Month: March 2012

String Theory – Force of Reason vs Mass of Criticism

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Dreaming, ExistentialismLeave a comment

—S-T-R-I-N-G—

)))))|||T|H|E|O|R|Y|||((((((

Which comes first – chicken legs or egg timer?  I think for me, it was probably the egg timer. Chicken legs came later in life.  Mum used to make baked chicken but memory is strong on egg timers which weighed more in my mind that chicken legs.  Certainly egg timers have more mass than force, at least from outside the realm of the timer.  I mean it’s all force with a chicken leg, scratching around in the dirt looking for grit, with their head cock-eyed down to the earth and sky for an instant.  No the face of an egg timer is pretty straight and it doesn’t exert any force whatsoever, except on the mind of the child watching it.  Which is why egg timers, mechanical ones are a pain – they tick along like a chicken scratching.  What you really need is the timer that just has sand falling down inside a glass.  Yes but they are hopeless mate, what happens is that the sand falls down due to the force of gravity, it has some small mass, and then when it’s all down you basically spin the thing over and it starts again, but unless you are watching it, you don’t know when the time limit is reached. I think there is something comforting about having a ringing or dinging of things, ring ding at the end of an allotted span of time, you wind it up, set it on the table, and then at the end of the time interval, it rings, just like the phone.  So you go get your egg and turn it off on the stove.  Yes for sure now you don’t need an egg timer – now I can set any time I like on the microwave, put the egg – all mixed up – inside a bowl – and just turn on the microwave, which automatically turns off – and the ringing thing is to tell me to “REMOVE FOOD”..

As if I didn’t know anyway – hungry for the egg, and eggs come before chickens as you all know.

Yes it’s all chicken and egg with mathematics as well.  What comes first ? The chicken of an idea or the egg of theory.  Which has more courage, which succumbs to the mass of criticism or the force of pure reason. Lets be reasonable now.  The old equation learnt in high school – F = MA is the same.  It implies kind of that Force = Mass x Acceleration.  Newton again, but definitely gravity existed before the apple on the tree, and the Acceleration faced by the Apple was due to the Gravitational Force acting on it’s mass.  So a more natural equation would be —- A = F/M … yes I think I like this better, but you see typesetters don’t like division A = F/M.  So what happens when the mass goes to zero – dummy. ? I hear the critique coming – then basically the acceleration is infinitely better isn’t it.

So what you are saying is that without the Mass of Criticism, there would be infinite acceleration of an idea, with just the slightest amount of reason behind it. Yes, it can get a bit that way with people.  Wake up with an idea, hide it from the critics and with a minor reason – go destroy something.  It is very hard to make something decent without a mass of criticism to balance your force of reason out.

I had an idea about string theory.  With a kiwi fruit just sitting there on the table, it looked so … I don’t know passive – just sitting there, as though not to be loved, forced down by gravity on a table waiting for someone’s enjoyment or neglect.  Inside a whole universe of life, but outside, just an object of still life. Waiting for a painter or something.  As an Idea with no reason whatsoever, I felt the urge to tie a string to the kiwi fruit, as though it was a present perhaps, or like the world on a string perhaps.

There are many string theories, most of which are not comprehensible by the average person, even mine.  I am sure my string theory, an idea, without the force of any reason whatsoever, with the gravitational impact of a whim and with the mass of intellect of what it takes, waiting for the microwave pseudo egg timer to go off, or my wife to say “please REMOVE FOOD from the table, and what is that silly string doing tied to it ?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUPERSTRINGTHEORY

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When a kid turns 100cc and bends something

On By cjx07sterIn AustraliaLeave a comment
on the road somewhere in Australia..

Ho Ho, on the bike at last.  The sun was going down at the farm, and the old dusty farm homestead road was the only track there was.  Such a bike at such an age of 15 or so, meant a chance to prove what a rider I could be.  No more stupid mini-bikes for me. With no thought I took off at flat chat. The road was narrow and once past the first curve in the drive started down a steep grade with corrugations all over, and the sun strong going down over the mountain.  I tried the brakes, of course they were bent or something from some prior stack.  I ended up in a heap of dust and rocks after squealing all over the dirt.

I must have been knocked out a bit, the bike’s headlight was climbing up through the dust into the sky, the hot heavy engine was stopped, and I was under it all.

I made it back to the homestead in the dark somehow, not with the bike, which wouldn’t start, but somehow I had made it back. I explained how the bike must has slipped from under me.  The brake lever was bent or something.  Perhaps I bent it.

I got in the shower to get clean, my arm hurt a lot, and my hip as well.  Painful it was to wash it all off. The blood and the dirt.  The mother of the house took a look and said, you will need a stitch.  Lets find the doctor.

We got in the sulky, the only vehicle left and went into town.

The doctor was no where to be seen, it was night, and all were at the opera house for a centenary celebration,  not too common in the outback.

He came in to the surgery, and stitched up the arm with black thread. Took a look at the hip and put a few in there as well.

It was late, and outback getting real dark and cold.  We piled back into the sulky and took off back to the farm.  The arm had got a bit stiff on the drive back but the mother of the house where I was staying seemed a lot happier to have had the doctor take a look and do some repairs.

Of course I was totally humiliated, having to admit that i had fallen off a bike, a 100cc motorbike at that. Bit the dust ! ! and had a scar on the elbow to remind of the event forever.  Ahh.. the mental pain was far greater than the actual.

100cc of blood lost – of petrol used – or power given – or forgiven – in the outback – a night to remember for the town’s 100th birthday – and my elbow is still bent,  just like the brake !

A Bridge in the Fanfare for the Workers of Sydney

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Australia, Engineering, Music, TravelLeave a comment
The Sydney Harbour Bridge

It’s made of iron and rivets and paint. Tons of it.  It crosses the beauty of Sydney Harbour and spans two sides of the emerald city of Sydney, NSW.  It’s orientation catches the light of the sunrise to the east and frames the perfect sunsets in the west.  When you cross it at night the light zooms up from below to catch the strong arch, home to thousands of bats and insects which fly around up there.  The Australian flags fly at it’s zenith and seem to state something for the nation of Australia.  You see flags are a rarity in Australia, compared to the USA, where everyone has one.  In Australia only important buildings have a flag to fly.  Up on the bridge there are flags flying on the great creation of the workers 80 years ago today.  Dr John Bradfield’s original idea and masterpiece developed from around 1900,  it opened on 19th March 1932 amid much fanfare.  Notably in true Australian style, someone stole the show on a horse and cut the ribbon with his sword.

Today 80 years on the sun was shining in the morning, as I crossed the bridge on the train.  It is the feast day or St. Joseph patron saint of the worker. It took about 100,000 man years of work to create it. No computers calculating the odds, no adding machines, it was all done on slide rules and rooms of drawings and sketches all calculated down to the point where expectedly the two  sides of the bridge met.

Of course everyone has seen the bridge, it really gets a birthday every year on New Year’s Eve when it acts as the mounting bracket for thousands of fireworks to help celebrate the new year.  Yes, although originally set up to carry traffic linking the two sides of Sydney Harbour, the bridge has developed into a performance space for the common man.

As I was crossing, looking up into the arch this morning, musicians from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra were scaling the bridge and getting ready to play.  It was their anniversary as well I understand.  A fitting choice of piece being Aaron Copland’s “A Fanfare for the Common Man”.  This piece was in fact originally commissioned by Eugene Goossens whilst he was conducting orchestras in the USA, who eventually became the first permanent conductor of the Sydney Symphony.  I like the piece, I wish I had heard it, but the wind and the rain probably carried the sound to where only the seagulls and St Joseph and maybe Dr John Bradfield, who conceived the design and who made it his own quest in the early part of the 20th century.  Happy Birthday Sydney Harbour Bridge !!

— See report on the bridge fanfare – 

St Patrick’s Ireland

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

 

A fishing port in Ulster somewhere

Patrick recounts that he had a vision a few years after returning home:

I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish”. As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.

The Atlantic wind rushes up from the sea at the slieve league cliffs on the west coast of Ireland.

The special gravity of ANNORA - NARIN Donegal

I spent the night at the ANNORApub drinking Guinness with my friend John, his brother Aidan and sister Nora [who owned the pub].  It was raining and cold and we got there late.  It was dark and we were somewhere on the northwest coast of Ireland in Narin Donegal, a place and county I did not know.  I think the Irish gravity is strange.  I was fascinated by the settling of the Guinness in the glass.

C'est Finis

I could watch it rather than drink it.  The settling took some 5 minutes but it was magic to watch.  Very good for the blood pressure.  Pure Genius.

Still the genius of Patrick was to be able to bring the cross of Christ to the Druids of  the land, who brought him up apparently, and convince basically all of them to become Christian. Not only that, but do it without any bribes and such. The friendliness of the Irish when they get together, is what going to Ireland is all about.  The birthday party I went to, lasted 3 days, and the guiness watching event in Narin was the last of the 3 days.  The first having started in Ballycastle over to the east.

Not far from the Giant’s Causeway in county Antrim is Ballycastle,  a little town with a racecourse I remember, cause that is where the party was… not necessarily started.. but went on most of the freezing night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since going there, the Global Financial Crisis hit and I still marvel at the way Irish people can handle these things, and not get so bothered.  I tell you there is something strange about the gravity in Ireland which allows the people and the beer to be so poetic inclined, and to look on life in an unworried way, sensing when humour and craic is required to understand situations without logic.

The Irish world of tourist and locals were passing by in Dublin the day before I left.  It was October and everything on sale. I reflected on what a place was Ireland, since Patrick came, and was glad that I had attended a call, albeit a 3 day birthday party across the top end. One of the friendliest weekends ever spent.