Today I saw this in my e-mail account. It is in Spanish, so very likely you won't understand what it is written there. You can read in Wikipedia what it is all about:
Pascua Lama
Also this is classified as a hoax
I post it here because glaciers ARE DISAPPEARING, the price of gold has gone to the roof, and I look for signs of social distress.
If there is going to be a phase transition to another stage of human society, there have to be signals, like rumblings before a big earthquake hits.
Make your own mind, get informed.
¡¡¡ I M P O R T A N T E !!!
Subject: FW: Rv: NO AL PROYECTO PASCUA LAMA
¡¡¡ I M P O R T A N T E !!!
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:49:03 -0500 El Señor nos nombró administradores de la tierra, por tanto confió en nosotros, nos la confió... ¿cómo respondemos a ello??
487.- Ma. Esther Caballero, Monterrey, N.L. Méx
QUERIDOS AMIGOS:
ESTOY CONMOVIDO Y ATERRORIZADO POR LA IRRESPONSABILIDAD CON LA QUE ALGUNAS PERSONAS, PRETENTEN DAÑAR MÁS A NUESTRO PLANETA... SI DAÑAN LOS GLACIARES, LA CADENA DE DESTRUCCIÓN SERÁ INCONTROLABLE.POR FAVOR TOMA 3 MIN. DE TU TIEMPO Y ÚNETE A ÉSTA PROTESTA¡¡¡ HAGAMOS ALGO
... LA VIDA NO SE MIDE POR LOS DESCANSOS QUE TOMAMOS, SINO POR LOS MOMENTOS QUE TE ROBAN EL ALIENTO..."
Con esta respuesta me hago eco de la lucha en rescate de los glaciares. Se ruega a la persona que reciba este mensaje mandarlo a, para que sea remitido al gobierno Chileno. Grandísimos depósitos de oro, plata y otros minerales han sido encontrados bajos los glaciares. Para llegar hasta ellos será necesario quebrar y destruir los glaciares (algo nunca concebido en la historia del mundo) y hacer 2 grandísimos huecos, cada uno tan grande como una montaña.
El proyecto se llama PASCUA LAMA. La compañía se llama Barrick Gold. La operación está siendo planeada por una multinacional de la cual es miembro George Bush padre...
El gobierno Chileno ha aprobado el proyecto para que empiece este año. La única razón por la cual no ha empezado aún, es porque los campesinos han obtenido un aplazamiento. Si destruyen los glaciares, no solamente destruirán la fuente de un agua especialmente pura, sino contaminarán permanentemente los 2 ríos de tal forma que nunca volverán a ser aptos para consumo por humanos o animales debido al uso de cianuro y ácido sulfúrico en el proceso de extracción.
Hasta el último gramo de oro será enviado a la multinacional en el extranjero y ni uno le quedará a la gente a quien le pertenece esta tierra A ellos solo les quedará el agua envenenada y las enfermedades consiguientes. Los campesinos llevan bastante tiempo peleando por su tierra, pero no han podido recurrir a la TV por una prohición del Ministerio del Interior.
Su única esperanza para frenar este proyecto es obtener ayuda de la justicia Internacional.
El mundo debe enterarse de lo que está pasando en Chile .... El lugar por donde empezar a cambiar el mundo es nuestro lugar
Circula este mensaje entre tus amigos de esta forma:
Por favor haz click en Reenviar,añade tu firma al final de la lista y envíalo a todas las personas que aparecen en tus contactos, con copia
177.Jesus Hernandez Miguez...... .......Mexico
178.. Beatriz Solorza Arevalo..... ......Mexico
179. Princesa Anabell Millan
180. Maika Basurto Jardí........ ..........Mé xico
181. Gonzélez Salazar Juan Jesús.....México
182. Melgar García José Israel...... México
183.Maria Isabel Brito Moyao..... México
184.Tamar PiedraCarrillo. ......... ....México
185.Jorge piedra hernandez... ......... .mexico
186. alma gutierrez... ........... .......méxico
187.Silvia Flores...... ......... .......... méxico
188.Martha Garcia...... .......... ......México
189. Fernando Quiroz....... .......... México
190. Victoria Borroel..... .......... ....México
191. Luis Guerra...... ......... ........Venezuela
192. José Antonio Nieto ;....MEXICO
193.. Alejandro Rodriguez... ......... México
194. Rafael Ugas........ ......... ......... Venezuela
195. Roney Crespo .............. ......... .......... .... Venezuela
196. Ines Negrete ............ .......... ....Venezuela
197. AMERICA NEGRETE..... .......... .... MIAMI
198. ADRIANA UTRERA...... ........... ..... VENEZUELA
199. Edumar Merchan..... .......... ........ Venezuela
200. Melania Patiño....... ......... ........... Venezuela
201. Josmat Velasco..... ......... .......... . Venezuela
202. Wendy Paredes..... ......... .......... Venezuela
203. Mabel González...... .......... ......... .España
204 Miriam Peñaranda.... ......... ............ Venezuela
205 JOSE LUIS LOPEZ ............ ......... ......MEXICO
206. GLADYS REYES DE CASTELLANOS. ....REPUBLICA DOMINICANA.
207. Arlette Gonzalez de Reyes........ ........Venezuel a
208. Moy Moy Hung......... ......... ......... .....Venezuela
209. NIEVES LOPEZ....... ......... ......... ......VENEZUELA
210. Neyi Barroeta.... ......... ......... ......Venezuela
211. Nohe Barroeta.... ......... ......... ......Venezuela
212. Erika Silva........ .......... ......... ......... Venezuela
213. maria angelica ............ ......... .......... venezuela
214.Claudia Picher....... .......... .......... .......... Venezuela
215. Estefania Bracaglia.... ......... ........... .....Venezuela
216. Susana A.P.Kleczynski. ......... ........... ..VENEZUELA
217.Aquiles J Hernandez Egui......... ........Venezuela
218. Ariana Taramona.... ......... ........... .....Venezuela
219. Ana margarita Flores Mora.......... .......Venezuela
220. JORGE RUIZ............ ........ VENEZUELA
221. Marina Pérez........ ......Venezuela
223. Maria del Carmen Valencia M.....Venezuela
224. Jorge Luis Gonzalez.... .......... VENEZUELA
225. Fabian Villalobos.. ......... .......COLOMBIA
226.. Jorge H. Solanilla B........... ......... COLOMBIA
227. CARLOS ALBERTO SOLANILLA VARON - COLOMBIA
228. CARLOS ANDRES MORA CUELLAR...... .....COLOMBIA
229. Carlos Alberto Rodríguez ......COLOMBIA
230. Nini johanna Ortiz...colombia
240. Mauricio Campo Salazar ........... COLOMBIA
241. Camilo Alzate Ovalle -........... ....COLOMBIA
242.. Cesar Andres Ramirez ............ ........Colombia
243. Mónica Jaramillo J. ............. ......... ...Colombia
244.DIEGO RIPPE.....COLOMBIA
245..Federico Rippe Di Dio Castagna Colombia
246. Max Enrique Nieto Warnken..... ......... Colombia
247. Jhuliana A. Gómez......... Colombia
248: Santiago Mendoza Mogollon---- --------- -----Colombia
249: Carlos Eduardo Sandoval ------------ --- Colombia
250Laura Garcia Gutierrez.... .......... ......... ....COLOMBIA
251: Mauricio Monroy Amaya....... ......... ......... COLOMBIA
252: Carolina Uribe ............. ......... COLOMBIA.
253: Maria Kuri
254: carlos h tamayo. colombia
255: EDUARDO RODRIGUEZ. COLOMBIA
256. Maria Isabel Giraldo Angel
257.Maria Mercedes Llano Colombia
258. Ralph Bruns - Costa Rica
259. Adriana Ingianna - Costa Rica
260. Alexander Vargas - Costa Rica
261. Edgar Arce Araya- Costa Rica
262. Allan Zamora Ramirez- Costa Rica.
263. Eylin Soto Viquez-COSTA RICA
264. Sandra Calvo..- Costa Rica
265. Ana Salazar - Costa Rica
266. Carmen Garcia- Costa Rica
267. Mainor Alvarado - Costa Rica
268. Pablo Zamora - Costa Rica
269. Andrea Rodríguez-Costa Rica
270.GABRIELA MENDEZ-COSTA RICA
271. ROBERTO MARTINEZ-COSTA RICA
272.Fabián Artavia- Costa Rica
273. Ericka Cascante-COSTA RICA
274. Edmundo Suárez- Perú
275. Boris Ramirez - Perú
276. Diana Cubas - Perú
277. Gianina Rivera - Perez
278- Gianfranco Rivera - Perú
279.- DIANA BARRANTES LI-ELGUERA --- PERU
280.- Augusto Segura Infante ------ Peru
281.- Taylin Chiang Salazar - PERU
282.- VANESA ARROYO ROCHA - PERÚ
283._Omayra Dueñas Mujica-Perú
284.-Damaris Quispe Moscoso -Perú
285.- Kelly Ayma-Perú
286.- Jasmin Perú
287...-YennY Guillén
288.-Christian Barboza Llerena-PERU
289.- Margoth Perez Barboza - Chiclayo - Lambayeque - Peru
290.-Didany Pèrez Coronel - Chiclayo - Lambayeque - Perù
291.- Stefanie Bellido Barboza -LIMA -PERU
292.- Karla Sánchez Vizcarra-Lima- Peru
293..- vanessa oc lima peru
294._Rocio Sinti Lima_Perú
295..- Mariana Giles Herrera..... ......... Pennsylvania, USA
296.- Ingrid Fürstenau..... ........... Alemania, Duisburg
297..- Carlos Aliaga Caballero... .. Lima, Perú
298.- Patricia Eliana Castro Corcuera .....Trujillo - Perú
299.-Aliosha Malinarich.. ..... CHile- Temuko
300.. Rebeca Garcia Lavandera.... ...España- --Asturies
301. Ricardo Ripoll Dono.................España--Asturies
303. Vanessa Vega Suárez............España--Asturies
304. Silvia Alvarez Sanb Millán..........España
305- Rafeek Albertoni.... ESPAÑA.
306. Magdalena Ochoa..... Argentina.-
307- Juan sepulveda- argentina
308- Fedrizzi Silvia- Argentina
309- Zulhma Fedrizzi Bahia blanca* Buenos Aires* ARGENTINA
310 Hernan Carrizo C.A.B.A Argentina
311 Natalia Rodriguez ARGENTINA
312 Ileana Cbaleiro Aran Arg.
313 Nicolás Tiburzi Argentina
314 Micaela Eliana Flores Argentina
315 Karina Flores Argentina
316-perez jonathan - ARGENTINA (MAR DE AJO)
317 arellano yanina - Argentina (MAR DE AJO)
318 Arellano Mariana - Argentina (san bernardo del tuyu)
319 Zadeu Walter - Mar de Ajó - Argentina
320 - Pamela González Busai - General Lavalle - ARGENTINA
321- MELINA C. URSO - SAN BERNARDO DEL TUYU- ARGENTINA
322-Dardenne, Maria Lujan-San Bernardo del Tuyu-Bs.As-ARGENTINA
323 Claudio Compagni - trento - ITALIA
324 Clarita . ARGENTINA
325 - Ana María Pavesi - ARGENTINA
326 - Jorge Fenzi - ARGENTINA
327-Mabel Vallory - ARGENTINA
328- Emilia Gregrorio
329-Vanesa Lima-ARGENTINA Bs As
330- Vanesa Mechato. Argentina
331 - Formoso Pablo Andres. Argentina
Agrego esto para que vean
332 - Maria Formoso - Argentina
333 - VICTORIO CABALLERO CABA ARGENTINA
334 - Susana Caceres CABA ARGENTINA
335 - Sergio Beatriz ARGENTINA
336 - Andrea Franchini ARGENTINA
337- Weimer Sandra
338- FERNANDA FERRANDO - VIALE, E. RIOS- ARGENTINA
339. LAURA SALAMONE- ARGENTINA
340- FONTANA, CECILIA CAROLINA - PARANA - ARGENTINA
341 - MORALES, Agustín - Diamante, Argentina
342- PRINCIC, Mariela del Rosario - Paraná - Entre Ríos - ARGENTINA
343- María Perira, Mendoza- Argentina
344-Valeria Pereira--Argentina.
345- Mariel Berrocal, Lima-Perú
346- María Grazia Nicolacci, Lima-Perú
347- Beatriz Yza, Lima-Perú
348- Ana Maria Sambra -Lima . Peru
349- Andrea Herrera Donoso Quito Ecuador
350. Renato Espìn Avarado Quito - Ecuador
351. Raquel Erazo Macias - Quito- Ecuador
352. Laura Araujo - Quito - Ecuador
353. Segundo De la Torre - Cayambe -Ecuador
354. Alexandra Chela - Quito - Ecuador
355. Gabriela Bernal Ecuador
356. Lucy Mora Palomino – Mexico/Colombia
357. Mateo San clemente Crespo- colombia/españa
358. Clara Valencia- Colombia / Estados Unidos
359. Carlos Restrepo/Estados Unidos
360. Angela M Restrepo/Estados Unidos
361. Andres Felipe Guerrero/Estados Unidos t
362. Alejandro Guerrero/Estados Unidos
363. Camila Guerrero/Estados Unidos
364. Paola Andrea Parada Murillo / Colombia
365.. Edith Sampedro Rosete / México
366. Adolfo Gabriel Garcia / Mexico
367. ma.concepcion benitez lugo/mexico
368. luis miguel marin..................COLOMBIA
369. laura cristina palacio................Colombia
370. Daniela Lopera Gonzalez............Colombia
371. Santiago Martinez....................Colombia
372. Aura Hernandez.......................Colombia
373. Carolina Maria Gaviria Arroyave/Colombia
374. Gloria Gaviria A ........................Colombia
375. Luz Fabiola Casas Toro............España
376.. Maria Victoria Casas Restrepo......... Colombia
377. Efrain Gonzalez.................... Colombia
378. Nancy torrado Garcià..............Colombia
379. Susana Toro F......................Colombia
380. Juan E. Toro ........................Colombia
381. Manuela Toro C................Colombia
382. Daniel Mejía C....................Colombia
383. Mariana Jaramillo Calderón ........ Colombia
384. Ana Maria Salazar Valencia..........Colombia
385. Laura Angélica Mejía Ospina........Colombia
386. Juliana Londoño Montes.......Colombia
387. LUIS ANGEL POLANIA..........COLOMBIA
388. ADRIANA C. GOMEZ -------COLOMBIA
389. LUZ ELENA GOMEZ----------USA
390. Luisa Fernanda Hereford .........COLOMBIANA/USA
391. Nina Lizmova.......................Rusia
392. Oscar Zapata.......................Colombia
393. Mónica Ramírez G...............Colombia
394. Alejandro Reinosa....... Manizales Colombia
395. CAMILO LOZANO RIVERA.......COLOMBIA.
396.Maria M.Sánchez---Colombia
397 Bernardo Franco.... Colombia
398 Sandra Tobon Jurado-- Colombia
399. Marcela Mariscal- BOGOTA-COLOMBIA
400.Diego Luis Gomez Rodriguez....BOGOTA-COLOMBIA
401. Juan Carlos Rojas Paredes...... MAnizales- Colombia
402. Thelma Torres BOGOTA-COLOMBIA
403. Ana Lucia Bravo BOGOTA-COLOMBIA
404. Oscar Chiappe BOGOTA-COLOMBIA
405. JASNA CASTILLO IQUIQUE-CHILE
406. NARESH SAMTANI IQUIQUE-CHILE
407. Ruben Londoño - Colombia.
408. Saidy Benitez - Venezuela
409.José Hugo - Venezuela
410. Oleida Caldera a
411. TAMARA GUILLEN......VENEZUELA
412.-Joel Rodriguez..........VENEZUELA
413.-Yuliani Barroeta..........VEaNEZUELA
414.-Alejandra Jaimes..........Venezuela
415.-Zoltan Vano.............VENEZUELA
416.-Antonio Camacho.....Mérida. Venezuela.
417.-Reyes N.B...............VENEZUELA
418.-Wendilyng Lorca.......VENEZUELA
419.-CRISTINA CRESPO..... VENEZUELA
420._ YOFRAN CANELO ........ VENEZULA "MONAY"
421.- NANCY C. ORTIZ........... YARACUY-VENEZUELA
422.- LORENA ROJAS HERNANDEZ........ VENEZUEA
424.- Angélica Rodríguez Irausquín..........VENEZUELA
425.- Miguel Leon Venezuela
426-Violeta Panaciuk---------ARGENTINA
427.- Jovita Pérez Medina ---- México-Suiza
428.-Ricardo Rodrigo Cruz Reynaldos---México
429.- Fernando José Nieto Reynaldos ---- México
430 - Paula De Rosenzweig García------México.
431 - Alejandra Mendoza Yáñez -------México
432 - Mercy Mendoza Yáñez ----------México
433 - Alejandra Yáñez Rubio ----------México
434 - Eduardo Ramón Yáñez Rubio ---México
435 - Paulina Yáñez Rubio ------------México
436 - Cristina A. Rubio Guzmán ------México
437 - Eduardo Yáñez Jurado ---------México
438 - Marco Antonio Yáñez Jurado --México
439 - Rafael Vargas Loza-------------México
440- Pedro Yebra Morón-------------México
441.- Bruno F.Chavez A. México
442.- Veronica Chavez Hernandez----Mexico
443-Veronica Chavez Hernandez
443.- Ana Lourdes Ordóñez Aguilar-----México
444.- Antonio Gamaliel Rincón Meléndez ---- México
445.- Verónica Eugenia Aguilera Porta----México
446.- Ana García --- México
447.-Ale Gracia----México
448. Alejandro Barrera México.
449.-Mariela Madariaga Bates--Mexico
450.- Violeta Herrera Quintal................MEXICO
451------DANIA BORGES RAMÍREZ--------MÉXICO.
452----ROMAN FERNANDEZ TURAZZINI...TIJUANA, MEXICO
453.- Juan Darío Méndez Baker ------------Tijuana, México
454.- Eric Gutiérrez Tijuana México
455.- Sabino Arellano Soriano --------Tijuana BC; Mexico
456.-Saúl Torres Barbosa................ Tijuana BC. México
457.- Pablo Michel Mancilla..............Jalisco Mexico
458.- Juan José Loredo León........... Jalisco, México
459.- Tomas Ramirez Villaseñor... México
460.- María Dolores Granados........ Los Cabos, B.C.S., MÉXICO
461.-Sandra Reynoso E los Cabos, B.C.S.,MEXICO
462. Ceci Miró, Los Cabos, BCS, México
463.-ALEX MIRO TODOS SANTOS B.C.S. MEXICO
464- Maritza Acosta, San Francisco, Ca U.S.A.
465.- Hilda A. Miro Vazquez, La Paz
466.- Cynthia Serrano.............................. México
467.-ARACELI MENDOZA R.........................MÉXICO
468.- GUADALUPE MENDOZA RAMIREZ.........MEXICO, DF.
469.- RIGOBERTO QUINTANAR .................. MEXICO
470.-LUZ MARIA GONZALEZ BENITEZ......CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO.
471. AGUSTIN TENA LERMA .....LA PAZ B.C. SUR MEXICO
472. AMOR CAMILA ESPINOZA TENA ...LA PAZ B.C. SUR MEXICO
473.- SERGIO BARRERA ORTEGA.
474.- Ernesto León V...........México
475- Sergio Shimomoto N.--------La Paz, BCS, Mexico
476- Yohanna Ardes Guisot et Stephane Bonfils------------Paris, France
477.- Carlos Alberto Mijares Diaz---San Luis Potosi, MEXICO
478.-........................................Baja California MEXICO
479.- Max Galindo.......................................Tecate, B.C. MEXICO
480.- Sonia Fierro............................... Baja California, Mexico
481.- Silvia Sanchez..........Tecate Baja California, Mèxico.
482.- Gloria Estela Tamez Cavazos...................Tamaulipas, Mexico
483.- Ma. Trinidad Rodríguez Laguna ................ Jalisco, México.
484.-Luis Laguna González................ Jalisco,México.
485.- Ricardo Chapa Villarreal................Monterrey, Mexico
486.- Guillermo Omar Aguilar Velazquez ..........Monterrey, Mexico
487.- Silvia Báez Hinojosa...............Monterrey, Nuevo León, México
488.- MARGARITA MORALES AYALA. Guadalajara, Mèxico.
489.- Maria Josefina Aceves González.... Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
490.- Miguel Cortes Gonzalez................. Guadalajara, Mexico
491.- HECTOR EDUARDO CASILLAS ESTRADA. COLIMA MEXICO
492.- PEDRO ARTURO ROSAS REYES. COLIMA, MEXICO
493.- Ma. Teresa Marmolejo R................ México
494.- Efren Marmolejo Vega……..México"
495.- Eduardo Cantoral……..México"
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Resource War Games
This week in DN! I heard the author; Gwynne Dyer talk about his book, "Climate Wars".
I had thought about that, and strongly suspected the US Defense Department was seriously getting ready for the coming resource war. Somehow to listen to a person, and having seen the book makes it more real. Now I read that Niger is in bad shape.
I go as far as thinking that the Israeli-Arab conflict has been a war over resources from day one, but people do not like to be so blunt, they'll rather talk about the Bible, Old, and New Testament, and all that non-sense, that way, nobody knows their evil intentions.
Here in Guerrero, my uncle, Andrés Figueroa Figueroa, was from Chaucingo, he became a soldier of the 1910 Revolution, and went all the way up to Minister of War; he could've been president, if he hadn't died of a botched nose operation. He got a recurrence of the meningitis he got earlier in life when he was fighting.
I was wondering why a boy from Chaucingo was such a natural soldier, he didn't even go to the Mexican West Point, "El Colegio Militar." I've never been in Chaucingo, but they tell me that people there, have been fighting for water since a long time ago. I guess that is why my uncle was a good fighter. Now we have Attorney Héctor Vicario Castrejón, as a possible next governor of Guerrero. Guess where is he from?
If you guessed Chaucingo, you are right.
Supposedly Spaniards came to Mexico to look for gold, but look, the whole continent has a lot of resources, the biggest fresh water reservoir is Iguazu Falls , guess where people from all over the world are settling now?
Yes, Iguazu.
Jim Lovelock already predicted massive human migrations away from the tropics. Russia has a lot of land, where humans will live, once the Earth is hotter.
People in power do not have to tell us; but they are getting ready, you bet.
Land in Greenland, anybody?
I had thought about that, and strongly suspected the US Defense Department was seriously getting ready for the coming resource war. Somehow to listen to a person, and having seen the book makes it more real. Now I read that Niger is in bad shape.
I go as far as thinking that the Israeli-Arab conflict has been a war over resources from day one, but people do not like to be so blunt, they'll rather talk about the Bible, Old, and New Testament, and all that non-sense, that way, nobody knows their evil intentions.
Here in Guerrero, my uncle, Andrés Figueroa Figueroa, was from Chaucingo, he became a soldier of the 1910 Revolution, and went all the way up to Minister of War; he could've been president, if he hadn't died of a botched nose operation. He got a recurrence of the meningitis he got earlier in life when he was fighting.
I was wondering why a boy from Chaucingo was such a natural soldier, he didn't even go to the Mexican West Point, "El Colegio Militar." I've never been in Chaucingo, but they tell me that people there, have been fighting for water since a long time ago. I guess that is why my uncle was a good fighter. Now we have Attorney Héctor Vicario Castrejón, as a possible next governor of Guerrero. Guess where is he from?
If you guessed Chaucingo, you are right.
Supposedly Spaniards came to Mexico to look for gold, but look, the whole continent has a lot of resources, the biggest fresh water reservoir is Iguazu Falls , guess where people from all over the world are settling now?
Yes, Iguazu.
Jim Lovelock already predicted massive human migrations away from the tropics. Russia has a lot of land, where humans will live, once the Earth is hotter.
People in power do not have to tell us; but they are getting ready, you bet.
Land in Greenland, anybody?
Friday, July 09, 2010
Wisdom Seen by Carl Murray
"The breakthrough came in 1981 when Jack Wisdom, then a PhD student at the California Institute of Technology, developed a new numerical method for studying the motion of asteroids at resonance. Wisdom [Another pertinent name! -LB] knew about chaotic dynamics, and in particular how to derive "mappings" to speed up the numerical work. Given the state of a system at a certain time, a could give a precise, algebraic method for calculating the at some fixed time interval later. He still had to carry out the mapping on a computer, but using the mapping speeded up calculations 1000 times. As part of his thesis work, derived a mapping to study motion at the 3:1 Jovian resonance. He showed that asteroids, moving under the gravitational effects of the Sun and Jupiter, at this resonance could undergo large,unpredictable changes in their orbits. Such orbits were chaotic.Wisdom went on to show that these orbits crossed the orbit of Mars and would eventually impact or be scattered by the planets."
A little ahead in the same note we get:
"In 1984, Jack Wisdom and Stan Peale working at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Francois Mignard of C E R G A, Grasse, published a classic paper in which they showed that the simple theory worked out for satellite rotations does not apply to Hyperion, because it is distinctly nonspherical. Hyperion's rotation is certainly not synchronous, but neither is it regular; it is chaotic. Furthermore, Wisdom, Peale and Mignard showed that Hyperion is also "attitude unstable" , which means that its spin axis is not fixed and the satellite is tumbling in space as well as rotating chaotically. In normal circumstances, the satellite orbit would become more circular and eventually the chaotic behaviour would disappear, but, ironically, tiny Hyperion is locked in an apparently stable 4:3 orbit-orbit resonance with the massive satellite of Saturn, Titan. This forces Hyperion's orbit to be eccentric rather than circular, so the chaos persists, resulting in a satellite with a chaotic spin but a regular orbit. "
Taken from Carl Murray.
This is how Murray ends his note:
"Laskar's results still have to be confirmed by integrating the full equations of motion, but this will have to wait until the next generation of supercomputers arrives. Meanwhile, we can take comfort from the fact that his work does not imply that orbital catastrophe awaits our planet, only that its future path is unpredictable. It seems likely that the Solar System is chaotic but nevertheless confined, although we have yet to prove it.More than 300 years after the publication of Newton's Principia, we are still struggling to understand the full implications of his square law of gravity. We have begun to view our system of chaos in a light that is revealing the true intricacies of its majestic clockwork."
Taken from Carl Murray.
This is how Murray ends his note:
"Laskar's results still have to be confirmed by integrating the full equations of motion, but this will have to wait until the next generation of supercomputers arrives. Meanwhile, we can take comfort from the fact that his work does not imply that orbital catastrophe awaits our planet, only that its future path is unpredictable. It seems likely that the Solar System is chaotic but nevertheless confined, although we have yet to prove it.More than 300 years after the publication of Newton's Principia, we are still struggling to understand the full implications of his square law of gravity. We have begun to view our system of chaos in a light that is revealing the true intricacies of its majestic clockwork."
On a Few Million Years Range, the Solar System is Chaotic
I believe this number was first calculated by Wisdom. Can we conclude something about life?
Life has existed a thousand times longer.
That means that since the beginning of the Earth, every four million years or so, all bets are off. How come there is life?
I will invent a mechanism here, we can call it the Gaia theory of the Solar System.
As you may know, Jim Lovelock had the brilliant idea more than three decades ago, that the biosphere is a negative feedback system. The Sun is 20% hotter, but the Earth has the same temperature, so far (humanity may mess up that nice homeostasis).
Here is my Super Gaia Hypothesis.
Every four million years the Solar System enters a completely new stage, then puny Earth has to have a feedback loop with this time frame, to accommodate life.
Neat, eh!
Life has existed a thousand times longer.
That means that since the beginning of the Earth, every four million years or so, all bets are off. How come there is life?
I will invent a mechanism here, we can call it the Gaia theory of the Solar System.
As you may know, Jim Lovelock had the brilliant idea more than three decades ago, that the biosphere is a negative feedback system. The Sun is 20% hotter, but the Earth has the same temperature, so far (humanity may mess up that nice homeostasis).
Here is my Super Gaia Hypothesis.
Every four million years the Solar System enters a completely new stage, then puny Earth has to have a feedback loop with this time frame, to accommodate life.
Neat, eh!
Trippy!
Can you imagine a potato like moon tumbling chaotically near Saturn?
I wonder if you can imagine this. I will try to help you. The sky is really black, Saturn is a huge gas ball, and your trippy potato is there surprising you at every turn!
I wonder if any human being will have that privilege. At least they should take videos and show us!
Here is one, I guess is animation.
I wonder if you can imagine this. I will try to help you. The sky is really black, Saturn is a huge gas ball, and your trippy potato is there surprising you at every turn!
I wonder if any human being will have that privilege. At least they should take videos and show us!
Here is one, I guess is animation.
Bob King UAW
"“The Tea Party has been more vocal than we’ve been,” he said. “There is something wrong with that picture.”"
Taken from Bob Herbert.
The Tea Party is looking to the past, the workers movement is looking to the future.
When this system starts to crumble, I hope the likes of King and not the (Ron and Rand) Pauls win.
Ron and Rand are not Cheek and Chong!
Herbert ends his note this way.
"Bob King has a vision that draws upon the lessons of that postwar period, starting with the basic right of workers to organize if they wish without being terrorized by employers. It was the fact that workers were organized in the auto and other manufacturing industries that sparked the creation of a large middle class in America. Those well-paying union jobs allowed working families to buy a home, to put their children through school, to build better lives.
The wages from those jobs fueled the consumer demand that powered America’s economic success.
Even as he looks toward the future, Mr. King is trying to remind us of what went right in the past."
Taken from Bob Herbert.
The Tea Party is looking to the past, the workers movement is looking to the future.
When this system starts to crumble, I hope the likes of King and not the (Ron and Rand) Pauls win.
Ron and Rand are not Cheek and Chong!
Herbert ends his note this way.
"Bob King has a vision that draws upon the lessons of that postwar period, starting with the basic right of workers to organize if they wish without being terrorized by employers. It was the fact that workers were organized in the auto and other manufacturing industries that sparked the creation of a large middle class in America. Those well-paying union jobs allowed working families to buy a home, to put their children through school, to build better lives.
The wages from those jobs fueled the consumer demand that powered America’s economic success.
Even as he looks toward the future, Mr. King is trying to remind us of what went right in the past."
Wisdom and Peale
Wisdom is younger than me, I read in the Wikipedia article about him that he got his Ph.D. at Caltech at the time when there was a rage about chaotic systems, so he became an expert. Stan is older than me, then he was not trained in chaos theory. I can see how a system grows organically, Stan was the old guard with a lot of experience, Jack was the new star with all the new knowledge. A marriage made in heaven!
As they say, the rest is history.
As they say, the rest is history.
(Wisdom, Pearle, and Mignard ,1983)
"Most Hamiltonian systems display both regular and irregular trajectories. The phase space is divided; there are regions in which trajectories behave chaotically and regions where trajectories are quasiperiodic (Hénon and Heiles, 1964). The simplest and most intuitive method of determining whether a trajectory is chaotic or quasiperiodic is the surface of section method. The spin-orbit problem, as defined in the last section, is 2[;\pi;] periodic in the dimensionless time. A surface of section is obtained by looking at the system stroboscopically with period 2[;\pi;]. A natural choice for the section is to plot d[;\vartheta;]/dt versus [;\vartheta;] at every periapse passage. The successive points define smooth curves for quasiperiodic trajectories; for chaotic trajectories the points appear to fill an area on the section in an apparently random manner. It is a remarkable property of Hamiltonian systems that these two types of behavior are usually readily distinguishable and that they are generally both present on any surface of section."
Taken from here.
The surface of section method, is also called a Poincaré map in phase space. For symbolic exact solutions in dynamical systems, even with erroneous ideas one gets the right answer. On the other hand, chaotic motion requires more care, than most students exercise. In this case the use of an algebraic program translation step is important.
Write what you mean, otherwise the computer will go in undesired trajectories.
The surface of section method, is also called a Poincaré map in phase space. For symbolic exact solutions in dynamical systems, even with erroneous ideas one gets the right answer. On the other hand, chaotic motion requires more care, than most students exercise. In this case the use of an algebraic program translation step is important.
Write what you mean, otherwise the computer will go in undesired trajectories.
Coming back to Wisdom et al..:
"If this chaotic tumbling is confirmed, Hyperion will be the first example of chaotic behavior among the permanent members of the solar system."
What a way to finish a paper!
"If this chaotic tumbling is confirmed, Hyperion will be the first example of chaotic behavior among the permanent members of the solar system."
What a way to finish a paper!
A Hundred Years of Solitude Ending
There is a scene in Gabriel García Márquez's book, "A Hundred Years of Solitude," the final scene; that I kept in my memory. The last pages tell us how the world is coming to an end, at the very same moment, that a character in the novel finally figures out the secret of the town: When you figure out the fate of your world, your world will end. And then the book ends.
It is eerie because that is how I feel right now.
The Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, the flood in Monterrey and Texas, the heat wave in the East Coast, and to top it all of, I am finally understanding what is the role of Information in Physics.
The most important task for physicists today, is to figure out how the fit between mathematics and observations is so tight, and getting tighter.
My answer is that mathematics does not exist outside our heads. The only mathematics we will ever know, is the embodied mathematics, as Lakoff and Núñez would say. The mathematics we make.
Then how do we choose what to keep and what to throw away?
We only keep what fits.
It is eerie because that is how I feel right now.
The Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, the flood in Monterrey and Texas, the heat wave in the East Coast, and to top it all of, I am finally understanding what is the role of Information in Physics.
The most important task for physicists today, is to figure out how the fit between mathematics and observations is so tight, and getting tighter.
My answer is that mathematics does not exist outside our heads. The only mathematics we will ever know, is the embodied mathematics, as Lakoff and Núñez would say. The mathematics we make.
Then how do we choose what to keep and what to throw away?
We only keep what fits.
Time to Go
I have been hired for a term only, for the past two years. My colleagues here are used to that, as long as they let me figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life that was o.k.. Now though, we have a new director and he directed all of us to present proof of what we have being doing. That is o.k., I know how to write reports, what is new is that they want proof that I have been doing all that. Some of the activities were on the newspapers and radio, but I guess they mean somebody writing in a piece of paper and an official seal, proving that I did do that.
That is precisely one of the things that drove me out of this country before, not because I cannot collect those proofs like everybody does, but because I have other things to do.
If they do hire me for next term, I will finish this class I am excited about, and then split. If they don't hire me now, I guess I'll have to split before then.
That is precisely one of the things that drove me out of this country before, not because I cannot collect those proofs like everybody does, but because I have other things to do.
If they do hire me for next term, I will finish this class I am excited about, and then split. If they don't hire me now, I guess I'll have to split before then.
The Chaotic Rotation of Hyperion
Prof. Peale from UCSB, and Jack Wisdom, then also at Santa Barbara, proved almost thirty years ago that the rotation of Saturn's moon Hyperion is chaotic, in collaboration with François Mignard.
I just found out yesterday, while studying Wisdom's book for my upcoming Mechanics course.
I remember Stan Peale from way back then; somebody told me he could've easily worked at the biggest Planetary Science Department at UCLA, but that he preferred the leisurely life of Santa Barbara, where he could and did ride his bike around.
One of his students became a world expert on solar system computer work, we were office mates, his name is Alan Boss. He is now at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C.
Today I write on this epochal discovery I was not aware of. I knew Stan was good, since he predicted volcanoes in Io, and sure enough, a little later the smoking gun was there, smoking volcano would be a better description.
One can read in the Hyperion paper:
"It is expected that Hyperion will be found tumbling chaotically".
That was also confirmed.
This fit between observational and computational steps is the content of this note.
Mathematics is a cultural product, the moon's motion is something we can model, but maybe not understand the same way we understand a working car engine.
I explain; in Lisp one starts with a few axioms, just like Euclid did, then the logic of the rules leads to new constructs that surprise us. That does not mean that in the real world we are going to find a real process that follows exactly the rules we made up; what we may find out, which is great, is that the rules fit a set of experimental and observational steps.
Very few of us have that pleasure. I am happy to have known somebody like Stan, that has experienced such a pleasure.
I just found out yesterday, while studying Wisdom's book for my upcoming Mechanics course.
I remember Stan Peale from way back then; somebody told me he could've easily worked at the biggest Planetary Science Department at UCLA, but that he preferred the leisurely life of Santa Barbara, where he could and did ride his bike around.
One of his students became a world expert on solar system computer work, we were office mates, his name is Alan Boss. He is now at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C.
Today I write on this epochal discovery I was not aware of. I knew Stan was good, since he predicted volcanoes in Io, and sure enough, a little later the smoking gun was there, smoking volcano would be a better description.
One can read in the Hyperion paper:
"It is expected that Hyperion will be found tumbling chaotically".
That was also confirmed.
This fit between observational and computational steps is the content of this note.
Mathematics is a cultural product, the moon's motion is something we can model, but maybe not understand the same way we understand a working car engine.
I explain; in Lisp one starts with a few axioms, just like Euclid did, then the logic of the rules leads to new constructs that surprise us. That does not mean that in the real world we are going to find a real process that follows exactly the rules we made up; what we may find out, which is great, is that the rules fit a set of experimental and observational steps.
Very few of us have that pleasure. I am happy to have known somebody like Stan, that has experienced such a pleasure.
Patriot Act and Free Press
BP is stopping journalists from taking pictures of their installations. Citizens have valid safety concerns about oil spills in their beaches. I can see that Al Qaida will love the pictures to bomb the installations.
Now; what do we do?
Your call.
Now; what do we do?
Your call.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
AMLO for President in 2012 and The End of the World
AMLO is a man I have defended in this blog. He represents hope for some Mexicans like me. Today he announced he is running for president of Mexico again in 2012.
I explain the title of the note here.
I found out about the Mayan prophecy while browsing books in the New Age section of an American bookstore. I am Mexican and had never heard of such a thing. I even read two books I don't feel like quoting the books here, it is not that I don't believe, what is there not to believe? Nothing can be done until the year comes and goes. It is true that the Mayan calendar was better than the then current one in Europe, but what else is new. The Catholic Church in Europe did not want to accept the use of number zero, because according to them it represented wrong ideas from the East, specifically the Buddhist idea of Nirvana. Therefore it does not surprise me that the Mayan Calendar was better, they also used number zero.
The date 2012 is written in stone, somewhere between Mexico and Guatemala.
I buy all that; but what does it mean?
The problem is that the Mayans responsible for writing that, were dead when the Spaniards got around that piece of rock, or Stella. There is nobody there to ask, the Mayan culture collapsed before Europeans got there. It seems that a 18 month drought killed the civilization, not the people, they are still living in Mexico and Guatemala. The civilization ended.
In the case of the Aztecs the story is different, their civilization was around during the time I'm referring to here. Half of them died of disease, after the Spaniards came, because of the lack of immunity to European diseases, for which Europeans had already build immunity.
That is why I do not believe prophets of doom for 2012.
Nevertheless that is the year Mexicans change presidents again. The current one, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, stole the election to AMLO last time. Now AMLO wants it back.
AMLO stands for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, we Mexicans love long names, I am Gilberto Eduardo Cantoral Uriza., or GECU. I hope no hacker is reading this; they could try to brake my passwords.
Going back to AMLO; what did he do all this time since he was robbed?
As the Kennedys say, don't get mad, get even!
He is the only Mexican politician I know of ,that has gone to ALL Mexican county capitals of the country.If you are not Mexican you may think that is not a big deal, but I know better. Most of those counties are so poor, that no politician wastes his efforts going to them. AMLO believes in democracy, the meaning of the word is government by the people, ALL the people. So AMLO is the only one that can claim a representation to be president.
In a democratic country that should be enough, but Mexico is not really democratic in that sense. Anyway, I expect a big battle in Mexico in 2012.
Mayans do not have anything to do with it. If anything the Zapatista Movement, which is a Mayan Movement has kept his distance form AMLO.
Come to think of it; maybe they know something?
I explain the title of the note here.
I found out about the Mayan prophecy while browsing books in the New Age section of an American bookstore. I am Mexican and had never heard of such a thing. I even read two books I don't feel like quoting the books here, it is not that I don't believe, what is there not to believe? Nothing can be done until the year comes and goes. It is true that the Mayan calendar was better than the then current one in Europe, but what else is new. The Catholic Church in Europe did not want to accept the use of number zero, because according to them it represented wrong ideas from the East, specifically the Buddhist idea of Nirvana. Therefore it does not surprise me that the Mayan Calendar was better, they also used number zero.
The date 2012 is written in stone, somewhere between Mexico and Guatemala.
I buy all that; but what does it mean?
The problem is that the Mayans responsible for writing that, were dead when the Spaniards got around that piece of rock, or Stella. There is nobody there to ask, the Mayan culture collapsed before Europeans got there. It seems that a 18 month drought killed the civilization, not the people, they are still living in Mexico and Guatemala. The civilization ended.
In the case of the Aztecs the story is different, their civilization was around during the time I'm referring to here. Half of them died of disease, after the Spaniards came, because of the lack of immunity to European diseases, for which Europeans had already build immunity.
That is why I do not believe prophets of doom for 2012.
Nevertheless that is the year Mexicans change presidents again. The current one, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, stole the election to AMLO last time. Now AMLO wants it back.
AMLO stands for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, we Mexicans love long names, I am Gilberto Eduardo Cantoral Uriza., or GECU. I hope no hacker is reading this; they could try to brake my passwords.
Going back to AMLO; what did he do all this time since he was robbed?
As the Kennedys say, don't get mad, get even!
He is the only Mexican politician I know of ,that has gone to ALL Mexican county capitals of the country.If you are not Mexican you may think that is not a big deal, but I know better. Most of those counties are so poor, that no politician wastes his efforts going to them. AMLO believes in democracy, the meaning of the word is government by the people, ALL the people. So AMLO is the only one that can claim a representation to be president.
In a democratic country that should be enough, but Mexico is not really democratic in that sense. Anyway, I expect a big battle in Mexico in 2012.
Mayans do not have anything to do with it. If anything the Zapatista Movement, which is a Mayan Movement has kept his distance form AMLO.
Come to think of it; maybe they know something?
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Elegant Notation
Leibniz lost the battle with Newton, but won the war. During their lifetimes, it seems to me that Newton received more rewards, but today we use:
[;\frac{dy}{dx};]
I am reading how John McCarthy expressed Lisp. It is beautiful.
> ( quote a)
a
> 'a
a
I find beauty in equations, do you?
[;\frac{dy}{dx};]
I am reading how John McCarthy expressed Lisp. It is beautiful.
> ( quote a)
a
> 'a
a
I find beauty in equations, do you?
Up and Toy Story 3
I cried watching both movies. I got this from the NYT.
"Of course many more children will already have asked themselves the same question about “Toy Story 3.”The pathos in that film is rich and various, but as “Up,”the clever heartstring pullers at Pixar have zeroed in on a phase of the life cycle not generally associated with children’s entertainment. In “Up” the handkerchief moment came early on, as the long, loving marriage of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen was chronicled in a montage that located the film’s emotional heart simultaneously in boyhood and senescence. In “Toy Story 3” the equivalent moment comes near the end, when Andy’s mother, an unsung stalwart of the franchise voiced by Laurie Metcalf, looks around his empty room and wonders where the time went.
It’s a touching moment, evoking the universal heartbreak of parenthood, but the movie does not stop there. It follows Andy, not all the way to college, but to a stop on the way, the house of a little girl named Bonnie who will inherit Buzz, Woody and all the other toys who have guided Andy through childhood. He does not just drop off the box, but stops to introduce Bonnie and her current toys to the new arrivals."
My son is going to college, and we saw the Toy Story trilogy together.
When the first one came, two strong emotions took over me, the first was the quality of computer images. I felt that a new era of cinema had started. Steve Jobs rode that wave all the way to the Bank. The second was the memory of my toys.
Until the day she died, my mother was full of emotions, I don't see why I won't be.
"Of course many more children will already have asked themselves the same question about “Toy Story 3.”The pathos in that film is rich and various, but as “Up,”the clever heartstring pullers at Pixar have zeroed in on a phase of the life cycle not generally associated with children’s entertainment. In “Up” the handkerchief moment came early on, as the long, loving marriage of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen was chronicled in a montage that located the film’s emotional heart simultaneously in boyhood and senescence. In “Toy Story 3” the equivalent moment comes near the end, when Andy’s mother, an unsung stalwart of the franchise voiced by Laurie Metcalf, looks around his empty room and wonders where the time went.
It’s a touching moment, evoking the universal heartbreak of parenthood, but the movie does not stop there. It follows Andy, not all the way to college, but to a stop on the way, the house of a little girl named Bonnie who will inherit Buzz, Woody and all the other toys who have guided Andy through childhood. He does not just drop off the box, but stops to introduce Bonnie and her current toys to the new arrivals."
My son is going to college, and we saw the Toy Story trilogy together.
When the first one came, two strong emotions took over me, the first was the quality of computer images. I felt that a new era of cinema had started. Steve Jobs rode that wave all the way to the Bank. The second was the memory of my toys.
Until the day she died, my mother was full of emotions, I don't see why I won't be.
Read Eval Print Loop
The property of Lisp, REPL, also called interactive top level, makes it a good prototyping tool. Paul Graham in "The Roots of Lisp," tells us that John McCarthy showed how, given a handful of simple operators and a notation for functions, you can build a whole programming language. He called this language Lisp, for "List Processing," because one of his key ideas was to use a simple data structure called a list for both code and data.
This concept of using a single object for both code and data, has its origin with Alan Turing, John von Neumann's student. Nevertheless McCarthy constructed something that we can use to this day, Lisp.
I found this about Turing in John von Neumann.
"During 1936 through 1938 Alan Turing was a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics at Princeton and did his dissertation under Alonzo Church. Von Neumann invited Turing to stay on at the Institute as his assistant but he preferred to return to Cambridge; a year later Turing was involved in war work at Bletchley Park. This visit occurred shortly after Turing's publication of his 1934 paper "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungs-problem" which involved the concepts of logical design and the universal machine. It must be concluded that von Neumann knew of Turing's ideas, though whether he applied them to the design of the IAS Machine ten years later is questionable"
This concept of using a single object for both code and data, has its origin with Alan Turing, John von Neumann's student. Nevertheless McCarthy constructed something that we can use to this day, Lisp.
I found this about Turing in John von Neumann.
"During 1936 through 1938 Alan Turing was a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics at Princeton and did his dissertation under Alonzo Church. Von Neumann invited Turing to stay on at the Institute as his assistant but he preferred to return to Cambridge; a year later Turing was involved in war work at Bletchley Park. This visit occurred shortly after Turing's publication of his 1934 paper "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungs-problem" which involved the concepts of logical design and the universal machine. It must be concluded that von Neumann knew of Turing's ideas, though whether he applied them to the design of the IAS Machine ten years later is questionable"
France Software Strengths
Recently I heard a speaker in Acapulco telling us that in France, the Engineering students, asked for the content experts advice, more than to the pure mathematicians that taught them their basic math in college. Those were Control Engineering students. I wonder what is the case for Software Engineering students.
I connect this idea with the New Mathematics catastrophe in the US as presented by Morris Kline in his classic book: Why Johnny can't add? I will ask if Johnny can program? I will venture yes as the answer. When kids in the US, granted led by a lot of clueless teachers, were lost in the intricacies of stating clearly what you mean, they were getting ready for the difficult task of talking to computers.
French kids have made great video games, and I suppose this result has to do with their mathematics training.
I worked close to twenty years in Puebla, Mexico. I witnessed how a small group of dedicated mathematicians trained hundreds of Mexican kids in the same way. I am happy to report, that two of those kids are right now in Poland for the Microsoft competition, Imagine Cup. What I do not understand is why they got four or so kids from Acapulco, and one from the State of Mexico? I guess the process of training students for FIFA World Cups, is equally chaotic.
How come: Spain vs. Holland, and Uruguay vs. Germany?
It is hard to predict how each country is to develop, but I believe that a good training in math is important for programmers.
I connect this idea with the New Mathematics catastrophe in the US as presented by Morris Kline in his classic book: Why Johnny can't add? I will ask if Johnny can program? I will venture yes as the answer. When kids in the US, granted led by a lot of clueless teachers, were lost in the intricacies of stating clearly what you mean, they were getting ready for the difficult task of talking to computers.
French kids have made great video games, and I suppose this result has to do with their mathematics training.
I worked close to twenty years in Puebla, Mexico. I witnessed how a small group of dedicated mathematicians trained hundreds of Mexican kids in the same way. I am happy to report, that two of those kids are right now in Poland for the Microsoft competition, Imagine Cup. What I do not understand is why they got four or so kids from Acapulco, and one from the State of Mexico? I guess the process of training students for FIFA World Cups, is equally chaotic.
How come: Spain vs. Holland, and Uruguay vs. Germany?
It is hard to predict how each country is to develop, but I believe that a good training in math is important for programmers.
Bottom Up
The paper by Thierry and Thierry presents a Lisp solution to a data and program problem. In "Dynamic data models: on application of MOP-based persistence in Common Lisp."
The Meta Object Protocol (MOP) of Common Lisp allows to produce a data system which evolves according to requirements. One important concept here is persistence. States have to stay, even if unexpected events force a shutdown of the system.
Lisp is used for artificial intelligence, the structure of products in this language is simple in the beginning. The building blocks are simple, and it can get more complicated as it adapts to new requirements. This is the bottom up approach.
When I started to work on my Physics research, I felt that Information was part of nature, but I did not know how. I believe now, that more than Information, what we have for interacting systems is In-formation, as in the autopoeitic ideas I have been presenting in this blog. That is to say, the rigid concept of Information in Cybernetics, comes from the robot part of the discipline. Engineers have to specify beforehand what they are going to do: [;\tau \epsilon \lambda o \sigma;], purpose. Living things, and I believe, most things in the Universe, do not have the luxury of hindsight. Therefore the key concept is fit. One new part, has to fit with the bottom part. We end up with a bottom up Universe, and a bottom up language is welcome, for us to understand, what is outside of our heads.
In the end, I believe, a bottom up solution, is not enough. The reason is that other systems are also building and maintaining themselves in the bottom up way, at some point, not a top down effect, but more of a peer to peer, scheme has to operate. That will be a subject for another note. Here I say that a bottom up language program, that makes programs, can be a good model for the structure of Mechanics, because, for instance, the Solar System is organized with a central center, the Sun, and then planets, moons, and other small objects, can be calculated on the basis of what everything else has produced, the structure of the Solar System. Maybe the local character of Gravity is enough for this hierarchy.
The Meta Object Protocol (MOP) of Common Lisp allows to produce a data system which evolves according to requirements. One important concept here is persistence. States have to stay, even if unexpected events force a shutdown of the system.
Lisp is used for artificial intelligence, the structure of products in this language is simple in the beginning. The building blocks are simple, and it can get more complicated as it adapts to new requirements. This is the bottom up approach.
When I started to work on my Physics research, I felt that Information was part of nature, but I did not know how. I believe now, that more than Information, what we have for interacting systems is In-formation, as in the autopoeitic ideas I have been presenting in this blog. That is to say, the rigid concept of Information in Cybernetics, comes from the robot part of the discipline. Engineers have to specify beforehand what they are going to do: [;\tau \epsilon \lambda o \sigma;], purpose. Living things, and I believe, most things in the Universe, do not have the luxury of hindsight. Therefore the key concept is fit. One new part, has to fit with the bottom part. We end up with a bottom up Universe, and a bottom up language is welcome, for us to understand, what is outside of our heads.
In the end, I believe, a bottom up solution, is not enough. The reason is that other systems are also building and maintaining themselves in the bottom up way, at some point, not a top down effect, but more of a peer to peer, scheme has to operate. That will be a subject for another note. Here I say that a bottom up language program, that makes programs, can be a good model for the structure of Mechanics, because, for instance, the Solar System is organized with a central center, the Sun, and then planets, moons, and other small objects, can be calculated on the basis of what everything else has produced, the structure of the Solar System. Maybe the local character of Gravity is enough for this hierarchy.
La Furia Roja
"La Furia Roja will oppose the Netherlands on Sunday night because it habitually hogged the ball from a German attack that had splurged for 13 goals, because the humble central defender Carles Puyol scored a rare goal on a header off a corner in the 73rd minute, and because it clearly possesses a collective gut much sturdier than reputed."
Taken from NYT.
Soccer is chaotic, the ball is a sphere.
Taken from NYT.
Soccer is chaotic, the ball is a sphere.
Carnegie Mellon University Common Lisp
This university is famous. In my circles, and from what I've read; Carnegie Mellon University is considered to have one of the best Computer Science departments. Ubuntu 9.04 has the package cmucl. Now I have a lisp call in /usr/bin/lisp. I also have Common Lisp in /usr/bin/clisp.
I had been avoiding Emacs (Editing Macros); not anymore. At Lucent I didn't use Vi, nor Emacs. I want to learn emacs now. I have Xemacs also, even Slime. I hope I do not get too distracted from my Mechanics class. Like an antidote I write this note.
First I want to thank Richard Stallman. Now I will know him by his products.
The story I know is that Stallman rejected the move of Unix to the business sector, from the academic one. His rebellion was productive and now we can all benefit from his intellectual work. Even a modest professor in the third world, like myself, can use it, at no charge.
Thanks Richard Mathew Stallman, rms.
Here you have a physics analogy.
It is difficult to understand how the study of a free falling object can lead us to understand the Universe as a whole. These days the European Planck collaboration published the picture that represents more than a year of data taking using their telescope in orbit. Here its :
It is equally difficult for me to understand how a mere word processor, could lead to an operating system. I think it is so, and I am in my way of finding exactly how.
I had been avoiding Emacs (Editing Macros); not anymore. At Lucent I didn't use Vi, nor Emacs. I want to learn emacs now. I have Xemacs also, even Slime. I hope I do not get too distracted from my Mechanics class. Like an antidote I write this note.
First I want to thank Richard Stallman. Now I will know him by his products.
The story I know is that Stallman rejected the move of Unix to the business sector, from the academic one. His rebellion was productive and now we can all benefit from his intellectual work. Even a modest professor in the third world, like myself, can use it, at no charge.
Thanks Richard Mathew Stallman, rms.
Here you have a physics analogy.
It is difficult to understand how the study of a free falling object can lead us to understand the Universe as a whole. These days the European Planck collaboration published the picture that represents more than a year of data taking using their telescope in orbit. Here its :
Twitter a Search Engine?
"And this is something the service has been angling for. Last month, at the the World Innovation Forum, Stone argued that Twitter is "not a social network," though many people view it as one. "That's been a myth since the beginning," he explained. "We're much more like an information network or a source of news.""
Taken from fastcompany.com
I do post news in Twitter, but have not use the service to search my postings. I use digg.com, more that way.
I do understand that information is organized by us in that site, and that is why Google started Buzz, but somehow I keep doing my searches on Google, and of a more technical type from WolframAlpha.com
Taken from fastcompany.com
I do post news in Twitter, but have not use the service to search my postings. I use digg.com, more that way.
I do understand that information is organized by us in that site, and that is why Google started Buzz, but somehow I keep doing my searches on Google, and of a more technical type from WolframAlpha.com
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Enrique Krauze in the NYT on the Mexican Election
An Anti-Incumbency Wave — in Mexico
"Millions of Mexican citizens went to the polls on Sunday and, defying the threat of violence from drug cartels, decisively consolidated their young democracy."
"By ENRIQUE KRAUZE" "July 6, 2010"
Mexico City
PERCEPTIONS, once firmly established, can often obscure the truth. The homicide rate in Brazil is twice that in Mexico, but it is my country that is portrayed as lawless and violence-ridden. So it is important to note some sudden good news: On Sunday, in 14 of Mexico’s 32 states, Times article on Mexican elections millions of citizens went to the polls and, defying the threat of violence from drug cartels, decisively consolidated our young democracy.
They did not, as had been feared, simply entrust local government in all 14 states to the PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party), which had ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000. That had seemed to be a strong possibility, given the widespread desire to return to the relative stability of the days before the drug gangs spread violence and death through much of Mexico. Complete victory for the PRI would have led to its inevitable return to nationwide power in the presidential election of 2012. What voters did in many places was simply vote out corrupt or ineffective incumbent governors, mayors and other state and local officials — regardless of party.
Now, though the return of the PRI in 2012 is still probable, it is no longer inevitable. Even if the next president turns out to be from the PRI, the party will still not regain its lock on power, since the other parties have made such substantial gains in state and city governments. This is cause for great optimism.
For most of its modern history, Mexico was a monarchy in disguise. Each president in turn was the Great Elector, dominating Congress through a permanent majority, wielding influence over the Supreme Court, appointing and removing governors and mayors, freely manipulating the national budget and natural resources, and limiting freedom of expression.
In its decade of existence in Mexico, democracy has created a true division of power among Congress, the president and the judiciary; honest presidential and legislative elections; limits on the traditionally absolute power of the Mexican president; an independent Supreme Court; a disclosure law that has notably reduced federal corruption; unrestricted freedom of expression in the news media; and active participation by Mexican citizens in public life.
But democracy itself brought unexpected problems. The powers formerly monopolized by the president devolved to the state governors, most of whom still belonged to the PRI and often, suddenly free of presidential control, behaved like the old strongmen of the Mexican Revolution. They bought votes, controlled local electoral institutions, made free use of public funds, nourished corruption and repressed or silenced the press.
And yet, on Sunday, contrary to many people’s expectations, committed citizens voted out the feudal lords in two key states, Oaxaca and Puebla, as well as in the violence-ridden state of Sinaloa.
Public consciousness of the power of the vote is relatively new here. And it is of course vital to the success of democracy. In 6 of the 12 states that elected governors on Sunday, incumbents — not only from the PRI but also from the PAN (the right-of-center National Action Party of President Felipe Calderón) and the P.R.D. (the left-of-center Democratic Revolutionary Party) — were rejected.
In Oaxaca, Puebla and Sinaloa, the voters chose candidates jointly supported by the PAN and the P.R.D., a practical alliance that would have been unimaginable a few years ago and seems to confirm the centrist tendency of the Mexican electorate. Even in a few states where the alliance lost to the PRI, it demonstrated growing strength.
Despite the menace of violence from organized crime, in seven states, including Sinaloa, more than 50 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. Natural disasters, disease outbreaks, economic crisis, migration and the violence of the drug war have clouded life in Mexico through recent years. But the people continue to believe in democracy.
Now democracy can continue to develop where it is most needed, at the state and municipal level. Consider what might happen next year in the rich and populous state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital city. The current governor there is the popular Enrique Peña Nieto, who polls suggest is the leading candidate in the 2012 presidential race. But a PAN-P.R.D. alliance could prove competitive against his PRI successor in the 2011 gubernatorial race. Should the alliance win there, Mr. Peña Nieto’s presidential prospects would not be so clear.
At the same time, the PAN will have difficulty holding onto the presidency. Mexico remains economically stagnant, and ordinary citizens disapprove of President Calderón’s war against the drug bosses. The PAN would not have gotten very far on Sunday without its alliance with the P.R.D., and vice versa. These parties could become competitive in the 2012 presidential race, but first the new state governments, formed by alliances opposed to the PRI, must show themselves to be honest, economically innovative and effective in confronting organized crime.
The good news is that even if Mr. Peña Nieto wins the presidency in 2012, the PRI will still not regain its former strength. The governors, even the many in the PRI party, will not gracefully cede their new powers to the president. And voters know the PRI cannot easily persuade the drug lords to stop competing for market and territories — and stop killing each other, government representatives and ordinary citizens.
In practical terms, a pluralistic Mexico is far preferable to the restoration of a camouflaged monarchy. A country that becomes continually more comfortable with democracy and the rule of law in its states and cities can confront the challenge of organized crime in a more effective and responsible manner. Colombia has done it, and maintained democracy. Mexico — with some help and understanding from the United States — can do it as well. No matter the dangers, the future for Mexico must rest on maintaining and expanding its still young democracy.
US Mexico Governors Meeting in Danger
The Mexico US border situation hit the stage of: When the s... hit the fan.
Governor Brewer, what did you expect?
If cooler heads don't prevail, we may need another General Santa Anna on our side and some James Palk, on the US side.
Let us just schedule a soccer match. That way Mexico will win this time.
Governor Brewer, what did you expect?
If cooler heads don't prevail, we may need another General Santa Anna on our side and some James Palk, on the US side.
Let us just schedule a soccer match. That way Mexico will win this time.
Eclipse Software Update by a Neophyte
When at Lucent I had a friend that downloaded the whole Java shebang. Then he played day and night, and had all this Java structure to play with inside the firewall. I was amused by him. Given that the company then had a tight relationship with Sun Microsystems it was o.k. I realized then that this Java thing was a huge software enterprise. I am told now that engineers are given Hewlett Packard laptops! What a change, a Sun Workstation for a cheap laptop!
When I was told this by a friend that was recently considered disposable by this great French-American company, in that order, first French, then American; I realized that our fearless leader Carly Fiorina, not only destroyed Lucent, then she went on to destroy HP, and she is posed to destroy California now. I guess she must be some apocalyptic angel.
Anyway, I digress. I am updating some software for my Eclipse platform I installed in my computer running Ubuntu 9.04. I took the first official site, and I am still waiting for all those plugins coming in. I have enough Java software to run a whole Apache server in my puny machine. I do not have plans, just yet, to be in charge of an industrial strength site powered by Java tools.
Just having fun.
What I really want to do is to add a SchemeScript plug in for Eclipse, but I guess that is harder for me. I am a real neophyte. I did download the tar ball, I guess, though, it will be some kind of ugly polluting tar ball, like the ones in the Gulf of Mexico, until I learn how to this by hand.
Oh, well. It failed. I guess Mr. Ellison CEO of Oracle, the new owner of Java, is not that friendly with us, poor Ubuntu users of his valuable software.
When I was told this by a friend that was recently considered disposable by this great French-American company, in that order, first French, then American; I realized that our fearless leader Carly Fiorina, not only destroyed Lucent, then she went on to destroy HP, and she is posed to destroy California now. I guess she must be some apocalyptic angel.
Anyway, I digress. I am updating some software for my Eclipse platform I installed in my computer running Ubuntu 9.04. I took the first official site, and I am still waiting for all those plugins coming in. I have enough Java software to run a whole Apache server in my puny machine. I do not have plans, just yet, to be in charge of an industrial strength site powered by Java tools.
Just having fun.
What I really want to do is to add a SchemeScript plug in for Eclipse, but I guess that is harder for me. I am a real neophyte. I did download the tar ball, I guess, though, it will be some kind of ugly polluting tar ball, like the ones in the Gulf of Mexico, until I learn how to this by hand.
Oh, well. It failed. I guess Mr. Ellison CEO of Oracle, the new owner of Java, is not that friendly with us, poor Ubuntu users of his valuable software.
What is an American?
I will try, because of the 4th of July, to answer the question above.
One fourth of modern Americans in a recent poll didn't know which people did the Americans fight to become Americans. Besides the sorry state of American education I see here an opportunity to put together these thoughts.
In Mexico a similar poll will not get that result; Mexicans fought Spaniards to become Mexicans, here in Chilpancingo, José María Morelos y Pavón, a Catholic priest that joined Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, was fighting Spaniards born in Spain, and declared in a Plaza, a few blocks away from my office, that slavery was abolished; on September 13, 1813.
We do remember who did we fight. To this day in some towns, they re-enact the killing of Spaniards, and some drunks shout, ¡Qué mueran los gachupines! Death to Spaniards. Yes we remember who did we fight in 1810.
An American then, here in Mexico, is Indian and mixed blood. Also white people born in Europe, but that want to join this country are Americans. Morelos did refer to his people as Americans.
Nowadays people from Asia, Europe, and other places are flocking to the shores of America, and I mean, North and South America. This is the last outpost, where humanity is trying to go a hundred or more years, into the future, with the human experiment.
With this idea, an American is the one that knows about Africa, Israel, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Europe, Asia, and finally America. We started in Africa and ended in America. Now we have all to come as brothers and sisters or face extinction. It is time to end all this bickering we hear from Arizona, and instead of putting all that money in a fence that does not work, put it in the DREAM act and move ahead. The eleven million Mexicans living illegally in the US, are not about to come back meekly to their hometowns, to face failure, they will fight and fight, until they get what they deserve, and Cesar Chavez is their inspiration.
We are all in this together, what is there that is hard to understand?
American is the one that lives in America. All America, not just Paris, Texas. Give me a break. Grow up people.
One fourth of modern Americans in a recent poll didn't know which people did the Americans fight to become Americans. Besides the sorry state of American education I see here an opportunity to put together these thoughts.
In Mexico a similar poll will not get that result; Mexicans fought Spaniards to become Mexicans, here in Chilpancingo, José María Morelos y Pavón, a Catholic priest that joined Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, was fighting Spaniards born in Spain, and declared in a Plaza, a few blocks away from my office, that slavery was abolished; on September 13, 1813.
We do remember who did we fight. To this day in some towns, they re-enact the killing of Spaniards, and some drunks shout, ¡Qué mueran los gachupines! Death to Spaniards. Yes we remember who did we fight in 1810.
An American then, here in Mexico, is Indian and mixed blood. Also white people born in Europe, but that want to join this country are Americans. Morelos did refer to his people as Americans.
Nowadays people from Asia, Europe, and other places are flocking to the shores of America, and I mean, North and South America. This is the last outpost, where humanity is trying to go a hundred or more years, into the future, with the human experiment.
With this idea, an American is the one that knows about Africa, Israel, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Europe, Asia, and finally America. We started in Africa and ended in America. Now we have all to come as brothers and sisters or face extinction. It is time to end all this bickering we hear from Arizona, and instead of putting all that money in a fence that does not work, put it in the DREAM act and move ahead. The eleven million Mexicans living illegally in the US, are not about to come back meekly to their hometowns, to face failure, they will fight and fight, until they get what they deserve, and Cesar Chavez is their inspiration.
We are all in this together, what is there that is hard to understand?
American is the one that lives in America. All America, not just Paris, Texas. Give me a break. Grow up people.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Talking to Computers
I was taught Fortran many years ago. I got enough to realize that this was new. I had never talked to machines before. Now that we have so many automated answering systems, we know what a pain it can be.
Recently I have been reading Maturana & Varela's ideas on the living. I buy what they say: everyday a living thing works hard at staying alive. In our case most of it is automatic, below awareness, whatever you want to call it, but it is there.
Talking to a computer is no different, our conscious acts get mingled with the parts in the basement of consciousness, and it gets hairy.
If any reader knows Scheme, you may sympathize with me, here it goes:
;; pass in an unspecified number of args
(define sum
(lambda (x . y) ; the dot precedes a list
(apply + x y))) ;(apply proc arg1 ... args)
(sum 2 2 2 2)
8
I have:
MIT/GNU Scheme running under GNU/Linux
Type `^C' (control-C) followed by `H' to obtain information about interrupts.
Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994,
1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Image saved on Thursday March 12, 2009 at 4:17:10 AM
Release 7.7.90.+ || Microcode 15.1 || Runtime 15.7 || SF 4.41
LIAR/i386 4.118 || Edwin 3.116
The above exercise from a tutorial is not working for me :(
I did not get 8, I get this error message:
;The procedure #[compound-procedure 11 sum] has been called with 4 arguments; it requires exactly 1 argument.
;To continue, call RESTART with an option number:
; (RESTART 1) => Return to read-eval-print level 1.
Later, now is 10.14 PM
The problem was syntactic:
(define sum
(lambda (x . y)
(apply + x y)))
(sum 2 2 2 2)
8
I had written before x.y, and xy. Now I used x . y , and x y
This works. xy was taken as a new variable, also x.y was not interpreted correctly before.
From On Lisp by Paul Graham
Lisp is a programmable programming language.
Recently I have been reading Maturana & Varela's ideas on the living. I buy what they say: everyday a living thing works hard at staying alive. In our case most of it is automatic, below awareness, whatever you want to call it, but it is there.
Talking to a computer is no different, our conscious acts get mingled with the parts in the basement of consciousness, and it gets hairy.
If any reader knows Scheme, you may sympathize with me, here it goes:
;; pass in an unspecified number of args
(define sum
(lambda (x . y) ; the dot precedes a list
(apply + x y))) ;(apply proc arg1 ... args)
(sum 2 2 2 2)
8
I have:
MIT/GNU Scheme running under GNU/Linux
Type `^C' (control-C) followed by `H' to obtain information about interrupts.
Copyright (C) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994,
1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Image saved on Thursday March 12, 2009 at 4:17:10 AM
Release 7.7.90.+ || Microcode 15.1 || Runtime 15.7 || SF 4.41
LIAR/i386 4.118 || Edwin 3.116
I did not get 8, I get this error message:
;The procedure #[compound-procedure 11 sum] has been called with 4 arguments; it requires exactly 1 argument.
;To continue, call RESTART with an option number:
; (RESTART 1) => Return to read-eval-print level 1.
Later, now is 10.14 PM
The problem was syntactic:
(define sum
(lambda (x . y)
(apply + x y)))
(sum 2 2 2 2)
8
I had written before x.y, and xy. Now I used x . y , and x y
This works. xy was taken as a new variable, also x.y was not interpreted correctly before.
From On Lisp by Paul Graham
Lisp is a programmable programming language.
Friends
Today I had a talk with a friend. Students claim you do not concentrate in the subject matter, he said.
I had this problem before; now using the Internet it has gotten worse. Most people hold one thought at a time, even more if it is a new thought. As I teach a class over and over, I know everything that is coming and think of something else to do. If I have a broadband Internet connection it gets worse, I get instant answers, and for my bewildered students, more distractions.
I have to fix this.
It is good to have friends.
I had this problem before; now using the Internet it has gotten worse. Most people hold one thought at a time, even more if it is a new thought. As I teach a class over and over, I know everything that is coming and think of something else to do. If I have a broadband Internet connection it gets worse, I get instant answers, and for my bewildered students, more distractions.
I have to fix this.
It is good to have friends.
The Future is Now
President Obama declared Saturday that Abengoa Solar Inc. is funded to create the jobs of the future.
Finally, Washington wakes up to our dire need.
Way to go Mr. President!
Finally, Washington wakes up to our dire need.
Way to go Mr. President!
MIchael Moore
You can see Michael today in DN!
He is a great man.
I had forgotten the courage he showed during the 2003 Academy Awards Ceremony. Now seeing him in DN! I admire him even more.
He was right. The US went to war for fictitious reasons.
He is a great man.
I had forgotten the courage he showed during the 2003 Academy Awards Ceremony. Now seeing him in DN! I admire him even more.
He was right. The US went to war for fictitious reasons.
Schroedinger's Cat Tomás Brody and I
Erwin Scrhoedinger illustrated Quantum Mechanics with a thought experiment. Imagine a cat in a box, with a deadly contraption triggered by an unstable radioactive material. According to the theory developed by him, and others: One has to assign a "probability amplitude" for the situation, either the cat is dead, or alive, depending on whether the nucleus decayed or not. Only when an observer checked to see if the cat was alive or dead, will the cat die or not.
This is true; for cats though, it is very difficult to set up such experiment. Something called quantum entanglement, based on the wave nature of matter, is involved. It is practically impossible to make all the atoms in the cat act coherently. Therefore do not put your pet under those conditions, first the cat will be annoyed, and second nothing of the sort will happen. This is only a thought experiment.
Now I have this to write on Tomás Brody. He introduced Lisp to Mexico working at UNAM in the late 60s and early 70s. He collaborated with Marcos Moshinsky calculating numerical tables for nuclear physics. Unfortunately this great human being died in the hands of a thief near the university campus.
I am reading Scheme, in the book by Sussman and Wisdom, I will use Scheme in the upcoming mechanics class I will teach this semester. Scheme is a descendant of Lisp.
In no way I am like Tomás. Unfortunately my students in Guerrero only have me. I will try to remember that great thinker while I teach.
What about the cat?
I still have trouble with the philosophical underpinnings of Quantum Mechanics, as Tomás was. In my way of thinking, though, Tomás did something back then, that I feel will make my task easier. I guess I should contact Tomás's intellectual descendants at UNAM; since I cannot contact him. While dead Tomás is there in some way.
This is true; for cats though, it is very difficult to set up such experiment. Something called quantum entanglement, based on the wave nature of matter, is involved. It is practically impossible to make all the atoms in the cat act coherently. Therefore do not put your pet under those conditions, first the cat will be annoyed, and second nothing of the sort will happen. This is only a thought experiment.
Now I have this to write on Tomás Brody. He introduced Lisp to Mexico working at UNAM in the late 60s and early 70s. He collaborated with Marcos Moshinsky calculating numerical tables for nuclear physics. Unfortunately this great human being died in the hands of a thief near the university campus.
I am reading Scheme, in the book by Sussman and Wisdom, I will use Scheme in the upcoming mechanics class I will teach this semester. Scheme is a descendant of Lisp.
In no way I am like Tomás. Unfortunately my students in Guerrero only have me. I will try to remember that great thinker while I teach.
What about the cat?
I still have trouble with the philosophical underpinnings of Quantum Mechanics, as Tomás was. In my way of thinking, though, Tomás did something back then, that I feel will make my task easier. I guess I should contact Tomás's intellectual descendants at UNAM; since I cannot contact him. While dead Tomás is there in some way.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
WTF The Right and the Left Against the Center in Mexico
PRI (the center) lost Oaxaca to a coalition of PRD (the left) and PAN (the right).
I guess we are at a crossroads in Mexico, the US, and all over the World.
Plenty of material for a lot of fiction: Thrillers, novels, mysteries, ...
Dracula?, anybody wants to be the Mexican Dracula? What about the son of Germán Robles?
Mexico should not be outdone by those Twilight kids.
I guess we are at a crossroads in Mexico, the US, and all over the World.
Plenty of material for a lot of fiction: Thrillers, novels, mysteries, ...
Dracula?, anybody wants to be the Mexican Dracula? What about the son of Germán Robles?
Mexico should not be outdone by those Twilight kids.
Nobody Listens to Krugman
"So, is there any chance these arguments will get through? Not, I fear, to Republicans: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, in this case, his hope of retaking Congress — “depends upon his not understanding it.” But there are also centrist Democrats who have bought into the arguments against helping the unemployed. It’s up to them to step back, realize that they have been misled — and do the right thing by passing extended benefits."
From the NYT.
American unemployed can only expect more suffering, unless President Obama finds the courage to call the bluff of his mortal enemies.
From the NYT.
American unemployed can only expect more suffering, unless President Obama finds the courage to call the bluff of his mortal enemies.
Why are Textbooks so Uninspiring?
I recently browsed through the 2010 edition of Halliday and Resnick Physics textbook. I used the 1965 edition, as a student. Besides the difference in price, and the pretty pictures, I do not see much there. On the other hand "The Feynman Lectures on Physics," written in 1961, still have that warmth of a work of love, intellectual love; Dick Feynman poured all his heart into that work. As you can see from his preface below, though, he was not satisfied.
In Mexico it doesn't really matter, the honchos that run the place as warlords, couldn't care less if Mexican students learn physics or not. A hero of mine Eng. Heberto Castillo, was almost killed because he wanted to change that situation, all he achieved, though, was a political party that is not what he wanted it to be.
The answer to the question posed in this note's title, in Mexico, is that people in power don't care. In the US, the situation is more nuanced, but at a gut feeling, I think that the reason Feynman's lectures were not promoted, and Halliday's book was, is greed, and money also.
Feynman Lectures on Physics
"These are the lectures in physics that I gave last year and the year before to the freshman and sophomore classes at Caltech. The lectures are, of course, not verbatim—they have been edited, sometimes extensively and sometimes less so. The lectures form only part of the complete course. The whole group of 180 students gathered in a big lecture room twice a week to hear these lectures and then they broke up into small groups of 15 to 20 students in recitation sections under the guidance of a teaching assistant. In addition, there was a laboratory session once a week.
The special problem we tried to get at with these lectures was to maintain the interest of the very enthusiastic and rather smart students coming out of the high schools and into Caltech. They have heard a lot about how interesting and exciting physics is—the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and other modern ideas. By the end of two years of our previous course, many would be very discouraged because there were really very few grand, new, modern ideas presented to them. They were made to study inclined planes, electrostatics, and so forth, and after two years it was quite stultifying. The problem was whether or not we could make a course which would save the more advanced and excited student by maintaining his enthusiasm.
The lectures here are not in any way meant to be a survey course, but are very serious. I thought to address them to the most intelligent in the class and to make sure, if possible, that even the most intelligent student was unable to completely encompass everything that was in the lectures—by putting in suggestions of applications of the ideas and concepts in various directions outside the main line of attack. For this reason, though, I tried very hard to make all the statements as accurate as possible, to point out in every case where the equations and ideas fitted into the body of physics, and how—when they learned more—things would be modified. I also felt that for such students it is important to indicate what it is that they should—if they are sufficiently clever—be able to understand by deduction from what has been said before, and what is being put in as something new. When new ideas came in, I would try either to deduce them if they were deducible, or to explain that it was a new idea which hadn't any basis in terms of things they had already learned and which was not supposed to be provable—but was just added in.
At the start of these lectures, I assumed that the students knew something when they came out of high school—such things as geometrical optics, simple chemistry ideas, and so on. I also didn't see that there was any reason to make the lectures in a definite order, in the sense that I would not be allowed to mention something until I was ready to discuss it in detail. There was a great deal of mention of things to come, without complete discussions. These more complete discussions would come later when the preparation became more advanced. Examples are the discussions of inductance, and of energy levels, which are at first brought in in a very qualitative way and are later developed more completely.
At the same time that I was aiming at the more active student, I also wanted to take care of the fellow for whom the extra fireworks and side applications are merely disquieting and who cannot be expected to learn most of the material in the lecture at all. For such students I wanted there to be at least a central core or backbone of material which he could get. Even if he didn't understand everything in a lecture, I hoped he wouldn't get nervous. I didn't expect him to understand everything, but only the central and most direct features. It takes, of course, a certain intelligence on his part to see which are the central theorems and central ideas, and which are the more advanced side issues and applications which he may understand only in later years.
In giving these lectures there was one serious difficulty: in the way the course was given, there wasn't any feedback from the students to the lecturer to indicate how well the lectures were going over. This is indeed a very serious difficulty, and I don't know how good the lectures really are. The whole thing was essentially an experiment. And if I did it again I wouldn't do it the same way—I hope I don't have to do it again! I think, though, that things worked out—so far as the physics is concerned—quite satisfactorily in the first year.
In the second year I was not so satisfied. In the first part of the course, dealing with electricity and magnetism, I couldn't think of any really unique or different way of doing it—of any way that would be particularly more exciting than the usual way of presenting it. So I don't think I did very much in the lectures on electricity and magnetism. At the end of the second year I had originally intended to go on, after the electricity and magnetism, by giving some more lectures on the properties of materials, but mainly to take up things like fundamental modes, solutions of the diffusion equation, vibrating systems, orthogonal functions,... developing the first stages of what are usually called "the mathematical methods of physics." In retrospect, I think that if I were doing it again I would go back to that original idea. But since it was not planned that I would be giving these lectures again, it was suggested that it might be a good idea to try to give an introduction to the quantum mechanics—what you will find in Volume III.
It is perfectly clear that students who will major in physics can wait until their third year for quantum mechanics. On the other hand, the argument was made that many of the students in our course study physics as a background for their primary interest in other fields. And the usual way of dealing with quantum mechanics makes that subject almost unavailable for the great majority of students because they have to take so long to learn it. Yet, in its real applications—especially in its more complex applications, such as in electrical engineering and chemistry— the full machinery of the differential equation approach is not actually used. So I tried to describe the principles of quantum mechanics in a way which wouldn't require that one first know the mathematics of partial differential equations. Even for a physicist I think that is an interesting thing to try to do—to present quantum mechanics in this reverse fashion—for several reasons which may be apparent in the lectures themselves. However, I think that the experiment in the quantum mechanics part was not completely successful—in large part because I really did not have enough time at the end (I should, for instance, have had three or four more lectures in order to deal more completely with such matters as energy bands and the spatial dependence of amplitudes). Also, I had never presented the subject this way before, so the lack of feedback was particularly serious. I now believe the quantum mechanics should be given at a later time. Maybe I'll have a chance to do it again someday. Then I'll do it right.
The reason there are no lectures on how to solve problems is because there were recitation sections. Although I did put in three lectures in the first year on how to solve problems, they are not included here. Also there was a lecture on inertial guidance which certainly belongs after the lecture on rotating systems, but which was, unfortunately, omitted. The fifth and sixth lectures are actually due to Matthew Sands, as I was out of town.
The question, of course, is how well this experiment has succeeded. My own point of view—which, however, does not seem to be shared by most of the people who worked with the students—is pessimistic. I don't think I did very well by the students. When I look at the way the majority of the students handled the problems on the examinations, I think that the system is a failure. Of course, my friends point out to me that there were one or two dozen students who—very surprisingly —understood almost everything in all of the lectures, and who were quite active in working with the material and worrying about the many points in an excited and interested way. These people have now, I believe, a first-rate background in physics—and they are, after all, the ones I was trying to get at. But then, "The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous." (Gibbon)
Still, I didn't want to leave any student completely behind, as perhaps I did. I think one way we could help the students more would be by putting more hard work into developing a set of problems which would elucidate some of the ideas in the lectures. Problems give a good opportunity to fill out the material of the lectures and make more realistic, more complete, and more settled in the mind the ideas that have been exposed.
Still, I didn't want to leave any student completely behind, as perhaps I did. I think one way we could help the students more would be by putting more hard work into developing a set of problems which would elucidate some of the ideas in the lectures. Problems give a good opportunity to fill out the material of the lectures and make more realistic, more complete, and more settled in the mind the ideas that have been exposed.
I think, however, that there isn't any solution to this problem of education other than to realize that the best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher—a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things. It's impossible to learn very much by simply sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned. But in our modern times we have so many students to teach that we have to try to find some substitute for the ideal. Perhaps my lectures can make some contribution. Perhaps in some small place where there are individual teachers and students, they may get some inspiration or some ideas from the lectures. Perhaps they will have fun thinking them through—or going on to develop some of the ideas further.
RICHARD P. FEYNMAN
June, 1963"
Taken from e-book I downloaded.
Google Moderator
New Goolge service; I already started a series:
Sea Level Rising
Share your questions, and answers. Then vote, like in digg.com, to see what is more popular.
Sea Level Rising
Share your questions, and answers. Then vote, like in digg.com, to see what is more popular.
New Mathematics
The last piece I wrote here got me going. My friends Vinod, Sabás, Richard, and Grisha, are the ones that didn't get or didn't want money, but I have more examples of scientists that acted in ways most "regular" people, cannot make sense of. In this note are the names, and then I describe what New Mathematics they are doing.
First a preamble: I start with what Roberto Bolaño calls, the Nazi writers of Latin America.
Despicable people that believe they are writers, when in truth they are not. From outside I can see that Bolaño was a writer, but most of his life very few people thought so. When he was in Mexico, instead of kissing ass to the Mexican intellectuals like Octavio Paz and Co., he chose to mock them. I have a friend that was with him putting the likes of Juan Bañuelos to the fire.
Another example of this trait is Carlos (Monsi) Monsiváis, when he died recently, the NYT published an obituary. Tony DePalma, whom very likely was paid well to write this piece, does not explain why almost nobody in the English speaking world knew about this great man. I believe it was because he didn't kiss ass either.
I guess now that Monsi is dead, many translations are coming, as when Bolaño died in 2003.
These Nazi writers then, are oblivious of their low intellectual level, and then they are full of themselves. I guess they believe they deserve all the money and glory coming their way. They are the quintessential ass kissers.
Of course we also have more intellectual types that know they are real minor intellectual figures, but are strongly bent and making a big killing in whatever way possible. They are celebrities like Tila Tequila, Paris Hilton, and so an.
The names of the mathematicians I write about here are: Noam Chomski, John J. Hopfield, and Stephen Wolfram. I also write about the new mathematics they've created.
Chomski is Emeritus Professor at MIT. He is an oddball; while most of the intellectuals of his stature chose to get by, and not make waves, he was real close to ending up in jail; for instance when his friend Daniel Ellsberg, almost ended up there. He started a mathematical study of language that I have come to appreciate more and more. Without his work it would have been hard for Terry Sejnowski to come up with the neural nets that process human language.
John Joseph Hopfield invented neural networks, and taught Terry how to use them. The field of mathematical neurosciences owes much to Hopfield. The brain it seems, as Santiago Ramón y Cajal, discovered many years ago, is organized in nodes with thin links between them. This anatomical discovery is worthy of a Nobel Prize, which he got. This finding allows scientists to construct the mathematics of the mind, the embodied mind, as that great Chomski student, George Lakoff, has called.
Finally in my list of creators of the New Mathematics I put Stephen Wolfram, which is not shy in entitling his book, "A New Kind of Science."
I have followed the work of this scientist, whom doesn't think like most of us, since he wrote that fundamental paper in Reviews of Modern Physics, "The Statistical Mechanics of Cellular Automata." At that time, I thought he was going to research the discrete origin of Nature's Behavior, something I thought was out there in the real world; something we could just find, like finding nice pebbles on a beach stroll.
Now I know differently; and here is my definition of the "New Mathematics."
Erik Thompson (below) shows us with his videos how we can teach physics, and programming. Anybody that has programmed a computer knows that: "Toto, I have a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Any More".
My definition of New Mathematics is:
Mathematics is a cultural product that allows brain connections to the external world, through the scientific method.
Maturana and Varela have taught us that In-formation and not Information is the explanation of the human mind, the embodied mind. Lakoff and Núñez recently wrote a book where you can find the Basic Metaphor of Infinity. No matter how many neural connections the brain has, there are not infinite connections, nevertheless we use infinity. Our finite brains encompass the Infinity. The only mathematics we will ever know is human mathematics: bye, bye Plato!
Autopoiesis is the word Maturana and Varela chose to encode their findings. Live objects make themselves, they produce, maintain, and some reproduce themselves. In this view, there is no ready made Information out there, that living things just download in their hard drive. All living things are in a continuous process of producing themselves, as that American prophet, Bob Dylan, put it: If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying (below).
Enter the computer: The New Mathematics is computer mathematics. As I write above, the world of programming is another version of mathematics; just like Dorothy Gale, and Toto; in the Wizard of Oz, get a color view of reality, while at the beginning of the movie we, and we think they, saw the world in black and white. That is the way I felt when I started to program PCs in the early 80s. I was mesmerized by the varied screen images I was creating with simple programs.
All abstract thought when confronted with actual experimental procedures, and is vindicated; becomes part of science, and if the thoughts are mathematical, of the New Mathematics, I'm talking about here. Those mathematicians who couldn't care less about the fit of their ideas and the world outside, could keep doing what I now call, Old Mathematics. I can see that the nomenclature is not apt. New and Old have to do with time, not with having or not a fit with experimental, and observational procedures. If the ideas here expressed, get some traction, I'm sure I can come up with a more fitting name.
These New Mathematics have been made by savvy thinkers like Wolfram, that doesn't need to kiss ass, because he makes enough money building his Mathematica, which is used by an increasing number of engineers and scientists. Nevertheless the physics society at large has not gotten the point of what he means.
I can imagine Wolfram laughing with his millions, and Perelman laughing without his million.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Erik Thompson
I am collecting sites for my upcoming physics class. I came across this interesting instructor, Erik Thompson. He uses VPython to teach physics. You can see his videos here.
I couldn't install VPython in my Ubuntu 9.04 platform. I used this program before in a McIntosh computer. I think Thompson has a linux system as well. The point I write about here is the new class room situation. The video shows the attention given to the code in real time, given Python's script character the flexibility is useful.
This was not the way I learnt. This students are learning two things at once.
More important are the possibilities; now students can do more than we did back then.
I couldn't install VPython in my Ubuntu 9.04 platform. I used this program before in a McIntosh computer. I think Thompson has a linux system as well. The point I write about here is the new class room situation. The video shows the attention given to the code in real time, given Python's script character the flexibility is useful.
This was not the way I learnt. This students are learning two things at once.
More important are the possibilities; now students can do more than we did back then.
People I've Met
Sabás Cervantes, Vinod Janghiani, Richard Stallman, and Grisha Perelman.
I am not close to any of them. During my life I have had activities close to them. Some more some much less. All of them, in my mind share similar traits. I write a few things about them.
Sabás was Jerzy Plebanski's student at Cinvestav, while I was on a sabbatical there. He was pleasant. Later he went away and, even though, he was a good student, he is not working in General Relativity as far as I know.
My friends told me that he did not want to collect his salary when he became a professor, because, according to him, Mexican workers and peasants deserved more salary than he was paid. His sister eventually came and collected the money.
Vinod was my classmate at the Physics Department of UCSB, he was Jim Hartle's Ph.D. student. When a friend of us got a job in Sussex, he took it upon himself to write a letter to the effect that our friend was not trustworthy. When the Faculty committee formed to address this harmful behavior, he wanted me to attest, that our friend did not show up once we were to have pizza together.
Now Vinod, I am told, walks around the streets of Santa Barbara and does not have a faculty position.
Stallman only answered some e-mails to me when we wanted him to lecture us in open source at Lucent. He said that since we worked for pay, he wanted an honorarium. The Software Administration Department hosting the event did not pay speakers more than travel and hotel expenses, then Stallman did not come. Eventually Eric Raymond talked to us.
Now Stallman does not want money for Emacs, and other open source products that form the basis for Linux.
Finally Grisha was not interested to talk to anybody about his mathematical work. I asked a friend of mine to invite him to Mexico; my friend told me that Perelman did not want to talk to anybody.
This week finally Grisha decided to turn down one million dollars offered to him, because he thought that Richard Hamilton deserved more recognition.
The pattern I see is one of brilliant minds that do not see the world like the rest of us. Maybe they are autistic, maybe we don't get the point about life. In any case, I wished I was offered part of the money that all these brilliant men deserve.
I myself, could have taken more money than I had. Maybe I am borderline autistic.
I am not close to any of them. During my life I have had activities close to them. Some more some much less. All of them, in my mind share similar traits. I write a few things about them.
Sabás was Jerzy Plebanski's student at Cinvestav, while I was on a sabbatical there. He was pleasant. Later he went away and, even though, he was a good student, he is not working in General Relativity as far as I know.
My friends told me that he did not want to collect his salary when he became a professor, because, according to him, Mexican workers and peasants deserved more salary than he was paid. His sister eventually came and collected the money.
Vinod was my classmate at the Physics Department of UCSB, he was Jim Hartle's Ph.D. student. When a friend of us got a job in Sussex, he took it upon himself to write a letter to the effect that our friend was not trustworthy. When the Faculty committee formed to address this harmful behavior, he wanted me to attest, that our friend did not show up once we were to have pizza together.
Now Vinod, I am told, walks around the streets of Santa Barbara and does not have a faculty position.
Stallman only answered some e-mails to me when we wanted him to lecture us in open source at Lucent. He said that since we worked for pay, he wanted an honorarium. The Software Administration Department hosting the event did not pay speakers more than travel and hotel expenses, then Stallman did not come. Eventually Eric Raymond talked to us.
Now Stallman does not want money for Emacs, and other open source products that form the basis for Linux.
Finally Grisha was not interested to talk to anybody about his mathematical work. I asked a friend of mine to invite him to Mexico; my friend told me that Perelman did not want to talk to anybody.
This week finally Grisha decided to turn down one million dollars offered to him, because he thought that Richard Hamilton deserved more recognition.
The pattern I see is one of brilliant minds that do not see the world like the rest of us. Maybe they are autistic, maybe we don't get the point about life. In any case, I wished I was offered part of the money that all these brilliant men deserve.
I myself, could have taken more money than I had. Maybe I am borderline autistic.
What is Information?
I have studied and taught physics for years. With a background in communications engineering, I was drawn to the understanding of Information. The categories of physics are space, time, matter, and energy. On top of all that we have the so-called "Laws of Physics."
In what sense are they laws? Apart from the fact that we assume they do not change and operate in any corner of the Universe, they are not laws in the sense of human laws; or are they?
Human laws are conventional; it is o.k. to circumcise a girl in some parts of the World, but not in Mexico. We have the convention here, that girls are not circumcised.
Enter physics: momentum is conserved we say, it is now, it was before, and it will always be; besides, no matter where in space we are, momentum will be conserved. There are conditions for this to be true, the object must be free of external forces. Even with those caveats, many of these physical regularities are used by humans to get by on this Earth of ours; our ideas fit with observed behaviors.
Information can be defined as a set of marks made by one part of the Universe, other parts of the Universe then, are affected by those marks and behave in recognizable ways. Nevertheless in physics we make a description like this. Two objects approach each other, a force field produced by one, affects the space of the other which behaves differently from the case when the first object was not there. We even have equations that allow us to predict future marks in the Universe.
One question then is; do these objects have a version of our mathematical description in their very working environments?
Before I was not sure, now I am inclined to the following explanation.
No copy whatsover of similar scribbles on paper, computer programs, or computers, are needed. Objects in the Universe do something similar to what Maturana and Varela claim, organic objects do.
Information as we have taken it to be in engineering, is a late product of a more interesting process going on among living beings. The following is a description of how living systems affect and are affected by their environment.
Teleology is a crucial word here:![[;\tau \epsilon \lambda o \sigma;]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uNZOH7PqEL66tryWwcpdxCnTHU0jJrDAEaZG_ihqvlOd5wKonomd6h_oNu4ADlwiYr_A4lRgfeyyFTc3Y9Qyl8J3_pUvLU4wby0iaAnHdaQ2_G-MX_vhD9gwTMSAyptuGbyqJsEvgN-2_HGg=s0-d "\tau \epsilon \lambda o \sigma")
. One part of the universe does not have the power to completely set the course of behavior of other nearby parts. That Greek word telos, means purpose. Engineering products do have purpose, we made them to serve a purpose. On the other hand two co-evolving cells do not have a purpose in that sense. What they do is reach a state of dynamical equilibrium through their interaction. Purpose as we know it, appears when higher order organic beings like us, other primates, and whatever other animals have this emergent property, acquire it.
As it happens, once this dance on the biosphere is going on; our societies construct meaning for us, to better deal with the environment. Each one of us acquires consciousness, and we can go on socially constructing more and more abstract ideas with the use of the scientific method.
In conclusion, Information must enter in the categories of physics; but first we have to settle our personal relation with it.
Nowadays Information resides not only in our notebooks, but in our netbooks and in the cloud. Up there all humans are building a supra-brain, constructing what Teilhard de Chardin, already called the noosphere. For me though, it is not an unknown new field, but just the extension of our human conventions to a physical network of wires and computers on the surface of the Earth.
These ideas have been motivated by the work of: Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Terrence Sejnowski, and Steven Quartz.
In what sense are they laws? Apart from the fact that we assume they do not change and operate in any corner of the Universe, they are not laws in the sense of human laws; or are they?
Human laws are conventional; it is o.k. to circumcise a girl in some parts of the World, but not in Mexico. We have the convention here, that girls are not circumcised.
Enter physics: momentum is conserved we say, it is now, it was before, and it will always be; besides, no matter where in space we are, momentum will be conserved. There are conditions for this to be true, the object must be free of external forces. Even with those caveats, many of these physical regularities are used by humans to get by on this Earth of ours; our ideas fit with observed behaviors.
Information can be defined as a set of marks made by one part of the Universe, other parts of the Universe then, are affected by those marks and behave in recognizable ways. Nevertheless in physics we make a description like this. Two objects approach each other, a force field produced by one, affects the space of the other which behaves differently from the case when the first object was not there. We even have equations that allow us to predict future marks in the Universe.
One question then is; do these objects have a version of our mathematical description in their very working environments?
Before I was not sure, now I am inclined to the following explanation.
No copy whatsover of similar scribbles on paper, computer programs, or computers, are needed. Objects in the Universe do something similar to what Maturana and Varela claim, organic objects do.
Information as we have taken it to be in engineering, is a late product of a more interesting process going on among living beings. The following is a description of how living systems affect and are affected by their environment.
Teleology is a crucial word here:
. One part of the universe does not have the power to completely set the course of behavior of other nearby parts. That Greek word telos, means purpose. Engineering products do have purpose, we made them to serve a purpose. On the other hand two co-evolving cells do not have a purpose in that sense. What they do is reach a state of dynamical equilibrium through their interaction. Purpose as we know it, appears when higher order organic beings like us, other primates, and whatever other animals have this emergent property, acquire it.As it happens, once this dance on the biosphere is going on; our societies construct meaning for us, to better deal with the environment. Each one of us acquires consciousness, and we can go on socially constructing more and more abstract ideas with the use of the scientific method.
In conclusion, Information must enter in the categories of physics; but first we have to settle our personal relation with it.
Nowadays Information resides not only in our notebooks, but in our netbooks and in the cloud. Up there all humans are building a supra-brain, constructing what Teilhard de Chardin, already called the noosphere. For me though, it is not an unknown new field, but just the extension of our human conventions to a physical network of wires and computers on the surface of the Earth.
These ideas have been motivated by the work of: Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Terrence Sejnowski, and Steven Quartz.
Gerald Jay Sussman
"Sussman has pioneered the use of computational descriptions to communicate methodological ideas in teaching subjects in Electrical Circuits and in Signals and Systems. Over the past decade Sussman and Wisdom have developed a subject that uses computational techniques to communicate a deeper understanding of advanced Classical Mechanics. Computational algorithms are used to express the methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Students are expected to read our programs and to extend them and to write new ones. The task of formulating a method as a computer-executable program and debugging that program is a powerful exercise in the learning process. Also, once formalized procedurally, a mathematical idea becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results. Sussman and Wisdom, with Meinhard Mayer, have produced a textbook, "Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics," to capture these ideas."
Next semester I am teaching mechanics. My students are juniors in college, but if they took physics, that was in high school. I want to teach them mechanics.
I've taught mechanics many times. I've made some clarifications for myself doing that. Nevertheless after working as a software engineer at Lucent, I felt that computer programming could be a good addition to my classes. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Professors Sussman, and Wisdom, have written such a book already, with the Scheme programming language invented at MIT, which can be downloaded for free.
Thanks to Prof. Sussman I can concentrate on that, which is the topic of my next note.
Mexican Children Drills
I wished I wrote here about the successful training to get the next Mathematics Olympics Gold Medal. Sadly the drills the kids did were to get ready for shoot-outs among drug gangs.
We are in a state of war.
From the Daily Mail in the UK you can get some of the news.
We are in a state of war.
From the Daily Mail in the UK you can get some of the news.
Emacs
"You'll also see something like “(See ‘Extended’)” from time to time. We've listed the possible default keybindings for a function in its entry in the “Additional Features Manual,” so check there, too. Note that there are two different key binding maps in common use in the LyX community: the “CUA” style which is the default and familiar to those coming from the PC world, and the “emacs” style, which is common with those who “grew up” on Unix systems and use the Emacs editor. Unless specifically noted, the keybindings in the documentation are from the default CUA map. If you like Emacs, you should be smart enough to read the documentation and figure out the bindings on your own."
Taken from the LyX intro.lyx
Taken from the LyX intro.lyx
January, 1969: Goleta
"For eleven days, oil workers struggled to cap the rupture. During that time, 200,000 gallons of crude oil bubbled to the surface and was spread into a 800 square mile slick by winds and swells. Incoming tides brought the thick tar to beaches from Rincon Point to Goleta, marring 35 miles of coastline. Beaches with off-shore kelp forests were spared the worst as kelp fronds kept most of the tar from coming ashore. The slick also moved south, tarring Anacapa Island's Frenchy's Cove and beaches on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands."
Taken from UCSB.
I lived in Isla Vista six years of my life. I should have paid more attention to the environmental storm gathering strength there. For my children, I hope there is still a way forward for humans.
Taken from UCSB.
I lived in Isla Vista six years of my life. I should have paid more attention to the environmental storm gathering strength there. For my children, I hope there is still a way forward for humans.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Scheme and the Pleasures of Emacs
When I was at Lucent, I learnt vi and Emacs. There were other more user friendly editors that I used most of the time. With my Ubuntu installation, I have tried the LyX editor. Now I am using Scheme, I never liked Emacs that much, I guess I cannot hide anymore.
Professors Sussman and Wisdom wrote a book, "Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics" . I think time has come to learn Scheme also, now that I have to teach Classical Mechanics once more.
Professors Sussman and Wisdom wrote a book, "Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics" . I think time has come to learn Scheme also, now that I have to teach Classical Mechanics once more.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Evolution
"If confirmed, this would be the most recent known example of human evolutionary change. Until now, the most recent such change was the spread of lactose tolerance — the ability to digest milk in adulthood — among northern Europeans about 7,500 years ago. But archaeologists say that the Tibetan plateau was inhabited much earlier than 3,000 years ago and that the geneticists’ date is incorrect."
Taken from the NYT.
How fast does evolution happen?
Professors Cochran and Harpending proposed in a recent book: "The 10,000 Year Explosion" , that human evolution has been faster than previously thought. They claim that Ashkenazim Jews were bred in Europe for mental skills, and point out to the disproportionate amount of US citizens that have gone out to get Nobel prices in Physics and Chemistry.
Now the authors quoted in the note above, claim that Tibetans developed their ability to live with less oxygen than the rest of us in 3,000 years.
It seems to me that the evidence is strong, therefore now with the known human genome we can only expect very rapid genetic change. This reminds me of Ray Kurzweil singularity. If you make it to 2040 or so, you have it made. I think that we will be less than 7, 000, 000, 000 people by the end of this century.
Hard times are going to come.
Taken from the NYT.
How fast does evolution happen?
Professors Cochran and Harpending proposed in a recent book: "The 10,000 Year Explosion" , that human evolution has been faster than previously thought. They claim that Ashkenazim Jews were bred in Europe for mental skills, and point out to the disproportionate amount of US citizens that have gone out to get Nobel prices in Physics and Chemistry.
Now the authors quoted in the note above, claim that Tibetans developed their ability to live with less oxygen than the rest of us in 3,000 years.
It seems to me that the evidence is strong, therefore now with the known human genome we can only expect very rapid genetic change. This reminds me of Ray Kurzweil singularity. If you make it to 2040 or so, you have it made. I think that we will be less than 7, 000, 000, 000 people by the end of this century.
Hard times are going to come.
Elian González
"It's the land where I'm from," Gonzalez said of Cuba. "Here I feel good, and, thanks to my education and the strength my people have given me, today I'm almost a man."
Taken from AOL.
I remember ten years ago when this drama was played live on TV. Now the boy is 15.
This statement is deep.
An adolescent becomes a man through society's bonding. There is no consciousness without a society.
I belong, therefore I am.
Taken from AOL.
I remember ten years ago when this drama was played live on TV. Now the boy is 15.
This statement is deep.
An adolescent becomes a man through society's bonding. There is no consciousness without a society.
I belong, therefore I am.
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