Time- Human Invention, or Part of Reality?

I was listening to another perspective on KQED today. A rather artsy hippy type talking about time, and specifically how it is a human construct built upon an agreement of the concept of time. This lead me to wondering, is time a purely human construct?

This wouldn't be too suprising, as so many things are human constructs (in my humble opinion). For example, color distinction (there's really a spectrum, discrete colors are human), God and religion, money and economy (sorta- interesting work has been done on primates, but hey they are like our retarded cousins), and fashion. Some of these things extend into the animal world, but typically they don't go very far (like I've never seen a croc with a hat, or banana slug accounting). Even our political system is a hierarchy that extends from the same alpha/beta/gamma/delta system you see in social species like the great apes troops, prides of lions, etc- but clearly the political construct is a reflection of our humanity.

So, why not time?

In some ways I agree with the lady. Take the international date line. Is it really a different day on one side of the line vs the other? No. Obviously you can't have half of your body in one time/space point, and the other half one day later but same time/space point...it just doesn't make sense. That line is a human construct that helps to mesh the human perspective (living on a rotating sphere with a big bright sun in the center of our solar system) with the very non-human ticking of the atoms that make us up. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that the second is a purely human construct. Think about it, a second is 1/3600th of an hour, and an hour is 1/24 of a day, and a day is 1/365th of a revolution around our sun...OUR SUN. That's the human bit. A space invader from alpha-centuri isn't going to know what the hell a second is, they'll know what a falkinboo is- that's 1/4598th of a bookinva, which is 1/45 of a revolution around alpha-centuri. Or it's how many times their baby farts in an hour, whatever. The point is that clearly there are some things wrt time that really are human.

But that about time?

Personally, as a scientist, I think that time is one of the few things that is not simply human. We have a time t=0 - um the Big Bang; and we have an absolute metronome- the cesium atom. There was a gun that started the race 13.7 billion years ago, and every time an electron zips around a cesium atom, there is a steady ticking to count off the time between the bang of the gun and where we are now. This is pretty much all that you need to account for time.

It all gets screwed when you throw in the beautiful wrench that is Relativity. Basically time is not constant and depends on the frame of reference. If the frame of reference is moving or is in a gravitational field (eg Earth/Sun), then atomic clocks will tick differently. This has been proven with GPS satellites. They cruise around in an orbit around the Earth, in a smaller gravitational field than we do down here on Earth's surface, and their on board clocks slowly go out of sync with the ones on Earth. Now consider the Big Bang itself. Imagine the crazy gravity fields and energies and velocities and crazy shit that must have happened in those first few thousand ticks. Who knows what time was doing in those quantum moments.

Perhaps 13.7 billion years isn't so black and white. Perhaps that atomic clock isn't so tick-tock.

More Women Employed Than Men

In the next year or so women's employment numbers should surpass men's for the first time in US history.

That's big news.

On KQED they have a program called "Perspectives". It showcases different essays from people in the Bay Area. Yesterday, they had a labor guy on called Dick Meister who commented on some new statistics to come out of the Recession. Here's an article he wrote and some quotes from it.

"The number of women workers has been growing steadily for decades, but the number has boomed during the recession. That's partly because the greatest job losses have been in male-dominated fields such as construction and manufacturing. Men have lost more than three million jobs in those areas alone since the recession began in late 2007. Three-quarters of all jobs lost - a total of 4.75 million - were held by men. Women lost three million fewer jobs."

This translates into the fact that women have or are about to become the dominate gender in the workforce. One sad part is that some of this is due to the fact that women make less, and so were hired in greater numbers during the recession. That still needs to change because the quality of your work doesn't really depend on having a vagina or a penis (unless you are talking about certain heavy lifting jobs like fireman- I mean watch Rescue Me for a couple of seasons if you really want to debate this subject, in which case an over abundance of testosterone is an asset). Here is how Dick Meister put it.

"The figures are downright spectacular. Local governments, for instance, have laid off 86,000 men during the recession, but they have hired 167,000 women. That's largely because women generally are paid less than men and are hired mainly for office jobs, which typically are better funded than other government positions."

I am encouraged and frightened by all of this, which I think anyone in the position of "majority" going to "minority" might feel. I am encouraged to see that minorities status groups are capable of gaining equality. I suppose surprised wouldn't be the right word, as I've been mentioning the higher graduation rates of women for a few years now, but I am excited to see what will happen. I am frightened by what they may decide to do with that majority. So often in history the oppressed become the oppressors, and I just hope that this time will history will not repeat itself. Personally, I don't see how women could possibly fuck things up as bad as their male counterparts. Not to mention that most (if not all) matriarchal societies that I have read about are much more peaceful and prosperous than many patriarchal societies. I figure we've had our chance, time to move over and see what the ladies can do.

So I for one welcome our new overlords, and hope they are kind to their new minions.

PS

Sorry for the recent drought. I've got a couple things on deck, but work has been busy, and these blogs get wearing. Photoblog is still going!

Michael Pollan's Take on The Healthcare Debate

Read this from NYTimes contributor, Michael Pollan.

We have known about the link between diet and health for such a long time, it amazes me that nothing is being done to address this side of the puzzle. Even with a perfect healthcare system, can we really hope to expect to take care of every fat ass? At least the cost of healthcare is an incentive against unhealthy life choices, all be it a poor incentive. Can we really hope to keep people healthy if they get out of bed, eat breakfast, get in a car, go to work, sit in their office chair, get in their car, sit and eat lunch, get in their car, sit in the office, get in the car, go home, eat dinner while watching TV, and goes to bed- oh wait, was that a question?

"But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup."

Personally, I don't see how it is possible to attack one issue (the system and its problems) while not addressing the lifestyle issues as well. We as a culture are over fed, over worked, under rested, and we exercise far too little. Add on to this the issues that Pollan has consistently raised regarding farm subsidization and the Big Agro which runs our sad food supply.

What really strikes me as depressing is how you immediately see the same logical chain as any other societal problem, only inversed. Normally, you have a group that has its corporate model tied to a piece of legislation that will typically harm the industry by creating restrictions on a part of their corporate model. They lobby the government by lining the coffers of the government officials in charge of making these decisions. This derails the legislation, and voila nothing is accomplished.

Trying to take a notch out of Big Agro means government deregulation of their industry. This means taking out legislation in order to remove the restrictions on the industry. These incentives are things like farm subsides encouraging the growth of #2 Monsanto Corn. Here we are back at the corporate/government interface; Monsanto and Cargil lobby the department of agriculture and the Congressional committee that is responsible for the Farm Bill each year, and voila you get no changes in policy.

The light that Pollan sees at the end of the tunnel is something like this; we have the insurance companies fight the agro companies because when the insurance companies cannot just boot out chronic illness like type 2 diabetes anymore, then they have to deal with the root of the problem- the food system:

"But these rules may well be about to change — and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like “pre-existing conditions” and “underwriting” would vanish from the health insurance rulebook — and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change."

New Favorite Camera - What I've been doing

Is actually a microscope, and it doesn't use light but uses electrons.

This is a sample of CIGS (CdInGaSe) which is the newish cheap way to make solar cells.

This is an attached x-ray spectrometer which looks at the energies of the x-rays that spew off of the sample b/c of the electrons that are bombarding it. It can be used to determine what materials are being looked at because each element gives off a special spectrum which is like a fingerprint of that element.

Here is what is inside an LED. There is a gold (Au) ball bond (it's squished) on the top colored in yellow. Red is gallium (Ga), and blue is arscenide (As) which is what makes up the material that actually shines light and you can see there is a bunch of Ga at the top, and a mixture (purple) towards the bottom. The teal is silver (Ag) that electrically and thermally connects the whole thing to the lead at the bottom in red which is made of iron (Fe).

Kinda awesome!

Chillin on Top of the Hyatt

Liz and I met up with Brian and Anne for some pre-movie drinks on top of the Hyatt. I just liked this picture of Brian with the face shirt behind him too much to not post it. We all enjoyed a bottle of the bubblies, and went to our respective shows. They saw District 9 and gave it a positive review, and Liz and I saw the new Miyazaki movie "Ponyo" which was barfingly adorable, and a great little kid movie on par with My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and The Cat Returns. I highly suggest you go see it, especially if you need a little moral pick-me-up.

The Only Healthcare Debate - The Numbers

I think this debate can be had by simply looking at the numbers. People keep referring to these "other" nationalized health care systems like Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and France as examples. Typically the right will demonize them as socialist-commie-bastards who give their elderly cyanide tablets and shoot their cancer patients with a $0.99 bullet. As a person who actually knows the numerical facts, this has really been getting on my nerves, especially since the left are too wimpy to actually stand up and defend these national health care systems. I thought it was about time to see just how "bad" Canada, et al are actually faring. I highly recommend you read this Krugman editorial from NYTimes on the debate.

Firstly, I will be looking at the United States, Canada, the UK, France, and Switzerland.

How much does each of these countries pay in health care per year?

United States of America - 15.3% of GDP (#2 of all countries), $7,439 per capita (2007), 27.8% of the population covered by gov't but pays ~44.7% of the total cost due to the uninsured, medicare, and medicaid, 15.3% of pop uninsured (2007)

Switzerland-11.6% of GDP, $4,629 per capita (2008 est), 25% funded by gov't, 0.5% uninsured

Canada- 10.6% of GDP, $5,170 per capita (2008), 71% funded by gov't, 0% uninsured

United Kingdom- 9.4% GDP (2006), $2,560 per capita (2007), too much work for the rest of the statistics, UK is broken down by providence so it was difficult to get straight answers

France - 11.2% of GDP, $3,926 per capita (2005), 77% funded by government, 0% uninsured

(from Wikipedia, and various sources in the interwebs)

Now lets ask about the quality of care. I mean if we are paying the most, and since all those other countries are shooting their old and sick, then we should have the best health right?

The two major indicators of health of a population are infant mortality rates and life expectancy, as the very young and very old are the most helped/hindered by good/bad health care systems.

Life Expectancy (from Wolfram Alpha):

1 Canada | 81.23  

2 France | 80.98 

3 Switzerland | 80.85  

4 United Kingdom | 79.01  

5 United States | 78.11 (in years)

Infant Mortality rate (under 5yrs old deaths/1000 people- Wolfram Alpha 2009):

1 | France | 3.33 

2 | Switzerland | 4.18 

3 | United Kingdom | 4.85 

4 | Canada | 5.04 

5 | United States | 6.26

So, now, I have to ask, what do you think of the people who vilify all of these country's health care systems? What is the debate? There is no debate! We spend the most, and get the least- this means that something has to change. Personally, I think we should look to Canada and Switzerland as role models because they still have private healthcare. I know that this sounds like a lie, but it is true, look it up, health care insurance is provided by private enterprises in those two countries. The only difference between theirs and ours is that tax payers pick up a portion of it, and well, their health care system actually works, based upon the numbers.

Tennessee Valley Hike

This is a really nice loop hike just north of SF in the Marin Headlands called Tennessee Valley. The loop (not complete in picture) is approximately 7 miles in total, with a 1000ft elevation gain/loss. We went with Becca, Bri, Dave, and their little bro Andrew (Drew).

Round My House

I haven't really been able to get any great pictures of the areas directly around my house, until now. This new wide-angle has really opened up the city-scape for me, and I thought I'd break it in by walking around my neighborhood at dusk. This is the typical time that Liz and I go for a walk to the corner market, LaLoma Market #13. It is on the far right of the picture at the top. We also hung out on the Richland Bridge for 10 minutes or so watching the traffic and trains go below.

Nihilism, Agnosticism, Angels, and Belief

I thought it was about time to revisit my discussions on various points of view. This time I would like to discuss belief. What do you believe in? This is a very important question, one which sheds a floodlight on who you are as a person. This question can be applied to small things like, do you think (believe) that it will rain today? It can be applied to the big things like, do you believe that the universe started in a massive outward explosion of particles? Or everything in between, do you believe girls fart (yes I do), or do you believe that people should be put to death by the state (no I don't), do you believe that there are guardian angels?

Turns out that approximately 55% of Americans DO in fact believe that they have their very own personal guardian angel watching over them and protecting them (according to this Washington Times article from almost 1 year ago):

"Half of all Americans believe they are protected by guardian angels, one-fifth say they've heard God speak to them, one-quarter say they have witnessed miraculous healings, 16 percent say they've received one and 8 percent say they pray in tongues, according to a survey released Thursday by Baylor University."

Now, that's fine with me, sure a little on this side of delusional, but hey, to each their own. I've said this before, but I happen to be agnostic. This basically means that I think the verdict is still out on the whole God thing (which, in my book includes angels at the very least). The question that I'd like to pose is, does that mean that I believe in something? I mean who's verdict am I waiting for while sitting on the fence? Is it the scientists? If that's the case then I believe and have faith in science, logic, and reasoning (I'm cool with that). Or am I waiting for God to show me a sign of her existence, in which case I will believe fully in that God? If that's the case then I believe and have faith in God (something that is not independently verifiable- which leads to existentialism- something I'm not so cool with). Or do I not believe in anything and am just sitting on the fence for the shits and giggles...

That leads me to Nihilism which according to Wikipedia:

Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting that values do not exist but rather are falsely invented. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life^[1] is without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not exist, and subsequently there are no moral values with which to uphold a rule or to logically prefer one action over another.

How is this position possible? To me it seems like circular logic, I don't believe in anything except for a firm belief in nothing. I mean think about it, how can you believe in nothing (We believe in nothing Lebowski!) when the statement of the belief in the absence of belief is belief itself. Not to mention the conundrum of the fact that there seem to be some absolute moral truths; don't rape children, don't murder if possible, genocide is bad, hugs are good, sex is good, sure I'm leaving a bunch out but those are some moral truths that I certainly believe in right now. To believe that morality does not exist on some level just seems to be naive and hopeless. Maybe I just don't want to live in the same lonely dark filled world that nihilists and existentialists believe in living. I really don't think that what I believe or what anyone believes is just as good as any other view point. There are somethings that we can all agree upon and that is where we can start, on what we all can agree to be true.

In the Belly of the Beast

I have now been working at my new job for about one month now and my first impressions are along the lines of, Whoa...

This company is much larger than my previous employer and I am finding the sheer scale of operations to be a bit daunting. I now realize that previously I was performing the tasks of people who fill 5 or 6 (more like 10ish) positions at this new place. I now can focus more directly on my own role in the lab, rather than on keeping track of all the different responsibilities I had before. This has its pros and cons. I am able to get more done and in a faster fashion, but at the same time, I'm not juggling as many balls, which had it's own invigorating merits. I have to say that I am lucky for my previous multi-faceted work experience because it gave me a good overview of how a company is run internally through many different departments and will be a huge asset moving forward. Not to mention that now I am mainly dealing with ICs (integrated circuits), where as before I was dealing with everything high tech, across all sectors and fields. This too will really allow me to remain broad within the narrow field of Failure Analysis (though not too narrow to be fair).

My second major revealation comes from how I as an individual am being treated here- like a Grownup of all things! I mean I know that 28 is still rather young, but not having to take competancy tests, not needing to fill out a time card, and having my opinions honestly considered really makes me feel like a professional adult. I guess what it really boils down to is trust. I am being trusted to be intelligent and not waste time. Before, I was being trusted to not screw up the lab while my boss was out, but not trusted to be intelligent and not waste time. I always found that juxtaposition to be rather daunting.

Finally, THE DRAMA! It is amazing how the amount of drama goes like the number of people cubed, well, acutally I think it's more like n! b/c it probably scales with the number of relationships that are possible and I think that is n! in math terms. You go from 24 possible relationships with 4 people (ie groupings of people who can talk and generate drama) up to 120 possible relationships when there are 5 people involved. I am working with approximately 6 people who directly affect my life which is approximately 360 possible relationships, mmm drama. There isn't even that much drama, just a few conflicts of personality (by others around me, but not actually me btw, I love everyone!) that affect my life, but it is still very stark in comparision to zero drama (well, near zero drama).

Anywho, I just thought I'd share some of my first impressions on going from a small company to a medium company. It has been an interesting experience and I am still learning loads everyday about business, failure analysis, engineering, and myself. (The above image is an x-ray image of the cross-sectional view of a wire bonding to a lead.)