Magical Mystery Tour

The scientific method ..
... where it begins

Through the looking glass
("Starry night" - van Gogh)



Have you ever noticed,  .. you know, .. when you get a flyer through the door selling something, ..and there's bullet points, and you want to see what it is they're actually saying, .. how you have to skip to the bottom line to see what it's all about  .. and then you wonder why they made you wade through all that crap to get there and why didn't they just put it right up the top and say it - like, .. "The Earth is getting bigger".  Maybe in bold if they wanted to catch your attention.  And just leave it at that.  Why do they have to hype it up when there's nothing in it but the obvious?  ... Or why don't they start off with the bottom line and then go blonk blonk blonk with all the bullets, to tell you why it's good for you to know, and then just leave it to you?  Why do they have to turn it upside down and make such a meal of it into the bargain?

Well, it's true is it not?  And what's more, the difference in the way you read it is exactly that between the S.M. ( sado-masochistic) Scientific Method way of doing science and the unscientific (no-probs) Natural Philosophical  way of doing it - like here.

In the scientific method (as Feynman says) you make a guess and then see if you can back it up with support.  And if there's a 'Hey Presto' in it you think you can sell, then you turn it all around and make it look like a respectable conclusion that follows from those blonks.  It's a kind of short-cut way of looking at things.


For example, you might pick up a grain of sand and say, "A-hah, this is a beach," and set about trying to prove it according to rules about beaches.  So you see if it is round, and of a certain size, .. at which point you decide you might need a bit more data, .. so, you go, .. out, and you look, and you find another one and hey, now you have *two* grains of sand, .. and they're both just exactly round, .. and so on.  (Pretty smart, huh?)  Then with a straight face you can say with confidence, "This is a beach", and hope everybody will buy one.  Doesn't matter about the water.  That's different and can be dealt with later, .. this is about science, sand and beaches, right?  (Reductive.)  ["Elemental,  my dear Watson."]

The No-Probs method is different.  In this one you get in your tardis and zoom out and look at everything else but (beaches) ('coz you might get distracted), .. and once you've got the framework right then Bob's-your-Uncle.  You can check out the sand and the boulders and the other flotsam lying around if you like. No guessing needed.  In fact you might not even bother that much, about 'beach'; because a beach is a beach (distractions notwithstanding).  Seen one you've seen 'em all.  Go a bit further and you might find something quite interesting - like a whale, .. lying on top of a grain of sand.   And what do we do about that then, .. on the beach? .. Well, we get in the tardis again and ... ..  .

See what I mean?  No guessing, .. no 'science' (of the guessing /hypothesising /theorising /methodical /measuring /modelling sort) needed, .. things just are, .. in their natural rightful order, when you look at them the right way, .. which is in context.  And how do you do context right?

Well, ... as the Time Lord says, you just go forth, .. get in the Tardis ..  and, ... look through the glass.

Easy.  You don't have to molecate everything to be scientific.  Alice's No-Probs Tardis is just fine. In fact it's where science begins. Or should begin -with the considered life and the contemplated observation.  All sorts of problems arise if the 'molecules' are not in the right order. And that's where the tardis comes in handy, .. it gets you up there so you can see them in the right order, when they are bright, .. and shiny, .. and speak for themselves.


=>cards

Shopping

Waiting for the bus.  One goes past going the other way.  On it is a picture with the words "Gears of War - Never fight alone", ..  I don't quite know why it makes me laugh.  (Maybe you can tell me.)  Something to do with the possibility of a Donald Trump in the White House grabbing women's crotches, "Because you can do that when you are well-known".   Here's the picture:-

Oh, sure, .. It's a game.  Just a game, .. and what's more, only designed to appeal to young adle-scence.  What's that got to do with anything (besides me an' Julio down by the schoolyard I mean.)  What's that? ..  Like Pokemon (?) ..(Yeah?)  .. Oh well, .. (I think that's my point).

And just by the way somehow my mind jumps to this morning's news where it is being announced that a coalition of forces is assembling in a bid to retake the city of Mosul from Isis, which we can watch in real time on newsfeeds.

Refresh memory.  .. Mosul.  Check.  Remembered because there was a dam there that was said to be under structural threat, that could release a catastrophic flood if ISIS ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam#Instability_and_remediation

  But Google earth anyway (for the dam).  Dams are a fair size (and there's a few), but reflect on the "Relentless imperative of Flatness" (of geological process) and think "shallow", .. and with a good pair of wellies you could probably walk across them and not get your feet wet.

Flat land, .. and then remembered, .. the names of places shown, .. Ramadi, Falluja Tikrit, ... Abu Ghraib, even, ..I see Haditha.  I know what a hadith is, but I check it out on the Wiki anyway for confirmation and think, "Let's take a closer look on the google", and click on a panoramio pic.  Almost immediately I come up with this one of a fellow in a mosque.  Peaceful.  Just further down the list on the google search page I see something about a massacre, .. read it (some) (I don't remember hearing about that)  and think "how did we get from that 'yesterday' to the news today?"  Under what /whose 'aegis'?  What really is the cause of all this sectarian violence that won't go away?  And am reminded of the sectarian violence in another place, Ireland, not so long ago, that went by the name of  'The Troubles".  But it could be in many places.

 "Children, fight - the real enemy."

 But what chance, when they are fed 'games' like the above and come to regard it as the norm via the nightly news, and wait for the day when they too can be 'Soldiers of the Cross' (Or the Koran), with a wee death's head to wear till they can string a few real ones on their belt. Jesus! What sort of a world are we living in?

Poor old Pope, holed up in the Vatican, .. a hostage of everybody else's sometimes-beliefs.  And Julian Assange and Edward Snowden holed up too, .. on account of The Great Satan.  [How many Islamic equivalents are there?  (Question)]    Or is that a many-headed hydra needing decapitatated?

What a world, .. stranger than fiction - until you get the hang of it, when even sheer lunacy seems ok.

So, ... what's for dinner?  (Let's go and see if the power's still on.)  (And if there still is one.)
===================

(20161020)
Talking about the Pope being holed up in the Vatican (hostage to people's emotional /spiritual needs) and the possible election of The Donald to the White House, we should note another newsworthy event creeping out from under the carpet, namely the proposed takeover of out public houses by science on grounds (presumably) that we should have a world based on rational thought, rather than an emotional irrational one based on religion, and that we should begin by recognising something that seems to have escaped the vegemite sandwich - that beer is something of a (hic!) r'l'g'n, that should not be encouraged.

"So, what'll you have?"
"Dunno, .. what's the Pope drink?"
"Creme de menthe."
"Ok, a pint of that then."
(Courtesies :=: Oor Billie.)
 ---------------------

(20181008)
(Couple of years later)  Well, 'The Donald' happened.  We've moved on, ..Isis has dropped off the radar but has been replaced by something even more onerous - 'women's boddies and who owns them' (baby?) - and as if that wasn't controversial (!?) enough, their importance when it comes to electing Supreme Court judges in America, when somebody's say-so (true or not) half a century ago can carry a whole "Me-too" country along with it, except for those charged with the responsibility of authentication of the said say, who are left floundering in the wake of the accusations.  Talk about infantile madness?!

Where does the time go? September has just past (again) and with it the commemoration /celebration(?)(not sure which) of Ashura., so (memory lane) I look it up (images) and am somewhat disappointed to see hardly any blood, when in previous years the streets have swimming in it, though I think a lot of it must be red paint. (Blood is more crimson than that, but the intended coercion is still there.)

I think the decline in anguish (going by the present lack of blood) is encouraging though. It was said this year they're being encouraged to donate blood rather than spill it, .. so that might account for Google's emphasis on crowds rather than blood - unless there is some algorithmic manipulation going on, which I think is probably the case, now we're "going forward" into a brave new world.

------------------------------

(20200120)
And later still.  My blogstats show that somebody clicked on this page (tco probably), so I'm curious to have a look at it again, .. see what I wrote.  And see there's a reference to Donald Trump, which is topical because his impeachment trial is just beginning. The man is a study in hubris even more than I am (thinking you can change the world in some way). Everybody's encouraged to get engaged with it enough to try, but woe betide you if you do. So, .. mixed messages. "Give somebody enough rope and they'll hang themselves", .. isn't that what they say?  It certainly looks as if Trump is in trouble (with the hanks of it coiling round his neck). It is, of course, not a referendum on Trump. Before he was president I'd only ever heard of the guy via reports in celebrity gossip columns, but after he got elected very quickly got the picture. I tracked him for a couple weeks or so. That was enough.  It's been a few years now and it's been a downward spiral. The media keeps talking up what a terrific job he's done of the economy and employment, but that doesn't seem to gel with what some representatives for the various states /counties say. It's a great pity Ocasio-Cortez isn't old enough to take him on. That would *really be the test to waken people up because of course (again) all of this 'impeachment' is not about Trump, except insofar as the danger that extreme narcissism poses when it is coupled with psychopathy and gets itself into the topmost position of power, and draws to itself all the attendant psychophants with their own agendas), it's about the people who voted him in and what they see in him - and the just-mentioned mafia-mob.  What is it that attracts people to slogans and nationalism and racism, versus policies for making life better for everybody? 

 And just a word here about psychopathy (psycho, pathy ==> illness of the psyche), because it interests me (some). It is 'that of the soul which connects us to others'. It's not about looking in mirrors or showing off or any of that (though it is included), it's a totally inverted way of positioning the self to others and the world, and far, far more than can be explained in a couple of lines - which is why it is not regarded by the medical profession as an illness. (It's just too ingrained in people.)
 
That woman Cortez, put her shoes where her mouth is, for two years (I think), and wore them out talking to people in the street.  I just hope she can stay the course, and puts America back on the track it was meant to be (going by that green garden gnome at the gate anyway), rather than the swamp it is in very great danger of becoming under Trump. Meanwhile Nancy's done a *great job* nipping this whole personality cult thing in the bud by making the Republican Party take a good look at itself, because it is they, more than anyone,  who are under scrutiny for what they stand for, .. hanging on to Trump's coat-tails and pork-barelling slogans and pointing and head-nodding say-nothings, and generally rabble rousing. There's the difference, .. Trump and crew say a slogan and let it hang in the air while the crowd screams its head off.  Cortez talks policy and shuts them up with a wave of the hand if they get too noisy, and gets on with what else (of policy) she has to say.  I like that.  Very much.  In the beginning I had hopes for Trump. With his 'charisma' (as it could have been), but it's changed.  Has it? Seems to me anyway, though I'm not really in a position to judge. Checking his interviews when younger he's certainly a self declared, very vindictive guy who values loyalty over virtually anything else (so long as he's top dog).   But he can certainly appeal to people, though to what, exactly, is a moot point.  But he very quickly showed neither his head nor his heart are in the right place. 

I just hope Cortez can hang on to herself. It's a heavy load to carry for one so young.  And then there's family and all that. America is a leader, but it is on a cusp of something that could be very dangerous for the *world* - or its salvation.  Cortez is more than herself.  She is a Woman for the Age. And a Leader.  All power to her.

.

  

Repost

[Re-post of events covering the so-called Cologne attacks at Christmas, 2015 commented on here.]

---------------------------------------
P.S.   20160111

( More on Guns and being fast on the Draw at Yuletide.)  ["Lewdness"]

Except it's about cameras and not being.

So where were all the cameras? (!)

So somebody got their bum felt and their handbag pinched.  What's so special about that when there's a crowd of drunks for cover?  The two go together like "The Dickens and a Pocket or two (oo.o.)," do they not?  It's the way it's always done.. [Makes it less trouble when you show a little affection ("Peace sister, peace.  .. I haven't eaten for days. ]

"Yes officer, somebody put their hand on my bum and when I turned round it was gone.  Didn't even notice it got snatched."
"Yes, Ma'am, but you managed to remain standing.  And you had your mobilie-phone in your handbag so you couldn't take a picture of the /miscreant.  That so?" 
"Yes officer."
"Anything else?"
"Well, .. one thing led to another and before I knew it there were thousands of them and my knickers had gone too."
< ... then something about rape..>

So where are all the mobile phone pictures of these assaults?   Seems like nobody was very quick on the draw here.

Oops yes, I see one (just posted).  Right on cue :-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12092354/Cologne-sex-attacks-New-Years-Eve-cases-rise-to-more-than-500.html
 ..which follows the earlier Telegraph reportage :-
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/cologne-new-year-sex-attacks-germanys-women-are-angry-scared---a/
in which :-

"..Dozens of women trying to see in the New Year in the centre of Cologne found themselves trapped in a crowd of some 1,000 men, who groped them, tore off their underwear, shouted lewd insults and threw fireworks at them..."

 ..............

What a beat-up.  'Course it was organised.  If I was a PEGIDAST or an ISIList I'd say it's all maturing quite nicely if we just leave it to (some) people (like me) to do what they're naturally inclined to do where immigrants /refugees are involved  once they get this idea of "connectedness" in their head.
["Whenever two or more of them are gathered in its name" (in beerhalls and such) there is bad behaviour.]

Seen it all before?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/30694252/why-are-thousands-of-germans-protesting-and-who-are-pegida

In that article with the thousand men and the lewd insults the police said "they were tipped off about plans by groups of asylum seekers to sexually harass women", but somehow the whole thing went "almost completely unreported for five days - and the scale of what happened that night in the western German city is only now emerging."

(Apparently the plan wasn't working and evidently needed the injection of some drama.  And many came forward (eventually) to supply it.  With a total absence of any smoking-gun pics.

A Mechanism for an Expanding Earth

THE IONIC GROWING EARTH
By Eugene Ellis

A Mass - Entropy theory for an Expanding Earth in an Expanding Universe

 [An 8-element supplement to the above paper including this figure may be viewed here]
[See also ]

For some considering this matter of an expanding Earth, a mechanism for expansion would appear to be central to their acceptance before any physical expression such as the creation of the ocean floors ( = two thirds of the Earth's surface) would be credible.  Seeing,  it would appear, is not necessarily believing.  However, if such a mechanism were to be discovered  (such as the much-celebrated Higgs boson, discovered on the stroke of a funding midnight  and considered to be a credible expression of an expanding universe)  would they abandon their conviction of the 'reality' of subduction?  I doubt it.

In the meantime therefore, they may care to read  Mr E. Ellis' assessment of how an expanding universe is expressed on Earth.

Mr Ellis posits that :-

"The decay of five elements (O, Fe, Si, Mg and S) as exemplified by their ionization properties is responsible for the Earth accumulating sufficient mass to double its radius at least twice in the past billion years [and was] responsible for the oxygen in water doubling seven times in mass and volume for a one hundred and twenty-four fold increase to incrementally fill the growing ocean beds created during the crustal expansions of (the) past 180 to 200 million years."

.. and supports his narrative with six tables and seven figures that clearly reflect the considerable time and thoughtful effort he has invested in this enterprise :-

Table 1 =  Mass doubling rates for the above-mentioned elements
Table 2, 3 =  Earth mass and radius growth over past 540my
Table 4 =  Ionisation potentials of the five elements
Table 5 =  Variable Earth-mass growth rates from ionisations of the five selected elements
Table 6 =  Mass from table 5 with lagging radii

Fig.1 =   Geological time scale of five ions
Fig.2 =  Percentage mass v. time (Graph of table 5)
Fg.3 =    Mass, Radius, Density and gravity curves of Table 6.
Fig.4 =   Uncertainty on mass calculation
Fig.5 =    Uncertainty on radius calculation
Fig.6 =  Uncertainty on density calculation
Fig.7 =  Uncertainty on gravity calculation



I don't have a background in physics sufficient to evaluate Mr Ellis'  work, but I do recognise that in addressing this subject from a perspective of the atom rather than from the traditionally geological one (as I do), he takes an angle that not only returns us to considerations about the age of the Earth, how it formed and how it is warmed, but also invites us to consider how the intrinsic properties of elemental atoms may increase over time to form the material stuff of the planet.

Mr Ellis tells me that according to our present understanding of the universe the standard model of particle physics involves 2 entities, matter (4.9% atoms and 26.8% dark matter) and energy (68.3% dark energy) which are interchangeable.  However the mathematics of the standard model indicates something is lacking, .. hence the need for more sub-atomic particles and more complex math.  Mr Ellis believes that the ionic paper fills that void with a third entity - entropy, which is not interchangeable with the other two - entropy is a one-way street.

The paper should be viewed as offering a method for finding the mass and radius of an expanding earth that matches the observed geology. It is significant that all the points in Table 5 and Figure 4 are at, or very close to, a geological boundary where highly significant changes in the fossil record are noted.


Comments are welcome either here, or on the 'contact author' link provided in Mr Ellis'  paper.

Good reading.

Reflection. Why do these blogs?

[Originaly posted 6/10/2013 (June 10, 2013), returned to draft 20160916, resurrected 20210407]

Basically the primal scream thing, I guess, .. and therefore an infantile narcissistic indulgence, because if I were to say I did it for any other reason I'd be making excuses.  So, .. here they are:-

1.  Because the internet makes their effective dissemination possible.  And therein ('effective') is a facility the world hasn't seen before.  With the press of a button information can detonate the world.  Bottom-up people-power democratises the world, .. and for better and worse, removes it from institutional control (Wikileaks).  In the academic world it provides a ring-road around the exorbitant paygates that assure a consensus of convenience headed up by the literati.   For all the hype that represents science as a field of discussion and debate the reality is quite otherwise, scientists do not regard controversial views that go to the heart of the matter very favourably..  They may allow, and indeed thrive on, differences that relate to the flounces and feathers of the Eamperor's wardrobe, but anyone drawing attention to nudity gets very short shrift indeed.  Dissenting views on what constitutes fashion are not tolerated.  Therefore the next 'why' is :-

2. 'Jihad': Protesting a number of things, the first of which is ostensibly the ill-founded consensus view that Plate Tectonics presents a credible model for Earth science when it patently doesn't.  Anyone reasonably cognisant of the basic premises of Plate Tectonics can pick any number of holes in it.   The reason they don't is because to do so simply states what everybody else already knows - that they are pejoratives that could potentially throw the field into chaos (and reputations with it) - and because to detract from the consensus view invites opprobrium.  Better to go with the flow and remain within the stated consensus by deliberately ignoring the inconsistencies, or if they must be mentioned then to disingenuously represent them as positively as possible, as "opportunities for more research", thereby elevating what is really crass nonsense to some sort of respectability.  And if you don't self-censor, then others will do it for you.

But just to digress here from the 'whys' of these posts for a moment it seems to me that these inconsistencies can actually be turned to serve a double purpose.  On the one hand ignoring (/omitting) them helps to cement a consensus, which is the vehicle that scientists must ride if they wish to secure funding and career advancement.  And on the other hand (since they *are* obvious contradictions and so hardly require mention at all) to actually draw attention to them as positives ancillary to consensus is a kind of silent code that says, "We recognise these disconnects would up-end the apple cart if we focussed on them and so we won't, we'll leave them aside for now and trot them out later when a significant alternative is identified that consensus can recognise as *useful to purpose* - purpose being funding and career advancement.  [Not useful to science, because if so then they would be voraciously examined as soon as identified.]  Obviously contradictions of consensus are not by themselves opportunities for research, they must be framed in a positive context, not one that highlights deficiency.

But science is our truth-teller, and its enterprise should be to establish truth.  The holes and obvious contradictions should be the devices by which the field is questioned at every turn, but even a cursory review of the literature will show a complete absence of anything that interrogates Plate Tectonics in a subtractive way in order to better appraise it.  So in a way these errors are potential trump cards that carry with them the communicability of memes that everyone knows but holds close to the chest to be played at a convenient time in the future.  They are not things to be *discovered* in the future, .. they are already known and, though unstated, well known, .. they are at once the 'don't-go-there' means that could undermine and destroy, and at the same time be the gems of memes by which future change will be clinched.

Thus they carry more weight, more real currency, than the eventual, pivotal *element* of change, and will overwhelm it.   Moreover the drowning of that element will be silent, unstated, self-evident, and belong to everyone.  Thus the element by the same token is relatively insignificant, and (in geology) is itself already branded an 'everybody-knows' thing.  No-one will, or can (!) claim any pivotal role because everybody knows them already. It's already in first-year textbooks.

In the context of Earth expansion the element of change identified here is boudinage, or large-scale boudinage, or regional boudinage, or (one step further) boudinage of the lithosphere.  The term was coined at the outcrop scale, but it occurs on all scales, and was identified as such in the beginning; Lohest who coined the term (in 1908) identified the uplift of the entire Bastogne region of Belgium as a result of boudinage.  That this scale factor has been ignored for nearly a century is irrelevant because it is validated in the principle of scale-invariance that has similarly existed, and thus belongs to everyone.  There are no marks for pointing out the significance of scale, because all that's doing is potentially drawing attention to others' deficit in not having done so themselves, but who would insist is not a deficit at all, .. they just "never bothered" (because it is self-evident, .. in first-year text-books and everybody knows it already so why should they?).  To do so just invites a defensive  "Yeah-yeah, so what, .. everybody knows that", but at the same time elicits an unstated but epiphanous, "..Actually, we never saw it quite like that.."  But there are no marks for drawing attention to the whole, the pattern, "the whole being more than the sum of the parts", when the parts are already well known.   And no marks either for highlighting the unstated contradictions of Plate Tectonics that undermine that paradigm, and that will eventually lead to change.

3.  Belling the cat.  So, no marks for pointing out what everybody "already knows" - that the change to Earth expansion is inevitable, that it is already in motion under the aegis of lithospheric boudinage, that it belongs to everyone through the simple geological principle of scale-invariance, and therefore that it very much *does*present a challenge to physics.  Physics already knows it has more problems than you can poke a stick at ("boson-like particles discovered on the stroke of a funding midnight" notwithstanding).  But who will bell *that* cat?  The excitement attached to the scale-invariance principle in that field that has led to the creamery of Big Bing theory could just as well be read as an applecart in disarray.  The increase in the Earth's curved surface area with time is not in geological question, but the implications for a mantle volume /mass increase very much is, and must be found in physical theory.  So again theory will be pitched against fact, so we shouldn't expect resolution any time soon.

4.  Advertsing serendipity as a means to discovery before 'science' encountered 'The Method'. (Boudinage as an organising principle for the location and formation of ore deposits => boudinage as a key to Earth expansion.)  Serendipity of discovery is all about pattern and the larger-scale context.  The scientific method is the antithesis, .. all about elements and reductivism, and claiming relevance when some inevitable correlation is 'discovered' (/noticed) - as it invariably must, since elements are part of  pattern.  But without context the correlation is disembodied (the pale cadaverous body-parts of Plate Tectonics, levitated by faith and belief in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,  versus the in-your-face Beauty of Mother Earth, turning, .. ever turning. 

5.  Putting money where the mouth is.   And the name as well.  If Institutions of learning can make a fool of themselves by promoting Plate Tectonics, then I don't see why I can't by promoting Earth expansion.  Why not (?).  Though paying for a service provider just to get spammed, stiff knees and constipation is not going to happen for very much longer, even if it is for Sophie More's edification.  (The 'Teams of Researchers' intent on putting "Jesus Christ on a stick" can look after themselves and will get there anyway, eventually - once most of them die off).  Well, .. maybe it won't work.  I just fancied the idea of Sophie taking a shortcut and splitting her jeans on a pesky maneuver - like connecting the dots between gravity, mantle growth and magnetic field ('mechanism').  Though I don't know about a Big Bang. (That's a memory Lane thing.) 

6.  Subtexts - of which there are many.  How science is done.  The role of institutions of learning in these days of the internet ('Grooming' for institutionalisation).  Public funding of exorbitant paygates available to the 'groomed'..  Science as a career rather than a calling, and the opportunistic 'paedophiles' it attracts to itself (grooming again).  "Scientists Believe" rather than scientists think.  "The Church of Plate Tectonics."  Degredation rituals as an analogue for excommunication.   'Plank-by-plank' pussyfooting, instead of getting to the point.  'Game-playing' :: the bearpits of academia masquerading as parlours of respectable discourse. And heaps more.  I'll add them if you suggest any.

7.  What does it matter?   To think it might is a conceit of the first order.  If we had to rootle around in the bottom of the bag we might come up with the one about focussing where ore deposits are most likely to occur, .. which I guess is useful to the economic affairs of man, but that's old hat now.  And anyway with the amount of red and green tape obstructing whichever way we turn that might no longer be so now.  Use has been usurped by expediency.  It's all got too hard.  The fun's gone out of it.  In some strange way we seem to be living in an increasingly dystopian and despotic world sold to us, as marketeers will, as 'democratically improved', but isn't.  Or maybe it is, and that's just the price that has to be paid when a boundary is crossed and things no longer work the way they should according to the rules..

As far as Earth expansion is concerned the Earth is not going to blow up any time soon, .. so what does it matter?  Geology has little to say about the quantum world ever since physics demonstrated its p-p-pyrotechnic p-p-pomposity'.


========================

So, .. drawing a line.  That concludes about ten years of posting on the net (1. sci.geo.geology (don's blog), 2. website, 3. Rationalskepticism, 4.  Blogger).  There are a few loose ends that remain to be tidied up, but the gist of it is all there ("I-Ching").  The Earth is getting bigger, .. "expanding".   For sure.

Which returns me to the question why did I bother (stating the obvious that has been stated before)?  To which the best answer I can give is "Just because".  Self-assertion is like that. I'm a bully at heart when I can hide behind the internet with an identity that nobody would bother to steal,  but like others I would be a coward when confronted with the discipline and retribution that the institutionalised power of the academic world can muster, if I was part of that.  Which I'm not.  Which is why I can do it. And those who are, can't.

Now I have to go and put the rubbish out - which has accummulated (somewhat; ten years, after all), then go out to play.  Get a life.

A big thanks to all readers for indulging me this.  The thought of that, and the needle instigating Jihad in the first place has largely been the motivation for writing it. 

Ciao.

[20210407.  Well that was nearly (/ effectively was) a decade ago.  Memory Lane.  You do get strangely afflicted sometimes. It's a kind of madness, I guess, but out of that deeper exploration does arise a sense of connectedness and meaning (maybe) that eludes younger years. (But to what end?)]

[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/