Brussels

Brussels, the capital and largest city of Belgium, is also the headquarters of the European Union. It is a very old city. Belgium has been ruled by the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and, France, before gaining independence from the Netherlands in 1830 to become an independent country.

Belgium separated from the Netherlands primarily because of religion, so that it could remain Catholic. Belgium is split by language. The northern part of the country, known as Flanders, primarily speaks Dutch. The southern part, known as Wallonia, primarily speaks French. Brussels is actually within the Dutch-speaking area, but French has gradually become the daily language.

One of the first things that comes to mind about Belgium is beer. My impression is that beer is to Belgium as wine is to France. There are a myriad of dark beers and light beers, and Belgians have well-established routines as to which beer is appropriate for any given moment.

If the southern part of Belgium speaks French, then why didn't is just join neighboring France? The answer could be the old beer vs. wine conflict. Belgium drinks beer and France drinks wine. Further east why should Austria, which speaks German, be separate from Germany? Could part of the reason be that Austria drinks wine while Germans drink beer with that grand celebration of beer, Oktoberfest, being held in neighboring Bavaria?

The famous square at the center of Brussels, with the medieval guild halls, is called Grand Place. It began as a marketplace in the Middle Ages. If there is a more attractive city square in the world, I cannot imagine what it is.

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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Place Royale is where the former medieval Palace of Coudenberg was located. There are many museums today as well as the Belgian Royal Palace.

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But Laeken is where the Belgian royal family lives today.

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Brussels' version of Notre Dame Cathedral is the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.

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The Congress Column is in memory of Belgian independence. What is now Belgium used to be the southern part of the Netherlands. But earlier Spanish control had lasted longer in the southern area and that contributed to it being more Catholic than the Protestant northern part of the Netherlands. An opera inspired the Catholic south to rebel, in 1830, to form the separate nation of Belgium. This revolution took place just after the July Revolution, in France, in which the House of Bourbon was replaced by the cadet House of Orleans. The Netherlands had earlier broken away from Spanish control to become the Dutch Republic, in 1531.

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The National Basilica of the Sacred Heart is Belgium's version of Paris' Sacre Coeur.

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This is the Cinquantenaire Arch, where many museums are located.

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The molecular of an iron crystal, the Atomium, was built for the 1958 Expo in Brussels.

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This is the modern central business district of Brussels.

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This is a residential area of Brussels.

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Here is another residential area, further from the city center.

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The Perpetual Motion Paradox

A basic fact of technology and physics is that a perpetual motion machine is impossible. Perpetual motion simply means that a device keeps going indefinitely, with no additional input of energy. No one has ever succeeded in building a perpetual motion machine and patent applications for any such machine are generally not accepted.

But yet perpetual motion is all around us. The earth keeps rotating, as it has for billions of years, without any input of energy. The sunlight falling on the earth has nothing to do with it's rotation. The earth revolving around the sun once a year is another example of perpetual motion. In fact every orbit and rotation in the universe, including that of galaxies, is perpetual motion.

Newton's Law of Motion that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion, until acted on by an outside force, supports perpetual motion. The universe literally runs on perpetual motion, so how can it be impossible?

The concept of perpetual motion is actually about information. The amount of information, in other words complexity.

What counts is that humans are at a higher level of complexity than our inanimate surroundings. When we construct any technology we are taking materials from our inanimate surroundings and imposing our own complexity on them.

Another basic rule of physics is that energy can never be created or destroyed, but only changed in form. This sounds like, once we have used energy in one from, we should be able to reuse it in another form. It would be wonderful if, given the price of fuel, once energy had been expended to run a vehicle, it could then be used for something else. But unfortunately that is not the case.

In order to understand why we can't reuse energy, as the rule that energy can never be created or destroyed but only changed in form makes it sound as if we should, think of our higher level of complexity as being a "cliff" above the level of our inanimate surroundings. 

The rule applies only to energy in the inanimate surroundings. When we build technology we are imposing our higher level of complexity on our surroundings so that our technology is at the same higher level of complexity as we are. All energy ultimately comes from the inanimate surroundings. We cannot create energy as the rule states. Once we have used energy, such as to run a car, the energy "falls off the cliff", returning to the inanimate surroundings and we cannot readily get it back in a form that is useful to us.

This is why perpetual motion is all around us but we cannot make use of it in our own technology. We are at a higher level of complexity, relative to our inanimate surroundings. When we create technology we are imposing our own complexity on materials from our inanimate surroundings. Our higher level of complexity can be compared to a cliff. Once we have used energy, in our technology or our own bodies, the energy "falls off the cliff" and we cannot reuse it, even though the scientific rule that "energy can never be created or destroyed but only changed in form" seems to indicate that we should be able to.

It would be a preferred lower energy state if we were at the same level of complexity as our inanimate surroundings. Our inanimate surroundings is always "trying" to pull us back down to it's level. We need basics such as food, clothing and, shelter to maintain our higher level of complexity. Upon death our inanimate surroundings have finally succeeded at bringing us back down.

All technology is at the same level of technology that we are. Each example of technology has an inner and an outer component. The two components always add up to our level of complexity. A car seems to be much more complex than a cup but the cup has more of an outer component. A cup appears simple but to really understand it we have to understand why the human body would need a cup to drink and how we would hold and drink from the cup.

It makes no sense for us to have a higher level of complexity than our surroundings unless we also have free will. Making use of free will requires that we have senses, and the ability to move and react to what our senses tell us.

Living things can be at the same level of complexity as our inanimate surroundings so that they do not require free will. These are plants. But plants must be far more intricate than our inanimate surroundings, meaning more complexity per mass, because the inanimate surroundings, by it's very definition, do not have the complexity to sustain life.

An inanimate object, such as a rock, does not have definable dimensions, no top or bottom or front or back. A plant has one definable dimension, a top and a bottom but not a front and back. A living thing with free will has both a top and a bottom and a front and back. We cannot imagine a living thing as much more complex than we are as we are more complex than a plant. But if there was it would have a definable difference from side to side.

Our brains are more complex than our bodies. If they weren't we wouldn't be able to recognize each other. Notice that our brains have a side-to-side definition, the left brain and right brain, while our bodies don't.

Supermarket Strategy

With the cost of food still too high let's review supermarket strategy to separate you from your money. Although the high prices are not, in this case, the fault of the supermarket.

Our governments are raising interest rates, in an effort to control inflation. This slows the economy down by making borrowing more expensive. But banks are in the business of loaning money and this strategy can be harmful. As of this writing two banks in California and Switzerland's best-known bank have had to be rescued.

Governments are raising interest rates to control inflation but workers are demanding pay raises to keep up with inflation. It is pay raises, without a corresponding increase in production, that does so much to drive inflation.

Products must be transported to the stores so when the price of fuel gets high it makes everything else expensive. Diesel fuel is really expensive now. The issue is not a shortage of oil but a shortage of refinery capacity. But with all the discussion about electric vehicles on the horizon, why would oil companies invest in building new refineries?

A major reason for the increase in prices is that we are becoming more of a service economy, due to the retirement of the Baby Boomers and the work of taking care of them. In a service economy both wages and prices tend to be higher than if the vast majority of workers were engaged in actually making something. We saw this in "Demographics And Economics" December 2022.

But even so, supermarkets are trying to get as much money as possible out of us.

The local supermarket exists to provide food and other daily products for the community that it serves. Thus, we could say that the market has a harmonious relationship with the surrounding community.

But when a shopper enters the supermarket, an adversarial relationship forms on a deeper level. The goal of most shoppers is to obtain the sought for items from the supermarket for as little money as possible. The goal of the owners and managers of the supermarket are just the opposite, they wants the shopper to leave behind as much money as possible on the shopping trip.

I am really impressed with the planning and strategy that have obviously gone into the design of supermarkets to achieve their goals in this underlying competition with the shoppers. I notice that almost always, a cafe where customers can get freshly cooked food to eat there will be near the entrance to the supermarket, if the store has a cafe or take-out.

I believe that this is not so much to draw shoppers away from their shopping to eat there, but for the scent of delicious cooked food that it provides. It is well-known that shoppers spend more, on average, if they shop when hungry. The in-store cafe near the entrance to the store is to stimulate hunger by the scent and sight of cooked food.

Also near the entrance to the store will be the produce section. It would seem to make sense to locate produce next to the frozen aisle because most produce remains fresh for longer if kept cool. The reason it is not done that way is strategy.

The sight of green vegetables has a relaxing and refreshing effect on people. Somewhat like taking a break from the stress of the city by a walk in the park. I notice that even though we know that people do not eat enough vegetables, the stores usually take great pains to make an abundance of crisp green leaves very visible to shoppers passing through the produce section near the beginning of the store.

If the store sells flowers or house plants, those will nearly always be located near to the entrance to the store for the same reason. The whole idea of this is to get shoppers to relax and let their guards down a little, without realizing it, before moving on to the rest of the supermarket.

Now that the store has done what it can to get shoppers softened up and ready to spend, we come to the most important zone in the store's strategic plan, the impulse zone. I have noticed that as soon as shoppers are "prepped" by the produce section and in-store cafe, they move into a zone that is stacked with those products, mostly food, that customers are most likely to buy impulsively. It is important to have the impulse zone not too far from the beginning of the store so that shoppers have not yet begun to worry about how much money they are spending.

In this zone, shoppers are surrounded by appealing products that are not too expensive and are quick and easy to prepare and eat. This is also the zone in which people are most likely to buy things that they do not really need, which is what the store's owners want them to do. This could be referred to as the store's "inner impulse zone" or "impulse zone A".

As we move beyond this zone in a large supermarket, we move into another impulse zone stacked with products that are a little less impulsive than the first part of the impulse zone. This is where canned foods are likely to be located. There is still some impulse factor in the purchase of these goods, but they are more difficult to open, prepare and, eat than those, mostly boxed, products in the inner impulse zone. I notice that goods located in the outer impulse zone usually require some kind of cooking or baking before eating, while those in the inner impulse zone usually do not.

There are usually some "special impulse displays" located around the impulse zone area. These will be counters with products such as imported cheeses. Comparison shoppers would usually not buy such products because local mass-produced cheese is so much less expensive. The store tries to use visual appeal and location to get shoppers to buy. It also helps if such displays are located close to the scent of the in-store cafe and, of course, must be located not too far from the entrance to the store so customers encounter the display before they become concerned about how much money they are spending.

Next comes what I will call the "central zone". This is a non-strategic section that contains specialty products that are usually not bought impulsively such as beauty products and vitamins. If the store has a pharmacy, it will usually be in the central zone that is not part of the store's impulse strategy. Specialty books and magazines are usually located in this zone. School supplies may also be found here.

After the central zone comes what I will call the "utility zone". By this point in the store, shoppers may have begun to worry about how much money they are spending. This zone contains non-food products that are rarely bought on impulse such as detergents, garbage bags, pet supplies, paper towels and, automotive products. Toys may also be found here, although I am certain that stores evaluate the proportion of their shoppers who bring children shopping and if it is high enough, will place toys closer to the impulse zone.

The rest of the store consists of what I have termed "staple zones". These zones sell food staples such as meats, fish, bread and, dairy products. One reason that staple zones are kept separate from the rest of the store is that impulse is much less a factor here. Staples are products that people are going to buy anyway. Shoppers do not buy milk and eggs impulsively but will buy a certain amount of them regardless.

But always notice that exceptional products, such as expensive imported cheeses, are kept far away from the dairy aisle in the impulse zone. So is bottled, ready-to-drink milk. In my local store, I once noticed that small bottles of milk, located in a cooler near the impulse zone, cost more than the two liter cartons in the dairy aisle.

There is one important exception to staple zones that I notice. It is products such as salt, sugar, coffee and, tea. These are usually mixed into the impulse zone. At first, this may seem unusual because these are staples and probably not too impulse-oriented. But then it becomes clear that these compact staple products, which are bought by almost all shoppers, serve to draw people into the impulse zone without taking up too much valuable shelf space. If those staples are on a shopper's list, it means that the shopper cannot avoid passing through the impulse zone.

The frozen aisle is not actually a staple zone since it contains a wide variety of products. The reason that it is almost always located in the non-strategic second half of the store is that the storage and preparation requirements of frozen foods make impulse-buying much less of a factor.

Supermarket planners must know that there is a very big difference between the first and second halves of a store. In the first, shoppers feel more refreshed and have not yet developed concern about how much money they are spending. In the second half, some may have grown tired and many have begun to worry about how much they are spending. I cannot recall ever being in a supermarket that is not built around this principle.

Now we come to the checkouts. We find ourselves suddenly back in the impulse zone. In fact the checkout aisles, the final part of the shopping trip, is the most intensive impulse zone in the store.

Store planners must consider a checkout aisle like a vise, a final chance to squeeze as much money as possible out of the shopper. Notice that general interest magazines and tabloids are rarely located in the book and magazine section, they are almost always there to pique your interest during the few minutes in the checkout aisle. On the other side of you is a wall of candy. Don't those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups bring back delicious childhood memories? How can you not buy some?

Finally, we notice that the newspaper rack is almost invariably located away from the main part of the store. This is self-explantory, newspapers help to draw people to the store but do not provide much profit margin and would be a distraction from the impulse zone.

A Journey Around The Netherlands

Two weeks ago we visited Amsterdam and The Hague. Today's visit begins after Amsterdam and moves counter-clockwise around the country.

The first stop is the city of Haarlem. This city had long been a port and the Siege of Haarlem is what inspired the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule. It was an important industrial city after the Industrial Revolution. New York City began as the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam and this is where the name of Harlem, at the northern end of Manhattan, comes from  The following scenes begin in the Grote Markt, which is the central square of Haarlem.

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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Leiden could be considered as the Oxford, or intellectual center, of the Netherlands. When the Pilgrims left England, on the way to their final destination in Massachusetts, they first stopped in Leiden.

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The Medieval city of Delft, between Rotterdam and The Hague, is especially known for it's world-famous glazed pottery. The church in the first of the following views is the site of Dutch royal burials. The Delft City Hall is at the other end of the square.

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Utrecht is the religious center of the Netherlands and was actually the birthplace of the Dutch Republic.

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Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam, and was the world's busiest port for a long time.

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This is a residential area of Rotterdam.

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In the far south of the Netherlands is the city of Eindhoven, which was an important industrial city.

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Proceeding northward in the eastern part of the Netherlands, Zwolle is yet another medieval Dutch city.

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Finally we come to Groningen, in the northern part of the country, which is about a thousand years old.

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But the Netherlands is not all about cities. Here is a town in a rural area.

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The Decline Of Global Democracy

The proposed judicial reform in Israel has incited massive protests as an assault on democracy. I have long been alarmed at the general decline of democracy in the world as a whole. We thought that 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, was the triumph of democracy. We now see that it was actually the peak of democracy, which has been in slow decline ever since.

Let's review what freedom is all about.

The vast majority of people would prefer to live in a "free" society. But there are two slants on freedom, "freedom to" and "freedom from". A simple example involves smoking, should people have "freedom to" smoke or should they have "freedom from" secondhand smoke?

Democracy is like an exercise program in that it is difficult but we are better off if we do it. Dictatorship has never gone away because there are always people who find it easier to let someone do their thinking for them. The ultimate "freedom from" can be to let someone else do your thinking for you.

One issue with democracy is that it is possible to be a democracy on paper but it is someone outside the electoral process, or even someone outside the official government altogether, that holds the real power. Maybe there is a certain group or family that is able to arrange it so it is their members that always hold the important positions of power.

A striking difference that I notice between dictatorships and what most people would consider as "free" societies is in the nature of the laws. "Free" societies tend to have laws that are clear and well-defined while dictatorships tend to have laws that are subjective and open to interpretation.

We should all be law-abiding citizens. But there is such a thing as having too much respect for authority. People in positions of authority are made of the same kind of flesh and blood as everyone else. They make mistakes and are sometimes vulnerable to corruption. A hallmark of dictatorships is that someone in a uniform is always right. Dictators really like people who have unquestioning respect for authority.

Another hallmark of dictatorships is the leader having a security organization that answers directly to him and to which he can issue orders without answering to anyone. This is outside the ordinary command structure and is sometimes referred to as a "Praetorian Guard". The real reason for it is to discourage a coup by the leader's own armed forces.

Many have wondered why America has so many different police departments. The answer is "freedom". There is no single powerful security organization that a potential dictator might seek to gain control of. Britain works in a similar way, with no national police force. Some western countries do have national police forces.

Dictators usually come to power through the democratic process but then find a way to seize more power. A popular route to dictatorship is for a president to amend the constitution to make himself "president for life", or for the indefinite future.

We tend to prefer people who don't complain about things over people that do complain. But complaining is part of the mechanism that keeps a society free. If people never complain about anything you can be sure that they will eventually lose their freedom. Dictators really like people who just do what they're told and never complain.

Democracy goes against human nature because we like to think that we are special. But what democracy basically means is that no one is special. Everyone has inherently equal rights. If we want to be special we have to earn it, and we have to earn it as an individual. No one should be special just because of who they are.

Dictators don't like individualists and people who think for themselves. Every dictator promotes a strong sense of community. It is much easier to control a society where people think as a group, as well as where "everybody knows everybody else's business".

Dictators prefer people to socialize at community events or in the marketplace. This makes it easier to see who's friends with who and helps to preclude private socializing that might result in people plotting to start a separate church or a political party that might threaten the dictator's authority.

Part of the difficulty of being free is that if we are free, because we live in a free society, then the people around us must also be free. We want to be free but we want the people around us to think like we do and "fit in" with us. But freedom means that the people around us might think completely differently from us and have no obligation to agree with or to "fit in" with us. Freedom does not mean to agree but to agree to disagree.

Being free means being exposed to "fake news" because the only way to be free of potentially "fake news" is to give someone the power to decide for us what is and isn't "fake news". But then that person would have the power of a dictator and we would no longer be free. This is just one of the prices of being free.

Freedom is not a panacea. Freedom itself will not bring about a paradise because it only allows us to be more of what we are. How well freedom works depends on what we are. Freedom is just better than not being free.

If we bring a group of people to a free society who are not able to handle freedom they will tend to make the "community" into an unofficial collective dictatorship. There will be "unwritten rules", beyond the written law, and the less able to handle freedom they are the more "unwritten rules" there will likely be.

A major disadvantage of dictatorships is that people tend to be promoted based on "who you know", rather than "what you know". Giving people jobs based on their friend and family connections ultimately weakens the society.

I see a true sign of democracy as being the ability of anyone to get a phone without registering the phone number.

For more about freedom there is the compound posting "The Meaning Of Freedom" July 2021.

The Unsolved Crimes Of Rochester, NY

This is being reposted because more has been added to it.

If crime writers or amateur detectives ever hold a convention the ideal site would be Rochester, NY. For a city of it's scale it is amazing how many high-profile unsolved crimes it has. It could be considered as the world's capital of unsolved crimes. Here are the best-known ones in chronological order.

Please remember that I have no direct knowledge of any of these cases and am only going by what has been in the news.

THE LINDEN MURDERS

In the rural areas to the south of Rochester and Batavia a series of murders were taking place a century ago. These murders are still much-discussed and have never been solved. Someone periodically emerges claiming to have solved them.

In 1917 a man and woman were seen walking along a rural road. There was apparently a shortcut through the woods that they took. A man was seen emerging from the woods alone. Not long after a farmer was looking for firewood and found the horribly battered body of a woman. The woman has never been identified.

An elderly woman lived alone in a house in the town of Linden. Someone cut her telephone wires and got into her house. Her body was later found in the house. Like the woman in the woods she was so badly battered as to be scarcely recognizable. 

There was an elderly couple who lived not far from the above woman. Someone got into their house and shot both of them to death. It seems that a neighbor woman just happened to stop by while the killer was there and she was killed too. The killer then set the house on fire. Some people nearby broke into the house rescue the residents and found their bodies.

In a gravel pit not far away the skeleton of a young man was uncovered. Like the first two victims he had been repeatedly struck around the head with a blunt object.

Also in the general area a farmer was found dead at home. He had been repeatedly struck around the head and then the room set on fire.

Most people believe it to certainly be the work of the same killer. Of course there may be other bodies that were never found. The police extensively interviewed all adult males around Linden but didn't come up with anything.

What I notice about the Linden Murders, with known dates, is that all of them took place in the Spring or Autumn, never in Winter or Summer. This was a rural area and itinerant workers would likely be in the area to pick and plant crops, and one of them could be the killer.

There was also the local "poor house", now known as the Rolling Hills Asylum and reputed to be haunted. One of it's residents might have been the killer.

But this wasn't just a serial killer. These were rage killings. Serial killers usually simply kill their victims. To strike an elderly woman twenty or thirty times in the head, far beyond what was necessary to kill her, indicates that the killer knew the victim and had a lot of rage toward her. The killer used a gun on the elderly couple to be sure that one victim wouldn't escape while he was killing the other. He only killed during the Spring and Autumn to make it appear to be the work of a seasonal itinerant laborer.

THE ALPHABET MURDERS

In the early 1970s three young girls were abducted and murdered in the Rochester area. All three girls had double initials, such as M.M. or C.C. The first letter of the name of the town where the body was dumped was the same as that in the girl's initials.

In most such cases the difficulty is in finding a suspect, in this case the trouble was that there was a number of suspects. It seems beyond probability that the initials were a coincidence. But that suggests that the killer was in a position to access information about the girls. The girls did not go to the same school but were all from poorer families who may have dealt with welfare or social services.

It may well be that the first girl was killed and someone noticed the initials. That person then took the opportunity to abduct two more girls. He had to kill them to make it look as if it was the same person that had done the first killing. If questioned the killer of the second and third girls would have an alibi that they couldn't possibly have killed the first girl. 

It is interesting that, according to the Wikipedia article on the Alphabet Murders, strands of white cat fur was found on the second and third victims, but is not mentioned on the first victim. All three victims were strangled but I recall reading an article that the first victim had been strangled manually from the front while the second and third victims had been strangled with some kind of rope from the back.

In the national news at this time was the Zodiac Killer, who made up puzzles about his murders and sent them to newspapers. The initials of the girls and the town where the body of each was found would fit with the trend began by the Zodiac Killer.

The suspects were really interesting. One would go on to become the "Hillside Strangler" in California. Another suspect would go on to be convicted of murdering women, mostly prostitutes, in California that had double initials. One of his victims would have the same first and last name as the first victim in the Alphabet Murders in Rochester.

A composite sketch was made was put together of what was believed to be the killer. After the sketch was released the murders stopped but the killer was never caught.

THE HOLIDAY INN HOTEL FIRE

In November 1978 I remember the news that ten people had been killed in an overnight fire at a Holiday Inn in the Rochester suburb of Greece. The majority of the victims had been Canadians on a shopping trip.

The first scandal was about the safety features in the hotel, although it did meet existing fire codes. The fire alarm went off but it was a quiet bell and many people thought it sounded like a phone or doorbell. The alarm didn't automatically alert the fire department. There was no sprinkler system. There was only one internal fire wall, between the two wings of the hotel, and it didn't go all the way to the ceiling. The fire spread over the wall.

Then came the question of whether the fire was arson. The first suspect was actually the off-duty fireman who first reported the fire, by a two-way radio in his car. He claimed to have noticed flames while driving by on Route 104. The fireman stopped and helped to rescue people from the hotel.

But investigators were brought in from outside. The fire started inside the hotel and it was claimed that he couldn't have seen flames from the road at the time he called in the fire. It is not unheard of for a fireman, or other emergency worker, to start a fire or manufacture a crisis so that they can "play the hero". 

As with the Alphabet Murders there were multiple possible suspects in this fire. Once again remember that all I know about this case is what I recall reading in the news.

There was a man whose wife had been rescued from their abusive relationship and he found out that she was staying at the hotel.

There was a man living nearby who was later found to have set fire to hotels in other places.

Another man nearby had been evicted from apartments more than once, after which there had been suspicious fires at the apartment buildings.

Interestingly the man whose company got the contract for demolition of the hotel was supposedly at the hotel on the night of the fire.

Suspects were practically lining up. But then came doubts that the fire had been arson. Improvements in fire investigation cast doubt on the earlier reasons for thinking that it was arson. The first thing fire investigators usually look for is burn patterns suggesting that an accelerant, such as a flammable liquid, was used.

What I don't understand is, since hotels cannot be entered from outside, except through the main door where there would be someone at the desk, how could someone have gotten into the hotel in the middle of the night to start the fire, unless it was someone staying or working at the hotel?

No one has ever been charged with the fire. The fireman who first called in the fire has been the most-discussed suspect but in America a person can only be tried once for a given crime. If a person is put on trial and found not guilty then that's it, that's the end of it. The person cannot be tried again for the same crime, even if more evidence emerges.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN KILLER

In early 1984 a serial killer went on a spree across the United States. Unlike most serial killers this one was successful in business and had made himself into a millionaire. Christopher Bernard Wilder was from Sydney, in Australia. His father was American and he relocated to Florida. He was successful in real estate, electrical contracting, and was also a race car driver.

He was dating a girl, from Lockport, NY, to the west of Rochester. She had come close to winning the Miss Florida title. Her name was Elizabeth Ann Kenyon. She was seen with someone who looked like Wilder at a gas station. She was never seen again and her body has never been found.

Attractive young women were disappearing in that part of Florida. Wilder finally became the suspect in their murders, he had an extensive record of sexual assault both in Florida and Australia. Wilder fled but the killing spree was far from over. He was pretending to be a modeling agent and was approaching his victims and offering to start them in a modeling career.

Christopher Bernard Wilder appeared on the FBI's famous "Ten Most Wanted List". He drove across the western U.S., killing along the way, and then turned back eastward. Wilder would sometimes take his victims' cars so, until the victim's body was found and identified, it wasn't known what kind of car he was driving.

It is believed that he visited Elizabeth Ann Kenyon's hometown of Lockport, NY. I recall reading in the news that a woman in Lockport, while holding a garage sale, says that Wilder approached her and offered to get her into modeling.

Between Lockport and Rochester is a nature preservation area, known locally as the "Alabama Swamps". It was never proven that Wilder killed her but the body of Shari Lynn Ball was found there. This happened before his final killing spree began but she had been living in Florida, where she had apparently been abducted. 

Near the town of Caledonia, which is in this general area to the south of Rochester, the body of another woman was found, Tammy Alexander who was also abducted from Florida. There is again no proof linking her to Wilder but what is interesting is that she was found wearing a jacket of the same automotive company that race car driver Wilder often dealt with.

At the Town of Victor, southeast of Rochester, Wilder shot Beth Dodge and took her car. Proceeding southeast he dumped another victim but she survived and told police that he was on the way to Canada. 

It is not unheard of for a serial rapist or killer of women to cast such a spell over them that one actually becomes his accomplice. Wilder had such an accomplice. He spared her and bought her a plane ticket back home from Boston.

All over this part of the U.S. police were searching and people were watching, wondering where his next victim would be from. Finally the headlines came that the "litany of terror" was over.

Two police officers in a small town in New Hampshire, close to the Canadian border, recognized Wilder. One of the officers tackled him, He managed to grab his gun in his car. The gun went off but killed Wilder. It was not established whether it was intentional or not. The news showed a photo of the car door open, with Wilder's lifeless body on the front seat.

I cannot see that Wilder was ever in the city of Rochester but much of this story involves the Rochester general area. This is in the category of unsolved crimes because, while it is very likely that Wilder killed Elizabeth Ann Kenyon, Tammy Alexander, and Shari Lynn Ball, it was never actually proven.

THE AMSA ARMORED CAR ROBBERY

On the morning of June 26, 1990, an AMSA (Armored Motor Services of America) armored car stopped at a convenience store. The female guard went into the store while the male driver stayed in the vehicle. They had apparently stopped at the store on previous occasions.

Two men appeared, one in a Halloween mask, and held the driver at gunpoint, then also the female when she returned from the store. The driver was ordered to drive to a secluded location, and was followed by another vehicle.

The two were bound and the thieves stole about $11 million from the armored car. The female guard managed to slip out of her restraints and drive the armored car back to the company headquarters. The vehicle that had been following the armored car was reportedly later found abandoned.

There is always the possibility that robberies like this are inside jobs. Armored cars are not necessarily carrying much money, or any money at all. The thieves knew that this armored car was carrying a lot of money. The robbery plan would have gone nowhere if the car hadn't stopped at that particular convenience store, the thieves were there waiting. The money was mostly in small bills and so was very heavy. The thieves were obviously ready to quickly unload and transport the weight.

I recall reading an opinion once that a successful armored car robbery is virtually impossible without an inside connection. To begin with no one outside would know when the car was carrying a significant amount of money. It would also require an operation to quickly launder the money, since the serial numbers on bills from the federal banking system might be sequential and tracable. It probably wouldn't be safe to use the bills locally.

This ended strangely. Ten years after the robbery the driver accepted a plea agreement for the murder of a nightclub owner. Part of the plea agreement was reportedly admitting involvement in this armored car robbery, but he was not actually charged with it and the money has not been recovered.

THE BRINKS ARMORED CAR ROBBERY

Maybe the success of the above armored car robbery gave someone the idea that they could pull off a similar robbery. In 1993 $7.4 million was stolen that was being prepared for transport. Although this amount is less than in the above robbery, this second armored car robbery in Rochester has gotten more publicity.

This robbery was not actually of an armored car but of money that was being prepared for transport in an armored car. Armored car services are used to transport cash from the federal banking system to local banks. I would presume that steps are taken to avoid any kind of predictable pattern when vast amounts of money are being handled. But the inevitable weak point of such a system is the possibility of an inside connection. The thieves in this robbery clearly knew that a shipment of cash had arrived at Brinks for transport. According to one account that I recall reading a door to where the money was being handled just happened to have been left unlocked.

A retired Rochester police officer was working at Brinks. He and some coworkers were putting money in the cloth bags that were used for transporting it. The former cop left to get more bags, which his coworkers reportedly thought was unnecessary because they had bags there. Shortly afterward gunmen burst in, taking the money and the former cop as a hostage. Some time later the former cop turned up at a bar, or restaurant, claiming to have escaped his captors.

The former cop was later put on trial, but was acquitted. Just to make it interesting there was also a priest, a former member of the Irish Republican Army, and a former professional boxer involved.

Diligent surveillance of suspects led police to an apartment in New York City where a portion of the money was recovered. The priest and the former member of the Irish Republican Army both spent several years in prison.

The former boxer, originally from Liverpool's Irish community, was in New York City. He reportedly drove to Rochester either for a share of the money that he thought he was due or for a discussion with the former cop. He never returned, his car was found abandoned in a parking lot and his body was found in Lake Ontario.

The murder of the former boxer has never been solved and the remaining majority of the money has never been recovered. 

Japan's Window On The World

On the subject of the Netherlands today let's revisit the era when it was the only western nation that was allowed to trade with Japan. The port that Dutch ships went to was Nagasaki.

The city of Nagasaki, on the southernmost Japanese island of Kyushu, is the country's natural port. Nagasaki faces toward the great Chinese city of Shanghai, about 750 km away. Nagasaki was where Portuguese ships made contact with Japan, in the Sixteenth Century, and regular trading began. The Portuguese were also looking to spread Catholicism, and Nagasaki became a stronghold of the Jesuits.

(Note-I have wondered why Portuguese is the only European nationality that uses the suffix -ese to denote nationality. Other Europeans use -ish, such as Spanish, British, Irish, Polish. Some Europeans use -an, such as Belgian, German, Norwegian and, Italian. Is this somehow a result of Portugal being the first Europeans to have extensive contact with the Japanese)?

There were also many Chinese traders in Nagasaki, and there is still a Chinatown in the city:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki_Chinatown#/media/File:Chinatown_Nagasaki_Japan01s5.jpg

But this was the imperial era and  Japan was also wary of possible western plans to make it into a colony. Laws, known as Sakoku, were made which strictly limited foreign entry into Japan. A person who left Japan could never return, without permission of the Tokugawa Shogunate. But Japan also wanted some trade, and to keep up with progress in the outside world, and Nagasaki became it's "window on the world".

An artificial island was created in Nagasaki, known as Dejima, and trading was done from there. Only ships from China, Korea and, the Netherlands were allowed to trade.To discourage any imperial designs that westerners may have had, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese or, Russian ships were not allowed to land. It was largely Dutch books that brought knowledge of the outside world to Japan.

Dejima is a section of Nagasaki today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejima#/media/File:Nagasaki_Dejima_C1771.jpg

Trade was not done strictly at Nagasaki, and Japan sent a ship of it's own to visit the Spanish colony of Mexico, but Nagasaki was where most trading and contact took place.

But the Tokugawas were still wary of the intentions of the foreigners. They thought that missionaries spreading Christianity was a preparation for the making of Japan into a colony, especially with the Catholic emphasis on leadership from the Vatican. When the Tokugawa Shogunate no longer needed the alliances of Catholic daimyo (feudal lords), they began an active persecution of Catholicism.

In 1614, Catholicism was banned in Japan. Thousands were killed and some left to live in other parts of Asia. This is what made the Protestant Dutch the favored European traders, instead of the Catholic Portuguese.

The Tokugawa Shogunate was especially wary of the Spanish and Portuguese, with their emphasis on Catholicism directed by the pope from Rome. Japan was well-aware of Spanish and Portuguese conquests and colonization in the western hemisphere.

On the other side of the world, U.S. president Millard Fillmore would very much have liked to end Japan's isolationist policy and, responding to the wishes of American business people in the heyday of Capitalism who wanted Japan as a business partner, sent a fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry to open up Japan to trade.

I see this expedition as having a lot in common with the European settlement of the western hemisphere in that it had very long-term effects on the world. The contact between Europeans and the western hemisphere was known as the Columbian Exchange. Just in terms of crops, the Columbian Exchange brought apples, bananas, oranges and coffee to the western hemisphere and tomatoes, potatoes, corn and, chocolate to Europe. These new foods, particularly potato which can feed a lot of people per unit of cultivated area, enabled Europe to undergo the population growth which led to it having such an enormous influence on the world.

This mission to Japan was the beginning of a similar bridge between east and west. In Japan, it let the country know that it was technologically behind the west, and vulnerable as a result. It helped to initiate the series of events that led to the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the restoration of the real power in the country to the emperor, known as the Meiji Restoration. 

The emperor moved from Kyoto to the coastal village of Edo. This grew into the city of Tokyo, which became the permanent capital of the country. The Samurai as a social class and way of life came to an end. Some Samurai withdrew to the northernmost island of Hokkaido, and temporarily set up a state of their own, but were defeated by the emperor's forces. Japan became more open to the world, and Nagasaki again became the center of Catholicism in the country.

This far-reaching cross-exchange, similar in nature to the Columbian Exchange, is why, all around us today, we see Japanese names like Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Isuzu, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic, Yokohama (tires) and, Nintendo. The products made by these Japanese companies are what was brought to the west, in the same way as the crops of the Columbian Exchange.

In modernizing and manufacturing an endless stream of products to sell to the west, Japan also set a precedent for other east Asian nations. It took western technology, and made it it's own, while still remaining Japanese. The same patterns tend to reflect among the east Asian nations, and this path to development has also been followed by China and Korea. Just try finding a home or building that does not have anything that has been made in China.

China today certainly makes high-quality but low-cost products in the same way. I once kept the same winter coat fir fifteen years. It was a Chinese-made coat and was so warm yet lightweight. I could be outside on a frigid winter day yet could scarcely feel the cold. The zip finally broke, but I still kept the coat in my car during the winter, to use as a blanket if I am driving when it is really cold.

But modern Japan became an imperial power like the westerners that it had earlier had contact with. Japan was given some formerly German islands in the Pacific during World War One, and later followed with conquests in Asia. The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, to preclude American interference with it's conquests, was very much a mirror-image reflection of the ships led by Commodore Matthew Perry forcing their way into Tokyo Bay more than eighty years before, when Japan did not have the military technology to resist.

One way that I like to explain history is in terms of how ironic it turns out to be. Nagasaki, which has been Japan's open window on the world, when the fleet sent by Millard Fillmore to open all of Japan to trade with the world, ended up being the target of one of the two atomic bombings in a war that was the unforseen consequence of the sending of that fleet.

This is what Nagasaki looks like today:

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/@32.7464601,129.8726531,3a,75y,189.33h,90.41t,-1.45r/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sKJuc4BAFyNIgrXH0iWLX4A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DKJuc4BAFyNIgrXH0iWLX4A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D39.698273%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

The east Asian nations are sometimes portrayed as rivals in the western press, but closely share the same historical patterns. Look at the similarity of the remaining Samurai of Japan withdrawing to the northern island of Hokkaido, to form their own society, and the Nationalists of China withdrawing to Taiwan following defeat by the Communists. It is so ironic that North Korea considers it's former occupier of Japan as an enemy because the isolationist and self-sufficiency policy if the Kim Dynasty seem to be a copy of the isolationism of the Tokugawa Shogunate, although Kim Jong Un is more in the mold of an all-powerful emperor. But all of this shutting out the barbarian outside world seems to be rooted in China's Great Wall.

In martial terms, three things that Japan is known for are it's castles and the martial arts of Karate and Judo. Karate is actually a development of Okinawa when it was occupied by Japan. I see Japan's approach to the outside world over the last four centuries as beginning with what we could call the Castle Period. This was the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate when the country was like a Japanese castle, surrounded by a moat, into which only a select few were permitted to enter. From the 1930s, as Japan became strong and modern, it embarked on building an empire by force, this could be called the Karate Period. Judo, much unlike karate, emphasizes taking an opponent's force and using it against him. This is what Japan perfected in the postwar period, taking what the west does in terms of technology and production, finding a way to do it better or cheaper, and then selling the products back to the west. The "salaryman" became the new Samurai of Japan.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My blog is already the right color for St. Patrick's Day. Every day is St. Patrick's Day here.

Above is the obelisk monument commemorating the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, in Dublin's Phoenix Park. When Britain and Ireland were one country Arthur Wellesley, from Dublin, became one of Britain's greatest war heroes. He later became the British Prime Minister.

Do not forget that South Buffalo, the section of Buffalo NY south of the downtown area, is one of the most Irish places anywhere.

Below are a couple of street scenes from Dublin.

Remember that we have already visited "Dublin":

https://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2017/03/happy-st-patricks-day.html?m=0

The St. Patrick Factor

One thing that I am amazed to never having seen written about what a sensitive topic Northern Ireland has been is St. Patrick. This is something that I really think should have gotten attention.

There were thirty-two counties in Ireland. Of those the six counties in the north had a Protestant-majority population. In 1922 these six counties were separated from Catholic-majority Ireland, joining Britain as Northern Ireland. But it has never been a comfortable arrangement.

Maybe part of the problem is St. Patrick. St. Patrick is so important to Ireland. St. Patrick is the very soul of Ireland. March 17 is believed to be the day that St. Patrick died and St. Patrick's Day is now celebrated in many countries.

The trouble is that the places in Ireland that are most closely associated with St. Patrick are in the northern part of the island. When the border of Northern Ireland was drawn it left the sites most closely associated with Ireland's patron saint outside of Ireland.

St. Patrick was first captured on the coast of Britain by Irish pirates, and taken as a slave to Ireland. He was put to work tending sheep on a farm. He was from a religious family and really renewed his faith during six years of working as a shepherd. He had no idea where he was but one day God gave him a vision of how to escape and he got back home.

He continued to study Christianity, reportedly in France. Then he got the feeling that God wanted him to return to Ireland, not as a slave but as a missionary, and the rest is history. St. Patrick famously used a shamrock to show how God is three, the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and yet also one, and now the shamrock is the symbol of Ireland.

But the place where St. Patrick landed by boat upon his return to Ireland is in County Down, which is now part of Northern Ireland. St. Patrick's tomb is in Downpatrick, also in County Down. St. Patrick is believed to have traveled around most of Ireland but his home base is in what is now Northern Ireland.

Armagh was Ireland's first city, and it was the ecclesiastical center of the country thanks to St. Patrick himself, but it is now outside of Ireland.

There is a cathedral at Armagh, on the very site where St. Patrick built his church. As we might expect it is called "St. Patrick's Cathedral". But it is not a Catholic cathedral. It belongs to the Church of Ireland, which is Protestant as part of the Anglican Communion. Although the Anglican Church does recognize St. Patrick as a saint.

There is a Catholic St. Patrick's Cathedral not far away, but might it be more appropriate if the cathedral on the very site of St. Patrick's church was Catholic? Anglicans are not the majority Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland, there are more Presbyterians.

Slemish Hill, which is traditionally believed to be the site where St. Patrick tended sheep during his time as a young slave in Ireland, is also in Northern Ireland. Although some people think that, given Patrick's description of where he was and that he had to travel a very long way to get to the boat that would take him back to Britain, County Mayo in western Ireland is a more likely location.

Might there have been a lot less tension over Northern Ireland if the tomb of St. Patrick, as well as the places that were important in his life and Ireland's oldest city and religious center, had been left in Ireland? Maybe the secular climate of 1921, when the border was drawn, led to underestimating how important a religious figure like St. Patrick might be.

This is yet another example of "How Secularism Leads Us Astray", as we saw in the posting by that name April 2020.

It seems that, in drawing the border, the traditional counties of Ireland were considered as sacrosanct. If a county had a Protestant majority it went to Northern Ireland. What if County Down and County Armagh could have been divided and a new county created, maybe named "County St. Patrick", that included the important sites of St. Patrick, and left in Ireland?

The partition of Ireland was, in a way, a model for the partition of India. But two states were divided there, Punjab in the west and Bengal in the east.

What is so ironic about the Northern Ireland situation was the assassination of Mountbatten, who had presided over the partition of India. He was a great admirer of Ireland, being actually killed on vacation in the Irish Republic, and wanted the reunification of Ireland.

The Four Points System Of The Basic Forces

There are four basic forces that govern the universe. These are gravity, electromagnetism, the Strong Nuclear Force and the Weak Nuclear Force. What I notice is that each starts out with what we could call four "points" but then arranges the points in different ways. Let's start with electromagnetism and gravity.

THE INVERSE SQUARE LAW FOR ELECTROMAGNETISM AND GRAVITY 

Has anyone ever noticed that both light, which is a form of electromagnetic radiation, and gravity operate by the Inverse Square Law, but that the two cannot be directly compared? The Inverse Square Law simply means that, if an object is twice as far away, it will have only one-quarter of the brightness, apparent angular diameter or, gravitational force.

But yet light and gravity, with regard to the Inverse Square law, simply do not compare directly. I find that gravity is cumulative, but light is not, and that is why the two operate by different rules within the Inverse Square Law. The force of gravity links to the structure of the entire universe, while the intensity of light does not. This reveals a lot about how the universe operates.

The gravitational effect of massive objects are stronger than is to be expected, if we used the same logic as with the rules governing light. The larger the object, the more out of proportion is the gravity. The gravity of a massive object includes it's orbital energy and gravitational attractions to further gravitational nodes to which that object is connected, and which extend throughout the entire universe.

Consider that, from earth, the sun and moon appear as about the same angular size in the sky. The moon is 2.4 times as dense as the sun. If gravity operated in the same way as light, with regard to the Inverse Square Law, then the force of the moon's gravity on earth would be 2.4 times that of the sun.

Yet, the reality is that the gravitational force of the sun on the earth is 169 times that of the moon.

Now, suppose that there was an observer on the moon. The earth would appear in the sky as having four times the angular diameter of the sun. The earth is also more dense than the sun, 3.37 times as dense. Using the same logic as with light, this should mean that the earth's gravitational effect on the moon should be 13.48 times that of the sun.

Yet, this is not the case. The sun's gravitational effect on the moon is actually 2.08 times that of the earth. The sun is 400 times as far from the moon as the earth. using the Inverse Square Law, 400 squared is 160,000. but the sun is 333,000 times the mass of the earth, and 333,000 / 160,000 = 2.08.

Very clearly, although both gravity and light operate by the same Inverse Square Law there are great differences between the two which require special explanation. My conclusion is that gravity is cumulative throughout the universe, while light is not.

CUBE ROOT FOR GRAVITY

What I have found is that the differences in gravity, with regard to the Inverse Square Law, is proportional to the cube root of the difference in mass. This is what makes the behavior of gravity different from that of light, even though both operate by the same Inverse Square Law. When the gravitational effect of a larger object is compared to that of a smaller object, as seen from a third object, the larger object will have a gravitational force out of proportion to the rules of light by an amount equal to the cube root of the relative masses of the larger and the smaller distant objects.

If A x A x A = B, then A is the cube root of B. Cube means three because a cube has three dimensions that are multiplied together to get it's volume. The cube root of 27 is 3 because 3 x 3 x 3 = 27.

The reason that we use the cube root of the mass difference between objects in space of different mass, rather than the direct mass difference itself, is that the massive object is more linked by it's stronger gravity to the branches of the universal gravitational structure. The mass proportional difference between the two distant objects is reduced to it's cube root because outside gravity from the galactic center acts on all three objects. The sun has a gravitational relationship with the center of the galaxy, which is in turn linked to our Local Group of galaxies, which is linked by gravity to the spurs and filaments making up the structure of the entire universe.

Let's have a look at an example, the effect of the sun's gravity on the earth relative to that of the moon.

The sun is 27 million times the mass of the moon. The cube root of 27 million is 300. The moon is 2.4 times the density of the sun, and the two are about the same angular size in the sky. 300 / 2.4 = 125, yet we know that the sun's gravitational force on the earth is 169 times that of the moon.

The reason that the sun's gravitational effect on earth, relative to the moon, is somewhat more than 125 is that the earth is a concentrated point as seen from the sun, while it has an angular diameter of about 2 degrees as seen from the moon. This makes the sun's gravitational pull on the earth relatively more concentrated than that of the moon, because it is less dispersed.

Another factor why 169 is more than 125 is that since the moon is also in the sun's gravitational field, and the sun's gravity on the moon is stronger than the earth's gravity, the sun's gravitational force on the earth is also acting through the moon, although pointing toward the sun and not toward the moon. 

That is what I mean by gravity being cumulative. The moon's gravitational force on the earth does not act through the sun in the same way because the distance from moon to sun, and back to earth, is so great and the moon's mass is so utterly insignificant, relative to that of the sun.

CONCLUSION ABOUT GRAVITY AND LIGHT

The cumulative gravity of the entire universe is why it does not operate by the same rules as light. This is why the sun and moon appear as about the same size in the sky, the moon is actually 2.4 times the density of the sun, yet the sun's gravitational effect on the earth is 169 times that of the moon. The sun's greater mass gives it a stronger link to outside gravity, the center of the galaxy, and this outside gravity acts through the sun. The directional alignments of the earth, sun and, moon with center of the gravity matter little. The effect of the sun's gravity is proportional to only the cube root of the mass difference because the earth, moon and sun are three objects and all are ultimately under the gravitational effects of the center of the galaxy.

Light, unlike gravity, is not cumulative and so the two operate by different rules, even though they both operate by the Inverse Square Law.

GRAVITY WITH ONE POINT, ELECTROMAGNETISM WITH TWO

Gravity is always an attractive force, it attracts matter together. There is no such thing as repulsive gravity. We could thus say that gravity starts with one point.

Electromagnetism, in contrast, has both an attractive and a repulsive element. This is because there are negative and positive electric charges. Opposite charges attract while like charges repel. We could thus say that electromagnetism starts with two points.

Now suppose that each basic force had a total of four points. This explains why gravitational strength ultimately operates by the cube root of the mass, even though it falls off with distance by the square root. The strength of electromagnetic radiation, in contrast, operates always by the square root. Gravity is affected by the depth of the mass of an object while electromagnetic radiation is affected only by it's surface.

Gravity, starting with one point, has three points left. That is why it's strength operates by the cube root. Cube means three and it has three points left. Electromagnetism, starting with two points, has two points left. That is why it's strength operates by the square root. Square means two and it has two points left.

THE STRONG AND WEAK NUCLEAR FORCES

What about another of the basic forces, the Strong Nuclear Force? This is the force that operates only within the nucleus of an atom. It is the force that first binds quarks together into protons and neutrons, and then binds those together into the nucleus.

The Strong Nuclear Force is more complex than gravity or electromagnetism. It operates by a system that scientists call Quantum Chromodynamics. This means color, although the colors are representative and not real colors.

Each quark has a color although not, of course, a real color. The quarks combine with other quarks in such a way that their colors add up to zero, or colorless. The color of each quark can change. Quarks receive and emit gluons, which are the messenger bosons of the Strong Nuclear Force. Gluons also have colors and a gluon can change the color of a quark that receives it.

Quarks can combine to form composite particles, called hadrons, but only as long as it causes their colors to cancel out, or sum to zero. Antiquarks, the antimatter equivalent of quarks, have their own colors, known as anti colors. 

Quarks have partial electric charges. An up quark has a charge of + 2/3 and a down quark has a charge of - 1/3. Two up quarks and a down quark make a proton, with a net charge of +1. Two down quarks and an up quark make a neutron, with a net charge of zero. But this fits as part of Quantum Chromodynamics.

The three colors for matter are defined as red, green and, blue, with the three together summing to zero. Antimatter has it's three anti colors, with a color and it's anticolor summing to zero. This makes possible three quarks or antiquarks coming together to form protons, neutrons and their antimatter counterparts. It also makes possible a quark and antiquark of the opposite color combining to form a meson.

But what is important here is that the number of colors in Quantum Chromodynamics is three. The Strong Nuclear Force is not known to operate by the Inverse Square Law, as gravity and electromagnetism does. Rather it operates by the one-dimensional exchange of gluons. The range of the Strong Nuclear Force is extremely short, only within the nucleus of an atom.

What do you notice here? The three colors plus the one-dimensional exchange of gluons equals our four points. Just like gravity and electromagnetism the Strong Nuclear Force conforms to the four points.

The other basic force is the Weak Nuclear Force. This force is involved in the radioactive breakdown in heavy atoms that are less-than-stable. But the Weak Force has been linked to electromagnetism in the so-called "Electroweak Theory". It is believed to have separated from electromagnetism when the temperature in the early universe dropped below a certain point.

Just as the three colors, of Quantum Chromodynamics, are used to represent the Strong Nuclear Force, so these four points can be used to represent all of the basic forces. Each of the forces has four points but arranges them in it's own way with regard to the number of elements in the force and how it operates across space.

Peace Between Iran And Saudi Arabia

Peace was achieved between Iran and Saudi Arabia this week, with the mediation of China, and diplomatic relations are in the process of being restored. The question is why these relations were broken in the first place. Both countries stand for conservative Islam, although one is Sunni and the other Shiite.

Ironically the two countries did have good relations when Iran was ruled by the Shah, before the Revolution of 1979. Even though the ideologies of the two were much further apart than they are now. Saudi Arabia was a conservative Islamic society but the Shah of Iran was much more secular and open to western influences.

As I have pointed out here before the relationship between these two countries is an ideal example of the importance of kings. Honestly I have been following world events since childhood and it was only in the past few years that I realized how very important kings are. A way of doing things that has been around for thousands of years is not suddenly going to go away overnight.

The French Revolution, of 1789, opened the modern political era and the world has been reenacting it ever since. The revolution overthrew and guillotined the king and queen. An unintended consequence of the French Revolution was that it resulted in the rise of the prototype of modern dictators, which was Napoleon.

When Iran was ruled by the Shah both it and Saudi Arabia were ruled by kings. The 1979 revolution in Iran, which was very much a reenactment of the French Revolution, overthrew the Shah. Even though the two countries were now much closer in ideology this put them on opposite sides of the French Revolution, and their relations have never been good ever since.

Kings are far more important in the relationships between countries than most people realize. As I stated I have been following world news since childhood. We would have dinner while the news was on television. When I got older I would follow world events like many people would follow sports. But it is only in the last few years that I have realized how very important kings really are.

Here is a link to the posting "The Theory Of Kings":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-theory-of-kings_28.html?m=0

Amsterdam And The Hague

Amsterdam, the largest city and constitutional capital of the Netherlands is actually built on a site that is about two meters below sea level. That is where the name of the country comes from. Netherlands means "low lands" and Holland means "hollow land".

The Netherlands, Belgium and, Luxembourg are collectively known as "The Low Countries". We have already visited Luxembourg in the posting on this blog, "Luxembourg And The Great Fortress".

The Netherlands has just about every natural disadvantage that a country can have. Much of it is below sea level. It has little in the way of resources. It is a small and crowded country with larger and powerful countries all around.

But what makes this amazing little country such a global superstar is not the country but the people. Take a bunch of Protestants with their thrift, ingenuity, resourcefulness and ceaseless hard work and this disadvantaged corner of Europe becomes a nation that has shaped the world far and away out of proportion to it's population and consistently rates as just about the best place in the world to live.

Isn't it ironic, but yet fitting, that this country with so many apparent disadvantages should end up producing the tallest, on average, people in the world?

The Netherlands is actually an ideal example of the so-called "Resource Curse", or the "Paradox of Plenty". It may seem logical that the people of a country with abundant natural resources should be better off than those in a country lacking such resources. But then human nature enters the picture. The leaders of the country can use the wealth from the resources to increase and secure their own power, thus oppressing their people. There is also not as much need to build skills and knowledge if the country can live off it's abundant resources.

The leaders of the country lacking resources, in contrast, are more dependent on the will of the people to stay in power so that the country is more likely to be a democracy. The lack of resources to live off means that the people have to concentrate on skills and knowledge, and the people in this country end up being better off than those in the one with abundant resources.

One thing that the Netherlands did have is the wind off the sea and that was used to power the famous windmills which pumped the water out after dykes and polders had been built to reclaim land from the sea.

Amsterdam apparently began as a village in the Twelfth Century. It became a city by the Fourteenth Century. The population of Amsterdam increased greatly after the Reformation, due to Protestants moving north from what is now Belgium. The Netherlands was ruled by Spain but gained it's freedom in what is known as the Eighty Years War, and the country became known as a tolerant Protestant society.

Independence from Spain was followed by what is known as the Dutch Golden Age, in the Seventeenth Century. Amsterdam became one of the most important centers of global trade by ship. Important Dutch contributions to the world include lenses and the first stock exchange.

New York City had Dutch beginnings as New Amsterdam. Dutch names are all over the eastern part of New York State, and include Roosevelt. "Tappan Zee" means "inland Sea". The name of "Hudson" is all over this area. Henry Hudson was English but was sailing for the Netherlands.

Both Japan and Russia got their knowledge of the outside world, while they were relatively closed societies, from the Netherlands. The Dutch were the only European nation that was allowed to trade with Japan. The resulting knowledge of the outside world was referred to as "Dutch Knowledge".

William Adams, the English sailor who became a Japanese Samurai, had been sailing for the Dutch East India Company when he was shipwrecked in Japan.

Peter the Great actually spent time as a laborer in the Netherlands in order to see how to best go about modernizing Russia and building his new capital of St. Petersburg, which we visited in the posting on this blog, "St. Petersburg And The Romanovs".

(By the way, an apparently forgotten fact is that Peter the Great, while also spending time in England, became a friend of William Penn, the founder of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the name of which means "Penn's Woods").

The Calvinistic brand of Protestantism in the Netherlands after the Reformation lives on in South Africa. The Afrikaners were descended from Dutch settlers, as we saw in our visit to "Cape Town". The Afrikaner language, Afrikaans, was originally a dialect of Dutch, and Dutch-style architecture is abundant in South Africa.

The Netherlands was later ruled by France, by Napoleon, but gained it's freedom in 1813. The three Low Countries are sometimes referred to as the "17 Provinces" and the Netherlands alone as the "7 Provinces". But the country did not stay in one piece. After independence from France, Catholics in the southern part of the Netherlands rebelled, and broke away to form the nation of Belgium in 1830.

During the Victorian Age, toward the end of the Nineteenth Century, Amsterdam regained it's global importance. The city today has a very high proportion of immigrants and their descendants. The Dutch tradition of global trade continues and it is today the center of the global market in both cut flowers and diamonds.

Canals are very important to Amsterdam, which should not be surprising given it's very low elevation. The city is built as a semi-circular ring road plan, but with four main canals instead of roads. The original, and innermost, was originally a defensive moat. The canals were begin in the Seventeenth Century, and lead to the Amstel River. The name of Amsterdam comes from a dam on the Amstel River.

The central area of Amsterdam, with all of the canals, is known as the Centrum. The following scenes begin in the square known as Leidseplein. There are many museums and the concert hall nearby.

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/@52.3639576,4.8830403,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9cM90pM70AD3zeUlJFlBow!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Another central Amsterdam square is Dam Square. The Dutch royal family has three palaces, the main one of which is in Dam Square. The following scenes begin inside the palace.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3732409,4.8915879,2a,75y,334.61h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1srSngUTq7vLTIRPCzxLo3Bw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DrSngUTq7vLTIRPCzxLo3Bw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D343.84085%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This square seems to be the very center of Amsterdam and is known as the Niewmarkt.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3722226,4.8999,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdSK8eDzaectRIarceZHRPQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The Jordaan District is just adjacent to the central part of the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3751866,4.880934,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8INyNAtVYo24euJV2o1KmQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

This is the new and modern business district, known as the South Axis. The new tall buildings are away from the old center of the city in the same way as in London and Paris.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3407486,4.8727481,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snICqPXracOMqLtbe8kZR5Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Here is an example of the newer postwar suburbs of Amsterdam.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.357371,4.7865561,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1st44jlbFw1wRfskrXVTbVmA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Amsterdam is the constitutional capital city of the Netherlands but the modern government functions are actually in The Hague. Remember that, in our visit to Pretoria, we saw that South Africa also has it's government functions in various cities, although I usually think of Pretoria as being the capital of the country. Foreign embassies are also in the Hague. We could consider Amsterdam as the Royal capital and The Hague as the republic capital. The Hague is close enough to Rotterdam, the second-largest city of the Netherlands, to share an airport with it.

Amsterdam, at it's old center, revolves around it's canals. But The Hague revolves around a central rectangular pond, known as the Hofvijver. The adjacent complex of government buildings, including the Dutch Parliament, which date back to the Thirteenth Century, is known as the Binnenhof.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0794103,4.3128342,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sl98vNarHA7SkuCI0xolmNw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The Peace Palace is where the International Court of Justice is held, a part of the United Nations.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0825505,4.302841,2a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s448-As4MKIPbQ__-MZ7S0g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The modern downtown of the Hague is the Beatrixkwartier.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0799137,4.334918,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdAT2PVzfSbGhbrsjpLhFuA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

This is a newer postwar suburb of The Hague.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0319706,4.2890994,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sU5ludIUkszNd0r4JRty6Tg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Here is a little bit older residential area of The Hague.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0863881,4.3426225,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5QLNdQXbdTGHR7sJlHWLMg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

When I was born, I missed being Dutch by about 300 miles, or 500 km. After seeing this country on our visit here the thought occurred to me that, if I could do it over again, maybe I would aim more carefully.

Einsteins Third Theory Of Relativity

You are probably thinking that Albert Einstein never had a third theory of Relativity. The first was the Special Theory of Relativity, published in 1905, and the second was the General Theory of Relativity, published in 1915. The Special Theory of Relativity is the one about how the speed of light is absolutely immutable and everything else revolves around it. The General Theory of Relativity is about how gravity warps space. An object in orbit is really moving in a straight line but through curved space.

Einstein spent much of the latter part of his life trying, without a lot of success, to reconcile Relativity with Quantum Physics. His final conclusion about the importance of uncertainty in Quantum Physics was that "God does not play dice".

But could there have been another theory of Relativity? If there had been what might the third Theory of Relativity have been about?

What about electromagnetic radiation? The Special Theory of Relativity has the speed of light as it's center point and the General Theory successfully predicted that gravity bends light but neither theory has much about the effect of electromagnetic radiation on space.

The Special Theory of Relativity has mass and energy as being interchangeable. That is what his famous formula, E = MC squared means. C stands for "constant", which is the speed of light. So the formula is Energy equals Mass times the speed of light squared. 

What that basically means is that a little bit of mass contains a tremendous amount of energy. The energy in mass is often referred to as the Mass-Energy Equivalence, where a certain amount of mass is always equal to a certain amount of energy.

We can see how much energy mass contains by reacting matter and antimatter together. There is nothing mysterious about antimatter, it is just matter with the electric charges reversed. The matter and antimatter mutually annihilate in a tremendous burst of energy. The energy that was in the matter and antimatter is released as electromagnetic radiation.

So mass and energy are interchangeable and the energy is usually in the form of electromagnetic radiation. It is much easier to convert matter into electromagnetic radiation than vice versa but radiation can sometimes convert into matter. It is called "Pair Production" and produces a pair of particles. The trouble is that one of the particles will be matter and the other antimatter, so that they mutually annihilate back into radiation.

The General Theory of Relativity describes how gravity affects space. It is not actually that objects attract each other by gravity in space. It is that mass warps or curves the space around it so that another mass, moving through space in a straight line, will fall either into the first mass or into orbit around it. So a mass in orbit around another is moving in a straight line, but through curved space.

So if mass and electromagnetic radiation are interchangeable, both being different manifestations of energy, and mass affects space, then shouldn't electromagnetic radiation affect space also? Neither theory of Relativity deals with this and I believe that it could have been the third theory of Relativity.

The difference between matter and electromagnetic radiation is that matter is a concentration while radiation is a dispersion. In my cosmology theory space is composed of an alternating checkerboard of near-infinitesimal negative and positive electric charges, in multiple dimensions. The electric charge usually perfectly balances out. Electromagnetic waves are so-called because they disturb this underlying balance.

Matter is a concentration of like charges, held together against their mutual repulsion by energy. This is why the particles of matter, such as electrons, have electric charge. This energy is what is meant by the Mass-Energy Equivalence and is released if we react matter and antimatter together.

This provides a simple explanation for what gravity is. If the two electric charges, negative and positive, are equal then the two basic rules of the electric charges, that opposite charges attract while like charges repel, must also be equal. If matter is the overcoming of like charge repulsion by energy then that means it must leave a net attractive force. There is indeed a net attractive force associated with matter, it is what we call gravity.

So if matter is the overcoming of the mutual repulsion of like charges by energy, and matter can readily be converted into electromagnetic radiation, then what do you suppose electromagnetic radiation might be? There is one simple and obvious answer. It is the overcoming of the attractive force between opposite charges by energy. This is why it disturbs the underlying balance of the electric charges composing space.

Then if matter is a concentration of like electric charges from space, and electromagnetic radiation is the opposite of matter, then electromagnetic radiation must be a dispersion that expands space by overcoming the attractive force between opposite charges.

Around the same time that Einstein was publishing the second, General Theory of Relativity, it was being discovered that, not only was our galaxy far from being the entire universe but the universe was expanding. The further galaxies were from us the faster they were moving away from us. The obvious conclusion was that the universe had begun from one point. This began the theory of the Big Bang and indeed the leftover radiation from the Big Bang was discovered.

The names most associated with this are Edwin Hubble, for discovering that the universe extends far beyond our own galaxy, which was one among countless others, and Georges Lemaitre, for deducing that the universe must have begun with the Big Bang. The Russian Alexander Friedmann is also credited with seeing that Einstein's Relativity theory implies an expanding universe.

But this might have been Einstein's third theory of Relativity. My belief is that electromagnetic radiation increases the energy density of space and that is really the "dark energy" that is causing the universe to expand. My cosmology theory is called "The Theory Of Stationary Space" because we really live in four dimensions, one of which we perceive as time. Our consciousness is what is really moving, proceeding along the strings of matter comprising our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light. This is the fulfillment of String Theory. 

We perceive the strings as particles, such as electrons, because we can see only in three of the four dimensions. This means that electromagnetic radiation is really stationary ripples in space, and thus increases the energy density of space. The continuous outflow of electromagnetic radiation from fusion in stars is what is gradually turning matter into electromagnetic radiation and increasing the energy density of space. This is what is causing the universe to expand.

This third theory of Relativity that never came to be would have been the logical conclusion of putting the first two theories together. The first theory was that matter and energy are interchangeable and energy can also take the form of electromagnetic radiation. The second theory is that the mass of matter warps or curves space, which we percieve as gravity.

Putting these two together indicates that electromagnetic radiation should also affect space, since matter affects space and electromagnetic radiation is interchangeable with matter. But matter and electromagnetic radiation are opposites, matter is an overcoming by energy of the mutual repulsion of like charges by energy while radiation is the overcoming of the attractive force between opposite charges by energy. Matter is thus focused inward while radiation is focused outward. Since matter curves space inward radiation must be pushing it outward.

This is what drives the expansion of the universe and might have been the third theory of Relativity.