Friday, March 20, 2015

astro picture for the day/ John Von Neumann video


ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image


Jacob Bronowski was forever in awe of John Von Neumann.  Jacob seemed to suggest that John Von Neumann was the smartest man he ever knew.  John Von Neumann didn't commit himself exclusively to mathematics.  The mathematics he did, mentioned in the video, were often not definitive.  John Von Neumann's work on Hilbert's fifth problem was just a special version. A collection of mathematicians solved special versions of Hilbert's fifth problem - about lie groups.  If I state it, it would sound so trivial that it would just not sound like anything worth working on.  John Von Neumann worked on other esoteric mathematics few people today consider worth working on - Lattice theory for instance.

I can't help noting that this video contains 'the only video of John Von Neumann' in the world!  It's amazing to think that even in John Von Neumann's time, it was rare to have much video media on him!  I also can't help noting how Einstein like he seemed.  I wonder how influenced he was from the Einstein example. 

John Von Neumann's science and engineering so to speak were perhaps his biggest influence. His theory of games is used by the U.S. military for one.  Curiously, U.S. military's use of game theory doesn't seem to be have been used in this Russian/Ukraine conflict. The U.S. military and the U.S. President seems to have not seen this one coming! His mathematical foundation of quantum mechanics talked about hidden variables which led to the ideas about quantum computers. John Von Neumann's work on computers led the first electronic digital computers and even A.I.(or at least he and everyone else hoped - he wrote a book 'The Computer and the Brain'). 

Quote for the day extra,

"Moreover what I have given in the second book on the nature and properties of curved lines, and the method of examing them, is it seems to me, as far beyond the treatment in ordinary geometry, as the rhetoric of Cicero is beyond the a,b,c's of children . . ." - Descartes

Ancient geometers from The Greeks to Descartes concerned themselves with the three Delian problems, which led to Conics in the hands of Appollonius(culminated in his works actually).  Descartes actually derived his coordinate geometry from solving some of these ancient problems in a new way.

Most students today learn systems of equations later after to learning equations.  For Descartes, this was a kind of starting point for solving these ancient problems.  Descartes understanding of algebra was far deeper than what students today learn. Today, some students might hear about various proportionality rules beyond a/b=c/d such as a+b/b=c+b/c and so on. Today, they are set aside if the teacher and students have time.  Back in Euclid's time, they were essential.  In a similar way, systems of equations were essential, and today, well, they are much later and in a different way. All this is an example of how original inspirations for discovery gets forgotten, and the importance of studying history . . . as far as possible!

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Astro picture for the day/ Gobekli tepe video


ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image

Gobekli Tepe video,


Gobekli Tepe is one of the most exciting archaeology finds since the Nebra Sky disk!(lol) Seriously though, people have said many times that Gobekli challenges whether pre-agricultural cultures can build on a major scale. They're suggesting that this is built by cultures before agriculturalism. The transition between hunter/gatherers to agriculturalism is one of the great mysteries of Anthropology. The crossing of such a divide . . . to just stop what you're doing and start doing something else(stop from hunting/gathering and start doing agriculturalism) always seems to be an impossible chasm.

  Let's assume that is true.  Could it be that in the societal organization to build, and feed the builders, they found enough insights to make for agricultural civilization?  I don't here anyone making that suggestion.

- more exciting Anthropology news, Neandertals modified white-tailed eagle claws 130,000 years ago

Thursday, March 5, 2015

astro picture for the day/ new most exciting archaeological disproof of Jesus Christ


Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)

B.C.(maybe early A.D.) cup with "Christ the Magician" inscription

< link above, Here we see that the use of the name Christ was in common use before the supposed life of Jesus Christ.  Or, if it's early A.D. why doesn't this mention Jesus Christ and why call him a magician instead of Son of God?

This Christ the Magician cup should make the headline news; but, of couse, it won't!


Monday, March 2, 2015

astro picture for the day


ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image

Found yet another pretty good Werner Von Braun documentary.  This is one of the first PBS Nova videos.


Some of what I posted on the youtube actually,

"A couple remarkable things already . . . the narrator; I've heard that voice before; that voice narrates the real, original "Planet Earth" of the 1980s, and not the mere photography(however good the photography was actually) of the Sigourney Weaver Planet Earth(I love Sigourney Weaver's Aliens movies).

Another interesting thing about this video is getting to see the most interviews of General Dornberger I've ever seen. It's been my understanding that General Dornberger was the buffer between Hitler and Werner Von Braun; General Dornberger was the reason Werner Von Braun was able to wear civilian cloths for six years while the rocket program was Nazy funded for six years until 1938 when the Nazies finally took notice and acknowledged a little bit that this rocketry business might go somewhere(Hitler for the most part didn't believe in rocketry).

When Werner Von Braun surrendered to the U.S.(instead o the Russians) at the end of the WWII . . . well, there's a rather famous video of Werner coming out with a cast.  Werner comes out one side, and Dornberger comes out the other side in a hat.  You see Dornberger, then some American private, and then Werner Von Braun.

This video also has Dieter Huzel who wrote "From Peenemunde to Canaveral", a book I found in a community college.  It's good to see him live; also, to find out that it was he who hid the V2 information in the V2 tunnels."