Breathe in, breathe out
Smile
Laugh
Think about puppies and kittens and kids
Smell roses
Sing out loud
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Time is an illusion
Here is just part of a good article by Amanda Gefter for New Scientist magazine. (Jan. 19,2008)
"IT IS the invisible presence that governs your world. Trailing you like an unshakeable shadow, it ticks and tocks incessantly - you can sense it in your heartbeat, in the rising and setting of the sun, and in your daily rush to make meetings, trains and deadlines. It brings order to our lives through the categories of past, present and future.
Time. There is nothing with which we are so familiar, and yet when you try to pin it down you find only a relentless torrent of questions. Why does time appear to flow? What makes it different from space? What exactly is it? It's enough to make your neurons misfire, then sizzle and smoke.
You are not alone. Physicists have long struggled to understand what time really is. In fact, they are not even sure it exists at all. In their quest for deeper theories of the universe, some researchers increasingly suspect that time is not a fundamental feature of nature, but rather an artefact of our perception. One group has recently found a way to do quantum physics without invoking time, which could help pave a path to a time-free "theory of everything". If correct, the approach suggests that time really is an illusion, and that we may need to rethink how the universe at large works.
For decades, physicists have been searching for a quantum theory of gravity to reconcile Einstein's general relativity, which describes gravity at the largest scales, with quantum mechanics, which describes the behaviour of particles at the tiniest scales. One reason it has been so difficult to merge the two is that they are built on incompatible views of time. "I am more and more convinced that the problem of time is key both to quantum gravity and to issues in cosmology," says Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
According to general relativity, time is stitched together with space to form four-dimensional space-time. The passage of time is not absolute - no cosmic clock ticks away the hours of the universe. Instead, time differs from one frame of reference to the next, and what one observer experiences as time, another might experience as a mixture of time and space. For Einstein, time is a useful measure of things, but nothing special.
Not so in quantum mechanics. Here time plays a key role, keeping track of the ever-changing probabilities that define the microworld, which are encoded in the "wave function" of a quantum system. The clock by which the wave function evolves records not just the time in one particular frame of reference, but the absolute time that Einstein worked so hard to topple. So while relativity treats space and time as a whole, quantum mechanics splits the universe into two parts: the quantum system being observed and the classical world outside. In this fractured universe, a clock always remains outside the quantum system (see Diagram).
Something has to give. The fact that the universe has no outside, by definition, suggests that quantum mechanics will be the one to surrender - and to many, this suggests that time is not fundamental. In the 1990s, for instance, physicist Julian Barbour proposed that time must not exist in a quantum theory of the universe. All the same, physicists are loath to throw out quantum theory, as it has proven capable of extraordinarily accurate predictions. What they need is a way to do quantum mechanics in the absence of time."
"IT IS the invisible presence that governs your world. Trailing you like an unshakeable shadow, it ticks and tocks incessantly - you can sense it in your heartbeat, in the rising and setting of the sun, and in your daily rush to make meetings, trains and deadlines. It brings order to our lives through the categories of past, present and future.
Time. There is nothing with which we are so familiar, and yet when you try to pin it down you find only a relentless torrent of questions. Why does time appear to flow? What makes it different from space? What exactly is it? It's enough to make your neurons misfire, then sizzle and smoke.
You are not alone. Physicists have long struggled to understand what time really is. In fact, they are not even sure it exists at all. In their quest for deeper theories of the universe, some researchers increasingly suspect that time is not a fundamental feature of nature, but rather an artefact of our perception. One group has recently found a way to do quantum physics without invoking time, which could help pave a path to a time-free "theory of everything". If correct, the approach suggests that time really is an illusion, and that we may need to rethink how the universe at large works.
For decades, physicists have been searching for a quantum theory of gravity to reconcile Einstein's general relativity, which describes gravity at the largest scales, with quantum mechanics, which describes the behaviour of particles at the tiniest scales. One reason it has been so difficult to merge the two is that they are built on incompatible views of time. "I am more and more convinced that the problem of time is key both to quantum gravity and to issues in cosmology," says Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
According to general relativity, time is stitched together with space to form four-dimensional space-time. The passage of time is not absolute - no cosmic clock ticks away the hours of the universe. Instead, time differs from one frame of reference to the next, and what one observer experiences as time, another might experience as a mixture of time and space. For Einstein, time is a useful measure of things, but nothing special.
Not so in quantum mechanics. Here time plays a key role, keeping track of the ever-changing probabilities that define the microworld, which are encoded in the "wave function" of a quantum system. The clock by which the wave function evolves records not just the time in one particular frame of reference, but the absolute time that Einstein worked so hard to topple. So while relativity treats space and time as a whole, quantum mechanics splits the universe into two parts: the quantum system being observed and the classical world outside. In this fractured universe, a clock always remains outside the quantum system (see Diagram).
Something has to give. The fact that the universe has no outside, by definition, suggests that quantum mechanics will be the one to surrender - and to many, this suggests that time is not fundamental. In the 1990s, for instance, physicist Julian Barbour proposed that time must not exist in a quantum theory of the universe. All the same, physicists are loath to throw out quantum theory, as it has proven capable of extraordinarily accurate predictions. What they need is a way to do quantum mechanics in the absence of time."
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Notes on a guitar lesson
-play the chromatic scale from the fifth fret and then the third fret.
keep your fingers down as you go up the scale (don't lift them) and watch your pinky to make sure it is rounded and not flat.
-play the Am Pentatonic Scale and use alternate picking (up,down) and keep your fingers down as you go.
-practise chord pairs of
C Em
Em D
C D
Em G
-practise strum pattern for Intro of Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day
work on speed (that was a blast doing it with the instructor as a duo!)
-work on pages 12-15 in book
Yes. I am learning a lot. Yeah!
Now, gotta go do it!
keep your fingers down as you go up the scale (don't lift them) and watch your pinky to make sure it is rounded and not flat.
-play the Am Pentatonic Scale and use alternate picking (up,down) and keep your fingers down as you go.
-practise chord pairs of
C Em
Em D
C D
Em G
-practise strum pattern for Intro of Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day
work on speed (that was a blast doing it with the instructor as a duo!)
-work on pages 12-15 in book
Yes. I am learning a lot. Yeah!
Now, gotta go do it!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Rain
Weather. Ahhhhhh weather.
We had super hot days and then some weird overcast hot ones and now
rain.
Nature is amazing. Really amazing.
At this very moment (10:29pm), my two oldest kids are at a Blink 182 concert and I suppose getting super wet?!
Refreshing..............................................
We had super hot days and then some weird overcast hot ones and now
rain.
Nature is amazing. Really amazing.
At this very moment (10:29pm), my two oldest kids are at a Blink 182 concert and I suppose getting super wet?!
Refreshing..............................................
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Walk, walk, walk
Yesterday was a walking day.
I took a long hike to Little Yosemite with Mike and Star.
Parking was easy and the gravel path was crunchy and dusty and we overshot the actual place because the rode we were on was above it.
We saw cows and horses and dogs and people and boulders and water and thistles and grass and lots of poison oak.
Later I took a walk on a beach with Nic and there were lots of people enjoying Labor Day.
Seaweed was thick and washed up on the shore and difficult to walk around.
There were little flies all around it.
I think, all together, I walked three-ish hours.
My toes feel it today. (by the way, I just got back from a half hour walk with Star).
I took a long hike to Little Yosemite with Mike and Star.
Parking was easy and the gravel path was crunchy and dusty and we overshot the actual place because the rode we were on was above it.
We saw cows and horses and dogs and people and boulders and water and thistles and grass and lots of poison oak.
Later I took a walk on a beach with Nic and there were lots of people enjoying Labor Day.
Seaweed was thick and washed up on the shore and difficult to walk around.
There were little flies all around it.
I think, all together, I walked three-ish hours.
My toes feel it today. (by the way, I just got back from a half hour walk with Star).
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Nine
Ben is nine
He is growing like a vine
Youngest child of mine
He is smart and smart and ....oh ya.....smart
Ben is tall
No longer small
No longer nervous bout playin' wall ball
He is smart and smart and .....oh ya....smart
Ben is wise
Strong for his size
Likes to catch flies
He is smart and smart and ..... oh ya....smart
Thank you Ben
For being Ben
For being
Ben
Love, Mom on your ninth birthday (in place of a quilt)
He is growing like a vine
Youngest child of mine
He is smart and smart and ....oh ya.....smart
Ben is tall
No longer small
No longer nervous bout playin' wall ball
He is smart and smart and .....oh ya....smart
Ben is wise
Strong for his size
Likes to catch flies
He is smart and smart and ..... oh ya....smart
Thank you Ben
For being Ben
For being
Ben
Love, Mom on your ninth birthday (in place of a quilt)
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Vulgar Bulgarian King
The vulgar Bulgarian king
He doesn't have a kingdom to rule
But he isn't lacking in subjects
He doesn't have a white horse to ride
but he always has a surreal car which runs
He isn't very intelligent
He just knows how to make people think that he is
Make people think he is everything
Everything ........ is king
What a laugh
He really is very ordinary
He pulls the wool over eyes
Cons men with beligerence
Cons women with lies
Don't con me anymore mister
Its not my thing
He doesn't have a kingdom to rule
But he isn't lacking in subjects
He doesn't have a white horse to ride
but he always has a surreal car which runs
He isn't very intelligent
He just knows how to make people think that he is
Make people think he is everything
Everything ........ is king
What a laugh
He really is very ordinary
He pulls the wool over eyes
Cons men with beligerence
Cons women with lies
Don't con me anymore mister
Its not my thing
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