“Nothing is unstable,” Frank Wilczek, a physicist and Nobel laureate from MIT, finally said to a general murmur of agreement of his colleagues on stage, John Barrow of Cambridge University in England, Paul Davies of Arizona State and George Ellis of the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
John Tierney NYT
If nothing is really nothing then why do we have the physics of nothing
Nothing really matters anymore
nothing is more important that came before
nothing is really just nothing
A line not heard of little relevance
Lost in the ether of a million aimless conversations
thrown away, the response
to a million questions
lost in thought, feeling misunderstood,
or too excited to linger on a tangent thought
nothing, she said,
but nothing is more
the space between
and all around
a cushion of nothing
is what holds together
every iota of a thing
is really no less
than everything
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Nothing
Friday, June 05, 2009
Angular Slide
Summer comes in on an angular slide
wary at first, witdrawing at the first sign
of popular acclaim
reticient as an aging movie star
she phones ahead books a place
and then arrives
oh so fashionably late
It is during this time of hesitant arrival
where I find myself there but not
really there
as she is so quick to remind me
Not one for moment by moment awareness
I am reminded by one elgant as a swan
of meditative awareness
of the here and now
she is there always and I
like this years summer
tend to live
on an angular slide
Friday, May 29, 2009
Breathe
The Prince's Rainforest project is worth your attention. Prince Charles, Britain's long standing monarch in waiting has lent his name and all the cache that entails to bringing attention to the astounding rate of loss of the world's rain forests. The most famous lie along the Amazon but as a whole they are scattered across an equatorial belt around the planet.
Development projects pushed by a bourgening population and avaricious industry threaten the existance of this vital ecosystem.
The site is headlined by a ticker counter that gives an idea of the rate of deforestation taking place. Its content outlines the logic of preservation. There is no man made technology yet available that provides a better way of collecting carbon dioxide let alone converting it to useful biomass in the way the trees do. The site explains all this and underlines the inescapable logic of preservation. Do give it look here
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The French Open is on
It has been on almost a week and this year offers intriguing possibilities. Rafael Nadal the tireless power house looks to win his fifth straight. Roger Federer is the most talented among those trying to dethrone the French Open king. Already Nadal has broken Bjorn Borg's record for consecutive victories at the French, 29 now and counting. Nadal's streak of consecutive victories on the clay surface was broken by Federer a fortnight ago. The stage is set. Though the odds favor Nadal I for one would like Federer to be the one to turn the tables on Nadal this time.
It has to do a lot with the short career span of the very best tennis players in the world. It draws a parallel with the career of world class 1500 meter runners. The 1500m event requires a razor balance between speed and endurance; these two attributes diverge to the point of mutual exclusion at the extremes. Ussain Bolt the world 100 meter world record holder and Haile Gebreselassie the world record holder at the 10,00 meter distance belong to different divisions of human physiology. Bolt is an explosion, while Gebreselassie as constant as a laser, their unique attributes seperated by more than the miles that their events encompass. At the 15oo meters there is a true balance. The very best 1500 meter runners are whippet lean, able to compete at a world class level for the marathon, but also housed in their lean muscle fiber is another ability, at odds with their outward appearance, a power and acceleration that can propel them at speeds that hold ground with the most powerful and muscle heavy sprinters. It is fine balance that has a short half life. In many ways it is mysterious. World class milers hold their privileged position for a few years at a time and then they are replaced. Speed is the first thing that goes. That extra step disappears and they are no longer able to accelerate away from their rivals. Then they are replaced. Because the ability they possess is so ephemeral there is often a disbelief, an inability to accept that they have lost the talent.
The same Darwinian logic applies to world class tennis players. Lean and fast, the very best are a a step faster and for a while that speed makes them invincible. Then it is gone and they are engulfed in the wave they have been able to keep at bay. In tennis the frustration is documented under a spotlight glare. Federer is the latest and arguably the greatest of that long line of invincible players who lose a step and then have the drama played out in the naked light of centre court. In Federer's case the eulogies are premature. He is still able but he has been thrown against the kind of player who is foil to his ability. A player like Federer who is has been at times in past to be as amazed by his shot making ability as his adoring fans, is dealt a crushing psychological blow by a player like Nadal, the proverbial immovable object. No matter the genius of Federers' shot, Nadal will return it. It has an effect of undermining the spirit.
It would be great to see Federer defy gravity for a time. Show the world that the while it is true the king will die, he is not dead yet. The speed, endurance, the fine balance can be summoned up again even on the slow courts of Roland Garros against the rival who appears to a nemesis forged in the minds of the tennis gods, the man who stops it all. Let the balance prevail again just to prove that mortality can be contested for a time.
Monday, May 25, 2009
A Star is Born: Fusion
Nuclear fusion is nature's power source. From the Sun to the most distant stars, the energy that lights up the Universe is released by sticking hydrogen nuclei together to make helium. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe, it seems sensible to ask whether we might endeavour to do the same and power ourselves out of our serious energy crisis by building stars on Earth.
The BBC, Dr Brian Cox
A story from the BBC publicizes a program on Horizon, the BBC's science show on the ongoing efforts to create controlled fusion reactions in laboratory conditions. These experments are a prelude to creating a new form nuclear reactor, one with potential to create unlimited stores of clean energy by replicating the reactions that go on at the core of the sun
The videos, 1- 6 are available on Youtube presented by the excellent Dr Brian Cox, the particle physcist and former rock star-Buckeroo Banzai you have arrived.It is absorbing stuff. The mind boggling numbers thrown out in the first few minutes are the hook, if it's logic you crave. For exampe," the sun loses 4 million tons per day, mass that is converted to energy". For me that is one of the most satisfying lines of prose I have ever read. But don't let me sway you. watch for yourself. Here is the first of the six
Fusion Power - Can we make a Star on Earth
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Death of a Star
Astronomers said Tuesday that they had smashed the long-distance record in astronomy when they recorded an explosion, probably a massive early star, that lived and died 13 billion years ago, only about 600 million years after the Big Bang.
NYT
As obituriaes go, I can't imagine them arriving any later this one, 13 billion years, give or take a few million.
People everywhere are wonderstruck when they genuflect on some of the oldest trees found on the planet whose ages are known to span millenia. Well, consider this star for a moment it's luminesence still on track across the universe where our planet's most intrepid astronomers managed to capture a glimpse of that last breath, billions of years since she had passed on, her youth spent at the very dawn of the universe.
Click Here to Read More..
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Dancing in the Moonlight ( Thin Lizzy)
Standing motionless, holding a script, she had the stillness of a photograph. As if she felt Arkady's eyes, she looked toward him, and her gaze gave him the sense of being momentarily illuminated. She turned her attention back to the scene in the garden, but not before he'd seen the mark on her right cheek. In the militia picture the mark was gray. He saw now that it was a blue discoloration, small but striking because she was beautiful.
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
I could never feel better
than I do at this moment
Is something I tend to say
day by day
Each moment falls into the next
forming a pattern
a familiar shape
perhaps it is all a stage
all of us players
locked in the perception
that it is all random
blind to the signs that point to
wilful predestination