Right Around the Corner

September 1, 2008

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Imagine, if you can, what the midwest must have been like 150 years ago.  Not just the midwest - but right here.  Kansas was just declared a territory.  The nation was feuding on the issue of slavery, and Kansas' position was up in the air, given several compromises over the years, since the Constitution had sadly declared blacks had no rights.

What will become of Kansas?

Abolitionists and border-ruffians alike crowded the state, looking to sway the vote.

The Civil War is the inevitable result of the philosophy of compromise.

The name "William Quantrill" struck fear in the hearts of those who bravely left the security of the east coast, moving west in search of a better life.

Quantrill's Raiders.  Murderers. 

It happened right here.  Olathe.  Lawrence.  Right here.

But those are just words.  This happened 150 years ago.  How can an era 150 years in the past be made "relevant" today?

Walking last week down a newly constructed road, I came upon an interesting site.  From the point of view of the main street (135th), this is the view most people are accustomed to when looking north.  From the point of view of the newly constructed Rosehill, looking east, this is what you will see.

However, if you're walking on the new sidewalk, here is what you will see:

A view of how this was really hidden from view can be seen from an aerial view of the area, taken before the construction.  The road I was walking along runs north/south, crossing the field and connecting the two road fragments.

What cemetery is this?  Who is buried here?  Here are a couple headstones:

Born 1801?  1808?  Died in 1866?  This cemetery has it's origins at the time of the Civil War!  There are 65 people buried here, though only 47 have official "dates of death".  In fact, many markers are missing altogether.  Of the 47 with known dates of death, over one-half were in the 1860s and 1870s.

Who were these people?  Why did they come to Kansas?  Did they find what they were looking for? 

What other "stories" are "right around the corner", if I only look?

And the site of the cemetery itself is revealing.  When's the last time you saw a cemetery in the middle of a residential area?  Can you even imagine it?  Modern cemeteries seem to possess two inalienable qualities: they're huge and they're remote.

Why?

Huge cemeteries on the outskirts of cities, or in places no one ever visits, impersonal funeral rites, taboos which hide the fact of death from children, all conspire to keep the fact of death away from us, the living.  If you live in a modern suburb, ask yourself how comfortable you would be if your house were next to a graveyard.  Very likely the thought frightens you.  But this is only because we are no longer used to it.  We shall be healthy, when graves of friends and family, and memorials to the people of the recent and the distant past, are intermingled with our houses, in small grave yards, as naturally as winter always comes before the spring ...

In the big industrial cities, during the past 100 years, the ceremonies of death and their functional power for the living have been completely undermined.  What were once beautifully simple forms of mourning have been replaced by grotesque cemeteries, plastic flowers, everything but the reality of death.  And above all, the small graveyards which once put people into daily contact with the fact of death, have vanished - replaced  by massive cemeteries, far away from people's daily business.

The Solution

Never build massive cemeteries.  Instead, allocate pieces of land throughout the community as grave sites - corners of parks, sections of paths, gardens, beside gateways - where memorials to people who have died can be ritually placed with inscriptions and mementos which celebrate their life. 

Give each grave site an edge, a path, and a quiet corner where people can sit.  But custom, this is hallowed ground.

Christopher Alexander

A Pattern Language

The Santa Fe Trail

part 3

September 2, 2008

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The Proximate Event

Chapter 6

September 3, 2008

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Chapter 6

In Search of Programmable Variability

In search of how to model what I see in reality, my “two-neighbor” project flopped.  In reality, I see a ton of variability.  In my model, however, I saw little.  Neat patterns?  You bet!  A possible algorithm for how things work?  Hardly.

I’ll extend the process to three neighbors and see what happens.  I don’t hold out much hope.  More possibilities?  Sure.  But variation?  Unlikely.  But it’s a good programming opportunity, I decide, so let’s go forward!

The structure I’m toying with is this:

There are eight possible combinations I’ll encounter.  They are:

Let’s just choose “rules” at random, and see what happens:  The first couple are not promising: no patterns and simple patterns.

My third try returns the same “nested” pattern I saw earlier.  At least there’s some interesting stuff going on!

On and on I go, my hopes evaporating.  Lots of neat things.  Cool patterns.  But all patterns, and I’m looking for “variation”!

And then I hit on one.  What is this?  Is this a pattern?  Is it random?  It seems impossible to classify what this is!

I let it “run” for a lot more steps, seeing what will happen with my “anomaly”:

What is going on here?  Where is the order in this diagram?  Are there other “rules” giving rise to this type of “disorder”?  To check them all, I need some form of strategy for cataloging the rules. 

What might this look like in practice?  Let’s see:

But what is this new “class” of order? There doesn’t seem to be any order! It seems to be a lot of randomness! With all the “rules” spelled out, I decide to take a closer look at a couple:

I march on!

Proper Context

The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

September 4, 2008

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Michael Phelps' quest for eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics dominated coverage.  It had been 36 years, after all, since the phenomenal performance of Mark Spitz at the 1972 games in Munich.

Phelps got eight - Spitz seven.  According to the media, that's the end of the story.

What is the rest of the story, as our good friend, Paul Harvey, might say?

In preparation for the Olympics, according to Phelps, his life consisted of "swim, eat, and sleep".  A mighty convenient schedule, if you can pull it off!  Who pays for the accommodations?  Where does the food and shelter come from?  The training facilities?  The coaching?  How is this paid for if one only "swims, eats, and sleeps"?  Corporate sponsorship.

But surely Spitz had access to such accommodations, right?

Wrong.

Sponsorship for amateur athletes made the athlete a professional - and therefore, not eligible for the Olympics.  It was only years later the rules were changed, allowing one to "swim, eat, and sleep."

What was Spitz doing while Phelps was "swimming, eating, and sleeping"?  Spitz was attending Indiana University in pursuit of a career as a dentist!

So they're each off to the Olympics, Spitz to Munich, Phelps to Beijing, the backgrounds vastly different.  One attending IU, the other not attending - anything - I guess.

Is that the rest of the story?

Hardly.  You see, Spitz is Jewish, and the 1972 Olympics are sadly remembered for the terrorist act by Yasser Arafat's Black September, where 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed.  Munich, Germany.  What was the atmosphere for Jewish athletes going to Germany?  I don't know.  I can only guess.

So while Phelps' post Olympic trip was highlighted with a ceremony kicking off the London 2012 games, Spitz' post-Olympic journey consisted of being secretly whisked back to the safety of the States.

Is this intended to belittle the performance of Phelps?  Of course not.  But it is intended to put into proper context the remarkable accomplishments of Spitz.  The medals and world records were remarkable in-and-of-themselves.  The background of his story makes his accomplishments all-the-more remarkable.

The Proximate Event

Chapter 11

September 5, 2008

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Chapter 10

Joy in Learning

It’s early morning, and I’m in the front yard, marveling at the spider web in front of me …

It’s not just the final pattern that interests me.  It’s also the process the spider follows to spin this web.  But this is simply the “how”.  There’s much more, I now realize.  “Why?” is a deeper question – why does the spider do this?

And it’s more than this: I now look at the spider from a developmental perspective.  What is the life-cycle of the spider, and how did this spider get to be what it is right here?

How did the spider get the patterns it has right now – and how did it come to “blend in” with nature?

And it’s more than this!  I now look at the spider as part of a system: the spider spins a web to catch insects.  If it didn’t catch insects, what would happen?  And what eats spiders?  If there were no spiders, how would nature be different?  Would it?

While thinking of all this, a thought came to mind.  I walked around the front yard trying to put words to my thought, and walked inside.

“Dad: I hardly ever even took the time to look at the spider web – or anything – outside.  Now, when I see something simple like the spider web, my mind can’t stop racing!  Is that good?”

Dad went to his office and pulled a book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out from the shelf.  It was a book by the great physicist Richard Feynman.  He opened the book to a dog-eared page and told me to read:

“I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree, I think. And he says - “you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.” And I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too …

At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter; there is also a beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structures. Also the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting - it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: Does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which shows that the science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it subtracts.”

Dad knew all along!

THE ULTIMATE GOAL:

TO UNDERSTAND REALITY!

In Search of the Greatest Baseball Accomplishment

September 6, 2008

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300 career pitching wins is the hallmark of the "great" pitcher.  It's a rare achievement.  It will never be approached.  Cy Young holds the career record of 511, but Walter Johnson is second, with 417. 

One can easily see how the early era of baseball dominates this statistic.  You started a game.  You pitched the whole game.  And likely there weren't many pictures, which is how you could win 59 games in a year.

Hank Aaron holds the record for career RBIs, but Babe Ruth is close behind!

Let's play around with a few more, with the goal of eventually attempting to discover the most remarkable baseball achievement.

Putting it all together

The greatest accomplishment?  If I've got 762 home runs and you've got 755, we've both done great.  Clearly.  But I've done just a bit more "great" than you.  If I had hit 750 home runs, and second place was 500, that's all together different. 

What do the major batting statistics look like, for a career, for the top 50 in each category?

It appears Intentional Walks is the most phenomenal statistic.  Barry Bonds is first in career IBB with 698, with second place belonging to Hank Aaron at a meager 293. 

However, the data clearly seems skewed towards recent history, in addition to being dominated by one spectacular year.  Should these be qualifications for a "career" best statistic?  Let's leave that for another day, because I want to focus on one statistic above that is timeless, and the 50% spread between first and second place makes this statistic, to me, the most remarkable career batting statistic of all time:  Ricky Henderson and Stolen Bases.

The Louisiana Purchase

September 7, 2008

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Polygons, Circles, and Playing Around

September 8, 2008

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The Star Spangled Banner (revisited)

September 9, 2008

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LET'S ROLL!

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly I hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,

Behind the ramparts he fought, were so gallantly streaming?

The attack plans laid bare, bombs would be bursting in air,

"Stop them I must", and he did!  "Well done!" my Francis dear!

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Mary Tayloe Lloyd

(Mrs. Francis Scott Key)

Shortly after the "Burning of Washington", Francis Scott Key and a Prisoner Exchange Agent boarded a British ship to obtain the release of a doctor held aboard the ship.  The British planned to sail up the Chesapeake and bombard Fort McHenry, and, not wanting the three gentlemen to communicate the attack plans to the American militia, held them aboard the ship.  It was here Francis Scott Key and his fellow citizens watched over the ramparts the bombing of Fort McHenry.

How might the siege been changed if, knowing the previous fate of Washington and the current plans of the British, Key and his fellow citizens seized a cannon aboard the ship and fired at other ships in the fleet?  Set fire to the ship's arsenal?  Grabbed a cannon and fired straight down?  Grabbed the British Admiral and demanded, "Give us liberty or give you death!" 

Instead of "watching over the rampart",  "FIGHTING BEHIND THE RAMPARTS!"

The Proximate Event

Chapter 7

September 10, 2008

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Chapter 7

Enjoying the World Around Me

It’s early morning, and I’m gotten up early to take some pitchers before the morning grass. Who would have thought, a month ago, that in a month I’d be doing this! Certainly not me! The flowers are not only beautiful, but I try to figure out how they’ve actually become flowers. Where does the color come from? Where do the number of petals come from? Is the reaction to sunlight built in to the tiny seed, or is it the result of something else? Lots of questions I’d never even thought of.

I glance up at the sky and see a formation of clouds. Water vapor, I know, but how does it accumulate? How does it dissipate? How does it seem to move as one across the sky, sometimes slow, sometimes rapidly? What causes it to “stay together”?

I see the tree in the front yard. It’s similar to other trees in the neighborhood. How is it all of these trees are “the same” trees? It must be they all have the same rule in the tiny seed. I’m looking at the individual leaves, the patterns everywhere. Minute differences between leaves, but for the most part, the “same” leaves. Even the tree itself has cool patterns, the way it branches, sometimes the smaller branches split off opposite one another, other times they alternate. Where does this come from? The seed? The environment? A combination of the two? Something else?

There is a daddy long leg in our garage, hanging upside down. He’s trapped a fly in the web. How did the daddy long leg know how to spin a web? Is that “information” in the baby long leg, well before birth? Most people say it’s instinctive, but what does that mean? The information is there – but how?

I asked Dad about all of this. These were questions I’d never asked of him, and now it was non-stop, and I needed help. With my relentless questions, he went to his bookshelf, pulled a tattered book from the shelf, and opened to a dog-eared page. “This reminds me of you right now – and I like it!” The passage read:

“High idea flux (flow per unit area). I came to MIT wanting to see the physical principles around me, and today everything shouted its principle out at me: masses and springs and dampers in cars, beams bending underfoot in buildings, more vortices in smokestacks and jet airplane con-trails and corners of buildings. I studied not in a room, but in a box with dashed lines into which mass and energy entered and out of which it exited. I wanted to make the ideas orderly; I wanted to turn the analysis off and on on demand; but it was stuck in the on position.”

The Idea Factor

Pepper White

“Do you really think this sounds like me?” I hoped he was right, yet I knew he wasn’t. I didn’t know what most of these things meant.

“Not literally – but you’ve got a wide variety of questions you’re talking about. Chemistry, biology, the environment, the atmosphere, physics. The other day you were asking about the flow of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. That’s geology plus a lot more. You’re asking a lot of great questions!”

“But I don’t know the answers!”

“You’d better not know the answers! You’re only 17! But you’re also asking questions much differently than the quote above. It’s talking about how things work. You’re asking why they work, and how did these things come into existence in the first place.”

I couldn’t wait to get home from school that day to get my camera out. My first shot was of the grass. I had remembered the leaves I had picked – all similar, yet at the same time different. The same was true of grass blades. They all come from the same type of grass seed, but they’re all different at the same time. My guess was the “rules” I had been talking about was responsible, and I had found a “Class of Behavior” that told me it was possible.

But how was this possible? The rule generated randomness, but where did the randomness come from?  I take another look at one of the “Class 4” patterns from above: Rule 110. What is going on here?

Modifying my program, I add more steps to this strange rule. What was going on here? Is this pure randomness? There are patterns, for sure. There are nested patterns as well – the small triangles. There is also a ton of “randomness”!

And then it dawns on me! Where is the randomness coming from? It’s coming from the same place the order is coming from! THE RULE ITSELF! Embedded in the rule itself – or certain rules, to be specific – lie behavior that ends up creating order and randomness at the same time.

The Anomaly

A dead branch on our living pine tree. I’d been so focused on pretty butterflies, flying geese, cloud formations, and the like, I missed the dead branch right by our front door step. Here, I’ve been talking about everything living. This came from a “simple rule”, but has died. Of course. This is everywhere – and my “model” has not taken into account this common type of occurrence: death.

Of course, it’s easy to get caught up in the wonder of the baby turtle dashing to the water. How does it know which direction to go? How does it know how to dig itself from the sand? Where do the distinctive patterns come from? Etc. With this type of focus, we lose sight of the natural fact ninety-nine out of the one hundred turtles don’t make it. They’re killed by other predators. The eco-system. How does all of this play into a model of understanding how nature “is what it is”?

The Santa Fe Trail

part 4

September 11, 2008

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It's a method that's served me well - in the Hamlet book, for example - and many other items. 

It can also be a frustrating method, because when you start to dig into a subject, you find you're fighting off obvious questions with an intellectual fly-swatter, there being literally an infinite number of directions you can take!  In such circumstances, it's easy to say "TOO MUCH", and reach for the remote.  OR: you can grab one piece of the emerging pie and say, "Stay right there, Pal - we're going to talk".

Such is the case today.

There is a thread to this Santa Fe Trail issue that's hard to pin down, there being so many "facts" surrounding it.  Let's verbalize some of it.

The general theme is "Why Santa Fe"?, which drifts back to the question, "Why the Spanish?"
Columbus, of course, is credited with "discovering" the New World.  He sails back to Spain and tells those there's riches here.  Spain, looking for a route to India, likely says, "If there's riches there, let's go get them".

They embark on transatlantic trips, Pizarro conquering the Incas, Cortez the Aztecs, each reporting the riches they've heard about.

But why head north?

The fabled lost city of Cibola!  More to report on this fable in the logical right up, but it's reasonable to say if Spanish Conquistadors found riches in Mexico, Central America, and South America, and if there is a fable about a lost city of gold north of Mexico City, likely there is!  At a minimum, let's go see.  Lots of explorers did, Coronado being one.  He is credited with being the first European in Kansas.

BUT WHY SANTA FE? 

On these excursion north, you need an outpost, no different than the USA moving west, and building forts.  You're away from your own "civilization", and you need an organized city for protection, goods and services, etc.  Hence, Santa Fe.

Logic branches to come!

The Proximate Event

Chapter 10

September 12, 2008

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Chapter 10

“What’s Going On Out There?”

Watching the movie “Happy Feet”, a question came to me I’m certain I never would have thought of before.  The penguin, which once flew, changed into a swimming bird.

Why did it do this – and how did it do this?  My initial guess is as follows:  there is some rule in the penguin “DNA”, and starting with some definite “code”, proceeds to “grow” into a penguin.  Given certain circumstances in the environment, nutritionally, environmentally, the avoidance of predators, etc., it grows into an emperor penguin.  That is:

But now, I’m faced with the situation of the penguin “evolving”?  What is it that is changing?  My first guess is this:

Somehow, the “initial code” changed.  This must be the case; otherwise, the same “flying bird” would continue to grow.  Why don’t we see that?  How did it evolve?  It must be the initial code changed.

Is that the only possibility?

I think back to my many simulations of “Rule 110” earlier.  They all proceeded by the same rule, but with different starting conditions, produced different patterns.  How might this play into the “pattern of evolution”?

Let’s suppose there are 10 different penguins, each with different “starting conditions” in their DNA.

Somewhere in the code is a marker responsible for something to do with how the wings are what they are, just as there’s a genetic market for green eyes and red hair.

There’s also a lot of variation.

Let’s suppose the But now, I’m faced with the situation of the penguin “evolving”? What is it that is changing? My first guess is this:

Is this what nature is doing when we say things are “evolving”?  Is this what Darwin said?  Was Darwin right? 

Or is there another interpretation to all of this?

More work to go on how life evolves!

As I work through a number of things I see in nature, I realize I don’t even have a good definition of what “life” is.  What is this thing called “life”?  Here’s what the Online Encyclopedia Brittanica says about “life”:

A great deal is known about life. Anatomists and taxonomists have studied the forms and relations of more than a million separate species of plants and animals. Physiologists have investigated the gross functioning of organisms. Biochemists have probed the biological interactions of the organic molecules that make up life on our planet. Molecular biologists have uncovered the very molecules responsible for reproduction and for the passage of hereditary information from generation to generation, a subject that geneticists had previously studied without going to the molecular level. Ecologists have inquired into the relations between organisms and their environments, ethologists the behaviour of animals and plants, embryologists the development of complex organisms from a single cell, evolutionary biologists the emergence of organisms from pre-existing forms over geological time. Yet despite the enormous fund of information that each of these biological specialties has provided, it is a remarkable fact that no general agreement exists on what it is that is being studied. There is no generally accepted definition of life.

This isn’t worth much to me, I think.  I’ve got a pretty good idea of what “life” is – at least a definition that differentiates between “life” and “non-life”.  Thinking back, I realize I’ve already said it!

Maybe.  The same is true with the change I see in nature over time.  “What’s going on out there?” has become my rallying cry!  So many questions – and it’s great!

Morris Kline:

A Commemorative Stamp Campaign

September 13, 2008

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A COMMEMORATIVE STAMP CAMPAIGN

The great 20th century mathematician Morris Kline is well known for his amazing works on math history and pedagogy.

With an intense interest in mathematical history, pedagogy, and application, Morris Kline was, to me, one of the most dominant mathematical figures in the 20th century.  ‘Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times', 'Why Johnny Can't Add', 'Mathematics and the Physical World', and 'Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge' are but a few of the tremendous works authored by Kline. Were volume alone a criteria for greatness, he stands alone.

But more impressive than volume was the content, the focus, the drive, the joy with which each of these books shouts to the reader. Nature and the world is screaming to be understood, and it is mathematics that can - and should - lead the charge! Though he passed away in 1992, the message he left behind is an inspiring one. A clarion call? You bet!

Among many of the exciting initiatives of the “Morris Kline Society" is a campaign for a commemorative stamp in his honor, and I write in this regard, soliciting thoughts, advice from those who have been through such a process, pitfalls to avoid, etc.

A “Philamath” member for about two years now, I’m still a novice at stamp collecting, but enjoy everything about the group!  So thanks!

Michael Round

Center for autoSocratic Excellence

www.rationalsys.com

Who Was Morris Kline?

Who was Morris Kline?  To many, Morris Kline was the author of one of the most definitive books (now a series of three books) on the history of mathematics:  Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times:

To others, Morris Kline was the author of several books on the application of math to reality, understanding nature, and making math comfortable for many who have been traditionally labeled as “mathematically illiterate”:

To others, Morris Kline was the reformist, concerned with the proper teaching of math, the status of math in curriculum, of what math means, and pedagogic considerations.  According to Siobhan Roberts in “King of Infinite Space”, a biography of Donald Coxeter, Morris Kline was the leading antagonist of “The New Math” revolution in the 1960s:

These are several of the books authored by Morris Kline.  There were many more.

Volume and diversity of thought alone places Morris Kline in a very select classification of mathematical genius.  The pedagogic considerations in how to teach math, the curriculum considerations in what to teach, and the logical considerations as to why things are the way they are, with reasonable steps to correct the mistakes of the past – to me, this is the total package.

Quoting and paraphrasing from the obituary first appearing in The New York Times, June 10, 1992:

In a 1986 editorial in Focus, a Journal of the Mathematical Association of America, he [Morris Kline] summarized some of his views: "On all levels primary, and secondary and undergraduate - mathematics is taught as an isolated subject with few, if any, ties to the real world. To students, mathematics appears to deal almost entirely with things which are of no concern at all to man".

The error, he contended, was that "mathematics is expected either to be immediately attractive to students on its own merits or to be accepted by students solely on the basis of the teacher's assurance that it will be helpful in later life." And yet, he wrote," mathematics is the key to understanding and mastering our physical, social and biological worlds."

He argued that teachers should stress useful applications of mathematics in various other fields: that they could have elementary schoolchildren deal with baseball batting averages and puzzles, get high school students work with statistics and probability, and bring college students to apply mathematics to computers and physics.

But, he said, many schoolteachers are simply unfamiliar with such teaching techniques, and the same is true of numerous college professors who were under "pressure to write research papers." He called on professional mathematics journals to print articles that instructed school and college teachers about ways of presenting such applications to their pupils and students.

"The greatest contribution mathematics has made and should continue to make was to help man understand the world about him."

The Proximate Event

Chapter 8

September 14, 2008

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– 8 –

The Circumstances Around Us

Why does this dead branch bother me? All I’ve been talking about is how things come into existence, and whether they grow in accordance with a rule (DNA, for example), or they come about due to external forces (wind and sand creating a sand dune). So here was a branch that came from a seed that was dead!

How can this be?

On the one hand, if the “bush-seed” has information on how the bush grows, then I should see the beautiful green bush! But here, I’m seeing a dead (dying, at least) bush! At a minimum, to understand the conditions allowing the “green bush” to exist in one case, but not the other, I need to understand the conditions giving rise to the green bush.

The answer is obvious, of course, once I ask myself the right question. Yes, what comes from a “bush-seed” can only be a bush, but the bush needs water. It needs sunlight. It needs proper soil, nutrients. Bugs can kill it. People can kill it. A lot of things must go right for the bush to make it to maturity, and I’ve not taken into account any of this in trying to understand how things come into being!

For people, there are similar things I guess. Maslow created a “Hierarchy of Needs”, spelling out the “certain conditions” for a human to “be all they can be”.

For animals and other types of living organisms, I suspect there is another fear. The polar bear, for example, is detrimental to the existence of the seal!

So there’s a balance between the number of seals and the number of polar bears. What would happen, I wonder, if some disease struck the seal population?

Of course, not all circumstances allow some type of “equilibrium” to take place. The dinosaurs found this out, tragically!

Might these environmental forces – this system – help explain not just the necessary conditions for something to come into existence, but also the variation I see in reality? Earlier, I thought the rule itself may provide the source of the variation, but now I’m not so sure. That may be right, but it’s not completely right. After all, if I have a gene pointing towards a tendance of height, but I don’t eat well, I won’t grow tall. Two conditions were present, creating variation.

I like it. It explains the dead branch I see, plus I’ve now got another avenue to explore!

Conduction

A Natural Integration of Induction & Deduction

September 15, 2008

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The use of "deductive reasoning" is well documented.  Formalized by Aristotle 2500 years ago, the classic view of deductive logic can be seen in the following syllogism, moving from a generalization to a particular:

The use of "inductive reasoning", on the other hand, proceeds from particulars to generalities.  For example, we view something repeated in reality, valid in the past, present, and the future, and generalize to an abstraction.  For example: inductive logic can be seen in the following syllogism:

Does this not strike one as rather circular in nature?  To arrive at a valid conclusion deductively, we begin with a generalization.  But where did the generalization come from?  From looking at the particulars!  Though this seems rather odd to me, fortunately we have reality as our final arbiter regarding the validity of a generalization and a conclusion.  What would a system of "logic as the art of non-contradictory identification" look like, in the visual structure of our thinking processes?  Let's take a look:

But let's not stop there!  Let's completely unite the two in one singular process.  Not induction nor deduction, but both working together; "con" = "together" + duction = "conduction", a process of integrating induction and deduction!  In addition to removing artificially-created reasoning differences, we have the immense benefit of always being in a position to define our terms, verbalize assumptions and premises, and be clear in the reasoning process.  Further, should an anomaly arise in the reasoning process, one can scan quickly the complete reasoning process to see where the contradiction arises.

Weather War

September 16, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

It's been a joke for a long time because neither of us have any idea what the numbers mean, nor the significance of the direction of the change.

What does this have to do with anything?

Heated air molecules, I've come to learn, "move about", the same size particle occupying more space.  Therefore, heated air molecules are less dense.  This is reasonably right, I know, because I've been told my whole life "hot air rises", confirmed by a "hot air balloon" rising overhead.

That is:

But if this is the case, when heated air molecules rise, what's left should be colder air molecules, which means the temperature should be falling.  It also means, as the surrounding environment is composed of more compact cold air molecules, the air pressure should be greater (than before), as the air is "more dense". 

That is:

Let's pull some data from a weather channel, strap it our backs, run down the digital highway, and see if it will fly.

There seems to be a vague relationship between temperature and air pressure, looking at these two graphs.  Let's consolidate the two into one graph to get a better look:

The relationship is as I anticipated above, particularly the last five months (as summer comes around, the temperature rises and the air pressure falls).  But the relationship is nowhere near as direct as I expected.  In fact, my thought above was the two could be used interchangably.  Not so - at least not according to these graphs.

Let's try one more - a scatter plot

Something is wrong here - in my understanding.  How can there be a high pressure system when the temperature is 30 degrees?

Why does air pressure change?  What does the revolution and rotation of the earth have to do with this?  Why do air molecules "get feisty" when they're heated?  And if air molecules heated rise, why is it so cold high up?  What does "air molecule" even mean?

My "Atmospheric" Paradigm

My "Atmospheric" Paradigm - Part 2

My model seems to depict what I've been told about the nature of air molecules - as they warm, they get agitated, spread out, therefore becoming less dense, and therefore rise. Actually modeling this, however, has revealed a couple "abnormalities" - things not making sense.

One is the area around a "cold air mass".  What exactly is going on out there?  Nothing?  I don't think so.  So something is wrong with my "model of understanding".

Secondly, when the air molecules are warmed, they spread out.  What's "inbetween" them?  Again, nothing?  Perhaps, but this too seems odd to me.  There's nothing here?  Nothing?

More research to follow, as I wage "war" on weather!  Hopefully, I will not be cut down by friendly fire!

The Santa Fe Trail

part 5

September 17, 2008

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The Moral Meaning of Money

September 18, 2008

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AYN RAND

ATLAS SHRUGGED

Standing unnoticed on the edge of the group, Rearden heard a woman, who had large diamond earrings and a flabby, nervous face, ask tensely, Senor d’Anconia, what do you think is going to happen to the world?

Just exactly what it deserves.

Oh, how cruel!

Don’t you believe in the operation of the moral law, madame? Francisco asked Gravely. I do.

Rearden heard Bertram Scudder, outside the group, say to a girl who made some sound of indignation, Don’t let him disturb you. You know, money is the root of all evil — and he’s the typical product of money.

Rearden did not think that Francisco could have heard it, but he saw Francisco turning to them with a gravely courteous smile.

So you think that money is the root of all evil? said Francisco d’Anconia. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

When you accept money as payment for our effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor — your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions — and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made — before it can be looted or mooched — made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produce.

To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss — the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery — that you must offer them values, not wounds — that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade — with reason, not force, as their final arbiter — it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability — and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality — the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth — the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir: his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you’ll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

Or did you say it’s the love or money that’s the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money — and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another — their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich — will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt — and of his life, as he deserves.

Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard — the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money — the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statues are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law — men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims — then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: ‘Account overdrawn.’

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are.

You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, while you’re damning its life-blood — money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves — slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers — as industrialists.

To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money — and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conqust, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being — the self-made man — the American industrialist.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose — because it contains all the others — the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity — to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘ to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.

Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents. Now the looters’ credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to lean the difference on his own hide — as, I think, he will.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns — or dollars. Take your choice — there is no other — and your time is running out.

Francisco had not glanced at Rearden once while speaking; but the moment he finished, his eyes went straight to Rearden’s face. Rearden stood motionless, seeing nothing but Francisco d’Anconia across the moving figures and angry voices between them.

There were people who had listened, but now hurried away, and people who said, It’s horrible! — It’s not true! — How vicious and selfish! — saying it loudly and guardedly at once, as if wishing that their neighbors would hear them, but hoping that Francisco would not.

Senor d’Anconia, declared the woman with the earrings, I don’t agree with you!

If you can refute a single sentence I uttered, madame, I shall hear it gratefully.

Oh, I can’t answer you. I don’t have any answers, my mind doesn’t work that way, but I don’t feel that you’re right, so I know that you’re wrong.

How do you know it?

I feel it. I don’t go by my head, but by my heart. You might be good at logic, but you’re heartless.

Madame, when we’ll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won't be of any earthly use to save them. And I’m heartless enough to say that when you’ll scream, ‘But I didn’t know it!’ — you will not be forgiven.

The woman turned away, a shudder running through the flesh of her cheeks and through the angry tremor of her voice: Well, it’s certainly a funny way to talk at party!

A Letter to Olathe Police Chief Janet Thiessen

September 19, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

Chief  Thiessen:

I recently attended a session of a task force for the collection of data from Kansas law enforcement agencies for the purposes of documenting the status of racial profiling - or the lack of it - in Kansas.

Equal treatment before the law is a foundation of our Constitution, and past transgressions have made such task forces necessary.  This is a good thing. 

I've followed the state of Missouri, along these lines, since 2000, and have seen the following results:

Things have gotten much worse!  How can this be? Over the course of this 8-year period, the “disparity index” has risen substantially! This doesn’t make any sense.

What is the Missouri Attorney General, Jay Nixon, doing about all of this? They’re collecting massive amounts of data, the data seems to show racism, and it’s getting worse. What is he saying about it? What action items have come from the process?

The remarkable similarity in the AG’s annual executive summary provides a hint. Each year, the summary statistics are changed, dates updated, and a caveat added, alerting us the data doesn’t tell the whole story. That’s it. Is there no action to be taken from this data? No – and the Attorney General and every law enforcement department in the state of Missouri knows it as well. The data is meaningless.

Like many task forces, the first step is to "see what others are doing", borrowing "best practices".  Is Missouri a "best practice"?  Mirroring Missouri only asks the proposed full-time analyst to spin straw into gold when given wrong data. Let’s be sure Kansas does not follow the same tragic Missouri footprints in this regard. The stakes are too high – the issue too important.

Let’s work to create a process that ensures action, if warranted, will be taken. Our Kansas citizens deserve this. Missouri citizens as well deserve this! Rather than site Missouri as an example to follow, let’s ourselves be the leaders in actionable task-force recommendations, from which Missouri can follow.

What could we do locally, as a first step, to lead the charge - not just in providing data relative to "racial profiling", but simultaneously provide the police department themselves information on their practices?

For example, a weakness in the data analysis above is "counting the underlying population".  This will always be a weakness, if the analysis is done like this.  Is there an alternative method?

Let's suppose we wanted to judge the "racial component" of speeding.  Here's the number of stops, tabulated by race.  What can we do with this?  How about a further calculation on what percentage of speeding motorists were issued tickets - versus mere warnings?  Are African-Americans issued a higher percentage of tickets, with few warnings?

The Missouri data does not collect this simple data.

But speed is an accompanying factor here.  It's one thing to go 74 in a 65 zone.  It's quite another to to 44 in a 35.  This type of data, if a good analysis is to be done, is necessary.

Again, Missouri data does not collect this data either.

But far from being a mere report on racial profiling, such a report - and the above is a simple start - provides you and the community essential information on how your officers are doing their jobs.  Does "Officer X" always give warnings, while "Officer Y" never?  What are the operational conditions whereby a "warning" is even deserved?

The intent of this letter is not to lay out this "information system", but to gauge your interest in creating one - something useful to your department as well as serving as a possible template the Kansas Law Enforcement Racial Profiling Task Force could use.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Michael Round

Statistician: Rational Systems, Inc.

Educator: Center for autoSocratic Excellence

13234 Long Street

Overland Park, KS  66213

(913) 515-3911

Lissajous Figures

September 20, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

Starting research on Lissajous Figures, the forerunner to my Pendulart and the famed harmonograph. 

The Magnificent Tower Crane

September 21, 2008

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Fall Season - Just Don't Fall on Me!

The Advent of the Equinox

September 22, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

As today is "Fall Equinox", I'd like to as myself a question.  What exactly is this?

I ask because I've never liked this definition:  "The equinox is the moment when the Sun is positioned directly over the Earth's equator, and the apparent position of the Sun at that moment.

Drawings from the internet have never helped me understand this, so let's take matters into our own hands and take our own pictures to see what's going on:

The next three images are to simulate the earth revolving about the sun ...

This latter picture is the case right now, and I can see now why there is a problem with the images I've seen on the internet.  To provide the proper perspective, the latitude lines would need to be curved, rather than horizontal as they are always portrayed.

The Tropics

There is an issue eating at me regarding all of this - something is missing.  I'm certain of my logic statements above.  I'm certain I understand the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn - and, in fact, now know why the region between the two is known as "The Tropics".

I know why we call the equinox what we do - literally, "Equal Night".  Why do we measure the solstices as we do?  What is their relationship to the orbit of the earth about the sun?  Am I reversing cause-and-effect somewhere in here?

For example, during the solstices, the sun strikes the earth +/- 23˚ from the equator.  During the equinox, the sun shines directly on the equator.  Therefore, between the equinox and the solstice, as the earth is flying around the sun, the sun is shining directly upon a part of the earth between 0 and 23˚ of the equator.  It's always shining straight down somewhere - and sometime.

A Drunken Random Walk

September 23, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

In past posts, I've diagrammed a "random walk", where a walker randomly takes one step north, south, east, or west. 

What would happen if, instead of walking a distinct direction, the walker can go anywhere?  What happens if, instead of going one step, he can go anywhere from zero to five steps, including stumbles, partial steps, up to five whole steps?

Let's see.

Some simulations where my "drunken random walker" moves 75 times ...

The Proximate Event

Writing the Book

September 24, 2008

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The Philosophy Behind the Book

Fractals, L-Systems, the Mandelbrot Set, the Logistic Map, Cellular Automata, Sierpinski's Triangle ... the list goes on.    The items, often non-connected and presented as non-related topics, are investigated, modeled, mastered, one after the other.

To what end?

The image of this view of dynamical systems and mathematical systems education comes to mind:

What's the alternative to presenting materials, ideas, concepts, and concretes as independent and unrelated topics?  Showing the relationship between them all?  Showing the key idea unifying all?  Showing which ideas are more general than other, with some special applications or derivatives of the more general idea?

This image comes to mind:

The viability of the computational universe, of course, is the general idea to be communicated in The Proximate Event, and serves as the key idea to be investigated.

But how?

To the high-school-aged student, uninitiated to the ideas of cellular automata and the plausibility of the computational universe, should the introduction consist of an investigation of the 1-d ECA computational universe?

Can the student gain any appreciation for the results of this sampling of the computational universe?  Of the meaning of Rule 30, or Rule 110? 

Probably not.

But that's the goal.

How to get there?

What should be the starting point for a student with little background in the ideas of this "New Kind of Order" we're talking about?   What should be the sequence of events be to acquire the interest of the student?

Let's compound the equation with a not-so-irrelevant item: because most curriculum are already full, let's not kid ourselves a new topic will be accepted with open arms by teachers.  They have enough to teach already without having something else handed to them. 

With this in mind, the ideas we're talking about are to be pursued outside the classroom - by the student learning on their own time!

Now the magnitude of our problem becomes clear: how do we get and keep the interest of the introductory student learning on their own time?  Quite a challenge!  In the classroom, we can always fall back onto "because I'm the teacher and you're the student".  Not so when it's the kid at home at night.

So what to start with?

And not just "what to start with", but additionally, "What is it I want to communicate in this book?"

Some thoughts:

1. the ability to create one's own programs.  The simplest of these ideas still require one to "get in and get their hands dirty"; consequently, one has to be able to program.  Unfortunately, many programming languages have a steep learning curve - clearly a gumption trap for someone who wants to "be up and running quickly".   The intermediate objective:  use Excel as a lever to allow the novice to jump right in.

2.  to "jump right in" suggests the student can.  Jumping in without the ability to swim ensures a brutal intellectual drowning.  To avoid this, simple examples must be provided allowing one to go from the easy to the hard.

3. points (1) and (2) beg the question, "How best to start?"  Start with an example everybody is familiar with, and allows one to leverage this simple starting point to achieve points (1) and (2).

4. the naming of rules is crucial to working with NKS.  The convention is different than what most students are use to.  The simple example should, at some point, start to integrate the model with the naming of the model.

5. what specifically regarding the computational universe is sought?  The viability of "rule-based" growth, variation, and the interaction with the environment.  How does one communicate these naturally to the student?  Each chapter starts with a question, answers it, but ends observing some form of anomaly suggesting the theory isn't quite right.  The subsequent chapter addresses the question, and the ideas communicated accordingly.

THE ULTIMATE GOAL

Demonstrate the viability of the computational universe? You bet. Though that was a fundamental issue earlier, what I really want to have happen with this book is NOT the communication of the idea of such a universe. Rather, it's to get high-school aged students interested in all of this - from different perspectives: biology, chemistry, physics, geology - anything. One cannot help but look at the universe differently from this new paradigm.

Common Language

September 25, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

I sadly have grown accustomed to the discourse between politicians, and politicians and journalists.  I have accepted journalists accepting as fact a statement by one party, only to have a different fact presented by the opposing party - with no challenge.

I have grown weary with numbness politicians projecting numbers 20 years into the future, when the degree of predictability is more likely less than one.

I have watched respected journalists lead debates, yet ask no probing questions on the philosophy of a candidate's position, instead focusing on the specific, the now, and consequentially, the irrelevant.

But the mortgage crisis has moved me to write, as it's clear the number of "good" journalists can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

"What happened?"

This should be an easy question, when the financial ramifications of the issue are closing in on one TRILLION dollars.  "What happened?"

The professional journalist community accepts the words of both parties blaming the other, without investigating and reporting in lucid narrative what actually did happen.

Irresponsible.

But this is half the condemnation I pronounce here.  The other half goes to both political parties - equally.  Likely the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meltdowns are the result of Democratic policies enacted over a long period, providing loans where loans should not have been provided.  Merely writing those words demonstrates how ridiculous the situation is we find ourselves.  Damn them!

If it's true Republicans have tried numerous times over the past eight years to provide legislation regarding oversight of these troubled behemouths, only to be stymied by Democrats, well Damn the Republicans anyway!  It's not enough to say, "We tried, but they wouldn't let us!"  If the issue were that important, a moral politician would grab a microphone and stand on the front of the Congressional steps and yell for everybody to hear:  "Here's what's going on!"

Did they?

No.

Could they?  Would they be able to communicate - in common language - what was going on?

And how would the journalistic community respond?  Would they investigate the claim?  Would they be able to communicate - in common language - what was going on?

To both questions, I answer with certainty:  NO!  Both political and journalistic communities are intellectually bankrupt.

In 1776, Thomas Paine published "Common Sense", a 48-page pamphlet arguing, in a style the "common person" could understand, for independence.  It's been claimed this short pamphlet was “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era.”

What did Paine say about the complexity of government?  Substitute "America" for "England", and the power of his words ring with clarity:

"But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine."

And how does Paine close?

"Let the names of whig and tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen; an open and resolute friend; and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND, and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA.

The Spectacular Stradivarius

September 26, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

Peer through this "digital" window, and look at the instruments.  Violins on the left, ranging in price from hundreds to thousands.  This got me thinking about the famed "Stradivarius".

But not just in name, but in value.  A Stradivarius goes now for HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars.

One thought was, many things old are valuable because they are old.  But musical experts claim a Stradivarius sounds better than any violins ever made.

How can this be?

With existing technology and knowledge, why can't we make something that sounds as good as that made by hand hundreds of years ago?

I think I now know the answer.

Antonio Stradivarius

by Edgar Bundy, 1893

The belief in the quality of Stradivarius violin, it's believed, is due to the wood used.  Why would it be different than wood today?  This wood was particularly dense.

How do we know this?  Why would this be?  We know, from the period, the trees in his part of the world were particularly dense - by way of tree ring growth.

But why would tree ring growth be unusual narrow here - and at this time?  A drought or ice-age seem to be the only conditions.  Were either the case at this time?

We know because of the work of Edward Maunder.

Edward Maunder (1851 – 1928) was an English astronomer best remembered for his study of sunspots and the solar magnetic cycle that led to his identification of the period from 1645 to 1715 that is now known as the Maunder Minimum.  What does historical sunspot data look like?

But how can sunspot data be irregular?  I've always thought of the sun as being this big, round thing in the sky.  There must be a ton of irregularity to it for such data to be the results.  Therefore:

And I have my answer.  The sun, an irregular sphere dispensing heat irregularly throughout time, causes an ice age.  The ice age stresses trees, making those that survive very dense.  Stradivarius?  Oh!  I forgot to mention he was born RIGHT AT THE START OF THIS TIME!  Therefore, born at the time of the "Little Ice Age", Stradivarius is within reach of such trees.  He's a great violin maker to begin with, but now has been handed great materials!  The result?  The Stradivarius!

Paul Newman:  RIP

September 27, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

To many, Paul Newman was "Cool Hand Luke", "Butch Cassidy", "Henry Gondorff", "Fast Eddie Felson", or a variety of other colorful characters.  My favorite role:  Ari Ben Canaan in Exodus.

A repost of my January 21 entry is appropriate here.

To Paul Newman: Well Done!

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What was the operational message of MLK, Jr.?  Peaceful nonviolence?  How does this work in reality?  One sits at a restaurant counter where the sign says you're not allowed, and demand service.  The police come, and you're arrested.  You're struck.  You're put in jail.  This, done on a grand scale, must bring attention to the issue.  It becomes an issue that cannot be avoided.  It must be dealt with.  Part of me agrees with this.

On the other hand, if you refuse me service while serving the man next to me, my first inclination is to throw a brick through your window.  If you strike me, be assured you will be hit harder.  But does this make the situation better, or worse?

Is there a context, I wonder, where both are relevant? Both are practical?  Likely.

Watching - rewatching - Exodus, the quote below I believe wonderfully depicts the goal, whether the issue is Jews, Arabs, Blacks, Whites, or any group of people.  And herein may lie a direction to a solution.  We talk in terms of "groups" of people.  We are all individuals.  Wouldn't it be nice if discussions took place under the auspices of the nature of man, man's nature, man's relationship with reality, and a political system consistent with and recognizing that nature?  Individual rights!

The Practice of Polygony

September 28, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

For some time, the way I calculated the sum of the internal angles of a polygon was as follows.  I would draw a polygon, connect from the center a line to a vertex of the polygon, count the triangles, multiply this by 180, and subtract out 360 (accounting for the angles at the center of the polygon which add up to a circle, but are not interior angles of the polygon).

Fine.

This saved me from not having to remember the formula, which many know as (n-2)(180), but can easily be remembered wrongly as (n)(180), (n-2)(360).  This is low-hanging fruit to me, but as we said earlier, it still must be picked!

Of course, once you do it just one time, it becomes automatic.  The boxes above evaporate into an automatic mental response, and the formula comes automatically - visually - geometrically!

Fine.

One day I was shown, by a friend, an easier way, one not depending on the bias of my drawing (which was always a regular polygon - at least in my head).  With this method, one connects vertices until all are connected, forming triangles.  There are (n-2) triangles formed, each having a degree total of 180, resulting in the sum of the interior angles of a polygon equal to (n-2)(180).

For example:

But something struck me as odd.  I saw how my image of a polygon was distorted, but why then was the result the same?

But then the discussion took a trip to the Twilight Zone.  I drew the following hexagon, and started to draw the connecting lines to form my triangles:

I was immediately rebuked, told the method only worked with "concave" polygons, where there were no angles that exceeded 180 degrees.  The angle south of the "shark fin", for example, is about 225 degrees.

I drew my lines anyways, and found it didn't matter the nature of the polygon - the formula still worked!  I found myself in an awkward position: here I had been shown an easier method that didn't depend on the "regularity" of the polygon my original method did, but when confronted with an "odd" polygon they themselves thought exempt from the rule found it too agreed with the formula!

We both were somehow stuck to an old paradigm!

I got to thinking, later, about connecting the dots, and the bias we bring to the table when connecting them.  How many ways are there to connect the points of a polygon?  Using the figure above, here they are:

Try it for yourself:  they all seem to add up to (n-2)(180) degrees!

What a find!

But wait!  What does that figure, 3rd row, 2nd column, mean?  There's an embedded polygon in the middle of the polygon?  What does this mean for my counting?

I have yet to put words to it, so let's exclude it from the context of our formula.

While sampling other methods of connecting the points, I came upon the following anomaly:

which also distorted my triangle-drawing process.  In the former diagram, there are really only two internal triangles, because of the "hidden" vertex!

So, my refined definition seems to be:

the sum of the interior angles of a polygon where no points are colinear and no embedded polygons exist should vertices be connected is (n-2)(180).  That sounds like a funny definition - one no one would ever remember - EXCEPT US - BECAUSE WE'VE CREATED IT OURSELVES!  It's the same formula everybody else uses - but we have an idea where it really can apply!

"Warning the Rulers From Time to Time"

September 29, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."

Connecting the Dots

September 30, 2008

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round@rationalsys.com

We're assaulted by myriad facts and issues regarding the current banking crisis at breakneck speed.  It's Wall Street!  It's the Republicans!  It's the Democrats!  It's because of too little regulation.  It's because of too much regulation!  It's because of the wrong type of regulation!

What to make of this pea-soup of issues?

What to make of this mess?  The typical analytic approach to "get your arms around the thing" is to organize these, somehow:

This doesn't solve the problem - it merely helps us get started.  It allows us to ... CONNECT THE DOTS:

Of course, this is only one way to connect the dots.  There are others.  How many others?  Let's see!  (You'll notice our familiar polygon in row 4, column 8):

Such folly.  But what other course of action can we take, if not "organize and connect"?  What a sweet presentation this would have made!  Unfortunately, though accepted at this conference, I had a conflicting conference in New York.

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SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE on QUANTITATIVE METHODS in DEFENSE and NATIONAL SECURITY

“CONNECTING THE DOTS”

A Systems Perspective in Threat Analysis, Detection, and Prevention

MICHAEL ROUND

Center for autoSOCRATIC EXCELLENCE

round@rationalsys.com

(913) 515-3911

poster abstract

The technological era has championed mass data collection as a necessary condition for analysis. For sure, great strides have been made with the backdrop of data as the foundation for a robust decision support strategy. But an interesting dilemma arises. What data do we collect to analyze? How can we be sure the data on hand is not only necessary but additionally sufficient to support reasoned analysis? What constitutes such analysis? How can we be sure?

This poster will examine the investigate techniques of Sherlock Holmes in using “data on hand”, targeted investigation methods, and the visual organization of results to better operationalize the “connecting of dots” in investigating past incidence and preventing future security threats.