Monday 27 August 2012

Could Dark Energy be Heaven?


I have just watched an interesting Horizon documentary about the size of the Universe.  It has now been proved the Universe is infinite, not that I ever thought it wasn’t.  Still they only did the triangulation to a few decimal places so perhaps that might change in the future, once they can increase the accuracy by a few, hundred thousand decimal places. 

Anyway this is not what I was going to discuss.  I was thinking about good old dark energy and how it is pushing the Universe, accelerating the speed in which we are expanding.  The good old BBC doesn’t seem to be able to make a documentary about the Universe without first telling us for the umpteenth time about dark matter and dark energy.

I decided quite by accident to imagine the purpose of the dark energy, what could it possibly be needed for?  The only conclusion I could come up with is a philosophical one; it must be to store all the knowledge of our universe and the other universes that make up the multiverse, and then this might also be storage for whatever else the rest of the Universe might be, what I call the infinitiverse.

Basically dark energy is like memory, or hard drive space in your computer, only it never gets full it just constantly expands.  It could be possible that the subconscious thought patterns of all things in the Universe (we cannot be sure we alone have a subconscious/conscious or for that matter that subconscious/conscious is the only way to think) are stored in this way.  This would give us a convenient answer as to why the Universe is expanding.  Even if we use our own species and think of every person who has ever existed, imagine how many cubic metres of dark energy that has been added to the universe. 

Perhaps it is too convenient, but it does give us a philosophical answer to the question of dark energy and why it exists and its purpose for existing.  It becomes especially important if we add in the fact there might be other dimensions, and the plausibility of many versions of one’s self. 

How fascinating would it be if dark energy was just the manifestation of heaven itself.

Anyway it was just a thought after watching the Horizon doc.

Saturday 25 August 2012

The Fields of Death Near to the Town


As I stand idly by,

And watch the fields of agony rise,

Look up into the sky,

I hear the screams, nightmarish sighs.

 

I walk as tears drops fall,

The shame the guilt that I can feel,

Can this be worth it all?

Their lives so ended everyone a steal.

 

The blood the death is all around,

The silence is an evil sound,

Evil cruelty holds no bounds,

The fields of death near to the town.

 

No one is speaking now,

The fighting ended long ago,

All heads are bowed down low,

Pain etched faces fail to show.

 

The blood the death is all around,

The silence is an evil sound,

Evil cruelty holds no bounds,

The fields of death near to the town.

 

The battle is won or lost,

Yet still humanity is the worst,

Freedom the ultimate cost,

Defeated in an angry burst.

 

The blood the death is all around,

The silence is an evil sound,

Evil cruelty holds no bounds,

The fields of death near to the town.

Who will win the US open?


Unlike every other slam this year we won’t have the big four, only the big three.  Rafa Nadal’s pull out because of his continuous knee issues has definitely lessened the field, but will it give us a new slam winner?

The draw has left an interesting scenario, because in normal years I would put Djokovic as favourite to win because he does not have to play a tough semi-final match.  Yet this year I don’t see Djoks making it to the semis, I feel he will be knocked out in the quarters by Del Potro.  Djokovic is tired he has played a lot of tennis recently.  Even with his superhuman powers of recovery, I feel the Olympics, then Toronto, the Cincinnati in a row will have gassed him out.  His only saving grace is that his half of the draw is relatively easy apart from Del Potro and if Delpo has an injury (which is quite possible) he may not be able to beat a tired Djokovic over five sets.  Still, for some reason I feel someone other than Djokovic will occupy the final place from the bottom half of the draw.  Of course I forget that Djokovic has massive will power and this may get him past lesser players but it's going to be tough for him.
In the top half it is of course between the two Wimbledon winners, Federer with his 7th Wimby title and 17th overall, and Murray with his first big title, the Olympics (obviously not as big as a slam but nearly as big, beating Fed in a 5 set final at Wimbledon is huge for Andy).  I cannot see anyone else getting through to the semis in the top half of the draw.  So then it will be down to who wants it most in the semi-final match between Federer and Murray, and although in past years this would definitely hamper the winners chances of winning in the final, I feel the winner of the US Open will come from that semi.  It will be either Federer or Murray. 

Overall I think Murray has played the least and I think this might be a deliberate tactic; he will be fresher than both Djokovic and Federer.  He knew he had to play perhaps both of them, whereas it was a 50/50 for Fed or Djoks who would get Murray.  The Olympic win over Fed will give Murray a massive boost and I think this is it; this is the time for him to step up to the plate and win one of these slams.

So it will be Murray to play Del Potro in the US Open final.  I haven’t done badly at these predictions over the year but this one is definitely the hardest, maybe because of the Olympics putting a spanner in the works, it has stirred things up a bit.  Not too much to make it likely for a left field winner but enough to make predicting semis and finals harder.  Let’s hope it’s a great Championships.

Thursday 23 August 2012

Brain changes waves into particles


Just been having a philosophical debate with some friends, I didn’t bore too many of them I am happy to say.  One thing we discussed was the idea of particles and waves and it occurred to me that it is the brain that decides the outcome.  I suppose that is what they mean when they say the observer; they are meaning the brain of the observer.  The senses, the interpretation of those senses making it into something that the brain can recognise and evaluate.

Maybe all things are constructed of waves, and basically particles are only our interpretation of those waves, perhaps not, perhaps that is too simple a concept but it might be true of light.  Energy has to seem tangible to our sensory perception in our reality, our perspective.  And it is easiest to seem tangible as a particle instead of a wave as we perceive it.

Why would our brain using all our sensory powers turn something from one thing, a wave, into another, a particle?  Maybe if I was a scholar I would know this, but I'm not so I don’t so perhaps I am ignorant of the answer.  Oh I have just had a quick Google and others have discussed it for years in fact, well it is pretty obvious when I think further.  Yet still it is quite an amazing thing the brain is doing and it makes you wonder what else it is changing for our benefit, to make our reality real.

I suppose the next question might be can we somehow switch it off or change it?  Can we turn the brain into a device that can see the unseen, know the unknowable, touch the untouchable and so on and so forth?  Some of us already can in a way, people with unusual brain damage or born with DNA defects, they use their senses differently to everyone else.  Yet we still cannot control what our sensory input is and widen or lessen the field of view. 

Perhaps one day we will.

Sunday 19 August 2012

A Creature of Habit


I die the dance of a thousand echoes,

A creature crawling, creeping through my soul,

Fawning faultlessly, pretending to enthral,

I see it there, but do I dare, to say its name, to call,

Or, do I ignore,

Imagine it is something else, can I implore,

Yet still it crawls, never ending, devouring all.

The Dictator


Has anyone seen the Dictator?  The relatively new film from Sasha Baron Cohen, it’s not his best but with its excessive, toilet humour, mixed with subtle, brilliant, intelligence he gets his message across.  Still the movie does not reach its true heights until near the end with the great speech. 

In a way in this silly film, SBC states one of the most profound speeches I have ever heard.  Makes you wonder if anyone will listen to it.

“Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests.”

Saturday 4 August 2012

Murray's day tomorrow - hopefully

Will it finally be a golden day for Andy Murray and will it be the beginning of his search for an illusive grand slam?  I really hope so.  I said last month it was Federer's destiny to win Wimbledon, but I feel it is Murray's destiny to win tomorrow. 

He seems like a different player, more confident, he is feeding off the shared responsibility of being part of Team GB instead of being the only hope at Wimbledon.

The way he dispatched Djokovic was hopefully a sign of things to come and I would like to think perhaps this will be the spring board to finally winning a Grand Slam.

I know he hasn't won gold yet, but he has two chances to win a gold medal tomorrow.  I feel Federer is looking very nervous and I doubt he will have the support he normally receives at Wimbledon when he plays the final.  A win in a massive final over five sets against Fed will be a huge confidence boost for Murray.   With Nadal resting, and Djokovic not playing that well, come the US Open Murray might finally get his chance to win his first major.

Beating Federer tomorrow will go along way to giving him the metal confidence to go all the way.  Let's hope with the euphoria surging around Britain at the moment from the success of our Olympic squad, Murray can win two golds medals and then win the US Open.