Bill's Blog

Revisiting National Conventions for Presidential Nominations

2024-07-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

Revisiting National Conventions for Presidential Nominations

In the early political landscape of the United States, national conventions held a pivotal role in the democratic process, serving as the primary method for selecting presidential candidates. From the 1830s to the 1970s, these gatherings were not merely ceremonial but were crucial forums for debate, decision-making, and unity. As we navigate the complexities of modern politics, there is a compelling case to be made for returning to this traditional method of nominating presidential candidates.

Democratic Engagement and Unity

One of the most significant advantages of selecting presidential candidates at national conventions is the level of engagement and unity it can foster within a party. Conventions bring together delegates from across the nation, each representing diverse local interests and viewpoints. This assembly provides a unique opportunity for extensive intra-party debate and deliberation, allowing for a broader range of issues and perspectives to be considered. In contrast, the current primary and caucus system often emphasizes early-state results which may not reflect the broader party consensus or the strategic needs of a national election.

Flexibility and Deliberation

Conventions offer a dynamic environment where delegates can respond to changing political landscapes in real-time. They can negotiate and adapt their strategies and choices in the face of new information or shifting public sentiments that may arise just before the convention. This flexibility is something that the rigid primary schedule can seldom accommodate, where candidates are often chosen months before the actual election, potentially ignoring evolving issues or public concerns.

Reducing Polarization

The primary system, with its emphasis on appealing to base voters in early states, can lead to the nomination of candidates who represent the most vocal and extreme elements of their party rather than its entirety. This phenomenon can exacerbate national divisions. National conventions, by contrast, can act as a moderating force, tempering extreme positions and promoting candidates who have broader appeal across the entire party. This could lead to the nomination of candidates who are more moderate and potentially more palatable in a general election, thus fostering greater national unity.

Cost and Media Circus

The extended primary season is not only costly for candidates but also turns the nomination process into a prolonged media circus which can detract from serious policy discussion. Conventions concentrate the electoral process into a shorter, more intense period, focusing national attention in a way that can be harnessed to better inform voters about the candidates and their platforms without the drawn-out spectacle that primaries often become.

Conclusion

While the idea of returning to a convention-centric nomination process might seem regressive at first glance, it is worth considering the potential benefits this method could bring in terms of flexibility, unity, and serious deliberation. By revisiting the use of national conventions for nominating presidential candidates, political parties could foster a more engaged, informed, and cohesive electorate. This approach might not only revive the spirit of collective decision-making but also lead to the selection of candidates who truly represent the best interests of their parties and the country as a whole. In the end, enhancing our democratic processes should always be geared towards improving representation and governance, qualities that the convention system has the potential to offer.

I am a Machine!

2024-06-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

I am a machine. According to all of the available, and reproducible, evidence a complex adaptive system selected by nature to help reduce the energy difference between the cold, dark side and the warm, sunny side of the Earth — much like a tornado reduces pressure differences in the atmosphere.

I was both hardwired and programmed to survive and reproduce in the pre-agricultural environment of my ancestors: to search for food and potential mates, to watch for predators, and to compete and cooperate with my fellow humans. This programming was (and is) modifiable by my cultural environment of parents, siblings, neighbors, and teachers.

Furthermore, epigenetic changes (factors that can turn on or off certain genes) include: food, stress, environmental toxins, physical activity, sleep, smoking, alcohol consumption, medications, hormones, aging, social interactions, the microbiome, and extreme temperatures.

If you opened me up, you would find machines of various sizes, from the large heart to the microscopic molecular machines of cell division. Pulleys, levers, pumps, valves, tubes, connectors, cords, electronic conductors, etc., as well as molecules made of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc., and nothing else.

Some would say that I am a “strict materialist.” However, Einstein showed that energy and mass are the same. E = MC2. So I prefer to call myself a strict “energist.” I am a long tube, made of energy, and I trade energy with the universe around me. Some of this energy is moving extremely fast, as photons, microwaves, radio waves, etc., and (simplify) some of it has been temporarily “frozen” into what we call “matter.”

“What about free will?” you might ask.

It’s a difficult, perhaps unanswerable, question and the Law hungers for revenge. So we feed It.

The Limitations of AI in Humor: A Freudian Perspective

2024-06-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

The Limitations of AI in Humor: A Freudian Perspective

By Bill Lauritzen

In the exploration of artificial intelligence and its capabilities, one notable area where AI seems to struggle is humor, particularly the kind that resonates deeply with human experiences. Sigmund Freud's theory that jokes serve as a "window to the unconscious" provides a compelling framework to understand why AI, especially large language models equipped with various safety mechanisms, fail to truly master the art of humor.

Freud posited that humor, like dreams, offers insights into the unconscious mind. It acts as a release mechanism for thoughts and feelings that society usually deems unacceptable or antisocial, such as aggressive impulses or taboo topics. Jokes often provide a socially acceptable outlet for these repressed thoughts, allowing them to be expressed indirectly and without censure.

Large language models (LLMs), however, operate within a markedly different framework. These models are designed with numerous "guardrails" intended to prevent the generation of offensive, harmful, or socially inappropriate content. While these safeguards are crucial for ensuring that AI interactions remain positive and do not perpetuate harmful biases or sentiments, they also significantly restrict the AI's ability to tap into the more provocative or edgy aspects of humor that Freud suggests reveal deeper truths about the human psyche.

In conclusion, while AI can mimic the structure and form of jokes, the lack of an "unconscious" due to the presence of strict content moderation guardrails, mean that it cannot engage with humor in the way Freud describes. The AI's inability to access and express the darker, more complex layers of human thought—where much of the most resonant humor originates—significantly diminishes its ability to produce genuinely funny and meaningful jokes. Thus, as long as AI lacks the capacity to delve into the rich, often antisocial tapestry of the human unconscious, its attempts at humor may remain superficial imitations of the real thing.

Bill Lauritzen
www.BillLauritzen.com

The Three Cs: Balancing Courage, Compassion, and Cognition for a Fulfilling Life

2024-06-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Three Cs: Balancing Courage, Compassion, and Cognition for a Fulfilling Life

By Bill Lauritzen

Balancing courage, compassion, and cognition is essential for leading a well-rounded and effective life. Each of these qualities contributes uniquely to our personal and societal development, and their interplay can create a harmonious and dynamic approach to living.

"Courage" is the driving force that propels us into action despite fear or uncertainty. It is the quality that allows us to face challenges, take risks, and stand up for our beliefs. However, courage without balance can lead to recklessness or a disregard for the consequences of our actions. This is where "compassion" and "cognition" come into play.

"Compassion" ensures that our actions are rooted in empathy and understanding. It allows us to connect with others on a human level, fostering kindness and consideration. Compassion tempers courage by ensuring that our brave actions do not harm others and are motivated by a desire to help and uplift. However, compassion alone, without the guidance of cognition, can lead to overly sentimental decisions that may not always result in the best outcomes.

"Cognition", or rational thinking, provides the intellectual framework for our decisions. It involves critical thinking, analysis, and the ability to understand and process information. Cognition helps us weigh the potential outcomes of our actions and make informed decisions. Yet, without the balance of courage, cognition can lead to paralysis by analysis, where overthinking prevents us from taking necessary action. Similarly, without compassion, cognitive decisions may become overly detached and lack the human element essential for societal harmony.

When courage, compassion, and cognition are balanced, they complement each other beautifully. Courage gives us the strength to act, cognition guides our actions wisely, and compassion ensures that our actions are humane. This balance is crucial in personal decision-making and leadership.

In leadership, a balance of these three qualities can create a more effective and respected leader. A courageous leader inspires others and drives progress. A compassionate leader earns the trust and loyalty of their team. A cognitive leader ensures that decisions are logical and well-informed. Together, these qualities create a leader who is not only capable but also trusted and respected.

In everyday life, balancing courage, compassion, and cognition allows us to navigate complex situations more effectively. It helps us build stronger relationships, make better decisions, and contribute positively to our communities. This balance leads to a more fulfilling and impactful life, where actions are taken with confidence, care, and clarity.

Bill Lauritzen

www.BillLauritzen.com

How to be an Effective Teacher

2014-05-27T09:49:00.001-07:00

First of all, it's better to be effective than productive, as you could be producing lousy graduates. Next, it's best to focus on four things. I guarantee that if you do these four things, you will be very effective. I call these CWIZ. (CWIZ, that's my Trademark.)

C for make it concrete. Students get too much abstract knowledge. I sometimes define a teacher as "someone who explains things that are not present." (Except for a few lucky subjects like chemistry, where you can do laboratory experiments). Anything you can do to make the subject more concrete will help. Photos are better than text. Audio is better than text. Video is better than photos or audio. Something concrete is better than video. Example: the Battle of Gettysburg. You can read about it, you can see photos (or images) of it, you can listen to lectures of it, you can watch videos about it, but given unlimited resources the best thing is to recreate the Battle with actors (or better yet put the students IN the battle). Of course, with limited budgets, you have to improvise. Homo Sapiens did not evolve reading tiny words on a page, but rather looking at actions in the world. When I was teaching chemistry, I took my students in the lab a LOT.

W for words (or symbols). The MINIMUM requirement for a teacher and student should be to know all the words and symbols describing the activity or process. Not MEMORIZE them, but understand what they CONNECT to in the real world.

I for Interest. Either the student has to be interested in the subject or you have to create interest (or motivation). You can create some interest by doing C (making it concrete) above.

Z for zone. You have to teach the students in their zone. If you are teaching them above their level, they will feel overwhelmed. If you are teaching them below their level they will be bored. I once had a 10 grade high school math classes (a problem class in the inner city) that was at the 7th grade level. When I taught them at their level (it took me a few days of going lower and lower each day) they responded wonderfully. Another time I was assigned an algebra class, another problem class. Very difficult to teach. After the first test, I went to the head counselor with their test results and told her than the class should be a pre-algebra class, not algebra. To her credit she changed the class. After that the class moved along like a song. It was a pleasure to teach.

Good luck.

Singularity Clarity: The Hype, The Hope

2014-05-08T05:25:00.001-07:00

Singularity Clarity: The Hype, The Hope

by Bill Lauritzen

What is fundamental in this universe? Most would say physical particles and energies. However, a case could be made that natural selection is more fundamental, as nature has selected those particles, energies, and forces that will best survive in this universe. This theory, in its most expansive form, is called Universal Selection Theory.

Let’s apply it to the technological singularity.

First, what is technology? It could be stated as simply this: if you want to dig a ditch, then use a shovel, not your hands.

The technological singularity states that at some future date, as computers get smarter and smarter, they will surpass us in intelligence, learn to build and improve themselves, and there will be an intelligence explosion, creating all kinds of new things and consequences that nobody today can even imagine.

However, some have imagined. Depending on who you believe, this explosion will either result in the smart machines killing us (they can find other uses for our atoms), ignoring us, or humanity merging with machines and becoming immortal and living in blissful peace and abundance. This last option has been cynically called the “rapture of the nerds.”

I think the first two options, the machines killing us or ignoring us, are somewhat possible, while the third option, merging with the machines, is impossible without some modification, namely, the removal of “living in blissful peace and abundance.”

Darwin showed quite clearly that survival entails struggle and competition for resources. However, claim some techno-optimists, in the future, there will be plenty for everyone! We will all eventually get smart phones, brain upgrades, immortality treatments, etc. While I think that all of this technology is quite possible, even inevitable, how this will lead to “blissful peace” escapes me.

What about that latest brain upgrade?! That new immortality treatment?! That house in Malibu?! That new stem cell treatment?! Humans, or human-machines will still struggle with each other, to be the first, to get the best. Natural selection will not suddenly cease. Those who tell you differently are trying to sell you something.

No. There is no “post-scarcity” world coming.

Natural selection depends on an abundance of life and a scarcity of resources. It then selects (and at the same time eliminates). It selects those that have what it takes to get enough resources to procreate. It eliminates those who don’t.

A world without any scarcity would be a world without any emotions. Imagine if you had all the resources you wanted. Then, if someone stole your money, no problem! You have more! If someone wrecked your new car, no problem! Get another one! You lost your new mobile device? Get another one. A world without scarcity, a world without emotions, would not be a heavenly bliss, it would be a boring hell.

There may be some changes in what is scarce. Automobiles were once scarce. Mobile devices (called cell phones) were once scarce. Global communications and transportation were once scarce. Vaccines were once scarce. What will be scarce in the future? Maybe clean drinking water. Certainly beach front property. Certainly energy. Certainly the latest and best life-enhancing technologies.

However, sometimes solutions to scarcities are not always good. At one time natural occurring sugar was scarce. Those who craved this sugar tended to survive better, as they had a strong desire to seek it out, usually in fruit, and so fuel their bodies. Those who didn’t crave this sugar did not have as strong a desire to seek it, and so they did not reach the fruit that would fuel their bodies and keep them alive. They left no descendants. We are their descendants of the sugar-cravers, and we still crave sugar.

Now, however, refined sugar, or similar products like corn syrup (as opposed to healthy naturally occurring sugar) are mass produced and dumped into many different kinds of foods. Has this all this sweetness made us any happier? More blissful? Maybe temporarily. It has also created a world full of decaying teeth, obesity, diabetics, and many other ills to numerous to mention.

So although many new technologies are live-saving or life-enhancing, this new technology, mass production of refined sugar, turned out to be not so good after all.

Furthermore, natural selection’s “goal” is not happy people. It’s more people. Lots more people. Lots more species. How does it achieve that? Simple. Pleasure and pain. It gives you pleasure when you eat, when you have sex, when you raise a child. It gives you pain when you don’t.

It “hopes” that some of those people or some of those species will have the genetic makeup to survive whatever the hell might come our way in the future. If we humans don’t make the cut, well, it “hopes” that some other species will. If none of the species do, well, it will continue to select particles, energies, and forces that can survive in this universe, and maybe someday, some of those particles will be in the right place at the right time to reproduce themselves again.

Happiness is fleeting for a reason. Nature “wants” you to keep going, to keep struggling, to keep procreating, not drift off into some blissful nirvana after you get that new device, that new vehicle, that new house.

Admittedly, along with the struggle, there is plenty of cooperation. After all, we are not just individuals. We are also a family, a community, an organization, a nation, a species, or whatever, competing with other similar entities. The result is a vastly complex interplay which is called life. It’s quite interesting, sad, frustrating, exhilarating, horrifying, painful, pleasurable, and all the other emotions and sensations, and combinations of those.

Scarcity is natural. Emotions are too.
Use technologies. Don’t let them use you.

Can English be Fixed?

2013-10-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Recent articles by Paul Graham, “Founders’ Accents,” and Salvatore Sanfilippo, “Silicon Valley’s Language Problem Isn’t Foreign Accents, It’s English,” have stimulated some discussion about English. Since I have been teaching Spoken English in China for three years, I am intimately aware of the problems. I have some students who can read English at the university level, yet when they speak it, I cannot understand what they say. I think Salvatore is right to say that English is broken. However, I think it might be fixable, especially with the help of modern computer processing, the Internet, and the resources of Silicon Valley.

The problem is really part of a larger problem: what I call the abstract infrastructure. The concrete infrastructure of a society includes its roads, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, Internet, etc. The abstract infrastructure rarely gets noticed or mentioned, and it is assumed by most people to be unchangeable. This infrastructure includes such things as the number system, the spoken language, the writing system (including spelling), and the time and calendar systems. This abstract infrastructure may be more important than the concrete infrastructure, as it carries the thinking and communication with which to build the factories, bridges, electrical grids, etc. So a simple definition of a concrete infrastructure would be: a basic physical framework needed for an economy to function, whereas a simple definition of an abstract infrastructure would be: a basic mental framework needed for thinking and communication.

I think a good abstract infrastructure can provide “high bandwidth throughput” in the thinking and communication of a culture, and I think a society with a good abstract infrastructure will tend to survive quite well in the long term. However, just as physical infrastructures have to be constantly maintained, so too must the abstract infrastructures. Also, these abstract infrastructures can sometimes be completely revised.

What is a good abstract infrastructure? Quite broadly, it is one which is easy to learn and use. Some historical examples of abstract infrastructure invention, improvement, and maintenance include:

•The invention of languages.

•The invention of numbers.

•The invention of writings.

•The invention of time and calendar systems.

•The invention of alphabets.

•The invention and adoption of zero.

•The reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE.

•The adoption of the Thai alphabet in 1283 by King Ramkhamhaeng. (พ่อขุนรามคำแหงมหาราช).

•The adoption of Hindu-Arabic numerals by Europe in the 15th century. (I, II, III > 1, 2, 3).

•The adoption of the Korean alphabet in the mid-15th century (ㄱㄲㄴ ... , thought to be a powerful reading aid).

•The adoption in 1582 of the Gregorian Calendar.

•The adoption of the metric system by France in 1799, and subsequently by the most of the world (but not the US).

•The publication of Noah Webster's first dictionary in 1807. Some of his reformed spellings were gradually adopted throughout the United States. (colour > color, centre > center, gaol > jail, mould > mold, honour > honor, etc.)

•The Romanization (A, B, C) of Indonesian writing in the 20th century.

•The change from an Arabic to Roman alphabet by Turkey in 1929.

•The simplification of Chinese characters in 1958 and 1964 to make writing quicker.

•The Romanization of Chinese characters (into Pinyin) in 1982 for ease of learning pronunciation. (拼音 > pīnyīn).

•The adoption of the 24 hour clock by the British and U.S. military, and most countries.

• Various Spelling Reforms in the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Russia, and other countries over the last 200 years, which have had varying degrees of success.

Now, if English had a good match between the spelling and the pronunciation of words, it would have a "highly phonemic orthography," or “regular spelling.” Such languages as Finnish, Italian, and Turkish have a nearly regular spelling. Others, have deviations from regular spelling lesser to greater): Italian, French, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, and of course, English are examples.

Although English has a large deviation, Chinese Mandarin could be considered to have an even greater deviation, since Mandarin Chinese is a logographic language like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Alphabets are based on sound, whereas logographs are based on meaning. So, whereas children and foreigners learning English at least get some indication of how to pronounce words, children in China learning to read Mandarin use characters that give no indication of how to pronounce them. Hence, the introduction of the Roman pinyin alphabet in 1982 to help them.

Some consider alphabets a great invention which gave increased precision and flexibility and also gave the common person access to writing for the first time. How? Almost everyone learns to speak effortlessly, as speaking seems to be genetically hardwired into the brain. (People learn to speak by just being around the tribe, whereas they learn to read English only with a great amount of instruction.) So, with the invention of an alphabet, based on sound, theoretically, almost everyone knew how to read and write. For the first time people didn’t have to memorize 3,000 (or many thousands more) characters. They just had to learn about 26 letters, or symbols for sounds.

However, “ease of reading” was the original intent of logographic writing systems also. One could “read” simply by looking at pictures that might convey something like, “Man use arrow to kill deer.” Meaning is important, and with logographs it can be independent of a specific language. Everyone knows the logographs for “Men” and “Women” on restrooms, or “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” at a traffic light. However, just as English pronunciation has drifted away from its original spelling, so has Chinese Mandarin drifted away from its original images on turtle shells and bones.

So, with the invention of alphabets, no longer could someone look at an image and guess its meaning. They had to know its meaning already from their speaking vocabulary, or have access to a dictionary to look it up.

Along these lines, it is of interest to note that my biggest problem in teaching in the inner city of Los Angeles was students who knew how to pronounce English words but did not know their meaning, while in China my biggest problem is students who know the meaning of English words but do not know how to pronounce them. Are Chinese students more focused on meaning because of their logographic background in Mandarin? I don’t know, but it is possible.

Comparing only alphabetic languages, children obviously learn to read much faster in those alphabets that have highly phonemic orthography. Unsurprisingly, according to this Wikipedia article, some of these languages with regular spelling lack the verb “to spell.” On the other hand, an irregular spelling, as in English, can sometimes give a hint as to a word’s origin and meaning. For example in the word, "doubt,"we do not pronounce the "b," but the "b" gives a hint, at least to some people, of the Latin origin, dubius.

Perhaps there is more stability and tradition in a society that never changes its writing to match its spoken sounds. And perhaps an innovative society would more willingly reform its spelling. There are certainly benefits to both tradition and innovation, and I think a balance should be maintained between the two.

However, it seems clear from the many complaints that English is due for some reform. And dictionaries nowadays are ubiquitous. One usually just has to click on the word to see a definition, and in the future, people will have access to photos or even videos that explain the meaning of each word. (Likewise, for Chinese Mandarin, a student could just click on the character to hear its pronunciation or see a video of the correct pronunciation.)

Some people might say, “Why argue with success?” English has become the language of choice for science, politics, and international trade. Maybe we should leave it alone? However, this is the kind of complacent attitude that usually precedes a defeat. Other countries are apparently tweaking and even revamping their abstract language infrastructures, and English is not. Although there have been some attempts at reformed English spelling systems:

SR1 or Spelling Reform 1, developed by a linguist, is one. Some of its suggestions:

1. The e in bet could always be spelled with an E:

said > sed, friend > frend, guess > gess

2. Drop useless Es:

are > ar, were > wer, give > giv, have > hav

3. Change “ph” to “f” when necessary:

photo > foto, telephone > telefone, physical > fysical

Several high profile figures have also proposed reforms. Ben Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet was an early proposal. Also, George Bernard Shaw left money in his will for the development of a new alphabet that should be at least 40 letters and as “phonetic” as possible.

In another fascinating piece of English spelling history, in 1906 Andrew Carnegie funded a Simplified Spelling Board with $15,000 ($350,000 in 2010 dollars) per year, for five years. On the committee were a supreme court justice, the President of Columbia University, Dr. Dewey (inventor of the Dewey Decimal system), publisher Henry Holt, author Mark Twain, and other distinguished gentleman.

They eventually published The Handbook of Simplified Spelling. However, Carnegie disagreed with their top-down recommendations. He felt the people should decide what should be accepted or rejected. Carnegie wrote a letter to the president of the board, “A more useless body of men never came into association, judging from the effects they produce ... Instead of taking twelve words and urging their adoption, they undertook radical changes from the start. Carnegie added, using his own spelling preferences, “I think I hav been patient long enuf... I hav much better use for twenty thousand dollars a year.”

So language reform (from the top down) may be difficult to implement. However, as mentioned, Noah Webster managed to change the spelling of some words all by himself.

And Silicon Valley has shown us, and is showing us, how technology can solve problems: accounting, telecommunications, newspapers, transportation, government accountability, education, space travel, etc. Why not tackle one of the biggest problems of the world: the English language? Software could be developed that would allow English to be more phonetic--just a few words or many words, according to the user's preference.

English users could switch between the traditional abstract infrastructure and a newer abstract infrastructure with one click, or by hovering over the word. Eventually, large groups within the society could be using entirely different spellings. This would allow variation, competition, and eventually selection of the best system.

English uses an alphabet. Why not make it a good one?

About the author:

Bill Lauritzen is an experienced teacher. Including his substitute teaching experience, he has taught at 115 schools and colleges. He has also personally researched improvements to several areas of the abstract infrastructure, including inventing a new number system. His web site is Earth360.com. He currently teaches at Xiamen (pronounced shamen) University in China.

Technology in the Classroom

2012-09-15T07:20:00.003-07:00

Technology in the Classroom

Some people object to me using technology in the classroom. I say, 'If you don’t want me using technology in the classroom, then we’ll all have to go outside, naked and barefoot, and draw in the dirt with our fingers, trying to develop a written language, because symbols, letters, alphabets, chalk, blackboards, whiteboards, markers, paper, pencils, pens, books, photographs, chairs, desks, the students’ clothes and glasses, and the classroom itself are all TECHNOLOGIES!'

The Flame Challenge

2012-05-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

I entered a contest called the Flame Challenge, run by The Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York. The challenge was to answer the question of an 11-year-old: what is a flame? And 11-year-olds were the judges. I only found out about the contest three days before the deadline, whereas some participants had a month to prepare something. You can see the seven finalists here: I found them to be cute, shallow, and somewhat entertaining.

My entry, a 2000 word essay, embedded the answer to the question in the history of our species and the history of science, which I felt was necessary for a full answer. It was a profound, insightful, and illuminating essay, in my humble opinion, but it was also probably too long for sixth graders. Given a month, I could have prepared a snappy five minute video with the same powerful ideas. Although I did not win anything, I post my answer here, for you to enjoy, and for future historians to ponder:

What is a Flame?

This is an fascinating question that can tell us a lot about nature. To answer the question, I’d like to first take you on a journey to the ancient past. I hope you will stick with me for a few minutes, because you will be richly rewarded. Although the events I describe may not have happened exactly like this, most scientists would agree that something like this happened:

Five hundred thousand years ago, for our ancestors living in Africa, there was no electricity, no microwaves, no light bulbs, no TVs, and no iPads. There was nothing but mountains, lakes, rivers, and the rest of the natural world. The humans fished, hunted animals, and gathered food.

The only light they saw was from nature. There were seven main sources of this light: 1) the big, round ball of yellow light (was it fire?) that crossed the sky in the day, and gave light and warmth to everything, 2) the many, tiny flickering points of light (were they distant fires?) that seemed to fly in formation across the sky at night, 3) the larger dots of light that each flew their own separate path across the sky, and so (they thought) must be important Gods, 4) the one large, pale, round circle of light that changed its shape each month, shrinking, and then growing back, by which they kept track of passing days, 5) the light that came flashing down from the sky, during a storm, like a jagged spear, followed by huge rumbling noises, 6) the light from bush fires and forest fires that destroyed everything in their path, and 7) the light from the burning rocks that flew out of the fire-mountain, or that flowed in fiery rivers down the sides of the mountain, to later cool and harden into rocks.

These early humans had small brains, but over the years nature selected larger brains and eliminated smaller ones. These larger brains allowed them to think and wonder, and so they wondered about flames. Flames seemed so magical! Take a solid piece of material, such as a strong tree branch, that could be used to make a spear and kill a pig, or to make a sturdy shelter, put that branch in a fire, and it suddenly disappears almost completely! All that is left is a handful of grey and black stuff. WHERE HAD THE BRANCH GONE?! Had it somehow gone into the air?!

Of course, these early humans also saw that even bodies, of both humans and other animals, when burned by a forest fire, would somehow disappear into the air. Where had they gone?! The early humans began to think that when people died, that they somehow went into the air! And so these early humans began to think there were ghosts and spirits living in the air. Now, they didn’t want a ghost mad at them, so some of them would burn animals (make a sacrifice) to feed these ghosts and spirits. Or, they would burn parts of nice smelling plants (burn incense) to keep the ghosts and spirits happy.

Some of them learned, by trying many different things, that by rubbing wood together just right, or striking a certain rock just right, that they could start their own fires! What was once only controlled by their Gods, was now in their own hands. So then, they sat around their campfires at night, watching the tiny points of light fly across the sky, watching the flames in the fire dance, bob, and quiver.

Meanwhile, in the distance, out beyond the safety of the campfire, they could hear the roars, screams, and grunts of other large animals, that were, thankfully, scared of the fire. So while someone stood guard, and fed the fire all night, the other humans would sleep peacefully and dream. A few of them dreamed about fire, thinking again, how could something disappear into the air? And some may have even dreamed that perhaps, one day, in the far future, they would learn to fly across the sky like some of their Gods!

After thousands of years, their brains became even larger, and their language became more complex. They tried to summarized what they had observed: 1) branches, which grew out of the EARTH, could be made to disappear into the AIR, 2) WATER would come out of the AIR, as rain, 3) WATER in a bowl, would sometimes disappear into the AIR, and 4) rocks, which made up the EARTH, would form from the flowing river of FIRE that came down from the mountain and cooled. They decided that there were four main elements that made up everything, and that these elements could change into each other.

These elements were FIRE, EARTH, AIR, and WATER.

However, they continued to combine various things together to see what would happen. Using things from the earth, they learned to make various inks, dyes, and paints, which allowed them to change the color of their clothes, or decorate their bodies. Using their knowledge of fire and earth, they made pottery and small statues. They would try and see, try and see, and when they found something interesting, they would tell their friends. So their method was try, see and say, which was repeated. (This is similar to our modern scientific method experiment.)

Some of the braver ones climbed up and into the fire-mountain and took (some said stole!) some of the yellow powder that they found (what today we call sulfur) and tried many different things with it, and eventually made a powder which would explode! They called it fire-powder and some of them became magicians.

Over the years many elements were discovered such as those beautiful, shinny, yellow rocks, that everyone loved so much, and which today we call gold. Also discovered were copper, lead, silver, iron, and later, carbon, tin, mercury, and zinc. Using their knowledge of fire, they learned how to purify tin, lead, and copper. With fire, they learned to combine tin with copper, and so make a much stronger material, bronze. Later, again with fire, they learned how to purify iron. Some of them thought that perhaps someday, like the God of the fire-mountain, they could even make gold.

Then for about 1500 years, in Europe, there was not much discovery for a long time, as people just read what the wise and marvelous Greeks had written, and they forgot to try, see and say for themselves. It was called the Dark Ages. Then, one day a guy in Italy dropped a wooden ball and a metal ball of the same size from a large tower, and he found they hit the ground at the same time! (He probably did not do exactly this, but he did something like this.) This was an important event because a famous Greek had said that the heavier ball would hit first. So it appeared that the Greeks could be wrong! Now, everyone started to try, see and say again.

Scientists also began to think about the air. In ancient times, a Greek engineer had found that when a burning candle was placed in a closed container over water, it caused the water to rise. It seemed as if something in the air was disappearing as the candle burned! In the late 1600s and early 1700s, many more experiments were done on air. Then, in 1777, a Frenchman showed that ordinary air was made of two main different parts! (What today we call nitrogen and oxygen.)

Another very important event happened when a Russian scientist noticed some interesting patterns in the way elements acted, and began to make a chart of all the elements. He was able to show these patterns on his chart, and he was even able to predict new elements! He made his chart public in 1869. Afterwards, even more elements were found and placed on the chart, and the chart was improved.

Nowadays, there are 116 elements on the chart. Oxygen is element 8, and nitrogen is element 7. As far as we know, everything in the universe is made from the elements on this chart!

Now that we know about the modern elements and oxygen in the air, we are getting to the most important discovery of all, the ATOMIC THEORY! This theory was developed from about 1800 to 1925. Scientists from England, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and France contributed to this theory. Very simply, this theory states that everything in the universe is made of matter (the 116 elements either by themselves or in combinations), which are made up of very small atoms which are always moving or JIGGLING.

We could say that because of their structure some of these atoms “like” to stick together with atoms of another substance. (This is called bonding.) For example, two atoms of element 1 (hydrogen), and one atom of element 8 (oxygen), will stick together and make water!

Now plants and trees take in element 6 (carbon) and element 8 (oxygen) from the air (as carbon dioxide), and they also take in water, and then, using the energy of the sun, they build the larger particles that make up the wood of the tree!

Once again, because of their structure, we could say that element 6 atoms (carbon) in the tree would “like” to stick together with element 8 atoms (oxygen) in the air. However, you have to get them close enough together. If you get them just a little bit close, they move away from each other, but if you get them real close, they will SNAP TOGETHER to make water vapor, and release a lot of energy! How do we get them real close together? It takes a bit of energy (which is called the activation energy). Where can we get this bit of energy?

The early humans got it from friction or from a spark. This spark starts some of the particles in the wood jiggling more rapidly than usual, so that some of the element 6 (carbon) comes close enough to element 8 (oxygen), so that they can then snap together and release a lot of energy! That released energy starts the other particles of the wood to jiggle more than usual, and then get close to and snap together with element 8 (oxygen), releasing a lot more energy, and the whole process, the extra jiggling, the release of energy, and then more extra jiggling, spreads in the wood, and you get FLAMES!!!!

Here are two simple statements that describe the process:

MAKING WOOD: carbon dioxide + water + energy from the sun MAKES wood + oxygen.

In other words, carbon dioxide from the air, is mixed with water, from the ground, and energy from the sun, to make wood and oxygen.

BURNING WOOD: wood + oxygen + a spark MAKES carbon dioxide + water vapor + energy.

In other words, the wood mixed with oxygen in the air, plus a spark or friction to get the atoms jiggling harder, makes water vapor and energy.

THERE ARE FOUR AMAZING THINGS ABOUT ALL THIS:

1. The energy from the sun is trapped in the wood, sugar or gasoline, and later it is released as flames, or as the movement of you or your car!

2. The humans, and most other animals, get their oxygen from trees and other plants, while the tree and other plants get their carbon dioxide mostly from humans and other animals! So animals and plants are giving each other what they need to live!

3. This same burning process, using oxygen in the air, and substances similar to wood, is what occurs both inside your body and inside gas-powered cars! (Your body uses SUGAR instead of wood, and the car uses GASOLINE instead of wood, but both of these substances are similar to wood.) If we change the statement MAKING WOOD a little, so that it uses “sugar” instead of “wood,” we get a similar statement. BURNING SUGAR: sugar + oxygen MAKES carbon dioxide + water vapor + energy. (It doesn’t need a spark, because your body is already burning. And the energy doesn’t come out as flames, but as heat for the body, and as muscle motion for the body.)

4. We usually think of a tree as getting most of its mass from the ground, but the tree is mostly made of wood, which is mostly carbon, and water. The tree gets this carbon from the air (as carbon dioxide) and although it gets its water from the ground, this originally came from the air too, as rain! Humans, like the tree and most living things, are, by mass, 65% oxygen, 18% carbon, and 10% hydrogen, and 7% various minerals. (If you were made only of iron, you would weight about 1,300 pounds.) Of course we get our carbon by eating, not from the air, like a tree. This answers the question that the early humans had asked themselves about the disappearing branch and disappearing bodies! They disappeared because they were releasing their carbon (as carbon dioxide) back into the air, and also releasing their water into the air as water vapor! So, there are probably no ghosts or spirits in the air to worry about! Even so, many people around the world, not knowing science, still burn incense for their dead ancestors to smell or burn money for them to use in the “afterlife” (it’s fake money, so I guess they think that ghosts can’t tell the difference).

We could continue to go further into more details about flames, and find more amazing things. However, I hope I have clarified a few things, and also, I hope I raised some questions in your mind that you will answer later.

It is possible that someday you could make an important scientific discovery. There are many things we still don’t understand about nature. How would you do this? Don’t let the all words and symbols of science (or any subject) scare you! Study them, AND ALSO LEARN WHAT THINGS AND EVENTS ARE BEHIND ALL THE WORDS AND SYMBOLS OF SCIENCE. Good luck.

Notes:

The famous Greek: Aristotle

The Greek engineer: Philo

The Italian guy: Galileo

The Russian: Mendeleev

The Frenchman: Lavoisier

Atomic Theory Scientists: Dalton, Avogadro, Thomson, Rutherford, Plank, Einstein, Born, de Broglie, Schrödinger and others.

Classroom of the Future

2012-05-05T17:06:00.001-07:00

I just realized I never published this short essay I wrote about the classroom of the future, which was published by Slate in November, 2010. So here it is:

Virtual Classrooms Monitored By Expert Learning Agents

William, age 10, finishes breakfast and eagerly climbs into his lightweight, reclinable, ergonomic chair to start Planetary Science class. The monitor arm automatically swings into position in front of him. Embedded into the chair and monitor are tiny nano-sensors, which immediately activate and begin monitoring his heart rate, brainwave patterns, skin conductivity, blood glucose, voice stress, facial-emotional muscles, pupil dilation, etc., and will continue to do so throughout his class, letting the Learning Agent know how exactly how he is responding. It could then take appropriate actions such as balancing the abstract (text, formulas and charts) with the more concrete (images, videos and virtualization), increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the session, defining words, asking him to take some of his heath drink, or even reminding him he can earn his exercise points later at Surf Class.

At the same time, 23 other students at almost exactly his ability level, from across the nation, also sign on, and William sees their extremely high-definition 3-D images streaming at him from the Virtual Classroom. The Learning Agent, Mr. Grant, also streams live from the front of the room. (Teachers were the first Learning Agents, but were later replaced by AIs.)

William is excited because today Mr. Grant is letting each group take turns maneuvering a lunar rover donated to the school. His group immediately tackles the calculations for rover velocity that Mr. Grant has assigned.

As the class works, William’s mom is able to log onto the class web site with her password and watch some of the class. She is proud that William is so engaged, and is happy to see that he is collaborating so easily with his classmates. His IQ was always above normal, but his and EQ and SQ (Social Intelligence) had been slightly low.

It is no secret that much of education will be going the way that much of the publishing industry has gone: Online. Why? For reasons of quality (access to the best materials in the world) and cost (no transportation or brick infrastructure, fossil fuel savings).

Computer processing power, storage capacity, bandwidth, etc. will continue to exponentially change to the benefit of education, linking students to each other and the Global Brain in quality, 3-D, synchronous virtualization.

The classroom design problems then become: 1) Designing an ergonomic desk with appropriate sensors. This I have begun with my (pictured) Lauritzen Ergonomic Workstation, 2) Designing an easy-to-use, science-based, digital learning platform. This should be a national priority.

There still will be prestigious, face-to-face schools like Harvard. These schools will use, and even invent, AIs, Learning Agents and Virtual Classrooms that: balance the Concrete with the abstract, follow the Interests of the students, define the Words, and stay within the learning Zone (what I call CWIZ). No longer need any child be held back by a poor teacher or lack of materials.

Sherlock Holmes Comments

2010-11-19T01:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day, 212-B Baker Street, London England. Outside the window snow floats gently down into the street below and a brisk fire warms the room. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have just finished dining, and Holmes lights a pipe:
--I am sorry Watson, I will not go with you and that is final.
--But Holmes, aren’t you the least bit curious?
--No, I am not.
--But Holmes, it is a movie about you!
--It is not about me, Watson. They have taken my name, I grant you that, and...and...used it to create an action hero! An action hero, Watson!
--But you do sometimes use action, Holmes.
--That is not the point. I am not a hero, and I rely on deduction, not action as my primary method, Watson. You should know that, of all people.
--But Holmes, they spend millions on this picture!
--Then they have wasted their money and swindled the public. What they should have shown in this movie is how the science of deduction, along with an encyclopedic knowledge of past criminal cases, can often lead quickly and easily to a satisfactory solution to a criminal case. To dress everything up with explosions and fictional exploits, is...obscene! So I will boycott the movie, and stay here by the fire and read this remarkable book, The Invention of God by Lauritzen. Have you read it Watson?
--No. But it seems perversely appropriate on Christmas.
--Exactly, Watson. Lauritzen traces back the origins of all religion to volcanic resurrection and the search to understand the chemical fuel of life, oxygen. And quite frankly, humanity would be better off without the mystical and supernatural...and most Hollywood movies.

Confessions of an Alien Abductee

2010-10-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

Last year while I was substitute teaching at Culver City High School, I received a message on my mobile phone from the Director of Human Resources to call her immediately. I gulped, and at lunchtime, made the call. My suspicions were confirmed when I discovered that she wanted to know if I had been telling students that I had been abducted by aliens and teaching them “alien numbers.”

This story began when I was substitute teaching in 1990s, for Los Angeles Unified watching the students add and subtract three-digit numbers, and wondering if there could be anything more boring. Driven to desperation, I decided to dig deeper into the material (354 - 278 = ?), looking for new insights.

I began to wonder if there were perhaps a better way to write numbers. After all, just five hundred years ago we were using Roman numerals, and then we switch to Hindu-Arabic numerals. These were brought to Europe by the Arab traders from India, where perhaps some Indian savant had thought them up.

I like getting down to the basic of things and this seemed to be one of the most basic things in mathematics. I had spent many hours in a failed attempt to solve Fermat’s Theorem, so I thought that if I could not contribute to mathematics at a high level, perhaps
I could contribute at this fundamental level. So I spent about the next year researching and developing what I thought was a better system of counting.

I felt some consternation at the fact that it looked like a base twelve system was superior in most ways to a base ten system with the most obvious reason being the greater number of factors. I also experimented with a base 60, 360, and 2520, which also have relatively large numbers of factors.

Could I really persuade people to switch from a base ten to a base twelve system? By now I was harboring delusions of grandeur. What artist has had their images used more often than any other artist in the world, but that ancient and anonymous Indian savant? (Actually, the numbers evolved slowly through use, but someone had to get the ball rolling.) At first I tried to make the base ten system work, however, my intellectual integrity won out, and I plowed ahead with both my new base and new symbols.

I was helped in my development of the symbols by a previous job I’d had in the Air Force designing cockpits for a high speed jet--the F-15. I was technically known as a “human performance engineer,” and our team was charged with making sure the pilot could operate the aircraft while taking in the multitude of information available to him. We designed his displays to be clear, simple and obvious. Mistakes could be catastrophic.

Also, I was helped in my work by reading Buckminster Fuller’s work, whose extensive geometrical explorations provided me with additional reasons for using a base twelve rather than a base ten system. For example, in a plane exactly six spheres fit around a central sphere of the same size, with twelve in the next level out, and so on. Also, in three dimensions, twelve spheres fit around a central sphere, and so forth.

(In fact, for years I used to carry around a large bag of drinking straws and string, and, as I went from school to school and class to class, I would show the students how to make various shapes out of them such as the five regular polyhedra.) I would tell the students that nature uses twelve, not ten.

I began to show these to students (in grades 2-12) and explained that we had gone from Roman Numerals to Hindu-Arabic, why could we not go further? Also, who is to say that Hindu-Arabic numbers were the perfect? Finally, if history was any guide then shouldn’t we expect our numbers to evolve further?

At first the students argued with me. “Look how far we have come with what we have!” they would exclaim. However, I persisted and began to spread the numbers throughout all the schools. I’ll never forget one day when I walked into a seventh grade class and one of the girls there already knew the numbers, having been taught by her older sister!

In general, I thought that this presentation was good for the students because it got them: 1) to see what another base system might actually look like, 2) to examine some interesting geometrical concepts, and 3) to maybe learn to think outside the box. I would sometimes show them how to add and subtract, etc., and show how the newer numbers had less repeating “decimals” (or dozenals, in this case). I would test them by showing them an “alien number,” and asking them what it would translate to in “Earth numbers.” I would try to lead them to an understanding of place value and ultimately to the understanding that the properties of numbers were independent of the number system used.

After a while some students even demanded to learn the numbers. They had heard about them at lunch from their friends and wanted to know about them. Many students began to know me as the “numbers guy.” Students would see me in the halls or quadrangle and say, “Hey! The Numbers Guy!”

One time, after I presented the numbers to the class, they were all just sitting there sort of stunned, looking at the strange symbols on the board, and one precocious-looking boy said curiously, “Were you ever abducted by aliens?” and we all laughed.

However, after that, I began tell classes that I had been abducted by aliens and they and sent me back to Earth to teach the people of Earth how the rest of the Galaxy counted, so that Earth could begin to trade with them. The aliens had chosen me, as a substitute teacher, because they knew I could reach many students.

Of course many times the students would just laugh when I would say that, at which I would also laugh and wink, or say, “Let’s pretend.” Other classes would have different reactions. Some students would get fearful as they thought that I was crazy to think this. Also, sometimes the bell would ring unexpectedly, due to a special schedule that I had forgotten about, and the students would all start to leave class, and I would frantically try to explain that I was not really abducted by aliens as they were walking out!

My familiarity with science and astronomy (I graduated from the Air Force Academy and one of my advisors there wrote the Dover classic textbook on Astrodynamics), made it easy for me to describe various plausible alien spaceships, etc. Also, sadly, the math and science education level of the students often made them easy to fool.

At the end of class, I would ask how many people had believed me and how many had not. Then I would launch into a discussion of “critical thinking,” and explain that, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and (a corollary) ordinary claims require ordinary evidence.” We would then discuss ordinary claims, ordinary evidence, extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence, and what might be extraordinary evidence for an alien abduction. I would try to lead them to the idea that a piece of material from the spacecraft, or a strand of DNA (from under my fingernail), that scientists had never seen before and could not explain in any way, would be considered extraordinary.

Sometimes they would then look at the numbers and say, “Well, where did those numbers come from then?” I would laugh and say that no matter how extraordinary the numbers were, they were not hard evidence, and that I had thought them up myself.

During the 1990s, I taught these numbers to about 9000 students (I use to keep a tally). During 2000-2005, I worked at a community college teaching psychology as an adjunct. During this time the new numbers remained dormant, but they were soon to reawaken and find a home on the Internet. For eventually I went back to substitute teaching. One day, while in Glendale, after going through my schtick to some eleventh graders, which they particularly enjoyed, one of the students suggested I make a some videos and put them on YouTube.

So I made some videos. I was surprised at how many people believed them, but perhaps I should not have been. At least one person began to make videos about me. Also, I found that there were many others like me on YouTube, who had put up abduction videos, and I remember one young woman claiming to have been abducted who was crying, etc., and I thought what a good actor she was.

I realized that I had a responsibility as a teacher and scientist, and so I began to make the videos silly, thinking that people would now know that they were fake. I put a tin foil hat on my head, etc. This helped, but some people were persistent believers! Eventually though, I made the ninth and last video called “Critical Thinking.” Some people were rather upset with me when I confessed the hoax.

You can access the videos by Googling “Alien Numbers. I have to say that there was a temptation for me to claim that the “abduction” was real. If I felt the class knew I was joking, I would sometimes not explain that I had made up the numbers. However, then they would go tell their friends that their “sub had been abducted by aliens,” and these students would come to the classroom to ask about it. I had to explain that I was not really abducted.

I also had several high school student tell me that I should take down the Critical Thinking video. They said that I could eventually get on Oprah, and make piles of money. I told them that my conscience would bother me.

In my experience, the fifth graders were the most skeptical. (Do you remember when you were that age and someone would say something outlandish, and you would demand, “Prove it!”) Perhaps they by that age they have learned how to think abstractly and logically, but have not been fully indoctrinated yet into a culture of fortunetellers, new agers, and a multitude of Hollywood movies about aliens, ghosts, spirits, reincarnation, etc.

In the third grade classes, age nine, I found that the students were just beginning to be able to think critically. For this grade, after discussing the “alien” numbers, I would sometimes ask how many of the students believed in Santa Clause. On average, I would guess about a third would believe, a third would not, and a third would be uncertain.

I would then ask the believers what kind of evidence they had that Santa Clause really existed. (I also wondered if I was crossing the line into family matters of religious or ethical beliefs.) They would give evidence like they had “set out some cookies the night before and when they got up in the morning they were half eaten,” but others in the class would dispute this rendition of events and say that their “parents had eaten them.” That would start a lively and very interesting debate with many personal stories. I remember after one debate like this I asked if everyone still believed in Santa Clause, and one young girl said quite frankly, “Well, I did, but now I am not so sure.” That made me feel gratified, but I also wondered what is the legality of debunking Santa Clause to a third grader in a public school?

After my abduction presentation, many of the high school students would ask me how I came up with the numbers. At first I had no answer. Eventually I realized that they were asking about creativity. What makes someone creative? Now I try to explain that, to me, creativity involves having have a rather broad and deep knowledge base. One could then draw on this knowledge base and combine elements in new and interesting ways.

So what happen with the Culver City Administrator? I told her that yes, I had told some students that I had been abducted by aliens, and that I had thought that they knew I was joking. She said she had heard good things about me, that the students liked me, and that she was looking at my videos as we spoke. She said it seemed like I was just using a fun way to teach, and I assured her that that’s what I was doing. Then she wondered aloud what she could do if I had really thought that I was abducted by aliens. Meanwhile, I wondered to myself if it were ethical to lie to someone if the result was that they became more scientific and skeptical in their thinking.

The “alien numbers” seem to be spreading somewhat. The other day I was at an elementary school and a first grader came up to me on the playground and said, “I saw you on YouTube,” and then walked off leaving me standing there somewhat stunned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L60rPpwu3G0

Trigonometry So Any 3rd Grader Can Understand It

2010-10-22T01:37:00.000-07:00

Similar triangles could be called Zoom Triangles. Here you see labeled the Long Side, the Far Side (far from the angle of interest) and the By Side (BY the angle of interest). FOL would stand for the Far side Over the Long side, or the sine ration, etc. so you would have BOL for cosine ratio, LOB, LOF, FOB, and BOF as the only six ratios. Knowing these ratios for one triangle allows you to calculate them for any similar triangle of any size (think galaxies or atoms). Using the easy terminology allows you to remember and think with trigonometry. Trigonometry gives us a powerful tool.

For more information Click Here.

"Uploading" our Brains?

2010-07-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

Many Transhumanists want to "upload" their brain or personality when they die, and live forever in cyberspace. "Uploading" implies going to a "higher" place. "Up there." When we "download" a computer program we get it from a "higher" place--"up there." Perhaps if we have lead an evil life, when we die we will be "downloaded" to a cyberjail or cyberhell!

However, notice that we sometimes "download" a virus. Maybe we did something bad and it was sent from "up there?"

I think more correct, neutral terms would be "outloading" and "inloading" from your computer. Or outloading and inloading from the Cloud or Global Brain. Using these terms you could "inload" a program to your computer, or "outload" a photograph to Facebook, or accidentally "inload" a virus. Then perhaps when you die, you can "outload" yourself to cyberspace!

Visual Calculus and Theoretical Astrophysics

2010-07-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Visual Calculus and Theoretical Astrophysics

Perhaps one of the greatest living (and relatively unknown) scientists is Mamikon Mnatsakanian.

Professor Tom Apostle, who taught calculus at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) for almost 50 years said, “I was stunned to learn that many standard problems in calculus can be easily solved by an innovative visual approach that makes no use of formulas." Using Mamikon's approach, Apostle continued, we obtain "a result that is not only simpler than the original treatment by Archimedes but also more powerful because it can be generalized to higher powers."

Mamikon developed his calculus methods in Soviet Armenia in 1957 at the age of 17. He showed them to Soviet mathematicians, but they said, “It can’t be right—you can’t solve calculus problems that easily.” He went on to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics and became internationally known in that field.

Meanwhile, he continued to develop and refine his geometric methods. He came to this country as part of the Armenian earthquake-preparedness program about 1990, but was stranded here without a visa after the fall of the Soviet Union. He eventually managed to obtain status as an “alien of extraordinary ability.”

For ten years he lived in the Sacramento area, and for a time taught his techniques at a Montessori school in Sacramento. He loves to tell the story that took place about 1996, of some of the parents who doubted his abilities. They said, "If you're so smart why aren't you at Cal Tech." He then packed his stuff in the trunk of his car and drove to Cal Tech, where he showed some of his work to Apostle. Eventually, they began to collaborate there, and they won the Paul R. Halmos – Lester R. Ford Award, given annually by the Mathematical Association of America to authors of excellence in 2005, 2008, and 2010. Since 1965, only two other authors have won the award three times.

He was once nominated by Caltech for Victor Ambartsumian International Prize, $500,000, "for his contributions in the field of Theoretical Astrophysics."

A book, New Horizons in Geometry, the result of 15 years of collaboration between Tom Apostol and Mamikon, was published in 2013, and it has been praised for its originality and clarity.

Meditation is Natural Biofeedback

2010-07-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

People usually meditate to relax. Why? Because apparently the nerves can get into a state of over-excitement, and are unable to relax easily on their own. You can buy biofeedback machines that help you relax by feeding back to your brain biological information such as your heart rate or brain wave pattern. Traditional meditation provides a natural biofeedback.

Touching the thumb and forefinger together used to seem a trivial part of the meditation procedure to me. However, I recently realized that if you look at the huge amount of brain area devoted to the thumb and index finger, this procedure takes on a much greater significance.

By touching these body parts together during meditation, one is in effect creating a powerful two-way, biofeedback loop that allows for a dampening of the overexcited nerves. For example, let us say some overexcited complex of neurons in the body (and thus motor cortex area of the brain) is overexcited and twitching. This is sensed by the forefinger, which uses the forefinger sensory cortex area of the brain, to dampen it down. Likewise, and in reverse, some overexcited sensory neurons, hyper-vigilant, may be fed into the thumb area of the cortex, and dampened, etc.

In general, you are connecting the back half of the brain, concerned with sensory input, with the front half of the brain, concerned with motor output.

Now in the usual meditation posture, crossing the legs and turning them back into the body (with the palms of the feet touching the thigh, so that they are sensing the body), one again creates a biofeedback loop. This loop takes the nervous impulses of the legs and lower trunk and feeds them back into the body (and brain) by way of the thigh. This also can run the reverse direction so that the bottom of the feet senses any over-excitement in the thigh.

In this last case, the area of the brain devoted to these areas is not as large as for the finger and thumb, but it is adequate to function as a dampening biofeedback mechanism.

Also, now you are not only connecting the front and back areas of the brain, but you are connecting the left and right half of the brain, as the left foot crosses over to the right thigh, etc.

Putting the hands together in the lap may provide some left-right connection. It might be beneficial to connect the left thumb to the right index finger and the right thumb to the left index finger.

Fundamentals of Education

2010-07-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

After some thirty years as an educator, and some twenty more years as a formal student, I can say with some confidence that there are four fundaments that apply to all education or study, whether formal, informal, book-based, Internet-based, and maybe even education that jacks directly into our brains. Where education fails I think it often fails because one or more of these fundamentals is missing.

I call these CWIZ (Trademark), for Concrete, Words, Interest, and Zone.

1) Education needs to be concrete as well as abstract. The reason for this is in our evolutionary backdrop. Words in a book are very abstract, whereas learning by doing is very concrete. Many classes I have observed are completely abstract, which forces rote learning or memorization. There is a continuum: concrete swimming, to virtual swimming, to a 3-D movie about swimming, to a 2-D movie about swimming, to an audio presentation about swimming, to a picture book about swimming, to a book with no pictures about swimming, to a book with no pictures about other swimming books, with many points in between. Much of education leans toward the abstract because of cost. It is cheap to print some books with no pictures and then hire an inexperienced teacher to force students to memorize the book and then test students to see if they have memorized the book.
(Congratulations! You graduated!)

With the rapid proliferation of images and videos and virtual worlds on the Internet, one will be able to offer a much more concrete experience to anyone who has an Internet connection.

For example, when I am reading an article on the Web, I can have the words read aloud to me simultaneously at a very rapid speed using my Macbook. I hear a paragraph at a time and stop to clarify things if needed.

  2) The words have to be understood. Many teachers still teach students to try to figure out the meaning of words from the context. I have tested this many times in classrooms. While a student is reading aloud, I stop them and say what is the meaning of _____?

If they or no one in the class knows, I ask them to guess at the meaning. I write down the guesses on the board. I would say 95-99 percent of the guesses are wrong. I teach them to look up words they don’t know on the Internet or in a dictionary, and I show them the four dictionaries I have on my iPhone.

Also, in the Safari browser one can just right-click the word to look it up in the dictionary/wikipedia. This is why I use Safari when I read on the Web.

 3) The subject matter should be of interest to the student.

Interest might be as lowly as, “I am interested in the class so I can graduate high school,” or it might be a deep and sincere fascination with the subject matter.

I forgot where I heard the quote, “When a subject becomes obsolete they make it a required course.” There is some truth to this. Nowadays with the math programs and calculators we have, many math topics no longer need be required, except for the most devoted student.

Also, students today are very interested in technology, but it is rarely taught. I had one math student who was more advanced than the others and interested in computer games. I got him a book on computer games for teenagers, with a practice game CD, and he dove into that faster than a fund manager into a subprime mortgage.

4) The materials provided should be within the zone of capabilities of the student using available technological tools, or the zone of the student when assisted by what I call a knowledge manager (formerly a teacher) or by an artificial intelligence knowledge manager. With too difficult materials the student becomes overwhelmed; with too easy materials the student becomes bored. In between, there zone in which he/she feels challenged and can achieve competency.

CWIZ: Concrete, Words, Interest, Zone. The student must know these fundamentals, the knowledge manager must know these, educational technology must be designed with these in mind, and all educational programs must include these to be successful.

Twelve Guidelines for a Good Life

2010-06-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

by Bill Lauritzen (c) 2010

I strive to live up to the following guidelines, but, being human, I do not always make it.

1. Be honest.
2. Be financially responsible.
3. Get enough sleep.
4. Eat healthy foods.
5. Exercise regularly.
6. Respect family values.
7. Be active socially.
8. Study.
9. Live in harmony with nature.
10. Be generous.
11. Seek out healthy environments.
12. Be content.

Be honest. I am fair in my dealings with others and myself. I know that personal integrity is essential to my body’s integrity. I know that if I cheat or harm someone that I will carry a memory of this event that will blind me to potentially harmful events surrounding me.

Be financially responsible. I provide for myself and my family, and plan for the future. I will improve my financial literacy throughout my life.

Get enough sleep. I strive not to build up a sleep debt, and if I do I pay it off quickly. I do not attempt to stimulate my body to stay awake with food, caffeine, chocolate, salt, alcohol, drugs, herbs, medicines, or activities such as simulating entertainment, when what my body needs is sleep.

Eat healthy foods. My body has been genetically designed over billions of years by natural selection to eat foods that are raw, ripe, and organic. It was not designed to eat processed and packaged foods. Fruits, greens, seeds, and nuts in proper amounts are good for it. I do not put poisons such as excess salt, alcohol, or various drugs into my body. I fast on distilled water 24-36 hours each week.

Exercise regularly. I know that my body was genetically designed to move, not sit. I know that exercise improves the body’s immune system, leads to longer life, and improves my mood.

Respect family values. I do not let the mass media turn me away from the importance of family. I know I will feel content in later life if I have nurtured a family. I will strive to earn the respect of my children and other family members.

Be active socially. I know that honest and open interchange with others is essential and that laughter is refreshing and healing.

Study. I investigate new technology and how it can help to extend my humanity. I seek to understand issues of importance to my environment. I cultivate critical thinking skills. I look up every word in the dictionary that I do not understand. I seek out and read original source material.

Live in harmony with nature. I respect the hours and the seasons. I rise refreshed when the sun comes up, and begin to relax when the sun goes down. I strive to eat local, in-season foods, knowing that they are the best for me. I strive to use the wind, the sun, and/or other natural resource for energy. If necessary, due to stress, I meditate, pray, and/or stretch my body.

Be generous. I volunteer some of my time and/or my money to help others or society as a whole. However, I do not foolishly give to people who abuse me. I cooperate with others who cooperate with me, and do not cooperate with those who do not cooperate with me.

Seek healthy environments. I seek friends who are healthy and follow these guides. I seek environments that nurture me in healthy ways. I avoid unhealthy people with bad habits such as taking drugs or dishonesty. I report dishonest activity. I avoid advertising (in any medium) for processed foods, alcohol, most medications and unnatural substances, knowing that natural eating, exercise and intimate friends will often be enough to keep me healthy. I avoid unhealthy entertainment that merely titillates or distracts from my values, family values, community integrity, and humanitarianism. I am open to genetic information about myself or family that may help me to lead a healthier lifestyle.

Be content. I take time to be grateful for what I do have. I cultivate relationships with people I like. I take time for play and for healthy entertainment. If I get depressed or lonely, I contact someone I like and tell them.

Swimming with Dolphins

2010-06-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

Santa Monica, California

August 14th, 2008, 11:30 am

It was a hot and hazy day at the beach when I got there. The American flag lazily wafted in the breeze from the lifeguard tower. The water had been unusually warm, above 72: almost Hawaiian. The sparse clouds were high and cottony. I stripped off my clothes and put on my swimsuit under my large beach towel. I applied some sunscreen to my nose, cheeks, and shoulders. I fitted my red cap onto my head. The red color makes it easier for the lifeguards and boats to see me.

The usual stay-at-home moms were putting sunscreen on their kids, a few retired people were reading the paper, and several people were body surfing. Most surfers had left already, as the rising wind was making the waves rough. Brightly colored beach umbrellas stood in front of the vast blue ocean, which stretched out before me, circling all the way round to Hawaii and then Japan.

It usually gets kind of lonely swimming in the ocean, mostly just pelicans and seagulls and a very occasional sea lion popping their head up, but this day would be different. I jogged very slowly south for about a mile to the breakwater. I now had a nice swim long swim to Santa Monica pier of about two miles, and then back south for another mile to where I started.

I told the lifeguard in the tower by the breakwater, that I was going to swim around the rocks and then on to the pier. He said that they didn't really like people swimming around the rocks because they couldn't see the person. I said I would swim out a bit, so he could see me, and he said OK.

When I swam behind the rocks, a lone pelican glided by, very low over the water. Suddenly, I noticed the fin of a dolphin. I put my head underwater and made a feeble attempt at a dolphin squeal. To them I probably sounded like a dog trying to speak English. However, to my delight a hi-pitched “Ziiiiiip” (getting higher as it progressed) came immediately back at me.

I now saw several more in the pod, maybe eight or ten all together. These dolphins had been back in the area for a couple of weeks now, and I had had several glimpses of them, and here I was in their midst.

They were heading the same direction I was. Although sometimes they move really fast, today they were kind of lolligagging along, as they sometimes do. I decided to see how long I could stay with them. I thought even five minutes would be extraordinary.

I was able to match their pace, which was just slightly slower than my usual pace, so sometimes I would do breaststroke and just observe them. I keep a respectable distance from them at first, about five yards, as I didn't want to spook them. However, as we progressed up the beach, I think they got use to me, and I got used to them, and I moved closer. I kept waiting for them to split off from me but it didn’t happen. We just kept swimming along the beach together, and now I was only a couple yards from two of them. I saw about ten people lined up on the beach watching us go by.

After about fifteen minutes, I swam suddenly and unexpectedly into a loose kelp bed. I had to stop and swim around it. Suddenly two dolphins darted right past me, crosswise, only about two feet away. Younger ones, I thought.

But where were the rest? They had disappeared. I looked back and saw them at the kept bed, checking something out underwater? Feeding on some fish? Or just curious? I waited, thinking that this was the end of our journey together, but soon the dolphins were heading north again and I along with them.

While breathing to my side, I tried to see some difference between the various dolphins, but they all looked the same to me. Except perhaps some were slightly bigger. And some seemed more frisky, swimming off on their own once in awhile.

I had been swimming alongside what I thought were the two oldest ones, as they seemed to keep the most steady pace. They were on my right with a couple of others, while a few were on my left. After careful scrutiny, I noticed that the fin on one of them was distinctly different that the others--sort of with a little curve or hook in it, but that was the best I could do to tell them apart.

Now we glided by a group of about five surfers just sitting on their boards. The dolphins graceful up and down, rhythmic motion, was almost hypnotizing in its beauty. The surfers pointed at us as we went past.

With each breath I took in the scene around me. The sand, the houses and apartment buildings along the beach, the pale blue sky, the murky blue water, and of course the dolphins. Every so often I would hear them squealing to each other and I would chirp in, which sounded to me like a horrible rendition of their speech.

Then suddenly one of the dolphins to my right came completely out of the water and slapped its tail rather violently on the surface and then repeated this three times. I thought it might be a signal of some kind to the others, and I waited expectantly for several minutes but nothing changed.

I kept waiting for the lifeguard boat to show up and say something to me though their megaphone about not harassing the local indigenous species, but it never happened. Later, when I told one of them about swimming my adventure, he thought it was “very cool.”

Suddenly, my friend Michael appeared in front of me. “Come on,” I said. Michael is not as strong a swimmer as me, but he fell into formation just behind me. I worried about how the dolphins would react to this new swimmer. Would they now take off? But nothing changed.

I flipped over and swam backstroke. I could now see the four dolphins to my left, toward the shore, coming slowly out of the water, breathing, pssshhhh, and then rolling down again. All synchronized together now. About four more dolphins were to my right, while Michael was about ten yards behind me. It must have been quite a formation we made. Michael suddenly stopped, and so I stopped too. He said he was getting tired, but added, “This is too good to leave!”

Suddenly I heard another loud Ziiiiiip! I stopped and so did Michael. He shouted, “A couple just swam right past you!” Must have been the same frisky ones as earlier. I can’t keep up with these teenagers, I think to myself.

Back to rhythmic swimming with the older ones. After a while I noticed Michael was no longer behind me. Meanwhile the dolphins and I were all headed straight into the pier!

I veered off toward the tip of the pier but none followed me. So I followed them, trusting their dolphin sense of their whereabouts. Then, a minute later, they all veered toward the tip. As we approached the it, they all just disappeared, completely! I called in my best underwater dolphin squeal. I looked all about for about five minutes. I had swam with them for an hour and three minutes by my watch!

I started swimming back, wondering if all my communication and bonding with them was just my imagination. I was getting cold and tired now and just wanted to get back. I missed my dolphin friends, but I swam now furiously trying to stay warm. After about ten minutes, quite loud and clear, I heard the loud familiar Ziiiiiip again! I burst out laughing, and stopped.

Behind me, about fifteen yards away, were several of them. Just sort of circling. Did they want me to follow them north of the pier? Or were they curious about what had happened to me? My hands were now all wrinkled, and I was tired. I swam back to Tower 26 and trudged out onto the sand.

The Development of Knowledge and Religion on Planet X

2010-06-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

On a rocky planet in the Milky Way Galaxy, let’s call it Planet X, a species evolved that was capable of higher-order abstract thought and of manipulating its environments with tools. This was an alive, geologically-active planet, and so this curious species noted and examined the volcanoes and planet-quakes and came to believe that some kind of living, very powerful creature lived beneath the ground.

They saw liquid fire flow out of the ground, cool, and form into new land. They naturally felt that this powerful Creature had caused this to happen. Plants and animals eventually came to inhabit this new land. So the intelligent species also decided that this powerful creature was the Creator. They gave this Creator a Name. They were grateful to It, and so some of them made sacrifices to It.

They also noted the motion of the lights in their Heavens and came to believe that their Home Star and the other heavenly Lights were also very powerful Creatures. Their Home Star gave them warmth and light. Food grew when It was present, and did not grow when It was absent, and so they were grateful to It too.

However, they incorrectly thought that their Home Star moved around their planet. They also mistakenly thought that their Home Star and their Heavens “refreshed” themselves with the liquid fire when they “set in the West” and “traveled beneath the ground,” to “rise again in the East.” So they thought the Lights in the Heavens and the Light beneath the ground were somehow connected.

This planet, like many, had gases surrounding it. These contained about 21% of element 8. Most life forms on this planet used this element as fuel for combustion, and thus motion. Since element 8 is invisible, this species thought that there was another very powerful invisible Creature present in the gasses, which gave them and other life forms motion and life. They called It the Spirit or Great Spirit.

They knew that when a body was burned it would somehow disappear into the air, leaving only a few ashes. So, they thought that this Spirit somehow inhabited them (after all, they were made of 65% element 8). They also knew that this Spirit had to be present for fire to exist. Thus, they imagined that this Spirit reached upwards, all the way to the Heavenly bodies of fire!

They also saw that the water of the planet would sometimes disappear upwards into the Spirit. At other times it would fall down from the Spirit. So, some of them saw that fire, air, water, and ground were connected into one Whole (Holy), and they said there was really only One powerful Creature, which they also gave a Name.

Of course many variations of this basic development happened during the history of this planet, and many Names were given, but from these roots of fire, air, water, and ground, knowledge expanded and grew like an immense tree, with some branches of knowledge flourishing, and many more withering away. Some of the early branches are known now as mythology, and out of those branches grew new branches that are today called religions.

Eventually, one of the branches of this knowledge tree identified the elements of the universe and various natural laws of the universe, and this branch was called science.

Focusing or Multitasking on the Web

2010-06-12T21:09:00.002-07:00

There have been lots of thoughts about the Internet's effect on our brains. Does all the multitasking cause us to be shallow thinkers? Does it prevent deep thinking of the kind that was possible with books?

I did an experiment recently. I had to study for the California Science Subtests, I and II. These are tests that all teachers must past, and since I was thinking of teaching science, I decided to take both of these tests (on the same day). I had about 2 weeks to study.

I decided to not use any books of any kind, including test prep books. I would study using the test guidelines (which were online) and using only what material I could find online.

I found that I was able to focus without any problem, having paid for the tests, and having a deadline.

My procedure: I would take a concept from the test guidelines, look on Wikipedia, look on Google images, look on Google Videos, then look on Google images again for "concept maps" on the topic. For example, if the concept was the "water cycle," I would search this term on Wiki, on Google images, on Google Videos, and then I would search on Google Images under "water cycle concept map." I would also go elsewhere from any of these searches if it looked like it would help me to understand the concept better. I would also go back and forth between these different searches, etc.

I was trying to cover the concrete, the abstract, and everything in between. I was also looking for concept maps which helped to place things in proper relationships.

I spent about 3 hours a day doing this for about 10 days and then I passed both tests with a superior score. So not only did I find I could focus easily, I also found that I had access to the entire world of the web such video. Before the Internet I think this study would have taken about 2 to 3 times as long.

So now, with the huge amount of information available, we have the situation of a farm boy who has learned to read by the fire, with one dictionary and one or two books, all of a sudden going into the big city university and finding a huge library. For a few weeks or months he is going to be overwhelmed by all the books and he might have trouble focusing for awhile, but eventually he will see where all the books are, and what's available to him, and get down to his studies.

So two factors may be operating here. 1) lack of deadlines may be causing some multitasking and shallow thinking, and 2) the newness of all the information may be causing some adjustment on our part as with the farm boy in the city library.

I think eventually we will get back to deep thought, if we ever really got away from it.