Multiple intelligences

The prospect of intelligent life anywhere in the Universe has been puzzling astronomers and recently astrobiologists, and there have been some attempts to estimate probabilities. This led Drake to construct a now famous equation that collects the ideas together the Drake equation. It is a mathematical representation of factors relating the probability of finding life and, in particular, an intelligent civilisation elsewhere in the Universe. This is an extreme example of hypothesis multiplication and should be treated with caution. The equation is written ... 

Process models are unfortunately often oversold and improperly used. Simulations, by definition, are not the actual process. To model the process, assumptions must be made about the process that may later prove to be incorrect. Further, there may be variables in the material or processing equipment that are not included in the model. This is especially true of complex processes. It is important not to confuse virtual reality with reality. The claim is often made that the model can optimize a cure cycle. The complex sets of differential equations in these models cannot be inverted to optimize the multiple properties they predict. It is the intelligent use of models by an experimenter or an optimizing routine that finds a best case among the ones tried. As a consequence, the literature is full of references to the development of process models, but examples of their industrial use in complex batch processes are not common. 

The use of capillary separations, an NMR probe that contains multiple coils, and the associated capillary fluidics to deliver the samples to and from the coils is the next step in probe development. A future exciting development will be the interfacing of such intelligent NMR probe and fluidic systems with other integrated detection modalities such as fluorescence, absorbance and mass spectrometry to provide an integrated system capable of delivering unprecedented structural information from complex samples. 

Most pressure sensors detect the difference between the measured value and a reference. In the case of absolute pressure sensors, the reference chamber cannot be evacuated to absolute zero, because it can only be approached within a few thousands of a millimeter of mercury (torr). In the case of positive pressure detectors, when the barometric pressure is the reference, atmospheric pressure variations can cause errors up to 25 mmHg. Intelligent transmitters can also operate with multiple references and switch them as required. 

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