Tag Archives: philosophy

Sartre, Gaza, and the power of doing nothing

Jean-Paul Sartre was a Catholic who did not believe in God or external morality, but believed in socialism and being true to ones self without having to do anything for anyone. His most famous work, “Being and Nothingness” was written in France in 1943, during the Nazi occupation. The last 200 pages of the book deal with freedom and its limitations. Sartre points out that there are always limitations (prison guards, Nazis, your own body, etc.) It is dangerous and impractical to oppose these guards, or or to oppose your own body. Sartre’s advice is to go along in body, but oppose them in your mind. Thus, he believed, he was being true to himself to the extent of rational choice. He was totally free because he was free in his mind and in his reactions to the limitations. “Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” This was his version of existentialism, and many Frenchmen agreed that this was the right way to behave under the circumstances. Many Nazis agreed and enjoyed his writing and plays. If they didn’t totally like what Sartre had to say, they didn’t object enough to send him to a concentration camp. In practical terms, he thus survived better than Jews and oppositional Frenchmen.

Sartre had eyes that pointed in different directions. Some try to claim this related to his philosophy

Although there is a stink of cowardice and collaboration hanging over Sartre and his outlook, it could be worse. A Sartre Joke: Sartre had just finished talk at a restaurant, and sat down. A waitress who understood the talk better than most, asked if she could get him something. Sartre said, “please bring me a coffee, no sugar, no milk.” The waitress came back and said, “we’re out of milk. I can get you coffee with no sugar and no cream.” The point of the joke being that Sartre’s freedom of choice can only be among the choices he could reasonably make. If he’d asked for milk, it’s irrational to expect that the restauranteur would run out and buy some, so it was pointless to ask for no milk.

As the Germans were leaving, Sartre took French antisemites to task in a short book, “Antisemite and Jew” (1944) where he discusses the inauthentic logic of French antisemites and the motivations behind their behavior and beliefs. He claimed the motivation was a sort of mob empowerment where the antisemite, by oppressing Jews sees himself as noble, and comes to feel himself as the heir of all France, its history and its culture. They the thus imagine themselves empowered and enriched by their hatred of he-who-isn’t-them. This motivation he inferred in the liberal Frenchman as much as in the thug; the liberal objects to the yellow star, not out of sympathy for the Jew or justice, but for an inauthentic reason. It makes him feel small by his inaction, and it crates, in the Jew, an identity that is beyond the essence they prefer; he’s more than just ‘not-them’. As I read him, the main character in “Catcher in the Rye”, Holden Caulfield, is a Sartre stand in, a privileged kid bothered by the “phoniness” around him, Like Sartre, he complains and does nothing for anyone, but he does no harm either.

Sartre didn’t join the resistance, even after the Germans were losing, nor did he hide Jews or gentles, or help anyone but himself. After the war, he pushed for the execution of those who were insufficiently anti Nazi, like Tintin author, Hergé. Hergé survived, many of those he attacked were killed in post war purges. Sartre’s philosophy actually works for prisoners in extreme circumstances. Similar philosophies were created by Victor Frankl and Primo Levi during their stays in Auschwitz. It helped them survive and stay sane. Frankl’s “Man’s search for meaning”, was alternately titled, “From concentration camp to existentialism,” a lot concerns the importance of keeping your mind clear – of not becoming an animal.

Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre with Che Guevara, a favorite Communist murderer, in Havana, Cuba, 1960 (photo by Alberto Korda).

After the war, Frankl became a successful psychologist helping people by helping them to see that they had a reason to exist. This is a more positive version of Sartre’s existentialism, where there was no reason. Primo Levi seems to have followed Sartre’s line more and become ever more depressed; eventually he committed suicide. Eventually, Sartre found a reason to exist in socialism. He believed that, while life was a cruel joke, socialism was pure. People could die in the millions, and he acknowledged that, the leaders were brutal thugs who did murder millions, but he believed that socialism and communism must live on. He tried to keep the bad truths hidden. So what of the killing and torture. So what if writers were imprisoned or shot — in Russia all the Jewish ones were shot in the same day — Sartre said they should have written better books, more pro-communist. Sartre would never have willingly lived in communist Russia, China, or Cuba — he stayed safe in France, and championed the oppression.

Gays for Gaza are not interested in a queer state of Palestine; they attack Jews to make themselves feel generous and powerful — it gives their lives meaning.

This brings me to the pro-Palestinian authors of today, and of 1973. Fifty years ago on Yom Kippur, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt attacked Israel by surprise simultaneously with aid from Russia. Communists and socialists supported the Arabs. Among them was Sartre, though he knew these states to be brutal dictatorships. Pretty soon Sartre discovered that his friends motivation was that they liked attacking Jews, a phony motivation, said Sartre in an interview, and he found he could not join them

I detect the same phony motivation in today’s demonstrations. The loud feminists for Palestine, the Gays for Gaza, those attacking Jews for complicity. Very few of them would willingly live in these countries or among Hamas or ISIS, and fewer of those would survive. Their love of Palestine is an excuse to hit Jews. The better version is Sartre’s he did nothing then, and would likely have done nothing today. You have to have authentic thoughts, at least.

Robert Buxbaum, November 13, 2023

Dark matter: why our galaxy still has its arms

Our galaxy may have two arms, or perhaps four. It was thought to be four until 2008, when it was reduced to two. Then, in 2015, it was expanded again to four arms, but recent research suggests it’s only two again. About 70% of galaxies have arms, easily counted from the outside, as in the picture below. Apparently it’s hard to get a good view from the inside.

Four armed, spiral galaxy, NGC 2008. There is a debate over whether our galaxy looks like this, or if there are only two arms. Over 70% of all galaxies are spiral galaxies. 

Logically speaking, we should not expect a galaxy to have arms at all. For a galaxy to have arms, it must rotate as a unit. Otherwise, even if the galaxy had arms when it formed, it would lose them by the time the outer rim rotated even once. As it happens we know the speed of rotation and age of galaxies; they’ve all rotated 10 to 50 times since they formed.

For stable rotation, the rotational acceleration must match the force of gravity and this should decrease with distances from the massive center. Thus, we’d expect that the stars should circle much faster the closer they are to the center of the galaxy. We see that Mercury circles the sun much faster than we do, and that we circle much faster than the outer planets. If stars circled the galactic core this way, any arm structure would be long gone. We see that the galactic arms are stable, and to explain it, we’ve proposed the existence of lots of unseen, dark matter. This matter has to have some peculiar properties, behaving as a light gas that doesn’t spin with the rest of the galaxy, or absorb light, or reflect. Some years ago, I came to believe that there was only one gas distribution that fit, and challenged folks to figure out the distribution.

The mass of the particles that made up this gas has to be very light, about 10-7 eV, about 2 x 1012 lighter than an electron, and very slippery. Some researchers had posited large, dark rocks, but I preferred to imagine a particle called the axion, and I expected it would be found soon. The particle mass had to be about this or it would shrink down to the center of he galaxy or start to spin, or fill the universe. Ina ny of these cases, galaxies would not be stable. The problem is, we’ve been looking for years, and not only have we not seen any particle like this. What’s more, continued work on the structure of matter suggests that no such particle should exist. At this point, galactic stability is a bigger mystery than it was 40 years ago.;

So how to explain galactic stability if there is no axion. One thought, from Mordechai Milgrom, is that gravity does not work as we thought. This is an annoying explanation: it involves a complex revision of General Relativity, a beautiful theory that seems to be generally valid. Another, more recent explanation is that the dark matter is regular matter that somehow became an entangled, super fluid despite the low density and relatively warm temperatures of interstellar space. This has been proposed by Justin Khoury, here. Either theory would explain the slipperiness, and the fact that the gas does not interact with light, but the details don’t quite work. For one, I’d still think that the entangled particle mass would have to be quite light; maybe a neutrino would fit (entangled neutrinos?). Super fluids don’t usually exist at space temperatures and pressures, and long distances (light years) should preclude entanglements, and neutrinos don’t seem to interact at all.

Sabine Hossenfelder suggests a combination of modified gravity and superfluidity. Some version of this might fit observations better, but doubles the amount of new physics required. Sabine does a good science video blog, BTW, with humor and less math. She doesn’t believe in Free will or religion, or entropy. By her, the Big Bang was caused by a mystery particle called an inflateon that creates mass and energy from nothing. She claims that the worst thing you can do in terms of resource depletion is have children, and seems to believe religious education is child abuse. Some of her views I agree with, with many, I do not. I think entropy is fundamental, and think people are good. Also, I see no advantage in saying “In the beginning an inflateon created the heavens and the earth”, but there you go. It’s not like I know what dark matter is any better than she does.

There are some 200 billion galaxies, generally with 100 billion stars. Our galaxy is about 150,000 light years across, 1.5 x 1018 km. It appears to behave, more or less, as a solid disk having rotated about 15 full turns since its formation, 10 billion years ago. The speed at the edge is thus about π x 1.5 x 1018 km/ 3 x 1016 s = 160km/s. That’s not relativistic, but is 16 times the speed of our fastest rockets. The vast majority of the mass of our galaxy would have to be dark matter, with relatively little between galaxies. Go figure.

Robert Buxbaum, May 24, 2023. I’m a chemical engineer, PhD, but studied some physics and philosophy.

Two French generals who fought each other in 19 duels over 30 years, and the purpose of creation

Humans are funny little creatures. I suspect that God keeps us around for our entertainment value. Each culture provides God its own entertainment. The British by invading basically every country on earth wearing tall, furry hats. We Americans provide grand stunts, like landing on the moon, or an automobile race around the world in 1908 when there were no roads or gas stations. And the French took love, dining, and dueling to a high, almost comic level. In France, the great and near great dueled well into the 20th century. The great French mathematician, Galois dueled to the death over love or politics. The great rationalist philosopher, Descartes, fought a duel, disarmed his opponent, and forgave him because of love. The science fiction writing philosopher, Cyrano de Bergerac, was famous for many duels, typically over the insults in his writing (or his nose).

In France, the great and near-great dueled well into the 20th century.

Instead of writing about those fellows, this post is about two Napoleonic generals, Pierre Dupont de l’Étang and François Fournier-Sarlovèze, who fought 30 duels with each other over 19 years writing a contract to kill each other whenever possible. They didn’t start as generals, of course, but rose through the ranks, though dueling was illegal, in theory, most of the time. They dueled on foot and horseback, mostly with swords, but also with pistols, and managed to wound each other at every meeting. They never quite managed to kill one another, or settle things, but they kept going at it till they became friends, of a sort. They were not that bad dualists, Fournier was a crack shot with a pistol and had killed others in duels. DuPont was better with the sword, but both were good at dodging death by blocking their vital organs.

The antaganism started with a duel, as one might expect. Fournier, a lieutenant at the time, had just killed a popular Strasbourg townsman named Blumm in a pistol duel. The townsman had no experience with pistols so this was sort-of murder, and resented. There was to be a party that evening, and Fournier’s commanding officer sent captain DuPont with a message to Fournier to keep him away until tempers subsided. Fournier attempted to attend anyway, and felt insulted by DuPont’s efforts to keep him out. Fournier challenged DuPont, and DuPont accepted, choosing military swords. Fournier would have challenged the commanding officer, but one does challenge so far above one’s station in France.

They met the next day at dawn. DuPont won the first duel, injuring Fournier by a severe cut to the shoulder. At this point, first blood, most American dualists would have called it quits, and might have become friends. In the duel between Thomas Hart Benton and Andrew Jackson, Benton put two bullets into Jackson but didn’t kill them, and they went on to become friends, and colleagues in congress. But for these two, one deadly meeting was not enough. They decided to duel again as soon as Fournier recovered. That took a month. Fournier rechallenged, they fought again with military swords. This time DuPont was injured. At the next duel, both were injured. Again and again, whenever they met, with swords, cutlases, lances, rapiers, and at last with pistols.

Fournier (left) and DuPont (right). Fournier fought for Napoleon in the Spanish and Russian campaigns, and went on to help write the military code of conduct. DuPont fought in the Austrian, Dutch, and Spanish campaigns, eventually becoming Minister of War for Louis XVIII and deputy of the Charente “The Dualsts” film was shot in and around Fournier’s home town. The painting at left hangs in city hall.

They drew up a contract that they would try to kill each other whenever they were 30 leagues from each other (90 miles) and not otherwise occupied with a war. The duels would pause whenever one of them was promoted since one didn’t duel with someone of higher rank. The two proved to be excellent officers and advanced at a good rate, with occasional stops in prison because of the political turmoil of the time, but not because of their dueling. Fournier went to jail for financial mismanagement and for insulting Napoleon after the Russian Campaign, DuPont went to jail too, for losing to the Spanish, and later for supporting the Royalists. They were released because the army always needs good officers who are brave and successful (Read about their lives on Wikipedia, or here).

Sometimes they would meet by accident and try to kill each other in bars, restaurants, and hotels. Mostly they would meet by arrangement at appointed times in the woods, sharing a hearty meal and good insults before dueling. Sometimes they chatted with each other through the duels. They appreciated each others skill and complimented each other on promotions, especially when it allowed them to try to kill one another (there is a comic movie like this — Mr and Mrs Smith?). During one encounter, DuPont stuck Fournier to the wall through the neck with his sword, and Fournier requested that he move closer so they could continue fighting this way. Now that’s dedication.

Eventually, DuPont got engaged and they decided to fight to the death, hunting each other in a woods with pistols (two each). As it happened, DuPont disarmed Fournier, and forced him to agree to fight no more. It was a happy ending suitable to a movie. Actually, a movie made about them, “The Dualists, 1967.” DuPont became minister for War for Louis XVIII (released for being too royalist), and wrote poetry including “the art of war”. Fournier helped write the French code of military conduct.

Dueling didn’t stop here, but continued in France well into the 20th century. The last dual between members of the government was in 1967, see photo below. René Ribière, Gaullist speaker of the National Assembly fought Gaston Differe, Mayor of Marseilles and Socialist candidate for the French presidency. They used epees, long, sharp swords. Differe wounded Ribiére twice, both times in the arm, and Jean de Lipkowskiin called an end to the duel “. Several French duels of the 20th century, are caught on film.

Le député maire socialiste de Marseille et bon escrimeur Gaston Defferre (C) et le député gaulliste du Val d’Oise René Ribière s’affrontent en duel le 21 avril 1967 dans le jardin d’une maison de Neuilly sous le regard d’un des témoins M. Cassagne (de dos). René Ribière avait demandé réparation par les armes à la suite d’un différend survenu à l’Assemblé nationale au cours duquel Defferre l’ayant traité d'”abruti” avait refusé de lui présenter des excuses. / AFP PHOTO

The point of this essay, assuming there is one, is the love of God for us. A less loving God would have had the comedy of the generals end after only two or three duals, or after one killed the other. Here, He allowed them to fight till friendship prevailed. Also of note is that that French are not surrender monkeys, as some claim. They are masters of honor and history, and we love them.

Robert E. Buxbaum, December 28, 2022. In the US, dueling is more like gang warfare, I include here pirates like William Kidd and John Lafitte, the Hamilton-Burr duel with trick pistols, the western shootouts of Jim Bowie, Wyatt Earp, etc., the Chicago rivalries of the 1930s and the drug wars of Detroit. At present, Detroit has four shootings per day, but only one death per day. The movie “8 Mile” includes fights, shooting, and several rap duels, fought with deadly words. If you won’t fight for something, there is a sense that it isn’t worth much.

Fauci, freedom, and the right to be wrong.

Doctor Anthony Fauci has been giving graduate addresses at colleges around the country for the past few months, telling students about his struggles and successes in the medical research world, hammering a moral point that they should expect the unexpected and have no tolerance for “the normalization of untruth”, and for “egregious twisting and lies” as were leveled against his approach to COVID (and global warming, it seems). Untruths, racism, and lies spread by “some elected officials”, presumably his exboss. Here is his speech to the Princeton graduates, or see a brief summary of his talk st the University of Michigan.

Dr. Fauci may have the best intentions in criticizing others and deputizing students to enforce the truth.He certainly seems sure that his truth and intentions are 100% pure, but what if Fauci wasn’t quite right, or what if you thought his cure to the pandemic was less than marvelous. His truth may mot be real truth, or real truth for everyone. Beyond that, even if he were always 100% right on science, I believe that people have a fundamental right to make mistakes. “I have a right to be wrong,” as Joss Stone says (see music video). Freedom from imposed righteousness is a fundamental good. Even assuming that Fauci’s lockdowns were the height of righteousness, we have a right to take risks and to act against our own best interests, in my opinion. Consider a saint who really knows what’s right and only wants to do only what’s right. I doubt that even the saint wants a jailer to force it upon him and remove his free will. And the right of the rest of us may not want to do what’s ideal and healthy. We like ice cream even thought we know it’s fattening, and we should have the right to smoke too.

This right to our mistakes is something we deserve, even assuming that Fauci knows the truth for everyone, and that everyone has the same truth, and that all of his rules were for the best. But different people are different, and people’s preferences are different. “A sadist is a masochist who follows the golden rule,” as the saying goes, and Fauci may have been out-and-out wrong.

Humor from a time when one could tolerate hearing that their truths might not be true.

Concerning COVID, I’ve noted that, despite Fauci’s lockdowns and mask mandates, The US did worse than Sweden, and my home state of Michigan did worse than Sweden — worse in terms of deaths, and far worse economically. Michigan has the same size population as Sweden and the same climate and population density so it’s a good comparison. Florida did better than we did too, though they too didn’t close the schools or have mask mandates. Their economy did better too, and children’s education.

Was Fauci right to shut K-12 schools, or to send college students home? Maybe he was only half-right, or totally wrong and blinded by politics. The more Fauci and friends deny having political interests, the more they seem political. Many Fauci’s emails have become public, and he seems highly political, and very often wrong. He also does not take seriously the economic or mental or educational problems caused to the workers that he now blames on his critics. He also seems takes it as a given that those pushing hydroxychloroquine or surface disinfection were liars, despite scientific opinion on the other side.

Fauci’s push for masks went with his claim that surfaces were not major spreaders. I think the opposite is true, and used my blog and YouTube to push iodine as a surface sanitizer and hand wash. Most diseases are spread by surfaces, and I see no reason for COVID to be different. Iodine is known to kill COVID virus, and all virus, fungus, and bacteria. It’s far more lang-lasting than alcohol, too. Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I’m right, and I have a right to express my science without fear of censure from Fauci’s deputies. As I see it, when an infected person coughs out-spews big droplets and small droplets. The big drops contain far more virus particles. They fall quickly and dry, ready to be picked up by someone who touches the residue. As for the smaller drops, some are certainly locked by masks, but these have fewer virus particles. Besides, the mask just becomes a new surface; you’ll touch your mask to adjust it or take it off. Unless you disinfect your hands with something strong like iodine the virus on your hands will go to your eyes or nose. Trump favored Chlorox for surfaces, and was skewered for it by Fauci and his experts. I think that was wrong, made worse by claims that he was not telling you to inject the Clorox.

On climate too, we do students a disservice by closing the discussion. It’s clear that Gore’s inconvenient truth isn’t completely true, nor are his remedies beneficial, in my opinion. To stop someone’s ability to make mistakes is to wrong him, and limit him. The same applies to many things; the fellow in power always thinks he’s right, and will always have allies to back him. When Robespierre was the enforced virtue and truth during the French Revolution, everyone agreed, but we now think he was wrong. Robespierre removed the head of France’s greatest scientist, Lavoisier. It would take another generation to grow another head like that.

In terms of interesting speeches to the graduates, As Marx said (Groucho), “I thought my razor was dull, till I heard his speech.” There here’s a speech against something.

Freedom is the right to be wrong, and stubborn, like Groucho. Now that’s a graduation speech!

Robert Buxbaum, October 28, 2022

If the test of free will is that no one can tell what I will do….

Free will is generally considered a good thing — perhaps a unique gift from the creator to man-kind. Legal philosophers contend that it is free will that makes us liable to legal punishment for our crimes. while piranhas and machines are not. We would never think of jailing a gun or a piranha even it harmed a child.

It’s not totally clear that we have free will, though, nor is it totally clear what free will is. The common test is that no one can tell what I will do. If this is the only requirement, though, it seems a random number generator should be found to have free will. One might want to add some degree of artificial intelligence so that the random numbers are used to make decisions that are rational in some sense, say choosing between tea and coffee, for example, and not tea and covfefe, but this should not be difficult. With that modification, we should find that the random device would make free decisions as boldly or conservatively as any person.

The numbers should be truly random, but even if they are not quite, this should not be a barrier. We generally take statistical things to be random, the speed of the wind tomorrow at 3:00 PM for example even though there is a likely average, and 500 mph is exceedingly unlikely. And, if that isn’t quite random enough, one could use quantum mechanics. One could devise a system that measures the time between the next two radioactive decays to an accuracy many times greater than the likely time between. If the sample has a decay every 100 seconds or so, the second and third digit of this time after the decimal is random to an extent that most would accept, and that one can predict it at all — or so we understand it. (God might be an exception here, but since He is outside of time, prediction becomes an oxymoron). Using these quantum mechanic random numbers, one should be able to make decisions showing as much free will as any person shows, and likely more . Most folks are fairly predictable.

Since God is considered to be outside of time, any mention of his fore-knowledge or pre-determination is an oxymoron. There is no pre or fore if you’re outside of time, as I’d understand things

 I notice that few people would say that a radioactive atom has free will, though, and that many doubt that people have free will. Still no one seems interested in handing major issues to a computer, or holding the machine liable if things turn out poorly. And if one wants to argue that people have no free will, it seems to me that the argument for punishment would get rather weak. Without free will, shy would it be more wrong to kill a person than a piranha, or a plant.

Robert Buxbaum, January 19, 2020. Just some random thoughts on random number generators. I’ve also had thoughts about punishments, and about job choices.

Seize the day

It is forbidden knowledge what our term of years, mine and yours.
Don’t scan the tables of your Babylonian seers.
Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past.
Whether Jupiter has many years yet to give,
Or this one is our last:

This, that makes the Tyrrhene waves spent against the shore.
Strain your wine and strain your wisdom.
Life is short; should we hope for long?
In the moment of our talking, precious time has slipped away.
Seize the moment. Trust tomorrow little as you may.

by Horace (23 BC Roman poet) Odes, 1.11

This poem by Horace, in 23 BC is the first appearance of the phrase “carpe diem,” translated as seize he day. I’d decided to look over the translation from Wikipedia, and to correct and update the translation as I saw fit, to some extent to extract the meanings better, to some extent to make the grammar less-clunky, and to some extent to make it rhyme. Seen in context, the whole poem looks  romantic, and the intent of the famous phrase seems more like ‘seize the moment’ when read in context. Either translation is acceptable from the Latin, as I understand it.

The phrase, “seize the day” appears in several important movies. Robin Williams speaks it to a class of literature students in the sense that I read it here — seize the moment — in this scene of “The Dead Poets Society,” He’s trying to get the boys to appreciate the purpose of poetry, and the preciousness of their years in prep-school. A well-done movie, IMHO. The newspaper sellers sing the phrase for different intent in this song in “Newsies.” For them, the intent is more like seize the opportunity, or maybe even seize power. It’s not Horace’s intent, but it’s sung in front of the statue of Horace Greeley, and it works.

In either context, there is a certain young masculinity about this phrase. In both movie, the cast experiencing the idea is male and young. I don’t think either movie would work as well with women dancing or singing to this idea.

Robert E. Buxbaum, March 9, 2019. In case you should wonder what happens to Frank Kelly (Sullivan) after the movie ends, I’ve written about that.  Also, a friend of mine notes that the grammar used in these movies is wrong:  “Carpe diem” is singular, for this 3rd declension noun. The equivalent Latin plural is “Carpite diem:” That’s the equivalent of you-all, should seize the moment. Unlike in the movies, much of classic education is spent on pedantic, uninspiring, minutia, like Latin grammar, but that’s what’s necessary to permit distinction of meaning. Thank you, David Hoenig for grammar help.

Einstein’s theory of happiness

Note for a talk in Tokyo: Einstein's theory of happiness.

Note for a talk in Tokyo: Einstein’s theory of happiness.

In 1922, Einstein was in Tokyo to give a speech, and had just recently been informed that he would win the Nobel prize. He knew that he’d be more famous than he had been, and everyone else did too. The prize money and more had already been contracted out to his wife for his divorce, but most people didn’t know that, and the few who did, didn’t realize that even after receiving the prize, he’d remain as poor as he had been. Anyway, shortly after the announcement a bell boy delivered something to his room, but Einstein had no money available. Instead he gave the bell-boy two scraps of thoughts for the talk, one of them on the Tokyo hotel stationery. The more famous one, “his theory of happiness” says, In German:

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” The note is signed, Albert Einstein, dated November 1922 Tokyo. It sold at action October, 2018 for $1.56 million, not a bad tip, in both senses of the word. Einstein told the bell-boy that this note would probably be worth more than the usual tip. It was, and is.

In general Einstein told people to avoid academia, and instead go into something productive that you can do well for an income. Do your creative work, he advised, in your spare time, he advised; it ruins the enjoyment of creativity to always have to discover something new for your income, “always have to pull a rabbit out of your hat.” Einstein’s happiest time, and his most productive were his years working at the patent office in Bern, Switzerland, while doing physics in his spare time at home. Einstein produced relatively little of permanent physics value in the years following 1922. The discovery that Einstein’s theories predicted gravitational waves was not Einstein’s, nor was the discovery that his equations suggested an expanding universe. The former was the suggestion of, Howard Robertson, a reviewer of a paper by Einstein, and the latter was made by a Belgian scientist-priest named Georges Lemaitre. it was only after Hubble observed an expanding universe in 1929 that Einstein realized that Lemaitre had been right, and only in 1936 that he came to accept gravitational waves. Gravitational waves were finally observed in 2016. The observation earned Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and Kip Thorne the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics.

I’ve written about Einstein a few times. He seems to have been among the few creative people who lived a happy, productive life and died well liked by all. Here are some life lessons, and some thoughts on how you tel a genius from a nut. You can find out more about Einstein’s love letters and his divorce here, including about the divorce settlement.

Robert Buxbaum, November 2, 2018. The essence of a nice gift is in the note.

Heraclitus and Parmenides time joke

From Existential Commics

From Existential Comics; Parmenides believed that nothing changed, nor could it.

For those who don’t remember, Heraclitus believed that change was the essence of life, while  Parmenides believed that nothing ever changes. It’s a debate that exists to this day in physics, and also in religion (there is nothing new under the sun, etc.). In science, the view that no real change is possible is founded in Schrödinger’s wave view of quantum mechanics.

Schrödinger's wave equation, time dependent.

Schrödinger’s wave equation, time dependent.

In Schrödinger’s wave description of reality, every object or particle is considered a wave of probability. What appears to us as motion is nothing more than the wave oscillating back and forth in its potential field. Nothing has a position or velocity, quite, only random interactions with other waves, and all of these are reversible. Because of the time reversibility of the equation, long-term, the system is conservative. The wave returns to where it was, and no entropy is created, long-term. Anything that happens will happen again, in reverse. See here for more on Schrödinger waves.

Thermodynamics is in stark contradiction to this quantum view. To thermodynamics, and to common observation, entropy goes ever upward, and nothing is reversible without outside intervention. Things break but don’t fix themselves. It’s this entropy increase that tells you that you are going forward in time. You know that time is going forward if you can, at will, drop an ice-cube into hot tea to produce lukewarm, diluted tea. If you can do the reverse, time is going backward. It’s a problem that besets Dr. Who, but few others.

One way that I’ve seen to get out of the general problem of quantum time is to assume the observed universe is a black hole or some other closed system, and take it as an issue of reference frame. As seen from the outside of a black hole (or a closed system without observation) time stops and nothing changes. Within a black hole or closed system, there is constant observation, and there is time and change. It’s not a great way out of the contradiction, but it’s the best I know of.

Predestination makes a certain physics and religious sense, it just doesn't match personal experience very well.

Predestination makes a certain physics and religious sense, it just doesn’t match personal experience very well.

The religion version of this problem is as follows: God, in most religions, has fore-knowledge. That is, He knows what will happen, and that presumes we have no free will. The problem with that is, without free-will, there can be no fair judgment, no right or wrong. There are a few ways out of this, and these lie behind many of the religious splits of the 1700s. A lot of the humor of Calvin and Hobbes comics comes because Calvin is a Calvinist, convinced of fatalistic predestination; Hobbes believes in free will. Most religions take a position somewhere in-between, but all have their problems.

Applying the black-hole model to God gives the following, alternative answer, one that isn’t very satisfying IMHO, but at least it matches physics. One might assume predestination for a God that is outside the universe — He sees only an unchanging system, while we, inside see time and change and free will. One of the problems with this is it posits a distant creator who cares little for us and sees none of the details. A more positive view of time appears in Dr. Who. For Dr. Who time is fluid, with some fixed points. Here’s my view of Dr. Who’s physics.  Unfortunately, Dr. Who is fiction: attractive, but without basis. Time, as it were, is an issue for the ages.

Robert Buxbaum, Philosophical musings, Friday afternoon, June 30, 2017.

von NotHaus, the terrorist who uttered money.

Bernard von NotHaus was sentenced two days ago, December 3, 2014 in Federal court, North Carolina on charges of terrorism for the crime of making token coinage. This crime is called uttering money in English common law, but it is not generally considered terrorism, or generally prosecuted at all in modern times. The sentencing was covered by only one newspaper, The New York Sun. The New York Times and others, I guess, found it wasn’t news fit to print. But I find it newsworthy enough to blog about.

The current price of silver (as I write) is $16.60 per ounce. Had Bernard von NotHaus limited himself to selling ordinary, one ounce, silver medallions for $20 each, he could have made money on each, and perhaps been awarded a medal for his artistry. Instead, von NotHaus stands convicted as a terrorist against the US economy. The problem: his $20 medallions include the symbol “$20” and the word “dollar” on the coins. The government’s claim is that people might come to use his silver medallions to buy $20 worth of products, and this, it was argued, could bring down the government. Also incendiary was the phrase “Trust in God.” The federal prosecutor argued this was too close to our government’s, “In God we Trust.”

A liberty dollar. The crime is terrorism by uttering money -- saying that this coin should be used as $20 currency.

A liberty $20 piece The crime is terrorism, undermining the US by suggesting people use this coin as currency.

Von NotHaus was arrested on June 6, 2009, and had his coins and metal confiscated. He was convicted of terrorism March, 2011. Among the evidence are gold coins with the image of Ron Paul and certificates with von NotHaus’s image marked as 1 Dollar negotiable currency. Making these items isn’t quite counterfeiting, as the coins and certificates don’t look like US currency, but the US government decided it’s worse: economic terrorism. Anne Tompkins, the federal prosecutor successfully argued that von NotHaus is suggesting that the currency of the US is somehow deficient, and perhaps that the president and his crowd are doing something wrong in their efforts to drive inflation by printing excess currency. Ms. Tompkins successfully argued that such “attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism” and that they “represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country.” I’d say that’s over-reacting.

The Liberty Dollar. It's not counterfeiting, but the crime of terrorism by uttering money. Printing certificates with the intent of having them used as currency.

The Liberty Dollar. It’s not counterfeiting, but terrorism. 20 of these can be exchanged for a silver coin. US currency is non-negotiable; you have no right to change

The mechanism whereby these items are supposed to undermine the economic stability is the reverse of Gresham’s law. Gresham’s law is that the worse currency will stay in circulation and the better will be driven out. Applied here, Gresham would predict that people will hoard these liberty dollars and will spend only the paper. That’s what happens with ordinary art, or gold bars. But our government’s terrorism argument assumes Gresham’s theories are wrong, and that people will hoard Obama’s paper while spending von NotHaus’s coins. On that chance, Mr. von NotHaus stands convicted of terrorism. Mr. von NotHaus’s defense is that he never claimed his medallions should be used as currency. The judge rejected this defense. For all I know, Ms Tompkins could now pursue Von NotHaus for sedition: suggesting there is something wrong with the way we pursue minters.

The Ron Paul $1000, weapon of mass destruction.

The Ron Paul, $1000 weapon of national destruction.

At sentencing yesterday, Judge Voorhees ignored rules that should have condemned von NotHause to life in prison. Instead, he ruled for 6 month’s house arrest and 3 years probation saying he didn’t believe von NotHaus was motivated by evil intent, but rather by philosophical speech (something partially protected by the first amendment). I’m always glad for lenient sentencing, especially when the argument involves freedom of speech. I’m also glad for philosophy, but that does not mean I’m happy about the outcome. To me, von NotHaus deserves a medal; he is the Rosa Parks of hard currency. And I think that’s fit to print.

Part of the reason this conviction bugs me is that I got a free education courtesy of Peter Cooper, the citizen industrialist of the 19th century who founded the greenback party. He published (uttered) $3 bread notes to advertise his cause. Robert Buxbaum is a good US citizen, who uses only non-negotiable, fiat currency; none of this negotiable stuff for me. December 5, 2014.

Amazing tornado drought of 2014

At 143 days as of April 10, 2014, the span between major tornadoes (EF3s and stronger) is the 6th longest in the last 60 years, and it isn’t over yet. Even small tornadoes are becoming more scarce. Last year saw few hurricanes and tornadoes, and so far we’ve had only 100 total tornadoes (see below); in a typical year there’d be 323. The good news has gone unreported, I think, because there’s no event, no photo-opportunity; no interviews with survivors, police, and experts.

US tornadoes: typical and year to date, January 1 to April 10 2014,  NOAA

US tornadoes: typical and year to date, January 1 to April 10 2014, from NOAA, storm center

Perhaps this is a bonuses from global warming, or from the very cold winter just passed, or from the chaotic, weatherit’s hard to tell weather from climate. Whatever the reason, it’s happening and good. Here’s how tornadoes lift stuff up, with video (Einstein’s explanation). Here’s an explanation of hurricanes (my explanation).

Robert E. Buxbaum, April 11, 2014. In other good news, the ozone hole is shrinkinggenetically modified foods don’t seem to cause cancer, and many bad things are good for you, like sunlight. Enjoy the good.