The Human Condition VIII

Religion and Science
Let me start with two ‘religious’ events that lead naturally to what I want to say about science.

This morning I had a visit from two Jehova's Witnesses. I opened the door with the usual question: “how old is the Earth and the Universe?” And got the usual and expected brain-numbing answer, causing me to close the door.

Secondly, at the Royal Academy of Art, where master paintings from Budapest were on show in 2010, one painting in particular caught my attention: Pope Gregory the Great celebrating mass, while Jesus rises out of the wine chalice. The commentary explained, that his vision from sometime around 590 AD was central to the debate about the slightly macabre Christian belief that the wine and bread offered in church represent Christ’s flesh and blood.
Such beliefs go completely over my head and I cannot see that there’s much difference between the various cult-worships of antiquity and the supernatural humbug we see around us today.

Having ascertained that as far as religion is concerned, we have not moved an inch ahead since we left the Olduvai Gorge and the African savannah 60,000 years ago, let me now move on to a more recent cognition from the last 100 years: Einstein’s Relativity Theory and some inconsistencies that I find deeply awesome – if not worrying.

I have always had a problem with the Special Relativity theory’s postulate, that light has a constant speed wherever you are, whatever you do – travel with it, travel towards it, all that happens is that you ultimately become constrained by your mass going towards infinity as you close in on the speed of light. This is not because I am mathematical genius; in fact I understand very little of the complexity juggled so eloquently by quantum scientists.

But here are some conundrums that have bothered me for many years:

1. A particle moving at the speed of light, or close to, would according to Einstein have an enormous mass and consequently begin to attract other particles – and ultimately the whole Universe. That must be rubbish, as it doesn't happen.

2. Science would like to have us believe in “Dark Matter”, created at the Big Bang – even that it constitutes 75% of the Universe’s matter. Otherwise they cannot explain the red-shift of light and other strange phenomenon they observe. So in an almost religious way, the quantum gurus have invented “something”, that cannot be seen, i.e. does not emit light and does not absorb or reflect light (hence Dark Matter) – but has a substantial gravitational impact. Even a bright A-level student can see that this is ga-ga. If Dark Matter has a gravitational impact, it would long ago have absorbed some of the loose particles floating about in the Universe and made itself visible through these lumps of ‘stuff’.

3. If there really were a Big Bang 14.5 Bill. years ago – and despite the likelihood that 'something' definitely happened, I am now less than convinced that it was the all defining creative moment it has been made out to be – how come we can see galaxies 14.5 Bill. light years away? Did they arrive at their position instantly? The light they emitted at the start would have reached us very fast. Nevertheless we say that the light we now see was emitted 14.5 Bill. years ago. Consequently they must have been in place at that time – unless we have got our mental knickers in a twist?
I am aware that the official explanation is, that the Universe is expanding, explaining why we can see galaxies that are 30 Bill. lightyears away. That is: double the light-age of the Universe!! This sounds like annother artificial explanation trying to circumvent the unexplainable, as we still haven't understood the Universe very well. We don't even know for sure whether it expands or contracts, i.e. whether it will cease to exist in "the Big Crunch", the opposite to the Big Bang or in just Cold Death when all stars have burnt out. Or perhaps the Thermodynamic law of energy preservation will prevent the latter?
There are too many contradictory explanations and I shall return to some of them in later writings.

The point is, that when we can’t explain something we have a tendency to take on mystical beliefs: Dark Matter, Higgs Boson particles, Space-Time distortions and even apply theories which we know will not work – but they are the best we have.
Is there such a difference between religion and science, then?

Well – there are two of significance:

In many cases scientific observation provides us with either evidence or rejection of a theory, while religion usually is taken uncritically on board, sadly often through fear and group pressure.
But both have the same origin: we’re searching for a beginning, a reason for our existence, a meaning with this vast complexity. We clearly have great difficulty accepting that reason may be utterly absent. Yet, so far science has provided more acceptable answers than any religion I know of.
And why should we and our little planet count as a central depository of reason in a Universe, that probably holds billions and billions of planets with other life forms?

The other difference is, that you may accept or disregard a scientific postulate based on evidence, research or likelihood, while if you grow up in India, you may become a Hindu; in the American Bible Belt a Creationist; in Pakistan a Muslim; and in Peru a good Catholic. The only argument you can use in these cases is “I believe”.
I know where I stand, when it comes to (at worst) 'some evidence' against absolutely none.
Finally, I never believed in the variable mass in Einstein’s E=mc2.
For the reasons mentioned above, it must be the speed of light that varies, not the mass, or perhaps the way we look at the concept of time - and there is now very good evidence that the latter is the case.
Time Dilation is a measurable fact and if the Time is a variable, so will perceived frequency and speed of light be. It doesn't take much mathematics to see that fixing Mass in the field equation and make light speed the variable (on a cosmic or quantum scale) could begin to help us sort out a lot of the misconceptions we have generated because of the flaws in the Relativity Theory.
I have recently fallen over a theory called the “Tempo Field Theory” by Frank Atkinson, who uses time to explain Gravity and other Universal matters (Big Bang, Black Holes, Energy theorems and Dark Matter) but that must wait till another time, when I have studied it in detail. Nevertheless, it does seem to peel yet one more layer off the religious humbug onion.
Not a moment too early, judged by the incredible advance of Creationism!

Human Condition VII - and age.

"Our lives end on the day we become silent about the things that really matter" - in my memory a quote by M Luther King.
Couple that with another quote: "When you become old you find yourself become a Buddhist: Rid of all desires".

Staying young is, therefore, a question of keeping engaged, worrying about the things that have direct impact on your life here and now - and DO SOMETHING to solve even the nagging pebble in your shoe.

In my experience - and I am sure in most people's - if we can find peace, quiet and solutions to the "little things" that disturb our daily existence and that tend to frustrate the heck out of us, then we can begin to find beauty in the universe and find time and motivation to do things that don't matter, but which enrich our lives - whatever takes your fancy.

In Hammersmith they arrange a day for the over 50s with drinks, partying, dancing, food stalls etc.
They call it "The day of your life" for the older citizens.
Eh?
50?
Old?
The day of your life? If so - how poor is your life?

This is cakes for bread.
Why not use all this energy and money ensuring that people twixt 50-70 could have meaningful work, using their experience? In Denmark they call it grey gold - - how apt!
I am personally in the grip of awe about the size of Betelgeuse and take great joy studying Tempo Field Theory and other rather useless passtimes - but bollocks to it, as long as we have a society that has lost its way in materialism, youth worship and old by 50.

Cakes for bread!
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The Human Condition VI



Comparative sizes of various 'Suns' - click to enlarge



 A friend sent me some awesome pictures illustrating the size of the Universe and concluded that in comparison to the Universe, the little things that happen to us in our small daily lives could be considered insignificant.

Well - I don't agree!



If you ignore the considerable direct impact of our solar system on the life processes on Earth - processes upon which you have absolutely no influence - and perhaps also ignore the gravity impact of our galaxy (another process over which you have no control) - - then there is only one series of processes that matter to us 'ants': what is happening to you here with your feet firmly planted on mother Earth.

Do we care that E=mc2 is actually completely flawed on a cosmic quantum level?

No - for whatever we may need this field equation for, it works for us on Earth - bomb making or rocket construction.

Do we care that the speed of light (and other electromagnetic waves) are anything but constant, exhibiting big variation as time is dilated close to heavy gravitational fields and 'speeded up' in free space?

No - because it works for us as a constant on Earth.

Do we care that time itself can be dilated or contracted under the influence of gravity (can be measured simply with atomic clocks)?

No - because we still have to meet when the boss tells us.

Do we care that gravity is an instantly distributed quantum wave, i.e. with instant propagation across the Universe, that originates as a result of time-dilation/contraction and Universal mass/ energy ?

No - just ask our athletes attempting a 2.10m high jump.

Do we care that the Big Bang theory, the expansion of the Universe as measured by the red-shift Doppler effect and other present (but antique) theories seem flawed? - And if it really happened 13.7 Bill years ago, that the universe's most remote corners must be less than billions of light years away, as expansion is unlikely to have happened at the speed of light?



An enlarged image of an area that appeared totally empty
 in the Hubble telescope. Each spot is an entire galaxy!! 



I am totally in agreement that all these issues can make your head spin and let you drop the jaw in awe. These images truly humble you - but - -

It is the problems on Earth that I care about:

Can I pay my mortgage? Does my tooth ache? What do we eat tonight? Have I been a good boy today (important for my social life)? Can I get a finger up the nose of the banks, the phone companies, the politicians and other  Kafka-esque public institutions when they harass us?

Our inability to look at things in perspective is a tribal defect in the human species - and this happens mainly when one of the 80 major religions take over possession of the rational brain.

We should concentrate on living together in harmony and in support of each other, with respect for the nature that produced us from humble bacterial beginnings 3 bill years ago.

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Wine Serendipity

Out of the blue, a friend called and asked: "Would you like some small black grapes? It's you or the birds".
I am sure he meant 'pigeons' and not the short-skirted locals.

The surprise was in the story.
Apparently the vine producing these grapes was over 70 years old, as it reputedly was planted before the war! WWII, that is.

Who ever gets an offer like this? Old vine grapes, 70 years old, ready for the vinery?


Sweet blue grapes picked 1 Oct. 2010

 We picked the grapes in a steady drizzle from the autumn rain, but the quality was impeccable and I had to tie Natali's hands on her back, as she started to munch them by the bunch: sweet, concentrated juice - just what you'd expect from an old vine.

There is only one tiny problem: we have no idea what type of grapes they are. They are larger than triomphe d'Alsace, smaller than Brant and could easily be a Pinot-variety.
Pinot is normally too difficult for the English climate, but as we picked them 1 October, i.e. late, and they appeared ripe (minus a lot of  un-pollinated grapes in the centre of the bunches), there is a good chance that it could be Pinot Meunier.
I need a specialist to identify the bunches and the leaves.

The result is now bubbling away in the vat, ca 8 litres incl. peels and pips, ready to be decanted into the demijohn in 3-4 days, but an initial taste has revealed an enormous concentration of fruit and sugar (21% according to the refractometer), all natural juices.
However, I did add a little sugar to the pulp, as well as 1g wine-yeast, just to get the process started quickly and to ensure that the relatively small amount of wort would not invite bacteria or thirsty flies to the party.

Pure serendipity - lots of expectation!!!
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