Science Club Open Mic Night

                    A Night at the Open Mic

For the November assignment of our semester-long extra credit, I decided to attend the very first Science Club Open Mic night. Held at the Green Bean in downtown, the evening was split into three presentations. The three topics, each of which was presented by an open mic performer, were statistics, randomness, and music. While none of these having to do much with organic chemistry, they still were semi-interesting presentations.

      The statistics presentation was based on the seemingly intractable problem of wage discrepancies between men and women. In her argument, the presenter focused on the use of stats to make the claim about salary inequality. The presenter discussed the need for proper data collection and the need for very large samples to make effective claims about the overall pervasiveness of wage inequality. In addition, the presenter also focused on the idea of causality. The presenter wanted to make it clear that while a large amount of data could show a high rate of gender income discrepancy, the data would not be conclusive about the causality of the inequality. 

      With the performer who focused on randomness, there was an emphasis on the idea that for something to be random, the process must be performed "infinitely often." In her presentation, this open mic performer focused on different processes that while seemingly random, could be practiced. Looking at things like flipping a coin, roullette tables, and online poker, the presenter discussed Persi Diaconis and the idea of deterministic physics. According to the presenter, the idea here is that while things like flipping a coin can have a bias towards landing on one side vs. another, proper technique can be learned in order to bring about a desired outcome. Thus with deterministic physics, seemingly random events can be manipulated to bring about a desired outcome.
      The final performer of the evening, while perhaps the most interesting of the three, was the most difficult to follow. Having a thick though intelligible French accent, this performer's computer and speakers did not work during the presentation and the music he shared with us was listened to at a less than desirable volume. Technical issues aside, the emphasis of this presentation was on music and the idea of randomness. Looking at the musical works of individuals like Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, this performer emphasized the ongoing debate within music between determination and unpredictability. He went on to emphasie the random music produced by Duchamp. However, with the failure of the music devices, the presentation was cut short. In the end the open mic night was an interesting and novel approach to science, however I wish there had been a greater emphasis on the chemical sciences.