Republicans in Wisconsin have decided to attempt to grab the state government in a way that means, if successful, they will never have to let it go.

(The following information comes from the May 20, 2001 edition of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. I can't give you a link, as her website launches right into the video without providing a link to the story. If you are interested, click the link below about the voter fraud bill moving ahead.)

I think anyone who cares about what is going on in American politics right now is probably aware of what is happening in Wisconsin. The governor there, once elected, declared war on public unions. The legislature there pulled some fast ones and pushed the laws through, even though the Democrats tried everything, including leaving the state, in order to stop the Republicans. All of this was supposed to be because of the grave “financial crisis” the state found itself in. Of course, the crisis was not so grave that the governor couldn’t afford millions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the upper 2%. This is all very much in line with what Republicans are doing all over the country, of course.

The latest effort by the Republicans in Wisconsin is to pass laws, which they have done, that make voting a LOT more difficult that it had been. Photo I.D. will now be required at polling stations, even though that had never been a requirement in the past. You might think that might not be that bad. But apparently, it must be a very specific kind of photo I.D. Students are allowed to vote, but the I.D. offered by every single public college and university in the state does not meet these new standards. Retirees will probably not have these I.D.’s If someone is going to vote by mailing in their ballots, they will have to include a photo copy of their I.D. (which makes no sense to me, given that the person will not actually be present for anyone to check their face against the picture on the I.D.). There are a lot of other restrictions, of course. The estimate that Rachel gave was that this affects around 20% of the voting population of the state. It will cost the state millions of dollars to implement and millions of dollars each time there is an election, at a time where the state supposedly is in the grasp of that “financial crisis” we heard tell about. And all of this is to combat a problem, “voter fraud” that absolutely no one can prove is really a problem.

Take a guess as to which political party that the elderly, students, new voters, and those of ethnic heritage usually vote for? That’s right. Correct. Democrats. THAT is what is behind this. It is not about “voter fraud.” It is not about anything other than an absolute power grab. They know that their attempts to crush unions is not popular with the voters and that there is now a special recall election scheduled for, I believe, something like six Republicans who voted for that bill. Republicans know that the public is not happy with their agenda, especially since they didn’t mention ANY of this in their campaigns. That was all about jobs and bashing Democrats for how bad the economy is. So where did this come from? Many in Wisconsin, right now, are having severe cases of buyer’s remorse. They didn’t vote for this kind of crap, they didn’t see it coming. I don’t blame them for being upset. I do blame them for not looking into the matter of the Republican agenda, both stated and unstated, before casting their votes.

Look at what other headlines there are about Republicans and Wisconsin right now.

Wisconsin governor threatens to call National Guard on state workers (Somewhat old now, but still gives you an idea of how Gov. Walker operates.)

Bill would extend bargaining restrictions to police, firefighters

Walker gives himself more power to fill high state jobs

Assembly votes to give Walker veto over administrative rules

Wis. Secretary of State duties stripped (Who was the last Democrat in the state holding a high office, of course.)

Amid rancor, voter-ID bill moves to Senate

So, do Republicans start changing how they vote and back off on this attack on institutions that have been around for decades to be more in line with what Wisconsinites really would like? No, of course not! That is not how the current Republican Party does things! They have their agenda and they are going to stick to it. It doesn’t matter what everyone else wants. They want to destroy all the social programs and everything else that government currently does that they don’t like. And they will do this in any manner they can. It doesn’t matter if their actions are unethical, immoral and sometimes possibly illegal. The end justifies the means, in all cases. It doesn’t matter to them. They are so enamored of themselves at this point that they truly think they are superior to everyone else and they will crush all opposition. Rigging elections is just one of the tools in their toolbag. Yeah, so what if a lot of people are unhappy with how they govern? If those same people who aren’t happy also can’t vote, then that’s all to the good, right?

When I heard this story, I was just so disgusted. I have said this many times before on this blog. I really do not understand how these people live with themselves. What they are doing isn’t democracy. It isn’t freedom. Their actions are remarkably similar to other groups of people attempting to hijack government. I won’t mention any names, as then I would open myself up to criticisms about Godwin’s Law and other such “How dare you make that comparison!” self-righteous indignation.

This is what I was referring to in my last blog entry about being very fearful if these types of Republicans ever get total control over the government. They will never willingly let it go. Democracy, at that point, will be no more. Do you think that is hyperbole? I don’t. Just look at what is going on in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Florida. That is the future of the entire country if Republicans ever take control again. They already have the Supreme Court stacked, such that any appeals there will not be supported. We see how Republicans operate in both Congress and the White House. Put all of those different legs of government, the ones that are supposed to be the “checks and balances” against abuse of power by the others, under control of Republicans and you will get Wisconsin multiplied by about 10,000.

I know that many voters are not happy with Democrats and with President Obama. I am not terribly happy either about a number of things. I really thought President Obama would be able to change how things worked in Washington. Sure, Democrats have passed Healthcare Reform. It isn’t what progressives wanted and we all thought Dems kept caving to Republican demands that weren’t even made in good faith. But, even with its flaws, that piece of legislation is still quite an achievement. Democrats have been trying to do something along those lines since Truman. But there is a lot of stuff I am unhappy with. We did not close Gitmo. We refused to investigate the abuses of the Bush presidency. The rich and powerful are still quite in control. Dems aren’t standing up for unions, which are really the only organized support that the Democratic Party has these days.

I can see why people might not want to vote for Democrats. They seem spineless and are willing to let Republicans run over them without anything more than a weak, “Hey, that wasn’t nice!” But I will tell you something. If people are thinking that they will either not vote or vote for Republicans as some sort of symbolic gesture, don’t. Please don’t. Do not hand control of both the House and Senate to the Republicans. Do not give the White House to one of those idiots (with possibly the exception of John Huntsman) who make up the list of contenders. Don’t even vote Republicans for your local and state offices. Republicans do things differently once they are in office than what they said they were going to do on the campaign trail. I don’t care how nice they seem. Republicans lie. They will do anything to get their way. Go do some research into Wisconsin and you will see what the country will look like if that happens.

These people are monsters.

Update: Here's more detail from Parsley's Pics.

Amazing photos of physics in action.

Kopp-Etchells Effect

When helicopters pass through dust storms, contact of the particles with the rotating blades produces either sparks or static electricity.

The phenomenon has been observed during combat operations in Afghanistan; Michael Yon has documented the effect, and has named it after two U K Soldiers who died there. "Kopp-Etchells"

When operating in sandy environments, sand hitting the moving rotor blades erodes their surface. This can damage the rotors; the erosion also presents serious and costly maintenance problems.

The abrasion strips on helicopter rotor blades are made of titanium, which is very hard, but less hard than sand; so when a helicopter is flown near to the ground in desert environments abrasion occurs, and at night there is a visible corona or halo around the rotor blades, caused by the sand hitting the titanium and causing it to spark and oxidize .

Note that these photos are under copyright by Michael Yon.

Lichtenberg Figures

The pictures and text on this post were obtained from a very interesting blog called CrazyTopics. Unfortunately, it looks as if it has gone permanently inactive. These pictures were so interesting and unusual that I wanted to preserve them in my blog, in the event that the CrazyTopics blog page is removed.

Lichtenberg Figures are branching electric discharges (or electrical trees) that are sometimes preserved on the surface or the interior of a solid dielectric. They are named after the German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who originally discovered and studied them.

One way that they can be produced is as follows: A sharp-pointed needle is placed perpendicular to a non-conducting plate, such as of resin, ebonite, or glass, with its point very near to or in contact with the plate, and a high voltage Leyden jar (a type of capacitor) or a static electricity generator is discharged into the needle. The electrification of the plate is now tested by sifting over it a mixture of powdered flowers of sulfur and red lead (Pb3O4 or lead tetroxide).

The negatively electrified sulfur is seen to attach itself to the positively electrified parts of the plate, and the positively electrified red lead to the negatively electrified parts. In addition to the distribution of color thereby produced, there is a marked difference in the form of the figure, according to the polarity of the electrical charge that was applied to the plate. If the charge was positive, a widely extending patch is seen on the plate, consisting of a dense nucleus, from which branches radiate in all directions; if negative, the patch is much smaller and has a sharp circular boundary entirely devoid of branches.

Modern Lichtenberg Figures can also be created within solid blocks of acrylic plastic (polymethyl methacrylate or PMMA) using a beam of electrons from a linear electron beam accelerator (or Linac, a type of particle accelerator). Inside the Linac, electrons are focused and accelerated to form a beam of high speed particles. Electrons emerging from the accelerator are moving an appreciable fraction (95 - 99+ percent) of the speed of light (relativistic velocities). The electron beam is then aimed towards an acrylic specimen. When the relativistic electrons hit the acrylic, they easily penetrate the surface, slowing down as they collide with the molecules inside the plastic, and finally coming to rest deep inside the specimen. Since acrylic is an excellent electrical insulator, the electrons inside the specimen are temporarily trapped. Under continued irradiation by the beam, the excess electrons form a plane of negative charge inside the specimen. As the charge builds, the effective voltage inside the specimen can reach millions of volts. Ultimately the huge electrical stress exceeds the dielectric strength of the plastic, causing it to suddenly become conductive in a process called dielectric breakdown.

Once breakdown occurs, branching tree or fern-like conductive channels are rapidly formed within the plastic, allowing the trapped charge to suddenly rush out in a miniature lightning-like flash and bang. Electrical breakdown of a charged specimen may also be manually triggered by poking the plastic with a pointed conductive object. The powerful electrical spark leaves thousands of permanent branching chains of fractures behind - creating a Lichtenberg figure. Although the internal charge within the specimen is negative, the actual discharge is initiated from the positively charged exterior surfaces of the specimen, and the resulting discharge actually creates a positive Lichtenberg figure within. These rare and beautiful objects are sometimes called electron trees, beam trees, or lightning trees. As the electrons rapidly decelerate inside the acrylic, they also generate powerful X-rays. These X-rays darken the acrylic by introducing defects (color centers) in a process called solarization. Solarization turns acrylic specimens an amber or brownish color, although older acrylic blends sometimes turn a lime green. The color usually fades over time, and gentle heating, combined with oxygen, accelerates the fading process.

Whose reality is it, anyway?

Earlier, I wrote a little bit about how reality is currently seen from the eyes of a modern day physicist. I have assimilated that perspective into my own views of “reality”, as that is my nature. I am one who gives great credence into the inquisitive nature of the human race. When we go about investigating the unknown with discipline and integrity, great things can be achieved. The most important thing that one can do is to keep an open mind. If you go about trying to get facts to confirm your own preconceived reality, then you are going about it incorrectly. By doing that, you are not trying to find out what “reality” actually is, you are just trying to bolster your reality as you see it, and are not interested in finding out anything new.

That’s what got me wondering about this question of “reality”. Reality seems to change constantly. So, does that mean that there is anything that can actually be called “reality” that doesn’t depend on human observation and cognition?

As I said, my reality is one that matches the latest views from the world of science, and has very little input from the religious or mystical realms. It’s not that I believe that science has the answer to everything. But my makeup is one that sort of adopts Occam’s Razor as a primary factor. Occam’s Razor is usually stated as “The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.” Now, I will be the first to admit that many of the advances of modern particle physics and cosmology are definitely not simple. In fact, they are downright bizarre. There is no reason, really, for anyone to believe them other than for the fact that the people coming up with these latest theories are following the scientific method (of which I have spoken of many times here), and whose work is being reviewed by many very educated and knowledgeable peers. It is just that, given my education and background, I find those explanations far more likely to reflect “reality” than anything that includes a supernatural deity.

(For the record, I am not attempting to be sarcastic or dismissive by using the word “supernatural”. I am just using that word with its most straightforward definition, “beyond observable nature” or “that which is unknowable”. I think that most everyone today would agree that, whatever one’s definition of God you might use, it is beyond observable nature.)

This has not always been the case with our human species. I think that our species has always been inquisitive and has always sought explanations for the world they observed and experienced. For most of our species’ history, our ancestors did not have anything that could rightfully called science. Therefore, they attempted to resolve the great questions of their times by whatever means they have available. I envision the great questions to be things like “why do these things in nature happen?” (which includes things like lightening, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, night and day, the nature of the sun, moon, and stars, etc.) and “why do people die, and what happens to us after we die?”

Very definitely, those are very vexing questions. Every culture seems to have attempted to explain them in their own method. I cannot even begin to count how many different ways “reality” has been explained over the course of human history. The gods and goddesses from ancient Greece serve the same purpose as the gods from the more primitive cultures, such as early Polynesians, native Americans of North, South and Central America, Africans, ancient Egypt, pre-Roman England, and on and on. (Again, I am not trying to be dismissive; I just don’t have any other word other than “primitive”.) That is, the purpose of their particular religion was to explain the observable universe. There are some secondary reasons, such as the ruling class cementing their hold on power and over the ruled, but in my mind, that is indeed a secondary reason.

I have wondered how it might be to live in a time and a place where science, as we know it, really didn’t exist. How was it to live in ancient Egypt, where it was just common knowledge that the body was the vessel that held your soul, your Ka. To make it into the afterlife, you had to journey down the Paths of the Dead. If your body had not been properly prepared for your afterlife, your Ka was doomed to wander for all eternity in whatever purgatory they envisioned. Every year, you paid tribute to the White Bull. Everyone instinctively knew this was reality. It was not a matter of questioning, as that would be questioning the gods and the ruling pharaohs.

I could try to give a short summary of many different cultures throughout the history of human civilization, but that would not serve much of a purpose here. I am just trying to illustrate how every society’s “reality” is much, much different than the most every other society. They are all different, but they all depended upon, and still depend upon, one thing; cultural learning. These “realities” must be passed down, from generation to generation. Over time, without any outside influences (such as invasions of hoards of Spanish conquistadors or Roman armies) these “realities” mutate into something a little bit different. These mutations take such a long time that it is difficult, if not impossible, to see those changes from a single human being’s perspective. That is, the “common knowledge” of the day is actually something that must be taught to each succeeding generation. It isn’t something that is likely to be happened on by someone who has not been fully introduced to the subject. I sometimes use the word, “indoctrination”. That has gotten me into some hot water with friends, but that is how I see it. That word obviously has some emotional content to it, but I am using it as unemotionally as I can. You need to teach your children the “ways of the world”. What else is Sunday School at the local church than a way to teach your children what you want them taught?

The reason that I, personally, think that science provides a way to answer some (not all) of the Big Questions is that the different people from different backgrounds and different cultures can come up with the same answers as others, as long as the same process was followed. This is not necessarily true when you are discussing what I refer to as religious viewpoints. However, that is certainly not how a lot of other people see it.

Currently in this country, we have a movement which I call “fundamentalist Christian” whose goal is to make their own reality, based on their own biblical interpretations and teachings (including those mutations I mentioned earlier), and to impose their reality on everyone else in this country. They see science as just another viewpoint, equal to that of any other religion they disagree with, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, or even Catholicism. That is, it can be disposed of, very quickly, without much thought because it differs from their reality. Scientific findings sometimes contradict those views of the fundamentalist Christian. Therefore, that aspect of science, in their minds, can be summarily dismissed. They have their preformed reality, which they do not care to see adjusted, and therefore anything that might contradict their reality must either be regarded as not true. If, in the case of dinosaurs (as I wrote before), the truth is so overwhelming that it cannot be summarily dismissed, it must be somehow assimilated into their view of the world without disturbing the fundamental underpinning belief that their strict interpretation of the literal, word-by-word truth of the Bible is left intact. This leads to some very complex and awkward mental contortions on their part, but it is, in their minds, better than having to adjust their reality.

That is what really upsets me about how fundamentalist Christians. They believe that proven facts, backed up by years and years of research, inspection and re-inspection by very dedicated and educated people, are somehow equal to their more supernatural based views of the world. They believe, for instance, that everyone studying geology, archeology, genetics, ice cores from Antarctica, etc., are all wrong when they state that the world is more than 6000 years old. In the reality of the fundamentalist Christian, their reading of the Bible has the World beginning with Genesis, and if one counts the “Adam begat Adam, who lived a hundred years, and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years”, you can come up with roughly 6000 years accounted for in the Biblical texts. In my reality, this sounds very much like any other religion, which has its own explanations for the beginning of the world. I think it sounds ridiculous. I think that people, in this day and age, who insist that man lived in the same time as dinosaurs, just because they can’t explain the timescale of the world otherwise, sound just as ignorant as those people in the past who insisted that the Earth was flat or that the sun revolved around the Earth. However, in someone else’s reality, the age of the Earth really is only 6000 years, and science is the thing that sounds ridiculous.

That is hard for me to accept, but it is an undeniable fact that people in our current society can’t agree on reality. Everyone has their own notions of reality, which they are loath to give up. This is one reason, among many, that I don’t have a very high opinion of our species, as a whole. We have achieved some incredible things, and will continue to do so. However, we do that in spite of, not because of, people’s insistence that their “reality” is the only one. People are not seeking “the truth”. They only want to validate “their truth”.

Physics: Reality is in the eye of the beholder.

This post is going to be about some of the latest theories in physics, and it will probably take off from there. I have lots of thoughts related to this subject, and I am not exactly certain which direction I may end up. As envisioned, this will be part of a series of posts about... well, about what my particular beliefs are. I have already posted some on this subject. Hopefully, I can tie some of this together so that I might be able to understand it better, and if anyone else is along for the ride, well, I hope you might get something out of it.

I am going to start out this post by talking mostly about myself and of my experience in the realm of physics. This is a bit of a change of tack for me, as I usually try to avoid talking about myself in this blog. My thought is that, if anyone is going to read this stuff that I produce here, they need to be at least moderately interested in the subject matter. I find myself distinctly non-interesting as subject matter, and certainly so too would people who have no idea who I am. However, I intend on using this personal information about myself as a springboard into the broader discussion of physics in general and what some of the conclusions and thoughts I have about “what it all means”, if that is possible.

As noted in my bio information on this blog, I have a B.S. in engineering and an M.S. in physics. Now, many people might think that engineering and physics are very similar, since they are related by a common language of math. That is what I thought when I got into the program. I quickly found out that I was very much mistaken. The two disciplines are very, very much different, and the people who inhabit the two arenas are also very different.

Engineering, in its basic form, is about making whatever you are working with in this universe (electrons, iron beams, air compressors, airplanes, computers, etc.) conform to your will and get them to do whatever it is you want them to, in the best manner possible. The “best manner” might be defined as the cheapest, the lightest, longevity, susceptibility to radiation, etc. It all depends on what exactly you are trying to achieve. But that is what engineering is about, a manipulation of materials in order to get them to do what you want. Math is the primary tool used to achieve this goal.

Physics, on the other hand, is an investigation into why the universe is the way it is. Physicists are attempting to come up with the “rules” that governs everything, both matter and energy, which make up the universe. Again, the primary tool is math. This is necessary for several reasons, but one profound reason is that English, along with every other verbal-based language, cannot begin to explain the concepts that modern physics is dealing with in any way that makes sense to a laymen. Many make valiant efforts and they do help, but most laymen, I believe, respond with a giant “what the hell are you on about?” English is not well suited to conveying the concepts hidden in the underlying structure of what we call “the universe”.

Before I entered into my post-graduate work, I had taken some modern physics classes in the course of my engineering degree, and I did very well. I read a lot of the journals and all the articles in Scientific American. I thought myself very well versed in what was going on in the field. I thought the program available to me would be interesting, and you never know when an advanced degree might actually come in handy.

It didn’t take me very long before I started suffering from a “break” from between what I thought I was going to learn and what I was actually getting. I wanted to know more about what I had been reading about. What I was getting was a forced diet of fundamentals that seemed to have nothing much at all to do with what my intentions were. The best example I can think of was my experience with Quantum Mechanics. Most everyone has heard of this subject, most have no idea what it is about. Some people have heard of Schrödinger's cat, but few can probably do an explanation justice. However, Quantum Mechanics is fundamental to everything that has gone on in physics since Albert Einstein.

When I got into the subject, I struggled both with the math and the entire purpose of the subject. I was given no introductory material, no “tie in” to where this all fit in the big picture. What was presented was a new type of math, with its own rules. In fact, I hesitate to call it “math”. All the familiar symbols and operations are largely abandoned, and new ones invented. It almost seemed like a game to me. Or, a better analogy might be learning some fabricated language like Klingon from Star Trek or Sindarian Elvish from The Lord of the Rings. Both have totally fabricated rules and constructs which have absolutely no application outside of that little community of other people interested in the same thing, but there is an “accepted” way of doing it correctly. The same holds true for Quantum Mechanics. You have to learn very obtuse rules about how to manipulate largely arcane symbols in order to achieve the desired outcome. If you learned the rules correctly and could apply them, you got a good grade. If you didn’t, you failed. Notice that neither outcome seems to have anything to do, at all, with the “reality” of the universe. I didn’t see that connection. I still don’t. It was all just a game that someone invented that had no bearing on much of anything.

(Just to finish up on the story of my post-graduate work, I struggled along, trying to recover from a couple of “C” grades, one of which was Quantum Mechanics. I did much better in the more applied physics courses, like optics. I did my research, went before a board, defended my research, and answered the questions as best I could. I received my degree, but one of the board members expressed considerable skepticism that I really understood the material. I was a tad insulted at the time, but I can now see this was a true statement. I have a piece of paper that says I have an advanced degree in physics, but I do not really claim to be “a physicist”, except when I have the need to show off.)

Given all that, I still think that advances in physics, at both the subatomic and the cosmological levels, are truly fascinating. I am not going to try to give a layman’s lesson of modern physics here. I would, no doubt, make a hash of it and if anyone really is interested in the nuts and bolts of it, they are likely to get their information from somewhere other than a nondescript blog that people only stumble across intermittently. I will therefore try to just jump to the conclusions and talk about what those conclusions mean to me. I will try to include references and links to those who might actually be interested in pursuing it a bit further.

One of the more fascinating aspects of all the work that is going on is what it implies the universe actually is. Most everyone understands the different “dimensions” that we, as humans, perceive that make up the universe. Up/down, backwards/forwards, left/right. X, Y and Z on the Cartesian coordinate system. Three dimensions, and because of the work of Albert Einstein, we now concede that time makes up the fourth dimension. We all understand that, because we can experience that directly. Drive a car in a hilly area, and you have automatically moved through all four dimensions.

The “Holy Grail” of physicists worldwide, is to find a single model that explains all four forces of the universe: gravitational, weak nuclear, strong nuclear and electromagnetic. The more people tried, the more elusive that unified theory became. One much explored theory that showed considerable promise since the early 1980’s is called the String Theory. Here’s a quick Wiki introduction to String Theory.

String theory is a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point particles that form the basis for the standard model of particle physics. The phrase is often used as shorthand for Superstring theory, as well as related theories such as M-theory. By replacing the point-like particles with strings, an apparently consistent quantum theory of gravity emerges. Moreover, it may be possible to "unify" the known natural forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear) by describing them with the same set of equations. (See Theory of everything.)

One of the fallouts of String Theory is, that for it to really work, the universe must be made up of more than just four dimensions. Many more, it turns out. Depending on which actual theory you subscribe to, the final number might be ten, or it might be eleven. It seems that people are now settling on eleven. This eleventh dimension makes many things possible, such as combining what were once five different string theories into just different aspects of the same overarching theory. It also brings in a theory referred to as Super Gravity, which always advocated eleven dimensions. By doing this, String Theory has now morphed into something that is now called Membrane Theory, or just plain M-theory.

It has taken me this long just to get to the matter that I really wanted to discuss, which is the eleven dimensions of the universe this theory implies. This is not just some ivory tower theoretical exercise, inventing more Klingon language rules that don’t have any meaning to anyone except those interested in learning a totally fabricated language. The work that these physicists are doing is really targeted at explaining what the universe actually is, regardless of how illogical or out-and-out ridiculous it all might sound. Many aspects of this incredibly weird universe have been confirmed by direct experimentation. One example is the Gravity Probe B satellite, which has confirmed several aspects of gravity predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. One effect is the geodetic effect—the amount by which the mass of the Earth warps the local space-time in which it resides. The second effect, called frame-dragging, is the amount by which the rotating Earth drags local space-time around with it.

My point here is not to try to explain how this hugely complex experiment went about trying to prove these effects actually exist, or even what these effects actually are. My point is this. Experiments such as this are actually proving that these theories are not just Klingon language. These theories are actually describing the universe as it truly exists! It doesn’t matter if we, as humans, as so limited in our ability to perceive anything other than our boring three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. The actual work proving these theories seems to be running about 80 years behind the advances in the theories themselves, but direct experimentation is showing that the theoretical math the world’s physicists are coming up with actually do describe the universe.

This is staggering information, and is truly difficult to assimilate into any sort of rational mental picture of the universe that ordinary humans (i.e., non-physicists) can grab onto. Just think. Subatomic particles, such as electrons, proton and neutrons, are not really particles at all. They are waves; they are vibrating strings. They are knots of energy. “Matter” at that level has no meaning. Matter warps time/space, and makes gravity wells in the fabric of the universe. Time is not constant; it changes depending on the point of view of the observer. The universe is expanding, but if the universe contains everything known, then what is the universe expanding into? These are truly breathtaking concepts. The universe is not at all what our human senses perceive it to be. It is something truly strange.

In my next post on this subject, I will try to produce some coherent thoughts regarding the effort by many people in our society to discredit science and to elevate uninformed opinion into something, in their eyes, that is equivalent to thousands of man-years on the part of many, many incredibly talented and inquisitive people all over the world trying to explain the universe that we inhabit.

Quantum physics meets Dick Cheney.

Humor from Tom Tomorrow, via Salon.