This is a culmination of issues from 4 different sources, including one from last week. The first (from last week) was an interview with Rob Brooks, an evolutionary biologist at the UNSW (University of New South Wales) in Sydney, Australia. He also wrote an article in the last issue of COSMOS about the relationship between rock and roll, and art in general, and human evolution. How rock gods like the Rolling Stones (Mick, Keith and Brian, in particular) had a number of offspring via different partners, hence ensuring the successful propagation of their genes.
What was more interesting, and even counter-intuitive, was his revelation that wealthy people statistically have more sons and poor people statistically have more daughters, and that there was a biological explanation for this. He explained that a study in Germany during the industrial revolution revealed that within the landed gentry the sons prospered and daughters didn’t, but amongst the poorer classes the reverse was true: daughters prospered and sons didn’t. He said the reason was cultural as well as biological because sons can’t marry up in the manmade class structure but daughters are more likely to. But the curious point is that, according to Brooks, this is still true today. What’s more, the female selects the sperm with the requisite X or Y chromosome according to her social status, though, of course, not consciously. In other words, nature does it for her.
When asked to give another example in the natural world, he referred to a study of red deer on an island off Scotland (don’t ask me the name of the island; this was a radio interview). Because stags have to compete with others for the does, in a poor season, it makes more sense if a pregnant doe has a female fawn because it would have a better chance of getting pregnant itself. However, in a good season she’s more likely to give birth to a stag because he will have the requisite strength to compete with others. What Brooks is saying is that this biological selection that occurs for animals in the wild also occurs for humans in modern Western civilisation. In the wild it’s climatic conditions that determine the outcome, whereas, for humans, it’s economic conditions. But in both cases the outcome is the same: for the well-off, male offspring are more likely and for the less-well-off, female offspring are more likely.
The other issue that Brooks referred to was what he called the ‘tragedy of the commons’ which he acknowledged was originally coined by Garrett Hardin and has far-reaching consequences in the modern world. The tragedy of the commons is based around the idea that different people, or, more likely, groups of people, share a common resource but no individual or particular group takes responsibility. In fact, it becomes competitive whereby one group will either deny others access or take more than their share yet blame others when this leads to scarcity. We see this in everything from the global depletion of fisheries to the climate change debate to arguments over asylum seekers and refugees.
In Australia, the climate change debate has become irrational with people targeting scientists with death threats and demonstrations demanding that scientists give the ‘other side’ a fair voice. One may well ask who the ‘other side’ is? Popular opinion seems to be the answer. In fact, the argument seems to be that this debate can be resolved by taking a vote the same way political governance is resolved. In other words, ignorance carries the same weight as scientific opinion. It’s a modern equivalent to burning witches to avert a natural calamity. As someone pointed out, getting rid of the scientists isn’t going to get rid of the science, yet that’s what these people seem to think.
The relevance between this debate and Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’ is that no one wants to take the lead in committing to lowering carbon dioxide emissions and countries all over the world point to the ‘other’ as being the chief culprit. So no one will take responsibility because it’s always someone else’s problem. In Australia, the populace at large seem to be in denial, and believe that if we stop the science investigating the problem we will stop the problem.
Yesterday I heard an interview with Wade Davis, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence (yes, that’s his official title). Davis is a man with a fascinating past, having lived with indigenous cultures all over the world, but particularly in the Amazon. His message, or one of his messages, is that we discount so many indigenous cultures as backward, irrelevant and imminently extinct.
In the Western world we live in a cocoon shielded by technology to the extent that we don’t even know where our food comes from, how our meat is killed or how many heavy metals there may be in the seafood we eat. Ignorance is bliss. We are so dependent on technology that most of us cannot even imagine living without electricity, even for one day.
Then a friend sent me an article from the New York Times about a study being done on our dependence on electronic communications, which is exactly what I’m doing now. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone camping in the bush but I have good memories of it. I grew up in a place where I could go walking in the bush and literally leave my normal life behind. We know that being in nature, quite literally, affects our well-being. What this study shows is that given time, people stop looking at their blackberries and even stop wearing a watch. For the mind, time slows down and we become more meditative.
We live in an artificial environment from the time we are born. We go to school, in part, to develop a routine that continues through our entire adult lives: get up, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed, get up… We live on a treadmill that drives the economy and if we get off we become unemployed, a burden to society, lose the meaning of our lives and become destitute.
There is a connection between this small-scale daily process that we all lead and the large scale problems facing the planet. Education is necessary because it leads to smaller families, lower birth rates and greater opportunities. This is just as relevant in third world countries as it is in the first world. But economic growth, in both developing and developed countries, insists that cities keep growing which means that populations must keep growing which means that the ‘tragedy of the commons’ becomes more critical globally, affecting water, food and energy resources world wide, which means more wars.
This is the dilemma of the human race: we have the technology to do almost anything yet we have a clash between economy and ecology, with species and cultural decimation occurring at an unprecedented rate. Davis pointed out that the disappearance of languages is synonymous with the disappearance of cultures. Yet, arguably, cultural diversity is just as important as genetic diversity.
Can we afford to lose the knowledge that allowed us to live for centuries without technology? I’m not arguing that we give up technology or turn back the clock, quite the contrary. I’m arguing that we look at the future and find a vision that doesn’t end in a train wreck. We need to rid ourselves of our dependency on fossil fuels, develop an economy that rewards recycling and longevity over waste and limitless consumerism, and change our perception from king of the evolutionary tree to a recently formed and relatively short-lived branch. Having said all that, I don’t expect it to happen without a lot of pain. Human society has a history of boom and bust. Considering the extent of the boom since mid-last century, one does not want to contemplate the bust.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Ayrton Senna, the movie, the life, the man
Notice that I didn’t say the legend because that would be so unfair, not only to Senna, but to the people who made this movie.
I saw this movie at a mid-morning session in mid-week at what is called a ‘babes in arms’ session, where mothers can bring their babies. So I was the only bloke in the cinema who didn’t have a baby, and I was surrounded by mothers with strollers and the odd father as well. Not surprisingly, the cinema was far from capacity to the extent that I expect they made no money for that viewing.
I need to make a confession: I’m a closet petrol-head, which, for most people, means that I’m one of those blokes who never grew up when it came to cars, motorcycles and anything else that goes fast. I didn’t review Eric Bana’s great autobiographic movie, Love The Beast, but this one is different. And you may well ask: how can you write a philosophical post about a racing car driver? Well, watch me.
For a start, Senna was a deeply complex person: very sensitive, which means that he was also passionate and temperamental. In this respect, I could identify with him on a personality level, albeit superficially. Senna was a person who could never hide what he was feeling. His temperament was more akin to an artist’s than a sportsperson’s. He strived for an authenticity that was very existential, despite his deeply and candidly held religious beliefs. In his early successes, he claimed it was because of his belief in God, but in truth, it was his belief in himself.
I’ve said many times that I don’t judge people for their belief in God (or not) and I don’t try to rationalise it either. But, in Senna’s case, his belief was part of what he was. God was as much a part of Senna’s makeup as his passion for racing cars (where ‘racing’ is a verb in this context). I’ve also said before (on this blog) that a belief in God can lead someone to extraordinary hubris or extraordinary humility. From what I read about Senna in the mainstream press during his Formula 1 career, I thought he was egotistical as most driven people are. But the film painted a different picture: more than one person spoke of his humility, including the F1 doctor, who became his friend, and, coincidentally, tried to talk him into retiring on the eve of his last fateful race. I think Senna’s humility was purely a result of his belief in God – it put the entire world into perspective for him – that there were things greater than him, greater than F1 championships, greater than life itself.
One cannot discuss this movie without discussing Senna’s genius and I don’t use that word lightly. If genius is defined by the ability to do what no one else can do then Senna qualifies in spades. On more than one occasion he produced performances that were considered ‘impossible’ under the circumstances. Watching his early races, he could make the car skate through corners, reminiscent of past masters like Nuvolari and Fangio. He demolished the opposition as if they were driving cars with half the power. In the wet he was unbeatable and in the dry he drove the car like he was driving in the wet. He was one of those rare drivers who could actually drive a car beyond its limit – to his limit and not the car’s.
The film is dominated by his career-long rivalry with Alain Prost, which became very personal and bitter. In 2 successive Japanese GPs, they put each other out of the race when the GP championship was hanging in the balance (on the first occasion they were driving for the same team). It goes without saying that Senna was loved in Japan, though not as much as he was loved in Brasil. Senna was loyal to his roots, both national and familial – it was part of who he was. He made it clear that he wanted to set up a fund to give under-privileged children an education. After his death, his sister Viviane fulfilled that dream and Prost is one of the trustees. Prost was also a pall-bearer at his funeral.
Senna also had a testy and, dare-I-say-it, openly confrontational relationship with F1’s boss at the time, Jean-Marie Balestre (FIA President). There is one scene in the ‘drivers’ room’, prior to a race, where they have a stand-up and heated argument. Balestre manages to save face but Senna gets his way because the other drivers support him. Many might argue that the film is unfair to Prost and I suspect that another version would give a different perspective on their ‘war’.
This is a sport where death is much closer than other ‘gladiator’ contests we see in the modern world but it would be wrong to assume that racing car drivers, and Formula 1 drivers in particular, have a callous disregard for life. Senna talks honestly and candidly about this aspect of his sport in one interview, after Prost claimed that Senna’s belief in God made him ‘dangerous’ on the circuit.
We see 3 deaths in this film, and everyone is clearly and deeply affected by them, none more so than Senna. There was a death during practice at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy (Austrian, Roland Ratzenberger) and Senna was deeply affected by it. It was after this incident that F1’s Chief Doctor, Sid Watkins, suggested that Senna retire and they go fishing together. In fact, after this incident it was unsure if Senna would even take his place on the grid. There was also an earlier incident in practice when newcomer and fellow Brasilian, Rubens Barrichello, had a nasty accident, and Senna climbed a fence to be by his compatriot’s side. And then there was an incident at the start of the race itself when JJ Lehto’s car stalled on the grid and was rammed by an un-sighted Pedro Lamy. There were more injuries in the crowd, however, (8 fans and a Police Officer) than on the track, caused by this incident.
In 1993, the previous season, the Williams racing team had changed F1 racing by adding electronics to many components of the car, including the suspension. This made them unbeatable, though Senna won the last 2 races in Japan and Australia. I didn’t know this, until I saw the film, but Senna won his last race and his last podium finish in Australia.
After Williams’ technological domination, F1 changed the rules for 1994 but not before Senna had changed teams from Mclaren to Williams. What was obvious straightaway, is that without its electronic ‘magic’, the Williams’ car was rubbish. This was evidenced by the fact that the best driver in the world struggled to keep it on the track. It was obvious from body language more than words that Senna was frustrated and stressed by his inability to get the car ‘balanced’ on the track.
On the morning he died, his sister claims that Senna asked God a question, which I fail to recall (go see the movie). The answer, according to her, was that he opened his Bible and read the passage that ‘God would give his greatest gift, and that was God himself’. Obviously people can read into that what they want.
At the end of the day, Senna died in a freak accident. He came off the track on a corner, that someone claimed no one should come off. People claim that his car ‘broke’ – in particular, it’s speculated that his steering failed. Watching the incident it appears that way: the car just spears off the track as you would expect if the steering suddenly failed at high speed (refer Addendum below). Even then, Senna should have survived except that a suspension arm flew up and hit his helmet. He had no broken bones and no bruises to his body. His friend, Sid Watkins, was with him when he died. He could tell from his injuries that he wouldn’t live and he claims that he’s not a religious man but when Senna sighed and gave up his life he felt like his spirit had left him. I have to admit I’ve had that experience myself, though only once.
I should inform you that much of the film, if not all, is poor quality video, but neither this nor the occasional screaming baby could distract me from being fully and emotionally engaged by this biopic. And I concede that it glossed over some of Senna’s questionable behaviour both on and off the track: for example, when he punched rookie driver, Irishman, Eddie Irvine, for ‘unlapping’ him in the 1993 Japan Grand Prix. Having said that, when he won against Prost in the 1990 Japan Grand Prix after colliding with him, it was obvious that he took little pleasure from the win.
But perhaps the most telling piece of video is not in the main body of the film but in the credits at the end. The filmmakers show bits of video of Senna enjoying himself with his family and clowning with his friends. In the midst of this ‘fun’ they show a clip where Senna has to drive around a car, recently crashed. It’s what happens after that that really shows what Senna’s priorities were, because he stops his car on the side of the track and runs back whilst other cars are still dodging the accident to check on the driver.
After his death, Senna’s friend, Professor Sid Watkins, became head of F1 safety and whether by fate or good management or both, Senna was the last F1 fatality as I write this.
Addendum: Here is an explanation of Senna's crash, the veracity of which I cannot confirm, but it gives the impression that it's based on 'black box' data.
I saw this movie at a mid-morning session in mid-week at what is called a ‘babes in arms’ session, where mothers can bring their babies. So I was the only bloke in the cinema who didn’t have a baby, and I was surrounded by mothers with strollers and the odd father as well. Not surprisingly, the cinema was far from capacity to the extent that I expect they made no money for that viewing.
I need to make a confession: I’m a closet petrol-head, which, for most people, means that I’m one of those blokes who never grew up when it came to cars, motorcycles and anything else that goes fast. I didn’t review Eric Bana’s great autobiographic movie, Love The Beast, but this one is different. And you may well ask: how can you write a philosophical post about a racing car driver? Well, watch me.
For a start, Senna was a deeply complex person: very sensitive, which means that he was also passionate and temperamental. In this respect, I could identify with him on a personality level, albeit superficially. Senna was a person who could never hide what he was feeling. His temperament was more akin to an artist’s than a sportsperson’s. He strived for an authenticity that was very existential, despite his deeply and candidly held religious beliefs. In his early successes, he claimed it was because of his belief in God, but in truth, it was his belief in himself.
I’ve said many times that I don’t judge people for their belief in God (or not) and I don’t try to rationalise it either. But, in Senna’s case, his belief was part of what he was. God was as much a part of Senna’s makeup as his passion for racing cars (where ‘racing’ is a verb in this context). I’ve also said before (on this blog) that a belief in God can lead someone to extraordinary hubris or extraordinary humility. From what I read about Senna in the mainstream press during his Formula 1 career, I thought he was egotistical as most driven people are. But the film painted a different picture: more than one person spoke of his humility, including the F1 doctor, who became his friend, and, coincidentally, tried to talk him into retiring on the eve of his last fateful race. I think Senna’s humility was purely a result of his belief in God – it put the entire world into perspective for him – that there were things greater than him, greater than F1 championships, greater than life itself.
One cannot discuss this movie without discussing Senna’s genius and I don’t use that word lightly. If genius is defined by the ability to do what no one else can do then Senna qualifies in spades. On more than one occasion he produced performances that were considered ‘impossible’ under the circumstances. Watching his early races, he could make the car skate through corners, reminiscent of past masters like Nuvolari and Fangio. He demolished the opposition as if they were driving cars with half the power. In the wet he was unbeatable and in the dry he drove the car like he was driving in the wet. He was one of those rare drivers who could actually drive a car beyond its limit – to his limit and not the car’s.
The film is dominated by his career-long rivalry with Alain Prost, which became very personal and bitter. In 2 successive Japanese GPs, they put each other out of the race when the GP championship was hanging in the balance (on the first occasion they were driving for the same team). It goes without saying that Senna was loved in Japan, though not as much as he was loved in Brasil. Senna was loyal to his roots, both national and familial – it was part of who he was. He made it clear that he wanted to set up a fund to give under-privileged children an education. After his death, his sister Viviane fulfilled that dream and Prost is one of the trustees. Prost was also a pall-bearer at his funeral.
Senna also had a testy and, dare-I-say-it, openly confrontational relationship with F1’s boss at the time, Jean-Marie Balestre (FIA President). There is one scene in the ‘drivers’ room’, prior to a race, where they have a stand-up and heated argument. Balestre manages to save face but Senna gets his way because the other drivers support him. Many might argue that the film is unfair to Prost and I suspect that another version would give a different perspective on their ‘war’.
This is a sport where death is much closer than other ‘gladiator’ contests we see in the modern world but it would be wrong to assume that racing car drivers, and Formula 1 drivers in particular, have a callous disregard for life. Senna talks honestly and candidly about this aspect of his sport in one interview, after Prost claimed that Senna’s belief in God made him ‘dangerous’ on the circuit.
We see 3 deaths in this film, and everyone is clearly and deeply affected by them, none more so than Senna. There was a death during practice at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy (Austrian, Roland Ratzenberger) and Senna was deeply affected by it. It was after this incident that F1’s Chief Doctor, Sid Watkins, suggested that Senna retire and they go fishing together. In fact, after this incident it was unsure if Senna would even take his place on the grid. There was also an earlier incident in practice when newcomer and fellow Brasilian, Rubens Barrichello, had a nasty accident, and Senna climbed a fence to be by his compatriot’s side. And then there was an incident at the start of the race itself when JJ Lehto’s car stalled on the grid and was rammed by an un-sighted Pedro Lamy. There were more injuries in the crowd, however, (8 fans and a Police Officer) than on the track, caused by this incident.
In 1993, the previous season, the Williams racing team had changed F1 racing by adding electronics to many components of the car, including the suspension. This made them unbeatable, though Senna won the last 2 races in Japan and Australia. I didn’t know this, until I saw the film, but Senna won his last race and his last podium finish in Australia.
After Williams’ technological domination, F1 changed the rules for 1994 but not before Senna had changed teams from Mclaren to Williams. What was obvious straightaway, is that without its electronic ‘magic’, the Williams’ car was rubbish. This was evidenced by the fact that the best driver in the world struggled to keep it on the track. It was obvious from body language more than words that Senna was frustrated and stressed by his inability to get the car ‘balanced’ on the track.
On the morning he died, his sister claims that Senna asked God a question, which I fail to recall (go see the movie). The answer, according to her, was that he opened his Bible and read the passage that ‘God would give his greatest gift, and that was God himself’. Obviously people can read into that what they want.
At the end of the day, Senna died in a freak accident. He came off the track on a corner, that someone claimed no one should come off. People claim that his car ‘broke’ – in particular, it’s speculated that his steering failed. Watching the incident it appears that way: the car just spears off the track as you would expect if the steering suddenly failed at high speed (refer Addendum below). Even then, Senna should have survived except that a suspension arm flew up and hit his helmet. He had no broken bones and no bruises to his body. His friend, Sid Watkins, was with him when he died. He could tell from his injuries that he wouldn’t live and he claims that he’s not a religious man but when Senna sighed and gave up his life he felt like his spirit had left him. I have to admit I’ve had that experience myself, though only once.
I should inform you that much of the film, if not all, is poor quality video, but neither this nor the occasional screaming baby could distract me from being fully and emotionally engaged by this biopic. And I concede that it glossed over some of Senna’s questionable behaviour both on and off the track: for example, when he punched rookie driver, Irishman, Eddie Irvine, for ‘unlapping’ him in the 1993 Japan Grand Prix. Having said that, when he won against Prost in the 1990 Japan Grand Prix after colliding with him, it was obvious that he took little pleasure from the win.
But perhaps the most telling piece of video is not in the main body of the film but in the credits at the end. The filmmakers show bits of video of Senna enjoying himself with his family and clowning with his friends. In the midst of this ‘fun’ they show a clip where Senna has to drive around a car, recently crashed. It’s what happens after that that really shows what Senna’s priorities were, because he stops his car on the side of the track and runs back whilst other cars are still dodging the accident to check on the driver.
After his death, Senna’s friend, Professor Sid Watkins, became head of F1 safety and whether by fate or good management or both, Senna was the last F1 fatality as I write this.
Addendum: Here is an explanation of Senna's crash, the veracity of which I cannot confirm, but it gives the impression that it's based on 'black box' data.
Saturday, 27 August 2011
Tenth Anniversary of Tampa
It’s been 10 years yesterday since the infamous Tampa incident unfolded under the Howard government of the day, and, by tapping into Australia’s inherent paranoia and xenophobia, given fresh air by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, helped Howard to win an election.
This is part of Australia’s shame yet most seem to be caught up in the hysteria still, as ‘boat people’ once again become the pawns in our major political parties’ determination to prove who has the most backbone in halting asylum seekers coming to this country. Really, it’s a battle to see who can be the most amoral, least charitable and most pernicious in treating victims of foreign conflicts.
Julian Burnside QC, an outspoken advocate for the rights of refugees, wrote an excellent editorial in yesterday’s AGE in the hope of convincing Australians that they are misinformed and manipulated without compunction by our political leaders on both sides of the House.
Anyway, I won’t waste words when Burnside’s argument is far more informative and eloquent than anything I could write on the subject.
Back in April 2009, I wrote a short post called Tampa Revisited concerning horrific stories of atrocities committed against refugees forced to return to Afghanistan. Here is a story with a positive outcome because the refugees were given sanctuary in our neighbouring country, New Zealand.
This is part of Australia’s shame yet most seem to be caught up in the hysteria still, as ‘boat people’ once again become the pawns in our major political parties’ determination to prove who has the most backbone in halting asylum seekers coming to this country. Really, it’s a battle to see who can be the most amoral, least charitable and most pernicious in treating victims of foreign conflicts.
Julian Burnside QC, an outspoken advocate for the rights of refugees, wrote an excellent editorial in yesterday’s AGE in the hope of convincing Australians that they are misinformed and manipulated without compunction by our political leaders on both sides of the House.
Anyway, I won’t waste words when Burnside’s argument is far more informative and eloquent than anything I could write on the subject.
Back in April 2009, I wrote a short post called Tampa Revisited concerning horrific stories of atrocities committed against refugees forced to return to Afghanistan. Here is a story with a positive outcome because the refugees were given sanctuary in our neighbouring country, New Zealand.
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Great Equations
This is a book by Robert P. Crease, subtitled The hunt for cosmic beauty in numbers, and it takes the reader from Pythagoras’s Theorem to quantum mechanics. In so doing, it pretty well covers the whole of Western physics – it's as much history as it is exposition – which makes it an ideal introduction for anyone with only a passing knowledge of physics and mathematics.
Crease takes us from Euclid to Newton, Euler, Boltzmann, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger and Heisenberg. Even though he jumps from Euclid to Newton (chapters 1 to 2) he includes others who played a significant role: in particular, Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Descartes. It’s this historical context that gives the book a semblance of narrative, albeit an episodic one, and provides an appeal that may go beyond scientific nerds like myself. There is, in fact, very little mathematics in the book, yet he explains the physics behind the equations with eloquence and erudition. That’s quite an accolade, considering he covers the most seminal scientific discoveries and equations in all of Western history.
Only 2 of the ‘great equations’ are pure mathematics, the other 8 (4 of which are 20th Century) are all physics equations. The 2 exceptions are the well-known, and erroneously titled, Pythagoras’s Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2), and the lesser known, but no less iconic, Euler’s identity (eiπ + 1 = 0). Euler’s identity is technically not really an equation because it contains no variables, and it’s derived from Euler’s equation: eix = cosx + isinx. But no book of ‘great equations’ could leave it out.
Pythagoras’s equation, as it relates to right angle triangles, was well known centuries before Pythagoras, and was discovered independently in various cultures, including India, China and Egypt. But even though the proof may well have been developed by Pythagoras or his school, it is Euclid’s proof that is best known. In fact, Euclid’s famous Elements, as Crease points out, is the first known work to provide mathematical proofs from stated axioms and became the standard by which mathematics has been mined ever since.
One of the historical and philosophical points that Crease makes is that, during the period from the Ancient Greeks to Newton, there were 2 recognised sources of knowledge and it was only during the renaissance that a conflict first arose, epitomised by Galileo’s famous clash with the Catholic Church.
What is not so well known is that Euclid’s Elements was the second most published book after the Bible following its initial typesetting in Venice in 1482. I find it most interesting that a mathematical volume should contest the Bible as a source of ‘truth’, during a period when Christianity was, politically, the most powerful force in Europe. Half a millennia on, this conflict still exists for some people, yet, for most of us, there is simply no contest, epistemologically.
Mathematics is a source of truth that no religious writings can match, because religious scriptures (of any persuasion) are completely open to diverse interpretations, dependent on the reader, whereas mathematical truths are both universal and epistemologically independent of the individual who discovers them.
Crease covers 2 of Newton’s equations: the second law of motion (F = ma) and the universal equation of gravitation (Fg = m1m2G/r2). Newton transformed the way we perceive abstract qualities like force, energy and gravity, which are, nevertheless, all tangible to our everyday experience. It was Newton’s discovery and consequential deployment of calculus (he called it fluxions) that opened up this world of physics from which we’ve never looked back. Despite the consequential discoveries of people like Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger and Heisenberg (all covered in this book) Newton’s equations are no less significant today than they were in his time, and no less relevant as humankind’s exploration of the solar system has demonstrated.
Euler’s identity is arguably of less significance to our everyday understanding of the universe (than Newton’s mathematical discoveries) yet no one who comes across it for the first time and appreciates its deep profundity can help but be gobsmacked by it. In one succinct formula it pulls together so many strands of mathematics: logarithms, trigonometry, calculus, power series and complex algebra. It’s all the more impressive when one realises it’s made up of 2 infinite series, that when combined gives the most unlikely relationship in mathematics between rational, irrational and imaginary numbers. The equation, as opposed to the better known identity (that is effectively a special case) is central to Schrodinger’s equation, developed a couple of centuries later.
Euler’s identity seems to encapsulate mathematical truth, which is why it has gained iconic status. As Richard Feynman wrote just months before his 15th birthday, when he first discovered it: ‘[it is] The most remarkable formula in math.’ Like the great Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who also discovered it whilst still in high school, Feynman was disappointed to learn that Euler had made the connection a couple of centuries earlier. It’s not for nothing that it’s earned the title, God’s equation.
No book on great equations could leave out Einstein’s famous equation (E = mc2) that is a direct consequence of his special theory of relativity, and Crease provides a good exposition of how the theory developed and its logical consequence from a conceptual conflict between Maxwell’s equations and Newton’s mechanics. Crease also captures the other players like Fitzgerald, Lorentz and Poincare, which makes us realise that Einstein’s theories would have eventually evolved even without Einstein. But it was Einstein’s ambitious thought experiments that set him apart from his contemporaries and led him to the iconoclastic theories that history deservedly gives him credit for.
I’ve skipped over Maxwell’s equations and the second law of thermodynamics, yet in both cases, Crease points out that these discoveries transformed life as we know it. One was essential to the industrial revolution and the other to the communications industry that followed. He makes the salient point that few people appreciate the significance of great scientific discoveries and their impact on so-called civilisation the way they appreciate political changes and acts of war. He quotes Feynman, who once claimed that Maxwell’s equations would come to have a greater historical significance than the American Civil War, both being products of the 19th Century.
On my 50th birthday I was given a copy of Peter Watson’s A Terrible Beauty; A History of the People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind. This ambitious book covers the entire 20th Century and was published to coincide with the dawn of the new Millennium. But, instead of covering the politics and wars that enveloped that century, Watson concentrated on the science and art, which he wrote about with equal erudition. It’s an extraordinary book and a great birthday present. I read it over a year, whilst travelling and working in North America, simultaneously writing my only published novel.
I mention Watson’s book because it encapsulates a point that Crease makes more than once: how the importance of scientific erudition often gets lost when scholars examine the history of the Western world. He makes this point specifically in regard to the 2 aforementioned 19th Century discoveries: Maxwell’s equations and the second law of thermodynamics.
Crease quotes Max Born in his introduction to Einstein’s equation of his General Theory of Relativity, who compared it to a work of art. I have to admit that was how I considered it when I first read about it in Einstein’s own words. I confess that I didn’t follow the physics and the mathematics at the time, yet I appreciated its significance and its beauty. Conceptually, Einstein realised that a falling body feels no force, which appears to contradict Newton’s formulation. He reformulated it so the motion of a falling body is a consequence of the geometry of space-time that is curved as a result of the existence of mass. This is an extraordinary intellectual achievement, especially when one realises that his equation maintains Newton’s inverse square law, thereby only disagreeing with Newton on relativistic grounds. Even the word genius sometimes seems inadequate when you apply it to Einstein; such was his vision, bravado and intellectual tenacity.
I wrote an exposition on Schrodinger’s equation back in May, and I’m proud to say it’s become my most popular post, though it’s strictly an introduction. One thing Crease does better than me is to explain the dichotomy between quantum mechanics and classical physics. In particular, he contends that the so-called collapse of the wave function is conceptually misleading. He argues that the wave function is a convenient mathematical device, like a plot device in a narrative (my analogy, not his) that no longer serves any purpose once a measurement is made. The wave function gives a probability that is confirmed statistically over many measurements, but determines nothing specific for a specific event.
The last great equation in his book is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle expressed mathematically. By juxtaposing it with Schrodinger’s equation in the previous, second-to-last chapter, Crease demonstrates how the 2 antagonists used different mathematics to reach the same result. In other words, Schrodinger’s wave mechanics and Heisenberg’s matrices are mathematically equivalent (proven by Schrodinger), yet the different approaches led to arguments about what they meant conceptually and philosophically. Interestingly, Born played a key role in both interpretations: he realised that Schrodinger’s wave mechanics led to probabilities; and he realised that Heisenberg’s non-commutative algebra could be reformulated using matrices, and this led to the precursor of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle with the conclusion pq does not equal qp, where p represents momentum and q represents position of a particle.
Crease’s account exemplifies the importance of ideas being challenged in their formative stages by people of comparable knowledge, and how the interaction between philosophy and science is a necessary factor in the advancement of scientific theories.
Like Schrodinger’s equations, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle makes predictions that can be confirmed experimentally, yet the predictions can never be specific. Both equations, in different ways, highlight the inherent fuzziness that differentiates quantum mechanics from classical physics, whether it be Newtonian or relativistic. In fact, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity have never been satisfactorily resolved, with the best contender being String Theory requiring 11 dimensions and predicting 10500 universes.
In his conclusion, Crease emphasises how the discovery process for theoreticians often involves a re-evaluation of what they set out to achieve. No where is this more apparent than in the early 20th century when physics underwent 2 revolutions, the epistemological and ontological consequences of which are still unresolved today.
Crease takes us from Euclid to Newton, Euler, Boltzmann, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger and Heisenberg. Even though he jumps from Euclid to Newton (chapters 1 to 2) he includes others who played a significant role: in particular, Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Descartes. It’s this historical context that gives the book a semblance of narrative, albeit an episodic one, and provides an appeal that may go beyond scientific nerds like myself. There is, in fact, very little mathematics in the book, yet he explains the physics behind the equations with eloquence and erudition. That’s quite an accolade, considering he covers the most seminal scientific discoveries and equations in all of Western history.
Only 2 of the ‘great equations’ are pure mathematics, the other 8 (4 of which are 20th Century) are all physics equations. The 2 exceptions are the well-known, and erroneously titled, Pythagoras’s Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2), and the lesser known, but no less iconic, Euler’s identity (eiπ + 1 = 0). Euler’s identity is technically not really an equation because it contains no variables, and it’s derived from Euler’s equation: eix = cosx + isinx. But no book of ‘great equations’ could leave it out.
Pythagoras’s equation, as it relates to right angle triangles, was well known centuries before Pythagoras, and was discovered independently in various cultures, including India, China and Egypt. But even though the proof may well have been developed by Pythagoras or his school, it is Euclid’s proof that is best known. In fact, Euclid’s famous Elements, as Crease points out, is the first known work to provide mathematical proofs from stated axioms and became the standard by which mathematics has been mined ever since.
One of the historical and philosophical points that Crease makes is that, during the period from the Ancient Greeks to Newton, there were 2 recognised sources of knowledge and it was only during the renaissance that a conflict first arose, epitomised by Galileo’s famous clash with the Catholic Church.
What is not so well known is that Euclid’s Elements was the second most published book after the Bible following its initial typesetting in Venice in 1482. I find it most interesting that a mathematical volume should contest the Bible as a source of ‘truth’, during a period when Christianity was, politically, the most powerful force in Europe. Half a millennia on, this conflict still exists for some people, yet, for most of us, there is simply no contest, epistemologically.
Mathematics is a source of truth that no religious writings can match, because religious scriptures (of any persuasion) are completely open to diverse interpretations, dependent on the reader, whereas mathematical truths are both universal and epistemologically independent of the individual who discovers them.
Crease covers 2 of Newton’s equations: the second law of motion (F = ma) and the universal equation of gravitation (Fg = m1m2G/r2). Newton transformed the way we perceive abstract qualities like force, energy and gravity, which are, nevertheless, all tangible to our everyday experience. It was Newton’s discovery and consequential deployment of calculus (he called it fluxions) that opened up this world of physics from which we’ve never looked back. Despite the consequential discoveries of people like Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger and Heisenberg (all covered in this book) Newton’s equations are no less significant today than they were in his time, and no less relevant as humankind’s exploration of the solar system has demonstrated.
Euler’s identity is arguably of less significance to our everyday understanding of the universe (than Newton’s mathematical discoveries) yet no one who comes across it for the first time and appreciates its deep profundity can help but be gobsmacked by it. In one succinct formula it pulls together so many strands of mathematics: logarithms, trigonometry, calculus, power series and complex algebra. It’s all the more impressive when one realises it’s made up of 2 infinite series, that when combined gives the most unlikely relationship in mathematics between rational, irrational and imaginary numbers. The equation, as opposed to the better known identity (that is effectively a special case) is central to Schrodinger’s equation, developed a couple of centuries later.
Euler’s identity seems to encapsulate mathematical truth, which is why it has gained iconic status. As Richard Feynman wrote just months before his 15th birthday, when he first discovered it: ‘[it is] The most remarkable formula in math.’ Like the great Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who also discovered it whilst still in high school, Feynman was disappointed to learn that Euler had made the connection a couple of centuries earlier. It’s not for nothing that it’s earned the title, God’s equation.
No book on great equations could leave out Einstein’s famous equation (E = mc2) that is a direct consequence of his special theory of relativity, and Crease provides a good exposition of how the theory developed and its logical consequence from a conceptual conflict between Maxwell’s equations and Newton’s mechanics. Crease also captures the other players like Fitzgerald, Lorentz and Poincare, which makes us realise that Einstein’s theories would have eventually evolved even without Einstein. But it was Einstein’s ambitious thought experiments that set him apart from his contemporaries and led him to the iconoclastic theories that history deservedly gives him credit for.
I’ve skipped over Maxwell’s equations and the second law of thermodynamics, yet in both cases, Crease points out that these discoveries transformed life as we know it. One was essential to the industrial revolution and the other to the communications industry that followed. He makes the salient point that few people appreciate the significance of great scientific discoveries and their impact on so-called civilisation the way they appreciate political changes and acts of war. He quotes Feynman, who once claimed that Maxwell’s equations would come to have a greater historical significance than the American Civil War, both being products of the 19th Century.
On my 50th birthday I was given a copy of Peter Watson’s A Terrible Beauty; A History of the People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind. This ambitious book covers the entire 20th Century and was published to coincide with the dawn of the new Millennium. But, instead of covering the politics and wars that enveloped that century, Watson concentrated on the science and art, which he wrote about with equal erudition. It’s an extraordinary book and a great birthday present. I read it over a year, whilst travelling and working in North America, simultaneously writing my only published novel.
I mention Watson’s book because it encapsulates a point that Crease makes more than once: how the importance of scientific erudition often gets lost when scholars examine the history of the Western world. He makes this point specifically in regard to the 2 aforementioned 19th Century discoveries: Maxwell’s equations and the second law of thermodynamics.
Crease quotes Max Born in his introduction to Einstein’s equation of his General Theory of Relativity, who compared it to a work of art. I have to admit that was how I considered it when I first read about it in Einstein’s own words. I confess that I didn’t follow the physics and the mathematics at the time, yet I appreciated its significance and its beauty. Conceptually, Einstein realised that a falling body feels no force, which appears to contradict Newton’s formulation. He reformulated it so the motion of a falling body is a consequence of the geometry of space-time that is curved as a result of the existence of mass. This is an extraordinary intellectual achievement, especially when one realises that his equation maintains Newton’s inverse square law, thereby only disagreeing with Newton on relativistic grounds. Even the word genius sometimes seems inadequate when you apply it to Einstein; such was his vision, bravado and intellectual tenacity.
I wrote an exposition on Schrodinger’s equation back in May, and I’m proud to say it’s become my most popular post, though it’s strictly an introduction. One thing Crease does better than me is to explain the dichotomy between quantum mechanics and classical physics. In particular, he contends that the so-called collapse of the wave function is conceptually misleading. He argues that the wave function is a convenient mathematical device, like a plot device in a narrative (my analogy, not his) that no longer serves any purpose once a measurement is made. The wave function gives a probability that is confirmed statistically over many measurements, but determines nothing specific for a specific event.
The last great equation in his book is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle expressed mathematically. By juxtaposing it with Schrodinger’s equation in the previous, second-to-last chapter, Crease demonstrates how the 2 antagonists used different mathematics to reach the same result. In other words, Schrodinger’s wave mechanics and Heisenberg’s matrices are mathematically equivalent (proven by Schrodinger), yet the different approaches led to arguments about what they meant conceptually and philosophically. Interestingly, Born played a key role in both interpretations: he realised that Schrodinger’s wave mechanics led to probabilities; and he realised that Heisenberg’s non-commutative algebra could be reformulated using matrices, and this led to the precursor of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle with the conclusion pq does not equal qp, where p represents momentum and q represents position of a particle.
Crease’s account exemplifies the importance of ideas being challenged in their formative stages by people of comparable knowledge, and how the interaction between philosophy and science is a necessary factor in the advancement of scientific theories.
Like Schrodinger’s equations, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle makes predictions that can be confirmed experimentally, yet the predictions can never be specific. Both equations, in different ways, highlight the inherent fuzziness that differentiates quantum mechanics from classical physics, whether it be Newtonian or relativistic. In fact, quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity have never been satisfactorily resolved, with the best contender being String Theory requiring 11 dimensions and predicting 10500 universes.
In his conclusion, Crease emphasises how the discovery process for theoreticians often involves a re-evaluation of what they set out to achieve. No where is this more apparent than in the early 20th century when physics underwent 2 revolutions, the epistemological and ontological consequences of which are still unresolved today.
Monday, 27 June 2011
The case of Jock Palfreeman
This is a story about clashes: a clash of cultures, a clash of justice systems, a clash of families; and its genesis was a clash on the streets that has resulted in tragedy for both sides. I’m sure no one knows about this outside of Bulgaria and Australia, and I suspect some will see it as a clash of two countries.
Not surprisingly, I’ve only seen one side of the story, through Australian journalists and an Australian family, though the prosecutor for the Bulgarian side was interviewed and we see footage of the victim’s father voicing his opinion on Bulgarian national television. The victim’s family refused to be interviewed by Australian journalists (from the ABC).
Basically, 24 year old Jock Palfreeman, an Australian who has spent some time in Bulgaria – enough to be familiar with its darker side – became involved in a melee when he went to the aid of a Roma (gypsy) being bashed and became the target of the attack himself. According to his account, he was knocked to the ground when hit on the head from behind, and, when he regained his feet, drew a knife to defend himself. This apparently resulted in the death of 20 year old Andrei Monov, who suffered a single knife wound under his armpit, though Palfreeman claims he has no memory of inflicting the wound, even though he admits he was wielding a knife.
There are statements from witnesses who support Palfreeman’s account of events, quite accurately, yet these statements were not admitted to the court, and Police written statements also conflicted with their in-court evidence. When the defence team requested that the original Police statements be admitted to court, they were overruled by the victim’s family, who were part of the prosecution team. Apparently, this is the norm in Bulgaria. Jock Palfreeman’s father, Dr. Simon Palfreeman, who is a pathologist, had to mount the defence case, though he hired an Australian legal team to help him.
Simon Palfreeman, who is a scientist by discipline, had never had to deal with a legal exercise of this nature before, let alone in a foreign Eastern bloc country. In hindsight, his faith that justice and fair representation would prevail could be seen as naïve. Certainly, his son has a better appreciation of the situation than his father.
In the end, Jock Palfreeman was charged with ‘Murder with hooliganism’ and the sentence handed down was 20 years. They’ve since gone through an appeal process, which is Part 2 of the programme, and the conviction was upheld. The defence team are now talking about going to the European Court of Human Rights where Bulgaria has 200 cases pending, apparently.
What I find remarkable, in Part 2, is that Jock Palfreeman has not only become acceptant of his fate, but has taken on a role of supporting fellow inmates in one the worse prisons in Europe, according to Dr Krassimir Kanev, Bulgarian Helsinki Commitee, Human Rights Group.
Part 1 and Part 2 are 30mins each, or you can read the transcripts.
Addendum: It's worth watching/listening to the 5 min interview with Prof. David Barclay, an internationally recognised forensics expert at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland (behind the Part 2 link).
Not surprisingly, I’ve only seen one side of the story, through Australian journalists and an Australian family, though the prosecutor for the Bulgarian side was interviewed and we see footage of the victim’s father voicing his opinion on Bulgarian national television. The victim’s family refused to be interviewed by Australian journalists (from the ABC).
Basically, 24 year old Jock Palfreeman, an Australian who has spent some time in Bulgaria – enough to be familiar with its darker side – became involved in a melee when he went to the aid of a Roma (gypsy) being bashed and became the target of the attack himself. According to his account, he was knocked to the ground when hit on the head from behind, and, when he regained his feet, drew a knife to defend himself. This apparently resulted in the death of 20 year old Andrei Monov, who suffered a single knife wound under his armpit, though Palfreeman claims he has no memory of inflicting the wound, even though he admits he was wielding a knife.
There are statements from witnesses who support Palfreeman’s account of events, quite accurately, yet these statements were not admitted to the court, and Police written statements also conflicted with their in-court evidence. When the defence team requested that the original Police statements be admitted to court, they were overruled by the victim’s family, who were part of the prosecution team. Apparently, this is the norm in Bulgaria. Jock Palfreeman’s father, Dr. Simon Palfreeman, who is a pathologist, had to mount the defence case, though he hired an Australian legal team to help him.
Simon Palfreeman, who is a scientist by discipline, had never had to deal with a legal exercise of this nature before, let alone in a foreign Eastern bloc country. In hindsight, his faith that justice and fair representation would prevail could be seen as naïve. Certainly, his son has a better appreciation of the situation than his father.
In the end, Jock Palfreeman was charged with ‘Murder with hooliganism’ and the sentence handed down was 20 years. They’ve since gone through an appeal process, which is Part 2 of the programme, and the conviction was upheld. The defence team are now talking about going to the European Court of Human Rights where Bulgaria has 200 cases pending, apparently.
What I find remarkable, in Part 2, is that Jock Palfreeman has not only become acceptant of his fate, but has taken on a role of supporting fellow inmates in one the worse prisons in Europe, according to Dr Krassimir Kanev, Bulgarian Helsinki Commitee, Human Rights Group.
Part 1 and Part 2 are 30mins each, or you can read the transcripts.
Addendum: It's worth watching/listening to the 5 min interview with Prof. David Barclay, an internationally recognised forensics expert at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland (behind the Part 2 link).
Saturday, 18 June 2011
MAD RUSH by Philip Glass
Yes, something entirely different for me. If you look up my profile you'll see that my musical tastes are quite diverse: AC/DC to J.S.Bach is a broad church.
I recently acquired this CD and I can't get enough of it. I wanted to share it and I guess that's what blogs are for.
Here is a sample of the opening track called Opening overlaid with some commentary by the pianist, Sally Whitwell.
Other tracks include Metamorphosis I-V (runs about 30 mins), which Glass wrote for Kafka's famous play, and Dead Things, which is from the sound track of Hours (a film about Virginia Woolf starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep).
The title track sits in the middle and is about 15 mins long. It's like a dialogue between contemplation and exuberance - an unusual juxtaposition that works - it swells and ebbs, and it always makes me listen. I never get sick of it.
The last track is called Wichita Vortex Sutra, and, according to the CD notes, arose from a chance meeting between Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg in a Manhattan bookshop, where Ginsberg asked Glass if he'd perform a '...duo of sorts at a benefit concert for the Vietnam Veteran Theatre.' Apparently, 'The work is just as often performed with narration as without.' It has an anthem feel about it and it reminds me of Oscar Peterson's Hymn to Freedom off Night Train, but whether that's a deliberate allusion by Glass or just me, I don't know.
The instrument - the only instrument on the recording - deserves special mention, because it's an Australian-made Stuart and Sons 102 keyboard piano. Their pianos have already featured on award-winning classical CDs.
To add a bit of philosophy to this post, I will quote Sally Whitwell's impression of Wichita Vortex Sutra:
There's a solidarity in the realisation that we can fight and be heard. There is an optimism too, or even more than that, an ecstatic epiphany that brings about a surprisingly serene conclusion and a return to the ordinary, to the drive down the highway. I could talk for hours about the metaphor of the highway, but instead I think I should leave you to your own conclusions.
Addendum: Listen to Wichita Vortex Sutra
I recently acquired this CD and I can't get enough of it. I wanted to share it and I guess that's what blogs are for.
Here is a sample of the opening track called Opening overlaid with some commentary by the pianist, Sally Whitwell.
Other tracks include Metamorphosis I-V (runs about 30 mins), which Glass wrote for Kafka's famous play, and Dead Things, which is from the sound track of Hours (a film about Virginia Woolf starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep).
The title track sits in the middle and is about 15 mins long. It's like a dialogue between contemplation and exuberance - an unusual juxtaposition that works - it swells and ebbs, and it always makes me listen. I never get sick of it.
The last track is called Wichita Vortex Sutra, and, according to the CD notes, arose from a chance meeting between Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg in a Manhattan bookshop, where Ginsberg asked Glass if he'd perform a '...duo of sorts at a benefit concert for the Vietnam Veteran Theatre.' Apparently, 'The work is just as often performed with narration as without.' It has an anthem feel about it and it reminds me of Oscar Peterson's Hymn to Freedom off Night Train, but whether that's a deliberate allusion by Glass or just me, I don't know.
The instrument - the only instrument on the recording - deserves special mention, because it's an Australian-made Stuart and Sons 102 keyboard piano. Their pianos have already featured on award-winning classical CDs.
To add a bit of philosophy to this post, I will quote Sally Whitwell's impression of Wichita Vortex Sutra:
There's a solidarity in the realisation that we can fight and be heard. There is an optimism too, or even more than that, an ecstatic epiphany that brings about a surprisingly serene conclusion and a return to the ordinary, to the drive down the highway. I could talk for hours about the metaphor of the highway, but instead I think I should leave you to your own conclusions.
Addendum: Listen to Wichita Vortex Sutra
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