B is for Bertrand Russell

"If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew." - Bertrand Russell. I was hanging out in a used book store, buying books on math, when it was suggested that I should give Bertrand Russell a try. I found a book called "Mathematics and the Imagination" and was told if I like mathematics and philosophy, I should check him out. I would extend the same suggestion to everyone else, and add that the man had great wit.
The above quote comes from "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish". In it he attempts to find the rationality of man, and only succeeds in finding the folly in everything from the ancient Greeks, religion, politics, secularism, pacifists, aggressive people, and really just about anyone. It is home to many, many good quotes as well. I'm not kidding, this essay is great.

Among some of his gems in the essay is a part about spending time with people who disagree with you. Honestly, so often I forget that people have different opinions then myself. Naturally, I want to stay away from "toxic" people whose opinions just seem to hold me back. These people can be a blessing though. Contrary to what I like to believe sometimes, I am not the greatest thing in the world, or universe, or even the greatest thing in this state. I have flaws, and when others are used correctly, they can help point out those flaws. Other opinions show you that world is dynamic, it is change. Mostly though, it's what reminds that the world is not a figment of my own imagination.

Besides writing essays, he was also a mathematician. He wrote some classics on logic in the early 1900's, including Principia Mathematica, in which he and Alfred North Whitehead attempted to describe a set of mathematic truths in which all of math could be proven. Kurt Godel later prove with his incompleteness therom that this was not possible.

Here is his essay
Here is Principia Mathematica
And here is a dog trying to stay awake

Much Ado about Caffeine.

Wow. I just got my first glance at the first day of the A to Z challenge. There is a lot of diversity out there it seems. So it's time for me to post my A post for the month.
A is for Adenine, a nucleobase that pairs with Thymine. That's right, my first post and it's about chemicals. But wait, this is important! C5H5N5 is it's name, it's a nucleotide that makes our DNA.That is it pretty important in itself, because it makes us exist. It's the quad-decimal code that makes us, us, as apposed to a tree or a duck.
Doing some quick research on the subject though, leads to other things that the chemical is part of. When adenine forms a bond with a ribose sugar molecule, it forms Adenosine. It is also a part of it's own important processes, like energy transfer as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) or adenosine diphosphate (ATP). This post need to be short, though, so what I want to talk about is the use of adenosine to promote sleep and caffenine keeping you awake.
Did you know that reading blog posts about adenosine can put you to sleep? It's true! It's mostly a bunch of words you don't understand, written in uninteresting ways. Besides that though, adenosine (abbreviated as Ado^[1]) has been heavily linked to sleeping in ways other articles. A short summary of it is that for every hour that you stay awake, adenosine levels in the brain increase, and attach to the receptors in the brain. This causes that drowsy feeling. Caffeine chemicals look a lot like adenosine, so the consumption causes caffeine to attach to these same cell receptors. It has a reverse effect on the cells, causing them to speed up instead of slowing down. For a more in depth look into sleep and Ado, look here. For those of you that don't speak science, but want to read a little more about coffee and science, look here. And here is a link to some music.

I swear I'm not lazy!

I'm making my list for the A to Z challenge. I know what the first week will be, and a few other days. As of right now, I have 14 out of 26, so a little more than half. Woo. Since this is the first time I've participated in this, I'm going to stick with what I've been writing about. So expect math, science, and random thoughts about letters. I've been working on some new tricks in the free time I have, and I hope to try a couple this month. We'll see what happens.See you on the first.

Something short.

The mathematician sees the world as numbers, charts and graphs. The world can quantified, growth can be plotted, and there are patterns and reason that dictate the shapes of things.
The physicist sees reality as things that you can touch, smell, see, and hear. They break the world into small parts, and the world exists as electrical impulses and microscopic particles.
The world lives, breathes and changes in the mind of a biologist. An artist sees the meaning behind the object while writers tell the stories of them. The musician hears all of this, and writes a soundtrack for it.
The philosopher see all of this, and thinks that he is dreaming. With the right state of mind; space around him can be bent, time is sped up and slowed, laws can be changed. All this can be done because what is real only exists in the mind.

Black-hole day!

Oh, wow. Today is the wormhole day, isn't it? When I started this blog, I was a farmer with an interest in science and math, and I had access to a co-workers textbook for thermodynamics. Now I'm working in research at a mushroom spawn farm and am trying to juggle my hobbies(still math and science), life, and trying to remember to write this.
 I started my last post with black-holes, hoping to work my way to wormholes. It has been put off, but for now let's forge forward. If I found a wormhole on this side of the closed space loops, I would go forward to the time when Matrix technology would allow me to download information into my brain. Or just replace it all together with a synthetic brain that can be switched on and off at will. Really, I would love to move forward in time. What the future would bring is interesting. I'm interested in seeing what will become of me and the world around me. And I would travel back to the distant past, because I think the Greeks, Romans, and Mayans had fancier technology than we think they do. And really, who would pass up the opportunity to just keep going forward or backwards? You could see if the universe ends, or begun, or if it moves in a circular pattern of expanding and shrinking, with the same events being played over and over with small variations each time, until the 5 x 10^1000000 time when chaos has finally made a world so unlike our own.
Wouldn't you be interested in the world around a wormhole though? I mean, assuming a collapsed wormhole exists at the center of a black-hole, then the world that exists around it would be fascinating to see. Space would be so drastically dilated, it would seem, that the things we think of normal would be different. Since it would take light longer to travel a distance that seems short, the person standing next you may seem shorten and stretched. He probably couldn't hear you either, since I doubt sound travels fast enough to traverse the long distance. I'm speculating though. Nothing stops me from writing, posting is another matter completely. When I get system to remember to post, I'll dive deeper into the world of black-holes, biology, and a little programing and math. If I don't see you until the A to Z challenge, then be safe and take care.

Force and Black Holes.

Exercise is the most important tool in the tool box of writers and thinkers. The increased blood flow benefits a properly exercised mind. I've asked in the past, but how do you stimulate your creativity? Besides puzzles and problems, I like meditation to help with focus.It comes in all shapes and sizes, from sitting quietly and breathing, to reading the same passage over and reflecting on it. Even taking a quiet couple of hours to sit and focus on writing helps with focus.
My meditative writing state will help my transport back into the world of science. I want to take the opportunity to explore the lands of time travel, a world explored by many minds; some talented, some imaginative, and others that make little sense.
I know by looking at my traffic for this site, that these post aren't all that popular. It's what I think about though, and this gives me a chance to talk to myself. Let's get started, shall we?
I want to talk about time dilatation, first. Black holes were my introduction to the deeper world of astronomy and astrophysics, so it would be some what fitting to start with black holes and the massive gravity they create.
Gravity is a force. An object falls to the earth due to this force. It not only falls, but it accelerates. People who took a high school physics class can usually recite at least one of the three laws of gravity. But how many can recite the equation "The force of gravity is equal to the gravitational constant multiplied by the ratio of the product of two masses over their distance squared." And that, my imaginary friends, is how calculate the force of gravity. If you wanted to know the force between, say, the sun and the earth, then all you would need to know is the mass of both objects (1.9891 × 10³⁰ kg for the sun and 5.972E24 kg for the earth) and the distance (1 AU or 149,597,871 km)  between their centers of gravity and plug it into that calculation. A funny thing happens with an equation like this. If the gravitational constant is just that, a constant, then the way you would increase the force of gravity is by increasing the product of the mass of two objects (which is easy to do with a mathematical error) or to decrease the distance between them. The other thing is, when the distance of the objects has reached 0, then you have reached the limit for the equation.
A black hole shrinks in size, but the mass stays the same, allowing you to draw closer to its center of gravity. So the force of gravity is greater. This was the way black holes were explained to me.
So how does time travel work with black holes? 
Well, I guess that's a topic I can save for next time. Until then, I need to post this otherwise it will sit in my drafts folder with the hope that "Someday I'll edit it and publish it!", and I can't have that. So hopefully I'll keep you in suspense until then.

February's Post for Insecure People.

And now, for your reading pleasure, this month's Insecure Writers Support Group! Not many read my little blog, but the ones who do usually come from the support group. I also get a chance once a month to read other people's blogs. To all the automated bots and confused Croatians that stumble across my page, you should check out Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog. He leads a ninja army will rule the internet someday soon.
Ah, February. A short month of cold days, and home to the holidays I don't like. March was know for it's blizzards where I grew up, so Groundhog Day and it's weather predictions never made sense. President's Week meant the invasion of rich out-of-staters with too much money and not enough patience. It was good if you worked at the ski resorts they frequented, or any of the other winter jobs that depended on their business, but you would think that people on vacation would be friendly and more relaxed. Meh. So it goes.
It seems almost worthless to complain about that other holiday that February is know for. Really, wait a week. The internet will remind you of all the single people and the couples that exist in the world. It is the best time of the year to read the "Seeking" ads. Subtlety disappears this time of year and those ads get hilarious.
Insecurities, right. I'm feeling great right now, thanks to an increase in Vitamin D. The sun is staying out longer these days, and it fills my brain with plans. I start thinking about what I want to do over the coming months, and all the good days spent outside. They tell me an increase in exercise, activity, and brain games helps increase the neurological functions and creativity. Now that I'm getting back into the swing of posting, I could use all the help I can get when it comes to being creative. On top of my usual math and science habits, I'm working on a new language. How about you? What do you do to keep your brain active and young?
Laziness causes the brain and the body to become squishy. Man, when was the last time I read a good book? How a bad one? As always, I feel like I hit a wall, and can't write anything worthwhile. The best way to get over that is to write something down and force yourself thourgh it. Something will come along that works.
Do you want some advice about how to keep it together when the world is falling apart? If you just keeping joking, just keep laughing, and do all the puzzles you can while you sit in your bathrobe, then you'll do fine. The key to writing your short stories, scientific papers, or the grocery list is to just turn off your brain for just one moment and let your fingers talk for you. Let them talk about heat, pressure, and fried chicken. Let them explain the formulas that hide behind the graphics of the world. Listen to the typing noise as they write songs, poetry, and prose. Your brain only stops you by over-analyzing the world around you. It stops you from going forward. In that 2 seconds you stopped to think, the world just moved. To all of my readers, imaginary, real, or just simply complex, the only secret I can tell you today, the first Wednesday in a short month, is to turn your mind off and to just write the words at your fingertips.