Back to the question: Where are we in the Universe?

About 2.3 Percent of the Universe

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.

This pretty well explains it!

Probably took me a little too long to find this video on YouTube, but I think it provides a pretty satisfactory explanation of El Niño.

What's a Factor of 10,000 Mix Up Mean Anyway?

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, that's what I learned, today. 

Back to Thinking of Big Data

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."

If I Were to Approach This as a More Literary Assignment

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.

El Niño --> oceans --> Neptune --> Pisces --> 12th House

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.

Can Combinations of Events Cause Things?

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.

Concentric Circles of Influence: 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:

1. El Niño
2. Ocean currents
3. Heat transfer to the oceans
4. Global warming and melting
5. Solar events
6. Gravity wells affecting the Earth, Sun and Moon
7. Major causes of gravity
• Center of the Milky Way Galaxy, The Great Rift
• Local planets
• Local stars
8. Orbital paths
• Of planets
• Of moons
• Of the Sun
9. The resulting combinations of the above and other events