Quintessential Truth
In the Title box I promised something about Quintessential Truth. I had asked the pastor on Sunday if she were still searching for that lofty goal, and she said, Why, Yes! Well, so have I, and I would like to climb the mountain to ask Old Man Mose if he had a handle on it, seeings he is closest to the repository. But alas, which mountain do I start climbing? The pastor thinks she will find it at the Meadville Theological Seminary in Chicago. Our previous pastor is at Princeton Theological on a similar quest, and I have no doubt she will close in on it. Perhaps today we can study the problem.
First, I suggest that we get familiar with the word quintessence, or the adjective, quintessential. And with gravity, which we would see are closely allied if we consider the thinking of Aristotle, and especially Pythagoras.
In my copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the quintessence, seemingly to 17th century philosophers was at the apex of the other four elements, Fire, Wind, Earth and Water. They visualized it as a thin layer, which was the principal part of Aristotle’s Ether, which is not what he called it, anyway. Obviously it had the property of transparency, through which we could actually see the heavenly bodies, ie, the stars.
Present day scientists have come a long way since then, and have studied the moon up close and made some very critical examinations of the Sun, and the planets. A summary on gravitation follows.
You will be exposed to quintessential and quintessence in several forms, which don’t include Michael Sargents’ fractal paintings (see on your own, Quintessential Sophistry), but which have a broad cultural aspect. On line, you can experience thousands of examples of commercial exploitation of the words, which suggests that in time they will join other superlatives in the waste basket of literature.
You will enjoy the final article, which I found in today’s Plain Dealer (Mar 19) which reports the up coming visit to Cleveland of Lisa Randall of the Harvard University’s Department of Physics, and the Physics update we all so sorely need.
For the advocates of Intelligent Design, you will see that, quite by accident, our creator made nearly a dozen simultaneous universes, which, no doubt, (if you believe Lisa), can exist with surprisingly different properties.
Gravitation
in mechanics, the universal force of attraction acting between all matter. It is by far the weakest known force in nature and thus plays no role in determining the internal properties of everyday matter. Due to its long reach and universality, however, gravity shapes the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the entire universe. The trajectories of bodies in the solar system are determined by the laws of gravity, while on Earth all bodies have a weight, or downward force of gravity, proportional to their mass, which the Earth's mass exerts on them. Gravity is measured by the acceleration that it gives to freely falling objects. At the Earth's surface, the acceleration of gravity is about 9.8 metres (32 feet) per second per second. Thus, for every second an object is in free fall, its speed increases by about 9.8 metres per second.
The works of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein dominate the development of gravitational theory. Newton's classical theory of gravitational force held sway from his Principia, published in 1687, until Einstein's work in the early 20th century. Even today, Newton's theory is of sufficient accuracy for all but the most precise applications. Einstein's modern field theory of general relativity predicts only minute quantitative differences from the Newtonian theory except in a few special cases. The major significance of Einstein's theory is its radical conceptual departure from classical theory and its implications for further growth in physical thought.
The n-body problem
The general problem of n-bodies, where n is greater than three, has been attacked vigorously with numerical techniques on powerful computers. Celestial mechanics in the solar system is ultimately an n-body problem, but the special configurations and relative smallness of the perturbations have allowed quite accurate descriptions of motions (valid for limited time periods) with various approximations and procedures without any attempt to solve the complete problem of n bodies. Examples are the restricted three-body problem to determine the effect of Jupiter's perturbations of the asteroids and the use of successive approximations of series solutions to sequentially add the effects of smaller and smaller perturbations for the motion of the Moon. In the general n-body problem, all bodies have arbitrary masses, initial velocities, and positions; the bodies interact through Newton's law of gravitation, and one attempts to determine the subsequent motion of all the bodies. Many numerical solutions for the motion of quite large numbers of gravitating particles have been successfully completed where the precise motion of individual particles is usually less important than the statistical behaviour of the group.
Decomposability
Complex processes, on the other hand, are irreducible. A complex system cannot be decomposed into isolated subsystems without suffering an irretrievable loss of the very information that makes it a system. Neglecting any part of the process or severing any of the connections linking its parts usually destroys essential aspects of the system's behaviour or structure. The n-body problem in physics is a quintessential example of this sort of indecomposability. Other examples include an electrical circuit, a Renoir painting, or the tripartite division of the U.S. government into its executive, judicial, and legislative subsystems.
Vincent Van Gogh
born March 30, 1853, Zundert, Netherlands
died July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France
in full Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch painter, generally considered the greatest after Rembrandt, and one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists. The striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms of his work powerfully influenced the current of Expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's art became astoundingly popular after his death, especially in the late 20th century, when his work sold for record-breaking sums at auctions around the world and was featured in blockbuster touring exhibitions. In part because of his extensive, published letters, van Gogh has also been mythologized in the popular imagination as the quintessential tortured artist.
Quintessence
Main Entry: quin-tes-sence
Pronunciation: kwin-‚tes-en(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence
Date: 15th century
1 : the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies. (Other elements, Fire Wind Earth, Water.)
2 : the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form
3 : the most typical example or representative
-quin-tes-sen-tial kwin-te‚sen(t)-sh„l adjective
-quin-tes-sen-tial-ly adverb
(To Aristotle the fifth essence was Ether, the unknown matter in outer space.)
Yves Montand
born Oct. 13, 1921, Monsummano Alto, Italy
died Nov. 9, 1991, Senlis, Fr.
original name Ivo Livi French stage and film actor and popular cabaret singer.
Though considered by many to be the quintessence of worldly Gallic charm, Montand was actually born in Italy to Jewish peasants who fled to Marseille when he was two years of age to escape the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. At 18, he was singing in music halls, supplementing his income by working as a longshoreman.
In Paris, as the protégé of famous chanteuse Edith Piaf, he appeared in the 1945 motion picture Étoile sans lumière (Star Without Light). He married actress Simone Signoret in 1951. His role in La Salaire de la peur (1953; Wages of Fear) brought him international fame. His autobiography, Du Soleil plein la tête (Sunshine Fills my Mind), was published in 1955, before he gave his most acclaimed performances in La Guerreest finie (1966; The War is Over) and two films by director Costa-Gavras: Z (1968) and L'Aveu (1970; The Confession). His performances in Claude Berri's film adaptations of two novels by Marcel Pagnol—Jean de Florette (1986) and its sequel, Manon des Sources (1986; Manon of the Spring)—were also highly acclaimed.
Ketteler, Wilhelm Emmanuel von, Baron
born Dec. 25, 1811, Münster, Westphalia [Germany]
died July 13, 1877, Burghausen, Bavaria
social reformer who was considered by some to have been Germany's outstanding 19th-century Roman Catholic bishop.
Ordained a priest in 1844 and appointed bishop of Mainz in 1850, Ketteler attracted national attention by his sermons and writings. He was interested in political and social problems and was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly (1848) and later of the German Reichstag (1871–72). His concern was for the working class, whose well-being, he proposed, was the church's responsibility. His opposition to papal infallibility caused him to become one of the leaders of the “inopportunists” (those against the “infallibilists”) at the first Vatican Council (1869–70).
His views on social reform were most comprehensively expressed in his book Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum (1864; “The Labourer Question and Christianity”), which strongly stimulated the interest of German Roman Catholics in social problems. Ketteler's paramount concern for the need of a Christian foundation supplied the quintessence of his other writings and his sermons. His most important works were edited by Johannes Mumbauer, Wilhelm Emmanuel von Kettelers Schriften (3 vol., 1911; 2nd ed., 1924).
Clodion
born Dec. 20, 1738, Nancy, Fr.
died March 29, 1814, Paris
original name Claude Michel French sculptor whose works represent the quintessence of the Rococo style.
In 1755 Clodion went to Paris and entered the workshop of Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, his uncle. On his uncle's death, he became a pupil of J.B. Pigalle. In 1759 he won the grand prize for sculpture at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and in 1762 he went to Rome. Catherine II was eager for him to come to St. Petersburg, but he returned to Paris in 1771. There he was successful and frequently exhibited at the Salon.
Clodion worked mostly in terra-cotta, his preferred subject matter being nymphs, satyrs, bacchantes, and other classical figures sensually portrayed. He was also, with his brothers, a decorator of such objects as candelabra, clocks, and vases. Perhaps because of his apparent unwillingness to be seriously monumental, he was never admitted to the Royal Academy. Nevertheless, after the Revolution had driven him in 1792 to Nancy, where he lived until 1798, he was flexible enough to adapt himself to Neoclassical monumentality—the relief on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, representing the entry of the French into Munich, is an example.
Lisa Randall from the Plain Dealer
Extra dimensions' theorist visits here
JOHN MANGELS
Plain Dealer Science Writer
The universe is plenty strange, full of black holes that can gobble light itself and unseen dark energy pushing the cosmos apart. But that may be only the tip of a much weirder iceberg.
If Harvard physicist Lisa Randall and others are right, our seemingly limitless universe may be just a tiny fragment of what's really out there — "an isolated neighborhood," as she puts it, in in infinite "multiverse" with many more than our familiar dimensions of length, width, height and time.
Randall, author of the New York Times notable book "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions," will discuss her research Tuesday as Case Western Reserve University's 2007 Distinguished Lecturer.
Physicists have kicked around the idea of extra dimensions for a long time as a way of explaining why gravity is so much weaker than its counterparts: electro-magnetism and the forces binding subatomic particles. (Randall notes that a magnet can pluck a paperclip from the floor, even though gravity in the form of all the Earth's mass is tugging in the opposite direction.)
Gravity's relative wimpiness might make sense if it was filtered through more than just our three dimensions, like sunlight dimmed by its passage through multiple curtains.
Until recently, many physicists thought those extra dimensions had to be tiny, to explain why they've gone undetected. In 1999, Randall co-wrote a groundbreaking paper outlining the case for infinitely large extra dimensions. Later this year in Geneva, Switzerland, researchers will begin using a high-energy machine called the Large Hadron Collider to try to detect extra-dimensional particles.
In a recent telephone interview, Randall spoke about her work in cutting-edge physics.
Q: Your book is written for a lay audience, but the topic is complex. Why did you want the public to learn about extra dimensions?
A: The point was in part that people who wanted to know what's going on in physics can have access to it. Given that we're asking for funding for colliders, people should have the opportunity to understand it at a more deep level than you would get from a typical newspaper article.
Q: The mystery is why is gravity so weak compared to the other natural forces of electro-magnetism and nuclear attraction.
A: In essence, it could be that gravity is really strong somewhere else in an extra dimension and veiy weak where we are. It sort of tails off in our direction.
Q: So gravity is kind of "leaking" into the realm we inhabit from some other dimension?
A: It's not exactly that it's leaking. It's just that it's everywhere but it's not equally distributed. It's just stronger somewhere else.
Q: And the different "some-wheres" are branes, right? What are those?
A: Branes are membrane-like objects in higher-dimensional space. The idea is that space could be punctuated by these branes, so that not every place in an extra dimension is the same. We could be living in a brane where gravity happens to be weak.
Q: So the forces that we're familiar with only work within the brane where we live? : A: Except for gravity. Gravity can communicate between and among branes.
Q: In a way, we're fortunate that gravity is as weak as it is. If we experienced its full power, whatever that is, would we be able to exist?
A: Well, if gravity was as strong as the other forces where we are, we'd be in big trouble.
Q: Would you expect that on different branes, in different dimensions, the forces and particles of the world we know would operate in the same way?
A: The forces and particles we know about are stuck on our brane. There could be completely different chemistry and forces and particles on other branes.
Q: That would suggest that if these other dimensions or other branes are inhabited by anyone, they might be very different from us.
A: Yes.
Q: How many extra dimensions might there be?
A: String theory tells you that there are nine or 10 total. But we really don't know.
Q: To date, the work in extra dimensions has been theoretical. Is there a way to physically test whether these things exist?
A: Yes. One of the basic tests is that you look for particles that travel in the extra dimensions.
Q: How soon would you expect that work might determine
whether extra dimensions exist?
A: It could be a couple of years; it could be 10.
Q: How did you get interested in physics? Were your parents involved in science?
A: No. I just liked doing math, and I took some physics when I was in high school and decided I liked it. I liked the fact that I thought you had definite answers. It wasn't just, opinions.
Q: Isn't that kind of ironic — that you like definite answers but are in the most abstract field of all: theoretical physics?
A: I know. It's very funny. Q: Does your family understand what you do? What do you talk about around the table at Thanksgiving?
A: I don't talk about my research that much. One of the fun things about writing the book was finally being able to talk to people about what I was working on.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jmangels@plaind.com, 216-999-4842
Me again! In the Title you got the idea that this discussion was going to be about Quintessential Truth, didn't you. I cannot promise you super-rational ideas about a supernatural universe, I just wanted you to know that the answer is pretty thin, and transparent. Also that powerful minds have directed their efforts to provide the public with something real, but all we've gotten so far is a difficut book that is mainly about wars and genealogy, called the bible. My pastor gave a sermon a while back on Zen Buddhism, and what she learned. She had to go back to school to learn about the fourth pillar of wisdom, and I thank her for sharing that. Perhaps the Hindu's or the Zen Buddhists have come closer to the Quintessential Truth than a bunch of war stories, and somebody else's genealogy. JIM O
posted by James E. Opfell @ 8:02 PM
6 comments
