Hammering Bundle Theory on the Anvil of Thought

I sometimes think of myself as an educated barbarian. I know so much about things that I don't use or don't make use of. Education systems are fantastic at shoveling things down your throat just in case you'll need them when you start working in that field. Inevitably we don't seem to use most of it either due to the nature of the work or the quality of the management who don't realise your potential or simply don't know how to utilise what you have to offer. A barbarian because there are so many other things I could learn about and get to know. Things that could potentially be useful.

The one thing holding me back is the sheer volume of information blossoming from the collective minds of millions of educated individuals, each gnawing on their own portion of the endless fractal bone of knowledge. Time would quite happily bludgeon us to death with PhD's, MBA's and M.Phils in anything to everything minus one golden nugget that is always missing because Godel had the foresight to open up Pandora's Box.

Abraham Maslow once said "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail". Thank Tim Berners-Lee for the internet and making it easy to find those types of quotes.
Back to hammers. One of my respected authors (who shall remain un-named, unless you have the time and inclination to follow this link) mentioned the concept of Bundle Theory.

Having studied Systems Theory (ever so briefly in one of those many M.Phils floating around in the universe of 'why did I sacrifice so much time to do this?') I can only conclude that bundle theory is an emergence phenomenon based on the fact that multiple sub-systems co-create new systems with collections of attributes that give it a unique identity.

Architecturally our universe is made up of multiple sets of interactive sub-systems built on top of each other from minus infinity to plus infinity. Systems theory may just be my hammer but it's a pretty eloquent hammer especially when you watch the Quantum Monkeys smashing atoms to bits and trying to come up with a Theory for Everything. M-Theory... smashed into finer splinters. At one stage even I was thinking that super strings of Plank length sounded pretty elegant. However, Plank length may be just another emergent property blossoming from the interaction of co-creating sub-systems.

The Higgs particle will soon be followed by the Super-God particle, then by the meta-physical Super God Particle, and then by the "We never Thought of That" particle, which will be followed hot on it's heals by the "We Should Have Seen It Coming" particle and then the "Okay, We're Really Embarrassed About This" particle.

And on a different tack, talking of hammers: the answer to the climate change problem is Jove's Hammer. Unfortunately there isn't enough space in this margin for me to fully describe it.

New Moon Discovered!

It's not every day that you learn something new... or is it?

Today's discovery (albeit a few months old to some) is that the diminutive kingdom of dwarf planets is rapidly acquiring moons. The Hubble Space Telescope (or at least those operating it) recently discovered that Pluto has ANOTHER moon orbiting it (that we
didn't know about until a few months ago).

In an exclusive interview with Alex Dawson a PR rep for Star Quark Enterprises was very happy to announce the delivery of moon Styx (P4) to the generation of evolutionary organisms that have elected to inhabit the planet in the near future. SQE was very keen to show Walter and his friends et. al. at Hubble just how quickly and efficiently a moon could be delivered. Unfortunately persistent disbelief in the existence of life beyond "planet Earth" remains one of the developmental stumbling blocks of the Bluopolous scientific community and their observations were incorrectly interpreted as a lack of sufficient exposure time.

Author Alex Dawson Website Launched!

Finally, Alex Dawson launches his website!
Congratulations - may this be the start of great things.

Perseid Meteor photographed from ISS

This NASA image of a Perseid meteor was photographed from the ISS. Most shooting stars are spotted from the earth as bright streaks against a black star-studded background. This is an exciting development in the field of astronomy - or should it be called Earthomotory. I think I'll bag that one and use it in one of my books.


NASA have put a lovely video together to describing how this picture came about:



I love the image of Arcturus shining through the green airglow of the post solar excited atmosphere at night.

I often wonder how much damage a pea of 1cm would do to the ISS if it struck at 211,000 km/h.

Star Quark Enterprises have strict rules on no-fly zones in the vicinity of planets populated by intelligent life. The last thing they would want to be held responsible for is left over dinner bits wrecking expensive space technology equipment and holding a civilisation back from becoming full members of the intergalactic community.

Back to Jupiter

Like most kids I was mesmerised by the idea that there had once been dinosaurs living on our planet years ago and was perplexed that they had become extinct.

This, however, was eclipsed overnight by a new discovery. I was six years old when I discovered Jupiter. I didn't find it in the heavens or while looking through an astronomers telescope. I discovered Jupiter on the cover of a book in a book shop. Once I knew there were planets out there I wanted to know more.

I'm not sure where I found out what the correct order of the planets were and what there names were but I learnt this at about the same time. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto became my mantra. I found out about the asteroid belt later, and then Kuiper's belt, and then the Oort cloud, and later even more.

I recall being very disappointed with a friend at school who was building y-wing Viper fighters from Battle Star Galactica. That's not real, that's just fiction I chastised. I'm interested in the real stuff. There are real planets and real stars out there. I did come to appreciate his fantastic model making skills and attempt to copy his fine work.

Despite the fact that Voyager & Pioneer both made close calls on Jupiter several years ago, this giant still captivates our interest. So it was with glee that I watched an Atlas 5 Rocket launch the spacecraft Juno on a mission to Jupiter on 5 Aug 2011 (short video here and long version here).

Having read the objectives of the mission I am a little perplexed.

* Determine how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which helps determine which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed
*Look deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties
* Map Jupiter’s magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet’s deep structure
* Explore and study Jupiter’s magnetosphere near the planet’s poles, especially the auroras – Jupiter’s northern and southern lights – providing new insights about how the planet’s enormous magnetic force field affects its atmosphere.

Don't we already know this? Why would we really want to know about these things in more detail? Clearly there is more to this than meets the eye - and I will have to do more research into what's happening. Are we on the brink of a new Space Odyssey?