Planck's Constant

 

Giant Sumpweed???

In 1900, to solve a dilemma in physics Max Planck derived a bold solution through mathematics. The problem was in the relationship between a particle's energy and its frequency. Planck's calculation determined what he called the Quantum of Action. By Action he referred to energy moving along a path. Lend your mind to the image of waves on the screen of an oscilloscope, or the heart monitors in a coronary intensive care unit. The classic view of Action was that energy moving along a path could change in a smooth and continuous manner. Trouble was energy didn't seem to be moving along a path in a smooth and continuous manner, which suggested that energy might not be an infinitely divisible stream of whatever it was flowing into endless and mysterious wonder. Instead, Planck suggested, and this was radical, that energy and all other physical things comprised of tiny indivisible packets, that could be measured. Planck's Constant is his calculation of the size of the smallest possible unit or packet of energy or action in the Universe. Pretty, bloody bold, but lo, since 1900 Planck's Constant has been "measured with increasing precision." The question I'm hearing: "Does this have something to do with Ivan of the Left Artery or Baxter of the Abdominal Aorta?" Certainly not Ivan, he's a savage, he's a proponent of a flat-earth and he's in deep denial, so he has to grow up a bit, but Poor Baxter, encouraged by our Spleen and his cult members, is laboring under the illusion that despite claims by the laws of entropy which suggests that as energy dissipates and everything cools down time comes to an end producing the blessed release we all yearn for, Baxter, however, has been persuaded that when we die, he personally will be tried by God's Department of Justice and sentenced to what's laughingly referred to as "The Eternal Flames." The point about Max Planck, a blue-eyed German Idealist, the founder of quantum theory and a Lutheran, he's one of those fiendish physicists who has a number of very neat, and often incomprehensible suggestions about consciousness. At the end of his life, perhaps contemplating his legacy, he suggested in what to my mind was an off hand manner that Consciousness was the underlying matrix from which all matter came. He went on a bit, then some more and in so doing he sounded guilty of something, but we'll look at where that came from tomorrow when a rather special Clematis Paniculata achieves a slightly fuller bloom and after we've all been forced into a better understanding of what makes a young Mormon tick.

Soma Holidays

Shitke Mushroom

Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" told a story of a blissful land sedated by entertainment, sex and a drug Aldous named after a Hindu Nectar of the Gods called Soma. Oh yes! Becoming the Master of Happiness, having a finger on the dopamine switch, allows you to choose, make all the decisions for the simple folk. But can you say controlling the anarchy of Instagram, Ticktock, Puddle and Dimwit in the Morning, Podcasters, Television, Facebook, Hollywood Award Ceremonies, long tedious accounts of the Mitford Sisters, as well as all other impositions of the Internet, if all that was yours to control, would it make you Lord of All. Not really. Why? Three things to think about. One, without the element of religion, a willing embrace of myth or a lobotomy, oneness for us living things becomes basically boring. The second area to think about: the Almighty One must have eternal life! It's just a sad fact that power is an addiction for which there is no twelve step program and offspring tend to be very unreliable. Thirdly: Aldous had convinced himself that the happiness which had been defined for the citizens of the World State was dehumanizing, it had lost touch with the important things that made life worthwhile like love, the plays of Bernard Shaw, Jane Austin, German Romance Novels, charades and other parlor games. Indeed, the World State had convinced itself that Truth and Happiness are incompatible, which in the current age rings a rather loud bell. Aldous himself insisted a happiness/unhappiness duality is good for us, it's healthy, creative and fundamentally awesome. So if the Nectar of the Gods, from which there was no hangover, is bad for us, it makes you wonder why fentanyl's been declared an Extreme Emergency. Let's all yawn and enjoy the cooler evenings before Huxley's books are declared seditious and banned, I guess.

Give it Time

Leafy Elephant's Foot

You can't disentangle Politics and Religion. Why? One answer is: we people are fundamentally irrational, our motivations are unattached to those structures of reason which have so dominated the thought processes of Enlightenment Thinkers. The other answer runs this way: Don't you dare tell me what my self interest is. A stern warning wrapped in rugged individualism and very healthy, and a sad day when the serried ranks of stalwart legions disgrace themselves and runaway. At times like this we wait for our leader to admit we are not worthy of his magnificence so we can take no notice rather than face the shame of admitting we were wrong to follow him. Give it time.

The Perils of Hollywood, Madison Avenue and syphilis.

Sweet Annie and her Spider

No doubt some parts of Hollywood and Madison Avenue prefer a Jungian interpretation of myth. A follow your heart, personal growth, discover a true sense of self, the assurance that vulnerability is strength, blubbing like a baby is healthy and on into other cringe worthy expressions of sobriety. Other parts of Hollywood and Madison Avenue would prefer to reaffirm male authenticity by sending Clint Eastwood or John Wayne to prove their metal on the Eastern Front to look tough and smoke cigarettes in Stalingrad rather than endure the alternative of dying in a kitchen while making a vegetarian quiche. My own view, the Paleolithic Age started coming to an end about twenty thousand years ago, yet still lingers around like a mother's boy who misunderstood that head stone for the Paleolithic, that book for all and none, Thus Spoke Zarathustra which came from the devious mind of Friedrich Nietzsche who after eleven years of mental issues died childless at the age of 55 from complications of syphilis in the August of 1900.  The final eleven years of his life and his legacy was left to his sister, Therese Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche to manage. Therese's husband was a teacher and an anti-Semite activist who'd dreamed of creating an Aryan colony in Paraguay. He killed himself in San Bernardino, Paraguay, in 1889 at the age of 46. Mr and Mrs Förster were not exactly Joy to the World and bunny rabbits. As Lutherans they fundamentally approved of eternal struggle and the value of the end times. More exciting, Therese's selective misinterpretations of her brother's work supported her husband's activism and finally achieved a moment of fulfillment in 1933 when President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany. The result, trains ran on time and Germany not Paraguay was hedged to become a blue eyed blond Aryan paradise. Therese had no children she died of a stroke and either syphilis or dementia in 1935, she was 91. The German Chancellor and a number of other fascist big-wigs, to add a veneer of veritas to their frail and unsupported understandings attended her funeral. Of interest, usually it takes about twenty years to die of Syphilis, which means, if it was Syphilis, Therese would have contracted it sometime in the First World War when she was around 71.