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In 2005 Brian Greene explained superstring theory to the TED audience in laymen’s terms in a very engaging presentation.

Three years ago the Hadron collider at CERN, which has one if its goals to confirm string theory, was still a few year away from completion. But now we are nearly there. Interestingly the public is taking notice now as voices have been raised that this machine might be dangerous. Loud voices actually, so that the CERN website for the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has to address these concerns and dispel them…

TGVs and mosquitoes

The total energy in each beam of protons in the LHC is equivalent to a 400 tonne train (like the French TGV) travelling at 150 km/h. However, only an infinitesimal part of this energy is released in each particle collision - roughly equivalent to the energy of a dozen flying mosquitoes. In fact, whenever you try to swat a mosquito by clapping your hands together, you create a collision energy much higher than the protons inside the LHC. The LHC’s speciality is its impressive ability to concentrate this collision energy into a minuscule area on a subatomic scale. But even this capability is just a pale shadow of what Nature achieves routinely in cosmic-ray collisions.

During part of its operation, the LHC will collide beams of lead nuclei, which have a greater collision energy, equivalent to just over a thousand mosquitoes. However, this will be much more spread out than the energy produced in the proton collisions, and also presents no risk.

Microscopic black holes will not eat you…

Massive black holes are created in the Universe by the collapse of massive stars, which contain enormous amounts of gravitational energy that pulls in surrounding matter. The gravitational pull of a black hole is related to the amount of matter or energy it contains – the less there is, the weaker the pull. Some physicists suggest that microscopic black holes could be produced in the collisions at the LHC. However, these would only be created with the energies of the colliding particles (equivalent to the energies of mosquitoes), so no microscopic black holes produced inside the LHC could generate a strong enough gravitational force to pull in surrounding matter.

If the LHC can produce microscopic black holes, cosmic rays of much higher energies would already have produced many more. Since the Earth is still here, there is no reason to believe that collisions inside the LHC are harmful.

By all probability these concerns are in the same category as the fears that people would die when going more than 50 miles an hour on this devil’s machine called train. But there have been experiments in the past that seemed rather harmless and turned out to be deadly. I am thinking of Pierre and Marie Curie,
who discovered radioactivity. They did not know that this new phenomenon they had discovered was poisoning them during their work and I remember the anecdote of demonstrating their discovery to friends at a party by circulating a vial with this new substance which you could see with your eyes closed.

So, there is a chance that this microscopic black hole that might be created by the LHC does indeed attract matter and energy from its surrounding, grows and swallows the universe as we know it.

I am actually sure that this will happen, at least in a number of parallel worlds. These parallel worlds are, as far as I know, also postulated by string theory, so we are really approaching the unified theory of life, the universe and everything, a theory that contains its own annihilation - cool!

I have worked at CERN for a little bit, being involved with the old myon-neutrino experiments and I have to admit that it would be a fascinating experience to be at CERN for the first activation of the LHC. I imagine a scene similar to the setting in Douglas Adam’s ‘Restaurant at the End of the Universe‘ - everybody is seated in an exquisite restaurant expecting a great show watching the universe to end.

And, you know what - in one of the parallel worlds according to the string theory to be tested - that will be so!

I grew up and live in times when the view of gender and sex certainly changed and is still changing. Initially it was the natural order of things that papa was out to work and mama was home taking care of the house and children.

Then came the ’sexual revolution’ which changed all that. All was turned upside down and put together in a different way. Somehow I ended up with the deep rooted opinion that it is very, very bad to comment in a way that could be considered sexist. Only the inner values, which are independent of gender, were of relevance.

That naturally created some discrepancy between what I could observe and what I was supposed to observe. Let’s take the example of a very pretty girl. One guy who, like me, was drilled to see only the inner values - even though that was rather difficult to do - started a conversation about philosophical questions of life, the universe and everything to engage the intellectual being inside that pretty exterior, and got nowhere.
The other guy just locked his eyes onto her body, drooling noticeable, only able to utter such intelligent thoughts as “Wow, you are so beautiful, can I have your number?” Not a mention of the inner qualities but he usually got the number.

Often the purely sexual aspect is exhibited - oozing sexuality instead of displaying a masters degree or a doctor title. And funny enough this is mostly done by the female, who officially works on being appreciated for her intellect and not the cleavage. Let’s take a normal business setting. Men are usually totally a-sexual in such an environment, buttoned up shirt with a tie. But the female executive often show off her non-intellectual qualities. What would happen if men would do that?

All these thought, I have to admit, never really surface totally within me, until very recently, when I ran into a picture of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

Ms. Merkel is probably a very intelligent person, why in the world is she sexualizing her appearance so much. There is no beauty in this as she is not a particularly beautiful person, and whom is she trying to attract? There certainly are other options to dress as you notice when you look at the person in the background behind Ms. Merkel.

When I though about how this would look like if the male part of the political world would give up its a-sexuality and let it all hang out as well, I became curious. So I went out to find if it did indeed exist, and to my total surprise, I found it.

Wouldn’t that put a completely new face on politics? Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to bash either Bush nor Merkel. It is just that here we are offered by these very public figures and understanding of how much double talk exists in the arena of emancipation. We could use any setting in business as well, we would, most likely, find a similar situation.

Hopefullu, after draining my brain of inner conflict, I will now be able to just compliment a woman on her looks without the idea of violating the emancipation law. Because, quite honestly, I appreciate good looks just as any other male. But what do you think, should we men start fighting for sexual equality in politics and business?

In a conversation with a friend, prompted by one of our birthdays, an interesting question about birthday customs came up. Both of us are of German origin and so we had experienced the different ways how your fiends treat you at your birthday. There may be many different customs around the US, but at least here in Southern California, your friends take you out.

The very opposite happens in Germany: it’s your birthday and you are supposed to treat your friends to something, drinks mostly. One has to “einen ausgeben” - “spend one.”

You can imagine that this can lead to conflict if it is not known, we will get the cat and dog, or Venus and Mars phenomena.

Now, that it’s noted and out on the internet, there is no more excuse for any tension due to this cultural difference.

On the occasion of this birthday I take the liberty of showing of this photo I snapped a while back. Even though the occasion was a valentine’s day and not a birthday, it is still appropriate as it could have been for a birthday…

Recently I had my son (8) in the car together with some friends, a boy/girl twin pair of the same age. It is always a great learning experience to have some kids in the back of the car, interacting with each other, without really noticing me. In situations like this I usually erect a ’somebody-else’s-problem-field’ (*) around me so that I remain the non-existent observer.

The subject at that time was babies, and birth. Like usually in this area, girls are a bit ahead of boys, so the girl was pushing some rather interesting data towards the two boys. When the boys were slightly skeptical about some of the facts submitted, my veil was broken once or twice to solicit my expert advise.

I certainly answered, but sparingly so. We were on the way to the ice rink and I did not really want to get started explaining any details, especially not to kids that I had only borrowed and who’s parents plans I did not know. One of the questions for which my expert advise had been demanded, was “Does the sperm really must get to the egg?”

For me, the logical next question would have been, who the heck did that sperm get there. It surprised me again, as it had already several times before, that this question was not brought up. Makes me curious if kids really develop any curiosity when they are ready to actually face the facts. I still remember, I was about 10 when the mechanics of that procedure entered my world and that it was rather disturbing.

From very early age on, our son had learned that a baby grows in mommy’s tummy, and in pre-school he had a class where he saw pictures about how the baby was located - and again, the question of how it gets out there never came up.

I am sure that this will not be too far in the future, but for that second question I am now ready after I found this image…

I would love to give credit to the creator of this educational master piece, unfortunately it ended up in my email box without any such information as author’s name and email or web. Should anybody know, I will be glad to provide a link back.

(*) somebody else’s problem field - an invention by Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame.

Bruce Kodish is writing the first full-length biography of Alfred Korzybski, author of “Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.”

He directed my attention to a post in his blog in which Korzybski contemplates the relative size of a city (Manhattan) and us puny humans. It is indeed fascinating that we with our small human bodies move so much mass - look at the immense masses of the whole of Manhattan that was piled up by these little ants that fill it’s street now with life.

In his post Bruce shows the following 1921 film Manhatta created by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler. I just love the work of Paul Strand and so I just had to post that video here as well…

One scene really drove it home for me how small we are really in relationship to the things we construct, and that was one worker swinging a sledge hammer and chipping off minor pieces of concrete. So little effect, but still, after many of these hammer swings - and some other actions I have to admit, a much bigger goal is reached. For me that was a great lesson what you can accomplish with perseverance.

I am still struggling with sizes changing with the distance - I had thoughts about this a few times when watching a big plane fly by. There are, from my vantage point, these very small units of life in this metal tube high up in the air. I am sure that they are not really aware how small they are, but they probably still take themselves very seriously.

No, I actually don’t have a point here, it’s just something I have not really understood yet - maybe you have an idea…

I read about an interesting study that was conducted to find out why Americans are so fat - uh - I think I have to say obese in order to be politically correct, ja? - while French are more predominantly slim and trim. (Is that true, Flemming?)

The result was surprising but simple. The two people react to different clues when to stop eating:

• French stop eating when they are full
• Americans stop eating when the plate is empty

It’s that simple!

Oh, yes, and here is another reason…

I am not a native born American - so no worries - I can not be president. At least not before Arnold will change the rules… I wonder how he will pull this off, maybe go back in time and tweak things a bit.

Anyway, here is what I found today and which needs to be listened to - over and over and over again…

While getting my morning fix of news from boingboing and slashdot I read this one post about the ultimate in YouTube videos of the year that is now coming to an end. I think it was on SlashDot, but I don’t quite find it any more, otherwise I would have added the link to it here.

This post had the shortcoming of not linking to those ‘most’ viewed-commented-influential-etc videos and I had to go hunting. Obviously that cost me quite some time because when on YouTube you not only watch that one video you came for - or am I the only one getting stuck all the time?

In order to save you some time I am now giving all these ‘most-ed’ video - can you believe 21 million views for the Battle of Kruger?

OK, let’s get going, the first I found was the Obama Girl, singing out her little heart about her crush for Mr. Obama with about 4.5 million views and nearly 14,000 comments:

Then I enjoyed Chris Crocker defending Britney Spears in his piece ‘Leave Britney Alone’. About 14 million had watched it before me and over 200,000 had commented:

As mentioned above, ‘The Battle at Kruger” had been watched way over 20 million times and I actually was one of them. I had watched it when it was going all over the internet, but I was not one of the only 19 thousand who had left comments:

And last but not least I watched a bit of Esmee Denters rendition of Justin Timberlakes “What goes around.” About 13 million had watched this one and about 60 thousand had had the urge to comment. First I did not quite get what the attraction of specifically this video is, yes, Esmee seem to have that spark in her personality and she certainly is pretty, but then I investigated some more, checked out her other recordings and I have to admit, she grabbed the opportunity and went with it. I have to say that I am impressed. And now, see for yourself:

I think these are all very nice example of the factor of ‘critical mass’ Flemming describes in his article appropriately titled ‘Critical Mass.’

Just trying to imagine how much time that has cost mankind. The battle at Kruger alone - 20,000,000 times 8 minutes - before you read on, just make a wild guess, how much time that is…

…

…

…

Over 300 years!

So, whattaya think, was that worth it?

I am still a bit away from having a teenager, but this picture here still resonated - maybe because I did not look forward to the future with a teenager with me, but instead back and remembered how I totally had agreed with this message.

During my daily browsing I ran into this video of the Russian fighter jet Sukhoi-30MK.

Here, take a look first before I vent off…

… OK, did you feel strange as well? A beating, booming sound track that really gets you in the mood to get yourself one of those.

I could not help wonder who made this video and which audience he had in mind. In marketing we learn that we should create in our mind an image of the person we want to sell to. OK, let’s see…

I imagine a room full of prospects, many of them in uniform, but all of them have their machine guns checked at the entrance, now they are sitting peacefully together. Not that they would have any quarrels with each other at any time, they know they need each other. Here they got together at the friendly local arms dealer to buy some new toys to play with.

The arms dealer VP for military sales comes on stage. He is a civilian and is not in this for playing, just to make a living to bring home some bread for his wife and two children, a boy of 11 and a girl of 8. Only a short greeting and how glad he is that they could all come on such short notice, that he does not want to take too much time out of their busy schedule and, please, let’s watch this little video.

The lights dim, the huge LCD monitor is lowered from a slot in the ceiling and the presentation begins.

Excitement is noticeably rising in the room, especially when rockets are launched and blow things up. When the lights come on and the display disappears in the ceiling the only task for the master of ceremonies is to direct the attendees to the back of the room where operators are standing by to take orders.

After the orders are placed, most of the attendees stay for a drink and plan some little wars where they can test their new toys. If there is one thing they all agree upon then it is their gratitude to all the tax payers around the world - some voluntary, some forcefully convinced - allowing them to buy all their toys and letting them play.

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