Notes and quotations from "Day of Empire - How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - And Why They Fall" by Amy Chua
" ...every single world power in history - was, at least by the standards of its time, extraordinarily pluralistic and tolerant during its rise to preeminence. < > tolerance simply means letting very different kinds of people live, work, and prosper in your society - even if only for instrumental or strategic reasons."
"Because tolerance is a relative matter, even tolerated groups may be subject to harshly inequitable treatment."
"History shows that hyperpowers can survive only if they find ways to command the allegiance or at least the acquiescence of the foreign populations they dominate .."
"Achaemenid Persia was the first world-dominant power in history."
Other empires described at great length are: Imperial Rome, China's Tang Empire, the Great Mongol Empire, the Dutch Republic, China's Ming Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire{Muslim rulers with Hindu subjects}, and the British Empire.
"Whereas Achaemenid Persia was essentially just a war machine, Rome was also an idea. Inhabitants from the farthest reaches of the empire wanted to be - and became-"Roman." Along the empires remarkable 53,000-mile net work of paved roads and bridges that linked Britons to Berbers, one could find thousands of Roman baths, amphitheaters, and temples, built to the same specifications and filled with toga-clad Roman citizens."
"The Dutch are famous for many things - but these days it's often forgotten that the Dutch once presided over the world's preeminent maritime trading empire .."
"Nevertheless, the contributions of the Jews, Huguenots, and Scots - which would not have been possible without Britain's turn to tolerance - were not only disproportionate but pivotal."
Amy Chua's descriptions of Britain's relations and treatment of Ireland and India are quite stark and grim; as are many other details in this remarkable book.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Experimental Blog # 176
Quotations and comments from "The Triple Package - How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld
"Indian Americans have the highest income of any Census-tracked ethnic group, almost twice the national average. Chinese, Iranian, and Lebanese Americans are not far behind."
"America's 5 to 6 million Mormons represent just 1.7 percent.{of the U.S. population} Yet a stunning number have risen to the top of America's corporate and political spheres."
"The U.S. Census Bureau used to compile data on religion, but this was largely discontinued after World War II, and today the Census is barred by law from asking mandatory questions about individuals' faith. < > But the fact is that Jews{who are apparently not Census-tracked} are the quintessential successful minority."
"Because the Census does not track religion, there's no authoritative measure of overall Jewish income."
"A few groups in America are not upwardly mobile because they don't want to be. The roughly two hundred thousand Amish living mainly in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana are prime examples."
The "three unlikely traits" that the authors call "The Triple Package" are: a superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control. The authors also write about the superior economic group performances of the Cuban Americans of Miami and the more recent immigrants from the West Indies and Africa.
"Indian Americans have the highest income of any Census-tracked ethnic group, almost twice the national average. Chinese, Iranian, and Lebanese Americans are not far behind."
"America's 5 to 6 million Mormons represent just 1.7 percent.{of the U.S. population} Yet a stunning number have risen to the top of America's corporate and political spheres."
"The U.S. Census Bureau used to compile data on religion, but this was largely discontinued after World War II, and today the Census is barred by law from asking mandatory questions about individuals' faith. < > But the fact is that Jews{who are apparently not Census-tracked} are the quintessential successful minority."
"Because the Census does not track religion, there's no authoritative measure of overall Jewish income."
"A few groups in America are not upwardly mobile because they don't want to be. The roughly two hundred thousand Amish living mainly in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana are prime examples."
The "three unlikely traits" that the authors call "The Triple Package" are: a superiority complex, insecurity, and impulse control. The authors also write about the superior economic group performances of the Cuban Americans of Miami and the more recent immigrants from the West Indies and Africa.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Experimental Blog #175
Quotations and notes from "Like a Virgin" - How Science Is Redesigning the Rules of Sex by Aarathi Prasad
" ..the Y chromosome, < > now has only around forty-five genes of the 1400-odd genes with which it began the human species."
"Most mutations, those mistakes in the combined DNA, arise in sperm."
"Recent estimates show that the rate of mutations in males compared to females is < > ten times higher in our primate, humans .."
"So even though the mother's genome still contains all the genes it takes to grow a complete baby from one of her eggs, only some of them are allowed to function. The same is true for some of the father's genes."
" .. many of these genes that are imprinted{only about 80 of the 23 thousand genes can be locked-up} dictate not what we will look like, but are able to manipulate the growth and nutrition of the foetus in the womb."
"It seems that sperm do more than just deliver packets of DNA into eggs - they regulate pregnancy itself."
" .. those eighty genes that are subject to imprinting{depending on whether they come from the father or the mother} have an important say in the development of our brains."
"Recent molecular analysis has shown that among people who carry defects or mutations in genes that are supposed to be imprinted, there is a surprisingly large incidence of cognitive, behavioural, neurological, and psychiatric conditions."
" ..the Y chromosome, < > now has only around forty-five genes of the 1400-odd genes with which it began the human species."
"Most mutations, those mistakes in the combined DNA, arise in sperm."
"Recent estimates show that the rate of mutations in males compared to females is < > ten times higher in our primate, humans .."
"So even though the mother's genome still contains all the genes it takes to grow a complete baby from one of her eggs, only some of them are allowed to function. The same is true for some of the father's genes."
" .. many of these genes that are imprinted{only about 80 of the 23 thousand genes can be locked-up} dictate not what we will look like, but are able to manipulate the growth and nutrition of the foetus in the womb."
"It seems that sperm do more than just deliver packets of DNA into eggs - they regulate pregnancy itself."
" .. those eighty genes that are subject to imprinting{depending on whether they come from the father or the mother} have an important say in the development of our brains."
"Recent molecular analysis has shown that among people who carry defects or mutations in genes that are supposed to be imprinted, there is a surprisingly large incidence of cognitive, behavioural, neurological, and psychiatric conditions."
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Experimental Blog #174
Quotations and notes from "The Quantum Ten" - A Story of Passion, Tragedy, Ambition, and Science by Sheilla Jones and "The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics" - A Math-Free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World by James Kakalios
From "The Quantum Ten":
"By the 1960s, the fruitfulness of the math-driven theory and experimentation began to wane. There have been no new fundamental laws of nature discovered since the 1970s ..."
" ... modern physicists would say mathematical logic is truth. Indeed, no idea in modern physics can be considered credible until it is validated by mathematical logic."
" ... this fundamental incomprehensibility of quantum physics has become the proverbial elephant in the living room."
"Enter Louis de Broglie. His wave theory assumed that if a wave could be a particle, a particle could also be a wave. And not only did light exhibit properties of wave/particle duality, so did matter."
"He{Einstein} wanted a physical theory that was based on an objective and visualizable external world, not one that was fundamentally probabilistic, acausal, and random."
" .. matrix mechanics precluded visualization ..."
"He{Schrodinger} believed that physics, at the microscopic and macroscopic levels, was intelligible .."
"{Heisenberg} espoused the view that a mathematical truth was the same as a physical truth, and that metaphors or images were to be shunned."
From "The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics":
"There are three impossible things that we must accept in order to understand quantum mechanics:
Light is an electromagnetic wave that is actually comprised of discrete packets of energy.
Matter is composed of discrete particles that exhibit a wavelike nature.
Everything - light and matter - has an "intrinsic angular momentum," or "spin," that can only have discrete values."
"The Schrodinger equation plays the same role in atomic physics that Newton's laws of motion play in the mechanics of everyday objects."
"The Schrodinger equation requires us to know the forces that act on the atomic electrons in order to figure out where the electrons are likely to be and what their energies are."
"What Schrodinger discovered was the quantum analog of Newton's force={mass}x{acceleration}."
"In 1926 Schrodinger was able to mathematically translate one approach{his} into the other{Heisenberg's}, demonstrating that the two descriptions are in fact equivalent."
"Anything bigger than an atom or a small molecule has such a large mass that its corresponding de Broglie wavelength is too small to ever be detected."
"The quantum descriptions of Schrodinger and Heisenberg accurately account for the properties of a single atom ..."
From "The Quantum Ten":
"By the 1960s, the fruitfulness of the math-driven theory and experimentation began to wane. There have been no new fundamental laws of nature discovered since the 1970s ..."
" ... modern physicists would say mathematical logic is truth. Indeed, no idea in modern physics can be considered credible until it is validated by mathematical logic."
" ... this fundamental incomprehensibility of quantum physics has become the proverbial elephant in the living room."
"Enter Louis de Broglie. His wave theory assumed that if a wave could be a particle, a particle could also be a wave. And not only did light exhibit properties of wave/particle duality, so did matter."
"He{Einstein} wanted a physical theory that was based on an objective and visualizable external world, not one that was fundamentally probabilistic, acausal, and random."
" .. matrix mechanics precluded visualization ..."
"He{Schrodinger} believed that physics, at the microscopic and macroscopic levels, was intelligible .."
"{Heisenberg} espoused the view that a mathematical truth was the same as a physical truth, and that metaphors or images were to be shunned."
From "The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics":
"There are three impossible things that we must accept in order to understand quantum mechanics:
Light is an electromagnetic wave that is actually comprised of discrete packets of energy.
Matter is composed of discrete particles that exhibit a wavelike nature.
Everything - light and matter - has an "intrinsic angular momentum," or "spin," that can only have discrete values."
"The Schrodinger equation plays the same role in atomic physics that Newton's laws of motion play in the mechanics of everyday objects."
"The Schrodinger equation requires us to know the forces that act on the atomic electrons in order to figure out where the electrons are likely to be and what their energies are."
"What Schrodinger discovered was the quantum analog of Newton's force={mass}x{acceleration}."
"In 1926 Schrodinger was able to mathematically translate one approach{his} into the other{Heisenberg's}, demonstrating that the two descriptions are in fact equivalent."
"Anything bigger than an atom or a small molecule has such a large mass that its corresponding de Broglie wavelength is too small to ever be detected."
"The quantum descriptions of Schrodinger and Heisenberg accurately account for the properties of a single atom ..."
Friday, December 27, 2013
Experimental Blog # 173
Quotations from "Hidden Attraction" - The Mystery and History of Magnetism by Gerrit L. Verschuur and "The Void" by Frank Close
From "Hidden Attraction":
" .. gravity, electricity, and magnetism all showed an inverse square law of force .."
"The equations{Maxwell's} describing electric and magnetic phenomena involved time as a parameter, and hence also a velocity. Up to then no one had expected that to understand the nature of lodestone one needed to take time into account."
"The stunning conclusion was that electrical and magnetic forces, under the umbrella of a new description, electromagnetism, traveled at the speed of light."
" ... the original questions about the nature of magnetism led scientists into a new world, a universe filled with electromagnetic waves and electromagnetic phenomena .."
" ..we have created a new world and gained precious new insights into our place in the scheme of things on earth and in the rest of the universe."
" .. astronomical studies of the farthest reaches of the universe depend on being able to detect and interpret electromagnetic waves from space."
"Forming a reasonably correct idea of the atom and of the physics of its behavior allowed a hydrogen bomb, a small-scale version of a star, to be built."
" ... nothing that will ever be discovered in physics will undo the fact that an atomic bomb wiped out Hiroshima. The model of the atom that allowed the bomb to be built was an excellent approximation of the truth."
From "The Void":
"Every student of mechanics meets these laws < > It is certainly true that their application enables us to send spacecraft all the way to Jupiter and by applying the right amount of force at the right time, as dictated by Newton, the craft indeed arrives at its destination."
" ..there is no absolute measure of velocity, < >acceleration is different: its magnitude as measured in all inertial frames is the same."
"Newton's laws of motion < > In 300 years of careful experimentation their only failures are when applied to objects moving near to the speed of light, whence they are subsumed in Einstein's relativity theory, and at atomic length scales, where the laws of quantum mechanics replace them."
"While quantum mechanics makes precise statements about phenomena on subatomic length scales, it does so while ignoring the effects of gravity."
"As the universe expands, space expands but objects held together by electromagnetic forces, such as planets and stars, do not change size < > Electromagnetic radiation has nothing to hold it so its wavelength extends as the universe grows."
From "Hidden Attraction":
" .. gravity, electricity, and magnetism all showed an inverse square law of force .."
"The equations{Maxwell's} describing electric and magnetic phenomena involved time as a parameter, and hence also a velocity. Up to then no one had expected that to understand the nature of lodestone one needed to take time into account."
"The stunning conclusion was that electrical and magnetic forces, under the umbrella of a new description, electromagnetism, traveled at the speed of light."
" ... the original questions about the nature of magnetism led scientists into a new world, a universe filled with electromagnetic waves and electromagnetic phenomena .."
" ..we have created a new world and gained precious new insights into our place in the scheme of things on earth and in the rest of the universe."
" .. astronomical studies of the farthest reaches of the universe depend on being able to detect and interpret electromagnetic waves from space."
"Forming a reasonably correct idea of the atom and of the physics of its behavior allowed a hydrogen bomb, a small-scale version of a star, to be built."
" ... nothing that will ever be discovered in physics will undo the fact that an atomic bomb wiped out Hiroshima. The model of the atom that allowed the bomb to be built was an excellent approximation of the truth."
From "The Void":
"Every student of mechanics meets these laws < > It is certainly true that their application enables us to send spacecraft all the way to Jupiter and by applying the right amount of force at the right time, as dictated by Newton, the craft indeed arrives at its destination."
" ..there is no absolute measure of velocity, < >acceleration is different: its magnitude as measured in all inertial frames is the same."
"Newton's laws of motion < > In 300 years of careful experimentation their only failures are when applied to objects moving near to the speed of light, whence they are subsumed in Einstein's relativity theory, and at atomic length scales, where the laws of quantum mechanics replace them."
"While quantum mechanics makes precise statements about phenomena on subatomic length scales, it does so while ignoring the effects of gravity."
"As the universe expands, space expands but objects held together by electromagnetic forces, such as planets and stars, do not change size < > Electromagnetic radiation has nothing to hold it so its wavelength extends as the universe grows."
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Experimental Blog #172
Quotations from "The Infinite Resource - The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet" by Ramez Naam
" ... the most valuable resource we have and that we have ever had is the sum of our human knowledge .. " ".. the continual accumulation of new ideas, new inventions, and new knowledge about the world."
"Worldwide extreme poverty has plunged from more than 35 percent of the world population{ in 1970} to around 5 percent."{in 2005}
"Mobile phones have saturated the developed world, and now reach three quarters of the developing world as well."
" ...our stockpile of knowledge is the one natural resource that has grown over time rather than depleting < > knowledge increases our wealth < > Innovation increases our wealth."
"The physical resources matter. But the change in our knowledge resources - our science, our technology, our continual generation of new useful ideas - has made far more impact over the course of history. Knowledge acts as a multiplier of physical resources, allowing us to extract more value .."
"Farms in the United States use half the energy as they did in 1948, per unit of food produced."
"The energy needed to desalinate seawater has been reduced by nearly a factor of 9 over the last 40 years."{1970 to 2010}
"The limiting factors in mining are innovation and energy, not raw materials."
" .. the vast quantity of raw materials we possess, combined with their nearly infinite reusability, makes the value we can extract from that finite resource nearly limitless."
"To collect enough energy to provide for all of humanity's current needs, using current consumer-grade solar technology, it would take only 0.6 percent of the Earth's land area."
"We could meet the water needs of nine billion people with roughly .001 percent of the energy the sun delivers to our planet."
"China is now the world's leader in renewable energy."
" .. China is acting more aggressively against climate than we are, even though the problem is one of our making."
"Per terawatt hour of energy produced, coal kills an estimated 161 people worldwide. Nuclear, even after adding up all the potential future deaths attributed to every nuclear accident that has ever occurred, comes in at less than one-tenth of a death per terawatt hour."
" .. GM{genetically modified} crops have already reduced insecticide usage, reduced insecticide poisoning, encouraged soil conservation, reduced usage of the most dangerous herbicides like atrazine, reduced pollution of drinking water with herbicides, increased profits for developing world farmers trying to pull themselves out of poverty, and moderately increased yields."
"The average resident of the United States used one-third less oil in 2011 than in 1972."
" ... the most valuable resource we have and that we have ever had is the sum of our human knowledge .. " ".. the continual accumulation of new ideas, new inventions, and new knowledge about the world."
"Worldwide extreme poverty has plunged from more than 35 percent of the world population{ in 1970} to around 5 percent."{in 2005}
"Mobile phones have saturated the developed world, and now reach three quarters of the developing world as well."
" ...our stockpile of knowledge is the one natural resource that has grown over time rather than depleting < > knowledge increases our wealth < > Innovation increases our wealth."
"The physical resources matter. But the change in our knowledge resources - our science, our technology, our continual generation of new useful ideas - has made far more impact over the course of history. Knowledge acts as a multiplier of physical resources, allowing us to extract more value .."
"Farms in the United States use half the energy as they did in 1948, per unit of food produced."
"The energy needed to desalinate seawater has been reduced by nearly a factor of 9 over the last 40 years."{1970 to 2010}
"The limiting factors in mining are innovation and energy, not raw materials."
" .. the vast quantity of raw materials we possess, combined with their nearly infinite reusability, makes the value we can extract from that finite resource nearly limitless."
"To collect enough energy to provide for all of humanity's current needs, using current consumer-grade solar technology, it would take only 0.6 percent of the Earth's land area."
"We could meet the water needs of nine billion people with roughly .001 percent of the energy the sun delivers to our planet."
"China is now the world's leader in renewable energy."
" .. China is acting more aggressively against climate than we are, even though the problem is one of our making."
"Per terawatt hour of energy produced, coal kills an estimated 161 people worldwide. Nuclear, even after adding up all the potential future deaths attributed to every nuclear accident that has ever occurred, comes in at less than one-tenth of a death per terawatt hour."
" .. GM{genetically modified} crops have already reduced insecticide usage, reduced insecticide poisoning, encouraged soil conservation, reduced usage of the most dangerous herbicides like atrazine, reduced pollution of drinking water with herbicides, increased profits for developing world farmers trying to pull themselves out of poverty, and moderately increased yields."
"The average resident of the United States used one-third less oil in 2011 than in 1972."
Friday, December 6, 2013
Experimental Blog # 171
Quotations from "Dot Complicated" - Untangling Our Wired Lives by Randi Zuckerberg
"Now five billion people around the world have their own mobile phones, and about a billion of those are smartphones with access to the Internet, e-mail, and all the amazing apps that are available today."
"I follow a simple mantra. Work. Sleep. Family. Friends. Fitness.
Pick three."
Two of the author's online behavior rules for children are:
#3. Only add "friends" online if you also know them in real life.
#5. If you're going to put something in writing, make sure you would be comfortable if it was reprinted in a newspaper.
"... about the trend of social media "shaming" and how it's gotten wildly out of hand."
"One tweet, one photo, one blog post is now all it takes for people to lose their jobs, their reputations, and their credibility."
"When you shame-post someone, it can have serious effects on that person's life."
"Now the ability to broadcast to everyone is universal, and the wildest dreams of the craziest futurists from the 1990s are a reality. Today everyone is a journalist, everyone is an art gallery, everyone is a newspaper, a magazine, and a wire service, all in one.
And everyone is a mini media empire."
"Now five billion people around the world have their own mobile phones, and about a billion of those are smartphones with access to the Internet, e-mail, and all the amazing apps that are available today."
"I follow a simple mantra. Work. Sleep. Family. Friends. Fitness.
Pick three."
Two of the author's online behavior rules for children are:
#3. Only add "friends" online if you also know them in real life.
#5. If you're going to put something in writing, make sure you would be comfortable if it was reprinted in a newspaper.
"... about the trend of social media "shaming" and how it's gotten wildly out of hand."
"One tweet, one photo, one blog post is now all it takes for people to lose their jobs, their reputations, and their credibility."
"When you shame-post someone, it can have serious effects on that person's life."
"Now the ability to broadcast to everyone is universal, and the wildest dreams of the craziest futurists from the 1990s are a reality. Today everyone is a journalist, everyone is an art gallery, everyone is a newspaper, a magazine, and a wire service, all in one.
And everyone is a mini media empire."
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