Wednesday 27 March 2024

XB-1 Flight Marks Buildup To Supersonic Test Campaign



Boom’s ambitious plan to develop a 21st-century supersonic airliner took one step closer to reality on March 22 with the successful first flight of the company’s XB-1 demonstrator—the world’s first privately developed faster-than-sound civil aircraft—at Mojave Air & Space Port, California.  Aviation Week & Space Technology


Spiritually, I have tried to avoid the use of the word ‘hate’, therefore, I shall just say that I feel an intense dislike for this new US experiment.

Fifty-five years ago, in 1969, the first flight of the British Aircraft Corporation Concorde took place, capable of a supersonic speed of Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph).  
(Note; A British HP-115 experimental demonstrator, similar to the XB-1, flew even earlier in 1961.)

It is well known that Concorde flew for British Airways and Air France, also, Braniff International Airways, and Singapore Airlines.  Orders for more than 100 Concordes were made by about 16 airlines (Including Air Canada).  But, later, destroyed by US public pressure because of perceived noise.  


During that period, my home was on the final approach into Heathrow and, even as an experienced aviation enthusiast, of all the aircraft on that path there was nothing so heart-stopping as the bright white Concorde.  And, thus, my intense dislike of US aviation today … unable to build, e.g., a B-737.  

Just imagine what the Concorde would be today after numerous twenty-first century improvements … notwithstanding the if's and but's of the US aerospace industry swamp.  


Sunday 28 January 2024

Consciousness

 Scientists Believe They’ve Unlocked Consciousness—and It Connects to the Entire Universe

It’s just a simple quantum wave that can interact with everything that’s ever existed.

Susan Lahey




WHEN PEOPLE TALK about consciousness, or the mind, the context almost always seems a bit nebulous. Whether we create consciousness in our brain as a function of our neurons firing or it exists independently of us, there’s no universally accepted scientific explanation for where consciousness comes from or where it lives. However, new research on the physics, anatomy, and geometry of this mysterious notion has begun to reveal its possible form. In other words, we may soon be able to identify a true architecture of consciousness.

The new work builds upon a theory that Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose, PhD, and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, MD, first posited in the 1990s, known as the Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory, or Orch OR. Broadly, it claims that consciousness is a quantum process facilitated by microtubules in the brain’s nerve cells.

KNOW YOUR TERMS: MICROTUBULES

These are tubes made of protein lattices, and they form part of the cell’s cytoskeleton, which is its structural network. 

Penrose and Hameroff suggested that consciousness is a quantum wave that passes through these microtubules. And that like every quantum wave, it has properties like superposition (the ability to be in many places at the same time) and entanglement (the potential for two particles that are very far away to be connected).

Plenty of experts have questioned the validity of the Orch OR theory. This is the story of the scientists working to revive it.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

To explain quantum consciousness, Hameroff recently said that it doesn’t have a defined physical size. He compared it to a fractal—a never-ending pattern that can be very tiny or very huge and still maintain the same properties at any scale. Normal states of consciousness might be what we consider quite ordinary—knowing you exist, for example. But when you have a heightened state of consciousness, Hameroff explains, it’s because you’re dealing with quantum-level consciousness that is capable of being in all places at the same time. That means your consciousness can connect or entangle with quantum particles outside of your brain—anywhere in the universe, theoretically.

Until recently, scientists could easily discard this theory. Efforts to recreate quantum coherence—keeping quantum particles as part of a wave instead of breaking down into discrete and measurable particles—worked only in very cold, controlled environments. When quantum particles were taken out of that environment, the wave broke down, leaving behind isolated particles. The brain isn’t cold and controlled; it’s quite warm and wet and mushy. Therefore, the thinking went, consciousness couldn’t remain in superposition in the brain. Particles in the brain couldn’t connect with the universe.

But then came discoveries in quantum biology. As it turns out, living things use quantum properties even though they’re not cold and controlled.

KNOW YOUR TERMS: QUANTUM BIOLOGY

This is the study of quantum processes in living organisms, like superposition and quantum entanglement, that actually facilitate biological processes beyond the subatomic level. 

In photosynthesis, for example, plants use chlorophyll in a process that stores the energy from a photon, or a quantum particle of light. The light hitting the plant causes the formation of something called an exciton, which carries the energy to where it is stored in the plant’s reaction center. But to get there, it has to navigate structures in the plant—sort of like navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood en route to a dentist appointment—and it has to complete the trip before it burns all the energy it’s carrying. To find the correct path, scientists now say the exciton tries all possible paths simultaneously. That’s superposition.

New evidence suggests that microtubules in our brain may be even better than chlorophyll at maintaining this quantum coherence. One of the scientists who worked with the Orch OR team, physicist and oncology professor Jack Tuszynski, PhD, recently conducted an experiment with a computational model of a microtubule. His team simulated shining a light into a microtubule, sort of like a photon sending an exciton through a plant structure. If the light lasted long enough before being emitted—a fraction of a second was enough—it would indicate quantum coherence.

Specifically, Tuszynski’s team simulated sending tryptophan fluorescence, or ultraviolet light photons that are not visible to the human eye, into microtubules. After conducting the experiment 22 times, Tuszynski reported that the excitations from the tryptophan created quantum reactions that lasted up to five nanoseconds. That is thousands of times longer than some had expected coherence to last in a microtubule. It’s also more than long enough to perform the biological functions required. “So we are actually confident that this process is longer lasting in tubulin than…in chlorophyll,” he says. The team published their findings in the journal ACS Central Science earlier this year.

Tuszynski draws on similar experiments performed by scientists at the University of Central Florida, who have been illuminating microtubules with visible light. In those experiments, Tuszynski says, researchers observed re-emission of this light over hundreds of milliseconds to seconds—a typical human response time to stimulus. Shining the light into microtubules and measuring how long the microtubules take to emit that light “is a proxy for the stability of certain…postulated quantum states,” he says. “That is kind of key to the theory that these microtubules may be having coherent quantum superpositions that may be associated with mind or consciousness.” Put simply, the brain may not be too warm or wet for consciousness to exist as a wave that connects with the universe.

While these experiments are a long way from proving the Orch OR theory, they do offer significant and promising data. Meanwhile, Penrose and Hameroff continue to push the boundaries of the theory, partnering with people such as author and influencer Deepak Chopra to explore expressions of consciousness in the universe that they might be able to identify in the lab using their microtubule experiments. This sort of thing makes many scientists very uncomfortable.

Still, other researchers are exploring what the architecture of such a universal consciousness might look like. One of the more compelling ideas comes from the study of weather.

The Architecture of Universal Consciousness

Timothy Palmer, PhD, is a mathematical physicist at Oxford who specializes in chaos theory and the climate. (He’s also a big fan of Roger Penrose.) Palmer believes that the laws of physics must be fundamentally geometric, and he uses the Invariant Set Theory to explain how the quantum world works. Among other things, it suggests that quantum consciousness is the result of the universe operating in a particular fractal geometry “state space.” State space, essentially, represents the possible configurations in any system.

That’s a lot to digest, but it roughly means we’re stuck in a lane or route of a cosmic fractal shape that is shared by other realities that are also stuck in their trajectories. This notion appears in the final chapter of Palmer’s book The Primacy of Doubt: How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World. In it, he suggests the possibility that our experience of free will—of having the option to choose our life, as well as our perception that there is a consciousness outside ourself—is the result of awareness of other universes that share our state space.

The idea starts with a special geometry called a strange attractor. You may have heard of the butterfly effect, the idea that the flap of a butterfly’s wing in one part of the world could affect a hurricane in another part of the world. The term actually refers to a more complex concept developed by the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz in 1963. Lorenz was trying to simplify the equations used to predict how a particular climate condition might evolve. He narrowed it down to three differential equations that could be used to identify the “state space” of a particular weather system. For example, if you had a particular temperature, wind direction, and humidity level, what would happen next? He began to plot the trajectory of weather systems by plugging in different initial conditions into the equations.

The Lorenz attractor is a set of chaotic solutions of the Lorenz system that, when plotted, resemble a butterfly or figure eight. Most people know it as the butterfly effect, and it’s one way to help explain chaos.


He found that if initial conditions were different by a hundredth of a percent, if the humidity were just a fraction higher, or the temperature a hair lower, the trajectories—what happens next—could be wildly different. In the graph, one trajectory might shoot off in one direction, forming loops and spins seemingly at random, while another creates completely different shapes in the opposite direction. But once Lorenz started to plot them, he found that many of the trajectories wound up circulating within the boundaries of a particular geometric shape known as a strange attractor. It was as if they were cars on a track: The cars might go in any number of directions so long as they didn’t drive it the same way twice and they stayed on the track. The plot, now called the Lorenz attractor, actually looks like a pair of butterfly wings.

P almer believes that our universe may be just one trajectory, one car, on a cosmological state space like the Lorenz attractor. When we imagine “what if” scenarios, we’re actually getting information about versions of ourselves in other universes who are also navigating the same strange attractor—others’ “cars” on the track, he explains. This also accounts for our sense of consciousness, of free will, and of being connected with a greater universe.

“I would at least hypothesize that it may well be the case that it’s evolving on very special fractal subsets of all conceivable states in state space,” Palmer tells Popular Mechanics. If his ideas are correct, he says, “then we need to look at the structure of the universe on its very largest scales, because these attractors are really telling us about a kind of holistic geometry for the universe.”

Tuszynksi’s experiment and Palmer’s theory still don’t tell us what consciousness is, but perhaps they tell us where consciousness lives—what kind of a structure houses it. That means it’s not just an ethereal, disembodied concept. If consciousness is housed somewhere, even if that somewhere is a complicated state space, we can find it. And that’s a start. 

Popular Mechanics


Thursday 28 December 2023

Canada's F-35 fighter Jets Could Be Delayed

 Edited


Author of the article:

David Pugliese  •  Ottawa Citizen

Published Dec 27, 2023  •  Last updated 19 hours ago  •  3 minute read


A top U.S. military officer has warned that the delivery of F-35 aircraft ordered by Canada and other allies could be delayed because of ongoing technical problems.

If that happens, depending on the length of the delay, Canadian taxpayers could have to spend between $400 million and $700 million extra for the stealth fighters.

“As with any developmental program, there are challenges in software and hardware production, testing and certification,” National Defence spokesman Andrew McKelvey said. “Canada is aware of the potential delivery delays; however, at this time Canada’s delivery of the initial aircraft in 2026 remains on track.”  Ha, ha !!

“Should there be delays in the delivery of these fighter jets for whatever reason, if there’s a slippage by a year, that would increase costs [by] about $400 million,” he told reporters on Nov. 2. “Or should there be a two-year slippage, the increase in costs should be about $700 million.”

F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin has informed U.S. media outlets Defense News and Forbes that some Block 4 components are in different stages of development and will be delivered incrementally.  i.e., the engines may be delivered without the airframe !!


In early January, Canada announced it was purchasing 88 F-35s in a deal valued at $19 billion.

Another $6 billion will be spent on weapons for the aircraft.

During the 2015 election campaign, Justin Trudeau vowed that his government would never purchase the F-35.

As prime minister, Trudeau continued to point out the Canadian military had no need for the F-35. “Canadians know full well that, for 10 years, the Conservatives completely missed the boat when it came to delivering to Canadians and their armed forces the equipment they needed,” Trudeau said in June 2016. “They clung to an aircraft (the F-35) that does not work and is far from working.”

But in announcing the purchase on Jan. 9, Anand said the F-35 was needed to protect Canada and fulfill the country’s obligations to allies.

More than 780 F-35s have already been delivered to the U.S. military and allies, but the stealth fighter is still plagued with technical problems.

At a technical briefing held by the Canadian government on Jan. 9, 2023, a senior official claimed that the problems dogging the F-35 are “historical.”

That, however, isn’t true.

In April 2022, the U.S. government watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, reported more delays in operational testing that is needed to be completed so full-rate production of the F-35 can begin. There are still hundreds of problems left to solve on the aircraft, and companies are redesigning and replacing equipment on the planes that have already been delivered. “The more aircraft produced and delivered prior to resolving deficiencies, the greater the likelihood that the program will have to retrofit aircraft, at the expense of the government,” the Government Accountability Office report stated.

Canada is a partner in the F-35 program and has contributed more than $600 million U.S. in funding for the aircraft’s development over the years.


If anyone mentions the phrase, “There was no alternative.” I shall … explode !! 

Monday 6 November 2023

Buffy Sainte Marie



Indigenous musician - singer - songwriter - composer - record producer
visual artist - educator - social activist - actress - humanitarian



Sunday 30 April 2023

Brief Introduction to Falun Dafa

 

Brief Introduction to Falun Dafa

Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual practice that millions around the world have made a part of their lives. Rooted in Buddhist tradition, it consists of two main components: self-improvement through the study of teachings, and gentle exercises and meditation.

The belief system of Falun Dafa offers the possibility of spiritual growth through disciplined practice. Its teachings encourage learners to let go of unhealthy attachments as they strive to attune their lives to the underlying qualities of the universe: Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance.

People who practice Falun Dafa often find it to be life-changing. Many experience dramatic health benefits as well as newfound energy, mental clarity, and stress relief. More importantly, many feel that in Falun Dafa they have found a deeply rewarding spiritual path.



Falun Dafa Exercises Video:  https://www.falondafa.org


Monday 24 April 2023

Canadians Do Not Want Charles As King

 

Today, a copy of the CBC “Morning Brief” appeared in my eMail describing a new woke survey published by Reuters (Dan Kitwood).  This did not surprise me because, if one searches well enough, a poll may be discovered somewhere indicating a “truth” fitting any narrative    but I was somewhat annoyed that Reuters did not choose to value my, or any of my associates, opinion on the matter (“Opinion” only).  


After all, the King of England is, firstly, the choice of English people (More later) and other countries of the Commonwealth however, choose to accept his position as they wish (Technically, not accurate, but you know what I mean).  My point here is that Canadians are, or should be, not part of the decision-making process.  


The title of this article states that 60% of Canadians do not recognize the King while,  a few paragraphs later, they become simply respondents.  


I have written before on the controversial question actually defining a Canadian, and the simple answer is someone qualified to carry a Canadian passport, i.e., not random respondents (Contrary to the whim of our current P.M.).  


Therefore, unlike countries of Communist dictators, and the probability that the banana-republic Canada will become controlled by the CCP … we still have a King, thus immigrants, both legal and illegal, and refugees, real or not, should sit quietly in their government-subsidized apartments … until, if necessary, deported.    


Past readers of Bernie's Blazar will be aware of my deliberately controversial tone, in order to cause discussion … I look forward to the spore. 



Thursday 8 September 2022

Snippet 21 -- Deceptive Education

 What could be said of a blog renamed :  

"The Piece, Bit, Excerpt, Snippet Quarterly" ?

Not much, I guess.  Therefore, welcome once again to Bernie's Blazar. 

This occasion is the result of an excellent article by Dr. Julie Ponesse* in the Epoch Times from which I have extracted, with respect, a morsel of her higher comprehensive perception. 

Quote

We live in an era of pseudo intellectuals, pseudo students, and pseudo education.

Dear class of 2026

Welcome to the beginning of the rest of your life !  Ahead of you is four years of a lacklustre education which will saddle you with a debt from which you may never emerge.  Your professors will teach you not how to think but what to think, and their invitation to question will be just a pretence.  Before you leave today, you can register for courses on critical thinking and free will, but make sure to stop at the vaccine clinic on the way out to get your mandated COVID booster. 

* Dr. Julie Ponesse is a professor of ethics 
who has taught at Ontario's Huron University College for 20 years.  
She was placed on leave and banned from accessing her campus 
due to the vaccine mandate.  

Sunday 3 July 2022

Snippet 20 -- Gene Therapy


 "Not a vaccine in the medical definition, the COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ is really an experimental gene therapy that does not render immunity or prevent infection or transmission of the disease."

( Well, who would have guessed ? )



WORDS OF WISDOM

 

''It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but
also for what we do not do.''


Moliere