Month: March 2020

Caveat: 벌인 춤이다

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

Here is an aphorism from my book of Korean aphorisms.

벌인 춤이다
beol.in chum.i.da
begin-PPART dance-COPULA
[It] is a dance begun.

The dance has already started, therefore it must be completed. Something started with anticipation or hope or pleasure must be carried through even if the initial enthusiasm is lost. Perhaps this is analogous to the fallacy of sunk costs, when “cutting one’s losses” is unthinkable.
picture

Caveat: Powers of Ten

Found Online / Science & SciFi

Here’s an interesting thing. This guy made a gear reduction gadget – like a car’s transmission. It seems small and reasonable enough on first glance. But it’s not. Here’s his gadget.

Each gear reduces by a power of 10 from the previous gear. Since there are 100 gears, that means that the slowest gear spins 10100 slower than the first gear. (10100 is the number called googol). Just watching the gadget, it appears the fastest gear is spinning about once every 4 seconds. The slowest gear, therefore, would spin once every 4×10-100 seconds. If there are about 3.15×107 seconds per year, and approximately 1.3×1010 (13 billion) years since the beginning of the universe, the age of the universe is about 4×1017 seconds. So… there would be about 1083 “age of universe” units of time before the slowest gear makes a full turn. That’s 1093 years, i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. Actually, I just googled “how long until heat death of universe” I got “10100 years if protons all decay”. That works out nicely: the slowest gear would almost complete one turn before the universe dies.
I had an interesting thought, though. What if we attached the motor to the other end. It would need a lot of torque: more torque than there is energy in the universe. I was thinking about how many gears would get the spin speed up to relativistic speeds. It’s very few gears. At one turn every four seconds, the rim speed is about 0.0785 m/s (7.85×10-2 m/s). Since the speed of light is about 3×109 m/s, by the 12th gear the rim speed would exceed the speed of light under classical rules. So if one could actually get a motor with a enough torque to spin the gadget from the slow end, the 12th gear would become a supermassive black hole (in the sense that relativistic speeds increase mass toward infinity) and who knows about the gears beyond that?
This gadget is interesting, because if fits the potential for all these “bigger than the universe” numbers into an analogue device that fits on a table. I like thinking about it. I’m just speculating a bit – so forgive any errors in calculation – at such astronomical scales a few orders of magnitude one way or the other don’t impact the tone of the speculation much anyway.
picture

Caveat: bye Andrew

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Alaska

My brother left today at dawn. Here he is strolling out to the aircraft at Klawock airport, chatting with one of the crew. Note the slush on the apron – it was snowing pretty continuously as we drove to the airport.
picture
picture

Caveat: Tree #426

A Daily Tree / My Photos

A few days ago, before Andrew got here, it was snowing. I took this picture of a tree off the deck.
picture
picture[daily log: walking, 4km]

Caveat: Housier but not yet greener

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Alaska / My Photos

The greenhouse has taken shape. There’s not much left to be done now on the structure. This picture is before we attached the door and roof-hatch (vent).
picture
I have to start working on how and what I will plant in it. Andrew, Arthur and I went to Mike and Penny’s down the road for an early dinner, and Penny gave me a seed catalog and discussed some about her successes and failures with Southeast Alaska gardening.
I haven’t gardened much in my life, but I’m going to try this summer.
picture

Caveat: será como cerrer el libro

Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Not My Poetry 
Meditación de lo mortal
Morir será como cerrer el libro,
mas no será como apagar la luz
o beberse la última
bocanada.
          Será
para quien va juntando
tanto disperso mundo,
no descansar, mas sí
dejar que otros reúnan
lo que juntó con lo que no se he juntado.
- Ángel Crespo (poeta español 1926-1995)

picture

Caveat: Surprisingly Square

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Alaska / My Photos

We finished the “foundation” for the greenhouse, this morning, despite chill, pouring rain and sleet. It’s really just a frame of cedar 4x4s laid at ground level on some concrete piers, but it should provide a level anchor for the greenhouse.
Once we’d got it in place, Andrew declared it “surprisingly square.” We then started to put up the pre-fab aluminum frame before giving up due to cold and wet.
picture
picture

Back to Top