August 17, 2021

I wake up in the morning, do my morning absolutions in the bathroom with this morning using my electric shaver, take my ARED2 pill and amble down the stairs to the kitchen greeting Rebecca. She and I give each other a peck kiss and I persuade her to use my electric shaver to get the stray hairs I missed under my jaw and bye my neck. My breakfast routine includes taking a very ripe banana, some Activa, two teaspoons of bran flakes and some granola. Coffee grinding into the receptacle to a point for these beans so when I tamp the very finely grounded coffee the espresso machines pressure bars are correct (or else too full and the water seeps through the beans too slowly). I remember to take my morning pills of blood thinner and artery health. Then outside where I have a table and chairs in the shade I turn over the cushion for the chair so its dry (it rained last night). I then open my iPhone and read the news. That's where all this material for this blog begins. Fires have been fanned to dangerous levels again by the winds out west, Haiti is struggling with devastation from another earthquake and fears of flooding due to deluging rain, farmers and others face crisis of water shortage from the Colorado river problems associated with severe drought, and then there is the tragedy of Afghanistan coming on so swiftly that many thousands of people are panicking with fear for their lives while the U.S.A. tries to evacuate. I won't go on with other news headlines that tell the same story of panic, devastation, global warming, corruption, dysfunctional politics, etc. 

Well, this blog is about my being reminded that what I thought I knew and what I count on in my daily life may be false predictions about tomorrow which may change drastically. Take the Hubble Constant. Edwin Hubble and George Lamaitre in 1929 observed that the galaxies further from us have shifted their light colors towards the red more so the further away they are. My simplification for these observations is translated to mean that the further away galaxies are receding faster. Since this discovery the Hubble constant has been calculated more accurately by the discoveries of certain type of supernova that emits light that is quantifiable so the intensity we observe it at can lead to calculations of distance away from us. Then we can find nearby galaxies and stars to the supernova and know their distance. So the news flash in this arena is that the universe is expanding at an accelerated factor! Our understanding of the Big Bang comes from the discovery of the background microwave radiation caused after the Big Bang from our singularity (though the Big Bang read like there would be a big noise (bang) no such thing occurred in a vacuum).  After this beginning there was rapid expansion to maybe a football size or slightly bigger which is phenomenal since the singularity size was absolutely unimaginably tiny. Then the expansion continued so that the plasma soup of high energy and fermions could cool allowing electrons and neutrons to become hydrogen atoms while photons whizzed around. The each building block of matter had an antimatter component so when they met which in the early stages of the Big Bang was is a much smaller space they annihilated each other so how come something still exists? The Haldron collider and other research methods shows that a tiny fraction of matter resisted while antimatter was gone so here we are!    https://home.cern/science/physics/matter-antimatter-asymmetry-problem

The expansion continued but with the laws of physics with gravity now present wherever there is mass and space (and Higgs boson and field) present the expansion should be slowing with eventually gravity winning out and some day far far in the future the Big Crunch would occur BUT now we're seeing an accelerated expansion. How come? The going theory is that besides there being dark matter (something that yet we thing exists but we can not define) there is dark energy (the force causing the accelerated expansion). Well if this continues then somehow far far in the future if we could see out into the heavens we could see no light from the distant galaxies and stars since they have disappeared they are so far away beyond the horizon of everything. Wait some more billions to trillions of years and even the humble hydrogen atom would decay and all become nothing since the second law of thermodynamics entropy predicts just this. But don't despair since other serious future problems may just be around the corner (happening sooner). Physicists have been debating the fact that the force of gravity is so weak. They have been wondering if the time of the Big Bang and its expansion aftermath (few hundred thousand years) created the conditions for Higgs Boson and Higgs field (finally verified to exist July 4, 2012) the value for gravity can change due to hypothesized other universes existence (branes) siphoning of some of the value of gravity (one hypothesis) or other mechanisms that are too complicated for me to think about now. If the value for the Higgs changes all we know will be gone in a flash! https://home.cern/science/physics/higgs-boson For the interested reader to delve further into these mysteries read The End of Everything by Katie Mack. 

Since I'm aware today of the fragility of our world and our worldviews let me meander a bit further. Last week we understood from our news media that the government of Afghanistan had over 100,000 U.S.A. trained well equipped troops but our news reported that the Taliban was sweeping across the northern part of the country. This week all the troops and equipment seemed to disappear and our government and president just urged the demoralized or somehow ineffective forces to fight back. So U.S.S.R. (and Alexander the Great before) and U.S.A. are leaving this country to hard line Islamists. Many of our armed forces who served in Afghanistan are upset. The women who have fought for a rightful place as equal partners in nation building are very frightened and angry. Desperate people fearing for their lives who collaborated with U.S.A. forces are fleeing in panic! The lesson is that what we predict and see as stability in our world may be just an illusion to keep our sanity since to contemplate a sudden change in the Higgs field or the collapse of the government of Afghanistan was a surprise to us.

January 6, 2021 was that a surprise to you? Certainly to the Senators and House of Representatives who were fleeing for their lives. A pandemic that continues to confound our nation's planners with some state governments making political decisions that go contrary to good public health policy now seems old news. But just think about it. If you get vaccinated your chances of becoming severely ill from COVID is greatly diminished and your risk of adverse reaction is very small. Since the pandemic has taken a right turn again with hospital beds becoming scarce etc., more infected people and the virus is changing (Darwinian science) so things could get much worse. Are we like the horse being brought to water?

O.K. if this is not enough how about that asteroid that should arrive in a number of months. Will it slam into the earth? Stay tuned!   

Well, I woke up this morning assured that I'd make it downstairs. Today I'm pretty sure I'll make it through the day. Next week sure. Next year....

      https://www.flickr.com/photos/leonardsjacobs/albums/72157603520494610

Leonard