Susskind and Cox Attempt to Show How String Theory Brings the Physics of the Very Large and the Physics of Very Small into The Same Reference

THIS IS PART OF MY ONGOING PROJECT TO TEACH MYSELF MODERN PHYSICS.

An observation:  Leonard Susskind and other prominent physicists tell us that the mathematics used by them predicts that we actually live in a two dimensional universe controlled by a holograph located at the far end of the universe that makes reality appear to be three dimensional.  I need more information on this.  I think that they understand the maths can be true in allowing the prediction but not requiring it.  They ran into this problem before when their maths told them that time had two directions, it could run both backwards and forwards.   To date they have not proven the multi-direction of time by observation and they most likely will not be able to prove that the two dimensional holograph is our reality.  Personally, it seems that the two dimensional holograph is more likely to be true than the reverse arrow of time.  

MOVIES 'The Shop Around the Corner'

1940 American romantic comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan.

Set in and around a Budapest store, co-workers Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) and Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) hold an intense dislike for each other, while maintaining a secret letter-writing relationship, neither realizing who their pen-pal is. They fall in love via their correspondence, while being antipathic and peevish towards one another in real life. A major subplot concerns the apparent infidelity of the store owner's wife, and its spillover effect upon the various working relationships in the shop.  Comic relief is provided throughout by William Tracy's characterization of Pepi the delivery boy.

[edit] Cast

• Margaret Sullavan – Klara Novak
• James Stewart – Alfred Kralik
• Frank Morgan – Hugo Matuschek
• Joseph Schildkraut – Ferencz Vadas
• Sara Haden – Flora Kaczek
• Felix Bressart – Pirovitch
• William Tracy – Pepi Katona
• Inez Courtney – Ilona Novotny
• Charles Halton – Detective

Another Miracle for Eagles

 

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- They will tell stories about this one for as long as they tell stories about the Eagles. Trailing by 24-3 at halftime, looking for all the world like a beaten team in the biggest game of the season against the New York Giants, the Eagles came all the way back to tie it at 31-31 with 1 minute, 16 seconds left in regulation time.

And then it happened.

DeSean Jackson, after fumbling the final punt of the game, picked it up and returned the ball 65 yards for the stunning, astounding, Westbrookesque, game-winning touchdown for the Eagles.

They will talk about it forever, another miracle at the Meadowlands.

Eagles 38, Giants 31.

Michael Vick willed them down the field in the fourth quarter. There is no other way to describe it. Down by 24-3 at the half, the Eagles kept plugging and the Giants fell into a shell of contentment. With 7:27 left, a juggling 65-yard touchdown pass to tight end Brent Celek cut the deficit to 31-17. Then, after Riley Cooper recovered a David Akers onsides kick, Vick pretty much willed the ball down the field by himself, scoring on a 4-yard quarterback draw with 5:28 remaining that cut it to 31-24.

Then, scrambling with impunity to set them up, Vick hit Jeremy Maclin with a 13-yard touchdown pass with 1:16 left to make it 31-31. The Eagles’ defense then held, forcing the final punt.

Then, it happened.

 

DeSean Jackson, after fumbling the final punt of the game, picked it up and returned the ball 65 yards for the stunning, astounding, Westbrookesque, game-winning touchdown for the Eagles.

They will talk about it forever, another miracle at the Meadowlands.

Eagles 38, Giants 31.

In Rememberance of Things Past

The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.” An example of human foolishness and malevolence.

In The Coming Year

I suggest that there is only one reason to spend large amounts of money and sacrifice American lives in foreign military efforts and that obviously is to protect the homeland against another Nine-eleven attack.  Other reasons for such a commitment are not strong enough to overcome the costs named above.  

In order to analyze this proposition adequately it is helpful to assign a mathematical degree of assurance to the various alternatives at the Nation’s disposal.

If both Afghanistan and Pakistan are pacified are the odds of attack (from another location) lessened? Have the odds changed significantly?  That is, could radicals plan, recruit and finance such activity from another location in the world?  If so, how many locations are there?

Have we considered the adequacy of other actions nesessary to protect the nation against the various kinds of attacks which are also likely, in addition to crashing airlines into populated areas?  

The outcome of the analysis I suggest leads to the conclusion that our present effort is ineffective in protecting us and a waste of money and lives.  On the other hand have we done an adequate job in securing the homeland?  This second approach is the only reasonable course to take.

"Time Marches On"

Streets of Philadelphia

An Interesting NYT Article That Tries To Paint An Historical Picture to Social Legislation

Economic Scene

Opposition to Health Law Is Steeped in Tradition

By DAVID LEONHARDT

Published: December 14, 2010

 “We are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program,” said one prominent critic of the new health care law. It is socialized medicine, he argued. If it stands, he said, “one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

In part because of his stand against Medicare in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan transitioned from an actor to a political activist.

The health care law in question was Medicare, and the critic was Ronald Reagan. He made the leap from actor to political activist, almost 50 years ago, in part by opposing government-run health insurance for the elderly.

Today, the supposed threat to free enterprise is a law that’s broader, if less radical, than Medicare: the bill Congress passed this year to create a system of privately run health insurance for everyone. On Monday, a federal judge ruled part of the law to be unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court will probably need to settle the matter in the end. 

We’ve lived through a version of this story before, and not just with Medicare. Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed.

The opposition stems from the tension between two competing traditions in the American economy. One is the laissez-faire tradition that celebrates individuality and risk-taking. The other is the progressive tradition that says people have a right to a minimum standard of living — time off from work, education and the like.

Both traditions have been crucial to creating the most prosperous economy and the largest middle class the world has ever known. Laissez-faire conservatism has helped make the United States a nation of entrepreneurs, while progressivism has helped make prosperity a mass-market phenomenon. 

Yet the two traditions have never quite reconciled themselves. In particular, conservatives have often viewed any expansion of government protections as a threat to capitalism. 

The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” the National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938.

After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of “naked judicial power” that would sow “chaos and confusion” and diminish American greatness. A decade later, The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.” 

This year’s health care overhaul has now joined the list.

On the most basic level, the law will ensure that people can get health insurance, and thus medical care, even if they are not insured by their employer or their spouse’s employer. Today, many can’t. 

The people who try to buy policies in the individual market are disproportionately those who have reason to think they or their children will need medical care. Healthy people, on the other hand, often go without coverage — until they think they need it. So insurance companies charge sky-high prices for individual policies, to cover the high average costs of care. 

The new law takes two steps to solve the problem. First, it prohibits insurers from denying coverage or charging more because of a person’s health. Second, the law requires individuals to have insurance, spreading the costs of care among the sick and the healthy. 

Two federal judges upheld the individual mandate this year, saying that it fell under Congress’s power to regulate commerce. But Judge Henry Hudson, of a Federal District Court in Virginia, ruled on Monday that Congress had overstepped by prohibiting a form of inactivity — that is, not buying insurance. And as Reagan did with Medicare, Judge Hudson argued that the mandate had a larger meaning: he said it “would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers.”

In truth, the law is quite moderate. It is more conservative than President Bill Clinton’s 1993 plan or President Richard Nixon’s 1974 plan (in which the federal government would have covered anyone who wasn’t insured through an employer). It’s much more conservative than expanding Medicare to cover everyone. It is clearly one of the least radical ways for the United States to end its status as the only rich country with millions and millions of uninsured. 

But the law depends to a significant degree on the mandate. Without it, some healthy people will wait to buy coverage until they get sick — which, of course, is not an insurance system at all. It’s free-riding.

Without the mandate, the cost of insurance in the individual market would rise, perhaps sharply, because some healthy people would not be paying their share. Just look at Massachusetts. In 1996, it barred insurers from setting rates based on a person’s health but did not mandate that individuals sign up for insurance. Premiums then spiked. Since the state added a mandate in 2006, more people have signed up, and premiums have dropped an average of 40 percent. 

It’s easy to look at the current debate and see an unavoidable trade-off between this country’s two economic traditions — risk-taking and security. But I don’t think that’s quite right. I think it is ultimately as misplaced as those worries about Social Security and Medicare equaling Bolshevism. 

Guaranteeing people a decent retirement and decent health care does more than smooth out the rough edges of capitalism. Those guarantees give people the freedom to take risks. If you know that professional failure won’t leave you penniless and won’t prevent your child from receiving needed medical care, you can leave the comfort of a large corporation and take a chance on your own idea. You can take a shot at becoming the next great American entrepreneur. 

With every previous major expansion of the safety net, history has had a chance to prove the naysayers wrong. It may yet in the case of universal health coverage. But the decision now seems to rest with the nine members of the Supreme Court.

More Stuff To Deal With In Life or, Any Nut Is Legally Able To Pack One

With news cameras rolling, a 56-year-old gunman entered a school board meeting in Florida on Tuesday and took several members of the board hostage, then fatally shot himself during a shootout with a security guard.

Is it possible for society to protect itself from similar situations occurring?  Or, must this kind of situation be thought of as unavoidable and something that we must learn to live and deal with?

You can thank the National Rifle Association for its hard work in making this kind of situation more common.  Any nut can carry a weapon.

Science Is Wrong ... Only God Knows The Truth

I now see where I have gone wrong and renounce science and scientists.  They are agents of the devil trying to keep us from God. This is one of the most profound videos that I have ever looked at.  The gentleman giving the talk is absolutely brilliant.  I now understand that the four years in college obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree was worse than a waste of time.  It was Satan setting a trap to catch me.

Obama and the Republicans Are Leading the Country in the Wrong Direction

I took most of Paul Krugman's column from today's New York Times because Krugman being a trained and distinguished economist put it better than I can.  I believe he is right from my experiences and readings.  What follows is the essence of today's column. 

The root of our current troubles lies in the debt American families ran up during the Bush-era housing bubble. Twenty years ago, the average American household’s debt was 83 percent of its income; by a decade ago, that had crept up to 92 percent; but by late 2007, debts were 130 percent of income.

All this borrowing took place both because banks had abandoned any notion of sound lending and because everyone assumed that house prices would never fall. And then the bubble burst.

What we’ve been dealing with ever since is a painful process of “deleveraging”: highly indebted Americans not only can’t spend the way they used to, they’re having to pay down the debts they ran up in the bubble years. This would be fine if someone else were taking up the slack. But what’s actually happening is that some people are spending much less while nobody is spending more — and this translates into a depressed economy and high unemployment.

What the government should be doing in this situation is spending more while the private sector is spending less, supporting employment while those debts are paid down. And this government spending needs to be sustained: we’re not talking about a brief burst of aid; we’re talking about spending that lasts long enough for households to get their debts back under control. The original Obama stimulus wasn’t just too small; it was also much too short-lived, with much of the positive effect already gone.

It’s true that we’re making progress on deleveraging. Household debt is down to 118 percent of income, and a strong recovery would bring that number down further. But we’re still at least several years from the point at which households will be in good enough shape that the economy no longer needs government support.

But wouldn’t it be expensive to have the government support the economy for years to come? Yes, it would — which is why the stimulus should be done well, getting as much bang for the buck as possible.

Which brings me back to the Obama-McConnell deal. I’m often asked how I can oppose that deal given my consistent position in favor of more stimulus. The answer is that yes, I believe that stimulus can have major benefits in our current situation — but these benefits have to be weighed against the costs. And the tax-cut deal is likely to deliver relatively small benefits in return for very large costs.

The point is that while the deal will cost a lot — adding more to federal debt than the original Obama stimulus — it’s likely to get very little bang for the buck. Tax cuts for the wealthy will barely be spent at all; even middle-class tax cuts won’t add much to spending. And the business tax break will, I believe, do hardly anything to spur investment given the excess capacity businesses already have.

The actual stimulus in the plan comes from the other measures, mainly unemployment benefits and the payroll tax break. And these measures (a) won’t make more than a modest dent in unemployment and (b) will fade out quickly, with the good stuff going away at the end of 2011.

The question, then, is whether a year of modestly better performance is worth $850 billion in additional debt, plus a significantly raised probability that those tax cuts for the rich will become permanent. And I say no.

The Obama team obviously disagrees. As I understand it, the administration believes that all it needs is a little more time and money, that any day now the economic engine will catch and we’ll be on the road back to prosperity. I hope it’s right, but I don’t think it is.

What I expect, instead, is that we’ll be having this same conversation all over again in 2012, with unemployment still high and the economy suffering as the good parts of the current deal go away. The White House may think it has struck a good bargain, but I believe it’s in for a rude shock.