One of the biggest problems in getting to space is rocket fuel. We need a lot of it. It's expensive. Mainly because we need a lot of fuel to lift more fuel to lift whatever we're lifting from the stratosphere into space. When I was growing up, this was going to be solved by the "space plane." It was a shuttle that took off like a plane and entered orbit by simply flying above the atmosphere. I'm not sure what happened to this wonderful late 1980s dream. The new dream is the space elevator, but I'm going to float a different idea here.
What's interesting about this "rocket thing" is the original explanation of overcoming the earth orbit by Newton was an arrow or missile shot at incredible speed in a line closer to parallel with the ground (perhaps 30 degrees). Newton theorized that the pure speed of an object could take it into orbit. This got me thinking, what's an effective way to launch a missile? Like in the old sense, the really old sense.
10,000 year old, bent atlatl dart
Well, that would be the atlatl. A lever system used to launch a dart at game during the Ice Age. So, what is stopping us from just making a very large atlatl? It can't be that expensive compared to what we're paying now to get stuff into space. But wait, there's more...
Elon Musk wants to use some sort of tube technology to get people from New York City to Los Angeles in 45 minutes. This technology, I assume can be used as a sort of rail gun. So, not only do we have a physical launch mechanism, we can have a electrical launch mechanism. We can set the launch of the rocket on the end of the giant atlatl and on this railgun track in that ideal(?) 30 degree ideal launch trajectory (the one that gives maximum distance to an object thrown). Essentially it would be a glorified roller coaster where the track just ends at the apex.
So we have a giant atlatl and a rail gun working in sync with each other. We need to power this somehow, so let's throw in a nuclear reactor, because that just makes sense. Throw in some steampunk technology to power the atlatl and creative electrical engineering to charge the railgun, not simple, but there are smart people that can figure that out.
Basically, this launch engine reduces the amount of fuel that needs to be held on the rocket for launch. It is also a reusable launch system, which doesn't get dumped in the Indian Ocean.
Follow up Note (09/03/2013): This process would probably use so much initial force that it would seriously rearrange the contents of the craft being launched: Enough G force to kill most living things.
In Astrology, we have a number of names for events when forces of planetary bodies come into alignment: trines, squares, conjunctions, and oppositions to name a few. We also see these events in Astronomy. For instance when the Sun and the Moon are in opposition or conjunction (i.e., the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are in a line), the tides are more severe, with higher high tides and lower low tides, and the Moon is full or new.
Modern theories on the solar system state that just after the first 1/2 billion years of the solar system, Saturn and Jupiter were in orbital resonance. So for every one time that Saturn circled the Sun, Jupiter circled twice. This caused a greater number of conjunctions (in the astronomical sense) between the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn. This resonance was so strong that the solar system vibrated like a guitar having it's strings played. This resonance is believed to have cleared the solar system of debris (a time known as the late heavy bombardment), which gives the Earth and other planets clear paths around the sun, minimizing the chance of any further asteroid impacts. It also knocked Uranus over and threw Neptune into the outer solar system.
While the effects of astronomical aspects are not nearly as extreme now, as with the early solar system, the Saturn-Jupiter resonance is an interesting look at how much power astrological aspects can have.
Other than the heavenly objects that we can see without too much effort, the Sun and the Moon, the tiny planet of Mercury is the easiest to understand from an astrological standpoint. When Mercury goes backward (retrograde), we enter a period of internal contemplation, and when Mercury goes forward (direct), our communication amongst each other improves.
Over the weekend, Mercury stalled (from our perspective) and began to move in a forward motion. From our perspective this happened in the constellation of Gemini in the Cancer area of the sky. Robert Wilkinson describes this event in the Aquarius Papers as:
"A quickening of the ability to coordinate, put things together, understand the whole and the parts, the process and the larger cycles. "
Mercury will continue to accelerate for the next 10 weeks or so. What are you doing to better understand the world and communicate with other over the next couple months?
When I say "torus," I'm not misspelling an astrological constellation from the Zodiac. Nor am I referring to a Ford 4-door sedan. I am referring to a perhaps mythical, quasi-scientific shape that may or may not exist from the tiniest atom to the largest galaxy. In short, it's a glorified donut shape.
A torus
The below picture was published in the journal Nature in 2003. It shows something called the Oort cloud (pink), which extends about 1/3 of the way to the next nearest star. The Oort cloud is made up of icy objects like the Kuiper Belt and is in the "freeze zone" of the solar system, which extends out from just before Uranus's orbit, as shown by the red in the diagram. In the freeze zone, most everything is solid ice, including methane. The Oort cloud appears to take the shape of the torus, or it might be better seen as 2 toruses, one on top of the other and bottom to bottom.
The Oort Cloud
If we are in fact wedged between two toruses, we might be able to more easily navigate the solar system at some time in the near future, perhaps utilizing solar sails or something similar to utilize the energy.
I have heard arguments that the universe is simply a series of toruses layered one on top of another, and we can already harness some of this energy. For instance in 1901, Tesla invented something called the "free energy device," which is said to pull energy from these toruses in which we live. Follow this link for a YouTube video on how to make a "free energy device" for about $2.
Interestingly enough, Belgium also appears to be building a torus shaped structure as a giant battery to store wind energy in the North Sea. The Wired report seems to be based on Reuters and IEEE Spectrum (a journal for Electrical Engineers) reporting. So, there might be something to this strange shape after all.
Covers non controversial subjects such as quantum physics, more controversial subjects like global warming, and questionable subjects such as the electric universe.
While the electric universe explanation isn't perfect, with some of the analysis being downright sloppy, it's an interesting way of thinking about the universe.
A major component to the future weather of the Earth is what is happening with all the ice. Whether we're referring to the winds that drive El Niño or the ocean conveyors, what the ice packs do and how they do it will affect life here for years to come.
The first safe assumption is that there is going to be a lot of water. Whatever causes global climate change (probably an excessive human production of greenhouse gasses), there's going to be a lot of melting in at least the Arctic region before things begin to cool down, again . . . if they do.
That is to say, we already know that Greenland is getting warmer than freezing in the Summer, and it may not be unreasonable to assume that this melting trend will continue. Also, the Arctic Ocean has less ice cover every year. Based on these two observations, let's assume that the northern ice cover of Earth will continue to melt towards zero ice cover.
In contrast to the center of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the highest temperatures measured toward the center of the Antarctic Ice Sheet do not come close to crossing the freezing mark, with the record high (9.9 degrees Fahrenheit at South Pole Station) well below freezing.
There are two extremes that we can consider as possibilities as the northern latitudes melt: the (1) positive feedback loop and the (2) negative feedback loop. Under assumption one, things continue to get hotter. Under assumption two, things get colder.
(1) Everything melts. In fact, the north gets so hot that it starts to raise global temperatures, which in turn melts the south pole. This is exactly the trend we're seeing now. The north continues to melt just a little faster than expected. Under this positive feedback loop, eventually the north pole will not even have ice in the winter, creating higher pressure in the northern latitudes (from the ocean heating the air in the winter). This will then force more hot air south from the equator in the southern summer, allowing the south pole temperatures to climb above freezing and melt the southern ice.
(2) Everything stops. The northern ice melts so quickly that the cold water interrupts ocean conveyors, specifically the North Atlantic's Gulf Stream. So instead of everything melting, we are again plunged into another ice age.
Chances are that the reality will fall somewhere between these two extremes, rather than one or the other coming to fruition. However, the same old status quo, which is in between, is somewhat unlikely given the rapid changes that are occurring in the world environment. We can probably expect slightly more turbulent weather on the world scale for some amount of time to come.
Two posts ago, I went on a rant about the difference between the progression of the zodiac and the Sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way, which is different by a factor of 10,000 (give or take). Yesterday, I learned that our movement in the Universe is even more complicated than that. Apparently, the Milky Way, itself, is moving away from the center of something called the "Local Void" and toward something called the "Great Attractor" in the Centaurus Cluster of Galaxies. Here's a great website with a video better (and correctly) explaining it.
Ok, so if you grew up in the 80s (after there were desktop computers but before the Internet) there was a game called Number Munchers, which they used to teach kids factors, multiples and a bunch of other good stuff.
Number Munchers
Going back to Number Munchers, an error of 10,000 is huge, especially since the video game didn't use anything over 2 digits for the most part. So, how did I miss something by a factor of 10,000?
Well apparently, I missed the memo that the progression of the Zodiac/Equinox or the Great/Plutonian Year (25,800 years) was different than the time the sun takes to go around the galaxy, a Cosmic Year (225 million years). Given that the Solar system has a diameter of 100,000 light years or something, I guess that these two "years" are different isn't really too much of a surprise. So just because the description sounds like the stars go in a circle doesn't mean those stars or our solar system actually do go in a circle relative to each other. After all, all the stars should be going in about the same direction. Our planet (and perhaps everything else) just jiggles a little.
NBC News.com
Above we can see our 225 million year path around the center of the galaxy. Apparently, we also go up and down like a roller coaster (every about 63 million years, based on the biodiversity record) due to an uneven distribution of gravity between the solar system and the rest of the galaxy. And below is a graphic showing the little jiggle that causes the progression of the stars, as explained by Sir Isaac Newton and noted in Voltaire's Letter XVII.
Random Image of the Progression of the Equinox
So what are all the other stars doing while we are going up, down and wobbling all over the place? We don't know. We suspect they're going away from us in an ever expanding universe (?) except for the ones that aren't, which are just the stars that are close by.
Is what those nearby stars do is of any relevance? What is really happening with the motions of our local star group? Do those motions remain the same? I've got a lot of questions to figure out.
So ultimately, that small misunderstanding of what a Cosmic Year really is (that whole approximate factor of 10,000 thing) lead me to a whole lot more questions. My hope was to find some sort of predictable movement outside the solar system. But instead, it appears the galaxy is a half leavened cake that is destined to collapse under its own weight before it cools.
We're left with a cosmic orbit that somehow resembles two squarish coasters stacked one on top another and then twisted so the corners do not match. The orbit is then some sort of elliptical curve that connects the corners of the coasters in directional (assuming two-dimensional top down view) order. The top and bottom coasters then rotate (either together or at different, possibly opposing speeds, IDK) such that the corners of the top coaster are reached three to four times a complete orbit.
That is to say mass extinctions occur approximately every 63 million year, which we associate with going above (I guess north of) the galactic disk, and we travel around the disk about every 225 million (maybe 250 million, not sure) years. And, on a totally (or at least somewhat) unrelated note, the Earth is a top that has developed a bit of a wobble and is going through its own 25,800 year cycle. And, the classic understanding of "center of gravity" is a little off. That is to say: these very weird things (orbits, years, wobbles, whatever) happen solely because of slight imperfections in the distribution of mass.
So, back to the premise that there is a lot of data that we can't get through to figure out what is exactly causing El Niño. The video above shows a good overview of what "Big Data" is (or the problems inherent). Basically, the (typical) problem with big data is that relevant information is usually destroyed before it becomes of any use. The difficultly in deriving meaning from data, means it is disposed of to create more space for newer data, which will also be disposed of due to lack of processing ability.
If we go back a few weeks ago, I created a list of data sets that might be attainable for researching El Niño's causes. Even if I were to obtain that information, there is a very real risk of the data just dropping through the analysis without being caught in whatever fish net (a.k.a., analysis) we're using to sort the information.
So, the temptation with Big Data is to story the analysis and dump the data. For example, let's say we are using a storage unit. Every time we fill the storage unit, we create an inventory list of everything in the unit. However, when we empty the storage unit, we destroy that inventory list. Instead, we just have a record that the storage unit was filled and did contain something. Then the storage unit is refilled and a new inventory list is created. We have no way of knowing if what was in the storage unit the first time was in anyway related to what was in the storage unit the second time. We no longer have that first inventory list.
In a way this makes a lot of sense, because there seems to be a terminal point at which data is of use. For instance, I was taking a marketing class. We were using SPSS to analyze some number set. There were a number of different variables. There were so many variables that the way we were measuring the fit of our model (R^2) just kept improving, even though the fit of the model to the variable was NOT improving. There was simply no use for the 20 data sets we had access to because we could do better modeling with three of those data sets.
However, this becomes similar to taking the derivative in calculus. Yes, we get new useful data, but we can no longer see the big picture. If we keep analyzing the analysis, we go from a complex series of curves to a straight line.
WyzAnt Tutoring Graphic Showing an Example of Position, Velocity and Acceleration of a Particle
The equivalent in the El Niño case would be analyzing the results of many analyses together, perhaps not unlike one would take a derivative of a derivative in calculus. For example, we could analyze how an ocean temperature study compares to an air temperature study and then compare the results of that study to the lunar orbit. Does the data matter? I suppose that remains an unknown for the time being. My guess would be "yes."
My fabulous horoscope for June got me thinking about this project again. I'm really enjoying this balance between superstition/spirituality and science. Disregarding concentric circles of influence for a moment (just because it's right doesn't mean it's fun), how would the El Niño be accounted for by modern Astrology? After all, I don't think I can ask the right questions until I understand the mechanisms that I'm asking about. At a high probability of going off in the wrong direction, here's a little astrological word association to get started.
What's interesting about this chain of words are the number of similarities that these aspects have. Each is a bit mysterious. Neptune in particular is slow moving and illusionary. The planet swells and diminishes over time, like that original graph of El Niño. There is a great deal of mystery associated with all these aspects. Amusingly El Niño, refers to the boy or the Christ Child, who appeared at the beginning of the Age of Pisces.
As a Liberal Arts major, I find these coincidences fascinating, as if there is some underlying (perhaps spiritual) force that is creating this El Niño phenomenon. But, is it one phenomenon or is it many phenomena? Is this weather event simply a culmination of many things? Is this simply Jungian Literary Theory gone a muck? I wholeheartedly believe that there is a lot of knowledge trapped in the collective unconscious that we (as humanity) have not successfully mined or identified. We know without knowing.
How do we deal with events in Science that have multiple causes? For instance, let's say we have a well. Let's make it a standard, residential well that provides water to a house. I'm probably the last person you want touching your plumbing, but I'm going to try this as an illustration. Let's assume that the well turns on whenever there is a need for water in the house. This need is indicated by a drop in water level in the reservoir or tank of water that feeds the house.
Now, anything could be causing this drop in water in the tank. Someone could be taking a shower. The dishwasher could be running. A load of laundry could be in the washer. Or, any of these things or more could be running in combination. There could also just be no water consumption except for a slow leak, which causes the well to run for 5 minutes once every 3 days.
For El Niño, we do not have anything as convenient as an enclosed reservoir that tells us when the system will turn on or off. Does that mean we can throw Occam's razor out? Probably not. It's really tempting to just get a bunch of potential causes and run a big, giant regression. However, I've heard an anecdote that folks (much more mathematically inclined than me) have already tried that. Instead, we must harness the mysterious power of simplification and figure out what is the water tank equivalent for El Niño.
In my last entry, my thought processes brought me to thinking about El Niño cycles. This is primarily because El Niño is a slightly irregular event, which means that it could be caused by the culmination of factors or a number of forces coming into alignment. After a brief discussion with a professor, I realize the best way to think about this issue is in concentric circles of cause to the event. That is to say that the initial focus on this research should be about what El Niño is, which is a meteorological event that appears to be affected by the temperature of ocean currents. After identifying the "what," the research can then move to the next ring of causes closest to the event, for instance "what causes those ocean currents?" From there research can move away from the initial event to more disparate causes. A list of these circles of influence (in rough order) might look as follows:
El Niño
Ocean currents
Heat transfer to the oceans
Global warming and melting
Solar events
Gravity wells affecting the Earth, Sun and Moon
Major causes of gravity
Center of the Milky Way Galaxy, The Great Rift
Local planets
Local stars
Orbital paths
Of planets
Of moons
Of the Sun
The resulting combinations of the above and other events
So when I started writing on forecasting a few weeks ago, in the back of my mind, I had an idea that the movement of the planets, weather patterns, and basically some good old fashion Babylonian and Chinese Astrology could be brought to modern business forecasting. I mean, why not? For all I know, it could be as relevant as anything else to business forecasting. I can't find any research on it. Shocker, no one is out there debunking something that is obviously based on superstition. Or, I'm looking in the wrong places, which is probably more likely the case.
My biggest problem with creating a forecasting model is that I cannot fully conceptualize how forecasting actually works to start my own project. I took a couple courses that gave brief introductions to Minitab and one that gave a quick review of SPSS. I've done some basic forecasting in supply chain classes with Excel, and frankly I've had some in depth experience with Excel and Statistics. I, also, just finished a project working on an inventory control with Access and SharePoint. However, I think the simplest way to dive into this particular project is to admit that I simply know nothing about how to approach forecasting.
It, after all, is just another way of replenishing inventory. Forecasting is only a way to set expectations about what may or may not happen in the future. In no way is it a substitute for reducing inventory lead times and setting min/max levels. I think for most cases the way to go is just trimming the process down and ordering more stuff when your inventory is low. Forecasting just has a bit more of an allure because it's more steeped in allegory, giving us a glimpse of our own godlike nature: predicting the future.
So what if I start there? Over simplify? There are things that happen that seem to indicate future events. Mainly, these things that happen are past events. So past events can tell me what is going to happen in the future? But which past events, over what time frame, and why? And do I really understand how those past events really occurred. The challenge, and why I'm looking at something akin to astrology, is finding the context.
This "context problem" can be illustrated by the summer melt of the polar ice cap. In the video below you will see how forecast for summer melt is being outpaced by actual, real melting of the polar ice cap during summer.
The part of this video that gives the best illustration of this is the following graph:
The dark, black line shows sea ice dropping below (or at least to the low side) of the predictive range in 2007. I show this because global summer ice melt, even global warming as a whole, is a great example of historical ranges being insufficient predictors of the future. The politicized nature of this issue also illustrates the natural human urge to use more conservative models than we should in our forecasting. For instance, some folks still argue that global warming is a myth.
So how do we find the context for our predictive models? My thought is that we, as humans, go through cycles. The ancients represented this with astrology, the study of how the heavens effect the earth. We do know that crime goes up during a full moon. We do know there is a natural seasonal cycle that affects our lives. The oceans have tides created by the gravitational pull of the moon. But what about longer cycles than a day, a month, a year? Do forces external to the earth control El Niño cycles, which appear somewhat randomly every three to seven years?
My favorite Einstein quote is "God doesn't play dice with the world." Simply taken, we (as humans) can expect a reasonable explanation for many of the phenomena that we experience and find in the natural world. On a gut level, I get the sense there is a deeply profound truth hidden in the El Niño graph, above. I do not, at this juncture, know how to access it; however, I fully expect to find someone that knows or discover this nugget of knowledge. Does it have anything do with the movement of astronomical bodies, such as planets or sun spots? I do not know, but I will find out.
When we talk about forecasting, there are many things that are important to consider. While we cannot consider all these aspects in regression analysis, I believe it is important to at least start a list of things to be considered as might having an effect on future events. Here are a few ideas.
Historical Data
Current Inventory
Meteorological Data
Traffic Data
Ocean Currents
Astrological Data
Vibe: Positive or Negative Outlook of Participants
One way to use analytics is to go after "big data." IBM recently posted a sponsored article on Huffington Post that talks about mining RFIDs, social media and something nebulously referred to as a "quantum leap" in data collection. The problem for small business is that accessing all these areas of data can be quite expensive, especially when using RFIDs for high volume, low margin product.
Michael Schroeck, the author of the article, talks about big data in four spheres of influence: Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity. Volume refers to the sheer amount of stuff (data) that is being produced. Velocity refers to the speed this stuff is being created and transmitted; for instance, an hour of video is uploaded to You Tube every second. Variety means that this data is not very structured; it's in emails, tweets, videos, etc. Finally, veracity refers to the uncertainty involved with the data; simply put, you don't know what you're really getting.
So, how do we simplify this? Do we really need Ph.D.s in Statistics to get anything out of the data we have sitting in our possession already? Is it possible that the data we already have is adequate to significantly improve our lives at home and at work without sticking an electronic tag to everything? I think it is.
New ideas have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is usually with more ancient ones. My concept for this blog is to start to collect ways to see the future, not literally, but in a way that acknowledges we have past history, including inventory records, sales records, weather data, astronomical records, etc. And, we also have future data. We know where the earth is going to be within the solar system for a good deal into the future. We can reasonably predict that the weather will be hot in the summer and cold in the winter for sometime to come. We understand that people do more at night when there is a full moon than a new moon. (And, I think the reasons for seasons and moon cycles and their results is self-evident to most individuals.) All that being said, there was an IBM commercial that spiked my interest. Basically, using analytics, which I presume means their SPSS platform, IBM figured out that a bakery sold more cake when it was raining out. The goal of this blog, is to find some way to sharpen historical inventory prediction methods with oceanography, meteorology and astronomy.
As far as I can tell, IBM is the only company doing anything close to this type of analysis with real world data. At this point in time, I really don't know how their doing it, but I believe the process can be replicated with some Excel, SPSS, or Minitab skill. The question becomes, "What factors or variables should be included in the analysis?" And, "Is there a broad, universal theory that can handle this data?"
