Relevant Science: March 2010

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Vietnam-istan

Daniel Ellsberg used this word today in DN! with Amy Goodman. Also Ralph Peters used it in the New York Post. last summer. I was a teenager when Ellsberg changed his life completely, from a clog in the machine, to a very painful sore toe in the US Empire apparatus.

Below I write about seeing what is in plain sight, if we just chose to see. Karzai's brother, Wali, just like Carlos Salinas de Gortari's brother, Rubén, in the early nineties in Mexico, runs a corrupt operation in that country. Ellsberg warns us that now Obama, just like Clinton then, chooses to lie to the American people about the useless efforts of the US soldiers to win the war, in the aptly called Vietnam-istan.

If you want a dictionary to translate from Vietnam to Afghanistan read Tom Friedman.

13 Bankers

This book, was released this week to the bookstores. The authors mention people I admire in the Economics arena, Brooksley Born, Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman, and Joe Stiglitz. Furthermore the first author, Simon Johnson, is a professor at MIT, with experience in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). You can check the authors' blog, Baseline Scenario, on my blog list.

Mexico is being managed with old IMF ideas, when the rest of the world is getting out of that framework, it seems; even the US is not happy with the results.

Browsing the book at Borders, I felt that it was relevant to my note on Agualeguas and powerful entrenched people. Also on the uncompromising book by Roberto Bolaño, 2666.

When one looks objectively at the problems facing us, the answers are there for everybody to see, but somehow, we cannot bring up the courage to talk about them. A few greedy people taking us for a ride. As long as we continue in this business as usual set of mind we are risking ourselves, and even those ignorant and greedy people that do not know what the consequences of their acts are. We are all in danger, and if the Obama administration and its supporters do no act, then the problems we are facing will only get worse.

There. Read the book.

John Cook

Today Andrew Revkin from the NYT, highlights this Australian contribution to the climate debate. I already added his blog, Skeptical Science, to my blog list. I started this blog as Relevant Science, because I wanted it to be relevant mainly to high school students. When I was a Physics teacher at Glenbard East High School, in Lombard Illinois, I felt that even though my students were smart, they were not getting as interested in Physics as I wanted.

I like skepticism more than I like relevance, though. I feel that by trying to be relevant, somehow one is trying to pander, not ponder; also Mr. Cook is more focused, there you will find only climate talk. I believe this is the most important conversation going on at this point. Either we get it right, or we are doomed.

Welcome skepticism, welcome John Cook.

Basketball Coach and Me

I did not grow up in the US, you know. Nevertheless I ended being a Physics teacher at an American high school. The head of the Science Department at this high school, clearly told me that I was not teaching well, and he decided not to rehire me. Fair.

I did not know though, how important Basketball Coaches are. During my stay at the school he was not the coach anymore; now that I find out how much money a college coach can make, I am starting to wonder if this good man, was unhappy because he didn't make it to the higher education world, and was not very fond of us, high brow PhDs from those universities.

Just wondering.

Roger Cohen

"These are real shifts. They are prerequisites for the rapprochement with the Muslim world Obama rightly seeks. Lo, even the Middle East moves."

From the NYT.

Just Saying: Cerda in Agualeguas?

I do not have any proof whatsoever for the following, just putting things together.

Last week, two persons by the name of Cerda were killed in Agualeguas, Nuevo León in Mexico. I happen to have had a cousin, Rubén Uriza Cerda, recently dead. He told me that he knew the former president of Mexico Carlos Salinas de Gortari, also from Agualeguas. This man likes to horse ride, and my cousin was an expert rider, given that his father got a Gold Medal in the equestrian competition during the 1948 Olympiad in England.

The recent killings are related to the drug war going on in Mexico. The brother of the former president, Raúl Salinas de Gortari, spent some years in prison, because he sent somebody to kill his ex brother in law, who was gay and a candidate for a higher office in their political party, the PRI; this party ruled Mexico for seventy years. Later on, another brother of the Salinas family, Enrique Eduardo Guillermo , was killed in a mysterious way.

I do not know if those Cerdas are related to my cousin, but I feel I should put this in the public record, since I noticed that the news agencies that have reported and the recent crimes do not mention any of this. Maybe my cousin recommended these Cerdas to the Salinas.

Just saying.

BTW, Carlos Slim Helu (Forbes magazine has information on him) also knows Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Joseph Rotblat and I

I write in the blog Globalove Think Tank once in a while. Today I found a very interesting piece that I share here.

I am not anywhere close to this courageous man, in character or fame; but I have been thinking about intellectual's responsibilities. Reading Prof. Susskind book (below) I thought about the proximity of myself and these giants of Theoretical Physics. In my mind I feel that I may know something they don't. Now it is possible to use General Relativity ideas in Nuclear Physics. The American Government does not seem to know this, or if they know, they are not telling; all I can tell you is that I am not in the loop, and I understand what these scientists are doing more than the average person.

My responsibility is with the truth, if I find it, I will divulge it.

This is not a threat, just an observation. Knowledge is less and less secret. Is this safe? I do not know.

Information in Physics

For those faithful readers of this blog the title of this note may not come as a surprise . This has been my quest: coming from Communications Engineering to Black Hole Entropy via the Mexican-American-Israeli Jacobo Bekenstein, I want to know what Information is.

He does not know me, I never met him in person, but since he is famous I know about him.

Today though, the note has to do with my readings of a giant Theoretical Physics Professor. I subscribe to the Stanford University YouTube channel, where I follow his great lectures for the masses. Given that he is the plumber son, of a plumber from the Bronx, his story obviously draws the attention of this 60 year working class aspiring scientist.

I am reading the Black Hole Wars, by Leonard Susskind.

It is a great book, the one I would have liked to have written myself. So it goes; here are my thoughts about it.

I haven't finished the book, but already I can see some things. First that I was right, second that the story is not finished, so there is hope, and third that I may be in the story.

Susskind has been to one place I spent seven years of my life in. The Physics Department at UCSB, so far I don't see in the book, if he has been at CINVESTAV, if that is so, it may be partly my fault. Not that I didn't invite him, I only was a student there in the early seventies; but that I have not put into a refereed magazine any of my ideas relevant to his interests. That is my fault, and people that know me, feel that something is odd with me. I have a little of that unnerving disease that Grisha Perelman has; at least Grisha is still considering whether or not to go get the million dollars he deserves.

I know two others worse than me: Vinod Janghiani, and Augusto Sabbattini. Both Jim Hartle's students lost to intellectual black holes of their own making. There is one other that saved himself, Terry Sejnowski, now in San Diego. I guess we are like those virtual strings coming out of Polchinsky's D-Branes, and never making it out as Hawking Radiation.

That is it for today,

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Who's White?

Today in the NYT a new book is reviewed: "The History of White People". I have been faced with this issue twice recently. A little context.

Since I came to the US in 1973 I was faced with the odd American hung up of forcing one to choose a "race", whatever that means. In Mexico, you know, the government never asks you, are you white, green, or yellow. Scientifically it has been hard to identify these traits, it is only skin deep, as far as the genetics I am aware of, is concerned. Maybe some groups, by circumstance, have been chosen, like the Ashkenazi Jews, that seem to have been bred to count somebody else's money; but besides that , all members of the Human Species, can breed among themselves, so this race thing is a bit odd.

Let us accept race then. After all I have been in the US, on and off, for the past 37 years. This time I went to Mexico I discovered in my mom's apartment a book that gives our genealogy. To my surprise I found out that I am white. In the small town where she grew up, they took the land four hundred years ago from Indians, Amerindians. They were not going to marry Indians and give the land back. So we are white; but last time I was asked in the US, I proudly answered Mestizo. Now I know that is not true. So when I answered the Census sheet this year, I identified myself as Hispanic, and when I went to renew my green card, they asked me again, and now I wrote White. I didn't notice fast enough though, that I had the option of writing Hispanic, whatever that means. We have white, black, yellow, green, whatever color of Hispanic down there, or as the article linked about has it: white, yellow, copper, tawny, and tawny-black to jet-black.

So if somebody starts a fuss, I will say: I was born in Mexico City, a little shade of dark, then when I went to California and got less sunshine, I turned pale. Now that I am in Chicago, I am planning to get lighter: Whatever.

I guess what the US government wants to know is if I support Mexican Immigration. To that question I answer: Yes.

Seder in the White House

Today we can read about this event. This year my family is not going to Seder; usually we go to Glencoe. It is nice to see that Mr. Obama is having one in the White House; like myself he is not Jewish, but feels welcome by the Jewish Family, like I do.

Family

Around where I grew up; a boy meets a girl, falls in love and follows the bible instruction: "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth" (Genesis 9:1).

I have two beautiful children, so I have done my part right? Wrong. I still feel that our viability is not assured. You know, I set them in a path, similar to what my father set me on before. They are not good material for the army or the church, and sometimes I wonder if they are good material for business, other people's business I mean.

When I got scholarships which more or less left me free to do what I wanted, I was OK, but then came the time of fulfilling somebody else's expectations, and that didn't work that well. For a long time I have been contemplating building my own business. My daughter is not making use of the best she has to offer, because her employer doesn't even know what she can do. Some of my employer's also didn't know what to do with me. I set myself to discover important ideas good for everybody. I haven't done that, and now I am stranded.

More to come.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Tim Burton's Alice

I went with my precious little girl to see Alice in Wonderland today. I read her many years ago Prof. Dodgson's version, with the hope she would like math. I think she thinks, and loves independence. Today we both enjoyed what Mr. Burton did with it.

I liked the live/fantasy characters; ever since I saw Final Fantasy, I felt that now we can have realistic looking animations, and with this movie I see a satisfying hybrid. Crispin Glover, is Crispin Glover, but he is also the Knave. I liked these Burton mermaids, half actors half animations. For me this is important, what part technology, what part Art? For that matter, what part humanity, what part machines?

We have to find a happy medium.

Marcela Davison Aviles

"Can the memory of our heritage and history serve today to alleviate the current tension on the subject of immigration? We must not allow our shared culture to be another victim -- to become olividado. Instead, we must claim our heritage, our mixed identities, and call upon ourselves to recover the dream of our anthem: Out of many, one."

From CNN.

Eric Cantor: We are at a Crossroads (1)

From Politico.com:

"Cantor said he doesn’t release information about the incidents of threats against himself to the media because it would only ratchet up violence. But he did say a bullet shot through the window in his campaign office in Richmond on Monday evening, and he has received threats because he is Jewish.