the water
the sparkle
the brightness
the sharpness
the forgetfulness of the sea the ocean
the salt
the sand in all the flavors of the world
garnet
sharks teeth
bone
the bone of the sun in the eye
the imprecision of the sand
the sweat of the waves
the roll of the waves
rocking empty seashells
the empty memories
how many seashells
how many echoes of memory spiral back into the conch?
the beach is wide
the beach swallows this city
the beach washes the feet of this city
the beach washes away the auto
the waves play with words
I rearrange the shells on the dresser top
the moon comes
the women go
fireflies follow the washing of hair at twilight
once I was whole
then I was empty seashells
then the sea makes me whole again
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saw Kite Runner, brilliant, sad movie. so i wondered about Afghanistan again:
Some rambling notes on Afghanistan and Homo sapiens in general
WOW!
What can i say? so you have two different human lifestyles. Nomadic on the steppes, and settled agriculture. Maybe urban trade centers is a third? Maybe sea ports is a fourth? The steppe nomads are constantly roaming around. Settled agriculturalists are accumulating wealth and developing settled 'civilization' structures. They push on the nomads for land? For taxes? The nomads occasionaly get rich from them and want to take over?
What is now Afghanistan is a region separated from the northern reaches by mountains and the south by almost desert. It is in a larger region who's climate does not support much agriculture or accumulation of wealth. This makes it different in strength from the Indus valley or the Fertile Crescent. And Persia? Where did/does its strength lie? In the modern maps of raw products almost NOTHING comes from Afganistan, just sheep. Persia? By the maps Persia has two regions of wetter climates where tree and fruit and other crops are grown. And of course it often had the Iraq valley. but then again didn't Afganistan sometimes had Peshawar? Lots of ag there on the Indus. Now i have to go back and see how often Afganistan had that!
Anyway the center had nothing. Nomadic sheep herders and northern turk/mongol nomads constantly coming in. And of course constantly being jockeyed back and forth between India and Persia. A mess.
And the killings! Constant gossip tabloid-like rivalries killing each other. Is this a product of agriculture or is it already present in the nomadic peoples? Well you don't sack a city unless the city has accumulated agricultural wealth! A pity we have no history of this BEFORE agriculture surrounded and influenced the region. Why do hoards of humans follow millitary leaders and kill each other? Why do HORSES agree to come along and carry them? Few other animals will!
And then by the time the ottomans fade and India is shackled by Brittain, It's the Brittish and Russians who play their games with the region.
The notable thing is that the region is under constant flux, assasinations of 'rulers' back and forth taken by different powers! The whole near east a vast swarm of culture and millitary campaigns washing repeatedly over it, absorbing slaves from the outskirts who become the next round of millitary leaders, absorbing invaders from without and eventually integrating them into its culture. Which, since 600 was Islam.
Note Cyrus 'creates an empire', then Alexander 'creates an empire' right over it! What does that mean? What real local institutions and patterns among the people where laid down that Alexander's could settle right into what was already there?
And the written histories! my god what CRAP! I'm reading the encyclopedia entry for history of Afganistan and it reads mostly like TABLOID GOSSIP, no reality of everyday life and real patterns underlying and SUPPORTING the trivial millitary arguments and killings. Why are we fed this? To keep us ignorant?
And then there are Nations. More a European invention than Asian. That's a fifth pattern. and maybe Buckminster Fuller's hint of the great sea pirates? A network of seagoing tradesmen that were the most widely learned of the way of the world and that ruled it behind the scenes economically? Who are now doing it as CEOs abord international jet planes? hmmm...
What new territory to explore!
from 1500 to 1700 the region is half Mughal and have Safavid. Then Bayazid Ansar (Pir-e Rowshan) and Khyskhal Khan Khatak and Mir Veys Kahn awakened things. Even at times the region held some of persia and India.
Then baba Akhmad Khan Abdali (later Akmad Shah Durrani) is elected king of the Afghans in 1747 and 25 years later he creates a nation. This is from a Pashtun tribe. The Pashtun consider themselves Chthonic to the place.
Then the Barakzai (who were they) who are the Afghans? Pashtun?
Then tossed like a rag between Brittain and Russia. Finally in 1880 the Brits leave and Abdorrakhman and Habibollah Khan create things. Abdorrakhman laid the boundary between Afg hanistan and India. Splitting the Pashtun people!. Till 1919 then another assasination. then skirmish with Brits and India. Then recognized as country in 1921. Then comes a continuing battle between those who want to enter the modern western world and those who don't. A FUCKING MESS.
Ah, there are millions of Pathans (Pashtuns) in Paskistan! more friction! Pakistan's independance in '47.
From '33 to '69 there is some stability and western modernization that of course involved letting U.S. and Russia invest in the country. Tension about this. The tension between traditional and modern comes to a head in '71 and it's a mess again. Then bloody pro soviet coup in '78. In '79 Russia begins POUNDING THE SHIT out of Afghanistan. U.S. covertly supplies aide against this? (Why do the soviets want to do this? What's the prize in this godforsaken piece of land?) Soviets leave in '89 (TEN years of war!) and Afghanistan is a mess between, I suppose, those who wanted Soviet involvement (STILL?) and rebells. I suppose the soviet backed regimes... If you are in power you get addicted to it, over the people.. In 1992 the soviet backed regimes are gone, rebells win. In all, 2million dead and 6million emigrated, leaving ~25million left. That's ONE QUATER of the population gone after 14 years! WOW.
'96 to '98 finally all this chaos breeds the Taliban who take over the country. In aug '98 U.S. bombs facilities south of Kabul (#deaths?) claiming them to be terrorist training camps run by wealthy businessman Osama bin Laden. Afganistan refuses to release him to U.S. Probably he returned the bombs in sep 2001. We begin pounding Afganistan in earnest. Results? Then we go after Iraq. On the other side of Iran. Iran our goal?
Nice story.
I need to find better written histories.
Everytime i read the details of history of one of these places I'm struck that life here in the U.S. for the past 200 years (at least in the north, at least for white folk) is a disney fantasy of comfort and stability by comparison. We cant possibly imagine 200 continuous years of political back and forth, being pulled back and forth by outside powers, assassinations of leaders every 5 to 30 years...
And the cultural/linguistic homogenaity that we have. Modern Afghanistan has Pashto (Pashtuns) and Dari(Khazaras) and Uzbeck and Turkoman (Turks).
What do we have? A melting pot of course of dozens of european groups but only one language. And of course the Africans! Who we wisely imported as AGRICULTURAL slaves, not MILLITARY slaves as do the people in Near East/Asia! So we kept our slaves down for 200 years so far, they have not been given the opportunity to become millitary leaders and command. Curious. So that practice in Near East/Asian has kept things in constant turnover. Is it CREATIVE or is it Chaotic? Hmmm... It certainly kept things vibrant from 600 (Muhammad) to 1800 (collapse of Ottoman empire). That's a LONG run! I seriously DOUBT the united states as an empire or civilization will last 1200 years! HELL, Europe has only been a vibrant center for 600! Even 600 to 1400 for Islam's height is EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS. Still 200 years older than Europ's play. And Europe just might be set to fade soon and never reach that length!
WOW!
What can i say? so you have two different human lifestyles. Nomadic on the steppes, and settled agriculture. Maybe urban trade centers is a third? Maybe sea ports is a fourth? The steppe nomads are constantly roaming around. Settled agriculturalists are accumulating wealth and developing settled 'civilization' structures. They push on the nomads for land? For taxes? The nomads occasionaly get rich from them and want to take over?
What is now Afghanistan is a region separated from the northern reaches by mountains and the south by almost desert. It is in a larger region who's climate does not support much agriculture or accumulation of wealth. This makes it different in strength from the Indus valley or the Fertile Crescent. And Persia? Where did/does its strength lie? In the modern maps of raw products almost NOTHING comes from Afganistan, just sheep. Persia? By the maps Persia has two regions of wetter climates where tree and fruit and other crops are grown. And of course it often had the Iraq valley. but then again didn't Afganistan sometimes had Peshawar? Lots of ag there on the Indus. Now i have to go back and see how often Afganistan had that!
Anyway the center had nothing. Nomadic sheep herders and northern turk/mongol nomads constantly coming in. And of course constantly being jockeyed back and forth between India and Persia. A mess.
And the killings! Constant gossip tabloid-like rivalries killing each other. Is this a product of agriculture or is it already present in the nomadic peoples? Well you don't sack a city unless the city has accumulated agricultural wealth! A pity we have no history of this BEFORE agriculture surrounded and influenced the region. Why do hoards of humans follow millitary leaders and kill each other? Why do HORSES agree to come along and carry them? Few other animals will!
And then by the time the ottomans fade and India is shackled by Brittain, It's the Brittish and Russians who play their games with the region.
The notable thing is that the region is under constant flux, assasinations of 'rulers' back and forth taken by different powers! The whole near east a vast swarm of culture and millitary campaigns washing repeatedly over it, absorbing slaves from the outskirts who become the next round of millitary leaders, absorbing invaders from without and eventually integrating them into its culture. Which, since 600 was Islam.
Note Cyrus 'creates an empire', then Alexander 'creates an empire' right over it! What does that mean? What real local institutions and patterns among the people where laid down that Alexander's could settle right into what was already there?
And the written histories! my god what CRAP! I'm reading the encyclopedia entry for history of Afganistan and it reads mostly like TABLOID GOSSIP, no reality of everyday life and real patterns underlying and SUPPORTING the trivial millitary arguments and killings. Why are we fed this? To keep us ignorant?
And then there are Nations. More a European invention than Asian. That's a fifth pattern. and maybe Buckminster Fuller's hint of the great sea pirates? A network of seagoing tradesmen that were the most widely learned of the way of the world and that ruled it behind the scenes economically? Who are now doing it as CEOs abord international jet planes? hmmm...
What new territory to explore!
from 1500 to 1700 the region is half Mughal and have Safavid. Then Bayazid Ansar (Pir-e Rowshan) and Khyskhal Khan Khatak and Mir Veys Kahn awakened things. Even at times the region held some of persia and India.
Then baba Akhmad Khan Abdali (later Akmad Shah Durrani) is elected king of the Afghans in 1747 and 25 years later he creates a nation. This is from a Pashtun tribe. The Pashtun consider themselves Chthonic to the place.
Then the Barakzai (who were they) who are the Afghans? Pashtun?
Then tossed like a rag between Brittain and Russia. Finally in 1880 the Brits leave and Abdorrakhman and Habibollah Khan create things. Abdorrakhman laid the boundary between Afg hanistan and India. Splitting the Pashtun people!. Till 1919 then another assasination. then skirmish with Brits and India. Then recognized as country in 1921. Then comes a continuing battle between those who want to enter the modern western world and those who don't. A FUCKING MESS.
Ah, there are millions of Pathans (Pashtuns) in Paskistan! more friction! Pakistan's independance in '47.
From '33 to '69 there is some stability and western modernization that of course involved letting U.S. and Russia invest in the country. Tension about this. The tension between traditional and modern comes to a head in '71 and it's a mess again. Then bloody pro soviet coup in '78. In '79 Russia begins POUNDING THE SHIT out of Afghanistan. U.S. covertly supplies aide against this? (Why do the soviets want to do this? What's the prize in this godforsaken piece of land?) Soviets leave in '89 (TEN years of war!) and Afghanistan is a mess between, I suppose, those who wanted Soviet involvement (STILL?) and rebells. I suppose the soviet backed regimes... If you are in power you get addicted to it, over the people.. In 1992 the soviet backed regimes are gone, rebells win. In all, 2million dead and 6million emigrated, leaving ~25million left. That's ONE QUATER of the population gone after 14 years! WOW.
'96 to '98 finally all this chaos breeds the Taliban who take over the country. In aug '98 U.S. bombs facilities south of Kabul (#deaths?) claiming them to be terrorist training camps run by wealthy businessman Osama bin Laden. Afganistan refuses to release him to U.S. Probably he returned the bombs in sep 2001. We begin pounding Afganistan in earnest. Results? Then we go after Iraq. On the other side of Iran. Iran our goal?
Nice story.
I need to find better written histories.
Everytime i read the details of history of one of these places I'm struck that life here in the U.S. for the past 200 years (at least in the north, at least for white folk) is a disney fantasy of comfort and stability by comparison. We cant possibly imagine 200 continuous years of political back and forth, being pulled back and forth by outside powers, assassinations of leaders every 5 to 30 years...
And the cultural/linguistic homogenaity that we have. Modern Afghanistan has Pashto (Pashtuns) and Dari(Khazaras) and Uzbeck and Turkoman (Turks).
What do we have? A melting pot of course of dozens of european groups but only one language. And of course the Africans! Who we wisely imported as AGRICULTURAL slaves, not MILLITARY slaves as do the people in Near East/Asia! So we kept our slaves down for 200 years so far, they have not been given the opportunity to become millitary leaders and command. Curious. So that practice in Near East/Asian has kept things in constant turnover. Is it CREATIVE or is it Chaotic? Hmmm... It certainly kept things vibrant from 600 (Muhammad) to 1800 (collapse of Ottoman empire). That's a LONG run! I seriously DOUBT the united states as an empire or civilization will last 1200 years! HELL, Europe has only been a vibrant center for 600! Even 600 to 1400 for Islam's height is EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS. Still 200 years older than Europ's play. And Europe just might be set to fade soon and never reach that length!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Watching Crows Windsurfing
so today a snowy wind periodically burst down on us showing us that the wood of tall spindly spruce trees is actually woven, supple. and on a walk i found a corner where dozens of crows where cackling and cawing and yacking and growling and clicking and clacking. even a new crow sound for me, kind of like a cat growling. always inventive, critters are.
anyway they were hanging out in trees and diving into the blustery wind doing acrobatics. flying into the wind, pulling their wings in looking like flying batmobiles to loose altitude like rocks against the wind, then peeling out, twisting, splaying feathers. HOW? They were amazingly skilled! dozens and not one snapped a wing plummeting to the ground! Their wings weigh nothing, how do the bones do it? Feathers! interlocking feathers stronger than bones? What an invention! I wonder if they can tense each feather like a finger?
Were they playing for the wind especially or merely adjusting their social arrangements from tree to tree only mildly annoyed at the wind? How could i do an experiment to find out?
at some point in their lives they must play to learn these skills, no? i thought about vertebrate nervous systems, never hardwired from instructions in the genes, no, they grow themselves by playing. so when we grow we have to play to learn to use them.
anyway they were hanging out in trees and diving into the blustery wind doing acrobatics. flying into the wind, pulling their wings in looking like flying batmobiles to loose altitude like rocks against the wind, then peeling out, twisting, splaying feathers. HOW? They were amazingly skilled! dozens and not one snapped a wing plummeting to the ground! Their wings weigh nothing, how do the bones do it? Feathers! interlocking feathers stronger than bones? What an invention! I wonder if they can tense each feather like a finger?
Were they playing for the wind especially or merely adjusting their social arrangements from tree to tree only mildly annoyed at the wind? How could i do an experiment to find out?
at some point in their lives they must play to learn these skills, no? i thought about vertebrate nervous systems, never hardwired from instructions in the genes, no, they grow themselves by playing. so when we grow we have to play to learn to use them.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
We all start off life like some kind of sea monster crawling out of our mother's vagina
You pluck a cell of you and filled it with yolk.
mixing your father and mother into it.
then life's hunger to move beyond you
entices you to strip bare in front of an alien human a stranger
open your mouth to him
suck on his spit
suck on his tongue inside your mouth
suck on his cock inside your pussy.
the things we piss with
swallow his spit
drive him bodily crazy enough
so his loins cough up living cells of himself
into you
and your vagina sucks them up and swallows them!
swimming vermin of himself
mixed memories of HIS father and mother in YOUR private bedroom
private act!
to suck his living vermin deeper within you,
life hammered orgasms into you
no chance to think twice about this deadly act now
inviting danger into your innards
you do NOT own your own body, life does..
you're only one stopping point on a journey billions of years old
it's marching through you right now
boots pounding with every beat of its heart
You call them to swim deeper
they race with each other
fight with each other
they swim long in your sea like Beowulf and Brecca
till they land on the yolky shore of your eggself exhausted
She chooses only one, and she EATS him
Now, she, a parasite in your belly, ready to kill
has a parasite in her, ready to kill
or create
the days will tell.
And when his other swimming selves die, you expell them!
and what IS that parasite in your belly?
the lucky one.
is it a person?
is she a person?
she's a mushroom!
swells to some jelly fish thing
folds up into a worm
and there,
with that ad hoc assembly of memories
of your mother
and his father
and his mother
and your father...
the two of you had sloppily picked parts from each
like some kind of Dr. Frankenstien..
and you sewed them into her, crazy quilt
she almost screws up!
she almost folds up into a cretin and dies!
like her brother did (and you expelled him)
and you didn't even know..
such are new beginnings
but she ripples into a fish finally
swimming in your watery womb
behind your belly button memory of your mother.
not really a fish,
she's got gills, but they don't work!
she can't breath in there!
there's no krill in your wombsea for her to eat!
do something!
weave yourself deep to her
bleed into her and let her bleed into you.
she almost killed ya, didn't she?
are you guys one or two?
Is she human YET?
no, now she's a newt.
now, a mouse!
now some kind of scratching puppy thing with a big head...
Now it's time to let her out.
Time to tear that weaving apart.
time to tear half yourself from yourself again,
let her be her
now it's time to open yourself up
let her crawl through your vagina
dragging your shared blood out with her
the two of you wrestle
she's tied to you
blood to you
you've got to turn yourself inside out!
heave!
wrestle all night
maybe you hate her for a moment
dump out your wombwaters
finally tear that bloodweaving placenta from you
push her into the world all bloody and slimy
and she almost kills you again!
well? cut the cord!
she'll bleed to death
her muscles think fast
close like fists 'round those severed arteries for ever
separating your bloodtides
light!
Cold!
she coughs the warm womb water from her lungs
to breath in the fiery oxygen
yells her lungs into breath.
wakes up to her own long frightening journey.
but you're still tied
let her suck milk from your own fat.
let her swim, a fish again, on your warm belly
you try to stay together, you two
new fish swimming on your breasty sea
but dammit she keeps growing.
first she's a fish again
then a larva with giant oggling laughing head,
her eyes focus,
her hands grasp for the world
she learns to eat
and your seeping springs of milk run dry.
her fingers become intelligent.
she gets up on her feet and walks away
imagines herself into a separate being
and begins to fear the night.
mixing your father and mother into it.
then life's hunger to move beyond you
entices you to strip bare in front of an alien human a stranger
open your mouth to him
suck on his spit
suck on his tongue inside your mouth
suck on his cock inside your pussy.
the things we piss with
swallow his spit
drive him bodily crazy enough
so his loins cough up living cells of himself
into you
and your vagina sucks them up and swallows them!
swimming vermin of himself
mixed memories of HIS father and mother in YOUR private bedroom
private act!
to suck his living vermin deeper within you,
life hammered orgasms into you
no chance to think twice about this deadly act now
inviting danger into your innards
you do NOT own your own body, life does..
you're only one stopping point on a journey billions of years old
it's marching through you right now
boots pounding with every beat of its heart
You call them to swim deeper
they race with each other
fight with each other
they swim long in your sea like Beowulf and Brecca
till they land on the yolky shore of your eggself exhausted
She chooses only one, and she EATS him
Now, she, a parasite in your belly, ready to kill
has a parasite in her, ready to kill
or create
the days will tell.
And when his other swimming selves die, you expell them!
and what IS that parasite in your belly?
the lucky one.
is it a person?
is she a person?
she's a mushroom!
swells to some jelly fish thing
folds up into a worm
and there,
with that ad hoc assembly of memories
of your mother
and his father
and his mother
and your father...
the two of you had sloppily picked parts from each
like some kind of Dr. Frankenstien..
and you sewed them into her, crazy quilt
she almost screws up!
she almost folds up into a cretin and dies!
like her brother did (and you expelled him)
and you didn't even know..
such are new beginnings
but she ripples into a fish finally
swimming in your watery womb
behind your belly button memory of your mother.
not really a fish,
she's got gills, but they don't work!
she can't breath in there!
there's no krill in your wombsea for her to eat!
do something!
weave yourself deep to her
bleed into her and let her bleed into you.
she almost killed ya, didn't she?
are you guys one or two?
Is she human YET?
no, now she's a newt.
now, a mouse!
now some kind of scratching puppy thing with a big head...
Now it's time to let her out.
Time to tear that weaving apart.
time to tear half yourself from yourself again,
let her be her
now it's time to open yourself up
let her crawl through your vagina
dragging your shared blood out with her
the two of you wrestle
she's tied to you
blood to you
you've got to turn yourself inside out!
heave!
wrestle all night
maybe you hate her for a moment
dump out your wombwaters
finally tear that bloodweaving placenta from you
push her into the world all bloody and slimy
and she almost kills you again!
well? cut the cord!
she'll bleed to death
her muscles think fast
close like fists 'round those severed arteries for ever
separating your bloodtides
light!
Cold!
she coughs the warm womb water from her lungs
to breath in the fiery oxygen
yells her lungs into breath.
wakes up to her own long frightening journey.
but you're still tied
let her suck milk from your own fat.
let her swim, a fish again, on your warm belly
you try to stay together, you two
new fish swimming on your breasty sea
but dammit she keeps growing.
first she's a fish again
then a larva with giant oggling laughing head,
her eyes focus,
her hands grasp for the world
she learns to eat
and your seeping springs of milk run dry.
her fingers become intelligent.
she gets up on her feet and walks away
imagines herself into a separate being
and begins to fear the night.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Epic Poem Needed About World Wide Physics Experiment Collaborations
ATLAS is a particle physics experiment that will explore the fundamental nature of matter and the basic forces that shape our universe. Starting in mid-2008, the ATLAS detector will search for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of protons ofø extraordinarily high energy. ATLAS is one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences. There are 2100 physicists (Including 450 students) participating from more than 167 universities and laboratories in 37 countries.
The protons will be accelerated in the Large Hadron Collider, an underground accelerator ring 27 kilometres in circumference at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The particle beams are steered to collide in the middle of the ATLAS detector. The debris of the collisions reveal fundamental particle processes. The energy density in these high energy collisions is similar to the particle collision energy in the early universe less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Does the world know about this thing, this effort? This collaboration between nations to dig into the guts of reality? I think I need to write an epic poem..
Example of engineering:
The protons will be accelerated in the Large Hadron Collider, an underground accelerator ring 27 kilometres in circumference at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The particle beams are steered to collide in the middle of the ATLAS detector. The debris of the collisions reveal fundamental particle processes. The energy density in these high energy collisions is similar to the particle collision energy in the early universe less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Does the world know about this thing, this effort? This collaboration between nations to dig into the guts of reality? I think I need to write an epic poem..
Example of engineering:
Excerpt:
"All the toroid magnets are superconducting in order to allow a large magnetic field without too much particle–stopping mass or wallet–busting energy consumption. To achieve superconductivity, each magnet needs to be cooled to a freezing -269°C, just 4.2 degrees above absolute zero (using liquid helium). Each needs to be maintained in a good vacuum for optimal working conditions. The main parts of the magnet are called the “cold mass” and weigh about 120 tonnes, and are about 10m across. The large magnetic forces (many hundreds of tonnes) acting, mean that careful design and analysis are required to ensure that fractures do not occur when the magnet is turned on.
It is the last magnet being tested on ATLAS before nominal operation, so this is a major milestone,” says Arnaud Foussat, one of CERN’s magnet engineers. The end–cap toroid magnets were installed in the experimental cavern in the summer of 2007. The ATLAS engineers worked hard during October to cool the magnets to -269°C. The cooling process took five weeks because the magnets are so large."
Take a tour:
Latest test:
excerpt:
"Once ATLAS is up and running, real data will be fed out to the Grid and spread all over the world for permanent storage and analysis. The Grid is a global network of computers which, in the same way that the Internet is used to share information, will be used to share computing power and data storage capacity. ATLAS needs to use the Grid because of the sheer volume of data that will be recorded, and the immense amount of computing power that will be required to process it.
"Once ATLAS is up and running, real data will be fed out to the Grid and spread all over the world for permanent storage and analysis. The Grid is a global network of computers which, in the same way that the Internet is used to share information, will be used to share computing power and data storage capacity. ATLAS needs to use the Grid because of the sheer volume of data that will be recorded, and the immense amount of computing power that will be required to process it.
Initially, the CERN computing centre, known as Tier 0, will farm out data to ten scientific institutes and laboratories across the globe, known as Tier 1 centres. These will subsequently distribute it amongst local ‘clouds’ of Tier 2 centres — mainly academic institutions — associated with them. Between them, these three Tiers will reconstruct the data to build up a picture of the trajectories and energies of individual particles recorded by the detector, and analyse them to try to gain an understanding of what happened during the proton collision.
...
When the LHC starts we want to analyse the data within a few days. We want a very quick feedback to see what’s good, what the problems were, if there’s any new physics, if there’s anything really exciting in there,” said Charlton. “To do that we must make sure this whole system works; that we can get the data out to people where they can look at it very quickly.”
So, even when hungry, angry, fulfilling one's curiousity can be a big healing process. Getting outside your own troubles and seeing the world can be cleansing. Maybe for the world?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Renormalization In Conway Life?
Just finnished skimming through: Robert B. Laughlin. "A Different Universe: reinventing physics from the bottom down".
review:
Some comments.
first of all it was tantalizing but fustrating! hints, but no details! my guess is that to get a feel for what he's saying i'd have to get a degree in physics and then read the papers he quotes. oh well.
however it reminded me of this problem: For years I've had vague notions of finding cellular automata somewhere between John Horton Conway's game of life and chemistry. The inventiveness of Conway-life fascinates me. To be able to 'play' with a game like chemistry knowing PRECISELY all the microscopic rules would be fun. But there is one important element of Conway life that is disappointing in this regard. It is very brittle to random fluctuation. Change ONE cell, and you can create a disturbance that eventually destroys a whole 'life form'.
Chemistry is not ordinarily like this. Even in far from equilibrium conditions where random fluctuations can be amplified, they don't ordinarily send the whole ensemble crashing to a halt. So I've wanted to invent a cellular automata that is stable like chemistry or physics.
My intuition was that it has something to do with benzene etc... Atoms interact with each other locally but there are also long range interactions, which i do not understand microscopically. I have a vague notion that they have something to do with quantum mechanics. I also have a vague notion that you can't predict benzene from first principles in quantum mechanics. We certainly didn't predict Buckyballs after 60 years of quantum chemistry.
Then, in his book he mentions something about not being able to get the stable properties of macroscopic matter from microscopic quantum mechanics. That it comes from somewhere else. Something to do with Renormalization? I don't know ANY details about this! I have only a vague imagination about renormalization, so i make a guess: Do I have to introduce renormalization to Conway-life?
I imagine it means this: to calculate the next generation fate of each cell, do the following: calculate its fate according to its usual neighborhood of 8. Then look at each neighborhood of 4 surrounding that cell. Look at the whole Conway universe by 4's. There will be 4 such ways to partition the universe. Go through each one. For each 4-universe each new cell is the average (?) of the 4 original cells of the original universe that it contains. Now calculate the fate of the 4-cell containing your original cell for this new universe just as you do for the original Conway universe. Do it again: now partition the universe into 9-cells, there will be 9 such possible partitions. calculate the fate of the cell for each of those. go out to infinity. Now summation. produce a weighted sum of each of these fates like 1/16 (sum 1 to 4 of each 4-universe fates) + 1/81(sum 1 to 9 of 9 of each 9-universe fates) +... Can it be contrived to converge? This then must be done for each cell for each generation of recalculating Conway life.
Of course it seems impossibly impractical to me. I suppose you could do it in stages. Take a whole bunch of Conway life forms and work them out up to the 4-universe stage. Do it again up to the 9-universe stage. Again for the 25-universe stage... Does this procedure tend to some kind of behavior? Or is it just wildly different each time?
Is this how quantum mechanics is now done? I recall something about calculating all the possible feynman diagrams for each interaction at finer and finer scales each with more and more loops and summing them hoping it converges. is this where the infinities come in? how were they bannished?
Anyway for the Conway life scheme, if it COULD be done, what would happen? Would it so constrain the system that NOTHING interesting would happen?
This reminds me of another variation on Conway life I wanted to try, continuous Conway life: In R-2 you have a set of points. Say a disk of radius one centered at the origin. We will generalize conway life rules. The neighborhood of each point is a disk of radius... hmm... how did I choose the radius? Don't remember now. I'm not sure how to choose the neighborhood radius relative to the original shape i want to follow. That's bothersome. So hard to create a universe! Let's say r=1/2. So for each point look at the fraction f, of the disk r=1/2 that surrounds it that intersects with the original set. The continuous Conway life rules would be:
if f<2/8>3/8 (or 4/9) the original point 'dies'
if 2/8<=f<=3/8 (or /9etc..) the point stays
if for an empty point f=exactly 3/8? asking too much? 2.5/8<=f<=3.5/8? then 'turn that point on'
Well, you gotta decide the way you want to generalize the rules. Anyway It isn't hard to calculate the fate after the first generation or two for simple shapes like disk, square... but after a few generations the boundaries become complex and the formulas for them become complex and they are required to calculate the new boundaries. for instance a disk turns into an annulus which overlaps the edge of the disk. the annulus would turn into two concentric annuli? Square was harder.
Since it's difficult to calculate I thought up a scheme. Approach the system digitally. Break up the set into finer and finer digital approximations. At each stage see what the fate is under digital Conway life with larger and larger neighborhoods, with rules 'renormalized' (is that the appropriate use of the term?) appropriately. So the Conway life rules become more and more 'continous'. So to approach the fate of a square under continuous conway life, carry out the following procedure:
Approximate the square as 6x6 cells in original conway life and calculate its fate as many generations as needed, till it settles (or doesn't). Approximate the square as a square of 8x8 cells and calculate the fate (as many generations as needed...) under appropriately renormalized neighborhood-of-16 Conway life. (should the neighborhood be a 4x4 square or something closer to approximating a disk? So many choices!). Approximate the square as 10x10 cells and calculate its fate in neighborhood-of-25 Conway life. Continue. Will the behavior of each of these discrete Conway life universes CONVERGE to the behavior of the continuous one?
review:
Some comments.
first of all it was tantalizing but fustrating! hints, but no details! my guess is that to get a feel for what he's saying i'd have to get a degree in physics and then read the papers he quotes. oh well.
however it reminded me of this problem: For years I've had vague notions of finding cellular automata somewhere between John Horton Conway's game of life and chemistry. The inventiveness of Conway-life fascinates me. To be able to 'play' with a game like chemistry knowing PRECISELY all the microscopic rules would be fun. But there is one important element of Conway life that is disappointing in this regard. It is very brittle to random fluctuation. Change ONE cell, and you can create a disturbance that eventually destroys a whole 'life form'.
Chemistry is not ordinarily like this. Even in far from equilibrium conditions where random fluctuations can be amplified, they don't ordinarily send the whole ensemble crashing to a halt. So I've wanted to invent a cellular automata that is stable like chemistry or physics.
My intuition was that it has something to do with benzene etc... Atoms interact with each other locally but there are also long range interactions, which i do not understand microscopically. I have a vague notion that they have something to do with quantum mechanics. I also have a vague notion that you can't predict benzene from first principles in quantum mechanics. We certainly didn't predict Buckyballs after 60 years of quantum chemistry.
Then, in his book he mentions something about not being able to get the stable properties of macroscopic matter from microscopic quantum mechanics. That it comes from somewhere else. Something to do with Renormalization? I don't know ANY details about this! I have only a vague imagination about renormalization, so i make a guess: Do I have to introduce renormalization to Conway-life?
I imagine it means this: to calculate the next generation fate of each cell, do the following: calculate its fate according to its usual neighborhood of 8. Then look at each neighborhood of 4 surrounding that cell. Look at the whole Conway universe by 4's. There will be 4 such ways to partition the universe. Go through each one. For each 4-universe each new cell is the average (?) of the 4 original cells of the original universe that it contains. Now calculate the fate of the 4-cell containing your original cell for this new universe just as you do for the original Conway universe. Do it again: now partition the universe into 9-cells, there will be 9 such possible partitions. calculate the fate of the cell for each of those. go out to infinity. Now summation. produce a weighted sum of each of these fates like 1/16 (sum 1 to 4 of each 4-universe fates) + 1/81(sum 1 to 9 of 9 of each 9-universe fates) +... Can it be contrived to converge? This then must be done for each cell for each generation of recalculating Conway life.
Of course it seems impossibly impractical to me. I suppose you could do it in stages. Take a whole bunch of Conway life forms and work them out up to the 4-universe stage. Do it again up to the 9-universe stage. Again for the 25-universe stage... Does this procedure tend to some kind of behavior? Or is it just wildly different each time?
Is this how quantum mechanics is now done? I recall something about calculating all the possible feynman diagrams for each interaction at finer and finer scales each with more and more loops and summing them hoping it converges. is this where the infinities come in? how were they bannished?
Anyway for the Conway life scheme, if it COULD be done, what would happen? Would it so constrain the system that NOTHING interesting would happen?
This reminds me of another variation on Conway life I wanted to try, continuous Conway life: In R-2 you have a set of points. Say a disk of radius one centered at the origin. We will generalize conway life rules. The neighborhood of each point is a disk of radius... hmm... how did I choose the radius? Don't remember now. I'm not sure how to choose the neighborhood radius relative to the original shape i want to follow. That's bothersome. So hard to create a universe! Let's say r=1/2. So for each point look at the fraction f, of the disk r=1/2 that surrounds it that intersects with the original set. The continuous Conway life rules would be:
if f<2/8>3/8 (or 4/9) the original point 'dies'
if 2/8<=f<=3/8 (or /9etc..) the point stays
if for an empty point f=exactly 3/8? asking too much? 2.5/8<=f<=3.5/8? then 'turn that point on'
Well, you gotta decide the way you want to generalize the rules. Anyway It isn't hard to calculate the fate after the first generation or two for simple shapes like disk, square... but after a few generations the boundaries become complex and the formulas for them become complex and they are required to calculate the new boundaries. for instance a disk turns into an annulus which overlaps the edge of the disk. the annulus would turn into two concentric annuli? Square was harder.
Since it's difficult to calculate I thought up a scheme. Approach the system digitally. Break up the set into finer and finer digital approximations. At each stage see what the fate is under digital Conway life with larger and larger neighborhoods, with rules 'renormalized' (is that the appropriate use of the term?) appropriately. So the Conway life rules become more and more 'continous'. So to approach the fate of a square under continuous conway life, carry out the following procedure:
Approximate the square as 6x6 cells in original conway life and calculate its fate as many generations as needed, till it settles (or doesn't). Approximate the square as a square of 8x8 cells and calculate the fate (as many generations as needed...) under appropriately renormalized neighborhood-of-16 Conway life. (should the neighborhood be a 4x4 square or something closer to approximating a disk? So many choices!). Approximate the square as 10x10 cells and calculate its fate in neighborhood-of-25 Conway life. Continue. Will the behavior of each of these discrete Conway life universes CONVERGE to the behavior of the continuous one?
What are the origins of life: Despair Of Being a Tiny Dot Stuck to a Random Planet.
After reading Loren Eiseley wondering about our ignorance of the origins of life, I too wondered. And I to despaired over our ignorance! We've got merely ONE example of life here on Earth. We haven't even gotten the chance to explore mars with human eyes and hands and knees. I think the results are that mars had some active geology, surface water for some 100s of millions of years? It seems that life had a window of only a few 100million years on Earth to appear. So the question is: is life a natural consequence of chemistry or is it special? If Mars had conditions conducive to some kind of far from equilibrium chemistry developing for a couple 100 million years, and we explored for 100 years and found NO clues of mircrobial life then that would tell us something. If we DID find microbial fossils, that would tell us something again!
Of course of Venus, we are totally ignorant. Presumably Venus has had a much longer history of geological and chemical activity than mars. Our total igorance of details waiting in the rocks of Venus is a severe flaw in our attempt to fathom the origins of life.
As an aside, why isn't there massive amounts of funding for this exploration? Perhaps the powers that be are not to keen on busting through that question? Perhaps they are afraid to break the last barrier of belief that life is the special creation of God? That belief propelled by the same greed for eternal life that propels the funding for research in medicine?
And Titan? Io? Here are more places to look. So the verdict is in, Titan has methane rainfall. That means there are far from equilibrium cycles of methane evaporation and fall. It's cold there, but there is still 1/64th the amount of sunlight available as there is on Earth. Sunlight of the same quality as on Earth, so photochemistry CAN happen there. Just at 1/64 the rate it happens here. So instead of 4billion years of evolution, it's like 70million years... hm... What can happen in that amount of time? And Io and her sulfur volcanoes? What fascinating chemistry there is to explore! We've only just begun!
Of course of Venus, we are totally ignorant. Presumably Venus has had a much longer history of geological and chemical activity than mars. Our total igorance of details waiting in the rocks of Venus is a severe flaw in our attempt to fathom the origins of life.
As an aside, why isn't there massive amounts of funding for this exploration? Perhaps the powers that be are not to keen on busting through that question? Perhaps they are afraid to break the last barrier of belief that life is the special creation of God? That belief propelled by the same greed for eternal life that propels the funding for research in medicine?
And Titan? Io? Here are more places to look. So the verdict is in, Titan has methane rainfall. That means there are far from equilibrium cycles of methane evaporation and fall. It's cold there, but there is still 1/64th the amount of sunlight available as there is on Earth. Sunlight of the same quality as on Earth, so photochemistry CAN happen there. Just at 1/64 the rate it happens here. So instead of 4billion years of evolution, it's like 70million years... hm... What can happen in that amount of time? And Io and her sulfur volcanoes? What fascinating chemistry there is to explore! We've only just begun!
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