Zombie

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The Face Of Evil, 8 January 1977 and the Doctor (Tom Baker) was quite right Put another way, if you can’t frame the question you probably won’t find the answer - which is why I could never find an answer to my question on lunchtime walks(previous post). I knew it couldn’t be an original idea because so few of us will ever think up a conundrum no-one else has thought of before. So the answer must be lurking somewhere on the interweb - I just had to find the right search words And it is And I did And it’s called Zeno’s paradox - or one of them. Or possibly two, because two express the same idea just differently (he apparently came up with 9 - but who’s to say no-one else had the same thoughts before him... ) According to wiki, Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy who was born around 490 BC and died about 430 BC and is best known for his paradoxes which Bertrand Russell called "immeasurably subtle and profound". Anyway, back to Zeno’s paradoxes (source wiki link below): The Dichotomy Paradox (my lunchtime walk problem) Someone wishes to get from point A to point B. First, they must move halfway. Then, they must go half of the remaining way. Continuing in this manner, there will always be some small distance remaining, and the goal would never actually be reached. There will always be another number to add in a series such as 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + .... So, motion from any point A to any different point B seems an impossibility. The Achilles and the Tortoise Paradox (the ant / worm / rubber band problem) Achilles is in a race with a tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres and each moves at a constant speed, one very fast and one very slow After some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. But during this time, the slower tortoise has moved a much shorter distance and it will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther etc etc. So, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise... So what does this mean? It means that what we experience in the real world v Zeno’s conundrums cannot both be true at the same time. So either there is something wrong with the way we perceive the continuous nature of time or there is no such thing as discrete, or incremental, amounts of time or distance. Or anything else for that matter... Or there is a third picture of reality that “unifies” these two positions (the mathematical one and our common sense everyday experiences) that we do not yet have the philosophical / mathematical tools to fully understand. Mathematically, when you start adding together the terms in the series 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + etc you’ll see that the sum gets closer and closer to 1, and will never exceed 1. Wiki states that Aristotle noted as the distance (in the dichotomy paradox) decreases, the time to travel each distance gets exceedingly smaller and smaller and he developed a method to get a finite answer for the sum of infinitely many terms which get progressively smaller (such as 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + etc). Modern calculus achieves the same result by using more rigorous method, and mathematicians such as Carl Boyer think that Zeno's paradoxes are just mathematical problems for which modern calculus provides a mathematical solution. However, Zeno's questions remain problematic if one approaches an infinite series of steps, one step at a time. This is known as a 'supertask'. Calculus does not actually involve adding numbers one at a time. Instead, it determines the value (called a limit that the addition is approaching. In other words, mathematics cannot answer all philosophical challenges to real world realities. In the real world travel from A to B is possible and we do it all the time. So the answer to Zeno’s paradoxes lies in physics and not mathematics https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/05/05/this-is-how-physics-not-math-finally-resolves-zenos-famous-paradox/

more info here https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/first-same-sex-wedding-couple-our-gay-marriage-will-make-history-9000140.html just Google their names if you want more stuff Dunno what “class” of people you want in your story or where you’ll set it - “Ruritania” has been used as a fictional / alternate history European setting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruritanian_romance and if you want titled people what does the other husband get called...? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2016/apr/05/titles-and-tiaras-what-should-we-call-the-husbands-of-knights Here’s a recent UK example: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/british-royal-family-s-first-gay-wedding-lord-mountbatten-marry-n884891 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Ivar_Mountbatten

Thank you for posting this. I was not aware of this poem or Emily Dickinson before I used to think music surpassed words in conveying and evoking emotion, but I was wrong This is a universal poem of loss, as powerful now as when it was written Grief truly is love with nowhere to go

...and its close cousin nincompoop

Infinities I2 is a significant number in human activity throughout history and one example is music - the twelve notes of the musical scale. This derives from the harmonic series and I was planning a post on this but got distracted by the mathematics. The harmonic series is what’s called divergent, which means there is no finite end. So it is a form of infinity. And there are, so far as I understand it (which is not very well ) an infinite number of infinities. One puzzle called the “ant (or worm) on the rubber band" supposes an ant crawls along an infinitely-elastic one-metre rubber band at the same time as the rubber band is uniformly stretched. So, if the ant travels 1 centimeter per minute and the band stretches 1 metre per minute, will the ant ever reach the end of the rubber band? You have a think about it while I go and make myself a nice cup of tea... ...OK, worked it out? Here’s the “solution” - did you get it right? Which reminds me of a regular lunchtime walk I used to do with workmates in a previous job along a single track farm road with a straight stretch of about 1 mile along which we would walk to the end, then turn around and come back. There was a bridge about half way and then a gate about half way along the second half and one day it occurred to me that if I was walking half the distance (to the bridge) and then half the remaining distance to the gate and then half the remaining distance etc etc etc then, mathematically, this would be an infinite series of “stages”... ...so how did we ever get to the end? (which obviously we did )

It’s been a while and I meant to post this back in February when two American jazz-influenced musicians, Chick Corea and Milford Graves, both died just three days apart (they were also born the same year, 1941) Chick Corea in concert 2017 Corea was a significant composer, piano/keyboard player and bandleader and Graves a percussion player, music professor and many other things (sculptor, martial arts and gardening!) As far as I can tell their first recording is when they played together in 1964 aged 23 as session musicians for “Montego Joe” (Roger Sanders) on his debut album arriba!, and on this track (link below), Too Much Sake, you can hear Corea on piano and Graves on percussion (Joe on conga, and Leonard Goines on trumpet) - it’s a great number (by Horace Silver) 🎶Too Much Sake🎶

I miss mine too. So much She liked hearing me play this. It’s such a happy piece The year after he wrote it (1884) Greig arranged the Holberg Suite for string orchestra This is the first of five dance movements - Praeludium (Prelude)

Oops GA posted twice

this is just a brilliant story about two young cousins, Ollie Roberts, age 13, and Harvey Roberts, age 11, wanting to use the time they’ve been given during lockdown, while schools have been shut, to do something more useful than play computer games so they’ve been busy in their Grandad’s workshop learning how to be blacksmiths it’s gone so well not only are they having great fun they’ve built themselves a small business https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2021-03-26/the-young-blacksmiths-from-wrexham-keeping-the-family-trade-alive-six-generations-on if the video doesn’t work in the link above try this

The Guardian Tom McCarthy @TeeMcSee Mon 22 Mar 2021 13.43 GMT UFO report details ‘difficult to explain’ sightings, says US ex-intelligence director US military pilots and satellites have recorded “a lot more” sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, than have been made public, Donald Trump’s former intelligence director John Ratcliffe said. The truth is out there … perhaps: CIA releases thousands of UFO files Read more Asked on Fox News about a forthcoming government report on “unidentified aerial phenomena”, Ratcliffe said the report would document previously unknown sightings from “all over the world”. “Frankly, there are a lot more sightings than have been made public,” he said. “Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have been seen by navy or air force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for. “Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.” A video grab obtained 28 April 2020 courtesy of the US defense department shows part of an unclassified video taken by navy pilots. Photograph: DoD/AFP via Getty Images The UFO report must be published by early June, pursuant to a clause in a Covid relief and spending package signed by Trump before he left office. Ratcliffe served about eight months as director of national intelligence at the end of Trump’s term. Earlier, Trump moved to nominate Ratcliffe for the role but Ratcliffe withdrew over concerns he had exaggerated and fibbed about his experience as a prosecutor in Texas. “I actually wanted to get this information out and declassify it before I left office,” Ratcliffe said, “but we weren’t able to get it down into an unclassified format that we were able to talk about quickly enough.” The forthcoming report is to be issued by the defense department and intelligence agencies. When an unidentified aerial phenomena is identified, Ratcliffe said, analysts try to explain it as a potential weather disturbance or other routine spectacle. “We always look for a plausible explanation,” he said. “Sometimes we wonder whether our adversaries have technologies that are a little bit farther down the road than we thought or that we realized. “But there are instances where we don’t have good explanations. “So in short, things that we are observing that are difficult to explain – and so there’s actually quite a few of those, and I think that that info has been gathered and will be put out in a way the American people can see.” Asked by Bartiromo where the unidentified phenomena were sighted, Ratcliffe replied, “actually all over the world, there have been sightings all over the world. “Multiple sensors that are picking up these things. They’re unexplained phenomenon, and there’s actually quite a few more than have been made public.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/22/us-government-ufo-report-sightings ———————————————- Strange but true Fifty one years ago, Britain’s nationalised railway company, British Rail, filed a patent for a fusion powered flying saucer. Quite why the board of a railway company was focusing on interplanetary travel when it couldn’t even run the trains on time is perhaps a bigger mystery than whether UFOs are real... In 1970, the British Railways Board filed a patent for a spacecraft powered by "controlled thermonuclear fusion reaction". The original patent application said the reaction would be "ignited by one or more pulsed laser beams". A patent document reads: "The present invention relates to a space vehicle. More particularly it relates to a power supply for a space vehicle which offers a source of sustained thrust for the loss of a very small mass of fuel. Thus it would enable very high velocities to be attained in a space vehicle and in fact the prolonged acceleration of the vehicle may in some circumstances be used to simulate gravity."

Tried posting an image and got “The link could not be embedded because only https URLs are allowed.” Many web images are “http” so won’t display - is there a technical reason for prohibiting them? Thanks

that’s an excellent point twentieth century movies, in particular, have given modern composers a tremendous outlet for works that would most likely never have achieved success in the concert hall or recording sales yet, in combination with the on-screen drama / horror / thrills, “sneak past” the default public prejudice that would otherwise leave their work unplayed and unheard

Stravinsky Suite Italienne Stravinsky is a name that scares off many people, maybe thinking Rite of Spring, or The Firebird with lots of dissonance and it’s not for them. Which is not just a shame (both those pieces are incredible experiences with a full orchestra in a concert hall) but simply wrong. Stravinsky was not just an exceptional composer - the greatest of the twentieth century? - but wide-ranging and versatile, composing in many styles during his life and perfectly capable of writing beautiful melodies. The Suite Italienne uses music from his short ballet Pulcinella (composed 1930) which he rearranged two years later for piano and cello. The piece has five movements and in the second, serenata, Stravinsky uses the “siciliana” form popular during the Baroque period with a minor key and a gentle rhythm.

I’ve got two blogs and I want to add a new blog to one of these but I’m being asked to name a “Category” - I don’t understand what this is or what I should enter in the text box. thanks

Stravinsky Suite Italienne Stravinsky is a name that scares off many people, maybe thinking Rite of Spring, or The Firebird with lots of dissonance and it’s not for them. Which is not just a shame (both those pieces are incredible experiences with a full orchestra in a concert hall) but simply wrong. Stravinsky was not just an exceptional composer - the greatest of the twentieth century? - but wide-ranging and versatile (ooo, Matron! ), composing in many styles during his life and perfectly capable of writing beautiful melodies. The Suite Italienne uses music from his short ballet Pulcinella (composed 1930) which he rearranged for piano and cello about two years later. There are five movements and in the second, serenata, Stravinsky uses the “siciliana” form popular during the Baroque period having a minor key and a gentle rhythm. Anyway, see what you think 

Greg Davies is hilarious

interestingly this challenging work only became popular and well known after Horowitz popularised it in the 1930’s, more than two decades after Rachmaninov gave its first public performance in New York in 1909, the year of its composition It’s such a haunting opening melody, so full of melancholy. Your link at 40 mins or so (I’ve not played it all through) seems to be the full work rather than the shortened version on some older recordings (authorised by Rachmaninov apparently)

just watched the final episode of Russell T Davies’ five part It’s A Sin and I’m a bit of an emotional wreck RTD took 5 years to write it, and a whole lifetime’s experience to be able to write it He insisted all the gay parts were played by gay actors so the sashaying was REAL baby! if you get the chance to see it you should for the emotions, the laughter, the tears - you will cry - but more than anything the humanity

crazily some plumbing websites agree while others say the opposite. Personally, I would leave taps dripping too to relieve pressure buildup in the pipes but you’d think someone would have properly tested out the science to prove one or the other...

Another COVID victim... For the first time since the year 1199 the Atherstone Ball Game hasn’t been played on Shrove Tuesday (today) in Atherstone, Warwickshire - a town in the English Midlands. The Plague couldn’t stop it Two World Wars couldn’t stop it But the COVID virus has succeeded

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358 a nice number and the number of years it took to prove “Fermat’s Last Theorem”

loved the radio show ❤️