Bill Angel

What I am listening to right now is the audio books version of the book "Quantum Man, Richard Feynman's Life in Science" by Lawrence Krauss, read by the author. Here is a humorous quote from the book: "He [Feynman] is another Dirac, only this time human." Eugene Wigner speaking of Richard Feynman. Wigner was talking about Feynman when he was young and then unknown to the scientific community.

I think that cosmologists ponder that question a lot. One area of interest is termed the Anthropic principle. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Anthropic_coincidences I provided the link to the article's section covering Anthropic coincidences. The thrust of the argument is that if the physicial laws of the universe were different than they are, we would not exist to observe the universe and ask questions such as yours. But the physicial laws COULD be different, there could be an infinite number of universes in which the laws are slightly different, but conscious life doesn't exist in these alternate universes to ask these questions.

I would agree with your assertions, but I would state it differently. The first group make assertions about the sun that would be experimentally verifiable or refutable. That makes what they do science. That fellow in the second group is making assertions that are not subject to independent experimental verification. So his association with the sun is religious in nature.

I would not necessarily agree with your observation. Most advertisements that I see on TV appeal to the viewers' presumed desire to acquire products and services that will enhance their happiness, rather than products and services that will enhance the use of their minds. Also people want to become wealthy because they think that it will make them happy. If they were intelligent they would realize that this wasn't the case. I think that the acquisition of intelligence in our society ranks below the acquisition of either wealth or of happiness.From a personal perspective, I derive pleasure (i.e. happiness) through reading about cosmology and by doing photography.

This is a nice review article / tutorial describing work to investigate magnetic monopole like behavior in crystals at very low temperatures. http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/the-hunt-for-the-magnetic-monopole

Sure. Running memory intensive programs can degrade performance, in tbe sense of tbe application needing to take longer to compute the result, but the actual result computed, like the next move by a program that plays chess, should not change.

Solving puzzles like in chess or crosswords require problem solving. If our minds worked like computers wouldn't we always work out such puzzles in a consistent and predictable manner? How well one does solving such puzzles can depend on how tired one is, ones preoccupations while solving them, whether one has encountered a similar puzzle before, etc. I'm inclined to believe that if our minds functioned like computers and lacked free will, such issues related to variations in problem solving ability would not occur. An interesting topic for scientific investigation would I think be the connection between free will and pattern recognition as it pertains to recreational games and puzzles.

"Matter tells space-time how to curve, and space time tells matter how to move." --John Archibald Wheeler

Here is some further information about this encounter between Einstein and Lemaitre. It comes from the book "Wrinkles in Time" by George Smoot, published in 1993.

Students at the Mardi Gras Celebration in New Orleans

According to the author Neil Turok, the quote attributed to Einstein comes from the book by John Farrell titled "The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaitre, Einstein, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology (New York: Basic Books, 2010), page 10. My local library has a copy of this book, and I will check it out to find out where John Farrell got the quote from.

Some people like Einstein who are geniuses can display arrogance, but can also be open to a change in their opinions. The scientist Georges Lemaitre did important work in the field of cosmology, and was a pioneer in applying Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to cosmology. Nevertheless in 1927 when Einstein met with Lemaitre, Einstein asserted to him that "your calculations are correct, but your grasp of physics is abominable". Einstein was forced to retract his assessment in 1929, when Edwin Hubble's observations of the red shift in light from receding galaxies confirmed Lemaitre's predictions. Einstein did a reversal in his assesment of Lemaitre's work, however. In 1933 the two met in California for a seminar. At the end of Lemaitre's talk, Einstein stood and applauded, saying "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explaination of creation to which I have ever listened." The source of this information is the excellent book "The Universe Within (From Quantum to Cosmos)" by Neil Turok.

I discovered a package at McDonalds that contained an unexpected element of humor. This package contained one individual pumpkin pie. The logo that the viewer is supposed to associate with the image of the couple hugging is "...I'm lovin' it". But the statement warning the viewer "CAUTION handle with care I'M HOT" also fits the image in a humorous way that was unintended by the company. Also, one study claimed that the smell of pumpkin pie stimulates arousal in men, that its scent is an aphrodisiac.

If the goal is to absorb as much heat as possible and then to slowly release it over time, you might look at the properties of materials that undergo reversable endothermic phase transitions (solid to liquid and then back to solid). The fire will melt the material, and once the fire dies down the material will return to its solid phase, in so doing releasing its stored heat into the room. The material could be sealed into cylinders and the cylinders embedded into the walls of the "fireplace".

I thought that the article on the use of robots in agriculture was rather interesting: Japan robot can pick strawberry fields forever for farmer Isn't there a big social problem in this country with undocumented workers (i.e illegal aliens) coming to this country to do work in agriculture that American workers (U.S citizens) refuse to do because of the meager wages that these jobs pay? If robots could be used efficiently in the USA to do this kind of work, sometimes referred to as "stoop labor", then the incentive for people entering this country illegally to do this work would be reduced. Consider that the Bush Administration spent almost 100 Billion dollars (over 8 years) on immigration enforcement, and the Obama Administration spent 73 Billion dollars during Obama's first term. Just think how much robotic automation could be accomplished in this country, by spending that amount of money on industrial and agricultural robotics instead of on immigration enforcement.

There is a way the USA could meet its obligations without the debt ceiling being raised: by selling off Government assets to foreign countries. How much do you think the USA could get if it sold one of its aircraft carriers to China? The government could swap an aircraft carrier for some of the debt China holds, thereby creating some room below the debt ceiling for additional borrowing to fund US Govt operations.

The subject of how other species communicate is an interesting one. Virginia Morrell has written an article for National Georgraphic, available online, titled Animal Minds . In the online article the author discusses the use of language by parrots. Another interesting article by a different author is Researchers Find More Evidence That Dolphins Use Names

Ok, here is one solution to the shutdown and debt ceiling impasse: Social Security payments are based on one's prior earnings, not on what one needs to collect from the Government to live on. If some people were willing to accept smaller payments from Social Security, the money that they did not collect would go into an account that could be inherited by their children or other designated heirs. Money passed on to heirs is subject to an inheritance or estate tax. So this scheme would serve two purposes: enable the government to recover some of the benefit payments via the estate tax, and reduce the size of the Social Security outlays that will need be paid to the "baby boomer" generation, as such outlays will be deferred until they die, and then will be paid to their heirs.

It isn't necessary to impose that draconian a solution. The members of the House could force a vote on the funding bill via a Discharge Petition. See: House Democrats Unveil Plan To Force End To Shutdown http://huff.to/1bF0hh5 via @HuffPostPol

I agree it's an important issue. For the sake of argument, let's say that he Federal government defaults on its financial obligations, if Congress should fail to raise the debt ceiling. This situation could result in a spike in interest rates, as creditors demand a risk premium (reflected in the increase in the interest rate paid) on Treasury securities. But such a situation would run counter to the Federal Reserve's policy of keeping interest rates low to sustain our economic recovery. So the Federal Reserve could be forced to purchase MORE than 85 billion dollars worth of Government securites each month in an effort to prop of the price of such securities (i.e to keep interest rates low). And keep in mind that such an action would put more paper money into circulation, as the Federal Reserve purchases these Government securities with money printed by the Treasury.

I currently receive two kinds of benefits from the Government: monthly checks from Social Security and monthly allotments of medications from the Veterans Administration. So far the actions to sequester funds or shutdown the Government have not disrupted either source of support, but one can no longer be assured that the government will honor its promises to retirees and the veterans of the military.

I read that NASA has shut down. Does that mean that the national labs that do basic and applied research have also shut down? Science research is too important to be held hostage to political squabbles in Washington.

There is an excellent recent book discussing this issue. The book is titled "Animal Wise (The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures)" by Virginia Morell. The book discusses the Mirror Self Recognition Test (MSR). According to the author, the Mirror Self Recognition test has come to regarded as the gold standard in determining if species other than chimps and humans possess self-awareness. For example, if an animal such as a dolphin or a parrot can recognise itself in a mirror, then it is considered to be self-aware, and hence to possess a level of consciousness.

In the area of health care, certainly. I'm now at the age (65 years) where I can compare my general health to that of my parents when they were that age, and I am benefiting from advances in medicine to treat high blood pressure and arthritis that were not available for them, because the medicines I take to treat these conditions did not then exist.

<quote> Do the benefits from science outweigh the potential harm? Do you think scientists have a positive effect on the world we live in? </quote> In the area of health care, certainly. I'm now at the age (65 years) where I can compare my general health to that of my parents when they were that age, and I am benefiting from advances in medicine to treat high blood pressure and arthritis that were not available for them, because the medicines I take to treat these conditions did not then exist.