Tlaltecuhtli

"Tlaltecuhtli, deidad que luego de 500 años emerge de ultratumba, está ya entre nosotros."

The deity Tlaltecuhtli, that after 500 years emerges from the underworld, is now among us.

Thus ends a beautiful article written today in La Jornada in Mexico City by Monica Mateos Vega.

The great Mexican historian Alfonso Caso wrote several years ago that this creature could be the "pejelagarto".

"Quizá es el llamado ''pejelagarto'' de los ríos del Golfo, escribió Alfonso Caso".

It did not escape me that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, current leader of the Mexican opposition is called "Peje" by his followers, because of this animal that lives near his birthplace, Tabasco.

This discovery was announced on October the Second, also of great political importance to Mexicans, since in 1968 more than 500 innocent people were killed by the Mexican government in Tlaltelco, in Mexico City that day.

Finally this deity can be interpreted as the Goddess of the Earth, in other parts of the world, this archetype is called Gaia.

Several interesting coincidences, that do not have connections I know about, but that nevertheless, I want them to remind us, that Mexico is going through one of the most trying periods of its history, and that the Earth, Gaia, is also in deep distress.

Let us all Mexicans and the rest of the World, now that the year is ending carefully ponder if we continue as we are going or participate in political movements to face the dangers we perceive.

One of the Ten Important Discoveries in Archaeology

5.) Aztec Altar and Monolith Found in Mexico
In early October, archaeologists recovered an Aztec altar depicting the image of their rain god, and an 11-foot monolith, while digging in the heart of Mexico City. Spanish conquistadors destroyed the Aztec's capitol and built Mexico City on it's foundation. In the center of the city stands one of the few remaining temples of the Aztec nation, the Templo Mayor.

According to Christine Senter from the Associated Content Internet Site, this year's discovery of an Aztec Altar in Mexico City, is one of this year's Ten Important Discoveries in Archaeology.

The Spaniards did their best to hide the glory of old Mexicans, but they are coming back. Mexicans are claiming their Indian Origin.

Looking for Big or Little Patterns?

Doing scientific research one looks for patterns. A single observation, may connect with another one, and then another, until we have a set of observations that may indicate the existence of a bigger pattern, maybe a theory, like General Relativity.

One interesting aspect of these mathematical and physical theories is that sometimes they hung together with a single principle. Einstein's Theory of Gravity is the quintaessential physico-mathematical theory glued together by a simple principle. Galileo discovered that objects of similar size but different weights fall at the same rate, Einstein saw geometry behind it, and postulated that the presence of matter bends space and time causing all nearby objects to follow the paths of minimal length.

The Pulse of the Universe

Space without time and time without space are unthinkable within Minkowski's vision of spacetime. Einstein (1879 - 1955) was the first to see this, and his teacher Hermann Minkowski (1864 - 1909) was the first to state it mathematically.

As Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), from Germany, had already observed in the same part of the World, space and time go hand in hand in our mind. The other Germans, Einstein and Minkowski, though, put Kant's ideas up side up. Space and time are not a priori objects inside our heads, they exist in the real world out there (RWOT).

Within this realist view of time, I try to see where time is. I imagine a big heart, the Pulse of the Universe. Our little hearts are fractal copies of this big time. Einstein used to say that God does not play dice, I say that there is no time without a live universe. Just like James Lovelock, I believe that the material world around us is more alive than we have so far imagined, not just Earth as Gaia, but the Universe as Gaia.

Theoretical physicists have to get in tune with this big clock, because we can hope to go beyound the big impasse we find ourselves in at this point in time, only when we understand that we are part of the Universe. We are not outside the Universe.

What Can we Expect from G. W. Bush?

This is a time for reflection; a new year is about to start. Time magazine chose Us as persons of the year. We the People, not Bush or any other influential individual. Maybe they mean that the accomplishments of people like our President are too meager to make a big deal out of them.

In any case, what do I expect from this man?

The country is divided almost in half. If one senator gets sick, "the balance of power" changes. That basically means, that there is no way to know what will happen in politics in the near future. Nevertheless this is what I expect; Bush:

o will not pull out all the troops from Iraq in 2007

o will insist on making tax breaks permanent

o will sign any immigration proposal coming from Congress and Senate deliberations

o will recognize China's role in setting American economic policy

o will direct his administration to include the remaining Axis of Evil members, North Korea and Iran, in public diplomatic dialog

In the long run, I see the USA declining as an imperial power.

The Trouble with Physics

Professor Lee Smolin from the Perimeter Institute in Canada, published a book on the state of High Energy Physics. He laments that since 1983 when the W and Z bosons were produced in high energy physics laboratories, nothing has happened in the theoretical or the experimental aspects of this discipline.

I have not been supported to do research in this area since 1998, when I resigned as Physics Professor from the Autonomous University of Puebla in Mexico, and joined Bell Labs in Naperville Illinois.

It is with mixed emotions that I read from Professor Smolin, that nobody has succeeded in doing what I wanted to do. Even some physics departments in the United Kingdom are closing down for lack of support. No results, no support.

What worries me the most, is that we are approaching a state of environmental catastrophe, when more scientists working in all branches of theoretical physics would be a huge asset.

We are not ready to face the mess that people with money put us in. Fermilab in Illinois may not last more than ten years as a leading center of the enlightenment, the new cathedral of the modern era, that it once was. Not even Bell Labs is an American institution any more, now it belongs to the French company Alcatel.

Dangerous times are coming.

End of Empire

"What we are watching across the whole region is the steady but increasing collapse of American imperial power. It will not be a joyous event. It may prove to be terrifying. It will definitely be bloody. And Lebanon may now be the mirror that proves it all true."

These are wise words by our eyes and ears in Lebanon, Robert Fisk. This half western half eastern man living in Lebanon is our best thermometer of what is happening there. He says that it is hot an getting hotter.

He sees beyond Lebanon though. The American Empire may be ending.

Salvador Allende

"Trabajadores de mi Patria, tengo fe en Chile y su destino. Superarán otros hombres este momento gris y amargo en el que la traición pretende imponerse. Sigan ustedes sabiendo que, mucho más temprano que tarde, de nuevo se abrirán las grandes alamedas por donde pase el hombre libre, para construir una sociedad mejor. ¡Viva Chile! ¡Viva el pueblo! " Salvador Allende 11 de septiembre de 1973

"Workers of my Fatherland, I believe in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this gray and bitter moment in which treason tries to succeed. Keep on knowing that, much earlier than late, again the great oak tree lined avenues where the free man passes to build a better society will be open. Long Live Chile! Long Live the people!" Salvador Allende September 11, 1973.

I was twenty three years old when President Allende said these historic and prophetic words. I was in the US Embassy in Mexico City, applying for a student visa to go to the University of California at Santa Barbara. As always life is a contradiction, I agree with President Allende, but I was asking the government of the country that had more to do in the whole world with the murder of the Chilean democracy in the person of that great man, to please let me go into that country.

Augusto Pinochet was the traitor that now has his well deserved place in ignominy.

Rest in Peace Traitor General Augusto Pinochet, Long Live Salvador Allende!

Drunk Parents Syndrome

I have not been drunk in my life to a degree that I interact inappropriately with those I love. Nevertheless many times I treat others in ways that I later regret. To the extent that I feel guilty, I feel that that is the way alcoholic parents feel when they let down their children.

I try to compensate by being extra nice. I guess even a referee that made a bad call in a sports game feels like paying back the error. This is wrong.

Maybe an apology would be useful, but there is no need for being extra nice to compensate.

Psychology is not a hard science, and I have not studied this area of human knowledge to contribute here something interesting. For what is worth, this is my first 'advice', I hope I do not make a habit of this.

When Does a Boy Want a Date?

I was in middle school, maybe 13 maybe 15 years old, I do not remember now. Cristina Abdala was a beautiful girl. We danced at school, and I avoided her the rest of the year. Now Cristina is not alive, when she was young a iatrogenic event ended her life.

Eventually I got the courage and dated other girls, some relationships were good, but we did not stayed together, and one time it worked. Today is my twenty seventh wedding anniversary.

And life goes on.

Relevant

Augusto Pinochet is dead.

Europe has a very hot fall season.

Wii is outselling PS3

Wii outsells PS3 in US
Correspondents in San Francisco
DECEMBER 11, 2006
NINTENDO'S WII outsold rival PlayStation 3 by more than double in the US in November as the freshly launched video game consoles challenged the Xbox 360 for market share.

Nintendo sold 476,140 of its Wii consoles in the US in November while Sony managed to sell 196,580 of its new PlayStations, according to industry tracking group NPD.

During the month, Microsoft sold 511,300 of its Xbox 360 consoles, which it brought to market a year ago. Wii and PlayStation 3 were released for sale in the US in mid-November.

Manufacturing problems curtailed the number of PlayStation 3 systems available for the US and Japan launches and prompted Sony to postpone the consoles' Europe debut next year.

Consumers in Europe snatched up Wii consoles quickly after their debut in Europe on late last week as the innovative system, which features motion-responsive controllers, achieved status as the must-have video game.

ADVERTISEMENT

Agence France-Presse

What is relevant?

If I ask my son it will be the third item. I think the question is meaningless without context. What I want to do is to make Riemann's Surface relevant for my son and all the kids I teach at high school.

Hispanic Scholarship Fund

If you are in highschool, have a 3.0 GPA and are latino, you could ask for financial aid to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund http://www.hsf.net.

There are several requirements: three essays, around 600 words each, letters of recommendation, and filling several financial aid forms. Is this too much to ask?

It is more a matter of culture than abilities, it seems to me. If the academic expectations are low, one expects less interest in the hard work required to excel intellectually.

Is it possible for a highschool teacher to remember 150 students and their names?

It is hard for me, but I feel that an important aspect of teaching is to know who you are teaching. Some students draw attention more towards what they do wrong than towards what they do right. When they want a recommendation letter, what is more likely for me to rememeber?

I feel responsability towards my students, even more towards the ones failing. I hope I can serve them all.

Iraq War

Finally the Baker report is out. Yesterday I browsed its contents at Borders. Does the report state that the US citizens are protected by this expensive war effort? No.

What to do? The report has 79 recommendations. The report did not show polls to tell us how does the Iraqi civilians in the street feel. Do they want American troops, and how many?

As far as I can tell they recommend to reduce troop levels to half. Saudi Arabia will welcome that, they do not want to fight against Iran alone. Baker has received a lot of money from the Saudis, I do not believe that he is an honest broker telling it how it is.

Information

When one hears this word several things come to mind. As an electronics and communications engineer one idea that appears in my mind is probability. Claude Shannon at Bell Labs founded information theory. This theory turned out to be similar to Boltzmann's and Maxwell's. Clausius defined entropy and Boltzmann found the relation to probability.

Now black hole theory brings us back to these old ideas. I will write more about this in future posts.

Immanuel Wallerstein (Second Part)

I have mentioned this American intellectual before. Now he is in Mexico giving a set of lectures; I have read an interview with him, and some comments follow.

Wallerstein sees divisions inside Mexico and inside the United States. In the case of Mexico, there are at least two popular movements that present an alternative to the Mexican government of the past seventy years. In the case of the United States, the two main parties do not seem to agree on next steps.

The movements in Mexico are: in Oaxaca (APPO), and nationally (AMLO). If you have been reading my blogs you know what those initials stand for. These movements in the eyes of Wallerstein have the potential to make the work of the present Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, difficult to execute.

A common thread between these Mexican and American divisions could be the millions of Mexicans now living in the US, both legally and illegally. These Mexicans were able to influence the recent American election.

The way I see it; these several Mexican movements in Mexico and the US, have to be understood in the context of the current elite's political forces inability to control the popular forces in both countries.

Also in Central and South America, Bachelet, Chávez, Morales, da Silva, Kirschner, Correa, Vázquez and Ortega; represent the same face of widespread disillusionment with the US economic system.

I think that the global environmental disaster has also a role to play in these hard times that Wallerstein is warning us about.

For those that want to hear to intellectuals, and not only the shallow analyses of the American media, we have to start to prepare for hard times.

Mexican-Americans like me are being called to play an important role in years to come.

Just a last point. AMLO's supporters already opened an alternate consulate in Chicago, if I want to renew my passaport I have a choice, I can ask Felipe Calderón's friends or López Obrador's

We are living in interesting times.

Creativity and School

Last year I asked students to come up with a school project for our class, even though I was disapointed with some of the work, done in haste; I was impressed by some either very intelligent or creative students.

There could be intelligent and creative people, I'm thinking here of Albert Einstein. but staying with these two separate classes of people I see the following traits.

The intelligent student understands fast what is required from her, and does it almost flawlessly; the creative one, can hardly concentrate on the material presented. Not much homework, and plenty of smart remarks. When a free assignment is given, in the case I am thinking of, one dazzles with different skills and ideas not presented in class, applied to the task at hand, the other does a well organized and thoughtful presentation, that covers the material successfully. Who gets a higher grade?

I gave both an A.

Chávez and Calderón

Two faces of the new Latin America. American citizens usually only see the face of the likes of Felipe Calderón, new president of Mexico. But there are at least two faces of Latin America. One is the face of Europe, the other the older face of American indians, and mestizos.

Chávez won with more than 60% of the vote, Calderón won by an statistical fluctuation. Less than one percent difference. Chávez has his country behind him, Calderón does not.

Two Presidents in Mexico (December 1, 2006)

Today Calderón went to San Lázaro, the Mexican Congress, to officially become President of Mexico. López Obrador was officially made President of Mexico by the National Democratic Convention on September 16. Both Presidents coexisted peacefully today.

It seems to me that at least during six years, López Obrador will start a new stage in Mexican politics. At the end of the day only the Mexican People will decide if the alternative government will have power or not.

Interesting times.

Relevant Science (Meaning)

The name of this blog was explained in the first postings. I want to present links to results and reports of scientific disciplined inquires into the world we live in. I am afraid I have spent too much blog space for politics, which of course can also be considered part of the world, and therefore in the realm of disciplined studies. Nevertheless my analysis, whenever has been presented has not been very systematic.

I want people to read and come back, because what they read was relevant for them. What is interesting, what is relevant?

One motivator of this effort is the lack of interest I notice in high school students in what I know. My intention is to address interesting topics for young people in a scientific way.

What is behind my intention is the meaning of information. If I have read several books on black holes, I will see more in a recent research report on these objects, than if I just happened to be told what a black hole is. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

High school students know a little more than middle school students, that in turn know a little more than grammar school students. They act though, like if they know a lot of things, and sometimes they couldn't care less about what I am saying.

My intention is to show them that it is related to things they know,that they can learn what I know, and that it is relevant.

Meaning, then becomes an important part of relevancy. No meaning, no relevance, meaning, relevant.

Am I glad hat I am not teaching today? In a sense yes. I can now keep looking for information relevant for me. Are the students happy that they do not have to listen to me? Yes.

Snowed Out and Witnessing History

Today I did not teach. The snow did not let my students come in; I was there though, but that is not enough, you need two to Tango.

I came home and there they were; on commercial TV in Spanish here in the US, Vicente Fox Quesada and Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa. One handed the presidential sash to the other, without giving it first to the head of Congress, they corrected themselves, and the sash went to the proper person, who dutifully gave it to Calderón. This man breaking protocol put the sash around his neck all by himself, as if it were a Boy Scout medal or something. That was the most important political symbol of power in my country!

A sad and historic moment. Mexico is divided and incompetent people are in charge. Vicente Fox acted like the simple rich man that he is, and Felipe Calderón, as the eager economist with one year at a finishing school in Cambridge Massachusetts, named Harvard University.

We give ritual so much importance, and thinking about it, it might as well had been the good Boy Scout medal, from the head of the troop, to the best little boy in the troupe.

Sad and historic day.