Tuesday, October 30, 2012

astro picture for the day/ gangs/cults/religions extra


Reflection Nebula vdB1
Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, University of Arizona

 
 
 
Gangs reason by fear instead of reason; cults, gands, and religions are all the same. They all have a ten commandments.  All gangland videos show the same thing; use of fear and vagueness games instead of reason, ten commandments of some sort; chain of command.
Mathematics and religion have something in common; they have analogy. But, one is about being precise, constructive, the other is about being vague and is not into being factual. Mythology may not always be religion, but it quickly moves towards ethics to make it significant where it wouldn't be. If you read the ten commandments for instance, in Exodus 20 and Dueteronomy 5. The good things are just the last five commandmetns; the first commandments are all kind similar to one another; they all say, believe in me and no one else. Every dictator in history said "I love you; but, if you leave me, I'll tear your balls off." This is what the Ten commandments really are saying. The effort to make one god fits the dictatorship effort; believe in me and no-one else. Who else uses ten commandments of some sort? Gangs.
Gangs always have a mythology, and a rules to follow, a flowchart of who's in charge. Another term for gangs would be cults. Cults would be characterized by the use of mythology. This shows the connection between cults and religions. Religions are just bigger versions of Cults. Cults are just gangs; Religions are just big gangs. People go to gangs/cults/religions to escape the general fear mongering of society. If somebody gives you shit, your gang will back you up no matter what. Let me reiterate the difference between mathematics and mythology/poetry; one is constructive and only believes by reason; one solves problems by reasoning; the other solves problems by violence. That other one besides mathematical science is religion/cults/gangs.
 
-------------------------------------------science/technology news for the day!
 
 
If they can place carbon nanotubes anywhere they want, maybe they can place them to make gears, and then various nanomachines?
 
 
Nobody is quite sure where this ability will lead! 

Saturday, October 27, 2012

astro picture for the day


ESA Mars Valles Marineris

- thought for the day extra


 
The above is the silver vase of Entemena. He was a Sumerian king of 2400 B.C. The metallergy may not be significantly earlier than other examples of metallergy, but this one has artwork showing symmetry patterns. This example of symmetry also may not be the first and earliest known; but, off the top of my head, this is pretty early to see such precise logical patterning. For instance, in cave paintings, however beautiful and not to bad, they are arbitrary. There's even very creative combinations of animals; but, there's no real use of symmetries. I've noted to others that what seems to me to separate the Egyptian pyramics from say the ruins of Malta(which are tremendous especially when you see the underground stuff!), or even the Stonehenge, the difference is mathematical precision. I go further in this artistic progress of Homo Sapiens.
Symmetry can be viewed as a kind of mathematics just like the way the ancients may have ordered counting by counting both fingers and toes in various patterns. This proto-mathematics of symmetry also corresponds to what I've been pointing out about Jacob Bronowski's ideas about the nature and origin of mathematics(and the correspondence to some historical findings of James Burke in his Connections and "the Day the Universe Changed"). If you keep in mind symmetry, then just by looking at one side of a pattern, one could derive what the opposite side looks like, or that a certain pattern keeps going. I mean to point out how daming up nature leads to infered units; as for instance in agriculturalism, by clearing the fields, one gets the concepts, perhaps vaguely at first, irrigation, pest control, and fertilization. In symmetry, one can note the pattern on one side(daming up nature), and derive(infered units) what the pattern looks like on the other side.
Another issue from the history of symmetry in the evolution of Homo Sapien intelligence is that of people playing with concepts long before they ever have a mathematical understanding; or their mathematical understanding is not the mathematical understanding found much later. Mathematicians note that sometimes historians have been too hasty to read into Appollonius's Conics work an anticipation of Rene Descartes analytic geometry and the use of coordinate geometry. Similarly, some people have tried to say that the Greeks knew group theory because eighteen hundreds mathematicians redefined the study of geometry as the study of group theory(Felix Klien's Erlanger program).
Similarly, mathematicians will tell you that group theory is the mathematics of symmetry, and this theory wasn't concieved till the eighteen hundreds. Group theory actually comes out of Galois theory. Galois theory is more than group theory. Let me just say that the Galois theory solution to the fifth degree equation(kind of like the fifth degree version of the well known quadratic formula) is kind of like a group theory version of finding the prime factorisation of a number. With suitable definitions of groups, simple groups, maximal groups, one tries to find a chain of subgroups that are prime; if the group chain is prime, the fifth degree equation is solvable(generally, the fifth degree is not solvable). Galois theory has been generalised many times and gets into many other problems such as finding all the given functions that solve a particular problem. But, the point I want to make is that groups are actually kind of 'infered units" of the galois theory.
Getting back to the anticipations of an arbitrary mathematical concept, mathematicians have noted that Greek geometry is group theoretic; but, of course, they didn't know any group theory. They did have interests in symmetry, especially ratios and proportions. But, for the most part, the Greeks kind of played with some group theory without knowing anything about groups. I bring this up because I'd suggest that likewise, people and mathematicians may have created mathematics and done logic subconsciously long before Aristotle made the first systematic account of deductive logic. I'm argueing all this to further argue my case for Jacob Bronowski's ideas in his "Origin of Knowledge and Imagination." After all, mathematicians have been creating mathematics for thousands of years without knowking anything about how the brain actually works.
------------------------------------------------------------science/technology news for the day

Fluorescence Enhancement at Docking Sites of DNA-Directed Self-Assembled Nanoantennas

Active, motor-driven mechanics in a DNA gel

Muscle-like Supramolecular Polymers: Integrated Motion from Thousands of Molecular Machines

I point out the above three dna-nanotech articles because they're not breakthroughs in dna-nanomanufacturing techniques as much as they are the use of a dna-nanomanufacturing ability mature enough that arbitrary researchers are using it to make stunning and novel technological breakthroughs.  There's likewise been many articles about making dna-nanomachines to cure cancer and do other medical accomplishments.  We live in a nanomanufacturing era!  The article below is an article about advancements in dna and rna nanomanufacturing.  Dna-nanomanufacturing can organise, but it can't directly do chemical reactions.  It could perhaps sooner than later organise moleculars like enzymes that can perform chemical reactions; another way to do chemical reactions is rna-nanotechnology; this is a remarkable article on what it took to learn about rna chemistry ability.  Theorists have for a long time derived the existence of riboswitches, but this achieves experimental breakthroughs!

Direct Observation of Cotranscriptional Folding in an Adenine Riboswitch



Wednesday, October 24, 2012

astro picture for the day


NASA/NuStar image

This is some of the latest images of a black hole from NuStar; they've had a picture of Cygnus X-1 up for awhile now; i've been waiting to have some new thought for the day; but, this is just too exciting to not post now!  Spectr R should be exciting!  There's also an event horizons radio interferometry effort to image our galaxies supermassive black hole; expect far better views of Sagitarious A maybe in a year or two!

Monday, October 22, 2012

astro picture for the day


ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image

The above is of a starburst irregular galaxy.  Irregular galaxies are generaly characterized by not being spiral!  Well, one really significant differnence is that spirals have black holes at their centers and irregulars don't.

Some extra thought for the day. To say the least, I pointed out to a bunch of futurists recently that if their info-theoretic ideas of intelligence(basically, everything is just information, and the difference between us and other lifeforms is we have more bits to play with in our brains than other life) is corret, than Dolphins, whales, really anything bigger than us should be smarter than us.  I mean according to their definitions of "everything is bits", what's more massive is more bits.  Every lifeform is a piece of information through and through.  I agree with this actually, but the fact is that the human species has learned mathematics and all other life has not.  So, these transhumanists in my opinion are about to make some pretty big mistakes.

I'm astonished at the transhumanists reaction to my ideas about intelligencea nd irrationalists; but, should I?  I've seen progressive political people who considered themselves intellectuals because they are progressives.  Seems that many people have lots of funny ideas about what it means to be intellectual.

------------------------------------------science/technology extra fro the day!

scalable quantum computing

Despite some specialized quantum computing, most people have felt that general quantum computing is twentry years off.  Well, we've seen plenty of indications of making quantum computing happen a lot earlier than that!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

astro picture for the day

 

ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope

As everyone knows, the transition between hunter/gatheror to agriculturalism is one of the biggest leaps for intelligence on this planet.  Everyone knows instinctualy that this is an unsolved problem.  I've had radical ideas; i'm not sure if I pointed them out. Now saying it's wrong or my new ideas are right, but I thought I'd post them.

When Homo Sapiens were hunter/gatherors, they had all provided for them by mother nature, and the idea of stopping the run around is too large of a change.  Everyone notes(for instance James Burke episode one of his "Connections") that to do agriculturalism, you need to know a lot; you need to be indoctrinated and born to it; today's industrial populations couldn't turn to agriculturalism readily as well as hunter/gatheror.  The question is always, what could have led them to concieve of agriculturalism?

My recent new answer is fighting with other tribes or maybe even split factions within a community.  People inevitably have difference of opinion.  Populations rise.  Agriculturalism came after Neanderthal was made extinct by Homo Sapiens(yep), so, conflicts had to have been between Homo Sapien factions.

When different tribes went to war with one another, maybe some built walls and fortifications. Now, some may have built grand enough fortifications to be pretty well protected.  Now, they're only safe within the walls; eventually, they have to come out to do their hunting/gathering.  Maybe the other tribe eventually gets bored and leaves on their own.  Another thought is that a population could be large enough that they could set up a watch rotation while a few others could sneak out back to collect shrubs and meat or some kind.  Do this enough, and maybe some people play around with plants enough through the seasons to notice some plants growing within the walls.  They eventually think of the brilliant idea of farming within the walls. The rest as they say is history.

------------------------------------there's of course been some pretty exciting new developments in science/technology!


I've pointed out maybe a year ago now some thinking of making atomically precise molecular structures by means of electron tweezers in electron microscopes; this is the latest; they're making promising progress!

electron beam manipulation of nanoparticles

I pointed out a printing press method for assembling precise atomically precise molecular structures a month or so ago.  One could imagine assembling layer by layer any kind of molecular device.  Havn't heard anything on that since, but a similar type of ability has been reported about graphene nanotechnology.

Making a graphene layer cake with atomic precision


Monday, October 8, 2012

astro picture for the day


ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image

-and for some of the most recently reported exciting bio nanotech,

fast switching dna-nanomanufacturing?

One of the criticisms of dna-nanomanufacturing has been switching speeds; now, this barrier falls!

turning cells into nanomanufacturing factories

on a related note to cell programming, here's controlled protein factories!

-------------------------------------------archaeology extra for the day


These are ruins off the coast of Japan.  I've seen some of these before; but, while some seemed promising; other parts seemed maybe natural; all in all, there was nothing that could possibly confirm that these were ancient ruins; the above is quite convincing!





Thursday, October 4, 2012

astro picture for the day


NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

Scientific and technological developments started slowly back in the stone age(which lasted from four million years to approximatelly five thousand years ago); or, one could consider that they just knew different things; they knew every path , rock, plant that they hiked around.  They knew seasonal patterns of birds, animals and so on. Somewhere in their presented problems(whether due to environmental or cultural), or connections as James Burke would present them.  One problem leads to more questions(or connetions/influences).  Advances would accellerate the more we had language understandings or mathematical science.

I certainly stopped trying to map out all the connections after the Kepler/Galileo/Newton scientific revolution when things really kicked into high gear. The mechanical universe videos helped present some without me having to write it all out.  I've been sneaking in the latest developments of quantum computers and nano-manufacturing as much as possible; before presenting some exciting new stuff, I thought I'd note some things about the connections between the coming nano and quantum computing era.

Nanomanufacturing alone will make the industrial era seem like the stone age.  One connection/implication that will come from nanomanufacturing one way or another is artificial intelligence.  Nanotech plus artificial intelligence will mean the possibility of science and technological advancements that dwarfs anything we've experienced before. An A.I. nanochip alone could work day and night doing twenty four hour observational data collection and analyses or experiments, or even automated engineering.  That alone is like the difference between hand made manufacturing and steam powered cotton machines.  Hook up an A.I. with a nanomanufacturing unit, and the A.I. could set up countless nano experiments, or experiments of any kind that it needs.  Imagine making thousands, millions, or billions of A.I. nano chip engineers and scientists.  The amount of scientific knowledge would become so astronomical, only the A.I. could possibly comprehend it all.  Notice I don't say mathematical knowledge; well, untill someone can say what mathematical knowledge is and that A.I. can come up with new concepts and do the proofs(they can do the proofs; they have proof software today), well, then the mathematics could also be stellar.  If we could come up with A.I. mathematician nanochips, that really would be something.

I think i mentioned an article about a topological insulator approach to quantum computation; the topological insulating means one can really prevent the qubits from being swept away from interaction with the surrounding environment.  There was reports about a month ago; to get this result this quickly is a good sign for quantum computation.

Manipulation of Majorana fermions by point-like gate voltage in the Vortex state of a topological superconductor

I have to get off soon, but this article indicates nanomanufacturing could go into accelleration mode,

mathematical advance allows for develop of arbitrary nanostructures