Unix, Ritchie, and Leibniz

Unix is build from the bottom up. Small instructions, and names, ls, ps,... Many of them can be concatenated in bigger and bigger scripts, which can do complex tasks. Dennis Ritchie was a physicist, who with Ken Thompson, a computer scientist, invented Unix.

 Three hundred years ago, Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz, following in the work of John Wilkins , as expressed in "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language", started to think methodically on a Philosophical Language, i.e. a tool allowing right thinking to clear out Philosophy. He was ahead of his time.

If one could do associate prime numbers as atoms, and composite numbers as molecules, to fundamental and composite concepts, then we have a mathematics for thinking, given the TB/s processors, this is Leibniz time!

Epistemological Obstacles

Gaston Bachelard introduced this concept. If I have a problem understanding limit and continuity, I should look around. Maybe my brain is defective, maybe my teacher made a mistake, and so on; but if almost everybody, everywhere is having a problem, maybe the limit and continuity concepts are special.

Given that the concepts were invented until the late eighteenth century, it is likely that humanity as a whole has problems understanding them.

I believe that Natural numbers, i.e. counting, is indeed natural, even crows can count. Some kids though can calculate square and cubic roots from a young age, Grisha Perelman, Ettore Majorana, Paul Erdos, Kenneth Wilson, and other great mathematicians; in some cases, this ability tends to interfere with others. Perelman rejected a million dollars, Majorana disappeared, Erdos abused amphetamines, Wilson has not lobbied the Nobel Committee to give a Nobel Prize in Physics to Donald H. Weingarten, for the numerical calculation of the nucleon mass.

Therefore I propose to take ALL children from the concrete stage of numbers, to the formal one of algebra, to end in the programming computational stage.

Let's all program modern computers.

Power

I do not have political power, my great uncles the Castro-Uriza fought and won.

But I pursued a scientific, not a political career. I read that Saleh's son in Yemen, has political power. His father had to leave his country because of the revolution. [link]

I am happy this way.

When Are the Chinese Buying Greece?

The fallen Greek Empire is for Sale!

The Chinese have more cash than anybody right now.

Mmh.

Como las Piedras de Taxco: Video

Como las Piedras de Taxco

Jalil Majul

He was my mother's boy friend, before she met my father.

Zaachila and 1421

In 1962 Mexicans "discovered" Zaachila. In 1421 Zheng He, "discovered", America.

I believe professional historians are paid by the rulers, and they discover what the rulers want. Only yesterday Elliot Abrams, "remembered" the systematic kidnapping of babies in 1982 in Argentina.

How convenient!

Yesterday another man took his secrets with him. Miguel Nazar Haro died.

Nice Boy

I went to pay the rent. A nice Mexican American young man took care of me. It seemed like if I was in Mexico, but better. Less hassle, less people, more efficient.

I like this new Mexico abroad!

First Publication

My daughter read me her first accepted story. I am glad she is creating, even though I still have to get in the story. It is futuristic in a science fiction way, but I do not see the purpose of sex toys, if reproduction is not an issue.

I'll see how  it is received. She seems satisfied with herself.

If Not the Law, What?

Jorge Castaneda writes [link], correctly in my view, that the Law is not that important in Mexico, I ask here, then how do yo deal with conflict?

Force: Bullies run the place.

What Kind of War?

The US is changing course. The President does not believe there will be battles like in Antietam, when two armies face each other with equal destructive power. Now it will be more like a remote control drone following a small party of enemies.

These allows savings.

I hope that war goes the way of industrial manufacturing. Robots will do both.

People will have other activities.

I vote for that.

Tlatelolco

Taken From Best Colleges Online

Tequila (In Memory of Ruben Uriza Cerda (1949- 2008))

In Memory of Ruben Uriza Cerda

Juanga

Anecdotal Evidence for a Trend

I am reading Jorge G. Castañeda's Mañana Forever? He mentions that crime rate has diminished as illegal immigrants arrive to crime infested neighborhoods.

I know of two courageous boys, one from Michoacan, and the other from Oaxaca; that beat other Mexicans at the high school I taught.

They were brave and with dreams to improve their lot in life.

I want to believe that the boys taunting them were gang members. I don't have evidence of this, though.

I miss my Mexican-American charges; it is sad that the American high school ecosystem, didn't accommodate me.

So it goes ...

My son does not approve of the frivolous way I use this meme by Vonnegut. I think today it is appropriate. My daughter is playing Mad Libs, as part of her training in this, our School of Creative Studies. She is a writer.

I just exchanged e-mail with a cousin I consider a brother. My dad (his uncle), was an inspiration for some of us.I believe I am following a program he stored in my brain.

Now here I am, further North than any of my siblings has lived for this long time. My father actually wanted to go work to Alaska, but death came in his path.

Today I was told, that I owe myself an inordinate amount of dollars. If I am going to pay, I have to become a different person, I hope I turn into a man that can live this close to the North Pole!

And maybe my dad and I are wrong, and I will have to move my family South, in this Strange Year of 2012.

The first encounter with forces beyond my control was at O'Hare International Airport, when I was told by an immigration agent, that I could loose my privileges, if I keep acting as childish, as I have up to now.

I do see the end, it seems that I will end my days somewhere up north.

So it goes ....

Ettore Majorana: genius and mystery

Ettore Majorana: génie et mystère

Ettore Majorana est né en Sicile en 1906. Physicien extrêmement doué, il faisait partie à Rome dans les années 30 du fameux groupe de Fermi avant de disparaître mystérieusement en mars 1938. Dans cet article, Antonino Zichichi jette un double regard sur Ettore Majorana: le mystère de sa disparition et le génie de sa contribution à la physique, en s'appuyant sur les souvenirs de grands physiciens comme Fermi et Oppenheimer.

Ettore Majorana was born in Sicily in 1906. An extremely gifted physicist, he was a member of Enrico Fermi's famous group in Rome in the 1930s, before mysteriously disappearing in March 1938.

Ettore Majorana

The great Sicilian writer, Leonardo Sciascia, was convinced that Majorana decided to disappear because he foresaw that nuclear forces would lead to nuclear explosives a million times more powerful than conventional bombs, like those that would destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sciascia came to visit me at Erice where we discussed this topic for several days. I tried to change his mind, but there was no hope. He was too absorbed by an idea that, for a writer, was simply too appealing. In retrospect, after years of reflection on our meetings, I believe that one of my assertions about Majorana's genius actually corroborated Sciascia's idea. At one point in our conversations I assured Sciascia that it would have been nearly impossible - given the state of physics in those days - for a physicist to foresee that a heavy nucleus could be broken to trigger the chain reaction of nuclear fission. Impossible for what Enrico Fermi called first-rank physicists, those who were making important inventions and discoveries, I suggested, but not for geniuses such as Majorana. Maybe this information convinced Sciascia that his idea about Majorana was not just probable, but actually true - a truth that his disappearance further corroborated.

Laura Fermi

There are also those who think Majorana's disappearance was related to spiritual faith and that he retreated to a monastery. This perspective on Majorana as a believer comes from his confessor, Monsignor Riccieri, who I met when he came from Catania to Trapani as Bishop. Remarking on his disappearance, Riccieri told me that Majorana had experienced "mystical crises" and that, in his opinion, suicide in the sea was to be excluded. Bound by the sanctity of confessional, he could tell me no more. After the establishment of the Erice Centre, which bears Majorana's name, I had the privilege of meeting Majorana's entire family. No one ever believed it was suicide. Majorana was an enthusiastic and devout Catholic and, moreover, he withdrew his savings from the bank a week before his disappearance. The hypothesis shared by his family and others who had the privilege of knowing him (Fermi's wife Laura was one of the few) is that he withdrew to a monastery.

Pontecorvo and Zichichi

Laura Fermi recalls that when Majorana disappeared, Enrico Fermi said to his wife, "Ettore was too intelligent. If he has decided to disappear, no-one will be able to find him. Nevertheless, we have to consider all possibilities." In fact, Fermi even tried to get Benito Mussolini himself to support the search. On that occasion (in Rome in 1938), Fermi said: "There are several categories of scientists in the world; those of second or third rank do their best but never get very far. Then there is the first rank, those who make important discoveries, fundamental to scientific progress. But then there are the geniuses, like Galilei and Newton. Majorana was one of these."

Animated discussion

A genius, however, who looked on his own work as completely banal: once a problem was solved, Majorana did his best to leave no trace of his own brilliance. This can be witnessed in the stories of the neutron discovery and the hypothesis of the neutrinos that bear his name, as recalled below by Emilio Segré and Giancarlo Wick (on the neutron) and by Bruno Pontecorvo (on neutrinos). Majorana's comprehension of the physics of his time had a completeness that few others in the world could match.

Oppenheimer's recollections

Memories of Majorana had nearly faded when, in 1962, the International School of Physics was established in Geneva, with a branch in Erice. It was the first of the 150 schools that now form the Centre for Scientific Culture, which today bears Majorana's name. It is in this context that an important physicist of the 20th century, Robert Oppenheimer, told me of his knowledge of Majorana.

After having suffered heavy repercussions for his opposition to the development of weapons even stronger than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer had decided to get back to physics while visiting the biggest laboratories at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. This is how he came to be at CERN, the largest European laboratory for subnuclear physics.

At this time, many illustrious physicists participated in a ceremony that dedicated the Erice School to Majorana. I myself - at the time very young - was entrusted with the task of speaking about the Majorana neutrinos. Oppenheimer wanted to voice his appreciation for how the Erice School and the Centre for Scientific Culture had been named. He knew of Majorana's exceptional contributions to physics from the papers he had read, as any physicist could do at any time. What would have remained unknown was the episode he told me as a testimony to Fermi's exceptional opinion of Majorana. Oppenheimer recounted the following episode from the time of the Manhattan Project, which in the course of only four years transformed the scientific discovery of nuclear fission into a weapon of war.

There were three critical turning points during the project, and during the executive meeting to address the first of these crises, Fermi turned to Eugene Wigner and said: "If only Ettore were here." The project seemed to have reached a dead-end in the second crisis, during which Fermi exclaimed once more: "This calls for Ettore!" Other than the project director himself (Oppenheimer), three people were in attendance at these meetings: two scientists (Fermi and Wigner) and a military general. After the "top secret" meeting, the general asked Wigner, who this "Ettore" was, and he replied: "Majorana". The general asked where Majorana was so that he could try to bring him to America. Wigner replied: "Unfortunately, he disappeared many years ago."

By the end of the 1920s, physics had identified three fundamental particles: the photon (the quantum of light), the electron (needed to make atoms) and the proton (an essential component of the atomic nucleus). These three particles alone, however, left the atomic nucleus shrouded in mystery: no-one could understand how multiple protons could stick together in a single atomic nucleus. Every proton has an electric charge, and like charges repel each other. A fourth particle was needed, heavy like the proton but without electric charge. This was the neutron, but no-one knew it at the time.

Then Frédérick Joliot and Irène Curie discovered a neutral particle that can enter matter and expel a proton. Their conclusion was that it must be a photon, because at the time it was the only known particle with no charge. Majorana had a different explanation, as Emilio Segré and Giancarlo Wick recounted on different occasions, including during visits to Erice. (Both Segré and Wick were enthusiasts for what the school and the centre had become in only a few years, all under the name of the young physicist that Fermi considered a genius alongside Galilei and Newton). Majorana had explained to Fermi why the particle discovered by Joliot and Curie had to be as heavy as a proton, even while being electrically neutral. To move a proton requires something as heavy as the proton, thus a fourth particle must exist, a proton with no charge. And so was born the correct interpretation of what Joliot and Curie discovered in France: the existence of a particle that is as heavy as a proton but without electrical charge. This particle is the indispensable neutron. Without neutrons, atomic nuclei could not exist.

Fermi told Majorana to publish his interpretation of the French discovery right away. Majorana, true to his belief that everything that can be understood is banal, did not bother to do so. The discovery of the neutron is in fact justly attributed to James Chadwick for his experiments with beryllium in 1932.

Majorana's neutrinos

Today, Majorana is particularly well known for his ideas about neutrinos. Bruno Pontecorvo, the "father" of neutrino oscillations, recalls the origin of Majorana neutrinos in the following way: Dirac discovers his famous equation describing the evolution of the electron; Majorana goes to Fermi to point out a fundamental detail: " I have found a representation where all Dirac γ matrices are real. In this representation it is possible to have a real spinor that describes a particle identical to its antiparticle."

The Dirac equation needs four components to describe the evolution in space and time of the simplest of particles, the electron; it is like saying that it takes four wheels (like a car) to move through space and time. Majorana jotted down a new equation: for a chargeless particle like the neutrino, which is similar to the electron except for its lack of charge, only two components are needed to describe its movement in space-time - as if it uses two wheels (like a motorcycle). "Brilliant," said Fermi, "Write it up and publish it." Remembering what happened with the neutron discovery, Fermi wrote the article himself and submitted the work under Majorana's name to the prestigious scientific journal Il Nuovo Cimento (Majorana 1937). Without Fermi's initiative, we would know nothing about the Majorana spinors and Majorana neutrinos.

The great theorist John Bell conducted a rigorous comparison of Dirac's and Majorana's "neutrinos" in the first year of the Erice Subnuclear Physics School. The detailed version can be found in the chapter that opens the 12 volumes published to celebrate Majorana's centenary. These volumes describe the highlights leading up to the greatest synthesis of scientific thought of all time, which we physicists call the Standard Model. This model has already pushed the frontiers of physics well beyond what the Standard Model itself first promised, so now the goal is the Standard Model and beyond.

Today we know that three types of neutrinos exist. The first controls the combustion of the Sun's nuclear engine and keeps it from overheating. One of the dreams of today's physicists is to prove the existence of Majorana's hypothetical neutral particles, which are needed in grand unification theory. This is something that no-one could have imagined in the 1930s. And no-one could have imagined the three conceptual bases needed for the Standard Model and beyond.

Particles with arbitrary spin

In 1932 the study of particles with arbitrary spin was considered at the level of a pure mathematical curiosity, and Majorana's paper on the subject remained quasi-unknown despite being full of remarkable new ideas (Majorana 1932). Today, three-quarters of a century later, this mathematical curiosity of 1932 still represents a powerful source of new ideas. In fact in this paper there are the first hints for supersymmetry, spin-mass correlation and spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) - three fundamental concepts underpinning the Standard Model and beyond. This means that our current conceptual understanding of the fundamental laws of nature was already in Majorana's attempts to describe particles with arbitrary spins in a relativistically invariant way.

Majorana starts with the simplest representation of the Lorentz group, which is infinite-dimensional. In this representation the states with integer (bosons) and semi-integer (fermions) spins are treated equally. In other words, the relativistic description of particle states allows bosons and fermions to exist on equal footing. These two fundamental sets of states are the first hint of supersymmetry.

Another remarkable novelty is the correlation between spin and mass. The eigenvalues of the masses are given by a relation of the type m = m₀/(J+¹/₂), where m₀ is a given constant and J is the spin. The mass decreases with the increasing value of the spin, the opposite of what would come, many decades later, in the study of the strong interactions between baryons and mesons (now known as Regge trajectories). As a consequence of the description of particle states with arbitrary spins, this remarkable paper also contains the existence of imaginary mass eigenvalues. We know today that the only way to introduce real masses without destroying the theoretical description of nature is through the mechanism of SSB, but this could not exist without imaginary masses.

In addition to these three important ideas, the paper also contributed to a further development: the formidable relation between spin and statistics, which would have led to the discovery of another invariance law valid for all quantized relativistic field theories, the celebrated PCT theorem.

Majorana's paper shows first of all that the relativistic description of a particle state allows the existence of integer and semi-integer spin values. However, it was already known that the electron must obey the Pauli exclusion principle and that it has semi-integer spin. Thus the problem arose of understanding whether the Pauli principle is valid for all semi-integer spins. If this were the case it would be necessary to find out the properties that characterize the two classes of particles, now known as fermions (semi-integer spin) and bosons (integer spin). The first of these properties are of statistical nature, governing groups of identical fermions and groups of bosons. We now know that a fundamental distinction exists and that the anticommutation relations for fermions and the commutation relations for bosons are the basis for the statistical laws governing fermions and bosons.

The spin-statistics theorem has an interesting and long history, the main players of which are some of the most distinguished theorists of the 20th century. The first contribution to the study of the correlation between spin and statistics comes from Markus Fierz with a paper where the case of general spin for free fields is investigated (Fierz 1939). A year later Wolfgang Pauli comes in with his paper also "On the Connection Between Spin and Statistics" (Pauli 1940). The first proofs, obtained using only the general properties of relativistic quantum field theory and which include microscopic causality (also known as local commutativity), are due to Gerhart Lüders and Bruno Zumino, and to N Burgoyne (Lüders and Zumino 1958; Burgoyne 1958). Another important contribution, which clarifies the connection between spin and statistics, came three years later with the work of G F Dell'Antonio (Dell'Antonio 1961).

It cannot be accidental that the first suggestion of the existence of the PCT invariance law came from the same people engaged in the study of the spin-statistics theorem, Lüders and Zumino. These two outstanding theoretical physicists suggested that if a relativistic quantum field theory obeys the space-inversion invariance law, called parity (P), it must also be invariant for the product of charge conjugation (particle-antiparticle) and time inversion, CT. It is in this form that it was proved by Lüders in 1954 (Lüders 1954). A year later Pauli proved that PCT invariance is a universal law, valid for all relativistic quantum field theories (Pauli 1955).

This paper closes a cycle started by Pauli in 1940 with his work on spin and statistics where he proved already what is now considered the classical PCT invariance, as it was derived using free non-interacting fields. The validity of PCT invariance for quantum field theories was obtained in 1951 by Julian Schwinger, a great admirer of Majorana (Schwinger 1951). It is interesting to read what Arthur Wightman, another of Majorana's enthusiastic supporters, wrote about this paper by Schwinger: "Readers of this paper did not generally recognize that it stated or proved the PCT theorem" (Wightman 1964). It is similar for those who, reading Majorana's paper on arbitrary spins, have not found the imprinting of the original ideas discussed in this short review of the genius of Majorana.

CERN Courier

Ettore Majorana

I  am reading the novel by Leonardo Sciascia about Majorana.

CERN Courier     

He reminds me of myself.

I am also worried to discover some deep secret and get punished.

Nuts!                                                

War in Guerrero

Since I am away I can write the following; at least I believe so.

My friend Arturo Miranda Ramirez, is trying to help his Alma Mater; the kids may loose the semester.He wants the Rector, Ascencio Villegas Arrizon, to mediate with the state Government,

One complication, is that the students want the Governor out, after his police force killed two children from that school; children because I am 62, and they could be my sons. The students will have to negotiate, and I think Arturo has the moral standing to help.

Education in Guerrero is in crisis. Without justice there is no peace, and without peace, there is no civilization.

"Miranda Ramírez hizo una reflexión si el gobierno cierra Ayotzinapa, no sólo los estudiantes se quedarían sin oportunidad, los maestros también “irían a parar a la calle, y si ellos no entienden la magnitud de la situación, allá ellos”.


Miranda Ramirez reflected, if the government closes Ayotzinapa (teacher's College), not only the students would be left withouy opportunity, teachers too, "they'll end up in the street, and if they are unable to understand the seriousness of the situation, it'll be their fault".


La Jornada Guerrero.

Weird, I Am Outside Fermilab

I am watching Amy Goodman in today's DN! The Atomic States of America. Since I live in so many places, Huitzuco, Iguala, Chilpancingo, Mexico City, and of course Warrenville. I suddenly realized I am right now outside Fermilab!

See the video below.

Weird feeling. Can I drink the water?

Low level radiation.

Do I feel safe?

Yes, this beats the killings in Calderon's War!

Atomic States of America

News on Relevant Science: 15 Inspiring Examples of Free Online Education

News on Relevant Science: 15 Inspiring Examples of Free Online Education:

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Ontario High School Algebra Textbook

42 Canadian Cents for a Textbook in 1915, almost a hundred years ago [link].

New Algebra Online Course

I have a torrent going with close to eight Gigabytes of old Algebra books. What can I add?

 Nicholas Negroponte has a hunch, if he drops a bunch of cheap laptops in far away places, kids will teach each other. Wouldn't it be cool if that were true? I do believe that the limit to children are grownups; of course we are the only thing they have, and there are some things they cannot do by themselves.

 I searched for an Online Algebra Course with Python; no luck. I got sites with tutorials to learn Python, or online algebra courses, but I didn't find this particular combination. I have Pythonxy, and can use SymPy. I have a server that a friend is hosting in Chilpancingo, with Moodle.

Here I try a few ideas for my best course going forward.

It is so easy to get lost in code, my students do not even know how to use a computer proficiently. They live all over the state of Guerrero, and come to Chilpancingo, once a week. I already have some material in Algebra. What I want now is some online quizzes, homeworks, and tests, which they can take online. I would prefer that there is more than multiple choice. Some interactive window where they can play with algebra.

At the level of this note, I want some guiding ideas, for the construction of the online experience.

My students are high school  math teachers. They do not know how to program. When I was at Glenbard East, a friend told me that VPython was useful for Physics teaching. I studied a little. I am sure I can direct the students that way also, the problem is that they program even less than  I do, besides I won't be present.

I already took an Artificial Intelligence class at Stanford. I hope my students will take my class more seriously than I did mine! Without the physical presence of the instructor, we get lost. All the interpersonal gifts we have developed, go by the wayside.

The class has to be extra rewarding; they have to feel excited about the prospect of learning powerful tools to do their work.

Recently I heard that the Maricopa County of Arizona, considers Paulo Freire's book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", inappropriate for the Mexican American kids in their high schools. I beg to differ; Freire accomplished an important task, he made the students eager to acquire tools to improve their lot in life. Our students in Guerrero are also oppressed.. Professor Negroponte , also wants to empower the Wretched of the Earth, to move to the middle class.

¡Sí, se puede!

Nicholas Negroponte

Paulo Freire

Technicolor Union

Is the Brawl Over?

In Chilpancingo, Rene Juarez and Claudia Ruiz Massieu, were elected as PRI representatives. Neither Manuel Anorve Banos, nor Figueroa Alcocer were there; but Juarez represents the forces against Anorve. Figueroa Smutny was there; I guess the brawl is over, or it never existed, politics as theater.

Obviously I am not a political animal, and I take things at face value.

Only Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Claudia's uncle, knows.

Many years ago, Carlos's brother Raul, sent killers to finish up Claudia's father, Jose Francisco, I think because he was gay, and the Salinas brothers were upset with him.

As Carlos Fuentes once said: In Mexico, reality is stranger than fiction. All Mexican writers have to do, is write what really happens.

Carlos Salinas is the most powerful man in Mexico, his brother Enrique might have been killed by criminals, and his brother Raul, stayed a few years in jail, for the killing of Claudia Ruiz Massieu Salinas's father: What a name, and what a real life novel!

Is the Brawl Over?

This is a Magical realism novel; stay tuned.

Mexico and the United States: Octavio Paz

" A society is  defined  by its attitude about time." Octavio Paz.

Patria, te doy de tu dicha la clave:
sé siempre igual, fiel a tu espejo diario;

Fatherland, I give you the key of your  bliss
be always the same, faithful to your daily mirror,

Ramon Lopez Velarde
.

Algebra Course

I am preparing an online math course in Spanish, [link]. I went to the public Warrenville library and got the Schwitters-Fischer solution book for Kaufmann's book.

Is it fair? None of my students will be able to get a library book!

Readers may think that it is fair, Mexicans are not Americans; I think is wrong. To be fair, there are free online courses, at MIT, and Stanford, to name just two universities. I actually took the Stanford Artificial Intelligence one from Mexico. Nevertheless the education opportunities in the US, are much better than in Mexico.

Half Here, Half There


Actually I feel more like Half Alive, and Half Dead!

I could use Skype and all that, but somehow, I think it is unfair; first that I am not teaching this class in the US, and second that I may loose privileges, if I stay long periods of time in Mexico.

Life is not fair; (overhead professor Hal Lewis (1923-2011) telling his young son at the UCSB elevator).

It is my fault, I am a little bit like Ettore Majorana, who did not take advantage of all the opportunities to be more time around people.

The Way We Are, One Is Missing Though

2012 Events

I am not superstitious, and I do not share  the end of the world hysteria.

BUT

This year's events are eerie. AMLO, has a very good chance of becoming President of Mexico. Obama is seen in the South as the Antichrist.

What else do you want?

Besides my mother's hometown is possessed by Demons. Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, and his son.

I'll keep you posted.

p.s. I forgot to mention Anonymous.

While the raid Friday may have been Mr. Dotcom’s most dramatic encounter with the law, it was not his first.


NYT

Brawl in Guerrero

Today Acapulco Mayor, Manuel Anorve Banos, attacked a fellow Huitzucan, who as myself, has lived most of his life away from that City, Ruben Figueroa Smutny.

Funny thing though, "somebody" in the police department attacked and killed education school students on December 12, of last year, and this Huitzucan wrote in his facebook wall, before it happened,  that something bad was going to happen to his enemies.

As it happened, the current Governor, and his cousin, who is Mayor of Acapulco, crossed his dad in the PRI.

I do not  want to be involved in that bar brawl!

Read about the accusations against the Huitzuco mafia here, [link].

Server in Chilpancingo!

I Miss Steve!

Recent Event

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: iBooks 2 and iTunes U: A Quick Review from a Teacher #edapp

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: iBooks 2 and iTunes U: A Quick Review from a Teacher #edapp:

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In Honor of a Great Friend

11111111111111111

2071723 · 5363222357

arXiv

Algebra for Beginners

I am torn.

 I have a domain, eduardocantoral.dyndns.org, which I haven't used; an upcoming Online Algebra class, and I cannot go to Chilpancingo right now. To add another variable to my situation, Apple announced today their textbook software.

 Minimally I just setup my iTunes account in this non-Mac platform. HP-Mini.

 Which way is everything going?

School in Warrenville?

With textbooks on iPads, and a wideband Internet connection here, I could start a School of Creative Studies!

Apple takes on textbooks with iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U app

By Mark Brown

At a press conference in New York, Apple has revealed its next target: the humble school textbook.

It has released iBooks 2, an updated version of the e-reader app that introduces functionality for educational textbooks on iPad. That includes animations, diagrams, photos and videos, as well as interactive 3D objects to give you a model of the solar system or let you peer at a strand of double-helix DNA.

The books support highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, plus lesson reviews and study cards. Textbook makers can also keep the content up to date, lopping off demoted planets or adding in new elements.

Textbook authors like McGraw-Hill and Pearson have already delivered educational titles to the iBookstore in the US, with most priced at about $14.99 (£10) or less. In the UK we get books from Wilson Digital and DK, with more in the works.

"With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing.

"Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn."

Apple also released iBooks Author, a free self-publishing tool that's available on the Mac App Store. It's not just for textbooks, either: you can make "cookbooks, history books, picture books and more," and then publish them to the iBookstore.

The toolkit comes with some spiffy Apple-designed templates, and then you can add your own text and images, and use multi-touch widgets to add interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations and 3D objects. If you hook up an iPad you can whizz the book or page to your tablet to see it in the flesh.

In the final blow of its education barrage, Apple released an iTunes U app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. This gives you instant access to that bumper selection of free educational content from schools around the world.

The app lets teachers create and manage courses (it offers up lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses) using content from top universities like Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford.

Wired Magazine

Apple takes on textbooks with iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U app (Wired UK)

Apple takes on textbooks with iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U app (Wired UK):

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Apple Unveils App and Tools for Digital Textbooks - NYTimes.com

Apple Unveils App and Tools for Digital Textbooks - NYTimes.com:

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A Good Friend Has Died

Mike Lake, Patent Attorney for Lynk Labs, has died.

Is Obama Finally Working for Latinos?

After the good environmental news, about the Canadian oil pipeline, now I read in the NYT, about a nuanced approach to the immigration problem.

I am with Obama on this one!

Huitzuco in the News

My mother grew up in this city of Guerrero Mexico. Today Ruben Figueroa Smutny made the news in Mexico through his facebook page.

Everybody in Huitzuco, from a social class I belong to, is related. His great-uncle Andres Figueroa Figueroa married my grandpa's sister, Juana Uriza Marban.

Figueroa is accusing Manuel Anorve Banos, Mayor of Acapulco, of receiving money from La Barbie.

I'm glad I'm not in Huitzuco right now. This looks like a brawl to me.

Free Will and Gravity as Entropic Force

Entropic Force led to Entropic Gravity through Erik Verlinde; this sounds true to me because of my New Scientific Method.

Here I develop one of its consequences that applies to my life right now.

Free Will is defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millennia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1; but see also Pereboom 2001, Ch.7.)

Did I choose to stay in the U.S.?

I have alternatives, like, I go back to Mexico and in the way back, lacking a job in the US, have my permit to work revoked. That is an alternative I did not take; so yes, I chose to stay. Within constraints one finds a path: That is my definition of free will.

I don't have a job here at the moment, only three unanswered applications. I am collaborating online with Mexican colleagues.

There is an ever present process of accommodation; an Entropic Force is a way we describe the constraints that lead to the physical motion of objects. Gravity as an Entropic Force is Erik Verlinde's way to explain why all bodies fall towards Earth's center, with the same acceleration. They all have the same constraint, Space's Curvature caused by Earth. Of course Einstein said the same, what is different in Verlinde's description, is the source of this connection: It is the existence of unknown microscopic forces we have not found, and Einstein's Equations give us just an statistical average, like atoms producing pressure on a wall.

Verlinde has to do more to convince us of his viewpoint.

What I say, is less controversial, less ambitious,  and I hope truer. I say that we fit data with the smaller program, or equation.

I do not have the program nor the equation for this assertion, it just rings true to me.

No DNS Censorship!

Wikipedia

No to Lamar

Basic Human Needs

Wavy Gravy

Great Party

I Chose to Stay Here Full Time

"“What do we do with these youngsters?” he said. “Philosophically, as an educator, if a young person comes to the door, we should educate them.”

In Ajo, Ariz., the state education office fined the district $1.2 million in May 2010, for the cost of educating 105 students crossing over from Mexico. The district has since tightened its residency requirements." NYT

AMLO and Julio Glockner

¡Calderón Estúpido!

Discovery

A single mind sees it. Whatever it is, whichever method, or equipment is used, a single mind sees it first.

Demise of PCs

Techno-Lincoln

My Son's Room

Sunday morning, my son in college, and I am in his room. He grew up here, he must've been eight when we moved here. I still remember when I was ten and we moved to a bigger place in Mexico in 1960. It was a big deal, I assume it was the same for my son.

 Now our place in Mexico is empty most of the time, and I am in my son's room. 

What does it mean?

 Migration!

I just read in the NYT, that most of the 1% do not work for others, they find ways to get more money by filing their taxes, instead of having an employer deduct them.

That's an idea. If you don't have a boss, there is a way to make more money. I guess new immigrants do not report their income, even more those that are here illegally. Of course they don't get welfare, in a way though, they get another kind of welfare.

Luna de Xelajú

Mario Rabinowitz

arXiv

This man is from Mexico City like myself.


The article is interesting.

One Day in Iowa City

We took our son back to school yesterday. The city was unseasonably warm. There even was a homeless man asking for help in the street.

Weird Weather has Arrived!

Time Magazine

Freedom

I am glad that people choose freedom;but actions have consequences.

Free Will

Best choice within constraints.

Germán Martínez Hidalgo

On January 12, 2012, my friend Germán will be remembered in Puebla City. A monument in his honor will be inaugurated, in one of the most trendy sections of town. He dedicated his life to the promotion of science, in particular Astronomy. Already the Puebla planetarium bears his name. Now this monument will remind us all of the great Universe we live in, and the men and women like himself, that helped us to grow our knowledge to better inhabit this place, which I consider my home: The Universe.

Thanks Germán.

Bound for Glory!

Barriers

I hate fences!

I am for proper private property though. When my people came 500 years ago to Mexico, we stole the land of the people that were there already. Now my people decide where the original people can live and work.

Outrageous!

These are not proper private property rights.

Now the pawns of Mexico want their land back.

Phil Ochs.

Immigration bugs me on the border, and the NYT does not want me to read and share their paper.

I still need a new job: So it goes!

Ralph Isenberg is my new hero.

Ralph Isenberg, My Man!

Ralph Isenberg is trying to help a 20-year-old student from Bangladesh return to the United States after being deported.


The alliance of Mr. Isenberg, by his own description a hard-driving Jew, and Mr. Nabeel, a Muslim engineering student from Bangladesh who was deported last year, is one of the more unusual tales in the history of immigrants’ struggles to prevail in the American immigration system.


“This is not my job — it’s my mission,” Mr. Isenberg said after one recent coaching session with Mr. Nabeel, whom he has never met in person.
NYT

(Got HTML? Read the News! )White House Mutes Applause Over Data

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Friday’s jobs report, after weeks of other good data, makes it reasonable to wonder whether the economy may turn out to be less of a drag on President Obama’s re-election campaign than has long been expected.
The economy has added 1.5 million jobs over the last year, and the pace seems to be picking up. The unemployment rate last month, 8.5 percent, was at its lowest level since February 2009, Mr. Obama’s first full month in office.
Of course, the economy has been here before, only to fall back again. In both early 2010 and early 2011, job growth picked up briefly, before the continuing global financial crisis — including Europe’s problems — again reasserted itself.
The White House made the mistake of reacting too quickly and positively to some of that earlier news. It went so far as to refer to the summer of 2010 as “recovery summer.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Obama and his aides have mostly opted for a more subdued strategy. They note the good news, though they say there is a long way to go, and urge Congress to extend the payroll tax cut and pass other parts of the president’s jobs bill.
“Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement Friday morning. But, he added, “as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”
And the economy clearly remains a problem for Mr. Obama. Shortly after the release of the jobs report, Mitt Romney, the winner of this week’s Republican caucus in Iowa, said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, “This president doesn’t understand how the economy works.”
The big question is whether the economy will continue to improve. The recent job growth, on its own, is not enough to keep unemployment falling at a significant pace.
But there is some reason for optimism. The Labor Department conducts two surveys each month, one of households and one of businesses. The business survey produces the widely cited number on job changes — 200,000 in December.
The household survey, although usually more volatile, can sometimes provide a more accurate estimate at turning points. It often captures jobs at new companies that are not included in the business survey.
Over the past six months, the household survey shows an average monthly gain of about 230,000, compared with a gain of only 142,000 in the business survey. Normal population growth means that the economy needs to add between 125,000 and 150,000 a month to keep unemployment from rising.
If the household survey is really the more accurate one, the good news on jobs may well continue, complicating a central point in the Republican case against Mr. Obama.
On the other hand, some of the recent strength comes from the restocking of warehouses, which will not continue. Europe still has not solved its problems. The troubles in Iran could cause oil prices to jump. And American businesses and consumers, still scarred by the financial crisis, are probably still easy to scare.
No one knows what the economy is going to do in 2012, but the chances of it improving markedly are higher than they were a couple of months ago.
NYT

How to Get the News?

With a bit of html you can get the news from NYT, examples below, and above.

U.S. Economy Gains Steam as 200,000 Jobs Are Added

By SHAILA DEWAN

The United States added 200,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, a robust number that came on the heels of a flurry of heartening economic news. Consumer confidence lifted, factories stepped up production and small businesses showed signs of life. The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, its lowest level in nearly two years.

It was the sixth consecutive month that the economy showed a net gain of more than 100,000 jobs — not enough to restore employment to pre-recession levels but enough, perhaps, to cheer President Obama as he enters the election year.

The sustained run of positives had economists like Markus Schomer, of PineBridge Investments, feeling much more optimistic than they did back in August, after a spring and summer of lost economic ground and a demoralizing debate over the debt ceiling.

At that time, Mr. Schomer thought, as many did, that government dysfunction was paralyzing the economy. Now, he is ratcheting up his growth forecast for 2012.

“The improving trend in the U.S. labor markets is not just a temporary blip, but seems to be something quite sustainable,” he said, adding that the improvement had come despite continued Washington gridlock.

Among the pieces of good news in Friday’s report: The drop in the jobless rate came largely from real gains, not from discouraged workers giving up the job hunt. The new jobs were spread broadly across industries, with transportation and warehousing, retail, manufacturing and restaurants all adding jobs.

In addition, average wages ticked up by 4 cents an hour, though over the year wages have not kept pace with inflation. And government downsizing, which has been a drag on the jobs numbers, slowed in December, with only 12,000 public jobs lost. The private sector added 212,000 jobs.

In another positive sign, the unemployment rate seemed to be dropping at a faster rate than the number of new jobs would imply, perhaps because new businesses and the newly self-employed are less likely to be captured by the Labor Department’s survey of businesses, from which the job numbers are drawn, than by its survey of households, from which the unemployment rate is calculated.

Economists continued to warn of potential dangers ahead, including disaster in the euro zone, increased tensions with Iran leading to higher gas prices, and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Congress may yet decline to continue extensions of the payroll tax break and unemployment benefits that have given spending a boost. Money, in the form of loans, is still hard to come by, and home prices have continued to fall.

There is also a sense of déjà vu, since hopes were similarly buoyed by good news last year at this time. Those hopes, Mr. Schomer pointed out, were soon dashed by the earthquake in Japan. “I’m a little bit concerned that Iran could be this year’s Japan,” he said.

Still, context is everything. The same modest upward trends that a few months ago were dismissed as far too anemic to do much are now being greeted with tentative praise. “People were very much thinking that the sky was falling,” said Tom Porcelli, an economist at RBC Capital Markets. “It’s no small victory that we’re up here, even with all these headwinds.”

Economists ventured to suggest that the good news and consumer confidence might feed off each other, leading to further increases in spending that, they hope, will be followed by the wage increases necessary to sustain that spending.

Bullish types were quick to trumpet the American economy’s resilience. “This is the real thing,” said Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics. “This is finally the economy throwing off the shackles of the credit crunch.”

The Labor Department numbers were foreshadowed Thursday in a report by ADP, the payroll processing company, that showed a whopping gain of 325,000 private-sector jobs in December. ADP’s reports do not always correlate with the Labor Department’s findings, but they can provide additional insight. Diane Swonk, an economist with Mesirow Financial, said most of the new jobs in the ADP report were at small businesses and that generally only newer small businesses use a payroll company.

“It’s one of those things where you look at that and say, ‘That would be really cool if that continues,’ ” Ms. Swonk said. “It’s not just small business — it’s new business formation.”

Other factors, like seasonal adjustment, could be making the economy look better than it is. Seasonal adjustments are calculated based on the patterns of recent years. Because the recession began in December 2007, a drop-off at that time of year is now part of the pattern, and anything else looks better by comparison.

The seasonal adjustments may not wholly account for trends like online shopping, which boosted hiring of couriers and messengers by 42,000, a gain that economists expect to be reversed now that the holiday season has ended.

But there is more to the good news than statistical flukes, said Ellen Zentner, an economist with Nomura, pointing to the big jump in consumer confidence in December. “People do not feel more upbeat for no reason,” she said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 6, 2012

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article, and an e-mail alert, misstated the unemployment figure for November. Although it was initially given a month ago as 8.6 percent, it was revised Friday to 8.7 percent.

NYT

What Happens When the New York Times Closes?

I have been reading the NYT online since the early 90s. Yesterday they closed the door on me. I will have to wait until somebody posts the news for me, somebody that pays around ten dollars a week.

What else is new? I was expecting this move some time ago.

The Internet is not Free Anymore!

I Have Until December 15, 2012

Paying $150, I can go back to Mexico until 12/15/2012.

I cancelled my ticket for today.

If the world ends on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2012, I will be able to be there beforehand.

Decision Time

I do not feel prepared to take a decision right now. Whether I stay in the US or go back to Mexico. This personal decision is the subject of this public note. I know of at least one dear student following me here. She already expressed her displeasure  with my most likely decision. I myself thought years ago, that I do not have anything to hide. Nevertheless now that I am older, I can see how public statements may come back to haunt me. Here I go anyway.

Yesterday I filled an application to teach Astronomy in a nearby community college. When confronted with the question: Why are you leaving your current position? I wrote: Family reasons, my family lives here.

There are actually two Astronomy classes I'm considering, one may be already taken. January does not seem to be the best time to apply. What I write here are more general reasons, to clear my mind and decide well.

The job situation appears better. Before this time there wasn't an Astronomy class in that College; I applied to teach a GED class and they did not take me. I will love to teach Astronomy there.

I like to have options. I don't regret these past  three years in Chilpancingo, in fact my curriculum was strengthened for the position I'm seeking.

I applied for a job in the financial sector as well, with my prior work at Lucent, I feel qualified for this also.

Finally; the world is changing so rapidly that it feels natural to do what I am doing.

Good Riddance!

Fork in the Road

Leza missed work today. I missed soccer practice when I was 19, I never showed up again.

Today I found out of a Physics instructor position nearby, and soon. They are waiting for me in Chilpancingo. 

What will I do now?

Politics

I have been a professor for over 30 years. Some students like me, and some couldn't care less about me.

 Why?

I believe it has to do with politics. They like my overall view of the world, or they don't. The ones that do, want to know what I have to say. Right now, politicians in Iowa want the hearts and minds of the Iowans. My son studies there, but he is not an Iowan yet, the majority belong to previous migrations - mainly white protestant Europeans. My son is a member of two minorities, he is Mexican and Jewish. Furthermore  those labels aren't enough, he is an artist and an intellectual. This blog is followed by people that know me. I am not a public intellectual.

These Iowans, as I was saying, have to decide this week, who they like for President. They were overwhelmed by negative campaigns, paid by Mitt Romney against Newt Gingrich, and  queued up in favor of Romney, as if they were sheep. Politics encourages authoritarianism, but, at its best, it forces people to make their mind based on the best information they can get.

On the other hand if you do not have the qualifications, the higher you are in the hierarchy, the more you are attacked. We all want the best leaders, and they have to be thoroughly vetted.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Broad Institute Collaboration Began With a Disastrous Lunch - NYTimes.com

Broad Institute Collaboration Began With a Disastrous Lunch - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

Quants - NYTimes.com

Quants - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

Our Tree

Emanuel Derman

Arsonist?

Kinematics of Mental Growth

Reading Hills et al, I have thought the following:

Physics uses kinematics to follow particle trajectories. The stories we tell need a one dimensional time to organize the files. There can be parallel directories, but we can only take linear paths in our minds.

This simplistic view of reality could be used for such complex studies as the kinematics of mental growth.

2012

Is this the end of the World?

No.

Great-grandpa Abraham Castro told  Grandma Tayde Castro Uriza, that we die but the world continues.

I believe so.

Is this the end of the road for intelligence?

Maybe, read on a new article by Hills et al., [link].

"In the mid-20th century, Paul Erdös, arguably the most prolific mathematician of all time, with close to 1,500 publications, kept himself fortified with daily doses of “ten to twenty milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin, strong espresso, and caffeine tablets” (Hoffman, 1998). In his day, Paul Erdös was likely to be an exception; today, the reliance on pharmaceutical enhancement has become commonplace, with reports showing usage of cognitive enhancers as high as 1 in 5 people (see Greely et al., 2008)."

Taken From Professor Hills' website [link].

Humans are in a sweet spot in evolution, any more intelligent, and we will end up like Grisha Perelman, and Paul Erdős. Unable to take care of ourselves without the help of our mothers, and unable to get wives.

The only way forward may be Leibniz way, finding even shorter and shorter programs to store and increase our knowledge.

Is this possible?

I do not know.