Time and change.

The idea of time seems almost trivial. When you think, "what time is it?" You simply look at a watch and there you have it. Your question is answered instantaneously via watch or, in our technologically advancing society, by phone. Similarly, the idea of passage of time is dealt with as a matter of course. It takes 3 hours to drive there, or 15 minutes until my lunch break. Time is a thing that has been obscured by a veil of the ordinary.

If we ask more penetrating questions about time we begin to see where our common notion of time breaks down. The most common measure of time is a second. One second for this, ten seconds for that 3600 seconds in an hour. The second, however, is not the smallest measure of time. There are milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, picoseconds,....., all the way down. So what is the smallest unit of time? If we can make smaller and smaller partitions of a second to no end, is there no smallest unit of time?

Now lets talk about change. What is change. Certainly time and change must be interrelated in some way. If there is no time, how do we measure change? If things don't change, is there time?

Calculus for Christmas.

I am toying with writing a series of blog posts that deal with calculus over the holiday break. I have been mulling over a certain phrase that crops up whenever I tell people what it is I do. Most people have a default response to anything regarding mathematics: "I don't understand math." This has bothered me for sometime; mostly because I used to be the one saying it.

The posts would not be lectures on calculus, or attempts at explaining the dense symbolic language involved in describing calculus. Instead, I would like to attempt to explain why calculus is really an easy set of concepts to understand and why it is so hard to master.

Blog reopening.

I am reopening this thing for a class project.

Everyone should have a bigfoot picture.

Why Portland is going to hell.

So I'm in Fields, Oregon right; eating a giant half pound hamburger that is "world famous," and having a loose conversation with a local. You know, the kind of conversation where you are just kind of half listening to the other person and really just talking because its Fields and how often do you get to talk to people who stare at great gouts of empty space all day.


Yocal: ...don't get but one station on the television, down from Burns. They won't report the weather down here though. (Pause for dramatic effect) I tell you, we don't stand for things like they do up in Portland, if a man were to molest a child down here he wouldn't last long that's for sure.

Me: Uh... (Definitely listening now)

Yocal: We don't stand for no riff raff around here.

Me: Yep...

I then preceded to explain how city life and rural life both had their ups and downs. It didn't occur to me until later that I might have struck him as bad people. I was with my wife at the time, who is younger than I am, but by no means a child. So I was kind of unhinged by what he said. He took his coffee outside shortly after that. What I should have asked him is if there is no riff raff in Harney county then who is putting all the holes in the signs? Seriously there were zero signs with no bullet holes (actually there was one).

Here is the problem though; for some (alot) of people perception is reality and the mind will try to protect that reality at all costs. So for this guy (in his 70's) his perception was that a life spent avoiding large crowds of people, traffic, and all the other crappy things about living in a city was well worth it. In his estimation his life was well spent away from the urban enviornment. If he were to be shown that city life is better (which it is not) his mind would find fault with it somehow, or reject it out of hand. This is an extreme case of the human tend toward rationalizing reality.

Here is an example; while at the barrage recently I encountered a cloud of smoke that seemed to come out of nowhere. I took a step back and my brain shut down. The smoke seemed to just appear out of thin air. Now I know a thing or two about physics and the spontaneous emmision of smoke from air is a statistical unlikelyhood. My brain did not want to think about that smoke because it would involve violating my rationalized reality (not to mention plain old reality). It turned out to be just Dirk burning one.

So, maybe that old guy in Fields really does believe that Portland is full of child molestors and rapist sympathisers. Maybe he doesn't have a choice in believing it because the alternative would be too depressing. Actual good people in a city.

Of course he might have a relative that was molested or something and the experience was fresh on his mind, or maybe he is right and all of us Portlanders will soon be beachfront at a lake of fire.

There is a desert out here somewhere, we just have to find it.

I have to admit I kind of fell in love with the landscape, the big, sage brushy, open sky landscape. There is a real sense of distance out there. Notice the Highwaymen in the background, a little country music is handy for letting locals know you mean business. It reassures them that you are one of the true believers, not one of those smooth talking californy's. Just make sure the song was written and composed before 1980.

Harney's Historical District

The town of Harney is about 20 miles east of Burns, Oregon. We passed through there on our way to King Mountain in the Malhuer National Forest. One thing we learned on our trip is that the size of a town's name on a road atlas is in no way related to the actual size of the town. This applies in south eastern Oregon at least. As you can see from the photo, downtown Harney is rich in cultural entertainment, and real estate is available. Californians, I'm talking to you.

(as you can see, the barn is cemetery adjacent!)