Silicon Soapware #212

[bubbleblower]

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                            SILICON SOAPWARE 
       wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway
                        from Bubbles = Tom Digby
                           = bubbles@well.com 

                      http://www.well.com/~bubbles/

                                Issue #212
                        New Moon of March 22, 2012


Contents copyright 2012 by Thomas G. Digby, with a liberal definition of 
"fair use".  In other words, feel free to quote excerpts elsewhere (with 
proper attribution), post the entire zine (verbatim, including this 
notice) on other boards that don't charge specifically for reading the 
zine, link my Web page, and so on, but if something from here forms a 
substantial part of something you make money from, it's only fair that I 
get a cut of the profits.

Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback.  
Details of how to sign up are at the end.


                          *********************

Spring sprang rather early this year, with the Equinox coming on the 
evening of March 19 for the western US (March 20 for almost everybody 
else).  It's the earliest Equinox since 1896.

So why did Spring come so early this year?  Because that's the way the 
Gregorian calendar is set up.

It's probably a bit long to put here in full detail, but basically 
there's a four-year cycle superimposed on a hundred-year cycle that in 
turn is superimposed on a 400-year cycle.  This is because the Earth's 
orbit doesn't match the calendar, or any one of these cycles, exactly.  
It's pretty close, on average, to matching the combined cycles over the 
long run, although still not exact.

The four-year cycle means the Equinox will be relatively early (as shown 
on calendars) in leap years (such as 2012 and 2016), and will be 
relatively late in years just before leap years (such as 2011 and 2015).  
The longer cycles mean that these four-year extremes will gradually 
drift a few minutes earlier each leap year until they usually (but not 
always) get reset to being relatively late when a new century turns.  
The most recent new century was one of those times the hundred-year 
cycle didn't reset, because of the 400-year cycle.

So what this all adds up to is that the March (Northern Hemisphere 
Spring) Equinox in 1903 was the latest it had been for something like 
400 years (minor changes to Earth's orbit and rotation make it harder to 
be more exact than that).  The four-year cycle has been drifting earlier 
since then. It will continue to drift earlier until 2096, when it will 
be the earliest it's been for something like 400 years.

This will repeat every 400 years, assuming the calendar doesn't get 
changed between now and then.

There's much more detail, including a graph of these different cycles, 
in the Wikipedia article "Gregorian calendar".


                          *********************

Toward the end of the Wikipedia article on the Gregorian calendar 
there's mention of possible future reforms.  Problem is, the various 
motions of the Earth are not perfectly predictable.  These uncertainties 
are too small to notice for everyday practical purposes, but they can 
add up to a day or more over the course of a few thousand years.

However, there may be another alternative: Adjust the motions of the 
Earth to agree with the calendar.  We may not have the technology to do 
that right now, but by the time the errors become significant, assuming 
civilization doesn't collapse in the meantime, we should be able to.

I'm pretty sure no major technological breakthroughs or scientific 
discoveries will be needed.  The main problem is economic: We don't 
currently have the resources to mount a project of the magnitude 
required to do the job.  That's probably solvable over the course of the 
next couple of hundred years, assuming we really want to do it.

We'll also want to know more about the consequences of such an act 
before doing it, lest we cause some unforeseen catastrophe.  And then 
there's the political problem of getting everybody, or at least 
everybody whose opinion matters, to agree to it.  This last may be the 
hardest part.


                          *********************

Speaking of doing calendar reform by altering planetary motions to fit 
your calendar, and of factions whose opinions might or might not matter, 
how might astrologers feel about humans moving planets around?


                          *********************

And another question: Does the presence of long-term variations in the 
motions of the planets make any serious difference to those who like to 
think in terms of eternal cycles?

Does it matter that back in the days of the dinosaurs the day was 
several hours shorter and there were more days in a year than there are 
now?  Does it matter that in the time of the Pharaohs Polaris was not 
the North Star?  And does it matter that when we try to calculate the 
time of day of Equinoxes and Solstices and lunar phases for dates a 
thousand years from now we may be off by several hours?


                          *********************

Many would say that millisecond or smaller variations in the motions of 
Earth and the other planets is not something I need to worry about.  But 
what if it is?

Or what if someone tells me that some random bit of trivia that I had 
never thought of before is worth worrying about?  How do I go about 
worrying about it?

Is there a standard procedure for worrying about stuff?  If so, could I 
delegate the task, or write a computer program to do it for me?  More to 
the point, even if I can delegate it or write a computer program to do 
it for me, should I?  Or should I do all my own worrying?

And is that question something I should worry about?


                          *********************

The vowels a, e, i, o, and u are not created equal.  For example, ever 
notice how uncommon it is in English to have two of the letter "i" in a 
row (not counting acronyms (such as "ASCII") and Roman numerals)?

English has lots and lots of words with "ee" and "oo" in them, but only 
a few proper names and exotic-sounding words with "aa", a few 
Latin-derived words with "uu", and hardly anything with "ii".

After I return from skiing when I should be vacuuming the bazaar, I'll 
want to know if this is worth worrying about.


                          *********************

A common thing in fantasy stories is characters going through a number 
of different worlds with different physical and/or magical laws.  Some 
kinds of magic work in some but not in others, technological stuff tends 
not to work in the ones where magic is strongest, and so on.

If there's some kind of network of scientists, wizards, and so on 
working in these diverse universes, what might their classification 
schemes for different realms look like?

And what experiments might they do in their various worlds that would 
turn out differently under different sets of laws in such a way as to 
help them classify things?

For example, consider the Michaelson-Morley experiment, generally 
regarded in this world as a validation of Special Relativity.  How would 
you tell the difference between our case and an unmoving world that's at 
the center of its universe, since presumably both would show no effects 
of motion?  Would a Foucault pendulum do it?  Or would you first have to 
verify conservation of momentum?

And then consider still other worlds, where attempts to even set up the 
experiment fail.  Maybe they can't get interference fringes at all.  If 
that's the case, why?  Does light not propagate as waves there, or is 
there some other problem?  How do we figure out what the differences 
are?

And when communication with a newly discovered universe is established, 
what are some of the basic questions our scientists would ask the 
inhabitants.  If our scientists go there, what are some of the 
experiments they might do?


                          *********************

I recently saw a video about recycling TV sets that sort of got to me 
emotionally.

I think it's because it showed people deliberately breaking things, some 
of which might have been in working condition, and doing it in a way 
that indicated that they had no emotional interest in the things they 
were breaking and no curiosity about how they were put together.

It makes economic sense that rather than trying, for example, to find 
the screws holding a circuit board down and then taking the time to 
unscrew them, you just pry the board out, in pieces if need be.  You're 
going to be melting it down or whatever anyway.

Likewise, if you're being paid by the hour and there's no good reason 
you need to know various subtle things about how certain parts go 
together, they won't want you sitting there studying them.  Just break 
it apart with your hammer and toss the pieces into the appropriate bins.  
Don't waste time looking at anything any longer than you have to.

But even though I know intellectually that this makes sense, the part of 
me that spent many happy childhood hours taking stuff apart and putting 
the pieces together in novel ways sees it as an endless stream of lost 
opportunities.


                          *********************

One thing I've wondered about from time to time: If we meet other 
intelligent life, will we be able to watch each other's TV shows?

Aside from the obvious language issues and technical stuff about 
scanning rates or whatever, what if we see things differently in the 
sense of having different sensory receptors?

If they hear sound (which seems likely if they have a gaseous 
atmosphere) to what degree will the ranges of frequencies we hear 
overlap?

Likewise with sight: What wavelengths are they likely to see?  If they 
see colors, what if they have more or fewer primary colors?  What if 
they're at different wavelengths from ours?

What if their visual persistence time is faster or slower than ours, 
leading to what appear to be flickery or jerky images?  How easy is that 
to work around?

Would it be feasible to try to define a set of video standards that will 
handle both kinds of vision?

Or are we not likely to want to watch that much of each other's movies 
and such anyway?


                          *********************



                       Will Others Sing Our Songs? 



The museum is dark and empty,
I'm working late tonight,
Cataloging relics of 
A world that died when Man was not yet Man.  

There's writing on this tablet. 
What meaning did it have?  
I doubt we'll ever know although 
We'll try to piece together what we can. 

CHORUS: 
	Will others sing our songs when our world is in its grave,
	Even when our voices do not fit their ears? 
	And what of their tomorrows, when time itself grows cold?
	Will there be something better than oblivion? 


They say they found the tablet
Lying with the ruins
Of instruments of music that were 
Never made for human hands or breath.  

And as I touch the carvings
I somehow think I know
The song that they were singing as they
Realized their world was facing death.  

CHORUS


Museums are always haunted, 
I sort of half believe, 
By those who lived with all the things
We keep as a reminder of the past. 

And something Unseen tells me
They'll never truly die. 
Across the gulfs of space and time
Their songs are being sung again at last.  

CHORUS


					-- Tom Digby
					18:31 02/23/2002



                          *********************

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