Sunday, November 30, 2014

astro picture for the day; thought for the day extra - Asimov's 'Psycho-History?'


Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio (STScI)

- below is a response to an Isaac Asimov Foundation facebook page.  Isaac died in like 1992-3, or thereabouts, so you know it's run by some enthusiast. I thought I'd share for various reasons, not the least of which is that Isaac Asimov's Foundation series looks to finally be put into movie form in a year or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgW9yPuhTQ

Sophie confronts Silas.  She asks Silas if he murdered who she thinks is her Grandfather.  Silas responds with "I am a messenger from god."  I find people think in these kinds of ways all the time. It's like they don't want to get close to the truth; they don't want some inner them being exposed.

Even a 400 A.D. Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa noticed this type of thinking and complained,

"People swarm everywhere, talking of incomprehensible matters, in hovels, streets and square, marketplaces, and crossroads. When I ask how many oboloi I have to pay, they answer with hairsplitting arguments about the born and the unborn. If I inquire the price of bread, I am told that the father is greater than the son. I call a servant to tell me whether my bath is ready; he rejoins that the son was created out of nothing."

There an earlier scene of character Sophie with Robert Langdon. They're in a truck and talking about little things.  She asks Mr Langdon, "are you a god-fearing man professor."  Langdon replies, "I was raised a catholic."  For which she correctly replies, "that's not really an answer."

- comment about Isaac Asimov's Foudation, to become a movie series,

"
I've got quotes from Church fathers that Christianity was indeed a religion against science.  I found them comparatively recently compared to my 'Gospel of Truth.' I wrote my 'Gospel of Truth' to put together the best evidences of the religious conspiracy.
http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2011/04/flashgordons-gospel-of-truth.html
I partly got interested in mythology because of Jacob Bronowski's point that poetry and mathematics share a characteristic - analogy.  Poetry's analogy is of course similie and metaphor.  Analogy in mathematics is called abstraction..  Poetry is vague, mathematics is precise and constructive.  Both unify I suppose. I noted that mythology is poetry, and I happened on some interesting sungod mythology, so I persued it for awhile.  I've come to think that my connections(and some other connections of James Burke's connections and Jacob Bronowski's further ideas, in his "Origins of Knowledge and Imagination", explains much human psychology.  And through my readings of the history of mathematics previous to even all this, in particular Morris Kline's "Mathematics in Western Culture" in particular, I had noted that the history of mankind seems to follow whether mathematics is persued or not.  So, one could argue that my Jacob Bronowski "Scientific Humanism" is a kind of Hari Seldon 'Psycho-History.'
The psychology is that of how people either think mathematically or not.  Whether they have curiosity or not.  Usually, if they are not, they make over/under generalisations, don't question assumptions(even refusing to question assumptions). They resort to violence to solve their problems.  Scientific spirited people reason and are willing to be questioned and to question their own beliefs."

Monday, November 17, 2014

astro picture for the day/ Alexander Grothendieck passed away a few days ago


ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image

- Science extra,

Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck passed away 13Nov2014.  The wiki here -- > Alexander Grothendieck , does a pretty good job showing his mathematics. He made generalisations of algebraic varieties(which comes out of the Fundamental theorem of Algebra remarkably enough; this was shown by David Hilbert - just one of the great things he did of course), and topology to stitch them together and make spaces of solutions of algebra and number theory. He made vast insights of Zeta functions and still the Riemann hypothesis appears to a distant dream for mathematicians!

This is a kind of famous picture of him,


I actually got on facebook just to try talking to him about why he chooses to hide his mathematics. One reason appears to be military applications. I simply said, that's the way culture goes sometimes.  Someday, all that will go away. Considering how his father died in Auswitch, it was probably almost impossible to get through to him. 

Another reason hinted at many times is a embracing of religion. Seems to me, I first posted my deductive disproof of a god on his facebook(posted here on 7/12/11).  It never got erased . . . I did see one post by him to the affect "wow, amazing how many friends I have!"

A little sorry to say, but I find people don't do great things they could do often because of crazy influences and upbringing(religion). This is the reason for this blog!  Alexander Grothendieck started trying to ban libraries and any knowledge of much less use of his  mathematical discoveries. Unless someone can disprove what I say on this blog, I feel 100% justified in what I've been doing here.

astro picture for the day


Image Credit & Copyright: J-P Metsävainio (Astro Anarchy)

Monday, November 10, 2014

astro picture for the day


Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NSF

This picture of a solar system's planets in the making took this whole array of micrometer telescopes interferometer,


plus this supercomputer for data processing,


to get this image above. 

The more I look at it, the more interesting it looks actually!  You might notice spikes in the ring strurcture just like what can be seen in Saturn's rings!



Wednesday, November 5, 2014

astro picture for the day


Image Credit & Copyright: Bill Snyder (Bill Snyder Photography)

astro picture for the day


Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

- a video extra for the day, Paul Dirac and the religion of mathematical beauty  

 


- Science/Technology extra,

link --> Direct Laser Writing of Nanodiamond Films from Graphite under Ambient Conditions

Could we leapfrog past having to go through a soft-biotech dna/rna nanomanufacturing straight to daimondoid nanomanufacturing? The above is an exciting possibility.