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Science File Information:
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In this episode, Special Agent Dana Scully is assigned to work with Special
Agent Fox Mulder who works in the basement of the FBI building, investigating
unexplained, unsolved cases. Scully is tasked to test the validity of Mulder's
farfetched theories. To support their claims and solve the first case placed
before them, both agents do their best to follow the scientific method: they make
hypotheses, bolster these hypotheses with observations and experiments (and hard
evidence), and then draw their conclusions. Even when all of their evidence is
consumed by arson, Mulder encourages Scully to gather soil samples a second time
just to make the support for their theories concrete. Sort of fitting, I think,
that the first entry in the files of the science behind the X-Files is... the
scientific method.
For a nice interactive introduction to the
scientific method, check out a clever primer from the biology department of Clermont College,
University of Cincinnati, located at
http://BugLady.clc.uc.edu/biology/bio104/sci_meth.htm.
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The two agents are driving down a woodside road in the curious town of
Miller's Grove when their car loses power and their eyes are assaulted by a blinding
light. Looking at his watch, Mulder finds that they have "lost time"--nine minutes
seem to have just...disappeared. Scully contests Mulder's observations, saying that
time is a "universal invariant." WRONG!!!! For someone who wrote
a thesis on Einstein's twin paradox, Scully should know that the laws of physics are
against her. The speed of light is agreed upon as a universal invariant, but
following Einstein's rules of relativity, time and space can dilate and contract
respectively from the perspectives of certain inertial reference points. What does
this mean? Maybe Scully should read up on the following links....
For a treatise on the nature of time itself, read an article by "Matty" Nematollahi of the
University of California, Santa Cruz, at
http://natsci.ucsc.edu/scicom/SciNotes/9402/Time.html.
For an interesting introduction to Einstein's theories, as provided by the PBS television show
NOVA, look at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/nova/einstein/.
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After many freakish experiences on her first case with Mulder in
Miller's Grove, Scully thinks that she too may be exhibiting the strange
swollen red markings that have distinguished all of the victims in the
town thus far. Mulder inspects the bumps on Scully's back, only to find
that they are actually mosquito bites. Mosquitos bites redden and swell
up due to the body's allergic reaction to the saliva that mosquitos use to
make the blood they drink flow more freely into their stomachs.
For a cool resource on the amazing mosquito, see what
The Why Files discovered in their research at
http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/016skeeter/.
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