Experimental Blog # 169

Quotations from "Einstein's Mistakes" - The Human Failings of Genius by Hans C. Ohanian

"Einstein's theories of relativity rest on foundations first laid by Galileo - the special theory rests on Galileo's discovery of the  relativity of motion, and the general theory rests on Galileo's discovery of the equal rates of acceleration of freely falling bodies. Furthermore, both the special and the general theories incorporate and extend Newton's laws, and both incorporate Maxwell's equations."

   "In 1861, Maxwell finished assembling all the laws of electricity and magnetism in a system of four equations, Maxwell's equations. He discovered that these equations imply the existence of electromagnetic waves consisting of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that are created by oscillating electric charges."

"Einstein was not the discoverer of E=mc{squared}. The equation was known several years before Einstein < > The equation played only a marginal role in the discovery of nuclear fission and the development of the atomic bomb. < > The first complete proof of E=mcc was not found by Einstein, in 1905 or at any other time. It was found by Max von Laue, in 1911."

   "Einstein's mistakes did not affect his rank because they did not prevent him from making his groundbreaking discoveries."
"How much of an advantage did Einstein gain over his colleagues by his mistakes? Typically, about ten or twenty years. < > other physicists would have discovered the theory of general relativity some twenty years later, via a path originating in relativistic quantum mechanics."
" ...if Einstein had not discovered his equations for the gravitational field in 1915, then quantum theorists would certainly have discovered them in the mid-1930s, some twenty years later."
"In the absence of Einstein, all these discoveries would have been made somewhat later - mostly by an entirely different path - and physics today would have been pretty much the same as it is."

Experimental Blog # 168

Quotation from "Relativity" - The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein, translated by Robert W. Lawson, Introduction by Roger Penrose, Commentary by Robert Geroch, and a Historical Essay by David C. Cassidy

Quotations from the commentary by Robert Geroch:

"There are many other methods to measure "the length of a moving rod."
"There is considerably less reason to believe that these various methods must all agree in this realm. In fact, according to relativity theory they do not. For each different method there will be a factor - which can be calculated within special relativity .. . For one method ... might always yield precisely the rest-length of the rod; and for some other method ... the rod ... would be deemed to have lengthened rather than shortened.
   Thus "moving objects contract" is not a very good summary of what is predicted by special relativity."

   "Similar remarks apply to "time dilation." There are numerous experiments the results of which deserve to be called the "elapsed time" between two events; and different experiments will generally yield different answers. Einstein's time dilation refers to one particular choice of an experiment."

Experimental Blog # 167

Notes from "Bankrupting Physics" - How Today's Top Scientists Are Gambling Away Their Credibility by Alexander Unzicker and Sheilla Jones

"According to the "standard" or "concordance" model of cosmology, the universe is made up of 4 percent usual matter, while the rest consists of invisible substances such as dark matter and dark energy."
Light travels at the speed of light no matter how fast you are going, or whether you observe it sitting or moving.

"   time is measured differently in a moving system than in one at rest, with the strange result that clocks in motion have to run slower. As startling as this may seem, the famous factor by which time passes slower{the square root of 1 minus velocity squared / divided by the speed of light squared} is derived by simple logic."
   "The name of this surprising fact is "time dilation." "
"For general relativity{the equation} is 1 minus 2 x gravitational constant x mass of Earth / divided by radius of Earth x speed of light squared."
   "Accordingly, time runs slower for one day in New York than at the top of one of Colorado's many mountains. But the difference is a mere forty nanoseconds." " .. it is indeed measurable with atomic clocks."

"Envisioning an absolute time, which flows without any relation to matter, might be completely false, as false as Newton's notion that absolute space without matter exists."

Experimental Blog # 166

Notes and comments from "Last Ape Standing" - The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived by Chip Walter

"Despite its academic-sounding name, a good deal of brawling often goes on within the field of paleoanthropology."
"Today hominid refers to all great apes, including gorillas and chimpanzees, but hominin refers specifically to ancient and modern humans who split off from a common chimp ancestor seven million years ago, or thereabouts."
The first of the genus Homo, Homo habilis, arose about 2,350,000 years ago.
"Between 160,000 and 200,000 years ago the first anatomically modern humans emerged, probably near Ethiopia. {But there is anything but universal agreement on this}."
As many as 12 other species of Homo have also been found.
Seven other genera of hominin, going as far back as 7 million years, have also been found; but there are probably, if not certainly, very many other undiscovered genera and species.

"...between 4 percent and 6 percent of the genomes of the people of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Island contain Denisovan DNA."
" ..most of the human race from Europe to the islands of Southeast Asia{and probably farther}is part Neanderthal! That Africans seem not to share any Neanderthal blood indicates that these two families mated after the wave of Homo sapiens departed Africa, but before their descendants headed into Europe and Asia."
"How many more species and hybrids might we find now that DNA analysis has opened so many genetic doors?"
"It is not as crazy as it might once have been thought that a more modern descendant of Homo erectus was still living as recently as twenty-five thousand years ago."

"Nearly every waking moment we describe what is going on in our minds to ourselves ..."
Does this describe the human mind as a speaker and a listener? This life-long conversation with ourselves must be, by far, our most important conversation.
"When you are thinking, and talking, to yourself, the you that you are speaking to is a symbol."
"We are not only an animal that can explore a life not yet lived, and dream of a future we desire, we can also take hold of these dreams and make them come true. Out of a chaotic flux of random events in nature that have no agenda and are utterly incapable of making any plans, we have evolved into a planning, agenda-making, dream-conjuring creature."
"And don't we all live in imaginary worlds of our own making - in the tomorrows that we plan; the lives that we lay out; the conversations we imagine having with friends or enemies?"

Experimental Blog # 165

Quotations and comments from "The Art of Betrayal - The Secret History of MI6" or Life and Death in the British Secret Service by Gordon Corera

"The task of the Secret Intelligence Service{SIS} - or to use its more popular name MI6 ..."

"The British public had become obsessed with traitors .."
"On both sides of the Atlantic, a fire had been lit by *******'s betrayal < > It blazed with fierce intensity, nearly consuming both the CIA and MI6 until it burnt itself out."
"The early 1960s were a golden age for the small army of Soviet spies plying their trade in Britain."

"Did it all matter? Did the spying and the lying and betraying make any real difference? Critics argue that all the spying accomplished was to raise the temperature by heightening suspicions that fuelled the Cold War in which ignorant armies clashed by night. Those who believe in intelligence say it did make a difference by managing a hostility that was real and dangerous."

"Donald Rumsfeld expressed this strange view best when he said 'the absence of evidence is not absence of evidence'."

By the end of this book, which is filled with fascinating and often tragic stories, but not so many basic facts, is the author Gordon Corera completely oblivious, or is he only pretending?

Experimental Blog # 164

Quotations from "The Faiths of the Postwar Presidents - From Truman to Obama" by David L. Holmes

"In Christianity, four churches fall into the liturgical category: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, and Lutheran. These four churches worship in a more formal way than the churches categorized as nonliturgical - such as the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Mennonite < > Liturgical churches emphasize the Christian sacraments, follow patterns of worship inherited from centuries of Christianity, and tend to be less emotional and more ritualistic than services in nonliturgical churches."

"Evangelical Christians view the Bible as the supreme authority for faith and conduct, emphasize born-again conversion experience{and not simply baptism} as the entrance to Christianity, and believe that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not only possible for humans but essential to their salvation."

"Eisenhower presided over a major religious revival in the United States. < > Every religious group that occupied the approximate American religious center - Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and mainline Protestantism - grew. It was an unexpected legacy for a president who was raised in the extreme left wing of American religion."

As for President John F. Kennedy:
"The religious profile of Rosemary, the oldest sister, is difficult to determine. < > Possibly bipolar < > After a lobotomy arranged by her father when she was twenty-three caused permanent disability, Rosemary was placed in the care of nuns in rural Wisconsin for the rest of her life."
"But the most sweeping assessments came from Kennedy himself. "If I had to live my life over again," he wrote to a friend, "I would have a different father, a different wife, and a different religion.""

" ...the churches that Lyndon Johnson attended were what Christianity refers to as "liturgical churches.""
"Johnson probably hopped from church to church for a combination of reasons."
"Thus Johnson varied the churches he attended - Christian{or Disciples of Christ}, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, and others."

Experimental Blog # 163

Quotations and comments on "The Secretary" - A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power by Kim Ghattas

"Even today, while America is deeply in debt again, exhausted by two wars, its influence challenged by rivals big and small, millions of people around the world still believe that the United States can snap its fingers to make things happen, for good or bad .."
"As ever, interpretation of any statement depended on your political leanings: you were either looking for a sign that help was on its way or looking for a clue about America's nefarious designs."

"Governments everywhere that instinctively and narrowly pursued their national interest somehow expected the United States to suspend the pursuit of its own interests to please them. The Arabs wanted the United States to ditch the Israelis; the Israelis wanted the United States to bomb Iran; the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted Obama to wait with him for the Shiite messiah; Pakistan wanted to be given Afganistan on a gold platter; India wanted the United States to say it could have Kashmir; Japan wanted Washington to make Beijing go away."

Was there a murder of an American special representative, or envoy, for Afganistan and Pakistan? Kim Ghattas says or asks no such thing. She only writes that he "died suddenly" and, "Not everybody had agreed with Holbrooke, and there was much infighting within the administration about him, but he kept people's minds focused on the issue."

Kim Ghattas writes extensively about the very embarrassing revelations and exposures in 2010 by WikiLeaks; but since none of them were "top secret", they apparently did not cause very serious or lasting damage.
Kim Ghattas was a very close witness and reporter of the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and seemed to move infectiously on to Egypt and Libya and Syria.
Of course, the author also writes about many other subjects from her 300,000 mile journey with the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In the acknowledgements section at the end of her book Kim Ghattas writes, "Living through war is nothing to be thankful for but it did push me to always seek meaning in life." And, "my parents taught me never to give up and to never blame anyone or anything else for what's going wrong in my life."