Ask a Scholar
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2 comments - Last on 08/03/2010
Ask a Scholar: What Caused the Oil Spill?
Dear Ask a Scholar,
What precipitated the entire event was a fire that consumed the oil rig and melted it. The fire killed all 11 workers as it was unsurvivable (we call it "flashover": no living thing can survive it). The entire rig was engulfed in flames, the smoke plume could be seen from outer space. When it operates correctly, the rig stays in its place on the water surface through the coordinated action of numerous motor-driven propellers which are in turn controlled by on-board computer and GPS systems. Think of a large houseboat with several outboard motors attached so it can easily move this way and that. Well, the fire destroyed that intricate motion system so the rig just started to drift and then tore off its connection (at the ocean's floor). After that, we had the open well and the spill.* * *
What is "Ask a Scholar"?
Once upon a time, scholars were among the best sources of odd bits of knowledge. If you wanted to know which species of bees are native to Newfoundland, how many vice presidential candidates wore glasses, or whether Gilgamesh had a first name, you might well find an answer from a scholar who had a Xerxes-like command of a multitudinous army of facts.
Alas, Xerxes’ army came to grief and so did the idea of the professor as keeper of the archive of not-quite-lost knowledge. Today we have Google. And within the vast universe of Google, we have the endless corridors of Wikipedia. True, some of those corridors are blind alleys, but with a little patience, you can usually find what you need on the Internet and avoid having to move from your chair or speak to a person. Whether it is the Internet Movie Data Base or North American Bird Sounds, almost every domain of knowledge has its own easily-accessed reference tools.
As a source of esoteric facts, the role of scholars has eroded. Fortunately, we still have questions that call for confidently rendered and dressed up opinions. “Ask a Scholar” matches readers’ questions to scholars who either have the answers or interesting ways of obscuring their ignorance. We invite readers to submit questions. Click on the link to send us an email, or you may submit questions via Intellectual Takeout's Ask the Professor feature.
Questions submitted for consideration should call more for educated judgment than for facts that can be found easily with an internet search. We especially welcome questions that provide professors the occasion to draw erudite distinctions and incorporate mention of matters you had no idea were connected to the topic at hand.
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Dr. Wickman in citing causes lists: "admission standards, curriculum, grading and professional excellence". He attributes their decline to "over-simplification of the educational challenges on both the political left and the political right". We are aquainted, through this blog, with these declines and, because of the nature of the academy, are attributable to the academic political left. Dr. Wickman is obviously knowledgeable on this subject, so could he, or anyone, describe the culpability of the political right.
by gseaver Posted on 08/03/2010
See also "In Oil Spill, University Scientists' Expertise Was Dumped" in the Chronicle today.
by Ashley Thorne Posted on 08/04/2010