The Importance of Perspective
From Astrology to Astronomy
Bits & Pieces
( Chaos & Determination )
Picture: The Orbits of the Sun and Mercury, as seen from Earth.
Although the position is seen and measured correctly, the resulting path is wrong.
"Thermodynamics deal with irreversible processes, which according to Newton should not even exist" - so someone once said.
Let us combine the two and consider the area of mechanical energy storage and recovery - a process that is reversible in principle ( this is just for fun; and it is not to question the laws of mechanics and thermodynamics, which have been proven and applied for centuries; but rather their curiosities, requirements and connections ) :-)
First, in the realm of dynamics:
The upper lake of a pump storage power plant is filled; through emptying it again, the stored energy is recovered ( minus the thermodynamic loss ). The energy difference is (not really) zero; tons of water are now back in their original location.
In the meantime, however, they have been moved. By what?
Now, in the static realm:
A pendulum is deflected and swings to ( almost ) the same height on the other side. The potential energy of the pendulum is ( almost ) the same before and after the process. Only now the mass of the pendulum is in a different location. What moved it there?
Both processes correspond to the swinging of the balance in a clockwork.
The matter becomes even more remarkable, however, when one considers that these two processes ( and maybe some others ) are not possible in conditions of zero gravity:
Outside of a gravitational field, a pendulum keeps moving or stops in any position. And if you accelerate a mass mechanically in a certain direction, as with a bowling ball on a pingpong table or a boat on a lake, you will need even more energy to catch it again - without being able to benefit from its energy content.
As it seems, this type of mechanical energy storage and recovery is only possible within the area of a gravitational field ( of course, exempting other, secondary ones, such as electrical, chemical, compressed air or spring-loaded ).
But even more important is the energy-generating and entropy-destroying effect of gravity.
Indeed, destroying order produces disorder - this is what we are used to; but by the same token, destroying disorder produces order. There is an old school experiment to illustrate this: mix enough water in a glass with some garden dirt, sand and small stones, stir thoroughly (produce disorder) and let it settle in a gravitational field, i.e. anywhere on Earth, and the mixture will sort itself - or rather, be sorted.
(Plus: View the Videos: Time shortening through acceleration by gravity)
A boulder in space, undetermined in location and speed*, has neither kinetic nor potential energy, only mass; however, if a planet approaches it with its gravitational field, it may accelerate that chunk to a speed that is higher than its own.
This means that this rock, previously free of energy, now has, in relation to the planet and to an increasing extent, both forms of mechanical energy.
And when it impacts, this also releases thermal energy: a temperature close to absolute zero turns into one of several thousand degrees.
And all without the use of external energy:
This energy was simply not available before.
So it could be that, hidden in plain sight and yet unnoticed, an enigma finds its solution; namely the unconditional emergence from nothing, the source of all that exists, beyond the sheer matter of the initial hydrogen cloud; and of the energy that dynamizes what is there, and ultimately enables life within it.
And - depending upon the situation - is this newly created energy, whose movement- ( and inevitably disorder- and loss- ) producing laws we know so well, simultaneously and inextricably intertwined with its origin, the energyless and collocating force of gravity?
Could the quest for the Fountain of Youth, the eternal source of life, have come to an end here - even if renewal cannot proceed without destruction; because nothing is really lost in the universe, while having to be endlessly re-generated?
Perhaps.
*1) Newton's first law of motion, as the law of inertia, states that objects at rest and objects moving in a straight line are equivalent; not moving at all and moving in a straight line are one and the same and cannot be distinguished; it is impossible to tell whether an object is stationary or moving in a straight line; this depends on the frame of reference.
2) Matter is said to be passive and inert; it can only be influenced from outside. Objects cannot move by themselves: "If nothing happens, nothing happens."
It needs an external force, usually resulting from the input of energy, to do so.
But then, if matter through its sheer ( even if perhaps tiny ) mass attracts itself gravitationally to another mass through space, isn’t it moving itself?
From astrology to astronomy in economics
Within certain limits, what matters is not that something is correct, but that it is useful.
It is not important that something is theoretically understood completely ( which, theoretically, is impossible anyway ), but only that its effect is adequately recognized; this is the only way a monkey can use a stick as a lever.
Only in this way could humans control the use of fire, without knowing anything about oxidation, and send an arrow into a target without having a clue about theoretical mechanics. And, to this day, flat, thus necessarily incorrect maps are used to navigate on a sphere; and nobody is lost if they are used correctly.
And for millennia, humans have oriented their lives by the stars; and at all times, their brightest on every continent have tried to trace and calculate their paths.
In this, they could only ever succeed within the framework of their theoretical possibilities.
As long as they started out from a flat ( rather: pyramidal ), static, asymmetrical Earth, and from their point of view divided the world into sectors ( in the Babylonian-Egyptian European area in divisions of 12, 60 and 360 ), and named them according to the zodiac, the results were again wrong, but practicable.
In particular, as long as the Earth was in their theoretical center, the calculations and drawings of the planetary orbits were, from the point of view of this center, completely chaotic, albeit fairly regular - so regular, that astronomical phenomena could be predicted with great effort ( and so precise that unforeseen ones, such as comets and supernovae, sparked fears of Armageddon - and not unjustifiably, it was just the probability of such a catastrophe that was unknown )
But it took three theoretical revolutions in order to be able to set probes on distant planets:
the subjective, flat earth with fixed "above" and "below" ( which does not exist in the universe, in contrast to right and left ) had to be become a three-dimensional sphere, ( which, by the way, was already achieved thousands of years ago with admirable precision; but recognized ecclesiastically, and thus morally and socially, only since a few centuries, and finally only a few decades ago );
then the geocentric concept of the universe with the Earth in its center had to change to a heliocentric one ( whereby the theoretically incalculable, differently erratic planetary orbits first became circles, then ellipses fluctuating with ever increasing precision );
then, from a heliocentric world view of the universe, to one with a past big bang at its center, turning it from a spatial to a temporal one; and who knows how many changes there are still to come.
And one thing rests upon the other: Since the moon always shows the same side of the earth, it could be imagined as a disk if necessary; likewise the sun, which also appears as a disk on its daily celestial orbit around the earth. And as long as the Earth was represented as a stationary disc, which is orbited by the sun, that was still possible.
But as soon as the Earth is to revolve around the sun, it almost inevitably has to become a 3-dimensional sphere; as a disc, it should either have always shown the same side of the Sun, 24 hours a day, or swirled around a certain diameter, which also introduces a third dimension.
Only when the imaginary disks of the Sun, Moon and Earth become three-dimensional spheres does the heliocentric world view make a superordinate sense.
It was a tremendous revolution in thought indeed; for why people did not slip off a ball could not be explained with it; but it was obviously so, and thus "God's will" - period. The church could not have anything against that either. The idea of gravitation as a mutual attraction of mass came up much later.
It was possible only to navigate within each of these world views; but not beyond. And every time a sacred building, oriented according to the so-assumed eternal stars, and with it the society oriented along these calculations got out of focus due to the dynamics of the universe, that society dissolved, because its fundamental beliefs, its stability were put into question, and with that the justification of its structure.
And just as ( and for the same reason, too, because man is nowhere at the center of the proceedings ) the anthropocentric, assumption-based, astrological world view had to become an acentric, observation-based, astronomical world view ( in which even time is no longer constant ), in order to move ahead, the anthropocentric, assumption-based, economic ( and actually ecological ) world view must become acentric, observation-based, new economical world view, in order to escape the eternal cycle of seemingly unpredictable economic events.
Because, as in astrology, the calculations and accounts ( which include the macroeconomic state monetary systems as well as the microeconomic ones such as the presentation of taxes and duties, pension payments and so on ) are inconsistent, confused, baseless, complicated, and inscrutable in today's economy, which not even experts are able to fully understand ( not because they are stupid, but because it is based on false assumptions ) and, above all, only predictable to a very limited extent.
[ For the sake of entertainment - a fallacy of assumption:
"You're assuming" ]
[ That was a copy;
here’s the original ]
All of this is nothing less than the attempt, like of Eratosthenes of Cyrene at that time, to get out of a false worldview:
Every work process involves an inevitable substantial and energetic loss
This loss is not reflected in the economic balance sheets
Economic growth goes hand in hand with the exploitation of resources, which cannot be renewed by economic growth ( state economics are somewhat different from business economics, but both cannot be seen outside of ecology ).
An outside paper on “Life, gravity and the second law of thermodynamics”
by the Gentlemen Lineweaver & Egan:
Life, gravity and the second law of thermodynamics
[ PDF, English ]
In the end, the whole answer to the question of "Life, the Universe and all the Rest" may not be "42" but "Gravity".
[ To illustrate, and, again, for the sake of entertainment: Clem Snide,
The Sound of German Hip-Hop ]