i.want.world

Quantum Suicide

The ICHEP 10 comes to an end today in Paris. As I, however, browse over all that was talked about during this conference, I preceded to ponder over a thought experiment that some scientists had mentioned. Surely you remember the Large Hadron Collider. It's a device built by physicists to test some theories some of us will never understand, at the improbable cost of destroying the world. The device has failed to work numerous times ago. Some physicists came up with a reason why which centers on the role of... sabotage, from unknown time-traveling forces:

A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather. ...

According to the so-called Standard Model that rules almost all physics, the Higgs is responsible for imbuing other elementary particles with mass. “It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an “anti-miracle.”

You'd think that this is the sort of nonsense which one could dismiss off-hand. But there were some more trouble:

The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.

While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus. In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus. Although just why the Higgs would be a catastrophe is not clear. If we knew, presumably, we wouldn’t be trying to make one.

I haven't heard this thrown around, but it should also be quantum suicide at play. Imagine you flip a coin and kill yourself if you hit heads. You flip a coin, and find yourself split into one world in which you survive and another in which you cease to be a conscious entity. But from the point of view of the non-dead copies of the you, it just came up tails. You can keep flipping coins. You'll die half of the time. But from your own point of view, because you can only observe the world in which you survive, it's always tails. You are, they say, immortal in a quantum sense.

Similarly; humanity may only survive in those states of the world in which the LHC fails to operate; so of course we are alive, look around, and find that the device does not work.

I should add that none of this makes sense to me. That's fine, as there's no reason to think that our intuitions--which evolved at non-relativistic speeds etc. etc.--need to match up to how the world works. But I still very much hope that physicists one day discover that we live in a reasonable universe

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If the Earth Stood Still

The following is not a futuristic scenario. It is not science fiction. It is a demonstration of the capabilities of GIS to model the results of an extremely unlikely, yet intellectually fascinating query: What would happen if the earth stopped spinning over a period of a few decades? ArcGIS was used to perform complex raster analysis and volumetric computations and generate maps that visualize these results.

If earth ceased rotating about its axis but continued revolving around the sun and its axis of rotation maintained the same inclination, the length of a year would remain the same, but a day would last as long as a year. In this fictitious scenario, the sequential disappearance of centrifugal force would cause a catastrophic change in climate and disastrous geologic adjustments (expressed as devastating earthquakes) to the transforming equipotential gravitational state.

The lack of the centrifugal effect would result in the gravity of the earth being the only significant force controlling the extent of the oceans. Prominent celestial bodies such as the moon and sun would also play a role, but because of their distance from the earth, their impact on the extent of global oceans would be negligible.

If the earth's gravity alone was responsible for creating a new geography, the huge bulge of oceanic water-which is now about 8 km high at the equator-would migrate to where a stationary earth's gravity would be the strongest. This bulge is attributed to the centrifugal effect of earth's spinning with a linear speed of 1,667 km/hour at the equator. The existing equatorial water bulge also inflates the ellipsoidal shape of the globe itself.

If the earth stood still, the oceans would gradually migrate toward the poles and cause land in the equatorial region to emerge. This would eventually result in a huge equatorial megacontinent and two large polar oceans. The line that delineates the areas that hydrologically contribute to one or the other ocean would follow the equator if the earth was a perfect ellipsoid. However, due to the significant relief of both the continents and the ocean floor, the hypothetical global divide between the areas that hydrologically contribute to one or another ocean deviates from the equator significantly.

Analogous to the well-known U.S. Continental Divide, this would be the border separating two giant hemispherical watersheds of the new circumpolar oceans.

That's from the folks at the ESRI.

Interestingly, the earth will eventually stop spinning due to negative tidal acceleration. The moon's tidal forces on the Earth's oceans have since the moon's inception cause days to be about 2 hours longer than they were about 620 million years ago. At that time, there were about 400 days in a year. However, the time when the earth will eventually stop spinning will never come. Due to the Sun's increase of radiation, the earth's ocean (there's only one ocean since they are all connected) will be completely vaporize in about 2.1 billion years from now which will remove the bulk of the mass that causes tidal friction.

Again, due to recent calculations, a time when a day is a month long will also never come because the sun will by then evolve into a red giant and destroy both the Earth and the Moon. Cool stuff.

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Crises of Capitalism

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Austrians lead debate on bank taxation

Ex post analysis and the verdict is in: more sophomoric regulations. Austria is full steam ahead with a proposed taxation of financial transactions on banks. Christoph Leitl, the head of Austria's Federal Economy Chamber (WKÖ), is the man behind the endeavor which is raising a few eyebrows.

I can tell you exactly what will happen. Any results that may eventually come out of this session from last week's European Business Summit will irrefutably be passed on to the consumer and the investor. Any burden that comes to the bank is registered as a cost and all transaction based costs are marginally based and when margins are planned, all costs are considered and they are passed on to the client. Where will this thus take the economy? Nowhere.

The indented plans of Mr. Leitl et al. are to create some sort of fund for future bank bailouts. Despite the fact that the awareness of a system that is bound to fail again is apparent, they seek to further deteriorate the system even more with taxation. We have to rid of this idea that we can somehow engineer the perfect system, a utopia. Only fools can claim such an idea.

I will not go on to point the hypocrisy in Mr. Leitl's interview but will leave you with this passage from Taleb:

The idea is simply to let human mistakes and miscalculations remain confined, and to prevent their spreading through the system, as Mother Nature does. Reducing volatility and ordinary randomness increases exposure to Black Swans-it creates
an artificial quiet.

My dream is to have a true Epistemocracy-that is, a society robust to expert errors, forecasting errors, and hubris, one that can be resistant to the incompetence of politicians, regulators, economists, central bankers, bankers, policy wonks, and epidemiologists. We cannot make economists more scientific; we cannot make humans more rational (whatever that means); we cannot make fads disappear.

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A Skyscraper for Farmers

In a city that boasts more than 1,300 people moving in daily, adding almost 100 million yuan (US$15 million) to the local economy, Chongqing is one of the largest city in western China. Its suburbs are not however how you would imagine. Consider the fact that there are more Chinese people living in tiny places then there are people in America, Chongqing has definitely its fare share of migrant workers that are in pouring from the rural country side.

'Like most rural workers in big cities, Gui Laiyun sleeps in a basic 80-square-meter apartment, which he shares with about 50 other men. The beds here are made from wooden boards and rusty scaffolding. Rent is just 1.5 yuan a day."

Thats about six people sharing a 1.9 square meter area. This ought to make one wonder how bad could the rural countryside that they are escaping from be?

"These are farmers houses that stretch for about 100 miles between Hangzhou and Shanghai. If you've seen them in person the sheer scale of the development is amazing, it basically looks like one vast urban suburb rather than countryside.

It took me over 2 hrs to get through it by train. All the houses have steep roofs, turrets, towers and even onion domes, by the thousand. Its one of the most amazing 'urban' things I've seen - seriously if anyone is in Shanghai, take the train to Hangzhou and look out of your right window...

They're all built for free by the progressive local councils:"

 
This is what he is talking about. Keep in mind that you are looking at rural China. These are built for farmers in order for them to stay and work the land. I don't know about you but I have had to readjust my picture of the rural Chinese villager living in his dusty village with an almost like hut for housing which was passed down from his grandparents.

And they're not building just houses, take look at this design of a skyscraper meant to be built as apartments for farmers which is nearly the size of the Empire State building-proposed for a site not in the city I mind you but in rural China. Construction is already on its way.

What does this all mean? I have no idea.

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How to make a nuclear bomb

Tired of being bossed around? Want your neighbors to treat you with more respect? Want to play in the majors? If so, you have to have your own nukes...

First, begin developing a civilian nuclear program. Under the NPT, you are not only entitled to a civilian nuclear program, you may even ask for help from the IAEA. The IAEA will provide you with the basic ingredients and much of the know-how for a military program. Moreover, you can legally buy reactor fuel, and thus do not have to acquire it by performing hair-raising stunts like those the Israelis pulled in 1968, when they had to hijack a ship carrying uranium after France stopped its supplies...

Too bad A. Q. Khan, the father of all nuclear smugglers, is no longer in business. He could have supplied you with everything you need to give the United States the finger: from centrifuges all the way to warhead designs. With Khan’s help, Libya almost made it into the nuclear club. But along came the Bush administration and shut down the Khan franchise. As a consequence, buying all the necessary items will now take longer and will probably cost you more; but, with enough patience and money, you will still be able to get what you need. North Korea will help you, just as they offered to help Iran and Syria. You need nukes; they need hard currency—a match made in heaven...

You will get caught, either by a US spy satellite (as in the case of North Korea), a disgruntled defector (as in the case of Iraq), or even an indigenous human rights group (as in the case of Iran). So what should you do if you get caught? First and foremost, do not overreact. Deny. Should the evidence become too powerful, then, change tack. Create a distraction. Argue that the uranium particles found in your country were purposely scattered by a hostile nation. Challenge the credibility of the information provided to the IAEA. Bring up Israel again.

Once these lame excuses have run out of steam, shift gear. Admit that you have indeed failed in certain cases to be as open as the NPT requires. Promise to cooperate with the IAEA from now on. But never admit that you are seeking anything beyond nuclear energy. If you are a Muslim country, you can also cite some arbitrary fatwas that argue that nuclear arms are incompatible with Islam. If none can be found, have one written by a clergyman.

Most importantly, continue to insist on your “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear energy. Since the NPT is not very precise, the international community may spend years trying to agree what to do with you. Claim the “nuclear powers” are trying to deny your nuclear rights and protect the political and economic benefits of monopolizing nuclear weapons and energy. Accuse the IAEA of bias. Raise Israel again.

That's NATO's Michael Ruehle guide on how a non-nuclear nation might acquire a bomb or two. It ain't easy.

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Packing Tape Cobweb Sculpture in Vienna

John Baichtal @ Make: Online spotted this packing tape installation by numen / for use that utilizes 530 rolls of the stuff and was executed over two days in Vienna.

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All We Do is Daydream

The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends, participating in sports, or relaxing with the family. While people sometimes describe sex as their most pleasurable act, time-management studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex.

Our main leisure activity is, by a long shot, participating in experiences that we know are not real. When we are free to do whatever we want, we retreat to the imagination-to worlds created by others, as with books, movies, video games, and television (over four hours a day for the average American), or to worlds we ourselves create, as when daydreaming and fantasizing. While citizens of other countries might watch less television, studies in England and the rest of Europe find a similar obsession with the unreal.

This is a strange way for an animal to spend its days. Surely we would be better off pursuing more adaptive activities-eating and drinking and fornicating, establishing relationships, building shelter, and teaching our children. Instead, 2-year-olds pretend to be lions, graduate students stay up all night playing video games, young parents hide from their offspring to read novels, and many men spend more time viewing Internet pornography than interacting with real women. One psychologist gets the puzzle exactly right when she states on her Web site: "I am interested in when and why individuals might choose to watch the television show Friends rather than spending time with actual friends." more

I could not have agreed more. Modern humans have a tendency to prefer activities which has no perceived value, evolutionary competitive edge or function just myriads and endless content consumption as an extension of their real world deficiencies and inadequacies.

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Thatcher's last stand against socialism

From Margaret Thatcher's last House of Commons Speech on November 22, 1990, where she addresses income inequality and a single currency.

HT: Taxing Tennessee

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The quotable Scott Adams

You know him as the cartoonist behind Dilbert, but my goodness, the guy can write. Here are a few quotes from some of his recent blog posts, filled with ideas that bring the reader closer to understanding the world than many an academic study.

On BP stocks

This is also a test of my theory that you should buy stocks in the companies that you hate the most. In general, you hate the companies that have the most power. And BP is the frickin' Death Star of companies. They're in the process of destroying an entire region of the world and there's still no talk of cutting their next dividend. I admire them in the same way I admire the work ethic of serial killers. There's an undeniable awesomeness about BP. I hate BP, but I still want to have their baby.

On climate change:

Humans are obsessed with their weight. I think a big part of that obsession is the simple fact that weight is easy to measure. Scales are relatively cheap, accurate enough, and sitting right on the floor next to your shower when you need them...Generally speaking, we care most about the things we can easily measure, even if we know other things are more important. The measurement bias is one of the problems with selling a concept like global warming to the masses. Individuals can't measure global warming, and it doesn't change much from day to day.

On counter-terrorism:

Terror networks are perfect targets for false communications. First, the real orders sound exactly like pranks. It would be hard to sort out the evil mastermind plots from the CIA practical jokes. For example, if you get the order to shove C4 up your ass and yell WALAWALAWALA while running toward a heavily armed American Checkpoint, is that a real one or a prank? It's hard to tell.

On the language of diplomacy:

I suppose it's the Dilbert cartoonist in me, but I can't help seeing world affairs as essentially a bunch of middle managers sitting around a rectangular table coming up with clever ways to convince the masses that turds are diamonds.

On complexity:

The real problem is that the world has become so complex that simple tasks are nearly impossible...I'd like to have an iPod. It would be great for working out. But I know that heading down that road would be disaster and heartache. Sure, it would be a simple task if it were just me. But the kids have iPods, and share an account, and there are gift cards, and limitations on porting to different devices, and a computer that only works half the time, and lord knows what other problems are lurking. The one thing I know for sure is that I'm not going to plug an iPod into the computer and happily download music with a few keystrokes. It would be more complicated than the Normandy Invasion. Instead, I just live without music. And exercise. So I suppose complexity is actually killing me now.

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