Greatest cartoon short ever.
Sommer
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09/25/2009
What's In An Element? Answer: The Island of Stability.
So, according to the macroscopic-microscopic (MM) theory, "Z=114" is the next spherical number for physicists to reach. Why? Well, apparently it has a lot to do with decay and half-lives of elements that can have an affect on cold and hot fusion. Without knowing a tremendous amount about this element (who really does?), my guess is that a higher half-life breeds longer opportunities to utilize the energy that is being created.
Now, scientists will tell you that atomic numbers higher than 92 (uranium with atomic mass of 238) are not found in nature, so any element above uranium will have to be constructed in a laboratory setting. Well that's great! Apparently 114 (ununquadium) was just confirmed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Superheavy element 114 was first created by a Russian group ten years ago, and this latest confirmation of their work will most likely motivate curious scientists to find even more superheavy elements like 120 and 126.
What does this mean for the future of humans and their quest to live longer, better and more meaningful lives? Who knows. Maybe 114's large number of "stable" protons will be utilized in some fashion by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in order to find the Higgs particle. Maybe it will be used to form a noble gas that is the foundation of a molecular matrix to support a time travel machine's atomic computing system in order to propel Black Ops soldiers through time.
Whatever these physicists have planned for the future, it will undoubtedly be turned to military use in some form. The past tells us that all substantial research work performed by scientists eventually gets co-opted by the military industrial complex. It always has and it probably always will. Watch your back scientists . . . they're watching.
Sommer
09/22/2009
Professor Marvin Minsky and Circular Questions of Our Elusive Existence.
Marvin Minsky served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1945 and is an MIT Artificial Intelligence (AI) Researcher known in computer science as the father of AI. The excerpt below is from Chapter 5 of his book, The Society of Mind.
UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS
And while it shall please thee to continue me in this world, where there is much to be done and little to be known, teach me, by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. -SAMUEL JOHNSON
When we reflect on anything for long enough, we're likely to end up with what we sometimes call "basic" questions -- ones we can see no way at all to answer. For we have no perfect way to answer even this question: How can one tell when a question has been properly answered?
What caused the universe, and why? What is the purpose of life? How can you tell which beliefs are true? How can you tell what is good?
These questions seem different on the surface, but all of them share one quality that makes them impossible to answer: all of them are circular! You can never find a final cause, since you must always ask one question more: "What caused that cause?" You can never find any ultimate goal, since you're always obliged to ask, "Then what purpose does that serve?" Whenever you find out why something is good-or is true-you still have to ask what makes that reason good and true. No matter what you discover, at every step, these kinds of questions will always remain, because you have to challenge every answer with, "Why should I accept that answer?" Such circularities can only waste our time by forcing us to repeat, over and over and over again, "What good is Good?" and, "What god made God?"
When children keep on asking, "Why?" we adults learn to deal with this by simply saying, "just because!" This may seem obstinate, but it's also a form of self-control. What stops adults from dwelling on such questions endlessly? The answer is that every culture finds special ways to deal with these questions. One way is to brand them with shame and taboo; another way is to cloak them in awe or mystery; both methods make those questions undiscussable. Consensus is the simplest way -- as with those social styles and trends wherein we each accept as true whatever all the others do. I think I once heard W. H. Auden say, "We are all here on earth to help others. What I can't figure out is what the others are here for."
All human cultures evolve institutions of law, religion, and philosophy, and these institutions both adopt specific answers to circular questions and establish authority -- schemes to indoctrinate people with those beliefs. One might complain that such establishments substitute dogma for reason and truth. But in exchange, they spare whole populations from wasting time in fruitless reason loops. Minds can lead more productive lives when working on problems that can be solved.
But when thinking keeps returning to its source, it doesn't always mean something's wrong. For circular thinking can lead to growth when it results, at each return, in deeper and more powerful ideas. Then, because we can communicate, such systems of ideas may even find the means to cross the boundaries of selfish selves -- and thus take root in other minds. This way, a language, science, or philosophy can transcend the limitation of each single mind's mortality. Now, we cannot know that any individual is destined for some paradise. Yet certain religions are oddly right; they manage to achieve their goal of offering an afterlife -- if only to their own strange souls.
Sommer
09/16/2009
Sommer
Author of Mike Masters Novels
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