Thoughts

Explanation:

Not all of these thoughts are my own or original. When the thoughts are not my own, I'll try to link to their sources.

Politics:

Most Important Issue and Ron Paul (October 20, 2007)

As I see it, the most important issue for the U.S., besides global warming, is the movement of our federal government towards tyranny (less-checked and secretive executive power, loss of liberty and privacy, adoption of preemptive military action, etc.), along with the long-time presence of secret-government activities and military operations.

The solution is to get rid of (or dramatically reduce) the offending parts of the government and secret-government, restore constitutional rule of law, limit the government to strictly constitutionally-based responsibilities, and increase government transparency.

Ron Paul is the only (major) candidate for the U.S. presidency who takes this stance, so I am supporting him. (I support no other Republican candidate and I am not withdrawing support for the Democratic candidates.)

Voting Methods (2006)

We should use various voting methods in our every day lives (e.g., when deciding among friends at which restaurant to eat). People need to become comfortable with different voting systems so they will accept a new voting system on a large (national) scale. (See May the Best Man Lose.)

Reasonable Politics (2006)

I would like to influence politics to be more scientific somehow. More fundamentally, I would like politics to be more philosophical as well. Expressed political stances should be accompanied by stated philosophical assumptions, and it should be clarified when differences of opinion stem from differences of basic assumptions or different lines of reasoning applied to the same assumptions, and so on. This should be common practice and people who refuse to do so should be seen as suspect and likely to muddy the waters. (As such, I should probably also state my own philosophical assumptions that support my opinions on this issue.) As for being more scientific, it should be more difficult to get away with misrepresentation, and claims should have to be verified by several independent sources before being recognized as valid. Some steps are being made in this direction, for instance, with FactCheck.org. Somehow, it should become commonplace for people to get news and analysis from several different sources.

These aims seem nearly impossible to achieve when you consider: the amount of time and effort it takes for an individual to become educated and well-informed (by several sources), the superficiality of current political debate and dialogue, how so much of politics is based upon misrepresentation of facts, the amount of influence one charismatic or devious person may have on a large segment of society, or how blind religious convictions can obstruct reasoned debate and compromise, et cetera.

Education:

Physics:

In physics, usually we deal with measurable quantities that we can describe using functions of some other measurable variable (or some "parameter", such as time). We are often concerned with derivatives of these functions, usually first or second order derivatives, but rarely third or higher orders. There are some engineering applications that consider higher order derivatives, but fundamental physics seems to be devoid of anything beyond a second order derivative.

There may be higher order effects that we have not detected or modeled yet that will only appear given a large value of higher order derivative of, say, position with respect to time. A significant value of a higher order derivative may imply tremdous strain or pressure on macroscopic physical objects, which cannot handle such strain; thus a macroscopic physical object would more likely be broken or deformed than actually move with higher order acceleration. Smaller, more fundamental objects may provide a means to detect these higher order effects, but they might only become observable in very extreme situations, such as at very high temperature and pressure. But then, in such a situation, it is impossible to keep track of a large collection of super-heated particles, so the effects may show themselves in the statistics of the particles. However, such a situation may end up causing much particle creation and annihilation at the same time, making it very hard to distinguish the cause of each observed effect. (On the other hand, it may also be possible to construct controlled experiments with few particles that expose these effects.)

Mathematics:

Philosophy:

Quotes:

"Discipline makes things easier / organize your life" -Dead Prez

"Abstraction makes things easier / organize your mind" - my corollary

A quote due to Dyson which simultaneously captures the excitement and drudgery of scientific research is "Anger is creative; depression is useless." (from ScienceWorld)

Random:

I've found that my room in my apartment is an excellent optics laboratory. Here's what I've noticed:

Shadow distortion: Let's say you have a single bright source of light, such as the sun, casting light upon a smooth wall that is perpendicular to the incoming light rays. Let's say you have two objects placed at different distances from the wall and that they cast separate shadows onto the wall. When objects are moved such that the separate shadows approach, meet, and become one shadow, the shadow of the object that is closer to the wall distorts and stretches (or "leaks") towards and into the shadow of the object that is further away from the wall.
Nimbi: Shadows of certain objects, such as my hands, are surrounded by a small region of light (a "numbus," if you will) that is brighter than the regions receiving direct, unobstructed light. I think this is simply due to the reflection of light off of the surface of the objects in question.
Projection: If I hold my forearms up, side by side, so that there is a small slit between them through which light can pass, and if I allow bright sunlight that has passed through the gridded window screen to pass through this slit and onto the wall, then I can see the pattern of the screen projected on the wall. Actually, only the horizontal portion of the pattern is clearly visible (the dimension perpendicular to the slit), so the projected pattern looks like the vertical light and dark strips that you would see in the single-slit experiment. (At first I thought I was creating a single-slit diffration pattern with my arms, but this can't be, since the light from the sun is incoherent and made up of many frequencies. However, as the light is coming from the setting sun, the light may be more polarized than usual or have other properties of which I am unaware.) Furthermore, the image was magnified and reversed. This situation reminds me of the pinhole camera.

I'll post pictures of these phenomena as soon as someone volunteers to help me take the pictures. I think they may all be related.