Matter Is Nothing

Electron Cloud

Matter Is Nothing

Matter is composed chiefly of nothing. You are made of atoms. Your cat, which is resting on the table on your side, is made of atoms. And the table itself is made of atoms.

But if atoms are so small and empty and the nuclei smaller still, why does the table hold the cat up? Why, as Arthur Eddington liked to ask, do the nuclei that comprise my elbow not slide effortlessly through the nuclei that comprise the table? Why doesn’t your fat cat wind up on the floor? Or fall straight through the Earth?

In fact, your everyday life depends on the structure of the atom. So the answer to the question is the electron cloud. The outside of an atom in your cat has a negative electrical charge. So does every atom in the table. Negative charges repel each other.

Round Brown Sofa. Transmute the elements: cut the atom and make a round brown sofa! (Quotations from Megan Jorgensen). Image: ©  Elena

Thus your cat does not slither through the table because electrical forces are strong and atoms have electrons around their nuclei.

Turn off the electrical charges and everything crumbles to an invisible fine dust. Without electrical forces, there would no longer be things in this Universe we know – there would be merely featureless remnants of the worlds, merely diffuse clouds of electrons, protons and neutrons, and gravitating spheres of elementary particles…

Our planet is an island. Photo by Elena

Time Traveler

Time Traveler

A polio virus is a tiny microorganism. We encounter many of them every day. But only rarely, fortunately, does one of them infect one of us and cause this dread disease. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the thirty-second President of the United States, had polio.

Because the disease was crippling, it may have provided Roosevelt with a greater compassion for the underdog; or perhaps it improved his striving for success. If Roosevelt’s personality had been different, or if he had never had the ambition to be President of the United States, the great depression of the 1930’s, World War II and the development of nuclear weapons might just possibly have turned out differently. The future of the world might have been altered. But a virus is an insignificant thing, only a millionth of a centimeter across. It is hardly anything at all.

On the other hand, suppose our time traveler had persuades Queen Isabelle that Columbus’ geography was faulty, that from Eratosthenes’ estimate of the circumference of the Earth, Columbus could never reach Asia. Almost certainly some other Europeans would have come along within a few decades and sailed west to the New World. Improvements in navigation, the lure of the spice trade and competition among rival European powers made the discovery of America around 1500 more or less inevitable.

It is a lovely fantasy, to explore those world that never were. Image: © Elena

Of course, there would today be no nation of Colombia, or District of Columbia or Columbus, Ohio, or Columbia University in the Americas. But the overall course of history might have turned out more or less the same. In order to affect the future profoundly, a time traveler would probably have to intervene in a number of carefully chosen events, to change the weave of history.

By visiting the worlds that never were, we could truly understand how history works; history could become an experimental science. If an apparently pivotal person had never lived – Plato, say, or Paul, or Peter the Great – how different would the world be? What if scientific tradition of the ancient Ionian Greeks had survived and flourished? That would have required many of the social forces of the time to have been different – including the prevailing belief that slavery was natural and right. But what if that light that dawned in the eastern Mediterranean 2,500 years ago had not flickered out? What if science and the experimental method and the dignity of crafts and mechanical arts had been vigorously pursued 2,000 years before the Industrial Revolution? What if the power of this new mode of thought had been more generally appreciated? I sometimes think we might then have saved ten or twenty centuries. Perhaps the contributions of Leonardo da Vinci would have been made a thousand years ago and those of Albert Einstein five hundred years ago. In such an alternate Earth, Leonardo and Einstein would, of course, never have been born. Too many things would have been different.

In every ejaculation there are hundreds of millions of sperm cells, only one of which can fertilize an egg and produce a member of the next generation of human being. But which sperm succeeds in fertilizing an egg must depend on the most minor and insignificant of factors, both internal and external. If even a little thing had gone differently 2,500 years ago, none of us would be here today. There would be billions of others living in our place.

Time Traveler. Photograph by Elena

There Are No Sacred Truths

There Are No Sacred Truths

Human brain is only a tool. It is not perfect. It can be misused, but it is by the far the best tool the humans have.

Our mind is self-correcting and it can do almost everything, but two rules are applicable to every human being if he or she tries to succeed in his or her life:

First rule: there are no sacred truths. All assumptions must be critically examined and you must never assume that you are right and thus your opponent is wrong. Curiously enough, one of the secondary conclusions from this rule is that arguments from authority must not be taken as granted.

Second rule: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. Briefly, if a woman thinks all the men are cowards, useless and worthless, she should reconsider her visions and her approach (tarot or not).

Understand the world as It Is, not as how you wish it to be. Image: © Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is sometimes true.

We, humans share he same goals when the context is large enough. And the study of the Universe provides the largest possible context.

But we are a kind of arrogant newcomers in the Universe. We have come to settle on a planet which has existed billions years. And after looking about for a few thousand years every one of us declares herself (or himself, for the matter) in possession of eternal truths. Believe me, young lady: in a world that is changing as fast as ours, this is a prescription for disaster. No experience, no relationship, no reaction, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for your survival. There must be many solutions that would work far better than any you have envisioned. Your task is to find them.

We are not obedient sheep. Photo by Elena

Superstition is Cowardice

Superstition Is Cowardice

If the inclinations toward slavery and racism, misogyny and violence are connected – as individual character and human history, as well as cross-cultural studies suggest- then there is room for some optimism. We are surrounded by recent fundamental changes in society. In the last two centuries, abject slavery, with us for thousands of years or more, has been almost eliminated in a stirring planet-wide revolution.

Women, patronized for millennia, traditionally denied real political and economic power, are gradually becoming, even in the most backward societies, equal partners with men. For the first time in modern history, major wars of aggression were stopped partly because of the revulsion felt by the citizens of the aggressor nations. The old exhortations to nationalist fervour and jingoist pride have begun to lose their appeal. Perhaps because of rising standards of living, children are being treated better worldwide. In only a few decades, sweeping global changes have begun to move in precisely the directions needed for human survival. A new consciousness is developing which recognizes that we are one species.

Superstition is cowardice in the face of the Divine, wrote an ancient savant Theophrastus, who lived during the founding of the Library of Alexandria.

Theophrastus was right! How pallid by comparison are the pretensions of superstition and pseudoscience, such as astrology or tarot. How important it is for us to pursue and understand the real science in order to understand the human endeavour.

If the inclinations toward slavery and racism, misogyny, violence and superstition are connected through human history (as cross-cultural studies suggest), then there is room for some optimism. Indeed, we are surrounded by recent fundamental changes in society.

In less than a century, sweeping global changes have begun to move in precisely the directions needed for human survival. A new consciousness is developing which recognizes that we are one species. One and unique.

For instance, for the last two centuries, abject slavery which coexisted with us for thousands of years or more has been almost eliminated in a stirring planet-wide revolution.

Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. A superstitious sheep. Photo by Elena

Here come some other examples: Women, patronized for millennia and denied real power, are gradually becoming, even in the most backward societies, equal partners with men (for better and for worst, let’s say).

For the first time in modern history, major wars of aggression are being stopped partly because of the revulsion felt by the citizens of the aggressor nations.

Besides the old exhortations to nationalist fervour and jingoist pride begin to lose their appeal almost everywhere.

Children are being treated better worldwide (perhaps of better living standards), and so on.

So let’s repeat: Theophrastus was right.

Those afraid of the real universe, of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition, the ridiculous tarot games and astrology, one of the most absurd phenomena of human mind.

Those who choose tarot instead of the real science – they avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the wave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

A Real Woman. Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Image: © Elena

Electronic Warfare

Electronic Warfare

Written by TRW’s Systems group, in 1972

Electronic warfare probably began the moment that a military commander started to listen in on his enemy’s radio dispatches – or jam them when he found them no longer yielded any useful information. Today, electronics is the mainstay of military communications, radar warning systems, missile guidance, spacecraft and aircraft navigation, command and control, artillery fuzing, etc. Using an electronic means for combating such sophisticated weaponry is the spooky business of electronic warfare.

TRW has been quietly active in the technology of electronic warfare for a number of years. Only recently has the technology formally surfaced with the formation of a laboratory for the research, design, development, production, and integration of electronic warfare systems.

Electronic warfare include passive and active techniques and countermeasures, and – what is even more devious –anti-countermeasures. Detecting and monitoring the enemy’s electronic devices constitutes one of the most basic areas of electronic warfare. By hearing and observing the electronic signatures of enemy communications and other equipment, a great deal can be learned about his forces and his battle plan.

The bat’s acoustic attack system: Bats emit pulses of sound and listen for the faint return echoes to tell them the distances and direction of objects. Source of the photo: Todayifoundout.com

When the enemy emitters (equipment which radiates electromagnetic waves) are located, they can either be destroyed by direct battle action, or they can be neutralized by jamming. Jamming involves turning on a powerful transmitter which can blot out the enemy’s signals or blind his radar observers.

However, there are countermeasures against jamming. One of these, known as “frequency hopping”, involves quickly tuning the radar of communications transmitter to another waveband, thereby eluding the jammer. Jammers, on the other hand, can be broadbanded, allowing them to continue to cover the operations of some frequency hoppers.

Sometimes, the enemy can be fooled into thinking that he is receiving signals from a friendly transmitter – when in fact they are from our own stations. During World War 2, for example, the Germans transmitted a radio navigation beam which their bombers could follow to London despite fog or blackouts. However, the British soon learned how to “bend” the beam and turn the Nazi bombers away from London.

With today’s technology, a military pilot can detect if he is being “painted” by radar. His countermeasure equipment enables him to alter the signal reflected from his aircraft so that the enemy radar will “think” he is several miles from his actual position. This technique is known as “spoofing”.

He may not know it, but the moth frequently employs electronic warfare to elude his arch-enemy, the bat. Bats, of course, navigate and locate their pray by means of a sophisticated echo location system.  They emit pulses of sound and listen for the faint return echoes to tell them the distance and direction of objects. The moth, on the other hand, possesses amazingly sensitive ears, which can hear sounds over a frequency range of 3,000 to 200, 000 cycles per second. A moth thus knows when a bat is “looking” at him. Frequently upon hearing a bat, a moth will close his wings and drop vertically and rapidly into the vegetation where the bat cannot follow. Moths also have passive countermeasures against the bath’s acoustic attack system. The wings of a moth are covered by a soft, fine hair which acts as an acoustical damper, significantly attenuating (or absorbing) the bat’s sonar wave reflections. The range within which the bat can find the moth is thus considerably reduced.

The soft, fine hair on a moth’s wing is one of his passive countermeasures. The hair absorbs part of the bat’s sound waves, thereby reducing the rang at which the bat can detect him.

There are many other examples of special electronic warfare systems used by birds, mammals, fish and insects. Many have jamming systems, navigation systems, radar-like warning systems and even decoys that rival man’s ingenuous systems. The ink injected by the squid, for example, is a cigar shaped blob which immediately coagulates in the water and looks very much like the squid itself. In other words, it is a decoy. As the squid ejects this decoy, he also contacts his chromatophores, making his body colorless and practically invisible. The predators thus attack the decoy.

Unlike the systems used in the animal kingdom, man’s electronic warfare is continually and rapidly changing, with new techniques calling for new countermeasures, and these in turn demanding anti-countermeasures.