Monthly Archives: February 2014

Fudge is dark matter.

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Around twenty five hundred years ago, Greeks had determined that the earth was round and orbited the sun. In a classroom in Neapolis (modern Naples) a twenty five year old pupil, Aeschylius, sat at the feet of Sapphocles, a renowned scientist and teacher.
“I completed my assignment from last week but I just couldn’t come up with your solution.” Aeschylius handed his abacus to his mentor.
“This is the answer I found at first,” he smiled and handed it back. “The problem is that it cannot be true based on the length of our year and the difference in shadow length of a standard staff between here and Alexandria at midsummer at midday.”
“You came up with the same number?”
“At first. Yes.”
“I feel a little better but the number is off by a factor of six or seven from what you published. Not six percent off but six times smaller.”
“I have invented a solution for the discrepancy, young Aesch.”
“Explain, Sir. Please.”
“Dark matter. We are surrounded by it. Can’t see it, feel, smell, taste or hear it but it fills the immensity of space. It alters the paths of planets and stars.”
There was a long period of silence. Aeschylius stood, brushed the dust of his tunic and asked, “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m deadly serious, young man,” he stated with indignation.
“Dark matter? That’s the best you’ve got? I mean, the name shows no class, no chutzpa, no creativity. But,” he raised a finger, “I give you credit for making up a whopper as a fudge factor instead of admitting you have absolutely no idea what’s really operative here.”
“Young man!” He fumed. “The audacity!”
“The mendacity!” he countered.
“You little Aesch! Out! Get out of this school right now!” Sapphocles bellowed at the top of his lungs and pointed to the door.
“People in the future will laugh at you. Ha! Dark matter? Only a sap would accept that.” With that he ran, escaping the hail of epithets and chunks of gypsum.
Twenty five hundred years later theoretical physicists found that the mass at the center of galaxies was too small to keep all the stars together. The mass of the black hole and central massive stars were off by a factor of six or seven. So, they invented dark matter, stuff that can’t be measured or detected and declared that 85% of the universe consisted of it. They didn’t stop there. Dark energy is causing the universe to expand faster then they think it should.
So, we’ve made a great amount of progress in the last two point five millennia. Brilliant.
Oh, lets see how this dark drivel actually fits into the Big Bang Model (Big BM [Too crass? Go with BBM]) If dark matter preexisted the big bang and occupied our space, by its gravitational effects it could have accelerated the initial expansion of the infant universe, which is good because it had to grow at or above the speed of light for a while. If it were created with the Big BM, the universe could not have expanded as quickly as is hypothesized due to excessive gravitational effects. It must, therefore, have existed prior. But that can’t be right because nothing existed before, right? Conundrum.
More likely, the notion of dark matter is simply a compensation for ignorance of physical principles we have not yet defined, perhaps one in which the formula for gravity works accurately at the level of a solar system but not as well at the galactic scale.
Have I ever mentioned how string theory originated in the dark ages? No? Just wait.

Big Government is not new. Pharaoh Moans

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Pharaoh Moans
Or How To Attract Dysfunction.

Chapter One
Big Government

Circa 4,000 years ago a Pharaoh planned to travel from Luxor to Quseir, only accessible by an overland route from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea of almost one hundred miles. He had two hundred Jewish slaves to carry him, his wives, children and his personal slave, Fawks, in their residence on their shoulders over the dirt and stone road. A hundred slaves could carry this load at two miles per hour but each one could work for about an hour before they needed a break. A hundred replacements traded duty for twelve hours of travel per day. It would take about four days to make the trip.
Near the end of the first day, the pharaoh’s family wanted food prepared, so six slaves were taken from the contingent, placed in residence to cook and serve.
It was hot, so they wanted a bath and fans and people to operate them, so four more Hebrews went into the residence along with tubs of water and palm fronds. (The Pharaoh made certain that all those removed from the arduous work were members of Slave Empowerment Intranational Union or SEIU.)
They needed their beds made, the house cleaned, the honey pots emptied and cleaned, insects removed. Being desert, sand was everywhere so half a dozen bodies were added.
A four day trip is boring, so they needed entertainment. “More Jews!” the children cried and more were added so they could watch plays one after another after another.
The royals complained that the trip was too bumpy. The slave masters regulated how the bearers were to walk, their cadence and stride and also where they could step.
The grapes were soft, so a contingent of runners was sent back for fresh fruit.
These changes all resulted in a loss of speed to one mile per hour or less. The masters then created incentives. The slaves would be able to eat if they increased the speed back to two miles per hour. Otherwise they would miss their ration. They cut the rest periods and increased the work shift to keep one hundred under the house but the speed barely increased.
By the third day they were still short of halfway. One of the Egyptian masters pointed out to the Pharaoh that the additional weight coupled with fewer workers was slowing the procession. He was demoted to slave.
On the fourth day, despite increasing the carrying period to fifteen hours per day, it was clear they were not going to arrive at the resort that day or possibly even the next. The young children were ornery, the wives disgruntled and the pharaoh irritated. “I have a new game,” he said. “It’s called Stomp. On the count of three, everyone jumps up as high they can then hits the floor as loud as possible with their feet.”
“But won’t that bother the carriers?” Fawks, asked.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said. “Besides, I’m the Pharaoh and I do what I want.”
He counted to three. When almost everyone jumped up, the carriers bowed and winced in pain. When they hit, the carriers could not bear the load and the platform fell, crushing those beneath.

Chapter Two
Making Sense of it All

The Pharaoh’s legs were broken. Fawks, also injured, said, “It appears that supporting more with fewer was a catastrophe.”
“According to my economic adviser, Canes, adding more to the platform should have accelerated our progress. So, slave, if you had a college education, you would not make such a stupid conclusion.”
Fawks scratched his head in disbelief, looked over the destruction and asked, “Is it right to have no checks on your power? When you have a whim, it hurts so many.”
“Silence, slave. I know best. Besides, it wasn’t my fault. It was clearly poor engineering and flawed construction by non-union slaves. And you, Fawks, probably had a role in this as well.”
The Pharaoh’s eldest son, a teenager and unhurt, clambered through the devastation. “I need my surgeon,” Pharaoh moaned.
“He’s back in Thebes,” his son answered. “Your regulations forbade him to leave the palace.”
“Where I am IS the palace!”
“Not by what is written in your law, the Aristocratic Care Act.”
“Then find another doctor!”
“The ACA has performance metrics. Because you are a high risk, I doubt any one will care for you because if the outcome is poor, it will be published, they might not be paid and could lose their position in the organization.”
“I’ll grant them amnesty. The pain is killing me. I need help! Get those slaves over there to carry me.” He pointed.
“They’ll be carrying me. The ACA utilization panel made the rule that if someone breaks both legs in the middle of the desert, we don’t waste resources on them.” He smiled.
“Then I’ll change the ACA. I have a pen. Or I had one. Fawks, where is my pen?”
“Somewhere in the rubble of your foolishness, your Highness.”
“Silence, Fawks!”
“Fawks provides a unique perspective, don’t you agree, dad? Anyway, if you can’t walk, I guess we’ll leave you out here in desolation.”
“I’ll pay half my fortune to anyone who will get me out of here,” the Pharaoh screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Remember the Frankendawd law you passed, the one to make the financial markets more honest? Well, you can’t liberate the royal fortune just like that. Besides,” the son laughed loud, “the treasure will soon be mine.”
“You can’t do this to me. When the people learn of this, they will revolt.”
“The news papyrus industry supports the Pharaocracy. It shall report only what I want the people to know. Which is that you died of a head injury. So, dad, have a nice eternity deep inside the pyramid.” The son lifted a rock and seconds later was the leader of all Egypt.

Story reported by Fawks.
To Joe Perry