the system exhibits the correct chain characteristics . Thus, coarse-graining (CG) methods, a process by which the local degrees of freedom are averaged out, are applied to improve upon computational time . Unfortunately, the computational gain is coupled with the loss of statistical information from the CG process . Therefore, to regain the lost AT information the CG trajectories need to be transformed back to an AT representation . This process is known as backmapping . Utilizing state- of-the-art machine learning techniques coupled with AT data, we have developed a backmapping procedure for CG polymeric systems . The model, centered around a recurrent neural network (RNN), shows strong agreement with the AT data across many statistical quantities prompting further investigation and development of the model .

Time-SPIDER: Characterizing the Electric Field of Pulsed LASERs

Presenter(s): Jeremy Guenza-Marcus—Physics and Math

Faculty Mentor(s): Brian Smith

Session 1: It’s a Science Thing

Quantifying precise measurements is critical in any field . Our research focuses on advancing quantum optical methods in the study of metrology . SPIDER is an interferometric approach to characterizing (mathematically describing) ultrashort laser pulses in the frequency domain . Our research aims to develop a sister method to the accepted SPIDER approach, dubbed Time-SPIDER . Its purpose is to use the same approach as SPIDER, but rather in the temporal domain . The procedure is to first develop the theoretical framework, and then set up the experiment . At the moment, our work approaches the issue from a purely theoretical perspective . We find that the Time-SPIDER method is useful as a direct measurement technique for non-ultrashort pulses . Many industry-standard interferometers require an iterative approach to pulse characterization, which may not be well- calibrated if the pulse is not ultrashort . Time-SPIDER solves both of these issues . If we are able to move past the theory and create a working Time-SPIDER, it would be possible to continue with other projects in the lab that may require such set-up . In the grand scheme, Time-SPIDER is a step towards continuing the study of metrology, along with quantum optics itself .