Pittsburgh

What everyone admires about Pittsburgh is simply that it is a "winner" city. Geography dictates that it should be part of the "Rust Belt", where the economically vital heavy industries have left for places where costs are lower.

Pittsburgh had been the "Steel City" revolving around steel production, it's Canadian counterpart is Hamilton. It is home to U.S. Steel, the fabled company associated with names like Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. But, unlike too many other cities, Pittsburgh has long since successfully moved beyond that phase.

Being so based on steel, the logical name for Pittsburgh's professional football team was the Steelers. The Super Bowl is the championship game that is held once a year. At the time of this writing, the Steelers have won the Super Bowl an amazing six times.

The success of it's football team is a reflection of the same spirit and dynamism that enabled Pittsburgh to amaze the country by moving beyond the "Rust Belt" phase so quickly. When it became much less expensive to import steel, Pittsburgh essentially had it's whole economy pulled out from under it. Another city might have crashed. But this isn't another city, this is Pittsburgh.

Of course it is also known for it's bars. There are more bars per person than anywhere else.

One name that will often be seen in Pittsburgh is Mellon. The Mellon family are kind of like the Rockefellers of Pittsburgh. The logo of Mellon Bank looks like a melon being sliced with a knife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellon_Financial#/media/File:Mellonlogo.svg

This is the best place to begin a visit to Pittsburgh, Point State Park. The fountain is right where the Allegheny River meets the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River. This an obvious place for first a fort and then a city. The outlines of the French Fort Duquesne and the British Fort Pitt, for which the city is named, are in this park.

With the two rivers meeting, this is why downtown Pittsburgh is called the Golden Triangle. There are so many bridges in Pittsburgh and also tunnels through Mount Washington to the east. A number of places have spectacular views looking across at downtown.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.441824,-80.0122653,3a,75y,95.51h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPRemJliF4p7DamPcjF8eglPAJMn7NGxYidhZxF!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPRemJliF4p7DamPcjF8eglPAJMn7NGxYidhZxF%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya44.2285-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

The following scenes begin at PPG Place downtown. The glass tower of PPG is the most prominent building in downtown Pittsburgh. It was modeled on the Victoria Tower that we saw in the posting on this blog, "London".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Tower#/media/File:Victoria_Tower_from_the_south-west.jpg


https://www.google.com/maps/@40.440008,-80.0029945,3a,75y,291.29h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1stEtTIlPPMJz6CGwrO_TYdA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DtEtTIlPPMJz6CGwrO_TYdA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D297.10925%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

This is the Heinz Memorial Chapel, Pittsburgh is the home of Heinz Ketchup. It is next to the well-known Cathedral of Learning, at the University of Pittsburgh. The Cathedral of Learning holds classrooms and is that could be described as a Gothic skyscraper.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4452963,-79.9521381,3a,75y,78.46h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sSyeBa5OCwCs49YoJOSoR9Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DSyeBa5OCwCs49YoJOSoR9Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D74.98543%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

This is further from downtown Pittsburgh, the area known as Shadyside.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4597115,-79.9207736,3a,75y,173.82h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sMfXeupk1terwZHHXienJgg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DMfXeupk1terwZHHXienJgg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D175.28883%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Here is a view of downtown, from what is known as the West End Overlook.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4459249,-80.0342313,3a,75y,112.01h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s6GP1S3kvEWcnyl_ryHeDKg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D6GP1S3kvEWcnyl_ryHeDKg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D117.978516%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i3328!8i1664

Adjacent to downtown along the Allegheny River is an older district of the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4538918,-79.981261,3a,75y,26.5h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sZ6BtSNJjUB37BrqgiIz63A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DZ6BtSNJjUB37BrqgiIz63A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D20.779554%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

The section known as Allegheny West is across the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4522222,-80.0075978,3a,75y,346.57h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sqsDNd3DEsfuOuw-ZI0CpRg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DqsDNd3DEsfuOuw-ZI0CpRg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D346.56677%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Pittsburgh is not without controversy. Being in a valley where two rivers meet means that it is vulnerable to flooding when the snow melts in the spring. 180 km (110 miles) to the northeast of the city on the Allegheny River, which is one of the two rivers that meet at Pittsburgh, a dam was built across the river.

The dam is known as Kinzua Dam, in northern Pennsylvania. The dam accomplished it's objective to prevent flooding. It also generates electricity because of it's hydroelectric potential.

But the dam created a large reservoir or lake behind it. The land along the Allegheny River upstream from the dam had belonged to the native Seneca Indians. They had been given the land by George Washington, the first president of the U.S. There was an important cemetery there, and this meant that it all had to be relocated. This is a familiar story in Niagara Falls because Tuscarora Indian land had to be taken for the reservoir at the power plant there, which was built at around the same time. The following scenes are of Kinzua Dam.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8373633,-79.0045205,3a,75y,72.82h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAuYYWGyQueheeRF2qyfmpQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DAuYYWGyQueheeRF2qyfmpQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D67.45755%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Apocalyptic News

We saw in the recent posting, "The End Of The World As We Know It" June 2022, that the final series of wars in the world will begin, halfway through the reign of the Antichrist, with the invasion of Israel by an nation to the north. Moscow is due north of Israel.

We saw in that posting how the invader from the north will be allied with Persia, Libya and, Ethiopia. Last week Vladimir Putin visited Iran, which is reportedly going to sell military drones to Russia. This week the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, is making a tour of African countries. The three countries listed in the Bible may not be a complete list of the allies.

There was a downturn in Russian-Israeli relations this week as Russia began to dismantle the Jewish agency that has long facilitated immigration to Israel. This really upset the Israeli Government.

Developments This Week

In case anyone hasn't been watching democracy has really been slipping in the world. We saw this in the June 2022 posting, "Remembering What Freedom Is About". Tunisia has long been considered as the greatest democratic success story of the "Arab Spring". But this week the country approved a new constitution where, among other authoritarian changes, all police forces answer directly to the president.

Tony Dow, who played "Wally" on the late 1950s television series "Leave It To Beaver" has died. I have long thought that "Leave It To Beaver" was subtly destructive. Wally's younger brother used the nickname "Beaver" because he didn't like his real name of "Theodore".

The teenaged Wally was always good-natured and well-behaved. It was his two friends that were what was so destructive about the show. One friend was Eddie Haskell and the other was "Lumpy" Rutherford.

Eddie Haskell wasn't really bad, at least not by today's standards. But on the show he was always sneaky, mischievous and, conniving. Eddie Haskell was the "bad guy" of the show.

Why is it necessary to have a "bad guy" on the show? In any group of people there is often someone who is demonized to play the role of the "bad guy". I have seen this in real life on many occasions, someone who is not really but is made out to be bad because someone has to play the role of the "bad guy" ( or sometimes girl ) in the group or community.

Wally's other friend was "Lumpy" Rutherford. As the name implies "Lumpy", although strong and athletic, was less-than-intelligent and was apparently several years behind in school.

Of course, like a diamond against a black background, these two less-than-worthy friends make Wally seem that much better.

Wally's younger brother, "Beaver" ( Theodore ), has a friend, Larry Mondello, that is portrayed in the show as mischievous, overweight ( by the standards of the day ), less-than-intelligent, and from a dysfunctional family.

This demonization and portraying people as inherently unworthy is what helps to create people who ultimately commit mass shootings. "Leave It To Beaver" is from an era before there were guns everywhere. But if there was a version of the show in the 2020s, Eddie Haskell and "Lumpy" Rutherford might become mass shooters.

Bad and unworthy people are crutches to help a story along. It takes a really brilliant writer to create a compelling story with no bad or unworthy people. Have you noticed that no serious story has ever been written that takes place in Heaven?

Boston And New England

Boston is the main city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, and in the northeastern region of the U.S., known as New England. The settlement that developed into what is now Boston began with the Puritans. After the Reformation, conflict in England between Anglicans and Puritans drove many Puritans to just leave and cross the Ocean. We saw this conflict in the posting on this blog, "Why The U.S. And Canada Are Different".

The logical place to begin a visit to Boston is inside the iconic Fanueil Hall. This has long been considered as the focal point of Boston, and is next to the Quincy Market in the oldest part of Boston. I have always thought of Boston as being built of red brick.

Fanueil Hall, like so many of the other older buildings, are made of red brick. The Rose Kennedy Greenway has replaced a highway through Boston that was known as the Central Artery. The highway was rerouted into a tunnel in a massive project called the "Big Dig".

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.360395,-71.054775,3a,75y,103.91h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO04z6RpSlVW9Crf6R4PXVn-Sfm9C3WorBMbYrT!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO04z6RpSlVW9Crf6R4PXVn-Sfm9C3WorBMbYrT%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.5028808-ya288.36145-ro-7.4954247-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

Here is more of central Boston. The oldest city park in the U.S. is the Boston Common, and the following scenes begin there.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3527923,-71.0649402,3a,75y,42.82h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s4tkTWmJN2F996u5arjsWGg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D4tkTWmJN2F996u5arjsWGg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D34.405296%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

These images of downtown begin in the historic neighborhood known as Beacon Hill. As we might expect, Beacon Hill is made of Boston red brick.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3592563,-71.0696218,3a,75y,266.28h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1soM94_kBkflSTfkFXylhTLw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DoM94_kBkflSTfkFXylhTLw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D264.97473%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Another historic Boston neighborhood is Back Bay, known for it's Victorian brownstone homes.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3508374,-71.0849649,3a,75y,58.63h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sSqOMWwgDNj6lsTUiUTE5-A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DSqOMWwgDNj6lsTUiUTE5-A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D50.474724%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The best-known university in the U.S. is Harvard. Most of it is built in the tradition of Boston red brick.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3772878,-71.1180311,3a,75y,97.28h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sPFgxj_-bMJUXi6fBahQANQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DPFgxj_-bMJUXi6fBahQANQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D99.81592%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

If Harvard has an equal in the U.S., it is Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3186311,-72.9237139,3a,75y,110.08h,93.9t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAfX5GSO5lwO8CP1M9hNa3Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DAfX5GSO5lwO8CP1M9hNa3Q%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D108.96991%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Another neighboring city of Boston is Providence, Rhode Island. The state of Rhode Island was formed because of religious disagreements in early Massachusetts. Just as the Puritans had left England, and formed what is now Boston, because of religious disagreements, others left Massachusetts and formed Rhode Island due to religious disagreements.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8250398,-71.4110701,3a,75y,149.6h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sfopBpbu9w8UDJByuYUWPGQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DfopBpbu9w8UDJByuYUWPGQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D156.38399%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This part of the country was part of the early industrial heartland of America. One of the most important of early industrial cities is Lowell, Massachusetts. The following scenes are of the former industrial district.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6446484,-71.312724,3a,75y,239.13h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAyWHX19M0gcczF7V_RhpXg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DAyWHX19M0gcczF7V_RhpXg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D230.89902%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The best-known family from the Boston area is the Kennedys. John F. Kennedy was U.S. president until he was assassinated in 1963. His younger brother Robert "Bobby" Kennedy was campaigning for the 1968 election when he was also assassinated. There was another Kennedy brother who might have been president, Edward. He was the Democratic senator representing Massachusetts for many years.

When an incumbent president has served one term, he usually represents the party in the following election. But that is not a strict rule. I can remember the primaries for the 1980 election. Edward Kennedy was campaigning against incumbent president Jimmy Carter, and Kennedy was ahead.

But one name kept coming up. It was a name that Americans in 1980 would become very familiar with. The name was Chappaquiddick.

There is a major island off the coast of Massachusetts called Martha's Vineyard. The eastern portion is separated from the rest of the island and is connected by a bridge. It might be a tidal island that is not always separated. The eastern portion is called Chappaquiddick.

In the summer of 1969, a party was held on Chappaquiddick. After dark, Edward Kennedy drove from the party with a passenger in his car named Mary Jo Kopechne. For some reason, the car plunged off the bridge into the water. Edward Kennedy was able to escape the car and swim to shore, but Mary Jo Kopechne was not and she drowned.

Many people believe that this is why there was not a second Kennedy presidency. Jimmy Carter pulled ahead of Kennedy in the 1980 primaries, before ultimately losing the election to Ronald Reagan. Edward Kennedy never ran for president again, but continued his long career in the Senate.

Anyway, this is the infamous Dike Bridge at Chappaquiddick as well as it's peaceful setting.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3734125,-70.4535135,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPsMod-d2t7eu6pF_oNAGzqf3ti5Rf0ibAabx-j!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPsMod-d2t7eu6pF_oNAGzqf3ti5Rf0ibAabx-j%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya243.7149-ro0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

In the summer of 2002, I did a Walmart Card promotion in Rutland, Vermont. I would like to say "hello" to everyone that I met there. Hopefully, the lady from England is doing well. This blog that I am writing now is just the right color for Vermont readers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Vermont#/media/File:Vermont_2000_license_plate_CGX_308.jpg

Here is Rutland, starting at the Walmart.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6055346,-72.9798973,3a,75y,248.56h,91.52t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sbtCY1G4zt6BZjQgMpMOhPw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DbtCY1G4zt6BZjQgMpMOhPw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D163.55302%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

THE TWO KENNEDY ASSASSINATIONS

John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election and served as U.S. President until he was assassinated in 1963. There are some amazing parallels between that and the assassination of John's brother, Bobby, while he was campaigning for president in 1968.

John F. Kennedy had confronted the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in nearby Cuba. He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Communist sympathizer who had earlier defected to the Soviet Union.

Robert (Bobby) Kennedy had visited Israel just before it became independent, and was known as a supporter of it. He was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a native of Palestine who wanted to stop the giving of weapons to Israel. The assassination took place on the first anniversary of the beginning of the Six Day War.

By the way, Sirhan Sirhan was not a Moslem. He was from a Christian Arab family and had attended a Christian school. In the U.S. he had recently become a member of the Rosicrucians, an old secret society.

There is something about the assassination of John F. Kennedy that I notice but have not seen referred to anywhere. The assassination took place in Dallas. Not far away lived an eight-year-old named John Hinckley, who would one day attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan. That assassination attempt would very much resemble not the assassination of Kennedy, but of Lee Harvey Oswald. Jack Ruby waited in the garage of the police station, pretending to be a reporter, and then fired as Oswald was escorted past.

NO KENNEDY AS VICE-PRESIDENT

As for the usual rule that an incumbent president represents the party in seeking reelection after his first term, it seems that there was some behind-the-scenes dealing in the withdrawal of incumbent president Lyndon Johnson from the 1968 campaign so that a Kennedy, Bobby, could run. Of course, that ended with his assassination.

Lyndon Johnson had been John F. Kennedy's vice-president, becoming president upon John F. Kennedy's assassination and then winning reelection in 1964. He was eligible to run again in 1968 because he had not served two full terms. After the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the Democrats were ultimately represented in 1968 by Hubert Humphrey, who had been Lyndon Johnson's vice president, but he lost to Richard Nixon, who John F. Kennedy had defeated in the 1960 election.

There actually had been no vice-president from the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 to the inauguration of Lyndon Johnson, with running mate and then vice-president Hubert Humphrey, in January 1965. Why couldn't Bobby Kennedy have continued the family's legacy by being vice-president?

Bobby Kennedy just couldn't be Lyndon Johnson's vice president. A Kennedy brother had to either be president or in the Senate. They had too much pride to be anyone's vice-president. In 1968, the incumbent Lyndon Johnson had to break usual precedence and step aside so that Bobby Kennedy could run for president.

Apocalyptic Statements

This week, according to Newsweek and other news sources, Dmitry Medvedev who has served as both Russian President and Prime Minister, warned of "Judgment Day" if there is any military action taken against the Crimea Peninsula. The pending consequences were also described as "Doomsday". This fits perfectly with what we saw in the recent posting, "Inducing The Apocalypse" June 2022.

In other Apocalypse news, Vladimir Putin is visiting Iran and Iran is reported as intending to supply Russia with military drones. This fits with what we saw in the posting, "The End Of The World As We Know It" June 2022, about Iran's participation in the attack from the north on Israel which will start the final series of wars of the world.

Our Complexity Relative To Our Surroundings

I am fascinated by our higher complexity level, relative to our inanimate surroundings. But exactly how much more complex are we? 

We can readily see that we are more complex than our inanimate surroundings by the fact that there are medical textbooks. The more complex something is the more things there are that can go wrong with it. A medical textbook is a description of all that could potentially go wrong with the human body as the lower complexity, meaning containing less information, inanimate surrounding environment "tries" to pull the higher-complexity human body down to it's level.

To express how much more complex is the human body than our inanimate surroundings we have to be able to quantify complexity, which means expressing it with a number. In my theory of how information works the complexity of something is expressed as the value of the denominator when it is expressed as a fraction or ratio.

Since we are at a higher level of complexity and our surrounding inanimate environment at a lower level, the difference between the two should somehow be seen as manifested around us. That is what I want to look at today, indicators that show the difference between the two levels of complexity.

Since we are more complex, meaning more information per mass, than our surrounding inanimate environment then our bodies must be organized in ways that our surrounding environment isn't. What about the number of different systems in our bodies? Not the number of organs but the number of basic systems that work together.

In my information theory creatures with free will are at a higher level of complexity, relative to the surrounding environment. But plants are of the same complexity as the inanimate surrounding environment, containing no more information, but of much higher intricacy, meaning having more information per mass.

This means that plants are of a lower complexity than we are. Since we must eat food to sustain our higher level of complexity, since the surrounding environment is continuously "trying" to pull us back down to it's level, no single plant can sustain our higher level of complexity. 

This means that we require a variety of plants, whether directly or indirectly through meat, and the number of different plants required for a balanced diet should give us a clue as to how many times more complex we are than our surrounding inanimate environment.

We see our surrounding environment, and our interactions with it and involving it, through our own more complex perspective. This causes us to see our knowledge as falling into different categories. The number of these different categories should be an indication of how much more complex we are than our surrounding inanimate environment. This means that the number of general subjects taught in school should give us an idea of how many times more complex we are than our surrounding inanimate environment.

The same goes for the number of very broad employment categories. Since all work can be broken down to imposing our higher level of complexity on our surrounding environment the number of very broad employment categories should be a reflection of how many times more complex we are than our inanimate surroundings.

Sports involves interacting with the laws of physics of the surrounding natural environment. It thus follows that, since we are more complex than that environment, the number of very broad categories of sport should give us an idea of how many times more complex we are than our surrounding natural environment.

I also have the idea that the ratio of total door width to total wall width is an indicator of how many times more complex we are than our surrounding inanimate environment. We build structures to shield us from our surrounding environment because we are more complex than it is. But yet there has to be doorways for us to go in and out of our structures. The more complex we are the more space we will require, and the more space we will find it worthwhile to seal off from the surrounding environment. 

This means that, very roughly, the ratio of the total width of walls, interior and exterior, to the ratio of door width, including entranceways where there isn't a door, should indicate how much more complex we are than our natural surroundings.

Then we might consider the number of different rooms in a typical house. Each room serves a different purpose. The house serves as a frontier between us and our surrounding environment. Therefore the more complex we are relative to that environment the more different rooms there should be in a house.

Considering all of these examples here my conclusion is that we are roughly eight times as complex as our surrounding inanimate environment. The inanimate environment only ultimately has electric charges with which to store information, while living things have another dimension of information in DNA.

The Vital Importance Of Supernova In Exoplanets

There has been a lot in the news lately about how the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to discover many more exoplanets, and then examine them much more closely than was ever possible before. These are planets in other solar systems.

This posting is part of the compound posting, "The Configuration Of The Solar System Made Really Simple".

It seems to be taken for granted by some that there will automatically be water wherever a solar system forms. But this is not necessarily the case. It all depends on the supernova that formed the solar system.

All solar systems, meaning planets in orbit around a star, form because of the explosion of a star in a supernova. A star forms when enough matter comes together by gravity to overcome the electron repulsion that keeps atoms apart. Smaller atoms are crunched together into larger ones. The new larger atom has less overall internal energy than the smaller atoms which were crunched together to form it. This leftover energy is released as radiation and is why stars shine.

The star is an equilibrium between the inward force of gravity and the outward pressure of this energy released by fusion. As time goes on successively larger atoms are fused together in the center of the star. This upsets the equilibrium with more outward pressure.

The new imbalance in the equilibrium may cause the star to blast off it's outer layers, which would reduce the gravitational pressure driving fusion and thus restore the original equilibrium, or even to explode altogether from the center. This occurs only in the largest stars, with the greatest inward gravitational pressure. I define a nova as a blasting off of the outer layers of the star and a supernova as the star exploding from the center.

Our Solar System formed when a large star exploded in a supernova. Some of it's matter fell back together by gravity to form our sun and planets, but the sun is nowhere near as large as the previous star that exploded. We know that the sun is such a second-generation star because it contains heavy elements that are beyond it's current stage in the fusion process.

All energy on earth that is not solar or nuclear fusion came from this exploded star. Tidal energy is from the energy of the mass that was thrown outward by the supernova and coalesced by gravity to form the planets and moon. Nuclear fission energy comes from the heavy unstable elements that were put together from lighter atoms by the energy released by the supernova, this applies to nuclear fission and the radioactive decay that produces heat inside the earth but not to fusion energy generated on earth. Hydrogen on earth is usually diatomic, two atoms bonded together, when we burn hydrogen as fuel we are releasing the energy of that bond that was put together by a nova from the previous star that ultimately exploded in a supernova. Furthermore this previous star is so important to us because every atom in our bodies was once part of it.

Ordinary fusion of atoms in stars only goes as far as iron, because it takes more energy to break an iron atom apart than is released when it fuses. This is known as the S-process of fusion, for "slow". There is also the R-process, for "rapid".

Fusion by the R-process only takes place during the brief time that the star is actually exploding in the supernova, by the tremendous energy being released. The R-process is how all elements heavier than iron form. This is why iron and lighter elements are exponentially more common than the heavier elements. Some of the R-process elements are less-than-stable and gradually give off particles or radiation in order to reach a more stable condition. These emissions are known as radioactivity.

My theory is that the previous star underwent three nova, blasting off of the outer layers, before exploding from the center as a supernova. But I am absolutely certain that it underwent at least one nova.

A nova is a much-less powerful explosion than a supernova. A supernova releases such energy that it actually fuses atoms together into heavy elements that wouldn't have formed otherwise. A nova, in contrast, fuses the lighter atoms that are naturally found in a star's outer layers into molecules. This is how common light molecules like water, ammonia, methane and, diatomic hydrogen form.

This is why I conclude that there were three nova in the life of the previous star, before it finally exploded from the center in a supernova. Comets are formed of ices of light molecules, including water. The water on earth came from one or more comets. This explains why our Solar System has two distinct zones of comets, the far distant Oort Cloud and the nearer Kuiper Belt. The matter thrown out by the first nova would have been thrown further because it had a higher starting point. I conclude that the third nova threw the light molecules outward that formed the ammonia and methane that is so abundant in the outer planets of our Solar System.

Finally the previous star exploded from the center as a supernova. Some of the matter fell back together by gravity to form the sun. Some of the heavier rocky and metallic material remained in orbit around the sun. This is what forms the inner planets and the cores of the outer planets.

So what about the exoplanets, in orbits around distant stars, that are being discovered? We know that the only way that solar systems form, including ours, is from a large star that exploded in a supernova. But we see here that there was most likely three nova before our previous star exploded in the supernova that formed our Solar System. The supernovas that formed other solar systems may have unfolded quite differently than ours, and that is what I see as so important here.

We seem to take it for granted that there must be water in these faraway solar systems. But that may not be so. I see water molecules being put together by the energy released by a nova which preceded our previous star's supernova. What if a solar system formed by a star that just exploded in a supernova, without any preceding nova? Water would likely not exist.

Even if there were one or more nova preceding the supernova the molecules that it's energy put together from the light atoms in the outer layers of the star may not have come together at all like it did in our Solar System. In our case, large amounts of water, ammonia and, methane were formed by nova. But completely different molecules may have formed in other solar systems, even if the formation process was similar.

One thing that we can be reasonably sure of is that, if we find large planets of relatively low density, there surely was one or more nova before the supernova in the previous star of that solar system. A nova is what forms the molecules from light atoms that would produce such a low-density planet. A Neptune-like exoplanet was in the news and we can be sure that nova were necessary for it's formation, before the final supernova.

The major components of our atmosphere are nitrogen and oxygen, both of which are diatomic or consisting of two atoms bonded together. Having two atoms bonded together makes the nitrogen and oxygen heavier than it would be otherwise. There is energy in this diatomic bond and it comes from one of the nova that preceded the supernova that formed our Solar System. Hydrogen is also diatomic, for the same reason, and when we burn it as fuel we are releasing the energy of that nova. Without the weight of the two atoms together the earth's gravity may not be strong enough to hold onto it and we might not have our atmosphere as we know it.

Aside from nova the necessary supernova to form a solar system may not have turned out exactly the same as the one that formed our Solar System. In our Periodic Table there are 92 naturally-occurring elements, number 92 being uranium. But there may be more or fewer elements in other solar systems, although their relative proportions would likely be similar to ours. Scientists can create a number of elements in the laboratory that are heavier than uranium and do not occur naturally in our Solar System, even if they are radioactive and may only last for a fraction of a second. As for isotopes of the elements, the possibly varying number of neutrons in the same element, each element would likely have much the same isotopes although their relative proportions may be much different.

The most important factor in how faraway solar systems may differ from ours is how the supernova that must have formed it played out, and were there nova, a blasting off of the outer layers of the star, that preceded the supernova? If the exploding star that formed our Solar System had just been a supernova, with no preceding nova, the planets would likely be rocky and metallic, like the inner planets, without the large amounts of ammonia and methane that make up most of the giant outer planets.

I concluded that salt, sodium chloride, is another light molecule that was formed by a nova in the previous star. That is why salt and water are always associated together on earth, the two arrived on earth in the same comet.

The compound posting about the entire story of how the Solar System came to be is through the following link:

https://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-configuration-of-solar-system-made.html?m=0

Sri Lanka

With regard to the overthrow of the Rajapaksa Dynasty, in Sri Lankan politics, is anyone concerned about the supply of tea? Sri Lanka produces quite a bit of the world's tea. Tea is life.

Sri Lanka is the island nation, shaped like a teardrop, just off the southeast tip of India. The world atlas that I had when I was a boy had it's name as Ceylon. It's ancient name was Serendip. The name was changed to Sri Lanka in 1972.

The island is very centrally located for trade, and for the conduit of new ideas. The majority group in Sri Lanka today are the Sinhalese and are Buddhist. But the population is about 15% Hindu Tamils. There are also minorities of Moslems and Christians.

Prince Vijaya is said to have been the first king of the island, in the Sixth Century B.C. He is believed to have arrived from India with a large group of followers.

Around 250 B.C. Mahinda, a son of the Indian emperor Ashoka, arrived with the message of Buddhism. Ashoka was known for his devotion to Buddhism. We do not usually think of India as a Buddhist country today, but it is actually the homeland of Buddhism and the circle on the Indian flag is the wheel of Buddhism. The wheel is named for Ashoka.

The island of Sri Lanka was not always united. There was the Jaffna Kingdom in the north and the Kingdom of Kandy was the last Sinhalese monarchy.

Anuradhapura was the capital of the island for about 1400 years.

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Jayawardene Pura is the capital area of Sri Lanka's largest city of Colombo. It has been a good harbor since ancient times, and a useful place for ships crossing the Indian Ocean to stop.

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Independence Square is the center of Colombo. The square is named for Sri Lanka's independence in 1948.

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This is the World Trade Center in the business center of Colombo.

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The Temple of the Sacred Tooth, in the city of Kandy, holds a tooth that is claimed to be from the Buddha. Kandy is in the central part of the island.  The tooth indicated rule of the Kingdom and the Temple was within the complex of the former Royal Palace.

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This is central Kandy. It is a medieval city that was once the capital of the island. The capital was moved to Colombo during the colonial era, as it is on the coast and faces toward Europe.

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The island is famous for Ceylon Tea. During colonial days, Ceylon was the British name for the island. Tea is grown especially in the central highlands but there are other varieties of tea grown elsewhere.

One of the best-known brands in the world is Lipton Tea. If all of the Lipton Tea that I have ever had was put together, it would surely fill a sea.

Sri Lanka was once known for coffee production. An agriculturalist named James Taylor though of bringing tea to the island. A fellow Scot named Thomas Lipton marketed the product and now it is a global name.

This is Sri Lanka's tea-growing country.

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Tamils arrived in Sri Lanka from India around the Third Century B.C. Unlike the Sinhalese Buddhists, the Tamils are Hindu by religion.

Nallur, within the northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna, was the medieval capital of the Jaffna Kingdom.

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Jaffna Fort was a colonial-era fort, built in the Seventeenth Century. It was first Portuguese, then Dutch, then British. It is in the far-northern part of the island.

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Jaffna, in the north of Sri Lanka, was the center of the Tamil population of the island, with their religion of Hinduism. Kandy is a Sinhalese center, with the Buddhist religion.

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There used to be harmony between Tamils and Sinhalese, but relations deteriorated after independence in 1948. The Tamils, in the north and east of the country around Jaffna, demanded an independent homeland to be called Tamil Eelam. "Eelam" being the old Tamil name for the island. It could be called an effort to revive the Jaffna Kingdom.

A military group called the "Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam" was formed, usually abbreviated as LTTE. As anyone who has followed the news for the past few decades knows, what followed was a very nasty 26-year civil war, lasting from 1983 to the final victory of the Sri Lankan Army over LTTE in 2009.

India had peacekeepers in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1990. The city of Jaffna suffered especially heavily during the civil war. The city was held by LTTE. Indian peacekeepers temporarily took back control of the city. The Sri Lankan Army finally regained control of the city in the mid-1990s.

Whether or not LTTE is a terrorist group depends, of course, on one's perspective. But it was very effective, in military terms, and has been studied by similar groups across the world.

Rajiv, Gandhi was the prime minister who sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka's Civil War. He was the son of Indira Gandhi, who had been assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 due to another conflict. The Gandhis of Indian politics were not related to Mahatma Gandhi, the hero of India's 1947 independence. India Gandhi was the daughter of the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. She happened to marry a man named Gandhi, but the name probably didn't hurt her political career and the family's Congress Party used to really dominate the politics of the country.

In 1991, after the Indian peacekeepers had been withdrawn from Sri Lanka, Rajiv Gandhi was campaigning near Chennai. A crowd was there to greet him. A teenage girl got close to him and bowed as a greeting, but she had a bomb concealed in her clothing. It turned out that the girl was a supporter of the Tamil Tigers.

The Rajiv Gandhi Memorial is on the site, in southern India, where Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, because of the Indian Peacekeeping force that was sent to Sri Lanka during it's Civil War.

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Washington D.C.

Washington D.C. was especially built as America's capital city because, at the time it was built, it was roughly centered between the northern and the southern states. Land was taken from both Maryland and Virginia for the new national capital. The D.C. is an abbreviation for District of Columbia. This district was created so that the capital city is not in any state, and is also not a state unto itself. Washington has a mayor while the District of Columbia does not have a governor, since it is not a state, but is run by a council.

The selection of the site for Washington D.C is very reminiscent of King David selecting Jerusalem as his capital because of it's central location and lack of connection to any one tribe. Ottawa follows the same principal as being between French- and English-speaking regions. In a similar way, Canberra was specially built as the capital of Australia as a compromise halfway between the two major cities of Sydney and Melbourne, neither of which was about to agree to the other being the capital.

The original designer of the city was Charles L'Enfant, a Frenchman, and it is easy to see how the layout of the city resembles that of Paris. The Mall being equivalent to the Champs Elysees, the Washington Monument to the obelisk in Place Concorde and the diagonal streets linking squares in the city.

George Washington replaced Charles L'Enfant with Andrew Ellicott, as the main planner of the city. He was the brother of Joseph Ellicott, who designed cities such as Buffalo and Batavia and whose name is all over western New York State, but who unfortunately suffered from mental illness.

The street pattern of Washington is divided into four quadrants by compass direction. The center is the Capitol Building. East-west streets are named with letters. North-south streets are named with numbers. Then there are diagonal avenues superimposed on the grid pattern that are often named for states. The two best-known of these avenues is Pennsylvania Avenue, which runs from the White House to the Capitol, and Massachusetts Avenue, where "Embassy Row" is located.

We saw the dome of the Capitol Building, America's legislature, and the White House on the travel photos blog of North America. These represent two of the three branches of the U.S. Government. The executive branch is the president, who lives in the White House. The legislative branch is the Congress, which meets in the Capitol Building. The third branch is judicial, the top of which is the Supreme Court.

The Congress is bicameral, meaning that it has an upper and a lower house. The upper house is the Senate, each of the fifty U.S. states has two senators, one from each of the two main parties. The number of seats that a state has in the lower house, the House of Representatives, depends on it's population.

This is the dome of the Capitol Building. The statue is of former president James Garfield.

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Here is the White House. This side of the White House, facing south toward the Washington Monument, is actually the back. There is room for a helicopter to land. The front of the White House, with the columns and the triangular pediment, faces north.

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The first of the following scenes is looking along the National Mall, with the Second World War Memorial in one direction and the obelisk of the Washington Monument in the opposite direction. The Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world until the Eiffel Tower, which was built by the same designer that gave the U.S. the Statue of Liberty.

Two prominent presidents have memorials made of white stone with columns. The Thomas Jefferson Memorial is circular, with a dome, and at water's edge. The Abraham Lincoln Memorial is similar, but is rectangular and is at the end of the Reflecting Pool along the National Mall.

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The following scenes begin inside the White House. The adjacent Eisenhower Executive Building, just west of the White House, holds a lot of government offices. The Treasury Building is on the east side of the White House. Remember that the north-facing side of the White House with the triangular pediment supported by four columns is actually the front.

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This is the Lincoln Memorial, at the end of the National Mall and Reflecting Pool with the Washington Monument in the opposite direction. This is where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963.

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The Smithsonian is an organization which operates a number of museums. The best-known of the Smithsonian network is the Air and Space Museum.

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The eastern end of the National Mall is the Capitol Building. Just east of that, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Library of Congress, America's national library, are across the street from each other. The first of the following scenes begins there. The first building that you see is the Library of Congress. The white building across the street is the Supreme Court. in the Capitol Building south of the dome is where the lower house, the House of Representatives meets, north of the dome is where the Senate meets. Did you know that the dome of the Capitol looks like it's made of stone, but it isn't?

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Democracy doesn't always work smoothly. But the ideal is that no one is special or above the law. What America's Watergate Scandal showed is that the leader of the country, the president, has to obey the laws just like everybody else. The same law is to be written down for everyone.

The modern complex of buildings in the following scenes, with the curved facades, is the Watergate Complex. This is where a burglary took place in June 1972 in an effort to get information on the Democrat National Committee, which had it's headquarters in the complex. The root of it was the obsession with Cuba. Several of the burglars, sent by the Republicans, had ties to the anti-Castro movement among Cubans and were apparently looking for evidence that the Democrats were receiving funds from, or had ties to, Cuban Communists.

The building had doors that were latched so that they opened from the inside but not the outside. Someone put tape over the latches so that they could reenter the building at night from the outside. A security guard removed the tape but then later noticed that someone had replaced it, and called police.

Five burglars were caught and the ensuing effort to cover it up brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. What was so absurd about it was that Nixon won the 1972 election, getting reelected to his second term, in an absolute landslide. Any such sneaky effort to find out information about their opponents was completely unnecessary. Journalists exposed it and it made the journalism profession very highly respected.

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This is America's National Cathedral. It looks like one of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe although, of course, it isn't as old. The denomination of the cathedral is Episcopal. This is an American denomination formed after America separated from Britain.

The Anglican Church was formed, as one of the four main branches of the Reformation, as an attempt at compromising between Calvinistic Puritanical Protestants and Catholics. It kept some of the form and liturgy of the Catholic Church. But it didn't please everybody, some Protestants wanted nothing to do with anything that even resembled Catholicism. Many of these were the Pilgrims and Puritans who left to form their own society in Massachusetts.

The Anglican Church was widespread in the American colonies. But when America became independent, it's Anglican Church was cut off from outside, and it was renamed the Episcopal Church. But the Episcopal Church has since rejoined the global Anglican network, known as the Anglican Communion. In a similar way, there are the "Southern Baptists" because the Baptists split at the time of the U.S. Civil War, and have never gotten back together.

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Massachusetts Avenue NW is the famed "Embassy Row". Remember how the grid of the city has east-west streets named with letters and north-south streets named with numbers, and the diagonal avenues usually named for U.S. states. The following scenes begin outside the Embassies of India and Turkey. Embassies used to really decorate themselves in the way of the host country. But now the tendency seems to keep a lower profile.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9165256,-77.0566629,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sUnMbiYjjYN_w55yqqMw2JQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DUnMbiYjjYN_w55yqqMw2JQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D132.6001%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

South of the Potomac River is Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon. This is America's national cemetery and the headquarters of it's military. The first of the following scenes is from the highway between the cemetery and the Pentagon.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8716325,-77.0593425,3a,75y,110.96h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sLRjwNWn-OvnvEbErVAKb8Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DLRjwNWn-OvnvEbErVAKb8Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D116.20371%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

Washington D.C. isn't all about the U.S. Government. It is also a city where ordinary people live. Following is an everyday neighborhood of Washington.

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The Biological Relativity Of Time

This is not about Einstein's Relativity. There is another kind of relativity of time that does not get much attention. It could be described as the perception of how quickly, or how slowly, time passes. We tend to consider time as somewhat fixed but it is actually entirely relative.

Since the rate of falling by gravity is constant near the earth's surface, 32 feet or 9.8 meters per second squared, we can use this as an example of Biological Time Relativity. We perceive objects as falling at a certain rate, but this is very relative and dependent on our biological processes. 

There could be a creature whose internal biological processes move much faster than ours. The creature might live only a few weeks, by our perspective, but might see it's own lifespan as lasting what we perceive of as a hundred years. We would see the creature as moving extremely fast, while it would see us as moving extremely slow. 

The creature would see raindrops as suspended in the air like stars, and moving toward the earth's surface only very, very slowly. It would see the water in rivers as moving at a glacial pace, like we see slowly-moving ice floes. Though we would see it's lifespan as very short, it would see itself as living for a long time. The laws of physics wouldn't be different but everything would move much more slowly, because the biological perception of time is relative.

On the other hand there could be a creature whose biological processes moved much more slowly than ours. We might not even be aware of it as a living thing. The creature would only catch fleeting glimpses of us as we sped by. Night and day would seem like a flashing light show. Winter and summer would seem like the warmer and cooler parts of a day. But the very fast-moving universe all around would seem just as normal to it as our view does to us.

What it comes down to is the rate at which the creature's internal biological processes operate. What about what we consider as a "moment"? A moment has no exact definition but is the shortest fragment of time during ordinary thinking.

How about a "second"? A second is our shortest named interval of time. A second is roughly the same thing as a "moment", although a second is officially defined while a moment isn't. What is interesting about a second is that it isn't based on any natural process. Despite it's importance a second is an apparently arbitrary unit of time.

But what about our heartbeat? The heartbeat of the average fit younger person is about a second. It makes sense that our heartbeat ultimately defines time for us because it is the pace of our heartbeat that drives our biological processes, and thus our perception of time. Notice how our pace of breathing, whether during exertion or at rest, roughly corresponds to our heartbeat.

The rate that our heart has to beat to sustain life ultimately depends on the laws of physics, relative to our scale. But this means that other creatures might have completely different perceptions of the biological relativity of time than we do. If our heartbeat was faster we would see the world around us as moving slower, and if our heartbeat was slower we would see it as moving faster, although the laws of physics would be the same.

The same concept, of course, applies to distance as well as to time. We consider atoms as being extremely tiny and electrons as nearly infinitesimal. But that is just as much a matter of perspective, because we are made of atoms, as time. From another point of view atoms are on the scale of the entire Solar System, as we see it now, and electrons are as big as we perceive the moon.

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maryland. The pre-independence history of America usually revolves around Puritans and Anglicans. But Maryland was an area that was set aside for Catholics, hence the name of the state, and Baltimore has the oldest Catholic cathedral in the U.S. In the days of immigration to America by ship, not all landed at Ellis Island. Many immigrants arrived in Baltimore.

A good place to begin our visit to Baltimore is downtown at the Lexington Market.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

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These views of downtown Baltimore begin at the base of the Emerson Bromo Seltzer Clock Tower. Possibly the best known sports team in America is baseball's Baltimore Orioles. The first time I heard of Baltimore was in conjunction with baseball. Certainly the most famous name in baseball is Babe Ruth, who was a native of Baltimore.

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The Phoenix Shot Tower, where gunshot is made simply by dropping molten metal from a height so that it falls into water and quenches, was once the tallest structure in the U.S. An old red brick power plant has been redeveloped for other uses.

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One of the names most associated with Baltimore today is Johns Hopkins, primarily a university and associated medical center. Johns Hopkins was a wealthy, and very generous, Nineteenth-Century philanthropist. This is Johns Hopkins University. It is one of those universities that actually "looks like a university".

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Baltimore is a city of many distinct neighborhoods. The following scenes begin in Mount Vernon, north of downtown. The monument on the column is in honor of George Washington.

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America's national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner", is about Baltimore's Fort McHenry. There was a large U.S. flag flying over the fort. British ships bombarded the fort with rockets throughout the night. But when morning came, the flag was still there. That was taken as an omen that America was here to stay.

America has fireworks displays on July 4th, a celebration of it's Independence Day in 1776. The fireworks represent the rockets that were launched at the fort. But this bombardment actually took place during the War of 1812, not America's War of Independence.

What became the national anthem was first written as a poem, by Francis Scott Key. It was actually made into a song by England's John Stafford Smith, from my native Gloucestershire. There is a memorial of him today in Gloucester Cathedral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stafford_Smith#/media/File:JohnStaffordSmith01.jpg

This is Fort McHenry.

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Here is some of everyday Baltimore, the area known as Midtown.

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Baltimore has row houses that resemble those in Philadelphia. This area is Charles Hill.

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ATLANTIC CITY

There is another place that I wanted to add to these visits but it is not a big enough city to justify a full visit. So I will add a look at it here. Atlantic City is a resort. It is not near Baltimore but is on the coast of New Jersey. The people are walking on the famous Boardwalk.

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Remembering The Solstice Gap

We have recently passed the longest day of the year, June 21, and the day when the earth is furthest from the sun, July 4. According to celestial mechanics the two should align. But they don't, there is a two-week gap between the two dates.

The reason, which I had never seen explained, is that the earth moves faster in it's orbit when it is closer to the sun. The earth turns at a constant rate, 24 hours, but it doesn't move around the sun at a constant rate. The result is what I refer to as the "Solstice Gap".

Here is a link to the original posting:

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-solstice-gap.html?m=0

America's Old West

With guns being such an issue in America let's have a look at it's old west. I believed that the fabled "Shootout at the O.K. Corall" was a nascent war of independence for the American West, although I have never seen it described or defined as such. The shootout was over the right to carry guns, and when the establishment side emerged victorious it ensured that these territories would one day be part of the United States. 

Here is a link to "The Would-Have-Been Nation Of Westland":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-would-have-been-nation-of-westland.html?m=0