Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies turned into the cosmos.  We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.                                    ---Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein here sounds a bit like the late Carl Sagan, who once on his Cosmos TV series proclaimed that we were made of "star stuff".  Without referring to dogmatic religious ideology handed down from generation to generation and often enforced through state-sponsored coercion, I like to speculate from time to time on our fundamental natures and the relationship between our perceived subjective identities and the objective reality of the world around us.  I think Einstein pretty much put it down accurately, beyond the quote's poetic quality.  I think that those of us who experience the grief involved in surviving the loss of a loved one...and ultimately that is a fate for each of us who are "survivors"...have to come to grips with the real value and significance of that departed person's life as they lived out their life span.  Each of us has our own "end" as well, but until then may my soul sing songs of gratitude and love through my own biochemical garments...

Quote of the Week...from Niels Bohr

 An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. 

                                                                           ---Niels Bohr

Neils Bohr (1885-1962) was a Danish physicist, one of the most instrumental scientists in history who made crucial contributions toward the creation of the theory of quantum mechanics.  He was a great teacher and role model for his ethics and understanding in his chosen field.  He also apparently understood quite well about the nature of learning and how necessary action is, along with the required trait of not being afraid to made mistakes in the pursuit of higher academic attainment.  I loved the above quote when I found it, for I'm dealing with similar issues regarding my study of foreign languages...although I'm confident that a Nobel Prize of the sort that Bohr received isn't going to be in the works for me.  For the past few months I've been following polyglot Steve Kaufmann, subscribing to his excellent Internet foreign language study site called LingQ,  Kaufmann is an advocate of absorbing vast amounts of material in the target language through listening and reading while allowing the human brain to work its own magic as it is specifically designed to acquire language without the need to go through painstaking rules and memorization of the kind students over the ages have been subjected to (and still are).  But he also emphasizes that during the process many mistakes will be made...and that's all right, it's a part of the learning!  But people have been conditioned from both the pressures in school of being "correct" for good grades and possible public humiliation around others for goofing up when they try to express themselves.  I even once had a Russian professor at UF who told his class that they could say anything they wanted to him in Russian, only that they had better say it right: that shut everyone up in a hurry! When I worked more than forty years ago as a cook at a local Chinese restaurant, I noticed that of my Vietnamese coworkers who were trying to learn English, the ones who threw away their pride and jumped into speaking English, errors and all, quickly learned it while those afraid to sound silly took much, much longer.  Making mistakes is an important part of learning...schools should chiefly be concerned about keeping their students from blowing up the lab in the process instead of stifling their progress by creating artificial little phony pockets of perfection...

Podcaster's Notions about Gut Feelings Interesting but Possibly Flawed

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast of his, personal development coach Rob Dial discusses his opinions about intuition, more specifically what he terms "gut feelings", in making decisions about others and situations.  Announcing that it was science, he claims that we all have a separate nervous system from our brain-controlled Central Nervous System (CNS): the Enteric Nervous System (ENS), that exists with more than 500 million neurons within the walls of our digestive system.  This much I go along with...Michael Gershon discovered the ENS in the late nineties, according to Dial.  What I do have difficulty automatically accepting is Dial's notion that connects the ENS, or "second brain" as Gerson terms it, with the idiomatic expressions "gut feeling" and "butterflies in stomach" as if it's giving me independent information.  Dial goes further and says that the ENS, unlike the brain which often focuses on the future and past, is wholly rooted in the present and makes itself known through feelings.  The part of his show that I did get was that we shouldn't carelessly dismiss those feelings and signals...regardless from where in our bodies they arose.  If you want to believe that you're a multiplicity of thinking systems, go for it...I tend to think that it's a lot more complicated and interrelated (and interdependent) than that.  Rob Dial is good in his "lane" of self-improvement advice and coaching, but he's not a scientist...neither am I.  Just because he or I may have learned a little about something doesn't qualify either of us from going downtown with it and attributing special narratives where they haven't been shown to apply...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Newton by James Gleick

Isaac Newton, more than any other individual, ushered in the revolution in science and technology that we so often take for granted today.  James Gleick, a noted science historian and author, decided to write a biography of Sir Isaac, who lived in England from 1642 to 1727, a prodigious life span for someone in his day.  Gleick traces elements of Newton's childhood including his family and their "in-between" social class status as modest landowners, going through his academic years and settling on the Great Plague of 1665-66, when his Cambridge classes were cancelled, and he studied in reclusion at his family's countryside home.  It was then that Newton developed many of his ideas that would later bring him fame and reward, such as classical mechanics, the nature of gravity as a universal principal both on Earth and with celestial bodies, and the invention of calculus...he tended to avoid publishing his results, however, which would later lead him into conflict with others claiming that they were the discoverers.  Gleick's biography is balanced between discussing Isaac Newton the person and the subject matter he tackled...you don't need to be a scientist or mathematician to appreciate this well-thought-out book.  I happened to check it out from my library using the Libby app...so can you if you're registered with a participating public library.  I haven't read too many biographies of late, although when I was a kid in elementary school, I must have read every single book in the children's biography series my school's library carried...and that was a lot!  I think that may have been one of the main catalysts in my lifelong interest in history.  One thing I appreciate about Isaac Newton is that he, like myself, tended to do better in seclusion than when stuck surrounded by a lot of people with their agendas, egos and tribalism.  Newton was an individualist who wasn't averse to arguing vehemently over his beliefs, and could be pretty hard on others, as when after assuming the role of standardizing Britain's currency he supported capital punishment for convicted counterfeiters.  Gleick also examined Newton's religious beliefs, including his privately held rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  You can't read this book without coming away with a greater appreciate of this giant of science as well as learning a few things about that science...and the different schools of thought about it in Newton's era...

Just Finished Reading Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've previously read two other books by astrophysicist and popularizer of science Neil deGrasse Tyson: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Cosmic Queries (cowritten with physicist James Trefil)...click on the titles to read my reviews.  Starry Messenger, just out, is the latest in a string of popular science books by Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and Carl Sagan's long-time replacement as narrator of the recurring Cosmos TV series. As in other books of his, he presents a diverse set of perspectives in science and society, this time claiming a special perspective from the viewpoint of space, looking down at our planet.  In everything he extols objective truth, as opposed to the highly subjective personal and political truths so many of us adhere to, and also claims for it a kind of transcendent aesthetic beauty that enhances, not diminishes, what the subject of focus is.  Then he goes on to discuss how scale...the extremely fast/slow, large/small and distant...can distort our perceptions of reality.  Tribalism, a subject that I only sadly know too much of from my own life experiences, gets the Tyson treatment: seems we're in the same "tribe" on the subject.  How people like to label themselves these days goes beyond ethnic, national, religious and socioeconomic distinctions...sexual identity and even the ethic of being a vegetarian versus eating meat come into play and are subject to, well, subjectivity.  Finally, the author discusses the highly subjective nature of race, law and order, presenting as a whole a smorgasbord of topics under the perspective of seeing us from "above", either in a literal or figurative sense.  Since I tend to see eye-to-eye with Neil deGrasse Tyson, I suppose this is an instance of reading for the sake of picking up talking points, rather than to have my eyes opened to a differing perspective that would challenge my beliefs.  I enjoyed Starry Messenger...maybe you will, too...

Just Finished Reading Cosmic Queries by Neil deGrasse Tyson and James Trefil

In 2021 Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, science popularizer, host of the television series Cosmos and ongoing podcaster with his audio show StarTalk, published a new book that he co-wrote with physicist James Trefil titled Cosmic Queries (subtitled StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going)...I just finished reading it.  It's great popular science reading, exploring the current state of research in just about any area you can imagine: quantum mechanics, the universe's origin, fundamental forces and particles, the nature of life, computer science, basics of astronomy, all about planets, stars, and their births and deaths, the history of scientific inquiry and investigation, the different theories concerning life elsewhere in the cosmos, multiverses, supervolcanoes (there are 20 in the world), mass extinctions and the end of the universe, to mention a few items.  What really got to me was the more detailed exposition of quantum mechanics and its bizarre depiction of fundamental forces in terms of exchange of "virtual" particles, as well as two completely different, well-documented versions of the universe's age...12.5 or 13.8 billion years, each conclusion backed by accurate experimental data: how can this be?  The topics hop around from chapter to chapter in no discernible pattern, but that worked for me: I was happy to just sit back and let the information rain down.  The book is also loaded with many useful illustrations and diagrams to help with understanding the various concepts presented.  Also, interspersed with the text are pithy, witty Tweets from Tyson relating to the ongoing content...in books like this you don't know how much the headline author wrote and how much his collaborator, in this case James Trefil, contributed...but it all fit together seamlessly.  I thought Cosmic Queries was both entertaining and informative, and it introduced me to the StarTalk podcast hosted by Tyson, which I can listen to on my smartphone's TuneIn Radio app.  I don't intend to become a physicist anytime in the near future, and you most likely won't either.  But deliberate and regular exposure to scientific thought processes is one thing we can do to inoculate ourselves from the onrush of really bad ideas currently infecting our society through social and mass media...

Just Finished Reading How Music Works by John Powell

John Powell is something of a Renaissance man, with his online bio showing him to be a scientist...in particular a physicist with a "focus" on lasers, an entrepreneur with his laser firm, a musical composer, and of course a writer.  The Englishman's 2010 book How Music Works gives an overview on many different levels about the nature of music, including the science of acoustics as they pertain to pitch and loudness and how different musical instruments accomplish their production of music and differ from one another.  I was surprised to read that musical notes did not actually become universally standardized until the mid-twentieth century.  He also delves into how people perceive pitch (including the notion of "perfect pitch"), and how a heard note's pitch is often simply a recognition of its base note even though higher-octave versions of it are present (and sometimes that base note isn't).  Although these things were all interesting, in my opinion the book took off when Powell began discussing the history of music, especially as it pertained to the development of different types.  Although we in the West are used to the Major and Minor scales, it is the five-note Pentatonic scale that has prevailed over much of the world, in very disparate and diverse cultures over the course of time.  And besides the Major and Minor scales there are others that in centuries past were more commonly used...even recently the Dorian scale was employed in songs like Scarborough Fair and Eleanor Rigby.  Most of all, the author stressed that in all music the composer and performer have as one of their main goals the aim of keeping the audience interested in what is going on...to that end much of the structure of songs (including key changes and note diversions) and classical music has evolved into more or less standardized forms: just to keep folks from zoning out.  Toward the end of the book he discussed the various pros and cons of learning to play different musical instruments: for beginners, guitar and piano are good and violin and trombone, the latter two without specific note settings, are much more difficult to start with.  Yet he also pointed out that violins can play only one note at a time while piano learning can get pretty complex, what with all the chords and the ability to simultaneously hit a number of keys...so down the line it all evens out.  And some composers...at least the good ones...will write their music for different instruments with the recognition that some keys are easier to play on them than others.  Powell went deeply into how music evokes different feelings, such as ascending notes, loudness, and the type of key.  Yet he also disputed the claim that one of the twelve keys within a Major or Minor system is essentially different in imparting emotion than another, a belief that even greats like Beethoven subscribed to.  I've only scratched the surface with this amazing book that does a great job of introducing someone like me to music: I've always loved listening to it, but in the production end of the art such as playing an instrument, singing or composing I've never truly engaged.  John Powell asserts that most of us can learn to play an instrument to basic competency level...it's those extra ten years + natural talent which exceptional musicians require that often intimidate the rest of us into never starting...

Great Old TV Episodes...from Through the Wormhole

This week's featured episode is IS TIME TRAVEL POSSIBLE? from the popular science series Through the Wormhole, specifically #3 from Season 1, originally aired in June, 2010. A few years ago I had The Science Channel as part of my cable television premium service...eventually one day I reevaluated some of what we were paying for and decided to delete the package of channels that included it.  But while we still received it from 2010 through 2017 this channel featured the series Through the Wormhole, narrated by actor Morgan Freeman, that probed into different deep topics of cosmology, physics, and even metaphysics.  To me this was a step up from the Cosmos series and which, while avoiding the high mathematics and science in these areas, still provided a nexus between the scientific community researching them and people at large...something our society, so much of it in science denial and ignorance, desperately needs.  One of the topics often covered is time, and one of my favorite episodes is this one on time travel.  As usual, Morgan introduces it with a poignant memory, this one from his childhood days with his grandmother, and then one supposition after another about the nature of time gets scientifically laid out, ideas many of which I had been maintaining as a non-scientist for years: it was an episode of personal affirmation for me! The two most prominent points the show made in this regard were (1) that all that ever happened, is happening, and will happen are equally a fundamental, transcendentally existing part of reality and (2) the concept of "now" is a subjective...not objectively discernible or provable...element of time.  As for the series Through the Wormhole as a whole, I always rejoiced (and laughed) at the often unbridled joy and enthusiasm of the various featured scientists as they discussed their theories and discoveries: these folks know how to live!  Unfortunately, I can't find this series on any channel right now, except for some on YouTube.  I'm considering purchasing the complete set on DVD, but there seems to understandably be a run on it and they're out of stock...also, my library doesn't have any DVDs to check out, either. But let's return to that "time" episode and an important quote from Morgan Freeman: "Time is not universal.  The strange truth is, time is personal"...    

A Little Metaphysical Diversion Into Time and Subjective Existence

Many of the stories I read...especially in the science fiction genre...elicit speculation about the nature of reality, especially as it pertains to time: Kurt Vonnegut's brilliant novel Slaughterhouse Five is a prime example. Much of religion as I see it is based on people's projection of themselves within a universe carrying on with its reality after their deaths...the notion that there will be a year, say, 2200, in which they won't be around is very difficult for many to accept...so they desperately cling to what they consider to be the best belief system that puts at least their spirit, if not their body, in that temporal reality with everyone else.  Conversely, pretty much no one is especially concerned that before their conception and birth, reality stretched far into the past...at last estimate, some 13.8 billion years (and they weren't alive in all that time).  Yet as far as science...specifically, physics...is concerned, the laws work the same way whether you go forward or backward in time...the "progression" of time into the future is to some merely an expression of the general principle of entropy, i.e. the breaking down of complex, higher-energy forms and systems into those simpler and of lower energy.  The notion that my life span, bordered by both its temporal beginning and ending, will always possess an essential reality within the fabric of the universe, is something that very few people subscribe to: we're social creatures, and the idea that I am leaving this world while everyone else keeps going on just doesn't wash on an instinctual level...hence the religion that keeps us in a sort of community.  Spatially, it is no stretch to say that we as individuals can't be everywhere...our physical location pinpoints where and who we are in reality...but we have a problem saying that we temporally cannot be everywhen, but this equally-limiting factor is also a crucial element of defining our existence within the greater domain of reality.  There is the objective mega-universe equally existent everywhere at all points of time and then there is the personal, subjective universe that corresponds to our individual courses through each of our respective lives in our limited space and time with our experiences...

Great Old TV Episodes...from the Bell Science Series

 

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE COSMIC RAYS is one of the eight hour-long episodes in the Bell Science series of television specials spaced out over the late 1950s and 1960s...later they were all transferred to film and projected on the walls of elementary schools across the nation, including mine, Nova Elementary.  I saw all of them in the fourth through sixth grades (1965-68) and thought so much of them that I would even skip my own class to sneak in on a showing down the hall in another.  Frank Capra directed the first four episodes, including this one from 1957, featuring (pictured) narrator Dr. Frank Baxter (a fixture for all of them) and actor/screenwriter Richard Carlson as they try to win the detective mystery award for the latter part of the twentieth century (with puppets of Dickens, Poe and Dostoevsky serving as judges).  Their story is that of the mysterious cosmic rays that blanket the Earth and how electrons are ripped away from atoms in the process.  By creating an animated analogy using Fagin, Dickens' thief from his Oliver Twist novel, they explain that it's the atoms broken up by the invading rays...i.e. Fagin's "henchmen" that register on all the devices and these subatomic particles are many in number, including protons, neutrons, electrons, positron, mu mesons, and pi mesons...the latter of which Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa in 1935 predicted as an instrumental factor in the yet-unexplained nuclear force.  But what was Fagin, the original cosmic ray?  Naked atoms of all types, stripped of their electrons after being emitted by stars and accelerated to near-light speeds by nebulae across the cosmos...oops, I gave it away.  But of course, it's science and not fiction...

Unlike the other seven Bell Science shows, The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays was difficult at the time for me to follow...I'm guessing that other kids had the same problem: physics is hard enough without throwing nineteenth-century English literature into the mix: it probably didn't help that the first time I saw it was halfway through the film, after I slipped into the back of the room unnoticed.  I was mystified by it all and impressed by how Baxter and Carlson presented the scientists making the important discoveries in such a favorable light...I imagine a lot of young students back then were inspired to go into science and engineering from watching this and other Bell Science movies.  They have all these movies on YouTube...I recently saw this particular episode and noted the discontinuity between the heavy science being taught and the use of puppetry and funny cartoons to explain it.  I was in my first year of life when this show first aired on TV and viewed it some ten years later in school...the science since has dated and even Yakuwa's theory about the nuclear force has been challenged.  But of course now we have quarks, hadrons, and string theory to use as models and frameworks.  Maybe some of today's dry scientific papers with all that mathematics could use some puppets and cartoons, too...and bring back good ol' Dr. Baxter or a reasonable facsimile thereof to help us poor goofs to understand it all better...

Great Old TV Episodes...from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

                                  

THE LOST WORLDS OF PLANET EARTH is Episode #9 of the thirteen-part 2014 television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.  Narrated by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, this series resurrected the spirit of the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, from 1980 and featuring the late astronomer Carl Sagan.  The Cosmos series are an excellent introduction to science and the history of scientific discoveries and those who made them...this particular episode is no exception.  It focuses upon a subject that has always fascinated me: Earth's cataclysmic mass extinctions, of which the Permian Extinction was the most severe.  It occurred about 250 million years ago, wiping out some 90% of the world's species and caused by massive supervolcano eruptions over the course of hundreds of thousands of years in what is now Siberia and their toxic interaction with masses of underground coal deposits and undersea methane stores.  This episode also goes into the late Cretaceous meteor strike that caused another mass extinction including that of the dinosaurs, the development of the theory of plate tectonics that explained continental drift, and how gravitational effects from other planets may have influenced our past ice ages.  Tyson, like his predecessor Sagan, is a compelling and effective communicator: I highly recommend both the 1980 and 2014 series. Last year a third Cosmos series (subtitled Possible Worlds) also aired, but I have yet to see any of its episodes, again hosted by Tyson.  When I was a kid in elementary school, we had a film series presented by Bell Science with Dr. Frank Baxter as its host, produced in the late 1950s and early 60s for television.  I feel that Cosmos is the continuation of a great tradition of popularizing science that these old programs began... 

Quote of the Week...from Katie Mack

I've been trying to wrap my head around what it means to live in a universe where space and time are not fundamental.                                                         Astrophysicist Katie Mack.

Yesterday I reviewed astrophysicist...and investigator of the origin and ultimate demise of the cosmos...Katie Mack's new book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).  In it she presented potential scenarios for the destruction of the universe while giving a brilliant introduction to cosmology and astrophysics in the process.  This is a very dynamic scientific field in which all sorts of interesting theories are arising about the nature of reality...her above quote from the book alludes to the work of one of her contemporaries.  This seems to be a popular quote on Twitter, and in another Tweet a fan wrote that she "is really good at messing with your mind"...to which Katie Mack replied, "It's not me, it's physics".  As someone untrained in the deep mathematics and scientific method necessary to more fully comprehend the material she is discussing I can only sit back in wonder at what is being undertaken in this area. Personally, I'm not all that concerned at how our universe will end...astrophysically speaking, of course...but I do very much appreciate Mack's well-written exposition on many different areas of current research and what we know at this point concerning the cosmos.  I'm looking forward to reading more from her in future books...

Just Finished Reading The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack

Katie Mack is an astrophysicist/cosmologist who also is one of those treasured scientists who strive to popularize their respective fields and increase awareness and understanding among the general population...I love people like that...Neil deGrasse Tyson and the late Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov also come to mind.  I read Tyson's book Astrophysics For People in a Hurry three years ago and loved it: here's a link to my earlier article about it: [Tyson].  Mack's just recently published book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) picks up where Tyson left off and is an intriguing adventure into the origins, fundamental nature...and possible endings...of our universe as today's astrophysicists, including the author, are on the cutting edge of discovery.  She is a bit more detailed on the scientific side with her narrative than was Tyson in his book, but I recognize that it's got to be tough translating what is essentially highly technical material bathed in complex mathematics into common language that laypeople can understand.  You get treated to a great variety of topics: stages in the universe's development, quantum theory, the different fundamental forces, general relativity, entropy, the cosmic microwave background, inflation, gravity fields, subatomic physics...this plus much more. Since the book's title referred to the end of everything, Mack's presentation culminates in a listing and description of five potential scenarios:

The Big Crunch...the amount of matter in the universe ultimately causes an end to its expansion and causes it to draw back upon itself and contract.

The Heat Death...with dark energy now a recognized element in the cosmos and causing an accelerating...no slowing...expansion, this scenario has the cosmos reaching a point of complete cooling where entropy has reached its limit and time itself ceases.

The Big Rip...another dark energy-caused scenario whereby the very fabric of existence is torn apart suddenly and without warning.

Vacuum Decay...what we nowadays consider as an absolute vacuum is actually permeated with a gravity field...should that field alter into a higher vacuum state anywhere in the universe the result could be the Bubble of Death expanding to end and replace our own reality.

Multiverse Collison...in a setting comprised of multiple universes, another one colliding with us could conceivably cause our destruction...assuming of course that there are actually other universes.

When I refer to "our" destruction, I'm referring to our cosmos as a whole and not specifically our own Earth and its life, doomed to disappear in a few billion years anyway as the dying sun expands as a red giant and encompasses our orbit.  I noticed something interesting about Katie Mack's presentation: the doomsday scenarios...particularly that one about vacuum decay...seem to exist as logical extensions of ongoing theories, theories that are subject to revision with incoming new information.  As for the universe's actual, ultimate demise, this sounds like a topic that's a little bigger than me.  It's clear to me that Katie Mack loves her job...I liked her book so much that I bought it!

Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?   
                                                                 ---Albert Einstein

Not being a research scientist myself, this is one of those articles in which my relative ignorance of the field is bound to shine through...so please bear with me.  But in today's world of massive public denial of science in the contexts of the ongoing pandemic, climate change, pop medicine...to mention just three areas...I feel it's important to note that the idea of "pure" science out there somewhere with only the motive of laying out the "truth" for us is not in itself "purely true".   Anyone with an eye on history knows of the Manhattan Project during World War II in which leading physicists and other physical scientists collaborated with engineers and the military to develop the fist workable atomic bomb...in other words, highly focused, agenda-driven research.  Although I still have in my mind the picture of the altruistic scientist driven only by his or her desire to learn the deep truths about the reality we live in, I have over the years learned that this is mostly a fantasy while the overwhelming number of scientists engaged in research are doing so at the behest of agenda-driven organizations, be they the military, businesses, non-profits...each group with its own goals that it wants the scientists working for it to advance. Even at a public university, scientists need to go outside their offices and laboratories and continually beseech monied interests to fund their research projects...this naturally in turn directs exactly what will be their research projects and how far their research will go.  The problem with all this is that although research for specific areas that have direct military, business or social applications can be very useful and important, it still is determined not by science itself but rather by the society's institutions.  So when people hear in the news that scientists support this or that take on an issue, those who would disagree with their conclusions often question the motives of those scientists...and sometimes this complaint, in my opinion, is legitimate.  The scientific method and pure science research are ideals that should be promoted...but the ones with the money to sustain that research have their own ideas about what kind of research it should be.  Back to Einstein's quote, having a definite, clear result in mind when doing research in itself implies that the researcher has already reached a conclusion before even beginning.  This may help to solve specific problems and publicly promote agendas but I don't see it going far to expand our fundamental understanding of the universe.  But I get it: research costs money, and if I had money why should I give it to somebody who plans to study an area that doesn't coincide with my own interests?  My only response to this question is that our government should be more generous with its own research funding with the grants not necessarily directed at areas with its own interests in mind...

Quote of the Week...from Isaac Asimov

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.                                                        ---Isaac Asimov

I'm not sure when Isaac Asimov penned the above quote, but I do know that he died in 1992...28 years ago.  And yet today, with science denial running rampant in our society on a number of fronts, it couldn't ring truer.  We have so much information now at our nearly instant disposal, and it's portable: you can carry and access it on your smartphone anywhere you go...yet I don't think that people are any more knowledgeable about the issues that affect them and our country this election season than they were when there was no such thing as the Internet.  With this very recent innovation connecting the world over, are people kinder and more gracious and empathetic toward one another than before?  Doesn't seem so to me, looks like many of us are stubbornly digging ourselves deeply in our preconceived mindsets and closing up to anything that might challenge them...no, our "wisdom" is definitely not keeping up with the science.  I wonder what Asimov, were he alive today (he'd be 100), would think about the nonsense going on around us and the way people rationalize their own behavior in the face of facts to the contrary.  I'm guessing that he wouldn't be surprised, not one little bit...

More (Ugh) Commentary About COVID-19

A few weeks ago I mentioned what New York's governor Cuomo flatly stated himself: the social distancing and shutdowns were for one aim: to ensure the availability of ventilators...along with the necessary hospitalization beds and staffing...when the virus outbreak spikes.  We were "flattening the curve" to give the health care professionals the capacity to treat anyone with serious complications from COVID-19.  But now it is no longer spiking at its former exponential rate and NY is lending its own ventilators to other states.  Dr. Fauci, also a few weeks ago, had predicted that most Americans would eventually be exposed to the coronavirus and reflected what Cuomo had said about the need to ensure enough ventilators during the ongoing spike...hence the restrictive measures.  The coronavirus is already all around us...like the Matrix in that movie series where everything breaks down to microscopic zeros and ones, it is unseen to the unaided eye.  It hides within as many as half of those afflicted with it without any symptoms but is still extremely contagious for anyone unfortunate to come in contact with its carriers...or breathe the air they just exhaled.  Reopening the society will in all likelihood ramp up the infection rate...it's not going away anytime soon, maybe never.  But hopefully...and the news media has stopped reporting on it as if it is no longer a priority...they are still working hard on producing more life-sustaining-and saving ventilators should their need sadly sharply rise again.  I've stated before that reopening the economy will be a divisive subject, and it seems as if the two political parties...along with their followers among the populace...are regrettably dividing down their respective reds and blues on which strategies to take.  I'm still trying to follow the various distancing, mask-wearing and hygiene protocols and will continue along this line into the indefinite future: I don't have a personal "deadline" for ending this like some others apparently do...

Another observation about the pandemic: if you watch TV or go on one of the updated tally Internet sites, they emphasize total infections in different places along with the deaths.  Although the online charts usually mention the totals of those who are listed as "recovered" in some places, it looks as if other places aren't reporting this statistic that I think is crucial.  And CNN totally ignores recovered figures, making me wonder what the follow-up protocol is with all those who have tested positive...do they just let them go home and self-quarantine and then forget them unless they show up at the hospital with serious symptoms, or do they perform tests on them later on to see whether they recovered?  The death totals will always increase...when the dead start returning to life on Earth let me know.  And the total infected will likewise always increase...that is, unless you subtract from them the number of recovered cases.  And aren't the net totals of those currently afflicted what people want to know?

Does intensity of initial exposure affect the degree of severity of illness?  While acknowledging that every virus is different, armies in the past used to infect their own soldiers with small amounts of smallpox in order for them to achieve immunity from a possible future full attack...most became slightly ill for a few days and recovered, although a few did die.  Does getting repeatedly blasted with COVID-19 in large concentrations...as opposed to picking it up once in a setting where the virus isn't in numerous amounts...make the progression of the disease in the body more harmful?  And as far as immunity after you've had it is concerned...or the notion that a future vaccine is even possible...scientists are unwilling to be affirmative in either regard. But people shouldn't automatically take this negatively since if something hasn't been shown scientifically to be true, then scientists will, by the nature of their craft, refuse to categorically confirm it. One ominous sign, though, is that this particular strain seems to have already mutated into two different forms...

And finally, as I have stated before, I believe that the raw figures of confirmed coronavirus cases are misleading and should be replaced by updated results of randomized statistical testing covering different states and regions...the latter would in all likelihood demonstrate both a much larger prevalence of COVID-19 among the general population while at the same time point out hot spots where the illness seems to have a much higher presence...

Our Chicago Visit to Its Museum of Science and Industry

Melissa, Will, and I on our final full day visiting Chicago, Illinois last month decided to divide it between exploring their Museum of Science and Industry and experiencing the top of Willis (formerly Sears) Tower.  We got on the Metra line...separate from the Chicago Transit Authority trains...to take us to the Hyde Park area south of downtown, where the University of Chicago lies to the west and Jackson Park, the site of our museum destination as well as a short strip of Lake Michigan beach, on the east side of our rail station.  On the train the conductor...unlike on the C.T.A. rails...punched our tickets like Tom Hanks did on The Polar Express, but alas, no words like "Believe" or "Learn" appeared on them.  And dang it, no hot chocolate either...but I still liked the more traditional train ride experience.  At the museum we first descended to a lower floor where the story of the U.S. Navy's capture of an intact Nazi German U-Boot (U-505) in August 1944 during World War II was elaborately presented...after the war they even took their prize around the country for display.  Then we entered a large room where we discovered the actual submarine...much, much bigger than I had imagined it to be (see first photo).  The Museum of Science and Industry has a lot of different areas to explore...we had to pick and choose, watching a planetarium-style presentation of what it's like to be hit by a tornado, reliving the great Apollo 8 moon flyby in 1968 with the spacecraft itself on display, exhibits about elements of life prolongation, the innovation of vertical urban farms, different types of bicycles (including an inexpensive-but-resilient cardboard bike, description in second photo), genetics (including a display showing newly-hatched chicks), the history of transportation, and electricity...to name a few.  There were countless stations for visitors to interact with, and we felt that...as was the case with our Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian museum visits last October...a full appreciation that what this place has to offer required a much greater investment of time than we were able to make...

After leaving the museum, before returning to our Metra rail station, the three of us walked eastward to the beach area, which you can see in the third and fourth pictures.  Melissa said that Lake Michigan was very cold...not surprising...but there still were folks out in the water enjoying it all while a lifeguard watched over them.  At least with their fresh water they didn't have sharks, although rip current presents a danger there as it does on our Atlantic beaches.  We made our way back to the station and decided to have dinner at a downtown restaurant that Melissa's friend had recommended: The Walnut Room, on an upper floor within Macy's.  As we were seated for what would be an excellent meal, I looked southward out the window and, lo and behold, on the building across from us was a huge, beautiful mural of the late blues great Muddy Waters, finished three years ago by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra...spectacular, of course my final photo is of that mural...

Later in the evening we three trudged on down the road to Willis Tower...sightseeing like this in Chicago was greatly aided by the fact that we all are seasoned walkers.  Besides, there's usually more to see and experience when you're moving more slowly.  I'll write about Willis Tower in a future article...

Quote of the Week...from Isaac Newton

If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results.   ---Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was the renowned English scientist who discovered the mathematical basis of mechanics, including the General Theory of Gravity.  When asked once about how he was able to come up with that theory, he responded, "By thinking about it all the time." There's no doubt that Sir Isaac was quite the genius, and maybe he was being a little modest in the above quote by claiming that we could emulate his accomplishments were we to think as hard as he did.  But it is nevertheless an important truth that we are what we think, and since all of us do think, it stands to reason that it's worth looking into.  I believe that by regularly reflecting back on our own recent thoughts and evaluating their usefulness, we can train ourselves to live our lives at a higher level...maybe not at the exalted peak that Newton stood on, but at a much more effective and joyful, fulfilling place for ourselves and those whom we influence.  Do we stumble through our days thinking in reaction to the events and people around us or do we chart our own course and focus on the most important things that will lead us to the "mountaintop"?  Of course, in order to reach that higher place we have to know where we're going...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen Hawking

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.                         ---Stephen Hawking

While I'm a big advocate for star-gazing, having learned the constellations when I was seven back in 1964, I don't think the above quote by the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is necessarily literal in its intended application.  No, what I think he meant by it is that we need to turn our attention out and away from ourselves and toward our universe in its many manifestations and dimensions.  Dr. Hawking no doubt would have endorsed observing and studying our solar system and the stars beyond, but looking outside oneself can be as simple as flicking on the TV and attentively watching a football game, admittedly an activity that won't lead to striking revelations about the nature of the cosmos.  When I am in conversation with people imprisoned by their own narcissism, it is difficult for them to engage with me on any topic that does not directly personally relate to themselves.  These folks are stuck in an endless cycle of mental tape-playing and insecurity about their place in the world, with relatively little interest or curiosity in that world itself...unless it happens to directly feed into their own self-centered narratives.  I am no psychologist or medical doctor, but I believe that there are often strong physical, medical components to mental illness.  Many times, though, these are only predisposing factors and that one's one philosophy and how they direct their thoughts...in other words, people's own choices...can make the final difference between effectively functioning and even enjoying life and suffering from debilitating insecurity, resentment, and regrets.  I've always enjoyed a natural curiosity about what's around me and like to study things on their own merits without always being concerned about their application to my personal standing in the world.  I believe this attitude has served me well in counteracting my own tendency to often be a bit too introspective, or as Hawking put it, looking down at my feet.  With so many things to be curious about, how can anyone be bored...unless, of course, they can only think about themselves...

Visit to Santa Fe College Planetarium Yesterday

I've been a number of times in the past to the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium at Santa Fe College in northwestern Gainesville, but it had been a while since my last visit.  I asked my son Will if he'd like to go, too, and we saw their Saturday afternoon show featuring a tour from planet to planet in our Solar System...appropriately to the different movements of Gustav Holst's symphonic work The Planets. Planetarium director James Albury was still there hosting the event with his good humor and enthusiasm...you might know him as a cohost on the weekly five-minute PBS series Star Gazers...originally titled Star Hustler (I imagine that P.C. dictated the change). It was Albury himself who created this presentation, originally as a fundraiser for some students at Buchholz, a local high school.  I was impressed with the graphics and information given, but I wondered whether others in the audience were understanding it all or receiving the entertainment value for which they came.  After all, we're not talking about adrenaline-pumping high action and suspense on the level of Star Wars.  And maybe the rather dimmed colorization of the planets didn't exactly help, either.  Still, I liked the program and learned a few things...

Starting from Mercury and going outward from the Sun, skipping over Earth, and ending at Neptune, the presentation provided various interesting facts about the planets and some of their moons as well.  As for the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (the latter two also referred to as "ice giants"), the orbits of their chief moons were shown as lit-up curves, creating striking visual effects.  I also noticed that all of the moons of Uranus were named after characters from English literature, apparently a tribute to William Herschel, the English astronomer who discovered the seventh planet.  And with each planet, there was a short description of its own named movement from Holst's masterpiece: Mars is perhaps the most famous, but my favorite by far is that of Neptune...

This planetarium has other shows as well, but it's taking a week or two off between school terms before resuming.  Besides The Planets, yesterday's lineup included an imaginary thrill ride journey through the solar system (which I've seen before but has since been enhanced), Child of the Universe (a traditional favorite created by Jack Horkheimer in 1972), and a light show presentation accompanied by the music of Led Zeppelin.  Yes, I said Led Zeppelin, believe it or not...