Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Letter to the Young Physicist, Michael Franco
Michael;
I wonder, are you at all interested in computational chemistry, or are you only looking at physics? Classical physics? Quantum? Linus Pauling's 1920's publications on the hydrogen molecule in connection to his ideas about quantum theory (in physics) have contributed to what has been happening for twenty years in chemistry: the complete breakdown of all our high school assumptions about how molecular chemistry works.
The old 'ball and stick' models of molecular structure that we all remember from high school is a frozen, clunky fiction that doesn't account for the truly dynamic nature of molecular orbits, interactions and bonds. Remember our conversation about that a few months ago—all matter at every level is in a high state of 'agitation', vibrating, and seems quantum rather than fixed? Computational chemistry tries to account for this uncomfortable reality and it uses quantum mechanics (from your discipline, physics) to account for the complexity of a more real
model of molecular structure--a model that is predictive and even synthetic, yet accounts for the radical non deterministic nature of quantum events and quantum structure!
I wonder, are you at all interested in computational chemistry, or are you only looking at physics? Classical physics? Quantum? Linus Pauling's 1920's publications on the hydrogen molecule in connection to his ideas about quantum theory (in physics) have contributed to what has been happening for twenty years in chemistry: the complete breakdown of all our high school assumptions about how molecular chemistry works.
 |
| old 'stick figure' model of water molecules |
The old 'ball and stick' models of molecular structure that we all remember from high school is a frozen, clunky fiction that doesn't account for the truly dynamic nature of molecular orbits, interactions and bonds. Remember our conversation about that a few months ago—all matter at every level is in a high state of 'agitation', vibrating, and seems quantum rather than fixed? Computational chemistry tries to account for this uncomfortable reality and it uses quantum mechanics (from your discipline, physics) to account for the complexity of a more real
 |
| more real model of carbon! |
 |
| traditional vector calculation |
Classical (or at least high school) chemistry pretends that the predictive power of synthetic and experimental breaking and forming of chemical bonds is based on a fixed structure in molecular reality. You physicists are so pleased with the predictive power and even synthesizing ability of classical computational physics, using computers to predict the future outcomes and experimental outcomes of coherent systems of arbitrary organization with great precision--like magic. You guys can project the future evolution of spiral galaxies and apparent momentum of objects like supernovae in deep field observations; you can track red and blue shifting bodies in distant orbital masses to precision at decimal places--such as vector physics (separations between two moving bodies, rocket arcs, orbital mechanics and so on, such as the basic vector equation: < r2 := (d + (t - T) b Vo) ex + (t - T) c Vo ey - ^"^ 9 ez > to calculate distances between two bodies at time "t", the bodies being whatever, it doesn't matter--the point being that simple equations like this can be used predictively. I got a lot of this from Enns and McGuire, "Computer Algebra Recipes for Classical Mechanics" (Birkhauser, Berlin, 2003). Is it the weak force, electromagnetism, and gravity that lead to this high degree of predictive power in classical physics?
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| one-dimensional quantum vectors |
Quantum systems are by contrast radically indeterministic, according to Heisenberg, looking at the strong force, the nuclear force at the most fundamental levels (the dual particle/wave function of matter and energy). Here, your physics remains grossly predictive (Einstein’s equations that make the predictability of nuclear fusion and fission very predictable) but less and less predictive as smaller and smaller scales moving toward the Planck Length (an infinitely disappearing and receding distance that one can never cross)—yeah, all that. That stuff is basic to modern physics, but here’s what I’m asking you: doesn’t quantum mechanics, just like classical Newtonian physics described a time evolution of physical systems using a mathematical structure, the wave function? If so, the wave function is BOTH a certainty (Newtonian) AND a probability (Heisenberg) that the system will be found in a given state at a given time? But that scaling down, this probability grows more and more non determinable? And if that’s true, you then have to start predicting the effect on a system of the act of measuring the system? (‘the act of measuring destroys the measure’?) Thus, the uncertainty principle, and Schrödinger’s cat, and all that----
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| the dynamism of quantum bonds! |
Okay, now here is my REAL question: since superconductivity and the introduction of computational theory, aren’t we seeing more and more that even though you physicists couldn’t drive classical predictive power from the macro level down into the sub micro level, that predictive power is now creeping up from micro to macro levels? Computational chemistry is using quantum theory to describe, predict, and even to synthesize outcomes of atomic orbitals, and angular momentum in CHEMICAL BONDS. Why is this happening, because computational chemistry is showing that even at the macro level (the molecular level) the bonds are not fixed, but are displaying a wave-particle sort of duality. The 'ball and stick' model of molecular bonds is in reaity far less fixed or predictable. The reality is vast collections, constantly changing, of nuclei surrounded by both circulating AND shifting, phasing, and vibrating clouds of electrons! Highly accurate predictions of chemical bonding behavior that we all learned in high school chemistry and that work very well, were to a great extent derived from experimentation and the observable results of experiments, not necessarily from computation. Since applying quantum principles to molecular theory (as opposed to experimental certainty) chemists have been able to create new, exotic, unpredicted bonds and thus new molecules that could not have been anticipated by classical chemistry. Or am I wrong?
Monday, October 17, 2011
This is the Opening Gambit
“Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
Th' eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.”
Damn. Only Gil Scott Heron could have foreseen it: dumb ass FACEBOOK has been revealed to actually have value and a purpose--it is a stage for the opening gambit of the first phase of the global revolution started by young people across the earth to be finished by their grandchildren in due time. Just as it is amazing that profound truth could have issued from the mouth of so old and crusty a poet as William Cullen Bryant, one never knows where truth, justice, and where The Angel Revolution will enter, which portal She shall enter through--only that She is coming, only that She is here.
The opening gambit may fail, may collapse, may fall under the heel of police violence or even worse it ...might fall under the heel of mediocrity and the supremacy of BIG MACS and FRIES and SHAMROCK SHAKES but that won't matter, it won't matter because this OCCUPY shit is only the opening gambit, you see, and once the opening gambit begins, NOTHING, NOTHING will ever be the same again, because this is the opening gambit, and only Gil Scott Heron could have known that it would be be told on FACEBOOK and TWITTER and TWITFACE and YOU-AND-ME TUBE and Barney GOOGLE and Snuffy Smith.
As I have long foretold in classrooms across this country, the younger generation has now awakened, The sleeper has awakened, MUAD' DIB has awakened, PAUL ATREIDES has climbed atop the worm, and the storm is coming. It's on, now. Violence may come, but violence won't stop this. Don't think it can't turn violent old folks, it can turn violent for our children, but we old folks have got to let them go, have got to send them out there into the streets anyway, knowing that our children are shaking the pillars, waking the monster that hurt US all so, and yes they can use violence to stop our children--they can use flash bangs and media black outs and sonic projectors and skin irritants, and tear gas, and truncheons and tanks to take a crack at killing some of the children eventually if these children don't shut up and get the hell away from the doorstep of the real wolf--CITIBANK--like they have been doing, spreading this PARIS COMMUNE they have established in lower Manhattan farther and farther outward from the steps of the facade of the wolf's little bitch (WALL STREET) to the inner doorsteps of the wolf's outposts, THE WOLF's doorstep (check out THE 1970 OHIO STATE MASSACRE in three part harmony).
But oh shit, too late, CITIBANK, too late RICK ROSS you thug in thug's clothing, too late, RICK PERRY you redneck bastard, too late, REVLON you maker of young women into raccoons, too late, Chinese human hair salons selling Black women somebody else’s hair to crown their self-hatred with, too late, EXXON, BLACKWATER, WHITE CASTLE, too late to get the children back in line at WENDY'S--they are awake now. The children are awake now. Tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell the truth, children of the earth! I have never been prouder of my students. For fifteen years I have made a point of teaching students how to make Molotov cocktails with kitchen ingredients, in preparation. They are nonviolent, and good for them, they are stronger than we were that way, but sooner or later, the violence will come because they are making the wolf VERY AFRAID.
No matter. Violence will not stop this from being what it is, what Gil Scott foretold, IT'S THE OPENING GAMBIT to take back our planet. If only Gil had lived to see the redemption of his life and his suffering in this historical moment. History is a motherfucker, and She's coming for the wealthy and we are riding on Her back, under Her protection, even if they kill us. She is coming for the petty and the cowardly and the liars and the thieves who've befouled the temple, and coming for the cooperationists and the fools. She is coming for the wealthy and we are going to eat them, WE ARE GOING TO EAT THEM. I'll have a thigh....And you?
Th' eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.”
Damn. Only Gil Scott Heron could have foreseen it: dumb ass FACEBOOK has been revealed to actually have value and a purpose--it is a stage for the opening gambit of the first phase of the global revolution started by young people across the earth to be finished by their grandchildren in due time. Just as it is amazing that profound truth could have issued from the mouth of so old and crusty a poet as William Cullen Bryant, one never knows where truth, justice, and where The Angel Revolution will enter, which portal She shall enter through--only that She is coming, only that She is here.
The opening gambit may fail, may collapse, may fall under the heel of police violence or even worse it ...might fall under the heel of mediocrity and the supremacy of BIG MACS and FRIES and SHAMROCK SHAKES but that won't matter, it won't matter because this OCCUPY shit is only the opening gambit, you see, and once the opening gambit begins, NOTHING, NOTHING will ever be the same again, because this is the opening gambit, and only Gil Scott Heron could have known that it would be be told on FACEBOOK and TWITTER and TWITFACE and YOU-AND-ME TUBE and Barney GOOGLE and Snuffy Smith.
As I have long foretold in classrooms across this country, the younger generation has now awakened, The sleeper has awakened, MUAD' DIB has awakened, PAUL ATREIDES has climbed atop the worm, and the storm is coming. It's on, now. Violence may come, but violence won't stop this. Don't think it can't turn violent old folks, it can turn violent for our children, but we old folks have got to let them go, have got to send them out there into the streets anyway, knowing that our children are shaking the pillars, waking the monster that hurt US all so, and yes they can use violence to stop our children--they can use flash bangs and media black outs and sonic projectors and skin irritants, and tear gas, and truncheons and tanks to take a crack at killing some of the children eventually if these children don't shut up and get the hell away from the doorstep of the real wolf--CITIBANK--like they have been doing, spreading this PARIS COMMUNE they have established in lower Manhattan farther and farther outward from the steps of the facade of the wolf's little bitch (WALL STREET) to the inner doorsteps of the wolf's outposts, THE WOLF's doorstep (check out THE 1970 OHIO STATE MASSACRE in three part harmony).
But oh shit, too late, CITIBANK, too late RICK ROSS you thug in thug's clothing, too late, RICK PERRY you redneck bastard, too late, REVLON you maker of young women into raccoons, too late, Chinese human hair salons selling Black women somebody else’s hair to crown their self-hatred with, too late, EXXON, BLACKWATER, WHITE CASTLE, too late to get the children back in line at WENDY'S--they are awake now. The children are awake now. Tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell the truth, children of the earth! I have never been prouder of my students. For fifteen years I have made a point of teaching students how to make Molotov cocktails with kitchen ingredients, in preparation. They are nonviolent, and good for them, they are stronger than we were that way, but sooner or later, the violence will come because they are making the wolf VERY AFRAID.
No matter. Violence will not stop this from being what it is, what Gil Scott foretold, IT'S THE OPENING GAMBIT to take back our planet. If only Gil had lived to see the redemption of his life and his suffering in this historical moment. History is a motherfucker, and She's coming for the wealthy and we are riding on Her back, under Her protection, even if they kill us. She is coming for the petty and the cowardly and the liars and the thieves who've befouled the temple, and coming for the cooperationists and the fools. She is coming for the wealthy and we are going to eat them, WE ARE GOING TO EAT THEM. I'll have a thigh....And you?
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