4A - Thursday, November 14, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4A - Thursday, November14, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom loe Michigan 43allm Why we feel cold Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com MELANIE KRUVELIS and ADRIENNE ROBERTS MATT SLOVIN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR ANDREW WEINER EDITOR IN CHIEF Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. F RO0M T HE D AILY Interdisciplinary innovation One-credit mini-courses give students exposure to real-world issues The College of LSA, in partnership with student organization opti- Mize, has proposed a new model to boost student-driven creative innovation called the LSA Social Innovation Alliance. The pro- gram proposes to support one-credit developmental mini-courses, an annual Social Innovation Challenge, Summer Innovation Grants and the creation of a 15-month SIA fellowship. Currently, LSA is seeking finan- cial support of $4 million to endow the SIA program and about $200,000 annually. Given the positive response and demand from both the admin- istration and the student population, the University should make this program a priority and reach out to donors. round this time of the year, a single question preoccupies the minds of many people: Why is it so cold? Unfortunately, while many people ask this question out of either pragmatic concern or faux existential grief, many also fail to see how pro- BARRY found just such a BELMONT question is. This is due in part, I imagine, to their misunderstanding of how the whole process of "feeling cold" works. When pressed for an answer for "why winters are cold," many people often hem and haw about the earth being farther away from the sun in the "winter," thus receiving less light and becoming colder. This is wrong. This line of thinking exposes a bit of northern hemisphere bias, since the southern hemisphere experi- ences summer while we have win- ter. If we consider that the variation in the orbital distance between the earth and the sun is approximately 3,110,000 miles-whichisnearly800 times greater than the radius of the' earth - we can see that all regions of the earth are affected pretty much equally by this variation. Therefore, it's notthe cause of seasonal changes. However, that seasons are hemi- sphere dependent suggests an answer, namely that the tilt of the earth is the reason for the seasons. And this is true as far as it goes. Since the tilt of the earth remains constant during the northern hemisphere's winter, the northern hemisphere points away from the sun. This angle causes the sun to be lower in the sky, heats the ground less efficiently and shortens the days to bring on the cold. But the "tilt of the earth" answer always seemed a bit shallow to me, as it fails to answer the more interesting question: Why do we feel cold? And as with most "why"-based questions, there are both proximate and ultimate answers. The proximate, or most direct, answer is that we don't feel cold. In fact, human beings and other ani- mals do not feel temperature at all. What we actually sense is the flow of heat caused by temperature differ- ences. We feel "heat transfer." This is not a trivial distinction. Everything in a heated oven is at the same tem- perature, but a cake pan will hurt more to touch than the surrounding air because the heat transfer from the pan is rapid and intense, while that from the air is slow and inef- ficient. Heat transfer is the answer to more questions than many could have hoped to ask, and it tells us why we feel cold. In general, there are three main types of heat transfer. The first, and most intuitive, is known as conduc- tion. Conductiveheat transfer occurs when two objects of different tem- peratures physically contact one another. Heat energy from the object with the higher temperature will flow into the colder object until the two are at equilibrium. This happens when two people hold hands or when a significant other asks to have their cold feet warmed up. The second type of heat transfer is known as convection and is essen- tially the same process as conduc- tion, except instead of two solids interfacing, one solid interfaces with a fluid - either a liquid or a gas. Fans feel good in the summerbecause they push air across our skin and wick away heat - in conjunction with evaporation, another type of heat transfer - and why they would feel so bad to us in the winter. Conduction and convection are the primary causes of the answer to why we feel cold. These are the two modes that have shaped our physiol- ogy and guided our evolution. They are why the ears of rabbits are long, why noses getcold to insure that the rest of the body remains warm, and why the genitalia of human males are kept outside of their torsos. The forces of evolution are mindful of thermodynamics, if for no other reason than that it is the law. We feel warmth and coldness because there is a higher evolutionary pres- sure to determine differences in temperature rather than absolute temperatures to ensure survival. Perhaps the least intuitive but most important of the three modes ofheattransfer is radiation, the pro- cess by which energy is transferred in the form of electromagnetic waves. While conduction and con- vection require a physical medium to move heat about, all things, at all times, are taking in and giving off this radiative energy, with "hot- ter" objects giving off more radia- tion than they take in and "colder" objects taking in more radiation than they give off. This is the reason we can feel the sun's warmth at all. If we consider this fact, we can come to our revelation: we feel cold because space is cold. When you step outside in the morning on those winter days, you are feeling outer space suck away your heat. Every chill, every shiver, every breath hanging in the air is directly attributable to the cosmos's cold, unfeeling nature. With an aver- age temperature of approximately -450 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly -270 Celsius), space does not seem particularly suited for the lives we enjoy. Coldness is the rule, not the exception. In fact, instead of asking our- selves why it gets so cold, maybe we should ask, "why does it ever get warm?" - Barry Belmont can be reached at belmont@umich.edu. 0 6 6 The main opportunity SIA presents is. the creation of new one-credit mini-courses that will focus on critical, real-world issues, like education. A one-credit mini-course launched this academic year by LSA. With a low-barrier to entry, the courses are an appealing option for students with all types of course loads. This new section filled up extremely fast with a waitlist of seven people and attracted a diverse group of students. The demographics of the optiMize Social Innovation Challenge last year included 50 percent LSA students, 28 percent Business School students and 22 percent of students distributed between other colleges. The courses push students to devise prac- tical, real-world solutions. The "Critical Issues in Education" mini-course description states that it aims to expose students to sev- eral of the most pressing facets of a particular social issue through presentations by guest speakers. The speakers end their presenta- tions with a challenge for the students to design creative solutions to these problems. Students will also have to work with oth- ers within different majors and skill sets, as well as apply their own experiences to create innovative interdisciplinary solutions. Aside from allowing students to network with other similar-minded, passionate stu- dents of different majors, the course also provides students with business networking opportunities with the speakers, who come from various walks of life. However, the program will need to draw on more outside resources - like local non-profits - to fur- ther expand and develop. As social innovation increases by the hour, this is a program that requires further develop- ment and expansion. In a campus where words like "pitches," "entrepreneurship" and "start- ups" are thrown around in the air frequently, it's necessary to also focus on the passion, drive, and motivation behind entrepreneurship. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, James Brennan, Eric Ferguson, Jordyn Kay, Jesse Klein, Melanie Kruvelis, Maura Levine, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Adrienne Roberts, Paul Sherman, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe KAAN AVDANI IWONT LE TTER TO THE EDITOR Focus on men's mental health in 'Movember' TO THE DAILY: This month of November, we in Counseling and Psychological Ser- vices are promoting "Movember" - a month focused on, and dedicated to, men's mental health, and health and wellness in general, as a complement to our work with students the other 11 months of the year. Men have a higher likelihood of dying by suicide and engaging in sub- stance abuse. One in six are survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Simul- taneously, men underutilize mental health services, gravitate toward "toughing" it out in private, and find it easier to not ask for help. Men's health affects all of us regardless of our gender. We all have men in our lives that we care about. The stigma around accessing services has impacted many of us personally and professionally, and it's time to cre- ateachange. I urge all of us to create a caring community and to do something to helpsupportthis focusonmen'shealth and to make it easier for men to ask for help. Attend one of Movember events, take time to educate ourselves, create timetotalkwitheachother,keepiden- tifying ways to be healthy, and more importantly, to lay the foundation for thefuture - ourfuture. Most of all, I invite and urge us to make men's mental health real in a meaningful and personal way. I know it's hard - I've been there - it's easy to think these things won'thappento me ortoanyone Icare about. But,thereal- ity is that a health issue can happen to all of us and/or to someone we care about - I've beenthere, too. Thinking back personally, I wish someone had talked about men's health when I was in college. That's how I make this real for me and Iinvite allofus ta-ake this real and personal. Join us on the Diag on Nov. 14 from 12-2 p.m. to learn more. And, join us in this effort as we collectively try to make an impact with action, with knowledge, with voice and with support. Todd Sevig Director of Counseling and Psychological Services SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM 0 6 Here's what we're going to do in this arti- cle. I'm going to pretend that I know a thing or two about changing behavior, and you're going to pretend to follow my advice. Let me tell you about changing anything in your life. First, you cannot expect a change in results ifyou don't change the inputs.Whenyou want your life to go in another direction, the priority is in how you do it. The way to change that "how" part is by realizing the difference between the subconscious and conscious mind, and observing the way they affect behavior. Now if you haven't read Shakespeare's Hamlet, go read it now. It will prompt you to ask yourself whether you should live or die. Make a list - assets and liabilities, pros and cons, or just to live and to die - and assign numeric points to the items on your list. Cal- culate the points, and you will have seen your choice. If you've come back to read this article - welcome back - I have started change in you. Those who haven't followed the. instructions will undergo no change as they haven't changed any inputs in their equations - reading Hamlet is not mandatory; just make the list. What we've accomplished by compiling a list of to live or to die was turning a subcon- scious process into a conscious one. This is the first step toward changing an outcome - realizing what the heck is going on. Going through the effort of seeing why you choose to live is essential. While it seems rather like a trivial task, it might in the end reveal a couple of things about yourself. Also, it's useful in the sense that it pushes you to look at how you value "things" in life. The second accomplishment of the test was making a decision based on a conscious pro- cess rather than a subconscious one. In this case it was choosing to live and coming back to finish the article. The first part was identi- fication, and the second is deciding whether your behavior makes sense or not. Basically, just go repeat the process for your addictions or whatever that is you want to change. As a result of these two steps it will be evident to you whether you should try to get rid of a habit, or try to change it. Some- thing is part of your subconscious because at some point in your life you thought you didn't need to question it. Since you now want change, you have to question it. The simple example is asking yourself why you should quit smoking. It won't work if you don't see the flaw in your own reasoning, and if you don't see a problem in your conscious rea- soning then you don't want to quit your habit. Figuring out the flaw doesn't solve the problem, right? You're convinced and you're aware, but you lack initiative. Remember what I said about assigning points? You lack initiative because the values that add up to your habit outweigh your desire for change. Now, I can't dig into changing values because that's a completely different psycho- logical ball game, but what I can say is that the more you question yourself the better it is. So, my very narrow value add to your day is this: don't take it for granted, go through the process one more time, because somewhere along the way you will see what matters more to you, and that may become the initial spark to change. You have to review how you look at things in order to get a new sense of evaluating where you're at in life, and then you can begin changing yourself. TL;DR: To change behavioral outputs, change input approaches and assumptions first. To do this, make the effort to turn some subconscious processes into conscious ones. Kaan Avdan is an LSA junior. MICHAEL SCHRAMM I VIWPONT Choosing English over Engineering A recent article in The New York Times stated a fact most of us know: The number of humanities majors is declining. Harvard University's humanity programs rake in 20 per- cent fewer students than a decade ago, and Stanford University's humanities staff makes up 45 percent of the fac- ulty population but only 15 percent of students study humanities. This trend stems from the focus on science, tech- nology, engineering and mathematics fields. This generation's college stu- dents are especially concerned about getting a job after college, and, there- fore, students may choose science over humanity majors, as they can be seen as more attractive to employers. However, students miss great oppor- tunities in humanities departments. As an English major, I can attest to the value of my classes. The knowledge that I learn isn't irrelevant, unimport- antoruselessinthe job field.WhatI've learned has been extraordinary and beneficial in ways that STEM majors can't offer. I don't learn about derivatives, programming or cells in English - I learn about life. To study a novel or essay is to study the complexities of being human, which directly impacts my opinions of humanity. I have walked out of a 90-minute English recitation genuinely feeling more knowledgeable about life. Take, for instance, the English class I'm taking this semester. We're currently learning about Virginia Woolf, a novelist known for breaking the rules of what defines a novel. In Jacob's Room, she avoids develop- ing plot and characters. By avoiding vivid character descriptions, she illu- minates her point on how little we actually "know" someone. In most novels, we know as much as the writer can detail. In real life, though, we don't know people this well. We see them for only a tiny fraction of their life, and even at these points we are further restricted by not having access to their personal thoughts. Prior to this class, I had never pro- cessed how hard it is to actually know someone. This idea, though, enhanced myexperienceofthe world. It changed how I thought about life. This type of knowledge about humans rarely, if at allcomesfromSTEM classes. English not only helps me know more about life - it also helps me to express my thoughts. Through the hours of discussions and papers, my professors have honed my ability to communicate effectively. When I'm having an argument with a friend, I know exactly how to express my thoughts. By clarifying what I'm say- ing, it can either diffuse a situation or allow the person to better under- stand why I feel the way I do. When I open my iPhone to tweet a funny story, after a few moments of revis- ing, I've effectively used the right words in the right places to convey the story. When I'm e-mailing a pro- fessor about a class question, I know how to write professionally while also specifically addressing my ques- tion. This skill, honed by my English. class, has helped me immensely. But English isn't all about devel- oping life skills. Contrary to popular belief, the major has a strong basis in preparing for career fields. It's abso- lutelytrue that English does not desig- nate you to a specific field, but it does prepare you for a variety of fields. The life and communication skills learned from an English degree are invaluable for a wide range of careers. An English degree prepares students for careers in journalism, sales, marketing, law, publishing, editing, reporting, social work, politics and teaching. That's not the end of the list, though. With such a wide range of skills, some English majors find careers in unexpected fields, including accounting, banking, digital copy- writing, public relations, blogging, researching, sales, lobbying and event planning. With these opportu- nities and manymore, choosingEng- lish does not also mean sacrificing a career. In fact, with unending oppor- tunities, English arguably provides more opportunities for work than a major that's bound to a specific job. Now, I'm not devaluing choosing a major in the STEM field. Everyone has different interests, and sciences and technology are vital. I'm thank- ful for the medicine, technology and infrastructure that come from STEM majors. They're incredible, and the people that major in these fields enhance the world. However, the value in these fields should not minimize the value in English. I may not have the skills to design a road, diagnose a cold or create cardiovas- cular tissue; however, I can express myself and analyze literature better than a good portion of people, and that's what I find useful. Knowing more about the human condition has enhanced my personal life in a way STEM classes can't. For me, my edu- cation isn't just about finding a job. Michael Schramm is anS LSA sophomore. N NOTA BLE Q U OT ABLEF We don't comment on rumors and speculation!"' - Facebook spokesperson Denise Horn said in response to reports that Snapchat declined a $3 billion offer from Facebook.