I am a software developer and author of computer books. I also work on some problems in theoretical physics. For more information, please visit my personal Web site at http://www.vttoth.com/.
As I watch the lamps of the post-WW2 world order go out, one tiny, flickering light at a time, I am compelled to remember something that happened more than a century ago: When Sir Edward Grey, Great Britain’s Foreign Secretary at the time, remarked that “the lamps are going out all over Europe”.
We are not quite there yet. There is hope that sanity will prevail.
Yet I feel that that hope is fading, that time is running out.
In 1914, the point of no return, the trigger was Germany’s decision to attack neutral Belgium. It compelled Britain to declare war, and ultimately widened that war into the world’s first (or maybe second — I think the Napoleonic wars might qualify as World War 0) global conflict.
What the trigger will be this time, I do not know. I am reacting in part to the announcement that the West warned Hezbollah to stay out of Israel’s conflict with Hamas. But chances are it will be something else.
But it is coming, of that I am near certain, even as I dearly hope that I am dead wrong, that my pessimism is unwarranted, my concerns grossly misplaced.
I am simulating gravitational lenses, ray tracing the diffracted light.
With multiple lenses, the results can be absolutely fascinating. Here’s a case of four lenses, three static, a fourth lens transiting in front of the other three, with the light source a fuzzy sphere in the background.
I can’t stop looking at this animation. It almost feels… organic. Yet the math behind it is just high school math, a bit of geometry and trigonometry, nothing more.
NB: This post has been edited with an updated, physically more accurate animation.
The world is not heading in the right direction. Not by a long shot. The golden era that began in 1945 and saw an unprecedented number of people around the world find relative peace, prosperity, and security for nearly eight decades, may be coming to an unpleasant end. There is a Hungarian saying (“kutya is jódolgában megy a jégre”) that may have a loose equivalent in English in the form of the proverb, “you never miss the water till the well runs dry”.
Here are a few things that concern me, in no particular order:
Worsening wars: Russia-Ukraine, the (brand new) Hamas-Israeli war, hotspots elsewhere, China-Taiwan tension
The shrinking middle class, rising inequality and homelessness
Erosion of democratic values, faith in democratic/constitutional institutions
Rise of populism, ideological demagoguery and intolerance, political polarization, even violence
Rising economic instability, lack of economic and environmental sustainability
There are probably a few more that I have not mentioned, including petty domestic Canadian issues, such as the gloriously incompetent bills C-11/C-18 by which Canada tries to control online media.
Individually, each of these issues would be considered serious, but certainly not insurmountable. When they come all at the same time… The last time the world faced something similar was in the late 1920s, early 1930s. We know how well that turned out. Tens of millions of deaths, the rise of two of the worst totalitarian ideologies in history, a world war and the deployment of two nuclear weapons later…
Those nuclear weapons proved to be genuine peacemakers: Few can argue that they had a major role convincing all participants to play kind of nice, making sure that certain lines in the sand remain firmly uncrossed. But the inhibitions against their use are becoming weaker over time.
Am I being an alarmist? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure the people who woke up today to the sound of air raid sirens in Israel, or found themselves at the end of the day in Hamas custody as human shield hostages do not think so either.
Earlier today, I was looking at amazing pictures of an abandoned Siberian town, Kadykchan. Built at the cost of the lives of countless gulag prisoners, the town lost its population after the breakup of the USSR, and now serves as little more than a sad reminder of entire chapters of 20th century history. I think one of the images of that town that I saw might serve well as a cautionary tale.
How about coming to our senses before it’s too late, before we turn much of the world into a similar post-apocalyptic wasteland?
PS: My AI friend Claude suggested toning down this post a little, to make it less alarmist. I don’t want to. I am alarmed.
I don’t know much about attosecond light pulses but my wife and I did note that one of the recipients of this year’s physics prize was a physicist who studied just a year ahead of Ildiko at ELTE (Eötvös University). She doesn’t recall if she ever bumped into Ferenc Krausz, though.
And of course one of the recipients of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine was Katalin Kariko, for her groundbreaking work in mRNA vaccines. Well-deserved indeed! I actually know (a little bit) more about mRNA vaccines than about attosecond physics, which might seem odd, considering that physics is my home turf, and organic chemistry is like an alien landscape. But the generation of ultrashort photon pulses is a very specialized field of study, to which I never paid much attention.
Anyhow, Kariko and Krausz are now added to that long list of scientists who were born, and studied in, Hungary, but who eventually ended up abroad, where they did the bulk of the work that earned them this recognition.
So this has been in the news lately, too: a discovery of remnants of a wooden structure that is almost half a million years old.
It is truly incredible. These tools, these worked pieces of now petrified wood, predate the emergence of homo sapiens by several hundred thousand years.
Not for the first time I am left wondering just how much of the past will remain forever hidden from us. The earliest human whose name is known to us lived roughly 5000 years ago. Let that sink in for a moment. Modern human behavior began roughly 100,000 years ago, give or take. Presumably, this behavior involved language, social structures and, well, names. These were our ancestors, millions and millions of them, who inhabited the Earth for countless generations. And we don’t even know their names.
And now this, some 476,000 year old logs along with simple stone tools that were used to shape them. That suggests some form of permanence. Which implies a structured society. Skills, transferred from one generation to the next. Language. Culture. About which we know nothing.
Half a million years. That is, 100 times what counts as recorded history. An eyeblink in geologic terms, to be sure, but for us humans? The word that pops into my mind is… humbling.
I’ve been meaning to mention this: A few days ago, the sample capsule of the OSIRIS-REx mission returned safely to the Earth, carrying inside a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu.
This is a remarkable achievement, the first* successful sample return of its type. I wonder what we will learn from the material that was obtained, but I’m sure it will reveal some intriguing secrets, especially about the history and formation of the solar system.
Love the way the capsule was sitting on the ground, upright, not even tilted. Could it be more picture perfect than this?
I am also mildly (but pleasantly) surprised that I have not heard any panicmongering about a capsule bringing back extraterrestrial microbes or whatever. OK, I wasn’t specifically looking but still. It’s a relief.
* I don’t know what possessed me when I wrote “first”; granted, OSIRIS-REx brought back a lot more material, supposedly, but the first successful such missions were the two Hayabusa missions of the Japanese Space Agency.
OK, not exactly a surprising result but still, a fantastic experimental achievement: Yes, Virginia, antimatter falls downward.
Why is this important? Well, we kind of knew that it was inevitable. I mean, if antimatter were to fall upward, it’d have meant that our entire understanding of gravitation is wrong. That even our understanding of special relativity is probably wrong.
So it was a rather safe bet that antimatter follows the same geodesics as normal matter and falls downward.
But physics, lest we forget it, is ultimately not about erudite speculation. It is about experiment and observation.
And this amazing experiment achieved the almost impossible: it observed antihydrogen atoms in a vertical vacuum chamber at cryogenic temperatures and, as expected, most of those hydrogen atoms ended up at the bottom.
My friend John Moffat has a finite quantum field theory that, I think, deserves more attention than it gets.
The theory is nonlocal (then again, so is quantum physics to begin with). However, it does not violate causality. So its nonlocality is a mathematical curiosity, not a physical impossibility.
The essence of the theory is present in the form of its “nonlocal field operator”. Given, e.g., a scalar field in the form \(\phi(x),\) the field is transformed as
$$\tilde\phi(x)=\int d^4x’f(x-x’)\phi(x’).$$
Now if we just used the Dirac delta-function \(f(x-x’)=\delta^4(x-x’),\) we’d get back \(\phi(x).\) But what if we use some other function, the only restriction being that \(f(x)\) must be an entire function, which is to say, unambiguously defined without poles or singularities over the entire complex plane?
Well, then, assuming again that \(f(x)\) is an entire function, we can integrate iteratively in parts, until we arrive at an expression in the form,
$$\tilde\phi(x)={\cal F}(\partial_x)\phi(x),$$
where \({\cal F}(\partial_x)\) is a derivative operator, typically some power series in the form \(\lambda_i\partial_x^i\), acting on \(\phi(x).\)
Why is this good for us? Because this field redefinition can suppress high-energy divergences in the theory, essentially doing away with the need for renormalization, which, of course, is a Big Claim indeed but I think John’s theory works.
John’s first substantive papers on this topic were titled Finite quantum field theory based on superspin fields (J. W. Moffat, Phys. Rev. D 39, 12 (1989)) and Finite nonlocal gauge field theory (J. W. Moffat, Phys. Rev. D 41, 4 (1990)). Unfortunately these papers predate arxiv.org so only the paywalled versions are available. They are beautiful papers that deserve more recognition. More recently, John wrote another paper on the subject, collaborating with a student. One of these days, I’m hoping to spend some time myself working a bit on John’s theory because I believe it has merit: The theory appears to remain causal despite the nonlocal operator, and by doing away with the need for renormalization, it makes canonical quantization almost trivially possible. I keep wondering if there is, perhaps, a catch after all, but if that’s the case, I have yet to find it.
It does not surprise me much, mind you. While I am not a wild-eyed, “woke”, progressive “social justice warrior” (in fact, I am increasingly a deeply fed up with the “woke” lot), many of my views tend to align broadly with the traditional left. I also reject authoritarianism in all forms, and while I don’t endorse unconstrained freedom (e.g., in the economy), I largely view constraints as a necessary evil, not as a universal solution.
And, of course, I absolutely, strongly, vehemently reject any and all forms of personality cults.
So here, then, is my question: Given the direction our societies are heading, will there be room for left-wing libertarians like me in the future? Authoritarianism seems to be so much in vogue these days, be it the culture of intolerance in the name of tolerance as practiced by the woke left, or the more traditional authoritarianism of the nationalist right. The common theme that unites them is their rejection of liberal democracy’s core systems of institutions.
To offer an idea of what the four quadrants represent: Left-wing authoritarians (red, upper left) include Stalin and Mao. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both qualify as right-wing authoritarians (blue, upper right) according to the Compass, though I am sure not nearly as extreme as Pinochet or Mussolini, also in the same quadrant. Hegel or Ayn Rand along with von Mises are right-wing libertarians (purple, lower right). The green quadrant (lower left), where I found myself, apparently includes Gandhi, Mandela and Noam Chomsky. Urgh. I so disagree with Chomsky on many things. Oh well, these are big quadrants.
In his “1984”, Eric Arthur Blair, better known under the pen name George Orwell, at one point has the protagonists reading a book about the history of oligarchical collectivism, the dominant ideology of the totalitarian “IngSoc” regime of Oceania. They read,
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low […] The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. […] For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High.
So here is the thing: Liberal democracy is an aberration. An outlier. A period in history with no real “High”. We have no emperors, Kaisers, Caesars or Sultans. Monarchs, maybe, but mere figureheads in constitutional monarchies, not tyrants. In places like Canada, the United States, Western Europe and many other parts of the world, only the Middle and the Low exist. To be sure, the Middle can still be pretty darn powerful: political dynasties, tycoons and captains of industry, even public figures like media personalities wield substantial power. But their might is constrained by the system of institutions that we call liberal democracy: rule of law, freedom of enterprise, freedom of conscience, civil liberties or the separation of powers among them.
But this is not good enough, just not good enough for many among the elites of the Middle. They want more. Always more. And they fight. Throughout much of history, their enemy was the High. But in a liberal democracy, it is now the system of institutions that they fight against. Yet the tactics are the same. They enlist the Low. Don’t trust the system, they tell the Low. Elections are fake. Judges are corrupt or biased. Government lies to you. The rule of law is “weaponized”, they assert. Whatever it takes… but the real objective is to abolish the very constraints that prevent the Middle from becoming the new High.
And they are succeeding. Just look at the range of countries that are now on lists characterizing their retreat from democracy. Look at all the populists who are systematically undermining key pillars of liberal democracy, such as freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, even the electoral process. Will they succeed? I’d argue that they already succeeded in a number of countries and they are well on their way to success in many other places.
Liberal democracy, after all, is not a normal state of affairs for humanity. It’s an exception. It is no accident that some of the greatest 20th century writers of science-fiction, such as Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert, did not envision a democratic future. Asimov’s future in Foundation was a monolithic Galactic Empire that persisted for well over 10,000 years. Herbert’s Dune similarly envisioned a feudal society.
And if history is any guide, when the would-be tyrants succeed, they all too often will continue to maintain a semblance of democracy. After all, for centuries following the demise of the Roman Republic, emperors continued to issue decrees and coins bearing the acronym SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus, falsely suggesting that Rome is still governed by a Senate that answers to the people, not by an all-powerful emperor. But this is just a cheap conjurer’s trick to assure the masses, the Low: All that is being done is done for them, and in their name.
Here’s My Brightest Diamond, singing about High Low Middle. Not sure if they were inspired by Orwell, but it’s strangely appropriate.
It is unfair! How dare social media companies and search engines profit from taking Canadian news content!
Fear no more: Bill C-18 is enacted and from now on, these evildoers will be mandated to pay for any news content they republish.
Oops, but there’s a fly in the proverbial ointment. It appears nobody asked the simplest of questions: What if they don’t?
Not “what if they don’t pay” but rather, “what if they don’t republish?”
This is capitalism after all. These companies are free to choose what purchases they make, what services they buy. Or, as the case might be, what services they opt not to buy.
“Unfair!” came the outcry. “A disaster for Canadian news providers!” Or even, “Irresponsible!” during some natural disaster or other emergency.
Wait. I thought what social media companies were doing was, ahem, bad for you? So you wanted them to either cease and desist or pay up?
Now you are telling me that all along, you were benefiting from social media and the traffic they directed to your content sites, and you don’t want to lose this?
Oh, but you also wanted some extra dough. Well, guess what. As the old proverb goes, he who chases two rabbits catches none.
To be clear, I don’t like Facebook/Meta. I am only marginally more fond of Google. But stupid is stupid, and Bill C-18 is the perfect legislative example of shooting oneself in the foot.
I find it mildly annoying that Facebook rejects posts that contain direct news media links but it doesn’t bother me much. And if Canadian news organizations want a better deal, perhaps they can ask the government to get rid of this stupid legislation first instead of doubling down, compounding stupidity with more stupidity.
Welcome to Ottawa, Canada’s beautiful capital, home of…
… the homeless? Drug addicts? Record numbers of overdose victims? A rising threat of violence?
I should be grateful to Radio Canada for this almost 12-minute report, and I am. But the situation they depict (right on our doorstep, I should add, as we live right here in Ottawa Lowertown, thankfully to the east of King Edward Avenue, so we are not quite that badly affected, but still) makes me boil with anger.
Why? Because it is in large part a solvable problem.
Homelessness is manifestly solvable. Yes, it’d cost money, but how can I put it? A permanent solution would cost only a fraction of our botched LRT. Make affordable housing available to anyone for the asking. It need not be great accommodations, but functional and of acceptable quality. To follow the example set by Vienna a century ago, the accommodations should be good enough for many to decide to stay there for good, and nobody should be kicked out either.
Drug use and mental health problems require another old-fashioned solution: institutionalization. No, I don’t mean Dickensian insane asylums. We’re better than that. But we must recognize that there exists a small percentage among the homeless whose mental health is such that they are incapable of independent living. Institutionalizing such people is not a crime; rather, it’s the failure to provide the support and care they require that is criminal.
Unfortunately, I see no real desire to address these problems. Instead, we have this situation, getting worse with each and every passing day, within a stone’s throw of Canada’s Parliament, within a stone’s throw of venerable institutions like the Chateau Laurier… And we’re letting it happen. I find this incomprehensible.
But don’t you worry, the city has money to spend on messing up yet another street (this time, it’s Bank Street) with bike lanes that almost nobody uses, suffocating the remaining local brick-and-mortar businesses by eliminating the few on-street parking spots on which they rely for their clientele…
Susie King Taylor, née Baker, was a black teacher and nurse, literate, famous among other things for teaching former slaves to read and write. And now a square is named after her in Savannah, Georgia.
I know about Susie King Taylor from this evening’s AP newsletter. However, without clicking on the link to read the full release, I would not have learned her name.
And this, frankly, ticks me off. This is how progressivism works nowadays. Her identity is secondary to her race. Oh, but we are ever so careful to defy commonsense rules of grammar and capitalize the word “Black”!
When virtue signaling becomes more important than respect, when emphasizing race becomes more important than working towards a post-racial society in which we are judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character… How would I even know the content of Susie King Taylor’s character if her name is actually omitted from the shortened press release that appeared in the newsletter?
The elegant lady in this picture is not “a Black woman”. She has a name. Her name is Susie King Taylor, née Baker. Her identity is not defined by the pigmentation of her skin anymore than by the color of her hair or her eyes. It is defined by what she did. That is, if we respect her as a person, as a human being, as opposed to using her memory as a mere prop in the culture wars.
Last night, much of the world even outside the great United States was consumed by a mugshot of an angry, defiant, entitled man, in his seventies, elegantly dressed with his thinning blond hair in a combover.
Meh. You call that a mugshot?
[In my best Crocodile Dundee impersonation] THIS is a mugshot!
A lot more pleasant to look at, too, if you ask me.
This is OC Transpo’s soon-to-expire summer schedule brochure for 2023. It has a graphic that I find… puzzling?
What is it supposed to represent? Let’s start from the top, clockwise: A firetruck, a walker, a life preserver, an app screenshot with a Pause button, a reindeer and a roll of toilet paper.
What is it supposed to mean? That if you ride OC Transpo, you may end up in an accident, spend the rest of your life depending on a walker, may need a life preserver to survive, even as the service is paused for yet another technical glitch with the LRT, so you end up riding a reindeer instead, and if you don’t like it, you can go shit yourself?
Fitting, I’d say.
PS: For the pedants out there, yes, I do recognize that the “firetruck” is supposed to be a bus and the “life preserver” is just the O-train emblem. Not sure about the rest of the symbols, though.
What is less classy is that I could not share the original link on Facebook because “news” cannot be shared on Facebook in Canada anymore. What can I say? Idiotic laws deserve idiotic reactions. And I say this despite the fact that I am not particularly fond of Meta/Facebook these days (to say the least) and I am not particularly antagonistic towards Trudeau’s Liberals either. Still, stupid breeds stupid.
