2002, Explorations in Scale: Size, Measure and Value

Topic Description

The theme for this year is "Explorations in Scale: Size, Measure, and Value." We have chosen the theme because scale invites interdisciplinary reflection as well as reflection on the nature of interdisciplinarity itself. Scale asks for comparison and it generates differences. It is an ideal interdisciplinary focus because it is less an object than a frame of reference that we rarely get to point to all by itself. Size matters. Scale affects us all.

To give a few examples of how scales involve shared but also differential standards and knowledge: Time for a historian is different from time for a nanoscientist, an evolutionary biologist, or an astrophysicist. Architects,engineers, and musicians all worry about scale: to what extent do these worries intersect? Populations and communities - micro, regional, and global - present different kinds of problems and challenges depending upon the scales by which they are sampled or surveyed. Scales mark critical points where phenomena fundamentally change. Scale invites questions about continuities, about explanations, and about relevance: how does one get from the pixel to the image, from atoms to phenomena, from genes to genome, and from there to characteristics of personality, race, taste, or moral standards? Local, regional, national, and global scales have an impact on the systems of values by which we measure effects or desirable outcomes. Aesthetics, moral theory, and econometrics traffic in values that at times reject measurement, or that bring about clashes of measurement and value (consider the Sublime). What are the potentials for illusions and deceptions of scale, and how do we get around these? Does scale locate objects or does it create them? Finally, how does one measure a standard of measure itself?

In the Institute we aim to explore scale as a unifying and diversifying concept: how it enables, delimits, and represents the work we do as researchers, artists, students, and teachers. Sessions will be oriented around the manifold meanings of "scale" as it is used across and within the disciplines. Applicants need not have done previous work on the topic. Rather they should briefly discuss in their statement of purpose (and come willing to discuss) how the concept of scale might apply to their own work and to the perspectives of their discipline.

Projects and Events

Co-Directors

Melissa Gross, Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Assistant Research Scientist, Institute of Gerontology

James I. Porter, Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature

Participants

  • Lajob Balogh, Assistant Research Scientist, Internal Medicine
  • Scott Campbell, Assistant Professor, College of Architecture and Urban Planning,
  • Vaughn Cooper, Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
  • Simon Dickie, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
  • Ronald Ellis, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
  • Thomas Hofweber, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
  • Martha Jones, Assistant Professor, Department of History
  • Ram Mahalingham, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
  • Christian Matjias, Assistant Professor, School of Music
  • Timothy McKay, Associate Professor, Department of Physics
  • Dawn Misra, Associate Professor, School of Public Health
  • Donna Nagata, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
  • David Porter, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
  • Sara Rappe, Associate Professor, Department of Classical Studies
  • William Schultz, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
  • Jessica Wilson, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
  • Michael Wintraub, Assistant Professor, Department of History
  • Jens Zorn, Professor, Department of Physics
  • Arran Caza, Graduate Student, Business School
  • Ruchi Choudhary, Graduate Student, College of Architecture and Urban planning
  • Alfred Defreece, Graduate Student, Department of Sociology
  • Jana Haritatos, Graduate Student, Department of Psychology
  • Matthew Ides, Graduate Student, Department of History
  • Karen Johnson, Graduate Student, Program in Classical Art and Archaeology
  • Frederique Laubepin, Graduate Student, Department of Sociology
  • Geoffrey Lewis, Graduate Student, School of Natural Resources and Environment
  • Jeffrey Lieber, Graduate Student, Program in History of Art,
  • Brenda Lin, Graduate Student, School of Natural Resources and Environment
  • Chad Ohlandt, Graduate Student, Aerospace Engineering
  • Yofi Tirosh, Graduate Student, Law School
  • Vladislavs Fomin, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Information
  • Thomas O’ Donnell, Postdoctoral Fellow

Program Description

The theme for this year is "Explorations in Scale: Size, Measure and Value." We have chosen the theme because scale invites interdisciplinary reflection as well as reflection on the nature of interdisciplinarity itself. Scale asks for comparison and it generates differences. It is an ideal interdisciplinary focus because it is less an object than a frame of reference that we rarely get to point to all by itself. Size matters. Scale affects us all.

Speaker Series: Case Studies in Emergence

January 16, 2003, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Pond Room, Michigan Union
“A Positive Theory of Emergence for Multi-Agent Systems with Applications to Economics”
Speaker: Rob Axtell, Brookings Institution
Discussant: Scott E. Page, UM Complex Systems, Political Science & Economics

February 7, 2003, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Location TBA
“Title TBA”
Speaker: Jim Crutchfield, Sante Fe Institute
Discussant: Mike Cohen, UM School of Information and ICOS

March 7, 2003, 4:00 pm- 5:00 pm, Location TBA
“Emergence and Quantum Entanglements”
Speaker: Paul Humphreys, Philosophy, University of Virginia
Discussant: Gordy Kane, UM Physics

The notion of "emergence" is becoming increasingly important as an impetus to new cross-disciplinary investigations. In many social and natural systems examples of "emergent phenomena" are said to arise from complex adaptive systems, punctuated equilibria, quantum entanglements, genetic algorithm simulations, various symmetry breakings, and many other situations. In general, scale is critical, and interactions at one level are said to produce new and often surprising results at another level. However, various additional criteria are often imposed, and issues of "reductionism" vs. "holism" are brought to the fore. Come and learn how researchers are attempting to better understand emergent phenomena in our complex and surprising world.

For more information go to http://www-personal.umich.edu/~twod/emergence or contact

The Fourth Dimension

Saturday morning seminars 10:30 am - 11:30am, 170 Dennison
February 1, 2003 - Thomas Hofweber: The Philosophy of Time
February 8, 2003 - Tim McKay: The Arrow of Time in Physics
February 15, 2003 - Vaughn Cooper: Timescales of Biological Evolution

Accompanying concerts

February 1, 2003, 10:00am - 12:00 pm, 170 Dennison - Installation performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations

February 9, 2003, 3:00 pm, UM Museum of Art - Duo Rossignol performing Elizabethan songs on themes of metamorphosis and mutability of time

Change occurs on all scales of time. The development of structure in the universe, the evolution of life, our own birth and death; all are embedded in the flow of time. A series of public lectures, considering time in the physical sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences will explore time on many scales in an interdisciplinary way. Two concerts, coupled with the lecture series, will present music reflecting on themes of time.

For more information go to http://www.physics.lsa.umich.edu/nea/smp/ or contact

Artifacts/Artifices: Fabricating Cultural Memory

February 12, 2003, 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm, Media Union Gallery – Reception for artist Eleanor Rappe
February 14 - 23, 2003, Media Union Gallery - Exhibit
February 21, 2003, 3:00 pm - 5:30 pm, Media Union Gallery – Panel discussion

Kenneth Lapatin, Getty Museum of Los Angeles
Cynthia Freeland, University of Houston

Exhibit and panel discussion will explore the role of material and virtual objects in the production, circulation, and distribution of knowledge on campus. The exhibition will attempt to scale the often tenuous divide between fact and fiction, knowledge and belief, artifacts and artifice. Highlights of the exhibit include an archaeological excavation of Plato's Studio, as well as objects from the contemporary worlds of popular entertainment, art, the internet, and nature.

For more information contact:

Exploring Scale in Indian Classical Music

March 21, 2003, 9:00 am - 11:00 am, Michigan League Ballroom - Performance and reception

Although music speaks directly to our emotions, its language is based on mathematically precise scales. However, different cultures have developed very different types of scales. How do these systems work? How do these differences affect musical creation? Are our perceptions limited by the scales we have grown up with? To explore these questions, we will host a public demonstration of one of the most influential musical systems in Asia — Indian classical music. Sharada Kumar of the University of Michigan will lead a performance of Indian music. Afterwards. Dr. Stephen Rush, Sharada Kumar and the other musicians will discuss the historical background of their music and the structure of the scales on which it is built. Finally, there will be an opportunity for the audience and musicians to talk informally at a closing reception.

For more information contact