Annoying Euro Apologetics - The New York Times

Annoying Euro Apologetics - The New York Times:



"Are there good arguments against the proposition that the creation of the euro was an epic mistake? Maybe. But the arguments I’ve been hearing lately are really bad. And they’re also deeply annoying."



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Greece Approves Second Set of Changes Needed for Bailout - The New York Times

Greece Approves Second Set of Changes Needed for Bailout - The New York Times:



"ATHENS — Under the threat of yet another deadline, the Greek Parliament approved a second package of policy changes early Thursday that the country’s creditors had said must be in place before the detailed negotiations for an 86-billion-euro bailout could begin."



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The Case for a Tax on Financial Transactions - The New York Times

The Case for a Tax on Financial Transactions - The New York Times:



 "WASHINGTON — LIKE it or not, the campaign season is upon us, and that almost certainly means somebody is going to try to buy your vote with a tax cut — even though average federal tax rates are already low in historical terms, our tax code remains tilted in favor of the wealthy, and our children, neighborhoods and infrastructure desperately need public investment."



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Sea level study: James Hansen issues dire climate warning.

Sea level study: James Hansen issues dire climate warning.:



"In what may prove to be a turning point for political action on climate change, a breathtaking new study casts extreme doubt about the near-term stability of global sea levels."



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Tracing Routes to America Through DNA, Both Ancient and New - The New York Times

Tracing Routes to America Through DNA, Both Ancient and New - The New York Times:



"Some people in the Brazilian Amazon are very distant relations of indigenous Australians, New Guineans and other Australasians, two groups of scientists who conducted detailed genetic analyses reported Tuesday. But the researchers disagree on the source of that ancestry."



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Yuri Milner, Russian Entrepreneur, Promises $100 Million for Alien Search - The New York Times

Yuri Milner, Russian Entrepreneur, Promises $100 Million for Alien Search - The New York Times:



"Extending his idea of philanthropy beyond the Earth and even the human species, Yuri Milner, the Russian Internet entrepreneur and founder of science giveaways like the annual $3 million Fundamental Physics Prizes, announced in London on Monday that he would spend at least $100 million in the next decade to search for signals from alien civilizations."



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Edna

Posted on July 19, 2015 by 365Artists/365Days

Edna 2014
Acrylic on paper. Laminated in plastic.
49 X 32 cm

Briefly describe the work you do.

I am interested in that which is broken; the unfinished that never ends because it keeps changing; the “mistake“, the recycled, undrawn drawing, mixed techniques; the fragile; the small; introspection. I mainly works with acrylic, mixed techniques and collage. Literatura is a strong influence in my creations.

Sometimes I laminate my work in plastic, intending that the works float freely in space without the limitations of a frame. In a recent series we see that the characters turn into animals, symbols of what they really are. The presence of void and death as the main motors for transformation is a fixed value in my work.

I want my art has honesty, perseverance, perpetual change, the amazement, experimentation in the different techniques that reflect the profound curiosity I feel for myself and the world I am part of.

Tell us about your background and how that has had an influence on your work and on you as an artist.

I undertook a Literature diploma, I was practicing Chi Kung around that time, I was also doing pottery and clay sculpture. Art, science, music, literature, have always been present at home. My parents value art, and what is more, they live it.

The concept of the artist studio has a broad range of meanings in contemporary practice. Artists may spend much of their time in the actual studio, or they may spend very little time in it. Tell us about your individual studio practice and how it differs from or is the same as traditional notions of “being in the studio.”

I like to be lonely and yes, I spend time in the studio, I firmly believe that being in touch with myself is the best way to communicate something real, and to contact with another human being. I also believe in the transformative power of art and that we are a unit that any action that transforms me somehow transforms the world.

I like to travel when I can, to be in contact with people and learn from other realities it seems vital to me.

Edna 2013
Mixed media on papers. Laminated in plastic.
68 X 55 cm

What roles do you find yourself playing that you may not have envisioned yourself in when you first started making art?

The artist’s books, I did not know what it was when I started my work.

When do you find is the best time to make art? Do you set aside a specific time everyday or do you have to work whenever time allows?

I work every day, I prefer the afternoon, sometimes I work even in weekends, I am a little work alcoholic. But when I begin to repeat I need to stop for a while… I rest being in nature, cooking, reading. I really like sleeping but sometimes I have to wake up because a persistent idea is bothering.

Edna 2015
Mixed media on paper. Laminated in plastic.
83 X 65 cm

How has your work changed in the past five years? How is it the same?

The ideas are the same, but my work changed, before, the image was more invisible, prior the drawing was more intimated and now is more present.

How have people such as family, friends, writers, philosophers, other artists or even pop icons had an impact on the work you do?

My parents value art, and what is more, they live it.

My father is a pediatrician surgeon and I was allergic to medication, and this encouraged my parents to look for other alternatives. This has become decisive to me, thanks to my parent’s heritage and my mother’s

tireless spirit, the discovery of humanism, transpersonal psychology, Taoism, quantum physics, alternative medicine, meditation, and all that seeks for the integration of mind, body, spirit, and soul as a whole and in connection with a greater Whole. I may say that my work as artist is imbued with this life choice and with this insistent search to be that whom I am destined to be. My grandfather he used to like music, poetry, that he had a deep religiosity and curiosity for the invisible on oneself and the world.

Antonio Acosta, a painter, astrologer, and a true warrior in the path of self-discovery, was my first inspiration and real and close reference of art as a way of life and an occupation.

When my eldest sister, to whom I am strongly attached, went away to study music in Morelia, I found myself alone. This was the main reason that drove me to enter the Art School, I was looking for company. Funnily enough, I had to finish my studies there if I wished to pursue a professionally career in art.

Companions in my life have been the love and wonder I feel for words and the power that I deem they have. My mother and I recall that I have loved reading out loud since I was a child and thus I would follow her up and

down the house to read to her. I once asked her: what a funny word! who might have invented it? Language is still a mystery to me. Literature has also been one of the treasures I have held dear through my life and one that gives meaning to it.

Having seen the film Orlando, based on the novel by Virginia Woolf, Juan Gelman’s poetry. Goya, Toulouse, Remedios Varo.

Have you ever been pulled in the direction of a pursuit other than being an artist? What are your other interests? 

Cooking, once I worked in a restaurant, I have ideas for food. I like teaching , interact with kids, I learn more. I was interested in studying psychology, also I’m curious and like the zoology , biology.., photography. I like to travel.

About

Edna Cantoral Acosta was born in Mexico City, 1976. She studied in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, where she currently works. In 1996 she obtained the Sogem diploma in literary creation. She undertook undergraduate studies in plastic arts at the University of Guadalajara. (1998-2001). She took classes with artists and in the engraving workshop of Herculano Álvarez during the period between 2002-2003. She was granted a scholarship to study at the ENSAD, Paris, during the period from October 2004 to August 2005.

She has participated in 67 collective exhibitions in Guadalajara, Mexico city, Argentina, Spain, N.York, Georgia , Japon, London. Recent exhibitions are: “THE ARTERNATIVE PLAYGROUND”, 3th to 6th sept, 2015, The Rag Factory, London;

” PEQUEÑO FORMATO INVERSIÓN ATRACTIVA VIII“, 22 de august to 22 sept, 2015 at Galería Adriana Valdés, Gdl, Jalisco; La Carnivale, The New Bohemian Gallery, Minnesota, 3 to 25 july 2015; Identity/Memory, Gallery on the Corner, London, 13 to 23 June 2015; Una Vida/ A life, excolegiojesuita.mx, Pátzcuaro, Mich, México, 12sept-19 oct, 2014; HEROES AND VILLAINS , ARC Gallery and Educational Foundation, 25 June to 19 july, 2014, Chicago; FOLIA , 1rst   International Artist Book Fair, Instituto Cultural Cabañas, February 2014 and Favor de Tocar, Larva , Nov- December 2013, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, both organized by: Liabooks; “Derroteros”, Galería Adriana Valdés, Guadalajara;   “The Artful Scriptorium”, Climate Gallery , N.York ; “Passion for Freedom”, Unit 24 Gallery, London;   ART TAKES TIMES SQUARE, Chashama and Artists Wanted, Nueva York; LA ELOCUENCIA DEL ARTE, Galería Adriana Valdés (december 2012 ) at Guadalajara, Jalisco; I’S SHES HERS and OURS, I-SHO Gallery, Edwards Lane , London, 2011; Redux , Desotorow Gallery, Inc. Savannah, Georgia, April, 2010. Edna carried out 11 individual ones, one of them being the Signature of the artist book “Homenaje a Juan Gelman /Hommage à Juan Gelman” at the Hune Brenner Gallery in Paris. Another individual exhibition: “Ventana Compartida” (Shared window), at Galería Ajolote (Gallery Axolotl), Contemporary Art in Guadalajara.

She took part in the book “Arte Euroamericano” volumes 3 and 4 and in the art magazine Casiopea # 12 (www.revistacasiopea.com), Guadalajara, México.

Edna has participated with artwork in the project: http://telephone.satellitepress.org/, New York, 2013 -2014.

She was represented by Agora Gallery, Chelsea, New York City. The year: 2008

She is a member of the International Miniart Exchange group since 2007 and she take part in the 2008 edition (www.miniartex.org) as well as in the exhibition: “Your Documents Please” International Identification Document exhibition (http://www.yourdocumentsplease.com )

An engraving by Edna belongs to the collection: “Lolita Rubial” Foundation. Engraving National Museum, Uruguay.

One book : Homenaje a Juan Gelman is part of the collection of Standford University, 2014.

ednacantoralacosta.com

All images copyright of the artist and used with their permission. 

365 days, 365 artists

U.S. Embassy in Cuba Reopens After More Than 50 Years - The New York Times

U.S. Embassy in Cuba Reopens After More Than 50 Years - The New York Times:



 "HAVANA — After more than a half-century defined by mistrust and rancor, the United States officially reopened its six-story embassy in the Cuban capital on Monday, the culmination of many months of negotiations to overcome decades of historical enmity and to restore diplomatic relations between the two nations."



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Europe’s Impossible Dream - The New York Times

Europe’s Impossible Dream - The New York Times:



"There’s a bit of a lull in the news from Europe, but the underlying situation is as terrible as ever. Greece is experiencing a slump worse than the Great Depression, and nothing happening now offers hope of recovery. Spain has been hailed as a success story, because its economy is finally growing — but it still has 22 percent unemployment. And there is an arc of stagnation across the continent’s top: Finland is experiencing a depression comparable to that in southern Europe, and Denmark and the Netherlands are also doing very badly."



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The Euroskeptic Vindication - The New York Times

The Euroskeptic Vindication - The New York Times:



 "One theme I’ve returned to often in this blog is that far from failing in the crisis, more or less conventional Hicks/Keynes macroeconomics — whether or not you dress it up in New Keynesian algebra — has performed very well. The quiescence of interest rates and inflation despite large budget deficits and huge increases in the monetary base, the strong negative correlation between fiscal austerity and growth, all have been just what someone who knew his or her IS-LM and took it seriously would have predicted. Anti-Keynesians keep making more or less desperate efforts to refute this proposition, usually by taking something I said out of context and pretending that something that happened for one year somewhere or other is contrary to what the Evil One claimed. But the overall shape of events has been very Keynesian, and very much at odds with alternative stories."



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In China, a Supercity Rises Around Beijing - The New York Times

In China, a Supercity Rises Around Beijing - The New York Times:



"YANJIAO, China — Every morning at 5:30, Liu Desheng joins a dozen retirees waiting for the express bus to Beijing from this small city in Hebei Province. They stand at the front of the line but never board, instead waiting as bus after bus pulls up, each picking up 50 people from the ever-lengthening line behind the retirees."



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The Long, Strange Trip to Pluto, and How NASA Nearly Missed It - The New York Times

The Long, Strange Trip to Pluto, and How NASA Nearly Missed It - The New York Times:



"Planetary scientists are coloring in the family portrait of our solar system as close-up photographs and observations stream back from Pluto, a world three billion miles away with towering mountains of ice, vast smooth plains and many mysteries yet to be revealed."



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Philip Zimbardo Thinks We All Can Be Evil - The New York Times

Philip Zimbardo Thinks We All Can Be Evil - The New York Times:



 "In 1971, you conducted a psychological experiment at Stanford. You split your 21 student-subjects into guards and inmates, with you as the superintendent, and had them run a prison out of a basement. You had to abandon the experiment after six days, because it spiraled violently out of control. Now, 44 years later, there is a movie about it. Do you like it? I’m delighted with it. It conveys for the first time to a general public what this kind of experiment is like. There is another movie called ‘‘Experimenter,’’ about Stanley Milgram’s research, which also premiered at Sundance, and the second half is confusing. At one point, Milgram walks out of his lab, and behind him is a huge elephant. I saw the director at Sundance, and I said, ‘‘Why did you have an elephant?’’ He said, ‘‘People like elephants.’’"



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Counting All the DNA on Earth - The New York Times

Counting All the DNA on Earth - The New York Times:



 "50 trillion trillion trillion"



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Pluto Terrain Yields Big Surprises in New Horizons Images - The New York Times

Pluto Terrain Yields Big Surprises in New Horizons Images - The New York Times:



"In addition to soaring ice mountains, Pluto’s mixed bag of terrains includes smooth plains that are crisscrossed by enigmatic troughs, photographs from NASA’s New Horizons mission show."



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Yoichiro Nambu, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Dies at 94 - The New York Times

Yoichiro Nambu, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Dies at 94 - The New York Times:



 "Yoichiro Nambu, a particle physicist at the University of Chicago whose mathematical description of the phenomenon known as spontaneous symmetry breaking helped explain the interaction of subatomic particles, contributed to the prediction of the Higgs boson, or “God particle,” and earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008, died on July 5 in Osaka, Japan. He was 94."



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A Window Into Pluto, and Hopes of Opening Other Doors - The New York Times

A Window Into Pluto, and Hopes of Opening Other Doors - The New York Times:



"LAUREL, Md. — During the early hours of July 14, Eastern time, a series of radio waves went out from giant antennas in Canberra, Australia, and Goldstone, Calif., in the direction of a collection of stars known as the “teaspoon” in the constellation Sagittarius."



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Yellen Warns Congress Against Adding to Fed’s Oversight - The New York Times

Yellen Warns Congress Against Adding to Fed’s Oversight - The New York Times:



"WASHINGTON — Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, told lawmakers on Wednesday that proposals to increase congressional oversight of the central bank could cause collateral damage to the broader economy."



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NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Sends Signal From Pluto to Earth - The New York Times

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Sends Signal From Pluto to Earth - The New York Times:



"LAUREL, Md. — After a long day celebrating the arrival of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto and wondering about its fate while it was out of radio contact, mission controllers finally received confirmation Tuesday night that the spacecraft had performed its scientific tasks.

"



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Iran

This is for Clyde!

Los Jardines de la Reina

Little Pluto Bigger Than Scientists Thought as Flyby Looms - The New York Times

Little Pluto Bigger Than Scientists Thought as Flyby Looms - The New York Times:



 "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Little Pluto is a little bigger than anyone imagined."



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Pluto Comes Into Focus - The New York Times

Pluto Comes Into Focus - The New York Times:



"LAKE TEKAPO, New Zealand — Twenty-four hours before showtime our prospects looked bleak. Halfway around the world from our homes in Massachusetts, our team of astronomers had traveled to this lake’s barren shores for a two-minute encounter with Pluto. But the wind was at gale force, so we weren’t even allowed to open the telescope dome."



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Financial War

I am not an economist, but I read professors Krugman, and Stiglitz regularly. I am working on the concept of Information Engine. Current economic systems are harder to understand than Steam Engines.

 But Must We Try!

I can use three systems to understand the current attack on the democratically elected government of Greece.  The United States of Mexico, the United States of America (USA), and the European Union (EU).

Let us start with the country where I was born.

Mexico has existed for over ten thousand years, with different names. For my purposes here, I start when corn was domesticated in what is called Mesoamerica, around the Balsas River, where my mother grew up.

The central, and southern parts of Mexico are fertile, and temperate around the volcanoes. Animal and plant diversities, are some of the highest in the world. By 1521, over ten million people lived there. At this point people with other religion, and germs came along, together with a broader community of nations already established in Europe and Asia. The ruler Cuauthémoc, was taken prisoner and eventually assassinated.

Nowadays this country is multi-ethnic, and ruled by European descendants, like myself.  We have properties in the best places, and the defeated Indians inhabit what can be called, Indian Reservations, like in the USA, and Canada. Around ten percent of the population does not speak the country's official language: Spanish.

The people who domesticated corn, live in poverty, and the invaders live better, European descendants like myself,  have more opportunities.

Most Indian populations live in the South; recently forty three teacher students from those Indian groups, were disappeared in Iguala, and the mayor is about to be released, since there are no bodies to link him to those killings, only one body was scientifically identified as one of them, the rest were burned and disposed of.

One sees here, that this diverse country is a failed state. Integration has not worked.

Now let's move to the USA, where I live now.

President Andrew Jackson cleared the land of Indians, in a classic Ethnic Cleansing operation. Instead of this original population, European people took the land, as in an Ethnic Cleansing operation is supposed to happen.

With free cotton seed, developed in Mesoamerica, and stolen by Europeans, free land, stolen from Indians, and free labor, stolen from Africa, the biggest capitalist empire the world has ever known was established. The Empire of Cotton, as Professor Sven Beckert, from Harvard University, calls it.

This Empire, had a financial component, from New York, to London, money came to buy slaves, and transport the cotton to English factories, already powered by steam.

The New York - London Axis won!

There were competitors, in Mexico, Egypt, and India, but none of them were able to get as  big a market share. Maybe consciously, or not, an automatic principle of capitalism, made it very hard to overtake this juggernaut. Professor Thomas Piketty, from  the Paris School of Economics discovered  this regularity. The rate of capital accumulation, is bigger than the rate of growth. One is wealthy, only if there is a head-start, not by working, which in the case I am presenting, the banks of New York, and London had. Free, or very cheap costs, and tremendous profits. You can read William Faulkner, from the slave plantations of the South, and understand the principle in the book, Absalom, Absalom!

This perspective, allows you to understand why so many African Americans are in jail, and only because of the courage of Bree Newsome, the South finally recognized that they lost the Civil War.

Finally let's move on to  the EU, and the recent Coup d'Etat in Greece.

We are in the the 21st Century, and History never repeats itself exactly. The following lines are only presenting an analogy to the USA Civil War, which ended in 1865, a hundred and fifty years ago.

Both Economics Nobel Prize winners, Joseph Stiglitz, and Paul Krugman, have been consistently presenting the views I try to reproduce here, with the eye of a physicist.

There are two important indexes in macroeconomics. Inflation, and unemployment.

First of all, one has to understand that one country, is not a family. This is science, not a morality play. Germans, and Greeks, are as lazy, and hard working as the nationals of any other country.

The EU sets the price of the euro, based on inflation, with no consideration of unemployment, unlike the Federal Reserve of the USA, where both indexes are monitored, and monetary policy is decided on low inflation, and good employment numbers. Say less than 2%, for the first, and less than 10% for the second. The markets are expecting the Chairwoman Janet Yellen, to increase interest rates this year, if the employment figures keep increasing.

Alas, the EU only cares about inflation!

More than 20% of young Greeks are unemployed.

These young people elected one of them, Alexis Tsirpas, to take them out of this financial hole, imposed mainly by Germany, that seems to have only one intention, to recoup the loses of German banks.

Tonight, the EU gave Syriza an offer they cannot accept.

I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but it does not look good for Greece!

I hope I'm wrong, and cooler heads from France, can bring some sanity to what at this hour, seems like a New Kind of War, to me.

Killing the European Project by Paul Krugman

Suppose you consider Tsipras an incompetent twerp. Suppose you dearly want to see Syriza out of power. Suppose, even, that you welcome the prospect of pushing those annoying Greeks out of the euro.

Even if all of that is true, this Eurogroup list of demands is madness. The trending hashtag ThisIsACoup is exactly right. This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief. It is, presumably, meant to be an offer Greece can’t accept; but even so, it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for.

Can anything pull Europe back from the brink? Word is that Mario Draghi is trying to reintroduce some sanity, that Hollande is finally showing a bit of the pushback against German morality-play economics that he so signally failed to supply in the past. But much of the damage has already been done. Who will ever trust Germany’s good intentions after this?

In a way, the economics have almost become secondary. But still, let’s be clear: what we’ve learned these past couple of weeks is that being a member of the eurozone means that the creditors can destroy your economy if you step out of line. This has no bearing at all on the underlying economics of austerity. It’s as true as ever that imposing harsh austerity without debt relief is a doomed policy no matter how willing the country is to accept suffering. And this in turn means that even a complete Greek capitulation would be a dead end.

Can Greece pull off a successful exit? Will Germany try to block a recovery? (Sorry, but that’s the kind of thing we must now ask.)

The European project — a project I have always praised and supported — has just been dealt a terrible, perhaps fatal blow. And whatever you think of Syriza, or Greece, it wasn’t the Greeks who did it.

NYT

Scientists Demonstrate Animal Mind-Melds - The New York Times

Scientists Demonstrate Animal Mind-Melds - The New York Times:



"A single neuron can’t do much on its own, but link billions of them together into a network and you’ve got a brain."



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Climate Change Is Shrinking Where Bumblebees Range, Research Finds - The New York Times

Climate Change Is Shrinking Where Bumblebees Range, Research Finds - The New York Times:



"Climate change has narrowed the range where bumblebees are found in North America and Europe in recent decades, according to a study published Thursday."



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Greek Plan Accepts Austerity to Get Debt Relief - The New York Times

Greek Plan Accepts Austerity to Get Debt Relief - The New York Times:



 "ATHENS — Only a day after grim predictions of financial and social collapse in Greece, a scramble appeared underway to work out the details of a new bailout package to bring the country back from the brink of falling out of the euro."



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Greece’s Economy Is a Lesson for Republicans in the U.S. - The New York Times

Greece’s Economy Is a Lesson for Republicans in the U.S. - The New York Times:



"Greece is a faraway country with an economy roughly the size of greater Miami, so America has very little direct stake in its ongoing disaster. To the extent that Greece matters to us, it’s mainly about geopolitics: By poisoning relations among Europe’s democracies, the Greek crisis risks depriving the United States of crucial allies."



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Greece Submits 11th-Hour Bailout Proposal to Creditors - The New York Times

Greece Submits 11th-Hour Bailout Proposal to Creditors - The New York Times:



 "ATHENS — Only a day after grim predictions of financial and social collapse in Greece, a scramble appeared underway to work out the details of a new bailout package to bring the country back from the brink."



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Flag Down!

Germans Forget Postwar History Lesson on Debt Relief in Greece Crisis - The New York Times

Germans Forget Postwar History Lesson on Debt Relief in Greece Crisis - The New York Times:



"As negotiations between Greece and its creditors stumbled toward breakdown, culminating in a sound rejection on Sunday by Greek voters of the conditions demanded in exchange for a financial lifeline, a vintage photo resurfaced on the Internet."



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South Carolina House Backs Removal of Confederate Flag - The New York Times

South Carolina House Backs Removal of Confederate Flag - The New York Times:



 "COLUMBIA, S.C. — Voting to jettison a divisive symbol that has evoked slavery and segregation for some and history and Southern pride for others, the South Carolina House of Representatives early Thursday backed a proposal to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds. It was an action that would have been politically inconceivable just three weeks ago."



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Flag Down!

When Computers Go Down, It’s Not Always a Hack - The New York Times

When Computers Go Down, It’s Not Always a Hack - The New York Times:



 "In the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks like the 2011 massacre in Oslo and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, many people mistakenly jump to the conclusion that the perpetrators are Islamic fundamentalists. Increasingly, something similar seems to be happening with technical failures: If an important computer system goes down somewhere, many people suspect that it was the result of a hacking attack that originated in China, Russia or North Korea."



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David B. Cline (1934-2015)

Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy David B. Cline, a driving force behind experiments aimed at understanding the world of elementary particles and forces, died at UCLA Medical Center on June 27 following a heart attack on campus the previous afternoon. He was 81.

Still active in teaching and research at the time of his death, Cline had remarkably broad passions for both.  He taught standard courses with content ranging from introductory astronomy and physics for non-science majors to advanced graduate topics; he also took great pleasure in communicating modern physics to students via both Honors Collegium and Fiat Lux courses of his invention.

Cline’s scientific career branched out from its core in the study of elementary particles to related fields, including the acceleration of high-energy particle beams, the quest to identify the nature of dark matter, and the cosmological interpretation of astrophysical observations.  In all these endeavors, he organized numerous workshops and conferences at UCLA to bring together the world’s experts. His insatiable curiosity even extended to organizing a small conference to discuss the question of the physical origin of the homochirality of life, i.e., why certain molecules in living systems are always left-handed.

After receiving a B.S. and masters in physics at Kansas State University, Cline earned his Ph.D. in 1965 at the University of Wisconsin under the supervision of William Fry.  At that time, the sub-nuclear “weak force” was hypothesized to be carried by an electrically charged particle, the W boson.  A crucial question was whether or not the weak force also had an electrically neutral carrier, the Z boson.  Cline and his collaborators studied the decays of a particle called the kaon, and appeared to rule out the existence of a Z boson, if it behaved as expected.

Beginning in the late 1960’s, Cline, by then a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin, and his collaborators (including Carlo Rubbia, Alfred Mann and others) performed a series of difficult, innovative experiments to study the weak force at Fermilab outside Chicago.  They used beams of neutrinos, electrically neutral particles observed to interact in such experiments only via the weak force.  After a period of controversy, they agreed with the claim coming from the CERN laboratory in Geneva that certain neutrino interactions required the Z boson after all.  The puzzle of consistency with the older kaon decay data was meanwhile solved by theorists who postulated the existence of a fourth type of quark, called charm (in addition to Gell-Mann’s original up, down, and strange), which was discovered by others soon thereafter.

The next challenge was to produce these W and Z bosons directly.  Carlo Rubbia, Peter McIntyre, and David Cline made a radical proposal, in a famous 1976 paper, to use existing proton accelerators to make antiprotons and collide them head-on with protons. Sufficient energy would then be concentrated in these collisions to produce the massive W and Z bosons. The proposal was first implemented at CERN, resulting in the discovery of W bosons and Z bosons in 1983 by physicists including Cline, leading to the Nobel Prize for Rubbia and Simon van der Meer (the inventor of the methods used to make the antiproton beams).

In 1984, shortly after the U.S. Congress enacted the Small Business Innovation Research program to assist small businesses, Cline took advantage by co-founding Particle Beam Lasers, Inc., a small company engaged in developing technologies and subsystems to accelerate and control elementary particle beams.  Cline served as a director of the company until the time of his death.

In 1986, Cline moved from Wisconsin to UCLA, where he promoted new directions of research in the department. Foremost among these was to find new faculty dedicated to the rapidly growing field of accelerator physics that had outgrown its roots in nuclear and particle physics to develop novel accelerators for use in many other fields, including X-ray lasers and medical sciences.  In addition to performing research on advanced particle physics accelerators, he recruited the first dedicated accelerator physics faculty member at UCLA, Claudio Pellegrini. Pellegrini further shaped the department, and recently was awarded the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award.  Cline was also a champion of the emerging field of astroparticle physics both internationally and at UCLA, where he worked with others to attract new faculty and to pursue new intellectual directions including gamma ray astronomy. UCLA now has unique, world-class efforts in both accelerator physics and astroparticle physics.

Meanwhile in the early 1990’s, a plan for an enormous circular accelerator, the Superconducting Supercollider with beam energies over ten times higher than the Tevatron, was  being pursued in the U.S.  Cline and a few others in the U.S. chose to work on a competing CERN-based effort called the Large Hadron Collider, and he was one of the founders of one of the large detector collaborations known as CMS. When the U.S. supercollider was canceled by Congress in 1993, U.S. participation in the CERN collaborations dramatically increased, eventually reaching 30% of the 2000 member CMS Collaboration.  Cline proposed that UCLA be a major CMS detector assembly and testing site, which led to a very successful project on the west campus of UCLA. From UCLA’s early participation in CMS, the effort grew to include the involvement of several more professors, numerous undergraduate and graduate students and UCLA’s international leadership in several aspects of CMS.  In 2012, the CMS collaboration and the ATLAS collaboration announced the discovery at CERN of the Higgs boson, the particle associated with the mechanism giving rise to the masses of the W and Z bosons.

Cline was also one of the pioneers of the use of the liquefied noble gases as particle detectors, a technique having multiple applications in diverse areas of particle physics. Cline was involved in the realization of the ICARUS detector in Italy, which at 600 tons is the largest such detector to date.  Originally built to study neutrinos from the sun, it was ultimately used to detect neutrinos beams from CERN.  Cline was an early advocate of scaling up such detectors to tens of thousands of tons. A decades-long international effort eventually led to the current plan to place a 40,000 ton liquid argon detector deep underground in South Dakota to study neutrinos from a new Fermilab beam and to perform other frontier physics research. Cline remained enthusiastic about this line of research until the end of his life.

Cline and his UCLA group made innovations in the development of the use of liquid argon and xenon to detect dark matter, a substance that appears to make up most of the mass of the Milky Way and other galaxies.  Such dark matter particles may be streaming through all of our matter, occasionally bumping into nuclei and depositing tiny amounts of energy that can be detected only by extremely sensitive detectors.  The UCLA dark matter group continues to collaborate on experiments using both argon and xenon.

As the dark matter continues to evade unambiguous confirmed detection, numerous other techniques have been employed to understand its nature, and intense theoretical work is ongoing to try to put together pieces of the puzzle.  Beginning in 1994, Cline has organized a biannual conference near UCLA, inviting all the international researchers in this area. This became an extremely popular, major event in the particle and astroparticle physics communities, and the organizing committee is enthusiastically continuing with plans for the twelfth such conference in February 2016.

While working on particle and astroparticle physics at UCLA, Cline continued his work on particle beam physics and particle accelerators, leading a group that performed many frontier experiments on advanced accelerators and detectors, in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory. He made a strong contribution to the international program to develop a muon collider as an alternative to electron-positron colliders. Many of his students in this field now have important positions at national laboratories.

Cline had an inquisitive and insatiable thirst for knowledge and a remarkable memory.  He was dynamic in spirit, and demanding and relentless in pursuing scientific ideas. His creativity, enthusiasm, and passion for new devices and experimental techniques kept him well placed at the forefront of physics research.
Cline was preceded in death by his beloved son David Bruce Cline Jr., his parents Ella Mae Cline and Andrew Bruce Cline, and his sister Sandra Cline. He is survived by his children Richard Andrew Cline, Heather Alane Cline, Daphne Aileen Boyle, and Yasmin Cline; and his eight grandchildren Connor, Brendan,  and Ryan Boyle; Chiara, Gina, and Ilaria Cline; Myles Cline Cence; and Skye Rose Cline.
A memorial is being planned, and we will provide further information once the plans are finalized.
(Photo credit: Thomas Muller)

UCLA

White House Solar Plan Aims at Low- and Middle-Income People - The New York Times

White House Solar Plan Aims at Low- and Middle-Income People - The New York Times:



"WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday announced an initiative to help low- and middle-income Americans gain access to solar energy, part of a series of steps President Obama is taking to tackle climate change, according to administration officials."



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Reaching Pluto, and the End of an Era of Planetary Exploration - The New York Times

Reaching Pluto, and the End of an Era of Planetary Exploration - The New York Times:



 "When I was a kid, before I wanted to be Einstein and before I wanted to play second base for the Yankees, I wanted to be a cowboy. Specifically, I wanted to ride a horse over the hills and mountains of the West that we always passed by on car trips and see what was on the other side."



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Pluto

South Carolina Senate Casts First Vote to Remove Confederate Flag - The New York Times

South Carolina Senate Casts First Vote to Remove Confederate Flag - The New York Times:



"COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Senate voted Monday to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House. The bipartisan proposal, which emerged after last month’s massacre at a historic black church in Charleston, was approved by a 37-to-3 vote in the Republican-controlled Senate."



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Information

Information for us, is a continuation of motion.

People are known to move their lips even when they are just reading. In the beginning the child has to physically move, to consciously move up the ladder of Information creation, and use. Software creation is not different. Before we can write a several thousand lines of code program, we have to write a one line of code program. The final product could be as robust as a tree branch, or even as a whole tree. First peoples made stone tools, until they ended that stage making cotton fabrics automatically, around the time when the Industrial Revolution started.

Now, entering the Information Revolution, we are following the same steps.

Our NO is a majestic, big YES to a democratic, rational Europe!

On the 25th of January, dignity was restored to the people of Greece.

In the five months that intervened since then, we became the first government that dared raise its voice, speaking on behalf of the people, saying NO to the damaging irrationality of our extend-and-pretend ‘Bailout Program’.

We

• spread the word that the Greek ‘bailouts’ were exercises whose purpose was intentionally to transfer private losses onto the shoulders of the weakest Greeks, before being transferred to other European taxpayers
• articulated, for the first time in the Eurogroup, an economic argument to which there was no credible response
• put forward moderate, technically feasible proposals that would remove the need for further ‘bailouts’
• confined the troika to its Brussels’ lair
• internationalised Greece’s humanitarian crisis and its roots in intentionally recessionary policies
• spread hope beyond Greece’s borders that democracy can breathe within a monetary union hitherto dominated by fear.

Ending interminable, self-defeating, austerity and restructuring Greece’s public debt were our two targets. But these two were also our creditors’ targets. From the moment our election seemed likely, last December, the powers-that-be started a bank run and planned, eventually, to shut Greece’s banks down. Their purpose?

• To humiliate our government by forcing us to succumb to stringent austerity, and
• To drag us into an agreement that offers no firm commitment to a sensible, well-defined debt restructure.

The ultimatum of 25th June was the means by which these aims would be achieved. The people of Greece today returned this ultimatum to its senders; despite the fear mongering that the domestic oligarchic media transmitted night and day into their homes.

Today’s referendum delivered a resounding call for a mutually beneficial agreement between Greece and our European partners. We shall respond to the Greek voters’ call with a positive approach to:

• The IMF, which only recently released a helpful report confirming that Greek public debt was unsustainable
• The ECB, the Governing Council of which, over the past week, refused to countenance some of the more aggressive voices within
• The European Commission, whose leadership kept throwing bridges over the chasm separating Greece from some of our partners.

Our NO is a majestic, big YES to a democratic Europe.

It is a NO to the dystopic vision of a Eurozone that functions like an iron cage for its peoples.

It is a loud YES to the vision of a Eurozone offering the prospect of social justice with shared prosperity for all Europeans.

Yanis Varoufakis

Ending Greece’s Bleeding - The New York Times

Ending Greece’s Bleeding - The New York Times:



"Europe dodged a bullet on Sunday. Confounding many predictions, Greek voters strongly supported their government’s rejection of creditor demands. And even the most ardent supporters of European union should be breathing a sigh of relief."



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Greeks Reject Bailout Terms in Rebuff to European Leaders - The New York Times

Greeks Reject Bailout Terms in Rebuff to European Leaders - The New York Times:



"ATHENS — Greeks delivered a shocking rebuff to Europe’s leaders on Sunday, decisively rejecting a deal offered by the country’s creditors in a historic vote that could redefine Greece’s place in Europe and shake the Continent’s financial stability."



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NOOO

I am happy!

This beats any soccer results, even if the American Women defeat the Japanese team today in Canada.

I belonged to a Union at the Autonomous University of Puebla. Even though the administration went easy on us, they paid during strikes. It still was nerve wrecking.

I love to work, I love to teach. What I know is important to the students future careers, their lives depend on it.

We walked out anyway!

Long Live Greek Workers!

¡Qué vivan los trabajadores!

Early Returns Show Greeks Reject Terms of E.U. Bailout - The New York Times

Early Returns Show Greeks Reject Terms of E.U. Bailout - The New York Times:



"ATHENS — Greek voters appeared to decisively reject a bailout deal offered by the country’s creditors two weeks ago, an outcome that could redefine the country’s place in Europe and shake the Continent’s financial stability."



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Greek Referendum: July 5, 2015

Tomorrow Greeks will choose!

The history of mankind is filled with important events: The Storm of the Bastille, The Declaration of Independence of the US, and on, and on. Greece tomorrow is facing a similar important historic day. We all will witness the July 5, 2015 referendum.

The whole world is watching!

On a more personal note. On February 28, 1911, my grandmother’s brothers went to war. Eventually one became the mayor of Iguala. I am proud of my courageous ancestors who risked their lives to give us the country where I lived in peace, and  pursued a career in science.

The future is always uncertain, only the past is known.

Humanity itself has had a bumpy ride, Homo sapiens has been creating symbolic records, since at least  a hundred thousand years ago.

Western Philosophy started in Greece.

Greeks are wise. I am  eagerly expecting their vote.

The Science of ‘Inside Out’ - The New York Times

The Science of ‘Inside Out’ - The New York Times:



"FIVE years ago, the writer and director Pete Docter of Pixar reached out to us to talk over an idea for a film, one that would portray how emotions work inside a person’s head and at the same time shape a person’s outer life with other people. He wanted to do this all in the mind of an 11-year-old girl as she navigated a few difficult days in her life."



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Europe’s Many Economic Disasters - The New York Times

Europe’s Many Economic Disasters - The New York Times:



"It’s depressing thinking about Greece these days, so let’s talk about something else, O.K.? Let’s talk, for starters, about Finland, which couldn’t be more different from that corrupt, irresponsible country to the south. Finland is a model European citizen; it has honest government, sound finances and a solid credit rating, which lets it borrow money at incredibly low interest rates."



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U.S. Ready to Restore Ties With Cuba and Open Embassy in Havana - The New York Times

U.S. Ready to Restore Ties With Cuba and Open Embassy in Havana - The New York Times:



"WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday announced his plans to formally re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, declaring that the two nations were ready to reopen embassies in each other’s capitals and to start a “new chapter” of engagement after more than a half-century of estrangement."



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Cuba

Stiglitz et al.

Enable Greece to pay the €1.6bn payment to the IMF on June 30. Allow a debt swap with ECB bonds coming due in July and August in exchange for bonds from the bailout fund, with longer maturities and lower interest rates reflecting the lower borrowing costs of the creditors. Then make a fresh start, bearing in mind, first, that the contractionary austerity policy demanded of Greece has been discredited by the IMF’s own research department; and second, that Syriza’s leaders are committed to undertaking far-reaching reforms in the Greek state — if they can get the latitude to do so.

Prof Joseph Stiglitz

Columbia University; Nobel Prize winner

of Economics

Prof Thomas Piketty

Paris School of Economics

Massimo D’Alema

Former Prime Minister of Italy; president

of FEPS (Foundation of European

Progressive Studies)

Prof Mary Kaldor

London School of Economics

Prof Stephany Griffith-Jones

IPD Columbia University

Tsipras Signals Greece May Accept Bailout Terms - The New York Times

Tsipras Signals Greece May Accept Bailout Terms - The New York Times:



 "ATHENS — The Greek government has indicated to its creditors that it is willing to accept many of the terms of a bailout package that it had earlier rejected, if they are part of a broader deal to address the country’s funding needs for the next two years, officials said on Wednesday."



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